The Ghosts of Dearheart: Book III

Chapter 3

The following week was rather long for Jacob. Which was unusual. Normally he didn't pay much attention to what day of the week it happened to be, filling his hours with chores from sun up to sun down and taking things at his leisure. The only thing that typically mattered to him was the changing of the seasons. They were what determined his work load, his tasks, and his troubles. Beyond that, mere days were meaningless. Or they had been, anyway. Now, he almost felt like there was just too much time on his hands. Like there was only one thing he wanted to be doing. And that was rebuilding his stable.

For some reason, that felt like all that mattered. And granted, it was an important thing, but it wasn't all there was. The house needed some fixing, the horses needed grooming and shoeing, the small garden needed care, most of his clothes needed patching. He needed to keep wood for the stove and forage for what he could to stretch his supplies, and he needed to find a way to bring in some kind of money now that what little he had inherited was gone. There should have been plenty on his mind besides that stable. But there wasn't.

As much as he wanted to get it done, however, he didn't touch it. Not without Johnathan. After all, he needed something for the man to do, considering that his only alternative appeared to be getting muscled into a church. Jacob refused to let that happen. Johnathan might have been a bit of a pushover, but that didn't mean folks were entitled to take advantage of it. He refused to acknowledge the hypocrisy in that sentiment—his situation with Johnathan was entirely different. He was just protecting him.

After having seen him helpless last week, Jacob couldn't help but equate Johnathan to the fragile little fawn in the grasses that Aster had once been. He'd similarly been plopped onto Jacob's property, no family to speak of, vulnerable to the predators all around him. Now that fawn was safe here in the meadow. So, too, was Johnathan, he determined. The church wouldn't reach its tendrils to him here. It wouldn't infect his brain with frivolous hymns and arbitrary rules and stifling repression of nature. Here, he would be free. It made Jacob feel like quite the compassionate soul to devote himself to this vow.

When Sunday at last came again, he stepped out onto his porch and sat with Aster, who laid below him, plied with fresh strawberries to be still as Jacob brushed through his coat and examined his quickly growing antlers. They were still soft with velvet, working their way outwards to what was sure to be their biggest spread yet. The deer shook its head and he dug his fingers into the ruddy mane of its neck, scratching hard and causing it to lean heavily towards him.

"Your friend is on his way," he noted dryly to the stag. "I'm sure you can bully him out of his lunch again if you try."

Aster gave a breathy grunt, and its head turned towards the road as if it understood him. Then it tipped its chin up and bellowed.

Jacob winced back as the screech blared out over the valley, covering his ears and looking across the meadow, but couldn't see anything yet. He lazily shoved at the animal and snatched a stubby antler, pulling its head back towards him to continue brushing out the matted section on the side of its neck. He kept at it, eyes flickering up towards where the road sloped down until he saw the cart and horses amble down it onto his property. As soon as the cart was pulling up to the stable, Aster began to get up to make its way over. Jacob felt a tad indignant about being thrown over, but to be fair, Johnathan usually did have food.

Sure enough, as he walked over, he could see Johnathan climb down with a carrot in hand. Jacob approached, hands in his pockets, observing casually. When Johnathan saw him, he stopped, fiddling with the vegetable in his hands. "Good morning, Jacob. I...hope you don't mind. I thought he might like this."

"He weighs twelve-hundred pounds," Jacob said. "I don't think a carrot'll hurt his figure any."

Johnathan smiled, holding the carrot out to the eager bull. Aster plucked it from his grasp without hesitation. Johnathan looked the large beast over, running a hand along the mane. "I can't believe how much longer his antlers are. It's only been a week."