“It’s going to take sixty days to get paid for this?” one vendor shrieked. “I can’t pay this month's mortgage with a voucher!”
“Sorry sir, just following orders,” they would mumble.
Even the state police were mean mugging the Feds.
“I can’t stay in business if they keep doing this,” one farmer said, tears coming down his cheeks. “The price fixing and quantity controls… Those are bad enough, now they are going to take thousands of dollars worth of produce? If I can’t pay my bills, I can’t run my big cooler to keep the harvests fresh.”
“Don’t forget the taxes on the land you already own. The government will come in and take it if you don’t pay for it,” another said to the crying man.
“We’ll figure something else out,” Kerry told them. “I mean, are they hitting individual farm stands?” she asked.
“Somebody came and ripped mine off yesterday after dark,” one farmer yelled.
“Damned right, they got mine too, even took the honor box!”
“That’s some bullshit,” one of the state police said suddenly. “Can you goons do this on private property?” he asked, suddenly having an idea.
“Our orders state that any public venues like this market, farmers markets, farm stores, grocery stores, etc.”
“So, the answer is no? Are you guys raiding the farm stands as well as the markets?” the crying farmer asked.
“No, but if you saw what’s going on in the cities right now, the stuff the news isn’t reporting? You’d understand maybe it’s your neighbors who don’t own a farm. I took this job so I could make sure my wife and kids can eat.”
“So, you think we’re gonna run out of food, you idiot?” Kerry screamed.
“Many people already are,” the agent called back. “The big five processors are all shut down over health concerns. Transportation has been disrupted by the protests and riots, so much of what isn’t used locally, goes bad before it ever gets there. Have you ever unloaded a tractor trailer full of rotting cabbage? You dumb hicks have no idea how good you have it. You all can feed your families while all the rest of us suffer.”
Kerry was silent for a long moment, then spoke, “So why didn’t you put in a garden? Why didn’t you stock up ahead of time? Why weren’t you a farmer by trade?”
“Because I have a liberal arts degree, and there were no other jobs I could get,” the agent snapped back.
Somebody snickered, then the anger in the crowd turned into amusement as people started laughing at the agent. Red faced, he got in the refrigerated truck, and fired it up. Instead of a riot with violence, there was a riot of laughter as the crowd jeered the agents, telling them they better not come back.
“Sir,” Kerry said, approaching the state trooper who had asked the USDA agent a question, “did you have something in mind?”
“You know, as much as we’ve been out to the Langtry farm…”
“Oh no way, no fucking way,” Kerry said, taking her white hat off, letting her hair fly free.
“They have fences, gates, and an easy to watch road coming in and out. It’s private property, and they have so much open land cleared from when the protestors…”
“Yeah, they do,” Kerry said, calculating how far between the two gates there was. She figured maybe it was fifty meters? If they set up on both sides of the driveway…”
“I don’t know. My nephew lives there and—”
“We know who Little Rob is.” The trooper laughed. “We almost got our asses handed to us the way Ed Buckley got his handed to him. I’m just glad tempers cooled down. I don’t think they would’ve gotten a pass on that.”
“But... do you think the vendors, the customers, would show up?” Kerry asked.
“I don’t know, but the agent was partially right. Food in the big cities is disappearing. Every time a food truck gets slowed down or stopped, that’s more time the shelves aren’t being stocked. People are starting to panic buy, and that’s only going to make things worse overall as people hoard—”
“People can’t hoard food,” Kerry told him. “They stock up, they can, they can put away for hard times… but if everyone is doing it right now, that sucks. But that isn’t hoarding!”
“Yes ma’am,” the trooper said, tipping his hat at her. “I have a friend on the force who is friendly with Rob. I was going to float the idea past her. She’s been benched and not able to do things that involve the farm, but if she were to go... I don’t know… unofficially and ask?”
“How about you tell her to get ahold of me, and we’ll both go. After all, it’s my nephew and his family with the group there.”
“And your big sister,” the trooper said.
“How many times have you been out there?” Kerry asked suddenly.
“I was there when Doctor Weaver knocked out that guy while stitching up the others. Then there was the time those Antifa goons threw Molotovs at the farm, and the investigation on the bones that were found…” He was scratching his head. “And I think there was another, but I can’t remember.”
“So more than me. Ok, deal. Have Sherry get ahold of me, she’s got my number.”
“Oh yeah?” the trooper asked, surprised she knew who he was talking about.
“Yeah, before she knew about Angelica—”
“There’s one human I really wouldn’t cross. She’s more notorious than the doctors themselves.”
“I wouldn’t count on that,” Kerry said. “She can’t be all that bad.”
“I was in her grade, and there wasn’t a boy or girl in school she couldn’t whip their asses. That girl fights mean.”
“I’ve heard her trash talking,” Kerry said with a grin. “I was there at the bar fight.”
“Oh yeah, that,” the trooper laughed. “I heard about that. Beat Lyle’s two daughters into the dirt by herself.”
“That’s Angel,” Kerry said with a grin. “But tell Sherry to call me on my cell, and we’ll set something up. I’m not thinking they’re going to go along with it, but…”
“All we can do is ask. With everything else being looted by the government, we need something like this, especially if these guys come back.”
