Creation Ranch 5

New chapter order

Chapter 5:  Zoe’s Son

 

 

“Blaine,” Ewodo yelled as Blaine Keycosa came in from outside hoping his boss was in a good mood.  “If you would my man clean up in there and take that little dyke with you when you fly the coup.  Be careful with her.  She’s carrying my child.  And stop by my den I have a special citation for you affording you my full support in escaping, or not whatever you prefer.” 

 Blaine stepped to the door of the room Ewodo often called his office and discovered Zoe Havoll, barely alive, had been left on the couch therein, bleeding and fully naked.  He went to the closet in the hall and grabbing a blanket placed Zoe in it and continued to the den where he said nothing for when he entered Ewodo handed him the letter of commendation he never gave any of his other followers.  Then Blaine returned to the office and collecting Zoe as well as the body of the little Native girl whom he dropped just outside the door in the backyard where if anyone found her they might not suspect her employer at first anyway.  Then he simply placed the battered Zoe in a wagon and ordering that the bound body of her father be brought to the wagon, and fled the main headquarters of the Ewodo armies.

Days later as if by miracle Keycosa arrived in Ghalb in the middle of the night, stopping by the inn in an effort to take up a room from his drunken brother Tony Keycosa who was running the place for Blaine for the past several months when Blaine began to suspect Ewodo would not only lose the fight with Zola but that Blaine, himself, was going to have to hide for the rest of his life for it would be impossible for him to find a place where Zola did not have connections.  His decision to hide right under Zola’s nose was cemented by the favor of getting Zola out of the final stronghold alive.

It was months before Zola could even speak and his daughter was not speaking yet when he grabbed Tony’s arm as he fed him tomato soup made with lots of milk and extra butter, just the way Zola liked it.

“What is wrong Havoll?” Tony asked with contempt for the honorable man. “You don’t like the soup?”

“No,” Zola said, “I forgive you!”

“That is all fine, and good, Havoll, but I don’t give a damn.”

“How-how is my …” he began but failed in his attempt.

Blaine then asked as he now entered the room, “Your little girl?”

Zola nodded.  Then asked afterward, “Why . . .?”.

“She’s clearly pregnant and does well at vomiting, the little dear.  Now ain’t that a kick?  Ewodo’s only offspring in the body of pregnant dyke!  Who would have thought?”

Zola was unable to stand the strain and passed out.

Then Zoe awakened and realized it was her father’s voice she had heard in here sleep, and she cried out, “Papa!  Don’t die, Papa!  Papa, don’t die.”

‘Amazing,’ Tony thought and took a large swallow of wine and grog mixed, smacked his lips and smiled.

Little by little the Havoll’s slowly progressed to become a picture of health.   Tony’s bed care gave way to Blaine’s lover’s care and the expertise of the same woman who would later be known as Lois’ mother though she never knew who Zola nor his daughter were at the time and was too far gone to care when she finally did find out.

Then Zola Havoll said to Blaine who had heard Zola was doing very well indeed, “So, you know I know who you are?”

“Who am I?” Blaine said.  “I am somewhat a loss.  I have no clear memory of my real name or many details including much of the war between you and my leader Wallaby Ewodo.”

Zola nodded.  “That is about all I know too.   But you saved my life, the life of my daughter, and the child she is carrying, thus even in Creation Ranch you are welcome.”

“What makes you think I would ever go to Creation Ranch under any circumstances other than to destroy it and you?”

“Deag works in amazing ways.  I suggest you keep your options open.”

“Do you plan to take in all my hospitality and stay here forever when there is no reason for you not to return home?  All of your men know where you are.  But they think I am just a concerned ally who took the both of you in off the street.”

“Hey!” Zola called out as Blaine, a man Zola had never met before, began to leave the room.

“Yes,” he said.

“So that’s his name,” Zoe said to her father and joked as she carefully sat in a captain’s chair near her his bed and they laughed for the first time since their captivity.

