Story Up On Hartford Ridge

Griz3752

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
Freebirde said:
Thanks Kathy!!!!

With the "Uncle Bert", it might be Jolene's kids. To me, it looks like a diversion or Kathy is setting up another cliff for us. Just got to sit back, hold on, and wait for the good stuff to keep coming.
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Our Ms Kathy doesn't 'set up' cliffs.

She has a little cottage industry in a back room where they're manufactured to spec by AI-controlled CNC.

Thankfully there always seems to be a resolution to the associated issue in the wings . . . .
 
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Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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Chapter 143​


Red sky at night, sailor’s delight. Red sky at morning, sailors taking warning.

The sky was that weird pinkish-red that it gets right before daybreak on a day that promises a storm of some type. The air also felt strange. The aunts would have called it some kind of portend or something like that. I was wondering “what next” when I saw them.

Linda was on the ground and Tommy was hunched over her … or maybe passed out over her. It was hard to tell and I was having to take everything in so quickly. The red I saw on them was not a reflection of the sky. Sawyer was fighting with several men but was going down. It was at that point that time seemed to slow to a crawl. In the not too much more distance I saw Huely jerk to the right and grab his side before going to one knee. Davis was a statue in the middle of trying to drag his father out of the yard that had become a battlefield. Everywhere I looked I saw family in some state of injury. Yes, I said family. My family. Mine.

Something rose up in me. It didn’t matter what had gone before, what had transpired to create the separation that had come. None of it seemed to matter at that point. But before I could completely panic, I saw a raider lift a rifle and take a bead on Sawyer. I knew I’d never reach him in time, not with my gimp leg, but somehow I still took a few steps forward. But at the same time I was putting every last bit of strength I had into my arm that had the hand that still gripped the cast iron skillet.

My throw wasn’t fast enough to stop the man’s trigger finger, but it wasn’t much slower than that either. Several in the family still claim they heard a gong-like sound and that it must have been that skillet embedding itself in that man’s head. For a fact, when I had to identify my skillet for the CI’s men, I nearly heaved because it took them some effort to un-embed it from the man’s skull. I wasn’t paying much attention to that then however but was watching Sawyer fall in what my mind perceived to be slow motion.

Those that don’t talk about the gong, say that they heard the scream that came outta me. Said it was near the worst sound they’d ever heard and hope to never hear such a sound again. It sounded like a Mountain Witch calling all the hobgoblins, haunts, and other spookery things to come do her bidding. Or so they claim. Tall tale is all it is and they dress it up even beyond that to tell the tale around the firelight. It’s purely for effect. I think. Though I will admit the quiet that followed my scream was not a simple or comfortable one.

Family isn’t the only one to talk about that scream. Seems military and national guard troops that had been “mopping up” and had just reached that area took it for a signal to advance with great prejudice, and no mercy was found for the raiders that night, not on Hartford land at any rate.

# # # # #

Ray Huel and FTD stared at Burt with eyes as big as saucers. Their eyes got even bigger when he said, “And that powerful scream has been echoing across the ridge ever since. It can be heard most often when something or someone threatens our family.”

Lilah suddenly got up and exited the room post haste, having remembered a chore she’d left undone. She startled Burt who then got that itchy feeling between his shoulder blades and slowly turned to find Kay-Lee standing in the archway between the dining room and hall. He winced and then quietly told the boys, “Save yourselves. And if you don’t see me again …”

The “face of terror” he was making had the opposite effect on the boys, but they did scram trying not to giggle at the what their mother was likely about to dish out.

“Burt …” Kay-Lee sighed in exasperation. “I no sooner think that story has been forgotten than someone brings it back up.” She shook her head. But it wasn’t with the vigor that Burt had been expecting. He was on his last year of college and had gotten so homesick he’d bum’ed multiple rides to show up as a surprise.

“Aunt Kay-Lee?” he asked, trying not to show the alarm he felt.

She limped over to a chair she’d been sitting in to fold clothes until the baby had started to fuss. She hadn’t wanted to waste a minute of Burt’s surprise visit, but she hadn’t hand any choice if anyone wanted to retain their hearing.

“I’m fine.”

“Um. Not to be rude but you don’t look fine.”

Kay-Lee shrugged. “I’m as fine as expected. How’s that?”

Still concerned he asked, “What’s Uncle Sawyer say?”

The man in question, who had been hiding out in the kitchen waiting to scare the bejeebers out of the boys just for the fun of it, came through the door looking with concern at his wife. “Uncle Sawyer says the doctors are idiots; and so am I for listening to them.”

The story was already all over the ridge and parts of town too, a good joke to some and a moral story for others. And a very few more than mildly disgruntled that the story hadn’t ended in the tragedy some had predicted. With Burt old enough, Kay-Lee shrugged without embarrassment and said, “They call it practicing medicine for a reason. Just because they said I wouldn’t be able to have any more after FTD doesn’t mean we should have assumed them to be right.” She moved gently in the chair, still sore where they had made the decision to make sure there wouldn’t be anymore after Linda Jean. The baby was a surprise, but neither unwanted nor unwelcome. She was however unexpected and it had thrown both her and Sawyer for a loop when they discovered the reason for her constant fatigue wasn’t age-related or from the constant ache she’d been feeling in her bad foot. The ache had been a result of swelling and she’d been put on a low-sodium diet almost immediately upon being diagnosed as nearly five months pregnant.

“Sorry I wound the boys up,” Burt said in chargin.

“Don’t be. Your uncle is right … as usual. With the anniversary of the Battle of the Ridge next week they’re going to hear about it whether that makes me happy or not. I just wish they’d stop with the jokes. I’m just too tired to find them funny.”

