Wyatt spent the remainder of the afternoon helping with the sorting of the seedlings and Will was not surprised that the exorcist had a knack for it. He seemed to listen to the trees, to feel them more than look at them, but the result was the same.
When they came to the last little group of trees, Will kind of puffed up his chest. "These are New Moons. They are a hybrid I have been developing. Nearly black skin, reddish flesh, super crunchy and a really high sugar content if you catch them at their peak. They will be lousy for long distance transport but since we will be making the cider on site, they might turn into our secret weapon."
"Isn't that something." Wyatt replied, marveling at one of the little trees. Do you have any of them out in the field?"
Will nodded. "Three high grafts. Ripening now. Should be ready for tasting within a week or so. You'll be here for the sampling I hope."
Wyatt shrugged, but did so with a smile. "I can't say for sure, but I would hate to miss that."
They had just finished when Emma and the girls pulled up. As they walked out to greet them, Will said, "By the way, your groceries are in the fridge and in the pantry cupboard down at the barn."
"Thank you kindly."
Wyatt said nothing about the gift from Guin, but made sure that she noticed it swinging from the top of his walking stick. A sight which caused her to giggle and give him a rather dramatic thumbs up, which she then tried to cover up when her parents looked at her and ended up devolving into a fit of laughter.
Wyatt cocked an eyebrow at her and then at her folks. "Strange kid you got there."
"You haven't seen the half of it yet." Emma stated. "You joining us for dinner tonight?"
Wyatt shook his head. "Things may get interesting tonight and so I should prepare for that, but I do have a wealth of chocolate milk and other stuff in case I get a hankering."
Emma turned and reached into the back of the Toyota. "And you also have the best part of two whole pizzas. We had a staff meeting at work and they bought way too much food and I was voluntold to bring the rest of it home since I have three vacuum cleaners disguised as daughters eating up my groceries."
Rabbit piped up instantly. "We don't eat that much! I want to be able to eat like Wyatt!"
Wyatt held his hand to his heart as though mortally wounded. "Ouch! I don't eat that much, and for your information Miss Rabbit, I have been on a diet since I got here and have only been eating about a third as much as I do up on the mountain."
Rabbit stared at him with her mouth hanging open, trying to ponder just how much food that would be and Wyatt decided to push the joke further.
"Halfsong used to have four species of deer living on it, now we're down to one and that's only because the White Tails give me hiccups…"
"Nuh-uh!" She exclaimed. "No way!"
Wyatt nodded. "Ever heard of the Halfsong Moose?"
She pulled a face and shook her head.
"That's because I ate them all."
It was then that Missy burst into laughter and that caused the others to crack and Rabbit realized that she had been had. She pulled a small stuffed rabbit out of her jacket pocket and threw it at Wyatt, who caught it and pretended to eat it.
She laughed along with the others and accepted the rabbit back from him, but whispered. "I still want to eat as much as you do."
He put his hand on her shoulder. "Someday darlin'. I have no doubt about it."
He turned and graciously accepted the pizza from Emma and called out to Katie.
"Y'all have a good night now. And remember, keep to the house if you can."
A look of concern came over the faces of the members of the family, all but Guin who just nodded and pointed slyly at the paper bat, dancing and spinning at the end of Wyatt's staff.
"He'll protect you." She mouthed silently.
"I know." He replied the same way.
Wyatt shared the bounty of the pizza with Katie, but not too much of it. He did not however share the chocolate milk. For one, chocolate is bad for dogs and two, it was good enough to be greedy about.
"Damn, between the cider, the shine and the chocolate milk, I might have finally found a place to get drunk and fat in my old age."
Katie didn't seem impressed but kept her opinion mostly to herself.
She did however like the new lift system and made Wyatt winch her up and down with it a couple of times while she wuffed and wagged her massive tail.
Once they had finished playing elevator, Katie took a long drink from her bowl and curled up at the edge of the loft to watch the doors and what lay beyond.
Wyatt sat cross legged on the floor and pulled his now nearly empty backpack over onto his lap. He moved packets of dried mushrooms and roots, sachets of herbs and spirit tokens from little pockets of the pack into the small bag that he wore on his belt and then proceeded to slowly and meticulously clean his pipe and pack it with cherry tobacco that Will had purchased for him.
He had been thrilled to see that Will had chosen a bourbon infused variety too and a toffee apple one that Wyatt thought smelled almost too good to smoke.
Lastly, from the bottom of his pack he pulled the only true weapon he carried.
The tomahawk was made for him by Sutter the smith, back on the mountain. Its cruel head was shaped like the beak of a predatory bird and was made from a piece of meteorite iron that had collided with Halfsong back in the sixteen hundreds sometime.
The steel was mottled and beautiful in its own right, but the hawk could be mistaken for nothing but what it was, an instrument for causing grievous harm to an enemy.
He lifted the blade to his lips and kissed it gently.
"I hope you get to go home without any new blood on you, but I ain't making any promises."
2023 Lance Cheuvront
No comments:
Post a Comment