The Black Rose Legacy Ch. 02

All characters engaged in sex (both Sasquatch and human) are over 18. Thanks as always to my writing coach RiverMaya, my editing guru AzureAsh, and my mystery beta reader.

This chapter takes place 20 years after Chapter 01.

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1914 -- Pacific Northwest/Newton, Washington

I lay exhausted in Daisy's arms after a ferocious coupling session, nuzzling the soft gold fur on her neck. It was always like this when I had to travel somewhere that was more than a day away; even now at the beginning of the 20^th century, the hazards of travel in the Northwest wilderness were such that there was always the possibility I might not return.

She squeezed me tightly. "I wish I could go with you," she murmured sadly. "I'll miss you, and I won't be there for Marigold." For safety reasons, my 7' tall, golden-fur-covered half-Sasquatch wife never went into populated places like Newton or Seattle; town folks would be alarmed, and city people would outright panic at the sight of her, and who knew that they'd do? As long as she stayed in the wilderness, she was safe.

I kissed her and patted her reassuringly, "I'll miss you, too, you know that. Marigold's going to be fine. The women in the dress shop assured me they'll take good care of her. If the boy takes a shine to her, he'll come up here and meet you."

Marigold and I were leaving in the morning to meet a young man, Seamus Bohannon, in the town of Newton. It was a six-hour walk, and we'd be staying overnight at a hotel there. Oddly enough, the meeting had been arranged by Two Eagles, the Shoshone tribe's Chief. While at the Shoshone camp trading provisions for a blanket, Seamus's father Darragh happened to mention to Two Eagles he was seeking a bride for his older son. The Chief only had sons, but told him about the woodsman that the Shoshone called Tall Daughters.

Tall Daughters would be me -- Adam Karpiak, a former-prospector-turned-fur-trapper. In the course of pursuing a bear pelt, I'd become injured by one of my own traps. If not for being rescued and tended to by my half-Sasquatch wife Daisy, I would have died. I ended up falling in love and marrying her, and, nature following its course, we had babies.

In the past two decades since I first got Daisy pregnant, a lot had happened. When I'd first met my half-Sasquatch wife, I had no thoughts of marriage and it never even occurred to her, either. Daisy's parents, a human trapper named Andrew Haggerty and a female Sasquatch named Black Rose, had gotten together and just...mated.

Now bear in mind that Sasquatch are not prolific breeders, this is why you see so few of them. Despite Daisy's mother Black Rose coupling with Haggerty nearly every damned night, (we all slept in the same plank house, so there was no hiding it) they only produced two offspring: first Daisy, then 18 years later, her brother Julius.

I expected Daisy's fecundity would be the same, but after we got hitched, I couldn't have been more wrong. And before you scoff, yes, Daisy and I were legally married. Daisy was already pregnant when I proposed, but I made an honest woman, er, half-woman out of her straightaway. I rode over to the closest logging camp and procured the assistance of an itinerant horseback preacher to come to the plank house and marry us good and legal.

Upon seeing my 7-foot-tall betrothed and her 8-foot-tall Sasquatch mother, the pastor damned near pissed his pants; it took a few drinks from the whiskey bottle plus a donation of $5 to his 'ministry' to fortify him, but he finally did the deed, and we were hitched good and proper. My bride's fertility proved to be atypical for a Sasquatch: baby Marigold was born 7 months after we wed, followed 12 months later by second daughter Daffodil, then our third baby Tulip 13 months after that. Once Tulip came along, Daisy's Sasquatch half must have taken control of her female parts because while our coupling continued unabated, no more babies came.

Our girls were three quarters human, so they ended up a little shorter than her mother, mostly free of fur except for on their arms and legs, the small of their backs and butt cheeks, and a patch on their midriffs just above the navel. Of the three, Daffodil was the tallest at just under 7', Marigold was next at about 6'9", and Tulip, our youngest, was 6'7".

Marigold's breasts were large and her fur golden like her mother's, while Tulip's breasts were smaller and her fur was light brown like the color of my hair, but Daffodil had inherited the big breasts and thick black fur of her grandmother. The girls' feet and hands were oversized, but not as big as Daisy's, just a little larger than mine. It was when I took the girls to visit the Shoshone village for the first time that Chief Two Eagles had dubbed me 'Tall Daughters'.

