acted as if he assumed I’d be moving on, and that was fine by me. I didn’t belong in Chicago, but it had changed me, so I didn’t belong on the KC, either. I even felt out of place sleeping in my old bed. Also, if I was going to stay put, I’d need to pitch in on the chores, and after all those years of maid work, cleaning the chicken coop and mucking stalls didn’t exactly call to me. I left early for Flagstaff.
Although I was older than most of the other students, I loved college. Unlike many of the boys, who were interested in football and drinking, and the girls, who were interested in boys, I knew exactly why I was there and what I wanted to get out of it. I wished I could take every course in the curriculum and read every book in the library. Sometimes after I finished a particularly good book, I had the urge to get the library card, find out who else had read the book, and track them down to talk about it.
My only concern was how I was going to pay the next year’s tuition. But after I’d been at the university for exactly one semester, Grady Gammage, president of the college, asked to see me. He said he’d been contacted by the town of Red Lake, which was looking for a teacher. He’d been following my performance because he’d also worked hard to put himself through college and admired others who did the same. The folks in Red Lake remembered me from the time I’d taught there. They were willing to sign me up, even though I had just begun college, and Mr. Gammage thought I had what it took as well. “It’s a tough choice,” he said. “If you start teaching now, you’ll give up school, and a lot of people find it hard to come back.”
It didn’t seem a tough choice at all. I could either pay money to go to classes or get paid for teaching classes.
“When do I start?” I asked.
I WENT BACK TO the ranch to get Patches, and for the third time that horse and I made the five-hundred-mile journey between Tinnie and Red Lake. Patches was out of shape, but I easied her along, and she toned up pretty quick. We both enjoyed being on the move in open country.
I ran into more people than I had last time, and every now and again a car would barrel past, the driver white-knuckling the wheel as he bounced over the wagon ruts, trailing a cone of dust. But there were still long stretches of solitude, only me and Patches ambling along, and as I sat by my little fire at night, the coyotes howled just like they always had, and the huge moon turned the desert silver.
The town of Red Lake still felt like it was located at one of the world’s high points, the range land sloping away on all sides, but it had changed since I first saw it almost fifteen years before. Arizona, with its wideopen spaces and no one peering over your shoulder, had always been a haven for folks who didn’t like the law or other busybodies to know what they were up to, and there were more scoundrels and eccentrics around—Mexican rumrunners, hallucinating prospectors, trenchcrazed veterans still wheezing from mustard gas, a guy with four wives who wasn’t even a Mormon. One of that guy’s kids was named Balmy Gil because when he was born, the guy opened the Bible at random and, eyes closed, planted his finger on the passage about the Balm of Gilead.
More farmers had also put down stakes and more stores had opened, including a new automobile garage with a gasoline pump out front. The grass outside town, which used to be high enough to touch the cattle’s underbellies, had been grazed down to the nub, and I wondered if maybe there were more people here than the land could bear.
The schoolhouse now had a teacherage built onto the back, so I had my own room to sleep in. I had thirty-six students of all ages, sizes, and breeds, and I made sure when I entered the classroom that each and every one of them stood up and said, “Good morning, Miss Casey.” Anyone who talked out of turn had to stand in the corner, and anyone who sassed me was
Although I was older than most of the other students, I loved college. Unlike many of the boys, who were interested in football and drinking, and the girls, who were interested in boys, I knew exactly why I was there and what I wanted to get out of it. I wished I could take every course in the curriculum and read every book in the library. Sometimes after I finished a particularly good book, I had the urge to get the library card, find out who else had read the book, and track them down to talk about it.
My only concern was how I was going to pay the next year’s tuition. But after I’d been at the university for exactly one semester, Grady Gammage, president of the college, asked to see me. He said he’d been contacted by the town of Red Lake, which was looking for a teacher. He’d been following my performance because he’d also worked hard to put himself through college and admired others who did the same. The folks in Red Lake remembered me from the time I’d taught there. They were willing to sign me up, even though I had just begun college, and Mr. Gammage thought I had what it took as well. “It’s a tough choice,” he said. “If you start teaching now, you’ll give up school, and a lot of people find it hard to come back.”
It didn’t seem a tough choice at all. I could either pay money to go to classes or get paid for teaching classes.
“When do I start?” I asked.
I WENT BACK TO the ranch to get Patches, and for the third time that horse and I made the five-hundred-mile journey between Tinnie and Red Lake. Patches was out of shape, but I easied her along, and she toned up pretty quick. We both enjoyed being on the move in open country.
I ran into more people than I had last time, and every now and again a car would barrel past, the driver white-knuckling the wheel as he bounced over the wagon ruts, trailing a cone of dust. But there were still long stretches of solitude, only me and Patches ambling along, and as I sat by my little fire at night, the coyotes howled just like they always had, and the huge moon turned the desert silver.
The town of Red Lake still felt like it was located at one of the world’s high points, the range land sloping away on all sides, but it had changed since I first saw it almost fifteen years before. Arizona, with its wideopen spaces and no one peering over your shoulder, had always been a haven for folks who didn’t like the law or other busybodies to know what they were up to, and there were more scoundrels and eccentrics around—Mexican rumrunners, hallucinating prospectors, trenchcrazed veterans still wheezing from mustard gas, a guy with four wives who wasn’t even a Mormon. One of that guy’s kids was named Balmy Gil because when he was born, the guy opened the Bible at random and, eyes closed, planted his finger on the passage about the Balm of Gilead.
More farmers had also put down stakes and more stores had opened, including a new automobile garage with a gasoline pump out front. The grass outside town, which used to be high enough to touch the cattle’s underbellies, had been grazed down to the nub, and I wondered if maybe there were more people here than the land could bear.
The schoolhouse now had a teacherage built onto the back, so I had my own room to sleep in. I had thirty-six students of all ages, sizes, and breeds, and I made sure when I entered the classroom that each and every one of them stood up and said, “Good morning, Miss Casey.” Anyone who talked out of turn had to stand in the corner, and anyone who sassed me was
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