The Farmer's Daughter Read online

  The Farmer's Daughter

  by Chantelle Rose

  Copyright © 2019 Chantelle Rose. All rights reserved.

  Golden fields of wheat blanketed the hills and whispered drily in the summer breeze.

  The farmhand stood and enjoyed the coolness as the sweat dried from his bare chest.

  Chaff blew in the wind and spiralled towards the open blue skies.

  The farmer’s daughter bit her lip at the sight of him. She could no longer turn her eyes away from his gleaming physique and instead took in all of him. From his rugged stubble down towards his gleaming pecs and biceps, rippling with strength as they worked the plough up and down again. She once again noticed the scar just below his rib cage but it only added to the appeal of his physique.

  Her eyes were inexorably drawn further down and past the V shape created between his hips and pronounced abdominal muscles. It was like an arrow, beckoning her to keep looking on.

  There were dark clouds on the horizon, a violent summer storm was coming in from the plains and on its way to the farmstead. They were like a warning, compelling her to stay away but she couldn’t control herself anymore. She had to go to him.

  *

  One year earlier.

  It was a hot and stifling first day of Summer in the city and Flynn was drafting a letter to his old Sergeant.

  He sat at a booth in a diner near work as he tried to think on what he could possibly write. Fan blades rattled in a slow rhythm above him, barely making a difference as they pushed the sluggish air around. To the side lay the discarded scraps of his breakfast. The scrambled eggs were particularly bad this morning, having a rubbery, acidic quality that made them almost as bad as the food they had been served in the war.

  He looked up from his still blank letter, took a sip of bland coffee and watched the black sedans and other cars go past. Even in the diner he could smell their exhausts as they rolled through the busy streets. The rumble of their engines was just a background noise to the honks, shouts, laughter and general hubbub of people living their lives. Lives he had fought for in the great war.

  He put the inferior coffee down and picked up one of those new ballpoint pens he had borrowed from the office he worked at, along with the blank sheet of paper. Being unsure of the protocol on such things he had asked permission to use it for a personal matter. The office manager had given him a funny look. It was just another one of those things he didn’t understand. You could take as many pens as you wanted and nobody cared but forget to say “good morning” one day and it was the scandal of the week. He didn’t know the rules of this game. He didn’t know where the lines were.

  He pressed the pen onto the paper and left it poised there, the dryness of the paper under his palm was slowly replaced with moisture as tiny beads of sweat escaped and left an imprint.

  He didn’t know where to start.

  Should he just keep it short and ask for the job on the farm? Or should he explain why?

  Life had not been good since he last saw his old Sergeant.

  Returning to the civilian world had been a hard thing to get accustomed to. In the war the stakes had been high. Too high. In a single heartbeat flying metal death could soar overhead and you would never see home again. Every small decision meant so much over there. All you could do was the job in front of you. You would sleep when you could and wake if you were still alive. But that was just how it was. Day to day, month to month, that was just how it was. Right up until they told you it was over, you won. Time to leave that existence and try to return to whatever it was you called normal.

  But that was almost harder than going to war in the first place. Coming back… it was like a fake life now. Like plastic. People made issue over things that didn’t matter. They would rant and rave over the last gadget or appliance or scandal in the news. They talked about the latest clothes and cars and fashionable jewellery. They argued over parking spots and restaurant tables and who had first hailed a cab. In his apartment at night he could hear his neighbours shouting at each other over their latest domestic troubles. He had fought for their lives and freedom and that was how they chose to spend it. Meanwhile he simply couldn’t grow accustomed to everything being so much less intense and dull. There was less necessity. Mistyping an instruction or making a simple mistake didn’t cost anyone their lives. Everything in the civilian world was so much… shallower. He felt like he was trying to swim in a puddle.

  He had found it particularly hard to make friends. The military had helped him get a civilian job in an office moving paper around and the people were good enough as far as people went but none of them knew what it was like. None of them had ever been to the front and faced those dangers. They couldn’t fathom what it was like to wake up at night in a cold sweat, throat hoarse from screaming in your sleep. Still shouting “Incoming! Incoming!” for a few moments even after you woke, unable to stop yourself.

  The pen scratched across the paper as he began to write. The ball bearing point pressed upwards and the ink flowed from underneath as the words formed.

  Flynn needed to get away from it all. The people around him were fine enough despite their petty squabbles but he just kept thinking that none of them had ever dragged him out of a ditch and carried him on their backs through mortar fire. They weren’t the type of people who would do that. They weren’t the type of people who could do that.

  Dear Frank…

  *

  A few days later and Frank the former Sergeant sat idly stroking his beard at a thick oak table as he read the letter from Flynn.

  In the kitchen behind him his wife prepared breakfast. There was a merry sizzle of bacon fat as it filled their spacious, two storey cabin with its sweet and salty aroma. Fresh coffee percolated on the stove and a quart of fresh milk lay waiting on the table. He knew the milk was fresh because he’d been up before first light that morning to milk the cows for it.

