Lydia Schoch

Photo by Jim Schoch.

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“But how do you know it will never happen?” asked the exasperated boy trudging behind Daphne. Somehow the water jugs she carried grew heavier with every twist in this improbable conversation.

“Because Lemon doesn’t have a uterus,” Daphne said, “and puppies can’t grow without one.” Lemon cocked his head at the mention of his name but was soon distracted by the myriad of new scents on the water trail. Had it really only been eight years since her sons were this age? Daphne didn’t mind helping out a neighbour, but she’d forgotten how many questions a six-year-old could dream up in the span of a few hours.

“Oh, then where did Lemon come from? You don’t have any girl dogs.”

“He was a gift from Mr. MacArthur. He once traded with someone who had too many puppies.” She never would have imagined that a half-starved, flea-infested puppy would grow up to be her most treasured companion.

“Why did you name him Lemon? What’s a lemon?”

“Lemons are a type of fruit that people used to grow,” Daphne said as she lowered the jugs to the ground paused to catch her breath. “My grandfather made a kind of cold tea with them when I first moved here to make me feel at home.” He’d squeezed all of the juice out of them, added three rations of water, and most peculiarly stirred in the last few spoonfuls of his coveted stash of white sugar. Daphne thought it tasted as sour and sweet as the first happy day after a long period of grief. The boy frowned and opened his mouth as if he was about to say something.

“What would you like for dinner, Felix?” she asked. “Pancakes or vegetable soup?” Given the circumstances Daphne didn’t think it was good idea to mention how her mother had died or that she’d been just a little older than him when it happened. She rarely thought about what her life would have been like had her mother survived. The memory was too old and well-healed to cause her much pain now, but there was a small piece of her heart that would give anything for her sons to have met their grandmother.

“Soup,” he said.

MacArthur was the last person Daphne expected to see as she walked into her front yard. His sun hat was pushed back from his head and his cheeks and nose were rosy. Surely a man his age would know better than to get a sunburn!

Two thin ewes lay in the dirt next to his feet. Makeshift rope leashes were tied around their necks, but Daphne doubted they had enough energy to run away even if they hadn’t been restrained. She wondered what he’d traded for the ewes, and who had been willing to part with such a valuable commodity during the hungry time of year.

“I have bad news,” he said with a weak smile as she approached him. “There is an odd epidemic in Prescott. It looks like the flu but it doesn’t seem to predictably spread from one person to the next the way most diseases do. They’ll be shutting down the trade routes soon until this blows over. Do you need anything?

“No, I have everything I need. You should go home to your family.” She’d lived too many years to fear what might never happen, and more importantly she didn’t want to frighten the boy. He was just old enough to understand why certain words put such fear into the hearts of adults, and she fervently hoped he wouldn’t figure out why this was one of them.

After lunch she took her two small companions with her while she weeded and irrigated the garden nearest to her home. Flashbacks of her sons’ childhood flooded her mind as Felix asked her where the sun went after dark, why the gods were so easily angered, and why he had to be born with two souls.

His final question snapped her out of her concentration. His eyes – one brown, one green – studied her with a level of concentration only found in six-year-olds who discover two new questions for every one that is answered. How could she answer his question without disparaging one of the most widely held religious beliefs of the Mingus Mountain area?

Most of her friends and neighbours believed that sometimes two souls are reincarnated into the same body. One could tell someone had more than one soul if they had an unusual birthmark or other physical feature.

This wasn’t necessarily a good thing. If the souls had accumulated good karma in their previous lives the two-souled person would bring luck and prosperity to his or her family and community. Their parent’s land would be fertile, and their younger siblings would grow up healthy and strong. Sometimes new siblings would even arrive in pairs, and twins were always lucky!

If both souls had not lived virtuous past lives, though, their condition could be considered a punishment from the gods. Perhaps the better side of their nature had been told to overpower the bent one, or maybe two souls who had made terrible decisions in their last few lifetimes were sent into the same body so that they could hurt fewer people in this one.

