“In other words,” Rosalia said, trembling now far more than Eddie, “blame the one who calls you out, act like we have no say in how we make our livings, and go on doing something horribly wrong!” With which she stormed out of the schoolhouse, causing her “enemy,” Buford, to ask Regina to please go find her and try to soothe her.

  High-stress high-volume ugliness then filled the serene old schoolhouse as Hub, Doty, Max, and Kira agreed we should call the police and have Rosalia arrested, while Kale, Risa, Ida, and Buford urged we give her a second chance.

  It was a surprise to all but Risa, who somehow sensed before he spoke that he’d detected an unseen thermal in the room, when Jamey rose to his feet wearing a gentle smile and said, “I propose a recess, during which everybody with kids or animals to tend can go home. I’ll then propose, to a smaller, calmer group, what I feel is a graceful way out of this crisis, we’ll discuss it, and we’ll fill the rest of you in on how our discussion went in the morning.”

  When no one objected and many looked relieved, Jamey asked Hub, Doty, Max, Kira, Kale, Ida, Risa, Lou Roy, Buford, and Eddie to please join him in a seated circle, the room emptied by two-thirds, and the named parties moved their chairs accordingly.

  “I’ve got no skin in this feud,” he began, “except my friendship with all of you. Rosalia’s hell-raising has shocked and angered us. But that girl’s a loved friend to me too, and I strongly believe we can bring this thing to a close without calling the cops or giving her a criminal record. I was scheduled to go to Portland in four days, but if Eddie will let me take Rosalia with me, I’ll leave tomorrow. Think of me as a parole officer who vows she will not be a repeat offender. But know too that I hope to help heal her of a wound I feel has caused this crisis, a wound she and I share. I lost my mother in a very cruel way when I was five. Rosa lost hers just as cruelly when she was seven. Just sit quiet with that a minute.”

  You could have heard a pin drop. No one saw this coming. But when Eddie Dominguez, looking stunned and moved, slowly nodded his head, Kale and Risa nodded too.

  “If you’ll let her come with me tomorrow, Eddie, we’ll compare our losses together. A glimpse of mine, to help the rest of you understand: when my mother died on my fifth birthday in the same hospital where I was born, I buried that cruel coincidence so deep you’d think I never had a mother. But every year, when our shared birthday-deathday rolled around, impotent rage burst out of me in ways as dangerous as what’s been bursting out of Rosalia. This is where Portland comes in. I called TJ before our meeting tonight because his brother, Jervis, sees things most of us can’t. On a long Ocean-walk in 1997, Jervis diagnosed my idiot refusal to grieve my mother, and assigned me a simple prayer. When I snarled that I didn’t believe in prayer, Jervis, in his damaged, papery whisper, read me a riot act that reduced me to rubble. Long story short, he forced me to repeatedly say the prayer I didn’t believe in, and I made stronger contact with my mother than I had since I lost her. My plan for Rosalia is simple: we’ll talk mother loss en route to Portland, and the next day Jervis has agreed to take Rosalia Ocean-walking. After dozens of such walks with him, I fully believe he might help Rosalia in ways the rest of us can’t. What do you say, folks?”

  Max Bowler spoke up first. “Sounds nutty on the face of it, Jamey. But we can’t leave Rosalia on the loose here. What’s to lose if you think this is worth a try?”

  Hub Punker turned red as a beet and blored, “What’s to lose!? Cattle and cowboys, that’s what! That girl needs to be punished!”

  “I just changed my mind for two reasons,” Kira Bowler said firmly. “One, we all owe TJ a ton, and Rosa holds a special place in his heart. Two, if we turn her over to the cops and they put her in Sapphire County Juvenile Detention, I know from former students there are dangers there we wouldn’t wish on anyone. I couldn’t live with myself if we jailed her and something awful happened. I’m all for the Jamey and Jervis plan.”

  When Hub sputtered, “Turncoat!” and Doty Nolan nodded, Ida Craig stared holes in them and said, “Name-calling? Seriously? I’m a hundred percent behind Jamey’s plan.”

  “Makes two of us,” Kale rumbled—and Hub and Doty went silent for the night.

