The sun peeked through the curtains and into the small room of a girl. She stirred in her sleep, the light peering through her eyelids. The distance sounds of cattle bells rattling, chickens clucking about, and the chirping of morning birds making her that much more awake.
She sat up in her small cot, looking around her familiar room in the morning light while rubbing her eyes and ridding them of sleep.
"Early day.." the girl grumbled to herself.
The girl inched herself off of her cot, the small area of sleep creaking under her weight, an indication of it's weary material. She stretched the cobwebs of fatigue away, ready to begin another day.
* ◇ *
Stepping out onto the back porch of her cottage the girl stalked over to the chicken coop. She grabbed a bag of feed that leaned against the small wooden structure, filling their trough with the seeds and dry corn kernels. She watched as the many of chickens clucked up to their food pecking at it vigorously before stalking over to the open barn where all the cattle idled about. The grass crunching under her. Some grazed about, chewing on the grass or on the hay in their troughs, tails whipping expectedly.
The girl walked up to one of them who was eating from the trough, gently running her hand against its fur a small smile gracing her face. A man—one of medium brown skin and burley appearances with round belly to boot—was shaking and leveling out the rest of the hay for the cattles consumption.
"Cairo," the man sighed, looking up in the girl's direction. He wiped his forehead of sweat with the back of his hand before scratching at his salt and pepper beard. "Go fetch one' them buckets and start pulling some teets." He states nodding towards the back of the barn where the buckets are piled.
Cairo looked into the barn and back at the man with a pout, eyebrows furrowed as she recalled the stacks of sealed jars in the wooden crates in the kitchen. Courtesy of her handy work and dedication to the task she noted smugly to herself. Though a satisfying job to have, it can become tiresome to the arms after a while.
"Don't we have enough milk old man?" She mentioned, patting one of the cow's flank as she made her way over to him.
The 'old man' in question, by the name of Beau, raised a bored eyebrow and shook his head at his daughter with a no-nonsense grunt, crossing his arms over his broad chest. "Yer' know full well why I'm asking you girl." Beau retorted. He didn't need to state the obvious to her as she wasn't clueless, and he made damn sure of that.
Cairo stared up at her father with a slight frown, crossing her arms under her chest to mimick his movements, which earned her a look of disapproval.
She sighed,"The village 'Farmers Fair'-" Beau cut her off, "Yer' damn right the village 'Farmers Fair'!" He exclaimed enthusiastically, a look of seriousness still evident in his eyes. "The one day of the year we make some good pence for the farm and the winter'. And the one day of the year I get to see Ezra's sorry ass stand." Beau sniffed at the thought, a confident smirk pulling at his lips as he looked over crops and livestock with a proud stance.
"Les' yer' want to be milking Carmen," Beau teased with a snort glancing back at Cairo who was busy stroking the side belly of one of the cows. "I'm sure she'd love to oblige." Beau says a wicked smile spreading across his face before his deep bellied laugh broke through the noise of the bustling livestock.
Cairo shuddered at the thought of having to milk their goat, Carmen. An unruly thing she was.
That damned goat..
At the young age of six years Cairo was tasked with milking Carmen. Her mother was sick at the time due to a high fever and was in no position to milk or do anything. Per her husband's strict request, the sickly woman wasn't to lift a finger. Carmen was saint when it came to her mother and less temperamental when it came to her father. However, she never experienced that kindness from the creature whenever it came time to milk her. Cairo could remember it clear as day when she opened the gate to Carmen's pen, bucket in hand and ready to take on her mother's job as she wouldn't disappoint. The she-devil was prancing and making her rounds in her pen, occasionally making beat-ing noiclses and taking a bite of grass every so often.
When the gate to the pen closed with a loud squeak followed by a solid thud, Carmen looked up from the grass chewing slowly. The young girl narrowed her eyes shooting daggers at the creature and the creature stared back unmoving. "Now listen here you," the young Cairo shouted, dropping the bucket down on the ground with a metallic clang, and placing her hands on her hips as a means of appearing assertive. Carmen's ears perked as she continued to chew slowly, looking at the child. "I'm gonna milk you! And that will be the end of it! You hear?" She continued picking the bucket back up, glaring over at the goat.
"Now.." Cairo took a slow step forward and Carmen took notice, her chewing ceasing to a halt.
"Come mere'!"