  Dear Frank,

  I hope this letter finds you and your family well. It has been some time since the war and I was glad to hear that things had gone well for you. I heard you got your piece of land and your life has gone the way you spoke of it before we were sent back home from the front line.

  Frank looked out the window to the colourful garden his wife maintained and the hills in the distance behind. He certainly had gotten his piece of land. Just over a hundred acres nestled in its gorgeous valley right where the low mountains turned to rolling hills and bordered on one side by vast woodlands with a clear stream running through them that lead all the way up into the mountains. Further down the stream would become muddied from other farmlands and livestock but this far up the water was still clean and pure and every year it would flood from seasonal rains and snow melt.

  In the lower parts of the property the woodlands had been cleared for fields where he had chosen to grow wheat. It was a reliable, steady crop that he could sell for a fair price in the nearest town and it allowed them to purchase anything that the land didn’t provide, which was mostly just coffee since the land provided a lot. They had an orchid for fruit, his wife’s very large garden for vegetables, poultry and bees for eggs and honey, a small herd of cows for milk, a family of pigs for meat and if they ever came up short any season he could hunt in the woodlands for deer and rabbits or fish the streams further up for trout. They even had a horse that could be ridden if the pickup truck was broken down.

  I hope I am not disturbing you or intruding by writing you this letter but I wished to ask you about something else. Before we came back you mentioned there might be work for me on your farm if things went well and I ever needed a job. I have found work in the civilian world at an office but I find it is not to my liking. People here are fine and treat me well but I don’t fit in here. None of my colleagues went to the war and they only know the peace that we fought to keep. I think you will understand what I’m talking about here.

  I...

  The paper there was smudged as though something had landed on it, a drop of water… a tear even. There were a few words that had been crossed out and then the letter picked up again.

  I need to get away from it. I need somewhere away from all this.

  Frank knew what Flynn was talking about. The civilian world, even though soft in many aspects, could be very hard for someone who was used to service. That was why he had begun taking steps to avoid it even before the war was over. When he came back he had managed to secure his land, moved his wife and daughter out of the township and set to building his own miniature paradise. There was a small cottage already on the land, but he had built a larger cabin — half log, half mud brick — with exposed joists and a slate floor. It was warm and cosy in the winter and cool and airy in the summer. After that he had fixed up the barn and the chicken coop and even handmade the kitchen table he was sitting at. Now they wanted for nothing. They didn’t have electricity or phone out this far but they didn’t need it. They had a heavy stock of candles for light, a fireplace for the winter cold and a large wood stove for cooking. He had seen new gadgets and televisions and electric irons in the township but it was all just conveniences. He had all he wanted right here.

  I understand if the offer is no longer on the table, things change in peace-time and plans don’t always work out. I also don’t want to take charity — if there is no work for me please don’t just take me on anyway. I will only take this if you truly need me on the farm.

  If I need to I will stay where I am and work things out. I am grateful for what I have here and I am grateful to you
for bringing me back so that I can have it. I don’t want to seem unappreciative.

  Flynn was writing about the time Frank saved his life. There had been a barrage of mortar fire that had caught them out in the open. Flynn took a large piece of shrapnel to his side and got taken down. Frank had dragged him out of there and back to safety. The kid had a scar from it but was otherwise okay.

  All the best from the big city.

  Your old Corporal,

  Flynn

  Frank placed the letter down and sat back, thinking. He remembered the kid well. Barely eighteen when he had come to the front. He had always been well-mannered and loyal and respectful but he fought like he had nothing to lose. And perhaps he didn't - Flynn’s mother had died in childbirth and his father had taken sick right before the war and died just before the kid turned 18. He must have barely had time to grieve before the military came and conscripted him to fight in the war. He had nobody left when he hit the front line. He might have only been a kid when he got there but he was as hard faced as any of the older veterans.

  And that was only the beginning. Together they saw plenty of horrors, fighting in the trenches. They had both gotten plenty of scars, even if they weren’t all visible like Flynn’s shrapnel wound.

  Wendy, Frank’s wife, brought a mug of black coffee over from the kitchen and set it down in front of him.

  “The bacon is ready now if you’d like some,” she said, “and the eggs won’t be long — Rube should be bringing them in soon.”

  She glanced at the letter but didn’t ask. She knew Frank would tell her when he was ready.

  Frank tempered the black coffee with milk and restudied the letter a few times as he stirred. Flynn was still as polite as ever. Polite to a fault, even. Apologising for the mere possibility of disturbing him.

  Frank smiled as he took a sip of his coffee, now a wholesome dark brown. Life had only been hard and cruel to Flynn. Perhaps it was time for something soft and kind.

  “Has our daughter mentioned any boys in town lately?”

  His wife stopped, bacon tongs in hand.

  “You know she doesn’t talk about folk much.”

  Frank drummed his fingers on the table for a few moments. The subject of his daughter was a hard one for him to think about. On the one hand he wanted to keep her close, keep her safe - protect her as much as possible from all of the evils of the world. He didn’t want to let go of their little treasure.