Daisy was 30 and her brother Julius was 12 when Black Rose took ill. The matriarch's black fur was now streaked with silver. She grew weak and was no longer strong enough to hunt, so Julius took over those duties; even at 12 he was 8 feet tall, and still growing. While Daisy looked half-human, Julius pretty much inherited the whole Sasquatch shebang and looked almost completely like his mother, except for his father's blue eyes.

Surrounded by Haggerty, her daughter and son, and her three granddaughters, Black Rose got the best of care during her final days before she quietly left the world in her sleep one night. After we buried Black Rose, everyone was heartbroken, but poor Julius was absolutely inconsolable. He would howl mournfully throughout the night. At first, Daisy howled with him, but eventually she moved beyond mourning the loss of her mother. Haggerty would try to talk to his son, but it did little good; after a few minutes, Julius would disappear into the forest for days at a time.

Haggerty passed not much later, and after that we wouldn't see Julius for weeks. We'd hear him, though. Deep in the night, we'd hear his forlorn howls. They were so mournful they scared me enough to give me goosebumps, and he was my own brother-in-law! The Shoshone heard him, too, and even though he still did some hunting for them from time to time, he still scared the bejesus out of them. They dubbed him 'Nightmare That Walks'.

When Julius did return to our little encampment, it would only be for a few hours. All my girls adored him, especially my middle daughter Daffodil. When he showed up, they'd feed him, groom him, and tend to whatever new wounds he might have acquired before he took off again. He'd learned to speak English along with my girls, but after Haggerty passed, he either forgot how or chose not to.

If Daisy or the girls wanted to speak to him, it had to be in Sasquatch language, otherwise he wouldn't respond. When I tried to speak to him, he just looked at me with sad eyes and said nothing, just stroked my face with his hand.

Julius continued to grow; by his 17th birthday he'd reached 10' tall, and easily 700 pounds. It was a shame that Haggerty didn't live to see his son full-grown; when Julius was born, Haggerty was tickled pink to have such a fine strapping son.

In the meantime, my girls were developing. I may have been biased because I'm their father, but their faces were very pretty. As they reached their teen years, I could tell they were all desirous of contact with males who were not their father or grandfather. Their interactions with Julius certainly demonstrated that. Daffodil especially continued to go out of her way to cater to him.

My girls desiring male companionship was what led Chief Two Eagles to arrange a meeting for Marigold and I to meet with a man named Seamus Bohannon and his father over in Newton, Washington. Like a lot of small towns in the Pacific Northwest, Newton had popped up about 10 years prior as a result of the logging industry. The proliferation of these towns mirrored the growth of nearby Seattle.

When I'd first walked the streets of Seattle, 40,000 people lived within its limits; now they numbered over 200,000. Hating the claustrophobic feeling of it, I only visited Seattle when I absolutely had to for banking reasons. Newton, although still claustrophobic, had far fewer residents, maybe 4,000, so it was almost tolerable.

The good news was, with Newton so close it was no longer necessary to go all the way to Seattle to find trading posts and fancy shops; Newton was less than a day's walk from our plank house. It was here that I'd taken Marigold to a lady's clothing store when we arrived the day before, and we'd ordered two custom-made dresses to fit her, um, unique figure.

Since I paid in gold, (I still panned occasionally, just for fun) the two seamstresses made sure to treat Marigold like a queen as they fitted and adjusted her two new dresses. One was a dark blue calico, and the other was dark green cotton. Today she was wearing the blue one, topped off by a nice bonnet. The seamstresses assured me it set off her blonde hair to its best advantage. I was optimistic; if today went well, the seamstresses might soon be making a wedding dress for my eldest girl.

As I walked down Newton's main street with my 20-year-old, she wore the hair on her head long; from under her white bonnet, it stretched all the way down her back. She was wearing lace-up ankle boots -- custom made for her oversized feet at the local shoemaker, which cost me $10 - she detested wearing them, but I reminded her we wanted to make a good impression, so for now, she acquiesced.

Just as we arrived at Fenton's Steakhouse, two red-haired men approached us. The older one spoke first, asking, "Would you be Adam Karpiak, the one Chief Two Eagles calls 'Tall Daughters'?" I looked up at Marigold's pretty face, took her hand and smiled. Not a lot of 6'9" women walking around these parts, so it would have been hard to deny.

"I'd say that's a pretty good guess. And you must be Darragh Bohannon."

