Haying in the Moonlight

By Carol Fortino

Haying in the Moonlight features Louise Hammel who returns to the USA as a professor at the University of Northern Colorado. Her Psychology Department shares the building with Sports and Exercise Science where she meets a like-minded colleague, Brad Mc Daniels. When Brad’s brother commits suicide in the small town of Boulder, Montana, the incident creates a research opportunity for Louise to interview survivors of suicide in the local community. The contemporary issue of suicide is explored through stories of farmers, the elderly, business people, high school students, and Indian reservation youth suicide pacts. The stories are complex, and yet, end with a hopeful outcome. This knowledge leaves Louise vulnerable, and wondering what she will do next in her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Feb 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781716121999

Carol Fortino

Carol Fortino is a retired professor of science and environmental education who lived in Australia for a number of years. Since retiring, she has published three poetry books: When the Bus Stops, Sketches on a Napkin, and Somewhere Between plus two novels: The Rings of Hubris and Driving Forces. When she is not travelling internationally, she lives in Beulah, Colorado, enjoying family, friends and wildlife that frequent her small mountain town.

Book preview

Carol Fortino

Copyright © 2021 by Carol Fortino

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or scholarly journal.

First e-Book Printing: 2021

ISBN 9781716121999

The Publishing House @ Gregory Howell LLC

1217 Spring St

Pueblo, CO 81003

www.gregoryhowell.com/publishing-house

Ordering Information:

Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, educators, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the above listed address.

Cover Art: Ted Fusby

Dedication

To all those impacted by the Covid-19 Pandemic.

May we strengthen our humanity with hope

for the future.

Contents

Chapter 1 - Pete      3

Chapter 2 - Brad      7

Chapter 3 - Haying in the Moonlight      11

Chapter 4 - The Funeral      22

Chapter 5 - Louise Hammel      26

Chapter 6 - Pastor Ellingham      31

Chapter 7 - The Library      40

Chapter 8 - Fumiko      44

Chapter 9 - Andrew Fallon      54

Chapter 10 - Ben Guftoson      58

Chapter 11 - Kate Haniford Guftoson      81

Chapter 12 - Canoe Trip on Flathead Lake      91

Chapter 13 - The Carnival Boy      96

Chapter 14 - The Drive Back to Boulder      100

Chapter 15 - Pastor Ellingham - a Touchstone      103

Chapter 16 - Sam Red Wolf      109

Chapter 17 - Survival and Redemption      122

Chapter 18 - The Legacy Farmer      124

Chapter 19 - The Community Meeting      129

Chapter 20 - Partings      144

Chapter 21 - Boulder Historical Hot Springs      147

References      155

Questions for Discussion      169

More About the Author      171

Acknowledgements

No idea can be followed through without running your thoughts by a trusted friend. My first port-of-call was Pastor James Campbell, and if the topic does not seem important to him, then it is time to start anew.  Barbara Mahowald, my friend from Minneapolis, took me on a road trip to Lake Superior, and that inspired the embedded short story, Safe Now.  When Barbara read the early draft of Haying in the Moonlight, she emboldened me to follow through on this storyline because so many farmers in Minnesota commit suicide.  Helen Gerrestson, my colleague from the University of Northern Colorado, and Liz Ellis, my friend since first grade, did, what I like to call, a ‘cold read’ with no introduction to the subject matter.   I appreciate Kerri Lyn Kumasaka from Boulder, Montana, who checked the veracity of Fumiko Williams’ story.  Karen Hudgins and Eric Segall, novelists, thoughtfully wrote reviews for the book cover.

No story can come to completion without the careful review of my professional editor, Margi Grund of Pueblo, Colorado.  Many thanks for her thoughtful suggestions and needed prods.

No novel can be published without the careful formatting done by Gregory Howell, the incredibly talented Creative Consultant & Storyteller, and innovator at Watertower Place in Pueblo, Colorado.

No book title will have an appeal without a carefully illustrated cover, and for that, I thank my long-time friend from the University of California, Berkeley, Ted Fusby, an artist in his own right.

No book will be read without many faithful readers who are not afraid to delve into the serious contemporary issues in my novels, and some who just want to follow the character of Louise Hammel in her meanderings from The Rings of Hubris, Driving Forces, and Wineglass on the Veranda.

Thank you to everyone who made this journey possible.

Foreword

I started writing novels later in life after teaching and traveling. The topics have taken many trajectories, but often there is a true story that becomes the impetus - a suicide in my own small town.  My good friend, a retired pastor and writer in his own right, James Campbell was my first listening post when I had an idea for a short story that morphed into this novel.  The following is his response:

Fascinating story. First, I am finding your narrative style becoming more and more engaging. It flows more naturally; it bears the confidence of a narration that doesn’t call attention to its form.

