Story Up On Hartford Ridge

Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 128​


“How could you let them do this?!”

“Now see here boy.”

“No, you damn well better answer me. How the hell could you let them useless, brainless, knotheads come here and steal our wood pile while I was out working?! And if I find out any of you encouraged ‘em there is going to be some payment due … and it might just be in blood this time!”

I’d already jumped up out of a doze I shouldn’t have been in, and it didn’t help for Barbara to be telling me, “Please go back to sleep Kay-Lee. Let Sawyer and Huely work it out.”

“Work what out? And who is doing all that yelling out there?! That … that can’t be Sawyer saying those things.”

It took me a moment to untangle from the crocheted afghan that had been draped over me on top of the quilt I had draped over my legs. I stood up and nearly fell, but grabbed my stick in time to keep my balance. By rights I should have been using my forearm crutch but the brace on it had broken and it was more trouble than it was worth most of the time. The cane I was using made me feel like on old woman but that’s just the way it was. And I’d learned to whack it on things to get some attention nearly as good as Uncle Forrester could his.

I stumbled down the stairs and out to the yard in front of the barn about that time I saw Sawyer put down one of the cousins in a single blow with his fist making more than a few of them have their mouths fall open.

I let loose with a snarling roar that made a couple of the goats faint and the rest of those that didn’t, run to the other side of their little lot.

“I am going to ask once … and only once … What. Is. Going. On.”

My heart was beating so hard and I was having trouble drawing a breath. The world was starting to spin a bit. Then Sawyer was there. “Don’t you worry, I’ll fix this Kay-Lee.”

“Fix what? Didn’t you give them permission to get a share of the wood so we could have a share of the syrup they are boiling with Uncle Ned?” I looked at him and then looked at some of the others. At him, then back at the others all standing around again looking … defiant. And my heart sank. Sawyer had trusted me to look after things so he could take care of working elsewhere. And it all just hit me. Again. “Oh no, what have I done?! How could I be so stupid as to trust them again? After … after …”

“Kay-Lee?!!”

It felt so hard to get the words out but I had promised, “I’ll fix this Sawyer. I will. I … chopped that wood after the CI took what you’d left for us. I … I’ll do it again. Just … I’ll …”

“Shhh.”

“Boy let me see her.”

“Stay away from her! Don’t touch her!” I felt myself picked up, held close, and jerked back out of reach. Then I heard Sawyer snarl, “Get the hell off my land you useless, thieving, jackasses. All of you! I come back out here and find you still around there ain’t going to be enough left for them that care to bury!”

I heard Huely say, “Stay back! He ain’t in the frame of mind to hear any of your excuses and frankly neither am I. Just … get gone until his crazy notches back. Or wouldn’t you feel this way if your wife was dying before your eyes and you couldn’t seem to get anything to stop it.”

# # # # #

When I woke, kinda woke ‘cause I wasn’t really awake, all I knew is that time had passed. I hurt, oh how I hurt but I didn’t hurt so bad I didn’t recognize that someone had put a memory foam mattress on the cot that I sometimes used up near the wood stove to try and get me some relief from the cold attacking my joints.

“Grandad, you shouldn’ta come out in this cold. You’re gonna get sick. And … and frankly I ain’t too sure that Sawyer has any forgiveness in him right now … maybe ever. Kay-Lee is bad off. If something happens to her …”

“Son … cain’t nothing that’s broke can’t get fixed if everyone puts their mind to it. And we’ll find some way to fix up Kay-Lee too.”

“I’m not sure I believe that anymore. If it ain’t the Triage Order, the truth is I’ve seen too much and … none a y’all know Sawyer like you think you do, not no more. Don’t know me for that matter. We ain’t just one of the boys no more. Just like none a y’all apparently ever knew Kay-Lee like you claimed to. Go on back home. I don’t want you to get sick and for all it is March, there’s frost in the air.”

“I tell you I’m fine Son. They nearly smothered me with them quilts to the point I was roasting. Doesn’t matter though; somebody needs to get this story straight and in order … and witness the straights that that girl is in. Sawyer was taking on so they tell me they were afraid to send any of the women. Now I’m here and I’m gonna stay here ‘til we figure this out. Since Sawyer cain’t or won’t, you explain it to me. I admit I’m shocked. I don’t think they understand how bad off she is … and I admit I am worried more than I was before I saw her. But this needs to be done. I may not be as strong as Ned and able to crack the whip or let ‘em fall as they might when they refuse to fall in line. And I may not have the smarts my other brother has as he’s tried to fix all this up for the whole family. But of the three of us I bet I understand heart ache best … and falling apart ‘cause I’ve done my share of that too. It’s as plain as the nose on my face that’s what Sawyer’s on the raw edge of. Now explain it to me and I’ll try and get the rest to understand. Even the idiots amongst us.”

I heard Huely sigh so it was Barb that started the story with Huely fitting in other things here and there. After a while and me wanting to yell stop more times than I should have needed to, and hearing things about Sawyer he had kept from me like what he and Huely had gone through, but couldn’t because I just couldn’t wake up all the way.

Huely said, “I’d be in the same straights Grandad if that was Barb laying there. None o’ y’all … ‘cept Uncle Ned, Jamison (and he’s gone to his wife’s family), and Cutter recently … did much and most did worse than nothing by hunting the land over and not even leaving the offal for Sawyer’s dogs to survive on. Stealing right out of the traps that Kay-Lee set to try and feed them in this house. All that damn nonsense with Bud, and most of the rest believing without any proof. Not even bothering to make the effort to see what was true and what wasn’t, just believing what was easiest since it meant no one had to make more work for themselves. Do you know that Kay-Lee took on the old CI and his tricks and fought him so them and the kids could survive? Oh maybe she didn’t fist fight ‘em but she was slick as owl snot and never did get caught. But it cost. Going out at night …”

Barb interrupted to add, “Sometimes every night for weeks on end, in all kinds of weather ‘cause … ‘cause I couldn’t. Burt helped but he’s just a boy and was needed here to help hide things when she’d bring them home ‘cause it got to where neither Kay-Lee nor I could do much lifting. I don’t know what we would have done without him. A boy doing the work of men ‘cause they were either too mean or too lazy to do it. It’s shameful. What’s more I don’t know what Kay-Lee woulda done if she didn’t have Burt and Jolene to take care of to keep her motivated either.”

