The Crooked Hand Tree

By J.S. Parker

In the remote farmlands of Kiliwik- early Kansas, Hell itself has come to town.

It is the year 1820, and Tom Miller, born of a supernatural event- is becoming aware of the unearthly gifts bestowed upon him.

Shy and ever fearful, especially for the giant dead tree looming in the cemetery of souls across from his bedroom window...he is taught the ways of his powers by an elderly shop owner in town.

When an evil plague in the form of a black witch is sent to destroy him, Tom must learn to accept himself as he summons all...to save himself, his town, and everything he knows and truly loves. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Publishdrive
• Release date: Oct 10, 2023
• ISBN: 9798218262501

Book preview

PROLOGUE

Spirals

Amid a blurry-eyed trance, spirals…spirals, over and over in his mind’s eye.

Like the circles on the Hill of Tara or Avebury, he thought. Or like the ones in the Senapah caves, or the spiral drawings of the Celtic Triskele, the three realms.

With a finger smudging stick of charcoal, he’d been unknowingly carving these black concentric circles into his book’s page for several minutes, etching, round and round and round. Deeper and deeper he pushed. Now the spiraling circles were starting to obscure the page’s text completely. The page he’d opened telling the story of the Tree of Life.

In it, the text told of a tree’s symbolic roots. Ones that genuinely spread far and wide. From its small seed in Mesopotamia, which saw religious Assyrian etchings depicting a straight trunk with a series of nodes and crisscrossing lines, it grew to the lands of Islam, where it is known as Tree of Immortality.

Its mythological roots are also found in the Kabbalah and Celtic mythology and spread even further to the Templar’s prison walls at La Rochelle. Another account is found in the Book of Enoch. And in Jewish traditions, it is well known as Etz Chaim—Hebrew for the Tree of Life.

Its deep-rooted origins even reach much further back to Chinese mythology, Germanic paganism, and Norse mythology and on to Mesoamerica with the Maya, the Aztecs, and the Izapan…and to the New Land among the tribes of the Sioux and the Iroquois, and to a lesser-known tribe called the Senapah of early Kansas, who depicted the tree in their petroglyphs and cave paintings.

As he scrawled to the point of cracking his charcoal pen instrument, the page now lay blurred by spirals growing thicker and darker. Round and round, etching harder and deeper from the circle’s tight epicenter, he traced outward—reaching and tracing his instrument’s tip into fragments until…ssssnap!

CHAPTER ONE

A Hell-Bent Crow

Perched high on a large granite gargoyle beheld by a cold and wispy fog, a crow black as death repositioned its sharp-taloned feet on each of the gargoyle’s horns. It held for a motionless moment then, on command, raised its outstretched wings and took flight.

First descending and then leveling out, it gained new speed over the fog blanketed streets…occasionally hitting brief updrafts that would see it glide, soar higher, and again beat its onyx-black wings into sporadic and frenetic wing tipping spurts. It flew over the ever-changing terrains, with its cold dark eyes—like dead black button eyes on a doll, darting maniacally in every direction, surveying the spaces between the divides.

Occasionally considering new landing sites, it glided further, until its head and body finally reeled back, and its great wings stalled its momentum, clutching its spike-clawed feet firmly on a rooftop weather vane pointed due west—the direction it was sent.

The bird flew through the night, trespassing across treetops, silhouetting against misty moonbeams and alighting only briefly to retake flight once more, purposefully pounding its big black wings into air pumping bursts, onward, holding its hell-bent beeline.

Twelve-year-old Tom Miller awoke with a sudden gasp!

With his entire upper body poised like a rigid plank, his trailing dream waned behind. Then he shot straight up from his bed, stiff-armed and reaching back for stability. Now sitting up in his right-angled panic dream-state of stupor, his wide-rimmed eyes appeared like misty blue pools in his perfect features. While still caught in a half-trance moment, he continued to hold firmly, unsure if he were really awake.

The murky waters of his sleep he tread, and for over a minute, he swam its semi-sleep-locked waves, drifting in thoughts caught halfway between a dream of Gulliver’s Travels and some other darkened place he could not readily identify. Once the depths of his waking panic receded, he noticed the book bearing its same namesake fallen shut on the floor next to him. Now feeling his wet white cotton pajamas stick a bit, he wiped his sweat-beaded brow left to right with the back of his unplanted hand, while his other back stretched hand felt the bed below, also somewhat wet due to his perspiring. He traipsed his forehead on the other gathered beads dispersed in his long dirty-blond hair strands still hung with sweat dripping into his stinging eyes. A minute or two later, he regained fuller consciousness, and shaking his head side to side, now sought to banish the ghosts lingering in his groggy head. He soon did so, then parted his dark cross-pattern curtains obscuring his window, revealing a towering gargantuan, black, leafless dead tree—one which perpetually brooded, looming across the way in the fog-laden cemetery.

It stood no less than ninety feet tall and was, as it has always been—the crooked hand tree of his every sleeping and waking nightmare.

