The Hunt
By Gerald Baron
December 2019
Dairy farmer Rob Mollema faces the ultimate challenge as he confronts the loss of his third generation family farm.
December 2019
Dairy farmer Rob Mollema faces the ultimate challenge as he confronts the loss of his third generation family farm.
the_hunt.docx |
The Hunt
By Gerald Baron
December 2019
1
The climb to the top was very familiar. Fifty two years ago as a young man he made his first trip out to the Snake river near the Washington-Idaho border in pursuit of deer. Memories were strong of that first trip as a twelve year old with his dad and grandpa Rude. The Palouse dryland wheat fields, so different from his own farm fields in northwest Washington, had captured him and each year he looked toward the fall return to these golden, endlessly rolling hills. This year, the longing was gone, replaced by a grim determination.
The area above the Snake river held both mule and white tail deer. While they shared the habitat, their defense mechanism against predators –– mostly hunters –– varied. Both mostly fed at night, doing their wandering during the dawn and dusk light. By nine or ten am on these shortening northern latitude days in October, they were bedded down or at least slowed their wandering. Mule deer, with their superior hearing through those large mule-like ears and excellent sense of smell and vision, usually chose a place where the scrubby foliage on a hillside would disguise them and where they had extensive views of the area. The way they faced would usually tell the hunter that the wind was blowing in their face as they relied on their acute sense of smell as well as great vision to alert them to the presence of danger.
Whitetails, on the other hand, were more flighty and depended on running rapidly away with their large white tails flying in the wind, sending a warning message to any other deer in the area that danger was near. Rather than relying on spotting danger far away, the whities would often find a small copse of trees or brush and hunker down for their rest throughout the day. Rob had found that even a scrawny bush or two at the bottom or side of a gentle draw could easily harbor a doe and fawn or two, while the harder to get to groups of trees and heavy brush at the bottom of the deepest canyons would be the preferred resting place of the white tail bucks. On the other hand, you never knew if one might jump up five yards in front of you as you walked through the once productive wheat fields now filled with a cover of grass and weeds called CRP.
Taking the slow walk up and across the steep draws was both familiar and strange to Rob. For a moment he would lapse into a forgetfulness that threatened to lighten the dark cloud that hovered over him and seemed to fill every cell of his body. There would be a feeling of lightness, of almost normalcy, and he would stop, look around and take in the view. Then, he remembered. Remembered why he was here. Remembered what brought him here. The dark cloud again deepened making even the blue sky and wispy cirrus clouds look ominous.
He labored up a steep draw, stopped to catch his breath and looked down into a bright red patch of sumac entering its fall glory. It was more out of habit than interest. All those years of searching these hidden valleys for the well hidden mules or flighty white tail had ingrained him the habit of scanning, focusing in, studying the minutest changes in color that might signal a hidden prize. Then, remembering his mission this year was different, he turned and continued up the ascending slope.
A few more draws to drop into and climb out of to arrive at the top. He wanted to hurry up and slow down at the same time. Last night was another night filled with half-sleep where he hovered between full wakefulness and a gray-dim darkness feeling the full weight of the burdens he now carried. Weeks of unsettled sleep and weight loss left him with little energy for the exertions of the climb. He rested on a black, crumbling rock near the bottom of the small canyon, feeling the sharp volcanic roughness in his hand. He had resisted his wife’s pleas for him to see the doctor. Doctor? What’s a doctor going to do to pay off his debts? How is a doctor going to help him save his farm? Will a doctor rip up that letter? He can give you some medication, she said. So I can feel good about putting myself and my family in this hole? So I can not care about shaming Dad and Gramps? No, no half-assed measures. To be free of this unendurable pain required more than a pill. With a pill I’d still have to get up in the morning and face what I cannot escape.
He picked himself up off the cold rock and forced his feet to move forward, up ever higher, toward the cliff.
2
Grandpa Rude Mollema started the Mollema dairy farm in Bryburn a couple of years after he arrived from The Netherlands in 1914. The twenty-two year old was the youngest of nine children and the small dairy farm in the northern province of Friesland had been turned over to his oldest brother, leaving him and his other siblings with uncertain prospects. With military service facing his future and difficulty in starting his own farm in the turbulent pre-war times in his country and village, the young man accepted the invitation of a cousin who lived in Bryburn to come and work on his dairy. His cousin, Frank Schoelma, suggested that with that income he’d earn working on his farm, young Rude could work toward setting up his own.
Roel, as he was known in Friesland, took the steamer over the rough Atlantic, arrived on Ellis Island and made his way by train to the fartherest corner of the country. Bryburn was a small farming village on the Tsanni river in northwest Washington state. Here a growing number of Dutch families, mostly from Friesland, had bet their futures on the moderate and wet climate, the rich soil and the small but growing and welcoming Dutch Christian Reformed church community. Dairy farming was in their blood. It was the only life most of them knew. Their fathers and great greats going back many generations had milked the large black and white Holsteins, grazing them in the rich, dark soil and wet, rainy conditions of northern Holland so similar to the land and climate where they now settled.
The tall and strong young farmer worked hard on the Schoelma’s farm and quickly settled into the life of Bryburn. Up at 4 am to gather up the 36 Holsteins his cousin milked. He milked them by hand, one by one, in the barn heated through the cold winter mornings by the grassy, frosty breath of the cows contentedly chewing in their stanchions. 7:30 was time a large breakfast of bacon, eggs and hotcakes, plus at least three cups of coffee with cream and sugar. Roel slowly adjusted to the American version of coffee, far weaker than what he was used to. The lack of caffeine per cup was made up for by drinking multiple cups rather than the tiny cup of thick, almost syrupy coffee he was used to back home.
After breakfast it was time to do all the farm chores including feeding the horses and calves, gathering the eggs from the 150 chickens, feeding the hogs, fixing up the few pieces of farm equipment, and repairing anything that needed repairing. It was also the time to clean the barn and haul out the manure. This involved scraping the manure made soupy by the cows’ urine into the gutter and pushing it all to the door at the end of the smallish barn. After that, he scooped the very smelly slop into a wheelbarrow, then up a slippery ramp into the horse drawn manure spreader. Rude had to wonder at times about all the new fangled inventions that the American farmers used. In Holland, the manure was carried out in a small wagon to the fields and spread about by hand. This American manure spreader’s geared wheels turned a spiked wheel at the back of the wagon that flung the wet, goopy mess onto the fields. In winter, the manure added to the mud created by cows grazing what was left of the summer grass in the inundated fields. In November, when the northeast wind came from the bitter cold interior of BC, it brought with them flocks of ducks, geese and even a few swans who fled the frozen tundra of northern Canada and Alaska to make their home in the warmer climate of northern Puget Sound. A welcome sight, especially to Rude who loved hunting, they added to the manure and mud in the fields that flowed into the ditches built to help drain them during the long, wet winter months.
Rude found a welcome home in the First Christian Reformed Church in Bryburn. Sunday was the one day of the week that interrupted the routine of farm life. It was a welcome respite. The ten am morning service and two pm afternoon service was centered on a sermon that often dragged out almost an hour. He rode the four miles into town sitting on the fragrant hay in the back of the Schoelma’s wagon. More and more these sturdy and reliable vehicles were being replaced by the horseless carriage. Rude thought them senseless and even offensive with the clouds of oily smoke, noisy backfiring and dangerous speeds. But, he thought, if he had one of those he wouldn’t have to clean all the hay off his Sunday best clothes before climbing up the steps to enter the church.
The lengthy and dense sermons were served up well done in the Frisian language. This made them more tolerable to the young man as he was struggling to learn the language of his new country. Pastor, or rather Domine, Jansma served up sermons thick with Old Testament references, the politically-tinged theology of Abraham Kuyper and most of all the TULIP principles of strict Calvinism. The nasal twang of the earthy Frisian syllables created a longing in Rude that bordered on pain and panic sometimes as he felt the great distance between his new and old home. Home was family, familiarity. Bryburn offered a place, culture and values that was far closer to his own than he understood at the time. The oddities he found in this remote corner of the world were overcome by his near continual focus on having a farm of his own.
The pang of homesickness and loneliness began to disappear as he came to understand that Kristina was noticing his glances at her in church. A daughter of the prominent Boerdewyk family, Rude found her auburn hair braided and contained by a white lace cap, her somewhat distant and even haughty bearing, quick smile and laughing eyes quite amazing. He had a hard time keeping from looking at her seated with her large family on the other side of the center aisle. While Domine Jansma droned on about the need for repentance of all sins before entering the doors of the church on the monthly day of the Lord’s Supper, he glanced over at the young beauty. She caught his glance and he thought he caught a quick smile before turning her head quickly, raising her nose ever so slightly and furrowing her brow in pretended concentration on the finer points of repentance as explained by God-inspired John Calvin and his surrogate in the Bryburn pulpit.
The wedding was held in the sanctuary of the First Christian Reformed church and most of the church came. There were even a few members of the new church established a couple of years earlier, the Second Christian Reformed Church. Many friendships ended when a handful of families took exception to some of the teachings of Domine Jansma and decided it was time to start a new church that would be more faithful to the strict Calvinism that was for them the only certain path to forgiveness and eternal hope. Some thought that the errors taught at First were enough to make them part of the reprobate. The debate about the finer points of predestination and election echoed from the smoke-filled parlors of many parishioner’s homes on both sides of the debate.
Bernie Boerdewyk, Kristina’s banker father, was less than enamored with the strapping young Dutch farmer wannabe. He had hoped for a more promising future for his youngest daughter. But as the imperious banker got to know Rude and his strength of character and commitment to an independent life as a dairy farmer, he slowly warmed to him while warning him sternly about the financial realities of starting a farm in the unsettled world of the conflict in Europe that was threatening to draw in the US.
The ceremony of course featured an hour long sermon while the young couple stood facing the preacher and behind him the massive pipes of the church’s pride and joy pipe organ. Rude thought a time or too he would faint, but as he wavered he felt the strong arm of Kristina and turned his thoughts to post-ceremony activities. It was not the potato salad, ham buns and mints that he was thinking about, although that was most certainly to be served to the guests after the lengthy service. But, when he realized where his thoughts were taking him, he recalled the need for repentance and quickly did so, trying hard to focus on the priceless words of the Domine who seemed to be particularly animated in his gestures from the wooden pulpit.
3
The Snake river’s deep blue water flowed from the high Rockies of western Wyoming above Jackson lake, through the river plains of southern Idaho, through the aptly named Hells Canyon of eastern Oregon, and crossed into the Palouse’s rolling wheatland hills of southeast Washington. The breaks of the Snake, thirty miles from the river’s entry into the Palouse, rise 2000 feet or more above the now placid water. A series of dams broadened the river, generated power for the growing citizenry of the Pacific Northwest, and provided a watery highway for the produce of the region’s farms, especially the tons of wheat grown on the endless golden hills.
At least they were gold in late fall when Rob arrived for the annual deer hunt. The summer wheat had been harvested and stored in large silos at places like Big Bend Ferry. From there it would be loaded onto large barges, guided gently down river, through the confluence with the mighty Columbia at Tri-Cities, then down the Columbia to be loaded onto ships headed for South East Asian ports. Ramen shops by the tens of thousands and noodle lovers by the millions would soon be enjoying the fruits of the hours on massive farm machinery spent by the now few farmers who drew the grain from this dry ground.