Cairo bolted toward the goat, her small hand out reached to catch Carmen and make her stand still. To the young girl's dismay the goat pranced away, quick, agile. And beat-ing loudly as if mocking the child.
She expected this of course as Carmen had four legs and she did not. Especially with the bucket slowing her down as it wiggled and yanked at her side, but she was determined to get the job done.
Minutes few by and the young Cairo grew tired. She slowed down in an attempt to catch her breath before tripping over wobbly legs fatigued from running. Cairo hit the ground with a thud and so did her bucket as it flew from her hand, bouncing and rolling off to the side. Cairo steadily propped herself up on her hands spitting loose grass and hair from her mouth. Tears welled up in her eyes. Not from the fall but from the sheer frustration of having to deal with this she-demon. As Cairo sat up and wiped away the tears that threatened to fall, a sharp bellow of a beat cut through the air followed by the sound of hooves hitting the dirt.
Cairo snapped her head in the direction of the she-devil, her eyes going wide as to her horror, she witnessed Carmen running at her full speed!
"PAPAA!! " Cairo shrieked. Half scrambling to her feet and half crawling away as the goat charged at her.
Beau was inside the staples at the time feeding their mule Reaper, and their two horses Gunner, and Mr. Sap before hearing the terror filled screams of Cairo. Dropping everything, Beau ran out to grab his gun and save his daughter from what he thought was a wild dog that had jumped Carmen's pen. "Damn them things." Beau grumbled to himself more worried than angry.
Wild dogs made few appearances back then, but they weren't uncommon. Terrorizing village-folk, children, and livestock alike—the issue only worsening as time went on.
When he made it to Carmen's pen, gun in hand and panting heavily Beau was expecting to see bloodied chaos, a dead goat, and a hopefully only injured child. But what he saw instead made him sigh with relief before erupting with laughter as the goat chewed on the small girl's dress, beat-ing loudly as she did so.
"Papa!!" The girl cried, tears streaming down her face with her hand out stretched for her father. "Papa help me!"
Beau shook his head with a smile, "I'mma coming, I'mma coming," he reassured, setting his gun down in the grass before opening the pen's gate and stomping over to the young Cairo. Carmen stopped the sooner she started when she noticed the big man clomping over and quickly retreated to the other side of her pen. Beau took notice of the abandoned empty bucket as he went to scoop his daughter off the ground.
"Couldn't even get a drop from her huh?" He pried lightheartely, walking over to pick up the bucket with Cairo in hand, who, was clutching on tightly to her father's button-down shirt.
"I tried," the young girl stated promptly through sniffles. She looked back at the goat, sticking her tongue out tauntingly. This made Beau chuckle at his daughter, "I'm sure you did Ro-Ro." He comforted, ruffling up the her hair affectionately as he locked the gate. The pair walking back to the cottage.
* ◇ *
Cairo smiled to herself at the memory. She sat on a small stool when she began milking the cattle, her father coming in and out to check her progress whilst bringing in anymore cows that needed milking.
"That should be all of them," Beau noted, wiping his hands on the front of his black trousers. "Yer' finished churnin' the butter like I asked right?"
"Yup."
"And harvesting the carrots, potatoes, the corn, the-" Beau listed off before Cairo tilted her head back, goaning loudly.
"Yes, yes all of it! The beets, the honey, even the soil." She replied sarcastically while gesturing to the ground with a look of irritation.
"Jus' making sure." Beau said with a shrug. "I'll be inside preparing the things and cooking up dinner, gotta be up at dawn." He reminded, patting the barn door frame before walking off. The sound of his heavy footsteps becoming more distant.
Cairo shook her head after her father before turning back to resume her cow-milking.
That old man..she thought.
"He is too much for himself," she stated, the cow she was milking moo-ing in response. "I'm glad to agree with me girl." She said patting the side of the cow gently.
From noon to sunset she was at it. Pulling teets and filling buckets. The work alone producing eleven buckets of milk from six cows.
Not bad..
She thought proudly to herself. A smug smile reaching her face as she clapped the imaginary dust off her hands.
Cairo began lining up the heavy buckets before bringing them inside the cottage, one-by-one as not to spill anything. The delightful smell of food wafted her nose as she walked in and out, her stomach rumbling after the long day. "Hurry 'long now," Beau urged, "Might have to start eating without you." A look of playfulness danced in his eyes as he ruffled the light honey-brown curls of Cairo. She gave him a watchful glare before dashing out back to grab the rest of the buckets.
