Packing Up at Dawn
“Alright, check every satchel and cinch it tight. Don’t leave a thing behind,” boomed Uncle Jed, the silver-haired doctor who always took charge. “Every limb depends on another—head on the neck, neck on the shoulders. Same for bags in the wagon!”
Blue bag, red bag, black and green—our entire prairie household stuffed into a dusty stagecoach of a car. Aunt May already sat by the window, basket on her lap, where our sly barn cat Puss peeked out.
Brothers in Banter
“Where’s little brother Hank?”
“Right behind your neck, as always,” came Hank’s lazy drawl.
“Climb down, will ya? You’ve been on my back since boyhood!” Jed chuckled.
They traded jibes about trees and poetry—Jed admiring a lone cottonwood, Hank mumbling about the sweet scent of its blooms. “Beautiful,” Jed sighed. “Word must’ve been born from this very tree.”
The Road Kicks Up Dust
Jed climbed to the driver’s seat, spectacles glinting. “Spectacles? Check. Hat? Check. Candy?”
“In my bag,” said May.
“No one like you in this world,” Jed declared.
“Or in the whole wide prairie,” Hank added, puffing his round belly like a proud coyote.
Puss punctuated it all with a sharp “Meow!”
Engine Trouble & Highway Humor
The engine coughed before finally roaring awake. “Durga, Durga,” Jed muttered, a half-remembered prayer from his medical days.
“Stop—your mouth, not the car,” May scolded.
Jed rummaged for lozenges, planning to sing old frontier tunes while enjoying the passing landscape. “Nobody sleep,” he commanded. “These hills may not last forever.”
Memories on the Move
As miles rolled by, they traded family stories: winters with their father, fireworks at their sister’s wedding, and Jed’s vow never to marry. “If Hank had a wife, she’d have left years ago,” he teased. Hank only grinned, eyes half-closed, pretending to nap.
Detour to Langcha Junction
“Look there—Langcha House!” Jed shouted as a roadside sweet shop came into view.
“Always been here,” Hank said.
“Shaktigarh or Bust,” Jed replied, steering toward it.
Inside the big, old sweet shop, copper pots hissed with syrup while framed certificates dangled on crooked nails. Behind the shop lay a pond, a tiny Shiva temple, and a cluster of mango trees—like a frontier oasis.
Jed peppered the shopkeeper with questions: the history of the sweets, the name “Langcha,” and how it differed from other pastries. The man only shrugged. “My grandfather might have known.”
An Unexpected Reunion
As we savored fried pastries and thick milk tea, a stranger approached, hands folded. “Dr. Jed! You saved my wife back in medical college days. We thought we’d lost her.”
Jed’s eyes softened. “Ah, the case of the twisted gut. But it was the Lord’s will, not mine.”
Soon the shop buzzed with people eager to greet the legendary frontier doctor. Our driver, Panch, muttered about the long miles left. “Night driving ain’t for me.”
The New Plan
Originally, we aimed for Ironwood Gulch. But a wrong turn—or fate—pointed us toward an unknown town called Medow Creek.
“Three choices,” Jed declared. “One, head home in disgrace. Two, force the trip to Ironwood and disappoint our friend Raj. Three, gamble on Medow Creek where we know no soul. What’s the verdict?”
Hank yawned, “Medow Creek. I’ve got a friend there with a fifty-acre ranch.”
“Does he know we’re coming?”
“Not exactly.”
Decision made, we bought two more boxes of sweets, loaded up, and followed a new companion—Mr. Sudip, the grateful stranger—whose big wagon would guide us.
Twilight on the Prairie
We rolled past ancient homesteads and half-collapsed barns as dusk painted the sky in violet and rose. Sudip pointed out places of legend: an old royal orchard where tigers once prowled, a marsh that flooded when the Damodar River swelled.
Ahead, golden lights glimmered through the dark—our destination.
The House Called Kishloy
A wide gate marked “Kishloy” opened onto lawns trimmed like a grand frontier estate. Inside a large hall, elders in white and yellow relaxed while a woman played the piano.
She rose, eyes wide. “Doctor Jed! I can’t believe it.”
Jed laughed. “Nor can I. Seems we found the right place by mistake.”
Music filled the hall as Jed sang a favorite hymn, his deep voice carrying through the rafters. Hank followed with a booming passage from the words of an old Western sage, while Puss mewed along like a tiny tambourine.
Outside, a distant rumble shook the walls. “Coal mines,” someone explained. “This valley feeds the railroads of half the West.”
Under the Starlit Porch
By midnight we sat on the upper porch, watching moonlight silver the river and sandbars. Jed leaned back, hat tipped. “Life’s a loan from the Almighty,” he said softly. “We return it with interest—our children, our songs, our laughter.”
The prairie wind carried his words across the sleeping land, mingling with the faint scent of sweets and the echo of the piano—a perfect end to a wandering day.