Climbing out of one of the remaining small canyons before arriving at the precipice that was his destination, Rob again sought a comfortable resting spot. His sixty four years were weighing on him, but this was not so much about rest as memories. He thought again of his Grandpa Rude. Some of Rob’s earliest and fondest memories were of Grandpa coming back from his fall hunting trip with a pickup loaded with venison and at least two, sometimes three, more mule or white tail heads with magnificent antlers. Smaller ones, those with three tines on each side, would be sawn from the head and mounted on a carefully prepared varnished board and added to the collection in Grandpa’s machine shed and shop. The heads of true trophy animals would be sent to the taxidermist in Bryburn or the nearby village of Stanich to be skinned, mounted on forms and hung in the family room of the spacious farmhouse of Grandpa and Grandma Mollema.
No doubt, Rob thought, that a good part of going through the ritual for over fifty years tromping these hills in search of the ever more elusive game was to make his Grandpa proud. When Grandpa’s dementia and failing strength no longer allowed him to make the annual trek, Rob felt a great swell of pride when a large buck was stopped in his tracks by Rob’s 30-06 rifle, field dressed, opened up for cooling and then loaded onto the back of his pickup. Grandpa will be pleased, he thought. Grandpa had given him the rifle that had earned a favored spot in the mahogany gun cabinet for the number of trophy bucks it had brought down. Grandpa was indeed proud of Rob when shown the head, although none matched up to the ones in Grandpa’s memory, of course, as Grandpa was quick to point out. But, the mounted head held a place of honor in Rob and Caroline’s house serving to remind him each time he looked at it of Grandpa and the feeling of joy when he knew he had earned his praise.
Yes, Rob thought, making Grandpa proud was important, maybe one of the most important things. The pain of that overwhelmed him making him feel claustrophobic like under a heavy blanket that had no edge or opening. He felt nothing but Grandpa’s shame and sorrow. Good thing he is gone. He wouldn’t have been able to stand this. Selling the cows? Unthinkable. Some of those were direct descendants of the cows and bulls that had been Grandpa Rude’s pride a joy. Then, all the cows had names. Bessie. June. Ruth. Marge. The bulls, too. Sam. Gomer. Rob’s head hung low and the tears would have flowed once more if they hadn’t dried out by over use. He couldn’t cry anymore. But he could feel the dark cloud closing in. Like many times in the last few months that cloud had oppressed him to the point that nothing could ease the pain. Nothing. Except.
Rob stared at the crusted rocks at his feet. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked out down the boulder and scrub strewn canyon down to the dark blue river below. Yes, there was no answer, no hope, nothing but pain and darkness ahead. He had no choice, he really had no choice. No choice, no choice. He slowly pulled himself up, using Grandpa’s old Remington 30-06 as a cane and looked up the steep canyon ahead.
4
Rob met Caroline at Steward Community College. Rob took the word throwing literally as they sat side by side in ceramics class learning how to “throw” a pot or plate on the rapidly spinning wheel. Caroline looked up a bit annoyed as she felt a small clump of clay land on her arm. She caught the glint in Rob’s eye as he tried to stifle a laugh while pretending to concentrate on the awkward lump spinning in his hands, Her frown turned to a smile. He looked up, and later, when she asked for some help in throwing her pot he had come behind her and reached around with both arms to guide her hands gently on the clay. Years later, he still thought about the soft feel and scent of her free flowing light brown hair.
He asked her out to dinner at a seafood restaurant he could not really afford. Steward was “the city” to Rob and most everyone from the farm country up north including Bryburn. With a population of 45,000 and smoke stacks, movie theaters, a community college and state college, it represented exciting sophistication to Rob. Caroline did, too. Her father was an executive at the pulp mill that dominated the waterfront of Steward. Over fresh Steward Bay oysters and local king salmon, Rob learned a bit about life in the upper echelons of Steward society.
“My dad grew up in Chicago,” Caroline explained. “Graduated in finance from the University of Chicago and worked as an accountant for an investment company. Big downtown highrise. You ever been to Chicago?”
“Me? Are you kidding?” Rob laughed. “My family doesn’t stray too far from the farm in Bryburn. We did go to Seattle once or twice though.” A moment later he realized how pathetic that sounded. No way could he pretend to be what he was not. Country boy, that’s all, he thought but did not say.
“I’ve got a lot of family in Chicago yet,” Caroline went on. “My grandma is there, uncles and aunts, bunch of cousins. We’re flying over on Christmas.”
“Haven’t been on a plane, either,” said Rob. No sense hiding his was a different world.
“Tell me about the farm,” Caroline asked, sensing his discomfort.
“It’s not much, really,” Rob demurred. “We’re milking about 80 cows, plus of course the heifers and calves.”
“Eighty? Wow, that’s a big farm,” Caroline was genuinely impressed.
“Not really, about average I guess. Keeps us busy, though.”
“What made you decide to come to community college? Does it have a farming program?”
“Oh heck, no,” Rob said quickly, “Well, they have a good mechanics program which comes in handy on the farm and a pre-vet program but I’m not interested in any of that. I want out of Bryburn, off the farm. I tend to like the big city.” He hoped that gave her some reassurance.
Caroline’s dad, Richard Burns, had no qualms about the strapping young cityboy wannabe. Their strong friendship helped overcome some of the ups and downs of the courtship of the distinctly different couple. Caroline was self-assured. Rob was not. Caroline was lighthearted, optimistic, outgoing. Rob was not. They fought, dated others, but then came back to each other.
“We have to stop this,” Rob said firmly, as they sat together in Rob’s Dodge muscle car near the top of Alistair mountain.
“What do you mean?” Caroline asked, fearing the worst.
“I mean this on again, off again, fighting then makeup nonsense.”
There was silence. Caroline felt an emptiness, sensing that he was saying goodbye for good this time.
“I want to marry you,” he said. “You know I can’t be without you. I’ve tried, but I can’t.”
She looked at him, tears welling, melted into his arms.
5
It was another half mile to Rob’s destination, the rocky outcropping where chukkars loved to nest. The dropoff here was steep. Most of the breaks above the river were steep and rock strewn. Climbable, but only with a great deal of effort. More than once Rob had spotted a buck worthy of taking and brought it down with a single, carefully placed shot. Sliding down the scrabble, the unfortunate animal would tumble until coming to rest at the bottom of a draw where the brush grew. If no other hunters were around to hail, Rob would make the slipperly, dangerous hike down to field dress it and begin the process of cutting off the usable meat, place it in the game bags he carried in his backpack and start the slow, treacherous climb out. A few years earlier the buck he spotted was a true trophy. It had run more than halfway down the steep canyon. Fortunately, a friend of one of the hunters in his group knew a farmer from the nearby town of Dusty who had a boat. That meant that the deer could be dragged downhill rather than up, all the way to the bottom where the river met the rocky shore and load the precious catch in the boat and from there into camp.
But, the top of the cliff that Rob had made his destination was different. A straight drop of two to three hundred feet, then large boulders, more steep drop until it finally began to level off with another fifteen hundred feet of rugged canyon before reaching the river below. It was dizzying. Nothing could survive a fall from that spot. Almost three months ago, in the gloomy days of that dreadful summer, Rob had recalled this place and formed his plan. Now, with less than a half mile to go, he struggled to continue on, struggled to summon the courage he needed to take the next step to freedom.
Caroline would be devastated, and yet Rob felt in the darkness that was his existence, that it was for the best for her. Not just for her, but for Robbie and Mark as well. The first years of their marriage were everything he ever dreamed they could be. Caroline went on to the state university in Steward, earning her degree in psychology. Rob left the community college after they got married and took a job in Steward working at a furniture store assembling furniture and delivering it around the county. During his off hours he sculpted. Starting with small soapstone carvings, he graduated to large pieces of cherry wood and even made a few clay models he hoped one day he could turn into bronzes when he could afford the foundry costs. He most admired Henry Moore’s soft, round shapes reminiscent of human forms but with curves and openings that left a feeling of both familiarity and a strange emptiness. Something in them resonated deep in him, and he worked hard at capturing that feeling in his own carvings and clay models.
They lived in a small apartment above a clothing store on the busiest shopping street in Steward. From their window, they could see the constant traffic, watch the shoppers, and dream about a future that seemed open and endless. As Caroline was just finishing her degree, a year and a half after their wedding at the Steward First Presbyterian church, she found she was pregnant. Robbie was born and life started to get a bit more serious for the couple. Rob found life in the big city of Steward a little less thrilling than he thought, especially since the arrival of a nine pound baby boy meant Caroline’s part time job had to come to an end and raising a family by putting dining tables and china cabinets together wasn’t going to cut it. Then Bob Mollema, Rob’s dad was found to have a heart condition that left the family uncertain about the farm. Rob’s three sisters had married by that time and none of them or their husbands were inclined to take on the farm. One had married a Bryburn farm boy and they were in the process of taking over his dad’s farm. They couldn’t help with the Mollema farm too.
It was a time when Rob and Caroline were feeling the pinch and Rob wondered where life would take him. The furniture store was no ticket to the kind of life he imagined in Steward or even Seattle. He shuddered at the thought of going door to door in the busy streets of Seatte looking for work. He should have finished getting a degree, he should have focused on a career instead of sculpture, shoulda woulda coulda. Instead, he was back in the barn milking cows.
The farm had grown a bit and now boasted 150 Holsteins. Bob had inherited the farm from Grandpa Rude and had found a passion in selective breeding of cows to increase production. The result was one of the best herds of the black and white producers in the county, a fact that made Bob very proud. But Rob did not share that passion or for any other aspect of dairy farm life. Still, he knew that returning to the farm was the right thing for him to do, certainly for his mom and dad but also to provide a life he wanted for his own family. They rented a small house just outside of Bryburn about four miles from the farm. Caroline settled into the new home but drove into Steward once a week or more to visit with friends from high school, community college and her university days. The occasional times she came into the steamy barn during milking times she made it clear that the life of a farmer’s wife was not quite what she had in mind. Still, there were good days. Haying in the summer was a highlight and even Caroline enjoyed driving the tractor holding young Robbie while the men hoisted the heavy bales of hay onto the slowly moving hay wagon.
It won’t take her long to find someone, Rob reassured himself. She will breathe a sigh of relief. Finally get off the farm. Be free, finally do some of those things she really wanted to do. Still, an overwhelming regret came over him. The hurt and pain of the most horrible days of his life came over him, but with that strong remembrance came the sorrowful realization that he had never really forgiven. Something had held him back. Something kept them apart, quiet, lonely in their own isolation. Sure, he could blame her. It was she that had made the fateful choice, not him. She had broken the sacred marriage vows, not him. But, she was broken by it, terribly broken. He knew his own preoccupations, insensitivity, living in his own disappointments and frustrations had contributed to her growing interest in the former university boyfriend who paid her the attention she craved. He knew she was looking for more than he was giving. Yes, he could have given more, paid closer attention. Still, it was a heartbreak he could never quite get past. Now, he knew as he never knew before that the coldness in his heart had prevented the love they held for each other from blossoming into the shared life they both so desperately wanted. Why could he not forgive her? Why the hardness? Why did he not really try to get past the pain he carried. Selfish? He was willing to forgive now. He so wanted another crack at it. But, he took another step forward. Now was too late. Too late. She will be free, relieved.
