Chapter One
After weeks of editing, I finally completed my chapter one overhaul. I feel that posting my chapters here as I re-work and make them presentable might actually encourage me to keep at it. Especially if anyone takes interest. It would be wonderful to take this book, written in a NaNo frenzy, and make it something worth publishing!
The Prologue can be found here otherwise the first chapter is as follows!
The town meeting was underway when I slid in through the back doors, my friend Izzie dragging her feet behind me. I'd planned my visit home from college to coincide with this meeting. The Harvest Festival being tomorrow was just a coincidence. If it wasn't for the meeting I wouldn't be here because I knew Izzie would be dragging me to a party tomorrow. I was not looking forward to seeing old high school friends and enjoying the ridicule I'd suffered up until graduation, when I left for college. Yes, if it wasn't for this particular meeting, I wouldn't have come home this weekend.
“They're becoming a real problem,” A rancher declared loudly. Billy. He lived the farthest out of town. His wide brimmed hat was set far back on his head, revealing his concerned eyes to the audience.
The meeting concerned the wild kats. The distinction isn't really necessary. All kats are wild. Once, they were like shadows that no one ever saw in the forest. Like an invisible ghost to the superstitious, we knew they existed, but never caught sight of one. In recent years, attacks on livestock started occurring. Ranchers were concerned, and they blamed the kat.
“I call to put a bounty on their heads,” Billy continued. “We need to take care of them, before they take care of us. It's gotten so bad that I won't let my kids out of sight, and if I keep the animals any closer to the homestead, they'll be eating off our table.”
There were several nods and murmurs of approval as Izzie and I shuffled further into the meeting room. We took the chairs at the back.
“How much of a bounty?” Dad asked Billy. Of course Dad would be here. He saw me and nodded in my direction with a small smile. I hadn't seen him since my birthday two months ago. He sat next to the mayor, assisting in mediating the meeting. Sometimes I wondered why he wasn't, or ever had been, mayor of Abbey. He was the role without the title.
Izzie leaned over and whispered, “The Spot would be so more interesting. We haven't seen each other in months and the first place you drag me is here. I better get an A on this test.”
She glared at me. In exchange for accompanying me, I was to help her study for a chemistry exam.
I hushed her, leaning forward. They wanted to put a bounty on the kats? My brow furrowed as I imagined people slinking through the forest with rifles and shooting at anything that moved. People would come from all over, dispersing into the forest, to get in on it.
“500 dollars?” Billy replied, shrugging his shoulders. “I hadn't put much thought into it. I just figured it was a good, simple solution. We need help to get rid of these kats before we all lose our source of income. I know I speak for all of us here when I say that without our livestock, we're broke.”
My heart quickened. I clenched my fists tightly on my knees. Everything within me wanted to jump up and shout out that it was a mistake. Surely, they must be wrong about the kats killing livestock. And we certainly couldn't shoot them. There was something horribly wrong in doing so. Kats weren't what everyone thought they were. What I saw when I was twelve years old clearly proved to me that there was something more to them, something no one else understood. It was something I still wasn't sure that I understood.
A decision to kill them couldn't be made without understanding the importance they may have to the balance of Sumer's ecosystems. Such a widespread species, found on all continents, in all terrains, must have value to the planet.
The thought of shooting them made me cringe. I still had nightmares about what the veterinarian did to those kats in the warehouse. To this day, I couldn't face him without recalling the rifle to his shoulder, his finger on the trigger. Blue eyes focused on the target.
I knew one thing. Kats had feelings. That made them much, much more than a wild animal like a Sumerian lion, or a Terran grizzly, long extinct now.
“That's okay. 500 dollars is a start,” Dad replied, kicking back in his chair.
“We'll have to set up a perimeter around the town so folks don't get too trigger happy out there,” Zane Matson, Abbey's mayor, said. He leaned forward in his rickety chair and ran a hand through his shaggy, blond hair.
“Would there be a market for kat pelts?” My gaze shot to the owner of the voice. Barbara. Front row. She and her family lived near Billy. They owned a flock of sheep. “If people could not only get a reward, but also sell the pelts, there might be more success in managing kat numbers.”
“That's barbaric!” I cried out, lurching forward in my seat. My voice echoed in the meeting room. Over a dozen pairs of eyes swiveled onto me and I clamped a hand over my mouth. I was usually invisible.
“There's not much barbaric about it,” Dad explained calmly. “It's an old practice, that's all.”
“It's cruel,” I stuttered. “It's wrong. Killing animals for their pelts, or other parts, ended a long time ago.”
Izzie put a hand on my forearm. “Take it easy, girl. You'll draw blood.”
