Jimmy watched Anne coming in from her ride, leading Albion by the reins. He leaned against the side of the old truck and watched her, still not quite believing she’d picked him. You’d never guess she was a city-girl, to see her ride. Just like you’d never guess that Jimmy had grown up in the shadow of steel mills, breathing in the sulphurous reek from the coke ovens night and day. They’d both grown up down East, a long way from Alberta, and she hadn’t wanted to move out here, so far from her family.
They’d broken up over it for a while, when he first came out West. He thought she’d never join him. After a while, she came, though; he’d saved up and sent her down the train fare, hoping, but not really believing, she’d come. She did. Love is like that, Jimmy thought.
“How’d the ride go?” he asked her, lifting a last bale of hay onto the back of the pickup.
“It was good,” Anne answered. “There was a coyote out over the ridge. She had her pups out for a romp.” Nothing would convince Anne that coyotes were vermin, and Jimmy didn’t mind that, even if none of the people round here understood. It was just Anne seeing worth where others failed to; she’d realised there was something more to him, as well, when no one else had.
He drove toward the barn, slowly, while Anne rode alongside him. The setting sun glinted off her blonde hair and Jimmy wondered what she’d look like riding nude. His erection was instant and uncomfortable and he was glad it had subsided by the time they got back to the barn.
While Anne gave Albion a quick rub-down, Jimmy tossed the bales of hay off the truck. By the time he’d hauled the first one up to the loft, she was beside him, and put her hand on the rope. They pulled together, and one by one, the last bales were stored.
“Isn’t it late in the year for coyote pups?” Jimmy asked her as they walked back to the house. Jimmy didn’t care what the answer was, really, he just liked to listen to Anne talk.
“I think it happens sometimes,” Anne said. “Maybe it’s a second litter. It was a good year; maybe there were enough mice and prairie dogs to feed them.” He watched her mouth form the sounds and thought about kissing her lips.
Anne had left the stew simmering since lunchtime; the aroma filled the kitchen as they came inside. After he washed up, Jimmy set the table while Anne laddled a generous helping onto his plate. Her own didn’t hold half as much.
“Are you feeling OK?” Jimmy asked, as he took a biscuit from the pile in the middle of the table.
“I’m fine,” Anne asked, but there was something in her voice that made him look at her more closely. She smiled at him and he could see her resemblance to the photograph on the wall. It was a picture of a silent movie star – Ann Dunn who had been famous back in the early days of Hollywood. Anne was named after her. Jimmy had never seen any of her movies, and Anne had told him that many of them were lost. Still, it was something to be married to a star’s grandniece.
“I called Dad earlier,” Anne said, pushing the food around on her plate. Jimmy suddenly felt unsettled; he often worried that Doug had never forgiven him for marrying his youngest daughter. Anne always told him that was silly; their elopement was long forgiven, if not forgotten.
“How are they doing?” he asked, trying to keep his voice neutral. Wherever Anne’s father was mentioned, his voice took a defensive edge. That was ridiculous, though. Jimmy had proven he could take care of Anne to Doug, to everyone.
“Pretty good,” Anne said. “You’re not mad, are you? I know it’s expensive. I just really needed to hear him and Mom.” She got up and fetched Jimmy a beer from the fridge while she spoke. Her hips moving under the tight, faded denim, distracted Jimmy. She didn’t take one for herself, but he was thinking about other things and didn’t notice.
“He said Mom was wondering when we’d give them some grandkids.” Jimmy was about to say something flippant, when he glanced over at Anne. Her face was tilted down, as if she was looking at her plate, but he caught the flash of her blue eyes looking up at him through her bangs.
She was hanging on his answer, though he didn’t know why. He took a pull from the bottle, then scooped up a forkful of stew, while he thought about what to say.
“Aren’t we still kind of young to be having kids?” It wasn’t true, really. He was going to be 24 soon; Anne would be 20 in the Spring, but still looked like the 16 year-old he’d met working at the drive-in.
“Not really,” Anne said. “My friend Karen has three kids already.”
“Yeah, I know,” Jimmy replied. Karen had gotten pregnant with her first before she finished high school. When Anne dropped out to marry Jimmy, Doug had been furious that it was the same thing. It wasn’t though; Anne had made him wait until they were married.
“I just think that we should get more settled first, you know?” he said.
It had seemed such a good idea to get married. Well, it was, but they’d rushed, Jimmy thought. He hadn’t got a real job, and Annie hadn’t finished her diploma. After a week their savings ran out and Anne had to move back with her folks. Jimmy had come out here but, to be honest, he’d been a bit of a jerk, leaving her behind. At the time, knowing his cousin had a job waiting for him out here had seemed important.
“You’ve been managing the ranch for a year now,” Anne replied. “We’ve got the whole house to ourselves.” His cousin owned the ranch, and another one besides, now. He’d given Jimmy a job and, bit by bit, Jimmy had worked his way up to manager; not bad for a guy who never finished high school.
“I know,” Jimmy agreed, grudgingly. “But, we’re still just kids. We should have some fun.” He wanted to say he couldn’t imagine Anne with babies when, almost at once, he saw it in his mind. It wasn’t a bad idea, but he didn’t feel ready; he still wanted to enjoy their time together. Kids were such a distraction; surely Anne could understand that.
“I guess,” Anne said, her tone flat. That was never a good sign. She picked up her plate and took it over to the sink. She’d barely touched anything. The phone rang, two shorts and a long; it was for them, but Anne made no move toward it. Jimmy hurried over to pick it up.
“Macard residence,” he said. The link crackled a little; the wind on the wires made it do that, sometimes. The voice on the other end sounded very distant.
“Is that Jimmy? It’s Doc Nicholson here.”
“Yes Doc,” Jimmy answered, puzzled why Doc was calling. “What’s up?” He was distracted enough by Anne’s behaviour to miss the joke.
“You tell that little wife of yours her test came back,” Doc Nicholson said. “The answer is ‘yes.’ Congratulations.” Mystified, Jimmy set the phone black in its cradle. He turned to ask Anne what that was all about, but the screen door was swinging shut behind her. Jimmy followed her out on the porch.
She was sitting on the double rocker, crying. It reminded him of the night they split up; Anne had cried then, and so had he, but not in front of her. When she refused to move out to Alberta with him he’d been certain that getting her diploma was more important to Anne than he was. But that wasn’t it at all.
“Why are you crying? What’s going on, Anne?” Jimmy asked. “The Doc said the answer was ‘yes’, but what’s the question?” She looked up at him and shook her head. Jimmy sat down and pulled her into his arms. For a moment she struggled as if she wanted to get away, to get some space, but then she relaxed and lay against him.
“If you think I’m crying now, you should have seen me when I saw those coyote pups,” Anne said. “It was like they were the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.”
Suddenly, Jimmy knew the answer. She lay her head on his shoulder, and he stroked her long hair, as the twilight deepened. One of the coyotes howled at the rising moon. Then its mate joined in.
Love is like that.
Eolas says: “My short stories have been published in Grim & Gilded, The Word’s Faire, Pulp Lit, and Agnes and True. My novelette “Party of the Second Part” appeared in Raiders of the Lost Plot: the 2024 Fark Fiction Anthology. My website is: https://sites.google.com/view/eolaspellorwriter/home“
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