6
The young Dutch immigrant dairy farmer, Rude, with his lovely new banker’s daughter bride, Kristina, settled easily into the farming life of the 1920s in Bryburn. With the generous help of father-in-law Bernie Boerdewyk, Rude and Kristina were able to purchase a small farm of 40 acres and soon were milking 24 Holsteins. A year after the wedding, the first of five children came along. Following the long established Dutch tradition of naming children after grandparents, the first was named Robert, an approximation of Rude’s father’s and his own name of Roel. It would have been Rude junior except Kristina had objected considering that she didn’t want a son to be called impolite or offensive, even if her husband was. She didn’t like the idea of anything that sounded country bumpkinish. Another “rude” farmer was too much.
There never was a question, either in the parent’s or the son’s mind about what the future was for him. He would assume the farm. Primogeniture was alive and well in this small Northwestern town, rooted deep in European habits despite the thousands of miles of distance. With the assumption of the farm also came the assumption of primary care for elderly parents. Bob, as Robert would soon be known, was nothing if not dutiful in all he did. But, like his dad, the blood of generations of dairy farming flowed deep in his veins. Kristina carried him into the barn every late afternoon for milking time. The rhythms of dairy life were deeply set in his soul from the early mornings in all kinds of weather, to the midnight watches as a new calf was brought into the world, sometimes with the help of Rude and a chain.
With three young, strong sons to help out on the farm, the Rude Mollema dairy grew into one of the largest in the fertile Tsanni river valley. Bob’s early interest in the genetics and selective breeding of the tall and strong Holsteins had helped create not just one of the largest, but one of the most handsome and productive herds in the region. He did his research and talked Rude into spending a lot of money on a bull calf with the genes needed to produce new generations of cows that would top the scales in milk production. The investment paid off handsomely not only in building the much more productive herd on the Mollema farm, but through the servicing fees as more enlightened farmers from around the area brought top producing cows to the Mollema farm to spend some quality time with Buster, the very busy bull.
Bob Mollema was smart, cantankerous, innovative, opinionated, tender and generous. Rob loved his father deeply, and respected him, but the two could never find a way to get along. Bob was very hard working and fully dedicated to the farm. Rob’s mind and attention would wander and he would dream of life outside of Bryburn and of doing things that had nothing to do with cows, milk, manure, silage, or anything farmy.
The worst came when Rob was seventeen and Bob was president of the National Holstein Breeders Association. His strength, vision and success in building one of the best herds in the nation had earned him the top spot in the prestigious group of mostly Dutch farmers from across the country. While he was away at the annual convention held in Wisconsin, Rob had made a momentous decision. The farm was not for him. He had other thoughts, other dreams and it would start with attending Steward Community College, getting his Associates degree, then going on to the university either in the big city of Seattle or maybe the smaller city of Steward. Then he would figure out what life would be for him, but it sure wouldn’t be the farm.
Rob chose his dad’s return from the national convention to inform him. He did not know at the time that the reason his dad had returned with a kind of sadness and anger he hadn’t seen in him before was that instead of being elected for a second term as president as most were, he was replaced by a farmer from Chino, California. His pushyness in trying to get changes made in breeding standards had rubbed too many members the wrong way. They wanted someone who went along to get along and that definitely was not Bob Mollema.
“Farm too good for you, then?” Bob asked his nervous son, the derision and anger dripping from the question.
“No Dad, it’s not too good for me, it’s just that, I don’t know, it just doesn’t sound like it is where I want to spend my life. There’s other things out there, you know.”
“No, I guess I don’t. Too stupid, I guess. Too stupid like Grandpa Rude and my grandpa Roel and his dad Jilt and his dad.”
Rob didn’t say it, but it was that very weight of mutiple generations of proud Dutch dairy farmers that entailed a burden he couldn’t endure. Now his dad was piling on him the very pressures that made him want to escape and find another way. Maybe, Rob thought, but didn’t say, if Dad wasn’t such a damn good farmer I would have a chance of making something of this.
Then, less than five years after that angry conversation in the new and brightly lit milking parlor of the Mollema Farms dairy, Rob had returned home to take over the farm.
“You sure about this?” Bob had asked from his yellow leather Lazyboy recliner. He was recovering from open heart surgery and still wore the pallor of the disease.
“Very sure, Dad,” Rob had assured him. “I can make it work. Caroline is all for it and we both want to raise Robbie and whoever else may come along on the farm.”
“Not much time for sculpture or whatever else you’ve been fiddling with,” Bob said sullenly. Yet, he felt a deep relief. Maybe, just maybe a miracle would happen and Rob would be able to continue the legacy. Maybe.
“Oh, I might find some time in between chores,” Rob said cheerily. Then the two got into a conversation about the two cows that had come down with mastitis, which cows were due to be dried up, the stats on the genetics of the sire Bob had selected for the next round of artificial insemination, where the price of milk was going, and the infernal politics of the dairy cooperative where they sold their milk.
7
The Mollema Farms dairy was now on the auction block. As Rob drew himself up heavily from the basalt rock where he had rested, his thoughts moved from the sorrow and regret of what had become of his marriage, to the upcoming cattle auction. It was just three weeks away. With the advertising of the auction in the Capital Press, the whole world had become aware that Bob Mollema’s son, that Rude Mollema’s grandson, had taken one of the best farms in the state and run it into the ground.
Sure, there were tough times in the dairy business. The price for milk had tanked in 2014 and caught any farm ill-prepared for the downturn in a tough position. Others had sold, mostly the smaller farms who had sold either their whole operation or their cows to the larger farmers who were in a position to take one more even when times were tough. It’s how the rich get richer, the big get bigger, Rob thought with more resignation than bitterness. Rob had tried hard to sell the Mollema Farms dairy as an operating farm, but he had been a bit late to the table. Those few farmers in the area who had been in any position to expand given the uncertainties of the global market had already jumped.
“Another stupid mistake,” he thought as he took another step toward the edge. If he had only moved quicker to sell the farm, he might have prevented some of the shame and guilt that fell on him as the whole Bryburn community talked about how the Mighty Mollemas had fallen. And, he wouldn’t have gotten the letter. Now, the price of cows had also tumbled, down to almost half of what they were just a year earlier. The global milk glut fueled by ever increasing productivity of cows and the decline of liquid milk sales as consumers shifted to nut “milk” and other so-called healthier and more humane replacements had turned these highly productive producers into nothing more than MacDonald’s quarter pounders.
Rob shook his whole body in an effort to try to rid himself of the thoughts that had driven him to this march. It was no good. The bitter memories clung to him like the Palouse mud after a fall rain. Then, he thought, it’s just as well so that I have no hesitations about what he needed to do. It was the constant hovering of his dad. Too ill to do much actual farm work, he never lost his passion for or interest in the farm and never wavered in his conviction that his son was not and never would be up to the challenge. It was the threatened lawsuit by Rob’s sister to share equally in the value of the farm as the transition in ownership was underway. Rob felt the bitter taste remembering how his mother had pushed against Bob’s better judgment in a desire to be “fair” to Rob’s sisters. This meant that not only did he have to make monthly checks out to his dad and mom, but also to his three sisters. For more than eighteen months now those checks meant that he was going deeper and deeper in debt. When he talked to them, begged them for some relief given the tough conditions, he only got a little wiggle room, and only for a time.
What weighed on him more than these difficulties, was the awareness of his own failings as a farmer. There had been good times. Times when the bank was pretty much paid off and excess cash in the bank. Others had bought more land and added cows. In these days of heavily regulated dairy farming, the state required sufficient acreage to apply your “nutrients,” formally known as shit, to the fields at the right time of year. So to expand, it wasn’t just about building a bigger barn or adding a carousel milking parlor to decrease labor and become more efficient, you had to get more land, too. But Rob had opted to take the family to Disneyland. For a moment he felt something like a hint of sunshine peeking behind a horribly dark cloud as he thought of that time with Caroline, Robbie and Mark. Good times, he thought. But then he remembered how Dad had come down on him and how he realized he was the talk of Bryburn Cafe. He knew they said he was no Bob Mollema, and wondered if he had what it takes to make it as a farmer. Same thing with the new Silverado he bought. Sure, he couldn’t afford it, but how would he know that the price for milk was about to tumble?
Then there was Robbie. Try as he might not to repeat what irritated him about his dad, he could not avoid wanting one of his sons to take over the farm, particularly Robbie. After all, there was that Dutch dairy legacy to uphold. Rob was all too aware of how his dad had put unspoken pressure on him and he was intent not to do the same to his sons. Like in Rob’s earlier days, Robbie and Mark had taken to farm life like hungry cows to spring grass. They revelled in the seasons from helping break the ice in the water trough during the occasional northeaster frost and blizzard, to chopping sileage and bucking bales in the long summer evenings. Now, haylage bales replaced the joys of the favored summer ritual making many of the green fields surrounding Bryburn look like giant marshmallow farms.
Robbie had shown every sign of interest in the farm, taking up both the animal care and field work with enthusiasm. Things had changed since Rob was the young buck on the farm. By the time Robbie left for Canon College, the farm had grown to over 1400 cows with twelve employees. Cows were now housed in large, open sided barns called loafing sheds. Dairy regulations passed by Washington state in the late 1990s prevented water pollution by keeping cows far from streams and allowing application of the manure as nutrients to the fields growing forage crops only when the growing crops could take up the nutrients and when lower rainfall limited flow into the ditches and streams. In the 1970s farmers became aware of the issues of nitrogen, nitrate, fecal coliform and other potential ways to harm water quality. Manure lagoons used to store the large volume of near liquid manure had come into vogue. In Bob’s day, automated scrapers would push the manure from the milking barn into a spreader which was then pulled behind ever larger tractors and applied to fields whenever the spreader was full. Sure, in the late winter or early spring, the tractor could get stuck in the deep mud but get the other tractor to pull it out and you’re good to go. Now, with severe restrictions on how much and when to deliver the nutrients to the fields, manure was stored through the late fall into spring in the large lagoons. Not like it used to be, Bob would shake his increasingly feeble head.
In the last ten years of his farming life, Rob spent more and more time behind a computer screen. Yeah, he thought ruefully, as he continued the slow climb, I had to have the latest computer. Most had old PCs, but he needed the big screen iMac. Part of my creative side, he rationalized at the time. Now, he just saw the purchases as one more example of his negligence in taking care of business. The screens showed him an unending flow of data. He could see the health and productivity of every one of his cows, see when their temperature was off or production was lagging. Other screens showed the status of his farm loans, balance sheets, expenses and net equity. Thinking now on this long walk about all these “improvements” made him long for the “olden days” when worries were focused on when the spring rains would let up enough to get into the fields.
