“Do you have something to put the groceries in? I guess we ran out of bags,” Dante said, getting out.
“I uh... No, I didn’t think to.”
“That’s ok.” Dante grunted as he lifted the cooler and then set it down in the bed of the truck by the tail gate. “You can borrow ours. Just bring it back in a day or two, we might need it.”
Ed got out and walked to the back, dropping his tailgate, and opening the cooler. He just stared at it in the fading light. There was a small ham, wrapped in plastic. Potatoes, carrots, bunches of greens, a bag of salad mix, cucumbers, tomatoes, and three dozen eggs.
“Do you need any milk?” Dante asked.
“I uh... actually, yes. My son drinks it.”
“It’s fresh from the cow,” Leah said, reaching into the UTV and getting a glass jar out of a milk crate and handing it to him, “so it’s not pasteurized, and it’s got the cream still in it.”
“I… can you just drink it like that?” he asked.
“We just tried some for the first time ourselves,” Dante told him, “and being of a suspicious nature—”
“Paranoid,” Leah interrupted.
“As I was saying… because I was suspicious, I went out and saw the cows myself. They’re well cared for and kept in a clean barn. So, I really didn’t get my heebie jeebies triggered when I tried a taste of it.”
“What do I owe you?” Ed asked, stunned.
“We’ve got about twenty dollars into this,” Dante admitted.
“That’s… the ham alone cost more than that. That’s like thirty or forty dollars just in—”
“Ed,” Leah said, “we’re a farm. Our costs are what we pay the Littles’ for help, and fuel to run the big machines. The feed and the animals are kind of a bonus. Honestly, most of the cost there is in the veggies. Most vendors donated to help out. After finding one family that was having a hard time, we started asking around. Your neighbor who watches your little one said you’d been having a hard time stocking up. When the other vendors heard that, most gave you a discount or just gave it to you.”
“But I can’t accept this. I mean, I can pay for it. I’m not broke.”
“We’re not saying you are,” Dante told him, noting that his ego had just got bruised, “but you’re not the first, second or even the third person today that’s been having a hard time. Sometimes farmers have excess, and we pass that on to the community in the ways we can. If that means keeping our local hothead cop away from the big city all night hunting for food, he’ll be less of an asshole to us in the daylight, when he’s working.”
Ed laughed, almost surprising himself, and soon was chuckling. Then almost falling over in a mixture of laughing and crying. He staggered a moment, but Dante put a hand on his shoulder steadying him. Ed embraced Dante and sobbed for a few moments. Leah looked on in surprise, but she was thinking the same thing that Dante had been.
Ed had had little to no sleep lately. He was a single father, with a little one at home. Despite having money and a job, he could not provide for his family. He had been an asshole to just about everyone, and here the community had made a gesture so huge, his brain could not process it all at once.
“Just don’t tell that pretty one with the tattoos that I cried,” Ed said, sniffling and breaking contact with Dante.
“Why?” Leah said. “We all know how much stress we’re under. It’s probably a thousand times worse for you. We don’t have little kids ourselves, yet.” Leah patted her stomach. “So I get it, you cried. Big deal. It just proves you’re human. Honestly, you shouldn’t bottle all that stuff up so much.”
“Man law,” Dante and Ed said as one, then they both burst into laughing.
“Oh Lord, if this is going to turn x-rated, then I need to leave,” Leah said.
“Leah, Dante, are you in range?” Rob’s voice came out of the cup holder of the UTV where Dante had put his radio.
“They could have just called,” Dante muttered, retrieving the radio.
“Yeah, we’re back inside the gate,” Dante told him.
“Motion sensors at the edge of our property are going off like crazy. Over by Lyle’s. That wasn’t you, was it?”
“No, we came in from the other direction,” Dante told him.
Rob cursed on the air, making Leah snicker. “Are you two still kitted out? I’m headed out with the dogs myself.”
“Yeah, and we’ve got Officer Buckley here with us as well.”
“Good, because I think we might need him,” Rob said softly. “Picking up motion on the cameras. It appears to be half a dozen people making their way over the fence.”
Ed’s face went stern and he wiped his eyes. He closed the cooler and put the tailgate up.
“Somebody is breaking in?” he asked.
“Sounds like it,” Leah said, getting her rifle from the front seat of the UTV. “You want to come, or should we make a 911 call and make it official, so there's a record later on?”
“I’ll make the call. You know where you’re going, I’ll stick right by you.”
Rob’s call over the radio had the entire compound scrambling. Angel and Goldie stayed at the main house with Harry. Since Leah and Dante were in the front and closest, Curt and Andrea decided to monitor things from the Medical Center, with Curt held in reserve. That way they had a doctor and somebody capable of lifting a group member there, just in case. The rest of them were tossing gear back on.
Rob was not sure it was agents this time around. For their sake, he hoped it was not. The figures moving seemed smaller, slighter. Also, he was not sure if they were carrying any visible guns. The cameras had night vision, but it was not that good, and the video was far from the camera at the edge.
“I heard they had like four thousand eggs they sold today,” Jared said excitedly.
