Julia awoke to a golden morning, the kind of day when the sun beamed through the open east window making everything in the room sparkle. Outside she heard the April chatter of the mocking bird who was being scolded for his noisiness by the half-tailed squirrel who lived in the live oak tree, on the other side of the driveway. Add to it the raucous cawing of several crows and the high pitched screech of the boat-tailed grackles. Julia chuckled, realizing that she really didn’t need an alarm clock!

She quickly grabbed the clothes she had laid out last night and headed out to get her morning cup of coffee, wake Josh for school, and dive into the shower. Coffee in one hand, clothes in the other, she stopped in Josh’s doorway and called out, “Time to get up fella! Don’t make me sing for you!”

Josh groaned and pulled the covers over his head. “Okay, then! Da da duh duh duh, Da da duh duh duh, Da da duh duh duh da dah duh,” Julia sang, her nasal rendition of Revelie resembling partly a jaw harp and partly a kazoo.

“Mom, please, no!” Josh begged.

“Well get up then sleepy head!” Julia smiled, and on seeing Josh’s feet hit the floor, went to take her shower.

The hot, soapy water felt good in the cool morning air, but Julia didn’t have time to dally. She was presenting her biggest purchase agreement to date at 9:00 a.m. and she wanted to look perfect and professional. After dressing, she carefully looked to see that the pink blouse was tucked “just so” into the navy blue wrap-around skirt.

“Not bad for a 37-year- old lady,” she thought, but something was missing. Oh yes! The rose zircon earrings. She had lain them out on the nightstand when she chose her ensemble for today.

She went into the bedroom to retrieve them, but . . . they weren’t there! She was sure she had laid them out. In fact, she thought she had seen them sparkle in the morning sunlight. Or had she? She looked at the mauve carpet around the nightstand and near the rumpled bed but there was no sign of them. She really didn’t have time to fret over the where-abouts of an inexpensive (well semi-expensive) pair of earrings. She would just have to do with the gold hoops. She quickly got them from her jewelry case and fastened them to her ears, pausing to close the open window before she left the room — just in case it rained. One never knew in April what the weather would do.

Josh was finishing half a cut orange and a piece of peanut butter toast as Julia walked into the kitchen.

“Josh did you happen to see . . .?”

“Mom, what would you think if I got my ear pierced?” the twelve-year-old asked.

“Funny you should ask that,” Julia commented. ” I was just going to ask if you had seen my rose zircon earrings.”

“Where’d you leave ‘em?”

“I thought I left them on the nightstand, but they aren’t there.”

“Mom! You know I don’t go into your room without permission!”

“I know, but I just thought maybe… well, never mind.”

“What about getting my ear pierced?”

“I think I need to think about that one for awhile. It’s time to go anyway. Got everything?”

“Think I do. ” Josh began to reach for his pocket. “Yeah I do, ” his hand stopping in mid-air. “Well have a good day, Mom,” he said, heading for the door.

“You, too, hon,” Julia replied.

If the sale was completed as easily as the P.A. was accepted, Julia would have one healthy commission check. In fact she would be able to buy all the rose zircon earrings she wanted! However, she was fond of those. David had given them to her just before…

Julia decided to take a half-day off, to celebrate her successful sale and to look for her earrings. Home again, she went straight into the bedroom, setting her car keys down on the nightstand. There had been no rain. In fact the day was an unusually warm one for April. Julia crossed over to open the window.

She began her search by checking under the pillows and in the rumpled bed linens, making the bed when she was certain the earrings weren’t there. Next she checked her jewelry case. She hadn’t seen them there, but she may have overlooked them in her haste. She looked on her desk, in her desk, under her desk. Again she checked the top of the nightstand and inside it’s drawer. No earrings! Where could they be?

Maybe she had taken them in the bathroom with her when she took her shower! She went to check. Nope. Not on the sink and not on the floor. Suddenly she heard a noise coming from the bedroom. It sounded like keys jingling. Quickly she went to investigate. Just as she entered the doorway, she saw a blur of gray-brown shoot across the bed as the half-tailed squirrel bolted for the open window, Julia’s shiny key ring firmly hanging from his closed mouth!

Julia made a beeline for the back door and was chasing the little brigand across the yard when the mocking bird swooped down from the power line, straight at the squirrel’s head. In utter frustration, the thief opened his mouth to give the bird a piece of his mind and the keys fell to the ground. Now spying Julia, the squirrel raced up the trunk to his nest high in the branches, leaving his contraband where it had fallen at the base of the live oak.

“Aha!” exclaimed Julia, and when Josh got home from school, she held the tall extension ladder as he climbed up to see just what else was in that squirrel’s nest. There was plenty of booty there, too- a spoon, two shiny pennies, a dime, a single gold cufflink, and Julia’s rose zircon earrings. The squirrel watched helplessly while Josh cleaned out his cache, loudly bemoaning his loss to the inhabitants of the back yard.

Julia chuckled. Both she and the half-tailed squirrel should have learned their lessons last summer when he had bumped the open window, slamming it shut and leaving the other half of his tail behind him.

