Farmer Takes a Wife Read online

  Jack wanted Cyndi for himself. It was a matter he would have to deal with later. His attention was concentrated on saving their lives.

  Cyndi’s eyes were wide as the sight of the mountain came into view. “Merciful Father, protect us,” she prayed.

  The ground was coming up fast.

  The plane was going down faster.

  “Hold on and brace yourself, Ms. Cyndi,” he said.

  Jack aimed for the trees and hoped for the best.

  Chapter 6 – Brace For Impact

  Jack was right; they went down like a hooker in a back alley on Bourbon Street. The planed skipped across the tops of white bark pines trees, bounced against conifers, and was finally slowed down by a copse of lodge pole pines which snapped off the tail of the plane. Cold air rushed inside the unprotected cabin as branches cracked the windshield. Cyndi covered her face with her arm to protect herself from the onslaught of limbs coming at the rapidly cracking glass. Jack moved quickly to his left to avoid the branch which came through the pilot’s window straight through the missing tail of the plane. It was a rocky landing but they made it.

  “Out!” Jack yelled. “Move as fast as you can!”

  Cyndi scrambled to get the quilt off her legs. Her door was jammed shut as Jack’s hands grabbed for her, pulling her under the limb poking through the plane, which ripped through the front of her dress as he yanked her out of the cabin. He pulled her by the hand as they ran into the open.

  “Down!” he yelled at her and Cyndi grabbed her head, curling her body into a ball in the ground. Jack threw his body on top of hers, sheltering her from debris. A boom shattered the plane as the remains of the fuselage burst into flames.

  Jack stood slowly looking at the burning pile of his favorite toy. “Shit!” he said aloud. “Now I have to buy another plane. I really liked that one.”

  “What?” Cyndi said as she uncurled her body. She stood up next to him unaware that her breasts were hanging out of her tattered dress. “We barely escaped death and you are worried about buying another plane?”

  “That’s the least of our worries, Ms. Cyndi. It’s getting dark soon and the temperature is going to drop at least forty degrees. We need shelter, wood for a fire, water, and food to get us through the night,” he said.

  “Don’t you have a cell phone on you or can’t they track the black box in the plane?”

  “Do you see a cell tower anywhere around for my phone to ping off?” he asked her incredulously. Her gentle brown eyes searched his face for answers. Instinct requested he pull her into his arms, but he refrained. “Let’s get moving. We don’t have a lot of daylight left.”

  The quilt had fallen a few feet away when she hit the ground. Jack picked it up, shaking it out and handled the blanket so that he covered her torn dress. Cyndi looked down to see why he was covering her to spy her lacy black bra torn as well as the front of her dress.

  “Oh, good Lord,” she said trying desperately to cover herself.

  Jack found comfort in her modesty.

  “Don’t worry; I didn’t peek,” he said, looking at her feet. The shoes were flats instead of some silly high heel. “Are you cut or hurt anywhere, Ms. Cyndi?”

  “No, just my pride, but I have my grandmother’s quilt which is going to come in handy tonight,” she said looking at him side-eyed. “What are you going to use?”

  He got her jab. Good. No hard feelings about leaving her potholders and crap. “I’m going to build us some sort of shelter for the night, start a fire and try to find the tail of the plane. If I can do all of that before it gets too dark, then I will wrap myself in those curtains in the tail if the plane,” he said walking away.

  “Well, the curtains were behind the seat. If they didn’t fly out when the tail snapped off, then they are burning in your favorite toy over there,” she said with attitude.

  “I guess that means that you and I are going to get to know each other really well tonight as we share G-Ma’s best quilt,” he said without looking back.

  “Hold on there, Mr. Pilot! It is not that kind of party,” Cyndi replied.

  “No, it is not. It is the kind of party that will keep us warm and alive. I have never forced myself on a woman and I am not about to start tonight or any other night. Besides,” he said, stopping, his head bowed looking at the tip of his boot which too was ripped open, exposing his big toe.