I didn't realize that my hands had become so clenched into fists that they were white. I could feel a slight stinging in my palm where my pink painted nails bit through the skin. My heart fluttered wildly in my chest, like a bird's frantic wings. I should have known that the meeting wouldn't have good things to say about kats. I should have stuck to my dorm room and studied for Monday's calculus exam. But, when Dad told me about the meeting concerning the kats, I had to come home to be present for it. I had to hear what would be said. Even if I didn't like it.
Shooting the kats was poor management. What if it was discovered years down the road that like the Terran wolf, kats had a place and role in the ecosystem? What if we nearly wiped them out and Sumer fell apart? Who were we, only generations old on the surface of a billion year old rock - the equivalent of a blink in time - to make such alterations to the environment? We were the ones destroying their native homelands, their forest and territory. We logged extensively, and we introduced Terran livestock to Sumer's distinctly different ecosystem, and we shoved the Sumerian wildlife aside.
“But.” My eyes swept the room. Everyone watched me expectantly. Some were annoyed. I was John Grays awkward, introverted daughter. The one who liked kats like some girls liked Terran horses. I heard rumors that most of the town figured I'd gone crazy after Mom died, leaving me to darker tendencies. Not many had been sad to watch me go off to the four year university, versus staying with Izzie, and a lot of other teens from my graduating class, at the two year college.
“Rae,” Dad said. “You've been gone a while. You don't know. The kats' attacks have increased. One a night now, sometimes two. Our town is on the verge of not being safe anymore. We have to make important decisions to protect each other. If hunting and killing a few of these kats lessons those attacks, then...” he trailed off, his point made. Then, it would be good to kill them.
I disagreed. Wholly, and completely.
“It's murder,” I said.
“It's hunting,” Dad corrected. “A popular past-time for hundreds of years.”
I shook my head and squinted my eyes at Dad. “Sport hunting. That hasn't been done for a long time. Hunting is to eat, for nourishment. Is there a market for kat flesh?”
“You sound like a hippie,” the mayor said.
“If I had to decide between my family and my livestock, or a damn kat, I'd shoot the kat,” Billy said. “No hesitation. I might eat him, but probably I'd hang his carcass on my fence to warn other kats away.”
I was repulsed, and was sure my expression belied just that revulsion.
Izzie glanced at me.
I gritted my teeth. “Maybe we shouldn't be here. The only reason they are attacking - scratch that, the only reason they might attack...I mean there's no proof its kats anyway...is because we are cutting down their forests and encroaching upon their territory.”
“John,” TJ, the sheriff stated sharply, his eagle piercing eyes glaring at me. He was there that night in the warehouse. Younger then. I remembered those who were there that night darkly, with almost hatred. Including myself sometimes.
Sheriff TJ continued, “Why don't you send that damn fool girl of yours back to the city with all the other hippies like her. Don't know why she comes home anyhow.” He mumbled the last part, flicking the table with his forefinger. He was one who hadn't been sorry to see me leave.
“Careful, Sheriff,” Dad warned. “Rae is my daughter.”
“Well, keep her quiet, then. Children should be seen and not heard.”
“I'm not a child, anymore,” I said defensively. “I have a right to be here and voice my opinion.”
“Not really, girly. You haven't lived here in years. So technically, you're not a member of the town -”
“Sheriff,” Dad said sharply. “Really?”
Mayor Zane cleared his throat while Dad, Sheriff TJ, and I glowered at each other.
“Sheriff, you're being a little out of line. Rae grew up here. She will always be a part of this community.”
“She wants to let these kats run wild and free,” Billy said in the sheriff's defense. “Don't we have a right? These kats are killing our livelihood.”
“Yes,” Mayor Zane agreed. “Let's do this civil. Rather than hash it out in a never-ending debate, let's take a vote.”
There were mumbles of agreement and eager faces. They wanted to do something. To take action.
“All in favor of the bounty?”
“Yes,” an almost unanimous chorus of voices rose in the room, followed by everyone's hand greeting the air. Even Dad's.
“Opposed?” Mayor Zane looked at me.
“I oppose it,” I said defiantly. I jerked on Izzie's hand, but she remained still.
“I am not voting,” she hissed in my ear. “I just want a freaking A so I can get my apprenticeship.”
“All right, then,” Mayor Zane concluded. “I'll run this through the ranks, but I don't see why our request won't be approved. We should have a legal bounty set within a few weeks.”
I jumped to my feet, glowering at Dad. His expression was impassive, the same one he used on me all through my childhood when I disagreed with him. The look he gave me often since Mom died. Like he didn't know what to do with me.
