“Should’ve gotten a flashlight,” Dewayne mumbled to himself. “Oh well, I’ll get those ‘youngins to take a look and give them a warning,” he said softly, worried their building plans might not work out quite like they’d hoped.
“Come on, Roscoe,” Dewayne said, heading back to the stairs. and starting up. “Remind me to tell them about the caves.” He hit the light and waited for the dog to clear the doorway before slamming the door. Heading back to his recliner, he saw that Laura was on the news now. He settled in his chair, putting his feet up. After grabbing the jar and taking a healthy sip, he put the lid on and tightened it up.
“If I was thirty years younger…” he mumbled as the pain hit, his chest feeling as if it was suddenly clamped in a vice.
He fumbled for his pocket, reaching for the nitro pills, and gasped in pain. The pill bottle fell out of his hand, hitting the floor, where it would be found a few days later.
Four
Curt was sleeping in the passenger seat while Andrea drove. They would be the first ones to arrive at the farm. Curt had been working late the entire week, making sure Gary knew the plan. On paper, opening up a new real estate office near Boonville looked good, and it would not only give him an opportunity to expand his business, but a reason to stay close to the farm. None of them had any large-scale farming experience, and they didn’t know the ranching side of the operation much either, other than what medications were used for what.
“Hun, wake up,” Andrea said, rubbing Curt’s shoulder.
“I’m awake,” Curt slurred, lying like a rug.
“We’re here. Next turn off is the farm.”
“Oh,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Was I out long?”
“Just an hour,” she said. “You’ve been burning the candle at both ends all week long, though. I figured you needed it.” She made the turn into the driveway, watching as the convoy behind her did the same.
“You used to work for four straight days, then get three off,” he said, rubbing his face. “This little bit of overtime makes me feel like a whiny little bitch.”
“Two things,” Andrea said, going slow so she wouldn’t kick up dust on the Suburbans behind her. “I got to sleep when I could on those four-day shifts.”
“What’s number two?” Curt asked, more coherent.
“Maybe you are being a whiny little bitch, but you’re my whiny little bitch, and I love you.”
“Um… I love you too,” Curt said in a flat tone that made Andrea giggle.
“I’m so glad we have Dewey around to teach us…” Andrea’s words trailed off as the she pulled up in front of the house.
Roscoe was laying in front of the screen door. He looked like he was in rough shape. He barely lifted his head up when he heard them, but he let out a lone howl that was full of mourning and sorrow. Curt and Andrea saw the front door behind the screen was open.
“What’s up with him?” Andrea said, turning the motor off.
Curt didn’t wait; he took off for the front porch. He was leery of the big hound dog, but this guy looked like he hadn’t eaten in awhile, and his skin was hanging off him. They hadn’t been gone that long.
“What is it, boy?” Curt asked, giving Roscoe a chance to startle upright if he wanted. He didn’t, so he closed the rest of the distance and touched the dog’s back over the spine.
Roscoe didn’t move, but Curt noted he could smell the dog. Trying to get the dog to roll over, he started checking for wounds. Roscoe was almost as heavy as Curt, so he didn’t get far. Instead, the big hound howled one more time and laid his head down.
“Oh man, what’s wrong with him?” Steven asked, putting a hand over his nose and mouth.
“I don’t know. Doesn’t look like he’s ate or drank in a while. He stinks something fierce,” Curt said.
“That’s not the dog you smell,” Dante said quietly, his face pale.
Andrea, Dante, and Leah exchanged looks, before Leah walked up to the screen door and banged on it loudly. “Mr. Langtry, Dewey! You in there?” she called.
A buzzing sound and a low murmur of voices was all any of them could hear.
“Dewey, we’re coming in,” Dante called, pushing to the front of the small crowd around the front door.
“Stay here,” Dante said to the others.
“What…?” Anna asked but her words trailed off, noticing flies all over the front window, tapping against the glass.
“I don’t know if you guys want to see this or not,” he said, then slipped inside.
