Avery Creek: Chapter One

         I awoke to the sound of the sow bellowing in the lower pasture. A hair raising sound to anyone who has and knows animals. It wasn’t the cry of labor, or of distended udders. It was the sound that a cow makes when she has lost her calf. The low, belly aching noise of a mother that I imagine all creatures have some variation of.

         The floor was cold when I stepped out of the bed in my bare feet, my own breasts sore and my hair tangled against the nape of my neck from sleep. Without turning on the light I found a bleached out pair of Levi’s and my boots, slipped into them and crossed the room in long strides.

         I had dismissed the farm hands for the season otherwise I would have sent one of the men to investigate firsthand. No woman wants to be caught alone in the fields if a pack of coyotes should break on a run. As it was, the rifle would require both hands and without a flashlight or a lantern, I would be hunting in complete darkness.

         I loaded, and dropped the extra shells in my jacket pocket where I would be able to reach them easily enough.

         I could still hear her down there, her screams churning into a low moaning, and knew that whatever had happened, she had remained untouched. My hands trembled slightly as I opened the sliding glass door, making a mental note to grease the tracks when daylight came.


         I stepped out into the night and felt the cold air rush into my lungs. The Blue Ridge of Carolina is still wild in as many places as one cares to visit. The coyotes were becoming uncontrollable, taking down calves, and on more than one occasion, small children.

         The grass was wet, and I nearly slipped as I stepped down off the porch. I felt the gate catch in the palm of my hand and knew the familiar burn of a cut, probably deeper than I cared to imagine at the time. I couldn’t see anything in the dark as I started down the hill, taking it by foot, careful not to make too much noise. Looking back on it now, I still don’t know why I decided not to take the truck. Maybe it was the shock of the animal’s cries, or something else within the night willing me to do the very thing that I knew I shouldn’t do. I don’t know, and I will never know.

         The .306 is a heavy rifle, but it’s a sure weapon to drop a bear or a large cat. I knew this from what the men had told me. I had never had to shoot a bear or a cat in the five years that I had lived out there, but I had killed plenty of coyotes and felt confident with a gun in my hands.

         I had only gone some five hundred yards down into the dark when I saw the eyes. At first it was one pair, trailing me from a couple hundred feet away. From memory I recalled that there were some large boulders in that general area, and my first thought was that I would have to wait and get a clear shot or risk having it charge me before I could reload. I stopped and listened, looking directly at it, trying to discern exactly what I was looking at.

         My breathing had escalated, and my heart pounded in my chest, no matter how I tried to stay calm. And somehow I knew, that it could smell my fear.

         I took a few more careful steps forward and heard the growl behind me. I froze, cursing inwardly, and slowly began to turn around, shaking violently. I was nearing a state of uncontrollable nausea.

         “Something’s not right. Something’s not right. Animals of that size don‘t hunt in pairs.“ I kept hearing it in my head, and as I turned I realized I was looking at not one, but several different sets of eyes, not a hundred feet behind me. To this day I don’t know how many there were. They were moving to my sides, beginning to flank me, and I knew that if the circle closed I would be killed unmercifully…a brutal, horrifying death that one should never have to imagine.

         A shape began to take form in front of me, sort of a dark hulking mass moving steadily closer, and at that very moment, when I could barely make out something much too large to be a coyote, I aimed, and I fired.



         “Where are you Erin?” Morgan whispered, the hurt obvious in her voice. I looked down at my hand and noticed my cigarette had burned to nothing, leaving a small blister on the inside of my finger. I dropped it into the ashtray on the night stand, more as an after thought than anything else and turned myself slightly in the bed to look at her. 17


         I had been leaning against the head board, listening to Morgan talk about her work at the hospital, and judging from the look she had on her face, I had dropped back into my own thoughts. Her auburn colored hair had fallen around her face when she sat up, pulling the sheets around herself to cover her nakedness; I recognized the act as a kind of defensive thing she did when her feelings were hurt.

         “I’m sorry…” I murmured, and sighed, dragging my hands across my face in an attempt to dispel the memory of that night. “Oh I know Erin, you’re always sorry…” she replied heatedly, sliding away from me and lighting a cigarette. She lay back on the pillow with one arm behind her head, smoking, knowing that I hated it when she lay down with a cigarette. “You know one day you’re going to fall asleep like that!” I suddenly shouted, not wanting to be near her, not wanting to be berated for something beyond my control I jumped up from the bed and began dressing myself.

         I kicked aside some blankets that had been pulled down in our love making and found my jeans. My pistol was on the night stand…I never left the house without a weapon anymore.

         I didn’t know why I had become so angry. Maybe it was her questions…maybe it was the endless judgment. The thing about being a lesbian is that you have twice the intuition, twice the needs and twice the temper and I simply didn’t feel like dealing with it.

         The truth was, I really enjoyed her company. We had a lot in common, similar tastes in music and food…we were very compatible in bed but I couldn’t commit. I couldn’t make myself stay, and often times would slip out in the night while she slept to go back to my apartment and the comfort of my own bed.27


         “Fine, goddamn it!” she hurled back at me suddenly, and as I spun to look at her I could see that her teeth were clenched. “You know you wear those fucking scars like a shield against anyone who wants to get close to you! You won’t tell me how you feel, and I never know what you’re thinking! I guess I’m good enough to fuck but not good enough to be a part of your life! Is that it?!” she screamed, throwing a pillow at me. I jerked my hand to keep it from hitting me in the face but I was too late. It caught me full on and it was all I could do to keep from snatching it up from the floor and hurling it back at her.

         Instead I turned my back to her as she came off the bed and began buckling my belt. I felt her hand on my shoulder, tender again, and had to resist the urge to move away. I didn’t want to hurt her, but I didn’t want to answer any of her questions, and I didn’t want to be in her house any longer.

         Her voice had regained its calm when she spoke again. “I know that whatever happened to you was god awful…believe me, the evidence is present in everything you do…” I felt her hand slide across the scars that ran the full length of my back and move around my hip to the place where I had been bitten. “But at some point you are going to have to come to grips with it or you’re never going to have a life beyond that memory.”

         I turned to face her, and her eyes were carefully guarded. This is a woman’s way of reaching further inward, to try to assure herself that it isn’t her fault that you’re distant. I had seen my mother do the very same thing. Now, I am sure that there may have been some real concern for my well being in there as well, but first and foremost there was the drive to get what she wanted.

         Her voice dropped an octave lower and before she even asked I knew what was coming. “You never have told me what did this to you. I know enough to be able to tell it was some kind of a large animal…”

         It was the last thing I heard before I struck out at her and by the time I realized what I had done, she was laying in the floor, one hand cupped around her mouth, sobbing through gouts of blood.