The crooked hand tree, p.4
The Crooked Hand Tree, page 4
The landowner, he would find, was a longtime Kiliwik farmer named Jeb Lowe. In a few hours he’d searched him out, and within only fifteen minutes of negotiation, Karl’s deep pockets had emptied, giving the poor farmer a hefty and lucrative payday in the purchase of the lot.
Karl Miller had found his spot. A rich, fertile piece of land set on a small hill across from Kiliwik’s cemetery grounds bestowed by a giant of a tree. With these forty acres of wonder procured, Karl and Bea would put down their roots and continue their long Miller heritage.
Then in this early summer of 1792, Karl began the process of building his property’s farm home. Having deep resources, he would spare no expense in the building of his dream. To do so, Karl asked about town in search of capable workers. And after a very brief search, he had found his men: two locals, one named Guy West and another named Bill Buckland. Each of the men now gladly employed by Karl set out to gather supplies.
Much of the wood would be supplied by Kimble Co. a local timber mill located in Bragston, roughly twenty miles outside Kiliwik’s outer boundaries. Premium glass-paned windows would be brought in from nearby Hogstown, while two custom arched Gothic-style windows crafted in Brentstown by artisan Nils Olson were commissioned. Tools, nails, saws, and the like were readily available through Kiliwik’s General Store’s hardware suppliers.
The building process would require the construction of a large barn set about one hundred feet from the main house. An outhouse would be purposely built above a hole just deep enough to not reach the water table about forty feet from the home and twenty feet to the north side of the barn on a downward slope, thus allowing gravity to drain water from the outhouse, and away from the well water. The structure, needing to be accessible from the main house, would be located close enough it could be reached quickly if necessary, even in winter snow.
Now would be the first order of business—water. And a hole deep enough to provide a freshwater drinking well. Karl knew what is well-known by farmers: water is the lifeblood of a farm. Not just for the obvious drinking water but agriculture. Life-sustaining water also would provide the secondary needs of the home, such as cooking and washing. This included clothing, house blankets, linens, and other fabric items. In digging the life-giving well, its location needed to be about twenty feet or so from the home, set in the backyard on top of the hill close to the house itself. And because the future home sat on top of a hill which sloped away, it was determined the well’s hole would have to be very deep.
With the consult of farmer Lowe, Karl was assured groundwater existed. How deep, he did not know. But having employed his help, he began to dig down in earnest, hitting the water source in about two weeks. The hole now dug, the men then lined the walls of the hole with large boulders pulled from and transported from a local quarry and set them with mortar, soon lining the very bottom of the well with small stones and fine gravel to allow seepage.
Finally, to cap the deep hole off, he also purchased a brand-new cast-iron hand pump forged by a local blacksmith, setting it dead center in the middle of a heavy oak lid.
For times when the rain would be less plentiful, Karl also set up a few rain barrels, which in time would fill to the brim during heavy rainfall, offering a backup to the groundwater. If all these primary water supplies ran low, a three-mile trek to the northwest corner of the farm could be made, where a small, well-running stream flowed with fresh water supplied from a far-off spring. Admittedly, this alternative source would prove a difficult one but, with the help of a mule and a cart, would be possible.
In a month, the Miller farm was taking shape. With days growing into weeks, the enormous barn was built along with the main house itself. To the left of the barn, stained traditional red, the men erected a pristine, heavy bladed windmill that when finished would stand about twenty feet from the ground and would serve to grind the many grains grown on the farm.
As for the main house itself, new farmer Karl Miller’s remaining money resources were used to construct a very fine home indeed. By most standards, it was even opulent, importing every fine detail he could procure. The interior of the house was outfitted with a beautifully arched red-brick fireplace, set with a deep hearth. From it, a vent system was designed to radiate heat to the upstairs rooms. Karl spared no expense in hiring craftsmen to design detailed banisters for the stairs. He had artisans design fine furniture—cabinets, tables, chairs, oil lampposts and outfit iron oil lamp brackets. And very importantly, a large potbelly stove with a heavy iron flat-top for cooking and heat. For its interior and exterior, the home’s windows would be the finest anyone could come by—ones to stand up to even the harshest winds and winters.
