Mixed Fabrics
Fiction: A shepherd returns to his compound and his wife warns him of a problem.
When the sheep returned to the compound, a black-haired woman exited a mud-domed hogan. Her husband had arrived with the shadows of the afternoon.
The woman watched her husband, a tall man of great weight, stride into the compound he had laboured so long to build. Although there was no fence around the great property, everyone of the region knew the land belonged to him and refused to venture into it unless there had been a great and pressing matter.
“Bless’d-Rain.” He spoke her name softly.
Her husband blocked the fading afternoon sun and shaded her in his statue.
“Great-Harrier,” she responded. She spoke his name as though he were a stranger she had met rather than her husband. To be able to do so was a mark of their closeness. No one called him by his name save his family members. Everyone else called him Callous.
Still, she feared him. She had not expected him so soon. Dinner had not been ready. She had only finished cutting root vegetables and mutton for the stew. He would be hungry and she had nothing to offer.
Callous took her chin between his thumb and forefinger and lifted her head. Her black hair, braided with strips of leather and twine, fell behind her shoulders. He kissed her. Despite her many years of marriage, her seven pregnancies, her two surviving children, she thrilled at his touch.
“Where is the other wife?”
“The pregnant one is in her hogan,” Bless’d-Rain responded. “She still weaves the same rug.”
“She is still young and learning.”
“She has no talent for craft. She cannot use the loom. She cannot card the wool. She is useless. You married her for looks alone.”
“And I am punished for it,” he laughed with easy mirth. He loved his first wife because of her stubborn-headedness. If anyone else opposed him as she had him, he would have killed them where they stood. He admired her above all else.
Callous removed his wide-brimmed hat and handed it to his wife. Sweat clung to his brow from the hot arid sun. She took the hat from him and the big stick he carried as a cudgel. Despite having an assault rifle slung across his body, Callous preferred to use the cudgel. It saved bullets. Bless’d-Rain smoothed his tussled hair and gave him a small smile.
Her husband turned to visit the second mud-dome, the home of his second wife, when Bless’d-Rain grabbed his hand. “There is something else.”
Callous cocked his thick eyebrows. He squinted with the premotion of an anger.
“What is it?”
“The son of Saltbush is here.”
“Where is he!?” Callous shouted. He reached for the assault rifle and wrapped his hand around the grip. His finger was ready to pull the trigger.
“Wait!” Bless’d-Rain threw herself in front of her husband. “Saltbush is gone.”
“And leaves his son?”
“The harvest failed…”
“Lazy! No wonder…”
“He went to the city and abandoned his son.”
“Vagabond!” Callous shouted into the air. Had Saltbush appeared before him at that moment, Callous would not have shot him. He would have handed his rifle to his wife and strangled the sluggard with his own hands. The lean man’s neck would easily fit within his thick hands. Callous would squeeze and squeeze and take delight in the bulge of his eyes and the purpling of his flesh.
“Black-Tail wants to join us,” Bless’d-Rain added.
“Join us!” Callous threw a glance over his shoulder at the sheep that filled his compound. They had been brought back to the property and they needed some water. “Woman, do you not know that I only completed the third hogan yesterday? Do you not know that I have gathered so many sheep as to be owed a third wife. I have laboured and I have succeeded in my labour and I expect to be rewarded. I will wed a suitable woman, a woman who is able like you and beautiful like Sweet-Sand, and she shall live there,” he said, flinging his arm with an outstretched finger. “I shall not give away this new home to the son of a useless vagabond, a son who probably picked up his ways, his manners. Why does he not follow his father? We all know why he went to the city! To find quick money, easy bedmates, and cheap drugs. The offspring of Saltbush has bad blood in his veins. I shall not speak to him.”
Bless’d-Rain spread her fingers over her angry husband’s chest. She felt the strong rhythm of his heart beat through the pure wool poncho she had woven for him. His eyes, filled with dark fury, softened as he looked down at his first wife.
“Judge after you speak to him. Not before.”