The only way to tell was to observe the child carefully for signs. A birthmark that faded over time was a good sign. One that grew darker or larger was not because it meant that the bent side of their nature was winning.

Privately Daphne held doubts about this theory. The markings were often bizarre, but she wasn’t sure how a small child could have any influence on whether their siblings lived or how much rain fell from the sky. Between never marrying into an established family and bearing two children under such distasteful circumstances her unorthodox life was already a source of gossip in the community. The younger generations were used to her, but Daphne didn’t want to give her peers anything else to dissect.

“I don’t know,” she said. “Some things are a mystery.”

Next chapter.

Photo by Jennifer Aitkens.

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A few uneventful weeks passed by. Daphne’s gardens thrived under the early spring sun and her careful irrigation. The harvest looked like it would be bountiful.

One afternoon she returned home for a rare indoor lunch. MacArthur walked up the path at the same moment she began heating the water up for tea. Lemon leapt up from the warm bed he’d just made in the sunshine just outside of the front door and barked for joy. Daphne wondered what all the commotion was and then noticed that MacArthur was carrying a wheel of cheese.

“No, that isn’t for you. You’ve already had your treat for the day.”” she said to the dog as her neighbour walked into her kitchen. Lemon sat on his haunches and watched the familiar man carefully as he set the cheese down on the table. Sometimes no slipped into yes when Daphne wasn’t paying attention.

“I thought you might be running low on supplies,” MacArthur said. Daphne’s lips erupted into a jagged smile. Was it April already? It seemed like just yesterday he’d brought the previous wheel of never-ending cheese. After fourteen years and a court order you’d think he’d come out and admit the real reason for his quarterly deliveries. It wasn’t as if any of it could be kept a secret in such a small community.

“I’m actually afraid I’ll have too much food this summer,” Daphne joked. “It’s amazing how much less I need to cook without a house full of starving teenagers.”

“When are your boys coming home? You must miss them.” MacArthur said, suddenly feeling a little shy around the woman he’d known for over fifteen years.

“Oh, another six weeks or so. They’d like to stay longer but their host family probably won’t have enough food to spare for the summer. There are a few projects around here that I’m saving for them to work on, though.” She didn’t know how to explain how a mother could simultaneously miss her children so fiercely her heart ached and feel so grateful for several months of blissful solitude and so she said nothing. Before Ephraim and Isaac entered this world she’d lived alone for nearly 20 years.  It took some adjustment on her part to grow used to the bustle of raising twins but how could one explain this to a man who hadn’t had a moment to himself for thirty years and preferred it that way? The conversation paused for a moment. “How are your wives?”

“Good. Rachel and Naomi are actually visiting our newest grandson at the moment. You’d think his mother would know what to do the second time around but somehow the grandmothers always have an excuse to visit. We were hoping you and the kids would join us for dinner when they come home, though.”

“Yes,” Daphne said after a moment of hesitation. “I think they might like that. Let us know what night you were thinking once they’re home for the summer.”

Hello!” Neveah’s voice boomed through the canyon as she walked up the steep hill to Daphne’s house.  She raised her left eyebrow at MacArthur as she walked into the suddenly too-small kitchen.

“I should be going,” MacArthur said abruptly. “Let me know if you need anything else.” He left with  a quick nod.

“Delivery time already?” Neveah noted with a sour, gritty taste developing in her mouth. “And he came alone?” Anyone who hadn’t known her for as many years as Daphne had might have assumed these were questions. They weren’t.

“Yes, he brought cheese,” Daphne said neutrally. “Would you like some?”

“Well, if you don’t mind…”Neveah’s voice trailed off as she removed a small, hopefully clean knife from her cloak and cut a large serving out of the wheel.

“I have cornbread and tea as well if you haven’t eaten yet?” Anyone who knew Daphne wouldn’t mistake this as a question either. So long as she had food in her larder and a pot of herbal tea brewing on the stove no one walked away from her table with an empty stomach. While Daphne turned her back on her old friend Neveah quietly slid the first thin slice of cheese under the table to Lemon. His tail thumped against the floor in gratitude as he licked his chops.