The tree, with a large contorted oblong hollow in its trunk, resembling a mouth, and two misshapen circular holes spaced symmetrically apart above it, appeared as a wholly twisted facade resembling nothing less than a menacing face.

With strong winds abound, its gaping mouth and eye sockets hauntingly resonated, projecting a howl that spoke to him. Tooomm… Tooomm…! And likewise, the force of any brisk blow would cause its scraggly hands to lurch wildly—in his mind, no doubt, ever trying to reach out and grab him through his window.

The fact was, the upstairs room in which he occupied sat a mere forty or so yards away directly across from the dirt and gravel stone path dividing the farmhouse and its cemetery place. The cemetery place that not only held the giant dead tree, but a sizeable mysterious clearing below it void of anything but dirt and swirling dust—along with a few scatterings of discarded twigs, dry grass, and straw. And farther beyond lay the many gravestones of modern-day Kiliwik’s dead.

Although Tom had no desire whatsoever to look at the tree, having his bed next to his window gave him comfort; for at some point he decided if he had to live across from the tree, he would rather keep it in his sights. Keep your enemies closer. He looked on the tree for a moment longer. Then he noticed something. A very oversized? black bird had made landing on the great tree’s large lower limb.

Strangely, it seemed to have its eyes set directly on him. In fact, Yes, he thought, their eyes had most certainly indeed locked.

A random bolt struck, and he felt a flash of fear run through his gut like an inner static shock. His mind too shot back to the feeling he’d just had minutes before. In my dream? Yes, the dream of a dark realm, the evil place beyond.

Right beside him on his bedside table, a compass he’d found six years before started rattling up and down, and its single-handed double-arrows were spinning clockwise into a visible blur. Then in a nanosecond, they stopped short, darted back and forth, then reversed direction, returning to a counter-clockwise blur.

Without warning, the great bird, now bedeviled by red-eyed pinpoints lurched from the tree with a screeching eeeeeh! Advancing hard now, it squawked again with fury, its red eyes, like dead-set fireballs, were fixed and focused—its full black wingspan pumping hard, gaining speed. Tom’s fear-filled eyes, now like luminescent pools, saw him lean up as he reached for the top rung of his window, at this point open about a foot from closed. As he did, he was alerted like an alarm bell remembering his window forever sat askew in the sill, always taking some time to rock shut. Fingers pressing, he pushed down on the inner window top hard, and sure enough, only it budged about two inches.

The screeching open-beaked bird was coming.

He frantically pushed again, this time harder on the right side, then the left. The window, rocking hard from side to side now, began to move a bit. Full panic was setting in like an oncoming fever, as Tom, fully awake, was surging like a steam train full of adrenaline.

He thought, Dammit! It’s coming faster!

His fingers bore down harder. Rock, rock, rock, the window was almost down. Two more pushes—rock, rock—and the window hit home. As it did, he looked up just in time to see the black shadow framed in the window. Reeling back on his seat, he pulled away in time, for at full force, the wing flailing, marauding beast bashed its head straight on into the window.

Then it shot backward in return, flapping and pecking hard. Though its head-on impact so heavily battered the window, its solid panes somehow did not crack. As hard as the bird had hit, even in the moment, Tom thought it should have.

The bird’s black-winged feathers beat even more furiously now, as it started pecking with everything it had. As it nipped the glass barrier in earnest ferocity, its sharp, arched beak made a heavy dit dit dit! dit! The giant bird squawked louder, Ehhhhh! Eh-eh! Now Tom was sure the window really would give way. He screamed, Go away! Then "Aaaahh! Go a-waaaay!"

And when he did, something strange happened. Something he’d never felt before. His fear turned to an angry rush. A supernatural rush that coursed through his entire body, into his fingers, his eyes, his red-hot face. The powerful stream of current made his muscles contract, feeling for sure he was, growing…not in size, but in strength. Two hard leaps saw him put his face squarely in the window, and inches from the bird’s face, he launched a super focused-energy load. Devil’s spawn, begone!

In no more than one second, the bird repelled, flapping in a listless, lifeless, end over end descent, straight to the ground below.

He didn’t know why he said this, or even what had actually happened. Momentarily kneeling, he remained still in a state of hypnotic focus. His face pressed, breathing fog banks into his window. Coming out of a fog of his own, he looked down in awe onto his arms and to his hands still tingling like pinpricks of very tiny needlepoints.

Like the shooting sensation of cracking my funny bone on a banister, he thought. A few trailing seconds passed until the silence of the aftermath was broken by his mother Flora yelling from downstairs.

Tom…! What was that? Are you all right?

Hesitating for a second, he choked up and raised his voice sharply in reply. Ah, yes…it’s alright mum. I’m fine. I’m okay!

Not entirely satisfied, she asked back, What was all that noise?

Stammering a bit, he replied, Oh, ah, just a bird, ah, tried to get in the window. I’m okay!

His mother, less worried, replied, Well, okay, honey, please get dressed and come down to breakfast, we have a lot to do today.

Tom replied quickly, Yes, okay, Mum, coming.