“And you,” Huely said.

“And my big ol’ fat self too. I’m ashamed to say it took me a while to figure out just how much it was costing her but by then … by then there wasn’t much we could do about it except try and help each other as best we could. We got better at it than we should have had to. I can understand why some of the other aunts and wives might have turned me off, I was awful there for a while, but I never have understood how they could do it to Kay-Lee. She wanted so much to believe in there being a family for her to be part of, a thing the rest of us took for granted.”

“She is.”

“No Grandad she isn’t. Not because she wasn’t willing to settle for just a little sliver of something, and that because of Sawyer, but because she learned that she wasn’t nothing but a … a resource to be used. Even Linda and Jeanie … and you got no idea how that has grieved her though she’s refused to speak of it, even to complain. And when she wasn’t useful anymore, couldn’t be used anymore, the family turned on her, turned their backs on her, and even let Burt and Jolene … and me … go without just for spite on top of it.”

“That the way you see it? Or the way she sees it?”

“It isn’t a matter of opinion Grandad, it is fact, and it’s the way it’s been … and today just proved that all over again. You know most of that wood pile was made by Kay-Lee … Kay-Lee and Burt.”

“I understood Jamison did it. Or the boys when they was home.”

Barb snorted. “You know how much wood it takes to keep the stove going. You were here when all the cousins was cutting for the canning parties. The old CI stole every bit of wood we had after a while. Burt would gather up the small wood and tree trash, but there were days they’d take that too, so we had to start breaking it down and storing it here in the house out of sight. It looked we rented the upstairs rooms to beavers. Then there were days we couldn’t have any kind of fire while those vultures flapped around, only a small one made of twigs on the rocket stove. Could only have a fire in the stove at night and that takes stove wood. If Burt or Kay-lee found a decent sized limb out in the woods, they’d take saws and cut it down into lengths small enough to drag back on that skiff Kay-Lee built. Then they’d hide it in the barn until one or the other of them … or Jamison after a while … could cut it or saw it into stove wood size.”

“Did you say the old CI took all them piles of wood?! Why wasn’t we told?!”

“Ever last twig and then some. And we didn’t say nothing ‘cause we thought it was happening to everyone. And we thought that because no one came to check on us and let us see anything else but what we were carefully allowed to see … by the CI and our so-called family. Huely and Sawyer would try but they couldn’t do it when the Inspectors were working otherwise it would disappear as fast as they cut it.”

Huely, sounding like Eyeore said, “Only took once to learn that lesson.”

Barb continued. “The Inspectors took everything, down to the spoiled falls in the apple orchard to feed the animals in town … or ones they were hiding for their own use. They took all the hay except for the ‘spoiled’ hay that Kay-Lee tricked them about. I swear she just about out-pranked Cutter trying to keep us alive. They took everything off every plant in the garden. They took everything out of the orchards and domesticated fruit hedges. They stole it all. If Kay-Lee hadn’t learned about what everyone else made fun of and called her little hobby we would have starved to death and none of y’all would have known or cared since you would have said we were just getting our just desserts for some imagined crime we never committed. And frankly we didn’t nearly have that as the Inspectors and Harvestors would steal what was handy for their own and none of their bosses made them stop. Didn’t even try.”

“Now Barbara …”

“Grandad, I’m not being disrespectful but the God’s Honest Truth is no one of y’all really know because you didn’t live it. You think you had it hard. You don’t even know what hard is. You say the CI made you poor. Well the CI nearly starved us and would have before too much longer … except Kay-Lee never would give up. Everyone thinks we are just exaggerating but what happened today? I’m telling you I’m really not surprised about it happening. They’ve lied, cheated, and stole so many times it has become a way of life to use us as a way to make up for their own shortcomings. Same what the old CI and his people did us. They hunted and never shared. They helped Bud to steal what little bit of food we thought we could count on out in the woods. And if what Sawyer found out is true, Bud targeted Kay-Lee in particular and on purpose because he knew no one would come to our defense. Those knotheads have begrudged every bit and morsel that we’ve earned. But you know what is worse?”

“Honey I’m afraid to hear it.”

“She would have still done what she could for y’all for Sawyer’s sake, even knowing she’d never no more get anything from it for herself. She knows she’s not family, she got that message loud and clear and then some on more than one occassion. And she’ll be more upset that she was so stupid as to trust anyone again, not for herself but for the work and worry it has created for Sawyer … and Huely and me. I think y’all may have finally and forever broken that part of her. And if I had more energy, I’d help Sawyer start a feud myself.”

“Honey …”

“I’m sorry Grandad, but when you take what you’ve seen back to the others, you take this too. I don’t want none of the Aunts here when it is my time. None of the other wives either. It’s gonna be Kay-Lee or no one. See, it’s a matter of trust. Trust and respect. And I don’t trust any of ‘em anymore. I’ll try for Kay-Lee’s sake to act civilized but … but I just don’t see how … how they could do what they did. And none of them still have the courage to come here. Doesn’t have anything to do with Sawyer howling at the moon, you know he’d never hit a female even if they beat on him with a steel post. They just don’t want to have to see the truth and see where their own stupidity and jealousy has led. They want it filtered by someone else so they don’t have to live with real pictures in their mind.” I heard the rocker creek. “Huely, I’m gonna go check on the kids and then have a short lie-down. Maybe by then you’ll be able to get Sawyer unwound from Kay-Lee long enough for him to get something to eat. What was that you gave him?”

