Archive for December, 2007

Happy New Year

Monday, December 31st, 2007

Well my faithful readers this post was going to be Winter Wonders Chapter 8, but last night I had an accident with a cup of coffee and my Gateway laptop’s keyboard is no more.  The shipping box will arrive on Wednesday and I should have my repaired laptop back by the following Wednesday, in the meantime, Chapter 8 is trapped in my wounded Gateway along with all my scanned images.

Blech!  And this dorky dell laptop keeps freezing when I try navigating. 

I sure could use a good go round with a belt and a firm hand right now.  Remember this?

A Crack in the windsheild?

Sunday, December 30th, 2007

My goodness look at that crack that just appeared in this poor guy’s windsheild

And it just got larger as he drove further down the road too…

tsk tsk tsk tsk tsk.  The risk of driving are surprising aren’t they?

Hope ya’ll are getting ready for New Year.

Now and then the messages….

Saturday, December 29th, 2007

Around us are just unmistakeable…

So from the kismet of the universe to you readers…

Smile

Winter Wonders, Chapter 7

Thursday, December 27th, 2007

Connie quickly made things orderly in the barn, and came out to find a man standing beside a buggy looking annoyed. A woman, well wrapped in blankets, sat up on the seat with her arms crossed over her chest.

“Lilia so help me! Don’t test me wife. It’s enough you wheedled your way with this trip. We’re here now. Roy deserves to see you at your best.”

Lilia wasn’t paying her husband any attention.

“Hello?” Lilia’s lilting voice distracted Caleb, and he looked up to follow her gaze to what had distracted her.

Connie stood in the wide open doorway to the barn dumbfounded. “Could this be Mary’s Lilia?” she wondered with her mouth agape.

“Roy never said anything about having company out here did he?” Caleb directed his question to his wife as he moved around the buggy to greet Connie. “Caleb Miller, this is my wife Lilia,” Caleb did nothing to contain his curiosity as he extended his hand to introduce himself to Connie.

Connie accepted his hand and shook it, but said nothing, shifting her attention alternately between the two visitors, and when she realized both were staring at her, she reflexively pulled her tattered jacket around her.

“She’s so small Caleb,” Lilia jumped down from her seat and extended her hand. “I’m Lilia; we’re friends of Roy’s.”

“I know,” Connie whispered.

“You know?” Lilia smiled. “Roy’s told you about us then?”

Connie shrugged realizing she’d made a mistake. Roy hadn’t said anything to her about his friends, but she couldn’t very well say that she knew them through Mary’s journals. Better she say nothing more, and hope the subject would pass.

“Roy left you here alone when he came out to our place the other day?” Caleb shook his head wondering about his friend. “Where is the reprobate?”

“Checking his trap lines,” Connie answered the second question honestly, and ignored the first.

“So he left you alone again?” Lilia sounded concerned.

“No!” Connie tried to correct them. “I’m fine here! The animals, and his work, it’s a help to him for me to … ”

“It’s a help to him to leave a woman alone out here in the middle of nowhere?” Lilia wrapped Connie in a filial embrace.

“I can take care of myself,” Connie objected.

Caleb laughed. “Why don’t you two go in the house and make some coffee, while I see to these horses and put this buggy away. We’ll let Roy’s house guest introduce herself properly inside out of the cold.”

Connie let herself be ushered into the cabin by Lilia whose effervescent presence was a surprise. The Lilia she thought she knew had seemed so shy and reserved in Mary’s writings.

“What’s your name?” Lilia asked when they reached the steps.

“Constance, um it’s Connie really.”

“Connie? That’s a lovely name. Connie who? How did you come to meet Roy?”

Connie pulled away and opened the door, hoping to evade the questions. Only a few minutes ago she’d been looking forward to a long quiet day reading about Mary, Roy and these people, and now in a bewildering flurry, her day and plans had been invaded. For a moment she considered closing the door on the woman behind her and demanding that she and her husband go away until Royal returned. The impulse was strong enough to find words.

“Royal isn’t here. This isn’t my home to receive company in. Maybe you should go and comeback when he returns?”

‘Nonsense!” Lilia laughed. “Roy wouldn’t hear of it. Besides we’ve been on the trail for five hours and Caleb is in a foul mood. If he isn’t fed and distracted it could be disaster for my wellbeing.”

“What brings you here?” It was Connie’s turn to ask a question.

“Me,” Lilia laughed. “Roy seemed so lonesome when he came by Christmas Eve, as soon as the weather cleared, I pestered Caleb until he had to give in and take me out here.”

“That was where he went? You gave him the chickens and sweets then?” Connie nodded her head filling out one set of unanswered questions that until then had really not even needed asking.

“Yes it is!” Lilia smiled, and then her expression changed as she pushed into the warm cabin behind Connie, shrugging her over coat and woolen shawl off her shoulders. “And when I see rotten son of a … well, when I see Roy next he’s going to have some explaining to do. I can’t believe he would come all the way to see us on a holiday and not bring his company along with him!”

Connie grimaced. She didn’t want to open the door to more questions about herself, so she said nothing to correct the older woman’s misunderstanding.

“Would you like to sit down?” Connie tried to be gracious.

“Yes, thank you. In a minute,” Lilia turned her attention to the cozy cabins’ interior. “It’s been years since I’ve been here. Roy hasn’t moved a thing! How is it you haven’t given it your touch yet Connie?”

“I beg your pardon ma’am?” Connie was taken by surprise.

“Well, I would have thought a new woman of the house might want to …?” Lilia stopped when she saw the expression on Connie’s face. “Oh, I’m sorry, I just thought …” At that moment as she saw how uncomfortable her presumption made the young woman Lilia recognized the ill fitting hastily altered dress she wore.

“How is it you came here then child?” Lilia pulled a chair away from the table and sat down intent on the answer to her questions now.

“I just … he …” Connie felt trapped. “There’s nothing wrong here. Roy says I’m allowed to stay the winter. I’m working for my keep now, and he’s allowed me a bed there.” Connie pointed to the loft and tried to say enough to satisfy without raising more questions. She didn’t want to be interrogated, and she didn’t feel comfortable sharing her story with anyone else.

Lilia sensed Connie’s discomfort, and immediately softened her approach. “Oh sweetheart, relax. I’m sorry. It’s not at all like me to bully like that. Of course there’s nothing wrong here! We know Roy and he’s moral to a fault even if his manners have lapsed over the years without Mary.”

Connie relaxed visibly, and Lilia smiled with the way she nodded.

“So, he’s told you about Mary?”

“I’ve seen the graves. He visits every day. Doesn’t say much, but I figure he’ll tell me what he wants me to know, so it’s OK with me if he keeps to himself.” Connie blushed hot with the guilty secret she harbored. Never in her life had she ever told such a lie. Not only was she not satisfied to let Royal inform her about his past, she was busy secretly prying into its most intimate corners after he’d told her to stay out.

“If he won’t you just ask me. I’ll fill you in.”

“You’ll fill her in about what?” Caleb picked that moment to traipse into the house pushing a waft of cold air in ahead of himself making the space suddenly seem very small. He hefted a large leather satchel in with him and dropped it near the table.

“Close the door against the cold Mr. Miller.” Lilia scolded her husband.

Caleb shot his wife a cool warning look that Connie couldn’t help notice. She remembered his posture and expression when she first laid eyes on him. The couple had been bickering when they arrived, and Connie sensed the subject of the squabble was not something that would settle away on its own.

Even though she knew from Mary’s diaries that Caleb and Roy were the same age, Connie couldn’t help noticing how much younger Lilia’s larger darkly handsome husband seemed than her reluctant host did. She guessed it must be the scruffy beard Royal let grow on his face.

Connie made herself busy starting a new pot of coffee while Caleb went about the business of getting out of his coat and boots and coming in. She wondered if the couple would stay for just a meal, or for the night. Not knowing what was customary; she didn’t quite know what to offer by way of hospitality.

“When did Roy set out?” Caleb asked.

“Yesterday early,” Connie didn’t look up from the coffee tin.

“Did he say how long he’d be?”

“Four days maybe five,” Connie nodded. Would they stay until he returned? Connie suddenly felt worried. Her plans! She might never have another chance to read the rest of the journals. Caleb noticed Connie’s demeanor change subtly.

“Well we missed him Lilia,” he addressed his wife. “We’ll stay the night if that’s not too much trouble miss, then trust you to tell Roy we dropped by.”

Connie nodded, feeling very much relieved.

“Damn Caleb!” Lilia slapped the table. “We’re in no hurry, and Connie’s here alone. Roy wouldn’t mind one bit if we stayed to see him.”

“Lily!” Caleb’s response made Connie startle. “I warned you about cursing already today. Don’t make me warn you again. Polite company does not drop in unannounced and impose. We planned to check in and get back, and we’ll keep to those plans. We have work to get back to.”

“Plans. You and your infernal plans,” Lilia grumbled into the fists she was wringing on the smooth wood surface of the table.

Caleb reached down and took his wife’s chin in his right hand. No words were spoken, but Lilia’s attitude immediately softened. Connie shot a few nervous glances their way.

“Connie is it?” Caleb turned his attention away from his subdued wife.

Connie looked up smiled nervously and nodded.

“We brought these preserves, goods and such for Roy. Lilia figured he’d be lacking a woman’s touch all winter and got it in her head to stock him up with some more jams and preserves. Think you can find a place for it?”

Connie nodded. “Yessir. I can, and thank you both.” She moved over and took the satchel from the large man. “Peaches! Is that oranges too?”

Lilia laughed. “Yes, there’s blackberry and strawberry too. Roy’s sweet tooth is as bad as Caleb’s.”

“We made cheese the other day, will you take some back with you when you go? There’s more eggs than we’ll ever eat too could you use those?” Connie felt the need to offer something back.

“Too many eggs? What in tar nation was Royal doing out to our place after laying hens in a snow storm if he’s got eggs a plenty?” Caleb scratched his head.

“Oh!” Connie looked stricken. She realized she’d said too much. ‘What could it hurt to tell them more,’ she shrugged to herself and then added, “I guess that was my fault.”

“Your fault?” her guests asked in one voice.

“Well, yeah,” Connie shrugged. “You see Roy didn’t have any eggs for a while because I was sort of taking them. I guess he figured his hens quit laying or something because the other day he just disappeared and then came back with new birds.”

“What were you taking them for?” Caleb’s brow wrinkled.

“I needed them.” Connie wavered wondering if opening up was a mistake.

“What does a woman need eggs for that she wouldn’t tell her man about, especially if he took it in his head to go out in a storm to remedy the problem?” Caleb’s confusion came across in a manner that raised Connie’s ire. It was like he thought her some ninny who’d put a man out for some frilly notion, or Roy some fool who’d just go off on a fools errand.

“I’ll have you know this Mr. … Miller is it? He’s not my man, he didn’t know I was taking the eggs, and I wasn’t in a position to tell him either, seeing as he didn’t know I was here until he got back. If he’d told me where he went that day I might have owned up, but we weren’t on speaking terms at the time either, so he couldn’t.”

Caleb faced the little woman whom he’d just managed to rile with his clumsy manners. For a second he marveled at just how much like Mary she seemed for a moment; smaller, with short light hair, but just as fiery. “Say again young’un? You lost me some where in the middle.”

Connie cocked her chin and squared off refusing to say more.

“Speak up girl,” Caleb warned. “Or I might have to assume you’re squatting here taking advantage of a good man’s belongings maybe even guilty of doing him an injury.”

“No!” Connie’s eyes opened wide. “I told you Roy’s seeing to his trap lines, and he’s told me I can stay until the snow clears. Maybe it wasn’t what he had planned, when he first caught me, but we worked it out and I’m working for my keep.”

“Caught you?” Caleb was still confused about the girl’s story.

“Are you thick or something Mr. Miller?” Connie stomped her foot. She saw but ignored the flash of annoyed surprise cross the large man’s expression. “I told you I was hiding here out of sight a while, stealing eggs and food. Roy didn’t know until after he came back from getting new hens from you. The weather changed on me, and I had no horse. I was going to make a loan of his to get to Denver, but that was the day he went off to your place. When he got back he found me sleeping in his bed.”

Lilia burst out laughing watching her stern husband take in Connie’s response. No one least of all a barely of age child ever got away with speaking to him like that.

“Did you talk to Roy like that?” Caleb squared off with the little spitfire, matching her hands on hips stance with all of its strength of purpose.

“That’s not your affair now is it?” Connie’s eyes flashed as hot as her cheeks did. Silence and tension hung in the air until Connie’s right hand left her hip and eased back nervously down over her backside.

With that small involuntary break, Caleb softened a little and smiled. “I’d say you did. Might be I’ll have to have a talk with Roy about how much of an impression he made on your manners,” he let the subject go. “Alright Miss Goldilocks, I guess we’ll believe your story for the moment.”

“We? Caleb Miller you leave this poor girl alone. I believe her and have seen no reason to question her at all.” Lilia chided the man who’d finally settled down in a chair at the table. “I must say my curiosity is peaked wondering what brought you all the way out here on your own, Connie, but unlike my husband I’ll respect your privacy and not try and bully it out of you.”

Connie’s smile was weak as she tried to relax. As much as it was a novelty to have faces and voices for two of the people Mary cared so much about, the timing of their actual meeting was less than ideal. She was going to loose a whole day with the journals, and have to spend it with people she had a thousand questions for, none of which were safe to ask. The feeling that she was going to betray herself saying more than she should was unsettling. She’d already said more than she wanted to and tripped too close to things she had no legitimate reason to know.

The small kitchen became uncomfortably quiet while the coffee brewed and Connie fidgeted with cups waiting for it.

“Caleb, where did you put the side of beef?” Lilia tried to wrangle the tension.

“I strung it up with the venison Roy has up in the barn loft.”

“Go cut some for us will you? I’ll show Connie how to do Roy’s favorite gravy and make our visit worth more to her than the intrusion of strangers.”

Connie was too quick to answer Lilia’s sweet gesture. “Oh that’s OK you don’t have to do that. You’re not strangers at all!” Her heart immediately flipped in her throat. She’d done it again! “I, I, I, mean … well you’re strangers to me, I guess, but you’re welcome in Roy’s house. He knows you, so … well … I mean you’re not strangers here.”

Lilia gave Connie a curious look. The girl was more than just shy, she was skittish. In fact in Lilia’s mind Connie was behaving just like she did when she was afraid Caleb was going to find out she was up to something she wasn’t supposed to be up to. Roy had left her here alone after all. No doubt the house was full of things a girl could snoop into and feel guilty about. Maybe even something Roy specifically told her to stay out of.

Connie felt the need for some air, and moved to slip her coat on. “I have to use the outhouse. Please excuse me.”

Her guests were gracious and excused her. Once the girl was out of the house, Lilia let her mind ponder why the young woman seemed so nervous. She believed the girl was here with Roy’s knowledge, and had no questions at all that her account of getting here and being allowed to stay were truthful. Still, there was something. Maybe it was Mary’s clothes? Maybe that was it? She’d gotten into a trunk of clothes and they’d caught her wearing them, and now she was afraid they’d tell Roy how his guest invaded Mary’s memory. The possibility made Lilia’s heart melt. She knew Roy wouldn’t care a whit about the clothes, and was suddenly incensed imagining that that might be behind the girl’s discomfort. Of course she’d set Connie’s mind at ease immediately, “and I’ll give that Royal Lee a good piece of my mind too.”

When Connie got to the outhouse and closed the door behind herself, she let out the breath she was holding and sat down hard on the edge of the solid wood bench. “Can’t you just shut your mouth you idiot?” Connie scolded herself. “The damned guilties are going to ruin you.”

She mulled over the predicament she was in. She knew things about Lilia and Caleb’s past and relationships with both Mary and Roy that she had no business knowing unless Roy’d told her, and he hadn’t, Mary had through her journals. They knew she’d only been there a couple of days, and Roy was just not the kind of man who would talk to strangers about his past never mind his friends. The familiarity she felt with these people after spending so many secret hours with them through Mary’s words, was going to be a problem if there was too much conversation. She didn’t want to raise their suspicions and make them ask her questions she couldn’t answer except with the truth and she was sure she was going to say something to give herself away and force questions.

“If only I’d never found the damned books!” she sighed.

Not one to waste energy, Connie stood, lifted her skirts and made use of the facilities before gathering her wits and returning to the cabin.

The unmistakable sounds of heated discussion came from inside as she mounted the steps. Connie stopped and listened to the couple inside, remembering Lilia’s posture and his stern expression when she first laid eyes on them.

“Don’t you look at me like that Lilia Alicia. You are sorely testing my patience and you know you will not like the outcome.”

“Caleb, so help me if you ruin this visit and shame me in front of Roy’s sweet new friend, I’ll never speak to you again.”

“Whether or not I shame you is completely up to you young lady. If you don’t want to have your backside bared and blistered where Roy’s young friend will hear it then you’d best tidy up your saucy attitude.”

“What saucy attitude? Scolding you for bullying that little girl? Caleb Miller you had no call to cross examine her like she was some criminal being judged.”

“I didn’t cross examine her. I just wanted to know why Roy would come for laying hens when he had perfectly good ones. How was I supposed to know the child was stealing from him and he didn’t know it?”

“You don’t need to know Caleb. There are things you could just take on faith even if for the moment you don’t quite understand them. But not you! Damn you! You have to be jumping to the assumption that either your best friend’s a fool or his guest is up to something, and all along there’s a perfectly ordinary reason for things.”

“Lilia!”

Even Connie startled with the sharp stern warning.

“I’m sorry Caleb I didn’t mean to curse, but sometimes you just make me so mad.”

“You watch your self missy or you will find yourself over my knee. As for perfectly ordinary, You tell me what’s ordinary about a girl barely weaned from her mama’s teats skulking around a grown man’s cabin way out here hundreds of miles from anywhere civilized Lilia Miller?”

“Maybe it’s not ordinary Caleb, but it surely doesn’t have to be sinister does it? Did you get a good look at her? She’s full grown but hasn’t an ounce of flesh on her bones. No matter why she’s here, I’m happy she’s here and safe.”

“She’d best not take advantage while she’s here.”

“I think it’ll do Roy good to have company for a few months, and you just never know maybe he’ll become fond of her and let her stay on. It’s almost ten years since Mary passed, and high time he got on with it and found a new wife.”

“Lilia!” Caleb’s voice dropped to a growl. Connie sensed that this was a topic Lilia brought up a few too many times in the past. “Don’t you go applying your match making wiles on that poor girl or on Roy. Roy’s got a right to do his grieving in his own good time.”

“Ten years Caleb! Out here alone all that time with just graves and memories? …. That’s … not … normal or healthy …. you know it too!” Lilia seemed to be moving around the room as she spoke, and some of what she said became muffled. Connie strained to hear, though afraid to move too close to the door in case they heard her.

“Like you said wife, he’s got company now, and you just stay out of their business.”

“Sometimes you are such a stick in the mud you know that Caleb?”

“And sometimes you press your luck with sass and make me pull up and let loose that stick on your bare backside. Don’t say you weren’t warned. Keep that sass up and you will ask for it.”

There was silence inside the cabin.

“Don’t you give me that look!”

“What look? This look?”

Connie felt the floor boards shudder under her feet. Caleb was moving inside the cabin.

“Get in here!” There was stumbling and a few whimpered objections.

Connie barely heard Caleb’s growled command over the sounds of shuffling feet.”

“Don’t you dare Caleb Miller!” Lilia’s command was cut off by the sound of a door slamming.

Shocked and concerned, Connie moved closer to the door, and pushed it open. The couple were not in the main cabin, though Connie could hear them behind the closed door to Roy’s bedroom.

“Caleb please! I won’t do it again,” Lilia’s objections were strained. Connie guessed that she must be struggling against her husband’s hold on her.

“You’ve been testing my patience through the whole of this trip and now you will have exactly what you have been asking for since you woke up today.”

“No honey please. I’ll stop testing you. I will!”

“Yes you will, because you will have what you have been after and there will be no more need, now come here!”

“Please Caleb, please. Connie will be back any second now. Please.”

“You should have thought of that before you made that shrew’s face at me and issued that whispered curse.”

“Ow, ow, oh! No Caleb please don’t spank me here. Please! If you have any love for me at all you will wait and do this at home.”

“My dear Lil, it is my love for you which compels me to act now.”

Connie could hear the chuckle in the man’s voice. She heard more scuffling and then the unmistakable crisp sound of bare skin being smacked again and again, quickly accompanied by the distressed sounds of Lilia struggling and whimpering.

“Oh my goodness!” Connie stopped just outside the bedroom door. “He’s spanking her!”

Connie stood there transfixed. Not sure if she should go back out and find work to do in the barn, or barge into the room and try to stop what was happening.

Inside the room, Lilia struggled to get away from her determined husband. She couldn’t really argue with his contention that she’d been testing his patience. He’d started the day out in such a grim mood it was a simple thing irritate him. All she wanted was a nice outing and a chance to visit Roy. It seemed like such an imposition even to get a smile out of Caleb once he grudgingly agreed to the trip and after trying for twenty miles, by the time they arrived his sullen mood had overtaken Lilia.

“Ow Caleb you’re hurting me please let me up. I’m sorry, please!” Lilia tried without success to get her hand up between her bottom and his hand. Her skirts made it difficult, and then when she managed to navigate it out from under them, Caleb trapped it before any reprieve from spanking could be garnered. “Please!”

“You will get what you deserve.”

Lilia’s misery was absolute. Her backside burned with each successive smack and the hopelessness of convincing Caleb to stop before he was inclined to was clear to her. By now Connie was most certainly finished with what needs she’d left to attend to, and there would be no pretending this had not happened. Though she was angry, Lilia could not help the tears of contrition and regret that spilled from her eyes. Caleb’s skill with this abominable activity was well honed. His hand was hard and too well seasoned by hard work and much more practice at spanking than Lilia would want others to know. He kept a steady scalding cadence peppering her tender flesh, paying too much attention to the most sensitive areas, making sure to leave the area she would have to sit on swollen and painful. It was too much to bear with grit.

Connie cringed imagining what Lilia was feeling at that moment. Her own recent experiences in the same predicament were far too recent for her to have any doubts the woman must be nearly desperate for her husband to stop by that point. She looked around for something she could do to occupy herself until the spanking stopped. Nervous energy crippled her mind though. At least now there was another reason for her to act and seem ill at ease. Maybe she would make it through the evening and morning to come without being the focus of too much attention and scrutiny.

Lilia’s sobs were inconsolable and her ragged breathing further fractured by hiccups and cries. “Please Caleb. Please.”

Both she and Connie were certain the spanking would go on forever when Caleb finally stopped and placed his hand firmly on his wife’s bottom. He held her in position over his lap until she was sufficiently recovered to talk.

Connie felt her heart lurch into her throat when silence replaced the sounds of spanking. “What do I do?” she panicked, mindful that she’d been and unwilling, unwitting witness to something that should have been private between man and wife. Obeying her instincts, she grabbed her coat again, and ran out of the house toward the barn.

