Chapter 11- Winter:
This is Chapter 12 of 16: You can navigate Chapters here
Two weeks of snow. The temperatures were below average. In Vacaville, the average was 58; in Cheyenne, it averaged 28. It was far below average in Cheyenne this year. Over the last week, the highs were in the low twenties.
Rich knew nothing about being a ranch hand in Wyoming; he assumed that once the snow came, there was less to do. He was mistaken. The work was harder, and his working days had begun and ended in darkness. It was a Thursday, and Mark had driven his truck over to the southeastern corner of the ranch where Eduardo and Rich were repairing a section of fence. “How’s it coming?” Mark asked as he inspected the wires to ensure they weren’t sagging and the posts weren’t loose.
“It’s going good,” Eduardo said. Eduardo started loading tools into the bed and cocked his head towards Rich. “He’s going faster; probably only a day or two more.”
“Good,” Mark said. “I’ve set up an ice-fishing trip this Saturday. One last one before my son gets sent off. Will you join us?”
Eduardo grimaced. His face remained composed except for a slight tightening of his jaw.
His eyes, dark and steady, glint with something restrained. Mark knew this had nothing to do with ice fishing; it was sorrow. Eduardo and his wife, Juanita, had known Trevor since he was a little boy. They had treated him like an adopted son; their own children were grown and gone. Watching Eduardo’s nostrils flare softly as he exhaled through his nose —the only outward sign of the ache settling deep in his chest —was difficult for Mark. Mark was dealing with similar feelings concerning Trevor’s departure.
“Thank you,” Eduardo said, “but Juanita and I are going to cook him some dinner and bring him some things to help him with his journey. Juanita wants to spend as much time as she can with Trevor before he leaves. She is very sad that he has to go.”
‘Journey,’... ‘has to go.’ It dawned on Mark that these were things Eduardo, Juanita, and, he suspected, most of the other immigrants he had known in his life had to consider regularly.
The land beneath Mark was the only one he and his family had known for the last hundred or so years. Unlike Eduardo’s family, any journey that Mark, or anyone else in the Bedford clan, took was usually optional.
Now, with Trevor’s impending transfer, both families were in the same situation. Neither were ready for Trevor to leave, unexpectedly, unprepared, and against his will.
“Ok,” Mark said. “We’d love to have you there, but I get it.” He was not surprised that Eduardo didn’t want to go ice fishing, and he wasn’t surprised that Eduardo and Juanita would wish to say their goodbyes to Trevor alone. Juanita would stuff Trevor until bursting with meals she would spend hours preparing. Eduardo would probably give him something, like one of his hunting knives, as a parting gift. Before leaving, Juanita would hug the young man tightly, reluctant to let go.
“Rich, will we see you?” Mark asked.
The answer was, of course. Rich was exhausted and was looking forward to a mellow weekend at home with his heater blasting and the TV on. But he was going to be there for Trevor. As for ice fishing, several of the Elks told him it was one of the things he had to try at least once in Wyoming.
“Of course,” Rich said. “Let me know where and when.”
“Curt Gowdy State Park,” Mark said. “Tran, Sage, and maybe Hank will also be there.”
Mark had spent sleepless nights concerned about Trevor. He mentioned none of this to anyone except Clare.
Mark was a natural optimist; his whole life had taught him that if you kept your head down and kept working, most problems eventually worked themselves out. He hoped this transfer order would do the same—quietly disappear.
But hope wasn’t a strategy. So they dug in, did the research, and asked the questions that actually mattered: What would happen if they ignored the order? And what if they fought it?
Almost everything they read and heard was not encouraging. Mark preferred to keep clear of politics, but Trevor’s transfer order was political and unavoidable. Mark weighed his options. One was to reach out to Carl. Carl was open about his opposition to the current political environment. But Mark considered Carl more of a whiner than an agent of actual change. Opinions were not helpful at the moment. If they engaged with Carl, they were likely to be flagged in the system.
In the Bedford family dining room, Mark sat Trevor down and met his eyes, the gravity of their impending conversation hanging thick in the air.