“One o’ them pills they had him taking so he could rest when the burn was hurting him so bad.”

“He’s gonna be mad.”

“Then he’ll be mad. It was that or watch him have a heart attack. He’ll listen when I tell him I did it so he’ll still be here for Kay-Lee once she’s rested. He was frantic to work for Toby’s family and earn some lard and beef tallow. Toby’s mother was the one that worked it out of Sawyer why we were doing it. She sent that jar of homemade mincemeat back with us to try and tempt Kay-Lee’s appetite. Sawyer had the plan to try and do it himself as a surprise … only to find there was no wood for the stove. Not a single stick.”

I heard Barb’s heavy footsteps walking towards the room that we’d childproofed so Jolene could run around a bit and not get hurt. That must be where the kids are at. See Jolene isn’t just crawling these days. If we could have padded the walls with bumper pads we would have done it. Or built a hamster wheel for her, we’d a done that too. I would have liked to have been able to bottle some of that wild energy and drank it up for myself on my bad days.

I heard the chairs squeaking as the men shifted in them and then Uncle Forrester say, “They weren’t supposed to take it all.”

“But they did. I heard the lies and excuses going all cross purpose before they could get their stories straight. So did the uncles that were there in the yard, and some of them trying to find an excuse for what was done too. And I’m telling you … and like Barb has said it isn’t out of disrespect … but best y’all stay away until we can make sure that Sawyer … that Kay-Lee … look, it’s just better if everyone stays away for a while. They done just about broke Kay-Lee and tore the stuffing out of her like an old rag doll that’s been given to wild dogs to play with. That’s going to be enough for Sawyer to get over. Anything worse happen to her and there’s more than a few that would do better to sign up and pray they get sent across the Atlantic ‘cause there ain’t going to be a hole deep enough on this side to hide in.”

Uncle Forrester gave a deep sorrowful sigh. “I hear Mark out on the porch. You reckon Sawyer will object to him coming in?”

“No. I guess not. But the way Sawyer is starting to move he’s gonna wake up in a minute. I’ll do what I can with him but if he says go, ya better.”
 
kyrsyan

kyrsyan

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Yeah. That'd be how to get a feud started. And keep it going if it ain't made right. Number one would be that those "people" need to bust their butts and put together double the amount of wood they stole, and get the uncles and Grand to deliver it to the house. And not come near the land again, for any reason, without express permission from Sawyer or Kaylee. Not to hunt it. Not for anything whatsoever.
 
H

Horn

Contributing Member
There is ALWAYS a Ringleader for this type of shit...
Cut them from the Heard.
Cut Clean, Deep and Swift and the next Ringleader will think long and hard.
Besides The Uncles Can be proud of their heirs and the way that they raised them...Bound to be some of them (Uncles) need Cut out also.
 
Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 129​


“Then sit there and don’t talk to me, just listen. I already told you I understand. Also told you why. You probably remember Davis’ mother a bit though all of you were little more than babies. Now hear me on this. I know what it means for people to not understand the damage they do. I just never figured to be among their number. And for that … forgive me for not seeing what was right in front of me. I thought I knew what I was doing. I was wrong.”

“Stop.”

“Sawyer …” the man tried to continue.

“Just … stop. I’ll … I’ll carry on for Kay-Lee’s sake but … don’t ask for more than that. I can’t.”

I wanted to hug Sawyer. And Uncle Mark too for that matter though I also felt like throwing something at him. He’d told the others to leave and let him and Sawyer talk. Man to man. Uncle Forrester hadn’t wanted to go but Huely asked him to give Uncle Mark a chance, that Sawyer was angry but he wasn’t dangerous, not right then.

“All right. I’ll see what can be done about the wood pi …”

“No. I’ll take care of it myself. I don’t want none of them around.” I heard the growl back in his voice.

“Cutter? Davis?”

A deep and aggravated sigh escaped him. “No. I don’t hold nothing against them. Cutter was dealing with Beth leaving him, still is for that matter, and Davis already has the twins and he’s got another set on the way. They … had reasons to stick close to home and … and … not see what was going on. It doesn’t sound like either one of them fell for what Bud was selling.”

“There’s a few more like that. Ben …”

“Uncle Mark, please stop. I’ll … I’ll do what I can but right now Kay-Lee needs me. Burt … Jolene … and Huely and Barb … I nearly gave my life for this family but only a small corner of it …” I could hear his hair so either he was shaking his head or he was running his fingers through it. His hair has been nearly as brittle as mine since he came back. His voice also got brittle. “Had it only been me they took their stupid out on I might could have lived and dealt with it. I do realize I used to be one of those knotheads. But after all I’ve done … after all Kay-Lee …” He had to stop when his voice broke. When he started up again I could hear the hardness and there was no back up in him. “What they’ve done has nearly killed my wife. Might yet. I don’t care what the Preacher says. I can’t find no forgiveness for ‘em. Some of the uncles were as bad as the cousins and with less reason. Just ‘cause they …”

“Hush Boy. Don’t writ it in stone. We all got things to answer for in this life. And God has a way of making us pay what is owed. Just focus on Kay-Lee. I’ll do what I can on this end. But don’t count the girl down and give her time to speak. I have a feeling she is stubborn enough and Baffa enough to want to have her say on it.”

And from somewhere I finally found the strength to whisper, “Hartford.”

# # # # #

“Burt Penny, what are you looking at?”

“I’m tryin’ to see if Uncle Huely’s ears are still red.”

