“The stores?” Angelica asked. “They’re doing what now?”
“They have limits on things. One dozen eggs per family per day, one gallon of milk, one package of toilet paper, things like that.”
“Oh my, I didn’t realize…”
“Well, you’re on a farm. I don’t expect it’d hurt you folks too much,” the lady said with a smile, putting exact money in the box and taking her eggs. “Be safe out there.”
“I will, thanks.”
There was more than the normal number of people there. When Angelica looked up, she realized the time. The market had opened up a half an hour early. No wonder she could not get ahead of customers. It was now opening time, and the dozen egg crates she had pulled out of the mini fridges were gone, along with the dozen that had been brought in this morning. There was a line in front of her stall and people were waiting for her to rinse the eggs and put them in plastic egg crates.
By the time she was done with packaging eggs and putting them out, she was all sold out but one. They had planned on putting out twenty-four dozen eggs, but she was willing to bet she’d sold thirty dozen or more. With their flock increasing and old hens being culled, their egg production had gone up quite a bit.
“Any more eggs, ma’am?” a woman asked.
She looked familiar to Angel, but she could not place the face. One of their regulars?
“Just one dozen left. That will be five dollars,” she said sweetly.
“Are the chickens raised and live their lives in a humane cage free environment?” the woman asked.
“Um… they live in a chicken barn, where they have more square footage to roam around in than I do in my house,” Angelica told her, suddenly worried she had attracted a crazy.
“So, do they like, get to have recess outside, or do they live their entire lives in a dark, musty, drafty barn?”
“Recess? They get all the sunlight and clean air they want,” Angelica told her.
“How about their food? Are they fed organic, pesticide and antibiotic free feed?”
“You mean, do they eat better than me and my family?” Angelica was losing her patience.
“No, I just want to make sure they were raised in a safe and ethical—”
“Sorry,” Angelica said, pulling the carton back, “forgot to save a dozen for us,” she lied. “And since I’m sold out, I’m going to pack up.”
“But the market just opened?” the crazy woman asked, confused.
“Sorry, I ran out of stuff, Hun.” Angelica said, trying to be syrupy sweet, but not quite ready to bless her heart.
“Oh, that’s fine, I’ll find something else,” the woman almost snarled.
As ADA Winters walked away, she had no idea she had just met Rob’s wife. She knew about the farm, but she was expecting one of three names to be on the stalls around her. Mallory, Weaver, Castiglione. She had memorized details of every single one of them, spouses included. She left the Langtry farm stall in search of her prey.
Luis got snarled up in traffic a little bit, but he had left first thing in the morning and had expected it. By ten thirty that morning he was pulling in front of the first gate at the Langtry farm. He hit the intercom and was let in by one of the ladies. He pulled through the first and waited for the second one to open while the first one closed. He had heard and been told all about what had happened at these gates and wasn’t surprised to see scorch marks on the ground when he passed the first one.
The second one seemed to be splotched with a dark brown or black substance on its powder coated frame. Blood? That made him shiver a little bit. People had died here, and they had found old remains on the farm too. Instead of getting spooked, he decided to quit dwelling on things that scared him. He drove to the last cabin and parked his truck. He stretched getting out and decided to head into the cabin and use the bathroom before he announced his arrival, in case folks were not moving very fast yet.
“Hey,” Luis said, surprised when he went into the cabin he was going to be staying in to see Anna making a pot of coffee.
She was dressed in her morning workout clothing; yoga pants, and a stretchy under armor shirt underneath of a tank top. She still had a towel wrapped around her neck from her morning run.
“Mr. Garcon,” Anna said, making him both smile and feel old at the same time, “good to see you. How was your drive?”
“The city is starting to get a little crowded again,” he grumbled. “Are you just making that?” His voice was hopeful.
“I figured you could use a top off before all of the shenanigans get started today,” she said with a grin.
“You got that right. Could you excuse me a moment?”
“Absolutely,” she said. “I was going to get this going and then go hop in the shower. If I’m not here, feel free to head to the workshop area, I think that’s where the guys are all hanging out right now. The big smoker is next to that.”
“Thank you, ma’am,” he said, tipping an imaginary hat.
Anna smiled to herself and let herself out of the cabin when she saw he was headed to the bathroom. If he’d driven straight over, he was probably in desperate need.
Seven
Rob had never seen a barbeque grill so large in his entire life. It was over six feet long, made from what looked like diamond plated steel, discolored, and slightly warped from the heat. The whole thing was built on a custom trailer that could be loaded up into a bigger trailer, or pulled slowly by a truck. Steven had built it to feed his guys and other crews when they were forced to work jobs on a holiday. If the carpenters were getting two and a half time to knock out a project against their will, Steven was going to feed them well.
A grill big enough to feed a crew of thirty to forty needed to be big, and if he used a smaller grill, he’d have to cook in stages, so not all the burgers, chickens and hot dogs would be done at once, making some of the meat cooler than others. Instead, he’d built it big and strong enough to hold a pig, which it was now. Four jugs of apple cider were there. Three of them had a hole in the cap, and the fourth still had a nail sticking out of it. On the grill was a pig on the biggest spit he had ever seen.
