THE STOLEN DEER

Orchard Cove 1944

Orville took a last look at the deer, properly bled, hanging in the shed next to the smokehouse. It was a beauty, meat for some time and a marvelous head for the wall. Tomorrow he would do the processing.

Twice during the night the barking of his three dogs woke him. Both times he went out with his lantern to investigate. Twice he was met by the little gray fox who, it seemed, considered this home. Twice Orville went back to bed with visions of deer steaks in his head. The third dog chorus Orville ignored, silently swearing at the persistent nocturnal antics of his resident fox.

The chill of morning on any other day would have kept Orville in bed until the last possible moment. But this morning he had a deer to deal with. Before the morning feeding and milking he went to the shed to check on his deer.

The shed door was open; the deer was gone.

Orville was not a ‘shoot from the hip’ kind of man. He was thoughtful, calm, and calculating. He analyzed and re-analyzed all situations. Who would have taken his deer? Who knew he had it? He had told Harry, the mailman and Tom who came to borrow a level. No one else. Neither of them would take his deer.

Orville said nothing; he forbade his family to say anything. Orville waited. He would wait as long as needed; he would watch; he would learn who took his deer.  “And when I find out,” he told the family, “there will be hell to pay.”

Orville’s patience paid off and from an odd source – or as the saying goes ‘out of the mouths of babes’- came the answer. It was his six year old daughter  who identified the culprit. At dinner two weeks after the theft she nibbled on her chicken drumstick.  “Daddy,” she said, “when can we have deer?”

“When I shoot one.  But I wonder since when did you decide you like deer?  Last year you said it was yucky.”

“Since Carrie told me how good it is.”

Orville’s mind did somersaults. He knew. Carrie’s family was going through a rough patch. Dave had not worked for months now, not since the accident. The church had offered on several occasions to help, but Dave harbored a male pride keeping him from accepting.

The next afternoon Orville dropped by Dave’s place.  Dave down to one cane now met him at the door.  “Dave, how’s it going?”

“Not bad.”

“I was at the mill this morning. Clint asked me to stop by here on my way home.   Seems like you left some corn over there just before your accident.  Asked if I’d drop off the ground corn. Got three big bags of meal. Where do you want me to put it?”

“I’m grateful, Orville.”

"I'll take it to the smokehouse."

"No just leave it here on the porch."

"If you're  sure", Orville stacked the three bags of corn meal on the porch floor. "Then I'll get on home. Let me know if you need anything."

I'm grateful."

Orville took the long way to his truck, past the smokehouse ,   A quick glance inside showed the signs of butchering activity.

LYDIE POTTER'S DISAPPEARANCE

Orchard Cove Tennessee 1941

Clyde Potter drove his newly acquired Model A past Walter’s house. Seeing Walter coming out of his sheep barn he stopped. “Hey Walt, I got me that car.”

Walter examined it. “What’d it cost you, Clyde?”

“A good hunk, I can tell you. But I managed, and she’s a beauty don’t you think?”

“She is that.  Lydie all right with it? She said to Mary she wasn’t going to have no car before the roof was fixed.  Get the roof fixed?”

“Not yet, but I nearly got enough saved up for it. Lydie is coming around.”

“Guess she’ll  be all right when you drive her to church and she don’t have to walk or ride Old Solomon.”

“Guess so,” Clyde said.

Lydie did not come to church Sunday; nor to Wednesday prayer meeting; nor the next or the next Sundays.  In Orchard Cove  one did not miss church more than once without explanation.  So questions floated; rumors soared. Mary nagged Walter to check.

“Check  what?”

“On Lydie. It ain’t like her to skip church.  She might be sick.”

“Then ought it not be you and some of the other women to check? It don’t seem right for me to do it.”

Lydie was not at home when Mary appeared at her door.  She was gone when Walter, yielding to Mary’s nagging, checked.  Lydie, it seemed, had dropped out of sight.  Clyde offered no explanation.

The incessant questions of one after another of the men and women of Orchard Cove proved too much for Clyde. Under duress and sweating brow he confessed. He had traded Lydie to Harry Martin over in Peavine for the car.

ABBY'S SECRET LOVE

Abby slipped as surreptitiously as she could into a seat at the back of the funeral home. The service was underway.  Frank’s body lay in the open coffin before his widow, Karen, his children, Nancy and Harry, his sisters, Mazie and Lily.  A preacher Abby did not know was speaking.  He regaled the virtuous life Frank had lived, the courage with which met the cancer that took him.  “He was a true servant of God, strong in his faith, faithful to his family and friends.”

On and on the preacher recollected specific  godly acts of Frank’s seventy years.  Karen sobbed; Nancy wept silently; Harry blotted tears.  “To his beloved Karen”, the preacher said in a high pitched voice. “we  offer the promise that one day she will join Frank in the wonders of Heaven where they will spend eternity with the love and trust and faithfulness that marked their time on this earth.”

A chorus of ‘amens’ followed.

Abby closed her eyes; she breathed deeply; she fought back her tears.  She would miss Frank.  She had loved Frank since they were in their teens—ever since that first kiss behind the barn.  She had loved him through her marriage and divorce, through his marriage to Karen and the birth of his children.  It had been rife with joy and difficulties.

Her memories were sweet and bitter.  Sweet were those stolen hours when they spent an evening, a night, a weekend together.  Bitter when he left her and returned to Karen and his children.

Shaken from her reveries by the quartet’s cacophonous rendition of AMAZING GRACE Abby surveyed the congregation—fighting her desire for revenge against the woman who stole so much of her time with her only love.

All heads bowed for a benediction.  Abby surreptitiously slipped out of the funeral parlor.