Three Can Keep a Secret

by Judy Clemens

  “Which?”

  “Flowers and vegetables. Basically no contact with the public if you use the honor system, and it would take up lots less land than a phone tower.”

  “And I’m going to tend the plants with what time?”

  He looked at me steadily. “How about the time you’re putting into fixing up the bike that almost got you killed?”

  I stared back at him. “That Harley is all I have of a life outside this farm, Abe. And most of my friends are bikers.”

  “I’ve offered you another way.”

  I stifled a groan. “Marry you and become the perfect yuppie wife?”

  “Is that so unattractive?”

  I pushed myself out of my chair. “Abe, you know you’re one of my favorite people, and I appreciate all the work you’ve done for me. But this farm is all I have left of my parents. Of Howie. No matter how I feel about you, I’m not ready to abandon it.”

  He studied me. “Well, then, isn’t it worth it to consider one or two of these other options? I want to help save the farm. You know I do.”

  I jammed my hands into my pockets and looked out the window at my house. I did love the place. But how much more sacrificing was I going to have to do for it?

  “So leaving my bike behind and tending a garden has become my only option?”

  He tapped on the computer screen. “I’m doing my best to come up with others. None of them leave much room for joy-riding. But look at what it means in the end.”

  I turned slowly toward him. “What it means is I lose one more part of my life that brings me happiness. I don’t have too many of those left.”

  He seemed about to say something, but I couldn’t listen anymore. I left the room, closing the door a little harder than I meant to. I leaned against the wall and pushed on my temples with my fingers. It had been five weeks since my life had changed irrevocably, and I wasn’t in a place to be adding more responsibilities to my already overflowing plate of chores. Let alone manage the stress that comes with trying out a new take on an old relationship.

  I shoved myself away from the wall and went to check on my farmhand hopeful.

  The cows were hooked into their stalls and Lucy was placing the milker on the first one when I got back to the parlor. Zach caught my eye over a cow’s back and gave me an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

  I stood and watched Lucy work. Seemingly oblivious to my presence, she projected an understanding of cows, unlike some of my loser applicants. She was gentle, patting their rumps and talking to them, but not so delicate she wouldn’t put a knee in their leg to move them over, or prod them awake with her boot. Her hands on the milking apparatus were sure and steady, and she moved like she was at home.

  Hope began creeping its way into my chest, and I had to work hard to stifle it, afraid of yet another disappointment.

  I steeled myself and went into the feed room to get the cows’ grain. There was no way to tell it anymore, but that little room was where I had found Howie, my beloved farmhand, taking his last breaths. I couldn’t even look at the doorway to the room without feeling queasy.

  I made it out to the parlor just in time to see Lucy avoid getting peed on by a cow. She waited for the river to stop, then stepped beside the cow to wipe off the teats with a paper towel. Another good attribute for a farmhand. Cool in times of excrement.

  Zach was busy in his row with the same routine as Lucy—wiping off the teats and hooking on the milkers. I had just started filling the feed trays when Queenie growled a low, bone-chilling rumble. From where I stood I couldn’t see her, but I could see Lucy, who had frozen.

  “What?” I asked, and took a step.

  “Stop!” Her voice was a forced whisper.

  I stopped.

  “We’ve got a problem,” Lucy said.

  By shifting my weight I could get my eyes around the cow blocking my view, and I sucked in my breath. Queenie crouched low on her haunches, her teeth bared. About a foot from her face a beautiful black and bronze snake lay at attention, its eyes locked with Queenie’s. A copperhead. Venomous and not at all friendly.

  “Holy crap,” Zach said. “Where did that come from?”

  “Stella,” Lucy said. “Do you have a rifle?”

  “In the office, but there’s no way—”

  “Somebody bring it to me.”

  I took a deep breath and let it out. She seemed to know what she wanted, and I was no expert on snake extermination. “Okay. Zach, you’re closest. Go—”

  “Slowly,” Lucy said.

  “—and get it. You know where it is. Grab some ammo, too.”

  Lucy, Queenie, and I stood stock still, keeping our eyes straight ahead, while Zach made a slow and quiet exit. Once he was gone Lucy’s shoulders relaxed a little.

  “Keep him far away,” she said. “Copperheads can be lethal to kids.”

  “What about you? You’re smaller than Zach.”

  “It’s not necessarily your size that matters.”

  “Here it is,” Zach said from the doorway.

  Lucy angled her eyes toward him. “Okay.” Her lips barely moved as she talked. “I want you to hand the gun to Stella without taking another step, then the ammo. Then get out of here.”

  Zach stretched his arm out, and by leaning slightly to the side I could reach the gun. He was too far away for me to reach the bullet, so I wiggled my fingers and he gave it a gentle toss. I closed my hand over it, then watched as Zach took a backward step and retreated into the hallway.

  Lucy’s arm was already stretched over the cow between us. Her eyes, focused on the snake, were cold and hard. By standing on my toes and balancing against a cow I could just get the gun to her fingers. She transferred it slowly to her left hand, swiveling her eyes toward me. I said a small prayer, then repeated Zach’s process of tossing the bullet, which fortunately found her hand.

