DISCLAIMER: I own nothing. But I did do the drawing on the cover image. Unfortunately, due to copyright laws, I don't own the character depicted in it. Sigh. Leah is wasted on smeyer. I'm only mentioning it because I realized I can't place images in here like I did on AO3, and you can't even really see it on the cover image. I call it "Leah in overalls and a tasteful amount of sideboob," because overalls are more of a tiddies-out look. (shameless plug) If you wanna look at it, you can go to my tumblr roslaeahle
VIII
Home on the Range
It took me a day to start thinking of the farm as mine.
It only took about an hour, really. I tagged along with Noah while he did the morning chores, listening to him tell me about the crops and the animals. As I listened, I learned that the Ashwood land was much larger than I had imagined.
Noah pointed sideways towards a long, wooden structure when we stepped off the porch. "This here is Mama's greenhouse. She grows seedlings in the winter, and then when the days get longer, we move 'em out here," he explained, pointing out into the rows of plants.
Next to the greenhouse was a large shed. "This is where we keep most of the feed," Noah grunted as he pushed the heavy wooden door open. "And the truck."
He tried to load all the feed barrels in the back of the truck, but I showed off by grabbing two at once—one under each arm—without breaking a sweat.
"Wow," he panted, wiping the sweat off his brow. "Jack was right about you—you're strong," he remarked proudly.
"Yeah, well," I mumbled, my eyes carefully fixed on my feet.
He didn't seem to mind if I was short with him. His dimples were still intact as we got in the car. He was happy to roll down the windows and let the chilly morning mist in; he whistled along to a song on the radio as we drove through the fields.
"This is the garden," Noah stated, pointing out the windows as we entered what appeared to be endless rows of plants. "We got about twenty raised beds and twenty in the ground," he continued.
Each plot was brimming with different sorts of green, leafy vegetables, red and purple berry bushes, and tomato vines growing up tall metal rods in the ground, creating a wall of red and green.
Suddenly, there was a great cacophony of sound as we turned the corner of one of the raised beds and came upon a chicken coop. I could see the birds inside flapping their wings excitedly.
"That's our chicksaw," Noah said as he stopped the car and pointed out the two-wheeled cart underneath the coop. "We rotate its spot to fertilize the ground before planting."
"What's that?" I asked, pointing at a small black box plugged into the netting.
"Electric fence generator," he replied, showing me the dials on the box. "Now, number one rule about the electric fence," he told me, flipping a small metal switch that made all the lights flicker out on the box. "Turn it off first."
We stepped over the netting with two buckets of grain, and the sounds from the coop got louder. When he finally opened the little wire door, a flood of birds came flapping out, like the running of the bulls in Spain. Most of them were chickens, but some geese and ducks were mixed in the swarm.
He showed me where to dump the grain, then to the spigot at the end of the last row of crops. We filled a kiddy pool with water, and the ducks flew over to dip their webbed feet in it.
"Ow!" I cried, looking back at a particularly proud goose behind me.
"What happened?" Noah asked, twisting his neck to look up from where he was collecting eggs in the coop.
"This thing just pecked my ass," I complained, turning to face the offending fowl head-on.
Noah laughed. "That's Merle. Don't mind him; he thinks he runs the place."
"Someone oughta knock him down a bit in the pecking order," I muttered, crouching opposite my new enemy. The bird took two cautious steps back.
Big mistake, birdy, I thought to myself.
Noah wasn't laughing now. "Hey, don't do that," he warned me.
"I've killed bigger than him," I growled, falling forward onto my hands, in the same hunting state of mind I had as a wolf.
"Seriously, Leah," Noah continued. He grabbed my elbow, and to my surprise, I let him pull me back up to a stand. "Let him go. He's harmless."
I stared down at the goose, and he honked at me, taking another step back.
"Fine," I huffed, turning on my heel and walking back towards the truck. "What's next?"
Noah marched up behind me. "Second rule about the electric fence," he instructed as I got to the truck. "Turn it back on."
I slammed the cab door as I hopped in.
