Before the Mellowing Year, Book One, Part I

By Jeffrey Anderson

At age twenty, Zachary Sandstrom leaves his small-town farming community along with his newlywed wife Allison in search of--something. Over the ensuing years and in places as diverse as the Wyoming wilderness, the Boston metropolis, and the North Carolina piedmont, he eventually finds it, though by paths of discovery he neither anticipated nor chose.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeffrey Anderson
• Release date: Oct 19, 2017
• ISBN: 9781370816644

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Before the Mellowing Year

Book One, Part I

by

Jeffrey Anderson

Copyright 2017 by Jeffrey Anderson

Smashwords Edition

This story is a work of fiction.

Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

Though this e-book is being distributed for free, it remains the copyrighted property of the author and may not be reprinted or reproduced without the permission of the author. If you like this book, please encourage your friends to download a copy at Smashwords.

Yet once more, O ye Laurels, and once more

Ye Myrtles brown, with Ivy never sere,

I come to pluck your Berries harsh and crude,

And with forc’d fingers rude,

Shatter your leaves before the mellowing year.

Lycidas vv. 1 – 5

John Milton

9 January 2012

My darling Shannon—

Hugs and kisses from this dear old and far off dad.

It has not escaped my notice (as I’m sure it has not escaped yours!) that you are fast approaching the midpoint of your third decade of life. At this somewhat auspicious juncture, I am reminded that I have long since ceased to be able to protect you physically, and that my ability to shield you from emotional harm is fast fading. You are, as I am almost daily reminded in my frequent thoughts of you, very much on your own.

This realization is made all the more pointed when one considers that, in early 21st century America, the mid-twenties are the age at which most people stand on the threshold of adulthood, a period when choices made and actions taken will impact the rest of your life and will set you, for better or worse, on the path of your future. It is an interesting aside to note that, in America at least, the age of entrance into adulthood has steadily risen in recent generations, as rising life expectancy and wealth has allowed young persons (and their doting/coddling parents) to prolong adolescence, and forestall adulthood and its permanent responsibilities and contingencies.

So it is acutely frustrating to this doting dad that he cannot protect or meaningfully direct his only daughter as she begins this inevitable, and ultimately healthy and enriching, process of determining her future. How could I hope to? And, even if I could, I wouldn’t want to (or, at least, shouldn’t want to!).

But, but—

The simple truth of the matter is that I’ve never had much ability to influence your destiny or dictate your choices. Even before your birth and in all the years since, I’ve well known that the factors and people and fates in your life that lay outside my control far overwhelmed those few that might bend to my shaping. I have no shortage of will; but I knew from the start that all my gathered strength of intention would be helpless to guarantee your safety or success.

So how then, you might reasonably ask, have I managed to endure this realization of helplessness in the face of my most significant duty? Well, quite simply, I’ve given you all I had to offer and trusted God to make it be enough. And all I had to offer was my undiluted knowledge of how the world worked and how to survive within those parameters. I told you all I knew and showed you all I knew, as occasions and questions arose, and often times before those occasions and questions arose. Many would say—and did say—that I was giving you information before you were ready to understand it. Many would say—and did say—that I gave you responsibilities and freedoms before you were ready to accept or balance them. And I admit, from this safe side of such wholesale sharing, that I was well aware of the risk of my approach. But the way I saw it, I had no choice. To hold back would’ve been to accept a greater danger—the danger of denying you the knowledge and strength to find your way and make good choices during all those times you were beyond my safeguard.

—which brings me to my last and maybe greatest risk in sharing with you all I know about the world. When I was a couple years younger than you are now (recall my comment that the age of entry into adulthood rises with each generation), I initiated, or had bestowed upon me, a series of choices and actions that affected everything in my life that followed. And virtually all of these actions and choices centered around, and were influenced by, two people I fell in love with—within a few months of each other—at that time. One of those two you know well—his almost daily presence for thirty-three years touched and shaped every aspect of my life, is still shaping it even though he’s been dead nearly a year. The other love you know nothing about. In fact, no one now living knows how profoundly this love shaped me and all in my life that came after.

So it is the story of these two people, and how they intersected with me at a propitious time in my life, that truly explains who I am, that tells the story of how I was set in the channel of my future—a future that one day came to include you. It is this story that is the last installment of what I have to give to help guide your life. I offer it now in the same clear knowledge as my other reckless offerings—that the potential benefits of this honesty are nearly matched by the risks, in this case risks of disillusionment, misunderstanding, confusion. And my answer is the same as it has been since the day you were born—I’ll take my chance with imparting whole truth and let God figure out the rest.

So here it is: my last story.

Love you always—

Dad

P.S. Like a lot of stories, this one starts awhile before the real story. In this case, it starts about two years before the real story, at a time when I thought I was making adult choices but still had the mind and maturity of an adolescent. Consequently, those choices were adolescent choices disguised as adult choices. The adult choices, and all their demands and rewards and permanent scars, still lay some ways in the future. But I’ll get to them, eventually, if you follow that far.

