Backwoods Devotion #2

Chapter 1

I woke to birdsong, a full morning chorus coming through the window glass, loud enough that I lay still for a moment just listening.

After two months of sleeping in this cabin, I was learning to tell them apart.

The rolling, cheerful caroling of the American Robin.

The emphatic drink-your-teeeea of the Spotted Towhee.

And somewhere farther back in the trees, the rising whistle of a White-crowned Sparrow, a call I still felt pleased to identify every time I heard it.

It was a small thing, learning these birds. But it was my small thing, learned here, on this land, and it still surprised me how much that mattered.

Gradually, I noticed the quiet beneath the birds. It took me a moment to realize what was missing. The refrigerator wasn't running. The low background hum that you never notice until it's gone, was gone.

I reached for my phone on the nightstand. 6:32 a.m. Already light outside, the window pale and soft with it. Cool, but the kind of cool that burned off by nine. Summer was coming fast to the peninsula.

Harlan Foster cut my goddamn power.

I lay there wrestling with that fact. I had known it was coming, known it since the county notice arrived in my mailbox, known it again when Marcus Webb told me fighting it would cost more than compliance. You can know a thing is coming and still be startled by the hurt when it lands.

That two-faced bastard with his fucking butterscotch candy.

There was no point in stewing over the man. Better to take action than just lie here brooding.

I got up and dressed. Jeans, flannel shirt, socks. I used the toilet and brushed my teeth, reminding myself that the cabin's water tank only held forty-four gallons and the well pump was electric.

I'd tried to hook up the small recreational generator from my trailer to the pump, but that had been a complete bust. I had to admit that, despite what I told Claire, I was in over my head when it came to electrical issues. It was a good reminder to know my limits.

No long showers until I got a proper generator running. A minor inconvenience. Manageable.

The propane stove lit on the first try. I filled the kettle and waited until it whistled, then brewed a strong pot in my French press. I poured it into Irma's mug, the heavy white ceramic one she'd given me, the one with the bakery's logo. It had quickly become my favorite coffee mug.

I took it outside and breathed in the cool air.

The clearing was beautiful in the rising morning. The light came over the treeline at a low angle, throwing long shadows across the grass and turning the surface of the pond a dull copper.

Two does were drinking at the far edge, heads down, tails flicking. Scout had told me that deer used the pond every morning. I had not quite believed her at first. Now I watched them drink almost every morning.

I settled into the camp chair with both hands around the mug and let myself think.

Harlan Foster wanted me gone. That was the simple version. The longer version was that Harlan Foster wanted this land. When he couldn't have it, he went to work making my life here untenable.

I had no doubt the county code notice had been his move. It was the same move he'd made against Abner fifteen years ago, the manufactured violation that a man without resources couldn't fight. He expected me to sit down and calculate the cost of compliance and conclude that selling was easier.

He got the wrong man.

I had resources. I had Marcus. I had a case file that was growing every week. And I had something Harlan hadn't counted on, neighbors I could rely on.

My thoughts drifted to Claire. To the night she'd kissed me, the warmth of it, the way she'd pulled back afterward and held my gaze.

It wouldn't be fair, she'd said. Not with everything going on.

Claire meant Harlan's threat to her farm, the legal tangle still unresolved. But I thought it was more than that. I thought Claire Beaumont hadn't let herself be vulnerable with a man in a long time, that the habit of self-protection had grown too strong inside her.

And what did I want? That was the question I didn't ask myself too directly. I had come out here to start over, not to complicate things.

And yet here I was, thinking about Claire's green eyes and the way she moved through her tea rows with that quiet competence.

But I was also thinking about Scout, about the ease of being with her, the directness of her, the way she looked at me with those steady blue eyes.

Two women. Was that wrong?

I had spent twenty-two years married to a woman who eventually couldn't stand to be in the same room with me. Whatever I was building out here differed from that in every way that counted.

Claire seemed to know about Scout and hadn't turned away. Scout understood that I came from a troubled life and she had chosen me anyway.

I could live with complexity. Decades taught a man to live in that uncertain area between extremes.

The deer finished drinking and walked back into the trees. I finished the coffee.