  Lou Roy then reached deep into the kindness he tries to hide and turned to Eddie. “I know you’re upset about my truck. Don’t be, Eddie. I was overdue for a new rig. It’s my pal Rosalia I hope we repair fast, an’ Jamey’s tossed us an idea miles ahead o’ anything else I heard this sorry night. Can we bag this nonsense an’ let Jamey an’ Jervis get to it?”

  The instant Eddie nodded, Kale said, “Then we’re good to go. Thanks, everybody, and extra thanks to you, Jamey and Eddie. Meeting adjourned.”

  Wandering II: Including Joaquina (October 2008)

  The next morning, as Jamey and Rosalia crossed Western Montana, he kept the talk light for the first couple of hours. But after a pit stop near the Idaho border, when he and Rosalia climbed back in, he said, “Before we get back on the road, are you willing to step, as gently as possible, into troubled waters we have in common, Rosalia? Would that be okay?”

  Though her posture stiffened and she stared straight ahead at nothing, she nodded.

  “A big reason I wanted to make this trip with you is that I lost my mom when I was five. Her name is Debbie, and I say is, not was, because I still feel her strongly sometimes. I’m wondering what your mom’s name is, and whether you sometimes feel her.”

  Just that fast Rosalia burst open. “Her name was Joaquina, and not even Risa or Lore have ever asked me that! And I try to feel her all the time. But nobody speaks of her! Nobody looks for her! Do they think because awful men used drugs to take her captive, Joaquina was awful too? She was my mother! She could still be alive! How could Eddie make us abandon her? Why did he make us run?”

  Her intensity redoubled Jamey’s effort to remain calm. “Thank you for opening up, Rosa. You fill my heart with good trouble and my mind with questions. But let’s go slowly and carefully. To start, I wonder what you make of this. Last night Risa and Kale briefed me on why you and Eddie came to Montana a decade ago. They said Eddie risked his life for Joaquina several times before you left Arizona, but when she brought the drug men to your home he had to lie to save you both. If they saw Eddie again, he believes they’d kill him. Kale and Risa believe it too. I know you trust Kale and Risa. So I feel there’s something even bigger than trust going on. My first question: What’s happening inside of you that’s turned you so fiercely against the cattle operation and your finest friends?”

  “I lost Joaquina, and you lost Debbie. I trust that,” she said. “So I’ll try to answer. But it’s very hard to talk about. I’ll prob’ly cry at the worst parts. But I’ll try!”

  “Cry when you need to, with my thanks,” Jamey said.

  “On our last night in Arizona, two of the men who took Joaquina captive found our house. And yes, Joaquina led them to us. But who can blame her? They would have hurt her, maybe killed her, if she didn’t. They were terrifying, both of them—and they’d come to terrify us. The hardest thing…” Rosalia’s voice broke up, and she began to tremble. But she raised her hands in the air and shook them as if shaking off water, took a huge breath, and surprised Jamey with how quickly she was able to continue. “I’d found two feral kittens. Really small ones, their eyes just opening. Calicos. I kept them in a shoebox by my bed and fed ’em milk out of a dropper. When one of the men saw them, he walked over to them, turned and smiled at Eddie and me, and at Joaquina, then shot both kittens dead.” Now the tears came. “I couldn’t understand anything Eddie said to the men! I was too young to know what they wanted! But I can’t not hear those shots even now! I can’t not hear Joaquina’s screams! I can’t not see the bullet holes in the floor after they took my mother away.”

  “Oh, my God, Rosa! I’m so sorry!”

  “So that’s why,” she said brokenly, “loving the Highland calves from the day they’re born, seeing how gentle they get during two and a half years of trusting me, I can’t stand the shots that kill them. I just can’t! And I’m sorry I put people I love in danger. But I’ll never be able to stand those shots!”

  Jamey was gentleness itself as he said, “You shouldn’t have to, Rosa. From now on we’ll protect you from them. I volunteer and others will too. We’ll go climb a mountain, canoe a lake, take you wherever you feel most at peace. And another thing, Rosalia. There’s a beautiful side to what you’ve been attempting. May I describe it?”

  Looking mystified, she nodded.

