Chapter 7: Dear Jemima

I did not open the envelope that afternoon.

I sat on the scorched porch step of the line shack with it in my lap for an hour.

Rex went to see about the cattle and did not ask.

I watched the black field smoke, and I thought about a flat in Pimlico with a very good kettle.

I thought about a partner's chair with my name on a brass plate.

Then I thought of five women in church dresses lined up on a porch with casseroles.

I went to the water truck and drove it back to the house, and I did not stall.

At the kitchen table, in Orville's chair, I broke the seal.

It was a page and a half in a cramped old hand, with a coffee ring on the corner.

Dear Jemima,

If you're reading this, you've either decided to stay or Rex has lost his nerve and given it to you early. In which case, hello, Rex, I can hear you.

I am not a sentimental man. I'm a cow man. So I'll say it plain.

I left you the place because you were the only one who wrote me back.

Twenty-two Christmases, a card with a cow on it, and a line or two about your life. I never had a girl of my own. You turned into one, by post.

Lamar Ullrich wants my creek. He has wanted it twenty years.

I never sold because it isn't mine to sell. It belongs to whoever has the sense to love it.

Rex Carew is the best hand I ever hired, and the worst liar about his own name. Be patient with him. He's got a good reason.

Zelma will tell you the rest.

Stay a while. If you hate it, sell it to somebody decent and go home. But try the porch at sundown first.

Yours, Uncle Orville

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