“Lemon, it isn’t polite to beg,” Daphne warned as she sliced the bread and poured two cups of tea.  Neveah smiled, put her finger over her lips and slipped the dog another morsel.

“Neveah, don’t encourage him,” Daphne said with a sly smile as she brought the food to the table. “He has plenty of food.” Neveah pretended to pout for a moment before digging into the latest community news in-between bites.

“….but no one knows what was in those little glass bottles in the traveller’s bag,” Neveah grumbled as she finished her lunch. “And none of them were still intact. It’s probably just as well. You know how expensive glass is these days. The courts would have been tied up for a month figuring out who has the biggest claim on them.”

“Did they find anything else in his bag?”

“Wet clothes and a broken gun. Nothing of value and no clues about his identity.” Miraculously Neveah grew quiet for a moment before asking her next question. “Daphne…how much food do you have for the summer?

“Take the cheese,” Daphne insisted. “I don’t need it. What else is running low?”

“If you insist,” Nevaeh said. “But actually I was wondering if you’d like a little visitor for a little while. Delphine has hopes for next month.”

Daphne had of course noticed Delphine’s condition but was too polite to mention it directly. Virtually every home in the Mingus Mountains had been disappointed at least once. It was better to wait and see what the gods had in store before assuming there would be any joy to find in the coming weeks.

“I’d prefer to look after the boy,” Daphne said. At six he would be a little more independent than his three year old sister and her own sons weren’t quite so old yet that they’d forgotten how to roughhouse if he ended up needing to stay a little longer than expected.

“It’s settled then,” Nevaeh said with a smile. Her food stores actually were growing sparse and feeding two grandchildren for days, or possibly weeks if there were complications, wasn’t easy at this time of year. She’d secretly been hoping to keep her granddaughter to herself, though, and was happy Daphne was willing to help.

Next chapter.

Photo by Neepster from Phoenix, USA.

Part One of this story.

Sleep found Daphne in skittish catnaps when night fell. She woke up the next morning with a stiff knee and sore shoulder from racing up the hill and sleeping on a cold, hard surface but Lemon seemed no worse for the wear.

The desert had slurped up all but a few muddy patches of yesterday’s flood so Daphne packed up the blanket began her short walk home. The red-headed stranger was nowhere to be seen but she walked slowly past the tree that had sheltered him hoping to find clues about his identity.

There were none.

By the time Daphne limped up to her small, adobe shack she had created and discarded half a dozen theories about the strange’s man history:

• He was looking for a husband or wife. With such low population densities it was easy to be related to everyone in your community. Some folks married a first or second cousin, others visited nearby towns in the hope of meeting someone from a new family.
• Arizona was finally reintroducing their state government and this politician (?) was travelling around to spread the good news. Daphne hadn’t been born yet when the old one disbanded but her grandfather had vivid memories of what life had been like back then. 
• A distant community wanted to set up a trade route. What, exactly, either side could afford to trade was something Daphne hadn’t figured out yet. No one was as hungry as they had been when Daphne was a girl but there still wasn’t a surplus of food in any house.

“Glad to see you’re still alive,” came a husky, droll voice from the entrance of Daphne’s adobe hut. “I was beginning to think I’d lost my least bothersome neighbour.” Nevaeh stood in the shadows, her sunhat pushed back from her brow. She was a tall, angular woman in her early 40s whose short, thin, curly black hair stood nearly on end.

“It’s good to see you, too,” Daphne replied. She hesitated for a moment before telling Neveah the story of the flash flood and the stranger she’d seen fall into the water.

“No, can’t say that I’ve heard of any strangers in these parts,” Neveah said, taking off her hat and scratching her temples. “MacArthur lost a few sheep to that damn flood and no one has heard from the Reeds yet but everyone else muddled through it ok. Your fields are looking healthy, too. You lost a few seedlings but you should still have a good harvest. I checked them this morning before starting my rounds.”

