The Homesteader’s Almanac
“Dad, just stop talking to me. Alright? I don’t want to hear your voice right now,” my voice was equal parts hurt and anger.
“David, please just calm down,” my dad reached across to gently grip my shoulder. A move he meant to be affectionate, but it wasn’t something I needed right now.
“Don’t touch me!” I said, throwing his hand off.
My brother, Derrick, joined the action. “Hey, what the hell, man. Just calm down, David. We know you’re angry at us, but you’re thirty-five years old; you’re not a damned kid anymore.”
I turned my gre on him. “I didn’t ask for your opinion, Brutus.”
He looked at me, then at everyone else, with confusion. “What is that even supposed to mean?”
I looked at my dad sharply. “You’re leaving the farm to him?” I included my other two brothers with a gesture. “And these idiots? None of them got Agri-Business degrees. Derrick didn’t finish college. Lewis and Bret didn’t even go.”
My brother Lewis joined the scrum. “So what? Like, we need fancy degrees to understand when to pnt. All three of us have been doing this for at least twenty-five years now.”
I shook my head at them. “And I haven’t been? You three assholes didn’t even have the decency to tell me you were plotting to leave me out of the farm when Dad retires.”
At least with those words, they all had the decency to look down in shame. It was a Pyrrhic victory, but it was all I had.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” I said, venom in my voice. “You three screwed me over, and didn’t even have the balls to let me know ahead of time.”
Then I turned to my dad. “And you agreed with them. You guys all threw me aside. I’ll do what I need to do. I’m going to climb into my shiny new blood money tractor. I’m going to pnt this field, then the next, and the one after that. Then, when we’re done for the year, I’m going to leave, and maybe I’ll be lucky and never see any of you again.”
Derrick interrupted me here. “We already told you that once you help us pnt, that tractor is going to be yours, so is the potato pnter. Dad bought you a bunch of other equipment, too. And you’re still getting two hundred acres.”
“Derrick, shut up. Two hundred acres out of four thousand? You can’t row crop on two hundred acres. Hell, that was true in grandpa’s time, let alone now. And you guys bought me a million-dolr tractor.” I barked out a ugh. “So what? I’d rather have the money. You didn’t give me the money because you couldn’t have written that off like you’ll do with the tractor. So don’t pretend you did things this way out of the goodness of your hearts.”
I continued, “I’m being punished because Rachel and I couldn’t have kids. It’s not like we didn’t try everything. And I don’t see how the handover would have been any messier with me being a part of it. What’re you all going to do with your kids? They all going to get parts of it? Grandpa was right, if we all weren’t involved, it should have just been one of us.”
I knocked back the st of my morning coffee, its burning heat not able to match the inferno I felt in my gut. “I’m all fueled up. I’ll meet you all at the field.”
I could see the hurt in my dad’s eyes at my outburst. My brothers looked more annoyed at being called on their B.S. than anything else. But they didn’t say another word as I turned around and climbed into my tractor.
The beautiful weather on this fine April day did not mirror my mood. I had struggled to keep my emotions in check all morning.
I was normally a pretty calm, level-headed guy. But the anger boiled out of me as I thought about how this was my st year of being a part of the rger family farming operation. There were no two ways about it; this was a betrayal. I wasn’t exactly being thrust out into the world without a lifeline, but it still felt so unfair.
Since I didn’t have kids, and my three older brothers all did, my dad had decided that when he retired this fall, they would get all but a couple of hundred acres of the vast family farm. I got that consotion prize, and this brand-new New Holnd T9 615 Quadtrac tractor. For two hundred acres, it was just ?ridiculous overkill. It really was an almost million-dolr apology, done in a way that also made the most financial sense for those keeping the farm.
Once the potatoes had been loaded into the bins, I was ready to leave. It didn’t help my mood when my dad tried to make small talk, trying to smooth over the morning’s confrontation. I’d had more of that than I could take already.
I practiced taking deep breaths to calm myself before I took seventy tons of tractor and equipment out onto the highway. If this was going to be my st day on the family farm, I didn’t want to drive angry.
Out loud, I said to myself, “Remember, you just have to take things one day at a time.”
It was a short drive from the home pce to our closest potato field. If it had been farther away, it would have made more sense to have a truck waiting in the field instead of loading them at the home pce.
