The Coral's Capacity-- A work of fiction

Simla Pasture in Spring-- the setting for this story.

Written on March 31, 2014

The last wind whistled across the short-grass pasture and through the splintered wood, splitting from the corals.  The gate creaked—not with sorrow or sadness but with a weary, tiresome moan.  The gated coral had been through so much, yet it continued to stand strong through its exhaustion.  Sand kicked up into the wind and against the grizzled gate as the afternoon skies grew dark with the oncoming storm.  In the distance on a soak weed berm, the last rays of sun showed two cowboys sitting on their horses, viewing their ranch and all it contained.  The morning brought an exceptionally warm sun and then a too blistering afternoon wind, and worse, for a spring day.  Below the cowboys were the cows.  The herd moved through the valley like blackness coming across the evening sky.  The fear that comes with both could chill the nerves of the toughest cowboy long before the springtime night-dew would.  Life for this pair was difficult.  They worked alone and took that road less taken--sometimes out of foolishness, but usually out of the sacrificial stubbornness that leads to greatness.  

“It will be a miracle of God if we get ‘em in” the first said to the other.  The voice was softer and didn’t carry well through the air.  The other nodded in a strong, silent agreement, for his didn’t carry well either.  They were tired of yelling through the wind.  It was always stronger than they were, and they needed to accept that.  The wind continued to grind sand on bristled whiskers of one and whip through the spindles of hair of the other.  Even from the corrals, a flash of gold lit the area between the two on horseback.  It was the fallen strands of hair from a long blonde braid.  She took off her glove to wipe the dirt out of her eyes and tuck the tangled hair behind her ears while he looked on.  Squinting, and suffering with the wrath of the wind, he could see the outline of the herd-- blackness on the blackness of the night.  

“This isn’t going to work.  Cattle aren’t going to walk up out of the valley and into the corral.  Should we just rest for tonight and try again tomorrow?”

“Let’s just wait and see,” she said with true hope, “they’ve been through this pasture before, so they know where they're going.”

The cowboys looked like two specks of dust far from the coral on the vast landscape, connected by fate in the grand scheme of God’s plan.  They’d come together apparently by mere coincidence, but because of God’s will, they connected with each other and to the plan like the coral and its numerous swinging gates connected with the land.  The coral, a purely human invention, sits in the midst of the land, taking all of nature’s abuses and kindness.  During the ice storms, the gates swung shut and stayed such.  When the warm sun shone, the wood of the fences expanded, and the bees and moths made homes in the swelled, splintered wood.  It endured with or without the cowboys and their cattle.

That morning was one of those warm, swelling days.  The gated coral saw the sun rise over the hill.  It awoke the coral and it’s capacity to take in the warmth, the dew, and the sounds of the cowboys riding in from the west.  “I can’t hardly see where we’re going,” she wasn’t complaining, but just concerned.

“Once we get on the cattle trail, you can just follow that.  The horse will anyway,” he assured her.  The yellow sun smiled on all it oversaw: the land, corals, the cowboys, and their cows.  The herd sat lazily in the stillness of the morning.  The cool dew was quickly burning out of the air, bringing all things to life after the cold night.  A couple black bodies raised up slowly at first, but before long, from the coral, several cows could be seen standing and looking to indulge themselves on purple flowers, buffalo grass, and cool spring water.  They had paths far older than themselves to each of the delicacies.  “Life must be so easy for them.  I wish I could just sleep until the sun was warm, and then just worry about eating and drinking all day.”  She said this in her dreamy, whimsical way.  She was thoughtful on the frivolous for fun.

“That’d be nice.  Maybe when we’re old and retired,” he answered, humoring her, but seeing humor in her remark.

“Maybe we’ve already had that chance when we were young,” her tone suddenly darkening.

Their thoughts weren’t really with the bandying comments but could have been.  They’d spent their young days eating, drinking, and sleeping in, but as they grew older, they spent their time waking before the sun, investing their time and money, and sacrificing all luxuries.  They rarely lit the fire in the house, they ate meagerly from their stored food, and remained in debt to the banks.  But, their morale never waned.  They had each other to hold on cold nights, kisses sufficed for food, and with enough hard work between the two of them, those debts would be paid in full.  In the meantime, she felt in a constant state of, “a day late, and a dollar short.”