Caleb heard the door close and foot falls off the porch. He made no move to stop what he was doing. There was little to be done. Certainly the young woman understood what she’d heard, and even if she didn’t, in his mind, there was no need for explanations.

“Are you ready to speak to me with respect again Lilia?”

“Yes Caleb I promise.”

“And you’ll apologize for your haughty airs and saucy mouth?”

“I will! I am sorry.”

“Good, now you’ll get up and go out and see to the supper you promised. I’m sure Connie will help you.”

Lilia climbed off her husband’s lap and allowed him to kiss her and draw her close. The mention of Connie had her distracted from the customary quiet cuddle that most often followed a spanking. “I am humiliated Caleb.”

“No, you are a wife who has had a spanking she deserved and you have nothing to feel ashamed about.”

“I am a grown woman though Caleb.”

“As you said yourself, so is Connie, and I will wager she is no stranger to the experience judging by her own sharp tongue. You know Roy just as I do, and it would not surprise me at all to find she already knows that side of him. I’d be more surprised if she doesn’t. Now get up, wash the tears away and start fresh as the sweet wife I know so well.”

Lilia winced closing her eyes against both the shameful prospect of facing company after being spanked and the scalding burn the spanking left behind. She stood and moved self consciously to the door, pulling a deep sturdy breath before opening it and entering the main room.

It was empty. Lilia turned back to Caleb who was still sitting on the bed.

“Where do you suppose she is? She only went out to use the privy.”

“I suspect we scared her away to the barn or parts further. You see to supper and I will go out to see what she’s about.”

Lilia blushed and obediently bustled around Roy’s small kitchen looking for what she would need. Caleb pulled his coat and boots on and stepped out into the crisp afternoon air. He smiled. The day was bright, cold but not miserably so.

‘Too bad we didn’t come a day sooner,’ he thought to himself. He might have left Lilia with Connie and set out after Roy. It would be quite something to be out on the trail again with his old friend. “Another time,” he spoke to the distant ridge, and then stepped down off the porch and started for the barn to retrieve the meat his wife requested and find out a little more about his gamin little hostess.

Winter Wonders, Chapter 6

Friday, December 21st, 2007

by patty, Copyright 2003, updated 2007 

Not even an eighth of the way through the diary and completely entranced by it, Connie vowed nothing would get in the way of finishing, not even Roy. She could barely contain her anxiety, not knowing what the dire deed was that had Mary so afraid. It preoccupied her all through the evening chores. Tonight she would be sure the lamp was well filled with oil.

When she got to bed though, Connie realized she had a dilemma. As long as Roy was still up resting by the fire, she needed a reason to have the lamp on, or there was a good chance he would have questions about what she was doing. It occurred to her that she could ask permission to read some of the many books he had, but what if he said no.

It was idiotic to lay up there in the loft and just stew over it, she knew it, but the urgency Connie felt about getting back to Mary’s journals coupled with the guilt she felt sneaking to do it, made her nervous about drawing too much attention to the whole idea of her reading. An impossibly long time passed before Roy finally got up and retired to his room.

“Please close the door, please close the door,” Connie whispered into her pillow.

He didn’t.

Connie felt her whole body tense with frustration. It took her well over an hour to wind down and curb her restless energy enough to finally fall into a fitful sleep. When Roy hollered up from the kitchen to roust her the next morning, she was sullen and out of sorts.

“On your feet up! The day’s wasting away,” When Connie didn’t answer or make her way down after a few minutes, Roy climbed the ladder and poked his head over the edge.

Connie startled. “I’m coming.” Her answer was short, the tone of her voice was irritated.

“Get the lead out, there is work to do and I have something I want to talk to you about.” Roy’s expression became firm, and his cocked eyebrow acknowledged and issued a mild warning about the edge in her tone. Connie curbed the annoyance she felt and elected to just nod.

It didn’t take her long to dress and make her way down. When she did, Roy was pulling his boots on in preparation to head out to the barn.

“Hurry up and let’s get the chores done before old Bossy busts.”

“Can’t I have some coffee first?”

If you want coffee before getting to the animals in the morning, you need to get up when I call you the first time.” Roy gestured to her boots and coat, his patience clearly short.

Connie grimaced, closing her eyes against the urge to issue some sarcastic retort.

The icy pre-dawn air was still, initially making it feel deceptively warmer than it was. Connie left her mittens and scarf inside the cabin.

“You’ll need your mitts,” Roy shooed her back.

“I’ll be fine,” Connie argued.

“Suit yourself. See to milking the cow, then fetch whatever eggs there are. I’ll see to the feed.”

“I have to see to myself first.” The urge to relieve herself was much stronger than any obligation she might feel to the cow, and certainly more urgent than the desire to have a cup of coffee was.

“Don’t dawdle in there. You’ve wasted enough of the morning as it is. The sun’s already up down there in the valley beyond the ridge.”

Connie didn’t answer. Inside the outhouse, she rubbed her face tying to shake off the thick foggy remnants of inadequate sleep, scolding herself for her sullen mood in the process. She really didn’t want to have Roy angry with her again, and it wasn’t really his fault she was out of sorts. She took the time she needed to try and clear the cobwebs from her head while her body relieved itself.

The bone chilling cold managed to sink in through her coat by the time she made it to the barn. Bossy bawled her objection when Connie started to milk her with ice cold fingers. Connie tried to gentle her by speaking softly and patting the animal’s hide. It helped some, though Connie’s hands remained cold. The cow tolerated the chore of being milked by a pair of clumsy, icy hands, but just barely. By the time the chore was finished, poor Connie was aggravated almost to the point of tears.

Her eyes burned from not enough sleep, and her mind trundled much too easily back into the “everything is against me” wallow she’d woken up in.

Not getting enough sleep was her own fault, and so was having hands so cold they were almost useless by the time she collected the eggs. The pain she felt in her fingers as she carried the bucket filled with milk to the root cellar reminded her of what her feet felt like when she’d gotten her self locked out of the cabin those short few days before. That had been her own fault too.

“Get a handle on yourself girl! You have to stop doing things like this to yourself. And for goodness sake don’t make things hard for yourself with the first man who’s ever been good to you in your whole life.”

Connie lectured herself all the way back to the cabin, and through the whole process of making breakfast.

Roy came in to find her mood much improved. She was still foggy enough that she had very little to say during breakfast, but at least she was able to be civil and answer questions and listen to what little conversation Roy felt like having.

“Think you can keep things together here for two or three days on your own?”

The question took Connie by surprise?

“Huh?”

“Since you’re here and can look after the stock, I thought it’d be a good season to put out some traps and see if I can’t get some pelts to trade come spring. It’ll help me, and be a good way for you to earn your keep.”

At first the prospect of being left alone shook her. What if someone came on the property while he was gone? Still it was only a couple of days, and she would be able to use all her spare time reading without worrying that Roy might catch her.

“Sure, I think I can manage if it’s just taking care of the stock. Can I read some of the books on the shelves over there by the fireplace while you’re gone?”

Roy nodded. “Whatever’s there that interests you, sure.”

Connie smiled. Perfect! She thought to herself. Not only did she have some uninterrupted time to spend reading Mary’s journals to look forward to, she’d secured an alibi that would let her keep reading whatever she wasn’t finished by the time Roy got back.

In preparation for his trek, Roy put Connie to work making jerky and corn biscuits and then helping him use thin strips of raw leather to sew a better poncho to help keep the weather off him while he traveled.

The day flew by, and by the time supper was cleaned up, and Roy’s packs set out by the door for him to get an early start, Connie was completely wiped out. Bed was the only thing on her mind. Mary visited Connie’s dreams, although by morning Connie had only a vague memory of it. Her dreams cycled with just the right rhythm so that the last one left her and woke her first the next morning.

She had coffee on before Roy was up.

“Should I help you get started here this morning?” he asked when she handed him a cup and moved to the door to pull on her boots.

“No, I’ll be fine. If you get a good start, you’ll be able to get back sooner.”

Connie did not feel as confident as she sounded, but she made a good show of it.

Roy got underway just as the sun peeked up over the rise to the east of his property. The traps and supplies he carried were slung and battened down over a sled harnessed to and pulled behind his horse.

Connie smiled and waved. “Well, at least that’s one animal I don’t have to feed and clean up after,” she quipped.

Then there she was alone in stewardship of a property she’d happened on and burglarized only a few short days before.

Roy left her with a fairly long list of additional chores, and Connie kept to them diligently, though by noon when her back began to ache, she let her mind drift to Mary’s journal and a few hours of quiet time before it was time to start all over again in the barn. She made herself some tea and a quick lunch of fresh cheese and left over biscuits then climbed up into the loft to get the diary she had hidden before returning to the kitchen table to relax, eat and read.

Her hands trembled as she opened the worn leather cover and flipped the pages to the spot she’d been forced to leave Mary.

March 19, 1867

Please God don’t let Roy or Caleb ever find out what we have done. We cannot even hide behind Clarissa’s rotten soul. Please God!

But it was her rotten soul behind it. She had no right to make Lilia feel so badly. Just for telling the old bat what she could do with her extra stew. Really! Lilia tries with her cooking just as hard as I do, and Caleb has never once complained. How dare that woman insult her like that! Oh how I hate her!

I fear neither Roy nor Caleb will understand. No, that is a lie, diary, as you well know. The truth of the matter is they will understand all too well and my backside quivers in fear of how they will show their displeasure.

Please let the fates give me this one minor victory. Mr. Meets and his son will recover before another day passes, and Clarissa really did need to have her high and mighty pride cut down.

Oh laws! I cannot help it. As worried as I am that Roy will not be happy with me, it would almost be worth it just for the memory of the look on Clarissa’s face when Mr. Walker fished the cascara leaves from her stew and held them in front of her.

He accused her of using the beans as well! She sputtered. I’ve never seen a human being look so much like a steaming pot puffing its lid up and down. I didn’t dare look Lilia’s way. I know her body quaked with the giggles just as mine did.

After all her bragging and incessant harping about how skilled she was using nature’s bounty. How on earth could she be so foolish as to garnish her family’s supper with a plant even school children knew for its proper use?

No I do not feel sorry for her that no one heard or cared to hear her objections that it was not she who added the greens.

Mr. Walker was so stern with her! It was perfect. “You would accuse some ghost of poisoning the supper you fed you family? And you woman? Why is it you are so fit?”

Lilia agrees with me that our trick would have been better if Clarissa too was stricken laid as low as her aggravating husband and child by the trots. But perhaps it is best that she wasn’t. It is a good shield that she seems to have avoided her concoction that is certain.

March 21, 1867

Darn that Lilia! I could just shake her! The woman couldn’t play poker to save her soul, and now Caleb suspects it was us who poisoned the old bat’s stew. So help me if he makes Roy suspicious too I’ll shoot myself. Lilia must have spent a full hour lamenting our fate if either of our husbands guessed the truth. If she would just smile and look properly shocked, there is no way anyone could know it was us!

I swear, if it is the last thing I do, it will be to tutor her in the art and importance of the demure poker face.

March 22, 1867

Dear world, when these pages are found after my death by humiliation, please know that I do not fault my husband, nor do I fault my poor misguided best friend. Bless her! Lilia couldn’t help herself. She is a much better person than I.

March 25, 1867

It’s done. I apologized to the Meets family, even to Clarissa. I am withered and shamed, but I have not as yet succumbed to death. My hind end is battered beyond all possibility of recovery, and Roy has seen to it I sit on that god forsaken wagon seat the whole day long. The only saving grace is that Roy did not hold to his threat to let Clarissa watch me take the spanking of my life.

Roy was most upset with me. I must say that I am still most upset with him too. Clarissa deserved the lesson we gave her. He could have punished me without making me confess to her. No one would have been the wiser and I would still be punished. I simply do not understand how his mind works.

Caleb was happy to deal quietly with Lilia and it is her fault that anyone guessed it was us in the first place.

It is just not fair. Here I am, dragged into the heart of nowhere, coping with all of the tribulations of this hard journey and in it all forced to deal with that trial of a woman.

March 27, 1867

Roy has become so hard toward me, and I am so angry with him over it if he puts his hands on his hips to scold me one more time I will be forced to scalp him. I humiliated myself and apologized to that hateful woman days ago, yet he still harps on what I did.

I refuse to be sorry for what I did.

March 30, 1867

I hate men! They simply will not see reason. I am right. He is wrong. I am NOT going to say I am sorry.

April 3, 1867

The trail has been hard these last two days, and I am so tired. Roy looks ready to fall off his horse. We have had little energy to spend much of our evenings talking, yet I feel it is this thing between us more than fatigue that keeps him distant. I wish he would try to see my humiliation and how much of a trial it is for me to put up with that woman. I do not wish to be difficult, nor do I wish to shame my husband, but why is he so harsh with me? Why does he not go to Mr. Meets and tell him that his wife needs better handling?

I feel his disloyalty and disdain like a knife in my heart.

April 4, 1867

Heavy rain and hail has forced us to stop again. I feel the weight of the world smothering me. I hate these people and they hate me more.

April 5, 1867

I woke up from a dream this morning imagining I felt Roy’s arms around me. I miss him. Why am I so monstrously stubborn? I can see the pain in his eyes each time I refuse to tell him I am sorry for what I did. I am sorry for the pain between us, sorry for the discomfort suffered by Mr. Meets and his son, very sorry that I talked Lilia into being complicit with me, but I am just not sorry that I did it.

I don’t want to lie yet I fear if I don’t I will loose his love.

April 6, 1867

I cannot believe that Roy lifted my skirts and spanked me right there in front of the whole camp!

I didn’t say it! I just grumbled it. How can I help it that he heard me? I didn’t say it so anyone but him could hear! She is a self serving simpering cow! She is!

She knows it’s her fault too. Hateful harlot that she is! I saw her gloat, the satisfaction so bright on her face we will not need a moon for night light for a fortnight!

Roy’s stance with me about this is so unyielding. I am trapped by it. She goads me, and he allows it. I stand up for myself, and she stands back to watch him beat me for all the world to see. I cannot bear it much more.

If my husband does not choose my dignity over his stubborn unfathomable insistence on propriety just once, I swear I will escape this wagon train and go home.

May 12, 1867

I am back among the land of the living. Rescued from my own foolish pride. There is no punishment on earth that will equal the pain I have caused those who love me. I can only curse and bless the fates that I was found in spite of myself.

God knows I have offered my confession and seen my willful nature for the curse that it is. I will try to do better to curb it. I promise on my soul.

In the days since I last wrote in these pages I have bickered with my husband, forced him to spank me, and forced him to lay down an ultimatum. I ran from him. My choice of a time was fortuitous, or calamitous, depending on point of view I suppose. I managed to put a full day between me and this train before anyone knew I was gone, and then the storm from hell itself severed the trail I had taken.

I was foolish beyond words to set out to widen the distance after such a storm, and lucky to have survived the flood that washed down out of the hills, with my life.

Roy tells me it was a week before I was found. I have very little memory of this time, only of the freezing cold nights, long hellish days and lonely, lonely prayers, prayers that the good lord saw fit to answer. I have seen and held my Roy’s face again, felt his touch and tasted his kiss. I need nothing more now.

I’ve been confined to bed for weeks, and only in the last two days have I found the stamina to do more than the simplest chores.

May 19, 1867

I am a blessed woman. I know my husband’s love again, and I swear here in these pages never to stubbornly resist his will again. He was right, and I knew it all along.

I feared he would reject me yesterday when I went to him and begged him to punish me and then love me. He looked so bewildered. “How could I think he didn’t love me?” he said. But I did. I feared it from the deepest darkest places in my being. He has not lain with me in nearly two months and he has not punished me for the willful thing I did running away.

And now he has done both.

As awful as the pain of his hand to my backside was, the feel of him inside me was bliss. His lips on mine make me feel whole. His touch gives me life.

I just don’t know what gives the evil forces in me that would question him so much power.

You are my witness diary, may my life be snuffed out if I should ever question Roy’s wisdom or his love for me again.

 

~~oooooOOOOooooo~

Connie’s heart pounded, and parts of her she was ashamed to acknowledge woke up and came to life as she read all of the rest of the pages in that one journal.

Mary spared none of details of the love she shared with Roy. Things she did to please him, and things he did to please her were described in detail that ignited something primal within Connie.

The image of Roy painted by Mary, didn’t quite match the image Connie had. Certainly the unyielding and stern parts rang true, but she was having trouble matching the man she’d only recently gotten to know, saying or doing some of the more sensual things Mary described.

Connie was confused by her body’s responses as well. The only thing she knew about the physical aspects of ‘lovemaking’ bore no resemblance to what Mary’s experience was. Could laying with a man be more than the painful brutal experience she survived months ago? Her stepfather’s treatment of her mother and the proposition he’d made to her in order to keep her place in his house hadn’t helped her perception of the sex act either. That what Mary described held so much attraction, and woke up such deep yearning for her was unsettling for Connie.

She had to put the book down for a while and think. Chores and seeing to the animals helped to an extent, but she still spent the better part of the evening thinking about her own life and experiences, and wishing for a life with even a fraction of the love that Mary described.

Connie replaced the first book, and carefully retrieved the next. She read it through cover to cover before finally putting out the lamp and crawling into her loft in search of sleep.

Mary’s written vow never to question Roy again lasted into September that year when they‘d made their way to this homestead. The struggles of isolation proved to be as difficult as Clarissa Meets had been. Sleep beckoned though, and Connie had to defer digging for the next volume. She’d have all day tomorrow, she told herself.

The next day Connie barely finished in the barn, and was anxious to get back to the cabin and begin reading again when the sounds of horse and a wagon intruded into her solitude and plans.

T’was the night before Spankmas

Tuesday, December 18th, 2007

I tried to keep to the same ryming order and verse structure as the real thing… hope ya like it..

 

T’was the night before Spankmas

Original poem modified, Dec 18, 2007, by patty

 

T’was a night for a spanking and though she did grouse,

There would be no escaping the ire of her spouse;

Her panties now down and her bottom made bare,

She wished that Saint Nicholas was not standing there;

He should be well busied, good folks in his head,

The though he could see this spurred curses unsaid;

Her spouse with his paddle had closed tight the gap,

She twisted and struggled avoiding the whap.

 

While there in their room she howled with such sputter,

Dear Santa knew well just what was the matter;

The paddling continued and still she spoke sass,

Good Santa just nodded, “keep paddling her ass.”

 

Her fast paddled globes with their hot reddened glow,

Were not what she ever thought might go on show,

Then out of her shame winked her long secret fear,

The day had now come that did expose her rear.

 

Her hubby whapped hard on her backside so quick

In a moment she knew he might switch to the stick

More rapid than ever the paddle strokes came

Her husband was firm when he called her by name

 

“Now please Sir I beg you, I beg you to listen

You’re loved from my heart I’m not just a vixen

I know that I’m flawed and that it’s my call

Keep spanking away, you’ll not make me bawl.”

 

As the cane was now lifted the thought made her sigh

Her heart made her wonder and search to seek why.

“I am not very clear quite why I’m a shrew?

Don’t do as required and keep secrets from you.”

 

And then in an inkling she knew that she’d goofed

No spanking or paddling would ever be spoofed.

She put her hand back and it turned things around

Her spouse was not pleased, her thighs quickly found

 

He trapped her legs down with a firmly placed foot

Then six harder licks to her sit spot were put

Good Santa had toys contained in his pack

This bad girl did cringe when St Nick dumped sack

 

His eyes how they sparkled his laughter quite merry

He handed her spouse a gift from Spank Fairie

Though it was wrapped and tied with a nice bow

The clear cellophane was used purely for show

 

The sight of more wood made her clench her teeth

And then round spoon marks made a livid red wreath

On a bottom so punished her legs felt like jelly

Her pleas to be freed came from deep in her belly

 

I beg you good Sirs, “I’ll behave my self

So well that all toys gather dust on the shelf”

A wink of an eye and a pat on the bed

Soon gave her to know there was no more to dread

 

With out saying a word Saint Nick went to work

Filling their stocking with gifts for their quirk

He leaned down and gave her a kiss on the nose

Then nodded and laughed “Be good my sweet rose.”

 

In privacy now her spouse gave a whistle

“I need you now, I’m a heat seeking missile”

She welcomed him to her as all was now right

“HAPPY SPANKMAS TO ME AND MAY ALL USE THIS NIGHT!”

Winter Wonders, Chapter 5

Sunday, December 16th, 2007

Copyright 2004 updated 2007 

When Connie was deep in sleep, Mary took her out for a walk in the snow. They climbed to the top of the hill where Mary and her infant rested for eternity.

“Peaceful here isn’t it?” Mary pointed out the beautiful moonlit vista of the valley beyond the ridge.

“Do you miss being alive?” Connie asked as if it was the most normal question.

“I am alive. Roy keeps me alive, and now you, opening my journals, what was – is again now. I can dance in both of my worlds.” Mary lifted and twirled in the moonlight, the light top layer of snow glistened and sifted around her.

“I like him a lot,” Connie blushed, feeling uneasy with that confession.

“Good. He needs someone Connie. The loneliness has aged him much too soon.” Mary settled down taking Connie’s hand and guiding her so the two women rested on the lee side of the drifted snow by her head stone. They sat cross-legged facing each other. Connie marveled that the snow felt so comfortably cool against her skin, and how the thin gauzy cotton of her nightgown was more than enough protection from the freezing cold air of the night.

“He’s been alone here far too long.”

“Why?”

“He’s obstinate and sentimental. An act of God couldn’t move him off this mountain. Darned fool thinks he’d be leaving me here alone.”

“Oh.” Connie nodded and smiled. Her smile fed off of Mary’s and they both laughed amicably. “Wouldn’t he?”

“What?” Mary tipped her head, confusion crinkling the corners of her eyes.

“Wouldn’t he be leaving you here alone if he moved off this mountain?” Connie clarified.

“No silly! He can never do that. I’m not here,” Mary patted the ground under her. “I’m there,” she gently tapped Connie’s temple to emphasize her meaning. “I’m inside his mind. I feel stuck there sometimes too; stuck in his impossible memory.”

“Impossible memory?”

“Very! A woman needs her flaws Connie. Some days he’s resurrected me seeming so perfect I feel stiffer than the dead. I’d like to clobber him! Now I have you to help me do just that.”

Connie laughed. There was a comfortable silence between them for the next several minutes before Mary spoke again.

“Would you let him love you Connie?” Mary’s expression turned wistful.

“Love me?” The question surprised Connie and renewed some of her unease.

“I miss his smile. Roy needs to smile Connie. You’ll like that part of him when he loosens up enough to show it to you. But love is his best thing. He needs someone to love. More than any man alive I think, he needs that. Roy needs someone he can touch and hold and protect. I need that for him.” A single tear trickled down Mary’s gossamer cheek, sparkling in the moonlight like the loose crystals of snow around her.

“He loves you Mary, I could never ruin that,” Connie whispered, closing her eyes against the longing that awareness created in her.

