Archer Simondson awoke with a start. Turning his one good ear to the sounds drifting through the cracks in the yellowed panes of the bedroom window, he lay still and listened. Low, almost purring, clucks and squawks filtered in from the chicken coop. Heavy thumps echoed from the barn as Porgy and Bess, the white-stockinged draft horses, clomped around on their wood-floored stalls.When the wind turned just right, even the grunts and squeals of the sty at the far end of the farm yard floated in. As punctuation, Rick, the ancient bantam rooster Archer’s wife had named after one of her favorite movie characters, pierced the pre-dawn air with a warm up cockadoo. Though he listened hard, Archer could hear nothing out of the ordinary. Still, the strange coldness that had awakened him continued to roll around in his stomach.

       "Somethin’ ain’t right." Archer muttered and threw back the pile of hand-sewn quilts. "Sure as blazes, somethin’ just ain’t right."

       Careful not to disturb Mary Elizabeth who lay motionless in the same sleeping spot she’d occupied for nearly forty years, Archer swung his spindly white legs from under the covers and sat up on the edge of the bed. The icy sting of the floorboards soaked into his feet like winter ditch water poured through the holes in old irrigating boots.

       Reaching down to massage the jagged scar running up his left calf, Archer thought again, as he had every cold morning for thirty years, of how the barbed wire had ripped into his leg when the roan gelding had thrown him into the fence that Christmas morning. He’d long since given up any hope of that nagging ache ever leaving his leg. In fact, each of the last few years had heaped on more sore spots to be dealt with each sunrise. Like the lump on his back just above his right hip from where he’d fallen from the hay loft. Archer was fairly sure that wasn’t ever going away, either. There were others, too. But, knowing he couldn’t rub them all, and that it wouldn’t do much good even if he could, Archer shrugged and willed himself to a standing position. After stretching out a kink or two, he creaked his way, step after shuffling step, across the cold floor to the oaken chair. There, as she had for forty years of evenings, Mary Eliza had laid out his dungarees, a clean shirt--cotton in summer, flannel in winter--and fresh socks for each new day.

       His rubber boots making sticky, slucking sounds on the tile floor of the kitchen, Archer headed for the work-stained mackinaw hanging by the door. Wincing with every bent joint, he tugged at the coat until both his scarred, age-spotted hands emerged from its frayed sleeves. He reached for the doorknob, then hesitated. "Oh, yeah," he leaned over the counter’s chipped and crackled beige formica to push the coffee pot plug into the wall socket, "better switch on the go juice," he grumbled to himself, "or Mary Eliza’ll get up all growly and be on my tired old ass the whole day." He looked back at the bedroom door and upped his voice so it would carry, "Course, if a certain somebody didn’t stay up ‘til all hours reading them damn books, she’d probably already be up and have the fire going." His thinly parted lips revealed a crooked line of brown teeth as he listened for a response, but none came, so he turned once more for the door. But he paused again when the shotgun leaning between the fridge and the wall caught his gaze. Pursing his lips in thought, he ran his eyes up the scarred wood stock, to the double barrel--which had long since lost all but the most stubborn of its blueing--to the flashlight taped just short of the muzzle. But Archer didn’t reach for it. Something told him that whatever his guts were saying was wrong, the scatter-gun wasn’t going to fix it.

       The morning air rushed around him in crisp welcome as he stepped onto the crumbling concrete surface of the front step. Pulling his jacket tighter, Archer watched the first gray streaks of dawn lance into the valley through the jagged peaks to the east. He searched the mountains’craggy tops to see if they’d had their first dusting of snow. Seeing none, he lowered his squinting gaze to the pasture hill to the south, where, as yet unwilling to leave their beds, some twenty of his herefords lay under the cottonwood brow like fat, red stumps.