Preface:

This short excerpt started out to be my “Great American” suspense novel, but like those of many budding writers it remains unfinished. Will I ever finish the story? I don’t know.

The story is more fantastic than fact… a work of nearly pure fiction, corrupted only by a few real memories.

I started writing The Winter back when the Soviet Union and the United States were head to head over nuclear weapons. Discussion of nuclear missles, anti-missiles, and anti-missle-missles was still common and the threat of nuclear war seemed to be as much a probability as a possibility. When peace talks reached accords that finally disarmed the major powers, I abandoned writing The Winter, believing it was obsolete. Yet today we still face the threat of nuclear disasters from aging power plants and nuclear waste removal as well as the International threat of nuclear weapons from emerging nations.

The story was inspired by my young family’s move to a five acre hobby farm. The title came from our first winter there, the worst winter Minnesota had seen for decades. I described a part of that winter in my narrative, “Bringing Home the Bacon.” One aspect of the pig story that remains unclear is how, in just a few short months, a piglet could become as large as that one was. My husband’s uncle was a pig farmer and my husband spent many summers at Uncle Fred’s farm. Still, that 6-month-old pig was the largest he had ever seen. In later years on the farm, we also heard tales of a large, black, cougar-like cat that roamed the slough behind our farm.

Soon after moving, we discovered a fenced-in shanty just a quarter mile up the road from us. We speculated as to whether it was a missile silo or some kind of government bunker, but we never went past the sign.

Prologue

The sign said:

Property of the United States Government
No trespassing. Violators will be prosecuted.

But he couldn’t read. So, he had tunneled under the chain link fence, drawn by the scent of death and near-death that permeated the area. He had gorged upon the feast of birds that had fallen near the small tin shed inside the property. He had drunk the fetid water in the nearby pool… and he had begun to grow.

The black cat had been small at birth. He had been born of a feral cat that had been a not-so-good mother. She had abandoned him soon after he was weaned and it was just by chance that he had found this place of easy prey and survived. At six months old, he was already as large as any other of the feral toms in the area. At eight months, he hunted her down and killed her. Not for revenge. She was just one-cat-too-many in his territory.

She had been his first real kill. He had easily snapped her neck and upon doing so, realized that he no longer needed to eat the dead and dying. The close-knit farms in the area had a bounty of domestic fowl and young livestock that would be easy prey.

April 28

She was a small cat, barely a year old; white but dotted with calico spots of gray and tan. The dark mask of gray over her eyes made her look mysterious. Perhaps that’s what had attracted him, but more likely he was magnetized by the heavy scent of female pheromones and drawn to the low-pitched mewling, induced by her first time in season.

The massive, black tom had lain in the shadows, patiently waiting for her approach, with the same stealth he used on the hunt. This time, though, his objective was not to kill, but to breed. He leapt at her with rapacious precision, his sharp fangs holding her, pinching the skin of her neck, and sharply drawing her head back. Her high-pitched scream only fueled his lust, as did her futile efforts to free herself from his powerful grip. He penetrated her easily; savagely thrusting deep into her virgin body until his desire was sated. Then he left her to wearily creep into the shadows, her neck and back aching but the strange heat and sense of unfulfilled desire finally quenched.

The heat was gone, but within days the bloating started. The feeling of eternal, infernal fullness was her reminder of the black tom’s vicious assault. At first, it slowed her down as she hunted, but after awhile she adapted to it. By the time she felt the tiny bodies moving within her, she had accepted the feeling and acknowledged the tiny bumps and thumps with a maternal purr.

She had grown very large during her pregnancy– so large, that successful hunting became nearly impossible. Last night when she felt the first contraction, she welcomed it in the instinctive knowledge that her time of birthing was near and she retired to the safety of a ramshackle chicken coop on an abandoned farm.

Now, she bent her head to admire what her labor had delivered. Three kittens sucked greedily at her full teats, each one different from the next— one calico, one tabby gray, and one tiger-striped yellow. The cat’s instinctual purr was a calming presence for both the newborns and herself.

Suddenly, she felt a strong pain, stronger than any that had preceded it. Her purr became a high-pitched scream and she pushed hard. She felt the head of her last-born, he that should have been the runt of the litter, opening her… ripping through her both in body and spirit. As the last kitten came into the world, the young mother lapsed into unconsciousness.

The last-born was pure black. Large and well-formed, he was more cat than kitten. His eyes were open and already adjusting to the sensation of the dim light in the make-shift nursery. He easily pushed the first-born aside, taking its teat for his own. The little calico kitten struggled to find a new place to suckle and finally successful, settled down next to her yet unconscious mother.

The new mother finally awoke to a dull ache and the feeling of oozing wetness at her genital area. Weakly, she lifted her head and saw the red ooze seeping from where she had ripped. As she tried to move away from the kittens to clean herself, she heard a low, guttural growl. The black kitten would have none of it! Too weary to assert her motherly authority, she retreated into sleep.