It's September, and it's harvest time for many of us - so, the story prompt for the coming month is
Fruitful
And, that can be actual fruit, an idea or a plan bearing fruit, bearing babies, a successful venture, anything fertile, yielding, and rewarding - or any other spin your own fruitful imagination can put on it.
Have at it. Time to get writing.
Kattayl
Posts : 47 Join date : 2020-08-10 Age : 69 Location : Los Angeles, Ca
Subject: Re: Fruitful Sun Sep 18, 2022 10:53 pm
Challenge September 2022
Fruitful
Outlaw Days
Preacher concluded the ceremony by saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, says the Lord. You may now kiss the bride.”
Curry snickered and Heyes hit him with his elbow. “Shh, Kid.”
“Don’t Preacher know that Wheat and Jenny there already are workin’ on the be fruitful part and that’s why her father is over there with a shotgun in his arms?”
Curry glanced over his shoulder and saw the sober-faced man. “Looks to me like he’d rather kill Wheat than see his daughter married to him.”
“Yeah, he ain’t too happy about this but he’s doing what he thinks right. He’s even giving Wheat farmland next to his as a wedding present. It's already planted, will be ready for harvest soon.”
Wheat and Jenny walked between the rows of outlaws on one side and her small family on the other. The Devil’s Hole Gang was smiling, looking forward to the feast to follow. Jenny’s father, brother and two sisters stood in stone-faced silence.
Kyle and Jenny’s other sister, Michelle, the maid of honor, followed the bridal couple down the aisle. Kyle was smiling widely, holding on to the pretty young girl beside him.
The tables were overflowing with fried chicken and apple pie provided by the bride’s father and whiskey provided by Hannibal Heyes and Kid Curry.
Joining Curry and Heyes at their table, Kyle smelled like he’d been drinking before the nuptials had even started.
“Pretty girl that Jenny.” Kyle took a chicken leg off of Curry’s plate, took a bite out of it and replaced it. “Did you hear Wheat’s gonna be a farmer? Wheat growing wheat.” Kyle laughed so hard he spit beer on Heyes, then tried to wipe it off with a used napkin.
Heyes said nothing, just stood, hands on hip, and stared at Kyle.
“Sorry, Heyes.”
Interrupting the scene in front of him, Curry had been looking around. “Heyes?”
“Yeah.” Heyes waved him off, still focused on Kyle
“That Wheat’s new farm over there?” Curry pointed beyond the party to fields of wheat and corn.
“Sure is.” Kyle beamed with pride. “And them’s his father-in-law’s right that way.”
“You see what I see, Heyes?”
Heyes sighed and didn’t even hear Kyle’s next comment. “Guess Wheat’s gonna have to plant some fruit trees, though. Don’t see none of them and Preacher told him to be fruitful.”
‘I see it, Kid.”
“What you want to do?” Curry asked staring at the tall corn in the fields surrounding them.
“How much Wheat know about farming?”
“Nothing really. Said he grew up in a small city. His pa was the blacksmith. Wheat couldn’t see a life by a hot forge for himself, so he run away.” Curry was taking off his suit jacket and laid it carefully over the back of his chair.
“Well, seeing as it’s Wheat and it’s his wedding day, I say we first finish all this fine whiskey I brought.”
“We brought, Heyes.”
“We brought, Kid!
Grabbing the bottle of whiskey, Heyes stood up on the table. “A toast!”
“Yeah!”
“To Wheat Carlson and his new bride, Jenny.”
“To Wheat and Jenny!” “Congratulations!” “Long and happy life together!” “To all the fruit trees you’ll plant!” Kyle yelled as the toasts were quieting down.
“Now, boys, Wheat and Jenny are needing your help.” Heyes had assumed his leader’s commanding voice and stance. Curry stood a few paces away where everyone in the gang could see him.
“Our help? Sure, what do they need?”
“See that field over there? Belongs to Wheat now.”
The gang turned to admire the field as one. Those of them among them that were farm boys gasped.
“No, Heyes. You don’t mean…you couldn’t mean…” Curry’s eyes flashed at Knotty Lance. Curry knew he was raised on a farm in Indiana.
“Kid and I were raised on a farm, and I know if that wheat and corn ain’t harvested now, it will be worthless.”
The gang, mostly drunk, just stared at him.
Heyes voice grew louder, proud of his plan. “If you have your regular clothes with ya, change. We’re going to harvest ourselves wheat and corn! Let’s do this for Wheat!”
“YEAH!” “Let’s do it!
Hannibal Heyes’ speech got the gang going. Wheat started giving orders until Curry pulled him aside.
“Wheat, what do you think you’re doin’?” Curry asked.
“Telling them I want them to harvest my crops.”
“Heyes already has that organized.”
“They’re my crops.”
“And me and Heyes are Kansas farm boys. He knows what he’s doin’.”
“I can do it better, quicker,” Wheat slurred his words from the whiskey.
“Tell me, Wheat, what would you change?” Curry put a friendly arm around Wheat’s shoulder.