“Luis,” Steven said, seeing him. “How are you doing?”
“I’m doing well, “Luis said, holding a mug of coffee he’d gotten from the pot Anna had made. “This is some kind of setup here,”
“You’ve used this with me a time or two,” Steven told him.
“Yeah, but the spit is something new, and that pig has to be a hundred pounds or more.”
“It was closer to two before it was cleaned,” Rob told him with a grin.
“Wow, are... That is going to be quite the spread. Hope you guys like pork!”
“We do, plus we invited folks from the next ranch to join us today. We figured before things get locked down, we should make an effort to get to know folks in the area.”
“That makes sense,” he said.
“Hey guys, you got this a minute?” Steven asked. “I want to see if Luis can help me with the Coolbots.”
“Sure thing,” Curt told him. “I’ll keep basting it with the cider.”
“Thanks!”
Luis was confused when they walked into the workshop and then headed to a rollup steel door. He figured that was the tool crib where they stored the expensive stuff. He was a bit shocked when the door opened, and he saw a home-built elevator built into the floor.
“A basement? I didn’t know you put one in under this building?”
“There’s a basement underneath this whole row of cabins and the workshop. Come on, I’ll show you.”
Luis cursed in Spanish, but got on the lift. He rode it down with Steven and whistled softly. There was more square footage underneath the farm than on top of it, he thought. To say he was blown away was an understatement.
“This runs underneath everything,” he said softly.
“Yes,” Steven said with a grin. “Not many people know about this. We didn’t exactly ask permission for all of th
is; our site plan called for a basement underneath each of the cabins and that’s what we did.”
“Are those what those four cinder blocked enclosures are in the middle?”
“That’s them,” he said. “We’ve started building out some spaces down here for specific things. Anna has her little gunsmithing shop and rebuilding area, but this,” Steven said, pointing to a room that had been covered with green board, “is what I’ve been working on. It’ll be a cold storage area.”
“Ahhhh using that idea to make a walk-in cooler you were talking about a few years ago?” Luis asked. “Except in a room, not a trailer?”
“That’s it,” he said, and walked over, unlocking the steel door, and heading inside.
“Two rooms?” Luis asked, seeing a half wall dividing the areas.
“Yeah, I figure we can keep the first area set up for stuff we want to keep cold, but not frozen. The second we can hang insulated curtains up and use this one as a big deep freeze.”
“Is that what these pulley and hooks are for then? You’re going to hang meat down here to cure and freeze?”
“Guilty as charged,” Steven admitted. “The pig upstairs was one of ours. With the commodities market crashing, we’re going to have a hard time selling our meat, chicken, and eggs outside of the community. So, if we can keep it cool and keep it from spoiling… maybe someday…”
“Maybe you’re thinking things are about to get a whole lot worse, and not get better anytime soon,” Luis told him, playing a hunch.
“It could be that too. You see, if we wanted to do this legally with the USDA, then we’d have to have this spot inspected and licensed, and we don’t want the government folks down here. So honestly, this is a test to see if we can do this, but maybe on a bigger scale with easy to find parts.”
“And keep you all in a few years’ worth of meat, eggs and poultry.”
“Not a horrible goal, is it?” Steven asked.
“No, I think it’s about the smartest damned thing you could do,” Luis told him. “I would have helped sooner if I’d known.”
“I’m sorry, it wasn’t just my decision,” he told him, walking to the freezer side of the room. “This was my way of maybe showing you now that the rest of the group knows and trusts you.”
“No, I understand,” Luis said. “They are like family to you and Anna.”
“Just like you are,” he told him.
They worked together in silence for about twenty minutes. Styrofoam panels had been put over the insulation and plastic sheeting, and was the outer layer in here instead of sheetrock. The AC units had been installed so not much stuck out. They tore the fronts off the AC units and attached the probes to the Coolbots, and then plugged in both units and turned them on.
Cold air blasted out.
“How long do you think this is going to take to cool down?” Steven asked him.
Luis looked up at the roof. “How well is that insulated?”
“The ceiling in here is lower than the rest of the basement because we’ve added in some wooden scabs so we could put in about twelve inches of insulation. We almost foamed it in, but I had a lot of materials left over from construction I wanted to use.”
“Then I’d say pretty quickly. Your floor, unless it’s insulated, is probably going to be the only downfall in here.”
“Yeah, until I figure out a better way of doing the door in, we just left it cement for now. We considered lining all six surfaces with foam panels but…”
“Are you worried that somebody is going to try to come and get this stuff someday?” Luis asked, as they both left the walk-in cooler.
“Yes,” Steven told him.
“Si, I thought so as well. I think it is a good plan to have this here, and to keep it a secret. I just don’t know if putting it next to an elevator is going to be the best place to hide it though.”
“Oh we have plans on hiding the elevator in case there’s going to be some sort of surprise inspection. We have what looks like a grease pit room built to wheel over the elevator lift and get raised. It’ll look like a pit where we work on cars, and we actually can do that. The controls would be stuck in the basement at that point though. Which is both good and bad.”
