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Description
The Mana Farms story line frequently contains mature language, topics, and situations. The characters within are fictional beings with weaknesses and faults, and I cannot promise you that you will like them for what they believe, say and do.

The first book in the MANA series will be published with a tentative release date of May 1 2012. Join the community of MANA readers! Start from the beginning. (New readers, it is strongly recommended you begin this series from the very first story...which can be found here: [link] ) Thanks!

PREVIOUSLY ON:

Wyatt was twenty-one. He had never been drafted, he had never played juniors, and while the broadcasters attempted to reassure fans that the new guy had played college hockey before they also carefully avoided admitting that it hadn’t been nearly long enough to justify putting him in the lineup. They shrugged and you could hear it in their voices over the radio. Funny things happened when a roster was depleted. Wyatt Miller would make a good story for a game. The nobody playing a night of professional hockey. Maribelle, the team’s seamstress, quickly sewed all the letters of his name onto the back of a jersey with a random number installed, mindful enough to keep her smirk to herself. Miller was only six letters long and a good thing too, or else the Warriors might not have boarded the bus in time.

Wyatt was twenty-one, but he projected his voice like an eagle and he sent the puck as softly across the ice as a deep swell rolling across the sea. Brett liked him immediately. When the coach considered dropping Miller in favour of a more qualified amateur try out the next game, Brett and the rest of the team had sulked enough that coach had thrown his hands into the air and asked Wyatt if he wanted a different number. Wyatt shrugged and the number stuck.

Wyatt was number twenty-one and it was lucky.

Twenty-two was not.

The whole of the hockey world would wonder aloud years later when Brett North was being held down on the ice by a trio of officials, how he could do what he had just done to Marty May, how he could give up everything, after having seen Wyatt Miller lose half of his face when they were both just kids in the minors. How do you leap off of the bench, get thrown out of the game and suspended for four more, in defense of Wyatt Miller, the guy you played Halo with as well as hockey, and then take down Marty May?

Brett eyed him now. His sinuses were blown apart. His left cheekbone and mandible fractured. For weeks afterward, he had eaten through a straw. The scars had twisted and hollowed out a face that was held together by plates and bolts. They might have called him the Phantom, but Wyatt couldn’t sing a note. He still preferred shakes. He still drank them with a straw. Green straws. The bendy kind. He still had no concept of the noise an empty cup made through a green bendy straw.

“What are you doing here, Miller?”

They were the same age, but Wyatt looked ancient. Brett smiled at him. A handsome ancient, like a great roman statue aged by fires and riots and waves of North Africans and their elephants, missing pieces, but still a marble masterpiece. Wyatt turned his partially disfigured face and his bright blue eyes still sparkled through it. No amount of screws could remove the indentation of a solid metal dasher or the hungry glint of a bored kid from Saskatchewan. “I saw the horses put you back together.” He tossed his empty shake into a nearby trashcan.

“Yeah,” Brett replied.

Wyatt said nothing in reply. Brett glanced at him. “Screws not doing their job?”

“Does it look it?” Miller grinned in reply, his jaw twisted, and if not for the sparkle in those robin egg blue eyes of his, it might have been menacing. He watched Brett lead the small black colt, Martin StLouis, out into the breezeway. “Tommy said you’d be around this one.”

“Marty is special”

“He said that too.”

They both tilted their heads and watched how the injured colt moved.

“Does he have hardware?” Miller asked, scratching absently at the dimples in his banged up face. His voice was as graveled as a country road, low, the words as misshapen in their sound as the jawline that manufactured them.

“Nope. If he did, he wouldn’t be in the racing barn.”

“Huh.”

Brett glanced at him again, more seriously this time. “What are you doing here, Miller?”

Wyatt stayed silent again. He was quieter now that talking took effort. When he was twenty-one, he and Brett had talked more than a pair of parrots.

“I haven’t seen you since the call up. Six years,” Brett pressed.

“Not my fault you couldn’t stay in touch.”

“We tweeted.”

“Not the same, Brett.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were dating.”

Wyatt took a deep breath and gave him a long hard look. Brett extended his hands and the black colt stopped and turned around to take a long look at him as well. “What? You chose Gerry. That was that. That was your fucking doing. Not mine.”

“Well then I guess we were dating, and screwing, and picking out room colours, Brett, because I didn’t realize I had to choose between my roommates.”

“There shouldn’t have been a choice. Gerard was wrong.”

“So were you,” Wyatt shot back.

Brett grimaced. “You still keep in touch with her?”

“They’re married, it goes with the territory,” Wyatt admitted. He reached up and rubbed at his misshapen jaw again. “He plays with Ottawa now. Got traded last year. They live just across the river in Hull. Little farmhouse. Jessica scrapbooks, bakes cookies, buys shoes. They have a charity for kids with cancer.”

