Visiting My Ancestry - The Story of Tom and Buena Davis, Part 3

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Papa Davis had loved all kinds of game birds and a pair of Peafowl hung around the driveway beyond the yard fence. The flashy male would strut and call out as he spread his vivid tail for the benefit of his plainer mate. She was not the only one intrigued by the display. I just knew a thing of such intense chromatic delight would be much more satisfying to hold than a brown chicken! Stephen and I hung over the rock fence and watched them as temptation simmered in my soul. The rule was, “stay in the yard unless you have permission to leave it.” The problem was, the birds had a much larger range than I did and they were currently outside of it. The solution was to either lure them into the yard or come up with a reason to leave that would be acceptable to my mother, should I not make it back into the yard before I was seen.

Not having anything on hand that would tempt the birds to fly over the wall, I studied the male until I was sure that he had a slight limp and had probably injured himself in some way. Since I planned to become a veterinarian when I grew up, it seemed only reasonable that I should check him out and alert the adults if he needed medical attention. Telling Stephen to stay put, I shimmed up one side of the wall and down the other, and slowly approached my target. He didn’t seemed especially alarmed, simply lowering his tail and walking slowly away from me. But the more I closed in, the faster he walked. Experience had taught me that a chicken, once it realizes it is caught, will go very still and let itself be carried around with a kind of resignation. This encounter would teach me that not all Peacocks are not at all like chickens.

Papa’s absence left a big hole in my joy. I found comfort in touching his things, digging through the contents of the big roll top desk he used to sit at as he figured books and going with Dad in the old Willis Jeep to check the livestock. We were all a little lost, I’m sure. Mom had not planned on raising a family in the isolation of a remote west Texas ranch. She had enjoyed their life in town where friends and conveniences were close at hand. Dad was trying hard to earn a living teaching school while keeping up with the constant demands of dipping, shearing and feeding the sheep and goats, mending fence, spraying prickly pear and a multitude of other demands of ranch life. Mama Davis never recovered her joy after losing Papa. It was like her last candle was snuffed out and she had not intention of looking for a flame capable of relighting it.
I wonder if she thought of those early days as she grieved. Of the times when the future looked like one big, glorious stretch of open road taking them wherever they decided to go. Did those memories take the edge off the pain or hone it to a finer cutting edge? Was she able to cover over the recent memories of Papa’s final excruciating days as the cancer chewed it’s way through his pancreas and she spoon fed him baby food from a jar because it was the only thing he could get down?

I hope she got there. To the place where the grief had softer edges and the good memories developed a sharper focus.

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