A Congregation of Jackals

Chapter 5

Then came a sound that touched the melting giant—a person speaking, calling out. He recognized his wife’s voice and a moment later the thing that she was uttering, a thing that solidified and returned him to himself. That thing was his name.

“Oswell,” said the woman.

The forty-seven-year-old rancher with a wife and two children who was named Oswell Danford sat up, grunting with his exertion. He turned his head on his broad shoulders, wiped the light brown hair from his hazel eyes, and scratched an itch in his mustache. (He never had itches when he was the melting giant.)

“Oswell, are you down there?”

It took him a moment to find his voice, as if he had misplaced it in a shirt pocket or the dog had snatched it up and run off with it. Upon the escarpment he saw his wife, the sky purple and gold behind her fine full figure, her red hair and yellow hem pulled east by the western wind.

“I’m down here,” said Oswell.

Elinore looked at him, her bright green eyes agleam in the lowering sun. “You received a telegram.”

“What’d it say?”

“I didn’t read it. I didn’t know if you’d want me to, so I brought it out here for you.”

One of the seventeen reasons Elinore made such a good wife was that she did not snoop. Another was her Oklahoma accent that sounded like honey to Oswell even after fourteen years of marriage. The thirty-nine-year-old woman’s right hand disappeared into the folds of her yellow dress and then produced a small white card that appeared no larger than a tooth from where Oswell sat.

“Where’s it from?”

“Montana Territory.”

Oswell’s guts froze. There was only one person he knew in the Montana Territory, and he had not heard from him in more than sixteen years.

“Do you want me to read it to you?”

“I’ll come up there and read it.” As Oswell pulled on his stiff socks and his warm, sun-softened boots he looked at the dragonflies circling atop the water and had an atypical urge to swat them.

Winded from his climb up the dell, Oswell huffed and then kissed his wife on the mouth. She handed him the white card affixed with cut-out pieces of typeface. He read it.

“I need to get back to fixing supper,” stated Elinore.

“I’ll come with you. Rabbit?”

“Yes. And turnips.”

Oswell took his wife’s hand and they walked in silence toward the wooden gate that marked the perimeter of their Virginia ranch. He saw one brown cow grazing in the distance.

“She’s eating again.”

“You think we should leave her out tonight or get her back in the barn?”

“Let’s leave her be,” said the rancher. “It’s not cold and we’ve got to get some weight on her before those cowboys come on through.” He untied the post and swung the log gate wide for his wife; the hinges creaked; the distant cow looked up and assessed the bipedal intruders.

“I’ve gotta fix that. Scares the girls.” Oswell spat upon the top hinge and then the lower one; he slowly closed the gate. The metal groaned longer and no less loudly than when he had opened it. “I’ll oil it tomorrow,” he said as he shut and tied the post.

Elinore scrutinized the hinges and shook her head. “We might need new ones altogether—I believe they’re rusted inside.”

“You might be right.”

The couple walked up the wide flat field upon which they grazed their cattle, through another gate and then across the wolds upon which seventeen sheep chewed, bleated, and considered grass. During this walk, Oswell read the telegram two more times; after his third perusal, he spoke of its contents to his wife.

“I’ve been invited to a wedding.”

“In the Montana Territory?”

“Yeah. James Lingham’s.”

“I’ve never heard you mention him before.”

He shook his head. “I haven’t.”

“Do you intend to go?”

Oswell did not yet know the answer to the question, and presently, in his silent ruminations on the matter, he forgot that it had been asked. The couple approached the house in which they had dwelled for the past eleven years—since the day Elinore quit teaching and gave birth to their first child, Benjamin. They walked toward the side porch, their shadows preceding them onto the wood. Oswell shook his head irritably and muttered something unintelligible.

“I’ll tend to supper,” said Elinore, who then leaned over and kissed her distracted husband on the cheek, opened the door, and entered the house. Oswell stood there, the telegram cradled in his hands like a dead infant. He sat heavily upon one of the two rocking chairs and read it again.

mr o w danford

13 cutter way harrisfield va=

dear oswell

i am to wed beatrice jeffries on 12 august please join us at ceremony

all old acquaintances will be in attendance=

j lingham

trailspur, montana terr

Though the pasted words were of a uniform typeface, the phrase “all old acquaintances” seemed printed in far darker ink. There was nothing that he wanted to do less than travel to the Montana Territory and witness a ghost from his past get married—but there was a reason that this invitation had been sent.

“You got the telegram, I see.”

Godfrey hitched up the warped rawhide belt that waged an internecine struggle with his belly as he climbed onto the porch, the rolled cigarette in his mouth not yet alight. Oswell saw a similar telegram clutched in his older brother’s right hand and nodded.

“Yeah. I got it,” said the rancher.