“How’s my son?” Brett said softly.

Wyatt held his breath for a minute. “He’s fine.” Wyatt looked away to the black colt who stood patiently looking out at the sunshine beyond the walls of the barn. “Gerry is good to him. Could be the guilt, I don’t know, but he’s good to him.”

Brett’s face blanched.

“Why don’t you walk the horse and we’ll talk,” Wyatt offered, “I’ll show you pictures.”

Brett grimaced and his hand tightened around the lead shank. He and Martin StLouis started walking. Wyatt came up beside him, ignoring the stares of the grooms and stablehands. His phone was lit up, he was padding through pictures on it. “Here.”

Brett snatched the phone from his old teammate and glanced at the photograph on the screen. Three years old. Loose copper curls, red cheeks, eyes like two gold coins, a few freckles. He looked nothing like her or Gerry. He looked like Tommy. Young and happy, smiling through the window of a playhouse in a large generous backyard. Eating an icecream. Staring down at the skates on his feet as he stood uncomfortably on a sheet of ice.

“Can you email me those?” Brett croaked.

“She’d kill me if she knew I’d shown them to you, Brett,” Wyatt replied.

Brett leaned against the black colt for support, and Marty obliged him. They’d had the kid because Brett could feel her slipping away and all it had gotten him was the experience of losing two people instead of one.

Wyatt looked them both over. “Look, like I said, I don’t know if Gerry does it out of guilt or what, but the kid looks happy, right?”

“Not the same, Miller,” Brett replied. He dropped Wyatt’s phone in a trash can as he and the black horse walked by it.

Wyatt quietly reached over the can and fished it back out. He wiped at the smooth touchscreen with the corner of his shirt. Brett watched and waited. The moment the phone was back in his pocket, Brett handed the colt’s lead shank to his teammate, turned and punched the wall of the barn. His knuckles came back bloody.

Wyatt sighed. “You’re doing everything right, Brett. Got a good job now. Got a better rep. In a couple of years, take her back to court.”

“What are you talking about?” Brett snapped. “Do you know what I do for a living? I’m a jockey now, Wyatt. I don’t have a permanent home. I travel nonstop. I have a fucking eating disorder and I work for my brother.” Brett paced back and forth, he pointed a finger at his teammate’s chest. “Do you know how hard Tommy tried? He came and he tried, and the bitch fights back. You’d think Gerry, if he’s such a guiltridden dude as you say, would go, come on, Jess, give the guy his kid right? Haven’t we fucked Brett North enough?”

“Jessica was scared. The courts had every right to believe her.”

Brett snorted.

“You tried to kill Marty May. You threatened to kill Gerry.”

“Not Tommy.”

“They always go with the mother,” Wyatt answered softly.

“And who else did they go with?”

Wyatt looked away for a minute.

“Don’t tell me that’s not fucked up. Don’t tell me he’s feeling all shamed and guilty and taking good care of Liam for my sake.”

“Get married, Brett,” Wyatt replied, “Get married, and get some time with Liam.”

“Working on that,” Brett muttered.

Wyatt raised an eyebrow. Brett shot him a dangerous look. “What are you doing here, Miller?” he asked again. “What? To show me pictures of my kid? Some epic roadtrip to heal my heart like some artsy film. What is this? Elizabethtown? The Descendants?”

“Had you seen Liam?” 

Brett grimaced.

“That’s what I thought. Now try to act a little more grateful that I’m here.” Wyatt gave his distorted smile again. “And, by the way, I’m working.”

“Working?”

“Working.”

“I thought you were-”

“Helping out disabled kids? Yeah, yeah, but then I heard you were riding, and making the big greens again. Figured if Brett can get a big job in the industry without any real background in it...”

“Like your stint in hockey?”

“Exactly.”

“What happened to hockey?”

“Oh well, I figured disabled kids would find my ugly mug inspiring, ya know?” Wyatt sighed. “Turns out I’m scary.”

“You are Miller. You’re a very scary man.” Brett glanced at him. Wyatt Miller was grinning broadly and the scars didn’t help. “It was Tommy, wasn’t it? You’re still as social as a prom queen. I bet you two make such a gay pair.”

“And you’re as whiny as the runner up. And I’m telling him you said that.”

“What magical job did Tomas whip out of his ass this time?”

Wyatt made a few dramatic punching motions, “Enforcing. Gotta protect the star players.”

“Two, Miller, two horses worth something, and this one is lame. The rest are losers,” Brett corrected. He watched Wyatt crack open a beer and offer it to the black colt. He shook his head. “And it’s security, Wyatt. Not enforcers. Horses don’t have enforcers.”