“What?!”

“Aunt Barb grabbed ‘em and swore she’d rip ‘em off. She musta got close ‘cause I could hear him squall all the way out in the barn where Uncle Sawyer had me and Jolene to keep us outta the house until Barb was done having the baby. Aunt Dump run me off too and all I wanted to do was see if y’all needed anything.” Burt was aggrieved but the truth is that Aunt Dump and I were afraid that Barb was going to lose her religion during one of her labor pains and say something she wouldn’t want Burt to remember her by.

Huely turned around carrying said baby with the goofiest, proudest look on his face. “Look at her, just look at her. She’s purtier than all the diamonds in the world. I don’t know who’s purtier. Little Anna-Lee or her momma.”

“Momma” looked at me and I could tell she didn’t know whether to roll her eyes or giggle. Huely really did look besotted and it wasn’t the least bit attractive to be honest, more like he’d been slapped in the face with a bucket of three day old bait fish. To her husband she said, “Better give her to me. I know that look. She’s about to mess her diaper and then demand feeding. You keep spoiling her like this and she’ll never understand the word no in this lifetime and then what happens when the next one comes along?”

Huely got a little pale and whispered, “Next one?”

After Huely had turned his daughter over and then reminded me for the leventy-dozenth time that Sawyer was not that far away if I needed anything, he hurried outside to get back to helping to stack the wood from a big walnut tree that had heeled over across the road at the end of the long drive. They’d been cutting for days and now it was time to stack which they were doing in the bar. Even though the tree hadn’t been on our land we’d been allowed to cut and remove it to save having a road crew out, but the men had only had 24 hours to cut the tree in lengths so that they could drag it back from the road and county land it had come from. And from there they had to drag it up to the house.

“You can go lay down if you want to Barb. I don’t need babysitting.”

“And here I was thinking you’d appreciate being saved from Sawyer’s smothering.”

I sighed. “Sorry if I sound unappreciative. I’m not. If Aunt Dump …”

“Oh stop. I was just funning. As for Aunt Dump, she was and has been and likely will be in and out for a while yet. Uncle Carl too. I think they’re lonely so …”

“I don’t mind them coming around. It doesn’t bother Sawyer either from what I can tell.”

Uncle Carl came by that day at Aunt Dump’s insistence. She said she’d had a feeling and just couldn’t rest. She’d also had another tiff with some of the Aunts and wives that had been making garden plans and acting like they would still be doing the canning at our house. Apparently none of them could seem to accept that things wouldn’t be fixed “here right quick.”

Uncle Carl and Aunt Dump had lost their only son to a car wreck when he was sixteen (he’d gotten in the car with a friend that had been smoking weed and was more incapacitated than he thought he was). He would have been about Delly’s age. Sawyer’s parents and them had been close and when Sawyer’s mother had died and then his father … well they regretted not taking more of an active role in how Sawyer had been raised by Delly and all the rest of it. But they’d waited so long that they hadn’t known how to start without making things worse and appearing to interfere.

The day of the tree Uncle Carl had driven him and Aunt Dump over in a wagon pulled by two big plow horses he had bartered off of a Mennonite family that was moving to Upstate NY to be with the rest of their family up that way.

“Boy, you are going to let me help. I swear, you are as stubborn as my brother Ray ever was. You are his spitting image when we was boys. Damn if you don’t remind me of him more every day that passes.”

Aunt Dump had walked down the drive and I suppose to say she was shocked at the shape I was in would be an understatement. “And this is better?!” she squawked.

“Yes ma’am. Sawyer has been trading work for full-fat milk and cream and making Kay-Lee drink it up and put some weight back on.”

“I am in the room you know,” I complained.

Aunt Dump looked me up and down and said, “Honey, you’re nearly pale enough and thin enough for me to see through.” She turned to Burt. “Gimme that girl [meaning Jolene] and you run down and help the men. And tell ‘em to take all the time they need as I have things to do here. They likely need your help so look lively.”

He looked at me as I gave a slow nod and look that said to try and be there to remind them not to come to blows. Burt understood what I meant and took off down the road after grabbing the straps he uses to gather tree trash up with to bring it home.

Aunt Dump nodded with approval. “Boy has some brains.” What she didn’t approve of was Barb “getting up to so much nonsense like cooking and cleaning as it was obvious she was in early labor.

“I don’t feel nothing,” Barb squeaked.

“Your back sore? You’re rubbing it.”

“My back is always sore.” Aunt Dump raised her eyebrow. “Okay, it is a little more sore than usual.”

Before full night set in her water had broken and it was lunch the next day before Anna-Lee was born. Like she promised she refuse to let the other Aunts and wives near her, became almost hysterical when I said I was okay with it. “Well I’m not!!,” she yelled right before she nearly jerked Huely’s arm out of socket. All he did was say, “Wowee, look how strong my wife is. She can do anything.”

Uh huh. I did note he got a little pale when he thought about there being another one.

And regardless of Aunt Dump’s first reaction to seeing me, I am better. I’m not all the way better, but I am better. I’ve been here before after a surgery. But Aunt Dump told me something and I’ve taken it to heart for Sawyer’s and the kids’ sakes if for no other reason.

“Sugar, now that everyone else is resting we need to have a talk.”

“About?” I ask warily.

“About you. It’s been too many years so I wouldn’t want to doctor on anyone but I used to be an LPN, was one for a while when Carl and I got married and then was one for a little while after … well, when I needed something in my life to take up my time. All it did was prove that I was out of practice and that things had changed a lot. But there are some things that don’t change. You’ve done a lot of yo-yoing in this life and you need to find a way to balance things out or one time your yo is going to go down and not come back up. Especially if you and Sawyer ever want to have kids of your own.”

