It was the early morning after a big snow and the sun had just come out from the clouds. Even still, the ground had kept its heat from earlier, hot spring days. Instead of sticking and freezing, it had turned the road into deep mud. Just another day of that familiar thick clay Ed was so used to fighting.

The tires of his worn F150 were throwing thick clumps of the ground far into the air behind him. He pushed the truck to redline trying to get through. The noise of the mud drowned out the static laden sermon trying to come in over the A.M. radio.

He kept the pedal nearly to the floor, keeping momentum like he was taught so long ago to do by his father and uncle and old timers at the bar who had pulled him out of the ditch more than once in his younger days.

He crossed the cattle guard with a thump and pulled out on the wide spot where the patchy prairie grass would keep him from getting stuck when he got back into the vehicle, relieved he made it. At his age, he doubted he’d be able to dig himself out of the mud. On the fence posts that lined both sides of the ranching road, bluebirds darted across the still truck and into their pristine manufactured homes built by the forest service to keep an accurate tally of their numbers.

He let the truck idle there for a moment in the morning light. The young alfalfa swayed in the field beside him. Ed’s breathing was heavy. He felt his dry, cracked hand start to shake on the steering wheel and concentrated on stopping it. He rolled down the window and let the cold air come through the cab.

The smell of fresh cow pies and mud and wetness and the familiar new spring growth that all entails flooded him.

The crackled pastor came over the radio talking about forgiveness.

The prairie made Ed think about Sarah and the early days they had spent out here. How they would watch the geese fly over. The way the sun would set in a warm butter yellow and cast the light gently onto her face as they laid upon the blanket she had quilted out of scrap for just the occasion. How she would name the fat rock chucks that would run past. But it was mostly the smell of her sunscreen and perfume mixed with the sage of the hills that stuck most in his mind.

His hand stopped shaking.

He looked at himself in the crooked rear view mirror and saw the deep lines that cut into his face now and how no hair poked out from his baseball cap. His eyes were the same blue, though, and he was glad for that. Sarah always had said his eyes were kind and he had tried to keep that, even though he didn’t know how and some days were hard.

He breathed in the air. The radio preacher talked about how life was a test for the afterlife, and Ed disagreed, but he didn’t let it get to him.

He reached down over his gut and tucked his jeans into his boots. Jiggling the door handle, he tried to get it into just the right position so it would open. He threw his shoulder into it. It swung open with a stiff creak. He turned the key off.

When he got out, his boots suctioned in the mud. A beer can fell out with him, and he slowly reached down to throw it back into the truck.

Three chukars, gray and just the right size, kicked up from the tall grass and he watched them disappear in some nearby willows. He looked forward to the fall when his father’s old .12 gauge would come with him on his walks. He liked the company.

It had been a sort of ritual of his to walk here every Sunday since Sarah passed. Any type of weather, he would still make the trip without help. He liked the birds of different seasons, and the clouds and sun, too. He knew today would be a good day, because after a big snow the birds always come out.

His daughter, Beverly, hated him coming out here at his age, but he couldn’t be argued with. She knew that better than anyone.

He had told Beverly last time she said he was unfit to travel by himself that the birds never told him what to do, and that is why he came up here. They only told him to be good and listen to their melodies.

She had looked at him like he was crazy.

A breeze came down from the north and carried with it the cold. He could make out the warble of a meadowlark somewhere behind him, but couldn’t place it. He reached back into the truck and grabbed the wool cap Sarah had made for him years ago when they still had sheep and her hands worked well. He switched it out for his baseball cap. The forest green crochet patterns had started to tear, but it was still warm. He shut the door and zipped up his coat and started slowly up the slight hill.

Ed knew the prairie better than he knew anything else for certain. Years of being around.

He knew in about twenty minutes Paul would drive by in his flatbed with a hole in its exhaust and a round bale in the back. Then the cows would scream like they were starved. He’d see Paul from the top of the hill and Paul would stick his sinewy arm out the window with a cigarette lit in his fingers and wave his big rancher wave. He knew that Lou, Paul’s Australian shepherd, would jump off the flatbed going thirty miles an hour and run over to him. He would pet Lou and ask him how things were. Lou would wag his tail and run back, making the jump seamlessly onto the truck.

He knew this time of year was when the long billed curlews with their thin, skinny beaks would come to nest at the shoreline of the ponds, and mingle with the ducks and geese and other water birds. Ed knew today the mayflies would be out in full bloom, and the sun would break from the clouds that looked like caricatures of animals and reflect off the green grass.