By the time the entire project was concluded and his great spending spree finished, he’d used up most of his money. To this end, he did not mind; he was a farmer now and happy to be one.
At about six o’clock, Tom had just watched his giant friend depart. Now he remembered something: the crow…the crow…!
Cracking the back door to wide open, his mind turned to what he had forgotten. First turning to, and then following the back of the house to the right of the closing door, he made his way uneasily until taking another severe right turn around the corner. Now he crept the side, keeping his eyes focused in a measured step by step. With every shortened step, he tried to prepare himself for what he might encounter. Three feet ahead now, the corner on the house’s edge drew close. He kept his eyes forward, fingers reaching as he inched his way. Realizing he hadn’t taken a breath in at least the last twenty seconds, he made one proper prolonged breath intake and peered around the corner’s edge to the place straight below where his upstairs window lay. A dizzying wave came over him as he feared to even look.
Is it there? Is it dead?
Fingers now hooking around the corner, he held the edge and pushed his head around the corner, lowering his eyes as he scanned down to the spot beneath his window. The window bashing crow was gone. Pulling back, he took in a short, quick breath as he tried to make sense of what he didn’t see. It was dead! I know it—I saw it…!
Rocked with disbelief, he stepped backward—step by step farther back. And then without pause, he spun around and ran.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tristan Taken by Lightning
Sixteen years after Karl built his farm in the late season of the year 1808, seventeen-year-old Tristan Sommers arrived on Miller’s Farm at the peak of harvest.
He approached directly from the well-worn slope rising gently upward from the town below, only stopping briefly to glance skyward at the great dead tree.
Upon reaching the top, he turned left from the graveled path and entered the broader pathway on the left side of the farmhouse, then he headed straight ahead to the large, red boarded barn about thirty feet away where Karl Miller was standing.
The young man approached treading lightly and respectfully then gave a wave as Karl turned to greet him.
“Hello, there!” the young man said easily. “I’m Tristan Sommers.”
As Tristan reached out a hand to Karl, Karl returned a happy “Hello, young fella, I’m Karl Miller, what brings you here today?”
“Well, sir, work,” Tristan replied.
“Okay,” replied Karl, “what kind of work can you do son?”
Tristan politely answered, “Well sir, I can do all kinds of things…”
“Well that’s good,” Karl said. “Because we have a lot to do here!” The two shared a brief laugh.
“Tristan,” Karl inquired, “where may I ask are you from? I’ve not seen you before.”
Tristan, without any trace of evasion, replied, “Well yes, I just arrived here in Kiliwik. About a month ago, I set out on a journey and I kept walking until I arrived here in your fine town.”
Karl, being a lawyer, usually would have pressed harder on this answer, but something about Tristan seemed so genuine. No sign at all of any deception or a secret agenda of any kind. It was in the eyes; Karl always judged a man’s soul by his eyes. And Tristan Sommer’s eyes, though somehow mysterious, were the purest, most honest eyes he’d ever seen. By that, Karl felt satisfied. Tristan was real.
Farmer Karl continued to talk to him a moment more, shook his hand, and said, “Come back tomorrow.”
Tristan replied with a bow, “I will sir, thank you.”
Karl’s farm was especially busy this late summer following a winter which saw over nine feet of snow and a spring marked by twelve heavy spots of rain and at least four heavy deluges. He needed the extra help.
The next day, Tristan came back. Karl met him in front of the barn as before. This time he set out straight away on getting him acquainted with the farm’s layout and started on a few simple projects.
A short distance away, Flora was brushing her straight, lengthy, auburn bangs from her eyes while shaking flower remnants out of her otherwise fairly short-cropped hair. She looked upon newcomer Tristan with unabated interest.