It’s given me something to think on. Sawyer and I have had to talk about things as well.

“Sawyer, please don’t let there be a feud.”

“I will not be helping those knotheads. They can figure out how to put food on their table without me.”

Trying to remain mild when Sawyer was anything but wasn’t the easiest thing I’ve ever done but I knew it wasn’t at me, but over me. “That might be the best thing for them,” I agreed. “You tried the hand up approach to start with. You even had to do the hand out a few times. But now they are going to have to do it on their own or they’ll never make of themselves what they could. I don’t want there to be a feud. Are … are you prepared to live with them resenting you or whatever comes of it?”

“I am.”

“You say that fast right now, but what about down the road?”

“I said I …” He caught himself because he realized his voice was getting loud. “Babe, fine, I admit that part of me wants to just … give in and try and … try and go back to the way things were. But it is the way things were that set up for the way they are now. Maybe … maybe I can set it aside at some point and maybe they’ll set their side apart at some point. But right now? Every time I even get near them or them me, I could … I could hurt ‘em, some of ‘em I wouldn’t spit on if they were burning. Their wives neither.”

“Sawyer …”

“I’m trying Kay-Lee. I’m praying and everything else I can think of. But my blood boils. It isn’t just about the stupid woodpile. That in and of itself is bad but that woodpile is more like the last straw than the first. And no, I know you think this is your fault but don’t. You might have been a catalyst but when I say that woodpile was the last straw? This has been coming on for a long time between me and some of the others well before you came along. It is one of the reasons I always questioned whether Gramp’s way was going to work. Or at least work for me. I expected to have problems when him and some of the uncles not letting me do things the way I saw they needed to be done. It’s best that maybe that blister was popped now before it turned poisonous.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought,” I said realizing how true it must be.

“I have. And if Uncle Mark and Uncle Carl are to be believed, Gramps and his brothers might be re-thinking things as well. Uncle Mark has already refused to sign off on some of the tenancy papers for a few of the cousins.”

“Tenancy papers?”

“Yeah. You’d be surprised how many of them still think the plot of land they are living on is theirs to do with as they please. Same for the houses. That was the plan but … that plan is being re-thought. And word is getting around and some of ‘em are shocked. Their fathers are as well.”

“I’m not understanding Sawyer. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s a bit of a mess. See the farms are really just one big farm legally. They are owned … it is owned … by Gramps with Uncle Ned and Uncle Forrester having an interest that they live off, but they don’t really own anything in their own name. Uncle Ned owned that land outright, but he’s sold it to the people you call the Trolls. Uncle Forrester had owned some property at one point, but he lost it all in his first divorce and never wanted anything else in his name because of it, and that’s what his second wife was shocked to find out when she tried to fleece him when she got mad when he wouldn’t buy her a house in town. Uncle Mark owns his land but that’s because it used to be Davis’ mother’s property that came to her when her grandparents died, and it really isn’t Uncle Mark’s so much as he holds it in trust for Davis. Uncle James owns his land, so does Uncle Ben, but they’re both boxed in by the Big Farm because Gramps went around buying up all the land he could.”

“Except Mr. Baffa wouldn’t sell this part to him.”

“You got that right. But when we got married he signed it over to me … us I mean … not to Gramps. That makes me the only one of the cousins to have my own land free and clear of any encumbrances from the Big Farm. Now some of my knotheaded cousins assumed that they were going to be given their piece they were living on and ultimately that is what was going to happen. But …”

“But?”

“Yeah, after Gramps heard what some of them planned … and that one or two of them had even approached the bank in town about taking an equity loan on the land …”

“But they can’t if they don’t own it? Or am I not understanding.”

“Oh you’re understanding all right. Now instead of them inheriting … or even any of the uncles inheriting … they’re talking about putting the Big Farm into a Trust of some type and giving the Uncles and the Aunts a Life Estate …”

“A what?”

“They’ll be allowed to live in or on the land pieced out to them for the remainder of their lives, but it won’t be theirs to give to any of their descendants and they can’t sell their place and all that other etcetera. When they pass, their place will revert to the Big Farm, and it will be up to the Trustee to decide what happens to it assuming all that doesn’t get spelled out before the Estate and Trust paperwork takes effect.”

“And this is what Uncle Mark was over here talking to you about. He wants to do the same thing so Cindy’s family can’t take over in case something happens to him … and he’s saying that despite everything, your grandfather and his brothers still want you for the job for this Trust thing you are talking about.”

“Er … you heard. Did the others?”

“I don’t think so.”

He relaxed. “I’m … not ready.”

“To decide?”

“To be the target. Not until I’ve got us better situated here and I’m for sure I know what I’m getting into … and have some protections from anything any of them try to do. Like if I have to hire a lawyer the Trust will pay for it, not just reimburse me after I pay for it first. Like maybe if any of them try and Trust Bust, they’ll get cut out with no money or assets in exchange.”

“It sounds like you are inclined.”

“Yeah. Yeah I am. I just need to know for my ownself if I’m inclined because I really think I can do some good. Or if I’m inclined because of some idea of revenge that’s lurking in the back of my head.”

“Oh Sawyer.”

“Babe, I want to be a good man. But to be honest, it ain’t hurting me to think that … that if they push me down the road I’ve got some leverage and a means to push back. But either way? Things have been irreparably changed. I might be able to bring myself to do some things … mostly for those in the family that didn’t think bad thoughts about you … us … but it still sticks in my craw that those bastards and the ones that they married …”

Oh he is still so terribly angry. But at least he is honest too. And trying to find a way to live with things. I know where he stands and so long as those that really don’t want to accept responsibility for their actions stay away, there will be no blood spilled. Part of me doesn’t want anything to do with those plans. Part of me doesn’t want to have anything to do with most of the Hartford clan. Then I think of people like Uncle Carl and Aunt Dump that don’t have kids to fall back on when they get really old. Tommy and Linda who will always need to be protected even if I’m still trying to figure out where I stand with them. Huely and Barb who threw in with us at some cost to themselves even if they got something out of it too. Uncle Mark who started out being my enemy or thinking he was and who is now closer to what I think of as family than even Gramps who I don’t know how to feel about. Then there is Uncle Ned and Uncle Forrester.