“At the end of the day, my mom said they had a ton left. They must have all kinds of animals here. When I was flying my drone earlier, I saw they had like a new greenhouse and were building another,” Ryan told his buddy.
“I bet they’re growing all kinds of pot,” Randy, their resident expert told them.
“I just want to sneak a peek at all those hot chicks,” Michael said, snickering. “That short one and the one with the tats? Smoke. Pure smoke.”
“You’re just depressed,” Dave told him.
“That’s oppressed, dumbass,” Michael shot back, “unless he’s repressed.”
“Shhh, guys, like, don’t talk out loud, whisper,” Jared told them. “If half the shit we’ve heard about this place is true, they have attack dogs and booby traps. I’d like to not get the dogs sicced on my ass.”
“And I’d like to concentrate on the boobies,” Michael shot back, but his voice was low.
The boys were dressed in all black. None were using flashlights, but they had them. Two of the boys carried screwdrivers, and one had a set of bolt cutters. They had been causing low level harm across the county and had parked their car up the road past the ranch and walked in. The rumors of this place had been wide and varied. Their interest in the place had sort of waned until Jared’s mom had visited the market day.
They had not cut the fence, instead climbed, using their sweatshirts to let each other through. They had no idea if a sensor would go on in the house if they cut a wire, so they did not. Jared’s mom had taken a picture on her phone to show her husband what could be found at the market when she had been there earlier. Her husband has seen it and told her, then noticed the two sleeveless ladies done up in guns and vests. Jared saw it and asked his dad to send him the picture. Knowing all teenagers were walking and talking raging hormones, he had sent it with a smirk to his son’s phone. That had gotten the friends talking and they just had to. Like, fences were made to be climbed, and they knew all about razor wire, barbed wire and electric.
What they did not know about, was almost four hundred pounds of dogs were running their way. They did not know it until Roscoe let out a baying hunting bark when he had caught their scent
. The boys stopped and looked at each other. Michael was the first, shivering in fear.
“Maybe the rumors about the dogs are true,” he stammered, and dug into his pocket for his pen light.
Ranger let out a bark of his own, making the boys spin in another direction. A flashlight snapped on, then another one.
“Roscoe, speak,” Rob said harshly from the darkness, his voice almost a growl of its own.
Roscoe barked loudly, startling the kids, making them bunch up until they were back to back.
“I can see their lights,” Leah said over the radio that Rob had clipped to his belt.
“Officer Buckley is with us,” Dante said. “Tell the kids to keep their hands loose, no sudden movements.”
“You hear that, shitheads?” Rob asked, knowing the kids could hear him.
“Yes…” a hesitant voice said from the bundle of kids.
“Roscoe, Ranger, heel up,” Rob said, turning the light on his rifle.
He kept it low to the ground, but the kids could see a very large man appear out of the darkness with two of the scariest dogs this side of hell, just appearing at his side. To make them even more scared, he was dressed in all black like they were, and had a monster of a rifle in his hands.
“Don’t move,” Rob told them. “Roscoe, Ranger, guard, stay guard.”
“Mister, what… what did you tell them?” a boy asked, no more than thirteen or so.
“Told them to guard you and to stay here. That means if you break and run from me or the cops, my dogs are going to run you down and drag you back here. You can try to run, but all it will get you is tired and hurt. So, sit tight. Obviously, you can tell I have a gun, anybody here armed?”
“I’ve got a screwdriver,” one kid told him.
“Me too,” another piped up.
“I’ve got a pocketknife and these cutters,” a third offered, holding them in both hands in front of him.
“You guys?” Rob asked the others.
They shook their heads no. They waited for a minute for the rest of the group to get there. Steven, Anna, Dante, Leah, and Ed. Ed took over from there.
“Kid, I know where you live. Michael, haven’t I been to your house because you were peeping at the neighbor’s daughter? Yeah, that’s you. What are you kids doing out here?”
“We was just looking around,” the one with the bolt cutters said.
“Oh yeah? With tools to break in, cut fences or locks. Ok, so what’s really going on?” Ed asked.
The kids looked at the grownups surrounding them. They were in the brightest spot in the soon to be harvested soybean field. Everybody was armed, except for the cop, but he had a badge on his belt loop.
“We’ve heard rumors about this place,” Jared admitted, “and we wanted to see if it was true.”
“Michael just wanted to see some booby traps,” Randy said, letting them know.
“That’s not what he wanted to see,” another boy snickered, “at least not the trap part.”
“Oh boy,” Anna said, “That’s the peeping Tom?” she pointed to him.
Buckley just nodded.
“Don’t,” Steven said, “he’s just a minor.”
“Roscoe, come,” she said, patting her leg.
Roscoe looked up at Rob. With a nod, he released the dog who walked to Anna’s side as she got closer to the boys.
“Listen guys, it’s not a good idea to break into people’s properties or houses. Do you want to hear a story about how some city rioters tried to break down our gate and come in and kill us?”
“Um, sure,” Michael said, realizing that the one he had been crushing on was standing right in front of him.
