THE MEMOIRS OF RED JOHNSON: The Woman who sought her husband.

As I sit here this evening, on this heavy chair by the fire, the window betrays the red- faced sun. The rum is good and my glass is half full. None could be more blessed than me, except perhaps this dog that lies on the rug by my feet, gazing at the logs in the splendid fire. You Sir, seem mellow and content yourself. I think you have had a hard day. For there is a certain peace, a satisfying warmth, that can only come from having braved the hard whip of each day’s trials and emerged alive. We live still and so we mustn’t complain. For there are some less fortunate than us. They have lost their breath even while their eyes were open. Not that they were any less brave, only less fortunate.

Yes, Sir. My brown shoulders do not droop with age. That is more for the man who has tended to his sheep on the hills. For men like us, who have lived a life less enviable, no fatigue is come with age. We cannot afford to wilt. We will sooner die. Yet I would choose no other way to live than the one I know. To each his own.
I was saying the rum is good, and right I am. It is at times like these that one may let the mind wander for a bit. First to the lovely porcelain plate on the wall; a painting of a wolf in the snow. Then to the soft wool of the rug beneath my feet. Then to the pattern on the window made by the cold wind outside. Memories. Plenty of those have I. At my age Sir, it should hardly surprise anyone that I have memories enough to last us through this night and many more. Only if you insist will I share them with you.

There was Sir, a woman I once knew. Ah, the very mention makes you smile. Do not assume, Sir, that I embark on some account of courtship and romance. No. It does not suit me, Sir, to follow the skirt of a fair maiden. There have been times, I admit, when I have liked, even more than liked, some fair maiden or another, usually because she be the owner of a kind smile, or because she carry in her eyes the blue of a sea I have never beheld. But those have proved to be passing flights of fancy. A flower be best on its own branch. Once plucked and forced into a vase, it only droops and dies. I am sure you think otherwise. For some of us, however, it is only an unconquered mountain or an enemy’s land that delights. The price is heavy and we ain’t afraid to pay it.

But this woman Sir, that I now talk of was none of that. She was neither a flower nor a price. She had the misfortune of having a husband who was very prone to quarrel and vice. Of course he was loving to her, and they even begot two pretty children, I now forget their names. Round headed children with rosy cheeks, one boy and the other a girl, both of the same size, less trouble I am sure than what most children be. So this woman was a good wife and they pulled along. Then her bugger of a husband, went and had a good fist shake with the Jefferson brothers. You have heard of them I am sure. They used to be powerful in those days, manning the land around the thirteenth mountain from the lake, and making a general nuisance of themselves. They kept steeling his chickens, or so her husband claimed. No one believed him. They had no reason to. She spoke little and generally let her husband do the talking. She was well- brought up, she was. But then one day, her husband disappeared. Some said the Jefferson brothers had taught him a lesson, probably the last lesson he learnt. Some said he had eloped with the Parson’s daughter, though I would never believe that for once. People kept coming up with explanations of what had happened, like they always do. It is a common hatred that all of mankind share for the unexplained. After about a year, everyone decided he was dead. So he was dead.

This wife of his, however, would not hear of it. She believed he was alive. It is hard, no doubt, for any God- fearing wife to consider her husband dead while she has not proof of it. Hope lives on, particularly when nothing else does. She had them two little doves to see to. Times were hard. So she did what no one wanted her to. She left the two babies with the widow Ramsey and got on top of the one horse her husband owned. It was an old horse but it rode better under the lightness of her weight than it did under its true master. She told the village she was going to look for her man. For surely, she said, if he had not come home to see his kin and blood for a whole year, he must be in some grave danger. She would have to find him.
She set off, one misty morning, having cried at having to leave her pretty ones behind. How they wailed, those two tiny muttons. She gave the widow her last penny and bade her to see to her children. No one saw her for a long time after.

Now we men would see her now and again, galloping over the big mountains in the north. Now and again, we would see a glimpse of her big skirt as she rode across the cedar woods behind the mountains. It was a miracle how she lived, with no money and no man. No one knew how she got on. Once Tom the rascal said he had met her in one of the little public houses in the village to the west of the lake, where the toothless tribes live. He said she had stopped for a drink of water. The horse seemed older than before and she too seemed tired. She told him she had looked in all the villages to the south of the lake and was on her way to the rocky land further north. She still hoped to find her husband. Tom, being the rascal that he is, told her that it was all in vain, for her husband was surely dead and she a widow. But she only smiled and said that might be the case but she would not give up till she was certain of it.

Sometimes, on evening like these, as I sit by the fire with my rum, I do feel for that poor thing. How sad it must be for a woman to have to leave her dear brood behind and go out on horse- back in search of her wayward husband. I wonder how she must love him to want to destroy her everything for him, even her womanly nature. Then sometimes, when the rum is strong and in my head, I think she knew the truth. She knew he was dead. She knew she wouldn’t find him. She only wanted to roam the county-side without a care in the world. How evil the rum is, even as I love it so.