NEXT ON:

Description
The Mana Farms story line frequently contains mature language, topics, and situations. The characters within are fictional beings with weaknesses and faults, and I cannot promise you that you will like them for what they believe, say and do.

The first book in the MANA series will be published with a tentative release date of May 1 2012. Join the community of MANA readers! Start from the beginning. (New readers, it is strongly recommended you begin this series from the very first story...which can be found here: [link] ) Thanks!

PREVIOUSLY ON:

Wyatt was twenty-one. He had never been drafted, he had never played juniors, and while the broadcasters attempted to reassure fans that the new guy had played college hockey before they also carefully avoided admitting that it hadn’t been nearly long enough to justify putting him in the lineup. They shrugged and you could hear it in their voices over the radio. Funny things happened when a roster was depleted. Wyatt Miller would make a good story for a game. The nobody playing a night of professional hockey. Maribelle, the team’s seamstress, quickly sewed all the letters of his name onto the back of a jersey with a random number installed, mindful enough to keep her smirk to herself. Miller was only six letters long and a good thing too, or else the Warriors might not have boarded the bus in time.

Wyatt was twenty-one, but he projected his voice like an eagle and he sent the puck as softly across the ice as a deep swell rolling across the sea. Brett liked him immediately. When the coach considered dropping Miller in favour of a more qualified amateur try out the next game, Brett and the rest of the team had sulked enough that coach had thrown his hands into the air and asked Wyatt if he wanted a different number. Wyatt shrugged and the number stuck.

Wyatt was number twenty-one and it was lucky.

Twenty-two was not.

The whole of the hockey world would wonder aloud years later when Brett North was being held down on the ice by a trio of officials, how he could do what he had just done to Marty May, how he could give up everything, after having seen Wyatt Miller lose half of his face when they were both just kids in the minors. How do you leap off of the bench, get thrown out of the game and suspended for four more, in defense of Wyatt Miller, the guy you played Halo with as well as hockey, and then take down Marty May?

Brett eyed him now. His sinuses were blown apart. His left cheekbone and mandible fractured. For weeks afterward, he had eaten through a straw. The scars had twisted and hollowed out a face that was held together by plates and bolts. They might have called him the Phantom, but Wyatt couldn’t sing a note. He still preferred shakes. He still drank them with a straw. Green straws. The bendy kind. He still had no concept of the noise an empty cup made through a green bendy straw.

“What are you doing here, Miller?”

They were the same age, but Wyatt looked ancient. Brett smiled at him. A handsome ancient, like a great roman statue aged by fires and riots and waves of North Africans and their elephants, missing pieces, but still a marble masterpiece. Wyatt turned his partially disfigured face and his bright blue eyes still sparkled through it. No amount of screws could remove the indentation of a solid metal dasher or the hungry glint of a bored kid from Saskatchewan. “I saw the horses put you back together.” He tossed his empty shake into a nearby trashcan.

“Yeah,” Brett replied.

Wyatt said nothing in reply. Brett glanced at him. “Screws not doing their job?”

“Does it look it?” Miller grinned in reply, his jaw twisted, and if not for the sparkle in those robin egg blue eyes of his, it might have been menacing. He watched Brett lead the small black colt, Martin StLouis, out into the breezeway. “Tommy said you’d be around this one.”

“Marty is special”

“He said that too.”

They both tilted their heads and watched how the injured colt moved.

“Does he have hardware?” Miller asked, scratching absently at the dimples in his banged up face. His voice was as graveled as a country road, low, the words as misshapen in their sound as the jawline that manufactured them.

“Nope. If he did, he wouldn’t be in the racing barn.”

“Huh.”

Brett glanced at him again, more seriously this time. “What are you doing here, Miller?”

Wyatt stayed silent again. He was quieter now that talking took effort. When he was twenty-one, he and Brett had talked more than a pair of parrots.

“I haven’t seen you since the call up. Six years,” Brett pressed.

“Not my fault you couldn’t stay in touch.”

“We tweeted.”

“Not the same, Brett.”

“Well, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were dating.”

Wyatt took a deep breath and gave him a long hard look. Brett extended his hands and the black colt stopped and turned around to take a long look at him as well. “What? You chose Gerry. That was that. That was your fucking doing. Not mine.”

“Well then I guess we were dating, and screwing, and picking out room colours, Brett, because I didn’t realize I had to choose between my roommates.”

“There shouldn’t have been a choice. Gerard was wrong.”

“So were you,” Wyatt shot back.

Brett grimaced. “You still keep in touch with her?”

“They’re married, it goes with the territory,” Wyatt admitted. He reached up and rubbed at his misshapen jaw again. “He plays with Ottawa now. Got traded last year. They live just across the river in Hull. Little farmhouse. Jessica scrapbooks, bakes cookies, buys shoes. They have a charity for kids with cancer.”

