Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 1 | The Farm

by Craven III, Boyd

  Waiting at the door, he saw the secretary’s desk empty, and knocked.

  “Good, you’re here,” the hospital administrator said as he opened the door and backed up.

  He looked like he was in a full hazmat suit with a tank of oxygen on his back.

  Dante almost burst out laughing. “I’m going to guess that I’m quarantined for two weeks?” he asked.

  The administrator nodded. “You don’t even have to sign the paperwork, I just… I’m sorry. I wanted to tell you in person. Your friends and family are the heart and soul of the ER, and the staffing is going to be horribly hard to work without you three, but we have to do it. It’s for the greater good.”

  “Greater good…” Dante repeated, hating the words. “I understand, I’ve been in my office since Leah and Andrea found out, trying not to potentially infect folks in case I got the icky sticky.”

  “Icky sticky?” The administrator’s eyebrows rose as he said the words.

  “They haven’t officially named the virus yet, as far as I’ve heard, so I made something up for myself.” He chuckled behind the mask. “Ok, as soon as my test comes back, let me know. We might not have to quarantine for the full two weeks, you know.”

  “That’s true, but since we don’t have the incubation period nailed down, we’re going with two weeks. You’ll have to have a negative swab test before we can let you guys back in.”

  “Hey, it’s ok, there’s been puzzles and an Xbox game I’ve been wanting to play,” Dante said with a grin. “Can you alert my team for me?”

  “Sure, anything I can do to help. If you and Leah need anything, just call me. I know I can be a pain in the ass in board meetings, but I really like you guys and want you coming back with all tests clear.”

  “If it wasn’t against man law, and quarantine rules, I’d hug ya,” Dante said, chuckling again.

  “Yeah, no, we can’t do that. Hospital rules of propriety and…”

  “I’m messing with you. I’ll see you later. Thanks, boss.”

  Both Andrea and the doc duo loaded covered trailers at their houses, but what they needed to do more than anything else at that point was rest their bodies and minds, devouring all the news and info they could about the virus. It seemed it could be deadly to the very sick or old, more so than any other group, but what had been scaring them was how the individual states were starting to close down businesses. Michigan had a governor named Gretchen who decided to shut down almost everything for a month, except for outdoor exercise, but it’s so cold, no one did. Lunacy.

  She was not even the only one, though she was one of the worst. The borders were closing, and imports were stopping. That really put a damper on the group's plans to add to their medical supplies. The other thing that had been picking up had been protests and outright riots in the northwestern states, and another incident in Wisconsin had people on edge. And all of this was happening in an election year, which added a whole new level of crazy.

  The group was conservative for sure, but none were very political because they had spent almost all of their free time on their jobs and businesses. Then Dante found some eBay listings for used medical equipment.

  “Hey Curt,” Dante said when he picked up the phone. “You busy?”

  “Not at the moment, just going through the new office space in town,” he said.

  “Listen, I found some reconditioned medical equipment on eBay that’d be perfect for our new spot at the farm, but it’s getting shipped. Should I go ahead, and have it sent here, or to the farm?”

  “We don’t want anything big shipped to the farm directly, do we?” Curt asked.

  “That was what I was worried about, honestly,” Dante said.

  “How about you ship it here to my new office space? I have a big bay door in the back. As long as they have a lift gate, I can take the deliveries here and we can trailer it to the farm.”

  “That sounds good actually. It’ll add a layer of protection in case somebody gets nosy.”

  “Are you worried about the government going after people who stocked up on medical supplies?” Curt asked.

  “There’s been rumblings of that, but I haven’t heard of any of it actually happening. Just the President talking to the folks on the distribution side who are selling the products to China instead of US companies, at least for now.”

  “What are you ordering?” Curt asked, curious.

  “Examining tables, stretchers, IV stands, that kind of thing. I found an old emergency medical center who went bankrupt and is selling the equipment to cover their debts.”

  “You’re going to spend an arm and a leg! Are you sure--”

  “This stuff is pennies on the dollar and shouldn’t raise any eyebrows. If asked, we could always tell them that we’re setting up a private practice, which is essentially true.”

  “You know, if we opened it up to the public, the area around us would rejoice and throw us a party, right?”

  “But we don’t want everybody to know what we’re doing,” Dante said. “It’s a weird balance. Someday it’d be nice to retire from the hospital and do some doctoring at a less hectic pace, but I’m not sure we’re ready for that yet. Hey, did that last shipment come in from Mexico from our friend at the pharmacia?”

  “Yesterday. We moved the boxes into the basement on a pallet so it wouldn’t get overheated.”

  “Good, a lot of it was medicine. I know I can still order stuff here from our vendor, but I like having a supply we didn’t have to have records of.”

  “Someday we will though, if we have to use any of the heavier pain meds,” Curt said with a sigh.

  “I already got that covered,” Dante said, “in my personal preps. Only Leah knows for sure, but I honestly don’t care if the rest of the group knows.”