He first took a short glance back to the empty window, and he breathed a sigh of heart-pounding relief. Giving a quick disbelieving head shake, he grabbed his clothes from his dresser drawer and began to change.

CHAPTER TWO

Kili-Wik

Early Kansas—year unknown.

’Neath a canopy of night stars, the Senapah ceremonial bonfires raged like fiery wraiths over the chilly wind-swept berm. Into the night sky, the ghost fires grew, sending red-yellow embers spiraling and swirling aloft in billowing disembodied smoke trails. As the flames reached higher, they carried their sacred energies wildly rising through the branches of the great tree. The tree the Senapah tribe called Kili-Wik—meaning great tree.

It was on this night beneath the towering tree that the tribe’s hilltop circle glowed with celebration. This was a time for the tribe to look to the keepers of the earth and sky that had offered a bountiful harvest and had burst many nurturing showers of rain, preparing them for the bitter winter to come.

The sacred ceremony began at sundown as purple-auburn clouds, lost to fading sunlight, vanished into a huge blood-fire moon hanging on the prairie land’s eastern horizon.

On its arrival, the ceremonial drums began.

Boom da boom da da da…!

Leathered drums, pounded by strong, dark, well-adorned tribesmen, with sticks of wood and bone in hand, thumped them hard in steady ferocity. The sacred rhythms beat outward in unhindered reverberation across the otherwise empty prairie land.

In the course of the ceremony commencing, tribe elders sitting in large circles chanted ancient three-note syllables passed down through the ages. Other long haired, braided tribesmen in traditional Senapah dress danced, stomping rhythmically in the growing fires’ glow, shaking rattles bound around their feet hard over the cool, dust-pounded, light-bathed earth. Soon the tribe’s women and children joined. The women gathered corn, squash, and beans in straw baskets, nuts and berries in clay pots, and brought forth fresh river fish and deer meat skewered on stakes, ready to be cooked on open flame. The Senapah children, food in hand, giggled and ran about happily with their breathy vapor trails blowing into the fresh autumn air. As they danced, their young hearts joyfully pounded with the blood of their ancient ancestors as they kicked up dirt and dust, skittering about in the light of the wood-stoked fires.

Towering above all was the beautifully adorned and high-reaching Kiki-Wik standing like a proud multicolored giant over the celebration. And situated at the far end of the berm among the great circular clearing, its sky-reaching branches could be seen rising from the flat prairie land for at least ten miles. Below, its colossal trunk stood austere, laid by dense deep-reaching roots spreading twenty feet outward in vast concentric circles, like thick, gnarled snakes.

Into the chilled night, the ceremonial bonfires raged on, bringing shifting winds that spurred ocean-like roars and ghostly whispered howls through the multicolored leaves.

The great tree, reacting to the ever-changing winds and shape-shifting firelights below, waved its handheld leaves that traced in racing, shimmering, waves as if by a thousand silvery minnows chased like prey.

For the tribe, the tree was godlike; their most sacred symbol and protector. By it, it was believed that by ceremonially burying their dead below its watch, its great roots would absorb their souls and would then raise them upward through the tree and into its branches, transporting them into the sky then to be rained back to earth. In their beliefs, the showered water would then be absorbed by all in nature—everything linked together in a great eternal cycle of death and the rebirth of reincarnation.

The Senapah people took only what sustained them, and worshipped many things in their land as sacred spirits or even as Gods. Not just in the obvious things, like water for harvest or collected drinking water from streams in their rivers—but everything. From the birds to the plants and flowers, to the fish and animals, like wolves, bears, deer and bison. And even smaller creatures that lived and roamed the prairie.

Their existence was simple. The Senapah lived dictated by seasons marked by the growth cycles of their Kili-Wik. These principals marked their seasons. The rebirth of leaves in spring was called Kili-Tah, meaning great rebirth. A fully decorated tree in summer was Tak-Mah. A tree in changing was Mek-Mah. And finally, the loss of leaves in winter Kili-Kah, meaning great death.

Celestial events like the movements of the sun, moon, and stars played a significant part in their culture.

Followed most closely were the many moon phases to which they gave several names: Nah-Tik—new moon, Sen-Tik—a small or crescent moon, Mah-Tik—half-moon, Yak-Tik—waxing moon, Kili-Tik—great full moon, Atah-Tik—waning moon, and Tin-Tik—second waning moon.

A few of the full moons were winter moon—Kili-Wa, spring moon or flower moon—Kili-Ka, summer moon or hunter’s moon—Kili-Yak, and autumn or harvest moon—Kili-Ki.

Singular events, like shooting stars, eclipses, and moon halos, were considered messages from the ancient spirits.

But the most powerful and spiritually revered event in all their culture was what the Senapah called Kili—Senepah-Tik. The Great Blood—Fire Moon. It was a supermoon that rose from the eastern horizon like a God-given bloodred orb that climbed its way straight up into the night sky.

In their ancient beliefs, stemming back millenia, this tremendous red moon rose high into the night sky above the Kiliwik, and when it did, its hands could reach skyward and touch the fire moon, creating a swirling vortex. A spiritual portal in which the great tree would become—a living spirit.