“See, they tried, but they couldn’t get through. When they finally did, they were shooting at me. Most of those shooting at us died. The couple who made it through the gate and conked me on the head? You see my baby puppy dog Roscoe here?” she asked, the tone of her words coming out husky, sexy.
“That’s no puppy,” Michael said.
“Well, he’s a growing boy. Now, when I got conked on the head, my baby boy here just up and ripped that person’s throat out and killed them. He almost tore their head off the body. The coroner said they could see his spine... See, he is a baby and is not as good and trained as Ranger over there. I would hate for him to have to be put down because he killed a few kids who were just goofing off and having a look around. Actually, fuck that shit. You broke into our farm. You are trespassing and if he would have chewed your ass up, I would cheer him on. If you ever try this again, I will sic Ranger on you too. After that, I’ll call the cops. Lucky you, Officer Buckley was already here.”
“Come on kids,” Buckley said. “I’ve got two patrol cars that are headed this way. You can ride back with them.
“But my car…” one of them whined.
“Have your parents pick it up tonight or in the morning. Let’s go, kids.”
“We didn’t even get close,” Jared said in a forlorn voice.
“Well, it looks like our electronic measures worked. Do we want to go over our response time and how bad things could have gone?” Rob asked.
“No, let’s get some sleep,” Andrea told them. “I’m bushed.”
“All good with tabling that discussion?” Rob asked.
He got nods all the way around the table. “Unofficially, a few of us are talking about cards in the workshop next to the beer fridge,” Steven said.
Anna gave him a lazy smile, then whispered in his ear. “But I may not be out there too long,” he quickly added.
“I might join for some cards,” Luis said. “Do I need to get my change out, or are we playing euchre again?”
“Oh, if you are playing euchre, I might join you for a few beers,” Grandma Goldie said, getting up from the table.
“Card night?” Angel asked Rob.
“Card night,” he agreed.
She jumped into his arms. He held her close, nearly a foot off the ground and kissed her deeply. Harry rolled his eyes while Roscoe started thumping his tail on the floor, making knickknacks shake.
Thirty-One
The Homeland and FSIS agents had started getting desperate. They would show up at a farm in the area they had previously gotten supplies from to find it either empty, or a larger armed group waiting for them. Not wanting to have an incident that made national news, they had always disengaged. It was starting to look to them as if they had somebody within their ranks who had been feeding information to the farmers in the area.
It was also maddening to have an agent in an unmarked car drive past the now unofficial market on the Langtry farm and not be able to do anything about it. The agent who had reported in was almost salivating at the amounts of produce and rations that his quick glimpse showed him. As of two days ago, the market had fresh milk as well as fresh eggs.
Who was supplying the milk, and was it from a USDA certified dairy? Things they wanted and needed to know; except their higher ups had put the Langtry Farm and the adjoining ranch on the list of places to avoid at all possible costs. The agent had heard stories about Sullivan’s thwarted attempt, but out of the six who died, five were due to a bull, not any of the humans. The agent who had been shot in the head apparently was going to shoot a dog of all things and the sheriff had cleared the farmers!
“This isn’t the reason I went into government work,” Jake Kendricks said to himself.
He was doing a third drive by of the Langtry farm. As he suspected, they were setting up for the market. He decided to pull to the side of the road behind somebody else and walk up. He was feeling confident. He was enforcement, he had a badge. Besides, none of these people were armed that he could see.
Kerry had been busy carrying her table into the crack in the gate along with some of the early vendors. Angel had been out to open the gates, but had gotten called back to the house for a moment. Jake Kendricks unknowingly walked through the gap in the security, right through the opening.
“Hey fella, give me a hand a s
econd?” an older woman called out to him.
She had been setting up a folding eight-foot table and had two coolers she had dragged in from the road with her. Jake saw she looked plumb worn out and decided what a better way to fit in, than to give her a hand.
“Sure thing,” he said, hurrying over.
“My heart is just racing so fast, and that table nearly did me in. At least my coolers have wheels, and I can just sort of drag them wherever I want to.” She fanned herself as she spoke, noting the young man looked to be in his twenties or early thirties.
He was wearing blue jeans, and a black t-shirt with a checkered button up shirt, half undone. He looked strong, which was why she’d called him over.
“I’ve got the table, how about you sit back a moment and I’ll take care of things?”
“Oh, if you’re sure,” Ella May said, fanning herself more as she realized how handsome the young man was.
“It’s nothing ma’am.” He gave her a grin.
Jake set up the table and put a plastic lined tablecloth over it, then helped Ella get the produce out of her two big coolers. By the time he was done with that, he had heated up in the fall air to the point where he was sweating. Ella offered him a bottle of water from her coolers and he took it, thanking her.
“Are you here helping somebody out?” she asked him, noting he wasn’t in a hurry to leave.
“I helped you, didn’t I?” he said with a grin.
“Oh, I see. You’re wanting to trade a little work for some produce?” she asked, giving him a wry and knowing grin.
“Sort of,” he told her, lying. “I mean, I hear all kinds of things about what's going on, and the grocery stores are just emptying out.”
“And those stupid government thugs are raiding all the farmers for produce,” she said, feeling like she could trust the man.
Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 2 | The Farm Page 20