       "Lazy bunch of girls this mornin’ ain’t ya," Archer chuckled, as he slowly, almost gingerly, eased his left foot to the step below. Before he put his full weight down, he rocked the foot up and down three or four times with just his toes touching. Though it had been a full year since he’d wrenched it in a muskrat hole stepping down from the combine in the dark, the foot still grieved him. "Damn ditch rats, anyway," he hissed, remembering how he’d hopped around on one leg while waves of pain licked up his other like wildfire. Though his tendon-stretching efforts made the ankle a little more cooperative, he still limped the first baker’s dozen steps across the uneven path leading to the barn.

       Halfway there, motion made Archer look to his right. He glanced over in time to see the gray and white flutter of a mourning dove as it landed neatly on one rusting tooth of the old red harrow that had been nurturing weeds over by the ditch for twenty-odd years. "Hmm," he muttered, slowing his walk and studying the bird through squinted eyes, "bit late for the likes of you to be hanging around these parts, ain’t it?"

       The dove paced the top of one arching, iron tine, cocked its head, as if to see the man from a new angle, then squatted and puffed its feathers against the cold. As Archer passed, the bird flitted up to perch on the frosty phone wire which drooped pole to tilting pole across field and pasture to its junction with the road a half mile away.

       "Mornin’ Porgie." Instinctively, Archer shallowed his breathing as he entered the manure-rich air of the barn. Reaching up and scratching the cheek of the black shire gelding nearest the door, he looked over at Porgie’s equally massive, but more dappled, harness mate in the next stall. "And you, Bess old girl, how are you today?" He didn’t bother petting the horse in the second stall. He didn’t even need to look into her wild eyes to know her temperment didn’t favor such familiarity. Instead, he rubbed his own elbow where the bull calf had kicked him last branding.

       Archer studied each corner of the dawn-shadowed barn, but nothing explained the uneasiness he felt. Kicking some stray flakes of hay to within reach of the hulking horses, he headed back out into the growing light of the farmyard morning. He surveyed the hog pen, but the grunting bustle of the sty seemed natural as April rain. He turned his gaze to the chicken coop.

       Wrinkling his lips into a variety of positions, he ran his eyes over the wood and wire structure. Methodically, the hens scratched and pecked at every pebble and woodchip in the coop, as if by chance a kernel of yesterday’s feed had gone unnoticed by the twenty other chickens who’d gone over every inch of the pen a dozen times. Archer sighed and turned away. "Well, no foxes or weasels been in the cluckers, I guess."

       As if in answer, Rooster Rick hopped and fluttered up to the two-by-four rafter beneath the tin roof and blasted out his first full-throated crow of the morning. Archer looked back and shook his head in wonder that such a loud noise could come from such a small bird. "You sure made Stogie... or Bogie... or whatever that movie guy’s name was... proud that time, Rickie. I’ll be sure and tell Mary Eliza you’re doin’ a hell of a job." In answer to the praise, Rooster Rick strutted the length of the rafter twice and ruffed his ruddy plumage until he seemed bigger by half again.

       Not knowing what else to do, Archer took another tour around the farm yard. He looked behind the barn. Nothing. He swung out and around the little slough of cattails at the edge of the creek, thinking maybe a cow had taken sick or gotten bogged down out of sight of the house. The flock of blackbirds that nested in the cattails kicked up, but aside from their red-winged swarm, nothing was there. Nothing save the grassed-over grave of Samson, the china-eyed cow dog who’d been Arch and Eliza’s hired hand--and closest friend--for a dozen years. As he stared at the grave, the old man’s hand moved down by his right hip and his gnarled fingers scratched the memory of an ear.

       "Oughta’ get us another mutt, I s’pose." Archer rubbed his unshaved chin as he gazed at the ring of blue lupine around the old dog’s resting place. He thought back on how Mary Eliza had crawled around the grave on her hands and knees for half a day planting them, all sad-smiling and teary, saying the whole time how the lupine’s flowers reminded her of Sam’s kind, blue eyes. "Don’t expect the old girl wants another dog, though," Arch said, as if his short-haired friend could still hear, "her being so attatched to you and all." Turning his eyes from the grave, he shrugged. "Kid we never had, I guess."

