Behind The Curve-The Farm | Book 2 | The Farm

by Craven III, Boyd

  “The news isn’t showing a lot about that. We were kind of shocked when we saw what we did a week ago, because we’d just been to the city and things were hunky dory,” Curt told him.

  Roscoe picked that moment to let out a low woof, roll to his side and wag his tail for a moment, before continuing to snore.

  “You have to remember, we’re all operating under National Emergency Powers Act stuff right now,” Daniels told them. “The rules change.”

  “But your oath doesn’t,” Rob stated.

  “Which is why I’m here. If any of you get involved tomorrow, they are going to use it as an excuse to wrap you all up and arrest you.”

  “So, what do we do to stop it?” Anna asked.

  “I don’t know. If you don’t have the market, maybe that would be best?” Daniels said, looking at Kerry, who was shaking her head no.

  “The market is keeping between two and three hundred people from this area in food. We cannot afford to close it down.”

  “We have to warn them,” Daniels said.

  “I have an idea, one that can fix all of this mess,’ Grandma Goldie said.

  She had been quiet until now, but she was smacking a wooden spoon in her hand, making a thwack, thwack sound as she did so.

  “Get those papers out for Sgt. Daniels to read,” Grandma Goldie pointed to Rob.

  “Kerry, you, me and Baron are going to be busy as all get out tonight. Trooper Daniels, I’m going to need a hand from you, as well as any from your department and the sheriff’s department who hold the constitution dear.”

  They all started grinning as Goldie laid out her plan. Rob started chuckling so deeply it scared Roscoe into wakefulness, and he gave a fart that would have made a Texas chili cookoff judge proud.

  Ranger sat on, amused. His humans had gotten bad news, but they had it figured out. He would listen to his big human alpha. He knew he had a part to play, but he would not know what until he told him.

  Thirty-Five

  Jake Kendricks and five more from Homeland made up the more experienced members of the team. Four more had come in from the FSIS, who had worked with him before in off the book operations. If this were successful, it would go on the books, the parts that were legal that is.

  “Sammy, park in the back, we’ll walk up,” Jake said.

  “They’ve got cameras and electronic motion sensors all along here,” Sammy told him.

  “I know, but with what looked like a hundred and fifty customers breaking their social distancing quarantine and unregulated sales of food, we have something here we cannot ignore. Besides, you read the laws the same way I did.”

  “The township and electrical easements give us up to fifty-foot access, well within their gates and fencing.”

  “Exactly, Sammy. Now if they let us in and we start seizing the produce, we can call in the collection teams. I bet you we can fill up two trucks here, and if we can goad the owners into doing something stupid, we could spend a week here, or longer if we let the Littles stay and run the harvest.”

  “Honestly, they are the ones I’m scared of the most,” Sammy told him.

  “On me, boys and girls,” Jake Kendricks said, getting out and starting walking.

  Two matching SUVs emptied.

  “Here they come,” Goldie said into the radio.

  The entire group was in the market, heavily armed, with all their armor on. Even Luis was out there, a gun tucked into his waistband under his shirt. Only Harry remained back at the house.

  “I wish Daddy would have left one of the dogs,” Harry complained.

  “He might need them both,” Goldie said. “Now show me the camera that has your Great Aunt at the gates.”

  Harry worked the computer program, changing the camera views while Goldie radioed in the information.

  “Good morning gentlemen and ladies,” Kerry said brightly to the Homeland agents dressed all in black. “What can I do for you?”

  “We’re coming in, move it lady,” Jake said brusquely.

  “I’m sorry, this is a members only event, on private property.”

  “I said move your ass, bitch,” he snarled.

  Suddenly Jake was looking up and up. He saw the chin and looked up again. Rob stepped in front of him, almost chest to chest.

  “You call my Aunt a bitch again and things are going to get ugly. You feel me?” Rob said.

  He was so close to Jake, that Jake was blocking the men behind him in the gap between the fence and the driveway gate. Hendricks had no idea how the big man had just appeared in front of him.

  “We have a legal right to be here,” an agent with ‘Sammy’ printed on his name tag said. “Both municipal and electrical easements give us access to within fifty feet of every telephone pole.”

  “You ain’t municipal sewer, power and electric,” Rob said simply.

  “Emergency Powers Act. You’ve heard of it, dumbass?” Kendricks said.

  Rob looked down at chest level at the skinny agent. “I have. Do you have a copy of the county ordinance or the local state laws that state this?” Rob asked.

  Angel walked up from behind him. She had on a smile that made the men there uneasy. Imagine Harley Quinn in a Battle Barbie outfit, with enough guns and ammo that would make many of the men in Homeland stagger at just the weight of it all. Kendricks just stared at her for a moment, then held his hand up over his shoulder.

  “Here,” Sammy said, then Jake passed it on to Rob.

  “The highlighted sections,” Sammy said from behind Kendricks helpfully.

  “I can read. Hold on,” he said.

  “Is it legal and legit?” Angel asked after a moment.

  “Sure thing. Go get me a chainsaw babe, would you?”