Then from behind the barn area, Bo trod toward the two on his leaden feet with his hat in hand. Three long strides later, he stood in front of the men looking on Tristan with equally held curiosity.
“Tristan,” Karl said, “I’d like you to meet Bo. Bo here is our farmhand…he’s been here quite a long time and will be happy to help you any way he can.” With a cordial smile, Karl looked back and forth between the two then asked easily, “Right, Bo?” Towering over their two heads, the big man nodded at once as his great smile brimmed widely.
“Ah yesah, ah wehl, ah wehl, yessah Kahl sah.”
Karl then extended an open palm equidistantly between them. “Okay then, Bo…meet Tristan. He’s going to be helping us here.”
“Oh, ah, yessah,” Bo replied, shaking off some dirt while reaching out his large right hand. Tristan returned his open hand in a handshake gesture, which disappeared when it contacted Bo’s giant hand offering. With his hand securely entrenched inside, he thought to himself, laughing, This man is an actual giant.
So the day began, and Karl immediately showed Tristan around nearly every inch of the farm, all the while relaying details of the work to be done. Tristan walked alongside, always at attention, nodding in understanding.
From the very moment Tristan walked up the path and stood in front of her father’s barn, Flora fell awestruck by him—surely even lovestruck. It seemed he had come from nowhere. And Flora, having been born and raised in Kiliwik, had never laid her eyes on such a fantastically endowed boy in all her sixteen years. A boy who, so perfect, less resembled a human being, than a god of some kind. Like something out of Greek mythology, she’d thought. Even in his loose-fitting pants and his white, open-collared shirt, he appeared supremely muscular. Standing six-feet, she guessed, and possessing a perfectly chiseled face, he wore his long blondish hair tied back in a flowing tail. His intense, yet somehow calming eyes were set like deep azure pools which radiated a gentle kindness.
In age, he looked to be no more than seventeen but possessed a swagger, like a ship captain. Cupid’s love arrow had struck…and, for the first time, carnal thoughts, ones she’d never experienced were abounding. Her world had ever changed, and she was already becoming lost in him. Never before had she been in love or lust and felt deliriously fixated in every way; like she had fallen under a spell of some kind. A deep, resounding feeling which excited her and scared her at the same time.
That night, she went to bed hardly able to fall off to sleep. Curled up in her blankets, she gripped them tightly and, in them, felt warm and tingly all over as she smiled in the darkness, thinking about seeing him the next morning.
Eight hours later, a brilliant morning sun broke over the farm. With multitudes of flowers wafting outside her cracked-open bedroom window, Flora could prominently smell the lavenders flowing in. The aromas came on a crisp chill of air, which rose, easily raising her curtains aloft. She stretched and, amid a slight yawn batted her eyes open, as a shot of excitement hit her dull senses, breaking them apart, cursing them into action.
The night before sleep had not come, at least not that she remembered. But strangely, she was now fully returned, not feeling tired at all. Her hair, resting a bit mussy, no longer sat in the middle of her pillow and two more blinks found her bare feet hitting her cold floor. She dressed while listening to the faint songs of birds of many feathers, mixed with the distant caws and screeches of blackbirds outside her window.
Later that morning, Flora pretended to be working in the flower garden, when secretly though, she was crouched down watching Tristan mightily helping her dad lug two large hay bales. With large hooks embedded in each of the bale’s sides, the two were lofting the weighty parcels up onto the unhinged back of the farm’s wagon.
As she held squatting, Tristan wiped a long sweat-laced strand from his face. He then looked up quickly in Flora’s direction—and caught her staring. At once, she pulled her peering head back into the obscuring flowers and ivies…guiltily unmoving, she at once shot her coveting eyes right to the ground. There she held a tight-lipped moment bearing a hand covered grin. Then she released a short burst of a giggle that escaped like an uncontrollable sneeze. Now blushing like a bride, she held her scooched, concealed position while flattening her delicate fingers harder to her mouth, trying to control another escaping tee-hee. She knew she’d been caught.
