Radiant Realm

Johnny Lamp’s son whispered, “Ruby, tell me again about cooking for all the cowboys.”

Now, I’m telling you, you know I like to tell my stories from the beginning, and you also know I’ll have to go all the way to the end. So if that’s alright, I’ll begin.

“I was just a sprout when my Ma and Da moved us across the plains and the desert to the westward mountains and valleys. That Spring and well into the Summer we moved like a turtle with our house on our backs. Looking through the back hoop of our wagon the low flat land was always the same.

“I heard that a train rocks you side to side, but a wagon jerks you back and the body rights you forward. We spent days moving with nothing better to do than watch the wind blow the grasses that swayed and sparkled under a clear wide sky. My brothers played rough house behind me kicking at my back pushing me forward so hard that it knocked the breath out of me and I had to catch my self with both hands. I was small and no one could see the use of me, and a person needed to be useful.

First Fire

“ In the desert I’ve seen strands of white light crack the sky into jagged pieces and the earth seemed to swallow them whole. For a moment heaven and earth were connected. Things could spontaneously combust in the desert. A burning bush like in the Bible caught the wonder in me and I began to think hard about the fire. Just where exactly did it come from? The wind blew down from any kind of sky and took off in any kind of direction, some times bringing the rain, sometimes not. I’ve been told a body could walk the edge of a river right back to its source. But fire?  It appeared to have no particular origin. Every fire I ever saw came from a tinder box. A shard of iron and a stone; scratch one against the other and the most insignificant sparks are let loose, insignificant but consequential. Tiny threads of lightning wisps emancipated from I don’t know which, the stone or the iron. Try as he might, Da just couldn’t explain it well enough to satisfy and ended up saying that somethings are best left in a cloud of mystery. To me it was wizardry.

I Finally Found My Use

“Tiny threads of lightning wisps, sparks falling onto broken pieces of black char cloth making a wormy glowing ember. Insignificant in size but consequential. Ma blew gently to keep it going. If she blew too hard the orange worm disappeared. If the worm was strong and eating the char she poked them into a nest of dried grass. Smoke, then the crackle, like an incantation, and fire rose up. I studied the beginnings of each of her fires and decided I finally found my use. Da gave me a leather pouch and filled it with all the necessaries. I tied it to my belt and there it stayed.

“I made the fires that smoked the meat and warmed our bones. My fires put a layer of burnt scent over the stench of human sweat and crotch scratched fingers, menstrual blood, and every kind of animal shit. In dry river beds I found prairie sage. I threw it in with the flames and bathed in white grey green swirls. I ate the smoke. I danced like a hopping bird with skinny legs and arms flapping. I conjured billows of smoke and flames that rose up and disappeared into the black night sky. I dreamt of becoming a star. My small hands were always black from char and my apron a constellation of ember holes.

Cowboys

“Seems as soon as we got settled my Da got skinny and broke in a bunch of places and Ma got the cancer. My brother’s tried to marry me off a few times but I refused. So I went with the boys and the grazing beasts. Half of them were my brothers the others half were hired. We were moving a herd of north. I rode ahead and took a pack horse to carry my kitchen and kindling. By the time the cows and the boys were a quarter mile away they could smell the fire I built, smell my coffee and salt pork and beans.

“They called me Ruby with the Tawny Cheeks. I liked being the only girl and they took care of me. Taught me how to shoot. Sometimes I put rattlesnake in the beans. I liked sleeping close to the fire and when the burning wood popped and sparks rose I counted the flying embers along with all the stars.

“One day a man with a good heart asked if I would help with the children his deceased wife left behind, and I said yes. I said yes to your Daddy. I said,  “Yes, Johnny Lamps, yes to you, and all your children.”

“Many years later, while I was coming back from town I saw smoke on the horizon – angry black smoke rising from the direction of our home. There was a bitter smell that made me shake with fear and desperation. I drove that wagon hard and homeward.”

“What didn’t rise up in fire and smoke was transformed by the heat. I found a little flat pool of melted gold cooled and shape-shifted into a thing deformed. Found it lying next to the black bones and ash of my husband, your Daddy. I hammered a three-penny nail through the gold and slid a chain through it. I’ve worn it around my neck and will do so for the few years I have left. No matter how I build the fires, they will never again fill me in the same way. My days are damp with tears, Streams of them fall into all that I do. That particular fire has brought the moldering down upon me and paled these old tawny cheeks ”