“There is room in his heart for you too! He needs you. I need you for him!” Mary reached for Connie’s chin, but Connie turned her face away.

“How can you need me? How can it be right for me to intrude on what you two share?” It was Connie’s turn to crinkle her eyes with confusion.

Mary sighed. She let Connie’s mind calm for a few minutes and then tried to explain.

“I fear that leaving him alone was my only failure on this earth. I left him so alone, and in so much pain because of it, I can’t rest. I’m in pain because of it. You can help us both Connie, and I sense we can help you too. Please?”

Nothing more was said. Mary disappeared, leaving Connie to her thoughts and the peaceful silence of Christmas night.

~~~~~oooOOOooo~~~~~

Royal’s bones ached enough from the past few days’ exertions that it took his mattress almost an hour to help him ease into sleep. Dreams took him almost as soon as sleep did, calming, peaceful and restful dreams. In the wee hours before dawn, he shifted over onto his side and wrapped his arms around Mary who had crawled in under the quilts next to him.

“I missed you here with me,” he crooned tugging her snug next to him.

“Mmmmm,” Mary nodded letting her bottom and torso mold to him the way they always had in life. “I’m here.”

Royal drifted back toward dreams. Mary enjoyed the comfort of his embrace for a while, before using her elbow to nudge him back to the present with her.

“Honey? Do you like my gift?” she whispered.

“Gift?” Royal muttered, still half in and half out of dreams.

“Yes. Company for you, someone you can love again? I’ve prayed for her since the day I had to leave you,” Mary took his arm and pulled it across her breast, stroking the coarse hairs on its back.

Royal smiled indulgently and nuzzled her hair. “You brought that hellion here did you?”

“No, she came on her own, but I wished for her, and when she showed up, I prayed that fate would keep her here, and it’s done a great job don’t you think?” Mary’s soft giggle vibrated and infused into him. Royal stretched and sighed with the pleasant warmth of his long dead wife.

“Winter’s got her holed up here for a spell, that’s for sure. Hope she settles in better pretty soon though, don’t think my arm will hold out if she doesn’t.”

Mary growled and jabbed her husband with the same exasperated annoyance she would have felt in life. “You should have at least given her some time to get to know you before wailing away on her bottom like that. You’re darned lucky she hasn’t decided to pick up and leave after the way you beat her.”

“Beat her?” Royal chuckled and squeezed Mary tighter to him. “All I did was give the child a good taste of discipline, something you know darned well she needed.”

“Maybe so, but you still could have let her settle in and get comfortable here first, because, if you’ve ruined all my prayers, I’ll do more than just haunt your dreams husband!”

“I like having my dreams haunted,” Royal sighed again, breathing the soft scent of her in from his memory.

“She’s not a child Roy,” Mary pressed on.

“Sure she is. She’s a slip of a girl barely out of her teens if she is even out of her teens.”

“She’s a young woman; full grown and more than ready for life and a husband who will love her. She needs you to be gentle with her, like you were with me all those years ago. And I know you need her too. I want this for you honey. It will give me peace to know you’re not alone here, needing something I can’t give you except like this, an empty ‘I wish’ wayside.”

“This will do me just fine until the good lord calls me too,” Royal was drifting back into sleep and dreams.

“Well it won’t do me! Please honey, you need her, and she needs you. Please make that your Christmas gift to me? That you’ll try to love again? Please?”

“We’ll see,” Royal cuddled Mary closer. “Go to sleep now, it’ll be daylight soon and I have a long day a head.”

“Ok, but I’ll be watching you,” she agreed. “And Roy?”

“Hmmm?”

“Keep that brush in the drawer. Your hand is plenty hard enough.”

“We’ll see.”

“Can I tell you one more thing before you go back to sleep?”

“Hmm? Yes go a head,” Royal answered with a sleepy distracted yawn.

“Happy Christmas husband.”

“Happy Christmas love.” Royal smiled and squeezed his long deceased wife letting sleep take him back for the last hours before the next day woke him up.

~~~~~oooOOOooo~~~~~

Her bladder’s urgent need for relief intruded on Connie’s sleep. She woke up feeling more comfortable and safe than she had since she was a small child. It was still dark, but there was enough ambient light from the glowing embers in the wood stove and the stone fireplace, that Connie was able to pick her way down the ladder from the loft without fidgeting for matches to light the lamp.

Before pulling on her boots and coat for the quick dash out to the outhouse, she took a few minutes to stoke the embers in the stove and pile in a few sturdy chunks of wood. She then poured the last of the coffee from the day before into the slop bucket and filled the pot with fresh water, several scoops of new coffee grounds, and set it to brew over the heating burner on the stove.

The first light of dawn painted a pink glow beyond Mary’s ridge. The sight of it filled her with an unexplainable feeling of welcome. That mixed with the lingering sense of warmth she felt from the dreams she could not remember made Connie hug herself and smile. “It is very lovely here. I feel like I’m home.” Instead of the usual sadness and hopelessness she thought she should feel with a thought like that, about something so elusive and impossible for her, Connie felt peace. This was home for now, and if that changed come spring, well she would at least have had one safe, full-filling winter in her life.

After she relieved herself, Connie decided she would go down to the barn and see if she couldn’t convince Bossy to let her try milking again.

There were four eggs to collect so Connie tucked them into her pockets. She tossed five fists full of corn meal for the hens, forked fresh hey for Bossy and then poured a half tin of oats in her feeder, before pulling the stool and a bucket over to the challenge.

“Hey girl?” Connie crooned as she stroked and patted the cow. “Will you let me try again? Hey? I’ll try not to be such a clumsy oaf this time?”

Connie kept up a quiet sing song as she settled down on the stool. The cow offered only minimal objection even when Connie grasped and began tugging on her teats. Much like the night before, Connie had very little luck.

“What’s the secret Bossy? Is it me? Am I doing it wrong or are you just holding out on me huh?” she wondered out loud after many futile minutes passed.

“Need some help?”

Surprised and shocked out of her skin once again, Connie screamed and fell over issuing an involuntary epithet as she did. “Son of a…!”

“Whoa now! What’d we say about foul language?” Royal leaned down to help Connie regain her balance.

“I’m sorry! I didn’t mean it! You keep sneaking up on me! It just came out. I won’t do it again I swear.”

“You’re a little too skittish for a gal who’s not up to some mischief,” Royal grinned with an evil tease.

“But I wasn’t!” Connie’s mouth opened with worry. “I was trying to figure this out is all.”

“What’s that wet in your pocket?” Royal pointed to a growing wet patch on Connie’s right side.

“Aw! Now look! It’s the eggs,” Connie whined a complaint.

“How many’d you break? You put them all in there?” Royals’ tone was amused, though he kept some of the evil tease in it.

“No, there’s two in here,” Connie retrieved the eggs from her other pocket and offered them to her host. “I was only trying to help.”

“I see that. Fine job of it too,” Royal chuckled. “Sit back down here and let me show you how to milk this animal.”

The clammy wet of the broken eggs in her pocket had begun to seep through to the thin cotton of the nightgown she was wearing underneath the coat, but Connie let her attention be distracted from that to the milking lesson she needed.

Just a few minor adjustments in the technique she’d stumbled on to get the few drops she’d managed the night before, and Connie had the chore mastered.

“There you go,” Royal gave her an encouraging swat on her back when she finally kneaded the first few solid streams of milk onto the side of the bucket.

“Hey look! I’m doing it!” Connie laughed.

“Good! Now keep doing it until you get that bucket full, then come on back up to the house. We’ll find some more chores for you to wrap your skills around after we have some breakfast.”

Connie nodded and watched as Royal set about cleaning the stalls and laying fresh straw under the animals. He seemed in much better spirits than he had the day before.

Royal finished his chores before Connie finished milking Bossy. Before he left for the house, he issued some more instructions for her.

“When you’re through here, take that fresh milk to the cellar scoop all the cream and half the milk off what’s there into the two large cans that are down there, then add this fresh to what’s left and put the plank back tight over the barrel. After you get through with that bring the cans on up to the house, I’ll show you how we make butter and cheese.”

“I know how to make butter,” Connie offered.

“Good that’ll help. How about cheese?”

“No”

“Well then, today you’ll learn that.”

Royal scrambled up the two fresh eggs with some potato and the turkey Connie left on her plate the night before and timed the task perfectly so that when Connie came in with the milk and cream, breakfast was ready to lay out on the table.

“Mmmm I’m starving!” Connie smiled slipping out of her coat and kicking off her boots.

“Wash up and sit down then,” Royal nodded toward the pump and then the table.

Connie obediently washed her hands and rinsed her face, and had wolfed down half of what was on her plate before there was any further conversation between them.

“Feeling better today I’d say?” Royal was first to speak.

“Yes thank you,” Connie nodded and answered after swallowing what was in her mouth. “This is real good too.”

Royal nodded, accepting her compliment. “You’re sitting mighty easy for a gal who’s had her tail walloped twice in one day?”

Connie blushed. When she couldn’t think of a response that he wouldn’t think was saucy all she could do was shrug.

“Seems the lesson sunk in this time though,” Royal emphasized what seemed like approval with a satisfied nod.

Connie shrugged again. Her blush deepened when Royal made the question more pointed. “You agree then?”

“Yes sir,” she whispered.

“No need to sir me gal. Not unless you’re in trouble. It’s Royal or Roy, which ever suits you, alright?”

Connie looked up and met his eyes. His expression reassured her. “Yes, alright, Roy.” she smiled and nodded and tried his name on for size. It fit fine.

“Good, then we’ll get along fine. How about you get up there and get your self dressed, then we’ll get some work done in here.”

Connie very much enjoyed her first real day living in Royals’ home as more than just a barely tolerated intruder. She churned the butter, and watched with interest while he made cheese.

He explained that Bossy made more milk than he could make use of and the cheese made a good and simple substitute for eggs and meat when he was too busy to cook. The other benefit of it was that it kept well and instead of spoiling with age, it improved.

After skimming all the cream off the milk as he poured the milk in the churn, Royal scooped three or four ladles of it back into the milk. “That’ll help the butter firm up,” he explained. Then he laid gauzy cotton that he called cheese cloth over the top of the churn. He held it and instructed Connie to pour the rest of the cream on the cloth. At first the liquid seemed to pour through the cloth, but quickly the thickest part collected in a huge clot on top of it.

“There,” Royal shifted and stood handing the sides of the cloth to Connie. “Now wrap the ball and wring as much of the whey out of it as you can without pushing the pulp through.” He stood and moved over to the stove and placed a large pot of water up over the hottest burner.

Connie obediently twisted the edges. “Like this?”

“That’s it. Keep it over the churn now, no sense wasting good milk. … Not too hard or you’ll loose some of the pulp. … There that’ll do it.” Royal reached over to take the ball from Connie when it had almost stopped dripping. “You put the lid on that and start churning now alright?”

Connie nodded and pulled a chair over to the butter churn and positioned herself so she could watch the rest of the cheese making procedure while her arms worked the churn.

When the water was boiling vigorously, Royal poured some yellowish liquid from a crock pot into the water then set the wrapped curd of clotted cream into it and put the lid down.

“What’s that that you added?” Connie wrinkled her nose when she caught a whiff of the strong somewhat sour smell.

“Turned cider, some folks call it vinegar. Makes good cheese and even better sour dough. See that?” Royal handed Connie the crock and indicated she should lift the lid.

“Oh God! That’s evil!” she wrinkled her face and turned away.

“Take a good look now; we’ll have none of that girly complaining. See that film on the top?” Royals’ tone of voice was firm enough that Connie understood what he wanted her to look at was important. She obediently returned her attention to the foul smelling container. “You’d likely get sick if you ate that, but that mixed with four, yeast and skimmed milk, left to set a few days, makes a good culture for sour dough. The liquid adds a nice twang to greens and biscuits, and without it we couldn’t have cheese. Least wise not cheese worth eating.”

“How long do you leave it cooking in there?” Connie asked putting the top back on the crock and turning her attention to the pot on the stove.

“Maybe five, ten minutes; not long,” Royal answered, taking the crock back and placing it back up on the shelf above the stove.

For the next few hours, they worked quietly side by side, Connie churned and Royal finished forming the cheese. He gave her a taste of the fresh curd when he took it out of the water. “We’ll keep this fresh ball to eat now and put these two bigger ones down in the cellar to cure. When they get a nice crust on them they take on a nice sharp taste I think you’ll like.

Connie smiled. “That’s all there is to it?”

“That’s it,” Royal smiled.

“I think I could do that,” she laughed.

“That’s the idea.” Royal acknowledged with a matter of fact nod. “You finish up there, and when it’s firm you’ll find the forms on the bottom shelf over by the pump. Alright?”

Connie nodded and smiled, and Royal left her to the work while he settled down with a book by the fire. He dozed off quickly succumbing to the lure of the unaccustomed inactivity in the middle of his day. It was a nice and welcome change. When he woke up a little more than an hour later, it was to the aroma of fresh coffee and pan biscuits.

“Hungry?” Connie piped up when she heard him groan and stir awake.

“Smells good!” Royal grimaced against the complaints of his sore muscles and forced his limbs and muscles to stretch and comply with his desire to get up.

“There’s more cakes up here, can we have some with lunch?” Connie asked hopefully.

“How may are there?” Royal frowned, realizing that Lilia’s sweets were not going to go as far as he’d hoped.

“Four or five.”

“That’s all?” his disappointment was impossible to hide.

“If you have sugar and vanilla or cinnamon, I’ll make you more. I saw you had apples, jellies and lemons in the cellar. If you want to keep these for yourself that’s OK too, I can do without” Connie felt a twinge of disappointment and embarrassment that she was eating his treats.

“You know how to make cakes?” Royal raised his eyebrow hopefully.

“I can make sweet cookies out of oats and a few kinds of sweet bread from carrots and apples. My mother made fritters and I helped her so I think I can do those too if you’ll put up with a mistake or two till I get it right.”

“Now that’s a pleasant development if ever there was one,” Royals’ face shone with a wide smile for the first time since Connie had been there. It made her heart soar. “Heat up the cakes.”

Connie smiled back and relaxed. Her host had a child’s sweet tooth. All it took to make him smile was the promise of desserts.

~~~~~oooOOOooo~~~~~

“Where’d you put the butter?” Royal asked when they sat down to lunch.

“There with your cheese,” Connie pointed to the shelf by the pump. “I’ll take it out to the cellar after we eat.”

“No you go up in the loft. You’ll find yourself some clothes you should be able to make fit you in the large black chest. There is a needle and some thread in the basket by the fire. Pick out enough to last you a few days so you have something clean to wear when you wash the others. I expect that should keep you busy while I go out and see about filling the rest of the chinks in the barn. I’ll put the butter and cheese away when I go out.”

Connie agreed happily. The idea that she could have the house to herself for even a few hours brought Mary and her journals to mind. The secret excitement made her blush with guilt, but Royal did not seem to notice. He went out about the work he wanted to get done, and as soon as Connie had the dishes washed and put to dry she climbed the ladder to her loft and Mary’s journal.

Connie kept enough presence of mind to rummage through the black chest so that she had a small pile of garments she could begin to alter to fit ready. That way she could make a show of having done at least some work should Royal come in early.

A wave of shame washed over her when she pulled the leather bound book out from under her mattress and shuffled over to sit on a small box by the window that let light into the space. She’d made a promise to Roy that was barely out of her mouth when she’d set about to break it, and here she was tainting what had so far been her first good day by furthering her betrayal. Her shame was not as compelling as the desire to know more of Mary and Royals’ life together though, and it held no power to keep her from opening the leather bound book.

Connie flipped forward to the last entry she’d read. Mary, Royal, Lilia and Caleb were still in the recently restored State of Texas. ‘Lost to Mexico, retaken and lost again, annexed to the US, succeeded and re-entered again, the young state had a history that was as large as its size.’ Mary lamented the history lesson her husband seemed bent on teaching her, and it was clear from the journal that Mary was tired and ready to put Texas behind her. Snow and cold weather had given them enough respite that they were making westward progress again.

January 9, 1867

Oh laws, Lilia will be whipped and it is all my fault. She has sworn me to secrecy, but I fear it is wrong to keep it. Roy will despise me if I let my friend take my punishment and my friend will disown me if I break my promise to her. I do not know what to do. This has been the most horrible day of my life. Damned that evil gossip Clarissa Meets! She is the devil incarnate. I swear she planned the whole thing. She knows how my husband dislikes cunning. She made me do it. She made me, and now Lilia is on the outs with Caleb for my crime. I am a poor friend. I am an unworthy wife. How was I to know Mr. Meets would be the one to drink the tainted coffee? Poor Lilia! If only she hadn’t worn that red dress. How could he help but see her sneaking around the wagon?

January 10, 1867

My cowardice disgusts me. My dear sweet Lilia embraced me this morning and all I could see in her eyes was pain. I have disgraced her friendship. Caleb has ordered her to sit the seat of their wagon and I can see this is agony for her. The whipping must have been supreme. It was mine. By rights it was mine and I have destroyed my marriage and my dearest friendship by allowing it to happen. Could I live with my sin if she were allowed to walk with me instead of having to sit up there on that hard wood plank of torture? No. I cannot live with myself at all. In time my dishonor will poison everything of worth that I posses. Yet I cannot speak up. Now that Lilia has taken my due how can I? If I do I will dishonor my promise to her and I will devalue the sacrifice she made for me. If I don’t I will forever hate myself and never again deserve the trust of a descent soul on earth.

January 10, 1867, dusk approaches, the dark is welcome.

Oh Roy you have cursed me with the gift of these pages. Now I must read and re-read my own failings written by my own hand. You are cruel beyond words my husband. And I am most unworthy of even that.

January 12, 1867

I have been crying all day, and Roy is loosing patience. I begged Lilia to free me from my promise, but she refuses. Does she not understand that I must honor my love to my husband, that he must be told the truth about the evil vixen he has wed? She laughs at me when I beg her, and she demands I keep my word. She is brazen enough to suggest that what would cleans me now might only serve to place her in more trouble. These days have been torture. It would be merciful if God would send me to Hades now.

If he does it will please me greatly if he could take that Meets woman first. I swear if she leers at me again I will slap her face soundly for her.

January 15, 1867

He laughed at me. Lilia and Caleb stood back and laughed with him. If I was not a Christian woman I would happily murder them all. These passed many days have been torture for me and when the truth of it comes out they laugh.

My only consolation is that evil woman has been caught in her own web. I almost feel sorry for her. If Roy knew the quiet pleasure I found hearing her cries when her husband took the leather to her, I swear he would not be wont to laugh. But thank you My God, though you know she deserved much worse. My terrible pain is that I deserve worse than she. Though I fear my Roy does not have the heart and my friends work against my everlasting soul convincing him to trust it.

I am doomed to be a shrew worse than Clarissa Meets.

January 16, 1867

Oh my sweet God, how perfect Roy is and how wonderfully forgiving Lilia and Caleb are too. Lilia’s embrace last night freed me from all of my fears. Caleb spanked me so hard I thought he might break me. He made clear a message I will try never to forget. No matter what, he trusts his wife. Like Roy listens to me, he listens to her. My silence carried no weight in the punishment he meted out to his wife. The burden wrought by my silence and my complicity belonged to Roy. Lilia was punished only for not speaking up before there was trouble. Caleb made me smile. He said he had no doubt Lilia would be guilty of this again.

All these days I have lamented under the mistaken notion that Lilia was punished for my evil act when the truth was Lilia told Caleb all of it right from the start. And Caleb, the sweet pure man that he is left the question of my confession to my own conscience.

Roy tried so hard to be firm today. I could shoot him for failing with this task. My heart needed him to be firm with me. How cruel of my husband to tell me how I must be punished, yet tease me so by not doing it right. He spanked me without mercy with his hand and a barrel stave, yet all the while he laughed. How am I to take this? I could not find release from my shame. I could not find enough respite from his humor to even find a reason for tears. No matter how much it hurt when he spanked me, I couldn’t even escape the tawdry lust my wanton body produced.

After he whipped me, I embraced him in lust. All the while knowing I did not deserved the pleasures of intimacy after all I am guilty of. So help me, wanton jezebel that I am, I feel more free today than I have in weeks. I cannot understand it, though Lilia says I am a fool to bother to try. What am I to do?

January 20, 1867

We are trapped again by cold. So far there has been no sign of snow, but the smell of it is in the air. The men invoke their authority. They are so pompous. Roy is the worst of them. A bossier more obstinate man never lived. What fools they are making us lay up like this. The animals have no fear of cold. They are invigorated by it. Lilia agrees with me. Tonight we will show everyone. We will show them all.

January 24, 1867

I am lucky to be alive. Such a fool I have been. Roy cannot even look at me. I fear I may have destroyed my marriage. I have certainly shamed my husband. The fury in Caleb’s eyes when he found us; my God, I will never forget it. Nothing has ever affected me more save the pain Roy’s own gaze offered me not even an hour later.

January 26, 1867

I fear I will never sit my seat with comfort again. My Roy has never been so stern with me, though I prefer his begrudging harshness to the cruel silence of yesterday. We did survive after all. My laws, I swear half my hide must adorn that strop. That is how raw I feel today. The whole camp must have heard my cries. I am sure of it. Though there is no question I had it coming, I still fear the shame of showing my face.

Poor Lilia, I fear she may abandon me as a friend, and so she should. Caleb is a cad. He would not even hear me explain it to him, even though I begged him to. He refused to understand that it was my idea to take the wagon a head of the train. Lilia only came along because she is my friend. Why doesn’t he care that she offered her voice for temperance and reason against my foolish plan. He should praise her, not punish her for standing by her friend fool hardy and unworthy though I am.

My sweet Lord, why have you made men so infernal stubborn?

February 20, 1867

San Marcos. What kind of name is this for a town? The wagon master has been gone for a week. Push south and we will miss any more of the snows. We’ll lose no more time he said. Yet here we wait. Three days. Scouts have gone to Austin the Wagon master is gone to San Antonio. The evil wicked Clarissa has set her sights on my sanity. I have been spanked more since entering this great state of Texas than ever before in my life, and we have barely reached the half way mark. I fear I will do the woman bodily harm if we are cooped up much longer.

February 20, 1867, mid day.

I fell in the Guadalupe River. I don’t think I have ever been so afraid nor felt so cold in all of my life. Roy saved me and though he told me he loved me with all his heart, he shook me so hard and took down my trousers and spanked me so hard I fear he must surely hate me.

But I got her good. That is my perfect consolation. That evil woman had to wear that horse manure all the way through camp. I’ll bet everyone appreciated the irony. That’ll teach her to walk around me with her almighty nose in the air, the old high and mighty biddy. Just how does it feel reeking as high as your nose can reach miss perfect busy body know it all Clarissa Meets?

February 21, 1867

Roy loves me. How could I question this? His mouth, his hands, all of him; he possesses me. This bliss God gives to me, it is both cruel and generous. I have made him a promise to curb my temper where that woman is concerned. I will try, I swear on all I hold dear that I will try. But if it pleases you to help me My God, I will be very grateful.

March 19, 1867

Please God, don’t let Roy or Caleb ever find out what we have done. We cannot even hide behind Clarissa’s rotten soul. Please God!

