Sally: Autumn Storms (F&L Story #4)

Sally: Part 10

Part 10

Friday, October 15, 2010.

Bone tired, Wilson rested his head against the down pillow that Sally provided for him in his new camper.  Everywhere he looked, he saw Sally's stamp on his days.  She supplied the sheets he slept on and the bath towels he dried off on after his showers.  She provided most of the canned goods in the rather large kitchenette and the dishes he ate off of.  He owned the clothes in the closet and the few books on the shelf over his bed.  But that was about it.

Not only was she in everything his eyes laid on, she also possessed a good chunk of his thoughts.  Tonight ended the week probation for him on the farm, and tomorrow he would learn whether she planned to keep him on the payroll.  By his calculations, if she decided to let him go, she owed him roughly three-hundred fifty dollars, with taxes taken out.  That wasn't a whole hell of a lot of dough, but it would get him down the road and set up in another cheap motel until he could find another job. 

The thought of that possibility rolled the acid in his stomach.  He didn't want to admit it, but he liked it here.  He liked Sally, too.  The lady farmer was up at the crack of dawn, taking care of her chickens and horses, and then spent the rest of the day tinkering at every little job that caught her eye.  One day, he found her clearing some brush away from her northern fence line with nothing more than a pair of gloves and an ax.  The next morning, she brought out her lawn mower and set about sharpening the blades and changing out the spark plugs.  Then she’d dig around in her vegetable garden for a while, talking incessantly to the remaining plants.  Once, he emerged from the storage shed with a roll of chicken wire hoisted up on his shoulder to see her climbing a twenty-foot ladder next to her back porch.  He stood there for a moment, wondering what the hell she was doing when she removed a short handled rake from her belt loops and swiped at a wasp’s nest under a second floor eave.

He about had a heart attack, right then and there.

His chores?  On Tuesday morning, he discovered a piece of notebook paper taped to his door.  On it was everything from riding the fence line to check for wear and tear to filling the potholes of her gravel driveway.  There was even a small note at the bottom about setting out traps for the rats that escaped the old camper.  He actually grinned when he read that. 

Miguel and his workers came back on Thursday to harvest another load of pumpkins, and then he met the two high school kids that popped up on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons, Tyrone and Marcus.  Those boys tended to the horses and ponies and kept the grazing field and stable in good order. 

Sometimes he and Sally worked alongside each other, but more often than naught, he barely saw more than two glimpses of her each day.  It was almost like she was avoiding him, but that couldn't be it.  Sally didn't shy away from much – excluding rodents – so coming into his last day of his trial week, he began to get a little worried.  If she wasn't happy with his work performance, she'd tell him so, right?

Wilson mulled over that while he stared up at the ceiling.  A muted thump echoed outside the camper.  It was late.  Dark had fallen, and he managed to heat up some canned soup before crashing.  Tomorrow, she'd have to face him.  Tomorrow, he would learn his fate.

Another dull thump reached his ears.  What was that?  He tilted his head to listen more intently.  Again, a whoooh-thmp.  Then another.  It sounded like someone beating out a rug...with a broom handle.  Recalling what Sally said about destroying stuff when she needed to release some tension, he raised up on his elbows, wondering what got her anger up.  He slipped on his boots and reached for a shirt, not bothering to button it since a heat wave hit the state earlier that week and he'd been sweating buckets.