Book One, Part I

Wyoming

Thirty-two hours on the road with only five short stops for gas, take-out food, and bladder relief didn’t keep Zachary Sandstrom from bolting upright in the motel bed just two hours into a sound sleep that should’ve lasted at least ten. All his senses instantly on edge, he struggled to figure out where he was and what had waked him. Pale light leaked in around curtains and gradually revealed a room perhaps twelve feet square with a door to his right beside the curtains and another to his left. Straight ahead, a dark hole in the slightly lighter wall resolved itself into a T.V. screen atop a dresser. This slow unmasking of his surroundings did little to assuage Zach’s fear, as everything he saw in the dim light seemed charged with threat, or at least a possible hiding place for it.

Then he noticed the pale white shape resting at the foot of the bed and instantly knew it was Gina, his five-year-old Brittany spaniel in her normal nocturnal spot even if this wasn’t their normal bed or room. Then he saw the dark silhouette of a body beside him and realized with sudden calm, as if this knowledge were the single most important piece of information he’d ever gained or ever would know, that this was his wife of just over two days—Allison Mayes, now (he reminded himself) Allison Sandstrom. He leaned over and inhaled the herbal fragrance of her freshly washed hair and the earthier scent of her skin. He knew both scents well, felt like he’d known them all his life. In fact, he’d known Allison almost four years, since they’d begun dating when he was a junior in high school and she a freshman. But he’d never awakened in bed beside her. Last night, they’d been on the road in Pennsylvania and Ohio; two nights ago, their first as a married couple, they’d slept apart in their old beds in the their old rooms, separated by five miles of country roads he’d nearly worn out with his frequent trips back and forth in courtship and betrothal.

But he’d never known her as wife, never waked beside her free to extend a hand unimpeded by the old sexual mores (however much they’d ignored them over the years) and claim her skin as his own, make for themselves one flesh in a manner practiced but now suddenly and strangely new. Yet Zach did not extend that hand, did not claim that chance now offered for the first time—he did not know why. If asked, he would’ve replied casually—let her sleep; she’s earned her rest. But that wasn’t the reason at all. The real reason lay far, far away and buried deep—farther away than Zach had ever been, buried deeper than he could or would dig: a treasure waiting a map.

So instead he reached out and touched his dog, found unerring the soft spot behind her floppy ears. Gina, perhaps every bit as deserving of her rest as Allison, still managed to rouse in the old familiar way, returning the press of his hand with a slow tilt of her head and a quiver of her stub tail he could feel from beneath the sheets.

He rose from the bed and in the dim light pulled on his jeans and T-shirt from where they lay across the chair’s arm. He hooked Gina’s leash to her collar and gently lifted her off the bed so she wouldn’t have to jump into the unfamiliar dark. Then he silently opened the door and led her outside. She’d have to pee sometime during the night—might as well be now, since he was awake anyway.

He stood on the walk and looked across the well-lit parking lot. Their beat-up Chevy carryall van was parked directly in front of their room. A few other cars anchored slots in front of other doors. On the far side of the lot, a couple tractor trailer rigs consumed whole rows of spaces with their length and girth. It hardly mattered, though; empty parking spaces abounded despite those sacrificed to the rigs. Beyond the broad parking lot, the Omaha skyline lurked in mostly shadow. The rare lit window in one of the office buildings ringing the horizon only accentuated the prevailing darkness. Clearly Omaha slept after dusk, its residents still governed by the diurnal cycles that prevailed in the surrounding plains. Zach felt a brief shiver start at his bare feet and move up and over his calves and thighs and torso and neck and head. The shiver arose not from cool air, for it was a warm and humid night, but from a combination of the foreboding he’d felt on waking and the loneliness he felt now in this dark and dormant city. Yet, on the flip side of this foreboding and loneliness, perhaps as much a cause of the shiver as these, he felt a sudden and unprecedented excitement. The world within this ring of darkened buildings and, most emphatically, the world beyond was now finally and fully his to explore, to engage, to know.

Gina strained against the leash and led him down the walkway to the right. He trailed her lead past empty rooms with curtains opened, occupied rooms with curtains drawn. He couldn’t help but wonder who lay in the beds beyond those closed curtains, not five feet from his striding. Were they young or old, handsome or homely, thrilled as he by new environs or jaded by frequent travel? What would they tell you if you asked? What could you see if you looked? But in all the rooms with curtains drawn, only darkness framed the edges—no answers offered, no tales shared.

Gina found a patch of wilted weeds between the parking lot and a boarded-up gas station, and squatted to do her business. Zach looked around, then unzipped his pants and left his mark, thinking, The adventure starts here. He finished, took one more look at the broad dark horizon, then turned to the motel. By then, Gina was tugging back toward the room and sleep.

