Crazy Wolf, Shaman of his tribe, stumbled out of his sweat lodge in a daze, naked and lathered in his own sweat. He fell to the ground, the leaves and short grasses of the sparsely wooded area sticking to him as he panted, eyes closed, knowing he'd really pushed it this time.
A young man, the successor to his recently passed father as Shaman, he was keen to quickly build trust and respect within the tribe, knowing they had to have it for him as much as he had to have it from them. He had gone on a vision quest, awaiting Koochee'moya, the great tree spirit, with patience and reverence, respect and thankfulness in his heart for as long as it took. Finally, in a place far from the bones of his ancestors in both time and space, he was indeed visited by the elusive spirit he sought, rewarded well for his patience and devotion.
In time, he was able to recover somewhat, to gather enough strength to drink the water and venison he'd set aside for himself before redressing and returning to the small circle of wigwams to share the good news. Once there, he called them out of their animal skin abodes, men, women and children alike. He told them of the gift from Koochee'moya, the sacred spirit which would ensure that their meager crops would be healthy and bountiful, that the land would be nutrient rich and life-giving, the game abundant. He promised them on behalf of the great tree spirit that their children would always be strong and healthy, growing up to be virile warriors of legend, the most pleasing and fertile squaws. Their tribe would flourish and be happy.
Chief Crowfoot, his young and very beautiful daughter beside him, didn't seem very excited by the news, more worried and disbelieving, Crazy Wolf ascertained, as he began sweating arrowheads.
However, as if waiting only long enough to prove the words of Crazy Wolf, the ground began to thrum, vibrating beneath their feet when he'd finished speaking to the disbelieving stares of his tribe, including Chief Crowfoot and his previously smirking daughter. Suddenly, the earth seemed to buck beneath their feet rhythmically, not in the way of an earthquake, so much as a grinding undulation as a sprout forced its way from the soil in the center of the Village. Over the course of almost a minute, it climbed from the womb of Earth to a height of about six feet before it stopped and began to bloom apple blossoms.
Just as astounding, it seemed that nature was slowly, almost imperceptibly flourishing with greater life in an expanding radius from the tree, somehow making things greener, healthier, more vibrant. The nearby brook appeared to sparkle with the life they all knew teemed inside, waiting to be passed on to them, their children and their children's children.
Crazy Wolf fought to keep the self satisfied grin from his reverent expression as Crowfoot, his now very impressed daughter, and the rest of the tribe fell to their knees around the young apple tree.
"And
that,"
he smugly thought, "is how we do
that."
~~~~~~~~~~
The television, along with the lights and every other electrical appliance in the house, cut out suddenly and unexpectedly, as these things do when the power goes out. Like when the huge, twisted, ancient apple tree in the back yard suddenly gave up one of its large old limbs in a windstorm the previous summer, crushing Stuart Fairbourne's aluminum shed as if it were never there. He hated that shed anyway.
"Shit!" he swore, heaving his forty-seven year old, surprisingly fit body from the couch in the dark living room, hearing better the midwinter storm raging outside.
"Stuaaaart!" his wife, Brenda, called from upstairs. "The power went out!"
"Ye-! Okay, honey, thanks for letting me know!" he called, shaking his head and rolling his eyes.
"Are you fixing it!? It's dark!"
He smashed his knee on the corner of the heavy wooden coffee table and muted a curse as Melanie, his eighteen year old daughter, began yelling, "Daaaaaaaaad!! The power's out!"
Gripping his knee in agony, he stopped the curses that would have destroyed Mother Theresa long enough to shout,
"I know!!"
"I was watching
Twilight!"
"Randy!" Stuart yelled.
His reply was the sound of the kitchen door to the garage opening, a crash from the kitchen soon after and his twenty year old son snapping in frustration, "Fuck!"
"You okay!?"
" ... Yeaaah! Shhhhit!"
"Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaad!!"
"Would ya listen to that?" he confided in disgust a moment later as the shadowy form of his son filled the doorway. "Help me out with the generator, will ya?
Randy, while somewhat of a born bumpkin as it turned out, since they moved to the country two years ago, was at least sensible and reliable, if not a little too relaxed in his new lifestyle and local friends, some of them Indians. He was tall, not lean, but not bulky like Stuart and the last two years in the country had given him a tan that, along with his dark hair and brown eyes, made him fit right in with his new crowd.
But, there was just no denying the benefits of the move to the beautiful British Columbia countryside. The scenery was spectacular, the air and well water was clean and clear, tasting as good as the yield from the small vegetable garden Brenda had begun in the spacious backyard two summers ago. None of them had even caught so much as a cold since they'd been there, the four of them even looking healthier, better somehow and both he and Brenda had made offhand comments about it on the odd occasion. "You got your boots on?" he asked his son.
"Yeah, I was in the garage bluing my rifle. Shit!"
"Stuaaaaaaart!" Brenda hailed from above.