This reminds me of the stories they told in a couple of those documentaries that Sawyer and I used to watch what feels like a long time ago. How the Civil War didn’t just split the country, it split families … fathers from sons, brothers from brothers, people that had been friends their entire lives not being able to stand to look each other in the face. How some died before a healing could take place which left a wound that stayed so deep and bloody it never healed. How the schisms destroyed an entire generation. How fortunes were both won and lost and not all of either side of that was just and fair.. I’m beginning to understand that the Civil War wasn’t just awful because of all the deaths, but it was awful every bit as much for what it created as what it tore down. People might have had pure motivations on both sides of the battle lines, but what they did during battles and what they did to “win” said some terrible awful things about them. I’m thinking emotional warfare is far worse than simply taking a bullet and leaving this life.

I don’t want that for Sawyer. Or for Burt, Jolene, or the others I named. I’m pretty sure I don’t want it for anyone in the Hartford clan or those attached to it. Maybe, like Sawyer said, some of this was always inevitable. Like having too many alfa males in too small an area, especially when the area gets hunted over. Especially if some of those males only think they are alfa.

But if I’m being honest, I’m just not sure I have the strength or the willingness to use it to try and stop the consequences for some of them. I’m worried what more might be coming down the road. What other boogey monster is waiting out there to jump out and get us when we least expect it? ‘Cause the problems aren’t just coming because some people around here are knotheads. There’s a lot of knotheads out there in the world, and some of them can do us some serious hurt.
 
Texican

Texican

Live Free & Die Free.... God Freedom Country....
Lake Lili said:
Thank Kathy! There is a lot more forgiveness in Kay-Lee than there ever would be in me.
Lili
Click to expand...

Sawyer has the right stance for a husband against the ones that did bad to his wife. Many would fell the ire for a long time before any thought of any type of forgiveness would come and only then depending on how these would be humans corrected their lives and made compensation for what they stole.

Immediate family comes first.

Kathy, you definitely know how to get the hackles up on your readers. Thank you.

Texican....
 
Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
_______________

Chapter 130​


“Wow. I thought Jolene could yodel. Reckon Uncle Huely is wearing earplugs, or has he just gone deaf?”

“Burt …”

He grinned and then took a running leap off the porch, skidded about three feet, stopped ran back up to the top step and bent down before saying to his sister, “Don’t get any ideas. You’re getting to be a big girl and can’t get away with that kinda cranky. Okay?”

Jolene grinned, showing that she now had a mouthful of teeth and said, “Ooooo tay Bruhber. Come back fast.”

“Will do Stinkaroo.”

Jolene just giggled as Burt took off again, heading to the waiting “bus” that was going to take him to the outdoor classroom that he attended three days a week for educational basics of reading, writing, and arithmetic. She wasn’t always this happy about him leaving. In fact, at first she acted like her heart was broken and we were torturing her on purpose. Going to school was different than going to work with Sawyer and she recognized the difference.

Burt wasn’t sure that he wanted to “go to school” either, but it was required by law. The CI was strict about that. All kids between the ages of four and sixteen had to be receiving an education … year ‘round and not just like it used to be. Before high school it was a very basic education, but it is still an education that most of them hadn’t been receiving, at least not here up on the Ridge, unless they were being taught at home … and I’m sorry to say most hadn’t been. As free labor? Yes. But there hadn’t been any education in it.

In town these days you are going to have to pass a test to go to the academic high school which is what is required to go to college. If you get below a certain score you’ll be going to the technical high school for job training and a continuation of the three R’s that you’d need for your resulting certificate. You have three chances to improve your score if that’s what you want, but after the third try it is stuck in stone and you are just going to have to deal with it. However, going to Tech High isn’t a bad thing and if your grades are good enough, you can earn an apprenticeship … or of like being a varsity team player only with extra ration points being given to your family based on your success.

Out here in the county the proposal is for there to be a similar set up but the details haven’t been fully figured out just yet. Town always comes first and there are people out here that resent it. I look at it different. Let them try it in town and work out the bugs and kinks first, then us here in the county can cherry pick what worked and turn it to our own use. People give me the hairy eyeball for some of the things I think and say, but I’m pretty sure I no longer care. It is all about us under the Sawyer Hartford roof and then on to those we have decided to take care of. People can either accept that or not, but their opinions can’t change a single thing. Nor do they any longer have even a smidgen of a chance of hurting my feelings. Does that make me hard? Well it is a hard world and I don’t think even the princess types can deny that any longer.

Contrary to his expectations (and those of a few others), Burt is actually doing really well. I watched the bus as it turned onto the county road and the guards fall in on either end. The “bus” is an old buckboard style wagon with metal wheels, pulled by a couple of strong mules. When it isn’t taking kids to school or bringing them home, it is a mail delivery vehicle or might also act as a “taxi” from town to here on the Ridge or vice versa.

