Total pages in book: 131
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 131387 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 657(@200wpm)___ 526(@250wpm)___ 438(@300wpm)
There were fruit trees. He could identify apple, pear, cherry and peach, and there were blackberry brambles that were part of the protection around the chicken coop.
There was a solid, fortified, steel shed in the southeast corner, with a heavy-duty lock on the door that was concerning.
There were men about, twelve individuals at Hutch’s count, but according to the smoke, each house was in use.
The men were friendly. There were smiles, calls, huddled conversations.
The women…
Hutch drew in breath and focused on them.
Drab dresses, button-up from the waist, high-necked, long sleeved, no adornment. None at all. The four women who were out wore the same dresses, in colors of brown or gray. No bonnets or shit like that, or aprons, but each woman had her hair severely scraped back and arranged in a bun at her nape. No alteration of this, say, bun up at the crown or ponytail. All the same. Also identical sensible, low-heeled, black boots were on all their feet.
Now they didn’t call greetings, smile or chat.
They went about their business in the gardens, the cattle barn, a house, the church, heads bowed, in a hurry.
Hutch took a lot of time surveilling the space, saw another man come out of a house, strolling like he had all day and stopping to talk with three other guys, two more women scampering from the church to some houses, one with a baby on her hip.
The cold and wet of the stone had long since leaked through his jeans and fleece before Hutch saw all he reckoned he was going to see. Even if his body had stiffened up, he ignored it, and using the same movements, he scuttled back on his belly until the bluff hid him from sight.
He rolled to his ass, capped the binos, put them in their case, and got off his ass.
He had a long hike to his truck.
He could do it thinking while he got his body moving. The wet mist had permeated his hair and jeans and was beginning to penetrate his fleece.
He had to start trucking and warm up.
On his walk, he thought, and it wasn’t lost on him the world was fucked up, and it was getting worse, not better.
He understood checking out, because he’d done it himself, in his way.
He could see the lure of the challenge of self-sufficiency. He’d eaten eggs fresh from the coop, there were none better. Blackberries fresh from the vine, the same.
Having good honest work to do every day that provided for you and your family was never something any man should have a problem with, even if you chose the backbreakingly hard way to go about it.
Whittling a fine point on the simple life, he could see, had its merits.
“This shit wasn’t that,” he muttered to the trees.
For the men, maybe.
Then again, he hadn’t seen a one of them doing a lick of work.
No smiles and chatter from the women?
Heads bowed, zero eye contact, rushing around, doing shit like they’d be whipped if it didn’t get done?
That shit was fucked up.
Topping that, they had trucks, ATVs, electricity; they weren’t roughing it entirely.
But just like Hutch had never seen a woman outside The Lion and The Lamb, obviously he’d never seen one on an ATV or in a truck.
The shit that made life easier, or even fun, was for the men.
Apparently, it was just shit for the women.
He didn’t have to work hard to understand what the lion referred to, or the lamb.
Taking that further, jam and bread, and he didn’t give a fuck how good your pies tasted, were not going to buy you fifteen prefab houses, a pole barn, trucks, ATVs, build you a church and that shed, not to mention milk cows, pigs, chickens and whatever furniture and other shit they had in those houses.
Hutch didn’t know if Flannery not only died with land, but also with money.
From town talk, Hutch did know the man’s family went balls to the wall to beat that will.
But, if town talk about the perpetual legal battle was correct, the people who inhabited that land before the Flannerys were Native Americans. After well over a hundred and fifty years on that property, the loss of it to some stranger, who apparently helped the old guy out in his later years, and got one hell of a reward, was going to be a blow.
So maybe Flannery had money too.
Either that, or more hinky shit than what was already hinky was happening on that patch.
He made his truck, pulled off the camo net, stored it, opened his truck, stowed his gear and got in the cab, jacking up the heat.
He waited behind the tree line until he saw no cars in the distance in either direction, and only then pulled out.
He drove into Mabel’s drive, even knowing she’d had plenty of time to get down to the feedstore and back. If she was home and didn’t like what he was about to do, she could follow him around and ream his ass, but she’d be doing it while he did what he had to do.