“Son,” Mark said. “Unfortunately, you can’t ignore this order. Oakland, big city, sounds like a shithole with nice weather. Long Beach, same thing, warmer weather with more smog. You have to pick something. The government has shown a strong response to any resistance to these transfers. I’d respond to the order and go with Rich’s suggestion, San Leandrö.”
Trevor had always been a simple man; he enjoyed being outdoors and spending time with his small circle at the Elk’s club. Anything else would be a significant change.
Trevor finally responded to his transfer order, choosing San Leandro as his first choice and Long Beach as his second. Two weeks later, Trevor received a certified letter outlining his transfer instructions. He was to report to his new location in San Leandro, California, by February 15th.
On January 3rd, the men arrived at the lake with their gear. Mark was the expert in ice fishing and set things efficiently, without thought or effort. Trevor assisted him. Trevor pulled the rods and packs from the truck and put them in piles on the ground.
Trevor’s path to adulthood had been non-linear. Mark and Clare had been patient with him. They felt they had raised him the right way and that, over time, Trevor would figure things out. It was all the process of growing up. His parents would be there for him, patiently guiding him through the process of growing into whatever he was meant to be. This all changed with the transfer order. Within a few weeks, Trevor would be gone.
Mark thought about this as he sorted through the gear and set it up. Trevor was growing up. He was partying less, and this morning, and the last few times, Trevor had been ready on time and, without being asked, had pitched in to help.
Mark stood over the five rods and started handing them out.
“Trevor,” Mark said, “You get Grey. Rich and Tran, you can pick whichever rod you choose.”
“I get Grey?” Trevor asked. He was surprised and appreciative of the gesture.
“Yeah,” Mark said. “You get Grey. There won’t be any ice fishing in California, so I want you to have the best rod today.”
Sage already had his own setup. Like the Grey, it was a Vexan, but a level down. Rich and Tran didn’t have an opinion. Their focus was on keeping warm and drinking some beer. Tran took one rod and Rich the next. Mark grabbed the ice auger, which he would use to bore a hole for fishing. “Let’s go,” Mark said.
Rich walked gingerly, conscious of the fact that there was only a layer of ice between their feet and a frigid lake.
Like Rich, Tran was a reluctant participant to ice fishing. “We could have ordered fish at the club, and they have cold beer too. It’s much warmer there,” Tran said.
“Yes,” Mark said. “The beer is the same, but the fish is different. Here you earn it under the sky and in the wind. And it’s fresh. A few months from now, Trevor will be in some suburban store asking some guy behind the counter what his fish choices are. Today, we can go out and find out for ourselves. They won’t have a Wyoming trout fresh from the water in California. Today, those fish are here with us; it’s just a question of whether we can catch them.”
Tran nodded and continued pulling the beer cooler towards their destination. Mark led the way. Rich followed him and the rest of the group, and for the first time in a long time, Rich said a prayer silently to himself that the ice below him would support his weight.
Mark walked about 500 yards and set down the auger, his rod, and the pack that contained the rest of his gear. “Set down those buckets,” Mark said to Trevor. Trevor complied and nonchalantly dropped four buckets, the bright five-gallon kind you get from the hardware store, on the ice. Rich tensed as the buckets fell. The rest of the group seemed unbothered. Trevor unstacked the orange buckets, moved his a few yards over to the right, turned his over, and sat down on it. Trevor then tossed a bucket to Mark, who was busy drilling his fishing hole. The auger, which looked like a power drill with a massive bit, efficiently worked through the snow and ice. Within minutes, lakewater splashed out. Sage walked over to grab the auger and take his turn.
Tran passed around some beers from the cooler while Mark was drilling a hole for Rich.
He was through the water within minutes.
“There you go,” Mark said.
Mark then turned towards Sage. “Hey, I have some whiskey for you.”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Sage said. Mark walked over and pulled a flask from the inside of his heavy coat, then poured its contents into the tin cup that Sage had presented. He then walked back to sit on his bucket nearby.
“It’s been a while since we’ve done this together,” Mark said to Sage. He quickly rigged up his pole and dropped it into the hole underneath him. “How are you doing today?” He asked.
