Free Dominion by Calvin Baker Page A

helpmate on the place was reaching a stage that no one could deny or change. “This is the only work she has to do this year, besides the harvest,” he said, and went back to his own chores.
    With the fieldstone that they hauled up from the slope stacked in loads out back, Merian began to face the two conjoined structures until it was one solid formation without crack for wind or cold to penetrate. It was when he finally finished that he began to call the place Stonehouses.
    In the beginning Sanne could scarcely stand to hear the name come from his mouth.
    â€œYou’ll get your comeuppance yet, man,” she warned.
    â€œI bet the little lord likes it, don’t you, Purchase?”
    â€œThe what?” she asked him, stupefied.
    â€œTiny lord.”
    â€œSo, man, I have married an honest heathen?”
    â€œNo, but you live on a true farm now,” he said, standing near the front door. It was a fitting assessment. He had made the rock-infested acres in the forest into a proper freehold that had at last begun to show signs of prosperity, even after the winter that brought them near full ruin.
    The year, however, still held suffering in its maw, which it did offer up in due course of time. As he worked the fields with Sanne and Ruth Potter, reaping a harvest he hoped would be rich enough to unhitch him from debt, the mule tripped one day and lost her footing on a rock, then went tumbling loudly to the ground in a heap of sagging skin and snapping inner mass.
    When Merian went to help her up, the mule brayed at him and kicked out with one leg to drive him off. Merian, hunched over her, finally succeeded in jamming the dislocated bone back into place, and coaxing the mule to stand and test it. It was no use. When she took to her legs Ruth Potter looked at him shakily and took one pained step before beginning a hopping walk on her three sound limbs.
    Merian led her gently back to the house, where he sat up, cursing her clumsiness and feeding her apples late into the night. For a week he let her convalesce, until it became apparent the leg was not getting better. It was beginning to rot, in fact, right on the bone.
    Flies hovered around inside the house, and her wispy tail flailed halfheartedly at them, causing the creatures to scatter briefly before re-settling right where they had been, until they no longer even made the pretense of scattering but only an increase in buzzing before resuming their banquet on the festering meat. Merian soothed her mottled head and scattered the flies with his hat, while proclaiming to Sanne that the leg looked to be healing.
    Sanne did not say anything when he went on like this, but nodded her head and brought him a fresh bucket of water, which man and mule alike used to quench their thirst in the sweltering heat. “Might be,” she said at last, trying to give him comfort.
    By the second week it was apparent that the mule had no chance, and even his affection and loyalty could no longer hide this from him. Early one morning before Sanne and Purchase awoke, Merian lifted Ruth Potter up from the floor and led her out deep into the woods, beyond the trails that anyone knew but him, and into the same valley field that had served him as an emergency pasture in winter. There he untied the animal, and bade her luck with her own devices, turned, and went back to the house.
    When he arrived, Sanne saw his weariness, and the mule missing, and did not ask what he had done that morning. He for his part was silent much of the rest of the day. As they bedded down for the night, though, Sanne told Merian that she heard a noise outside of the house. “It is only your imagining, or else the wind,” Merian told her, turning back to sleep. When she would not desist he went out, where he was greeted by the old speckled beast.
    He led her limping inside and gave her feed and an apple, then a blanket, before returning to his wife in bed.
    Sanne did not say anything as he wormed