CHAPTER THREE

Drums in the Night

Dreams are echoes of the past. Sometimes near, sometimes distant. Often, they are literal, insane, and most often incongruous and arcane. Premonitions are foreseers of what is to be.

Deeply asleep, Tom is in the grips of both at the same time—a dream of the past and a premonition of the future. In his dream, he is looking out his window as he does nearly every night. This time, instead of beholding the dark of night and the giant dead tree, brooding in the sprawling cemetery of souls, he is witnessing something very different. A ceremony. A celebration of some kind. Held within the rhythm of pounded barrel-like drums, he is witnessing men who appear like warriors dancing and pounding their feet into the earth, kicking up dust. He is dreaming of women and children laughing happily, holding hands in great circles of joy. And fires burning so brightly in the night they appear as spirit-fueled ghosts, climbing into the sky beneath a tapestry of vibrant, multidimensional leaves on their gigantic, beautifully adorned tree.

Sunken in his dream, Tom is smiling. He feels joyful, like the joy radiating from the celebrants. Then he has drifted from his bed and out his window, now walking among them. Looking all around, he is in awe. The booming sounds, the pungent smoke of raging fires, the singing, and the elation. He so wants to join them, to dance, to sing. And in a moment’s time, three of the tribe’s children have reached out their hands on each side, and he is thrown into the arms of the celebration. He is beckoned to the tree. And for the first time in any of his memories, he is not afraid. The feeling of love is in all. He is swimming in it, happily drowning in it. Overhead, beyond the tree’s orange-red-silver leaves is a full supermoon. A pulsating reddish orb hanging in the heavens like a perfect paper cutout. His head is lost in a state of dreamy vertigo. What is this? Who are these people?

Now he’s looking to a four-foot-high log constructed table. On it is what appears to be a human body wrapped in decorative cloth bearing plant pigmented motifs of deer, wolves, rain clouds, the sun, and moon.

Is this why they are celebrating? The death of a tribesman, an elder?

Soon, he finds what he thought to be true. This is a ceremonial burial.

Four strong warriors are carrying the swathed body to the opening of what looks like a bottomless hole, its earthly remnants piled high on each side of it. Here they are descending the perished entity holding leather straps, lowering, and slowly lowering further, until the tribesman’s body reaches the bottom. With the help of some of the younger men and boys, the sacred earth which was pushed aside is now filling the hole. Then a handheld circle, led by elder warriors is forming over it, and a tribesman of very prominent-looking stature begins to speak in their native tongue. When he does, the celebration falls to dead silence.

The moon is redder now, and under the sky-reaching tree, he speaks. His words then morph into an initiated chant, followed by all.

The chanting tribe now begins to pray to the tree, launching their hands up to its towering branches, dancing wildly as they are stepping in rhythm about the central bonfire rising into the great tree’s canopy.

Soon the feast begins, bringing forth the tribe’s women who are carrying out food and water, sharing it with their hungry family. Tom does not feel he is in a dream at all. So struck by their joy, no mournful cries of any kind come. Only cries of laughter, and singing. Both of which are ringing in echoes in his head as he awakens the next morning.

A few groggy moments later, something his grandfather once told him enters his head of a wonderous, long standing tribe called the Senapah, who once ruled the land where his very home is on. This and the exceptionally size-able circular place across the way where the tree now stands.

The tree, yes, it wasn’t always dead. It was once worshiped and very alive indeed.

Now the dream (or premonition?) still fresh in his mind, he parted his curtains to look, as he always did, out across the way. A feeling of fright mixed with wonder came over him. The hellish, dead place watched over by the now grotesquely crooked-handed tree was not always this way.

It used to be…beautiful.

CHAPTER FOUR

Bo

Bo Billings, said simply, was a behemoth of a man. Standing six foot six and nearly four hundred pounds of sheer muscle and bone, he indeed looked like a giant—a gentle one.

With dark ebony skin, short-cropped hair and a gray-speckled face full of whiskers, he possessed the whitest piano ivory-like teeth in his ever-friendly grin. Endowed with hands no less the size of iron fry pans, he could easily crush anyone or anything without much effort. When he walked, his worn leather boots would thud.

This said, Bo was also the gentlest of men. An endearing, docile soul, absolutely incapable of harm. Inside, he had a beautifully pure spirit immediately evident upon meeting. As well, he was completely illiterate, had a very diminished mental faculty, and a slightly pronounced speech impediment in his soothingly raspy Southern drawl.

Back home in Louisiana, his God-given birth name had been Bocephus Buford. He was given the name Billings as a result of forever introducing himself with, I’m Bo…from Billings, meaning—Billings, Louisiana. In fact, he said this so often, that everyone who knew him just called him Bo Billings.

Bo, being the enormous man he was, was also beset with slow motor skills. In short, Bo was slow in every way. Everything he did, he did slooooowly. Somewhat ironically, his innate slowness behooved him, ever making him uniquely made for farm work. And all this being true, Bo was good at farming.

