Free Luna by Sharon Butala

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    The wind at last had died away, and all the delicate prairie noises were clear in the stillness: the quack of a couple of ducks half a mile away at the waterhole, the musical chatter of the larks, and the sound of her own horse’s feet swishing through the grass. Even the laboured breathing of the sick cow ahead of her was loud in the evening hush, and Selena rode slowly, not to make the cow’s suffering worse. Kent or any of the other men, busy and harassed with their interminable work and financial worries, would have pushed the cow much harder, but there was enough daylight left, and Selena had no other job pressuring her, so she took her time.
    “You have to go home, girl,” she said to the cow. “We can’t look after you out here.” The cow lumbered on through the grass, its head down each step an effort, stopping every few feet. After a while they settled into a steady, slow walk, leaving a crooked path in the grass behind them.
    They passed another duck’s nest, hidden in a patch of tall grass, she noticed it only because the duck flew up as they drew near and she caught a glimpse of a handful of beige eggs, barely visible in the nest. Coming around a hill they startled a few antelope, a buck and three does. The does disappeared at once over the hill but the buck stopped to watch Selena and the cow draw a little nearer before it, too, dashed away, its hooves not appearing to touch the ground as it ran. Selena and the cow plodded on and soon were out of the hills and onto the flat land that began a mile or so from the buildings. A few minutes later the house, barn and corrals appeared, specks against the grass.
    When they were about a half mile from the yard, Selena dismounted and walked, leading her horse, behind the cow, which had slowed even more. In this way, at last, she brought the cow into the corral, penned her, and closed the gate.
    She turned away then, still leading her horse, and stared out toward the west, the direction she had just come from. Darkness was falling, the last glow of red was fading from behind the hills, which had flattened and merged with the evening purple. She could no longer make out anydetails, but she knew that somewhere out there, in those shadows, Kent was riding toward her.
    Melancholy pierced her, the lateness of the hour, the sun gone down, the land disappearing all around her into the night shadows. Her horse drew near and nudged her shoulder, then brushed his soft nose to her cheek and hair. A shiver ran through her. The dark sky, the low, distant hills, the land itself were pressing into her, claiming her, and she felt as if there was nothing left of her own, her private soul.
    To the west the coyotes began their nightly wailing. Her horse, hungry and thirsty, stopped its restless moving and lifted its head as its ears went up. She wanted her heart to close, she wanted the gaping hollow that had opened in her gut to suck in, she felt as though she might fall, weighted as she was with the world.
    She led her horse into the barn, unsaddled him and turned him out into the corral. He went straight to the waterer and she went back to the barn and came out with an armload of hay from a broken bale and threw it over the fence to him.
    The moon had risen. It hung low in the sky over her garden, eerie and white. She shut the barn door and crossed the corral. As she opened the gate, she could hear hoofbeats coming across the field and she knew that in a minute Kent would be there. She shut the gate and went toward the house, not waiting for him.

JULY
    “They’re starting to come in,” Helen called over her shoulder from the doorway between the kitchen and the hall. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the hissing of the big pots on the two stoves, the clattering of dishes being washed in the sink, and the voices of the other women hurrying around the kitchen. Selena leaned past her to look down the hall. It was filled with rows of long tables covered with white