The Journey Home

by K'Anne Meinel

  Cal hung around longer this spring to help with the farm work. With spring coming so late they got their plowing in much later but the crops were soon in. Removing the stumps from the now deadened areas that the solution had finally killed off enough of the roots to allow them to pull them using the strong Belgium’s, between the two of them they had quite a clump of the eerie stumps pulled up and piled on the scrap heaps. Several rabbits ran from the various piles of brush when they added the stumps.

  “You gonna burn these or what?” Cal asked Cass as they sweated to put a couple of the larger stumps next to the piles.

  “Yeah, but I’ll wait until fall when there is less chance of the fire spreading and it’s all had a chance to dry out, if I did it now the wood would give off more smoke than anything else.”

  Cal had to agree, the wet spring had delayed planting until late. He wondered if the fields would have to be replanted this year in spots. He looked around the farm feeling no sense of pride in it; it felt like a trap to him and always had. He didn’t know why he had stayed around so long this year but helping out his sister and the woman who was her housekeeper hadn’t been too strenuous. He found Stephanie and her children fascinating even if the children were a little scared of him. He could feel the familiar call of the deep woods though starting inside of him, it was in his blood and he would heed it soon.

  As they started back to the barns at sundown he looked at his now fat mules who were enjoying the lush grasses and lazy days in the fields.

  “You gonna buy that bull or are you out of money after building that,” his chin took in the glass house that was frivolously new on the far side of the house.

  “Naw, one of the calves this year was a bull and he shows potential, in fact I’m thinking of selling the heifer he came out of to get a couple more scrub calves,” she told him as she looked at the endless work waiting for her around the farm. She had released the bees from their winter trappings just the last week and worried that the water in the fields would stunt the flowers and other plants their honey supply depended on. She had those two hives and had made another one over the winter months waiting if they decided to swarm.

  “So you’ll use that bull down in Brokaw once more?” he asked curious. He knew Marabelle was married to the farmer that owned that fine bull.

  She nodded absentmindedly for the first time in a long time thinking about Marabelle and finding she measured up to Stephanie unfavorably. Stephanie was kind and loving and willing to tell the world. Marabelle had taken and then laughed when she decided to marry her ‘rich’ farmer, their youthful endeavors not meaning as much to her as they had to Cass whose heart was broken at Marabelle’s choices. Cass would be glad when she no longer needed the bull or his services so this would probably be the last year or next would be and she would probably never see her again. The thought didn’t bother as much as it would have in years past.

  Cal drifted away once the fields were all planted and enough stumps pulled that Cass could handle the new plowing and planting. He didn’t say he was leaving, he just loaded up his mules and left. He had enough ‘white mans’ supplies to last him indefinitely including new shirts that Stephanie had made for him, new boots he had ready and waiting in Merrill this spring, and a pup that he had taken a liking to from the two batches that Cass’s dogs had whelped. It was barely old enough to be taken from its mothers but Cal took it along anyway. He insisted on paying for it and despite the price he was pleased with it.

  Cass already had several inquiries about the remaining pups once word got around that she had not one but two litters from her dogs. These weren’t just common dogs either, she had sent all the way to Milwaukee for two of them to replace her boy dog that the bear had gotten the previous year. With varmints a big determining factor these dogs were worth the price she sold them at.

  Cass didn’t get rid of all the pups though; she kept one of the boy pups for Timmy and Tommy as well as for Shia and Selma who seemed to miss the pile of pups they had shared. It had been a lot quieter around the barnyard once the entire mass of puppyhood had gone. They had been fun, mischievous, and loud!

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  “Cass?” Stephanie tried to wake her.

  “Oh love, not tonight, please, I need my sleep!” Cass grouched. As much as she loved Stephanie these nightly calisthenics were wearing her out with the rush of spring work.

  “No, it’s not that,” Stephanie blushed knowing her libido had been working overtime for quite some time. “I hear something.”