At day’s end, after much work was done, Tristan and Bo sauntered up from the field together. Sharing a laugh as they approached, Tristan said good night to his huge co-worker and, with a short wave, peeled off headed in Flora’s direction. Flora saw him coming, trying to play uninterested as if still wrapped up in finishing her day’s chores. Still a bit embarrassed about the staring incident, she continued to lightly sing to herself, while again clandestinely appearing not to notice him walking towards her.
Tristan was upon her now and, not wanting to startle her, softly, said, “Hey there, Flora.” Flora attempted to appear taken by surprise.
“Hello, Tristan,” she said, holding a basket of flowers.
He smiled, and Flora began to feel her legs go weak. Trying to circumvent her mind space, she instead inquired, “So it was a good first day, yes?”
Tristan raised his beautiful smile, and once more, she became wobbly.
He replied, “It was a really good first day, I think…I really appreciate your dad letting me work here.”
Becoming lost in a mini-spin of vertigo, she took a deep breath to get her bearings back. Then she let out an endearing, nervous chortle. “Well, we do need the help here…yeah I don’t think Bo and my dad can do it all.”
He responded with a manly laugh of his own…one leading to an awkward smiling in silence. In the bounds of this very moment, something else changed. With an all-encompassing connection, they gazed into one another’s eyes for the first time. For Flora, Tristan’s eyes left her swimming in their depths. Eyes like a deep blue ocean, she thought. Flora dove in. She was swimming. She was in love.
Knew him? She did not. Feel the way she did? She should not. But whatever the reason, on both accounts, she felt sure she did. The combination hit her hard, causing her to wonder, Do I know him? I feel somehow I do, but how?
At sixteen, she’d never been kissed. She wanted to be. Now after all this time, Tristan—picture of masculine perfection—stood like Adonis in front of her. Her resistances were tearing at the seams like a plaything doll lost in his deep blue pools. In the sustaining moment, time stopped. What were probably fifteen seconds ticked by like a sheer eternity. Legs crumbling, Flora melted, flowing warm and soft. Unaware she did so, she’d handed him a single-stemmed sunflower from her basket. Tristan took it and admired it, then raised the back of his free hand and gently placed it on Flora’s red-blushed cheek. She crumbled under its power.
He looked into her lost eyes, and, as easy as a gentle breeze took her delicate hand and placed a kiss on top. He lifted his eyes, giving a tender smile and said, “Thank you so much for the beautiful flower, Flora. I hope to see you again tomorrow…good night.”
Tristan, who traveled from afar in his wanderlust to see her, now knew she was even more beautiful than he’d imagined. Flora, now all consumed by him, burned inside, unable to extinguish the blaze of her desires. This night, the two dreamed of one another in the waiting for the day to come.
The next day did come, bringing with it more work as usual. The farm’s team was now working together at the harvest’s peak—on the greatest harvest the farm had ever produced.
The duties, as was customary, were delegated by Karl, and Tristan and Bo worked as a great team, hacking corn, pulling carrots and potatoes, swiping scythes through acres of corn, barley, and oats, as well as tending the many animals.
This fine day and the following days to come, Flora and Tristan grew even closer. With little contact in the workdays though, it wouldn’t be until after work when they would be able to enjoy ample time with one another.
During the end of these sultry summer days, Tristan made it a short-lived tradition to pluck a wildflower or two, and finding her would stealthily sneak up behind revealing the handpicked “bouquet of the day” from behind his back. Beholding a genuine visage of delighted surprise, she accepted the bunch glowing happily with a sun’s radiance. They were growing. A subtle touch here, a laughing flirt there, both were feeling their beating hearts joining. Soon, they began holding hands on secret walks, stopping to gaze over swaying and blowing blond-amber barely fields, ones that would drift into another setting sun’s light. It was too apparent; they were in love. And as it would be, on a warm summer night, they kissed. A warm, passionate kiss…one which came like a cloud bursting storm from the far reaches of a warm blue ocean, from a place deep inside each of them.
