Jen

And the thing about Jen is that these aren’t all her kids. In their whirl and their barefooted, country-summer morass, the children start to shift into and out of one another, taking the bed of my truck as their stage to perform for their mother and Neil and myself. And I’m worried here, somewhere in the background, haunting these photos with little nightmares of fishhooks in the children’s feet or a gun gone off wrong or my just saying the wrong thing in front of them.

We had “fished” all day and nothing in the way of fish to show for it, but I had shot a snake and we had walked with Jen to a waterfall so she could tell us how she got here, about some of the men (those in jail and out of her life, and out of jail and back in), those ‘older brother’ type of stories told like the people in them were dead and buried already. She told us some stories about people that seemed so distant and long-off, of those hidden away, waiting inside, back at the house, for Neil and I to leave off to wherever we came from, but Jen was never nothing but open. Jen had said that Neil would make a good father—maybe it’s because she felt on this day like she could be proud of her little apple orchard, her pond, her pack of dogs and her story—and he would be and will be and she should and ought to be proud.

In this moment, here, the sun is setting behind us. One of the little girls has cut her foot on something. The children’s legs are the type of pale blue that comes with a fresh chill and there’s a whining in the air, slowly crescendoing. We get some news about each child’s performance in school as they’re one-by-one removed from the truckbed by the armpits. Jen has one cigarette and collects herself as we get ready to say goodbye. A lot of waving hands see us off, and a dozen dogs chase us down the dirt road away from her house.

Greg and Kristen

Look at Greg. He’s the guy who works at Virginia tech, installing and fixing air conditioners and electronics, maintaining the school’s property and doing his best to ignore the students. At his farm, Greg’s got 6 or 7 horses that he works to feed with his wife, Kristen.

Kristen and Greg grew up near each other at the bottom of Buffalo Mountain. They ride together every Sunday and, as often as they can, they take the ten mile horse trail to the top and fall back in love with each other.

Kristen works as a server at Jane’s, a little country diner in Meadows of Dan. She’s suffering from a chronic illness, but since finding Greg, her cowboy, she is doing everything she can to make this little town her extended family.

Lost somewhere near the top of Belcher Mountain, we drove past these two. We put the truck in reverse and asked them directions and they offered them, sure, but in the condition that we take a little horse ride with them. On the following foggy Sunday morning we met them at their farm and walked up the steep hill to their barn. We fed and selected our horses and reigned them, and went with them on their ride up to the top of Buffalo Mountain. Kristen had a pain flare up about halfway and needed to rest before work, but before she went, Neil shot these photos of her in her element.

Greg, for his part, kept us with him and told us about Krissy on the way. She saved him, he said, and we believed it. The little refilled bottle of vodka and warm orange juice didn’t hurt.

May

This farm that May’s driving her old truck around was a dairy farm for years and years until it wasn’t. May lost her husband sometime maybe twenty years ago. Shortly thereafter, her child, Billy, had, at 18 or so, cut himself with a piece of farming equipment and had contracted a blood infection, one that took over and wrecked his whole body to where he couldn’t hardly do anything at all. He has a wheelchair that he uses sometimes and a car that he drives sometimes—a pretty old Firebird. But mostly, Billy stays in bed, and, mostly, May takes care of Billy. It’s hard work.