Daphne had expected as much. No one and nothing passed through the valley without Neveah’s approval. At times her strict attention to every jot and tittle of daily life was a little overbearing but Daphne was grateful to hear that she’d still have something to eat over the long, hot summer.

“Have you heard from your daughter yet?” Daphne asked. Neveah’s only living child had settled down to raise her children a few miles away from her mother.

“No, I was planning to visit her next.  Would you like to come with me and sit a spell? No one knows how to soothe that fractious baby of hers like you do.” Daphne rubbed her sore knee and declined. What she really needed was a hot meal and long nap.

The next two days passed uneventfully as Daphne’s knee healed. For a time it was all she could accomplish to weed and irrigate her nearest garden. Lemon wasn’t used to spending so much time at the house and had grown as restless as his human by the time she was feeling well enough to walk any further than necessary. He soon began flushing rabbits out of the underbrush and chasing them around while Daphne napped. She didn’t like it when he startled her furry, little friends but both Daphne and Lemon knew that he wouldn’t know what to do with a rabbit even if he ever managed to catch one.

The small house that improbably housed Delphine, her husband, their three children and several thin dogs was bustling with activity when Daphne arrived on a warm afternoon. MacArthur Everson was cursing up a storm as he described how the flood swept away three pregnant ewes  before he could do a damned thing about it. 

“How in the hell am I going to feed my family this summer when half of my breeding stock is gone?” he asked with a sour grimace. “A man can’t live on vegetables and nuts alone.”

Daphne smiled. MacArthur had grown to adulthood in one of those rare pauses between droughts and had never quite adjusted to the idea that sheep were more valuable as a renewable source of wool and milk than as a few hearty meals. Old or sick sheep might be slaughtered but none of his neighbours tasted meat more than a few times a year. It was simply too wasteful to consider any other option.

As she lifted her head Daphne noticed Sean Reed walking up the path carrying a soggy satchel. They lived on opposite sides of the valley and rarely spoke to one another. A young, extroverted man who spent all of his free time organizing community events and had never cared to learn how to read or write didn’t have much in common with a quiet, literate woman who preferred to keep to herself. Sean’s boots were muddy and his face was grim.

“I found a body,” he said. “but he wasn’t one of us.” Immediately the buzz in the room ended.

“Was he thin, pale and red-headed?” Daphne asked. Sean nodded and described how he’d had to dig a makeshift grave for what had once been a man. The corpse had been badly damaged in the flood and was in no condition to be examined for further clues even if their community still had a doctor. She explained her earlier encounter with the stranger briefly. No one else had experienced a similar event or heard anything about the stranger.

“Daphne, I was wondering if you could read his documents for us? Most of the words were washed away in the flood but I think there are a few sentences left.” Sean pulled a slim, waterlogged book out of the bag.

Daphne suspected that the person who had copied it had used a water-soluble ink.  Some of the words were terms she’d never heard of before but Daphne pronounced them to the best of her ability as she read aloud the bits and pieces of the book that had survived the flood:

…Your territory manual…

…Battle of Fort Evergreen…

…signed the Declaration of…Henderson, Nevada… 2212. Your assigned representative is..

Hemorrhagic hantavirus…If your community requires more doses of the vaccine contact Ma…

Tax collectors will begin…

As confused as Daphne was about how, exactly, a “vaccine” could reverse the course of a disease that even the gods feared she was even more intrigued by the last decipherable line:

For more information see our website…

 Next chapter.

Photo by Bernard Gagnon.

Daphne had never worried about drowning in the desert before and she wasn’t about to start now.

An old, familiar ache in her left knee flickered back into life as she scrambled up the hill. Lemon scampered up inches ahead of her with a dull whine. The water frothed brown and kept rising.

She’d climbed as high as she could now. All that was left to do was keep Lemon away from the current and hope the flash flood didn’t sweep them away. Daphne wrapped her arms around her companion and struggled to slow her ragged breathing as the water uprooted a long-dead White Thorn Acacia with a sickening snap.