  “Ok. Listen, um… how are you and Leah feeling?” Curt asked. “I talk to Andrea a couple of times a day and she seems to be doing fine, but I haven’t really asked…”

  “Don’t feel guilty man,” Dante said with a chuckle. “There’s a million things you three are doing at the farm, and honestly, the way the virus is going through the city, y'all are better off where you are.”

  “I have to come into town to do some checks at the office, but then I’m headed straight back. I am going to be pulling one of the trailers back with me, Anna’s. It’ll be empty, so I’ll take yours or ours, depending if you guys have stuff ready to come to the farm.”

  “The real question is, do we have room to put it away?”

  Curt laughed over the line. “The basement is finished, and the cabins are getting the final trim work done. We’re thinking of doing a small steel building over the extended slab.”

  “Thinking about that elevator idea we talked about?” Dante asked.

  “Yeah, it’d be nice to be able to back up a truck and just shoot pallets worth of stuff to the basement on a dumb waiter. I guess it isn’t going to be horrible.”

  “That sounds good. Listen, if you get more pictures or video of the cave, I’d appreciate it.”

  “I’ll send you some now. Angelica and Anna have both been trying to map things out, but they’re scared to go more than a few feet into the fissure. With bigger lights rigged they can see it’s not a huge area, but it was carved out of the rock by that spring. It connects to other parts on the property if I had to guess.”

  “You know, having that there… Kind of insane, right?”

  “I think it’s pretty cool,” Curt admitted.

  “Ok, well, this auction ends soon. I’ll text you when I know more - and send me your address there.”

  “Sounds good. Later, man.”

  Dante went to work. The news was on in his home office while Leah puttered in the other spare bedroom, sorting through their supplies. He’d have to tell her they needed to finish filling the trailer so they could take most of their stuff to the farm soon, but he stopped when he saw what was happening to the DOW and NASDAQ.

  “That can’t be good,” Dante said as Leah wa
lked into the room.

  “What can’t be?” she asked.

  They both watched and made projections. The shutdowns the states were enforcing were having an effect on small businesses. Unless a company had enough liquid assets to survive a month or two without being opened, they both feared that many would not survive through the summertime.

  “What does the market downturn mean for us?” Leah asked him.

  Dante took care of the investments and winced as he realized they had not talked about the obvious yet. He logged into his investment portfolio and took a look, cringing again.

  “We’ve lost about a third of what our stock portfolio was worth just today,” he said, his voice coming out in a stammer.

  “What if we don’t touch our 401ks and Roth’s, but move our stocks into a cash account?” Leah asked.

  “Then we lose a third of our money for sure,” Dante told her.

  “But when the economy comes back up, we can buy low again and recover our costs,” she said quietly.

  “True. Let me get our broker on the phone and see what he says. If he agrees, let's just pull the trigger today on everything but our hospital stock. Do you want to text the group and let them know?”

  “I will, are you buying more equipment for our office at the farm?”

  “Yes, we should have enough stuff for two small emergency room style setups, and enough cots for a dozen more. Depending on how we do the basement there…”

  “I just hope we never have to use it.”

  “I do too, but the way things are looking, our money isn’t going to be worth much.”

  “Did you see the latest TP meme?” Leah asked, holding her phone out, changing the subject deliberately.

  “Oh God, that’s bad,” Dante said, laughing, knowing she’d done that to break the tension and to redirect the sudden fear that had been coursing through his body at seeing their life savings take a big dive.

  Thirteen

  Angelica and Harry were taking the Farmer’s Market the next Saturday, equipped with some of Rob’s neck gators to cover their nose and mouth. As the market opened, they started putting out eggs from the previous Thursday and rinsing off the new ones they brought in, packaging them up.

  “Langtry farm?” A man asked, holding a clipboard.

  “Yes sir, how can I help you?” Angelica asked.

  “Dewayne would put an order in for egg crates about every month. It’s been a while since he placed one, so I thought I’d drop in and…”

  “He passed away,” Angelica said. “He had a small private service.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, are you family?” he asked.

  “I work for the family who bought the farm,” she said with a proud smile.

  “Well, if you need, I brought a couple cases of egg crates in case Dewey wanted to order some.”

  Angelica gave him a warm smile and looked at little Harry. She pointed to the near empty box under the counter and he pulled it out.

  “Mom, there’s only like twenty left,” he told her.

  “Looks like I’ll be needing some egg crates after all,” she told him.

  “Name’s John, and I’ll bring them right in for you,” he said with a smile, seeing people start lining up behind him.

  “Thank you,” Harry said as the first customer of the day came up.

  They worked for a solid twenty minutes before John came back in, carrying two huge cases. Angelica knew they did not weigh much, but she could see he was having a hard time seeing over the stack.

  “Give me just a moment Hun,” she said, kissing Harry on the head.

  Harry started taking cash orders because he had not figured out the register yet, and the loyal customers were almost always paying with exact cash. He had decided he would just keep track of how many boxes of eggs he sold so his mom could make sure she could count the money out. She was back a moment later with the John guy. They dropped the cases on the floor.

  “What do I owe you?” she asked, seeing her son was piling up bills next to the register.

  “It’s like $42 and some change, but I can catch you on Tuesday when it isn’t so busy here?”