“Can’t you stop them?” Kerry asked.
“No, we got our own orders. Basically, stay out of the Feds’ way right now, unless they’re threatening the public directly, or doing raids like they did at the Langtry farm…”
“It always seems to come back to the farm, doesn’t it?” Kerry asked him.
“It does. Say, if you’re not busy later on, would you like to catch a drink with me at the Gaines Bar?”
Kerry laughed, shaking out her long blonde hair, crazy curls and all. “Are you asking me out for a drink, or a date?” she asked, her smile dazzling.
“Both,” he shot back without any shame. “You might even have a good time, and I got lots of buddies to drive us home if we have too much to drink.”
Kerry laughed, making the vendors and customers around them look at her in puzzlement.
That was not the only time the agents came. They showed up the following Thursday too. The crowd was uglier than it had been, and the state police were already in position to keep the peace. Ed Buckley even showed up, though many of the state police laughed at him to his face when he tried helping out. He was a bully and an asshole, and everyone there knew it. The icing on that nasty cake was him trying to buddy buddy up with the Feds.
The locals left in disgust, leaving the vendors angry, and holding vouchers once again.
That Friday, when the vendors came in to restock for Saturday, the biggest day of the week, the agents showed up and took it all. They did not even wait for the unsold produce; they took everything folks had planned on selling the next day. Saturday, the market did not open at all. The vendors had all decided to do it elsewhere, or nowhere at all. They could eat their own produce, and many would feed it to their livestock before they gave it to the USDA.
What they did not know was that, on Sa
turday, the USDA was waiting there for the market to open, and they were not happy to see the entire place empty.
“Does anybody have addresses on these farmers?” one agent asked. “If we don’t hit our quota today, we’re going to be fucked.”
“I’ve got one in the SUV,” a female agent called, “but there’s a special note to avoid two farms. The Langtry farm and the Owens ranch.”
“Is that where those agents were stomped to death by a bull?”
“Yeah, then they filled it with so much lead, it couldn’t be confiscated to be processed.”
“That’s ignorant. Those stupid bastards don’t really realize how bad it is outside of our assigned areas.”
“It’s only going to get worse,” another agent piped up.
“Let’s go visit some farms,” the woman agent spoke up.
The FSIS agents, the enforcement arm of the USDA, packed up. They did not want to go back empty handed. They had a camp of ‘dissidents and malcontents’ that had been swept up in earlier protests to feed. If they could not keep them fed and happy with video games available and streaming tv to watch, they got cranky and started thinking for themselves. Fortunately, the FCC and ATF had come on board and had been helping. More divisions under the executive branch would follow soon.
The plan had been in place for a long time for situations like this.
Twenty-Four
The group was all together in the living room of the big house watching the reports on TV. It was like a faucet had been turned on suddenly. Black vans without markings had started sweeping up protestors. What was a real head scratcher, was that the men doing the scooping did not have any identifiable markings of what agency or police department they were from. Dressed in ripstop black and face masks, if people resisted, they no longer were using less than lethal methods.
“They just shot that dude in the leg,” Curt said in wonder.
The riots had spread in the past week. The news was less than helpful reporting on what was going on and why, but with it being 2020, there was almost always a violent protest or riot it seemed.
“Would have been better shooting him in the chest,” Dante said. “He’s going to bleed out from that one.”
“Well, I know we all don’t talk politics, but that one nominee said he wants police to ‘shoot ‘em in the leg’,” Grandma Goldie said, using her fingers for air quotes.
She got the overstuffed recliner. As the grumpy beloved grandma to all, everybody let her pretend she was in charge. Or they were afraid of her wooden spoon.
“That’s malarkey,” Rob said. “Police are trained to shoot for center mass, same way we were. Difference was, we’re a lot better at it.”
“I wasn’t military, but I think I could do it,” Anna said. “But I have no idea if a wounding shot would stop a person who was trying to hurt me. Look what almost happened here; your doggo and Rosco had to save my bacon!”
“That’s another good reason,” Andrea said. “I wonder why we’re seeing all of these local reports now. Look at the buildings behind them in Fort Smith! They didn’t have the crazy riots like we did in West Memphis.”
“What are you pointing out, dear?” Grandma Goldie asked.
“Some of those buildings aren’t even smoldering anymore. It looks like they were burned a week or two ago. I didn’t hear of any craziness coming out of there, did you guys?”
“It’s like those papers in the backpack predicted,” Steven told them, making them all hush.
“They predicted this?” Rob asked.
“Not this exactly, but this kind of stuff is why they activated large departments and dusted off some plans that were brand new in Obama’s presidency.”
“No politics,” Goldie said. “I thought he was handsome.”
“I’m just giving a time reference on when these plans were drawn up. I don’t even know if the presidents ever even look at this stuff, page for page. I’m glad we dumped copies off with LeBaron and Lucian.”
“Yeah, me too. It’d be nice if—”
Leah’s words were cut off as the motion sensors they had installed along their fence line up and down the road started going off. You could literally see the progression as they hit them every fifty yards or so. They stopped at the front gate when the intercom came on. “Hey guys, it’s Kerry.”