I looked both ways before I pulled out of our graveled driveway and onto the pavement. I checked ?one more time to make sure all of my fshers were on, then began making my way down the road at a sedate pace.
As I drove over the New York Canal, flowing under State Highway 45 just south of Nampa, Idaho, I noticed something in the water that caught my attention, distracting me from the road ahead. The water had only been turned on a couple of days ago. Usually, it was dark and muddy at this time of year, as everything caught in the canal over the winter was pushed down to where it emptied into the river.
But there was something shiny in it now, something not quite right. I moved past too fast to get a good look, but as I turned my head back to the road, all I saw was bckness ahead of me. I didn't even have time to attempt to stop before I drove into it.
As the darkness enveloped me, my consciousness faded with it. One moment I was in my tractor, the next moment there was nothing.
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Do you want to cim this Homestead?
Wait what?
A video-game-like prompt filled my vision, looking like an old scrolling line of text from a Nintendo game, asking me to cim a homestead
That wasn’t right. Wasn’t I just sitting in a tractor? My mind felt hazy, as if I were waking up with a bad hangover.
I couldn’t look around or wave away the prompt, so I mentally hit yes.
Congratutions John Jacobson! You are one of the lucky winners of the Albion Empire’s Homestead Act lottery. After a century of strife, the brave wizards and soldiers of the Albion Empire have tamed the Western Territory and are opening it up to preliminary homesteading actions.
What in the hell is going on here? My name isn’t John Jacobson.
After clicking yes, I’d hoped to look around and figure out what the heck was going on, but no, the scroll just moved to another page.
It was so disorienting. It wasn’t like I was just looking at a screen. I couldn’t see or feel my body. The screen was everything for the moment.
For braving the adversity that comes with being a first-generation settler, you will receive a cabin, 100 acres of nd, a homesteader package, and 1,000 gold to purchase your initial supplies.
You must sign the appropriate paperwork in order to access the Albion Guild Shop interface. Once you have done so, the tab will appear on your User Interface.
Please review your new css options from the Css tab on your User Interface.
Albion’s wise and powerful wizards have teamed up to enact a powerful ritual that will guarantee plentiful rain and fortuitous weather for the first year. This incredible and powerful ritual should also keep any remaining monsters and even small pests away from the Western Territories for the same duration.
The Albion Empire and ?Emperor Harold II, long may he reign, have given you a wonderful opportunity. It is up to you to prove that you are up to the task that they have given you.
Good luck!
Finally, the text faded, and I found myself standing under a covered porch, looking at the front door of a little log cabin. The walls were rough-cut logs with dried mud or cy as chinking. There were closed shutters on either side of the door. It wasn’t overly weathered. It had seen recent upkeep and didn’t look like an old, abandoned building.
I briefly looked around and confirmed my tractor was sitting close by.
Still, I didn’t remember getting out of the tractor. Or how I ended up standing in front of the door to this cabin. And for that matter, I didn’t know where this was.
Albion, apparently. It certainly wasn’t where I was supposed to be. I had been on my way to a field to pnt potatoes.
Well, hell. Did I die, or am I in a coma? Those were the only logical things I could think of at the moment.
If I were in a coma, then maybe it would feel more real than a normal dream? I had to admit, I could think of far worse ways to while away the time while I was unconscious. It wasn’t as good as a nd of ever-flowing beer and beautiful women, but it would do.
If this were real, I’d need to figure things out. Whatever that meant. Maybe I would still be farming after all.
It’s not like this can be any more of a mess than my life was at home.
So my initial assessment was, it really didn’t matter if this was real or a coma. I wasn’t losing anything by pying along. Hell, maybe this was the fresh new start I needed after my divorce a year ago, and now losing out on my inheritance. Freaking out had never been my style, and now was not the time to begin.
As I broke out of my musings, I reached out to pull on the tch holding the cabin door shut. Before I could, I heard the distinct sound of the hammer of a gun being pulled back from behind me.
Click.
My hand froze on the tch.
From behind me, a young male voice spoke in a stuttering cadence. “M-mister, I d-d-don’t want to shoot you. B-b-but if you t-try to open that d-door, I will.” The speaker's British accent sounded like it came straight out of The Last of the Mohicans movie.
I put my hands up in the air and tried speaking in a soothing tone, like I was talking to a nervous colt. “I’m going to slowly step away from the door, and then turn around so we can talk. Does that work for you? I’m not armed. I have no idea where I am right now. I just appeared here in front of this cabin a few minutes ago.”