8
Robbie had come into the life of the young married couple at a less than opportune time. Caroline was within a few months of completing her degree in psychology at Steward University and working late afternoons and evenings at the Grapevine, a popular cafe and bar on Juniper Street in downtown Steward. The strapping nine pound baby had brought a whole new dimension to Rob’s life. Though he never doubted children in his future, he never had imagined what it meant to hold his own son in his arms. Helpless and strong, a totally new and separate being but yet one whose heart beat in Rob’s own chest, or so he felt. He couldn’t imagine life without his son and dreamed in those days while assembling furniture of being together, hunting together, even working together on the farm. No doubt, the thought of raising Robbie and any others who might follow him in the fields and woods of the Mollema farm was a major reason why, when his dad became ill, the idea of returning to the farm pulled on him.
Robbie called from the small Dutch Reformed college in Iowa.
“Dad?”
“Robbie, hey, good to hear from you, haven’t heard for a while, how you doing?” Rob had answered with some relief. Robbie had been very quiet for the last few weeks.
“Dad, I, uh, I need to talk to you.”
“Go ahead, Robbie,” Rob tensed, sensing something was up.
“Uh, you know about Jennifer,” Robbie sounded nervous and hesitant.
“Yeah, you’ve been dating, right?”
“Yeah, for a couple, I mean a few months now.”
“So, how’s it going?”
“Great, yeah, I mean, yeah, just great. But, uh,” Robbie hesitated. Rob waited.
“Well, it looks like you’re going to be a grandpa,” Robbie blurted.
Rob was stunned. Silence. Thoughts tumbling. Grandpa. That’s not the way you were raised. Marriage first. What were you thinking? Didn’t he learn anything in church? Damn, why did I think going off to college was a good idea. What is Caroline going to say?
“Well,” Rob said after what seemed minutes of silence, “Congratulations are in order, I guess. When are we going to meet this Jennifer?”
“You don’t sound too happy about it, dad,” Robbie had pretty much expected this response from his dad.
“Well, you know, I guess I’m pretty old fashioned but you know what we believe about marriage. You are getting married, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, oh yeah, Jen’s folks are really cool about it, get along great with them. Jen’s dad has a big electrical engineering business and he offered me a job, really good job.” Robbie blurted it out.
“Well, congrats on that, too, Robbie. That can help you guys out until you finish school and come back to the farm.”
“I guess that’s what I need to tell you dad,” Robbie again sounded nervous. “I don’t think I’ll be coming back to the farm. I mean Jen is really tight with her family and really wants to stay here in Iowa and her dad is helping me get through school in engineering and thinks I’d be perfect for his business, it really seems a great opportunity.”
In the weeks following, Rob grieved over a son lost to him forever. He wanted so much to be happy for him, to see him thrive in this new and very different world. But something was lost that no matter how he hard he tried, he could not recover. Hope, and future expectations were now missing where they had provided a bright release before. Unlike Robbie, Mark had never shown much interest in the farm and getting him to do chores was itself a chore. Four years younger than Robbie, Mark was in high school when Robbie made his move to Iowa permanent. Academically, Mark was the star of the family, like his mom. But it was clear that it was academics that interested him, not farm work. He would be a teacher and writer and Rob knew with Robbie’s decision, the Mollema farm would end with him.
After that, the motivation he had to keep up the farm, keep up with the changes needed to ensure its future, melted like a late March snowfall. The Silverado was a consolation prize, he thought at the time, trying to rationalize a decision he knew down deep was irrational. Maybe, he thought now in the clarity of the Snake river canyon air, that that decision, like other foolish ones he made were a kind of death wish. A desire for it all to be over. What reason to go on? Robbie was doing well, very well. The three grandkids in Iowa he got to see once a year. Mark landed a lecture position at Steward University in political science. Yeah, his politics were way off base, but what do you expect with all that time in the university? What hope was there really. Better for it to be over and done with. The auction will close it all off for good.
9
He had kissed Caroline goodbye and she had clung to him as if she sensed his determination. Even in that embrace, he felt a coldness in his gut like a fist squeezing nothing.
“Be careful, hon,” she said with eyes welling.
“Sure, sure, don’t worry,” he said. It was not reassuring.
The six hour drive by himself in the Silverado gave him plenty of time to think. He tried to pray. He’d been trying to pray for weeks now and if ever it felt there was a solid dark ceiling over his head, it was when he prayed, or tried to. The Dutch Christian Reformed Church was the foundation of his life as it was for Bob, Rude and all the Mollema’s and in-laws before him. It was the rock, the still point, the solid ground. Loyalty and dedication were expected, particularly if one did not want to run afoul of the coffee crowd at the Bryburn Cafe.
He had found consolation in his faith, in the Church, and even a time or two felt that he was connected in some way to God. He could pray and feel that a loving presence heard and cared. Those memories clung to him but only added to his pain of feeling now the complete emptiness of the sky and heaven above him. Suicide, he knew, was a great and possibly unforgiveable sin. But what did that even matter if the sky was empty? If there was a God and he did love him and die for him as he had been told for over sixty years, then certainly He would understand what was going on and have some mercy. Mercy, he wanted to scream. Have some mercy! The pain was overwhelming. Didn’t God know that? Didn’t he care about that? If he did, why the hell didn’t He relieve him of some of it? But, yes, then there were those things that he did to bring this on. He could have done better. Maybe if he’d been a little more serious about the Church, like attending Sunday evening services more often, then just maybe Robbie wouldn’t have gotten Jen pregnant and maybe he would have come back and taken over. He could have done better with his kids, taught them more how important the Church was, even God. He knew that the hurt he had endured from Caroline’s unfaithfulness had frozen a part of his soul that it had never really thawed. He could have done more to heal the wounds. Grace, grace. He had been given it, but why had held it from others, and Caroline especially? Maybe, Rob thought, if he hadn’t gotten so discouraged he would have made some different decisions, invested in more land, bought more cows, maybe even put in some of those new robot milkers to cut down on labor costs. Those labor costs were killing him. Every time he’d get a good milker they took another job. Had to keep raising their pay. How in the world can you make it today? You gotta have 3000 cows or more if you’re going to keep the farm going. How the heck did this happen? How did the world get so cockeyed?
Then there was the letter. If the clouds overhead had seemed dark before, when the letter came, it felt like those clouds turned to wet dirt and dropped on his head by the truckload. Johnnie Argus was the San Fransisco attorney who had discovered the Washington federal courts were lined up with the Ninth Circuit Court and looked favorably on so-called citizen lawsuits allowed under federal environmental laws. He had sued a dozen dairy farms, causing several to sell their cows or even the whole farm. Others had spent thousands to hundreds of thousands on insurance, legal fees, settlements and needless environmental “fixes.”. Those were big farms, mostly on the other side of the state. That jackass wouldn’t come after him, Rob assured himself. Yeah, he had a pollution citation on his record, but hardly his fault. That old pump failed and dumped a hundred gallons of liquid manure into a ditch. Got into the Berkside creek before he noticed and shut it off. Criminy, you lose a few fish to an old pump and it practically makes national news. He reported the spill himself, cleaned it up immediately, and the Department came out. No penalty, but a citation on his record. A report in the Steward Record. They never missed an opportunity to give a farmer a black eye. And Jackass Argus was pulling records on anyone who had any sort of spill. Let a few drops of manure in a stream, and it’s enough for him to come after you.
The letter came with its 60 day notice of intent to sue. He had to hire a lawyer. The lawyer said best way was to settle, but Argus wouldn’t settle for anything other than lining his manure lagoons with new liners or other measures designed to take his farm out. How much would that cost? At least a million. And that’s if you settle. Not counting legal fees. How much would those be. Another quarter million to defend yourself and to pay off Argus. Pay him off? All that jackass wants to do is push all our farms out of business. Seems to have a thing about animal agriculture, wants every body to think he’s saving the world. I’d rather give that money to just about anyone else. That is, if I had it. And I don’t. No choice. Want to take it to court like the Reckridge Dairy over there in Tri-Cities? Cost them half a million to defend and they still lost in federal court in Spokane. Or you could just go out of business.
Or you could just go out of business.
Decision made. Auction date set. Three weeks after hunting season, after I get home. Except. Not coming home.
10
Rob’s knees were shaking climbing the last hundred yards to the edge. His mind started with crazy twists and turns and he stumbled, feeling he might fall. His boots felt like they were weighted with mud though the October rocky ground was dry. A question that had come into his mind frequently the last week or so now forced its way to the front. Fall backwards, or forwards? What would look most like an accident? It needed to be an accident. Caroline might suspect otherwise but she’d take comfort in the insistence of others it had to be an accident. Forwards? He’d see the rocks two or three hundred feet below rushing up. Backwards, and it would only be the blue sky with the wispy clouds. Beautiful, peaceful, painless blue sky. Would he rise up into that sky, or find himself in a dark tunnel, or know nothing at all? Nothingness would be peace, better than this dark, cold pain that pushed him on toward the edge. Or, he hardly dared think it, would he find himself embraced in those loving arms? He held a glimmer of hope, despite the silent sky. Only one way to find out.
Life review some called it. What people who almost died or thought they died experienced. Their whole life flashing by them in minutes, no seconds, or nano seconds. Time compressed so they could see everything at once. Time without time. Would he watch his life pass by him as the wind rushed up? Pushing his heavy legs forward the last few yards, he saw that life in bits and pieces, jumbled, unorganized, but rich and heavy with memories joyous and horrible. Grandpa Rude teaching him the farm as a five year old. Dad and Mom taking him and sisters on family camping trips to the Canadian lakes. Walking out to the back forty in search of the fox family that dug a den in a pasture hillside. Shooting ducks with Grandpa and Dad. Falling in love with Caroline with all the joys and hopes of youth. Robbie born, holding him in his arms in wonder. Early spring morning watching the sun rise from the milking parlor. Moonlight on the mountain frozen in time. The light blending with darkness, then the pain of loss, of regret, of coldness, of an empty sky obliterating all memories and bringing him to the very edge.
He looked down. The sharp black volcanic rocks stood waiting as if to receive him and his darkened soul. The guys would know where to look. He had told them where he was going. They’d find him in hours, before dark, before the coyotes and ravens. Maybe not ravens.
He breathed deeply and sighed. One last time to pray. If You are here, forgive me. He turned around and edged backwards toward the dropoff. A noise to his right. Something in the brush just off the edge where the canyon began to flatten out. Seventy yards away, maybe eighty five. Out of the brush near the rim rose a massive four by five point mulie. Biggest he had ever seen. Bigger, he thought than Grandpa Rude shot in 1986, and that was a monster. He sucked in his breath. With more instinct than thought, he lifted Grandpa’s 30-06 slowly to his shoulder, centered the killspot above the buck’s shoulder in the scope and gently squeezed the trigger. He heard no sound, but saw the buck jump forward, up out of the canyon, and start to run up toward the wheat stubble. No more than fifty yards later, it dropped and he knew it was dead.
Rob let his breath go slowly, heavily. He stepped forward, then made a slow turn to look back over his shoulder to the edge and the rocks below. The ram. The ram in the thicket. Oh my God. My God. He dropped down to his knees, shaking and feeling a ripping and dragging, as if somehow the cloud that had wrapped him in darkness was being pulled from his skin, his brain, his spirit. His head dropped near the rocky dirt and he breathed loudly. Tears filled his eyes clouded his view when he finally lifted his head and looked up toward the dead trophy. The ram, the ram of Isaac, the gift of God.