       Archer leaned against the top rail of the ramshackle pole fence, picking one of the few sections that hadn’t half sunk into the spongy ground around the slough. Absently patting the pockets of his jacket, he searched out his plug of Brown’s Mule. "Hmph," he uttered, when he raised his eyes again to see that what looked like the same dove had perched on a post twenty yards down the rails. "Friendly sort this mornin’, ain’t ya’." Still eying the bird, he unfolded his chipped up Barlow knife and sawed a hunk the size of a walnut off the plug. He chewed it soft and rolled it around his mouth until it lumped nicely against the corner of his cheek. With some satisfaction, he noticed his jaw seemed to be healing up some from where old Bess had swung her head around and whacked him good while he was digging a rock out of one of her shoes a month back. "And Mary Eliza says tobbac’ ain’t no good for nothin’," he chuckled. "Makes one hell of a good poultice, I’ll have to tell ‘er." His laughter made him feel a little better, but his stomach just wouldn’t quit rolling.

       He stared at the mountains to the west, now gilded in the full strength of dawn. Letting his eyes wander over every bare hillside and open ridge, he searched for the little spots of tan and black a practiced eye would know to be elk. After a moment, he shrugged. "No wapiti out feedin’ today I guess." Gathering the juices into the front of his mouth, he spit a long brown stream at a clump of tansy about ten feet the other side of the fence. It fell just short. The dove flew. "Damn, guess the spitter’s a bit weak today, Arch." Still, he decided, it wasn’t too bad for before breakfast. "Now there’s a thought," he muttered as if to the mountains themselves, "s’pose Mary Eliza’s got them ham and eggs a’cookin?" He spit at the tansy again, but as he hadn’t let the juice build up, he barely made it half-way. Shaking his head at his poor effort, he turned towards the house, saying, "Even if no, I’m sure the coffee’s perked."

       He’d stood at the fence long enough to let his ankle stiffen again, so the limp rejoined him as he rounded the slough and struck out for the farm yard. As he walked, he searched every direction. The turmoil in his guts reminded him of the time he’d left his wallet in the dry goods store and had to worry the whole walk across town to get it. As it turned out, he needn’t have. When he’d walked in the front door, white-haired Milton Hastings, the only storekeep the place had ever known, had seen him coming and held up the hunk of leather like a trophy.

       Still seeing nothing out of sorts, Archer turned for the house. Not wanting to stumble on his sore-ankled foot, he kept his eyes on the path for the most part, but at one point he glanced up at the farmhouse. He’d taken two more steps before the realization hit him.

       "What the hell?" Archer Simondson stopped as if he’d heard his name called on the wind. His eyes locked onto the brick chimney sprouting from the roof of the house. Smokeless. As he stared at the slightly disheveled pile of bricks, his stomach turned to a chunk of ice. A chunk as big as the ones he dug out of his punkin-footed horses’ hooves after feeding off the sleigh. "Oh, good Jesus, no." His words came out in a moan tinged with new and unfamiliar pain. "No. No. No."

       Ignoring his wincing ankle, he picked up his pace the last forty yards to the house. He clattered the door open and stepped into the kitchen. The smell of fresh coffee hung on the air, but aside from that, the kitchen was as he’d left it thirty minutes before. Archer stood and listened, silently praying some of the familiar rustlings he’d heard every morning for as long as he could easily remember would find their way into his one good ear. But none came. The house stood silent as a winter’s dawn. He opened his mouth, but no words answered. He swallowed hard, sending a chill to his toes. With slow, heavy steps, Archer Simondson entered the bedroom through the door that stood ajar just as he’d left it.