The voice behind me took a deep breath and said, “Okay, m-m-mister, b-but if you try anything, I p-p-promise I’ll shoot.”
I took a few steps back and away from the door. I kept my hands up, and my movements slow and deliberate.
Not dead yet.
Slowly turning, I got a good look at the person pointing a gun at me.
It was a kid, maybe fourteen or fifteen, scrawny and underfed. He was about halfway between five and six feet tall. He had a thin mustache and a patchy beard. If he had been one of my brothers when we were teens, I would have mocked him mercilessly for it. But those dark blue eyes fixed on me were afraid, and scared people made mistakes, particurly when holding a gun.
Aside from the awful attempt at a beard, he was a good-looking kid. He had a clear complexion, straight teeth, and there was a light, glossy sheen to his dark hair.
I noticed the gun he was holding in slightly shaky hands was a musket, not the expected modern-looking deer rifle. More than that, his clothes were patchy, with only a bit of the original material peeking through. He was dressed like someone from a show about settler times. His dark leather boots were coming apart at the seams.
Unexpined frontier territory, an empire I’ve never heard of, a rustic cabin, and a kid straight out of a period movie. Clearly not on modern-day Earth. I thought to myself as I took in the boy and his gun.
“Can I put my hands down? And would you point that gun away from me? I swear I don’t mean anyone any harm,” I said as calmly as I could.
“No, m-mister. Not yet,” the kid said and then yelled, “Ma. There’s a m-man out here! C-c-come out!”
A beat passed by before the sound of the door cracking open caused me to turn my head. Out stepped a pretty woman who appeared to be a few years older than me.
Of course, with no makeup and living on what looked like the frontier, she could be ten years younger than me. I’d seen bck-and-white pictures of people from back then, and they all looked way older than we do now.
She had jet-bck hair up in a bun and the same striking blue eyes as her son. She was wearing a long-sleeved, thick, brown dress that reached her ankles, with an off-white apron over it. Her own pair of brown leather boots was in better shape than her son’s, but not by much.
Even though she wore no makeup, and her face had seen some wind and sun based on the marks it held, I still thought she was attractive. Then again, I had always been partial to the ‘less makeup is better’ look.
Just like her son, I thought the woman could have stood to gain some weight. It didn't look like either of them was eating particurly well. She wasn’t frail, just thinner than I thought she probably had been at one time.
When she went to stand next to her son, I could see they were just about the same height.
Once they were standing together, I spoke again. “Look, I’m not going to harm either of you. I have no idea where I am. Five minutes ago, I was driving my tractor down the road, and then I was suddenly standing in front of the door to this homestead. There was what looked like a scroll or a page from an old book that asked if I wanted to cim this homestead, and then when I hit yes…”
I heard a gasp from the son and a cry of, “Oh no,” from the woman.
I looked back and forth between them. “What’s wrong?”
The son looked like he might actually shoot me now.
With tension in my voice, I asked again. “What did I say?”
The woman reached up, grabbed the musket from her son, and spoke to him in the same accent. “Collin, do not do something stupid. If he has just shown up and hit accept on this homestead, then the Bishop will have gotten the notification. You know he is going to be on his way here as fast as possible.”
The boy didn’t resist as she took the gun from his shaking hands. Thankfully, she slowly brought the hammer back to the uncocked position. I mentally sighed in relief when it was finally pointed away from me.
“But ma, what will we do?” he said.
Things were still confusing, but at least the musket was pointed in any other direction than at me. Now that I could take a mental breath, I took stock of my current situation.
I was on a homestead that was supposed to be mine, according to the message, but someone was clearly already living here. I was probably in a world that wasn’t my own, and these people were in danger of being kicked off ?this nd.
Because of me… This could be a messy situation.
As they were holding each other, I looked around and saw my tractor and multiple pieces of equipment sitting in the barnyard area.
I had been in my tractor with a potato pnter attached to it when I drove into the bckness, but I could also see my plow, cultivator, disc harrow, and ripper disc. There was also a corrugator for wheat and corn, along with my corn pnter, and finally, my grain drill. The day was just getting weirder as it went on.
Finally, I just asked them both. “Can someone tell me where I am and what in the heck is going on?”