“We’re short,” she said aloud.

“Damn it.  Are you sure?  Did you get the few beyond the spring?”

“Yeah.  I counted three times.”

They walked the pasture together in mutual understanding and silence as so many animals had done before them, all following the trails.  They passed over those flowers and tufts of grass that bent with the wind and under hooves.  They hopped rivers and ravines that ran with a trickle, which had not ceased in recent years.  Life bloomed around them, and they couldn’t notice it because they couldn’t find all their cows.  They gently spurred on their panting horses up the steep hills.  They never appreciated all simple blessings when they were driven to complete their bigger goals.  If there was one thing to be said about them, they knew how to achieve their goals, side by side, and in the serenity of the western landscape and mindset.

“He’s lathering through the saddle.  We need to stop and drink.  Maybe we should have our sandwiches and water.” The sun was high and hot for a spring day.  While the wind blew intermittently, their decision to stop finally stopped the lightly annoying wind too.  As they drank the cool water and sweetened tea, the heat draped them and quickly too, their thoughts.  While the food was a nice break from the travel and uphill battle, the savory flavor was short-lived.  The meats had soured and so did their demeanors.  They’d seen the pattern before.  

It wasn’t just now, or in their lives as cowboys, but also in their lives together.  They’d struggled in those cold nights, and just as much so during those hot summer days.  They’d seen their crops burn in the sun and turn to dust without water.  They’d married on the coolest day of one of the hottest summers when only birds had it in them to sing and the land gave only plentifully in kosha weeds.  Their wedding, for the moment was peaceful--a brief moment where time stopped, did not change the struggle they immediately after faced on the farm.  

The stillness in the air forebode the calm before the storm.  They packed away their canteens, wiped their faces with wildrags, and strained to look through thick, hot sky, settling itself on the horizon.

That summer of the wedding didn’t relent to the winter.  As the cows were to calve, so many were barren from the drought of the summer, but the couple didn’t share the same problem.  Instead, they were blessed with children they could not afford if the land and cattle wouldn’t produce.

Suddenly, dry lightning cracked in the late afternoon sky.  The phenomenon was unseen before.  It raised hair on their heads, which waved in the new, much stronger, gusts of wind.  The cows near the spring instinctively left the water and moved into the valley.  Mamas brayed for their babies.  The woman’s chatter stopped.  The wind gained speed, reigning supreme and pushing out the heat.  

The sky grew dark.

Their conversation in decision-making was taken by those gusts of wind as suddenly as it had taken the stillness of the sunshine.  He gave orders and her evaluation of them sounded like the growing cacophony of birds when threatened by predators. There was a discord in emotion and spirits.  The woman, concerned and whimpering her frustration, resembled the broken-winged mother, trying to distract from her nest, yet fooling nobody.  Her mate spoke with the harshness of the squawks as the danger approached the nest.  His instruction was swift and clear, and the two separated.

As her horse tromped through a puddle, the water splashed her face, but she couldn’t tell because she had begun weeping.  Her tears were peculiar though; built up through frustration at the ever present reality that they might not succeed in corralling the cattle, but it was not towards her husband because she knew he would take care of all of them.  He always had.

It was as simple as always closing the gate.  He remembered the little things to keep their lives safe while she struggled to keep things contained.  Two years after the wedding they had two children.  She spent plenty of time weeping privately, not on the pasture, but in the house.  She was unprepared to be the keeper of the home, family, and farm, and certainly of her own emotions.  She would look out the windows at the stalwart barns, fences, and corals and notice the wind trying to batter them down.  They stood as strong as if they hadn’t been touched.  Tumbleweeds would entangle themselves on those structures like little hands pulling on her jeans, but they would not bend.  Sand gritted on their surfaces like little voices did on her nerves,  but when the commotion of the wind died down and little fingers and dirt specks both settled to the ground, she knew she could look as composed and as beautiful as the painted barn that didn’t shed a flake, or the barbed wire that didn’t allow dulling of its strong points.  She smoothed her hair back behind her ears, took a breath in like the capturing of the wind.  She was stronger than the storm of life.

