Hedge of Thorns: Beginning
I hated every minute of those re-enactment weekends Grandpa dragged me on. The year the axle broke on our horse cart, we had to wait on the pass in plain sight among the volcano-toppled timber, still ash-buried after decades, while the rest of the party located a blacksmith and forge.
The situation triggered Grandpa’s obsession. Our family must own a hidden sanctuary.
Mom and I stayed with the cart, while Grandpa, Dad, and Bobby followed their curiosity and a deer trail upslope. The heat of noon didn’t keep Mom from lighting a fire and mixing cornbread.
I’d dug through the things in the cart and pulled out my pencils and sketch pad, but she noticed, and made me sew. Then she quizzed me on geography. One school subject led to another, and I was deep into multiplying fractions when dusk brought the explorers back to our campsite.
“Jen, we found it,” Grandpa announced, as he sat on a gritty log.
“Found what?” She set the lid on the Dutch oven, and heaped coals over it.
“The perfect location. Something caused a landslide to split, leaving a sheltered level area, ideal for a cabin and garden. You wouldn’t believe how rich the soil is around the rocks.”
“Sounds like a headache to clear, to me.”
“It won’t be that bad. Working together Gary and I can handle it.”
Mom was right, as always, but Grandpa’s stubbornness matched the area’s unlimited rocks and fallen trees. When we reached home, he wouldn’t drop the topic. Dad got drawn in, especially with his Gulf War memories, and Bobby hankered for a great adventure.
By Christmas that year, Grandpa came home with a deed from the county. He’d used his life savings and bought the land. Grandma would have had a fit.
We lived in Puyallup until a music group’s roadie brought home an unknown virus that killed two thirds of Congress and all but three Senators after a Washington D.C. Capitol Hill performance. Riots began. We stopped participating in re-enactments then, and labored some twenty years on that land.
Hedge of Thorns: Beginning is the first segment of a serialized short story that will post on Fridays.
Check the menu on this blog for other, previously posted serialized stories, here.
Ruth
Heidi Kortman