~~~~~oooOOOooo~~~~~

The sound of Royals’ feet on the stoop startled Connie into the present. “Oh shit!” she flushed with mild panic. At first unable to think of the excuse she’d laid out. Her heart pounded with the guilt of Mary’s newest crime and her own. As it turned out, Royal had no problem believing or accepting that Connie fell asleep after choosing the clothes she would tailor to fit. He’d fallen asleep himself earlier that day.

Not even an eight of the way through the diary and completely entranced by it, Connie vowed nothing would get in the way of finishing it, not even Roy. She could barely contain her anxiety, not knowing what the dire deed was that had Mary so afraid. It preoccupied her all through the evening chores. Tonight she would be sure the lamp was well filled with oil.

Two more days left

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

My friend John has another paddle naming contest.  Name the paddle and win it free - or, like the paddle and buy it.  Two more days till the contest ends  (Dec 15)… Enter Now.

Winter Wonders, Chapter 4

Thursday, December 13th, 2007

by patty, copyright 2003, updated 2007 

missed earlier chapters?  This link will take you to Chapter 3 and a link there will take you to Chapter 2, where a link will take you to Chapter 1.  Each will open in their own window so you can read and close in order without having to navigat backward.  Hope you’re liking it….

*******

“Finished?” Royal raised his right eyebrow, when Connie’s plate went untouched for several minutes after he finished his meal.

Connie shrugged. “Can I eat it after you do that?” she nodded to the brush that rested on the table.

“What’s that? Nervous stomach?” Royals’ smile was wry. “See what your foul mouth and sour disposition get you? Can’t even enjoy your Christmas dinner because you’ve got a walloping coming after it.”

“I told you I was sorry,” Connie cringed when she heard the childish whine in her own voice.

“Well, you won’t be playing on my sympathies with that poor little girl play acting. Nor with the all ‘worked-up-with-guilt-and-fear-nervous-stomach’ routine either. I’ll make no mistake with leniency when it comes to the few standards I keep in this house,”

Royal softened enough to concede that the threat of a paddling might put a damper on anyone’s appetite even if the food was good. “Put your plate on the peel in the warmer and get the rest of these dishes cleaned up and put away. When you’re finished with that go up and put on the nightshirt I gave you and bring your sorry backside back here to me. I’ll make short work of a sharp lesson and that’ll be an end of the unpleasantness for the rest of evening.”

Connie swallowed against the urge to argue with the man. ‘For once in your life will you just try and not make things worse for yourself,’ her mind growled at the base instincts within her that threatened to fight. With her lips pressed white into a thin determined line, Connie got up from the table and carried the dishes to the deep pan by the pump.

“Make sure and put the bones and solid scraps in the tin to take to the outhouse,” Royal instructed as he watched her move around in his kitchen.

Connie only nodded, keeping her back to him. ‘What do you think? That I’m a complete idiot and can’t even do dishes?’ her mind silently retorted. That she almost spoke the words raised goose flesh on her backside and sent a twinge of unpleasant prickling into her groin.

“Use the hot water from the kettle with some soap. Then refill the kettle and put it back on the stove,” Royal added when Connie raised the handle on the pump to put water in the pan.

“I know how to do this!” Connie answered, her words seething through clenched teeth.

“Not if you’re using the ice cold water from the pump you don’t,” Royals’ answer was a clipped warning.

“The water in the kettle is scalding. It needs some cold in it before I can put my hands in it. Even though you’d happily skin me alive, I was not planning to do it myself in a pan of scalding dish water!” Connie stamped her foot, and wheeled around to face the man who seemed to be deliberately aggravating her.

“You watch that tone of voice with me girl,” Royal warned. “You are in enough trouble as it is.”

“Then you let me do these dishes in peace,” Connie snapped and turned back to the work. She was conscious of his glare on her back, and mindful of the stomach churning encounter that was still to come between them. The skin on her bottom tingled. This was going to be the first day in her life that she’d ever been spanked twice. The first one had already been mighty serious. ‘How can I be so reckless?’ Connie wondered, shaking her head.

‘Best not dwell in the confusion of how come and what ifs,’ she sighed and reasoned silently. ‘Much better to stick with what’s happening now.’

Every move she made caused the loose bloomers to caress the vulnerable flesh of her bottom, keeping her mind focused on it, and keeping her aware of the hairbrush on the table.

“This is crazy!” she spoke silently to herself. “How did I ever end up here in the middle of no where like this?” Nervousness made her loose the battle to keep her mind on ‘the now.’

She grimaced, steeled her heart, closed her eyes, and reluctantly let her mind again wander back over the events of the past year. Strangely enough, for the first time, the exercise didn’t tie her in knots. Instead, she found herself feeling safe and comfortable. For the first time in a very long time Connie realized that she really did feel safe. Even standing there with her hands immersed in warm water knowing her backside was about to find its self in hotter water.

Royal was a descent man, even if he was on the stern and gruff side. This place was the safest place she’d been in since before her mother married the monster who’d driven her out into the desperate life she’d been living. Connie let herself smile. She had a warm bed and a roof over her head for at least the next two or three months. “The only thing I have to fear right now is my own bad temper,” her smile turned wry with that truth. Her temper was no small obstacle.

“That’s enough dawdling! We don’t have all night for you to waste playing in dishwater,” Royal intruded on the reverie that was helping Connie find some measure of calm. Connie bit her tongue to hold back the saucy answer that involuntarily surged up into her throat and threatened to come out.

“I’m finished,” she grumbled moving to the coat pegs to reach for her coat. “I’ll take the water out and be right back.”

“Leave it! You still have your own plate to rinse after I get through with your backside,” Royal snapped. “Get up there and get into your nightshirt. We’ll not put this off any longer. Make sure you take those drawers off while you’re about it. We’ll do this right.”

Mild panic shot through her body when Connie obediently climbed the ladder to the loft. “I can’t believe I’m just doing what he says and making myself ready for him to spank and put to bed like a child!”

Her fingers trembled on the buttons and ties that held up the clothes she’d been given. Clumsy though her hands were, Connie shortly found herself stripped down to her thin cotton shift and the folded over bloomers. The warmth from the fire on the hearth and the one in the stove was trapped up in the loft and around her under the rafters. Even so, the exposure sent a brief chill through her.

“Get the lead out up there now!” Royals’ voice boomed renewing the nervous energy that had Connie almost trembling.

“I’m looking for the nightshirt. Just give me a minute will you!” Connie stifled the petulant urge to stamp her foot. ‘Jesus man! It’s not like I can run away from you or anything!’ she resorted to muttering, while turning over the pillow, and then the comforter looking for the nightgown she’d tucked away when she made the bed.

“If you’re not down here by the time I count twenty, you’ll find out what happens in this house to women who defy with passive gestures like stalling.”

“Just a minute please!” Connie’s mouth went dry with the reality that the man was itching to spank the living daylights out of her, and the knowledge that he was getting irritated about it in the bargain.

‘It’s just a spanking!’ Connie reminded herself while she tried to restore the calm she’d managed to find doing the dishes. “Yeah but remember what his hand felt like?” she cringed and whispered into the night gown that she was unfolding and puffing up over her head. She had no time to appreciate the simple beauty of the delicate, crisp, white poplin garment with its eyelet lace trim.

“Can I keep my socks on?” she called down nervously slipping her bloomers off as the gown shimmied down her torso.

“Twenty-five!” Royals’ voice boomed back up. “Keep your socks and get down here now!”

A wave of gooseflesh prickled across her bare backside when Connie turned to step around and back down the ladder. The long gown covered her completely, but the fabric was light and did not feel like much protection. “I can’t believe I’m going to willingly let him do this!” she complained to the wooden ladder. She hadn’t intended that Royal hear her, but he immediately let her know he had.

“You’ll ‘let’ him do what he sees fit when you behave like a hellion in his home!”

“Well, I don’t even know you yet,” Connie shot an answer back before she could stop her mouth. “The least you could do is give me a chance to do that. A girl should at least have a chance to settle in and learn the rules before she’s beaten to a pulp over breaking them.”

“How’s that?” Royal couldn’t help but laugh. The little strawberry blond was as bold and fiery as his Mary was.

“You heard me!” Connie set her chin in a defiant pose. “Some people give other people time to get to know them before they start making rules.”

“Well most people don’t steal a man’s food for weeks, invade his house while he’s away, plan to steal his horse and then when he’s been kind enough to give them a home for the winter, most folks won’t then turn around and curse the man and otherwise carry on like a street urchin as the way they show their thanks.”

Connie closed her eyes when she heard the bald facts listed so plainly. She certainly had managed to make an unusual impression, and the man had definitely been amazingly generous to her.

“I had my reasons,” was all she could think to say.

“Reasons you’d best tidy up and put away unless you’re planning on spending some time across my lap every evening while you’re living under this roof,” Royal stiffened and moved over to sit down on one of the rough hewn armless chairs near the table. “Go over there and bring me that hairbrush and then you park yourself right here,” he pointed to the floor by his right foot.

Connie’s eyes followed his hand gestures. Again she had to fight the urge to argue. Nervous energy was making her bladder rebel. The imminent prospect of being spanked made her stomach tumble and her groin clench involuntarily.

There was little she could do except comply with his instructions. If she fought him he might use force, and if she made things too difficult, she might find herself out in the snow. Modesty and embarrassment made her blush and wrap her arms across her chest and torso.

“Do as I say girl!” Royals’ patience was beyond tested. He could hardly believe how completely upside down his quiet life had been turned in only a matter of days. After years living alone and mostly content with it, here he was loosing his temper with a slip of a woman and fixing to blister her backside for sass and defiance.

“OK! I’m doing it!” Connie couldn’t help the whine that found its way onto her voice.

The brush was heavy with a four inch oval back, and five inch long handle. No doubt it would make an effective a paddle. Connie had a friend once who described being spanked with a hairbrush as the most horrible punishment possible. At the time Connie only half believed the story. Now she was about to find out first hand.

“Please Mr. Lee,” Connie pleaded nervously when she handed Royal the brush. “I promise I’ll try to be more respectful in the future. I just lost my temper. I’ve been struggling and fending for myself under difficult circumstances for so long I forgot how to be civilized.”

“I’m sure you will,” Royal nodded and took the brush. “This’ll give you some incentive to remember that promise and keep it. Put yourself down here now.”

Her heart pounded out of control when Connie eyed the man’s lap where he’d just patted the flat of the brush on his leg. What she felt in the moment before she submitted and laid herself down across it was more than just fear of a painful encounter with a hairbrush. She dreaded the pain, but more than that she realized that she dreaded the possibility that she might cry.

Fear had been piling up within her for so long and now she finally felt some measure of safety; but here, like this, facing a naughty girl’s punishment at the hands of the man whose decency made her feel safe, Connie felt the wall of emotions she’d kept well under control threaten to break through her well constructed dam.

“You ready?” Royal laid the flat of the brush across the fleshy part of Connie’s right thigh.

Connie bit her lip to hold back the sob that threatened. Her response was to grip the legs of the chair he sat on, and nod her head in the affirmative.

“Alright then.” Royal tugged the fabric of the nightgown up.

“Oh!” Connie objected and tried to push back up off his lap. “No! Please!”

“When you earn a paddling in this house young lady you get it proper. All spanking gets delivered where it’ll do the most good the fastest; on the bare backside! Maybe you’ll think about the effect having your backside bare has on your pride next time you let your pride lead you around by your nose.”

Royal wasted no more time on formalities, and Connie had no more time to worry about her bottom being exposed. She was also instantly galvanized to fight. All of the attention that was focused on the fear that she might cry was stolen for the moment, by intense burning pain.

“OW! EIY!” Connie’s body stiffened with the scalding first impact of the brush. “OW! Oh please! Ow! Oh God! Ow!” she bucked desperately with the next several spanks. Royals’ hand had been bad, but this was like nothing she’d experienced before.

Royal easily held her in place, and kept dutifully to the task he’d set for himself. He would have a properly contrite little lady on his hands by the time he was through with this exercise, even if it wore him out to do it.

“Ow! Oh God! Ow! Please!” Connie’s cries were muffled and half strangled by the efforts of her struggles to get away from the pain. Royal held her firm, and ignored her pleas.

Connie could not believe how much the brush hurt. Nothing she did was successful to get away from it. She tried kicking, twisting, and bucking to get away, flailing her arms and folding up her legs up to protect herself, but Royal had an immediate and effective counter measure for each move she made. In short order, not only was her voice growing hoarse from all the roaring and hollering she was doing, but her legs were pinned between his, her arms were trapped against the small of her back, and her bottom was propped up at an even better angle so that Royal could spank her even harder and faster.

For a few minutes, all Connie could do was howl and struggle uselessly to the unrelenting cadence of the merciless spanking. The only thought on her mind, escape, was equally useless.

“OOOOWWWW!” Reaching her breaking point, in desperation, she tried to effect what she hoped he would hear as a ‘final’ defeated scream.

It didn’t seem to sink in. Royal just kept spanking.

“Please! You’re killing me!” Connie changed her tune to a pitiful whimper. She was desperate, but still able to think and try another approach.

“Getting through am I?” Royal sounded reassured and pleased.

“Yes!” Connie wailed. “Please! It hurts!”

“I am sure it does.” Instead of easing up, Royal increased his tempo. “A proper spanking is supposed to hurt.”

“Ow! Please!” Connie was loosing some of her starch and as that happened the urge to cry began to well back up to the surface.

“Stop fighting me,” Royal spoke those words at just the right moment. The dam broke, and Connie began to cry. In only a few moments, her body heaved with inconsolable wrenching sobs.

Royal recognized the satisfactory change in muscle tone and slowed the pace of the spanking some. “Are you going to curb your temper and keep a civil tongue?” he asked delivering a hand full of sharp smacks with the question.

“Yes, I promise,” Connie choked out an answer.

“Because if you sass and cuss at me again like you did in the barn tonight, this is what you will get. Do you understand me?” Royal was firm, though the tone of his voice had softened,

“Yes!” Connie sobbed. “Please stop! Please!”

“Not quite yet,” Royal started a short but serious new spanking. “This is what you get when you dawdle and delay a consequence.”

He made a very effective point with about thirty more solid, sharp licks.

“Please!” Connie cried. “Please no more! No more…”

“You didn’t like that one bit do you?” Royal stopped spanking and held her still.

Connie answered with wrenching sobs and a shake of her head “no!”

“You’d do well to keep this in mind for next time then,” Royal pointed out. “If you earn a lickin,’ you take it when it’s due, otherwise you’ll end up getting more right when you’re past the point of being able to take any more. Got that clear in your mind now?”

Connie nodded her head because that was all she could manage.

“That’s much better now.” Royal lifted and tugged her up and around, and guided her over to the rocker to sit with him curled up in his lap.

Connie resisted his efforts to pull her to him, but almost all of her fight was gone. When his arms wrapped around her torso and he leaned back in the chair to rock with her, all of Connie’s reserve fell away. She melted against him and dissolved into the flood of tears she could no longer hold back.

Royal was expecting Connie to cry. Mary always cried long and hard after he administered what she’d earned when she worked herself up to where she needed a sound spanking and accounting. So he wasn’t surprised by how soft and rubbery Connie became when he settled her against his chest and began to rock with her. It became clear to him in a little while though, when her sobs only intensified as he attempted to console and reassure her that Connie was not just crying over hurt feelings and properly released pent up stress.

”What is it little one?” Royal coaxed when Connie’s sobs showed no signs of abating after almost twenty minutes. “You’ve had a spanking and the world is all right again. No need for all this sorrow now. It’s all over and put away.”

Royals’ gentle words and the reassuring squeeze of his arms around her only served to renew Connie’s wrenching sobs. In the life he led with Mary, the catharsis of a spanking had always been exactly what was necessary to clean up and put away the worst of her moods. He’d always been there and known what ever was behind them. This time, with this girl he was not at all prepared for what was about to come out.

When Connie started to answer, she couldn’t stop.

“I’m not a bad person, please believe me!” the words heaved out with hiccups and barely caught breath.

“I know you’re not. There’s no worry there. You’re a good kid who’s had a run of bad luck and just needed a little reminder to be civil,” Royal tried to sooth. His gentle handling relaxed and dismissed all of Connie’s guardian inhibitions.

“She died with the baby, and he told me I had to go to his bed or leave his house, I had to get away or he would have hurt me, and then I couldn’t get a job, no one wanted me except the saloon man, when he gave me a job I wouldn’t go with the men, so he beat me, but I wouldn’t because I never had been with one, but the other one beat me and made me, so I when I could walk again I took money and I ran, I got lost and my horse died, so when I found your food I stole it because I was hungry and desperate, I wasn’t going to keep your horse, and you know how to hunt so it made sense at the time, I never meant to! I never meant to!”

“Slow down there,” Royal squeezed Connie’s shoulders. His hand moved up to stroke her hair. “Start from the beginning and tell me the whole thing so I can follow it all the way.”

Connie couldn’t speak for a few minutes. She was lost in the wrenching sorrow that had been lifted to the surface by the flood of emotions she’d just lost control of. Royal just rocked with her, and let her find her own time.

Time stood still when Connie finally found her voice. Royal listened and comforted her as she shared everything about her life over the past year and a half. It was all he could do to control the anger he felt toward the stepfather who’d betrayed her and the man who’d abused and taken her virtue. No wonder she was so quick and easy to anger. Unsettling though they were, many things about her appearance and the things she’d done made sense to him now. It would be easier to understand where her rage came from now, Royal reasoned as Connie hiccupped and sobbed into a light exhausted slumber in his arms. He rocked with her for a good long while.

Eventually the reality that it had been a very long day and Royal had had almost no sleep in over forty eight hours settled in. Even though he might have wished for a quieter Christmas, he found comfort in the idea that his home and his firm hand might well be a blessing for the young lady who now dozed fitfully in his arms.

He had no choice but to disturb her.

“Time for bed now Connie,” he squeezed and gently nudged her sides. “We both have a whole lot of work to do tomorrow.”

Connie stirred. Her breath hitched with the lingering hiccups of sobs slowly spending the last pennies of sorrow.

“Will you be alright up there by yourself?” Royal tipped her chin up so he could see her eyes.

Connie smiled weakly and nodded.

“Good,” Royal smiled. “I need my bed tonight.” He lifted her to her feet, and guided her to the foot of the ladder.

“Call me if you need anything. I’ll hear you alright?” he patted her bottom and gave her a push up the rungs.

Both of them slipped under their covers and fell into deep restful sleep.

Mary came to both of them in dreams.

Winter Wonders Chapter 3

Wednesday, December 12th, 2007

by patty copyriht 2003 updated 2007

 need to find Chapter 2 & 1.  follow this link

Connie soaked in the hot water thinking back over the morning, the last few weeks, and then back over the last few years. The water’s silken heat accentuated the calm that was beginning to settle down around her.“If only this winter was forever,” she closed her eyes, letting herself feel safe for the first time in as far back as she dared let her memory go.The grime of all of her weeks on the trail took some scrubbing to get off. One round of soaping lifted one layer, and then when Connie started back around to rinse off, her palm loosened, lifted and rolled up the next one in softened small grayish pills of oils and skin. The water was tepid and clammy-cool before her fingers finally squeaked over a smooth surface of clean flesh. Connie grimaced when after she stood and stepped out of the tub, she turned and saw all the dirt she’d been wearing in the scum that floated on the now filthy milk-brown water. Embarrassed that that was only what her flesh carried, Connie dropped her clothes in the water to soak and take some of the blame for its color.

The clean clothes Royal brought down from the loft for her to wear were serviceable, clean and decidedly female. The chemise was definitely made for a woman better endowed than she was. Even so, Connie couldn’t help smile as her hands smoothed the soft cotton with its lace trim and silk ribbons against her skin. She was a woman again!

“Look at these bloomers!” she whispered, lifting the next white cotton garment. In her whole life, she’d never seen underwear so pretty. They were also made for a woman who carried more flesh than she did, but Connie had no trouble cinching the ties well enough that they would stay up.

The soft wool blouse was cut to fit loose by design, and when Connie pulled the skirt up over it she made a picture in her mind of how the outfit might look on the woman who fit it properly. That woman wasn’t Connie, but she would make do. A snug fold on the side and three rolls of the waist band and she was able to situate the skirt so that it was not dragging under her feet.

Twirling around in the center of the room, Connie smiled. She felt pretty, and she felt good. Maybe Royal would let her keep it and alter it so it fit her better.

Tidying up the dishes from breakfast was the first thing she took care of after she was dressed. Next was washing the sheets from Royal’s bed. Those, Connie set to simmering in the large stock pot Royal used to boil the water for her tub. Then she squatted next to the tub to see what she could do with her clothes.

~ooo00ooo~

Bossy was not in a cooperative mood when Royal got out to the barn to start the morning chores. Twice she kicked up, objecting to the ministrations of his hands on her teats. His mind, distracted by thoughts of his houseguest and the events of the last two days, might have put more squeeze on his fingers than normal, but Royal griped at the cow anyway. He was too tired to see past what he needed to get done, and he was inclined to fuss at any impediment to it that came up. “What in God’s name am I going to do with a half grown woman cooped up here with me all winter Mary?” he grumbled as he stepped out and began to shovel a wider path between the barn, the house and the outhouse. “A sassy one to boot!” he lamented. “I’m too old and too set in my ways for this.”

There was another brief lull in the winds, but snow was still falling. No doubt he’d be out clearing the paths again before dark. It was as good a time as any to set the wind breaks, even if he was close to dead on his feet. The work would do him good getting things ironed out in his mind.

While he climbed up into the barn loft and pulled down the thick bundles of stakes and woven leather strips that had served as a snow fence and wind break for the past six winters, Royal thought about what he would do with the girl. If she was going to eat his food and live under his roof, she’d work for her keep that was for sure. He wondered if she could cook, and how much trouble she’d give him if he put her to work in the barn doing the milking and tending the stock. Mary had been a good hand with a hammer and an axe, and she was no stranger to shoveling snow either. “Yep,” he nodded to himself, “That thieving little hellion is going to pull her weight or go hungry.”

When the full length of the snow fence was set with the longer stakes pounded well into the still soft soil under the first fall, Royal leaned back stretching the kinks out of his thirty three year old frame. He felt at least twenty years older than he was under the weight of nothing but a few stolen moments of sleep, long hours in the saddle, and as many long hours of hard physical labor.

“The girl will do the milking and what’s left of the chores come evening,” he told the hammer as he set it back on it’s shelf in the barn. The last thing he did before collecting eggs and heading back up to the house was fill three burlap sacks tightly full of straw.

 ~ooo00ooo~

“I thought you might’ve gone off again,” Connie spoke up, when Royal pushed open the door and kicked his boots free of snow.

