Juliet in August: Library Edition

Warren, Diane

ISBN 10 : 1452638233 ISBN 13 : 9781452638232

Editeur : Tantor Media Inc, 2012

A propos du livre

Extrait :

It was the end of August, before the Perry Land and Cattle Company’s fall gather, and the ranch cowboys had too much time on their hands. They were standing around the dusty yard watching the horses swat ?ies with their tails when the young buck, Ivan Dodge, somehow managed to convince one of the old veteran cowboys—Henry Merchant was his name—to meet his challenge of a hundred-mile horse race through the dunes and the grasslands of the Little Snake Hills. It wasn’t like Henry to act so impulsively, but Ivan Dodge was getting on his nerves with his restless strut and his mouth that never stopped yapping, even in his sleep. Henry ?gured he could beat him. He ?gured Ivan Dodge was a rabbit: fast, all right, but not smart enough to win. You needed strategy to win a hundred-mile race.

Perry cowhands got enthusiastically involved in the prerace planning, even the ranch manager, who saw an opportunity to build relations between the ranch and the burgeoning community of homesteaders. They decided on ?ve in the morning as a start time and agreed on the bu?alo rubbing stone just north of the settlement of Juliet as the start and ?nish of the race. This was close to the ranch headquarters, but also close enough to town to create some excitement and attract the local gamblers. The cowboys would each ride four horses—the ?rst-and fourth-leg horses their own, and the middle-leg mounts selected from the ranch remuda—switching every twenty-?ve miles in the corners of a hundred-mile square. They each put up ?fty dollars, a lot of money in those days. The challenge became known, and race day settled into the consciousness of everyone for miles around Juliet. Word spread like chicken pox.

Popular support went to the elder. That was because Ivan Dodge was arrogant and needed to be brought down a peg or two. It was right that Henry Merchant win the race, and so the cowboys and the townspeople and the settlers alike bet their money on the veteran, believing in life lessons and con?dent that Ivan Dodge would be taught one. Only a few of the more serious gamblers bet on Ivan, suspecting that youth might just skunk experience.

The ranch cowboys and a few men from town (the ones who had bet the largest sums of money) showed up to see the riders o? in the early morning, rubbing their hands to warm themselves in the cool air, building a ?re in the hollow next to the bu?alo rubbing stone to boil co?ee in an old pot. The ?rst-leg horses stamped and snorted, sensing excitement and ready to go, while the gamblers examined them closely for clues as to which would carry its rider to an early lead—the young cowboy’s prancy bay gelding with his wide nostrils, clean throatlatch, and distinctive white markings, or the old cowboy’s leggy sorrel mare, who looked like she might have the reach of a racehorse.

Ivan and Henry discussed the route, and Henry said, “I’ve got people in the corners to make sure you ride the whole hundred, so don’t go taking no shortcuts,” which made Ivan smirk and say, “I wouldn’t be worrying about me, old man. I doubt those rickety bones can even sit a horse for a hundred miles.” The two cowboys said, “Ha, we’ll just see,” back and forth, “We’ll see about that, won’t we?” Ivan Dodge was wearing a new pair of fringed leather chaps with silver conchas, and the old cowboy couldn’t help but make fun of his fancy out?t. When they mounted up and loped o? as their pocket watches marked ?ve, they were still exchanging barbs about the young cowboy’s sense of direction (famously bad) and the old cowboy’s bones (famously sti?), which amused everyone greatly. The gamblers were in high spirits, and they told and retold the best retorts to newcomers as they arrived wanting details about the start of the race.

The day took on the atmosphere of a summer fair. Spectators congregated at the three change stations, but by far the largest crowd gathered at the bu?alo stone, which was the ?nish as well as the start of the race. Town families walked the short distance to the stone, and farmers and their wives and children came on horseback or in wagons from all directions, by road or cross-country. They brought picnics. A ?ddler showed up—no one seemed to know him—and he played jigs and folk songs to entertain the women and children. The local newspaperman took pictures, although he wasn’t much interested in the farmers and their families and wished he could ride with the two cowboys and capture the race as it unfolded. Like the gamblers, all he could do was wait for the ?nish.

The two riders went north from the stone, past the Torgeson homestead, past the Swan Valley Cemetery with its one lonely marker for Herbert Swan, the ?rst settler in the area to die. Then along a soft dirt road for twenty miles, all the way to the Lindstrom place and the new schoolhouse, the ?rst change station. A good well in the schoolyard, but no time for much of a break. West into the sand hills, the sun just beginning to climb in the eastern sky. Up the ?rst big dune to the top, sharp-edged ridges breaking away like crusted snow, rivers of sand cascading down. Ahead of them, a wilderness, endless miles of sand and grass. No fences, no farms at all until they came to the Varga homestead and the second change station, where the Varga brothers and their families had begun construction of a Catholic church so the visiting priest would have a proper place to conduct the mass. Fresh horses waiting by the newly laid stone foundation, a drink from another good well, the warm smell of sweat and leather, and then south into the heat of the day. No active dunes now, just low rolling hills, August brown and stabbed with the blue-green of sage, muted colors sliding by under the horses’ long-trotting strides, the mercury at its peak for the day, the air so hot it’s hard to breathe, heat waves blurring the land ahead.