We stopped at two more chicksaw coops, giving them food and water. I had no more encounters with the geese, but the day was still young. A few yards from the last one we visited was a massive, slanted red barn.
"This is where we keep the brooders for the baby chicks," Noah explained, pointing out the different pens filled with heaters and plastic reservoirs. "We feed them about twice a day."
Hanging from the wall were various pieces of farming equipment. Beneath them were more large barrels of animal feed, each labeled with little red stickers of the species they fed, and next to those was a long hall of stalls. Two ladders on either side of the entrance led up to the rafters, filled to the brim with haystacks.
"We got all these after last year's harvest," Noah elaborated as we loaded up the stacks into the crowded bed of the truck. Luckily, it had wooden posts built into the sides, and we could pile them up on top of the remaining feed barrels.
We drove down a straight, dusty path where the truck tires had worn grooves into the road. On either side was wooden fencing, crowded with trees and bushes. We stopped beside a large metal gate, where the cows were all waiting with expectant eyes.
"We've got about four different pastures, all in all," Noah described as we walked up to the gate. "The bulls are in the one with the metal piping fence since they like to knock 'em down. We keep sows in one pen, heifers in another, and cows with calves in the other. We got smaller sections squared off for the sheep and the goats. The pigs are in the outer fields, by the walnut grove. We use them to knock down the big, overgrown parts of the forest on the property. Gives us more usable acreage."
We fed and watered them all, stopping to rest on the tall fence of the pig pen on the edge of a muddy, flooded riverbank.
"Why do you feed them if they mostly take care of themselves?" I wondered aloud.
"It's supplemental, mostly," Noah explained. "Even though they don't need us or our food to survive, we want 'em fat and happy. Makes 'em good and yummy when we go to eat them."
"Mmm," I hummed along with my growling stomach.
Noah threw his head back and let out a hearty, throaty laugh. "Okay, I can take a hint. Time to head back for breakfast." He jumped off the fence, offering me his hand to get down.
I rolled my eyes and dropped the three inches to the ground. "That fence is hardly taller than I am," I commented.
Noah laughed again. "C'mon, now, pipsqueak," he teased, grabbing my hand and pulling me towards the truck's cab full of empty barrels and his dog, Rusty. "Mama'll be needing those eggs for breakfast."
When we returned to the garden, Noah stopped and pulled out a couple of the empty plastic buckets we'd used for bird feed, then stooped down to a row of short, bushy plants and began cutting off bushels and placing them into the bucket.
"What are you doing?" I asked, standing behind him with my arms crossed.
"Getting veggies for Mama," he retorted as if this were obvious.
"How do you guys make money?" I wondered as he got back in the car.
"Well," he hedged, his voice a couple of octaves higher. "We're usually in the red until the Harvest Festival in July. It's like a carnival. We set up after picking the gardens clean, and the circus even comes by," he explained. "Last year didn't go so well, though. Can you believe a wolf crashed the party and broke the hot dog stand? Really pissed the carnies off. Had to beg 'em to come back this year."
My cheeks grew hot. I stared out the windshield and said nothing.
"That's why we're putting extra work into the barn this year," Noah continued. "We're gonna be setting up more stuff. The circus even said they'd bring in one of those big wheels." He motioned with his hands.
"A Ferris wheel?"
He snapped his fingers and pointed at me with a wide grin, nearly stopping my heart entirely. "You got it."
There were already children behind the house, playing in the dirt. The youngest, a boy, was on Diana's hip, watching the older ones play with each other. They all came running up to greet us when they saw the truck.
I stayed in the cab at first, watching the little hands warily as they slapped against the glass. I was met with two identical gap-toothed smiles. Behind the twins was Susanna, towering over both with her baby brother sitting on her shoulders. I held the basket of eggs in my lap tighter.
"Don't worry," Noah said, placing a consoling hand over mine. "They know to be careful with breakfast," he added, flashing a dimpled smile.
I tried to find my train of thought again, to no avail. I was caught in his eyes, sinking in the warm, chocolate-brown irises. We were stuck like that for what could have been a second or a hundred years; it felt the same to me. With his eyes piercing mine, I felt utterly exposed, stripped down to the core. I may have blurted out something stupid had I not bit my tongue.