That wasn’t really true, since she’d heard the pounding of the hammer on the stakes of the wind break as he set it, and saw him moving about on the property through the window. She mainly said it by way of making conversation and noting that’s he’d been outside a long time.

Royal didn’t answer. Instead he caught his breath and stared at the small little woman with the soft strawberry blond curls wearing Mary’s favorite blue dress. It took him a second to process the image and adapt to the mixed feelings of sadness and appreciation. Aware he was staring; he turned his head away, and surveyed the room. He noted that she’d made herself busy. The sheets and her clothes hung from twine strung up from wall to wall in front of the fire. He could smell biscuits, and the stew he made before leaving heating on the stove.

“What did you do with the tub, and the water in it?” he asked.

Connie winced that his first question addressed the one thing she wasn’t sure she’d done right.

“I used the bucket for the water until I could lift it,” she answered. “I dumped it off the side of the porch. The tub is back up there, in the loft.”

Royal nodded in the direction she pointed, and shrugged out of his coat. “In the future, you’ll carry your bath water out to the tree line beyond the line between the barn and the spring house. There’s a garden there that does well with the water and the minerals from the soap.”

Connie nodded, thankful that he wasn’t angry with her short cut. “I will.”

“You made biscuits?” Royal leaned down and opened the cast iron door on the wood stove’s small oven.

“Is that OK?” Connie shrugged and nodded.

“Course it’s OK. I’m pleased to know you have some skill in the kitchen, since that’ll be one of your chores while you’re here.” Royal ignored the uncertainty in her answer.

“I ain’t much of a hand at it, but I’ll try,” Connie agreed to what she assumed was an order.

“Aren’t,” Royal growled.

“Aren’t?” Connie’s expression crinkled into a puzzled expression.

“You aren’t much of a hand at it. Ain’t, ain’t a word,” he explained raising an eyebrow and watching her reaction to being corrected.

Connie curled her mouth into an “Oh,” and blushed that she’d missed his meaning the first time. Many times, her mother had corrected her in exactly the same way.

“The wash hangs in the barn from now on too,” Royal pointed to the laundry line strung up in his living room. “The dripping water’ll rot the floor.”

“Oh,” Connie blushed again. “I didn’t think about that. I’m sorry.” She wasn’t getting off to as good a start as she hoped as a proper house guest.

“Expect you will think about it next time though, right?” Royal dismissed the point.

Connie shrugged and nodded and then gingerly sat back down on the rocker.

“Don’t get too comfortable youngun’.” Royal crooked his fingers waving Connie back up out of the chair. “Up there in the large trunk you’ll find more sheets, some blankets and a bolt of ticking. First thing you’ll do is make my bed back up for me, and then pull together a mattress for yourself with the ticking and two or three of the blankets. There’s straw out on the porch.”

Royal watched Connie take in his instructions, and then absently scan the room and the rim of the loft with her eyes. He smiled. A spanking and a bath sure seemed to do wonders for her disposition. He’d expected more lip and sass than he was getting. Instinct told him her spirit and defiance would be back, but for now, he was encouraged that there was a moldable human being inside the gamine frame occupied by his erstwhile thief and intruder.

“You can make your bed up there if that’s your preference,” he nodded, remembering the request she’d made earlier in the morning. “Should be nice and warm up there, that’s certain,” he added with a smile.

Connie climbed back up into the loft, and got busy clearing the cedar boxes off the large trunk Royal said she’d find the sheets and what not in. Curiosity nibbled at her as she caught sight of silver frames and knick knacks in two of the boxes, and lacey fabric in another. “Later!” she scolded herself, resisting the temptation to sidle away from her chore to snoop.

Making Royal’s bed back up took Connie almost no time, and then she hauled the burlap sacks of straw up into the loft. It was too dark up there to see properly, and she had nothing she could use to secure the ticking or blankets around the burlap and straw.

“That was fast,” Royal commented when she started back down the ladder.

“No sir,” Connie admitted. “I can’t see to do it right from up there, and I need some thread twine and a darning needle.”

“Use the lamp there on the table. I’ll get you a needle. You’ll have to pull thread from the burlap. There’s no spare twine to fray for sewing.”

Royal got up from the reading he was doing and went into the bedroom to locate a needle.

“Dish up some stew for us both,” he called out from his bedroom. “We may as well eat something before either of us start on chores that’ll take time to do proper.”

Connie obeyed, and set food out on the table, listening while Royal rummaged, cussed and grumbled in the other room. There was a long silence. Some bumps, scrapes and a last growl. When he finally came out, Royal’s expression was dark. He had a darning needle, but it seemed he had something on his mind too.

“You were in those boxes under my bed,” he leveled a look her way that made Connie’s still sore backside prickle with anticipation.

“I was just trying to find out who you were so I could send what I owed to the right person,” Connie swallowed against a fear dried cotton wad in her throat.

“Find what you were looking for?” his growl was ominous.

“Yes,” Connie’s answer was a whisper.

“Anything else?” he knew the answer, but was not going to press. To do so would unravel his heart.

“No,” Connie barely whispered her lie. Royal knew it for the lie it was.

“There is nothing under there that concerns you. Is that clear?” The command behind his words was unmistakable. If you need something and can’t find it, you ask me or you do without. I won’t stand for a snoop.”

“Yessir,” Connie blushed and looked down at her hands that were fidgeting with the edge of the table. She pulled them back behind her so he wouldn’t see her guilty gestures.

“I want to hear you say it youngun,” Royal demanded. “You’ll stay out of the boxes and what not under my bed.”

“I will,” Connie answered, her heart sinking with the promise. Mary was under there, along with the story of her life with this man.

“Say the words Constance,” Royal warned.

“I’ll stay out of what’s under your bed,” she promised, closing her eyes another lie, and using the childish protection of crossed fingers behind her back to protect herself from it.

“Alright,” Royal accepted. “See that you do, or that dusting you got this morning will seem like a birthday pitty-pat spanking.”

The pair sat down to left over, reheated venison stew and biscuits in silence. Both were lost in their own private thoughts of Mary and the journals she’d kept.

~ooo00ooo~

Royal dozed off in the rocker during the late afternoon hours while Connie fashioned a mattress for herself from the straw and blankets and ticking Royal provided. “It’ll do,” she sighed punching the finished product. She could just feel the floor boards under her hip bones, but it was definitely going to be more comfortable than the rocks and dirt of the trail, especially when covered with a sheet and one of the feather pillows her host had down on his bed. Her bed roll, once she washed it, and the quilt she used to dry off from her bath with, would go a long way to making it even more comfortable.It was dark, and the fires on the hearth and in the wood stove, were reduced to embers when Connie made her way back down to the main room. Royal stirred with the creaks from the ladder as she descended.“Jezuz!” he hissed and then groaned. Every muscle in his body objected to the sudden movement that came from being startled awake. “Half the day wasted,” Royal grumbled looking at his pocket watch and angling it to the lamp light next to him.

Royal still was able to remember the plans he made earlier about the evening’s milking and chores.

“Get your coat on,” he barked gruffly as he lifted himself stiffly up out of his rocker.

“My coat! What for?” Connie retorted. Confusion colored her voice with what sounded like defiance even to her.

“You heard me. We have chores to do, and you’ll earn your keep,” Royal answered, his brow lifted in an expression that warned Connie not to question him again.

“You don’t have to order me you know,” Connie bristled moving over to lift her coat from its hook. “I never said I wouldn’t do my share.”

“Don’t sass me youngun,” Royal warned.

“Then don’t call me that either!” Connie countered. “I’m no kid, and my name is Connie. I’ll thank you to use it.”

Royal’s eyebrow lifted. Again his expression darkened. “I have a sturdy wooden brush in that bedroom. Would you like me to use it where it’ll cure your saucy mouth right quick?”

Connie ignored the question and turned toward the door while she shrugged her arms into her coat sleeves. “What chores will you have me do?”

Royal tromped over to the door himself, and pulled his coat down. There was silence for the minute or two it took him to put it on and reach for his boots. Connie had her boots on too when he finally spoke.

“Do you know how to feed stock and milk a cow?” The question came out short and sharp.

“I think I can manage it,” Connie snapped back.

“Oats, cornmeal and hay for the pigs. Three scoops of oats, one of meal and two hefty forks of hay. Half that for Bossy. Toss two fists of meal on the floor for the hens. Collect what eggs there are and milk the cow. Milk and eggs go in the root cellar where you stole my food last week. You take care of what business you have in the outhouse, and then go on in and see what you can rustle up for supper.”

“And what are you going to be doing while I do all that?” Connie’s retort was again more defiant than she intended.

“Did you get nothing out of that lesson I gave you this morning that you’d court another like it so soon?” Royal stopped short on the porch and wheeled around to look her in the eye.

“You don’t have to order me or talk so short to me. I’ll work and pull my weight,” Connie backed off her saucy attitude a little hoping he would agree she was earnest and worthy of trust.

“My house,” Royal growled and trumped down the steps toward the barn. The snow was back up to the tops of his boots. “You’re the one whose sassy backside’s dropped in here uninvited. You’d do well to remember that. Now get to work.” He made sure to add on and emphasize a military timbre to the command of the last four words.

Connie held back the string of cusses that choked up from her gut. “Damn it! I’ll show him I know how to work.”

In the barn, Royal pointed out the feed, and saw Connie started on the routine. Then he picked up the shovel from the corner, and headed out to clear the foot or more of snow that had drifted up over and filled the paths.

“Make darned sure you wash your hands before you start supper, is that clear?” There was little if any reason for that addition, except Royal wanted to make damned sure Connie understood who was boss.

She looked up and glared back at Royal. He was deliberately baiting her to sass him. The look she gave him was hot enough to melt steel, but there was almost no steel out here in the wilds of Idaho. There wasn’t even much in the way of politics in this disciplinary world yet. Connie said nothing, although it took all of her will power to do it.

Feeding the animals was simple. There were only three eggs, but she had nothing to put them in while she milked the cow, so she left them on their nests while she contemplated the cow’s udder.

“It can’t be that hard,” she grimaced, lifting the bucket and the stool and then sidling over to sit by the animal.

“Whoa bossy,” Connie startled and patted the animal’s haunch when it bawled and stepped sideways nearly knocking her backward. “I’m not going to hurt you girl, I’m just going to milk you is all. OK?” She patted and reassured several times. “Will you let me do that?” she asked and patted some more.

Bossy wasn’t sure, and that was evident with her nervous shifting and hoof stamping each time Connie tried to handle one of her teats.

“You afraid I’ll hurt you old girl?” Connie crooned and patted the cow some more. “I’ll try not to I promise. Just let me get this milk out for you. Bet that’ll feel better too won’t it? Lighter and better old girl?”

Bossy balked and bawled again. Eventually she did let Connie grasp one of her teats, and not wanting to spook the animal again, Connie just held it for a minute or so letting Bossy adapt to the contact. “What do I do now girl?” she whispered after the cow was still for her long enough.

“Do I squeeze? Or do I pull?” She tried both without success. Bossy bawled and stomped again, but she put up with the clumsy handling she was enduring.

Several minutes of useless effort later, Connie was getting frustrated. The last thing she wanted was to have to go and tell Royal Lee that she didn’t know how to milk a cow.

Whimpering with near defeat, and stubborn determination, Connie palpated each of Bossy’s teats and the warm distended udder above them. She could feel the liquid reflux up away from her palm when she tried to squeeze. “How do I make it go the right way?” she complained and leaned her head into the cow’s now compliant side. Tired and ready to give up, Connie let her grip relax just a bit, and tugged down gently massaging the reddened tissue she’d been squeezing. She felt milk descend into the teat behind the pull, hoping she’d open the spigot, she let go and opened her palm. One drop of milk appeared at the end.

“Is that all you’ve got cow?” Connie whined and tried again.

She tried the massaging pull again, still getting nothing more than a drop. “Come oooonnnn cow! Please!?”

“What are you up to in here?” Royal’s bark boomed into the barn startling Connie and Bossy both. Bossy kicked when Connie let out a surprised squeal, and that sent Connie toppling back off the stool and against the barn wall.

“Goddamnit to hell!” Connie yelped.

“What in blue blazes are you doing puttering around in here all this time. Where’s the milk?” Royal demanded.

Connie looked up, half mad, half defeated. Did she tell him she couldn’t do it because she didn’t know how, or find some other explanation for the predicament she found herself in? Her indecision lasted until she saw Royal’s expression go from impatience to disdain. Blind stubborn temper boiled up within her.

“Milk her yourself, you sorry piece of shit!” Connie hissed pushing back away from him and getting up onto her feet.

“Never in my life have I met the likes of you!” Royal lunged over and caught Connie by the scruff of her coat. “Bold and foolish through to the core aren’t you? So brazen you’d run away into the wilderness on your own, get yourself trapped in a blizzard, and not find enough sense to show respect to the man whose life you’ve invaded and turned upside down.”

“Let me go!”

“I’d like to do just that youngun! Let you go right out into that cold dark night right here and now!” Royal pulled her back up tight against him. “But God help me, I’m a descent man and not about to do that.”

“Lemme go!” Connie struggled and whined against the man’s grip.

“Stay still, and listen to me!” Royal took hold of her with both hands and shook Connie hard. It worked. She stopped flailing and struggling and went still.

Royal turned her to face him. “We’re going to get some things straight right here and now,” his glare was dark and filled with intent.

“Yeah? So?” Connie glared back. Defiance completely filled her gut.

“So?” Royal’s brow crooked up with amazed disdain. “So you’re going to spend all of this winter eating your meals standing up if you don’t wise up, that’s what’s so!”

“Go to the devil!” Connie’s eyes snapped with black anger. Fear also surged through her. She knew she could be courting a serious beating. Royal’s face had turned red with anger, and the vein on his forehead pulsed with it. They stood like that held in a deadlock of wills for what felt like forever.

Royal was first to break. He loosened his grip, and then released it. “You get on up to the house. There’s turkey and sweet potatoes wrapped in paper on the shelf. Make a good spread of it or I’ll do worse than take my brush to your backside before you go to bed tonight!” His voice was calm, but hard and cold as frozen steel.

Connie shivered, cringed and had trouble breathing around what she’d just escaped, and what she knew was still coming. It was all she could do to fight back tears and run frantically into the woods when she turned to make her way back to the cabin. There was no good reason for her to rile the man the way she had. None except her foolish pride that is, and that was not a reason she could defend and hold her head up from. It was all she could do to swallow it now and set about making the supper according to his orders. What was she going to do when it came time to take the spanking he promised to give her? Would she make it worse for herself, or shame herself with blubbering and tears the way she wanted to now?

As much as the rage in his eyes had frightened her, Connie half wished he’d taken her over his knee right then and there in the barn. She shivered as she stepped into the outhouse and lifted her new skirt and opened the too big bloomers so she could relieve herself. The outhouse was well built but not equipped to keep out the chill. Connie shivered again. This time the prickling on her bottom was genuine goose flesh. “My stepfather would have spanked me right then,” she winced into her hands. For that matter every man she’d ever known so far in her life would have spanked her immediately.

“No,” she corrected her thinking when she finished and righted her clothes. “They wouldn’t have bothered.” None of those men would have bothered to take her over their knee. They would have taken their hands and fists to her face and body and pummeled her in full fury until their anger found release.

This man was different, and Connie was very confused by the mixed up sense of relief, remorse and angry defiance he made her feel.

All of her life, Connie prided herself on being “the calm one”. She’d always had a temper and a stubborn streak that lurked under the surface, but until the last year, she’d never let it out, nor had she ever let it get the better of her. Now, in these last weeks, it all but ruled her, and it was ruining everything.

“What would you do Mary?” Connie looked up and out toward the ridge where Royal’s wife rested for eternity. She couldn’t help but let one tear escape and trickle down her face. “Why couldn’t I just tell him I didn’t know how? Why did I have to go off like that?”

A short gust of wind buffeted the cabin, as Connie mounted the steps. It shook the glass in the widows, and sent a hiss of fine glazed snow down from the roof onto the wood planks of the porch. The worst of the blizzard seemed to be over, and the night air felt almost warm after the bone chilling howling tempest that had been the weather on and off through most of the day. Connie took the hint, and stepped inside the cabin.

~ooo00ooo~

There was little else she could do but make the supper her host ordered up, not if she wanted to retain what little illusion remained of her sanity.“No sense worrying about what’s done,” she told herself as she pulled down what supplies she’d need to make supper. “Sweet potatoes and turkey he said. Hell there’s carrots and corn too. And cakes and pastries! This is a feast! A Christmas feast!”Connie made supper, licking and tasting everything she put in the skillet or on the peel to heat in the oven. Her thoughts strayed to the man in the barn, and to Mary’s journals under his bed. Would he notice if she took them to read one at a time? She knew what box they were in now. She could get into it without disturbing its location.

“But I promised,” she closed her eyes and balled her fists. “Hell!” she answered her pounding heart. “He’s already going to skin me alive. What else could he do to me?”

Feeling guilty and ashamed for the promise she was breaking, and the privacy she invaded, but much more compelled by a need she couldn’t explain, Connie scrambled into Royal’s bedroom, felt her way under the bed and into the box near the foot. “Please Mary?” she whispered. The books were exactly where she’d left them, and the one she’d been reading was still on top of the pile.

“Oh thank you!” Connie whispered to whatever spirits got her that far. Her legs were almost too weak to make the ladder to her loft, but they did it for her, and she was back down setting the table before Royal stomped up the steps and exploded into he house.

The look in his eyes told her that even though Royal had managed to corral his temper, she was still in a lot of trouble.

“Sit down and eat,” he gestured impatiently to her as he took his coat and boots off. “I’ll join you in a minute.”

After situating his coat neatly, Royal moved over into his bedroom. Connie’s heart pounded with fear that he might be checking on the boxes under his bed. When he came back out with a flat backed wooden hairbrush and set it on the table beside his plate, her heart pounded even more rapidly, although she did feel an inkling of relief that for now the other crime was undiscovered.

“Eat!” Royal snapped, taking Connie’s attention away from the brush.

“What’s that for?” Connie nervously picked at the food on her plate.

Royal almost laughed. “I think you know,” his answer was curt. “Eat.”

Connie picked some more, and managed to swallow a few bites before she spoke. “What if I told you I was sorry?”

“Might take off a few licks I suppose,” Royal nodded.

“Look, I don’t know how to milk a cow OK? I couldn’t do it and I was embarrassed to tell you,” Connie tried to explain.

“I figured that out for myself Constance. Doesn’t excuse the foul language and down right rude behavior,” Royal acknowledged.

“But you startled me,” Connie complained.

Royal cocked his head with amusement. “You are brazen, that’s certain. I recon you just earned back those licks.”

Royal turned his attention back to his meal while Connie once again struggled with her temper.

“I think I could hate you,” was the safest retort she could come up with.

Royal looked back up at her and chuckled. “Eat your supper while it’s hot.”

They ate the rest of the meal in silence.

Hey?

Tuesday, December 11th, 2007

Where’s the beef?

 

Comments, I need comments.  *g* 

Or else this is all you’ll get from me….

 

Yup it’s funny, but it’s not good spankin’ content  …. ya know?  *g*

Please comment, pretty please?

Jiggle Buns

Monday, December 10th, 2007

Jiggle Buns

lyrics modified by patty, 12/10/2007

Spanking hard and slow

So red cheeks bounce and sway

O’re twin mounds he goes

Spanking all the way

Hands and paddles swing

Making cheeks so bright

What fun it is to spank and sting

So butt checks clench so tight!   — Oh!!!!

Jiggle buns

Jiggle buns

Jiggle bounce and sway

Oh what fun it is to spank bare buns that bounce and sway

Hey!

A day or two ago

She dared to tease his pride

So now she meets her woe

A stinging brat lap ride

His hand is raining fire

Hard down upon each bun

In time he’ll spend his ire

And both with seek some fun

Ohhhh!

Jiggle buns

Jiggle buns

Jiggle bounce and sway

Oh what fun it is to spank bare buns that bounce and sway

Hey!

 

Haven’t found a perfect gift yet?

Sunday, December 9th, 2007

Check out this new implement site.  Cane-IAC

just one of many fascinating toys guaranteed to mesmerize spankees and put that evil glint in the eye of any good spanker…

Winter Wonders, Chapter 2

Wednesday, December 5th, 2007

Here is Chapter two.  Two more to come next week. 

Read Chapter 1 frirst

by patty, copyright 2003 - 2007  

Connie’s sleep was deep and restful, even more so than the previous night. As her body renewed itself resting in the warm comfort of shelter and a real bed, her mind wandered through dreams. Dreams that were fueled and fed by the discoveries she’d made about the owner of the bed she slept in.In one dream, Mary sat at the table with her having tea when the man of the house came home, and the chore of explaining who she was and what she was doing there was taken care of by her gracious hostess. In another, the subject of who she was and what she was about never came up, because she was just there along side Royal traveling over rough trails with a wagon train. The terrain they crossed was familiar, flanked by snow-covered mountains and the rough rocky peaks of the saw tooth range. In her dream the same landscape that had felt so lonely and cruel when she traveled it alone, became wondrous and beautiful. Connie’s dream self took in the valleys and vistas again, and what had been imprinted as images filled with dread and discomfort, transformed and became the treasures they should have been.

A sudden hard shift in the wind blowing snow outside the cabin shook the glass in the window above Connie’s head. The sound woke her with a startle. It was daylight! She sat up and looked around the room, and quickly came back to where she was.

****************

Royal settled and groomed his horse, and took a few moments to feed and water the rest of the stock in the barn. Then, hoisting his saddlebags, that sack of goodies from his friend, the found pack filled with contraband and the IOU, he cut a path through the rapidly piling snowdrift between the barn and the cabin. The full moon that briefly illuminated his property as he arrived home had disappeared while he fed and bedded his animals. Snow was falling and the wind was picking up again. The air was markedly colder now than it had been when he was on the trail. His seasoned bones were resigned to the blizzard that was brewing. Royal was glad to be home before the storm got too bad, although he was plenty annoyed that his trip had been for nothing. Even though it had been pleasant to see Lilia and Caleb, the wasted day, the inconvenience on top of the close call with the weather added up to a hefty tab for the thieving intruder to pay.

The IOU explained a lot. The thief had been stealing eggs and food for the better part of the past two weeks, and from the looks of things he was planning to steal the horse too. Royal shook his head. Taking food was one thing. Something that could even be overlooked when it came down to right and wrong, but taking a man’s horse in the dead of winter miles from anywhere, that was a crime rightly punishable by prolonged imprisonment.

“In some parts that would get a young man hanged!” Royal muttered to himself as he thought back over the last few days. The ghostly wafting odor of the breakfast he missed out on, the neatly executed raids on his milk and cream in the larder … all of it made more sense now.

Royal didn’t relish the idea that he might be stuck with company for a time until the weather cleared, but he was certain who ever owned the pack, wasn’t likely to be far off. With the weather as bad as it was, even a thief would need shelter. “Better to have him where I can see him, than have to wonder when he’ll make a move on my horse,” he growled, and resolved to hunt for the culprit come daylight.