Then relief. Down a sandy cut bank into a coulee, deer scatterings, a doe and her twins separated in the excitement. At the bottom, a spring-fed creek, an oasis of sorts shaded by willow and poplar trees. Such respite from the sun, the temptation strong to wait here until later in the day, but after a brief stop, back up into the heat and a stretch of good ?at land. Farms cropping up again on this stretch, small clapboard houses and newly erected pasture fences, newly patented wire gates to open and close, and then the east-west rail line where someone has planted a Union Jack and people are waiting for the last change of horses.

Twenty-?ve miles to go in the blistering sun, straight east through open grassland. Soft rolling hills, an endless graveyard of bleached cattle bones, sober reminders of the previous winter storms. The rise and fall of landscape, the monotony of up and down, twenty-?ve miles going on and on and feeling like the whole hundred all over again. Until ?nally, the creek that winds toward Juliet. Water for man and horse, then up out of the draw, the pace quickening with the sense that the ?nish line is not far now. The horse’s head high, a trot turning into a lope and then a hard gallop for the bu?alo rubbing stone and the waiting crowd of onlookers.

Most of whom quit cheering when they saw it was the young buck galloping toward them, whooping and waving his hat, his horse lathered and foaming. They’d bet on the wrong cowboy.

And then their jaws truly dropped when they saw he was riding the same bay horse that he’d set out on.

Impossible, they said.

The horsemen among the spectators looked carefully for signs that this was, in fact, a di?erent horse. As the young cowboy cooled him out, they examined his markings—a star, a snip, and one white foot—and concluded that he certainly looked like Ivan’s ?rst-leg horse. Then one of the spectators from the ?rst change station rode in and veri?ed Ivan’s claim that, after giving the bay a brief rest, the young cowboy had carried on, leaving his fresh horse behind. This spectator also brought the news that Henry Merchant’s ?rst horse had thrown a shoe and with it a piece of her hoof a fair distance short of the change station, and Henry had lost precious time walking.

The gamblers gave the win to Ivan Dodge and accepted their loss. The newspaperman made his notes about the race (won in a time of 12 hours and 32 minutes), the weather (seasonably hot), and the young cowboy’s sensational mount (purchased from Mister Herbert Legere of Medicine Hat and said to have Arab blood), and took a front-page photograph of Ivan and his horse, prancing like he was ready for another twenty-?ve miles, which was good, because they still had to get home to the ranch headquarters ?ve miles to the southwest.

The ranch hands were mostly disgusted and tired of spending the day among farm families with noisy children and plow dirt under their ?ngernails, and they drifted into town in search of new excitement. Most of the townspeople—the implement dealers and hotel owners and railroad men—went home for supper, except for the few serious gamblers who had won money and were now happy to stick around and shoot the breeze with Ivan Dodge, who was telling the story of his heroic race over and over and couldn’t wait for Henry Merchant to come into view so he could rub the old cowboy’s nose in his loss. A couple of the men had ?asks with them, and when the farm women noticed, they moved their picnics and their families away from the bu?alo stone and the bad in?uence of the gamblers. They knew that their husbands had bet good money, too, but they pretended not to know.

The children were tired and cranky at the end of a long hot day. The ?ddler was still there, and he was trying to play for them, but his tunes had taken a sad turn, as though he were lamenting something lost—his homeland perhaps. When one little boy put his hands over his ears and began to cry, t...

Revue de presse :

“In an inspired feat of storytelling, Dianne Warren links the daily lives of a compelling cast of characters in a prairie community in ways that are as heart-true as they are surprising. Warm, witty, and wisely crafted, Juliet in August is a rich and encompassing novel of unforgettable neighbors who become our own.” —Ivan Doig, author of The Whistling Season
“I was reminded of Carol Shields and the creation of unassuming, matter-of-fact characters who are, in truth, generously complicated. The writing is understated, wry, laconic—as if the place itself could not produce any other kind of story.” —David Bergen

“This is powerful writing—gut-wrenching and inspiring. Its drama is quiet, but in the end you hardly know what hit you.” —Governor General’s Award Jury

“The characters in Juliet in August are as real as the people who live next door, but in these pages Dianne Warren gives us something we can never have with our neighbors—access to their hidden hearts. . . . This is a lovely, life-affirming novel.” —Larry Watson, author of Montana 1948

“Juliet in August is an intricately beautiful novel full of the unexpected triumph of ordinary life.” —Siobhan Fallon, author of You Know When the Men Are Gone

À propos de cette édition

• Éditeur: Tantor Media Inc
• Date d'édition: 2012
• ISBN 10: 1452638233
• ISBN 13: 9781452638232
• Reliure: CD