  “Besides...what?”

  “You are my brother’s woman and I am my brother’s keeper,” he told her.

  “I am going to remind you of that at 3 am when your joystick is poking me in my back,” she said flippantly.

  He didn’t know what made him say it. Jack didn’t understand what made him think it, but it popped in his head and then it rolled off his tongue and out of his mouth.

  “My joystick doesn’t poke, it hangs down my leg,” he said. He was grateful his back was to her as he frowned for even planting the seed in his head.

  “Oh dear Lord!” she said, then thought of her Daddy. Stay safe. Change the subject. “How soon do you think it’s going to be before we are rescued?”

  “It might be a couple of days, Ms. Cyndi, and we have work to do,” he said. “Let find a spot to make camp tonight.”

  “Should we stay close to the wreckage in case crews get here in the morning?”

  “We will be nearby if anyone comes a-looking,” he told her. Just as he spoke the words, a single snowflake fell landing on the tip of her nose. “Shit,” he said. “Snow is coming. We really have to get moving and fast.”

  The snow, which was going to be knee deep by morning, was only one of Jack’s concerns. Most of trees in the area had taken the brunt of the landing from the plane, which left them little cover for the night. Being in the open left them vulnerable and exposed. He had to build some sort of shelter with ventilation and get a fire going so they didn’t freeze to death. They walked north of the crash, looking for higher ground and a place to set up for the evening. Nothing suitable was found and daylight was waning.

  The two-trekked downhill, headed south searching, quiet, not speaking but looking. Cyndi was nervous about being alone with a man she didn’t know who evidently had a penis that hung down his leg. She really wanted no part of that. It was a fifty/fifty crap shoot if she should befriend him so he wouldn’t change his mind, attack her, and leave her body for the wolves, or if she should remain cold. Running an inner conversation in her head wasn’t her way. She needed to open a dialogue.

  “Luckily for us you were skilled enough to land in the trees and not on those two big boulders over there,” she said pointing.

  Boulders. He hadn’t considered the boulders. He was too busy chastising himself for the comment about his poker.

  “You are a genius, Cyndi! If there is enough room between them, we can dig in for the night,” he said.

  Jack was excited as he eased his way between the two large stones to find an open spot wide enough to not only sleep, but sit comfortably.

  “This is perfect,” he said. “Start looking for dry wood that we can use to make a fire and bring it back here. Do you know how to make a fire pit?”

  “Kind of. I find rocks, make a circle out of them and dig the center out like a bowl to hold the wood?”

  “Exactly. Gather as much as you can as quickly as you can. I am going to make a roof,” he told her.

  The first thing Cyndi did was clean house. Any stones large enough to make the fire pit were thrown towards the smooth side of the boulder. She used her hands to brush away any pebbles in the center of the space. She folded the quilt, lying her body lengthwise against the rock, then she tried to do the same on the other side, but it was neither long nor wide enough for her body, which meant it wasn’t going to comfortably sleep Jack. The stones were pushed closer to the far side of the space and she and Mr. Pilot Man would have to sleep closer than she was comfortable with, but she wasn’t going to freeze to death, not on this night or any night.

  Firewood, Cyndi.

  She
left the quilt, setting out to find kindling, dried branches, and anything else she could haul by herself. She came back with the first armload.

  “Duh, Cyndi!” She grabbed the quilt and sashed it on her body before setting out again. Only this time, she used the quilt like a carrying pouch. Three times in her life had she been camping with her father. She knew the power had been turned off in their house but he didn’t think she understood as they went “camping” for the weekend. As she collected the firewood, she grabbed one or two green logs to dry out during the night for a slow burn during the next night for extended warmth. Jack spotted her coming back with the papoose around her back, lugging the fire wood.

  Impressive and clever.