  “That sounds good,” Angelica shook his hand. “I got to go, the little man is a good counter sales manager, but he is starting to look frantic.”

  “Not a problem. It looks like you got a lot more eggs than I’m used to seeing,” he said as he was walking past.

  “My husband adjusted the light schedule for the birds. Fifteen to sixteen hours of light like in the summertime has them laying more. Good thing we’re hatching out more because I think some of our girls are going to freezer camp come June, with the meaties.”

  “Let me know when you’ve got whole birds for sale, I’ve got to run!”

  “Bye John!” Harry waved.

  The bull was not amused with the human and the two furry children playing around him. The smaller one would bark and run around behind him while the bigger one just sat next to the human, giving the bull no respect.

  “Hey Lyle, it’s Rob,” he said into his cell phone, not breaking eye contact with the bull.

  “What can I do for you, Rob?” Lyle asked, his voice an even tone.

  “Looks like your bull, Big Red got through a fence somewhere. He’s right at the edge of our back alfalfa field. I’m not sure I can find the break in the fence and get him back over alone.”

  “Damn that bull,” Lyle said. “Me and the boys will be over on horses. Don’t get too close to Red, he’s been temperamental lately. Some of the heifers have been keeping him busy, but you know how he was when he was younger.”

  “Yeah, I do. He might have been looking at some of the heifers over the fence over here, but honestly, he’s not headed that way yet.”

  Rob paused as he heard Lyle calling out to Don and Chuck before he came back on the phone. “Do you think the doctor folks there can help?”

  “I’ll call Steven to head over here with a bucket of sweet feed, I just don’t want to take my eyes off of Red.”

  “Just don’t run from him, he likes to chase. You’d end up tired before he got you anyway.”

  “That’s what you always said,” Rob said with a grin, realizing not every memory of working with Lyle had been bad, but the man’s moods were as varied as the weather in springtime.

  “I’ll be there shortly,” he said before hanging up.

  Watching the bull, he punched in the number for Steven, knowing Curt was at the office today, cleaning and organizing the mess.

  “Hey Rob, what can I do you for?” he asked with a laugh as the sound of a miter saw screamed behind him.

  “Lyle has a bull loose in the hay field. I called him over and he’s bringing a couple guys on horses… but listen, this dude is kind of mean, so could you get a bucket of sweet feed and meet me in the northwest corner of the field?”

  “Would it be safe to do it on the side by side? Reason I ask, it’ll cut ten minutes of walking off. If he’s gonna go crazy…”

  “No, but stop about twenty feet behind me,” he said moving back as Ranger was finally settling down.

  “Somebody will be there shortly,” he said and hung up.

  He backed up another step and realized Roscoe was still laying down. A snore came out of the hound dog’s front end, so Rob used his boot to wake him up, hoping Red would not get offended. Roscoe startled awake and let out a long howl at the bull who took several steps back from the Great Dane sized hound dog. Then Roscoe turned to Rob, his tongue hanging out the side of his mouth in a doggy smile, proud to show the human he lived with that he had not been sleeping on the job, much.

  Rob waited and moved with the bull, keeping an equal distance more or less from him. Once the bull had settled again, it just continued to graze the young alfalfa, barely watching them out of one eye. That is when he heard the UTV coming up slowly behind him. He turned and did a double take when he saw it was Anna. She had on a pair of shooting gloves and a wicked looking AR style rifle over her white tan
k top, her ink on display. He knew it was a big bore, not the little .223/5.56 that most folks carried. She grabbed a bucket of feed off the front seat and joined him, a race gun on her hip, the AR over her shoulder.

  “Dang, are they all that big?” she asked.

  “Bulls? They can get a couple thousand pounds easy,” Rob said. “This guy is mean as all hell though.”

  “Lyle’s bull?” she asked.

  “Yeah, he’s knocked me on my ass once. I was in pain for weeks. Doc said I was lucky he didn’t break anything or stomp me.”

  “What’s his name?” Anna asked.

  “Big Red,” Rob said then watched as Anna started walking to the bull slowly, her spare hand digging in the bucket of sweet feed showing it to him.

  “Ranger, come heel,” he said, panicked. “Anna…” The last came out in a hiss.

  The bull turned so both eyes could watch the little human approaching him. She had weird colors on her pale skin, some looking like flowers and green things. What she had though, had his full attention. The sweet stuff. The bull loved that sweet stuff and the minerals in it… he craved. The bull put one hoof down hard, dragging it back, and then dropped it again, repeating the process.

  “Anna,” Rob said, not wanting to raise his voice and startle the big beast, “what are you doing?”

  “Making friends,” she said without looking back.

  “Hey Big Red, hey big guy,” she said, holding the handful of feed up in front of her, almost three feet away from the bull.

  The bull just looked at her for a moment, then lifted his head and sniffed her hand. She poured the handful in the bucket then set it down on the ground in front of him. Anna held still as the big bull tried to fit his snout into the bucket to get a mouthful of grain. The bull made a groaning sound as his teeth went to work and Rob almost shrieked like a little girl when she touched the top of his head.