“Tell anyone anything and die,” Blaine Keycosa said to them.  “When you leave, you take your little daughter with you and the baby too, by then.  I want nothing from you in repayment in any way other than just my life.”

“You have it, my good man,” Zola said elated beyond his reason apparently.  “Oh, sorry about that?” he continued after a slight pause but just before they could hear a baby crying in the next room.

“What is that?” Zoe wanted to know.

“It is my woman.  She must have given birth?”

They all listened intently as Briana Keycosa was born though Blaine would never know what her own mother did not know; that she was in fact Blaine Keycosa’s daughter.

Zoe was delighted and she spent hours with the child, Briana while waiting for her own child to be born.

“You love it in spite of everything,” Zola said to her one day.

She hugged the baby girl but looking far off as if looking back in time she softly said, “Yes, Papa, I do love, it!”

“I knew it all along!” Zola shouted.  “We’ve beaten Ewodo at his own game!”

“That is why I will kill it, when it is born.”

“What?” Zola was amazed.

“I won’t have it be my child!  A half breed monster I would feel I had to keep an eye on for the rest of its life.”

“Zoe!” Zola said, “I am appalled.”

“I knew you would be, Papa.  That is why I never said anything.”

“You’ll have to do it over my dead body!” Zola shouted.  “It is my grandchild and entitled to a full inheritance.  Do you hear me, Zoe, a full inheritance?”

“It will be the b*****d child of Ewodo, or me, Father.  You’ll have to choose between us.”

Of course when Eli was born, Zola snatched the baby almost from the delivery bed and placed him with Hey’s woman, but he loaded Zoe in a special buggy that same day to take her back to Creation Ranch with him.

Thus Eli was left behind to be thought of as Hey’s son, the same as Briana was thought of as Hey’s daughter, and people generally associated the two children as brother and sister in error.

However, years went by and Eli was digging around in some of Hey’s belongings and came up with a key which he hid in his britches for days, trying it in every lock he came across even kid fashion the cells in the jail.  It seemed to fit nowhere, and then one afternoon when he was supposed to be washing the bedsprings of a room upstairs where some drunk had spoiled not just the bed but the springs spraying them also with vomit, but anyway he came across a safe with a lock instead of combination and upon trying the key he discovered a piece of paper which he hid in his britches until later.  Later he read the paper and when Blaine came across him hiding in the linen and asked what he had, he simply said the strangest thing, “Blaine, are you my pa?”

Hey very nearly passed out, but managed to keep his wits hoping for some other explanation than the obvious.

“No.  Your mother is Zoe Havoll?” Hey said guardedly when he recovered which took no time at all.  “But Ewodo was your dad?” 

Then he turned and walked away as if not caring what the boy had been up to, as the boy took a sheet, wrapped all of his belongings in it and tying it to a broom handle, walked out of the inn where Hey stood waiting for him.

“Briana too?” he asked as his sister came out to see what was going on.

Hey shook his head.

At the tender age of thirteen Eli walked all the way from Ghalb to Creation ranch after staying less than a few hours in Dacica.

Zola was the first to spot him sitting in the porch in the morning about daybreak, “Hey you! Kid!  What do you think you’re doing here?” before he recognized Eli from his daddy’s features.

“How did you get here?” Zola asked.  “You shouldn’t be here.”

“I came to see my ma, Zoe?”

“She’s sworn to kill you on sight, boy?”

Eli dug in deep in the sand with his shoe.

“I don’t care.  I have to tell her I am sorry?”

Zola asked, “For what, Eli?” recognizing his mother’s ways in the statement.

Just then Zoe came to the door.  She looked at the boy.  Then she looked at Zola and she said, “Boy?  You cook?”

Eli shook his head … Hey was a very good cook, but a terrible teacher.

Just then Eli shook his head unable to figure it out as the eggshells at the time of my own little flashback prompted him to shake his head and not even try to figure out where he fit in it all, and walking back to the kitchen saw Lois was gone and went to Zoe’s new office in search of her in order to discover the details of his next job.