Rob was already moving to check the monitors and saw it was her, followed by a state police cruiser.
“Who’s the cop with you?” Rob asked.
“That’s Sherry,” Kerry told him back, then waved at the camera.
“I’ll hit the gate button dad!” Harry said, getting up to run for it.
Ranger was startled, and jumped up to give chase. His little hairless monkey was about to do something, and he did not want to miss out. What he did not anticipate was the sharp turn and the little man tripping over the big dog. Both slid into the door frame. Harry let out a yelp that made Roscoe wake up from under the kitchen table. As Rob and Angel rushed to Harry to check on him, the big mutant hybrid dog jumped up, upending part of the table, sending chairs flying.
Curt let out a surprised shout as dishes and glasses that they had put out for family dinner went flying, shattering all over the place. Anna, closer than anybody else, hit the front gate and back gate buttons, starting the process of opening them up. Dante and Leah were rushing to the kitchen to try to settle down a now panicked Roscoe, who was barking and shaking, threatening to earthquake the entire dining room set into sawdust.
“You ok buddy?” Rob asked Harry, holding him close on his lap.
“I will be,” Harry gasped.
“Where does it hurt?” Angelica asked him as Ranger kept trying to sniff and lick his boy.
“My ribs. Daddy’s squeezing my guts out of my butt,” Harry gasped.
Rob laughed, letting the boy go. “I guess you’re not hurt too bad, are you?”
“Get the dog out of the kitchen before he cuts himself up!” Leah yelled.
“Yeah, let’s get you and Ranger outside so we can clean up all of this glass,” Angelica told him, her hand out to her son.
“Ok Momma, I’m sorry.”
“You FDGB, there’s no reason to be sorry, but maybe you’ll remember to be more careful on wood floors?”
Harry giggled. “I love it when you call it FDGB.”
“Fall down, go boom,” she said, tapping him on the nose. “How about you and the dogs invite your great aunt in, and see Miss Sherry gets in without any Roscoe slobber?”
“Ok Momma,” Harry said with a grin.
Kerry saw her great nephew waving from the front porch of the main house. She’d figured that was where the group would be, being close to supper time.
“Hey little man, how’s things going?” Kerry asked, as Sherry pulled to a stop next to her, the gravel crunching under tires.
“Pretty good. Roscoe got scared and knocked a bunch of stuff off the table, so we’re sitting out here until the grownups can get all the glass cleaned up.”
“You know, as much as I’ve seen that dog, I never get over how huge he is,” Sherry said, getting out of her patrol car.
“He’s mostly good, just a big doofus. At least, that’s what my dad said. Aunt Kerry, is doofus a bad word?”
“Not unless you’re calling somebody a name and being mean and hateful about it sweetie,” Kerry said, pulling him into a big hug, then lifted him off his feet.
Ranger came to his feet as well, growling a warning.
“You shut up, or I’ll tell Goldie it was all your fault,” Kerry said in an angry tone to Ranger.
He laid down and then covered his snout with one paw, almost trying to cover his face as if he were a human child.
“Hey Harry,” Sherry said, “should we wait out here?”
“No, they said to invite you in. I just had to get the dogs outside, so they don’t cut their feets. Let me check to see if we can all go in now.”
Harry checked and was not surprised to hear that he had to leave the
dogs out, but the three humans outside could come in.
“Hey ladies,” Curt said upon seeing them come in. “How are you doing?”
“Pretty good. How’s the real estate biz?” Kerry asked.
Curt winced. “Dead, unfortunately. This economy isn’t helping anything.”
“Ouch, yeah, sorry,” Kerry told him. “I suck at small talk. Rob, Angel, how are you kids doing?”
“We’re good. Got over the icky sticky a week and a half back. Just waiting out our time here just to be safe. Rob really didn’t get any severe symptoms though.”
“I meant, how are you two doing? Am I going to have any more great nephews or nieces?”
Angelica turned a furious shade of red and Rob started blushing and stuttering.
“You know, I think I’ve finally seen it all,” Sherry said laughing.
Luis walked in from the kitchen, carrying a large serving bowl heaped with salad mix. “No, the funniest thing is when the big man there was chased across the yard by his little momma. He screamed like an axe murderer was after him.”
“She had the wooden spoon,” Harry supplied that information with a grin on his face.
“I might scream too, she has a special one now, for spanking us.”
“It’s the size of my arm,” Harry told her.
“Don’t you be hating on my big serving spoon,” Goldie said, walking in with a basket that had been lined with waxed paper and filled with fried chicken.
“Oh man, you were right, we had to time this talk perfectly,” Sherry said with a grin.
“I hope we aren’t interrupting…” Kerry smirked.
“Not at all. How about Luis, Harry, and I eat in the kitchen so you two can sit and dig in.”
“Oh no, I couldn’t—” Sherry was starting to say when she was interrupted by Goldie. “Harry, if you come eat with me and Luis at the little bar, I’ll get you a glass of Coke.”
Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 2 | The Farm Page 15
