Montana Strawberries

By Tim Arnzen

"These little gems are God's sweetest gift," my grandmother says and motions me to pick a strawberry of my own. "Smell them."

My knees rest in the burnt umber soil of western Montana. Overhead, hummingbirds dart about like high-speed fans competing with the buzzing bees in my grandmother's garden. And, the sky--I don't think there's a way to describe the blue that fills the senses.

I finish weeding my last row of strawberry plants just as a horsefly lands on my arm. Flicking it away, I hurry to where she waits.

She holds a strawberry to her nose, closing her eyes, and breathes in its soft pink smell. I pick a berry for myself, and lift it to my nose letting its sweet scent curl my toes and turn my cheeks vermilion. When Imy eyes, she is winking at me from beneath her straw hat, and biting the berry in half.

From across the wide valley, I hear the calliope of a train, its black wail coming from far down the tracks along the Clark Fork river. A bead of strawberry juice slips down grandmother's pale, wrinkled chin and she calmly catches it with a finger and wipes it on her blue gardening dress. I bite into my berry, squinting, as it is a particularly sour one: the kind that I like best, tempered with enough natural sugar to make me look for another.

"What we need to do," grandmother begins, "is weed, water, and feed them. Then we battle the insects and the mold." She gazes around the garden stopping on me, her cool, winter-sky eyes appraising my size and strength.

"At the end of the season, we'll cover them at the first sign of frost. If we can do all that William, we can have a taste of summer on our winter breakfast." A lock of peppered hair dances with the mountain breeze along her heavy cheeks. "How does that sound? Strawberries on your Christmas waffles, William?"

"Sounds great, Grandma!" I say, thinking of winter's bitter cold days of up-at-six to catch the bus to school (in the dark) and then home by four-thirty (again in the dark). There are many things I loathe about winter, especially when I consider the hospitality of summer, but there is one thing that I can count on: strawberries. Strawberries are just the cure for the winter blues, and some of my relatives say that strawberries can help to cure common maladies, used in a poultice or just gobbled down. I never witnessed them mend any broken legs or remedy me from the pox, but they put a smile on my face and that is half the battle.

The family garden covers nearly four acres and is enclosed by an eight-foot rusty fence to keep out the white tail deer and their larger cousins the elk. It is an old garden, and from the very first day of spring, when the snow line is far up the mountains, grandmother prepares the soil for anything that will sprout in the cool climate of western Montana. After the garden is planted, she tends the strawberries, removing their winter covering and tenderly picking off all the dead leaves, humming a song, a tune that her mother probably hummed to her when she was just a girl. The strawberry plants themselves span near a century, and are passed down from mother to daughter. Perish the thought, if anybody suggested that my grandmother procure some of those new..."super" strawberry plants, easily obtained from any garden store--guaranteed to be mold resistant and ever-bearing--the new and improved strawberry plant. Grandmother would complain it to be ridiculous for people to imagine they can alter God's plan and call it better!

"You watch William, soon, they will be doing their hocus pocus on people!" I love our Montana strawberries, and I suppose that everybody in my family did too. Sure, our strawberries are not as big or as bright as the store bought variety, but they have a taste of big-sky-country, and that is far better than anything a super-store can ever offer.

"Grandma," I say, looking up from my weeding. "Where do you suppose the oldest strawberry plant is?"

Standing to stretch her slightly arthritic knees, a handful of weeds in her left hand, eyes sparkling with mischief, she looks at me as though I have asked an age-old question.

"I don't suppose anybody knows that William. Well...with the exception of the ghosts...of course."

"Ghosts." I look at her, curious and alert. "What about ghosts? Are there really such things as ghosts, Grandma?" I ask, looking around as if one might grab me at any moment.

"You don't believe in ghosts William?"

"Well, I have never saw one, Grandma."

"Never seen, William. Your great-grandfather would be very disappointed in you if he heard you speaking like that," she says, shaking the handful of weeds accusingly at me.

I was thankful that I had not grown under my great-grandfather's tutelage. I hear that his ruler was made of iron, and that his kettle voice could scare the hell out of any screeching nun.

"You don't believe in ghosts because you've never seen one, huh, William? Isn't that very wise of you," she replies, with a tipping smile. "Do you suppose that you have seen everything that there is to see?" She looks at me expectantly, a gray eyebrow raised.

Imy mouth, taking a thoughtful breath to reply, but she interrupts me.