"The same." We shook hands. "This here's my oldest boy Seamus." He nodded at the red-haired man next to him. Seamus was about 6'3" and muscular, with bright curly red hair; he also looked uncomfortable in a new formal suit that seemed a little tight on him.

He had one bright green eye on the right side of his face, with a patch over his left eye. From the looks of the facial scars surrounding the patch, it appeared he'd had some kind of accident that savaged the left side of his face. Nonetheless, his one eye was gazing at my daughter in a transfixed manner that was admiring, to say the least. I warmed to him immediately.

I introduced Marigold. "This is my oldest daughter Marigold. I apologize my wife Daisy couldn't join us, she's a country girl, averse to city crowds."

Darragh tipped his hat, "Ma'am." Then he gently punched his son in the arm, and hissed, "Say hello, ya great oaf! Do ya want the young miss to think yer addle-brained?"

Jolted from his reverie, Seamus took off his hat and managed to stammer, "H...hello, Marigold, it's very nice to meet you." Then almost as an afterthought, he extended his hand, and Marigold shook it.

My girl then surprised me and did a little curtsey, "It's very nice to meet you, Seamus." I reminded myself to thank the seamstresses that helped Mari with her dresses. When they found out she was meeting a man for possible marriage, they delightedly gave her a few hints on how to act. I certainly had no clue, and growing up in the wilderness with her parents, Daisy would never have learned anything like that.

When we entered the restaurant the headwaiter seated us at a table in the back, against the wall so we'd have some privacy. Darragh and I sat and chatted quietly as our two offspring got to know each other.

Turns out Darragh and his two sons, Seamus and Declan, had both been 'gandy dancers' - the term for Irish workers for the Union Pacific Railroad - laying track west for the transcontinental railroad until it was joined with the eastbound Central Pacific Railroad at Promontory Point, Utah in 1896. After the golden spike was driven, their job was done. They'd come west and gotten jobs as loggers, working the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Most recently, they'd been logging about 20 miles from the cedar plank house where Daisy and I lived.

Seamus's facial injury had resulted from an accident when a fatigued metal blade split on a two-man crosscut saw and one end whipped back, catching him in the face. He told Marigold he was lucky to be alive; he'd gotten off easy just losing an eye.

Marigold told him the injury didn't matter and that she thought he was very handsome, which made him blush. Darragh leaned over to me and asked, "How many other daughters would you be havin' again?" Seeing how the male-to-female ratio in the Seattle area was 9-to-1, this was not an unusual question. A man like me with daughters was in high demand, but Chief Two Eagles was very protective of my family. Hence, his endorsement of Bohannon's son meant a great deal.

I chuckled, "Three. They're all of marrying age; Marigold here's the eldest, she's 20, with Daffodil 19, and Tulip right behind at 18."

"Seamus here is 26, but he's painful shy. I also got one more boy, Declan, just turned 18. Unlike his brother, he's not shy at all. Bit of a wild spirit, he is, got it from his dear mother. She died of the pox some years back, God rest her soul."

I chuckled inwardly at his phrase 'wild spirit', and thought to myself that given my Sasquatch family, Declan would surely be mild by comparison.

We were enjoying a fine meal, right up until a drunken logger staggered up to our table and began to berate Seamus. "Well, well, well, if it isn't Cyclops Bohannon! With just the one eye, can ya even see well enough ta find your steak and eat it?"

Darragh's face darkened, and he growled, "Move along, Silas Oakley, nobody here wants yer company."

The elder Bohannon's words had little effect on the drunkard, only serving to goad the stupid sot on. Oakley then started in on Marigold. "And who's this then? Is Cyclops so blind he thinks this is a girl? Somebody's trying to trick him by putting a wild boar in a dress!"

I looked at Darragh and Seamus, and they both were just sitting there, stone-faced. Marigold, meanwhile, looked horrified, so I pushed my chair back and sprang to my feet, pointing to the door. "That's my daughter you're talking about, you drunken bastard, so you'd best be leaving before you say something you'll really regret."

Now that I was on my feet, I saw that Oakley was taller than me, standing about 6'4", but my wife was a full 7 feet; this oaf intimidated me not one damned bit. He took a step towards me, quickly reaching down with his right hand to pull a large hunting knife from the top of his boot, the point of which he held to my neck. "What are you going to do about it, little man? These two fellas ain't got the balls to cross me because I run their logging crew, and they know if they give me any shit I'll fire 'em."