  Cass sat up as the dogs just then began to bark. She quickly pulled on her pants and shirt and slipped her feet into socks and she headed downstairs quickly. She grabbed her shotgun and slipped her feet into her boots haphazardly without lacing them up. Quickly she unlocked the backdoor and went out not bothering with a light as she headed toward the barns and the commotion the dogs were making.

  As Cass came around the corner of the barn she saw where a large animal was attempting to get at the ducks and geese that were now squawking loudly. She peered into the darkness and hoped that she could see clearly soon. It was just too dark with the moon hidden by rapidly moving clouds and she regretted she hadn’t brought a lantern. She saw the shadow that was trying to get in through the wire to the fluttering poultry and she lifted her gun but halted pulling the trigger by the dogs that were attacking the form.

  “Shia, down!” she called. “Seymour, Selma, COME!” she called hoping they could hear her over the commotion their snarls and growls were contributing too. The ducks and geese were raising quite an amount of their own noise. Just then she heard the noise that had scared her the previous year, a large roar of pain and yelp from one of the dogs. Getting a firmer grip on the gun she raised it and when the clouds cleared the moon for barely a moment she fired off both barrels at the raised darker shadow of the bear.

  She heard another roar of pain and quickly reloaded the shotgun. When the animal raised up again she fired both barrels again at its dark shadow and heard an odd gurgle as it reeled backwards and slumped to the ground. Not taking any chances she reloaded again. For the first time she realized Stephanie had followed her from the house and had a lantern in her hand.

  “May I have the lantern?” she asked and held out her hand.

  Stephanie handed it to her and Cass saw her face was pale and her eyes nearly bugging out of her head. Cass held up the lantern and saw it was indeed a large black bear, now quite dead as its lifeblood drained out on the ground. Nearby Selma and Shia growled at the now cooling corpse but Seymour lay down on his side.

  “Hold this,” Cass ordered handing the lantern back and heading for the dog. She realized he was only knocked out but he had a few scratches that would have to be looked at. The other two dogs wagged their tails in a sad sort of way as though apologizing for Seymour’s hurt. They didn’t stop growling though and Cass said, “Shush,” to them as she examined the downed dog. As she went to lift him she saw another shadow out of the eye and raising her shotgun she fired as another bear charged them. At point blank range the pellets entered its eyes and brain immediately and it fell rolling and coming to a stop at the feet of the snarling dogs who didn’t realize it was dead and lunged at it. “Shia, Selma, DOWN!” Cass ordered as she approached the corpse to make sure it was dead. It took several repeated commands before they calmed enough to even listen to her.

  “Is it…is it dead?” Stephanie asked as she began to shake in the cold of the early morning darkness as well as in reaction to what she had just witnessed.

  “Yeah, buckshot tends to do that,” Cass said wryly as she too began to shake. She looked up and seeing Stephanie’s white faced reaction she immediately rose to take her in her arms slipping the safety on the shotgun she put her arms around her and slung the gun to her back. “It’s okay, shhh,” she consoled as she felt her shaking in her arms.

  “They were right there!” she said as she began to sob.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, they’re dead,” she tried t
o explain. It took a while and nothing Cass could say calmed her, only time would.

  “Come on, we have to get Seymour…” she sneered at the name she despised. “Inside and check his wounds as well as these two.” She looked around wondering if the pup simply hadn’t gotten out of the barn.

  Once the dog was carried into the warm kitchen Cass took charge. He was still unconscious and she checked him and stitched up a few of his scrapes putting ointment on them to prevent infection. She was amused when Stephanie who wanted no animals in the house insisted that all three dogs remain. They were all uncomfortable as they had never been inside before but she fed them, watered them, and cared for them as Cass checked out the barn and farmyard. She found a couple of dead ducks and geese, not from the bear who had torn a large hole in the wire but hadn’t gotten through the second set, they must have died from fright as there wasn’t a mark on them. She strung them up from their feet so they could be plucked and roasted. The pup was unhappily still in the barn which was a relief as she hadn’t looked forward to telling the boys if it had been killed. She had spent many a pleasant afternoon in the barn watching Summer mauling the little guy.

