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.

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.

They had started out sharing everything. Together, they had experienced the beauty of nature the from the darkest indigoes of star-kissed night to the brilliance of diamond hung trees on a winter morning – from the brightness of sunlight on snow to the shadows of a summer storm… and they had shared their bodies with sweet love so intense, that many times emotion’s well would overflow, cascading down her cheeks in tears and cleansing her self-doubt.

Then it stopped. Suddenly. The vibrant bloom of their love withered, it’s petals were torn free and blown to dust by a chill wind that settled over their lives, leaving them in a winter blizzard of confusion and frustration.

But yesterday the April rains had washed away the last of the snow. Today the sun was bright and shining on a new world filled with hope ….and here was a vase of flowers on her table. It had been a long time between bouquets, but the flowers were here today. Hope for a better tomorrow bloomed both outside and in.

Nathan was hidden behind the black shroud of his executioner’s mask. Only Father Damien knew his real identity. Nathan taught Joshua’s children everyday and would teach them again tomorrow. “What will become of them?” he wondered. “How will I be able to look them in the eye tomorrow, knowing that today I killed their father?”

The same way that he had looked at countless others over his five year term as the town’s executioner. His right shoulder began throbbing, a physical manifestation of Nathan’s emotional turmoil that always occurred just before pulling the lever and spelling the final doom for the accused. As he approached the lever, he looked up at Joshua for one last time.

Joshua stood calmly on the platform. He had refused the hood they offered him. He wanted to cherish these moments, his last moments on earth. The anger and disillusionment had passed away as his spirit prepared to flee from this final betrayal and take him to his heavenly home. Gone was the worry about Mary Kate. He knew that God would take care of her and the children.

He found her face at the front of the crowd and smiled down on her. Next, he searched the crowd for Andrew. Joshua wanted Andrew to know that he forgave him, but when John spotted him, Andrew wouldn’t meet his gaze.

Andrew stood to the side of the crowd, lewdly looking at Mary Kate and undressing her with his eyes. It wouldn’t be long now before she was his, he thought. There was just one more loose end to be tied up, but perhaps that drooling old idiot could be left in the hands of his own demons. It was certain that this loose end was quickly becoming unraveled by his daily intake of whiskey!

How much had he seen that night? It didn’t really matter. In the three months since that night, in back of the tavern, Elliot had moved from his lowly status as town drunk to village idiot. His vacant stares and vague mutterings were little cause for concern or attention from the town folk who, with their eyes averted, would quickly pass by him without a word.

Elliot stood in the shadow that the tavern cast over the alley between it and what had been his dry goods store. The ghosts of that night were always at his back, ready to pounce — ready to resurrect his decaying memory of the night when whiskey and cowardice had kept him in the shadows in the back of these very buildings; the night Andrew had brutally raped and bludgeoned his own wife.

Elliot’s presence had gone unnoticed until, on seeing her blood spatter on the tavern wall, his stomach wrenched itself into a tight knot and then loosening had spewed the night’s intake of alcohol on the street around him. On straightening up and turning around to face her attacker, Elliot’s feeble attempt to help the dying Alicia fell flat when Andrew’s vicious kick rendered him unconscious.

On waking, Elliot had seen Joshua bending over Alicia, but in his addled state of mind, he confused the identities of the two brothers. It wasn’t until days later, after his statement had been taken, that Elliot had been sufficiently coherent to piece together the real events of that night.

“But I had my reputation to consider! I couldn’t let the whole town know that I was too drunk to tell one brother from another!”

So, in the following months, Elliot drowned his memories of that night in a stream of whiskey; losing not only his reputation, but also his business, his family, his self-respect and finally his soul. If only he had hearkened to her cry, a cry not unlike the one he heard this very minute as Mary Kate exchanged one final agonizing look with her condemned husband.

Mary Kate didn’t need to look into Joshua’s eyes to see his innocence. She knew it just from knowing him.

She had felt the tenderness of his touch and was touched in turn, by the gentle love he bestowed on her and their children. This man, whose strong arms had held her close so many times in the last thirteen years, could never have used his strength to violate and bludgeon another woman.

She didn’t know the whole truth of that night. She only knew that the circumstances surrounding it had changed her circumstances and the lives of her children forever.

In their final look at each other, Joshua read Mary Kate’s vow to find out that truth and clear his good name — even if it took her last breath to do so.

For the last week, Winona and surrounding towns have been deluged with sheets of rain at least once a day. Over the week-end many areas contended with five to over eleven inches of rain in just a few hours. As a result of the storms, many area homes were completely lost and many area businesses suffered damage that is near irreparable. Last Saturday night Winona was hit with a storm so strong that the rain formed currents of water that literally coursed down the sidewalks and streets of the town.

My friend, Suzanne, missed all the excitement. The day before the storm, Friday, was the day Suzanne finally gave in to the intruder that violated her body and coursed through her internal organs like a torrent of rain. Friday, my friend died of cancer. Although she wasn’t a smoker, her cancer started as a small, microscopic cell in her lungs. It was first detected in her liver and eventually metastasized and sent over a dozen of its wayward children to her brain. Still, Suzanne was a fighter. The medical community gave her just six months to live, but she prevailed through nearly two years of radiation, chemotherapy, and homeopathic treatments… until last Friday.

I didn’t see much of my friend these last few months. Should I have called and disturbed her when she was sleeping or should I have just dropped by, even though she may have been unprepared to receive visitors? At the time the choices were too hard to make so I took the easy way and chose to do nothing. Today I feel guilty as I enjoy the blue sky that Suzanne didn’t get the chance to see.

Today I’m left with enjoying the blue sky and hoping that wherever Suzanne is, she can look down and forgive me. I’m hoping that wherever she is, she is enjoying blue skies today.