What Is The Shape Of Love

 

    Time was catching up with Jessie a little. And it was Emmy’s birthday today.

    He had never had Beth cut his hair since they arrived in Arizona. He wore it in a long black ponytail down to the middle of his back. There was a faint flash of silver in the sides up by his temples. He was very fine to look upon.
    He hadn’t gone to Uncle John’s mine in several months. Other things kept him busy, and they weren’t dead broke in any case. But somehow today he kept thinking of the old mine. It more or less was calling him, and Jessie knew a call when he heard one.
    In addition, there was some kind of unusual sound coming down from that area that intrigued him. A kind of dull distressed, low note. He wasn’t afraid, but he was careful.
    “Beth, I think I will go up the mine. I hear something up there and I think I should just look around. I wouldn’t mind a little mining either,” he said to his wife. “I believe this is the day. Maybe I will find something for Emmy.”
    “Jessie, take your uncle’s long gun,” said Beth. “I want you back alive today.”
    So, Jessie went back to the bedroom closet and got his uncle’s old Winchester and the flashlight from the kitchen. The flashlight went into his jeans pocket. He stuck his head into the Hogan, said hi to Julia, and grabbed his uncle’s pickaxe from just inside the doorway. Thus prepared, he headed up the path to the mine. Nothing on the path appeared to be unusual in any way.
    But when he got there, something was way off. The low noise continued. In fact, it echoed inside the small mine shaft. It didn’t sound like anything that he was familiar with. Not like a cat, or a bear, or any sort of bird. What could it be, he wondered. Wonder was stronger than apprehension.
    The sun was behind the mountain, so the opening was in shadow. He couldn’t see very far into the darkness. Getting nearer, he heard a kind of heavy stomping and some sort of heavy breathing sound. He went in. He switched on the light and shone it down into the mineshaft.
    Facing Jessie was a huge, speckled longhorn bull. The bull’s horns were stuck into the mineral walls in such a way that he could not free himself. Bloody foam was drying around his mouth and nostrils. The whites of his eyes were visible in the semi-darkness. He stomped. He drove his shoulders against his imprisonment, but it gained him nothing.
    Jessie laid the Winchester up against the wall. He said, “how did you get in here, bull?” The bull became still and looked at Jessie patiently. It was like he saw help in a human form. Meanwhile, Jessie studied the situation. He thought of various ways he might free the bull. He still wasn’t afraid.

(What Jessie couldn’t know was that this bull had secrets of his own, and no way to tell them in any case. He had stuck his nose into the mine looking for something. He thought he had seen it. Way down in the darkness he thought he had seen a shining blue light, as if there was an exit there, if he just went far enough down the shaft. When he saw how narrow the passageway was becoming he turned back, but it was too late. He was already caught.)

    Jessie lifted up the pickaxe and started tapping the wall rather judiciously around where the left side horn was caught. He thought that if he could free one side that the other would come free by itself. He tapped all around the point of the bull’s horn. He made a deeper and deeper impression in the stone wall. At last Jessie could see the horn’s tip. It was pretty damaged. The point was destroyed. He bull stood still, just waiting.
    At last Jessie took hold of the horn and guided it forward until it was freed of the wall. Seeing that his left horn was loose, the bull turned suddenly while dipping his great spotted head a bit. As the right side came loose it flipped something out of that side of the shaft. Loose at last, the bull walked sedately out into the world.
    Jessie picked up the thing that came out of the wall, his rifle, his shovel, and the pick and followed the bull out of the mine. Out in the light Jessie looked at the thing in his hand. It was a lump of gold of about the size and shape of a small frog. He put it in his jeans pocket and looked up at the bull, who was still standing there calmly.
    He started to walk down the path to the yard and the bull followed behind him all the way down to the house. There was Jessie followed by a mythic looking beast with gigantic horns reaching out from either side of his head, a hide that looked like it belonged on a Grecian vase, and large inscrutable brown eyes.
    Jessie knew that the bull must be very thirsty, so he got a plastic bucket and filled it with water. Realizing that he was back from the mine, Beth stuck her head out of the house in time to see the bull drinking and thereby cleaning the blood and spittle off his nose. She said, “Jessie, what in the world?”
    “He was in Uncle John’s mine. He was stuck in there. I turned him loose and he is thirsty.”
    Julia squeezed past Beth to look also. She said, “Coyote did this.” Jessie and Beth stared at her as she stepped back into the house. The bull lowered his head and uttered his first sound since he had been freed. He made a great low rolling note that went on and on. Then he walked down the driveway. They let him go on his own dreamlike way.
    Jessie put the pickaxe back in the Hogan and then went indoors and put the rifle back in the closet and the flashlight in its drawer in the kitchen. He got Beth’s attention quietly and showed her the golden frog, explaining where it had come from.
    Since it was Emmy’s fourth birthday, Beth had made a cake for her. It was a deep yellow color with white daisies on the icing and four bright green candles. Emmy was beside herself with excitement and importance. The cake was for after dinner. To please her Beth had made a mommy style pizza for dinner.
    After dinner, and the daisy cake with orange ice cream, there were a couple of presents for sleepy Emmy. Beth had a toy plush Puma for her. Emmy and Cat bonded immediately. Julia had beaded a little necklace for her on elastic cord, so it would be hard to destroy accidentally. Emmy put over her own head instantly and kissed her old auntie’s cheek, like a good girl.
    Jessie said, “look Emmy. I found this in the mine for you today.” He pulled the golden frog nugget out of his pocket and handed it her. Since she was the greater treasure, it didn’t bother him to give her a couple thousand dollars’ worth of gold for a toy. Maybe it would come in handy for her in her later life. She took it and examined it carefully. "Thanks daddy," she whispered.
    Beth took the sleepy child down to the bedroom to get her into her nighty, then she tucked her into her little bed near her parent’s bed. Beth wrapped Emmy’s arms around Cat, the Puma plushy. She put the golden frog on the top of the dresser where Emmy could see it in the morning. Emmy slept with her bead necklace on.
    Back out in the front room, Beth asked Julia, “now, Auntie Julia, what did you mean by saying ‘Coyote did this’?”
    Julia’s black eyes twinkled, but she wasn’t quite smiling.
    “You know that Coyote is a liar?” said Julia.

The whole shebang; They haven't taken my phone yet.docx