In his simple way, he knew every process and detail of farm work and every tool and its function. For instance, on and around Miller’s Farm, he knew every bucket, every scythe, rake, spade, and every nut and rusty bolt on the farm’s wagon. He was intuitive and gentle with the farm’s animals and knew all the ins and outs of taking care of them. Obviously built for farm work, he was exceedingly physically able. Bo could carry out virtually any task asked of him, including lifting two one-hundred-pound barley bags, one on each shoulder and plopping both down on the back of the wagon without so much as a huff. Up to twelve hours a day he would tirelessly labor—harvesting, digging, hoisting, carrying, planting, raking, and loading, often with nothing more than a short break to get a drink from the well or to eat a sustaining meal. Then upon completion of his work each day, the giant man ever retired to his small log-planked shack not far from the main house on the southwest corner of the farm.

Years back, when Bo made his first arrival, the small shanty home was built for him by employer Karl Miller. As per their agreement, he would work on the farm every day, and would be given a fair bit of pay, and the benefit of eating and drinking as much farm-produced food and water as he wished. This agreement was mutually beneficial for both, especially for Bo, who saw this as a great blessing. For the lost and destitute man, shelter, water, food and work, any work, was indeed a godsend.

The fact was, the day he stumbled near death on Karl Miller’s front porch, he was about a hundred pounds lighter, starving, penniless, and hopeless. In his most desperate times, he had not a single friend or family tie of any kind. His broken heart lay in ruins, perpetually beaten in heavy grievance at the loss of his entire family and riverside home.

The cataclysmic loss had come at the hand of a massive Mississippi levee break in the year 1802. A devastating break that came to many, deep into a sultry, early summer Louisiana night, in the end, killing at least 220 people. This number would not account for likely a hundred more poor souls that were swept away, never seen once more.

History would show the fateful break had come following droves of supernatural rains that late spring. The grim story went, that one night, dead in the middle of a pouring deluge, the levee protecting its many inhabitants below became overwhelmed and simply burst wide open, sending a wall of black water into Billings, drowning nearly everyone on and around its banks.

Beheld by roaring river water in depths of utter chaos, and the unmistakable sound of cracking timbers, Bo was able to find a large shard of debris from his home and hold on to it. In his desperate and terrified attempts, he swam madly in every direction, fearfully kicking and arm stroking as he called out to his wife and children lost somewhere in the debris-filled darkness. In the end, he could not find a one. He woke the next day lying face down in the mud, still holding the large piece of wood. Then upon raising his mud-caked face, he looked out over the destruction. Soaked, muddied, torn, and numb, he struggled to his feet, sluggishly walking in the ruins of his entire world. As he did, the crushing nature of his truth was sinking in, undeniable and without the benefit of any mental anesthetic. His world was gone, bringing on a month of unstoppable weeping.

The futile act of finding his family in the twisted piles of splintered wood, downed trees, and receding water was fruitless. So looking out from the riverbank, he found a washed-out remnant of a familiar road. That road led to another, leading then to another. Putting one foot forward after another, Bo from Billings headed north with nothing more than the ripped and muddied clothes on his back, a gunny sack of food, a small canteen of water and his shotgun. As he plodded forward, bearing his agonizing sadness, he lumbered mile to endless mile only thinking of his family.

In the weeks to come, he would have the good fortune to meet many who obliged to help him on his way, some offering a bit of food and water, others a short ride in the back of a hay cart or a resting place for a night in a warm barn. For Bo, simply walking was his only way to not lay down and die. It was as if he were being guided, on a journey to find himself in some other unknown land and thereby live on in the name of his lost ones.

The final moments of his journey would pass and, after the course of thousands of aching steps, big Bo had not stopped walking until the day he arrived in Kiliwik, half-dead on the top step of Karl Miller’s front porch.

CHAPTER FIVE

God’s Hands

Flora Miller was born to Karl and Beatrice Miller in the fall of 1792. Meaning her mother, Beatrice, carried her child before her arduous trip west.

Beatrice, whom Karl often called her Bee—as in, busy as a bee, stood a woman of taller-than-average stature. And because of her always busy nature stayed very physically fit. Some would even say she was stately. Statuesque in her frame, she stood just a bit shorter than her husband, who, standing in his thin and wiry frame, held a high, handsome forehead and dark combed-back hair. She herself wore long auburn hair, usually artistically bunched on top of her head and, equally often, tightly pinned in a bun on the back of her head. Other times, in a long ivy-like trail down her back.

Beatrice Miller personified class. With a lovely heart-shaped face, she needed little if any makeup over her delicate porcelain skin. She was intelligent beyond most, and blessed with almost supernatural verbal skills, she ably carried any conversation with the best in Karl’s elite upper echelon circle while bantering easily in her pure soprano-like voice. A lovely cadence that carried with confidence to the ears of anyone lucky enough to hear it. Smart as a whip, her real gift was her uncanny wit, which she offered on full display frequently, often leaving those in her presence laughing hysterically in amazement.

Karl and Beatrice indeed were a pair to be reckoned with. And at the heart of their amazing relationship—laughter. They exceedingly loved to laugh with one another.