He cleared his throat and popped open his door. I shook my head and turned to do the same as he let Rusty out of the back.
I was bombarded with voices as I entered the kitchen through one of the sliding doors.
"Did you meet Missy?" Sarah asked me, tugging on the knee of my pants. "She's my sow."
"Probably," I replied with a shrug, placing the basket on the table and approaching the stairs to my room.
"Where're you going?" Sarah insisted, hugging my leg and sitting on my foot, pulling herself along as I passed through the kitchen.
"To bed," I replied, looking up the stairs and down to my foot, trying to measure the effort it would take to make it up with her against my desire to sleep.
"Why?" The little girl asked, looking up at me with pleading eyes. "It's morning."
"I'm tired," I told her.
"Well, I'm not tired," Noah boasted, sweeping down and pulling Sarah off my leg. She screamed as he threw her over his shoulder, then started pounding on his chest with her tiny, ineffective fists.
"Thank you," I mouthed as he looked over his shoulder.
He grinned. "Don't mention it, pipsqueak," he replied.
I scowled back at him.
"What?" He asked innocently, backing up into the kitchen. "Aren't you hungry?"
"Always," I answered automatically, hesitating at the base of the stairs.
"Come on," he encouraged, gesturing for me to follow him back down the hallway.
This time, I didn't fight the pull to do what he wanted; a girl had to eat, right? Besides, I was exhausted. I hadn't slept in almost twenty-four hours and had no strength to pull myself up the stairs to bed. And maybe, just maybe, there were some things I could allow in our relationship. Surely, I could control myself for fifteen minutes while we ate.
I looked back at him, considering how far I was willing to push it on the first day.
Even after I'd downed another cup of coffee and my eyes opened on their own, I still couldn't follow the babble of conversations around the table. All I could register as I shoveled eggs in my mouth was Noah's body beside mine. Oddly familiar, though I'd known him less than a week, his presence was like an anchor to reality. Amidst the smell of breakfast, his woodsy scent was enough to relax the muscles in my shoulders.
When I'd finished with my plate, I found out why he felt so prominent beside me. Everyone's eyes were on him, though they faced other people and didn't talk to him; they kept glancing over to the boy sitting in a pair of cut-off sweats.
It'd seemed almost natural that morning when he came stumbling in from the woods totally in the nude like I was back on the rez. I'd brought him some clothes as soon as I saw him break the tree line, in a feeling of camaraderie, as someone who'd also felt the sting of the cold morning air on their naked body, felt the hollowing-out of their bodies as they were entirely exposed to the elements.
It hadn't occurred to me to ask him why; it seemed like a given at the time. But now that I paused and examined him, I realized he looked like he'd gotten about as much sleep as I had. There were long, dark bags under his eyes. He smelled like sweat and Georgia pines. His bare chest—distractingly attractive, covered in a thin mat of curly black hair—had been scratched and torn on the sides. A little crust of dried blood was still on his hairline, even at the breakfast table.
A ball of anxiety dropped into the pit of my stomach like a stone cannonballing into a river. My hand reached up of its own accord to stroke the hair back, getting a closer look at the bloody gash.
His hand met mine instinctively, and he turned to face me.
The whole table fell silent. I could hear myself thinking in the Ashwood house for the first time.
Is he a werewolf? I heard myself wonder.
The gash was a couple of hours old, at least. There was the beginning of a blue bruise blooming around it. I let out a breath I hadn't known I was holding.
He didn't heal as I did; this was proof enough for me that he was still just another human. A human hanging out naked in the woods all night while his family dealt with a drained cow, but still, a human all the same.
For a moment, I felt incredibly alone, almost like culture shock. I longed for a place where there were others like me, but when I thought about the pack, my stomach curled in guilt, and I found the thought of going back to the reservation too much for me to bear.
Noah stared back at me while I took in his injuries. He seemed to be waiting for something. I let my hand fall back to the table.
"Where did you get that?" I blurted.