Compared to a lot of places trying to deal with the reality of the war and the economy, The Ridge is pretty backward. Then again, so is our town in comparison to some of the big cities. Had a politically-biased research crew from one of the big city universities come out here and try to show how good the cities had it, but it didn’t quite pan out as one sided as they thought it would. Pros and cons of both locations. We have no electric out here unless you have a gennie and can afford the fuel to run it … which most don’t because fuel is one of those rationed items. No running water because most places had wells with electric pumps before all the infrastructure failures. No powered air conditioning or heating because no electricity. No schools to send the kids to six days a week to keep them out of trouble and fed while their parents worked to pay for all the expenses they have in the cities. No daycare programs. No grocery stores. No garbage pick up or recycling programs. No medical facilities and most people were triaged anyway (that was something the CI couldn’t rectify due to shortages and the war time draft of medical personnel), everyone had to work, work, work, and a lot of what they worked for was to given to the town … and from the town to the cities … without financial reimbursement, Etc etc etc.

Yeah, we are poor on the surface, but we probably eat better than most people in the towns and cities now that the criminal CI is gone … it is why the conservation work crews get paid in credits they can only “spend” at the food distribution facilities that the CI runs with an iron fist. It is why the CI brought in someone that followed a “classical education” to set up small schools on the Ridge … and they are run with an iron fist. No, there aren’t any daycares but child abuse and/or neglect by the CI’s definition could get you shot or removed to a penal camp and put to hard labor and trust me, he has exercised that iron fist on a few occasions.

Get the common denominator? The CI around here has an iron fist. He’s smart. He’s willing to be creative to meet the needs of the people both in town and out here in the County, but he’s tough. Scary tough. Sawyer has met him. He got called in and questioned at the courthouse in town about the Hartford Family Trust, sworn in and everything and reminded of the penalty of perjury. Why? Because it turns out it is now the largest land holding in the entire county. Sawyer said he came out feeling a little crispy but also feeling like he’d been respected for what he was trying to do and trying to prevent in the future. And he hadn’t been treated like a kid which is what he was most worried about.

Uncle Mark was also there and said Sawyer did a fine job of it and actually had ideas for working with the CI’s office that Gramps, nor any of the uncles, had thought about.

Thus far, barring a few problem people here and there that were quickly removed and dealt with by the deputies sent along to protect everyone … both food/field workers and farm/ranchers, and to keep everything on the up and up with I’s dotted and t’s crossed.

The first crew came to us in May. The crews are small for now, it is something you have to be offered, you can’t just volunteer and expect to be allowed to go the next day. There’s a long qualification process too. Biggest thing is that the crews can’t have any criminal history, unpaid fines, or any health problems of any significance. If they lie – and there was someone with asthma that got yanked out of the crew and hauled off for questioning – there can be criminal charges depending on intent. Every day people are checked for fevers, rashes, eye infections, snotty noses, STDs, etc. Even bad teeth can keep you off a crew. The CI said there is no excuse since medical care is available in town, and he didn’t want anything brought back to town from the Ridge either. Sounds kinda hard to say it like that but then again, the CI is hard and has his reasons.

It is July now, and awful warm, but not as warm as the first year I was up here on the Ridge. I lost most of March and April’s foraging to being frail, Barb having her baby, and being unable to do it at night like I had been. Sawyer gave a hard nope to all of it. He also gave a hard nope to the canning parties being done at our place. I think that more than anything shocked some in the family. And when a few of them tried to do an end run around him and get to me, well it wasn’t nice, but even the aunts and wives have started to step lightly around him. Gramps wasn’t sure if he’d chosen the right person for the job until he found out that Sawyer had beaten the crud out of a couple of the cousins when he found out some plans they were making that could have brought misery down on Gramps and his brothers and the Uncles and Aunts as well. The other cousins were more concerned with the fact that after beating the crud out of those two particular cousins that he’d dropped them off at the foreign work board and stayed there until they signed on the dotted line and were taken off to parts unknown.

“Babe, if they come back and no longer have their head up their backsides, I won’t stop them from living with their families. They come back with some idea to try a legal maneuver again … and they and their parents are on notice that I will have them trespassed from The Farm and will bring a civil action of my own against them. They try anything illegal and I’m developing some friendships that will make them very sorry … very, very sorry … as well as anyone that supports them.

I stay out of that stuff. I’ll support Sawyer to my last breath, but I stay out of the family stuff in all other respects. I’m still not comfortable dealing with most of them. Maybe I shouldn’t feel like that, but I do. Even despite a few hands of friendship offered. If I want me to be treated a certain way I have to be willing to give too don’t I? But something happened to me at some point. Aunt Dump thinks I have PTSD or something like that. I don’t know what to call it, I just know that I start feeling squirrely when I have to be around some of them at all, and some of them that I can tolerate being around, I can only do it for short periods of time before I start feeling suspicious and having what feels like an anxiety attack almost even if I know there really isn’t any reason for it. And forget being in a large group of them. I wind up feeling like a speck of pepper in the saltshaker. I try for Sawyer and the kids … Sawyer because he needs me and the kids because I’m the adult and have to set an example. I still fall short though. I’m happier … content you might call it … to stay at the house and piddle my way through my list of things to do than participate in family get togethers.

Sawyer understands, or says he does. He says his blood still boils when he has to deal with some of them; and he admits he’s worked it out with Uncle Mark that if he gets to feeling too mean and ornery that he’ll leave Uncle Mark to deal with those particular members of the family on his own until Sawyer feels more objective and at peace in his head. And Huely and Davis are both helping him get to the point where he can trust some people in his generation. And I guess I need to add Cutter in there too.

Speaking of Cutter, he and Beth are in counseling. They really do love each other but both have personal issues that the other one wasn’t seeing for what they are. It hasn’t hurt that Beth’s father has found he can respect Cutter a whole lot more than he thought he could. See Cutter found out that Beth’s mom’s health wasn’t improving as fast or as much as it could because they didn’t have access to enough fresh food. She’s got some kind of gut problems where she can’t digest some foods and it makes it hard for her to meet her nutritional needs. And because of that she gets sick real easy. He started taking fresh food from the gardens to town even when it meant walking and risking being jumped. He doesn’t have to walk these days because he’s a delivery driver, hauling wagonloads of stuff from the county to town. He’s stepped back to let his brothers (both the older two with wives and kids, and his younger two) fill that spot for his parents.

