Love for a Deaf Rebel - Derrick King (top 100 novels .txt) 📗

Father drove the truck along the fence line while I pulled posts off the back one by one, arranging them for the backhoe. Whisky was our companion, often rolling on his back in the grass.

When we were done, we walked into the kitchen. Pearl was looking in the refrigerator. “Take some milk with you. We get three liters a day—we can’t drink it fast enough!”

“Make cheese,” said Father. “It’s nature’s way of preserving milk.”

The next day, I photocopied cheese-making recipes at the library. “It’s easy,” I signed. “Milk, salt, and rennet are all we need. And a pot, thermometer, and cheesecloth.”

It took me an hour of telephone calls to find the only rennet in Vancouver—at Galloway’s Specialty Foods, next door to the food fair where Pearl and I met!

Pearl steadied the twenty-liter pot on the stove while I poured in the milk. It took an hour to reach thirty degrees. We added rennet, and the milk slowly curdled. An hour later, I sliced the curd floating on the top into squares. Slowly, it sank to the bottom. An hour later, we poured out the greenish whey. I draped cheesecloth over a strainer and poured the curds into it. I kneaded salt into the curds, tied the corners of the cheesecloth together with twine, and held the dripping white orb over a pan. “Cottage cheese, from our cottage.”

In the basement, I hung the twine from the ceiling while Pearl set a pan under it to collect the drips. Whisky licked the whey from the pan as quickly as it landed. It was the first installment of an easy ritual we would perform every two weeks for the next two years.

We drove to Buckerfield’s in Langley. We bought hay, alfalfa, straw, grain, peat moss, lime, salt blocks, an electric fence charger and insulators, a manure scoop, a pitchfork, and a teat washer. When I drove off, the steering was heavy. I realized we were hauling a ton, double what the Nissan was built to carry. The engine stalled on our first attempt to go up the driveway. I backed down, tried again, and crawled up the twenty percent grade with the pedal to the floor.

At the barn, Pearl stood in the hayloft while I stood in the back of the truck and lifted the forty-five kilogram bales past the DE MAL EN PIS sign to her. I was dripping with sweat, and my arms were itchy from hay scratches. We stored the grain and tools in the feed room and bolted the door against animals. We did chores together, bathed together, fell into bed together, and held hands in the I-love-you sign. We were too tired to do more.

We were exhausted yet happy. We were optimistic that after Frank was out of the picture, we would soon have a home to be proud of, and we would start a family. I spent lunchtimes at the library researching stable management.

“Four horses would pay half our mortgage, and four horses would not be much more work than one,” I signed.

“More horses would be less work because when we buy lots of feed, we can have it delivered.”

I returned from the basement with a white teardrop. “Chèvre—our first goat cheese.”

Pearl poked it. “It shrank.”

I peeled off the cheesecloth, cut the orb in half, cut a wedge, and ate it. I gave Pearl a piece.

She ate it, and we looked at each other, grinning. “It tastes like nothing. It has bubbles.”

“It’s like ricotta, but firmer. For salads, pizza, pasta, and sandwiches.”

Pearl laughed. “No one made cheese for me before!”

On Saturday morning, Whisky barked. Pearl and I looked down from our dining room window to see a cowboy in a Stetson riding up our driveway.

“Gus looks like the Marlboro man,” signed Pearl.

We put on our gumboots and walked to the barn. Gus dismounted, the saddle creaking. Pearl scratched Mouse under the chin.

“Mornin’,” Gus said. He walked Mouse into the barn, opened the tack room door, and put the saddle and bridle on the floor inside.

“Make a saddlehorse, will ya? Keeps the leather dry.”

Mouse munched on the grass, then lay down and rolled on his back.

“Mouse has come home; he lived here before. Sixteen hands of Appaloosa gelding.” Gus climbed up the hayloft ladder. A moment later, a flake of hay dropped into a manger. Mouse walked straight to that stall and ate. Gus climbed down.

“Do you ride him often?” signed Pearl.

“Mainly my wife and daughter ride. You can ride him, too. Exercise is good for him. As sweet a horse as you’ll find,” he said, stroking Mouse. “And don’t forget to keep the wire gate across your driveway closed.”

“Sorry, we have to leave it open. The barbed wire will wreck my suits. But we’ll have this field fenced in a few weeks.”

“You gotta keep Mouse from goin’ to the road.” Gus lit a cigarette. “Mouse respects electric fences, so hang orange twine around the field, and Mouse won’t go near it.”

Pearl and I made a temporary fence from bright orange twine. Gus was right: half a ton of horse avoided an ounce of twine.

Pearl and I worked with enthusiasm on building up our business. I stained a plank with creosote, engraved it, and nailed it to our fence:

TROUT LAKE FARM

Horse Boarding 947-2574

We joined the Bowen Island Horse Owners & Riders Association and subscribed to United Caprine News, The Gaitpost, and Countryside magazine. We learned to vaccinate.

Alan rented Bowen’s only ram, rubbed red ochre on its belly, and released him in the field. Within a few days, all the ewes’ rumps were the telltale color.

There was no buck on Bowen to service our does. Ralph suggested we buy a yearling, give him a few days in the harem, and then make dog food of him, so I drove to the Fraser Valley Livestock Auction. Tools and crafts were sold off the tailgates of pickup trucks in the parking lot. But there was only one male at auction that day, and he was huge. After driving so far and facing the same costly trip home, I bid on him. My bid won. Jonathan stank, but he made friends with Whisky, Mouse, and our two does. He never became dog food.

