Chapter 2 - Splintered Oak and Stifled Blood
Returning to Jonah’s hometown as a married couple felt less like a celebration and more like walking through a minefield. Millfield was an old timber and quarry town tucked deep into the Appalachian foothills, a place where men were measured by the cordwood they could haul and the fights they could finish.
Jonah had inherited his grandfather’s sixty-acre property on the ridge, complete with a sprawling, drafty farmhouse and an ancient barn filled with rusted tools. It sat two miles up the dirt road from his family’s homestead, where Thomas Vance still ruled his land like a bitter feudal lord. Luke lived there too, running the family sawmill with a permanent hitch in his stride and a lingering shadow behind his eyes.
The morning after we returned from our brief mountain getaway, the rumble of a heavy diesel engine woke us before dawn.
I threw on an oversized flannel shirt and stepped onto the wrap-around porch just as Jonah emerged behind me. A battered black dually pickup had pulled into the gravel drive, kicking up dust in the crisp autumn air. Thomas Vance stepped out of the driver's side. At sixty-five, the man was still built like an iron pillar, his hair a shock of silver wire and his face etched with permanent contempt.
"Nice of you to join the living," Thomas barked, spitting a dark stream of tobacco juice onto our freshly raked driveway. "The south fence along the pasture rotted out during the frost. Luke can’t haul the new treated posts alone with his shoulder acting up. I expect you down there by six."
Jonah’s body immediately snapped into that familiar, guarded posture. He lowered his head slightly, tucking his thumbs into his belt loops to keep his hands still. "I've got work at the logistics yard today, Dad. I'm on the morning dispatch shift."
"Call out," Thomas snapped, cutting him off without a second glance. His eyes flicked over to me, traveling from my bare feet up to my sleep-tousled hair, a condescending smirk tugging at his thin lips. "Looks like you’ve been busy playing house anyway. Surprised the girl hasn't run back to her mother yet. She look like she weighs eighty pounds wet, Jonah. You haven't snapped a wing on her yet?"
A cold shock of anger surged through my chest. "I have a name, Mr. Vance," I stepped down to the first porch step. "And Jonah treats me with more respect than you’ve ever shown anyone in this town."
Thomas gave a dry, raspy bark of laughter. "Spitfire. Don't worry, little girl, give it a year. When a bull gets riled, fences break. He knows what he is. Don't you, boy?"
Jonah didn't speak. He didn't defend himself. He simply stood there, absorbing his father’s poison like an oak tree absorbing acid rain.
"I'll be at the pasture by seven," Jonah said quietly, his voice dangerously even. "Go home, Dad."
Thomas sneered, slammed his truck door, and tore down the driveway, leaving black tire marks across the dirt road.
The moment the sound of the truck faded, Jonah turned on his heel without looking at me. He walked straight past the kitchen, out through the back mudroom, and down the gravel path toward the woodpile behind the barn.
I followed him at a distance. I knew the ritual.
Jonah grabbed an eight-pound splitting maul from the shed. He didn't bother putting on work gloves. He hauled a four-foot round of green white oak onto the chopping block—a piece of wood so dense two ordinary men would have struggled to lift it—and hoisted the heavy steel axe over his head.
CRACK.
The sound echoed through the valley like a gunshot. The oak log split cleanly in two, sending shards of bark flying into the morning mist.
Jonah didn't stop. He picked up another log. CRACK. Another. CRACK. His breath hitched in ragged gasps. The muscles along his back flexed beneath his shirt, straining against the seams. Sweat poured down his neck, soaking his collar. With every swing, he wasn't just chopping firewood; he was trying to exorcise the phantom his father kept breathing into life.
"Jonah, stop," I called out, staying just outside the radius of flying timber. "Look at your hands!"
He didn't hear me. He swung again with blind, desperate fury. On the fifth log, the maul struck a twisted knot of wood. The shockwave traveled up the ash handle, jarring his grip, and the heavy axe head grazed off the side, the splintered oak kicking back violently.
Jonah stumbled, catching himself against the chopping block. His right knuckles were split wide open against the jagged bark, blood dripping down onto the fresh wood chips.
Yet he raised the axe again.
"Jonah! Look at me!" I screamed, closing the distance and grabbing the thick leather sleeve of his jacket.
The touch snapped him out of the trance. He froze, the heavy maul suspended mid-air. When he looked down and saw how close I was standing to the blade, absolute horror washed over his features. He dropped the axe instantly; it landed with a dull thud in the dirt.
He recoiled five paces backward, his boots sliding in the mud, holding his bleeding hand against his chest as if he were radioactive.
"Get away from me, Claire!" he gasped, his chest heaving, his face pale beneath the grime. "Didn't you see that? I almost lost the grip! If that maul had bounced toward you—"
"It didn't bounce toward me!" I yelled back, stepping forward while he desperately tried to step back. "You're bleeding, Jonah! You’re the only one getting hurt out here! Don't you see that? Your father comes here, drops a handful of poison, and you come out here to bleed yourself dry just to prove you aren't a monster!"
He collapsed against the weathered wall of the barn, sliding down until he was sitting in the damp grass, clutching his mangled, bloody knuckles against his knees. The towering giant who could throw engine blocks looked like a terrified child trapped in the dark.
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I walked over, knelt right between his boots, and pulled my clean flannel sleeve over my palm, pressing it firmly against his bleeding hand.
"You are not going to spend the rest of our marriage running away to bleed in the woods," I told him, looking directly into his tortured eyes. "We fight him together, or this ghost will tear us apart."