Whatever was building between me and Claire and Scout, it could only build if I kept this property. Which meant today was not a day for philosophizing. Today was a day for solving problems.

It was a good thing I had a neighbor willing to help.

Abner arrived at half past ten, coming out of the eastern treeline with his canvas field clothes and his deliberate stride, his eyes already moving over the clearing.

"Good morning," he said, climbing the porch steps.

"Good morning, Abner. Coffee's on."

I offered him a fresh mug and we sat quietly for a few minutes, the way we always did when he visited. He drank his coffee and studied the clearing as I listened to the birds calling from the trees.

Minutes passed before Abner set his mug down and stood.

"Let's walk it."

We started at the south side of the cabin, Abner standing back from the building and looking at the roofline, then at the clearing, then at the angle of the sun moving toward midday.

He pointed at the south-facing section of the clearing, an open stretch of grass maybe forty feet from the cabin, unobstructed from south to west.

"First thing you settle on is ground mount, not roof mount," Abner began. "People choose to put panels on their roof because it looks tidy and saves space. But ground mount is better in almost every situation for a property like this."

"Why?"

"Airflow." He walked toward the open ground and I followed. "Panels lose efficiency as they heat up. On a roof, there is no air circulating beneath them. Ground-mounted panels on a tilt frame get airflow underneath. Cooler panels produce more power."

"I had no idea. How many panels?"

"As with all human endeavor, it depends," Abner said, stroking his beard.

"For your requirements, I would say eight panels.

That gives you three-point-two kilowatts of generation capacity under good conditions.

The coastal weather here is often gloomy, so a wise man must size for the gray days to come. "

"Eight panels." I wrote it down. "Then what?"

"Charge controller. It handles the array. Modern ones now have Bluetooth, so you can monitor it from your phone." He glanced at me. "I know you cherish your phone, Thomas."

"Couldn't live without it."

"Yes. You could."

"I'll take your word for it, Abner. Next?"

"Batteries." He stopped walking and turned to face me directly, the way he did when something was important. "This is where most people make an expensive mistake. 'Penny-wise and pound-foolish... they hide a farthing and show a shilling.' A common failure."

"Uh, right."

"Lead-acid batteries are cheap," he continued. "People buy them because they don't want to spend the money on lithium. Five years later, they buy lithium anyway because the lead acid is dead."

"Lithium batteries," I wrote. "How many do I need?"

"For your load? I reckon four hundred amp-hours of lithium. That gets you through three cloudy days without rationing. Six hundred gives you a week of cloudy days. I'd start with two two-hundred-amp-hour batteries wired in parallel and expand later if you need to."

"Gotcha."

"An inverter to convert the DC from your batteries to the AC your cabin uses. It also functions as a battery charger when you eventually connect a backup generator, which integrates the entire system." He looked at me. "You are going to want a backup generator."

"Already planning to buy one tomorrow. Propane, four-thousand-watt."

He nodded. "That works, both now and in the days to come. Run it when the batteries get low during a cloudy stretch. The inverter/charger detects when AC power is available and starts charging automatically."

We walked back toward the cabin. I was trying to hold the shape of the system in my head. Panels to charge controller to batteries to inverter to loads, with the generator as backup input on the battery side.

"What else am I missing?"

"You'll also want a battery monitor. It measures actual current in and out of the battery bank. Without it, you're guessing at your state of charge. And you will need to build a dedicated shed. One with a low-wattage heating pad to keep the lithium from freezing."

"A shed? Is that really necessary?"

"You believe you want that rig inside? You do not, I assure you. Better to build the shed and insulate it tight so the lithium doesn't freeze when winter hits, trench the lines, and mount the gear out there. Keep the rig where it belongs."

"Okay, if you say so. I defer to your expertise. You know your stuff."

"Certainly. I live the way I do because I choose to, not because I have to. It is intentional, which is the richest way to exist. I have nothing but the deepest sympathies for those who live impoverished lives that others have chosen for them--"

Abner was cut off by a sudden coughing fit. It was a familiar sound, his chest working hard to clear itself, then the pause while he got his breath back.

"Anything I can do?" I asked.

He waved me away, wiping his mouth and eyes.

"Burn pits. You breathe that smoke for two years, it abides in your lungs like an unwelcome guest." He looked around the clearing.