With prayer and guidance, she believed in their ability to be stronger than the storm gathering overhead.  She looked up at the swirling purple and blue sky.  Streaks of green suggested a tornado.  Anyone else would have been terrified, but instead of looking further through those teary eyes, she took a deep breath, and let her tears be washed away by raindrops.  

The horses whinnied as they rode farther and farther apart.  She rode as hard as she knew how to ride.  She knew he would do the same.  She glanced back at a sorrel tail blowing in the wind and disappearing into the darkness as the storm came to the ground.  In this storm, the cows were vulnerable, and the couple would have been smart to bring them in earlier in the day.  If only they hadn’t stopped for lunch.  If only they’d started earlier in the day.  But how could they?  They were on the land as soon as the sun rose, and the horses couldn’t go on without a drink.  They’d done all they could, and it wasn’t good enough.  The storm brought its rain and dark clouds and took away the sun.  They continued to fight against what they could not change.

They could not make that black mob in the valley walk the wet slopes any faster than they could ask the sun to stop setting.  She’d managed to take the herd from the spring and put them in the deepest valley.  He’d trailed in stubborn bulls, stupid calves, and aggressive mamas.  And then the rain stopped.  The last rays of the afternoon sun poked through the sky to see the soakweed berm waiting for them. Watching the two herds become one again brought those tears back to her eyes, and she looked across the pasture at her husband.   

She thought of their children.  When their tempest lives were bringing thunder and gales right into the home, the children had a way of settling the storm.  They made the family feel complete, troubles and all.  

The couple pushed on, meeting up under one of those radiant rays.  The cows staggered on, tired from the storm, and fatted up from the morning.  With faith in each other, the couple’s horses met at the back of the herd.  He side-stepped his horse into hers and leaned on her thigh, asking for a kiss.  She looked at him in the last of the light, seeing nothing short of amazing in his green eyes.  They walked on into the twilight.

In the light of the full moon, she looked over at him to see the light in those green eyes as they stood on the soakweed berm.  In silence, true silence, between them, the land, and the wind, they waited for the shuffling cows to make their way to the coral.  

“I’m glad that gate stays open.  It didn’t swing closed even in that storm.”

“It seems like it is always wide open when we need it to be for cows to come in, and it’s always closed when we need to keep coyotes out.” He reflected.  “Do you think all the cows will fit in that pen?”

“Of course.  Those pens hold more than they look like they will.”

“Do you think they’ll make it in?”  

No sooner than he said it, he saw the moon light her smile, and a nod toward the corral.  Only in the clear, spring moonlight could he see the first cow pass the gate that welcomed them in.  One by one, they bumped that rough, iron gate.  Little by little, they took from the gate flecks of paint and sand from the storm, but the gate didn’t waver.  It ushered them in, and the coral held them without as much as a creak from the old wooden fences.   The cows seemed content to be in the coral, and the coral was happy to hold them.  Spring was leading to summer, and all was going to be well.  The land glowed under the calm, cool light, and the couple smiled.  With deft skill, from his horse, the husband swung the gate closed.  Secured the latch, and knew the cows were safe.

The coral is purely a man-made invention.   They sit lonely on God’s landscape like women sit lonely in His plan.  There is no other form in nature that functions as a coral does, save the woman.  The coral endures as the woman does.  Make her of any material, and notice how she bears the wind, rain, snow, and sun better than any other structure. Fill her or leave empty, and she will always be there to do the job—contain.  The woman’s heart, with its infinite capacity to contain love and her body to bear children, still cannot do so alone.  Corals are useless without the gate.  He opens to let in the good and keep out the bad, completing the coral.

“Do you think we can handle this?”  He looked over at his wife on the horse.

 “Like the coral, I can always take more.  I can always provide as long as you are the gate that completes me.”  She moved closer to him who sidestepped as he spoke, “I will encourage good things to come into our lives and close us off from the bad things we don’t want.”  And this time when he leaned into her, he touched the rounding belly of his wife and third child.