It took Dante’s eyes a moment to adjust, and he swatted at something that flew into his face. The putrid smell got stronger, and the effects of decay became clearer. Waving at a mass of flies, he made his way into the living room, where he saw a still form in the recliner. Dewey must have been sitting there for a few days. He had one hand over his left side, almost like he had been clutching his chest. On the floor he saw a pill bottle. Knowing this could be natural causes, he had to know. He got close enough to confirm that Dewey was dead.
Curt and Steven stayed behind as the others left for the night, going to search for a hotel room. They had all planned on staying the night here, taking one of the upstairs rooms each couple, but most of them couldn’t bring themselves to do it the day they discovered Dewey’s corpse. Sorting through another man’s life and packing things up was almost as difficult as the cleanup. After alerting the authorities and the county coroner, things had happened fast. Getting ahold of LeBaron, they found out that Dewey had left instructions behind, as well as a last will and testament he had had drawn up after the sale of the farm.
LeBaron had been named executor and said in three months’ time the will would be read in a public venue, but since the trio of couples had already made the purchase of the farm, it was mostly paperwork on the country lawyer’s end he had to handle. None of the ladies wanted to stay the weekend, so Anna had ridden back with Andrea to the hotel, their feelings of excitement over staying at their own farm for the weekend, dashed.
The recliner had been taken out to a spot where Dewey had had fires before and had been doused with gasoline and burned. The men then opened all the doors and windows on the bottom story and started airing the place out. The old wooden floors were in remarkable shape, and they were able to clean the spot around where the recliner had been. Then they started shop vacuuming up all the dead flies, and any that were buzzing around the windows still.
“Tackle the bedroom tomorrow?” Steven asked, nearly falling over from exhaustion from the long, long day.
“You know what?” Curt asked suddenly, “Who’s been feeding the cattle and chickens?”
A look of horror slowly came across both men’s faces as they realized it had probably been four days since Dewayne had been out to tend to them. Taking flashlights, they headed to the chicken barn first. Dewayne had said he had about thirty layers, with almost one hundred growing out. He sold the eggs and meat birds at the local market, dropping them off once a week. They braced themselves at the thought of the stench that was about to hit them and went in, turning on the lights.
Startled squawks and clucking sounds reached them and, as their eyes adjusted to the brightness, they saw many happy and healthy birds.
“How…?” Steven started to ask, as the men made their way through the barn, stepping over the low fence that separated the layers from meaties.
“That,” Curt said, noticing three automatic deer feeders.
“That’s … kind of cool,” he said. “I don’t see any dead ones so far.”
Just then, a very confused rooster started crowing, making both men startle so bad they almost dropped their useless flashlights. Chuckling, they headed over.
“Eggs haven’t been collected in a few days, and the automatic watering system seems to be working,” Steven said, tapping on the line that ran to a row of PVC with a dozen nipples screwed into threaded T fittings.
“The old man was good. He set this up so he wouldn’t ha
ve to do a lot of manual labor,” Curt noted, “but I’m guessing this place could hold a whole lot more birds.”
“I’m betting it can, but don’t get too crazy thinking about minimal manual labor. That straw or hay he put down has to be shoveled out at some point, and more put down. If he had a bunch more, he’d have to do it all the time.”
“Dummy, he left us a little track steer thing,” Curt said. “I bet you he just shoos the chickens out of the way or cages them up and comes in and scrapes the ground clean and then starts back over.”
“That would work. God, I really wish we could have had a lot more time with him,” Steven said. “None of us are farmers…”
“I hear you. Do you think he’s got automatic feeders setup for the pigs and cattle?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me, but they’re outside and can probably forage a bit more. Want to check on them in the morning?”
“Don’t be a little bitch,” Curt chided, smiling. “We have to at least collect the eggs, right?”
“Yeah, we should do that. I hope he has room in the fridge… I did a rough count, and I’m betting he has at least sixty hens—not thirt—and he’s got a rooster in there, so they’re probably hatching out chicks or something.”