"I managed large generator sets on forward operating bases.

12P, Prime Power Production Specialist. We kept the FOBs powered through everything the desert could throw at us.

Sand, heat, combat operations, supply chain failures. "

"Sounds difficult."

"It was, especially when people are trying to kill you." He coughed sharply. "It seems I cannot mention my MOS without a coughing fit. An ironic comment, perhaps."

"On what?"

"On the Army sending a man to create electrical power in a war zone, and then the county back home deciding his home installation doesn't meet code."

His voice was even, but there was an anger underneath it that had been sitting there for fifteen years.

"The inspector who signed the violation notice would not have known a combiner box from a junction box," Abner said quietly. "He was not an electrician. He was a man doing Harlan Foster's bidding. Harlan needed a technical-sounding document to make the complaint stick. It stuck."

We stood in silence, both of us thinking of the homes we had tried to build here in the backwoods above Port Chasten.

"When the parts come, I'm going to need help," I said. "I hope you'll help me build this right."

"I will help you build it better than right. Liberty would not tolerate anything less." Abner drew in a ragged breath. "Get another pot of coffee on, Thomas. We haven't talked about wiring gauge, conduit, the grounding system, or the mounting frame. We have hours yet to go."

The parts would take two weeks.

I sat on the porch with my laptop, the evening deepening around me. I had the solar supplier's website open, building the order from Abner's list. Every item was there, in stock, shipping to rural Washington addresses without the freight surcharges that some suppliers tacked on.

Fourteen business days to Port Chasten. I paid for expedited processing and did the math on the remaining wait.

Two weeks on generator power. I would drive to Forks tomorrow and buy it.

Hook it up to my propane tank to run the well pump so I could shower and flush the toilet in the cabin.

Top off my trailer batteries to keep the fridge and satellite going for my laptop.

It was functional, and functional was what the situation called for. A couple of weeks wouldn't be so bad.

I was looking at the shed prices in Forks when I heard footsteps approaching.

Scout came out of the treeline carrying a cloth sack, her stride easy and unhurried. I watched her come, enjoying the sight of her in the fading light.

She climbed the porch steps and kissed me in greeting, warm and slow, her hand finding my jaw briefly before she stepped back.

"How are you?" she said.

"Just finished ordering parts." I turned the laptop so she could see the invoice. "Fourteen business days. I'll have to run a propane generator until the solar is installed."

She looked at the screen with the focused attention she brought to everything.

"Will it be enough?"

"More than enough." I closed the laptop. "I'm buying the generator tomorrow in Forks. It'll be useful in winter anyway, backup for extended cloudy periods."

She nodded and held up the cloth sack. "I brought dinner."

"What is it?"

"Chanterelles."

She opened the sack and I looked inside. Golden-orange mushrooms, caps wavy-edged, stems clean. Even from inside the sack, they smelled earthy and faintly sweet.

"There is a flush of them on the north slope," Scout said. "The wet spring pushed everything early this year. Father showed me the patches when I was small. Are you hungry?"

"I'm starving," I said.

"I thought you might be. Do you still have your sourdough from Irma?"

"Half a loaf."

"That's all we need. We can toast them on the stove. I'll cook the mushrooms simply. Butter, salt, and a little garlic if you have it. Nothing else. Chanterelles have their own flavor. It is a mistake to cover it up."

"I have garlic. And good butter in the trailer's fridge."

"That would be perfect."

I stood and moved toward the trailer. Scout put her hand on my arm and I stopped.

She looked up at me. There was the focused stillness in her I had come to recognize. Scout going quiet, her blue eyes unwavering, her voice low.

"Thomas."

"Yes."

A small splash of color rose in her cheeks, visible even in the fading evening light.

"Before we eat... I've been thinking about you all day. About being with you. It drives me to distraction, the things we do together." A pause. "I'd like that first. If you want."

I knew what she was asking for. I wanted it too.

"Come inside," I said.

She smiled and took my hand.

The chanterelles could wait. Irma's sourdough could wait. The generator and the parts list and the two-week gap and everything Harlan Foster had set in motion could wait.

I closed the cabin door behind us and led Scout to my bedroom.