  “You knew it would be impossible to truly free the cattle, but you freed them as best you could anyway, twice in two days. Why? Because it was your way of trying to free your mother. That’s the beauty. In impossible circumstances, you’re still trying to love Joaquina.”

  Something in Rosalia released, and she cried hard. “Kleenex in the glove box,” Jamey said, and she used lots of them. But again, after shaking her hands in the air as if to dry them, she was able to steady.

  “‘Bless you’ is not a phrase I use,” Jamey told her. “Who am I to think I can bless anybody? But something bigger than me is urging me to say, ‘Bless your attempts to love your mother. Bless them, Rosalia.’”

  A few more tears. A few more Kleenex. No words. But such grateful dark eyes.

  “This exchange has been huge, and we should give it a rest,” Jamey said. “But we’re on our way to Portland for a reason, so there’s one more thing to say. Jervis is a very unusual man. Two men as bad as those who took Joaquina once injured him terribly. You’ll see his damages. But you’ll also soon see that he is all about love, Rosalia. And when he senses yours for Joaquina, he’s going to help you do way more than scatter cattle and endanger friends with it. He’s going to help you increase your love, and give it new and better places to go.”

  “Oh, I hope so!” Rosa cried. “And bless you, Jamey, for helping me this way!”

  Wandering III: The Listenings (2008 and 2009)

  Word never slipped out. By late December, all that clued Risa in to a major change was Rosalia’s palpable happiness, and the glowing smiles that appeared on her face and Lore’s every time they set eyes on each other. They clearly had a secret they relished keeping.

  With her usual acuity, Risa noticed the glow was brightest on mornings when she found Lore- and Rosalia-sized tracks leading into, then out of, the windowless, doorless shell of the unfinished B Barn first thing in the morning. On the last Monday in 2008, Risa woke in the dark, took a 6 a.m. walk, and through binoculars saw what she’d hoped for: the shine of two flashlights stepping out of the barn shell together. Not wanting to damage something dear to her friends, Risa didn’t speak of it, but did keep investigating.

  At 5:15 a.m. the following Monday, January 5th, 2009, she donned her warmest clothes, grabbed a flashlight, strolled down through Aspen Swale to the shell of the B Barn, stepped through the doorless door into the 17-degree-Fahrenheit great room, and beheld Lore’s icon, Elmerina Buddha, facing three votive candles burning on a chair in the room’s center, while Rosalia and Lore sat in two more straight-backed chairs, lit by the same candles. They remained so motionless and still for such a long time that Risa sensed their ardor, and hated to disturb them. But she also didn’t want to seem a spy. So she cleared her throat.

  Lore and Rosalia turned, smiled, and silently gestured for her to approach. Risa did, but whispered, “I sensed you might be praying. If I should leave, just say so.”

  Before she could say another word Grady Haynes stepped out of the darkness into the candlelight. “I invited Grady to join us,” Lore whispered to Risa. “And next week I planned to invite you. Please join us if you like.”

  Grady carried two chairs over, gave one to Risa, and they settled on four sides of Elmerina and her candles. “Lore calls what we’re doing ‘a Listening,’” Rosalia said. “Every Monday since I found her here in early November we’ve done this. And Lore came out by herself a few times before that. Can you tell us why, Lore?”

  “In a book Risa gave me,” Lore whispered. “Mother Teresa said two things that struck me. One: ‘May God break my heart so completely that the whole world falls in.’ Two: ‘When I finally see Jesus, I’ll tell Him I loved Him in the dark.’”

  “Wow!” Grady whispered.

  “Then I happened to see an exchange,” Lore continued, “between the CBS newsman Dan Rather and Mother Teresa that went like this:

  “Dan Rather: ‘What do you say to God when you pray?’

  “Mother Teresa: ‘I don’t say anything. I just listen.’

  “Dan Rather: ‘Well, what does Jesus say to you?’

  “Mother Teresa: ‘Oh, he doesn’t say anything either. He just listens.’

  “Moved by her faith in listening, I looked up the times of sunrise, got up early enough to love Elmerina and Jesus in pure dark for forty-five minutes, and chose the shell of the barn so I’d be sheltered from wind and snow. Every Listening has been so beautiful I’ve continued every Monday since.”

