Winter was definitely over. Ham realized it one morning when he came from the house and went to turn the ewes out of the corral. Lambing was nearly finished. He had the drop herd at the ranch now, while Hazel took care of the big bunch of ewes and lambs at the sheds.
Ham had been up most of the night, had to pull a couple of lambs, so he slept through the early morning hours. It was after nine o’clock as he stood by the gate, watching the heavy-bellied sheep move awkwardly out across the prairie.
A meadow-lark was singing and he looked to see him perched on a fence wire, his yellow breast bright in the morning sunlight. It gave Ham a funny all-gone sensation to have spring hit him sudden like this. It made him understand how lost he was in the agony and sweetness of loving Jewel. And the being lost made him afraid.
He lifted his eyes to the Bear Claws and saw that there were only a few patches of white left here and there and that already the summer purple was showing on the lower slopes. How long had it been since he’d noticed old Bear Claws? He couldn’t recall really looking at them since the snowstorm when for so many days they were practically hidden. Now the mountains looked very near.
Nell’s voice called from the back porch. “Your breakfast’s ready, Ham.”
He saw Sharon skipping across the yard and went to meet her. “Hi, Baby,” he exclaimed.
“Hello,” her voice was cold. There was something wrong with Sharon the last few weeks. She avoided him every chance she could and she never looked straight at him when he talked to her. His heart sank as he realized that she didn’t talk about Jewel anymore, either.
Things were closing in, all around him he could feel the relentless crush of responsibilities like a slow-moving glacier. Well, he always knew he couldn’t get away with it. He’d been living in a fool’s paradise.
“Ham, are you ever coming?” Nell’s voice so near made him jump and sent his dreams scattering. Things couldn’t keep on dangling this way. It wasn’t fair to anyone.
The thought of a stack of half-cold pancakes with Nell’s strident bickering as a sauce made him feel sick. He called in at the door, “I don’t want any breakfast, Nell, I’m going on out with the sheep.”
He turned toward the mountains and tried to shut out the sound of Nell’s disapproval, tried not to hear Sharon singing a sad little song to her kitten over in one corner of the yard, tried not to think of Art and Johnny and Hazel and Lew . . .
“God, what kind of a father am I, how can I go on like this, neglecting my kids, thinking of nothing but myself and my enjoyment?”
Out on the range he saw that the star-flowers were blooming, tiny white petals spread wide and he knelt to dig up a clump of them.
Jewel loved these fragile little flowers. For a moment he thought “I’ll pick them and take them to her,” and it seemed a natural thing, the sort of gesture a man makes towards the woman he loves.
His long fingers probed the soil, gently easing the mossy clump from the damp earth. The miniature white petals with yellow stamens so small as to be almost invisible nestled down close to the protecting foliage of moss. They had always been his favorite flower. He didn’t know if they had a real name, folks around here just called them star-flowers.
He held the uprooted cluster in his hand and the dirt felt cool against his flesh. If I gave them to Jewel her eyes would shine the way they do when she’s pleased with me and she would look up and say, “Just for that, Ham Wilson, I’ll give you a kiss!”
Looking down at the flowers Ham saw that they were already withering. They were so frail, not meant for picking. His love for Jewel was like that, if he kept on trying to possess it, to hold it in his hands, it would wither too, shrivel away and leave dry broken stems instead of delicate blossoms. Some beauty wasn’t meant to be held too tightly.
She must go away soon, right after school was out. They couldn’t afford to let things ride any longer, there was no use for Nell to get hurt. It’s up to us, Jewel, to do the suffering, we had the joy . . . but for such a short time . . . is a few months happiness all a man can expect? . . .
He walked blindly across the familiar prairie. How can I find the courage to send her away? How am I going to go on living . . . The land will still be here, the sheep, the Bear Claws . . .
He lifted his eyes to the mountains in a gesture of supplication and saw that he was standing in the place where he had lifted Jewel from old Bessie’s back the night of the big storm when they rode the horses back to the ranch. He could feel her cold little hand inside his in the pocket of his mackinaw, trusting and soft, nested in his palm.
Involuntarily he clenched his fists and the little white flowers were broken now and mingled hopelessly with the earth and moss. He let the tangled mass fall slowly to the ground and wiped his hand against the leg of his overalls.
He could imagine what Nell would think a man his age messing around picking flowers . . . and during their busy season, too . . .
Ham saw that a ewe was in labor and he stood quietly to one side waiting to see if she should need help.
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