His steps seemed to slow just a bit every time he came up here. Ed liked to think of it as intentional, that he was taking in more and more of his home ground, but that was probably not the case. Mostly, he blamed his slowness on his pants being too small around the waist, even though he had bought the same sized pants for over two years. These ones seemed too tight. Couldn’t get a good stride in.

Halfway up the hill, he stopped to rest. He looked at his gut, stiff against his coat and watched its round frame go in and out as he tried to focus on his breath.

His hand rested on his knee. Four Canadian geese flew over in a tight knit V. The sun flickered through clouds, leaving huge patches of shadows across the wildflower laden fields. Paul drove by and stuck his arm out the window. Ed lifted his other hand up and waved back. Lou did his ritual, but the dog had no fresh news.

Ed started up again, and got to the top of the hill a few minutes later, step after laborious step.

These walks made the days slow, and Ed appreciated that. He knew there were not many in front of him, and he tried to enjoy them all.

The expanse at the top of the hill was one of long prairies and some far away peaks, still topped with white from last night. There was a pond at the bottom of the hill, alive with the wind. Tall grass, willows and cottonwoods hung to its edge. He was happy to see the mallards had not left since last week, their small frames visible from the top of the hill now followed by two even smaller, lighter colored ducklings.

It had been years since Ed had gone to church, but he almost broke his walking ritual today by going. He was glad he decided against it, even if it was hard to do it alone.

Has it really only been four years since he lost Sarah? It felt longer, like a lifetime ago. The prairie hadn’t changed much, though. Not in his life, and he hoped it would be the same forever, for the others that needed it like he needed it.

He stood at the top of the hill trying to catch his breath imagining her face all sunken in and tired. Then he tried quickly to replace it with her beaming smile under the shade of the large willow tree in their front lawn, young and lovely.

It’s no test, this life, he thought. It just is.

He stretched high, and his back popped, sore from the rattling, muddy road and old truck. He started down the hill, his bootsteps slow and steady. He tried not to put too much pressure on his knees.

He thought about when he was a young man cutting firewood up in the timber pines of Lincoln, and how he would run up and down the hillsides setting chokes with the tow chains and how he would jump over fallen logs just to show he could. And he thought about how all the old men would warn him about what he was doing to his body. And he thought about how he didn’t care.

And he thought about how his old friend Tom fell a tree all those years ago and didn’t see the top limbs fall, and how they dropped onto his head right there next to the fir and fireweed. How the crack of his skull was as red as the Indian paintbrushes. And Ed thought about how his body never had a chance to get old. And he wondered if that was better.

Probably not, he decided.

The smell of the wet earth around him sucked out his daydream of past memories.

He watched the ground squirrels pop up and down from their holes as he walked past. The new growth of vegetation was all around, fresh starts of white sage and bluebells and mullein, hunched over from the cold, shining with dew.

He got down to the pond as the sun was nearly in the middle of the sky.

Ed looked forward to things he knew were coming. He would like to see the ducklings grow like he had watched Beverly grow. The summer was closer, regardless of yesterday’s snow, and he wanted to see the cottonwoods in bloom and the quaking aspens that would dance in the wind.

He sat upon the rock at the edge of the pond he always sat upon. A large, flat rock that looked like it was placed for just that purpose, sitting and thinking of the past and days to come.

Ed watched the ducks float back and forth, circling with the wind. He reached into his coat pocket and brought out some day old bread he had gotten from Abigail down at the bakery and broke it in small chunks. He tossed the chunks out as far as he could into the water, his motion stiff. The ducks came over and noisily and happily devoured the bread.

He tossed more bread. The sun reflected off the pond in shivering light. The wind picked up and rolled the water and Ed was happy he was warm.

Then the waves on the pond shook. The ducks went out of focus. The sunlight hurt. His vision tunneled slowly at first, and the voices of the birds weakened. His hand shook and he focused on it. He tried to concentrate, but couldn’t. He felt thirsty. He felt weak.

The first thing he heard when he awoke was the sound of a loon, then the gust of the wind that beat the grass against his face. He opened his eyes to the tamed light of the evening, partially covered by the vegetation he laid in.

“Damnit.” He thought.

His back hurt. Chunks of bread lay all around him.

He tried to push himself upright but the weakness in his old arms didn’t let him. Mosquitos hovered and bit. He rolled on his back, at least he could do that. Above him the clouds in the sky were skinny, long, tinted with purples and pinks and the shame of the ending day.

The air had cooled, and Ed felt chilled. He tried again to push himself onto his elbows. He made it about halfway before falling back. He realized his arm had been snagged by a stick, red lines of blood dripping lightly onto the dew covered grass.

“Damnit.” He said aloud.