Callous grabbed her wrist and flung the arm from his chest. She knew that he acted with anger, but the man heard the reason of the words.
“He awaits in the third hogan.”
Callous scoffed as he walked to the new building. After weeks of labour, he had finished the building in the hopes of consecrating its circle with a new wife. Now, instead, a young man sits inside of it as a parasite waits in the bowels of man and beast alike.
Callous pushed through the leather flap of the hogan’s entrance and entered.
The boy, a young man of only sixteen summers, immediately stood. Bare-chested, the boy only wore a sarong made from discarded plastic bags interwoven with reclaimed cloth rags. He wore flattened plastic bottles as sandals.
“Uncle,” he said with trembling voice. “I am honoured by your presence.”
“I am not your Uncle! I am not your Father! I am not your Lord nor Master! You shall call me as others do, Callous. It is a name that suits me.” Had this conversation occurred at any other place, Callous would have spat at the ground.
“Callous,” the boy said with a bow of his head. “I request a moment of your time. Here, I bring an offering of mixed Coyote Tobacco.”
Callous snatched the leather pouch filled with torn tobacco and threw it into the afternoon sun.
“Tobacco is a vice. I reject your gift.”
The boy fell upon his knees and bent his body forward in prostration.
“I request your forgiveness.”
“Get up!” Callous roared. He hated the snivelling behaviour of the boy.
“I…” the boy lifted himself from the ground with hesitation.
“Speak your matter plainly and quickly,” Callous cautioned. As he did so, he circulated round the interior of the hogan and sat upon the hard dirt floor. He crossed his legs and flung his wrists over his knees.
The boy quickly took a seat in front of the large man and tried to imitate the commanding posture. Callous sat like an ancient god, a stone statue sneering with displeasure. His wide chest and thick shoulders offered a silent threat. At any moment, the man could leap to his feet, with one hand stretched out before him, and snuff the life of the child in front of him.
The boy, lean and meagre and thin, sat like a skeleton forced onto steel rods for anatomical study. He had no life in his muscles. He had only known bad years.
“My father…”
“Plainly and quickly,” Callous repeated sternly.
“I seek refuge in your compound,” the boy stuttered.
“Your name?”
“Black-Tail,” he said.
“Black-Tail,” the large man said, tasting the name between his teeth, “Why should I give you refuge? I have a son who helps. I have a daughter to marry for dowery. My second wife is pregnant with another child. This hogan is ready for a third wife. What will you bring?”
“I work hard,” he said.
“Your promise is no good to me. I know your father.”
“I am not my father!” Black-Tail spat back.
Callous smiled.
“Yes, you are exactly like your father. You are thin and lazy and stupid.”
“I am not!” the boy shouted. His body quaked in his mounting anger.
“Yes, you are worthless like your father. You have never dug a hole for water”
“I have!”
“Or sheer a sheep for wool.”
“I have!”
“Out, you sluggard. Go eat the same scrapheap as your father.”
“I will not go until I have proven myself to you!” Black-Tail jumped to his feet. “I will show you.”
Callous slouched to his full height and imposed his massive figure upon the young boy.
“You will show me?”
“I will.”
“Will you spindle wool and weave rugs?”
“That is a woman’s job!”
“Will you milk the sheep and the goats?”
“That is a woman’s job!”
“Will you hunt and bring meat to the compound?”
“I will.”
“Then go,” Callous said. “Do not come back until you have brought me a deer.”
“I have no weapon.”
“This is no problem of mine.”
“I have no weapon.”
“This is no problem of mine.”
“I have no weapon,” Black-Tail said for the third time.
Callous dropped his hand onto the boy’s shoulder. The heavy hand rattled his bones.
“You shall eat with us for three days. Then, I shall decide whether I shall give you a rifle.”
“Leave for an hour. I am to speak with my wives.”
Back-Tail bowed to the large man and exited the hogan.
Callous closed his eyes and listened to the footsteps of the young man, the brays of his sheep, and the rhythmic sounds of his first wife stirring stew over the fire.