“Because you probably have the bigger portion of the basement hidden from the cabins from inside there.”
“Exactly,” Steven said. “Come, walk with me.”
They walked across the nearly ten thousand square foot basement, passing three of the walled off basements from the cabins above and came to the fourth.
“This is the basement under the cabin I’m staying in?” Luis asked.
“Yes, now watch this.” Steven pointed to a small piece of rebar that looked like it had been left long, and the mortared joint was sloppy.
Steven pushed the rebar in and there was a clicking sound. Then he pushed, making a section of what like a solid block wall slide back on hinges.
“You do this work?” Luis asked.
“Yes.”
“You always loved secret passages and doors,” Luis said. “I figured you would have tried to put that to good use someday.”
“We all did,” Steven told him. “Let’s go upstairs and refill your coffee.”
“Coffee? Hell, I spend half my day wanting coffee, the other half wanting alcohol. What time of the day is it now?” he asked.
“It’s Irish Coffee time,” Steven said with a smirk, and walked to the kitchen with him.
Angelica was counting down the box before leaving and was surprised that everybody who had dropped money off while she was busy as all get out, had been one hundred percent honest. She was glad to be out of there though. She had gotten a text from Rob saying that Steven’s foreman had made it back and they were showing him around the property.
She did not want to be away from the farm too long, and wanted to get back for a multitude of reasons. She knew the market was important though. The sale of eggs had brought in half of Rob’s weekly income just in gross numbers. It was usually her that did this, but more and more lately it had been Rob and Harry. She wished he would not bring Harry outside the farm, but the little guy had been going stir crazy and her husband… he could take care of himself.
“Sold out already?” Kerry asked, startling her.
“Yes, if I had about sixty more hens, I think I could have sold out all of their eggs too.”
“Did that strange lady come around here and bug you?” Kerry asked, looking behind her.
“What strange lady?” Angelica asked.
“The one who seems like she’s half a PETA spokesperson cross bred with a climate change retard?”
“Her?” Angelica chuckled. “Yeah, she kept asking questions about the eggs and how the chickens were fed and housed. I think she still wouldn’t have been happy if they lived pampered lives inside of a mansion somewhere with gold plated everything.”
“That’s her.”
“Why, you having any problems?” Angel asked.
“No, just people mentioning she’s weird. She hasn’t bought anything yet.”
“That’s strange, but not the weirdest thing I’ve heard all day. Are the grocery stores really putting a limit on how much food somebody could buy?”
“Actually they are,” Kerry told her. “Our farmers here don’t care who buys the food as long as it sells, so we’ve never put any limits on what we’ve sold, not that I know of.”
“Is it because there’s shortages? I heard the commodities markets are going to be hurting, and that’ll trickle down to us buying groceries.”
“That’s right,” Kerry said. “Our local butchers around here are hurting for stuff to process and sell. You know, if you guys are wanting to do some wheeling and dealing, now is the time.”
“I don’t know who Dewie usually sold his stock off to, but I’m not against taking any offers to the owners.”
“Good, can I give him your phone number at the farm?” Kerry asked.
“Sure thing,” she said. “I have to
run though, we have a pig roast going on today. Momma Little taught the boys the right way to get a pig ready to cool.”
“Any special occasion?” Kerry asked.
“Being alive and not under siege,” Angelica said with a grin.
She noticed when a lady who was headed out the exit across from her stiffened and looked back over her shoulder. It was the strange lady from earlier.
“Who…?” Kerry asked. “Oh yeah, that’s her.”
“The strange lady… Angelica said. “I think we caught her eavesdropping.”
“Oh well, what harm can she do? I betcha she’s never had some good barbecued pork in her life.”
“You’re probably right,” Angelica said. “I have to run though, or my mother-in-law will be stuck doing all the food prep.”
“Ok Hun, you be good now.”
“Never,” Angelica said with a laugh.
Eight
Lyle’s crew drove up to the gates in two trucks. They had to wait a minute to get in, because Angelica and Dante wanted to make sure they could see everyone in both trucks. They visually confirmed IDs and let them in. Rob had been uneasy to have them come today, but he’d understood the reasoning why, and if Lyle was turning over a new leaf, this was a good way for all of them to show that they’d grown beyond the fights and cattiness.
“You know, it’s been a while since I’ve been out here. You guys have done a ton of work to the place,” Lyle said, looking around after having parked near the rest of the group, by the big workshop.
“Last time you were here it was dark outside,” Anna told him. “Can I get you guys and gals anything to drink?”
“I’ll take a beer, if’n it’s no problem,” Don said.
“Not at all. Miss Steff, want to give me a hand for a minute?”
“Sure thing,” she said with a grin.
They both got on one of the Kawasaki side by sides and took off to the main house. A big white cooler almost four feet long was sitting on the top step. Anna backed the side by side up and hopped out, dropping the tailgate.
Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 2 | The Farm Page 4
