THE WATCHFUL FOREST

THE WATCHFUL FOREST

The barn owl hooted from the tall oak tree. His call seemed to say, “Who? Who? Who?” She felt that he was asking her a personal question. Like he really wanted to know … like he really needed to know.

Irene sat back on her heels and looked towards the verdant green forest beside her. She looked up to where the owl stared down on her, his huge orange eyes almost glowing in the fading light.

“It’s William,” she said quietly in answer to his persistent query. She knew owls had excellent hearing, so she knew that she didn’t need to speak loudly even though he was perched fairly high up in the tree.

“Who? Who? Who?” he called out again.

“I said William, William Kingsley. She spoke more loudly this time, just in case this particular owl was hard of hearing. “He was my … husband.”

He cocked his head to one side as if he was processing the information.

She looked around; the shadows were deepening, and small animals could be heard in the nearby undergrowth. The owl rotated his head in a seemingly impossible position, then turned back. The owl made no effort to take his silent flight to devour a free meal. A small gray mouse crept into the area, and she watched as the owl tracked its every move. The mouse crept into its hidey hole at the base of the oak tree; however, the owl never so much as fluttered a feather. Only his eyes followed the creature. She gave a slight sigh of relief that she would not have to witness its demise. She knew what it was like to be prey and to have something … someone … hunt you.

She knelt again, picked a purple wildflower from the mounded earth, and raised it to her nose, drinking in the flowery scent. Flowers grew in abundance here; the field was filled with Queen Anne’s lace, cosmos, black-eyed Susans, and a myriad of others that she knew not by name, but appreciated their beauty and fragrance. The owl sat in a tree in a small woods adjacent to the field.

A few feet away from where she knelt was a large stone. The rest of the field was barren of rocks. Early settlers had cleared the fields for planting and carried the rocks away to use in the building of fireplaces and foundations.

This particular rock she had labouriously carried from the nearby stream that ran through the property. It had taken her over an hour to carry, roll, and then drag the rock from the stream. It was as smooth as a baby's bottom, made smooth and flat by centuries of water rushing over it. When she had gotten it in place, she had taken an old rusty nail and had carved ‘William Kenneth Kingsley’ into the flat side. It was faint, but still legible. She had considered carving a rough cross at the top, over his name; however, she felt that might be a trifle hypocritical.

She was sure that William was nowhere near any heavenly beings; the exact opposite place was her initial thought.

William had never been a kind person, a friendly person or a Godly person, so that nixed the cross. After careful consideration, she left the stone blank except for his name. William pretty much stuck to himself and had forsworn the company of the local community. He never attended church and rarely visited the mercantile in the small village unless it was absolutely necessary.

On these rare occasions when he went to town, the townsfolk gave him a wide berth, parting the way for him like the parting of the Red Sea. She would generally hitch up the wagon herself and go to church on the sabbath and stop into the mercantile store to pick up necessities.

The small farm was a fair way from town and was very isolated. Most of their needs were met right there on the farm. They had a few cows, chickens, pigs, and of course, the two horses that were hitched up to plow the fields and that she used for her Sunday sojourns to town.

William had a small still in the woods and made daily visits to it. Partaking of its bounty with great gusto and ever-increasing frequency.

Their lives were simple, but things changed after William built the still. Always an angry man, he soon became volatile and violent. His sole purpose seemed to be encompassed by the care of his still.

It was when she found herself with child that Irene’s concern over her safety became paramount. She was used to abusive men; her own father had been a brute of a man. At his death, she was passed from one abusive man to another. There had been no choice. A young woman alone in the near wilderness was thought to be a recipe for disaster. Fate sometimes had the last laugh.

She looked at the owl now resting in the trees, and at the quickly disappearing sun. The sunset stretched across the sky with shades of orange and yellow. Irene glanced down at the mound in front of her and began to think back to that fateful day.

It was fall, and she had just completed canning and preserving the harvest. Everything was safely stored away in the root cellar under the kitchen floor for the long winter ahead. She had been frying bacon and eggs in the cast-iron frying pan when William had come into the house. As usual, he had come from his precious still, and was drunk as a skunk. He was furious as the high winds during the night had knocked over his still and destroyed some of the equipment he used to make moonshine. The dogs had heard his cursing and ranting across the yard and had slunk away so as to avoid a beating, thus Irene became the day's scapegoat.

His wrath was beyond measure; within moments, he had blackened both her eyes and knocked her to her knees. A kick to the stomach had only been avoided when he lost his balance and almost fell to the floor himself. She pushed him away … hard and took the opportunity to rise quickly. He turned and glared at her. “I’ll kill you, woman.”

It wasn’t the first time he had threatened her with those words, but this time, there was more at stake. She had to protect her unborn child. A child whom she had only recently realized existed.

He rose unsteadily to his feet and grabbed the bread knife off the counter. Step by step, she backed up as he came towards her, the knife raised high. She was backed up as far as she could go, the iron stove keeping her from further retreat. An instinct born from nature sprang within her, and as a mother lion protects its young, she too rose to face the challenge.

Her hand grabbed the heavy cast-iron frying pan on the stove behind her, and she swung with all her might. Hitting him in the head and dropping him like a stone.

*****

The owl gave a small hoot, and she came back from her reverie with a start. She stood and gathered the small basket, which held her most precious gift wrapped warmly in a yellow blanket. She spat on the mound and then stomped on the secret grave and walked back towards her house. The owl the only witness to her deeds.