“Well,” Sage said. “Fine company. Beautiful day.”
Rich looked around. It was different for sure, but beautiful? All he saw was white. The lake. The sky. The horizon where the lake ended and the ground started. It felt like they were in a cloud or a snowball.
Rich was glad he did his research on clothing. An insulated parka, heavy gloves, and thermal base and mid-layers that he recently purchased from the sporting goods store in town. And some heavy boots and a knit cap that Mark had loaned him. The gear made sitting on a pail on a lake of ice as tolerable as could be. Rich hadn’t considered that whiskey was an option. Even with all the layers, it was still cold. Whiskey could take the edge off.
Rich looked down at his icehole, the line, and the water beneath. He anticipated nothing. He didn’t actually care much for fish. Someone would help him out if he caught something. That wasn’t the point of being here. He sat, and a question came to his mind in the stillness. “George, why does everyone call you Sage?”
“Not sure,” Sage said. “They started calling me that a long time ago.”
“My dad called him that,” Mark said. “Not sure exactly when. I was a young man when I asked him the same question. My dad told me it was related to a quote he heard growing up. ‘Better to be thought a fool, than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.’ Sage doesn’t say much, so he must be wise. Sage is an institution at the Elks Club. When he says something, he makes you think. I might not have enough whiskey in his flask to get him to tell you himself, but he’s lived a long life. He fought in Vietnam. He had a wife and children. And I’m sure many other things in between.”
If Sage was offended by Mark’s synopsis of his life, he didn’t show it. He took a drink from his tin cup, stared down into the hole where his bait drifted in the dark, and finally nodded to the topic.
“Yes, I served in that war,” Sage said. “And it’s true what they say—war is hell. But this doesn’t feel like the place to talk about it. You can watch the documentaries or read about it. Reporting was pretty accurate in those days.”
He shifted slightly on his stool. “Everyone had a different experience, but the constants were the same: people died—some I knew, some I didn’t—and you built a bond with the ones beside you. And my family…” He paused, steadying his voice. “My wife and children passed before I did. That was its own kind of hard. Tran and Rich know that…”
“I’m seventy-five now,” Sage said, looking out into the white horizon. “I still have the memories. And the scars and the sadness. But they start to fade as the years go on. You don’t get over it, but you accept it. At my age, I know who I am, who I was, and who I’ll never be. These days I’m here for the moment, and the moment is here for me. I appreciate and accept what each day has to offer me.”
“Cheers to that,” Tran said. He raised his cup.
There was so much more that Rich wanted to ask about what Sage just said. Particularly about his wife and family. What happened to them? How did he survive losing them? How old and strong do you have to be to overcome that? There was comfort in what Sage said. Rich resolved he would watch one of those documentaries about Vietnam.
Ken Burns probably made one.
Rich looked around at the others sitting on their buckets. Sage might have told them more over the years, but Rich assumed not much. They weren’t pressing him for more information. Rich kept his questions to himself and sat, looking out into the muddled whiteness, trying to experience the day as Sage did.
Trevor had been quietly drinking his beer. “I don’t look forward to buying fish from a store in California,” Trevor said. Clearly, he was thinking more about the looming transfer than he led on.
“You can still catch fish in California. Even in the winter,” Mark said. “Who knows, it might be good for you.”
“It just doesn’t make sense,” Trevor said. “How is shipping me out to California going to help the country? I don’t fight and yell at people; it’s just stupid.”
“It’s the government,” Tran said. “Remember, Nonsensica..”
“I guess so,” Trevor said as he opened another can of beer.
Rich had known Trevor for about a year. His first impression was of a young, irresponsible, yet friendly drunk who possessed a charming charisma, in the months since he had cut back a bit from the drinking.
“Have you considered fighting the order or ignoring it?” Tran asked.
“Yes,” Mark said. “Clare in particular. It seems so wrong for our son to be sent away. He hasn’t done anything wrong. We spent many hours looking into it,” Mark said. “People have ignored or refused their order. Afterwards, they lost jobs and stopped getting benefits. I’m sure you’ve heard they are threatening to bring back the draft and enlist anyone who defies the transfer. Those people were all in California, Chicago, and New York - not in red states. But if you refuse, you are standing against the government, and they don’t seem to like that.”