The cabin was warm. Coals and embers still glowed from the wood stove under the stew pot.

“Someone’s been here,” he nodded to himself and scanned the dark room.

There was no sign of life other than the reality that coals don’t stay stoked in a wood stove for more than eighteen hours on their own. Lighting the kerosene lamp, Royal moved quietly to check in the bedroom, and sure enough, there between his sheets was the smallish frame of the individual Royal surmised was his thief. He could only see the top of the boy’s head, the rest of him buried under the quilts, but the matted strawberry blond curls had the tossed thickness of youth. He grimaced when he realized the shadow on his pillow under the boy’s head was grime.

“At least I know where you are,” Royal spoke to the sleeping frame. “You’d best enjoy that bed while you can.”

He stepped away, and directed his energy to putting away the food his friends had given him, along with what he found in the barn. Royal shook his head as he went through the inventory that he unloaded from the pack. The boy’s booty would have made a significant dent in Royal’s winter stores. “This just might call for a good taste of a horse whip!” He ruminated over the implications of a full winter stranded with no horse and scavenged food stores. When the boy woke up, he was in for a very serious reckoning.

Lilia’s cakes distracted Royal from the anger that was brewing in his chest. “Fresh coffee would go nicely with some cake.”

Royal stepped outside, and cut another path to the larder, this one was made easier, because the structure was sheltered from the wind by the trees and the cabin. He scooped a full jar of milk and another of cream off the top. This morning he would have a breakfast fit for a king, and he just might make that thieving beggar watch him eat it too.

Back inside he made himself comfortable in the rocker, and waited for his coffee to brew, and the cake to warm on the stove. He gave some thought to laying a full fire on the hearth on the other side of the room, but decided it was plenty warm enough with just the heat put off by the stove. The long hours on horseback and the late hour conspired with the chair and the warmth of the cabin to force Royal’s body to rest. His muscles gave up some of their tension, and the lids of his eyes drooped.

The rich aroma of brewed coffee crept into his awareness just as his catnap found its nadir. It was enough of a nap to leave him feeling refreshed, but not so much, that his body felt the loss of the real sleep it craved. The coffee did the rest. It would be daylight soon. Time to tend the animals, milk the cow, and deal with the miscreant that occupied his bed. Royal was re-energized, and it showed in his quiet determined posture.

Reading by lamplight, he filled the remaining hour before dawn engrossed in the life of a young man making his way on a Mississippi river boat. The new writer Mark Twain was making quite a name for himself by all accounts, and Royal could see why. The story was a good one. He would have to make a point to watch for new works next time he made it into town.

The dawn showed up late thanks to the heavy cloud cover and the muting blanket of wind blown snow that covered the cabin and the wilderness around it. The thief still slept soundly in his bed, when Royal decided it was past time to collect the eggs and milk the cow. To pre-empt any escape attempt, should the thief wake up while Royal attended his chores, he collected the boy’s coat and boots from the floor by the bed and propped a chair up under the door handle and secured the bedroom door shut tight. He might be fool enough to try and get out the window, but without boots and his coat, the thief wouldn’t get far.

Royal took the extra step of locking the cabin door as well. If the boy did shimmy out the window, it would serve him right to find himself stranded outside in the cold. 

********************* Connie could smell coffee, and the door to the main room was closed. The man was home! He must have seen her, but why didn’t he wake her? Pushing the covers back, she climbed out of the bed, and immediately noticed that her boots were gone. She moved to the door, and found it jammed shut. The knob turned freely, but her full weight against it could not budge it. She was locked in! Frantic, she looked around for an alternative exit. The window was it.Standing on the bed, she pushed up the sash, and looked out at the forbidding scene made by the drifted snow still being deposited by a fierce howling wind. “I don’t have any boots!” she moaned to herself, and then looked around the room to confirm that she also didn’t have a coat.

What to do now? She was trapped with only a fool’s exit.

Her choice was to go back to the door, and pound on it begging to be let out. “Please sir! I can explain! Can I come out please?”

There was no answer, and no sound from the other room. “Has he gone away again?” she wondered.

Mild panic set in with that thought. “Please let me out! Please!” Connie pounded and shook the door again. “I have to relieve myself! I can’t do it in here!”

That thought made her scan the room again, and she found she was mistaken. Hidden just under the foot of the bed was a solid porcelain chamber pot. A beautiful blue flower design was fired into it. Close inspection found it clean, and there was even a dog-eared wad of old newsprint folded across the top. At least she wouldn’t have to disgrace herself if the man Royal ignored her for much longer.

Her next move was to go back to the window. She opened it, and scanned as far as she could see. There was a path cut in the drifts between the cabin and the barn, and the snow around it was freshly disturbed. In the other direction over in the shelter of the trees, the wood door to the larder was cleared, and recent tracks through the loose snow there could be followed back to the cabin as well. The man wasn’t far. Chances were he was down in the barn seeing to chores, just as he always did when she’d watched him from a distance.

“HEY!” she screamed as loudly as she could. “Let me the hell out of here! HEY! Do you hear me?”

She waited a full minute, and when there was no answer or movement from the barn, she yelled again.

“Goddamn you! Let me the hell out of here RIGHT NOW!”

Again there was no answer. Seconds passed, and Connie felt her temper flaring. She tried again.

“HEY! You GODDAMNED idiot peckerwood bonehead! Let me out of here! 

”***********

Royal could hear the hollering from the cabin. “Sounds like the little cretin is awake Bossy,” he spoke to the cow. “Taking the lord’s name in vane too. Looks like a boy in need of some serious lessons has moved in on us old girl.”“The chores come first,” he scolded. “I’ll be up to deal with you presently. Just keep up that caterwauling and you’ll get a serious dose of my belt. 

”************** Connie was hopping mad, when she got no response from the barn after several minutes of screaming. She gave some thought to the possibility that the man wasn’t even there, but dismissed it, figuring it didn’t matter where he was, he had no right to lock her up, or to take away her boots and coat. “He probably put them in the other room,” she reasoned. I could climb out and go around and back in the front door for them?”The idea swam around in her thoughts for a moment. “What if they aren’t there?” she asked herself. “So? At least you’ll be out of this room, you could get some coffee, and you can meet the bastard on your own terms in his own front room.”

That seemed to satisfy her, and so she decided.

Her heavy, matted wool socks offered only momentary protection from the ice cold of the snow. Even though the wool was caked with weeks of grime, her warm feet quickly melted what snow stuck to the wool, and the wet became a wick for the cold. Her flannel shirt offered no protection from the wind, and the icy blast against her skin made her shiver and cringe, instantly reminding her that she had not taken the time to relieve herself yet. Her bladder contracted firmly against the hot fluid it wanted to expel.

She ran as fast as she could up onto the porch, and pulled hard on the door. It held fast. “Goddamn it!” she screamed. “Oh! You peckerwood bastard! Let me in!” Connie shook and pounded on the door. The combined effect of her anger, the cold and her urgent need to pee made her desperate.

The door would not give, and the sash of the window next to it held fast. She could see the small iron latch that held it down from inside. The only way to get it open would be to break one of the panes. She was angry enough that that kind of destruction was appealing, but something in her held it back. She turned and scanned the terrain beyond the porch. The outhouse was a good two hundred yards away. At least she would be out of the wind in there, she thought. Her feet were almost numb they were so cold. Another choice was to go back around and climb back in the bedroom.

Hopping up and down, and starting to feel even more desperate, Connie weighed her options. She decided on the bedroom, and ran back around. She hadn’t realized how high the window ledge had been. It was beyond her reach even standing on tiptoe. She tried jumping for the sill, but each time she landed it felt like jagged nails of cold pierced up into her bones. Her feet hurt too much to make the outhouse now, and she couldn’t get back in the window. Back on the porch, Connie fought tears of pain and frustration with the predicament she’d gotten herself into.

She was trembling, and her hands were now almost as cold and painful as her feet were. She made a fist inside the sleeve of her shirt, and tried to punch the windowpane in. She could not manage the strength needed to shatter the thick leaded pane with her hand. Hot tears scorched her icy cold cheeks, as she pulled her fist back again and again frantic to get back inside the cabin.

“Now you just hold up there!” Royal’s voice boomed behind her.

“Christ Jesus!” Connie screamed whirling around to face the big man who now loomed right behind her. Her bladder nearly emptied, but she doubled over and crossed her legs to stop it.

“Got yourself in a pickle have you?” Royal couldn’t help but laugh.

Connie only sobbed.

“Come on now. Get inside,” Royal had no patience for tears from a boy. Especially not one who deserved every ounce of the fix he was in.

Connie had no more capacity for rational thought. Her crazed acts and choices of the last half hour were the culmination of the slower spiral that had been her life out of control for well over a year. She knew the panic and sorrow would numb again shortly, but in that moment, trembling uncontrollably from the cold, the awful needle like pain in her feet and hands, and her desperately full bladder took over and wrenched it to the surface in a rush of tears.

“Lemme go!” she squealed when Royal’s hand clamped around her arm. He was simply steering her toward the door that was now unlocked and open. Unable to loosen his grip on her arm, or twist herself free of it, Connie reacted and launched a full on roundhouse kick to Royal’s leg. When her nearly frozen foot impacted the top of his boot the pain was excruciating, forcing her to crumble into a tight ball of agony.

Royal grimaced briefly, the kick was hard enough to bruise him some, but mainly it aggravated him. He lifted the small creature inside the cabin by its arm, and dropped it on the floor while he closed the door behind him and slipped himself out of his coat.

Connie stayed where he dropped her, curled in a ball, rocking and nursing her destroyed foot.

“I won’t abide a boy who bawls like a girl!” Royal growled when she didn’t straighten up after several minutes. “Get up and face me proper, before I give you a real reason to cry!”

His booming voice made it through Connie’s misery, and she looked up dumbfounded. “Boy?” she asked, at first confused, and then she realized his mistake. “I am NOT a boy!” Indignation was exactly what she needed to hold on to for distraction from her woes.

Royal’s jaw dropped as he watched the grimy creature on his floor, stretch out and sit up, where he could get a better look at it.

“A girl!? A girl has been living alone out here in these woods, pilfering and raiding my stores! What are you doing out here alone? How in Hades did you get this far all by yourself? Where in God’s name did you think you would get with my horse?” Royal’s disdain for a crybaby was gradually being replaced by surprise and disbelief.

“I’m a woman, and I can look after myself!” Connie set her jaw in a defiant glare at the bewildered sputtering man in front of her. “Damn you arrogant men! Who says a woman can’t do for herself out here in this country?”

Royal felt the corners of his mouth threaten to smile. Filthy brown face and greasy matted curls not withstanding, “she was a pretty little thing,” he thought. “Same feisty spirit as Mary.” “You’re a skinny little runt of a girl, now you get up here and stand in the light where I can get a proper look at you.” he growled.

“No!” Connie crossed her arms on her chest and refused.

Royal gave her no choice, moving to force her to do as he said. “Don’t push me runt!”

“Hey!” Connie gasped as she found herself airborne, and then winced and complained when her tingling burning feet made contact with the wood planks of the floor. “Ow! Oh!” Her knees buckled, but Royal pulled her so she had no choice but to steady herself and bear her own weight. “Please! I have to relieve myself!” she suddenly begged.

Royal couldn’t help himself. Her announcement and the pained expression it came with was just about the funniest most endearing sight he’d seen in many years. It made him laugh.

Connie flushed hot with both embarrassment and anger. “It isn’t funny!” she hissed. “Everybody has to sometime!”

Royal couldn’t contain himself, he just kept laughing.

“You’re an ass!” Connie cussed, and turned toward the bedroom where she knew the chamber pot waited. It was a simple matter to slip the chair out from under the knob, and pull the door open.

Royal leaned back against the counter and watched her close the door behind her, not even trying to contain his chuckles and amusement.

“This changes things,” he told himself, while Connie took care of her needs out of his sight. He wondered how old she was, and just what on earth could possess her to run away on her own. There was no question he was going to find out, and make damned sure she was returned in one piece to her people. No doubt some father or young husband was out looking for her, or worried sick she’d met with harm.

Thinking along those lines quickly wiped away the humor and amusement he felt moments ago.

“So help me if she was mine!” Royal lifted his right hand in a firm gesture toward the bedroom door. “Mine or not, you’re going to get a good dose of what for.” Irritation over the inconvenience she’d caused him and the now waning threat that she might have taken his horse, was augmented by anger that a girl could be so fool hardy as to get herself in such a desperate situation so far from her people, leaving them worried and no doubt grieving over her.

He set about making breakfast, grim faced and intent on his thoughts 

.*********** Connie barely made the chamber pot before her bladder exploded. Still trembling intermittently with the chill, she let her body relax with the relief. The ice cold of the porcelain quickly warmed under her thighs. Crouching there with a small measure of comfort returning to her body, Connie thought about her circumstances.“At least the man can laugh,” she told herself as she flushed again with the disgrace of the last few minutes. “Imagine thinking I was a boy?” she wondered, and then half regretted telling him she wasn’t. It was partly what she’d hoped for when she cut off her long hair, that men would ignore her for a teenage boy. She’d given it up when she saw herself in the mirror at the brothel though. Without the weight of length, her locks had curled up in a manner that just made her look like a younger girl. It was done now though. He knew the truth of that much, and there was no back tracking to change his mind.

Now came the problem of settling in with him, and explaining herself well enough that he’d let her stay until the weather was better suited for travel, and then let her go on her way without trying to take her back home. The big question was could she come up with a story he would believe? Another one that niggled was would she be safe from unseemly advances from him if he did let her stay? Connie’s upbringing taught her that a decent man wouldn’t do that to her unless he knew she was ruined. For that reason Connie vowed to keep the truth of her circumstances secret. If he thought she was just a runaway, she’d be better off. Her other concern was that if he knew she was little better than a whore, deflowered in a brothel above a saloon, he might force her to leave in order to protect his own decency. She didn’t know what would be worse, being cooped up with a man who used her, or dying of exposure in the lonely wilderness of an Idaho winter.

She really did want to stay. If only so she could read more from Mary’s diaries of her life with the man.

Connie gathered all of her resolve, and straightened her clothes. Her feet still tingled and burned, but they felt better once she took off her wet socks. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out of the bedroom into the main room where Royal was fussing with a cast iron skillet filled with strips of bacon. The warm space felt more like a home to her than her own had in all of the last year before her mother passed away.

“You got yourself sorted out?” Royal asked her, not looking up.

“Yes. What do I do with the pot?” she answered sidling over to see what he was doing.

“Leave it for now, you can take it to the outhouse when the wind eases up. Wash your hands under the pump, and sit,” he gestured to the sink, and then the table.

Connie obeyed. The water was cold, but it felt good. With her hands clean, she also made a half hearted effort to splash and rinse her face. Only a full stomach would make her feel better now. She sighed and relaxed as she sat down at the table.

The next several minutes passed quietly, with only the sounds of breakfast being made. Royal poured coffee for himself, and started to pour milk into a tumbler for Connie.

“I prefer coffee,” she tilted her head, half afraid to complain, but drawn by the aroma.

“How old are you?” Royal regarded her with reservation.

“Twenty two,” she lied.

Royal twisted a wry smile that told her he knew it was a lie. “Now that’s a likely story,” he answered by filling her tumbler the rest of the way with milk.

“Please! I really do drink coffee. I have for a while now I swear!” Connie looked at the tall cup full of white liquid with disgust.

“Milk!” Royal growled. “You’ll drink milk.” With that he dropped a plate of scrambled eggs and three strips of bacon in front of her, and sat down behind one heaped doubly high with the same for himself.

Connie wrinkled her nose at the milk again, but picked up her fork and made short work of the eggs.

Royal watched her, taking his meal at a slower pace. The girl ate like a pup not sure when its next meal was coming. “Ease up there and slow down or you’ll make yourself sick.”

Connie looked up, realizing what she must look like she flushed again with embarrassment. “Shorry,” she said over a mouth full of eggs, and then she straightened up to assume a more dignified pace and posture.

“What’s your name?” Royal asked when she took her next bite.

“Commyee,” she answered again over a mouth full of food. “Sorry, it’s Connie,” she corrected when she saw the quizzical look he gave her with the first answer.

“Well, Connie, I know you haven’t been starved for the last week or more, so I guess you’re just short on table manners?” Royal offered a wry grimace with his observation. “Is it Constance?” he added.

Connie nodded, but said nothing. She waited for Royal to say more, and when he didn’t she went back to her plate and finished the meal. She left the milk untouched, and eyed Royal’s coffee cup jealously each time he sipped the rich smelling brew.

“I’d kill for some of that,” she said when he got up to refill his cup.

Royal smiled to himself, and turned to look at her tumbler. “Drink that first,” he answered. “Can’t have this stuff stunt your growth.”

“I’m grown!” Connie complained, and shook her head no to the beverage in front of her.

“If you want coffee you’ll drink that first,” Royal was firm. His tone of voice belied the amusement he felt. Mary had been just like that when he made her drink milk. “Must be a woman thing?” he scoffed privately at how someone could turn their nose up at something so good for them and tasty as a simple cup of milk.

Connie made a better show of cooperation than Mary would have. Even though the idea made her want to gag, she lifted the tumbler and drank it down quickly. “Yuck!” she complained. “You skimmed off all the cream!”

“We don’t use cream for anything but cooking and coffee,” Royal pointed out. “If I catch you stealing it to drink again I’ll blister your hide for you.”

“Again?” Connie looked up surprised.

“Don’t you tell me that wasn’t you skimming cream all this past week or more!” Royal warned.

Connie winced under the piercing flame of his expression. “OK,” she dropped her eyes to the table. It was clear he wasn’t a man to be lied to.

“I suppose you want sugar for this?” Royal asked, placing a cup of hot coffee on the table next to the empty tumbler of milk. Connie looked up, and nodded.

“Please?” she answered.

Royal put the whole canister in the middle of the table, and handed her a spoon. “Go easy with it,” he warned, and settled back down in his seat across the table.

Connie smiled, and fixed the cup the way she liked it, with two hefty spoons of sugar and a good scoop of cream. Royal’s face crinkled with disgust.

“That’s the last time you destroy a perfectly good cup of coffee like that in this house!”

Connie looked up, concerned by the timber of his voice. “What?” she asked.

“No more than half a spoon of sugar next time, and just enough cream to color it,” he tipped his cup toward her to show her the color he meant.

Connie ignored his obvious disgust. “It’s good this way, you should try it,” she smiled and savored the liquid.

“You’ll not waste supplies on a childish sweet tooth!” Royal reiterated, aware that she seemed to miss his meaning.

It was Connie’s turn to growl. “Alright! You made your point! Now who’s the one short on manners?”

“What are you doing out here?” Royal latched onto the annoyance he felt with her quip, and decided to get down to business.

Connie looked up wary now that his tone of voice had become harder and serious. “I’m going to Denver, and then maybe San Francisco,” she answered.

“Where are your people?”

“I don’t have any, my mother died a few months back. I have no one,” she answered.

“What about your Pa?” Royal eyed her skeptically.

“Dead years ago,” Connie offered.

“No brothers, sisters or step father?”

“No.” Connie couldn’t look him in the eye with the last half-truth.

Royal could tell she’d lied, but something in her expression made him gentle down. “So you do have people,” he nodded.

“No one I can go back to I don’t!” Connie spoke up. Annoyed that it had been so easy for him to get so close to her secrets.

“Well you’re not going to make Denver this winter. Even if you had managed to take my horse, you’d have died trying!” Royal matched her ire with his own. “Why’d you hide out there so long stealing from me? Why not just knock on my door and ask?”

Connie considered the question for only a second. “How was I supposed to know you weren’t some kind of outlaw?”

“Mighty dangerous activity stealing from a desperado I’d say. What if I’d caught you red handed? Back when you thought I was an outlaw I mean?” Royal chuckled.

“Well I figured out from the grave that you were married once and I guessed from the numbers on it, it’s been too long for you to be some bank robber and not be in jail by now, so I figured it was safe enough to take a few things,” Connie explained.

“But not safe enough to knock on my door and ask for help?” Royal brought her back to the earlier question.

Connie didn’t answer. Her mind wasn’t fast enough to get around the rape she’d suffered and the fact of it was what made the question impossible to answer safely. If he got any idea that she was spoiled goods, she just knew her life would go from bad to worse.

“So you chose to be a thief instead of to trust an old widower?”

When he put it like that, Connie couldn’t help but feel shame, but she also reacted to the accusation from the hurt she felt.

“I don’t know what I was thinking you damned peckerwood! And I’m not answering any more of your questions!” With that, she pounded her fists on the table.

There was dead silence for what seemed an eternity. Connie watched the vein on the side of Royal’s forehead fill and drain as the muscles of his jaw worked.

“You know little girl, when I thought you were a boy I was of a mind to take a horse whip to you. Then I settled on giving your tail a good blistering for all the stress and worry you must be causing your folks, not to mention the trouble your thieving put me to. Since you don’t have any folks to speak of — if you can be believed on that account — I half dismissed that idea. Now I’m of a mind that just maybe a good hard lesson in manners is exactly what you need.”

Connie examined his expression looking for the question that should be there if he was issuing a warning. There was no question in his eyes.

“I don’t need any damned lessons from you,” she answered, figuring she was already cornered. “You never even knew I was here until now, what damned trouble could I have put you too?”

“A forty mile ride, half of it in a blizzard, to replace laying hens I thought had quit laying? You don’t think that’s trouble?”

Connie gasped, and her eyes opened wide. She almost laughed at the absurdity of what she just realized. “So that’s where you took the idiot horse to!”

“That’s where I took my horse to. The horse you were planning to steal if I read your IOU right,” Royal pointed out.

“I guess it’s a damned good thing I made you go and get hens then. Since I couldn’t very well steal your damned horse while you were riding it!”

“You’ll quit that cussing this minute!” Royal stood and leaned across the table toward Connie.

Connie glowered back at him. A tiny voice told her to let it go and offer an apology, but her temper wouldn’t let her listen.

“No!” she snapped back, with a glare that was pure defiance.

Royal caught Connie by her shirt, just under her chin, and used it to lift her out of her chair and around the table toward him. “You’ll do as I say, or you’ll wish you had! LET – ME – TELL – YOU!” Royal punctuated the last words he spoke with four solid spanks to Connie’s backside.

“Don’t!” was all Connie could manage to say, before she found herself draped across the very determined man’s lap.

“I’ll tell you don’t!” Royal answered with several more solid spanks. “Don’t cuss in my house! Don’t sass me when I tell you to do something!”

“Ow! Hey! Cut it out! You can’t do this!” Connie became a kicking struggling bundle that Royal had some trouble holding still. His response was to redirect his efforts from Connie’s bottom to the tops of her thighs. But what used to work to make Mary settle down and take her spanking, only served to anger and energize Connie more. She screeched, kicked and twisted wildly.

“Stop! You can’t!” she howled.

