Dominion

We will make it through this one as well, he told himself, and looked over to Sa

As his parents sated themselves on meat, from the corner of the room Purchase Merian began to cry. His mother went over to him to offer her breast, not feeling any of the angriness she had on some nights when his little screams would not cease. For all ate in the house that evening and no more mention was made of hunger or murder.

There was fresh meat the next meal as well, and then smoked and pickled meats in the days that followed, until they had feasted from the animal for the better part of six weeks.

When spring did finally come at the end of that interminable winter, it came vengefully, with a hot blast of heat that made going out of doors feel like punishment for some unspeakable crime.

Merian bore it gladly, though, as the animals could graze again, and he went about clearing a new field for their provisions, having learned a hard lesson from the previous months. However, when he began digging out the new plot he remembered just how rocky much of his property actually was. He worked from the first finger of light until sundown, plowing the land already under cultivation or removing stones from the soil. As he dug under the primitive sun he was never as thankful for its warmth, even as it burned and parched him to exhaustion.

From the heat it grew green quickly in the other fields and his crops began to soar again, as they had seasons before, when he dared dream he was getting ahead of that vast wilderness and all the things set against him. That year he dreamed only that he might reduce the debt he had amassed. Either because of this or to spite it, he tried again with rice, using a different seed but the same method Chiron had taught. As he irrigated the little plants, he thought of his old friend and wondered where he had disappeared to under the summit on the other side of the mountains. He remembered then what he had said about things always separating out from their source.

He looked again that summer down the long road back to where he had come from and tried to banish the other end from his mind, once and for all, to concentrate on the pleasures of home, uppermost of which was watching Purchase grow.

“If you keep growing like that you’ll end up a giant,” he said to the boy.

He meant it as well. The child was growing so remarkably that he worried there was something the matter with him. “Why don’t you and Purchase go see that new doctor in town, just to make sure everything is all right,” he offered to Sa

His wife laughed at him, the idea was so ridiculous. “With what money and what reason?” she asked. “Don’t you think a doctor has better things to tend to than just a child growing?”

Merian let it rest there for the time being, but he watched the boy’s growth with awe and fear together.

This was the same summer that his satisfaction and optimism also grew to such prodigious heights as to prompt him to give the place a name of its own.

When he finished his daily chores in the fields, both the ones that grew food for humans and the ones that supported their animals, he would bring old Ruth Potter around to the acres he had just cleared, load her cart with the stones he had dug up, then bid her haul it. Ruth Potter strained under those loads as she had under few others since coming into his possession, both because of the weight of rock in her wagon and because she was getting on in years. Merian tried to make the loads light as possible, often finding himself walking beside her, hauling nearly as much as the beast. When they finished their work for the day, he would share with her his water and give to her one of the apples from the cellar.

Still, the labors were a drain on her, and Sa

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 begi

“You’ll get your comeuppance yet, man,” she warned.

“I bet the little lord likes it, don’t you, Purchase?”

“The what?” she asked him, stupefied.

“Tiny lord.”

“So, man, I have married an honest heathen?”

“No, 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 Sa

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 begi

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 begi

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 Sa

Sa

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 Sa

When he arrived, Sa