should be informed hayseeds.
— Richard Peck
Sometimes you make a mistake and have to live with it. I did. I listened to my literary agent, Melody Bride, who thought living out in the country might help me as a writer.
Yeah, I admit, city life is full of distractions and being in a quieter place might pay off by increasing my literary production.
It seemed a logical conclusion—more books equals more income.
How could I lose?
I didn’t take into account dealing with small town folk who don’t take kindly to newcomers. That’s why I’m out today freezing my butt off trying to put up a fence to keep out nosey locals.
“You shouldn’t put windmills up here either, Jed—you should respect your neighbors.”
I hammer another staple into the fence post, before giving Jim hell eyes. Jim Crow’s a full-blooded Cherokee and some kind of local guru—but to me, he’s just a guy I hire to do a job.
“Government allows me to do it, Jim and pays me a good return—besides, I thought First Nation people were all about taking care of the environment. Let’s face it, wind power is green energy.”
“You can call me an Indian,” he says, ignoring my point.
“Okay—well then, aren’t Indians all about protecting the environment?”
“We are, but we also try not to piss off our neighbors.”
You see, I can’t talk to Jim—he’s not like most people—hell, he’s got a crow following him around. I’m not talking about a pet crow—but a wild crow.
He thinks it’s either a spirit guide or one of his ancestors—anyway he explained it once, but I don’t want to get him going on that crap again.
“Wind Walker’s circling up high—gonna snow tonight.”
I look at him with his long gray hair pulled back in a ponytail looking like a fugitive from a Lakota commercial.
“How the hell would a flying bird tell you anything about the weather?”
“He knows the wind—it’s not just a bearer of profits,” he stares at me pointedly, “—it’s the breath of the Great Spirit.”
“I suppose that bird channels wisdom to you.”
“He does. He tells me not to build a bonfire on a shithouse.”
In his not so subtle way, Jim’s ribbing me again about choosing the wrong location to burn some fallen branches.
Hell, I’m not a farmer and didn’t realize there could be methane fumes from buried septic tanks. The explosion wasn’t that major.
“You gonna electrify this fence?” He asks.
“Yeah—I’m tired of hunters and kids with dirt bikes trespassing in my woods—and I don’t want them near my windmills.”
“You better put up red tape and signs that say it’s electrified.”
“Why the hell would I want to do that? I want to zap them bastards—teach them a lesson.”
Jim just shakes his head and gets back on the tractor and pulls the wire fence taut so I can staple the next pole.
I’m about to sit down to dinner when I get interrupted, as I do daily, by my nosey neighbor, Stella McKinley. I grab a chicken leg and nibble on it while I pick up the phone.
“I want to take a look at that fence you and Jim put up today,” she says.
“How’d you hear about that?”
“We live in the country—everybody knows everybody’s business.”
I figure Jim Crow went back to the reservation and sent up smoke signals.
I sigh resignedly. “When do you want to look at it?”
“Like right now—Duh ! It’s almost five and it gets dark fast in December, especially when it’s snowing.”
“It’s snowing?” I just about choke on my chicken.
“Yeah. Didn’t Jim warn you?”
“I’ll be over in my truck to pick you up.”
“I hope you’ve got snow tires.”
I roll my eyes. I’ve got a Ford F-150 with all season tires—they have a snowflake on the sidewall. I’m not going to explain that to a woman.