“I can and I will!” Royal reinforced his intent with several even harder spanks.

“You sorry piece of shit! You son of Satan, low life bastard!” Connie screeched. “Lemme go!”

Her fists pummeled into Royals left shin and calf muscle, and her legs folded up and crossed over her bottom.

“Alright! If that’s how you want it that’s how it will be.” In the next second, Royal had Connie shifted forward with her legs trapped between his and both her hands trapped at the small of her back. He had no trouble yanking her trousers down. And even though he found she was wearing long underwear, the drop seat offered no impediment to his purpose. The buttons flew across the room with hardly a pull. Once he had her bottom exposed, he set to work making an impression.

Connie was livid and wild. “Lemme go! Lemme go!”

Royal spanked hard, ignoring her pleas, and increasing his efforts each time profanity came out of her mouth. Connie’s screeching was a surprise to him. He expected some objection, a little howling and some tears, but the fury that came from the little spitfire he held was a force to be reckoned with. Taming her mouth was going to take a good deal more effort than he planned on.

“You can’t do this!” Connie screamed after several minutes of hard blistering spanking.

“That’s enough of that! I can, and clearly I am doing it! Now you settle yourself and start behaving!” Royal demanded.

“You shut up! You feather brained peckerwood ass! Lemme go!” Connie’s voice was raw and cracked. Royal wondered if her throat was hurting from the abuse of her screaming as much as her bottom must have been.

“What did I say about cussing in this house!” he applied his hand to her thighs again hoping against hope that she would realize that tactic would keep being used whenever the spanks to her backside seemed inadequate.

“You stop that!” Connie renewed her struggles. “That hurts too much!”

“That’s exactly what I wanted to hear!” Royal chuckled, and he applied two more hard swats to her legs.

“Ow! Stop!” Connie howled.

“You want this to stop, you act like I’m getting through this thick hide of yours and into your brain,” Royal kept spanking.

Connie’s bottom was a solid deep red. Bluish welts shaped like his fingers were beginning to mottle each cheek. Royal knew the pain had to be intense.

“You’re hurting me!” Connie confessed. “Lemme go!”

“When I’m sure you’ve learned a good lesson, I’ll let you go,” he grinned to himself and kept spanking.

“You need to stop it RIGHT NOW!” Connie’s scream was defiant. Her angry efforts to fight him and get away had managed to distract her from the scorching pain in her backside, but she was quickly becoming exhausted, and the pain was beginning to register. Defiant outrage still ruled her mouth, but she felt her pride loosing ground.

“Then you need to behave yourself RIGHT NOW!” The spanking continued uninterrupted.

“Ow! Please!” Connie changed tactics and the tone of her voice. Trying to sound beaten and pitiful, she bucked against his hold and complained. “It hurts! Please! Lemme go!”

“It’s supposed to hurt!”

“Ow! Please!” Connie let go of some of the tension in her muscles and tried to slump in a posture she thought he would read as defeat. “You’re killing me! Please! Lemme go!”

“You ready to listen to my rules now?” he asked punctuating each word with a few harder spanks.

Connie bucked again as her body objected to the harder impacts. “Ow! STOP!” she cried angrily.

“Guess not?” Royal resumed the spanking in earnest.

Connie let loose with a last flame of outraged temper. “I said stop it! You peckerwood son of a bitch!”

Royal pushed her torso down hard, causing her thighs to lift up out of her drawers. With white flesh exposed, he set about making it as inflamed as the rest of her posterior. “You’re one fool little girl, I’ll say that much! A fool little girl with more temper than sense, something that you’ll find a painful combination in this house!”

Connie tried once without success to lift her torso up and buck the renewed onslaught. Her muscles failed miserably, and Connie felt her whole being give in to defeat. Her screeches became sobs and her howling became hiccupping whimpers.

Royal felt it too, and redirected the spanking back up to her buttocks. He kept it up for at least another minute.

“Are you ready to obey me now?” he asked.

“Yes,” Connie hiccupped. “Please lemme go!”

“No more cursing?”

“No.”

“What about sass?”

“No more I promise!”

“No more thieving or skulking around?”

“No! Please! I promise!”

“That’s more like it,” Royal relaxed his grip and released her hands. Connie took them back, and braced them in front of her on the floor. Tears and a long clear trail of snot fell from her face to the floor between her hands. She tried to wipe her face, but her eyes and nose made the slobbery liquid flow copiously so that a new string dropped to the floor almost as soon as the first was smeared across her cheek.

Royal held her like that as if he was waiting for her to say something. Connie pushed up, and then pulled trying to get off his lap. “Please! I’ll be good! I promise!” Her plea came partly from fear that he might start spanking her again because she’d tried to get up.

“You just settle yourself there for a minute while I think,” Royal folded the flap of her drawers back up over her bottom, but held her firm across his lap. It was a habit he got into with Mary years ago. Before he’d end the punishment he’d hold her long enough to be sure all the spunk and temper was gone. It rarely took more than a few minutes to be sure, and with this little ball of fire, he wasn’t going to take any chances that her temper wasn’t properly spent.

Connie sobbed and lay there, humiliated and exhausted.

One thing was sure Royal thought to himself. He wasn’t as spry as he’d once been. This kind of activity felt like a lot more exertion than it had when he was twenty.

After another minute or so, Royal relaxed and let Connie get up off his lap. When she stood and pulled at her trousers getting them back up, he looked into her clear blue eyes. She looked worn out, and completely defeated. For the first time he got a good look at her from head to toe. She was barely five foot tall, mostly skin and bone, but with a little flesh where a woman should have it. And she was filthy. The clothes she wore were stained and matted. The cleanest part of her was her face, wiped clean in patches where the back of her dirty hand had smeared her tears and streaks of snot across her cheeks.

“You need a bath, and then you’re going to wash those sheets you soiled last night,” he announced.

Connie balked. In her mind a bath meant going out into the snow, down to the creek, and rinsing herself with the ice cold fast moving water. “I’m not going out there to freeze to death by any stream!”

“You won’t have to,” Royal advised her. “Take that ladder over there and climb up in the loft. You’ll find a deep steel tub. Bring it down and fill it half way with water from the pump over there.”

“But that water is ice cold too!” Connie objected.

“Just do as I say,” Royal didn’t want an argument, and the look he gave her reinforced that.

Connie considered refusing to do it, but she didn’t want any more trouble from the man. She pulled the ladder away from the wall and leaned it up against the floor of the loft she hadn’t even noticed was there. Climbing the ladder she was mindful that her backside burned like fire. She’d been spanked a time or two in her young life, but this was far and away the hardest and most severe she’d ever experienced. “For a nice man, he sure has a hard hand,” she grumbled to herself.

There were several large chests and folded linens on one side, a cradle and more linen on the other. In the middle was the large tub Royal sent her up for. It looked heavy, but was surprisingly light. Before climbing back down, Connie dawdled a bit looking around at the other things there. She was curious about what was in the chests and boxes, and fascinated by the finery of the fabrics and linens folded on top of them. There were extra quilts and sheets too.

“Get a move on up there!” Royal called her down after a few moments.

“Can I sleep up here?” Connie asked when she hefted the tub over the side and turned to come down the ladder.

“We’ll discuss that later. Right now you get filling that thing up.” Royal had laid an armload of wood and kindling in the hearth and was lighting it. In addition there was a very large pot starting to steam on top of the wood stove. “Put the tub on the stone hearth by the fire, and use the bucket to fill it.”

Connie smiled when she realized her bath wasn’t going to be with cold water.

While she hauled the bucket back and forth to the tub, Royal stripped his bed of the sheets she soiled, and laid them on the floor by the tub. Then he climbed into the loft, and came down with some folded clothes and a large quilt. He put them on the hearth next to the heating tub. “You’ll put those on when you’re clean,” he pointed to the clothes.

It took a little more than an hour for the water in the tub to heat enough for Connie to consider getting into it, when she told Royal she thought it was ready, he checked it and nodded, and then hoisted the huge pot off the stove and topped off the tub’s luke warm water with the pot’s scalding water.

“Get the soap from the sink, and get in,” his order was gruff.

“But you can see me?” she objected. “It’s not decent.”

“I’m going out to clear the paths to the barn and the outhouse and then check the stock. I’ll be at least an hour maybe more. If you need longer than that I’ll look the other way. Now get in that tub before I whack your tail some more.”

Connie blushed, and turned her back to start undoing the buttons on her shirt. She kept her movements slow giving Royal time to dress for the weather outside. When the door closed behind him, she moved quickly to the window to make sure he was headed away from the building.

The hot water felt glorious, and even though her bottom throbbed, Connie felt comfortable and at peace. It felt like the most natural thing in the world for her to be in this house. Having her bottom bared and spanked by a stranger felt strangely natural too, in fact, Connie marveled that the most embarrassing thing about it was how much of a childish hellion she had been when it was happening. She told herself that if he ever had cause to spank her again, “and I’ll make damned sure he never does,” she’d try to take it with less fuss. 

Winter Wonders Chapter 1

Tuesday, December 4th, 2007

by patty, copyright 2003 - 2007 (this is chapter 1 of 7 that are complete, I am working on 8,9 and 10 right now)

“Daylight!” Royal Lee hissed when the crust of fitful sleep released his eyelashes. Irish lace lifted away from the windowsill on the cold dawn breeze, billowed above his head. A fleet sprint of temptation to close his eyes and roll back under the quilts entered and then escaped his mind. Habit and convention took over and rousted him.Habit and convention born of a lifetime operating from the belief that only the sick or the infirm should be allowed in bed past the crack of dawn. Anyone else caught there was a “no account.” A “no account heathen” would have been his mother’s take on it, but for Royal, who had left off matters of the faith in recent years, “no account” was sufficient to describe the man who’d laze in bed on a perfectly good day.Even if his life was solitary and there was no one around for many miles to check, he was up and moving in short order, his own judgment of himself sufficient to coerce conformity.

“Ke Ri East! It’s cold!” he told the pump, when his damp palm stuck to the cast iron handle. Winter was late this year, but in the past week it was making up for lost time. There’d been only a few dustings but no heavy snowfalls yet, but the temperatures at night were plunging well below freezing, and the daytime temperatures were struggling even under full sunshine to find their way back up. Soon the pump outside would freeze up and Royal would be stuck shaving and washing up at pump and basin he’d put indoors.

He grimaced with that prospect, and stood to look up at the lonely stone near the ridge, and then out over the rocky mountainside vista down into the valley. That was Mary’s view for eternity now, and the pump inside was hers too. He built the well first and the log cabin over it, so she wouldn’t have to tote and carry water. She’d used it for only one season before the fever took her.

Royal fought back tears, and cursed himself that sentimentality still took him so easily. His Mary’d been gone close to ten years now, she and the child both. The terrible loneliness of that winter still haunted him. First the mother was taken by a raging fever within days of giving the birth, and then two months later the infant succumbed to pneumonia.

Since that time, the only contact he had with the world was an odd traveler and his thrice-yearly trips to Grangeville for supplies and trade. A man who could hunt, tend a garden and a few cows, had very little need for people. Truth be told, he reasoned many times, it was his vices that kept him going to town. “A man ought not be allowed to acquire a sweet tooth, nor a taste for coffee and tobacco,” he told his horse on one trip. “Makes him beholding for things he can’t get on his own.”

When Mary was alive, his plan was to build a cattle ranch. He still owned the eight thousand acres of land, but he’d left off the ranch plans and settled on trapping and what farming he needed to be self-sufficient. He had few worries, and also few joys and pleasures.

Some of the nearby ranchers made overture to buy some of the land from him, but Royal held on to it. His aim now was more to keep the world at a distance than to use the land for any other purpose. It was working for the most part.

“Except for these damned pesky raccoons!” he cussed, when after tending his animals, he found the wood door to the root cellar pushed over. The critters were getting brazen with the cold weather. This was the fourth day in a row the door was moved like that. Lifting and moving it over all the way, he climbed down the ladder expecting to find his larder in a mess. It wasn’t. In fact except for the door, there was no evidence of four legged raiders having been down there at all. The flour and sugar sacks and bushel baskets were all neat and secure. The only thing out of place was the top on the milk can. It was dangling on its tether. Royal cursed again.

“Damn creatures just skimmed the cream!” He was surprised to find no debris or bugs had gotten into it, but thought nothing else of it after ladling enough for his biscuits and coffee, and topping up the supply with what he’d just taken from the cow. He returned and secured the lid. The fresh supply would refresh the cream and he’d use all of it to make cheese the next day.

With milk, a few potatoes, an apple, some carrots, a turnip, some bacon and venison he climbed the ladder and replaced the plank door. Knowing it was hopeless to foil the larcenous creatures, but determined anyway, he pushed the boulder back up over the cellar door before heading back up to the cabin.

“Damn!” he cursed again. “Three days and no eggs! You hens quit earning your keep and you’ll be headed for the fry pan!”

His day wasn’t getting off to a good start. No cream for his coffee, and no eggs. The troubles gave him something to mutter about while he made himself breakfast. Potatoes and bacon with no eggs, three days in a row, hardly seemed worth the effort.

He didn’t like the idea that he might have to replace his laying hens. He’d have to make up his mind to do it soon if he was going to. The trek to Miller’s place was a full day there and back as it was, after the snow fell, it would take two days, and would likely kill the damned birds in the process. It was that or go without eggs all winter, and that prospect did not set well at all.

By the time he finished breakfast, he’d made up his mind. If there were no eggs by morning, he would pack some venison and elk and head over to Miller’s to trade. Miller’s was a large-scale sheep ranch just over twenty miles to the west. He’d have chickens to spare for the right price.

After breakfast Royal set about some winterizing chores that he’d been able to put off thanks to the lateness of the change of seasons. The sun had made some progress warming that day, but the air was still crisp. The breeze up from the valley was brisk, and cut through the layers of Flannel he wore. Still, the day was one of those glorious mid December days where the air was clear and the sky was a deep blue that was only seen in winter. If there’d been snow on the ground it would have squeaked underfoot in the places where it was packed by foot traffic.

Royal hiked down to the creek bed with a shovel, and loaded a wheel barrel with clay and gravel. When that was delivered to a sheltered area on the lee side of the cabin, he headed up on the ridge to cut sod. He stopped for a few minutes to talk to Mary and share her view of the valley. While sitting with his wife, he relaxed enough to take in what his senses were able to, and on the breeze, he could have sworn he smelled bacon with eggs. The waft of aroma was transient, replaced almost immediately by the rich smell of spruce and juniper. He guessed it was just his mind playing tricks on him. Although he did smile and scold his long slumbering wife for teasing him with the one thing he had fixed in his mind.

In life, it would have been just like his impish bride to needle him with a mildly irritating detail like the smell of eggs he could not have. Memories of her spirited pranks surfaced and made him smile. His right palm tingled and a complimentary, but in that moment unwelcome, twinge pulse through his groin. Mary’s playfulness had always extended to their bedroom. For a few moments he let himself marvel at the way his wife would provoke him to be stern with her, as if that side of him was a thing that fed her. She became his in every way when he took her in hand, willing and eager, yet soft and compliant. A sound spanking now and again seemed the only intervention necessary to keep his home life peaceful, and if she wasn’t of a mind to need a stern spanking, Mary would play and prank with him to tease one anyway.

It was the way it should be Royal thought with a man and a woman. The way that suited him in any event, he thought.

By noon, Royal had made good progress chinking the cracks and seams of the cabin with the sod and gravel clay patchwork he concocted. Twice more while he worked he was haunted by the transient smell of the proper breakfast he did not get to eat. It came on the breeze, and was gone as quickly as it came.

Mild irritation with himself set in. He felt as if his senses were tormenting him, and over something so inconsequential as having missed his morning eggs. The resolve to make the trip to Miller’s became stronger. Royal found himself simmering quite a grudge against the hens that quit laying just as the weather was turning, and his mind for hounding him over minor things. If it kept up like this, the winter was going to be a long one. After all what was a man to do when even his own company is an aggravation.

He pushed himself harder for the remainder of the day. Determined to work out the demons of his own sour mood.

************

Connie shivered from her perch watching the tall man work on his home. She’d been watching him for several days since coming on his place by accident. Poorly equipped to survive on her own in the wilderness, she was deeply relieved to come across a homestead and people, two days after her horse went lame. Experience had made her wary though, and instead of stepping up to the door to say “howdy do,” she’d watched the place to get a feel for its occupants. After a day and a half she figured out that the man lived alone. The small graveyard up on the ridge above the cabin gave her a clue, and the fact that every day she’d watched the man visit the two graves and talk to the occupants, confirmed her guess that he was a widower.

The man had an air of decency about him, but Connie held back from approaching him. He was big, and he seemed to wear a perpetual frown, and her recent experiences with men had left her afraid.

The cold weather was beginning to pose problems for her. The small barn behind the cabin where his animals were sheltered was barely large enough for them. When the snow fell, there would be no way for her to come and go from it without her tracks being seen, and there was no place inside for her to hide. She would have trouble getting food from his stores undetected as well since the snow would show her tracks there too. Living in the bush was simply not an option. Connie was barely equipped for that as it was now.

Her hand would be forced soon enough. Either she took the man’s horse, and continued her way southwest, or she announced herself to him and asked him for help.

That morning, because the wind was higher than it had been, Connie took a chance and cooked the eggs and meat she’d taken from the man. It was a nice change. The bacon was smoked, and so cold it was still palatable, but the raw eggs had been hard to stomach. The warm meal just seemed to sit better. For the first time in weeks she felt satisfied, and even comfortable, even if worry still occupied much of her thoughts.

“Don’t go there again,” she whispered, when her throat threatened to tighten into sobs again. The past few months had been a spiral into some of the darkest places her mind could have imagined, and a few she never could have conjured on her own.

When she let her mind go back over it all, she realized that the bad times really began a little over a year ago with her mother’s remarriage. Arranged by mail as a means to an income, it turned out badly from the start. The Swede was a brutal man, sullen and harsh in his attitude toward women, and crude and possessive in his carnal demands of his new wife.

Connie watched her mother change over the year from a beautiful, happy, and carefree soul, to a tired, worn and frightened shell. When his wife became pregnant, the Swede became even more brutal and demanding. Until then, eighteen year-old Connie had been almost ignored by the man. Except that he considered her a servant, and demanded obedience, the Swede showed no interest in her before then. He’d never asked about her aspirations of pursuits, and didn’t seem to care whether she was there or not. With his wife pregnant with his child, a child he demanded be a son, suddenly the house was unfit, and Connie and her mother were put to near slavery making it the way he thought it should be.

The man took his fists to his wife twice when she was too tired to finish some chore, and he threatened Connie with a bullwhip when she tried to intervene and take on the chore for her mother. More than once in the last month before she died, Connie begged her mother to leave with her, but the woman was afraid for the unborn child she carried. It would need a provider, and a father. Nothing Connie said, no argument or plea, reached her, and then fate intervened.

Labor pains began two months early, in the middle of the afternoon when the Swede was away. They came on suddenly, with a lot of bleeding. The progress of the labor was fast, and there was little Connie could do. Her mother and the infant, a perfectly formed baby boy, died before her eyes. Stricken with grief, Connie was not prepared for the Swede’s reaction.

When he arrived home to find his new wife and infant son dead, it was as if their corpses were little more than debris. His focus was on removing them from his home as quickly as possible. If not for Connie and his wife’s few friends, it is doubtful he would have allowed a funeral or services at all. The day of the funeral, as he re-entered their home behind Connie, her world fell completely apart. The Swede informed her that she had a choice to make. Come to his bed as his wife, or leave the household.

He gave her one night to make up her mind. By morning, Connie was out in the world, on her own. She had packed what she could carry, saddled the oldest of the horses they kept, hoping the Swede would at least allow her that, and made her way out onto the trail from Lowell to Kooskia before sunrise. She was leaving behind everything she’d ever known, with little but the clothes on her back four dollars and a small box of keepsakes from her life.

She was qualified to write the teaching exams, but her mother’s marriage and the distractions of life with that tyrant kept her from sitting them. Beyond that, Connie had no marketable skills. She had only marginal talent with a needle and thread, had, had very little opportunity to learn much in the way of cooking or running a household. She didn’t know what else besides teach a woman her age could do. Even so, she was determined to see what she could find in the way of work in Grangeville. It took her four days to get there.

By then she had eaten all the food she’d packed, and had had no sleep.

The weeks that followed her arrival in Grangeville were a blur of hunger, desperation and fear. The only job she could get was in the saloon, and in spite of promises to the contrary, she was soon being coerced to share drinks with, and act more friendly to the customers. Kisses and fondling progressed to rough handling. Filthy hands groped her constantly. Fat smelly drunks became surly when she tried to avoid their advances, and a few times she got cuffed hard across the cheekbone for trying to avoid being kissed on the mouth.

Connie cried herself to sleep every night, but diligently squirreled away every penny in tips she could get. The other girls regularly climbed the stairs with the customers, and told her that was where the money was, but Connie was a virgin, and could not bring her self to give that away to the likes of the patrons of the Whiskey Jack Saloon. All she wanted was enough money to be able to write the teaching exams, and then she could write away to towns and hamlets all over Idaho that were looking for teachers.

It wasn’t to be though. Connie cringed and huddled down into herself with the flashes of memory that had been impossible to suppress for weeks now. In the dark when she was sleeping, one of the old cowboys she’d served and rebuffed earlier in the night made his way into her room and took her. He took her virginity, the gold locked that had been her mothers’ and all of the money she’d managed to save. She fought him, but had been no match for him. His answer to her struggles was to beat her severely, until she couldn’t fight him any more.

Not a soul stepped in to help her, yet the rooms near hers were all occupied. That the owner even allowed her to keep the room for the three days she needed to be able to walk again afterward was a small mercy. One of the girls, Lois, did her best to tend Connie’s bruises, and even gave her twenty dollars and advice to leave. The word was out she was spoiled, and there was no chance she could fend off more advances without incurring worse than she already had now. No matter how it happened, she was a wonton woman now. No one would stand for her virtue, and few would support her if she tried.

Connie took the advice, and went some better. In the wee hours of the morning, as soon as she was fit to travel, she stole men’s clothes, a rifle and a pistol, enough food for a week, and another sixty dollars from the till in the saloon, and made her way back out on the trail. This time she headed south. Her plan was to find a wagon train and go west to California. If she had to pass herself off as a boy to get there that’s what she would do.

She made it just over sixty miles when her horse went lame, and she found herself on foot. Four more days of travel on foot, and here she was, hiding out and living off the stores of a hermit widower, miles from nowhere, with winter moving in on her. The question, “where to go from here?” looming in front of her with very few options in the mix.

*********

Connie did manage to choke back the tears this time, thanks to the big man she’d been watching. He rolled his wheelbarrow within twenty feet of her hiding place. Startled and caught off guard, she nearly let out a scream. Her heart pounding alone sounded like a heard of buffalo stampeding. As soon as the man was safely out of earshot, Connie stretched her legs, and moved to a spot farther out from the cabin.