  Grady smiled. Risa smiled. Rosalia smiled. Elmerina always faintly smiles.

  Lore then raised her index finger to her lips, blew out the candles, and there they sat in Mother Teresa’s Jesus-loving dark.

  THE FOLLOWING MONDAY the same foursome, same three candles, and Elmerina convened at the usual time—then turned toward the sound of boots entering the barn. Into the candlelight stepped Kale, Lou Roy, Buford Raines, and Regina Cloud. All four newcomers had been invited by Lore. All four were dressed in winter coats, Stetsons, cowboy boots, and work gloves for the early morning cattle feeding after. All four added chairs to the circle.

  Feeling a little tense given Rosalia’s militant veganism, Risa and Kale both glanced at her to check her reaction to the newcomers’ arrival—and Rosa looked so overjoyed that tears glistened in her eyes. When Buford noticed this, his eyes welled too, and he and Rosalia smiled long and steady at each other.

  “It looks to me like you all must be hearing what you’re listening for,” Kale said. “But can you please tell me what that is exactly?”

  Grady said, “She who was before heaven and Earth came to be.”

  Risa said, “The Unseen Unborn Guileless Perfection.”

  Rosalia said, “The silence that comes of loving a spiritual hero in predawn dark.”

  Lore said, “A love in the room that doesn’t need sound waves to be heard.”

  Buford said, “Dang! Where do you all come up with this stuff?”

  “A fandangled forgotten thing they call ‘book learnin’,’” Grady twanged.

  “Before a Listening,” Lore said, “one of us sometimes whispers a few words in praise of silence, so long as the words take less than a minute. I brought words today. May I?”

  There was something unaccountably thrilling to Risa that one of the heads that nodded yes was Lou Roy Skinner’s.

  Lore’s voice dropped to a whisper. “In a book called First Church of the Higher Elevations, the author, Peter Anderson, tells of a Western tourist arriving at a Buddhist monastery high in the Himalayas. After walking up and greeting a monk, the tourist asked, ‘What do you do up here?’ The monk said, ‘We pray and seek wisdom.’ The tourist said, ‘But that’s not really doing anything.’ The monk smiled and said, ‘In that case, we don’t really do anything.’”

  Lore’s smile inspired seven more. And after forty-five minutes that felt like no time at all, all eight of them smiled again, and left the barn without a word.

  THE FOLLOWING WEEK, once the same group was seated, Kale said, “I liked Lore’s short homily last week, so I brought an even shorter one. Two sentences by Pico Iyer that put me in a listening mood. Ready?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “‘Silence is the tribute we pay to holiness,’” Kale whispered, “‘We slip off words when we enter a sacred place just as we slip off shoes.’” When Kale then leaned over, slid off his cowboy boots, and set them by his chair, Buford, Lou Roy, and Regina did the same, Risa, Lore, Grady, and Rosalia all slipped off their shoes, and Rosalia’s affection for them swelled into something so great that it felt as though her feud against the beef consortium had never been.

  BY SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 9th, the days had lengthened enough that the listeners came at 5 a.m. to guarantee their customary darkness. To the surprise of all, when Lore blew out the candles they heard two uninvited listeners join them. Thirty-two feet up the east wall, through a large circular hole that would eventually be a stained-glass image of Jade Lake and the Blue Mosque, a silhouetted pair of barn owls perched for an instant, disappeared by entering the barn’s blackness, and the Listeners heard them begin building a nest atop the coming window’s spherical framing.

  The nest was soon completed, the female laid a clutch of eggs, by mid-March the eggs hatched, and the offspring had a major effect on the Listenings. Hungry baby barn owls have a screech little less distressing than the wail of an Irish banshee. When the parent owls flew in to feed them, the owlets got so competitive the Listeners were driven to laughter by the sounds. But when the Listenings began and the screeching didn’t stop, the laughter died.

  The Listeners toughed it out for a month. But at the Listening that fell on April Fools’ Day, when the nearly adult-sized, much louder owlets started up, Kale said, “Anybody besides me care to move to the dining room of my former house until our pet banshees fledge?”