  “Chainsaw?” an agent behind them asked, surprise and fear in his voice.

  “I’m going to cut every power pole down between the road and the house. Then you can shove that piece of paper up your—”

  “What’s going on?” Andrea Mallory said walking up, as a crowd had been forming around the entrance.

  “This… it’s… Doctor Mallory?” Jake said, confused.

  She was kitted up like the others, but she had a cane in one hand, the other resting a thumb on a gun belt.

  “Yes sir. Rob, don’t worry about those power poles. If this is how these boys want to play things, we will let them come in and inspect the power, sewer and municipal stuff.”

  “Yes ma’am,” Rob said gritting his teeth.

  Angel just gave Andrea a glare.

  “It’s ok, Kerry,” Andrea said. “Let them in.”

  Kerry looked stricken but nodded to Andrea.

  “Finally,” Jake said. “You going to move?” he asked Rob.

  Rob sighed, and moved to the side. The agents swarmed inside, their H&K MP-5s on their straps. Nobody had a gun in their hand and they had been utterly surprised that they had been allowed in so easily. Jake, now in his Homeland getup, started barking orders to the others. They spread out, thinking this was just another regular raid where the farmers were now going to willingly give up their produce.

  “Where does this milk come from?” Jake asked an older woman and younger girl.

  “From a cow,” she said, pointing to the glass milk bottle.

  “Ok, let me rephrase this, where does the cow come from?”

  “A farm,” she said, smiling sweetly.

  “Your farm?” he asked, frustrated.

  “Well sure, I don’t know nobody who keeps a cow in their parlor, do you agent… Kendricks?” she asked, moving her spectacles up and down.

  “Do you send your milk to a processor?” he asked.

  “Hell no, processed milk is so much harder to make cheeses from,” she said. “So, I bottle it, keep it cool and sell it here at the market.”

  Hendricks was about to have a conniption. This woman was selling raw milk. His time on loan with the USDA had firmly implanted the knowledge of how reckless and dangerous this was for the general public. Raw milk was
almost as dangerous as heroin and marijuana!

  “I’m sorry ma’am, but that’s against the law. I am going to have to confiscate the milk, and your cow. Can I see some ID?”

  “No. And no you can’t,” she said with a giggle.

  “I said, show me your ID so we know where to send the teams to take the cow from,” his voice was rising.

  “Alright, alright,” she said looking at something behind him, “no use to raise your voice.”

  “Finally,” he said, glancing to his side to see what she was looking at.

  He did not see anything at first, but when he turned back, he was looking down double barrels of a shotgun, the hammers already pulled back.

  “Gulp,” Jake said, his eyes going wide.

  “Don’t do it sonny,” she said, shaking the shotgun in his face. “You try to grab it, boom. You go for your guns, boom. You’re lucky I’m wearing my good glasses today. Who knows what might happen if all I was seeing was a blur?”

  “Hold still,” a voice from behind him said.

  Kendricks froze as he felt the barrel of a gun dig into the base of his skull. He slowly put his hands up, as he was thoroughly disarmed.

  “You can turn around now,” he said.

  The process was being repeated all over the market. Instead of the group doing it, instead… “It’s the customers and vendors,” he said to himself.

  “What you don’t seem to understand, Jake Kendricks,” the customer said from behind him, “is that you can’t just roll in here and take everything we’ve worked so hard for. This food, it’s needed.”

  “We have a greater need,” Jake said.

  “No, you don’t. This food right here, it feeds a small community of a couple to a few hundred. Just from these nice folks’ driveway. Come harvest season, and if we get some more butchers working, we might be able to feed all of our community. Maybe more. But right now, it’s needed right here, and you boys aren’t going to be taking it.”

  “You’re just a bunch of farmers and hicks. When they hear you all pulled guns on us…?”

  “Not all of us are just farmers and hicks,” Daniels said, walking up, moving his checkered shirt to the side and showing his badge. “Almost all of the state police barracks for this area is here, as well as the sheriff’s department.”

  They were in plain clothes, but many of the officers had done as Daniels had done, showing the agents that they were outnumbered in not only law enforcement numbers, but in arms and people as well. Jake looked to see that of the hundred and fifty people there, the only ones that were not armed, were the two dogs. One sat on either side of Andrea.

  “You can’t do this,” he said, seeing men and women piling the agents’ guns in the middle of the gravel driveway.

  “Luis, we’re ready for the mixture,” Rob called.

  A cackling Luis fired up the UTV and a blue barrel wobbled as it moved across the driveway in the bed of the side by side. The agents were herded into the middle of the driveway.

  “Strip down to yer skivvies,” Rob thundered.

  “What?” Kendricks asked.

  “Vests, shirts, boots, pants. Leave your underwear on, leave on any undershirts or bras, but that’s it.”

  “No, that’s not how this is going to work…”

  Angelica walked up and kicked Jake in the jewels so hard, he doubled over. She then proceeded to drive a knee into his face, jumping a little to do that. Jake started falling over backwards and Angel pounced. She used her knees and elbows mostly, but by the time she was done she’d done a couple of handstands on Jake’s shoulders, dropping her knees into his head, chest, legs, or stomach depending on how much he was fighting back.