  “What’s this?” she asked at lunch as she drank a suspicious concoction from her cup.

  “Remember the Kool-Aid we bought in Wausau, this is the cherry flavor,” Stephanie told her.

  Cass took another sip and found it to be a pleasant taste. “What other flavors are there?” she asked curious.

  “Raspberry, grape, lemon, orange and root-beer,” Stephanie informed her. “What do you think? Is it good?”

  Cass nodded. It did taste good even if it used too much sugar but they could afford a cup of sugar now and then. She was tired. Not only the early morning commotion but having to gut the two bears and the ducks and geese they had frightened to death. She had fed the pigs the innards that would have normally gone to waste. She released them into the woods after they had eaten every scrap, it was time. The amount of work though unexpected as it was, was exhausting. They did however have several large bear hams and the some of the meat they could turn into jerky.

  Stephanie rubbed her shoulders understandingly. “Are you okay?” she asked as she glanced at the three guilty looking dogs lying in front of the hearth. Already the new pup Simon had been yelping for his ‘mothers’ and Shia was extremely uncomfortable. The smell of bear on Cass only made her want to get outside more and she had been fidgeting under Stephanie’s watchful gaze.

  “Just tired,” Cass assured her appreciating the touch on her well-used muscles.

  They tried to keep the affection between them. Cass had explained her concerns to Stephanie and while the boys occasionally caught a hug between them they now confined their affections to the house and especially to the bedroom. Stephanie didn’t want to lose any of the new found love they had acquired and was extra careful.

  The bear’s skins were stretched on the side of the barn and scraped as they dried in the spring sun. The carcasses were skinny and the rest of the meat unfit for eating which was another reason Cass had fed them to the pigs. They had roast duck for dinner and Stephanie had saved the geese for Sunday’s dinner asking if they could invite Ray and Melanie. Cass nodded and rode over late that afternoon despite her fatigue to invite them and to tell Ray about the early morning raid.

  Cass was exhausted that night and washed in the hot bath water with pleasure. The unexpected butchering she had to do had left her feeling dirty below the skin. Although a necessary evil she hated feeding the pigs the carcasses. Pigs would eat anything though and she knew by putting them in the woods for summer they would be healthy and fat for fall butchering. The sow had farrowed once more and she suspected one of the little boars from her previous litters had impregnated her. These inbred piglets and the sow would all be butchered this fall so Cass didn’t care. Using the sweet smelling soap that Stephanie made from the fat of their meat and the wood ash as well as the scents she was learning to create she finally felt clean. The sweat and grime were long gone and finally after repeated soaping’s to her skin she felt clean below the surface. Drying off and getting dressed in her nightgown she headed to bed where Stephanie awaited her.

  Seeing her lying in bed with her hair free of its bun and reading a book she never saw such a beautiful sight. She was dressed in her customary white nightgown. She looked soft and inviting in the light of the lamp on the side table. She was too tired to make love to her tonight; she hoped that Stephanie would understand that.

  “Hey love, I have something special planned for you,” Stephanie greeted her as she put aside her book.

  Cass nearly groaned in complaint as she anticipated what Stephanie might want to try tonight.

  Stephanie grinned knowing what Cass was thinking but she had managed to get her passions under control, at least for tonight. “C’mon, I know you’ll enjoy it,” she patted a spot on Cass’s side of the bed.

  Cass couldn’t refuse her, she had tried in the past but the hurt that Stephanie felt if she rejected her from her new found love and sexual appetite wasn’t worth the hassle. She could fake it but had found that too impossible as she resigned herself to the exhaustion she was bound to feel making love to Stephanie.

  She lay down feeling some of her muscles complaining from the unfamiliar work she had done that day and braced herself for Stephanie’s lovemaking which she knew she would enjoy but not really willing to work at it tonight.

  “Turn over,” Stephanie ordered.

  Resigned Cass turned over onto her stomach and putting her hands under her pillow she turned her head to look at Stephanie but had to push her long hair out of her way to gaze at her.

