BREEN GREER

The Old Stone Barn

The wind howled with such powerful whips it ripped roofing nails and trim off the old stone barn. Broken bits of refuse scattered through the field and around in the pasture, trapping themselves on the barbed-wire fence. The old man looked out the window, hoping after each gust of wind or clap of thunder for the barn to be a rock pile, but every hope failed, and he cursed the wind and he hated the thunder.  
             Morning came, and the barn still stood. The old man put on his rain boots and walked, with the burden of his age, across the mucky road and opened the gate blocking the entrance to the barn. The weathervane creaked as it spun, rusting and pointy and bent. The old man cursed the weathervane and he hated the barn. 
             He hated storms like he hated the barn. Wild animals sheltered there during storms, and he hated the animals because they survived the storms in the old stone barn. His hatred marked him well beyond his years and it rose up in the fields against the old stone barn. 
             The storm from the night before meant there would be animals in the barn, and so he put on his old boots and trudged through the wet grass, across the road, to the old stone barn. He opened the door and went inside and breathed in the smell, ancient and damp, and picked up his shooing stick and banged the stick against the posts that held up the barn, and he wished his stick would break the beams and send them crashing down, and it would be worth it to die. He banged his stick on the posts and yelled to frighten the animals away, but he saw none scurry and he heard no clatter. He cursed the barn and spat on the floor, in the dirt, and knew he would have to climb the hay rack to check for animals up high. 
             He climbed the hay rack and banged his stick and heard a low growl and saw two eyes, like a wolf’s eyes, glowing in the dark corner of the hay rack. He growled back and banged his stick, though he was afraid now and wished for home. He kept banging his stick and the eyes moved toward him and the growl became louder and he saw the coyote.  
             The coyote was massive, and mythical, and blood and foam covered its mouth. Now the old man knew why he saw no animals in the barn, and he hated the barn, and he hated the coyote. He knew that even when he was young and powerful the coyote would have destroyed him, but he was stubborn and old and he hated the coyote and he would fight the coyote in the barn with all the hatred he had, and he would be found there, bled out, mauled in the hay rack of the barn he hated and cleaned after storms. 
             “Well, come and kill me you old bitch.”  
             The coyote moved toward him slowly, and blood and foam dripped from its mouth, and the old man mustered all the strength and all the hatred he had in his ancient old arms and he clapped his shooing stick down across the coyote’s back, and the coyote howled and scattered and regrouped on its hind legs. It bared its blood-stained teeth at the old man and growled a rabid growl and charged. The old man brought the stick down again with a whip, but he was too old, and he was too frail to stop the charge, and he felt the warm teeth sink into his shoulder and he was brought down onto the floor of the hay rack of the barn. 
             He no longer hated the old stone barn nor the storm from the night before nor the coyote that would end him. He did not feel hatred. He did not think about death or about pain. He thought about the copper taste of blood in his mouth, and the wet stink of the coyote, and he thought about Adessa and wished he were with her in the cozy old house they made together many years ago, and how she would soon call him to the house for breakfast and be frustrated when he did not come. He thought about the soft whimper she would make when she found him, and felt sorry that she would have to find him in the old stone barn, and he feared for her and hoped the coyote was gone by the time she found him. His fear confused and turned to something else, not hatred, and not for the barn, but for the coyote, and it was all there was, and he focused all of what there was; all that was left he focused on the great beast, and he took all the strength he had, all the strength he would have needed the rest of his life, and he wrapped his gnarled bloody arms around the coyote and rolled over with all there was left, and the two of them fell from the hay rack onto the dirt floor of the old stone barn, and the old man landed on top of the coyote and they howled together and were broken.  
             The wind blew softly through the dewy wheat field and died as it crossed the road, but carried with it the low thunder of old bones clapping together on the dusty barn floor. The weathervane, rusted and pointy and bent, creaked slowly in the foggy dew, overlooking the shingles and nails strewn through the ditch by the road from the storm. The old barn lurched and groaned, its ancient beams tired and worn, but not a stone was out of place, and the old stone barn still stood, as it has always stood. 

BREEN GREER is an English teacher in Waterloo, IA and a graduate student of literature at the University of Northern Iowa. A native of Dike, IA, a small town built around a grain elevator and a high school football field, he spent a decade as a construction worker before becoming a teacher. His upbringing and life experiences have given him a deep understanding and appreciation for the Midwest, from the received-wisdom of its culture, to the hardworking humility of its people, to the vast and sprawling land itself.