  She wore out after he had quit screaming almost a minute earlier. She got up, wiping blood off her hands.

  “We weren’t supposed to get involved,” Rob hissed.

  “He pissed me off,” she hissed back.

  “What is that stuff?” one of the female Homeland agents asked as the barrel was lifted down by the men.

  “Smell it,” somebody offered.

  She did and almost gagged.

  “Old used motor oil, axle grease, thinned out with a little kerosene. I think we even have some old rancid pig fat in there,” Luis said with a grin.

  “Strip,” a man roughly shoved her back with her buddies. “Keep your dignity, and accept the consequences, and you can walk out of here. Otherwise…” somewhere somebody flipped off the safety, making an ominous clicking sound. She started stripping.

  In a moment, so did everyone else who had come to the farm to confiscate their food. Anna and Angel took their time cutting the clothing off of Jake, dumping his clothing in a pile with the others. He was coming around, his eyes already blackening from the broken nose, his face a lumpy mishmash. He walked, crouched over, his hands holding his sides. Angelica thought she’d broken a rib or two, but she did not have quite enough mass to do more than crack it as they would later find out.

  “You all stand there, and somebody get me the feathers!” Luis shouted, giving two different groups directions.

  A garbage bag was brought up their way as the customers were handed small plastic buckets. A dozen of them started throwing the mixture on the agents. It… stank. It was not hot tar, but it made for one big mess. The agents in the middle tried to push their way out to the front, but the guns of the sheriff’s department and state police officers kept them from breaking and running. It did not take long for a dozen people to empty the fifty-five-gallon barrel.

  “I think I’m going to be sick,” the female agent said, her face and most of her exposed skin now covered in the oily, sludgy substance.

  “Feathers,” Luis ordered.

  A garbage bag of chicken feathers collected from the barn was dumped over their heads. Many of them were screaming threats, promises of repercussions but all of them were now covered in sticky, stinkyness. A modern-day tar and feathering that did not permanently hurt them.

  “Now, before we let you go,” Sgt. Daniels said, “I want you to understand the ground rules here. You’re walking out of here. If you want your gear and vehicles back, they’ll be at the sheriff’s department. Since there has been a joint investigation opened between both the sheriff’s department and the state police, and you all are implicated, do not leave town. Sheriff Robertson’s murder has been linked to the death of Josey Winters, former ADA to the West Memphis area. She herself was under investigation for inciting riots, felony murder and—”

  “She was not!” Kendricks mush mouthed.

  “She most certainly was. If we prove our case that she’s the one who caused the people to come to the farm here to burn down and kill the residents, if she were alive, she’d be charged with capital murder of all of those who died.”

  “She didn’t kill them, they did!” Kendricks mush mouthed and nodded to the group that was now standing together.

  “They died in the commission of a crime, one they were perpetuating, which means we get to charge those who set it up with capital murder also… so… am I hearing this right, in front of three hundred people, that you knew she set up the farm to be attacked?”

  “I didn’t say that,” he said quickly, his words mumbled.

  “But you didn’t deny it,” another deputy said. “Now, you boys and girls are lucky. The folks in these here parts wanted to get the drop on you and send you back in body bags. That would have gotten the president’s attention real damn quick… but we learned a new tactic from the Mallorys. We’ve got this entire shit burger recorded. If hostilities in this area do not cease from your people, then the videos go live, and we stir up a civil war. Oh, and between our two departments, we might also declare open hunting season for any federal employee.”

  “You can’t do that,” a Homeland agent called.

  “What are the first three words of the constitution, you piece of filth?” Ella May shrieked at the agents.

  “We the people—”

  “And we the people told
you enough is enough. Now get out of here, before we really put a hurting on you.”

  Disarmed, humiliated, tarred and feathered, the agents left.

  “How far are you going to make them walk?” Rob asked Sgt. Daniels.

  “I put a call in with the FBI. I may not be a big stick in the department, but as somebody pointed out, if I do nothing, my pension might not be there when I retire. This way… the community survives, and everybody can live in peace.”

  “What if they decide to come back and do something about it?” Rob asked.

  “Then we keep our promise to them,” Daniels said. “I’m tired of being a part of the problem.”

  Most of the law enforcement who heard that from Sgt. Daniels cheered.

  On the cameras, Harry watched them all. He knew they had won something today, but he did not quite understand what. He just hoped that everyone hurried up some more. He wanted to go catch some catfish for supper. Maybe he could talk his dad into going with him. He switched the camera feed on the big screen so he could watch the humiliated agents leaving the area. They were supposed to be the good guys. Now? They were the hated.

  The End

  About the Author

  Boyd Craven III was born and raised in Michigan, an avid outdoorsman who’s always loved to read and write from a young age. When he isn’t working outside on the farm, or chasing a household of kids, he’s sitting in his Lazy Boy, typing away.

  You can find the rest of Boyd’s books on Amazon here.

  boydcraven.com

  boyd3@live.com