The sun was getting low, and even though the wind was dying, it was becoming bitterly cold. The damp sharp smell of snow was in the air too. The late season had been her reprieve, only now she knew she was running out of time. Taking the man’s horse and moving on was becoming the most attractive option as Connie weighed the possibilities.

The prospect of spending the winter alone with a man, especially a man she didn’t know, and who so obviously lived alone by choice was frightening. He would probably send her packing anyway, and be watching to make sure she went. Just taking the horse and whatever supplies she could carry before he even knew she was there was probably the wisest option. Stealing his horse could get her hung or at least put in jail, but the man would be on foot, so how would he catch her? On top of that, it would take him days to reach help on foot and she’d be long gone. It seemed like a fairly safe choice.

Connie considered leaving the man thirty dollars of her money with a written promise to pay the rest back when she could, but what would he do with the money out here? The IOU would have to do. To go with that, she would have liked to get into the cabin and find out who the man was. That way when she got herself situated, she could send his horse back to him with thanks and payment for the use of it, but so far the man never ventured far enough away for her to dare make the intrusion. The idea struck her that she could stop in a nearby town and ask about him, as if she were looking for him. Folks would give her directions she wouldn’t need, but if she played her cards right they’d give her his name too.

With plans bouncing around in her mind, Connie returned to the small camp she’d made, and collected her things. It was getting too cold to sleep out. She would hover out of sight in the woods near the cabin until she was sure the man was settled inside for the night, get herself what she could fit in her pack out of his larder, and find a space in the barn until day break when she would saddle up his horse and set out.

With what remained of daylight, Connie wrote that IOU letter that she planned to leave tacked up in the barn. The only thing she had to write on was the back of an old letter her father wrote to her mother, so she added a request to the bottom that the man save the paper for her because she would be needing it back some day for sentimental reasons.

It was well after dark, before the man went inside. He spent a long time in the barn. Much longer than it normally took him to tend the horse and milk the cow. Then he puttered for the longest time at something Connie couldn’t get a good look at. “What the hell are you doing! I’m freezing out here!” she hissed when he kept going back and forth into the barn.

Finally he went inside. Connie waited for the smell of cooking to signal that the man was really settled in for the night. He was certainly a creature of habit. Even though his day ended later than it usually did, everything seemed to get back into his routine as soon as he trudged up onto the stoop that evening. He sat on the rocker by the door, stomped his feet several times, and kicked off his boots before going inside. Once inside he lit the oil lamp near the window, and then the wood stove. It never took more than twenty minutes before Connie could smell what he was having for his supper. That had become her signal to get something for herself. Her reasoning being, that if he was occupied by his own activity and kitchen clatter, he wouldn’t hear what she was up to.

That night she waited until the lamp nearest the window was dimmed, signaling the man had cleaned up after his meal and was doing whatever it was that he did with his evenings. While she waited, her bedroll was barely enough cover for warmth, and it offered very little protection for her hands and feet. The horse would not be the only thing she needed to take with her if she left this place. Some of the furs and skins the man had tacked up on the side of his barn would be needed too.

Finally, when all was quiet in the cabin, Connie made her way into the root cellar, and bagged as much as she could carry, praying it would be enough to sustain her until she got to the next town, and would not leave the man in hardship. He was better suited for survival than she was though, she thought to herself. He at least knew how to hunt and obtain food from the land. Even without a horse, he would probably fair better than she was going to over the next week or so until she got herself somewhere safe. Her mind chattered over every justification she could muster for the crime she planned to carry out the next day, while she fashioned a mound of skins and furs in the corner of the barn away from the horse and the cow and the roosts used by the laying hens.

It was the first warm night’s sleep she had in weeks, and it took her deep into exhausted dreams.

The screech made by the heavy wood door on its rusting hinges didn’t even disturb Connie’s dreams. Royal came in the barn, milked the cow, and then saddled and packed his horse just before dawn the next morning, and never noticed the slumbering pile of fur just out of his line of sight in the corner. Connie slept through all of the commotion made by a man making ready for a forty mile ride he didn’t want to make, to trade for new laying hens he was not happy to be needing. She didn’t even hear him promise the hens he had that their days were numbered.

The silence that followed Royal’s departure was lost on all but the cow. It was mid morning before Connie woke up with a startle. Stiff from having slept in one position most of the night, she struggled to get up and get her bearings. The pack full of contraband food next to her brought her to reality, and then the missing horse got her blood pumping and her heart pounding.

“Someone else stole the horse!” she stood, looking furtively around the space, afraid that the man would come in any moment and accuse her. Panic took hold briefly, until Connie saw the full bucket of milk set against the wall near the cow. The man had been in and already done the milking. Then a new wave of worry set in. Did he see her? Surely not, she argued with herself. If he had he would have shaken her awake and wanted to know who she was and what she was doing there? She peeked out around the door. There was no sign of him of his horse.

“Where is he gone?” she hissed, and then she set about cursing herself, and setting the barn to rights. She would have to wait out another night before she could get on her way. Impatience and fatigue conspired to force tears and animate Connie’s temper. Several of the skins and furs she was replacing neatly on their hooks ended up launched across the barn. One slapped the cow hard across her muzzle. The startled animal kicked over the bucket of milk.

The sight of the spill, and dismay at the waste was enough to stop Connie’s tirade. She collected the mess she’d scattered, and tucked her pack away behind an old crate. It would be safer there than back out in the bush where she’d have to stay with it to keep stray critters out of it. She kept an apple and a small piece of cheese out for her breakfast, and climbed down into the root cellar to get milk to go with it.

A thick layer of cream protected the milk, and tempted Connie. “It would go nicely with some sugar,” she thought. “And even better with some coffee.”

“Do I dare?” she asked herself, peeking her head up out of the cellar toward the door of the cabin. “He took the horse. Maybe he’s hunting, or even gone to visit somewhere?”

It was the first opportunity she had to get inside the cabin and look around. Maybe it was better that her plan to leave that morning was foiled. Now she could find out more about the man, and at least know his name to send back what she owed him, with word of where he could reclaim his horse.

The coffee pot was still hot thanks to the banked coals in the wood stove. Although it was a little on the barky and burnt side, Connie savored it as if it were the finest wine. With the cream and a heaping tablespoon of sugar added, it was ambrosia. Enough venison stew to feed four or five people steeped in the large pot next to the coffee.

“He’s not gone too far if he left his supper cooking,” she made a mental note to herself.

The contents of the pot was well cooked she realized when she helped herself to a taste. Too well cooked to be something started that morning. No doubt it was last night supper, cooked up to stretch for several days. Steeping the way it was, it would remain edible, and even taste better as the days passed. Even if the coals under it went cold, the air would cool it quickly enough that it would be unlikely to spoil.

Connie helped herself to a good-sized plate full, and ate it while she walked around the two large rooms that comprised the cabin’s interior. Women’s touches were evident in many little things. Lace hung on all the windows except the one over the water pump near the stove. Porcelain figures lined a small curio cabinet that itself was delicate and feminine. But the thing that drew Connie most was the wall full of shelves lined with books and papers that she found in the bedroom.

“So this is how you keep yourself busy,” she whispered to the man whose presence she was beginning to feel. Some of the titles of the books were familiar, most were not. All of the books had been read, some many times, from the look of their worn leather binding. Fictions from England and writers from the east, science and engineering texts, poems and essays about topics from trees and farming, to medicine and bridge building, all shared space in the man’s library. He even had a large collection of Ned Buntline’s penny and dime novels of outlaws and Indian desperados.

Connie became lost for several hours as she flipped through pages.

The sound of a hawk screeching outside broke here reverie. The startle brought her back to her goal, which was to ferret out what information she could about the man, before he returned and caught her there. She didn’t notice that snow had begun to fall outside.

It took another hour of rifling through boxes of papers she pulled from under the man’s bed, until she found what she needed. A marriage license and a small clutch of old letters, kept much the way her mother had kept the mementos of her life with Connie’s father. Connie settled down on the wood floor by the bed and opened some of the letters.

All of them were to Mary. The woman whose name Connie knew from the headstone in the small cemetery the man maintained on the ridge. The hand that wrote them and his voice were loving and gentle. Connie was entranced from the first letter, and in tears by the time she read the last. The man had loved his wife from the minute he saw her. His letters so openly showed his heart, that Connie felt she knew him. She wished she were Mary, and then found herself feeling shame for her sneaky intrusion into something so private between two people she didn’t even know.

The letters opened something within her. Connie wanted to know the man more. Her goal to find out the man’s name achieved, and now all but forgotten, she pulled out another box. This one was locked, but the lock proved no barrier to Connie’s efforts with a small hairpin found in the other. Inside were several tintype pictures and six richly bound diaries. Connie recognized the man, and guessed that the woman in some of the pictures with him was Mary.

She was the most beautiful woman Connie had ever seen. Mary’s eyes shone from the pictures, and seemed to twinkle with fun and mischief. Raven curls literally poured from her head down to her hips, and in every image the beauty defied the convention of her times, which should have had her locks secured and properly tied up on her head. Her figure was beautifully full, making Connie self conscious of her own slim boyish curves.

“No wonder he loved you,” Connie spoke. “Any man would.”

As beautiful as Mary’s pictures were, her diaries shared the thoughts of a woman whose soul was just as captivating. Connie read several pages of the one on the top of the pile, and realized she was reading from what seemed like the middle of a story about the couple. Mary wrote of the child growing within her, and her excitement for the coming birth. She detailed how Mary marveled and found great joy in how happy the man was.

“Roy. She called you Roy,” Connie whispered to the man’s picture. The name suited him, and the decency she’d sensed as she watched him those last few days was now fleshed out and whole.

The diary kept nothing back. Roy loved his wife, and she loved him. Even the details of how he showed his love to Mary in their bed were written down. Connie put the first diary down, and rifled through the others looking for the beginning. The earliest volume began two months after the date on the marriage certificate.

Connie began to read.

December 25, 1867

I could cry if I wasn’t so angry. He is so stern and unyielding, this man I married. True to his word he has done this thing. This book is my Christmas! I wanted some combs! I wanted silk, and he gave me this. I can have the silk and the combs he said, only if I put my stories to paper. Why can’t I just speak them to him like always? The children like them spoken. Well I will show him! I will use this for writing, but I will write my thoughts in it not sill children’s tales made up in my head. He can write the damnable stories himself if he likes them so well.

He threatened me with spanking if I pout over this any longer! If I did not love him so much I would shoot him! That horrible woman heard him say it too. I swear I will scratch her eyes out if she smirks at me again. I don’t even care if Roy bares my tail in front of the whole camp for it either. If she smirks at me again I will maim her!

This protracted camp is making all of us restless. The snow was not supposed to reach this far south. The wagon master promised the travel west through Texas would go quickly all the way to the canyon at the Colorado River. He promises it will only be a few days more, but we are also tired and cold. I look at Roy and his eyes scream “patience Mary” but it is beyond me! I hate these women so much! All but Lilia. She’s my only friend. At least when we’re moving, hard as the trail is, I don’t have to see them except in the morning and at night. Here they are everywhere! The want to talk incessantly!

Lilia’s Caleb is so like Royal. They are like peas in a pod, though they argue so much, two strong men with firm ideas about life. It is so funny to watch them dispute a point! They don’t even know they agree. Poor Lilia shouldn’t have laughed so hard at them tonight. Caleb was so stern with her. Royal looked at me as if it was my fault too! My poor behind! I wasn’t even guilty and it quivered in fear. I will have to be sure and give Lilia some of my salve in the morning because I fear Caleb means business tonight. Her Christmas is ruined I fear, unless Caleb is like Royal after such matters.

December 26, 1867

Oh Royal my love! You were so mean with this gift. I have plenty to occupy my mind I swear! You did not need to punish my moodiness and restlessness this way! Now I must write here every day! I must write every time my mouth escapes me! I will surely go insane. All I did was tell that woman to put her face in the wagon master’s boot. It is the truth that foul air will surely improve her disposition.

It is so! No matter how hard you spank me husband! It is still so, and I will say it again! Poor Lilia she couldn’t help laughing when I had my screaming fit. If Caleb whips her again so help me I will have to shoot him.

December 27, 1867

We are underway again, and my tail throbs on this seat. I cannot survive another camp. If I have to spend more time in close quarters with that woman I will have no hide left to sit upon.

Royal has been so surly these last few days. I admit my mood has not been much better. This gift is cruelty. Again I am banished to silence and ordered to write. My heart wants to day dream. I want to watch the trail. How can I take it all in when I must bury my head in this book! He showed me the empty volumes. Two more like this, and I have filled only a page! I will go insane. Yes I have said it already, but it is true.

My husband is a randy creature! Perhaps if I use these books to tell these truths he will free me from this punishment. I am not ashamed. These are my pages. I will write my heart. Yes I provoke him. It is a diversion sometimes, and I know he will want my attentions when I make him attend to my surly moods. I see the glint in his eyes when I test him too. I think he knows.

His organ was hard even before he took my trousers down this morning. It bulged even as he scolded me for cursing that woman. And as he spanked my naked hind end it poked my side. Even as I cried and promised obedience, it grew. He reveled when I fell to my knees next to him, and took him from his own trousers. My hind end did not throb, nor was it as hot as his member was while I kissed and caressed it.

Does God know I love him so, and need his flesh more? Is there sin in me that my husband’s flesh excites me so? That his hand sets fire to my backside only to ignite a flame of desire in us both?

Peace will reign again for a while, I know. Long days on the trail make for tired husbands. With luck mine will become too tired to remember this curse, that I am to write everyday.

********************** 

Connie found her heart pounding as she read, and finally had to stop. The guilt she felt now, with her invasion into the man’s secrets so complete, made her stomach roll. She wanted to read all of it, all of what Mary had written, but she couldn’t. There wasn’t enough time, or was there? A throbbing awareness was awake in her. Would the man notice if she took these diaries with her? She desperately wanted to read more, but there simply wasn’t enough time.

Thoughts of time stirred her back to activity, and for the first time, she looked out the window to see that there was more than two feet of snow on the ground, and that the wind was piling it quickly into drifts.

It was Christmas Eve, today, Connie realized. Tears struggled against her resolve to find their way out. They won. This man had lost as much as she had, maybe more. Something inside her broke with the sadness of all of it, her losses and his. But her fears won out, and galvanized her to action. She had to get moving. But the snow! It came so late this year, but for Connie, in that moment, it came too soon.

“Where is he?” she worried out loud. Suddenly afraid the man might get lost and never return. For a few brief minutes she forgot he wasn’t part of her life, and that in another day she would be gone from his, as fleeting as her intrusion was. Connie realized it was much later than she thought when she found the stove and the stew and coffee pots on it were cold. The Cuckoo clock confirmed it. It was 4 PM. No wonder the light was so dim in the cabin. It would be dusk soon.

The snow was deep enough outside that she would leave tracks in it that only a blind man would miss, the man would surely find her anyway if she went back to the barn now. If she was lucky the wind might hide her tracks for her, but surely he would be home any minute. There wasn’t time. If she stayed inside he would find her there too. Worry and then panic set in, while Connie’s mind bounced from one option to another. Hide in the barn another night praying her tracks weren’t discovered, stay inside and be warm, and pray the man didn’t shoot her for a thief. If he found her in his barn he might surely think she was a thief.

The icy wind made up her mind, at least in the moment when she started to make her way back to the barn. Closing the door with resignation, Connie turned back into the room. There was more than enough wood to keep a fire in the stove for two days. “If I can get a campfire lit, I can get a stove lit,” she told herself, and then she set about to do just that.

As dusk set in, and it became dark inside the cabin, Connie wrestled with the idea of lighting one of the oil lamps. The man would know someone was inside if he saw lights as he rode up. She argued with herself about the fire in the stove giving her presence away just as surely. In the end, she lit one of the lamps, and curled up on the rocker next to the stove. Hours passed, and there was no sign of the man.

“Where are you Royal Lee? I could have been safe in the barn after all you contrary man!” Connie spoke to the black window that faced the barn.

She had concocted at least four versions of a story to tell him that would explain her being there, and knew that depending on his reactions to her, none of them would be the version she actually told. Nervousness and anxiety waned as the hours passed, and before long the urge to sleep surpassed all of it. The warm bed called to her, and with her belly full, her body warm, Connie succumbed.

She added three large logs to the fire, and stoked the coals under them as best she could. After washing her face with warm water for the first time in more than a month, Connie crawled into Royal Lee’s bed, and went to sleep.

************

The twenty-mile ride to the Miller’s was long. Royal was saddle weary and stiff when he dismounted and climbed the steps to the front door of the ranch. Three carriages and a buckboard were lined up outside, and he wondered what was up. He found out when his knock at the door was answered. His neighbor’s pretty wife, stood in front of him all decked out in finery.

“Royal Lee! How nice of you to join us. Caleb didn’t tell me you were coming. Come in!” Lilia’s voice chimed with laughter as she pulled the door wide for her guest.

“Invite? Lilia, I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about. I’m here to talk to Caleb about a trade,” Royal explained as he reluctantly stepped into the house.

“A trade? On Christmas Eve? Oh Royal! Surely you will stay and have some cider and a meal with us?” Lilia seemed genuinely disappointed that Royal was not there as a guest. Mary had been one of her closest friends, and she really missed the man’s company.

“I have to get back by nightfall Lilia. There’s snow in the air and I left the animals with only a day’s provision. Fetch your man for me please,” Royal leaned down to accept the kiss and greeting from her.

“No! You take your boots off Royal Lee, and you come in and be sociable for a few minutes. If you won’t I’ll tell Caleb to send you away,” Lilia frowned, and crossed her arms across her chest looking for all-the world like a pouting child.

“Lilia,” Royal’s answer to her petulance was a warning growl.

“Don’t you growl at me you old coot!” Lilia laughed. Before the discussion could get any further, Caleb came out into the hallway to check on his wife.

“Royal! What a pleasant surprise! Come in! Come in!” the man laughed and embraced his friend.

“I can’t stay Caleb. I’m here to trade for some laying hens. Mine quit and I’m too old to face winter without eggs,” Royal laughed.

“Nonsense! You can and you will stay. At least long enough for a cup of cider and a meal. We’re just about to sit down anyway,” Caleb was firm.

“I have animals to get back to man!” Royal objected.

“And an hour won’t matter to you one way or another,” Caleb nodded and agreed.

Royal was committed. The smell of turkey and baking helped to sway him too. It was nice to get in out of the cold, and the meal was enjoyable. Caleb would not entertain discussion about the hens until Royal downed two helpings of the full meal.

It had been a very long time since Royal saw the trappings of Christmas, and even longer since he’s sat down to dinner with a group of people. Everyone was cordial, but all were too interested in how he was doing without Mary. By the time Caleb relented and stepped away with him to see to a deal, Royal was simmering with quiet resentment. It had been ten years since Mary passed after all, why couldn’t people let things be. It was the main reason he’d pulled away from people that they could not relate to him without constantly bringing up his dead wife.

The pain of her loss flooded back to him every time, and this was no exception. Seeing Lilia and remembering the holidays made it worse. Caleb seemed to sense it, and did what he could to lighten the mood for his friend.

The trade was perfunctory and the business concluded quickly. Royal took five hens for a hind quarter of venison and twenty beaver pelts. He accused his friend of robbery, and the two squabbled like brothers. The good natured deal was sealed with a handshake, and there was little to do but make the exchange. By then the snow had begun to fall, and the wind with it promised to become a problem.

“You should wait it out Royal in case it’s a blizzard. You know we have plenty of room here, and Lilia will be delighted to have you stay,” Caleb offered.

“I have animals to tend. It’s a straight trail. I’ll be fine,” was Royal’s answer.

“If you saw more of people, and found a new wife, the pain would ease my friend,” Caleb spoke bluntly, but he knew there would be no swaying his friend, so he simply offered a sack filled with baked goods and turkey still hot from the platter. The meat alone was enough to feed Royal for two days. The pastries and cookies would last a good deal longer.

Royal smiled and thanked his friend. His sweet tooth was his weakness, one he was not too proud to indulge.

Before he was an hour into the return trip, he realized that the ride home was shaping up to be exactly what he’d feared most. He vowed that if these hens died before he got home, he would swear off eggs for life. The deer skin cover and layers of pelts should protect the cages from the worst of the wind, but it would not keep them from pecking at each other from fear.

The wind was in his face, and the going was slow. Royal distracted himself with a series of the tales Mary used to tell the children on the wagon trail. She never had written them down, not even after he’d tried to force her to. Instead she’d written her diaries.

The discovery had hurt him initially when he made it months after her death, but now those diaries were his last connections to the woman he had loved more than life. Her thoughts made him smile now, and they made him love her all the more deeply. She was everything he though she was and more.

No woman on earth could be what she was. Not a one.

His right palm itched as his mind wandered back over the last week. No eggs, no cream, things moved in his larder. The smell of the breakfast he wanted on the air. It was all Mary’s doing, he knew it.

The barn was wrong when he pulled the door open. It would not be dawn for another hour, but the clouds, snow and wind had cleared and a full moon reflected off of the snow. Milk was frozen on the dirt near the wall, and there were scuffed boot prints everywhere. Royal followed them around and realized that daylight would not have shown what the moon light did. The shadows were different. Who was here he wondered? No tracks left the house or the barn. Whoever it was, was either long gone or inside somewhere.

The hens he traded for survived the trip, and there were no less than nine eggs waiting for him in the nests of the laying stock he had already. Royal rolled his eyes. “Good will toward hens is not in your plans lord!” he chuckled.

Two of his new hens strutted off to peck at what looked like an empty crate. When Royal investigated, he found it wasn’t empty. He found a pack. A pack that was clearly stowed for a purpose and on top of a hefty pile of his food was an IOU note; an IOU note written in the hand of a youngster who was very likely still nearby.

Royal’s right palm began to itch even more.

“Mary if you’ve had a hand in this you will not sit for eternity” he vowed, as he trudged up to his home under the light of an early morning Christmas full moon………

What she wants for Christmas is a well spanked bum

Sunday, December 2nd, 2007

A well spanked bum, a well spanked bum….

 

phase one … next step is a color version … not quite ready for posting … hope you like it.

;)

patty

All I want for Christmas is a Spanking

Saturday, December 1st, 2007

by patty, Dec 1 2007

There lives here a negligent blogger

Who often daydreams of a flogger

Used hard on her ass

By a man with the brass

To discipline, spank and bird dog her

 

Of late she’s in menopause

Though natural changes the cause

Let’s be very frank

An oft applied spank

Would help her to focus and pause

 

The blogger has written Saint Nick’s

And suggested her holiday picks

“Dear Santa please come

And I’ll bare my bum

Then bend cross your lap for my licks

 

“No need for black coal in my stocking

I’d be better off with a spanking

My bare bottom red

Might help clear my head

Could your elves make a paddle from planking?”

Hi y’all.  Just a quick post for now.  I’m hoping to spend the day drawing some new spanking Christmas and Hanukah cards.