Earnest didn’t seem particularly surprised when I told him. He thought about it for a while, stroking a nonexistent beard. “That girl Erik’s been seeing—how long do you think that’ll last?” He wound an invisible egg timer.
“Well, it’s been about six months. Seems to be about his average run, so I’d guess not much longer. Why?”
“Larry Hoskie’s daughters are gorgeous,” he said offhandedly. “The younger one isn’t married yet—Larry says it can be hard to meet the right guy out there. Navajos can’t marry inside their clan, even if they’re not related. Plus, she’s too smart and she intimidates the local guys. She’d be in her early thirties now.”
“So … Erik should try to date someone he’s never met and who’s never heard of him and who lives two thousand miles from here? Good plan. But what does it have to do with his parole violation?”
Earnest shrugged. “Just thinking out loud. The Hoskies are great people. I’ve met the extended family. Marry into the family, you marry into the tribe. The Navajos don’t like to extradite, remember?”
Later, he added: “And your brother could use someone to steady him out a bit. I’m given to understand that the Native American makes an excellent spouse.”
I had indeed given him that understanding.
At the time, we laughed at this absurd plan B. But Earnest has been corresponding more frequently with Larry and they’ve been talking about Earnest visiting him on the Big Rez. Earnest even proposed a brotherly adventure to Erik—why not go out and meet some more taciturn Native Americans? On the way, you can tell me all of your sister’s secrets. Erik, sick to death of hops, said he wouldn’t mind. They’d take the bus so they could see the scenic USA on the way. Also, avoid identity checks at airports.
If they do go, I hope some good magic happens—who knows when or how it will come into our lives?—but it still doesn’t strike me as all that likely. And I would miss my brother terribly.
I know it is not fashionable to be romantic, idealistic, or sentimental, but, truly, before Earnest I didn’t know what love was. I had garnered no idea whatever from the Matts and Daniels and whoevers from before.
But even this has not been an easy process. Our first child miscarried. I was devastated, and for a while I feared that the dream of raising a family of my own had crashed and was dead along with the child, and that maybe another time of crashing dreams had come upon me. My mother and father lost their first, too, and I had to wonder whether I carried some inherited deficiency in my DNA, my woman’s apparatus, or my karma.
But we didn’t wait six more years, the way my parents did. We conceived again within a year and now have twin daughters, exquisitely fascinating and beautifully formed and smart and utterly courageous about entering our uncertain world. When Earnest first held them, they looked like little squirrels against his broad chest. It was the first time I’ve ever seen him scared. No, terrified—I have the photos to prove it. But by the time they started walking he felt safer around them, and now when he lies down they pile onto him and give him great joy. They’re only three years old, but it’s good to have some other women in this household.
And yes, Robin was indeed effulgent in that drear February and not long afterward got together with a man she’d met back in college on an exchange visit to Ireland. They live on Lynn and Theo’s land in a converted shed hardly bigger than my old chicken-coop apartment, and they seem ecstatic when they visit us with their daughter. In fact, Robin remains as effulgent as all get-out, and I suspect this child is only the first of what will become a big family.
I have continued to spend time on my hill, which has changed very little. I don’t “improve” it or civilize it, because it is just as it should be. I still sleep alone in my tent sometimes so I can immerse myself in the mysteries of the forest and of solitude. From those mysteries, even from the Great Fear, I always gain strength. The woods enfold me as I hike up; my family embraces me when I come back down, renewed.
Will has been getting more commissions from out of state, so we see much less of him. The summer after that first hops harvest, he got together with a woman from Rutland, lived with her for a couple of years. He broke it off, but he has a new girlfriend now, and we all agree she has potential.
Brassard planted six acres of hops, then six more, and though we had a disastrous third year due to powdery mildew, now they pull in good money through the connections Erik established. Together, we invested in a small commercial cone separator with, as Erik calls it, “better throughput capacity” that can process the yards’ harvests fairly quickly. We’ve set up the whole upstairs of the old barn to dry the cones, now on racks of big screens vented by fans. The “as yet immature but primed” East Coast artisanal brewing industry matured explosively; Erik and Brassard have more demand for hops than they can supply. If you are a beer aficionado, I can almost guarantee you have drunk beer made from our hops.
My pregnancies made it hard to keep up with the milking. Brassard hired on another couple of hands, and they’re all right if properly supervised—which I found I could manage even with a couple of babies on my hips.
Milk prices recovered and, as Brassard says, almost allow a man to make a living.
When you are a farmer, you tend to pay close attention primarily to what’s right there, the next task, the next seasonal change, the next problem.