  The firewood was piled high enough to not only get them through the night but also the morning. Cyndi used the greenest of the branches as a tool to dig out a hole nearest the boulder. The big rock was going to be the back of the fireplace in this makeshift little house. Carefully she selected rounded rocks and stones to make the circle for the fire. Most of the rocks were not large enough for a firebreak, which sent her out again with her makeshift grocery bag to collect larger stones. She found four which were perfect and returned to the spot. On her knees with the tattered dress covered by the quilt, she lined the rocks up neatly, adding the first pieces of kindling to the dig out bowl in the pit. Large pieces of dried wood were placed beside the pit as she set out to look for Jack.

  Pieces of wood chips fell on her head. She looked up to see Jack at the top of the boulders laying long branches.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I am making a roof. I need to lay these lengthwise and the others crosswise, then cover the tops with branches,” he said.

  “I will start collecting branches and shrubbery,” she said, taking off without waiting for him to say anything further.

  Cyndi worked tirelessly, never complaining once as she lugged load after load of shrubbery, some of which she had to manually remove from its parent to bring back to their makeshift home. Working together, the roof was in place as the sun began to lower.

  “We have to find the tail of the plane,” Jack called out from the roof. “This is as sturdy as I can make it right now. It will hold up under a moderate snowfall. If we have to stay an additional night, I will reinforce it tomorrow.”

  Cyndi picked up a twig, walking towards where the fuselage had combusted into flames. In the dirt, she began to calculate the tree line, the trajectory and the landing of the plane. Not satisfied with her figures, she brushed away the dirt, looked at the trees, looked at the fuselage, recalculated and pointed south. “The tail is down there,” she said.

  “How do you know?”

  “I calculated it,” she said.

  “With a stick in the dirt?”

  “Yes, and I am right. Let’s go; we’re losing daylight,” she said.

  One mile south, they arrived at the snapped off tailgate. The end of the plane was perfectly intact and standing upright between two very large fir trees.

  “Help me push,” he told her.

  Cyndi looked about and spotted a large broken branch. “Let’s use this to counter balance it so that it tips at a controlled rate and everything doesn’t spill out on the ground,” she told him.

  Three times they tried and failed. The fourth attempt was successful as the tail tilted over like a slow falling giant to hit the ground, leaving the contents inside. No words were spoken as Jack grabbed the box of food, the new skillet, the sharp knife, the axe, and the two brand new coffee mugs. He smiled happily with glee when he found them both unbroken.

  “You should smile more often. It really brightens up your face,” Cyndi said. Stop being nice to It. It may rape you in the middle of the night.

  The smile faded as he barked at her, “Let’s move!”

  In the last ¾ of a mile, Cyndi’s strength was fading but she was not going to give up until she got back to the boulder palace. The last traces of the sun slid behind the mountaintop when they entered the dark space that would be their home for the night. Jack pulled a lighter from his pocket and used a receipt to start the fire. Wispy snowflakes dropped on them as they started out to look for the tail, but the downfall of snow picked up in the last half mile on the way back and was coming down at a steady pace. The curtains, much to his sheer delight, were in the tail of the plane. Two rocks and a heavy stick later, the curtains were now a doorway between the boulders. The fire crackled against the dugout bowl in the ground as the boulder heated up also warming the space.

  “I have coffee, sugar, two cups, a skillet, and some ground beef with Kaiser buns. We will have hamburgers for dinner if you eat beef,” he said.

  “I will eat a pig’s ass if it’s cooked right,” she said.

  He’d brought three bottles of water back to the hideout with him and he used some of the contents of one to wash his hands. She leaned against the rapidly warming boulder watching him pat out the beef patties, placing them evenly in the skillet. The smell of the meat sizzling was wonderful, and she closed her eyes and gave into the fatigue and realization of her circumstance. Her Grandmother’s quilt around her, she closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep.

  A light tapping at her toe woke her as a large burger was jammed in her face.

  “Eat,” he said to her.

  “Are you always this monosyllabic or are you capable of more than a few words at a time?”

  “I talk. When I string the words together to form sentences, people wish I didn’t say anything. So I have relegated myself to saying only what is essential,” he told her.