Cutter gets paid in things that require ration points which he splits with Beth and then he gets to spend a little time with their little boy which is actually a little bit of a relief for Beth who has her hands full taking care of her parents’ household. Aunt Dump … my primary source of family gossip … says that Beth thought her life would resemble something like it used to be before she married Cutter only to find out she works harder for her parents than she ever did with Cutter around to bare some of the labor. She asked Cutter to take their son Hamlin (weird name for a kid but it’s her father’s middle name) for a few days and she was a hot mess and then some by the time Cutter brought him back. The fact that Cutter didn’t have any problem taking care of Hamlin threw her off stride and then he started helping her to take care of her family … well, it rewoke something in Beth she’d thought gone. And … they’re in counseling and all the rest like I said.

Bleck. I say on one hand I don’t want anything to do with the family mess and yet I’ll admit to being willing … and in some cases maybe eager … to hear the gossip from Aunt Dump. I’m pretty sure the information is all one-way though. Sawyer had a talk with her and Uncle Carl to clear the air and I think he asked them not to carry tales from our house back to the others beyond what would be common knowledge anyway.

Here in July I’m trying to be better about staying focused on what is my business. That’s Sawyer, the kids, Barb and Anna-Lee and Huely, and after that comes what is going on around here. Right now what is going on around here is the cash crops of blueberries, blackberries, onions, Lima beans, pole beans, cabbage, carrots, the last of the cucumbers, grapes, peaches, black eyed peas, bell peppers, hot peppers, plums, Irish potatoes, the first of the sweet potatoes, whatever squash is ready for picking, strawberries, and zucchini. That’s the stuff we have to give a percentage of to the CI’s program in exchange for the agricultural help. As planned, though a year late, Sawyer opened up several more acres of the fallow fields to plant all of the new-to-us crops so he’s glad to have the help, most of them with some experience now after they’ve been coming to work for a few months.

The stuff going on that we don’t have to split with the Food program are my foragables. Kudzu features big in there but only where it creeps on our land because people know it as a food source these days and not just a nuisance to be sprayed. Then there are mayapples, wineberries, elderberries, wild mushrooms like the chanterelle and black trumpet, wild greens like lambquarter and purslane, flowers like beebalm and rose of Sharon. The daylilies are blooming like crazy back in the woods where I had planted the bulbs back when I’d first started my “little hobby.” And all manner of herbs, and thanks to a little help from one of the crews I even have a pretty herb garden planted in a geometric pattern to enjoy. The man used to work in a plant nursery and with Burt’s help built the garden in exchange for slips of the herbs I’d planted in the flower beds and had pots of in the greenhouse. I heard he’s started his own business in town and that’s not a bad thing.

The crews are here at least two days a week and then that crew is off at someone else’s place their other three days a week. Some of them contract for a sixth day of work where they pay to come out and work a piece … like a co-op sort of thing … with the proceeds going for their family only rather than into the food program. The CI allowed it after Sawyer suggested it as a way to maybe keep people motivated and experienced rather than continue to be dependent on social programs for who knows how long.

There’s not a lot of that going on but there’s enough that neither we nor Toby’s family is ever short of help. For some odd reason people would rather work for those tickets to spend at the Food Distribution Warehouse, than work that extra day and pay for their travel and protection costs and bring food straight home to their families. So be it. So long as they work while they are here, I’m not going to put my nose in their business.

Now I know what people say on the news, and yes we have a wind up radio these days that we listen to at night, that kind of system can be rife with abuse. Well, it isn’t around here. Yes, there’s some but not as much as you would think. First off the CI will not send crews out to work for people that are going to abuse them. If there is a complaint made and it is validated, you not only lose your contract with the town, you have to pay fees and fines on top of having to pay your percentage of your cash crops anyway. Secondly, while I can’t speak of the particulars for other business farms and ranches here on the Ridge, I do know that the Hartford Family Trust is run by someone that has every bit as iron a fist as the CI does. I wake up next to him every morning and make sure he has something that at least pretends to be the coffee he is still passionate about.

Sawyer found out that some of his cousins were sitting around letting the crews do all the work and not doing any when they weren’t around yet still expecting to get a percentage off the work. Well that didn’t happen in June. Only those that worked got anything and that didn’t happen until after all expenses were paid, a piece was set aside against any future losses the Trust so that Gramps and his brothers would still be taken care of, and then all the Uncles and Aunts that had worked in some capacity were paid out. The remaining percentage was then put on account for the cousins that worked … after any expenses they’d created during the month had been paid such as their agreed upon percentage of the property taxes, propane, and all that etcetera. Boy was there some shock I tell you. One of the younger boys threatened to get some friends and catch Sawyer at night. Sawyer backhanded him and then tossed him into the arms of a couple of deputies that the idiot hadn’t considered was standing nearby and listening in. Normally deputies stay out of domestic disputes, but this was a threat of violence that couldn’t be overlooked.

“But he’s just a boy Sawyer,” Aunt Pearl begged.

“He’s the age I was when I was sent to jail for something I didn’t do. I didn’t see any of you begging the judge to turn me loose because I was just a boy. That knucklehead actually did do something, and the fool is lucky he did it here so I could nip it in the bud. He’ll go on a road work crew and get worn out daily to give him less time to act like a boy and more time to think like a man. And if he is too stupid to do that, he can learn about prison and all that comes with it the same as I did.”

Aunt Dump said several of the aunts and wives looked like they’d been slapped they were so shocked.
 
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