Shaking my head, I dragged Izzie outside with me as I had dragged her in, wishing childishly that I could slam the door behind me.
The Prologue can be found here otherwise the first chapter is as follows!
The town meeting was underway when I slid in through the back doors, my friend Izzie dragging her feet behind me. I'd planned my visit home from college to coincide with this meeting. The Harvest Festival being tomorrow was just a coincidence. If it wasn't for the meeting I wouldn't be here because I knew Izzie would be dragging me to a party tomorrow. I was not looking forward to seeing old high school friends and enjoying the ridicule I'd suffered up until graduation, when I left for college. Yes, if it wasn't for this particular meeting, I wouldn't have come home this weekend.
“They're becoming a real problem,” A rancher declared loudly. Billy. He lived the farthest out of town. His wide brimmed hat was set far back on his head, revealing his concerned eyes to the audience.
The meeting concerned the wild kats. The distinction isn't really necessary. All kats are wild. Once, they were like shadows that no one ever saw in the forest. Like an invisible ghost to the superstitious, we knew they existed, but never caught sight of one. In recent years, attacks on livestock started occurring. Ranchers were concerned, and they blamed the kat.
“I call to put a bounty on their heads,” Billy continued. “We need to take care of them, before they take care of us. It's gotten so bad that I won't let my kids out of sight, and if I keep the animals any closer to the homestead, they'll be eating off our table.”
There were several nods and murmurs of approval as Izzie and I shuffled further into the meeting room. We took the chairs at the back.
“How much of a bounty?” Dad asked Billy. Of course Dad would be here. He saw me and nodded in my direction with a small smile. I hadn't seen him since my birthday two months ago. He sat next to the mayor, assisting in mediating the meeting. Sometimes I wondered why he wasn't, or ever had been, mayor of Abbey. He was the role without the title.
Izzie leaned over and whispered, “The Spot would be so more interesting. We haven't seen each other in months and the first place you drag me is here. I better get an A on this test.”
She glared at me. In exchange for accompanying me, I was to help her study for a chemistry exam.
I hushed her, leaning forward. They wanted to put a bounty on the kats? My brow furrowed as I imagined people slinking through the forest with rifles and shooting at anything that moved. People would come from all over, dispersing into the forest, to get in on it.
“500 dollars?” Billy replied, shrugging his shoulders. “I hadn't put much thought into it. I just figured it was a good, simple solution. We need help to get rid of these kats before we all lose our source of income. I know I speak for all of us here when I say that without our livestock, we're broke.”
My heart quickened. I clenched my fists tightly on my knees. Everything within me wanted to jump up and shout out that it was a mistake. Surely, they must be wrong about the kats killing livestock. And we certainly couldn't shoot them. There was something horribly wrong in doing so. Kats weren't what everyone thought they were. What I saw when I was twelve years old clearly proved to me that there was something more to them, something no one else understood. It was something I still wasn't sure that I understood.
A decision to kill them couldn't be made without understanding the importance they may have to the balance of Sumer's ecosystems. Such a widespread species, found on all continents, in all terrains, must have value to the planet.
The thought of shooting them made me cringe. I still had nightmares about what the veterinarian did to those kats in the warehouse. To this day, I couldn't face him without recalling the rifle to his shoulder, his finger on the trigger. Blue eyes focused on the target.
I knew one thing. Kats had feelings. That made them much, much more than a wild animal like a Sumerian lion, or a Terran grizzly, long extinct now.
“That's okay. 500 dollars is a start,” Dad replied, kicking back in his chair.
“We'll have to set up a perimeter around the town so folks don't get too trigger happy out there,” Zane Matson, Abbey's mayor, said. He leaned forward in his rickety chair and ran a hand through his shaggy, blond hair.
“Would there be a market for kat pelts?” My gaze shot to the owner of the voice. Barbara. Front row. She and her family lived near Billy. They owned a flock of sheep. “If people could not only get a reward, but also sell the pelts, there might be more success in managing kat numbers.”
“That's barbaric!” I cried out, lurching forward in my seat. My voice echoed in the meeting room. Over a dozen pairs of eyes swiveled onto me and I clamped a hand over my mouth. I was usually invisible.
“There's not much barbaric about it,” Dad explained calmly. “It's an old practice, that's all.”
“It's cruel,” I stuttered. “It's wrong. Killing animals for their pelts, or other parts, ended a long time ago.”
Izzie put a hand on my forearm. “Take it easy, girl. You'll draw blood.”