Lemon growled as the tree was slowly dragged away. She stroked his damp, yellow fur and thanked the gods he was so good at following commands quickly in an emergency. Six hours ago ago he’d been napping lazily in the shade as she irrigated one of her gardens.  Three hours ago they’d huddled in a cave as an unexpected thunderstorm dumped several inches of water onto the desert. Now they shivered in the anemic winter sunlight as the temporary river rose.

Daphne opened her pack and examined its contents: two flasks of lukewarm water, a  wool blanket, a spade, one serving of Arizona walnuts, a sharp knife, and a tinderbox. Without a safe place to light a fire or enough flammable materials to sustain it sharing the blanket with Lemon would have to do if it wasn’t safe to return home by nightfall. As much as she missed her sons Daphne was grateful they were old enough to look after themselves now. They were no doubt better off up in the mountains than they would have been had they stayed in the valley with her this winter.

A flash of unexpected color drew Daphne out of her thoughts. She could just make out a pale, gaunt, red-headed man clinging to a tree about three hundred feet away. He pushed his hat up and offered a weak wave. Daphne waved back, briefly wondering who the stranger was and what he had been doing in her valley. She’d lived in and around the Mingus Mountain area since early childhood and knew every one of the 204 men, women and children that eked out a living there. None of them were redheads, very few were as ghostly white as this stranger and absolutely no one visited her valley without letting her know they were in the area! Had he been kin to anyone from her community she was certain they would have explained local customs to him if not brought him over themselves for a neighbourly visit.

Everyone knew Daphne liked a quiet, private life but she certainly knew how to entertain visitors! The gods knew they didn’t receive much news from the rest of the States these days. Severe droughts had lead to food shortages and limited the time and energy most folks had for walking or riding a horse into parts unknown. To tell the truth Daphne missed the way things had been when she was growing up. Not all of the visitors had been friendly, of course, but most of them were kind men and women who saw glimpses of a little daughter or sister left behind months ago in the shining eyes of the small girl who listened shyly to their stories about what life was like in South California, Nevada, or New Texas, or even (once) a mysterious place called Tennessee. Spending a few days with them before they journeyed on was a refreshing break from seeing the same faces over and over again.

The sun was slipping behind Mingus Mountain. Daphne noted with regret that while the flood was slowly soaking away it was still too deep for her to safely cross. She wished there was a way to share her food and blanket with the strange man who at this point was staring down at the water and wiggling his feet. His face was too small and far away for her to gauge what he was thinking but she hoped he knew enough about flash floods to stay put for now. Even if he knew how to swim the current could become unexpectedly deep and strong over uneven terrain and there was always the risk of being hit by debris.

Slowly but surely the man was climbing down the tree.

“No!” Daphne shouted. “It isn’t safe!” For a second he paused as if he’d heard her but then continued his descent.

“Stop!” she yelled. Either the canyon swallowed her warning or he chose to ignore it because in a few seconds his legs had disappeared into the muddy water and he was wading knee, waist, chest-deep across the newly-formed river. Daphne held her breath. The shadows were lengthening now and it was growing a little more difficult to see what was happening. Suddenly the man’s head bobbed underneath the water eliciting a small groan from Daphne and a whine from Lemon.

One one thousand. Two one thousand. Three one thousand. His head bobbed up again. Daphne hadn’t realized she was holding her breathe until she exhaled. He wasn’t a strong swimmer but at least he’d learned the basics somewhere. With such a severe drought going on most folks his age had never had the opportunity.  Twenty more feet of dog paddling and he should be safe. The man’s progress was slow but steady against the current.

A log slid around the river bend. Had it not been for her keen eye Daphne would never have seen something just a few shades darker than the water slipping up and down with the unforgiving current. As it was she noticed the danger just before the log slammed into the man’s head. Her stomach dropped as he sank into the water.

Four one thousand. Five one thousand. Six one thousand. He did not reemerge.

Next chapter.