Wolf’s Bane

“Dad, I consider walking as my only exercise these days because of how busy I am. That jeep won’t be helping me at all.”

“It would help you get home a lot more, so you can be with your parents more,” snapped the former schoolteacher.

“I’m sure you mean well, Ma’am, but I do have my reasons,” Jack replied as he took another swig of his drink, then he whispered, “And I’m sure you have yours…”

“Did you say something, son?” Ms. Nelia said, trying to catch what she thought she heard.

“Nothing, Ma’am…”

Jack knew he should stop saying his thoughts aloud. At work, people didn’t mind him doing that since he’s the boss, but, even though he knew that this gossip’s hearing was now slowly deteriorating, he knew that was not a free pass to voice all his thoughts.

Nope, definitely not for these talkative women’s ears.

“I still don’t understand why you had to eat at Diwana’s house instead of here with your parents, son. Of course, we were here with them but I’m sure there you could have easily joined us though we did eat dinner early.”

Of course, Jack didn’t like what he just heard. He tried to be as civil as he could with his reply, but it was very difficult.

“Miss Maritess, I didn’t even plan to come over to the village today. I just happened to end up helping out a new hire that was moving from his camp in the forest to Diwana’s house.”

“A new hire? Isn’t he from here, or one of the neighboring villages?”

“No dad, he’s from the city. He was looking for a place to stay and he was camping out in the woods. The guy didn’t even have a truck, just a motorcycle and a tent, and he found a room at Diwa’s.”

“Someone from the city? Dear, they usually are bad news. Did you do a check on him before you hired him?”

“Yes Miss Nel, I did,” Jack answered in a cold monotone, regretting that he broke his earlier decision to ignore the two elderly women. “He’s not the first visitor, or foreigner, to be hired by our company since I took over, so I think I’m quite well-versed on how to hire employees by now.”

His tone said it all: As if YOU have ANY experience running a company, Ma’am…

“Jack, I don’t think I like your tone of voice. Please remember that, once upon a time, I was still your teacher back then when you were just an innocent and RESPECTFUL tyke. We’re just making sure that your newly hired employee is not an ex-convict or a wanted man who’s hiding out here to get away from authorities. We need to protect our village from outsiders because most of them are secretly rotten to the core!”

“Well, I’m sorry if I offended you in any way, MA’AM. I was just saying things as they are, too. I do have considerable experience running the lumberyard, after all, and you seem to overlook that.”

“She may have sounded like she doesn’t trust you, son, but you know that isn’t true. Your Ma’am Nelia is just a little upset with the talk of foreigners because we’re not very happy with the lot of them that have come here over the years. For example, Diwana…”

Jack’s fist curled around his beer can. “Miss Maritess, I prefer that we don’t talk about that…”

“I know you’re fond of her and she is quite a wonderful cook and mother for her sister-in-law’s children but remember, after she arrived, it wasn’t long before that killer flu started here in our village.”

“Ma’am, please don’t go there…”

“And then their family almost got wiped out, along with other villagers here, and all of them were people who didn’t like her… or she didn’t like…”

“Ma’am… I’m truly sorry to cut you off but may I remind you that this is our house and we would rather NOT talk about that…”

Everyone then looked at Jack. His parents had a worried look while the visitors were looking quite shocked, even a bit terrified at the lumberjack’s frigid look and voice.

“Nelia, Maritess… Please, we consider Diwana as our friend and more so with our son. We hope that you can understand how awkward this topic can be for him…”

“Well, alright. We do apologize for that. I didn’t think he would take it so personally…”

“I do, and I’m also sorry that I seemed to have upset you as well,” the younger Schneider responded.

“Apology accepted, oh gosh… look at the time. We would need to go on home now. Thank you for the lovely Dinner and we’ll be seeing you around soon.”

“Yes, good night. Let’s go, Nelly…”

The Schneider family watched the two elderly ladies in their oversized dresses – both ‘ladies’ were incredibly small and spindly – hurry down their old porch’s steps and were soon walking away into the darkness with their huge flashlights.

It took a while for the family of three to break their silence with long sighs of relief…

Paul, Jack’s Dad, sighed but he couldn’t help but smile, “For sure they will have their own version of what happened tonight, son…”

“That I’m gay and I just showed my being gay because I whooped their poor little gossipy female asses with my Ru Paul attitude and snarkiness?” the foreman replied jokingly. “I think they’re already saying those things before, Dad.”

“Well, you just gave them confirmation, son,” giggled Carmel, the Schneider wife. “I hope that whoever you did hire is on the up and up, just so they don’t get to say ‘I told you so’, which they will do if they find any dirt on our new logger.”NôvelDrama.Org content.

“I made sure Eron’s records were clean when I hired him, Mom. Even checked with one of my old friends back in college who’s now a security agency owner. No prior criminal records. Not even an overdue library book.”

“Well, that’s good to hear. And his reason for coming here?” asked the Schneider patriarch as he swigged from his own beer can.

“He got burned out because of city life and wanted to get a new start in life. According to him, he tried out a few suburban locations but it still didn’t help him de-stress. He finally came up here to the mountains as per the recommendation of a friend of his who visited long ago, and now he’s loving the life here. Might even stay for good…”

“And is he any good with lumber?”

“Yes Dad, he seems to be a natural and learns pretty fast. The guy even managed to save my life and Diwana from an accident.”

Jack ended his story there since he’s still not sure if what happened was really an accident. Good for him, since his father decided to focus on something else…