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However, I viewed an educational vid about alien animals called elephants, and those creatures grieve like this human seems to be grieving. It was very emotion-provoking when the vid explained the behavior the animals were exhibiting, and when I recognize Becky’s actions for what they are, I grow sad for her too.
I give her several lengths of time to finish her sobbing, and then I give her a few more. I glance up at the sky, noticing the color and the saturation that’s causing the difficulty in viewing the landscape. “Dusk is here,” I tell her. “Soon it will be too dark to see Joel’s grave. Are you hungry?”
She shakes her head to indicate that she is not, but to my confusion, she forces herself to her feet and announces brokenly, “Supper will be ready soon.”
I cover Joel with dirt, and find that while I was amid the initial digging process, Becky collected all the rocks my shovel struck, and she made a stack of them.
How helpful.
I ponder that, as I work. That a mate can be helpful.
Rock by rock, I move the stack atop his grave to deter predators, and perhaps the stones will also act as a marker later for her to find where her dead mate is buried, if she’s compelled to visit him as elephants do for their lost loved ones.
Supper is beans, steak, bread, and packaged fruit for dessert. None of it is familiar to me, although I’ve heard the items mentioned plenty on vids.
None of it tastes like the food I’m used to from home, and I feel a pang that I identify as homesickness. I’ve never felt it before leaving the ocean, because until now, that was always my home.
Now this homestead is.
I thank Becky for the preparation of the strange meal, and she nods morosely over her own plate. We’re seated at the table where Paco found his colorful meal of weeds to eat earlier in the day. The fluted glassware that held them is gone, and so is any trace of the weeds themselves and the spilled water.
Before we ate, I hung my hat on a nail by the door and we joined hands at the table over our plates and thanked the Creator for the provision of our meal. I rather liked this starting ritual—it is just like the vids—and I wonder what the evening rituals will be. When the meal ends, Becky murmurs that the horses still need to be put up for the night. Because I’ve never untacked an equine before, she takes charge and I assist, watching her actions and listening to her orders avidly, memorizing everything, every sequence.
All the gear is stored in a tack room in the barn, and the horses are turned out in a pasture.
Becky locks Paco in a stall, explaining that he’s a “jack”—a male who hasn’t been castrated—and therefore he can’t be allowed to run with the other equines on account of two of the horses being mares. Her voice is lackluster and her eyes are leaking.
The expression of grief, I extrapolate. I wonder how long human grieving periods last.
“Although they didn’t seem to be speaking on his wavelength,” Becky muses, wiping at her face with a weary hand.
“Equines speak on wavelengths?” I ask in interest.
“Not literally, but did you see how he seemed sweet on them? The rolling and the lip thing? Stallions court really differently. So when a donkey jack tries to woo a mare, she’s not likely to recognize it for what it is. It’s like they’re speaking two totally different languages.”
Paco honks to us plaintively—an obnoxious but lonely sound that Becky identifies as braying—the entire time it takes us to walk to the house to wash up.
“That’s it for chores until tomorrow,” Becky announces hollowly as I follow her example and dry my hands on a towel that’s been pulled through a round wooden loop next to the kitchen’s sink.
“Then it’s time for bed?” I ask.
With strangely lit eyes and an even more strangely lit brain, she meets my gaze, swallowing hard and hugging herself before she nods an affirmative.
“Is there a tub where I can soak a spell?” I ask her. Earlier, I retrieved my belongings from the chestnut’s saddlebags, and I laid them on top of the quilt-covered bed in Becky’s room.
She gives me a puzzled look as she shifts, a hand going to a spot on her lower back. Then she fiddles with a pan on the stove that she seasoned with oil earlier, nudging it as if she can’t decide if it’s slightly out of place. “Soakfora spell, I think you mean, and there’s actually a shower here. I’ll show you.”
She does, and she demonstrates how to operate it when she finds out I’ve never used one. “What’s wrong?” she asks when she glances back at me while she turns the water handles to the off positions.
I meet her gaze. “Hmm?”
“You’re frowning.”
“Oh. I was simply hoping there would be a tub. I would have preferred to soak in something filled with water. I miss the feel of the ocean, you see. But this will do,” I say, indicating the standing shower stall. “Thank you, Becky.” I begin to unbutton my shirt.
She lurches for the door, hurrying in an awkward fashion, her body oddly stiff. She’s out of the door and swinging it closed behind her, but before it shuts all the way, her voice floats back into the room. “What’s your name?” she asks me.
I give her one of the smiles I practiced, but it’s a waste of my effort; she isn’t in the room anymore to see it and I know she can’t see me since it’s only her hand on the knob, not even her head craned around the door. “William Frederick Cody,” I tell her. “I selected the name after a famous human in Earthen Western history. His show name was Buffalo Bill, and I might like being called that as well.”