“Or something. Let’s go to the other side,” Curt said.
There were definitely more laying birds than Dewey had thought, and they were a lot friendlier than the meat birds who just scattered when they were near. Except for the half a dozen who would not get out of the nesting boxes that lined three quarters of the wall space. They’d found buckets with ‘eggs’ stenciled on the side. They used those and started filling the buckets to the halfway mark, hoping they were not crushing the ones on the bottom.
They tried once more to reach a hand under those birds nesting, but the ferocity of the mini velociraptors startled and scared them off enough, and they lost count of how many eggs they had after going over the 200 mark.
“My mom said you didn’t have to refrigerate chicken eggs for a while,” Steven said suddenly.
“I remember something about that too, but they’re refrigerated at the store, aren’t they?”
“Yeah, but I think they’re washed in bleach water or something,” Steven said. “Takes something off the shells that helps them last longer. Hell, I think it is like three weeks chicken eggs are incubated, or something. I’ve been reading.”
“Some kind of preppers we are,” Curt mumbled.
“Let’s check the feeders and get the eggs inside. It’s been a long day,” Steven said with a sigh.
“I know. I got up at 4 am to get this party started. Been pulling long nights so I can see about opening a new office out this direction.”
“I hear you. I talked to Luis, told him we found something else, but not where yet. He is going to run the crews for the next two weeks while the house is finished. So I’m good out here. We can get the excavators going as planned whenever we…”
“I know,” Curt said picking up the drifting thought. “Feels weird to be out here alone. The first night. It is our place, but we just found Dewey and everything. Like we’re tap dancing on his grave.”
Steven shivered and nodded. They headed out, shutting off the lights, forgetting to check the feeders, and went into the house.
“Do you want to tackle Dewey’s room after we check on the rest of the animals?” Curt asked.
“I’m so tired now. I don’t even remember if we did that already or not. I’m going to get my sleeping bag and find a clean spot on the floor.”
“I think I’ll join you; just not sleeping on the living room floor,” he said, shuddering.
“You check on the dog?” Curt asked.
“He’s still on the porch, but he ate two bowls of food and had drank about five gallons of water the last time I walked by. I filled his dish back up. He’s still looking down the road, looking for Dewey.”
“Poor boy,” Curt said. “Roscoe, you want to come inside?”
A low ‘woof’ came from outside the screen door, and Steven opened it. The big hound dog came in and flopped on the floor, right next to the spot the recliner used to sit. They watched as the big dog let out a heavy sigh and fell asleep instantly.
Five
Saturday, the rest of the family came back to the farm. They marveled at how much work had been done on the cleanup, and the doctors of course decided to re-scrub the floor. They had stayed at a hotel nearly forty minutes away and came back to a sight they had not expected. Curt was shirtless, wearing an apron, cooking up a cast iron skillet worth of eggs. Six plates had been laid out on the counter beside him, already full of fried potatoes.
“How was the hotel?” Steven asked, kissing Anna.
“Boring. We all have a major case of the guilts, leaving you boys here alone,” she said, shuddering.
“Come on, this is our bugout, our retirement home,” Dante said aloud.
“Hey, Hun,” Andrea said, sliding her arms under the apron and hugging Curt tightly.
“Hey, and about that … retirement and bugout... Um … there is something we didn’t think about in all of this. The animals cannot go without some kind of daily care and checking up on things. Not with Dewey gone.”
“Oh, shit,” Leah said. “Who is going to teach us how to do this kind of stuff?”
“Listen, we all hunt, fish, and camp. We can figure out feeding the animals pretty easy,” Steven said. “It’s the planting, harvesting, and butchering I’m worried about, to be honest.”
“We know how to butcher animals; we do deer all the time,” Andrea said.
“Yeah, but we have most of a barn full of chickens. Do we want to do those one at a time, or do we figure out if Dewey had a processor for his livestock?”
