When the sun peaked over the trees lining the back pasture Nell had already been up an hour. She didn't start breakfast till sun-up though, so she took this time to herself and would do a crossword or read some red-spined pulp. She banged around the kitchen for thirty minutes, throwing together the same breakfast she'd made for nearly forty years. Nell's mother, Dot, had been in bad health for nearly ten years and has been living with Nell and Wayne for nearly seven. She would often rise in the middle of the night and wander. Nell would find her sometimes by the fireplace or on the couch, other times she'd have walked halfway to the farrow house in nothing more than a night robe. Nell would escort her back to the house, back to bed, and lay awake listening to the rustling coming from Dot's room. Dot was up and stirring this morning, soon to make her way down the hall for breakfast.
"Wayne! C'mon Wayne, breakfast!" Nell reveilled to the back bedroom; where her husband was wrapped in an electric blanket.
Dot was breaching her bedroom door when Nell called to her "Momma, can you keep an eye on this sausage for just a second?"
"Sure dear. My daughter and I used to fry up sausage on the weekends when her daddy didn't have to work...” the voice trailed as Nell stepped out in to the enclosed porch.
She slipped on some old mucks, crabbed an old round cracker tin, and stepped out in to the morning dew.
It was already wet in the air. Storms coming up from the gulf were due in the afternoon. The sun was top-siding over the trees. Nell crossed the gravel drive towards a large coop of re-purposed wood. The same coop that has stood for thirty years. The whole structure is off-kilter and the swinging wood door is held shut with a nail and chain as old as the coop itself, Chain links and nails is a long favored homestead latch. For a moment, before entering, Nell looked towards the east property. Over the garden she could see the pastures of yellow hay ready for first harvest, and orange of the sun behind the clouds spread wide across the sky. The two blended like oils on canvas, like a piece of art she'd never see in a gallery as distant as the moon.
She heard scratching from tiny talons behind the door and pushed forward in to a hay and shit littered coop. The hens would lay in hay lined, milk crate sized cubbies fashioned from wood. The hens pecked ground corn feed out of there feeder while Nell gathered eight shit flecked eggs. Walking back across the yard a small cat was pouncing around a grasshopper. It met Nell at the door meowing. She grabbed an egg from the tin and cracked it on to the grass. The cat sniffed around and took to slurping the bursted yellow.
Back in the house Nell found her mother had forwent cooking sausage and was frying up a pound slab of bacon.
“What are you doin’ momma?” Nell grabbed a bowl form the cupboard and started cracking eggs over it.
“You only had five pieces of sausage laid out, and that’s not enough for everyone.” Nell was beating the eggs in rhythm with a small whisk.
“Did you invite a ball team for breakfast?”
Dot turned her nose up, “Don’t be rude Nellie. Deidra and Durrell are going to want some food, don’t you think? And Bobby Joe too.”
Nell was never one to push these moments.
“Momma, Deidra and Durrell haven’t lived here in eight years and daddy – I mean, Bobby Joe hasn’t been around for 20-aught years.”
Dot didn’t appear to care one way or the other and continued turning bacon while Nell turned the eggs.
“WAYNE! Com’on now! It’s ready!”
He was up for the first call, but his body was sore and he stayed in bed. By the second call he was dressed in a white tee and some old back slacks. He shuffled out of his room and down the hall to the kitchen table. Dot was already seated, and Nell was setting hot biscuits on the table with all the accompaniments.
“That heifer must be gettin’ close.” Wayne mumbled. He was grabbing a biscuit and dumping corn syrup on his plate.
“She had enough to say last night. She was lain down in the front pasture when I went to gather the eggs.” Dot winced as Nell talked. Wayne was all deaf in one ear and half-deaf in the other.
“See any buzzards?”
Buzzards always come around when a calf is expected. They are quick after the afterbirth. What’s worse is if the buzzards kill a calf. Peck the eyeballs out, eat them, and slowly pick away at the youngling face first. The mama can’t do anything about it. Then Wayne’d have to get the tractor and haul the carrion to the pit t’wards the back of the acreage.
“No but one of those cats is pregnant, and it looks like the heat lamp over the chicks went out.” That elicited a grunt in response and Wayne rose from the table.
He grabbed a few plastic bottles and tumped some pills out. Down the hatch and out the porch door.
“I’m get the light fixt” as he trailed out.
Wayne grabbed a down jacket from the coat stand on the porch. He pulled a bolt-action .22 rifle off the gun rack and grabbed a couple rounds of ammo. Across the yard from the enclosed porch is a semi-dilapidated home used as storage for nearly thirty years. Wayne pulled the chain and nail lock holding the door closed. An old gun cabinet right inside the entrance held chaotic order. Inside a velvet lined drawer were a few spare heat lamp bulbs.
Back outside there were audible chirps coming from a wired cage situated underneath the old house awning. There were about 30 chicks huddled together in the cage, and two yellow lumps were lifeless in a corner. Wayne opened the cage and removed those lost in the night. He replaced the heat lamp, and from above he saw a cat dash and grab a discarded chick, bolting to the fence cross the yard next to the hay barn. Fastening the cage latch; with one hand he reached in his pocket searching. Pulling out a .22 round he loaded it in the mechanism, cocked, and took aim.
KRAKOW!
He fired one round and connected. The heavy bellied cat jumped high in to the air and fell to the ground twitching. Blood leaked out the side of her head when Wayne picked her up by the tail and tossed her over the fence for the buzzards.
Back inside he beelined to his recliner. With legs up he turned on the weather and stretched his lip with a plug of tobacco.
Submitted December 01, 2018 at 09:32PM by whitetyle https://ift.tt/2E8tjNt
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