  “Ooh, relegated. A four-syllable word,” she said with smile.

  “Don’t be a smart ass,” he said.

  “Fair enough. Maybe if you don’t act like a dumb one, we will get along just fine,” she said.

  “Be careful what you wish for, Ms. Cyndi,” he said biting into the burger. It was going to be a long night and the only blanket was the one she was wearing. I am my brother’s keeper.

  “I am my brother’s keeper,” Jack said aloud.

  “Let’s pray that you are– for both of our sakes,” she said, wondering why she hadn’t gotten more clothing from her suitcase.

  Chapter 7 – A Dark & Stormy Night

  The news of the plane’s crash was almost the undoing of Carson Royal. As hard as Jamar tried to calm him, no words were of condolence to the distraught farmer. He’d lost too much to be consoled. Losing Cyndi would be the end of his sanity as a man.

  “What can we do? Is there a search team?” Carson asked over and over again.

  “Let’s go and talk to Daniel. If it went down in a national forest, then the rangers would take point on search and rescue,” he said.

  “Good. Good. Let’s go,” he said.

  Jamar was confused. “Farmer, where are we going?”

  “We are going over to Daniel’s so I can join the search and rescue team to look for my Cyndi. Tomorrow was going to be our wedding night. Chef said he was going to make us a special dinner and everything when we got back from tying the knot. She could be bleeding out on the side of mountain, waiting for me to come find her so we can start our life together,” Carson said with eyes brimming with tears.

  “Dude, you have got to stop crying. That shit is not a good look on you,” Jamar said with a frown.

  Farmer’s head went side to side in an attempt to shake off the shivers which had beset him while trying to collect himself before he spoke. “I have never gotten a break in my entire life, man. I have suffered so much, so often at every turn. This was supposed to be my chance. She was my chance.”

  “You still have a chance, Farmer. Stop being so full of damn gloom and doom. I hate to even think about what you would’ve said to her on your wedding night. Man, when was the last time you spent some time alone with a lady?”

  “I don’t believe this! You want to discuss my love life now, while my Cyndi is missing?”

  “No, I want to discuss a broken fragmented man
who must understand who he is before he can share his life with anyone Farmer,” Jamar told him.

  “This is not the time,” Carson told him.

  “When do you think the time is going to be – after she marries you and moves into that home to discover you are suffering from depression or worse? She didn’t sign up for that. Your Cyndi deserves a man who is whole and is in touch with himself,” Jamar said after a pause. “I had a clause in the contract that a man who moved here could not get married until he had fulfilled his vision. Men like you are the reason I thought the clause was necessary.”

  Farmer looked at him in disbelief. “Men like me?” he asked.

  “Yes, lost men like you who want to use your back to forge through your pain versus allowing the noise in your head to be filtered so you can make some sense of the tune playing,” he told Farmer. “Your record is scratched with the needle stuck in a rut playing the same section of the song over and over again. Man, you need a reset.”

  “I need my Cyndi,” he said.

  “You don’t deserve her in your current state,” Jamar said.

  Jamar did not move fast enough to avoid Farmer’s fist in his face. Jamar’s knees buckled, tilting him forward and landing him on the pebbled road face down ass up like he was kneeling to say his prayers to Mecca.

  Farmer walked away, angry, frustrated, and strongly desiring to punch something else. “I may not deserve Cyndi, but you deserved that, my brother. I am your keeper and you need to keep your mouth shut about my scratched record and any damned thing else.”

  Jamar groaned in the dirt as Farmer left to drive himself to Daniel’s house. It took an extra twenty minutes to get there because he didn’t know where he was going. Each time he’d come over for Friday game night, he was always in the back seat, tired and barely awake. His anger at Jamar was driving him.

  The fear of losing Cyndi was fueling him forward.

  Then he thought about something which hadn’t occurred to him. Jack was also on that plane. His friend was on that damned plane! What if they survived? A new thought struck him.