A long and difficult trip seen through eventually found them settling in Kiliwik, in the territory that would be known as Kansas. Beatrice carried her unborn child normally and complained little of any complications, other than the regular bouts with the heat of that summer.

The day her labor finally came, and it became time to deliver. Now she lay in bed for hours, trying to get comfortable. As she drew many sequential laboring breaths, Karl sat in a nerve-racked heap by her side. A few hours further in, it certainly seemed as if something was very wrong. Beatrice looked sick and was doubled over hurting. This was when Karl began to wallow in surreal worry, and this state would soon turn to grave concern.

In town, no doctor of real practice existed. Knowing this, Karl knew his wife’s situation was growing into a more desperate and increasingly dire situation. Not knowing what else on earth to do, he finally left her side and bolted for help, disappearing down the farm’s path. On its main street moments later, he desperately sought any help he could find.

One recipient of his plight, medicine woman Adah Good, who herself was not an actual doctor, possessed great powers of healing. In essence, her occupation as an alchemist made her often the only person of medicine who could be summoned. She arrived, having concocted at least five different blessed brews before making her way to laboring Beatrice’s side.

In his time of pleading, Karl successfully roused another means of help, finding two men that happily agreed to set out at once riding through the night in quest of the nearest qualified doctor. Not knowing if the men would be successful and with no word that a doctor would be forthcoming, Beatrice went into excruciatingly painful labor with Adah by her side serving her in desperation. By the moment, Karl reeled more with overwhelming fear. The truth, he couldn’t stop trembling, befallen with hands which were uncontrollably shaking. As Beatrice began to push, Karl held her hand. His head pounding with dizzying anguish, he sought to comfort her, while at the same time trying not to show his poor wife how scared out of his wits he was. His eyes he could not hide. He was undeniably filled with sheer-terror.

At some point, as Adah assisted, two other women, Mary Quick and Liz Sharon, who served as midwives in many of the town’s births, arrived amid Beatrice’s excruciating wailing cries. The two women as well only possessed rudimentary nursing abilities. Fortunately, though the two, somewhat experienced in assisting childbirth, had done so dozens of times before.

Now perspiring profusely in the heart of the lurching pain of full labor, the three women and tear-ridden Karl held Beatrice’s hands tightly, giving her direct commands to push. Obeying, she pushed…and pushed…! Once more, they wiped her red-eyed tears and the bead dripping sweat from her brow as she defiantly pushed and pushed harder. For four more hours, she pushed in teeth-gritting spurts, followed by gut-belting cries of pain. Laboring hours on end, the three women worked hard shouting words of encouragement as they forced her to fight. At one point her pain, despite Adah’s most potent pain treatment caused the three women to force Karl out of the room, banishing him entirely into the hallway then shutting him off behind the closed door.

Four-fifteen a.m. of the next morning arrived. Inside, cries of an infant could be heard echoing behind the closed door of the Millers’ bedroom. Karl, hearing this from outside, turned toward the door approaching, but before he could reach the door, one of the two women stopped him cold, crying into a handkerchief. Fearfully, he tried to pass, and she could not restrain him from doing so. His Beatrice was dead. She succumbed in childbirth, giving birth to her baby girl who, in her last moments, named her Flora.

Karl Miller, lost as a broken ship’s survivor in the aftermath of a raging sea storm, spent the next several years in the depths of pain and endless soul searching. Perpetually haunted by his wife’s untimely death, he found himself thinking about his beautiful, faithful wife, often thinking back to when they were so young and deeply in love. Poor Karl, simply unable to process a fate so cruel, turned to his faith and pleaded for the safekeeping of the only thing that remained of his deceased Beatrice.

His heaven-sent daughter Flora.

In his tortured dreams, he remembered how they married and dreamed of a life filled with love, new adventures, and children. His nightmares would be ever plagued with a fateful decision. What if they did not make their trip west? Did the rough road trip somehow contribute to this? he wondered. With no answer forthcoming, he beat himself in vain. What if we just stayed in Williamsburg? There, they were happy. They had a magnificent life and enough money to last a lifetime.

A riptide of self-torture now fully ensued, a lost Karl would spend hours into the night and endless days drowning in his thoughts and memories of Bea’s loving, gentle way and, most of all, her uncanny sense of humor. Trying to pull himself back from the depths of his hell, he left himself with one firm conviction; that what they’d done, made the trip, was an inevitable thing. He forced his will to hold tightly to the saving belief that they made the decision to part ways with their past together. And in their joint decision did so without so much as a second thought or regret of any kind.

The other thing that gave him life continuing solace—Flora was born. His beautiful wife suffered the greatest sacrifice, and Flora lived through it. He knew, now in his great suffering, what happened was in God’s hands. That whatever reason this terrible thing occurred, though difficult for his mortal mind to conceive, was God’s plan.

He also faithfully knew that in his will to return to the shoreline of his life, he would just need to turn his head around and swim back. Swim with everything he had, with the solitary remembrance that his fantastically beautiful baby Flora now would be his reason for living. For now, there would be no other reason. And so by all this, Karl Miller, frail from the result of his torture, did just that. He carried on. He would go on to raise his Flora like nothing in the world existed.