I glanced at Marigold, and her horrified look had switched to something far more ominous. It was a look of fury I'd only seen one time from Daisy; the girls were only a few years old and playing outside when a couple of wolves started stalking them. I saw the look on Daisy's face right before she exploded and sent the wolves on their way. One ran off, but the other got thrown about 20 feet into the trunk of a redwood tree.

Every eye in the restaurant was on Oakley and me; some of the finer-dressed patrons were already making their way out the door. I spoke in a very low tone now, trying to avert what was I knew was going to turn out to be an ugly scene. "I'm warning you, Oakley, put that damned knife down and walk away, or you might live to regret it."

He laughed and announced to the restaurant patrons, "You hear that folks? This little pissant thinks he's going to hurt me! I'd say he's got another thing -" That's about as far as he got.

Flipping the entire table so dishes flew everywhere, Marigold stood up and lunged, grabbing the man's knife-wielding arm and savagely twisting it. I heard a 'pop' and suddenly it was hanging loosely at his side while an enraged Marigold jumped on top of him. Picking up his knife, she jammed it into his other arm and began pummeling his face with both fists. I tried pulling her off of him, but trust me, a 6'9" 290-pound enraged Sasquatch is fairly unstoppable, even one that was three-quarters human.

I looked at Darragh and Seamus and shouted, "HELP ME, DAMN YOU!" This seemed to awaken them from their shocked paralysis, and Darragh joined me in trying to hold Marigold back. Instead of Seamus joining in our efforts, however, he knelt down next to her and pleaded, "Marigold, please stop! He was just a stupid drunk, you're beautiful!" Seamus's words were enough to snap Marigold out of her rage, and she stopped cold. Holding her bloodied hands to her face, she began sobbing.

Her sobs shocked me more than her rage had. Crying was something Black Rose and Daisy never did. They'd expressed their sadness by quietly curling up in a ball, or hiding alone in a cave, or howling in grief. Now here was my three-quarters human girl, tears running down her face. I knelt and put my arms around her, murmuring, "It's OK, baby, it's OK." I stood up and gently led her out of the restaurant, back to our hotel room. I washed the blood off of her, then sat in a chair next to the bed and held her hand while she cried herself to sleep. After she'd dozed off, I went back to the restaurant to pay for damages.

Darragh and Seamus were long gone, as was Oakley. The local sheriff was there, and assured me no charges would be filed because everyone in the place had seen Oakley pull his knife on me. He told me the local doctor came and Oakley was alive, but just barely. Oakley's right arm was severely dislocated from his shoulder and probably useless for the rest of his life, and the knife wound in his left arm would have to be stitched up. The lawman said Oakley's face looked like a skinned buffalo carcass, but overall the doc thought he'd live. Too bad, you ask me.

Oakley had insulted my precious baby daughter and her beau, and threatened to assault me. As a young boy I was taught that a Karpiak won't be wronged, won't be insulted, won't be laid a hand on. We were taught never to do these things to other people, and to expect the same from them. Oakley did all three, so they could cut him into pieces and feed him to the damn wolves as far as I was concerned.

Marigold and I were up the next morning before sunrise. I'd rinsed the blood spatters out of the blue dress and let it dry overnight, now both dresses were rolled up neatly in a pack, along with her fancy ankle boots. Mari was barefoot again, wearing some oversized denim overalls I'd picked up at the Newton trading post some months back. Grabbing a few biscuits from the hotel kitchen, we filled our canteens and started walking back home in the cool of the morning. About halfway there, we stopped to eat some biscuits. Sitting on a log, Marigold started crying again.

"Daddy, I'm gonna be alone the rest of my life." Wrapping one arm around her (as much as I could, anyway) I lovingly stroked her hair.

"Mari, please don't feel that way. We'll find someone for you."

"But I really liked Seamus! He told me I was beautiful, and looked at me like he meant it."

I sighed, "He did seem like a nice man, my baby girl, but what happened kind of ruined it. That wasn't your fault though, that Oakley man caused it all."

She looked at me with tears streaming down her cheeks and asked, "Am I ugly, Daddy?" I stood up and bent over, looking her right in the eyes.

"Marigold Karpiak, you are a kind and beautiful woman, as pretty as your mother, and then some! Hell, even Seamus said so! I don't ever want to hear that coming out of your mouth again, do you understand me?" It seemed silly, scolding my daughter who could easily break me in half if she had a mind to, but I was her father, and it needed to be done.