  Stephanie nearly laughed; she knew how tired Cass was. It had been long day after all and she hadn’t had the benefit of a nap as Stephanie took advantage of the three small children’s naptime to catch one herself as Cass went over to invite their friends to dinner on Sunday. She mounted Cass’s buttocks with her own and began to knead her knotted muscles all along her large back. She liked the feel of them beneath her fingertips.

  Cass was delightedly surprised as the warmth of Stephanie’s hands and the dig of her fingertips into her tired muscles began to penetrate. She began to relax under her ministrations as she felt them relaxing her. She began to drift off.

  Stephanie wasn’t surprised when Cass began to snore slightly. She had been so very tired and the massage had done the job of making her fall asleep rapidly. She continued on for a time before raising herself off of her lover and lying down beside her. She watched her sleep for a while wondering at the perfection of the woman who lay next to her in the bed before she pulled up the covers and tucked her in.

  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

  That summer was an odd one as far as Cass could tell. The nights were full of rain and the days were hot, hotter than any she could remember. As a result everything grew, and grew, and grew. She spent a lot of time out in the fields pulling and hoeing weeds. The garden that she had expanded at Stephanie’s request was doing just as well and already they had plenty of pickles, carrots, and radishes in jars down in the cellar. Zucchini, squash, and cucumbers made an appearance frequently on the dinner table.

  “I think I can get lettuce to grow year round in the greenhouse too!” Stephanie enthused as they had gotten the flats and dirt where she wanted them. They were putting them on tables now.

  “What’s this? Some kind of green to eat?” Cass pulled a leaf in preparation for tasting it.

  “Don’t that’s just a plant!” Stephanie warned her.

  “Just a plant?” she repeated back wondering at the long frond similar to grass she was holding.

  Stephanie giggled. “Some of the plants I’m growing are just for the sake of growing plants; we should have greenery in the house in winter.”

  Cass nodded but didn’t see the sense of growing anything just for having green in the house. She looked around the greenhouse and was pleased at how everything was growing in here as well as out of doors. Step
hanie had all the windows ajar so the bugs could come in and pollinate anything that needed pollinating. “Aren’t they going to want to stay come fall?” she asked indicating some bugs besides the welcome bees that were buzzing about pollinating.

  Stephanie nodded, “But so many of them are beneficial for now.”

  Cass didn’t know about that but then this was Stephanie’s domain. The pear and apple seedlings were already a few inches high and those were really all she was interested in. Bugs were not interesting, they were annoying. In fact one of her hives of bees she had burned to the ground piling brush on it and lighting a match because of the bugs that had infiltrated and destroyed it. Rather than worry about it spreading to her other hives she killed everything in it, including her carefully built hive by firing it. The bonfire had been carefully watched so it wouldn’t spread elsewhere. The bees in the other hives hadn’t been happy with a fire so close to their own homes but Cass felt it was necessary to get rid of whatever had taken this hive and the fire soon reduced it and hopefully whatever it had been growing inside to ashes.

  “We should plan on going to the Fourth of July celebrations in town this year,” Stephanie told her.

  Cass shrugged; she hadn’t been in years and hadn’t seemed to miss anything. She glanced at her lover and realized with the children it was probably time she started joining in on more town things. Living out in the woods, helping her neighbors, she probably saw more people than Stephanie did and going to town, especially for a celebration was probably a good idea. She couldn’t be such a hermit anymore. “Yes, let’s plan on that, we can take some of the cider and juice into town and sell it.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea; maybe we could set up a booth?” Stephanie enthused getting ideas.

  Cass wasn’t so sure about that but then thinking about it realized it was a good idea. She just didn’t want to deal with so many people in such quantities. There were sure to be a lot of people in town from the outlying farms as well as all the town people. It didn’t bother her when she went to Wausau and there were many more people to contend with, she was in and out but to deliberately set up a booth and have to deal with people... She nodded though to let Stephanie know she was listening. “I’ll let you plan it,” she acquiesced.