The Haul
The Muddy Way
Tales from Somartin’s Soil
Early Spring
A churned-up track cuts through Șomartin’s wild edge. Spring melt has drowned it in shin-deep mud. Gnarled oaks claw at a gray drizzle, the Carpathians a brooding smudge beyond.
Corey’s ’90s Dacia SUV, rust-pitted warhorse, squats low, hitched to a borrowed trailer sagging with firewood and a sloshing keg of homebrew. The Saxon house looms a half-mile off, its barn waiting to become a brewery. Woodsmoke threads from the village.
Corey slumps in the driver’s seat, engine idling, squinting north through the streaked windshield. The smart play is clear — unhitch the trailer, spin the rig, roll clean to the yard. But that old bullheaded spark roars louder: Forward’s the way. Always is.
He stomps the gas. Tires claw muck. The Dacia lurches ahead, trailer swaying like a drunk on a tightrope.
Seventy-five meters on, the mud bites hard. Rims sink. Sludge sucks the chassis. Engine whines as Corey guns it. Nothing.
He hops out, boots slurping. “Mud’s a bastard,” he mutters. Planks scavenged from the trailer get shoved under the tires. Hands claw wet earth. Sweat mixes with drizzle. Thirty minutes of revving, rocking, swearing — no give. The Dacia sits axle-deep, stubborn as ever.
A shadow cuts the haze. Lukas, sixteen, ambles up, a wiry mutt named Max trotting at his heel. “Stuck, huh?” he says with a smirk.
Corey wipes his brow. “Aye. Mud’s got teeth today.”
Ten minutes later a 4-wheeler’s growl rumbles through the oaks. Antonio, grizzled, beard like steel wool, rolls up with rope coiled on the rack. He hooks it to the Dacia’s bumper, guns the throttle, and the rig lurches free, trailer swaying wild but holding.
Corey cracks the keg, pours dark ale into a tin cup, and hands it to Antonio. “Quiet voices win,” he rasps, a wry grin cracking his face. “Should’ve listened.”
Antonio sips and grunts, “Staying long?”
“Long enough to root — and hear.”
Iris edges into view, five, sharp-eyed, dragging a stick she has already decided is a wand. Lukas flops on a stump. Max sniffs the mud. Corey unhitches the trailer and rumbles toward the Saxon yard, mud trailing like a hard-won badge.
In the yard he unloads — firewood stacked rough, keg rolled to the barn. He pulls a battered journal from the dash and sketches a wheel half-sunk in muck.
Iris steps closer. Lukas grins. “Thought you’d sink for good.”
Corey chuckles low. “Mud’s a game. Play it right, it lets go.”
Antonio snorts. “Game? Nearly lost your heap.”
Corey’s grin widens. “Lost’s half the fun — keeps you sharp.”
Iris twirls her stick, eyes glinting. “You laugh at mud?”
“Aye, girl. Laugh’s the rope that pulls you free when planks don’t.”
He picks a splinter off the stack and holds it down to her. “That one’s got a song in it. See if you can hear it.”
Mugs clink. The drizzle eases. A slit of sun breaks through and the mud gleams.
Corey lifts his cup. “To the haul — and the next.”
Mitakuye Oyasin.
Now our minds are one.
In Harmony, Kevin