There were men about, twelve individuals at Hutch’s count, but according to the smoke, each house was in use.
The men were friendly.There were smiles, calls, huddled conversations.
The women…
Hutch drew in breath and focused on them.
Drab dresses, button-up from the waist, high-necked, long sleeved, no adornment.None at all.The four women who were out wore the same dresses, in colors of brown or gray.No bonnets or shit like that, or aprons, but each woman had her hair severely scraped back and arranged in a bun at her nape.No alteration of this, say, bun up at the crown or ponytail.All the same.Also identical sensible, low-heeled, black boots were on all their feet.
Now they didn’t call greetings, smile or chat.
They went about their business in the gardens, the cattle barn, a house, the church, heads bowed, in a hurry.
Hutch took a lot of time surveilling the space, saw another man come out of a house, strolling like he had all day and stopping to talk with three other guys, two more women scampering from the church to some houses, one with a baby on her hip.
The cold and wet of the stone had long since leaked through his jeans and fleece before Hutch saw all he reckoned he was going to see.Even if his body had stiffened up, he ignored it, and using the same movements, he scuttled back on his belly until the bluff hid him from sight.
He rolled to his ass, capped the binos, put them in their case, and got off his ass.
He had a long hike to his truck.
He could do it thinking while he got his body moving.The wet mist had permeated his hair and jeans and was beginning to penetrate his fleece.
He had to start trucking and warm up.
On his walk, he thought, and it wasn’t lost on him the world was fucked up, and it was getting worse, not better.
He understood checking out, because he’d done it himself, in his way.
He could see the lure of the challenge of self-sufficiency.He’d eaten eggs fresh from the coop, there were none better.Blackberries fresh from the vine, the same.
Having good honest work to do every day that provided for you and your family was never something any man should have a problem with, even if you chose the backbreakingly hard way to go about it.
Whittling a fine point on the simple life, he could see, had its merits.
“This shit wasn’t that,” he muttered to the trees.
For the men, maybe.
Then again, he hadn’t seen a one of them doing a lick of work.
No smiles and chatter from the women?
Heads bowed, zero eye contact, rushing around, doing shit like they’d be whipped if it didn’t get done?
That shit was fucked up.
Topping that, they had trucks, ATVs, electricity; they weren’t roughing it entirely.
But just like Hutch had never seen a woman outside The Lion and The Lamb, obviously he’d never seen one on an ATV or in a truck.
The shit that made life easier, or even fun, was for the men.
Apparently, it was just shit for the women.
He didn’t have to work hard to understand what the lion referred to, or the lamb.
Taking that further, jam and bread, and he didn’t give a fuck how good your pies tasted, were not going to buy you fifteen prefab houses, a pole barn, trucks, ATVs, build you a church and that shed, not to mention milk cows, pigs, chickens and whatever furniture and other shit they had in those houses.