As to this story of a brother’s suicide, it touches many buttons. I have dealt with so many aspects of suicide and have come to know many different forms of suicide. To me, it is not a singularity. There are different kinds of suicide, and I would think the writer would want to bear that discernment in mind in telling of the unfolding of an individual death. Suicide is not always a conscious decision. After a long, long depression, suicide emerges in a flash of death epiphany. It suddenly comes to them in calm. There can be peace, and the calm of that peace takes over. Ironically, the act of suicide does not happen at the depth of depression, but at a time when it seems they are getting better. Actually, they are getting the strength to act on the calm of it all being over. Sometimes the suicide is born of the moment with a flash of anger where violence could go either way, as passion rules from deep places. Sometimes it is a combination of alcohol and Willie Loman. A realization as to one dragging down the life of others. Worse than worthless to oneself, one is a leech on the social whole. I could go on and on with this. The point is that to write about suicide is to look deep into the whirlpool of conscious and subconscious elements in play in this one person’s life.

The brother was a product of his conservative valley and its seasoned negative values. Add the dimension of drink and family, and then you are on the road. But there is more there. The one who left has his own drama, and…if pressed…would admit that he too knew moments when suicide crossed his mind. That is one reason why suicide is so potent a concern when it happens. It touches the depths when most of us have known of, or at least considered suicide.

There’s a whole lot there, Carol, and you touch the energy force. It is a fascinating subject, particularly for the evolutionary dimension of a life being ended, not just a life, but the life story that is more compelling than the natural instinct to survive.

Sometimes when you write a story, you touch a person’s buttons in ways that are tangent to the narrative. In this case, the act of suicide was a means to an end of the family’s dysfunction as it played out across the fields of isolation and political inbreeding of bigotry and fear. The last line was a Hemingway twist. The disgust of selfishness turned inside out as a gift setting free, or a measure of freedom, from the rancid family angst. You pushed through the inevitable reaction of betrayal, as the victims now feel toward Epstein, to solace maybe not only the man but the valley and its seasons. Then again, perhaps I’m moving more into your story than intended.  Anyway, thank you for letting me engage in your writing.    Jim

Jim Campbell also recommended that I read Norman Maclean’s A River Runs Through It.  The story’s ending resonated with me.  …like an ash settling from a fire chimney, one of life’s quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself and watch yourself softly becoming the author of something beautiful, even if it is only a floating ash. (p. 43, 2001 edition).

Beautiful might not be the appropriate word to describe the somber subject of this book until its resolution of hope. Any good fiction, I believe, needs to be based on fact. As an author, my novels always attempt to reveal contemporary issues grounded in truth.

Lisa Wingate did an interview for her book, The Book of Lost Friends (2020), explaining how she usually takes a location trip to the places she describes to verify their accuracy.  I did not know this beforehand, when I had already made reservations to go back to Helena, Montana, where I had been once before, to continue on to Boulder 30 miles away, and then drive north to Flathead Lake.

I arrived in Helena on a beautiful autumn day with glorious fall colors and visited Carroll College and the gothic-inspired cathedral, then drove to the historic Boulder Hot Springs Inn to edit the manuscript that I had written from my fictional point of view, mainly using internet searches.  I drove around for hours to soak up the ambiance of the small town of Boulder and its surroundings, especially its hay fields. As serendipity would have it, I visited the town library and met a most welcoming librarian, a man who hoped to be a role model for other young men who felt the constrictions of a small town.  He told me to check out details about suicides at the Boulder County Health Department next door.  Those people put me in touch with Barbara Reiter, the mental health expert for the area. I had hoped to get her phone number.  Fortunately, when I was leaving the breakfast room at the Inn, a woman said hello and that she was Barbara.  We met that afternoon, and she told me facts about the mental health issues in this small community, in particular the suicides of three young students at the local high school. 

A few days later I drove in a pre-winter snowfall to Flathead Lake to feel the beauty and the desperation near the Flathead Indian Reservation and enhance the details of the embedded story, Safe Now.

Like the Wingate book, I had already decided to include a bibliography, which is unusual for novels. However, I thought it was necessary for those interested in verifying the ideas for these stories. The research was sobering, sometimes heart-wrenching, sometimes giving a glimmer of optimism.  It tells of a reality that we live with today, and perhaps a way to help shape the future. I hope the final version of this novel honors the intention my friend, Jim, entrusted to me.

By telling stories, you objectify your own experience. You separate it from yourself. You pin down certain truths. You make up others. You start sometimes with an incident that truly happens….and you carry it forward by inventing incidents that did not in fact occur but nonetheless help to clarify and explain.

Tim O’Brian The Things They Carried 1990

Chapter 1 - Pete

Brad McDaniels sensed the vibration of his cell phone on the bedside table. It was set to no ring disturbance until 7:30 a.m., but as he fumbled for it in the dark, he recognized the area code from Boulder, Montana.  He answered quietly, Hello, who is this? What he heard was the distraught voice of his sister-in-law, Joanne.

Brad, I know it is in the middle of the night, but I had to call you now.

What? answered Brad groggily, turning away from his sleeping wife, Miriam.

Pete shot himself, Joanne sobbed.

What? Wait, Joanne. With the phone to his ear, so as not to wake Miriam, he pulled on his pants and headed to the hallway. What are you saying? Is Pete dead?

We had another argument. Nothing worse than any other time.

Go on, Brad said, trying to maintain some control.

Joanne rushed her words, "I told Pete he had to stop drinking; that it was ruining our marriage.  I shouted that we hadn’t made love in over a