“How’s my son?” Brett said softly.

Wyatt held his breath for a minute. “He’s fine.” Wyatt looked away to the black colt who stood patiently looking out at the sunshine beyond the walls of the barn. “Gerry is good to him. Could be the guilt, I don’t know, but he’s good to him.”

Brett’s face blanched.

“Why don’t you walk the horse and we’ll talk,” Wyatt offered, “I’ll show you pictures.”

Brett grimaced and his hand tightened around the lead shank. He and Martin StLouis started walking. Wyatt came up beside him, ignoring the stares of the grooms and stablehands. His phone was lit up, he was padding through pictures on it. “Here.”

Brett snatched the phone from his old teammate and glanced at the photograph on the screen. Three years old. Loose copper curls, red cheeks, eyes like two gold coins, a few freckles. He looked nothing like her or Gerry. He looked like Tommy. Young and happy, smiling through the window of a playhouse in a large generous backyard. Eating an icecream. Staring down at the skates on his feet as he stood uncomfortably on a sheet of ice.

“Can you email me those?” Brett croaked.

“She’d kill me if she knew I’d shown them to you, Brett,” Wyatt replied.

Brett leaned against the black colt for support, and Marty obliged him. They’d had the kid because Brett could feel her slipping away and all it had gotten him was the experience of losing two people instead of one.

Wyatt looked them both over. “Look, like I said, I don’t know if Gerry does it out of guilt or what, but the kid looks happy, right?”

“Not the same, Miller,” Brett replied. He dropped Wyatt’s phone in a trash can as he and the black horse walked by it.

Wyatt quietly reached over the can and fished it back out. He wiped at the smooth touchscreen with the corner of his shirt. Brett watched and waited. The moment the phone was back in his pocket, Brett handed the colt’s lead shank to his teammate, turned and punched the wall of the barn. His knuckles came back bloody.

Wyatt sighed. “You’re doing everything right, Brett. Got a good job now. Got a better rep. In a couple of years, take her back to court.”

“What are you talking about?” Brett snapped. “Do you know what I do for a living? I’m a jockey now, Wyatt. I don’t have a permanent home. I travel nonstop. I have a fucking eating disorder and I work for my brother.” Brett paced back and forth, he pointed a finger at his teammate’s chest. “Do you know how hard Tommy tried? He came and he tried, and the bitch fights back. You’d think Gerry, if he’s such a guiltridden dude as you say, would go, come on, Jess, give the guy his kid right? Haven’t we fucked Brett North enough?”

“Jessica was scared. The courts had every right to believe her.”

Brett snorted.

“You tried to kill Marty May. You threatened to kill Gerry.”

“Not Tommy.”

“They always go with the mother,” Wyatt answered softly.

“And who else did they go with?”

Wyatt looked away for a minute.

“Don’t tell me that’s not fucked up. Don’t tell me he’s feeling all shamed and guilty and taking good care of Liam for my sake.”

“Get married, Brett,” Wyatt replied, “Get married, and get some time with Liam.”

“Working on that,” Brett muttered.

Wyatt raised an eyebrow. Brett shot him a dangerous look. “What are you doing here, Miller?” he asked again. “What? To show me pictures of my kid? Some epic roadtrip to heal my heart like some artsy film. What is this? Elizabethtown? The Descendants?”

“Had you seen Liam?” 

Brett grimaced.

“That’s what I thought. Now try to act a little more grateful that I’m here.” Wyatt gave his distorted smile again. “And, by the way, I’m working.”

“Working?”

“Working.”

“I thought you were-”

“Helping out disabled kids? Yeah, yeah, but then I heard you were riding, and making the big greens again. Figured if Brett can get a big job in the industry without any real background in it...”

“Like your stint in hockey?”

“Exactly.”

“What happened to hockey?”

“Oh well, I figured disabled kids would find my ugly mug inspiring, ya know?” Wyatt sighed. “Turns out I’m scary.”

“You are Miller. You’re a very scary man.” Brett glanced at him. Wyatt Miller was grinning broadly and the scars didn’t help. “It was Tommy, wasn’t it? You’re still as social as a prom queen. I bet you two make such a gay pair.”

“And you’re as whiny as the runner up. And I’m telling him you said that.”

“What magical job did Tomas whip out of his ass this time?”

Wyatt made a few dramatic punching motions, “Enforcing. Gotta protect the star players.”

“Two, Miller, two horses worth something, and this one is lame. The rest are losers,” Brett corrected. He watched Wyatt crack open a beer and offer it to the black colt. He shook his head. “And it’s security, Wyatt. Not enforcers. Horses don’t have enforcers.”

NEXT ON: