I am Gideon: Chapter #19

Complications

The bunkhouse on Kibbler’s plantation was not as nice as Mrs. Baxter’s boarding House.  It was a bit chilly, a bit rundown, and I was again sharing space, but there were four of us in a bunkhouse built for twelve, so all of us got a bottom bunk and a bit of privacy.  There were thick, coarse blankets, and a big wood stove at one end which provided some heat.  I was the last person hired, so I was farthest from the fire.  I remedied that by exchanging my bottom bunk for the top, and fared better as the cold settled in.  

My job revolved around horses – cleaning their stalls, feeding them, turning them out in the morning and closing them in the barn at night.  They were beautiful creatures with big, soft eyes and a warm sweet smell to their bodies.  Their coats were like silk under my hand, and they made small, whickering conversation as I fed them.  There was a huge black horse who was particularly gentle, and I would lay my head against her neck and listen as she chewed up her feed. It was a deep, grinding sound like people walking through fine gravel.  I was fascinated.

I discovered, too, that “primarily vegetarian” was merely a suggestion in the hinterlands.  There was meat on the table nearly every day for some meal or other.  What it was I do not know and I did not ask, but it was good.  I ate well and I did my job.  I fit in, but I was not friendly.  I’d learned my lesson. 

 I was determined to learn to read, so I went into town on my day off and bought the simplest child’s storybook I could find.  It had lots of pictures, and I thought maybe the pictures would help me figure out the words.

I was sitting against a stack of bales in the watery sunshine of a chilly afternoon, looking at the book when a shadow fell across the page and I looked up to see boss Kibbler’s daughter standing there.  She often helped serve supper, and I had washed dishes with her a time or two, so we had chatted.  Now she slid down beside me and pointed to the book.  “Why do you have that?” she asked.  “You could use a computator instead.”

“I like the pictures,” I said, but I could feel the color creeping up my neck.

“This is the story-song of the Three Foolish Ponies,” she said, and she began to sing as she pointed to the words. She knew.  She didn’t say it.  I was grateful.  

Her name was Finn.  She was nice.  

We sat from time to time if it wasn’t too chilly, and she would sing or read and point out the words, and as I learned the songs in the book, I tried to put the groups of symbols with the sounds. Sometimes I sang along with her, very quietly, cementing the words in my head.

One day she said, “I like you, Gideon,” and I smiled like the idiot I was and said, “I like you, too, Finn.”

What a mistake. 

That evening she handed me the first bowl to pass, and when supper was over, she asked me to help her with the dishes, and she made it a point to brush up against me as she reached to dry the plates. I had never been one-on-one with a female other than my mother, but her sudden advances were both unmistakable and unsettling.  

After that, she was just … there.  When I was working cleaning stalls, when I was feeding the horses, when I was doing …anything, there she was, chattering and swinging herself back and forth with her hands locked one over the other and batting her eyes like there was chaff in them. 

“Boss’s daughter sure is sweet on you,” became a bunkhouse chant and chuckle, and I became increasingly uncomfortable.  She wouldn’t leave me alone.  Her mother was beginning to notice, and so was her father.  He started smiling and nodding to me whenever he saw me, like we shared a secret, or a friendship. 

By the end of the season, she was dressing up and flirting openly.  I had no idea what I was supposed to do.  I’d never been part of a family, functional or otherwise.  I didn’t know how to tell her I wanted no part of what she was offering.  How to tell her to leave me alone. How to tell her she was frightening me and interfering with my work.

One night as I was walking back to the bunkhouse in the moonlight, she stepped out from behind a big tree, threw her arms around my neck and tried to stick her tongue in my mouth. I cannot even yet describe the horrible, graphic memories that came flooding back in those two seconds of contact.  I pushed her away with a gasp of disgust, and she ran crying back to the house. 

The next morning boss Kibbler tossed me half the credits I was owed, and told me my services were no longer needed.