I didn't realize that my hands had become so clenched into fists that they were white. I could feel a slight stinging in my palm where my pink painted nails bit through the skin. My heart fluttered wildly in my chest, like a bird's frantic wings. I should have known that the meeting wouldn't have good things to say about kats. I should have stuck to my dorm room and studied for Monday's calculus exam. But, when Dad told me about the meeting concerning the kats, I had to come home to be present for it. I had to hear what would be said. Even if I didn't like it.
Shooting the kats was poor management. What if it was discovered years down the road that like the Terran wolf, kats had a place and role in the ecosystem? What if we nearly wiped them out and Sumer fell apart? Who were we, only generations old on the surface of a billion year old rock - the equivalent of a blink in time - to make such alterations to the environment? We were the ones destroying their native homelands, their forest and territory. We logged extensively, and we introduced Terran livestock to Sumer's distinctly different ecosystem, and we shoved the Sumerian wildlife aside.
“But.” My eyes swept the room. Everyone watched me expectantly. Some were annoyed. I was John Grays awkward, introverted daughter. The one who liked kats like some girls liked Terran horses. I heard rumors that most of the town figured I'd gone crazy after Mom died, leaving me to darker tendencies. Not many had been sad to watch me go off to the four year university, versus staying with Izzie, and a lot of other teens from my graduating class, at the two year college.
“Rae,” Dad said. “You've been gone a while. You don't know. The kats' attacks have increased. One a night now, sometimes two. Our town is on the verge of not being safe anymore. We have to make important decisions to protect each other. If hunting and killing a few of these kats lessons those attacks, then...” he trailed off, his point made. Then, it would be good to kill them.
I disagreed. Wholly, and completely.
“It's murder,” I said.
“It's hunting,” Dad corrected. “A popular past-time for hundreds of years.”
I shook my head and squinted my eyes at Dad. “Sport hunting. That hasn't been done for a long time. Hunting is to eat, for nourishment. Is there a market for kat flesh?”
“You sound like a hippie,” the mayor said.
“If I had to decide between my family and my livestock, or a damn kat, I'd shoot the kat,” Billy said. “No hesitation. I might eat him, but probably I'd hang his carcass on my fence to warn other kats away.”
I was repulsed, and was sure my expression belied just that revulsion.
Izzie glanced at me.
I gritted my teeth. “Maybe we shouldn't be here. The only reason they are attacking - scratch that, the only reason they might attack...I mean there's no proof its kats anyway...is because we are cutting down their forests and encroaching upon their territory.”
“John,” TJ, the sheriff stated sharply, his eagle piercing eyes glaring at me. He was there that night in the warehouse. Younger then. I remembered those who were there that night darkly, with almost hatred. Including myself sometimes.
Sheriff TJ continued, “Why don't you send that damn fool girl of yours back to the city with all the other hippies like her. Don't know why she comes home anyhow.” He mumbled the last part, flicking the table with his forefinger. He was one who hadn't been sorry to see me leave.
“Careful, Sheriff,” Dad warned. “Rae is my daughter.”
“Well, keep her quiet, then. Children should be seen and not heard.”
“I'm not a child, anymore,” I said defensively. “I have a right to be here and voice my opinion.”
“Not really, girly. You haven't lived here in years. So technically, you're not a member of the town -”
“Sheriff,” Dad said sharply. “Really?”
Mayor Zane cleared his throat while Dad, Sheriff TJ, and I glowered at each other.
“Sheriff, you're being a little out of line. Rae grew up here. She will always be a part of this community.”
“She wants to let these kats run wild and free,” Billy said in the sheriff's defense. “Don't we have a right? These kats are killing our livelihood.”
“Yes,” Mayor Zane agreed. “Let's do this civil. Rather than hash it out in a never-ending debate, let's take a vote.”
There were mumbles of agreement and eager faces. They wanted to do something. To take action.
“All in favor of the bounty?”
“Yes,” an almost unanimous chorus of voices rose in the room, followed by everyone's hand greeting the air. Even Dad's.
“Opposed?” Mayor Zane looked at me.
“I oppose it,” I said defiantly. I jerked on Izzie's hand, but she remained still.
“I am not voting,” she hissed in my ear. “I just want a freaking A so I can get my apprenticeship.”
“All right, then,” Mayor Zane concluded. “I'll run this through the ranks, but I don't see why our request won't be approved. We should have a legal bounty set within a few weeks.”
I jumped to my feet, glowering at Dad. His expression was impassive, the same one he used on me all through my childhood when I disagreed with him. The look he gave me often since Mom died. Like he didn't know what to do with me.
Shaking my head, I dragged Izzie outside with me as I had dragged her in, wishing childishly that I could slam the door behind me.