CHAPTER THREE
Ezekiel
Ezekiel got rid of the rooster and hen bodies and cleaned the blood-soaked roost and the bloody areas within the enclosed pen.
The surviving chickens were unnaturally quiet, sticking close to him as he moved about the enclosure, either out of fear or in mourning...maybe a combination of both.
Tossing two bags of bloody woodchips, soil, and grass over the electric fencing, Zeek dusted off his gloves and shoved them in his back pocket as he looked down at the twenty-five surviving hens.
Kneeling he grabbed a handful of feed from the side pocket of his cargo pants and let the hens feed from his palm as he stroked their feathers.
“Y’all gonna be all right,” he told the surviving chickens. He’d eliminated the stench of violent death so they should be back to their rambunctious selves soon.
He looked out at the field beyond the enclosure.
He’d kept his promise to his elderly friend.
Kept her land healthy just as his parents had before him.
Now that they were gone—Ms. Cassandra to her everlasting resting place, and his parents, resting while retired in Colombia—it was time for him to build on his own dreams. Combining the land Ms. Cassandra sold him and the land he’d purchased, he’d build a medium sized farm using regenerative practices, maintaining natural spaces for wildlife and expanding his poultry production from personal use—and selling to a few neighbors who complained about the price and quality of food in stores—to a larger production that included more than chickens and livestock.
“It’s my time to shape this life into what I need it to be.”
Standing, he got back to work.
He repaired the electrical fencing the kit had sabotaged; and yes sabotage is exactly what it did.
There were clumps of grass placed on a section of the fence which caused it to short out allowing the kit to chew its way through without shocking itself.
The strands of red fur where the kit slipped through identified it as surely as a DNA test. The strangest part in all this was finding one of the clamps that attached the grounding box and conducted electricity to the fence had been removed.
Getting those clamps off wasn’t something a creature without opposable thumbs should’ve been able to do.
He’d move the chicken enclosure closer to the house later.
Though he wasn’t big on electronic surveillance and wasn’t big on the government or big tech, he needed to protect what was his now that he’d committed to expanding.
Zeek wasn’t big on electronic surveillance, didn’t much trust the government or big tech, but if he was going to build the way he wanted, he’d have to create the systems to protect it. In the meantime…
He engaged the fencing system again and walked the nearly one hundred yards back to his house.
Walking up the stairs to the back porch, he squatted down in front of Odin.
“Listen you raggedy mutt, I don’t pay you to laze about on my porch all day long.”
Odin opened one eye, barely lifted his head, and huffed as if reminding Zeek that he didn’t pay him at all.
Zeek laughed softly and scratched his cane corso’s head. He then ran a gentle hand over the Odin’s inky black coat, and he skimmed over the area where his ribcage and flank were still healing.
Odin killed the mother vixen that injured him in the end, but the amount of damage she’d inflicted should’ve been damn near impossible, but she’d been protecting her kit.
The very same one his new tenant harbored.
The very same one he saw watching from the brush as he’d buried her mother.
He knew it was the same kit because there was a scar on its muzzle right below its left eye.
That scar would forever make the baby fox recognizable.
He could’ve killed it that day, but he’d had a bad feeling. Something powerful warned that the death of the vixen and the kit would bring death and misfortune to the land.
Zeek wasn’t superstitious...well, he kinda was...in that, when spirit spoke he listened. And it told him Odin killing the mother was bad enough.
In the moment of her death, Zeek had felt a shift in atmospheric pressure that didn’t have shit to do with any storm.
That whole day there was a heaviness that existed only over his land, not downtown when he went to the vet to attend to Odin’s wounds; not when he went to visit his sister or her best friend, Destiny, after.
Zeek was sensitive to certain things. It went hand and fist with his sensitivity to people and their bullshit.
“I believe you’ve gone and got us tied into a blood feud,” he informed Odin, who’s huff said that’s a you problem.
“Damn mangy ass,” he muttered, kissing the crown of Odin’s head before he stood.
Opening the back door, he stepped into his house. The same house he and his family lived in since he was a child, his parents having worked the land and managed its upkeep for Ms. Cassandra since before he was born.
Instead of following Zeek inside, Odin sat on his haunches and gazed at the creatures moving in and around the large reservoir pond.
When healthy, Odin would’ve chased them all down, killing whatever didn’t run or fly away fast enough.
Now they taunted Odin. The enforcer known for taking out full-grown gators had been brought down by a mother fox.
If Odin hadn’t been injured by the vixen’s attack, he wouldn’t have needed the night-time medicated gummies to sleep through the pain. If Odin had been awake and on guard, Zeek never would’ve woken up to the aftermath of the kit’s killing spree.
He’d hunted the kit to Ms. Cassandra’s who until her hospitalization remained a tenant after selling him her land.
When she’d opened the door—all of five-foot-five— in those nerdy circular gold framed glasses; protecting the dead fox’s kit as if it were her own, she’d felt like something foretold.
He couldn’t yet decide if it was destruction, rebirth, or some other mystery.
Could be all of the above. Out here, things wore more than one face, represented many possibilities.
He thought about the kit and its mother.
They both felt like they had something real other in them.
The new tenant was probably more right than wrong when she called that pup Chupa.
He’d go back later this evening and make sure the new tenant made right on her word and got rid of the kit, but now he was more concerned about getting to town to pick up supplies.
His mobile phone rang and Zeek dug it from his pocket and answered when he saw the name of his childhood friend and the second tenant living on his land.
“Say mane, I hear you got a woman living in Ms. Cassandra’s house that’s fine as frog hair.”
Montel lived nearly half a mile away on the eastern boundary. Montel’s house was on the stretch closest to town.
Zeek sat down to pull on his boots. “Heard right,” Zeek said. His new tenant was kinda strange, but she was damn easy to look at. Too easy. But he didn’t have any desire for another beautiful women with too much fire in her.
“You couldn’t be bothered to tell me about her before now?” Zeek asked.
“You the landlord, you antisocial mu’fucka, it’s yo’ responsibility to know who’s living on your property.”
No, that’s why he had his sister Anna manage the two rentals. He usually let people live as they wanted until something needed to be fixed.
“My cousin met her during a staff meeting at her job. Lavella’s already crushing on the woman.”
Lavella was always crushing on somebody, didn’t matter the sex, race, or religion.
“How has the new lady been here since Wednesday and you didn’t even know she was on your property?” Tel snorted.
“What does she do for work?” Zeek asked, not curious, just...interested in knowing. Like Tel said, he should know who lived on his land.
“Come on mane, you think I got time to be paying attention to shit like that. All I know is she’s new to Lavella’s department.
My cuz said she’s smart; ain’t got no kids, no man; come down here from the West Coast. She got a following on social media doing videos about sciencey shit.
She also said the new lady got integrity so she ain’t likely to take bribes like the last guy fired from the position.
Which brings me to my damn reason for callin’.
The fence is down over there where your land butts up against that new development they’re building.
I might would’ve fixed it but there’s this bad smell and I don’t do nasty shit, Zeek.
Lavella said to call you because your new tenant would be the best person to talk to about it. ”
Ridiculous. Some woman who didn’t know shit about this land couldn’t tell him how to take care of it.
“Tell me about the smell.”
“Man, I don’t know! Like a smell I ain’t never smelled before.
Like...rot and chemicals. Ain’t no tellin’ what them crooks got going on.
They say they building new houses but me, I’m thinking they dumping bodies.
Burying them with lye or something to mask the scent, but it ain’t working so they mighta had to?—”
“Thanks Tel, I’ll hit you back,” Zeek said and hung up.
Montel had all day to be on the goddamn phone broadcasting peoples’ business and conspiracy theories.
Zeek growled in frustration.
For the second time, his simple day had turned into something more complex.
First, with a woman who was ready to fight him over a damn fox.
Who raised her, anyway? Answering the door half naked, with all that rich brown skin exposed.
He’d had half a mind to run his hand over her body to just to see if it was as buttery smooth to the touch as it looked.
He grinned, then forced his mouth back into a neutral line.
Both she and the fox would’ve ripped him a new asshole if he’d tried. The corner of his mouth ticked up again. He didn’t like that, women had always worsened his hold of his already volatile emotions.
Putting on a shirt and another pair of pants, he let out a shrill whistle. Odin pushed through the screen door and entered the house with a slight limp. Zeek frowned. He didn’t like the way Odin’s injuries were healing. Didn't like that his pup was injured at all.
“You want to take a ride into town with me or you gonna lay around the house moping?”
Odin limped past him, trying to be the first one out the door, and bumped into Zeek’s leg causing him to stumble. Odin looked back at him with a dark satisfaction.
Grumpy bastard, Zeek thought.
Bending down he picked Odin up like he was a puppy and placed him in the passenger seat. He decided then and there that they’d be dropping by the vet today.
First he’d check to see what was going on at the boundary of his property. Then he’d head to the feed and supply stores, and maybe, just maybe, he would get to the vet too late to cross paths with his new tenant and her vixen.