Sawyer tried to distract by asking, “Hon? Did you get any rest?”

“Some,” Kay-Lee answered. “Now that the baby isn’t puking so much and isn’t hysterical about it, she settles faster. She’s simply your daughter and a Hartford on top of it. She’s even worse than the boys about inhaling her feed. Thank the good Lord that Lilah was our first or there wouldn’t have been any after.”

A voice coming from the front screen door said, “Aunt Kay-Lee, Benny Robert brought you something from Aunt Jeanie.”

“Oh my goodness, is it that time already?! I haven’t even gotten dinner started. Jolene …”

The young girl, now in high school, carefully came through the door without banging earning a grateful smile from her aunt, said, The boy in question, only slightly older, said, “School got out early today. Inspectors showed up from town wanting to go over the heater to see if they can replicate it in town. Or so Dad said who was there to meet them. He let me drive the buggy home so Jolene and a couple of the other girls wouldn’t have to wait on the bus. Momma sent this bag of baby things. And please don’t say you don’t need them, she’ll skin me. I’m already in the hots for teaching Doris to yodel.”

The adults in the room chuckled and Benny Robert completed his errand and then scrammed as Jolene had been the last to be dropped off. He didn’t mind playing taxi driver for his girl cousins but he was done with it and just wanted to get home and tend his animals so he could finish his homework and then get his dinner. Benny Robert, like all the Hartford children, enjoyed his food. They all worked hard and played hard and knew where their food came from because they’d helped get it from the field to the table themselves.

While Jolene and Burt gave each other hugs Sawyer came over to Kay-Lee and quietly said, “You wanna skip the celebration this year?”

She made a face, “I’m thinking about it. I’ve got the excuse.”

“This kids and I will stay …”

That’s when Kay-Lee shook her head. “No. You won’t. You know they’ll want you to give a speech and all the rest.”

It was Sawyer’s turn to make a face. “Maybe I’ll hide out here with you.”

Kay-Lee slowly saw the humor in things and said, “I’ll deal with it. I just may not be up to more than sitting in a rocker.”

“The boys and I will bring the camper so you and the baby can have a lie down if you need to. Lilah can mind them. That daughter of ours is a real lion tamer. Like her Momma.”

“Good. Somebody needs to be handle all you Hartford males.”

“Not nearly as bad as it was when I was a boy,” he said running his hands through his hair in a way that still brought “Greek godliness” to Kay-Lee’s mind. But the hair these days was shot through with plenty of white, but that only made him more handsome in her eyes. Her own fawn had spread though not so much as you’d expect given the things she’d endured over the years.

She sighed and thought back as Sawyer kissed her temple and went off to see about Burt and Jolene, and to make sure that the boys were ready for their own chores. It had been an off-day for their grade and while he and Kay-Lee tried to give them time to play, there was also a time for work and he needed the help with getting the animals fed and bedded down for what remained of the day. He knew that Lilah had already started a pot of beans and would have her own chores in hand, she was as industrious has her mother had always been.

Kay-Lee knew it as well so didn’t feel guilty about allowing herself to look back in time as she kept her hands busy matching folding the never-ending basket of socks the children seemed to make.
 
Griz3752

Griz3752

Retired, practising Curmudgeon
9idrr said:
If this ain't my very most favorite-ist of your stories, it's almost at the top of the list. Many thanks, Ma'am.
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Big list, lots to choose from and yeah, all good so hard for me to have a "my favourite".

One day, if when our Ms KIF gets all her open works finished, there might be an opportunity to pick a top 5 but until then, I'll take them as they come and continue to enjoy & learn.
 
Kathy in FL

Kathy in FL

Administrator
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John, I am getting them complete as real life permits. I can plan to have more finished, i can even foolishly share those plans, but reality is … real life pays the bills and i intend to always provide free stories. Without my real life as busy as it is, there wouldn’t be any stories.

I am also not a computer, or any form of AI. Nor will I short change anybody here by utilizing AI just to say, I finished the story. I put myself, blood, sweat and tears, into each, and every story I write. I am not a professional. I am doing the best I can. Just put it down to you get what you pay for.
 
Sammy55

Sammy55

Veteran Member
Oh, heavens! Why did I not know that Kathy finished this book??!!?? I just caught OGM's comment and thought, "I didn't see that!" So I went back and found that I missed reading Kathy's last post which was "The End."

This is a fantastic book, Kathy, and I'm excited to see the ending and see that Sawyer and Kay-Lee were alright and even had kids! I was stuck in the "in between land" of the second to last post and wondered when I'd find out if Sawyer was okay! So, I finally did find out. And it was my own dang fault that I had to wait so long!! :jstr: :lkick:

Thanks, Kathy! Another great book finished! :eleph::applaud::eleph::applaud:
 
M

moldy

Veteran Member
Me, three! I think this is one of my very favorite stories as I can relate to the physical frailty of KayLee. This was going gangbusters when I was in cancer treatment and was one of my favorite distractions.

Thank you, Kathy, for all your stories. You have had so much more influence than you will ever know.
 
Sammy55

Sammy55

Veteran Member
Old Gray Mare said:
Whoa! Hold on. My bad. Kathy posted there are still a few chapter's to go.
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Okaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyyyyy. That just means more of Kathy's story! YAY!

I went back to see what she wrote. I can wait for the rest, but will be excited to read more about Kay-Lee and family........whenever Kathy has the chance to finish this story.

Thanks, OGM, for the alert or I would have considered this story "done" and not checked as often for updates/comments/additions.
 
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