The whole room was listening. Elijah was piling hash browns in his mouth while he watched with rapt attention. I saw Jonah slip the twins five dollars over the table.
Buck cleared his throat. "I think we oughta go talk to Bill about getting another cow for the calf," he announced.
The air fell out of the room like someone had poked it with a pin. The pressure building over my question vanished and was replaced with a lighter, cheerier air as Diana stood up with a bright smile.
"Oh, perfect!" She exclaimed, taking one of the twins' plates out of their reach before they were finished licking all the syrup off. "I've been meaning to return Laura's big bowl."
"You mean this big bowl?" Mama asked from her perch on the kitchen counter, pointing to the one in her hands she was mixing pancake batter in.
"We'll need to wash it first, apparently," Diana muttered, dropping the dirty dishes in the sink. "It'll give you time to call him first, though," she added in a cheery tone.
My eyes darted over to Noah, who avoided my gaze. He stared at his uncle with a completely blank expression; his cheeks dabbed with red. His face looked like a pot lid just before it boiled over.
"What happened with the calf?" Noah whispered, low enough to evade human ears.
"Later," Buck replied through his teeth.
My eyes narrowed in suspicion.
"Okay, girls, I'll need you to look after the chicks this morning," Buck instructed quickly. "And bring Tommy with you. Jonah—wipe your face off, boy," he scowled, throwing his son a napkin. "Go with your brother to the outer fence and make sure it's all still there." He looked at Elijah with a sigh. "Try only to hit the nails with the hammer this time."
"I'll go with you, Uncle Buck," Noah volunteered. "I wanna see Jake, anyway. It's been a while. And Beth is probably wondering where I've been."
My heart skipped a beat.
"Can I come?" I blurted.
Noah didn't turn to look at me. Buck hesitated.
"I don't think... that would be best," the patriarch hedged, his eyes darting over to his wife and Mama Ashwood.
"Are you kidding?!" Mama exclaimed, grabbing me with her withered, bony, surprisingly solid, lithe fingers. "Look at the state of you. Has Mel Peter been feeding you?"
"She's been feeding me very well, thank you very much," I sniffed, raising my nose and ripping my elbow out of her grasp. "I just didn't sleep well last night."
It was only technically a lie. She didn't need to know I hadn't slept a wink. I was still adjusting to a human circadian rhythm; wolves were nocturnal, and after shifting back and forth, it gave me a jetlagged feeling.
"We'll show you where the shower is, dear," Diana offered.
"Excuse me?" I asked rhetorically, mishearing her. "I know how to take a shower."
"Yes, we'll just show you where it is," she answered patiently.
"Oh, right."
It had been a while; I had to admit. Getting in wasn't the problem; that was the relatively easy part. The hard part was scrubbing all the dirt off—a ring formed around the drain before it got clogged up with leaves.
The worst part was after the shower. Mama intercepted me, creeping through the hall on my way back to my room, wrapped snugly in the largest towel I could find in the closet.
"Mercy!" She cried. "You're about two shades lighter now, Miss Leah," she snickered. "And a few pounds too light, I'd say. None of the clothes in that dresser upstairs is gonna fit you. C'mon with me, honey, we'll fix somethin' for you to wear."
Somehow, I resisted the urge to roll my eyes.
I spent most of my first day sleeping. For the first half, I slept with my eyes open while Mama took in the clothes upstairs so they would fit me. She had her own room specifically for sewing; she stood me in front of the mirror, and I let her play dress-up on me like I was a doll.
When she finally released me—sending me upstairs with a pile of folded clothes—I collapsed into bed and slept until the following day.
A/N: Ok so this chapter is actually a major deal to me. This was probably one of the first parts I had down, but I struggled with describing the farm. Not to sound too proud of myself, I watched a lot of YouTube videos, and I think I got the jist. However, if you really do live on a farm in Buttfuck, Nowhere, feel free to tell me how terribly wrong and naïve I am to your ways. If I can change a character's name in the middle of world-building I can change a few details here and there. (Only some of you might get that—if you don't, you won't so try not to worry about it—if you do, I see you, and I love you.)