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.

Feelings

• Sometimes it’s good to pause and write
• Of feelings that wake you in the night
• And make you feel so all alone,
• Seeking arms you’ll never own.
• Not yours to own, but only borrow-
• You’ll need to find new arms tomorrow.

• Feelings that wake you in the night
• Will take you to places of sheer delight.
• They bid you rest awhile and stay.
• And gratefully, you will obey.

Fires

• The look in your eyes said desire.
• I confused it, for a moment, with love.
• When kindling flames,
• It’s hard to distinguish
• Until it’s extinguished.

• Side by side,
• Desire diminished,
• I saw the dying embers of lust
• Fade into the darkness of sleep.
• No coals to keep,
• To re-ignite.
• When morning mist drenches
• The passions of night.

Terror

• The dream came and terror tore
• The strands of dreamless sleep.
• I woke in fear-
• Could sleep no more,
• Afraid of falling,
• Plunging deep
• Into the dark and alien abyss.
• And just as if,
• Knowing this,
• Your arms reached out with warm embrace
• Securing me in sheltered space.
• ‘Twas then I knew that I would stay
• Until the time you turn away.

• Then once again, so suddenly
• The haunting panic crept through me
• As all at once I did recall
• The fear that came before the fall.
• Fearing, at the break of day
• You would send me far away
• From arms that hold me in the night.
• In abject fear I hang on tight!
• For now, I’m safe from clenching fear.
• For now, my love, you hold me near.

• I am not the love of your life.
• And neither are you, mine.
• Illusion is an outcast we both leave far behind.
• Now we dare embrace the reality we find.
• Holding you close is, for me, just enough
• Because you are the life of my love.

• I don’t see stars when your lips meet mine.
• When we kiss I don’t taste the sweetness of wine.
• There are no fireworks when our bodies entwine.
• Holding you close is, for me, just enough
• Because you are the life of my love.

• Your vision has opened a new world to me.
• You’ve unlocked a door and allowed me to see
• The stars in the heavens where God meant them to be.
• Holding you close is, for me, just enough
• Because you are the life of my love.

• I taste the passion in you whenever we kiss
• A taste full of desire that I can’t resist.
• And no other taste could be better than this.
• Holding you close is, for me, just enough
• Because you are the life of my love.

• I feel your power as our bodies entwine
• And the strength of your touch when your hand is in mine.
• Sheltered and safe is the feeling I find.
• Holding you close is, for me, just enough
• Because you are the life of my love.

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.