While Pearl did the evening chores, I opened a bottle of wine. When she returned, she kissed me and slumped onto a chair.

“Give the dog food and water. Measure the goat grain. Put the grain and milk containers in the carrier. Walk down to the lower field and climb over the stile. Tie one goat to the fence. Put half the grain in the stand. Wash teats. Milk one goat. Untie that goat. Repeat for the other goat. Climb over the stile, and don’t spill the milk or rip my clothes. Walk up the hill to the barn. Refill the horse water pails. Climb to the hayloft. Drop hay down the hole. Measure horse grain in the feed room and pour it into the manger. Walk home. Weigh and filter the milk. Wash the container. Morning and night, together and taking turns. But I’m not complaining. I feel our life improving.”

“Yes. Tonight I will show you something special.”

“I thought so. This is our first wine since we moved in.”

Pearl and I walked out into the polarized twilight under the twinkle of the brighter stars. As we walked to the barn, I heard an owl. Mouse was standing in the field. We walked down the hill and into the barn. Two deer stood inside, one wearing a necktie.

“Thank you for coming,” I signed to the deer. I turned to Pearl. “They promised to come tonight.”

“What?”

“I am joking.”

Pearl grinned. “The deer are here because they smell food. Maybe that was Kieran’s deer. Someone put a necktie on him.”

When I opened the feed room door, the deer bolted into the forest. I flipped a breaker on the electric panel, which I had installed along with outlets, switches, and lighting, powered by a cable from the house lying on the ground. Lights inside and outside the barn came to life.

“Wonderful!” Pearl signed. “It’s so bright!”

For the first time in the history of the world, light poured over this Bowen Island hillside at night.

Men Can’t Be Trusted

“Whisky pushed the insulation out of the temporary wall downstairs and escaped through the hole,” Pearl signed when I came home from work.

We drove around the property, up and down the trunk road, and up and down the side roads in the twilight, searching for Whisky.

“I feel stupid shouting Whisky! like I’m drunk. His tag has the telephone number. We must wait for someone to call.”

No one called, so, in the morning, I called Bowen’s one-man police detachment. Constable Laurent, strikingly handsome, was about my age.

“RCMP,” said Laurent.

“This is Derrick King. Our German Shepherd ran away yesterday. Have you seen him?”

“Oh, he’s yours! He’s at the pound. Dogs aren’t allowed loose on Bowen Island. He chased my jeep along the trunk road, so I opened the door, and he jumped in. Whisky had a great time barking out the window, and he did me a favor: word is going around that the Bowen Island RCMP detachment has a police dog.”

I drove to North Vancouver and bailed Whisky out of the dog pound.

When I returned, Pearl was in the kitchen.

“I wanted to cook chicken pie, so I followed a recipe. I finished it, but the chicken pieces are still sitting on the table. I don’t understand the instructions.”

We laughed, and I helped Pearl to rescue the meal. She could not understand cooking jargon like “reserve broth.”

“Whisky’s adventure cost $100. I have no cash left.”

“Take some money from my wallet.”

I went into the bedroom and took some money from Pearl’s wallet. While returning her wallet to her handbag, I noticed a conversation note at the bottom. I saw “danger” and “Derrick” on it. I heard her coming, so I put her handbag down and walked out of the room.

That night I could hardly sleep, wondering why she had written those words. I had never looked in her bag before, and I expected her to respect my privacy, too. But, in the morning, while Pearl was in the bathroom, I looked in her handbag.

The note was gone.

Late on Sunday afternoon, Frank packed his tools, but he approached us instead of slipping away. He told us our house was substantially complete, so we were ready to apply for our Certificate of Occupancy. He handed me the telephone number of the inspector.

I suggested we walk around to make a list of the incomplete items, but Frank refused, complaining that we’d been living in the house for weeks at his expense. I didn’t want to alarm the bank that held our second mortgage, so I agreed to call the inspector. I counted on him to identify any important defects.

I left work early on inspection day. The inspector and Frank were standing outside the house, and Whisky was barking inside it. I was astonished when the inspector handed me our Certificate of Occupancy! I asked how he could do that when he hadn’t entered the house. He explained he had “dropped by a few times” during construction. Frank smiled. They left.

I was stunned. I needed to estimate how much to pay Frank. I phoned Ross, apologized for not accepting his quotation, and asked him for a quote to complete Frank’s work. He agreed to come that evening. I picked Pearl up from the ferry and updated her.

When Ross arrived, he looked around and whistled a single note. “The walls have to come down.” He tapped the wall near the ceiling, poked his finger through it, and laughed. “Air! Frank didn’t lift the wallboards up before nailin’m down, so they don’t support the ceiling! In six months, the edges are goin’ to be hangin’ down wavy-like. And then you can rip the walls and the ceiling off.”

Pearl was furious; I couldn’t tell if she was furious with Frank or with me. Ross showed us Frank’s shortcuts, errors, and frauds as we walked around the house. He had ruined the vapor shields, which is why our skylights dripped water. He had put four-inch door frames into six-inch walls, so we had to replace all the exterior frames. He had used interior doors on the exterior; they had no sills, which is why we had seen mice. Ross walked into the kitchen, looked at the range hood, and showed us how it dangled from a few screws.

“I smell sewage. Let’s go outside.”

We walked around the house, and Ross looked up. “There are no roof vents as required by building code.”