Beau watched as she left shaking his head to himself. "That girl looks like her mother everyday.." Beau muttered, turning his attention to his boiling pot of vegetables and chicken that bobbed at the surface.
He thought back to the days where Cairo's mother was still here with them. The two looked no different from that of sisters. Hell, twins. Bless his late wife's soul as she was taken from them too soon from an incurable illness. Viola was her name. A beauty to behold with her honey-blonde curls and light brown skin. Her hazel eyes capturing the very essence of life. She was the sun of his world. But he was forced to watched as his sun was slowly snuffed out. Her cheeks went hallow, her breathing grew weaker, her honey-blonde hair falling out in clumps, and he was unable to do anything to save her. Every remedy, every attempt failed her.
Her hazel eyes looked to Beau with fear as he gripped her hand in his, kissing the back of it softly.
"What of Cairo?" Viola would always ask. All her strength being poured into that one question before one day, it stopped being asked all together. Cairo was only of nine years at the time of her passing.
He remembers it all as the young girl was out at the front of the cottage, watering her mother's flowers a few days after she was buried humming quietly to herself. Talking to them. That's all the young girl was doing ever since then. Watering and talking to the fucking flowers as if their farm wasn't about to go under soon from the lack of work being that was being done.
"Cairo!" Beau bellowed from behind her, startling the girl. "Didn't I ask you to feed the sow?" He asked, nostrils flaring from the anger that was rising inside.The anger in question stemming from the unfulfillment of his request and the scene before him.
"I was just watering mama's flowers." She uttered innocently.
"Forget the damn flowers, Cairo, and go feed the damn sow."
"But I wasn't-"
"So help me I'll rip those fucking things from the ground myself! Get up!" He threatened down at her, chest heaving from shear rage. Cairo was unmoving before Beau began to march up to the small garden. "That's it." He grumbled angrily. Cairo scrambled quickly to the garden's defense, coming between it and the unrelenting force that was her father.
"Get out of the way Cairo..NOW!! " Beau was losing his patience with her. The livestock needed tending to and he was not about to do it alone. And if that meant tramping his late wife's personal pleasure then so be it. He watched with uneven breaths as the young girl trembled, hushed tears staining her face.
"This is the only way I can talk to her!" She sobbed, "She loved these flowers. You can't hurt them!"
Beau's face softened at her words, the waves of his anger calming, only to be replaced with tides of frustration with himself, a man's guilt, the loss of his partner, the silent torment of his child. Throughout his days of trying to keep the farm afloat and suffering through his own grief, he failed to account for the toll his wife's passing had on his daughter as well.
The man fell to his knees in front of his her. The realization of his beloved Viola being gone causing him to hunch over. The young girl approached her father, wrapping him up in an attempt of a bone-crushing hug. Beau hugging her back tightly as he apologized profusely. Silent tears falling as he cried alongside his daughter, in front of the garden, for his love, for Viola.
* ◇ *
"Old man," Beau heard Cairo say, thus shaking him from the depths of his mind. "I'm almost done. Do you need any help with serving?" She asked curiously, heavy milk-bucket in hand.
Beau watched as she placed the bucket down with the rest, her hazel eyes looking up at him expectedly. The girl has grown much over the years and this made Beau smile inwardly.
"Nah, yer' old man can handle himself." He said softly. "Go get the rest of them' buckets so we can eat." He said nodding towards the back door.
Cairo nodded before heading out for the last bucket. The sun had disappeared over in the horizon of their crops, past the trees in the far distance which left the sky a soft mix of pinks, purples and blues. She was half way carrying the last bucket to the cottage when she felt a strong pair of eyes. Watching.
Cairo whipped her head around to locate the source. Their cottage and farm in question were surrounded by a few scattered trees before the tree line eventually thickened, but the farm animals were going about their business, and it didn't seem as though anything was hiding behind the nearby trees.
She shrugged.
Must be a bird..
* ◇ *
Cairo lied down in her small cot after her meal with her father. Her eyes were heavy with sleep from the hot meal and the day's endeavors.
"Another early day.." she mumbles to herself before turning over and closing her eyes. Blissfully unaware of the figure that stood on the other side of her window.