He pulled himself up and felt the air lighter, cleaner, brighter than it was just moments ago. By the time he got to the still animal, he made a decision. Yes, when he got in cell range he would call her. Tell her how much he loved her. That all was good. There was no room left for frost.
By Gerald Baron
December 2019
1
The climb to the top was very familiar. Fifty two years ago as a young man he made his first trip out to the Snake river near the Washington-Idaho border in pursuit of deer. Memories were strong of that first trip as a twelve year old with his dad and grandpa Rude. The Palouse dryland wheat fields, so different from his own farm fields in northwest Washington, had captured him and each year he looked toward the fall return to these golden, endlessly rolling hills. This year, the longing was gone, replaced by a grim determination.
The area above the Snake river held both mule and white tail deer. While they shared the habitat, their defense mechanism against predators –– mostly hunters –– varied. Both mostly fed at night, doing their wandering during the dawn and dusk light. By nine or ten am on these shortening northern latitude days in October, they were bedded down or at least slowed their wandering. Mule deer, with their superior hearing through those large mule-like ears and excellent sense of smell and vision, usually chose a place where the scrubby foliage on a hillside would disguise them and where they had extensive views of the area. The way they faced would usually tell the hunter that the wind was blowing in their face as they relied on their acute sense of smell as well as great vision to alert them to the presence of danger.
Whitetails, on the other hand, were more flighty and depended on running rapidly away with their large white tails flying in the wind, sending a warning message to any other deer in the area that danger was near. Rather than relying on spotting danger far away, the whities would often find a small copse of trees or brush and hunker down for their rest throughout the day. Rob had found that even a scrawny bush or two at the bottom or side of a gentle draw could easily harbor a doe and fawn or two, while the harder to get to groups of trees and heavy brush at the bottom of the deepest canyons would be the preferred resting place of the white tail bucks. On the other hand, you never knew if one might jump up five yards in front of you as you walked through the once productive wheat fields now filled with a cover of grass and weeds called CRP.
Taking the slow walk up and across the steep draws was both familiar and strange to Rob. For a moment he would lapse into a forgetfulness that threatened to lighten the dark cloud that hovered over him and seemed to fill every cell of his body. There would be a feeling of lightness, of almost normalcy, and he would stop, look around and take in the view. Then, he remembered. Remembered why he was here. Remembered what brought him here. The dark cloud again deepened making even the blue sky and wispy cirrus clouds look ominous.
He labored up a steep draw, stopped to catch his breath and looked down into a bright red patch of sumac entering its fall glory. It was more out of habit than interest. All those years of searching these hidden valleys for the well hidden mules or flighty white tail had ingrained him the habit of scanning, focusing in, studying the minutest changes in color that might signal a hidden prize. Then, remembering his mission this year was different, he turned and continued up the ascending slope.
A few more draws to drop into and climb out of to arrive at the top. He wanted to hurry up and slow down at the same time. Last night was another night filled with half-sleep where he hovered between full wakefulness and a gray-dim darkness feeling the full weight of the burdens he now carried. Weeks of unsettled sleep and weight loss left him with little energy for the exertions of the climb. He rested on a black, crumbling rock near the bottom of the small canyon, feeling the sharp volcanic roughness in his hand. He had resisted his wife’s pleas for him to see the doctor. Doctor? What’s a doctor going to do to pay off his debts? How is a doctor going to help him save his farm? Will a doctor rip up that letter? He can give you some medication, she said. So I can feel good about putting myself and my family in this hole? So I can not care about shaming Dad and Gramps? No, no half-assed measures. To be free of this unendurable pain required more than a pill. With a pill I’d still have to get up in the morning and face what I cannot escape.
He picked himself up off the cold rock and forced his feet to move forward, up ever higher, toward the cliff.
2
Grandpa Rude Mollema started the Mollema dairy farm in Bryburn a couple of years after he arrived from The Netherlands in 1914. The twenty-two year old was the youngest of nine children and the small dairy farm in the northern province of Friesland had been turned over to his oldest brother, leaving him and his other siblings with uncertain prospects. With military service facing his future and difficulty in starting his own farm in the turbulent pre-war times in his country and village, the young man accepted the invitation of a cousin who lived in Bryburn to come and work on his dairy. His cousin, Frank Schoelma, suggested that with that income he’d earn working on his farm, young Rude could work toward setting up his own.
Roel, as he was known in Friesland, took the steamer over the rough Atlantic, arrived on Ellis Island and made his way by train to the fartherest corner of the country. Bryburn was a small farming village on the Tsanni river in northwest Washington state. Here a growing number of Dutch families, mostly from Friesland, had bet their futures on the moderate and wet climate, the rich soil and the small but growing and welcoming Dutch Christian Reformed church community. Dairy farming was in their blood. It was the only life most of them knew. Their fathers and great greats going back many generations had milked the large black and white Holsteins, grazing them in the rich, dark soil and wet, rainy conditions of northern Holland so similar to the land and climate where they now settled.
The tall and strong young farmer worked hard on the Schoelma’s farm and quickly settled into the life of Bryburn. Up at 4 am to gather up the 36 Holsteins his cousin milked. He milked them by hand, one by one, in the barn heated through the cold winter mornings by the grassy, frosty breath of the cows contentedly chewing in their stanchions. 7:30 was time a large breakfast of bacon, eggs and hotcakes, plus at least three cups of coffee with cream and sugar. Roel slowly adjusted to the American version of coffee, far weaker than what he was used to. The lack of caffeine per cup was made up for by drinking multiple cups rather than the tiny cup of thick, almost syrupy coffee he was used to back home.
After breakfast it was time to do all the farm chores including feeding the horses and calves, gathering the eggs from the 150 chickens, feeding the hogs, fixing up the few pieces of farm equipment, and repairing anything that needed repairing. It was also the time to clean the barn and haul out the manure. This involved scraping the manure made soupy by the cows’ urine into the gutter and pushing it all to the door at the end of the smallish barn. After that, he scooped the very smelly slop into a wheelbarrow, then up a slippery ramp into the horse drawn manure spreader. Rude had to wonder at times about all the new fangled inventions that the American farmers used. In Holland, the manure was carried out in a small wagon to the fields and spread about by hand. This American manure spreader’s geared wheels turned a spiked wheel at the back of the wagon that flung the wet, goopy mess onto the fields. In winter, the manure added to the mud created by cows grazing what was left of the summer grass in the inundated fields. In November, when the northeast wind came from the bitter cold interior of BC, it brought with them flocks of ducks, geese and even a few swans who fled the frozen tundra of northern Canada and Alaska to make their home in the warmer climate of northern Puget Sound. A welcome sight, especially to Rude who loved hunting, they added to the manure and mud in the fields that flowed into the ditches built to help drain them during the long, wet winter months.
Rude found a welcome home in the First Christian Reformed Church in Bryburn. Sunday was the one day of the week that interrupted the routine of farm life. It was a welcome respite. The ten am morning service and two pm afternoon service was centered on a sermon that often dragged out almost an hour. He rode the four miles into town sitting on the fragrant hay in the back of the Schoelma’s wagon. More and more these sturdy and reliable vehicles were being replaced by the horseless carriage. Rude thought them senseless and even offensive with the clouds of oily smoke, noisy backfiring and dangerous speeds. But, he thought, if he had one of those he wouldn’t have to clean all the hay off his Sunday best clothes before climbing up the steps to enter the church.
The lengthy and dense sermons were served up well done in the Frisian language. This made them more tolerable to the young man as he was struggling to learn the language of his new country. Pastor, or rather Domine, Jansma served up sermons thick with Old Testament references, the politically-tinged theology of Abraham Kuyper and most of all the TULIP principles of strict Calvinism. The nasal twang of the earthy Frisian syllables created a longing in Rude that bordered on pain and panic sometimes as he felt the great distance between his new and old home. Home was family, familiarity. Bryburn offered a place, culture and values that was far closer to his own than he understood at the time. The oddities he found in this remote corner of the world were overcome by his near continual focus on having a farm of his own.
The pang of homesickness and loneliness began to disappear as he came to understand that Kristina was noticing his glances at her in church. A daughter of the prominent Boerdewyk family, Rude found her auburn hair braided and contained by a white lace cap, her somewhat distant and even haughty bearing, quick smile and laughing eyes quite amazing. He had a hard time keeping from looking at her seated with her large family on the other side of the center aisle. While Domine Jansma droned on about the need for repentance of all sins before entering the doors of the church on the monthly day of the Lord’s Supper, he glanced over at the young beauty. She caught his glance and he thought he caught a quick smile before turning her head quickly, raising her nose ever so slightly and furrowing her brow in pretended concentration on the finer points of repentance as explained by God-inspired John Calvin and his surrogate in the Bryburn pulpit.
The wedding was held in the sanctuary of the First Christian Reformed church and most of the church came. There were even a few members of the new church established a couple of years earlier, the Second Christian Reformed Church. Many friendships ended when a handful of families took exception to some of the teachings of Domine Jansma and decided it was time to start a new church that would be more faithful to the strict Calvinism that was for them the only certain path to forgiveness and eternal hope. Some thought that the errors taught at First were enough to make them part of the reprobate. The debate about the finer points of predestination and election echoed from the smoke-filled parlors of many parishioner’s homes on both sides of the debate.
Bernie Boerdewyk, Kristina’s banker father, was less than enamored with the strapping young Dutch farmer wannabe. He had hoped for a more promising future for his youngest daughter. But as the imperious banker got to know Rude and his strength of character and commitment to an independent life as a dairy farmer, he slowly warmed to him while warning him sternly about the financial realities of starting a farm in the unsettled world of the conflict in Europe that was threatening to draw in the US.
The ceremony of course featured an hour long sermon while the young couple stood facing the preacher and behind him the massive pipes of the church’s pride and joy pipe organ. Rude thought a time or too he would faint, but as he wavered he felt the strong arm of Kristina and turned his thoughts to post-ceremony activities. It was not the potato salad, ham buns and mints that he was thinking about, although that was most certainly to be served to the guests after the lengthy service. But, when he realized where his thoughts were taking him, he recalled the need for repentance and quickly did so, trying hard to focus on the priceless words of the Domine who seemed to be particularly animated in his gestures from the wooden pulpit.
3
The Snake river’s deep blue water flowed from the high Rockies of western Wyoming above Jackson lake, through the river plains of southern Idaho, through the aptly named Hells Canyon of eastern Oregon, and crossed into the Palouse’s rolling wheatland hills of southeast Washington. The breaks of the Snake, thirty miles from the river’s entry into the Palouse, rise 2000 feet or more above the now placid water. A series of dams broadened the river, generated power for the growing citizenry of the Pacific Northwest, and provided a watery highway for the produce of the region’s farms, especially the tons of wheat grown on the endless golden hills.
At least they were gold in late fall when Rob arrived for the annual deer hunt. The summer wheat had been harvested and stored in large silos at places like Big Bend Ferry. From there it would be loaded onto large barges, guided gently down river, through the confluence with the mighty Columbia at Tri-Cities, then down the Columbia to be loaded onto ships headed for South East Asian ports. Ramen shops by the tens of thousands and noodle lovers by the millions would soon be enjoying the fruits of the hours on massive farm machinery spent by the now few farmers who drew the grain from this dry ground.