"
Yes
, we're fixing it! Turn all the light switches off up there and then come down here and do the same!" he shouted. "Randy, grab the flashlight outta the drawer while I get my coat and boots. God dammit, I almost broke my leg on that son of a bitch coffee table!"
In the garage, they managed to locate and drag the portable generator out to the bay door, the icy winter wind howling in the snowy, sub-zero climate just outside, defiantly pushing and rattling the man made barrier. After adding fuel to the tank and making sure it would start, Randy grabbed a couple of shovels. Raising the door, hoods pulled tight around their faces against the suddenly shocking wind chill, they lugged the unit outside into the dark early evening's whiteout conditions and around to the buried generator box next to the foundation.
Watching from the windowed door between the garage and kitchen, Brenda didn't know which one of the tall men was which when they returned, covered in snow and stamping their boots on the concrete. They loosened and removed their hoods, solving that minor mystery for her as Melanie entered the room behind her.
"Did they fix it yet?" asked the curvy young brunette, curvier in the last couple years, Brenda had noticed.
"I suppose, they just came back in."
"Why did we have to turn all the lights off if they were just going to fix it anyway?"
"I have no idea."
"Will I be able to finish watching
Twilight?
"
"Well, no. The generator only has limited power."
"What? Well, why can't they fix it so-?"
"Look out, they're coming in," Brenda warned, moving back from the door to stand beside her.
Almost three inches taller and a bit thinner than her five foot five daughter, Brenda watched the men come in, sniffing and breathing hard, feeling the winter chill they brought in with them.
At forty-five years of age, Brenda had been suffering through menopause for just over two years at that point, experiencing rapid and drastic mood swings, aching bones, insomnia, depression, not to mention the frequent and random bouts of horniness that wouldn't be denied. When the power went out, she'd been reading a trash novel in hers and Stuart's bedroom, having changed into a little something she'd bought online while waiting for Stuart with a special movie for them to watch. Now, it looked like those little plans were ruined as she stood in her white bathrobe, the nipples of her D-cup breasts making love to the silk babydoll that barely covered them underneath.
Melanie, barefoot and wearing pajamas, fresh from watching her favourite show in her comfortably heated room, waited hopefully for some good news from her father as she fretted about the eleven minutes of the broadcast she'd already missed, half of which, hopefully, had been only commercials. It looked like Isabella was about to kiss Edward in what promised to be a very hot scene and her fingers had just started playing inside her bra when the current buzz kill occurred.
"Alright," Stuart began. "The generator's hooked in and running, but it only runs the refrigerator, the freezer, the basement bathroom, and two receptacles in the family room down there.
Not
the heating system. It's warm in here now, but it's only early yet and it'll be a long night, plenty of time for it to cool off and, believe me, it will.
"So, what do we do?" Brenda asked.
"We get ready now," Stuart answered, handing her a second flashlight from the garage. "Grab some candles, plenty of blankets and pillows and take them all down to the family room. Randy and I are going to start lugging some wood from the garage down to the basement; we'll use the fireplace down there for heat."
"What about
Twilight?"
Melanie whined.
"I'm afraid we'll have to find other ways to entertain ourselves tonight, Melanie," Stuart answered without much concern.
It did cool off.
By nine-thirty, the house felt colder than inside the refrigerator, driving the four family members to the basement, blocking the crack under the door to the family room with a towel to prevent any draft. Via radio, they'd learned that the power was out all over, hydro repair crews immobilized by the hostile weather conditions which were expected to last well into the next day, possibly early evening.
The family room itself, however, was quite warm, the fireplace doing its job nicely with the fuel that the huge, twisted old apple tree in the backyard had donated. In addition were the other questionable branches, some of them as large as the one that had fallen, which Stuart had had Randy prune before they could crush his new shed, or a member of his family.
He didn't like doing it, having Randy prune the tree back, but it was necessary. The thing was that he liked that ugly old apple tree because it was one part of the greater beauty that was his backyard. This area and a short distance beyond, reasonably close to the rural road, was the thing that sold him on the one hundred acre lot. It had a natural, picturesque beauty that almost seemed to go beyond natural, even giving him a wholesome, contented mood when he was within it. Even Brenda agreed, the kids also liking the area right away. It was almost as if the place was that perfect landscape painting, or picture and they were the lucky, nameless and carefree people in it.
Pruning the apple tree somehow seemed a violation of the beautiful back yard, especially the tree itself, which grew the sweetest wild apples. Somehow, it and its ugliness seemed the unlikely centerpiece of the beauty that surrounded it. Regardless of this, he was glad to have the wood by the fireplace, since he'd neglected buying a load from a local supplier that fall. They'd be okay for quite some time with the supply they had. More in question was the limited gas supply for the generator, a problem, Stuart and Randy figured, which may involve somehow bleeding some fuel from one of the frozen, snowbound cars in the driveway.