“Good point,” Dante said. “Can’t we hire someone to come out here and help with things until we get set up?”
“Since we’re all here,” Andrea said, holding plates up for Curt to fill, “I guess Curt and I have something we’d like to share.”
He shut off the stove and turned to the group. “I think I’m going to be out here for a couple of weeks. I’m thinking of opening another real estate office on this side of the state. I don’t know if it will make big bucks like the first one is doing, but it’ll be a good tax write off, and I can help out around here. Andrea’s thinking of going back to four on and three off and making the drive from here. We’re not selling our other house, but in the interim, this might get us over the gap.”
“And Steven is here to get the construction crews rolling,” Anna told the group. “I’m also between modeling gigs, and I don’t have a tournament for three weeks. So, I can help.”
“We’re here for the weekends for sure,” Dante said, taking a plate and handing it to Leah. “Maybe we can finagle four on and three off too.”
“I’m not sure they’d let three out of a dozen of the ER’s finest suddenly change schedules; besides, we have to keep this on the down--”
The phone ringing startled everybody, and Leah nearly dropped her plate of food. She put it on the table, and everybody looked at each other. Rushing to the wall between the upstairs and downstairs, Leah grabbed an old rotary phone and answered it.
“Hello? No… Sorry to tell you this way, but Mr. Langtry passed away. Eggs?” She turned to the group. “Do we have any eggs to sell?” The men nodded, pointing at the buckets. “Ok,” Leah said, talking into the phone. “We have a bunch here, probably close to twenty dozen?” The guys were nodding at her. “Uh huh, yes, I’m one of the new owners. Well, I certainly don’t mind,” she said into the phone, smiling. “No, it’s just, this is all so new to us. We were hoping to have a long while with Dewey. Oh, I know, I didn’t know him for long, but he was a very special person. Sure. Where do you want us to meet you? Uh huh. Got it. We will be there right after breakfast. Uh huh, ok, bubye.”
“All sugar and spice.” Dante smirked.
“Let’s eat,” Steven said, sitting down. “I’m hungry.”
&
nbsp; Roscoe let out a small woof from outside the screen door, so before Anna sat down, she went out there. He was pushing his empty food dish around, looking up at her as she got near.
“I got this,” she said, less hesitant about getting near the big boy now she had gotten to know him better.
Scooping food into his dish, she put it down as the hound lay down, the dish between his front paws. He started eating immediately, so she went in and saw everyone sitting at the table.
“You waited for me?” she asked, smiling.
“This time,” Dante told her, grinning, and caught an elbow from Leah for his troubles.
The farmer’s market was pretty easy to find. It was outside of town and on the county line. Leah and Dante had decided to make this run while the others worked, checking on the rest of the livestock, cleaning the upstairs, and washing bedding, blankets, and pillows. The rooms were not dirty, but they had a layer of dust on them from sitting empty for so long.
“Howdy,” a cheery woman said as they carried the buckets of eggs inside.
“Hi there!” Leah said. “We’re looking for Kerry?”
“That’s her over there,” she said, pointing. “Blonde hair coming out of a John Deere cap.”
“That’s half the people here,” Dante muttered, getting a smirk out of his wife.
“Thank you,” Leah told her. “Here, smartass, you carry this,” Leah handed the bucket to Dante before blazing a path through the crowded room to the woman who had been pointed out.
She was talking to a vendor, and when the guy selling produce turned their way, his eyes opening wide, Kerry turned around.
“Hi, I’m Leah; this is my husband Dante,” she said, holding out her hand.
“My goodness!” Kerry said. She walked up and wrapped her arms around a stunned Leah, then turned and gave one to Dante, who held the buckets out wide in muted surprise.
“I heard there were more of you,” Kerry said. “Never mind, I’m Kerry. I’m the … well, the manager of the market here. I’m not sure how much Dewey had a chance to tell y'all, so let me know if you need anything.”
Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 1 | The Farm Page 3