Climbing out of one of the remaining small canyons before arriving at the precipice that was his destination, Rob again sought a comfortable resting spot. His sixty four years were weighing on him, but this was not so much about rest as memories. He thought again of his Grandpa Rude. Some of Rob’s earliest and fondest memories were of Grandpa coming back from his fall hunting trip with a pickup loaded with venison and at least two, sometimes three, more mule or white tail heads with magnificent antlers. Smaller ones, those with three tines on each side, would be sawn from the head and mounted on a carefully prepared varnished board and added to the collection in Grandpa’s machine shed and shop. The heads of true trophy animals would be sent to the taxidermist in Bryburn or the nearby village of Stanich to be skinned, mounted on forms and hung in the family room of the spacious farmhouse of Grandpa and Grandma Mollema.
No doubt, Rob thought, that a good part of going through the ritual for over fifty years tromping these hills in search of the ever more elusive game was to make his Grandpa proud. When Grandpa’s dementia and failing strength no longer allowed him to make the annual trek, Rob felt a great swell of pride when a large buck was stopped in his tracks by Rob’s 30-06 rifle, field dressed, opened up for cooling and then loaded onto the back of his pickup. Grandpa will be pleased, he thought. Grandpa had given him the rifle that had earned a favored spot in the mahogany gun cabinet for the number of trophy bucks it had brought down. Grandpa was indeed proud of Rob when shown the head, although none matched up to the ones in Grandpa’s memory, of course, as Grandpa was quick to point out. But, the mounted head held a place of honor in Rob and Caroline’s house serving to remind him each time he looked at it of Grandpa and the feeling of joy when he knew he had earned his praise.
Yes, Rob thought, making Grandpa proud was important, maybe one of the most important things. The pain of that overwhelmed him making him feel claustrophobic like under a heavy blanket that had no edge or opening. He felt nothing but Grandpa’s shame and sorrow. Good thing he is gone. He wouldn’t have been able to stand this. Selling the cows? Unthinkable. Some of those were direct descendants of the cows and bulls that had been Grandpa Rude’s pride a joy. Then, all the cows had names. Bessie. June. Ruth. Marge. The bulls, too. Sam. Gomer. Rob’s head hung low and the tears would have flowed once more if they hadn’t dried out by over use. He couldn’t cry anymore. But he could feel the dark cloud closing in. Like many times in the last few months that cloud had oppressed him to the point that nothing could ease the pain. Nothing. Except.
Rob stared at the crusted rocks at his feet. Slowly, he lifted his head and looked out down the boulder and scrub strewn canyon down to the dark blue river below. Yes, there was no answer, no hope, nothing but pain and darkness ahead. He had no choice, he really had no choice. No choice, no choice. He slowly pulled himself up, using Grandpa’s old Remington 30-06 as a cane and looked up the steep canyon ahead.
4
Rob met Caroline at Steward Community College. Rob took the word throwing literally as they sat side by side in ceramics class learning how to “throw” a pot or plate on the rapidly spinning wheel. Caroline looked up a bit annoyed as she felt a small clump of clay land on her arm. She caught the glint in Rob’s eye as he tried to stifle a laugh while pretending to concentrate on the awkward lump spinning in his hands, Her frown turned to a smile. He looked up, and later, when she asked for some help in throwing her pot he had come behind her and reached around with both arms to guide her hands gently on the clay. Years later, he still thought about the soft feel and scent of her free flowing light brown hair.
He asked her out to dinner at a seafood restaurant he could not really afford. Steward was “the city” to Rob and most everyone from the farm country up north including Bryburn. With a population of 45,000 and smoke stacks, movie theaters, a community college and state college, it represented exciting sophistication to Rob. Caroline did, too. Her father was an executive at the pulp mill that dominated the waterfront of Steward. Over fresh Steward Bay oysters and local king salmon, Rob learned a bit about life in the upper echelons of Steward society.
“My dad grew up in Chicago,” Caroline explained. “Graduated in finance from the University of Chicago and worked as an accountant for an investment company. Big downtown highrise. You ever been to Chicago?”
“Me? Are you kidding?” Rob laughed. “My family doesn’t stray too far from the farm in Bryburn. We did go to Seattle once or twice though.” A moment later he realized how pathetic that sounded. No way could he pretend to be what he was not. Country boy, that’s all, he thought but did not say.
“I’ve got a lot of family in Chicago yet,” Caroline went on. “My grandma is there, uncles and aunts, bunch of cousins. We’re flying over on Christmas.”
“Haven’t been on a plane, either,” said Rob. No sense hiding his was a different world.
“Tell me about the farm,” Caroline asked, sensing his discomfort.
“It’s not much, really,” Rob demurred. “We’re milking about 80 cows, plus of course the heifers and calves.”
“Eighty? Wow, that’s a big farm,” Caroline was genuinely impressed.
“Not really, about average I guess. Keeps us busy, though.”
“What made you decide to come to community college? Does it have a farming program?”
“Oh heck, no,” Rob said quickly, “Well, they have a good mechanics program which comes in handy on the farm and a pre-vet program but I’m not interested in any of that. I want out of Bryburn, off the farm. I tend to like the big city.” He hoped that gave her some reassurance.
Caroline’s dad, Richard Burns, had no qualms about the strapping young cityboy wannabe. Their strong friendship helped overcome some of the ups and downs of the courtship of the distinctly different couple. Caroline was self-assured. Rob was not. Caroline was lighthearted, optimistic, outgoing. Rob was not. They fought, dated others, but then came back to each other.
“We have to stop this,” Rob said firmly, as they sat together in Rob’s Dodge muscle car near the top of Alistair mountain.
“What do you mean?” Caroline asked, fearing the worst.
“I mean this on again, off again, fighting then makeup nonsense.”
There was silence. Caroline felt an emptiness, sensing that he was saying goodbye for good this time.
“I want to marry you,” he said. “You know I can’t be without you. I’ve tried, but I can’t.”
She looked at him, tears welling, melted into his arms.
5
It was another half mile to Rob’s destination, the rocky outcropping where chukkars loved to nest. The dropoff here was steep. Most of the breaks above the river were steep and rock strewn. Climbable, but only with a great deal of effort. More than once Rob had spotted a buck worthy of taking and brought it down with a single, carefully placed shot. Sliding down the scrabble, the unfortunate animal would tumble until coming to rest at the bottom of a draw where the brush grew. If no other hunters were around to hail, Rob would make the slipperly, dangerous hike down to field dress it and begin the process of cutting off the usable meat, place it in the game bags he carried in his backpack and start the slow, treacherous climb out. A few years earlier the buck he spotted was a true trophy. It had run more than halfway down the steep canyon. Fortunately, a friend of one of the hunters in his group knew a farmer from the nearby town of Dusty who had a boat. That meant that the deer could be dragged downhill rather than up, all the way to the bottom where the river met the rocky shore and load the precious catch in the boat and from there into camp.
But, the top of the cliff that Rob had made his destination was different. A straight drop of two to three hundred feet, then large boulders, more steep drop until it finally began to level off with another fifteen hundred feet of rugged canyon before reaching the river below. It was dizzying. Nothing could survive a fall from that spot. Almost three months ago, in the gloomy days of that dreadful summer, Rob had recalled this place and formed his plan. Now, with less than a half mile to go, he struggled to continue on, struggled to summon the courage he needed to take the next step to freedom.
Caroline would be devastated, and yet Rob felt in the darkness that was his existence, that it was for the best for her. Not just for her, but for Robbie and Mark as well. The first years of their marriage were everything he ever dreamed they could be. Caroline went on to the state university in Steward, earning her degree in psychology. Rob left the community college after they got married and took a job in Steward working at a furniture store assembling furniture and delivering it around the county. During his off hours he sculpted. Starting with small soapstone carvings, he graduated to large pieces of cherry wood and even made a few clay models he hoped one day he could turn into bronzes when he could afford the foundry costs. He most admired Henry Moore’s soft, round shapes reminiscent of human forms but with curves and openings that left a feeling of both familiarity and a strange emptiness. Something in them resonated deep in him, and he worked hard at capturing that feeling in his own carvings and clay models.
They lived in a small apartment above a clothing store on the busiest shopping street in Steward. From their window, they could see the constant traffic, watch the shoppers, and dream about a future that seemed open and endless. As Caroline was just finishing her degree, a year and a half after their wedding at the Steward First Presbyterian church, she found she was pregnant. Robbie was born and life started to get a bit more serious for the couple. Rob found life in the big city of Steward a little less thrilling than he thought, especially since the arrival of a nine pound baby boy meant Caroline’s part time job had to come to an end and raising a family by putting dining tables and china cabinets together wasn’t going to cut it. Then Bob Mollema, Rob’s dad was found to have a heart condition that left the family uncertain about the farm. Rob’s three sisters had married by that time and none of them or their husbands were inclined to take on the farm. One had married a Bryburn farm boy and they were in the process of taking over his dad’s farm. They couldn’t help with the Mollema farm too.
It was a time when Rob and Caroline were feeling the pinch and Rob wondered where life would take him. The furniture store was no ticket to the kind of life he imagined in Steward or even Seattle. He shuddered at the thought of going door to door in the busy streets of Seatte looking for work. He should have finished getting a degree, he should have focused on a career instead of sculpture, shoulda woulda coulda. Instead, he was back in the barn milking cows.
The farm had grown a bit and now boasted 150 Holsteins. Bob had inherited the farm from Grandpa Rude and had found a passion in selective breeding of cows to increase production. The result was one of the best herds of the black and white producers in the county, a fact that made Bob very proud. But Rob did not share that passion or for any other aspect of dairy farm life. Still, he knew that returning to the farm was the right thing for him to do, certainly for his mom and dad but also to provide a life he wanted for his own family. They rented a small house just outside of Bryburn about four miles from the farm. Caroline settled into the new home but drove into Steward once a week or more to visit with friends from high school, community college and her university days. The occasional times she came into the steamy barn during milking times she made it clear that the life of a farmer’s wife was not quite what she had in mind. Still, there were good days. Haying in the summer was a highlight and even Caroline enjoyed driving the tractor holding young Robbie while the men hoisted the heavy bales of hay onto the slowly moving hay wagon.
It won’t take her long to find someone, Rob reassured himself. She will breathe a sigh of relief. Finally get off the farm. Be free, finally do some of those things she really wanted to do. Still, an overwhelming regret came over him. The hurt and pain of the most horrible days of his life came over him, but with that strong remembrance came the sorrowful realization that he had never really forgiven. Something had held him back. Something kept them apart, quiet, lonely in their own isolation. Sure, he could blame her. It was she that had made the fateful choice, not him. She had broken the sacred marriage vows, not him. But, she was broken by it, terribly broken. He knew his own preoccupations, insensitivity, living in his own disappointments and frustrations had contributed to her growing interest in the former university boyfriend who paid her the attention she craved. He knew she was looking for more than he was giving. Yes, he could have given more, paid closer attention. Still, it was a heartbreak he could never quite get past. Now, he knew as he never knew before that the coldness in his heart had prevented the love they held for each other from blossoming into the shared life they both so desperately wanted. Why could he not forgive her? Why the hardness? Why did he not really try to get past the pain he carried. Selfish? He was willing to forgive now. He so wanted another crack at it. But, he took another step forward. Now was too late. Too late. She will be free, relieved.
6
The young Dutch immigrant dairy farmer, Rude, with his lovely new banker’s daughter bride, Kristina, settled easily into the farming life of the 1920s in Bryburn. With the generous help of father-in-law Bernie Boerdewyk, Rude and Kristina were able to purchase a small farm of 40 acres and soon were milking 24 Holsteins. A year after the wedding, the first of five children came along. Following the long established Dutch tradition of naming children after grandparents, the first was named Robert, an approximation of Rude’s father’s and his own name of Roel. It would have been Rude junior except Kristina had objected considering that she didn’t want a son to be called impolite or offensive, even if her husband was. She didn’t like the idea of anything that sounded country bumpkinish. Another “rude” farmer was too much.
There never was a question, either in the parent’s or the son’s mind about what the future was for him. He would assume the farm. Primogeniture was alive and well in this small Northwestern town, rooted deep in European habits despite the thousands of miles of distance. With the assumption of the farm also came the assumption of primary care for elderly parents. Bob, as Robert would soon be known, was nothing if not dutiful in all he did. But, like his dad, the blood of generations of dairy farming flowed deep in his veins. Kristina carried him into the barn every late afternoon for milking time. The rhythms of dairy life were deeply set in his soul from the early mornings in all kinds of weather, to the midnight watches as a new calf was brought into the world, sometimes with the help of Rude and a chain.
With three young, strong sons to help out on the farm, the Rude Mollema dairy grew into one of the largest in the fertile Tsanni river valley. Bob’s early interest in the genetics and selective breeding of the tall and strong Holsteins had helped create not just one of the largest, but one of the most handsome and productive herds in the region. He did his research and talked Rude into spending a lot of money on a bull calf with the genes needed to produce new generations of cows that would top the scales in milk production. The investment paid off handsomely not only in building the much more productive herd on the Mollema farm, but through the servicing fees as more enlightened farmers from around the area brought top producing cows to the Mollema farm to spend some quality time with Buster, the very busy bull.
Bob Mollema was smart, cantankerous, innovative, opinionated, tender and generous. Rob loved his father deeply, and respected him, but the two could never find a way to get along. Bob was very hard working and fully dedicated to the farm. Rob’s mind and attention would wander and he would dream of life outside of Bryburn and of doing things that had nothing to do with cows, milk, manure, silage, or anything farmy.
The worst came when Rob was seventeen and Bob was president of the National Holstein Breeders Association. His strength, vision and success in building one of the best herds in the nation had earned him the top spot in the prestigious group of mostly Dutch farmers from across the country. While he was away at the annual convention held in Wisconsin, Rob had made a momentous decision. The farm was not for him. He had other thoughts, other dreams and it would start with attending Steward Community College, getting his Associates degree, then going on to the university either in the big city of Seattle or maybe the smaller city of Steward. Then he would figure out what life would be for him, but it sure wouldn’t be the farm.
Rob chose his dad’s return from the national convention to inform him. He did not know at the time that the reason his dad had returned with a kind of sadness and anger he hadn’t seen in him before was that instead of being elected for a second term as president as most were, he was replaced by a farmer from Chino, California. His pushyness in trying to get changes made in breeding standards had rubbed too many members the wrong way. They wanted someone who went along to get along and that definitely was not Bob Mollema.
“Farm too good for you, then?” Bob asked his nervous son, the derision and anger dripping from the question.
“No Dad, it’s not too good for me, it’s just that, I don’t know, it just doesn’t sound like it is where I want to spend my life. There’s other things out there, you know.”
“No, I guess I don’t. Too stupid, I guess. Too stupid like Grandpa Rude and my grandpa Roel and his dad Jilt and his dad.”
Rob didn’t say it, but it was that very weight of mutiple generations of proud Dutch dairy farmers that entailed a burden he couldn’t endure. Now his dad was piling on him the very pressures that made him want to escape and find another way. Maybe, Rob thought, but didn’t say, if Dad wasn’t such a damn good farmer I would have a chance of making something of this.
Then, less than five years after that angry conversation in the new and brightly lit milking parlor of the Mollema Farms dairy, Rob had returned home to take over the farm.
“You sure about this?” Bob had asked from his yellow leather Lazyboy recliner. He was recovering from open heart surgery and still wore the pallor of the disease.
“Very sure, Dad,” Rob had assured him. “I can make it work. Caroline is all for it and we both want to raise Robbie and whoever else may come along on the farm.”
“Not much time for sculpture or whatever else you’ve been fiddling with,” Bob said sullenly. Yet, he felt a deep relief. Maybe, just maybe a miracle would happen and Rob would be able to continue the legacy. Maybe.
“Oh, I might find some time in between chores,” Rob said cheerily. Then the two got into a conversation about the two cows that had come down with mastitis, which cows were due to be dried up, the stats on the genetics of the sire Bob had selected for the next round of artificial insemination, where the price of milk was going, and the infernal politics of the dairy cooperative where they sold their milk.
7
The Mollema Farms dairy was now on the auction block. As Rob drew himself up heavily from the basalt rock where he had rested, his thoughts moved from the sorrow and regret of what had become of his marriage, to the upcoming cattle auction. It was just three weeks away. With the advertising of the auction in the Capital Press, the whole world had become aware that Bob Mollema’s son, that Rude Mollema’s grandson, had taken one of the best farms in the state and run it into the ground.
Sure, there were tough times in the dairy business. The price for milk had tanked in 2014 and caught any farm ill-prepared for the downturn in a tough position. Others had sold, mostly the smaller farms who had sold either their whole operation or their cows to the larger farmers who were in a position to take one more even when times were tough. It’s how the rich get richer, the big get bigger, Rob thought with more resignation than bitterness. Rob had tried hard to sell the Mollema Farms dairy as an operating farm, but he had been a bit late to the table. Those few farmers in the area who had been in any position to expand given the uncertainties of the global market had already jumped.
“Another stupid mistake,” he thought as he took another step toward the edge. If he had only moved quicker to sell the farm, he might have prevented some of the shame and guilt that fell on him as the whole Bryburn community talked about how the Mighty Mollemas had fallen. And, he wouldn’t have gotten the letter. Now, the price of cows had also tumbled, down to almost half of what they were just a year earlier. The global milk glut fueled by ever increasing productivity of cows and the decline of liquid milk sales as consumers shifted to nut “milk” and other so-called healthier and more humane replacements had turned these highly productive producers into nothing more than MacDonald’s quarter pounders.
Rob shook his whole body in an effort to try to rid himself of the thoughts that had driven him to this march. It was no good. The bitter memories clung to him like the Palouse mud after a fall rain. Then, he thought, it’s just as well so that I have no hesitations about what he needed to do. It was the constant hovering of his dad. Too ill to do much actual farm work, he never lost his passion for or interest in the farm and never wavered in his conviction that his son was not and never would be up to the challenge. It was the threatened lawsuit by Rob’s sister to share equally in the value of the farm as the transition in ownership was underway. Rob felt the bitter taste remembering how his mother had pushed against Bob’s better judgment in a desire to be “fair” to Rob’s sisters. This meant that not only did he have to make monthly checks out to his dad and mom, but also to his three sisters. For more than eighteen months now those checks meant that he was going deeper and deeper in debt. When he talked to them, begged them for some relief given the tough conditions, he only got a little wiggle room, and only for a time.
What weighed on him more than these difficulties, was the awareness of his own failings as a farmer. There had been good times. Times when the bank was pretty much paid off and excess cash in the bank. Others had bought more land and added cows. In these days of heavily regulated dairy farming, the state required sufficient acreage to apply your “nutrients,” formally known as shit, to the fields at the right time of year. So to expand, it wasn’t just about building a bigger barn or adding a carousel milking parlor to decrease labor and become more efficient, you had to get more land, too. But Rob had opted to take the family to Disneyland. For a moment he felt something like a hint of sunshine peeking behind a horribly dark cloud as he thought of that time with Caroline, Robbie and Mark. Good times, he thought. But then he remembered how Dad had come down on him and how he realized he was the talk of Bryburn Cafe. He knew they said he was no Bob Mollema, and wondered if he had what it takes to make it as a farmer. Same thing with the new Silverado he bought. Sure, he couldn’t afford it, but how would he know that the price for milk was about to tumble?
Then there was Robbie. Try as he might not to repeat what irritated him about his dad, he could not avoid wanting one of his sons to take over the farm, particularly Robbie. After all, there was that Dutch dairy legacy to uphold. Rob was all too aware of how his dad had put unspoken pressure on him and he was intent not to do the same to his sons. Like in Rob’s earlier days, Robbie and Mark had taken to farm life like hungry cows to spring grass. They revelled in the seasons from helping break the ice in the water trough during the occasional northeaster frost and blizzard, to chopping sileage and bucking bales in the long summer evenings. Now, haylage bales replaced the joys of the favored summer ritual making many of the green fields surrounding Bryburn look like giant marshmallow farms.
Robbie had shown every sign of interest in the farm, taking up both the animal care and field work with enthusiasm. Things had changed since Rob was the young buck on the farm. By the time Robbie left for Canon College, the farm had grown to over 1400 cows with twelve employees. Cows were now housed in large, open sided barns called loafing sheds. Dairy regulations passed by Washington state in the late 1990s prevented water pollution by keeping cows far from streams and allowing application of the manure as nutrients to the fields growing forage crops only when the growing crops could take up the nutrients and when lower rainfall limited flow into the ditches and streams. In the 1970s farmers became aware of the issues of nitrogen, nitrate, fecal coliform and other potential ways to harm water quality. Manure lagoons used to store the large volume of near liquid manure had come into vogue. In Bob’s day, automated scrapers would push the manure from the milking barn into a spreader which was then pulled behind ever larger tractors and applied to fields whenever the spreader was full. Sure, in the late winter or early spring, the tractor could get stuck in the deep mud but get the other tractor to pull it out and you’re good to go. Now, with severe restrictions on how much and when to deliver the nutrients to the fields, manure was stored through the late fall into spring in the large lagoons. Not like it used to be, Bob would shake his increasingly feeble head.
In the last ten years of his farming life, Rob spent more and more time behind a computer screen. Yeah, he thought ruefully, as he continued the slow climb, I had to have the latest computer. Most had old PCs, but he needed the big screen iMac. Part of my creative side, he rationalized at the time. Now, he just saw the purchases as one more example of his negligence in taking care of business. The screens showed him an unending flow of data. He could see the health and productivity of every one of his cows, see when their temperature was off or production was lagging. Other screens showed the status of his farm loans, balance sheets, expenses and net equity. Thinking now on this long walk about all these “improvements” made him long for the “olden days” when worries were focused on when the spring rains would let up enough to get into the fields.
8
Robbie had come into the life of the young married couple at a less than opportune time. Caroline was within a few months of completing her degree in psychology at Steward University and working late afternoons and evenings at the Grapevine, a popular cafe and bar on Juniper Street in downtown Steward. The strapping nine pound baby had brought a whole new dimension to Rob’s life. Though he never doubted children in his future, he never had imagined what it meant to hold his own son in his arms. Helpless and strong, a totally new and separate being but yet one whose heart beat in Rob’s own chest, or so he felt. He couldn’t imagine life without his son and dreamed in those days while assembling furniture of being together, hunting together, even working together on the farm. No doubt, the thought of raising Robbie and any others who might follow him in the fields and woods of the Mollema farm was a major reason why, when his dad became ill, the idea of returning to the farm pulled on him.
Robbie called from the small Dutch Reformed college in Iowa.
“Dad?”
“Robbie, hey, good to hear from you, haven’t heard for a while, how you doing?” Rob had answered with some relief. Robbie had been very quiet for the last few weeks.
“Dad, I, uh, I need to talk to you.”
“Go ahead, Robbie,” Rob tensed, sensing something was up.
“Uh, you know about Jennifer,” Robbie sounded nervous and hesitant.
“Yeah, you’ve been dating, right?”
“Yeah, for a couple, I mean a few months now.”
“So, how’s it going?”
“Great, yeah, I mean, yeah, just great. But, uh,” Robbie hesitated. Rob waited.
“Well, it looks like you’re going to be a grandpa,” Robbie blurted.
Rob was stunned. Silence. Thoughts tumbling. Grandpa. That’s not the way you were raised. Marriage first. What were you thinking? Didn’t he learn anything in church? Damn, why did I think going off to college was a good idea. What is Caroline going to say?
“Well,” Rob said after what seemed minutes of silence, “Congratulations are in order, I guess. When are we going to meet this Jennifer?”
“You don’t sound too happy about it, dad,” Robbie had pretty much expected this response from his dad.
“Well, you know, I guess I’m pretty old fashioned but you know what we believe about marriage. You are getting married, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, oh yeah, Jen’s folks are really cool about it, get along great with them. Jen’s dad has a big electrical engineering business and he offered me a job, really good job.” Robbie blurted it out.
“Well, congrats on that, too, Robbie. That can help you guys out until you finish school and come back to the farm.”
“I guess that’s what I need to tell you dad,” Robbie again sounded nervous. “I don’t think I’ll be coming back to the farm. I mean Jen is really tight with her family and really wants to stay here in Iowa and her dad is helping me get through school in engineering and thinks I’d be perfect for his business, it really seems a great opportunity.”
In the weeks following, Rob grieved over a son lost to him forever. He wanted so much to be happy for him, to see him thrive in this new and very different world. But something was lost that no matter how he hard he tried, he could not recover. Hope, and future expectations were now missing where they had provided a bright release before. Unlike Robbie, Mark had never shown much interest in the farm and getting him to do chores was itself a chore. Four years younger than Robbie, Mark was in high school when Robbie made his move to Iowa permanent. Academically, Mark was the star of the family, like his mom. But it was clear that it was academics that interested him, not farm work. He would be a teacher and writer and Rob knew with Robbie’s decision, the Mollema farm would end with him.
After that, the motivation he had to keep up the farm, keep up with the changes needed to ensure its future, melted like a late March snowfall. The Silverado was a consolation prize, he thought at the time, trying to rationalize a decision he knew down deep was irrational. Maybe, he thought now in the clarity of the Snake river canyon air, that that decision, like other foolish ones he made were a kind of death wish. A desire for it all to be over. What reason to go on? Robbie was doing well, very well. The three grandkids in Iowa he got to see once a year. Mark landed a lecture position at Steward University in political science. Yeah, his politics were way off base, but what do you expect with all that time in the university? What hope was there really. Better for it to be over and done with. The auction will close it all off for good.
9
He had kissed Caroline goodbye and she had clung to him as if she sensed his determination. Even in that embrace, he felt a coldness in his gut like a fist squeezing nothing.
“Be careful, hon,” she said with eyes welling.
“Sure, sure, don’t worry,” he said. It was not reassuring.
The six hour drive by himself in the Silverado gave him plenty of time to think. He tried to pray. He’d been trying to pray for weeks now and if ever it felt there was a solid dark ceiling over his head, it was when he prayed, or tried to. The Dutch Christian Reformed Church was the foundation of his life as it was for Bob, Rude and all the Mollema’s and in-laws before him. It was the rock, the still point, the solid ground. Loyalty and dedication were expected, particularly if one did not want to run afoul of the coffee crowd at the Bryburn Cafe.
He had found consolation in his faith, in the Church, and even a time or two felt that he was connected in some way to God. He could pray and feel that a loving presence heard and cared. Those memories clung to him but only added to his pain of feeling now the complete emptiness of the sky and heaven above him. Suicide, he knew, was a great and possibly unforgiveable sin. But what did that even matter if the sky was empty? If there was a God and he did love him and die for him as he had been told for over sixty years, then certainly He would understand what was going on and have some mercy. Mercy, he wanted to scream. Have some mercy! The pain was overwhelming. Didn’t God know that? Didn’t he care about that? If he did, why the hell didn’t He relieve him of some of it? But, yes, then there were those things that he did to bring this on. He could have done better. Maybe if he’d been a little more serious about the Church, like attending Sunday evening services more often, then just maybe Robbie wouldn’t have gotten Jen pregnant and maybe he would have come back and taken over. He could have done better with his kids, taught them more how important the Church was, even God. He knew that the hurt he had endured from Caroline’s unfaithfulness had frozen a part of his soul that it had never really thawed. He could have done more to heal the wounds. Grace, grace. He had been given it, but why had held it from others, and Caroline especially? Maybe, Rob thought, if he hadn’t gotten so discouraged he would have made some different decisions, invested in more land, bought more cows, maybe even put in some of those new robot milkers to cut down on labor costs. Those labor costs were killing him. Every time he’d get a good milker they took another job. Had to keep raising their pay. How in the world can you make it today? You gotta have 3000 cows or more if you’re going to keep the farm going. How the heck did this happen? How did the world get so cockeyed?
Then there was the letter. If the clouds overhead had seemed dark before, when the letter came, it felt like those clouds turned to wet dirt and dropped on his head by the truckload. Johnnie Argus was the San Fransisco attorney who had discovered the Washington federal courts were lined up with the Ninth Circuit Court and looked favorably on so-called citizen lawsuits allowed under federal environmental laws. He had sued a dozen dairy farms, causing several to sell their cows or even the whole farm. Others had spent thousands to hundreds of thousands on insurance, legal fees, settlements and needless environmental “fixes.”. Those were big farms, mostly on the other side of the state. That jackass wouldn’t come after him, Rob assured himself. Yeah, he had a pollution citation on his record, but hardly his fault. That old pump failed and dumped a hundred gallons of liquid manure into a ditch. Got into the Berkside creek before he noticed and shut it off. Criminy, you lose a few fish to an old pump and it practically makes national news. He reported the spill himself, cleaned it up immediately, and the Department came out. No penalty, but a citation on his record. A report in the Steward Record. They never missed an opportunity to give a farmer a black eye. And Jackass Argus was pulling records on anyone who had any sort of spill. Let a few drops of manure in a stream, and it’s enough for him to come after you.
The letter came with its 60 day notice of intent to sue. He had to hire a lawyer. The lawyer said best way was to settle, but Argus wouldn’t settle for anything other than lining his manure lagoons with new liners or other measures designed to take his farm out. How much would that cost? At least a million. And that’s if you settle. Not counting legal fees. How much would those be. Another quarter million to defend yourself and to pay off Argus. Pay him off? All that jackass wants to do is push all our farms out of business. Seems to have a thing about animal agriculture, wants every body to think he’s saving the world. I’d rather give that money to just about anyone else. That is, if I had it. And I don’t. No choice. Want to take it to court like the Reckridge Dairy over there in Tri-Cities? Cost them half a million to defend and they still lost in federal court in Spokane. Or you could just go out of business.
Or you could just go out of business.
Decision made. Auction date set. Three weeks after hunting season, after I get home. Except. Not coming home.
10
Rob’s knees were shaking climbing the last hundred yards to the edge. His mind started with crazy twists and turns and he stumbled, feeling he might fall. His boots felt like they were weighted with mud though the October rocky ground was dry. A question that had come into his mind frequently the last week or so now forced its way to the front. Fall backwards, or forwards? What would look most like an accident? It needed to be an accident. Caroline might suspect otherwise but she’d take comfort in the insistence of others it had to be an accident. Forwards? He’d see the rocks two or three hundred feet below rushing up. Backwards, and it would only be the blue sky with the wispy clouds. Beautiful, peaceful, painless blue sky. Would he rise up into that sky, or find himself in a dark tunnel, or know nothing at all? Nothingness would be peace, better than this dark, cold pain that pushed him on toward the edge. Or, he hardly dared think it, would he find himself embraced in those loving arms? He held a glimmer of hope, despite the silent sky. Only one way to find out.
Life review some called it. What people who almost died or thought they died experienced. Their whole life flashing by them in minutes, no seconds, or nano seconds. Time compressed so they could see everything at once. Time without time. Would he watch his life pass by him as the wind rushed up? Pushing his heavy legs forward the last few yards, he saw that life in bits and pieces, jumbled, unorganized, but rich and heavy with memories joyous and horrible. Grandpa Rude teaching him the farm as a five year old. Dad and Mom taking him and sisters on family camping trips to the Canadian lakes. Walking out to the back forty in search of the fox family that dug a den in a pasture hillside. Shooting ducks with Grandpa and Dad. Falling in love with Caroline with all the joys and hopes of youth. Robbie born, holding him in his arms in wonder. Early spring morning watching the sun rise from the milking parlor. Moonlight on the mountain frozen in time. The light blending with darkness, then the pain of loss, of regret, of coldness, of an empty sky obliterating all memories and bringing him to the very edge.
He looked down. The sharp black volcanic rocks stood waiting as if to receive him and his darkened soul. The guys would know where to look. He had told them where he was going. They’d find him in hours, before dark, before the coyotes and ravens. Maybe not ravens.
He breathed deeply and sighed. One last time to pray. If You are here, forgive me. He turned around and edged backwards toward the dropoff. A noise to his right. Something in the brush just off the edge where the canyon began to flatten out. Seventy yards away, maybe eighty five. Out of the brush near the rim rose a massive four by five point mulie. Biggest he had ever seen. Bigger, he thought than Grandpa Rude shot in 1986, and that was a monster. He sucked in his breath. With more instinct than thought, he lifted Grandpa’s 30-06 slowly to his shoulder, centered the killspot above the buck’s shoulder in the scope and gently squeezed the trigger. He heard no sound, but saw the buck jump forward, up out of the canyon, and start to run up toward the wheat stubble. No more than fifty yards later, it dropped and he knew it was dead.
Rob let his breath go slowly, heavily. He stepped forward, then made a slow turn to look back over his shoulder to the edge and the rocks below. The ram. The ram in the thicket. Oh my God. My God. He dropped down to his knees, shaking and feeling a ripping and dragging, as if somehow the cloud that had wrapped him in darkness was being pulled from his skin, his brain, his spirit. His head dropped near the rocky dirt and he breathed loudly. Tears filled his eyes clouded his view when he finally lifted his head and looked up toward the dead trophy. The ram, the ram of Isaac, the gift of God.
He pulled himself up and felt the air lighter, cleaner, brighter than it was just moments ago. By the time he got to the still animal, he made a decision. Yes, when he got in cell range he would call her. Tell her how much he loved her. That all was good. There was no room left for frost.