“Trevor obviously is not a threat and doesn’t give a shit about politics,” Tran said. “But if you notice, much of the violence is being started by people who are young and single. I don’t know what incites it, maybe stuff they are reading on their phones. I couldn’t tell what they are reading that is so interesting, but even Trevor, he’s looking at his all the time.”
“I’m not right now,” Trevor said. “That has nothing to do with it. These transfers are just the government getting in our way again.”
“I think Vincent issued the order to move out of Terds’ shadow,” Tran said. “To avoid being known as a dislikable man who happened to intersect with the course of history.”
“Tran, I agree with you,” Sage said. “Maybe 200 people died during the civil rights unrest of the 1960s. Over 800 people have died from civil unrest over the past four years. Sure, that’s much less than the thousands that die in other parts of the world due to famine or violence. But these are American deaths. Vincent is no more serious a person than Terds was. Just different. Whose to blame? Well, I’m sitting here with my ass on a pail, I’m not the one to judge.”
Sage had said more than most of them had ever heard him speak in months. At the club, Sage would sit in the corner near one of the few windows that looked out onto the street. As the drunken debates raged on, Sage’s gaze would typically drift back to that window looking out at the street outside. Occasionally, Sage would speak and then again go silent.
Sage was now quiet again.
“I can see why Vincent would issue this order,” Tran said. “America is now an ‘us’ vs ‘them’ country. Nobody likes Vincent. Not the Reds or the Blues. Why would they? He’s not a crazy blood-Red like Terds was. He’s not inspiring anyone. Yet here we are, the economy is in the shitter, the world hates us, and we are fighting amongst ourselves. The transfer orders? It’s genius in a way. Disrupt the disruption with more disruption.”
Rich wondered to himself.
What kind of world do we live in, where we repatriate people against their will?
It had been over an hour. The fish weren’t biting.
Trevor changed his bait and turned towards Rich. “What’s San Leandro like?”
“You will be a minority,” Rich said. “Maybe a quarter of the people are white. But most of the minorities are cool, like Tran. I wouldn’t bring up politics; it’s different there. But I looked it up, they have an Elk’s club in Alameda, an island less than ten miles away.”
Trevor scooped some snow around his third can of beer.
“Can I fish and hunt?” Trevor asked.
“You can fish. You are right next to the water,” Rich said. “I don’t know about hunting. I’m sure people do it around there, I just don’t know about it. It will be different; they don’t have the wide open spaces you do here. But they are around. You’ll just need to meet the right people who can help you find them.”
“You’ll be just fine,” Mark said. “Hank mentioned to me that you’ve been working at his shop on Tuesdays and that you are becoming a good mechanic. They need mechanics everywhere. You’re growing up, becoming a man. And I’m proud of you.” Mark’s voice cracked a bit. He walked over to the cooler next to Trevor, opened it, and grabbed a beer-something he seldom did. He placed his hand on Trevor’s shoulder and squeezed it. “Your mom and I will miss you, of course,” Mark said. “No doubt it will be different. But the person you are is more important than the place you are in. If Rich can come out to Cheyenne and become a rancher, then anything is possible.”
Rich nodded his head in agreement.
Sometimes a change can be good if you are open to it. There has been so much noise lately, but if you make an effort to look up and around, you will find the connections you need to keep moving forward.
“I’ll miss you too, Dad,” Trevor said. He rubbed his nose with his sleeve and seemed to well up a bit.
Tran felt for the kid. He was starting to get his shit together, and Tran hoped the government’s arbitrary policies would not derail his momentum. But Trevor was going to a new place, not to war. There, he could meet new people and have experiences to learn from.
“Go find a good place to fish,” Tran said. “Go visit that Elks club Rich mentioned. You’ll find the people you were meant to find. We’ll be here when you need us. The world is a bigger place than you realize now, and bigger than some would have you believe.”