2

Allison’s Uncle Pete stood holding a metal tray with six large bowls of steaming chili and a basket of cornbread. His barrel-chest and thick arms made the tray look small and delicate despite the sizable bounty it carried. Zach and Allison were seated on one side of the table, Allison’s Gramma Jane and cousin Amy across from them, and Aunt Ruth at the far end. Pete gave a sly grin, then said, We’ve got hot, medium, and mild. What’s your pleasure, Zach? His words had a forcefulness that may or may not have been intended.

Zach shunned spicy food, but couldn’t bring himself to request mild. Medium sounds good, he answered.

Pete feigned surprise. You’re sure?

Zach looked to the women for guidance but found only gently grinning faces.

This is western chili, Zach. None of that east-coast pansy stuff.

Zach saw he was trapped now. Medium’s good. From the corner of his eye he saw Ruth stifle a chuckle.

Uncle Pete passed out bowls of chili to each of the women, then gave Zach his, and ended by setting a bowl at his own place at the head of the table. Once he set the tray on the kitchen counter and returned to sit down, Aunt Ruth said, Mamma, would you please bless the food?

Gramma Jane bowed her head and said with sharp annunciation and full volume, God of life, give us the grace of your Son and the power of your Spirit along with these gifts of food and drink, that we might use them to meet the challenges ahead, till the day we find ourselves at your heavenly feast. Amen.

Pete said, Let’s eat.

Well, Zach’s chili was hot—hotter than anything he’d ever tasted or dreamed of tasting, though the sensation of having his mouth on fire hardly qualified as tasting. Worse, the large glass of water he quickly downed didn’t help relieve the fire; it only made it spread down his throat and into his stomach. The cornbread he wolfed to try to smother the fire didn’t help either. He saw Pete watching him. He did his best not to show his discomfort. Beads of sweat appeared on his forehead; he wiped them away with his napkin, then grabbed another napkin, then another. He kept eating the chili. Eventually his mouth grew numb. After a while, he reached the bottom of the bowl.

Pete nodded approval from the head of the table. Want more, Zach?

Zach said, Sure.

Want to try the hot?

Medium’s good. Need to work my way up to the hot.

Pete brought him back a bowl of chili that was not nearly as spicy as the first. Zach found himself almost missing the kick—almost.

After dinner, Allison and Zach lingered at the table with Ruth and Pete while Amy and Gramma washed dishes in the kitchen. Pete and Ruth had big mugs of steaming coffee in front of them; Ruth had found some teabags buried in the pantry for Allison’s tea, and Zach stuck with water—his fourth glass. Pete said, Now let me get this straight—you want to camp on the prairie?

Zach looked to Allison, who was looking at her tea, gently pushing the teabag against the side of her cup with a spoon. He said, That’s the plan, yes.

No shade from the sun during the day, near freezing overnight?

Zach said, We’ll manage.

Ticks, scorpions, rattlesnakes.

Allison looked up quickly, splashing a few drops of tea from her cup.

Ruth said, Pete, stop.

Pete shrugged. Just telling it like it is. Seems like a strange honeymoon to me, but what do I know?

Ruth looked to Allison. Hardly any snakes out there nowadays, Honey. Snakehunters got most of them.

Zach said, We want to try it. What he didn’t add was that he thought he wanted to be a homesteader, at least in a recurrent dream of his; and he’d imposed this dream on Allison who, six weeks out of high school, had no clearly defined goals to counter Zach’s. So this camping venture would be a test for them both.

Pete looked at Allison. And you, Sweety?

Ruth said, Pete!

Allison said, I’ll try it, but with little conviction or enthusiasm.

Pete said, O.K., then. In the morning I’ll lead you to our camp by the river—best piece of land in our summer range. There used to be a sheepwagon down there, if hunters or the coyotes haven’t torn it up.

Sheepwagon? Allison asked.

Ruth said, A little like a modern-day Conestoga wagon—with rubber tires and a curved tin roof. Set up with a small woodstove for cooking and heat, and a raised platform across the back for a mattress: cozy, but functional. I kept house in one for a couple weeks, when Pete and I were first married and he had to cover for a herder in the hospital with appendicitis.

Zach said, See.

Ruth smiled. Never so glad to keep back to a real bed—with room to roll around!

Zach said, We have a mattress in the carryall. We can sleep there and use the sheepwagon for cooking and eating.

Pete nodded. I’ll come by Jane’s in the morning to get you; 5:30.

Zach nodded. Allison looked at her empty cup.

3

With a pink dawn breaking over the sage desert and the mountains in the distance already showing snowy peaks, Zach thought he’d waked into the heaven of his oldest dream—wide-open spaces of beauty and rigor, no sign of human habitation or contamination (except for Pete’s truck kicking up dust ahead on