       "Mary Eliza?" Archer spent his last shreds of hope on the words, but the form lying along the far edge of the bed gave no answer. "Oh, sweet Jesus, why did you have to go and do that?" Archer eased his way around to where he could see his wife. Eyes closed, her wrinkled face lay framed by a night’s tangle of black hair laced with silver strands. He moved some of the sheaf away from her face, trailing the sides of his calloused fingers along her brow as he did. Her skin felt cool as morning saddle leather. Archer eased himself down until he sat next to her and, not knowing quite why, began to gather her hair into a long, grizzled rope. He smoothed the thick cord on top of the quilts that covered her and moved one deep-lined hand under it. He lifted the silver and black rope again and again, as if the hair’s weight held some mystery for him. He closed his eyes and that same hair, though loose and black, billowed in the summer breeze as sixteen-year-old Mary Elizabeth Marshall went running down the apple orchard hill. She hadn’t wanted young Archer Simondson to see how her cheeks had blushed the color of polished Macintoshes the first time he’d kissed her. The moment he’d decided to marry her. Now, those faded cheeks lay on the pillow like folds of stale pie dough.

       Archer’s hand shook as, more from habit than want, he poured a cup of coffee. He sank into the armed oak chair at the head of the kitchen table. His whole body trembled. Every pain he’d felt when he’d gotten out of bed an hour before returned, stabbing its way through the numbness that shrouded him. His ankle jangled. The lump in his back throbbed. His elbow twinged. Even his jaw that had felt so much better earlier, renewed its pulsing assault. He could feel every hurt he’d been nursing for God knows how long. But compared to the waves of cold pulsing through his chest and stomach, those pains seemed comfortable as grouchy old friends.

       Archer Simondson sipped his coffee and leafed through a catalogue of memories, memories of grange dances and Sunday dinners and winter evenings by the fire. Somewhere in the distant reaches of his mind, he heard the farmyard sounds grow in volume as feeding time came and passed. But he didn’t move. The lowing of cattle, the cackle of chickens, the squeals of hogs, and the stomping of Porgie and Bess got louder and louder. The noises swam around and around in his head, a carousel of sound. But Archer Simondson sat stone still. The hand wrapped around the cup never lifted it again.

       The coffee had turned cold as morning rain by the time Archer raised his eyes to the phone. He stared at the dull black lump for a full minute before he fought his way to his feet and trudged over to where it hung from the wall. As one hand held the receiver against his ear, the thick and crooked forefinger of the other clawed its way around the dial. As the tiny, paint-worn number wheel spun back for the third time, he shifted himself around to lean against the counter and his eyes fell upon the double-barreled sentry standing by the fridge. He paused. One trembling finger poised absently above the phone, he studied the shotgun through, blinkless, filmy eyes. His body ached. His heart thumped slowly, coldly, beneath the blanched, sunless skin of his chest. His mind went round and round aimlessly, like a tire spinning on an overturned car. His soul shrank. He felt very, very tired. Tired of the work. Tired of the pain. The finger he held curled above the phone twitched, deliberately. Once.

       Archer Simondson wasn’t sure how long he’d held his frozen pose when the sharp whinny of Porgy pierced his ear. Its cord tangled in his black-nailed fingers, the reciever dangled between his shoulder and his ear, bleating distantly, incessently, like a lost electric sheep.

       A fluttering sound outside turned the old man’s eyes to the window. Still sparkled by the year’s first hard frost, the farm lay glazed in the rays of morning sun. Fence posts glowed like burnt sienna, their tops capped with a blazing pumpkin orange. Ditch water glistened across the field, a ribbon of quicksilver painted on the meadow’s edge. Above it all, a bird landed on the phone wire. Though he squinted, Archer couldn’t be certain. Still, it sure looked like the same dove.

       "Hmph, don’t that beat all?" He stared out the window for another minute before he realized he still held the phone. "Oh, hell," he jabbed the black button into its cradle hole and began dialing again, "Mary Eliza wouldn’t want me to be no old fool."

       The news sent, Archer Simondson once again stepped onto the rough-surfaced porch and the screen door whapped shut behind him. Again, he stared at the mountains to the east as he worked his ankle up and down on the step below. He couldn’t stomach thinking about the funeral, so he let his mind wander beyond that day, to when it would be over, to when the loneliness would come. His thoughts turned to dogs.

       "Maybe Luther Marsing still has some of that litter his heeler bitch whelped." He said aloud, as he began his limping steps along the path to the barn. "Or, maybe a border collie. The Widow Shullers had a note up at the feed store a spell back. She’s maybe still got some."