  All of this seemed to be taking an eternity, but in reality it must have only been about five minutes. It took another year for Lucy to get the bullet into the twenty-two and rack it. A tremor shook my chest as she raised the gun to her shoulder. There was no way she’d hit the snake from where she stood. She was much more likely to hit Queenie or ricochet the bullet around the room, killing a cow or one of us.

  “Lucy,” I said.

  She slid her eyes toward me impatiently, and the look in them silenced me. I shook my head and she went back to taking aim.

  The shot pierced the air in the concrete room, and I recoiled violently, slapping my hands over my ears. Lucy’s ears had to be ringing, too, but when I straightened she nodded and walked carefully toward the snake. I stepped out from behind the cows and watched as she scooped up the dead serpent with the barrel of the gun.

  “Good grief,” Zach said.

  I stared. “Lucy. We need to talk.”

  “I hate snakes,” Lucy said.

  Chapter Three

  “What the hell was that?” I asked.

  Lucy and I sat in my office, where a little air conditioner chugged away in the window. My sweat, arising from both milking and the snake confrontation, chilled my skin, and my arm itched like mad.

  After the snake had been properly disposed of behind the feed barn, Lucy, Zach, and I had finished the remainder of the milking before we women left Zach to clean out stalls and scrape the walkways. Now I needed a few answers.

  Lucy shrugged. “I grew up on a farm. I’ve known how to shoot a gun since I was twelve. One time I shot a bat out of the sky.”

  That seemed a bit unbelievable, but then, she had just shot a snake.

  “What’s a good Mennonite girl like you doing with aim like that?” I was only half joking.

  “We Anabaptists may resist hurting other people, but we can handle killing snakes.”

  “Which you do very well. You stayed calm under life-threatening pressure today.”

  “Not really.” She leaned back in her chair. “You most likely won’t die from a copperhead bite un
less you’re a kid or old or unhealthy. But the pain is almost worse than dying.”

  “You’ve been bit?”

  “Once. Hurt like the dickens.”

  “I bet. So you grew up with cows?”

  “And pigs. And chickens. And sheep. Whatever my dad was into at the time. The pigs didn’t stay long. Mom finally said it was her or the oinkers. Couldn’t stand the smell.” She lifted a shoulder. “But there were always the cows.”

  I looked her over from where I sat behind my desk. She really was small, but she’d proven she was no weakling.

  “So where were you before and why did you leave?” I asked.

  She stiffened slightly and looked down at her hand, her fingers picking at the arm of the chair. “I’ve had several long-term jobs at farms, but not for a few years now. I…took a break. My husband was ill, and I stayed home to care for him.”

  Suddenly I understood the dullness in her eyes. “And your husband?” I asked quietly.

  She swallowed, a tightness forming around her mouth. “He’s been gone a little over a year and a half. He died the day after Christmas.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You can call my last employer if you want. He’ll tell you how I did.” She scribbled down a name and number and I took it and smoothed it on the top of my desk.

  “Why get a job now?” I asked.

  She cocked her head. “It’s a combination of things. The main reason is I miss it. I miss the cows, the routine. Believe it or not, I miss the smells.” She angled her face away. “But other things have been sneaking up on me. A year and a half is a long time to be grieving a lost husband while living with my parents and my in-laws right down the street. To be honest, they’re driving me crazy. I mean, I love them, but—”

  “You don’t have to explain. I’m a great believer in personal space.”

  “So you understand. I cut out your ad in Hoard’s two weeks ago, but have been holding off on any decisions.” She gazed at me with what looked like desperation, and something deep inside me reached out to her.

  “The job is yours if you want it.”

  Her mouth quivered, and I wasn’t sure if she was getting ready to laugh or cry. “You mean it?”

  “One thing you’ll learn quick is I don’t say things I don’t mean.”

  She looked away for a long moment, and when she turned back, determination showed on her face. “I’ll do a good job.”

  “I know. When can you start?”

  “Today.”

  I smiled. “How ’bout tomorrow. I’ll do the morning milking—that’s always been mine. Why don’t you come whenever you want and move into the apartment.…”

  The apartment. The space above the garage where Howie had lived. Now Lucy would be living there, and I needed to clean it out. Not that there was much to move. I’d put it off as long as I could, and I certainly wasn’t looking forward to facing Howie’s ghost.

  “So I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said.

  I suddenly felt emotional, realizing this person was here because Howie was gone, so I stood up. Lucy clasped her hands and peered up at me like a nervous high-schooler.

  “What?” I said. “You don’t see another snake?”

  “Oh gosh, no. It’s just…I have a couple more things to talk to you about.”

  I sat back down. “You’re not an alcoholic, are you?”

  “No.” She let out a surprised chuckle.

  “Use drugs? Been convicted of something?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a serial killer? Escaped convict?”

  She held up her hand. “Can’t claim either.”

  “Okay. Good. So what is it?”

  “Is the apartment big enough for two?”

  I blinked. “Two?”

  “I’ll be bringing my daughter, Tess. She’s eight.”

  I thought about this. I liked little girls okay, I guessed. I wasn’t used to having them around the farm, but I could handle it, if it meant having Lucy.