"No. I haven't seen everything William." She scratches pleasantly at her nose, rocking back and forth under the cerulean sky.

"I suppose that they might be real, but..."

"But what," her hands on her hips.

"I..."

"Do you promise to keep a secret, William?"

"Sure," I whisper, casting my eyes to the ground as if I had already revealed the secret. "Cross my heart and hope to never eat another strawberry."

She looks at me horrified. "I think that is a little much. Don't you? Ten-year old boys are made to tell small lies."

"Not me," I say, followed by my spreading smirk of truth.

"Oh, really!" She levels me with a discerning look.

"Alright!" She leans close as if someone might hear, "Your Aunt Mary and Uncle Stephen claim that they have seen my little brother and your great grandmother coming up from the cemetery to get at the strawberries."

"I didn't know you had a little brother." I say, genuinely mystified. "I thought you were the youngest, Grandma."

"No, William, I'm not. I had a little brother. He was taken from us in a logging accident. I don't like to talk about it. He was about your age when the accident happened. You have his look about you." She sighs, far away in thought. "God works in strange ways William.

"My mother believed, though she had a bit of the old timer's disease. Come to think of it, your aunt and uncle have always had it." She winks at me and then begins to hum, bending down to the next plant.

"You're just playing with me...aren't you Grandma? Do you believe them?"

She begins humming that same old hum, ignoring me. I go back to work, but she has already planted her seed, and I made my decision to see whether I could see the ghosts.

I sit under a gibbous moon, on a retired, 1954 Case tractor. Every night, I pick a nice selection of fruits and vegetables and throw the gnawed nubs into the tall grass for the deer. On the third night, a herd of elk passes through the field. The deer lift their ears above the grass and listen as seventeen of their husky cousins make their way down to the river for a drink.

After two nights, falling to sleep off and on, I begin to wonder if I'm wasting my time. But, then it happens...

Out of the corner of my eye, a luminous fog slowly emerges from the stand of lodge-pole that divides the field from the cemetery. I shake my head, blinking rapidly, trying to wipe the fairy dust from my eyes, but this is no trick of a sleepy eye.

It moves across the field like a plume of smoke, sliding up through the tall grass toward the garden. I shake my head again, in one last effort to disperse the phantom. I bolt upright in the Case's wash-pan seat with a jerk and hold my breath, remaining completely motionless as the wisp begins to take form.

A long black skirt and crisp blouse appears. A tight gray shawl covers a set of slender shoulders, an old black hat dangles its gray flower over the brim, and black boots move just over the dry grass--it turns into a woman. I have seen a picture of great grandmother hanging on the wall of grandmother's home, and I recognize the ghost to be her. Coiled in the furls of her dress, I see grandmother's little brother, leading his mother by the hand toward the garden. They move through the rusty fence, stopping just inside the garden. An expression of comfort and of home crosses their faces as they look around with approval. I think that my great grandmother is humming because a buzzing lights upon my ears which reminds me of the tune grandmother hums when she is in the garden. They continue through the tall sunflowers, brushing over the carrot tops, until they arrive at the edge of the strawberry patch and pause for a moment to sniff the air. I can see great grandmother's nose twitching as they continue up to the old gray barn.

My great grandmother stops and bends over to tussle beneath the emerald leaves of a strawberry plant. I know that is where the first strawberry plant was planted. She then raises her fingers to her nose and slowly inhales the smell of the strawberry. An expression of joy passes over her face, because I see color shimmering through her ashen hue. She stands in the middle of the strawberry patch rocking just like her daughter. I am sure that she is humming, and her son might be too.

Another wisp flashes in the corner of my eye, then another, and another, until I count nine. The last is my great grandfather slipping into the strawberry patch, a stoic look on his face.

The ghosts mill around the garden for nearly an hour, and then great grandmother moves back through the fence down into the field. The rest of the family follows her down the gentle slope, moving back to their graves.

An owl hoots from somewhere in the deep forest, and a cloud, blocks the moon. I watch as the very last one, the boy about my age, stops at the edge of the trees. He turns back toward the garden, a familiar smile on his face, and then turns and makes his way through the silent wood.

I spring from the Case like a deer, hitting the ground and nearly knocking the wind from myself. I regain my balance, catch my breath and pull my legs beneath me, sprinting up the trail as fast as ever. I imagine that I am a deer, jumping over the deep ruts of the dirt road, running all the way to grandmother's house: faster and freer then I had ever run before.