He knew Beverly would be worried sick that he hadn’t called her. The loon circled towards the sunset in the cold water and called and called. It was only the loon in the pond, his mallards had disappeared into the cattails for the evening. He focused on his breath, shallow and weak.

Ed thought about Sarah’s face in the hospital, as she went. So perfect, like the first wildflower in a shaded gully where the sun only hits for an hour. But the flower has found its spot and it blooms, crisp and whole, frosted, with a glimpse of the invincible. Her face was always like that.

Ed knew his face was twisted in pain, that he was stiff and angry. Angry at himself for not being able to get up. Angry at this aging body that failed him. Angry that these fits were getting more and more frequent.

He couldn’t tell if it was his head or the mosquitos that buzzed in his ears.

He yelled for help there on the banks of the pond, knowing no one would be around these desolate, rolling hills. Except the birds and the varmints. Maybe they could relay the message. But they only spoke the language of the wild, and Ed knew man had no part in that.

There in the tall grass, he laid and wondered who the loon called for.

Then he heard a noise from the top of the hill, distant. The loon called.

“Ed!” He heard it again from the top of the hill.

I’ll be damned, he thought to himself, you lucky old son of a gun.

“I’m here.” He yelled back with all his strength, which wasn’t much. A muffled growl, lost in the bird chirps of evening.

He turned his head in the direction of the voice, but as he did his woolen cap had fallen around his eyes. He didn’t have the strength to move it.

His breathing was slow and heavy. He wasn’t even sure the voice was real until he heard it again, closer this time, louder than the loon’s call.

“Ed. What did you get yourself into this time?”

The invisible arms helped him up. He was sore. He leaned against his helper. He tried to lift his hand to push his wool cap up, but the shivering and the weakness wouldn’t let him. He succeeded in using his elbow to push it up enough.

It was Paul.

“Thanks, Paul.” His voice seemed like a whisper, quieter than the breeze.

Lou danced around his feet, smelling the wet ground where Ed had laid. He then jumped into the sunset tinted waters after the loon, who screamed and took off, flying south.

“I can’t keep doing this, Ed.”

“I know, Paul.” Quiet, like the hum of the gnats just close enough to hear.

Ed had enough balance to stay upright on his own. Paul still held his arm out for support.

“If Beverly asked, I cut myself helping you fence,” Ed’s voice barely echoed out of his chest,  “and you invited me to stay for dinner.”

Quiet, like the whine of a barn kitten.

Paul shook his head and lit a cigarette. Lou came out of the pond and shook the water off. Ed shivered.

“Come on, Ed, let’s get you back to the truck and warm you up.”

In his own way, Ed knew Paul understood.

Paul helped Ed back up the hill and to the truck. In the brush a pheasant let out a nighttime call.

Ed thought of all the days he had to help Sarah get around the house when she was too weak to stand. Ed thought of the young mallard ducklings and the way they needed someone to lead them. He thought of Beverly’s worried face, sitting in her kitchen by the phone with the dishes done and the room brightly lit.

The sky darkened purple, and the early crickets hummed.

“Last time, Ed.”

Paul stopped to readjust Ed leaning on his shoulder.

“Next time if I come around in the evening to feed the cows and your truck is still here, I’m gonna drive by.” 

A little breeze cast up from the water behind them and threw droplets onto the back of Ed’s neck.

“I know, Paul.” Quiet.

“I’m serious this time, Ed.”

“I know, Paul.” More quiet.

Paul stopped next to the trucks. His idled heavy and loud next to the quietness of Ed’s. The thick smell of exhaust clouded around them. Bats swooped low near the headlights, catching the last bugs of the evening.

“You’re a good guy, Ed.”

He opened the truck for him, watching him get in and turn the heat on.

“Sure, Paul.” Quiet, like a sip of a flask when you’re not supposed to.

“I mean it, Ed.”

Ed looked at Paul. He had kind eyes, too. Ones that have watched day old calves lose their fight against the cold. Ones that have taken rifles to old dogs, loved. Ones who stared at stars by campfires alone, whiskey drunk in disbelief.

“You take care of yourself.”

“I will.” The most quiet, like an abandoned garden.

Paul got into his truck and rumbled down the mud towards the ranch. Ed sat in the pickup with the window down and let the cold air mix with the warmth of the heater. He was sore. He was tired. He felt oddly sick to his stomach, like a beer that didn’t settle well.

“Better call Beverly when I get home,” he said to no one, maybe the bats who swooped in their hunts. Maybe the truck who answered only with the whir of the engine.

His arm hurt. Dried blood clung to the curled white hairs.

He sat and stared at the headlights losing their battle with the darkness ten yards in front of him.

Somewhere behind him, the meadowlark let out a final call for the night, beautiful and temporary, like the grace of another day.