"Bullets, Booze and Bastards"

Sample story from Doll Havest

HIS BUCK’S COUNTY
RETREAT

“How do you make something come alive? It’s a mystery. People like you and me, Dutch, we don’t do that – put breath into things.”
- Bess Harnell

he reverend liked sitting in the leather chair by his bedroom window with a paper cup of Glenkinchie 1991 neat – not that the staff at Pastureland Retreat would approve. Right now he watched the snow cover the tan meadow and the dark branches of trees, sipping his Scotch. Lots of oak and maple in Buck’s County. A horse pulled carriage was passing along the road by the mail box, smoke wafting up from the animal’s nostrils. Reverend Dutch Harnell had been thinking about his home in Philadelphia, a four bedroom Mt. Airy town house he’d let go a few years back to live here. He was picturing his baby girl beneath her red and blue swing set after a warm rain. He and Bess had given their daughter the set many birthdays ago. The child had a thing for playing with the wet clay under the swings.
“Nettie doesn’t make mud pies,” Dutch remembered saying to his wife, looking out the kitchen window at their girl in the backyard. “You know, the way children do? Never does that. She works on shaping people. Whatever you call it, sculpting people. Did it right from the start. Perfect little people, little legs, little arms. Six years old, mind you, a peanut.”