I burst into the house, the door left wide, tennis shoes screeching on the linoleum of the kitchen, rattling knick knacks through the living room, and burst my way with a huff and a puff into grandmother's bedroom.

"Who's there." She calls in a startled and sleepy voice.

"It is just me, Grandma...William. I saw your mother...your little brother...your father, aunts, uncles. I saw everybody."

"What are you talking about?" Her tone is clearly upset. "Waking me up for nonsense!"

"I saw the ghosts...your little brother!"

"Oh goodness," she complains, falling back into her bed. "That's nice William. Now go back to bed. You can call Aunt Mary and Uncle Stephen in the morning. Tell them all about it."

"You don't believe me?"

"Go to bed William. You were dreaming."

"What?"

I am speechless, and I turn and leave, stomping my feet in anger. The windows rattle in their panes, and I slam the screen door with a bang! I start crying when I get outside, and for just a moment, I hate her, but only for a moment.

Emerging bleary eyed from the wool gathering of a memory from over twenty years ago, I turn my car off a remote highway in western Montana onto a stretch of crooked gravel known as the Blue Slide. A sign branded with the name of the road and the names of its residents shadows a patch of blue flowers. My family's name was burnt on the wood first, followed by the date, 1889. I drive home along 20 miles of cliffs that slip into the Clark Fork River far below.

I continue up the road and pull from the Blue Slide onto a long dirt lane that curves up through the bull-pine and ponderosa of the farm. The family cemetery sits off to the right, and I look to my great grandfather's tall headstone and continue by the old schoolhouse where he once taught the children of the Blue Slide. Moving past the garden, I glance back through its rusty fence at the strawberry patch and pull around the corner to grandmother's home, nestled in a crook of an apple tree orchard, parking my car behind the others parked there. My Uncle Jim steps from the front door. "Been expecting you William. Mother says she's waiting for you."

A tear forms in the corner of my eye as I step into the front room. The house is filled with aunts, uncles, and cousins, all of them chatting and eating dinner. The front room falls silent when I step through the door and all eyes look towards me.

"Hello William," they suddenly chime together. "Hello, hello--hello," I say, my voice hollow, as I stretch from my long drive, bending down to kiss Aunt Mary on the cheek, doing my best to hide my tears in her dyed hair. Uncle Jim pulls me to the bedroom. In an old rocking chair my Aunt Molly sits reading the Bible. Grandmother lay in her small bed, her gray hair is thin, but brushed nicely. A homemade quilt covers her to her bosom, and she looks as peaceful as can be, lying there sleeping through the pain.

Aunt Molly stands up from the chair, setting down her small Bible and removes her reading glasses.

"Hi, Aunt Moll," I say, giving her a long hug.

"Hello Willie," she replies, patting my back.

"How is she doing?"

"She's been waiting for you."

I give her a look of wonder. She gives me one back.

"I'll leave you two alone. Wake her," and the door shut.

My grandmother's once strong arms, now lay wrinkled and slack outside the blanket, and I walk slowly, the wood creaking beneath my feet, to the side of the bed, and pick up her pale hand and feel its chill. I can smell the sickness in the room, the smell of age and all its declining unpleasantness, and I feel ill myself, caressing her cool hand. How much soil that hand must have turned? How many strawberries had it picked? Noses wiped? Behinds paddled? How many gifts had it wrapped, and hearts consoled?

"Grandma. Grandmaaaa."

There is a moment when the voices outside became quiet, and I think I hear a train whistle reaching up from the Clark Fork, winding up the tracks along the river beneath the slow slope of the farm.

"William." Grandma's soft voice coughs.

"I'm here."

She draws a wilting, trembling breath. I know that she is in pain and wish that it would go away for her.

"Tell me...about the ghosts."

I swallow, the memories take over my mind in a hurry.

"Oh Grandma, they are real," I blurt. "I saw them: your mother, your father, and your little brother. They are there."

Our blue eyes met. The smell of strawberries suddenly moves through the room. We both know the truth.

"It's nice...I can still have s...berries," she breathes, in barely a whisper. "Love...y...Will."

"I love you too, Grandma," I say, through salty tears and a lump in my throat.

She smiles weakly, her eyes sparkle, inhaling to her deepest depths.

It is a train. I can hear it coming up the long track.

I lean in toward her and whisper. "You can still smell the strawberries...Grandma."

She holds the breath for a moment, as if trying to keep it, to clutch to life for just a moment more...

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