  On the other hand she needed more than he could provide, even if she didn’t realise it. Being isolated and separate from the rest of society was all well and good for a retired veteran and his wife, but for his daughter, who was just over twenty now, it meant she never got to meet anybody. He was worried she might be forgetting how to socialise. It wasn’t that she was particularly shy she just seemed… disinterested in people. She used to go down to town on occasion and go to the fair and other attractions, but not so much these days. There was less to do down there once you grew up and the cotton candy and other fair attractions weren’t as interesting. There were a lot less social events for the adults and though he encouraged her to attend even what few the town held she showed no interest in those either, preferring to stay around the farm, reading and drawing and tending to the animals. It would be fine for a time but she might grow to forget what having others around was like. Her parents and her cat couldn’t be her only friends forever and he was worried of what might become of her.

  But what choices were there? Send her out into the world like a lamb to slaughter. She was a kind-hearted soul and he was afraid of what the world might do to her. He didn’t want to see that spirit crushed, but at the same time he knew that boredom and isolation could have the same affect.

  “This letter,” he said, “is from one of my men back on the front line. You recall I spoke of a young man named Flynn?”

  “I remember,” she said quietly.

  It was not often Frank spoke of the war or of anyone from there. Often, the times he did speak were… frightful. He owed his wife a lot for listening. Sometimes the darkness and the memories came in and he needed to voice it and she was always there. Never judging or shying away from the things he needed to get off his chest.

  Staring out the window again, Frank could see Ruby coming up from the chicken coop with a basket propped on her hip.

  “Well…” he cleared his throat. “I said, before we left the front, I said that should he need it there would be work for him here.”

  “There will be when harvest time comes back around, certainly. I suppose if you want to bring him in before then we could always think of something for him to do.”

  “Well, that’s the thing. I know he just wants to get away but he doesn’t want us to take him where we don’t need him and he won’t accept the charity.”

  “So he has to wait until harvest time then?”

  Frank didn’t answer. His wife knew the score as well as he did and shared his concerns about their daughters future and well-being but neither of them was willing to talk to Ruby about such things, preferring to wait and hope a solution would present itself. The unspoken conversation hung in the air between them as they silently watched their daughter enter with her goods.

  “Morning, ma. Morning, pa. Good haul from the hens today.”

  She gave them both a bright smile of genuine affection from out of her thick, shining red hair. Ruby had been a very apt name for the girl. She was the reason he had fought hard in the war and she was the reason he had made it back. He would let nothing stop him from coming back to her. More precious to him than all the gold and all the jewels in the world. She was his treasure. His Ruby.

  “Good morning, Rube.”

  “Did you get a letter, pa?” she asked as she went to the kitchen to hand some eggs to her mother and put the rest away.

  “As a matter of fact, I did,” he shot a meaningful glance at this wife. “There might be somebody coming to help us around the farm.”

  “You mean like we get at harvest time?” she sounded unenthusiastic. He knew she didn’t like the helpers they sometimes brought in from town as they were a fairly vulgar lot.

  “Well, sort of but… not quite the same as the town folk. He’s from the big city and much more polite than the locals. He used to serve with me. Same platoon. I said he could come out for work if he ever needed it. He’s about your age, actually...”

  “But you told me all army men are lechers.”

  “Err… well, I might’ve said that after a few drinks but its not entirely true. This man is different. I know him. He wasn’t the strongest, perhaps, nor the sharpest... but he was loyal, solid. Very respectful to both men and women.”

  Frank continued to stare at his wife as Ruby busily put eggs away.

  “Not lecherous at all, in fact.”

  Wendy finally gave a nod of consent and Frank turned his gaze back to his daughter. Even though he still saw her as his precious little girl he couldn’t help but notice the young woman she had become.

  “But do we need an extra hand? Is there anything for him to do?” she asked as she put the last of the eggs away, bent over in a short, loose fitting dress.

  “I might have a job for him.”

  *

  Flynn sat on a bench in the park gathering his thoughts, with a cut lunch in a brown paper bag resting on the bench next to him. He wasn’t hungry, but he would eat it anyway. You learned to eat when you could in the military, since you might not be able to eat when you wanted to.

  Last night he had had nightmares again and it left him with a headache and a feeling of insentience. The nightmares were always the same. A distant whoosh, shouts of “incoming!” and then pain. He absentmindedly rubbed at his side where the scar clung to his skin. Sometimes it would wake him straight away. Sometimes not. Sometimes he would stay in the nightmare for hours, waking up in a cold sweat eventually.

  He dragged himself out of the memories and tried to return to the present.

  From across the park tall buildings stood with their windows glimmering at him. The people strolled past, going about their business. A lot of them seemed to be in a rush, as though what they were doing was important. It was, he guessed, just not to him.

  Fedora hats were the latest fashion and every other man that walked past was sporting one. The women wore skirts and dresses - he didn’t know the names for them but they came in varying lengths, cuts and colours. The fashion world was just another game he couldn’t bring himself to be a part of as he sat in a standard grey suit.