In his ongoing pursuit to carry on, he built her a farm home that they could both live in the name of her mother that would have loved her so.

A time of a year or two passed, his mind and body recouped.

Through much hard work and by way of his faith and prayer, farmer Karl Miller came back.

CHAPTER SIX

Miller’s Farm

Flipping the last of his shirt buttons into its socket, Tom descended his home’s cracked wooden stairs, still spinning from what just transpired upstairs in his bedroom. He hit the last step onto the kitchen floor then caught sight of his mother, Flora, and put on a forced upturned smile.

Hey, Tom! his mum said easily. How’d ya sleep?

Good, Mum, he replied with his tone rising. I finished the book last night.

With her tone loving and gentle, she beamed, "You diiiiid…? That’s the third book this week!" Now he was grinning more authentically and gave a nodding head reply. He pulled a chair from beneath the kitchen table, and as he did, his mother laid out the morning’s menu.

Okay, so I’ve made you some eggs, there’s bread here in the basket and…some honey, some strawberries, milk, and on the stove pot there’s some cereal—and in the basket, there’s some apples for later in case if you get hungry. She ended with, I’m going to head out to the barn to see where Bo is. I’ll see you out there?

Yes, Mum, I’ll be quick, Tom answered straight away.

His stomach still in knots, he wondered if he could eat. But appreciating the effort his mum made, he decided to try.

In roughly ten minutes, Tom finished eating, pushing one last bit of oat bread into his mouth, then grabbing his hat, he pushed the kitchen’s rusty screen door open. It shrieked close behind him with a nasty creak and a hard thwack! In a half-skipped stride, he hit the backyard leading him straight to the red-stained barn. It soon stood gaping wide open just to the left of Flora’s magnificent flower garden. Two more strides and he caught sight of Bo coming up the path from the field. Tom began to wave and smile. He shouted out, Hey, Bo! Hey!

The big man shot a wide grin, and in his easy drawl, returned, Mo-nin’, massah Tom!

Tom asked, Ready for the day?

Without answering, the giant man approached, his huge strides cutting the distance between them in seconds. When less than a foot apart, he gently tucked each of his giant hands in each of Tom’s armpits and hoisted him straight off of his feet. As their eyes met, Tom belted in delight. Then like Goliath lowering a feather, Tom’s feet touched down in the dusty earth, barely feeling the impact when his shoes hit the ground. When they did, he looked up.

You know what we need to do today, right, Bo?

Trying to think, his friend lowered his head a bit, touched his thick finger to his chin, and in his deep voice lightly bellowed, Hmmm, clehn dah bahn, fehd dah cows, milk dah cows, ahn bruhsh Penny.

Right!’ Tom returned. Then Ready?"

Big Bo smiled. Redah massah Tom, redah.

The two worked throughout the morning into the noon-day sun, which radiated warm, life-giving energy on their skin. They would soon go to the well for some pumped water and make a much-needed trip to the outhouse.

In their duties, the two certainly knew the high importance of the water system on the farm. In fact, in essence, the entire land’s processes revolved around it. This place, nourished by water was a place brimming with life. The vibrant farm was a stark antithesis to the dark, dead place lying directly across the pathway. The one in the cemetery holding the unliving. The unvisited place where many leaning, toppled stones etched with the engraved names of souls past were left. And the place where hundreds of other desecrated and displaced graves lie beneath. Above it all, stood the great unliving tree rising like a dark tower from its dusty earth.

Ms. Miller exited the back door with two steel buckets in hand.

Keeping watch for her hand Mr. Billings, she headed out to the flowered row, which stretched from side to side for at least a hundred feet before her. All around her lay beauty and wonder beheld by delicately perfumed air.

The garden was drenched with the smell of wildflowers rising unhindered everywhere. In it, the varieties were diverse: boxwood, pawpaw, daisies, amur honeysuckle—milkweeds, poppies, bitter berry—broomweed, purple violets and tall, brilliant yellow, heavy-headed sunflowers to name many. Always in plentiful abundance located right in front of the flower bursting row grew the sweet plump berries, like deep purple raspberries, blueberries, blackberries, and strawberries.

Each day, Flora collected newly ripened batches, carefully cutting each scraggly stem with a sharp pair of shears while filling small baskets, and later separating them. Formerly growing, as in no longer, were the poisonous varieties, (that is except to birds) which were white, yellow and red holly berries which she intentionally weeded out. Weeded out, because years before, in a distracted moment, one she would try to forget, two-year-old Tom had wandered off, picked some, and nearly ate them. In a race against seconds, she caught hold of his hand full of them…and before the berries entered his mouth, shouted just in time, No, Tom, no! You can’t eat those, hunny! They’re poisonous! Startled, he’d fortunately dropped them to the ground.

On the farm, flowers and berries were not exclusive to the harvest. Other things like basil, chives, and rosemary grew as well, and after filling several containers and separating them equally, these items would be dried, pulverized, and put into mason jars (and smaller jars). These containers were kept on a dedicated shelf in the kitchen cabinet until the time they were used in various ways.