“Well…er,” Wheat looked around at his friends, even Heyes was working hard. Everyone had been assigned tasks and were working hard. They also had all the bottles of whiskey in the fields with them, passing them around as they met at the end of the rows. “Well, looks like things are going pretty good but I would have come up with a better plan.”
Wheat looked around and saw Kyle, Preacher, and Hank working in his new father-in-law’s fields, helping him and his young son with their harvest.
Wheat smiled at his wife as she brought the leftover fried chicken to the workers. They kissed for a moment, Jenny enjoying it. Wheat embarrassed. He watched as she walked away. “Maybe married life ain’t gonna be that bad.” Turning his attention back to Curry, he said, “Well…er…I’d change that I weren’t a farmer, Kid. That life’s hard on the back and I got me a bad back already from that bullet when we robbed the Singing Creek Bank.”
“The one that Kyle put in you?” Curry laughed as they joined the men picking corn.
“Yeah, that one. It were an accident.”
Curry read men well. “Wheat, you really don’t want to be a farmer, do you?”
“Nope, but I got me a mighty sweet wife now and a baby coming. Guess I have no choice.”
ASJ*****ASJ
As the day started to grow darker and the crops to be harvested less, Curry and Heyes ended up working side by side just like when they were kids.
“You know, Heyes, Wheat don’t want to be a farmer.”
“He doesn’t strike me as the farming kind.” Heyes reached the end of the row and took a slug of whiskey. Thinking, he took off his black hat, wiped his sweat with his bandana and pushed his hair straight back off his face before settling his hat back on his face.
“What’s the farmin’ kind look like?” Curry asked reaching for the bottle.
“Like your pa, Kid. If you saw him, you just knew that Patrick Curry was a farmer.”
“Your pa was a farmer too, Heyes, and he looked like a schoolteacher.”
Heyes laughed and put his arm around Curry’s shoulder leading him toward Wheat.
“Wheat, Kid says you don’t want to be a farmer. Just what do you want to be?”
“Shh, Jenny might hear you say that. Well, I been pretty happy being an outlaw.”
Heyes nodded. “Proud to have you as part of the gang, too. I could always count on you when it really mattered.” Whiskey made Heyes’ tongue less silver, his words slurred. “Jenny was a seamstress, right?”
“She sews so pretty and even designed some of the kid clothes that shop sold.”
“My friend, I have a plan. A Hannibal Heyes plan!”
“Don’t need no Hannibal Heyes plan. I can always make a better one.”
Heyes just smiled widely. “Well, here’s my plan and you can improve it anyway you want. After all, it's your wedding day.”
Wheat got a sick look on his face. “Heyes, what am I goin’ to do with a wife and a baby?”
“You’re going sell your crop and give the land back to Jenny’s father to start.”
“I’m what?”
“Then you’re going to buy that building in Hidden Valley that’s been empty for years.”
“What am I going to do with that old thing?”
“Open a small mercantile specializing in the dresses and children’s clothes that Jenny designs. Don’t try to compete with the mercantile there. Carry things they don’t, like guns and dynamite…and the clothes.”
“But Jenny’s a farmer’s daughter….”
“Who left the farm to go be a seamstress.” Heyes clapped Wheat on the back. “Go cleanup for your wedding night, Wheat. And talk to Jenny.”
“Heyes, what are you getting out of this?”
“Maybe someone to send safe telegrams for the Kid and I… and to listen and send someone to warn us if bounty hunters are close.”
EPILOGUE - TWO YEARS LATER – Amnesty Days
“Hey, Thaddeus, come here.”
“Whatcha doin’ lookin’ at ladies’ dresses?” Curry teased his partner.
“I was looking for a new white shirt.” Heyes dropped his voice and looked around. “Tore my last ones into strips to make bandages.”
“I know. For my leg that was grazed by a bullet. You pick out the shirt. I’ll buy it for ya.”
“Thanks, but that’s not what I wanted to show you. Saw this tag.”
Curry reached over and smiled as he read the tag. “Designs by Jenny. Hidden Valley, WY.”
Walking over to the counter, Heyes smiled his best smile at the middle-aged lady behind the counter. “Miss, can I ask a question about this dress?”
“Yes, sir, anything you want. Isn’t it beautiful? The lady that makes them is so talented.”
“Does she deliver them here herself? I think we may know her.”
“Yes, her husband drives her and the kids over every three weeks. She sells in a couple of towns around here.”
“Two kids?”
“Yes, two beautiful little girls that look just like their mother.
“Thanks, ma’am. We were heading toward Hidden Valley. Think we might look them up.”
“You can’t miss their place. They’re the only ones with fruit trees in their front yard.”
Heyes started grinning so large that Curry told the lady thanks and pushed him out the door.
“Heyes, what’s so funny that you couldn’t even thank the woman?”
“Kyle, it has to be Kyle.”
“Kyle?”
“Kyle took Preacher’s words about being fruitful as meaning Wheat and Jenny should have fruit trees. Betcha that’s where they came from.”
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