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.

During the late 70’s, my family moved from town to a five acre hobby farm.

A neighboring family lived about a quarter mile up the road. Real animal lovers, they kept 7 house dogs in varying sizes, had a stable of six or so horses, and their chicken population grew steadily because they didn’t have the heart to butcher the birds. Roosters crowed from dawn until dusk, eliminating any need for an alarm clock. The neighbors also kept a couple of pigs.

In late winter or early spring, before we moved to the farm, one of the neighbors’ pigs had been born with crippled back legs. When the mother pushed it away, the neighbors quickly rescued the piglet and bottle-fed it until it was weaned. Then they let it have the run of their yard. The pig’s crippled legs kept if from running too fast but even so, one day in the early summer, the piglet disappeared. Although the neighbors looked high and low for it, they couldn’t find it. They figured they had seen the last of the little piglet.

Behind our hobby farm was a slough bordered on the south by our neighbors’ cornfield. My husband couldn’t wait for October 16, the opening day of pheasant season. At the time if a farmer didn’t post a no-hunting, no-trespassing sign, hunters were able to enter open or unfenced areas without first obtaining permission.

Wouldn’t you know it? On October 15, we had the first blizzard of a winter that would become the worst Minnesota winter in 30 years. The snow was still coming down on the 16th, but my husband was undaunted. He put on his gear and he and his golden lab went out to hunt the slough. There were no pheasants in the slough though; the heavy snow had driven them to seek shelter in the cornfield.

My husband didn’t get too far into the cornfield before he heard his dog barking, accompanied by squealing such as he had never heard before!

The squealer was the neighbor’s pig! Because its crippled hind legs had never matured, it had to sort of walk-crawl to make its way around. It was no longer a little pig since it had spent most of the summer in the cornfield. In fact, my husband said it was one of the biggest pigs he had ever seen. There was no way the pig was going to get out of that cornfield on its own!

My husband drove up to ask our neighbors, if they knew who owned the pig. Of course they did. It was their pig! So back they all came- Mr., Mrs., and their three kids. The neighbors brought a toboggan with them, shoved it under the pig, and pulled it out of the slough. Then they had to walk the quarter mile home through a foot of newly fallen, unplowed snow, pulling the pig along on the toboggan. Their parade made quite the comical site!

We were lucky to make it to town and back most days of that snowy winter. We didn’t see our neighbors again until spring. When next he encountered them, my husband asked what had become of the pig. They told him that soon after they had brought the pig into their house, it had developed pneumonia and died. They buried him in the cornfield.

Yesterday a comment by a reader of Blogging for Bitter Women made me remember the day I wanted to do cartwheels in the parking lot. The reader (another Linda!) commented that if she had superpowers one of them would be to cartwheel down the street. I’m with her. In fact there was one day when that is exactly what I wanted to do!

My daughter’s first day of nursery school. My son was safely tucked away in first grade which meant, after I dropped my daughter off at nursery school, I had three whole hours to myself. I had to get something at K-Mart. I don’t remember what because I didn’t buy a thing that day. When I stepped out of my car, I suddenly realized that for the first time in six years I had no car seat to unbuckle and no sweaty little palm clinging to mine… or more to the point, no reason for my sweaty big palm to latch on to a sweaty little one.

There was more than spring to my step. I could actually visualize myself doing cartwheels in the parking lot, but I didn’t. I was worried that my post-partem physique would land flat on its face if I tried. So instead I went into K-Mart and browsed. I spent an hour looking at the latest magazines and best sellers. Then, with no little-bull-in-a-china-shop in tow, I headed over to the gift section and delighted myself with the intricacies of K-Mart knick-knacks for another hour. Next I went over and looked at clothes for me! However, time ran short. Nursery school was soon over for the day and I had to pick up my daughter and be a mom again.

These days I look back on that day and the memory still refreshes me. Yet, sometimes I miss those sweaty little palms.

I’ve always been amazed that the side effects of many advertised prescription drugs are worse than the original condition. For instance, one of the side effects of a drug prescribed for indigestion is diarrhea. Oh yeah! I’d rather spend the day on the throne or in an adult diaper than contend with a little heartburn! Puh-lease!

Some drugs advertise even worse side-effects… lately I’ve seen more than one drug-hawking commercial that adds the quiet disclaimer that “in rare cases” the drug may cause heart attack, stroke or death. That’s the time I wouldn’t choose to take a one in a million chance.

These days Americans are pummeled with advertisement after advertisement that tells us to ask our family doctors about this drug or that one. However, this CNN.com report suggests that even our doctors may not be fully aware of the safety of the drugs they prescribe.

Apparently, all a drug needs to be released is a ten-digit FDA number and these numbers are issued before the drugs are FDA approved.

But don’t take it from me… read the CNN Report “Many drugs slip through regulatory ‘black hole’”