Then there was the first-tier field Bo tended, where they grew things like carrots, potatoes, and squashes of different types, as well as leafy vegetables like cabbage, spinach, kale and the like.

In the main field, the farm produced small amounts of corn, wheat, and oats (partly for feed for the farm’s animals) and more primarily for the family’s sustenance.

For many years, the most essential item, the most profitable item grown on the plot were the fine pumpkins Miller’s Farm annually produced. In perfecting the art of growing the orange gourds, the Millers had, in fact, become the exclusive provider to Kiliwik proper.

Every season, starting in early June, Bo took on the job of preparing the giant patch on the right side of the barn. The soil here being very fertile was the perfect spot and also received the most excellent sunlight and the proper abundance of rain. In his duties, he knew well; too much water and the pumpkins could rot and even drown. Too little, and the obvious—they would not mature. So after the soil temperature is right, about seventy degrees, Bo created pumpkin hills in warm soil, helping the seeds germinate better and faster. Another key element was the treatment of the plants with manure, which on the farm was plentiful. Planting four or five seeds to the proper depth, the first sign of plants would be visible in about ten days or so.

Soon, the pumpkins, large and small, began to grow with fervor, with the vines spreading out wildly. Varieties of a few inches around, to small, medium, and to the very large ones up to several hundred pounds. The best sellers though, the medium variety, went about twenty pounds or so. When the time was right upon being harvested, Tom and Bo carefully hauled each up onto a straw bed wagon. The wagon, hooked up to an apparatus fitted onto Penny the mule, would then be brought to town.

On Miller’s Farm, a few other things were made for sale, specifically, Flora’s dried herbs she bottled in small jars fashioned with simple lids; her decorative dried flower arrangements, for which she loved to artistically design, and to a lesser extent, her sheep’s wool. More than anything, though, their land enjoyed a benefit most farmers did not have. Their abundant droves of honeybees. Ones which not only provided essential pollination, but wax for candles. And the most wonderful wild amber honey in all the land.

Besides pumpkin growing, this was Flora’s other true passion. And her extraordinary skill. Her premium wild honey and her handmade beeswax candles were her specialties, and she was in fact, the town’s sole maker of both.

Of simple construction, her bee apiary lay about thirty feet from her garden. In it, nothing fancy was required to have her bees swarm to it.

Starting in spring and into the hot days of summer, honey bees in the thousands darted in frenzied, buzzing flight paths, landing in the sweet, sugar-bearing flowers in the garden and the wildflower fields laid out sprawling past the main harvest field. While traveling in circular round trips, they pollinated everything in sight. In her dedicated tending to the apiary hive, she held her beekeeping duty as her primary summertime objective. And because of the sheer variety of flowers grown all around, she was able to produce the finest and richest floral honey imaginable—her sweet, thick drizzles of pure amber joy.

The farm provided everything required for profit, sustenance, and happiness. All lay readily available, interlocked in the farm’s ever viable ecosystem. Each of its inhabitants, Tom, Flora, and Bo worked as a well-oiled team. And each knew their places and duties to make the farm a well-nurtured entity.

Today, with the two dressed in well-worn farm attire and straw woven hats to keep them cool, Tom and Bo’s day usually revolved around harvesting corn, collecting milk in large buckets, transferring the contents to smaller glass bottles.

They would spend hours hacking dry, tangled weeds with sharp scythes, filling large wooden barrels with feed and providing rain barrel water to the barn area to feed the animals. They also tended to several animals: a black and white patterned cow named Elma—(formerly Elmer Flora explained to Tom cows were girls) several chickens, six ducks, and their numerous baby ducks, two goats, two sheep, and Penny.

At the end of most days, usually, sometime around six o’clock, Flora would call out to her two hands to finish and come to dinner. In most instances on day’s end, Bo would arrive at the back kitchen door to say good night and catch up, relaying what had been done that day. This done, she would, on a regular basis, gladly give him a big lot of food, usually in a large tin container wrapped in cloth. Her devoted worker would always then retire back down his beaten path leading to his small abode for the night.

Bo was considered family. But from the inception of coming to work for Karl, there had made an established rule to have space between them. This rule included not living or eating in the house. In his usual agreeable disposition, Bo liked it this way. In fact, most of the time, he felt at home in his shack and enjoyed his space there. Since the day he arrived and to this very day, this was the way of doing things, and it worked well.

So with another day done, the two arrived at the back screen door from the field, and leaving his giant cohort posted at the back door, Tom pulled it open and entered the kitchen. Looking up to his mom with a dirt smear across his face he said, Hey, Mum!

Alerted, she immediately turned from a steaming kettle just beginning to boil. Hello, handsome young man, you guys get a lot of work done today?

A tired Tom sighed, replying, Yes, we had a good day and finished up everything except the hay bales.

With a thick cloth, she grabbed up the hot container by the handle and bubbled some water over a small strainer filled with herbal tea.

"It’s okay, honey. You can