  “She’s a good girl,” Lucy said, “and she’ll be in school starting Monday, as long as her registration goes through.” She flushed. “I stopped by the administration building this afternoon, just in case…well, in case it worked out here. School’s the main reason I finally took the plunge and came to apply. I realized it was starting next week, and if we were going to be here I wanted Tess to be able to start on day one. She deserves that chance.” She hesitated. “I promise she won’t be a problem.”

  “Why would she be? I’ll be glad to have her. Sorry you can’t stay tonight.”

  “I have to go back to Lancaster, anyway. Tess is with my folks. I’ll bring her tomorrow. By the way, is the apartment furnished?”

  “Got all the necessities. You want to see it?”

  “That’s all right. From your expression I can see it would be better to wait. A good number of my things are in storage, anyway. We’ll just bring a few personal items, until we see what we need.”

  “Fine. Was there something else you needed to discuss?”

  She winced. “We can work around this issue, of course, with whatever your wishes are, but I want to at least mention it.”

  I waited, expecting the worst.

  “Might it be possible for me to have Sunday mornings off, so Tess and I could go to church? I mean, unless you go, then I’m willing to miss it.”

  I leaned back, relieved her request was innocuous. “I’ll do morning milkings, anyway, so I can’t see why that would be a problem. And I try to keep Sundays relatively free. Sunday could be your day off. That doesn’t seem unreasonable.”

  Her eyebrows lifted. “Wow, that’s just…that’s great. I’ll make it up to you the other days.”

  I flapped a hand at her. “Gotta have time off sometime. I should know. I haven’t had any lately, and it’s killing me. I can even point you toward a good church, unless you already have one in mind. Some of my closest friends go to Sellersville Mennonite. Been going there for years.”

  “Sellersville?” An expression of amusement flashed across her face. “That might work out very well.” She stood up. “I’ll be here to relieve you tomorrow. Unless you really would like me to stay for this evening. I can.”

  “No, go home to your daughter. I’ll survive a few more hours by myself.” I could practically feel Dr. Peterson’s presence slapping me on the forehead, but I ignored it.

  Lucy walked toward the door before stopping and looking back. “What happened with your last farmhand, anyway?”

  I concentrated on my breathing. “He died.”

  “I’m sorry.” She didn’t push for a further explanation, perhaps recognizing the grief on my face. For the same reason, I didn’t probe into her husband’s illness and death.

  She turned the doorknob. “I’ll see you tomorrow, then.”

  When she’d gone, I picked up the paper where she’d scribbled her reference’s name and number. Looked like he lived in Morgantown. It was a little late for a referral, seeing as how I’d hired her already, but I called the guy—Martin Spunk—anyway. He answered, and his voice made me want to laugh. All heart and no bite.

  “Stella Crown?” he said jovially. “As in the farm with all them troubles last month?”

  “That’s me.”

  “I read about that. I was real sorry to hear about Howie.”

  “You knew him?”

  “From way back. Worked together at a big farm in Wisconsin in, oh, sixty-two or thereabouts. Good hand. Good friend.”

  “The best.”

  We had a moment of silence.

  “So what can I do for you?” Spunk finally asked.

  “Wanted to check with you about a former employee. Lucy Lapp.”

  “Lucy?”

  “I hired her today, and I’m calling to make sure I did the right thing.”

  “No doubt about it.”

  “She did well for you?”

  “Best farmhand I ever
had.”

  “So how come you let her go?”

  “Had no choice. Her husband got hurt and she decided he was a bigger priority than me. Course that’s the way it should be.”

  “I thought he was sick. She called it an illness.”

  “I guess you could call it that. Fell down the basement stairs. Paralyzed from the neck down. Nasty business.”

  Nasty, indeed. “And he died about a year and a half ago?”

  “Yeah, real sad thing. She came back looking for a job a month or so ago, but I didn’t have nothing to offer her. I was right sorry about that. How’s that pretty little girl of hers? Tess?”

  “I haven’t met her yet, but she’ll be coming tomorrow.”

  “You tell her hello from her Uncle Marty, will ya?”

  “I’ll be glad to, Mr. Spunk. And thanks so much for the reference.”

  I hung up and sat for a moment, wondering if I should consider the small discrepancy in Lucy’s story. Would I call being paralyzed an illness? Perhaps if I didn’t want to explain things. Made sense to me. And she seemed prickly enough I wasn’t about to ask her. At least not till she’d been around a while.

  I put that aside and tried to digest the Howie connection I had made. Talking to Spunk I had found out things about Howie I’d never known.

  Zach found me in the same position ten minutes later.

  “You hire her?” he asked.

  I shook myself out of my trance. “She’s ours. Thanks for your input.”

  “She seemed to know what she was doing. And was a good shot, too.”

  “She’s bringing her daughter with her.”

  He brightened. “My age?”

  “Is that hormonal interest I’m seeing? Sorry. She’s only eight.”

  He grinned. “That’s all right. I haven’t decided to sign my life over to girls yet. That can wait a year or so.”

  “Good plan. Besides, I thought I was your only woman.”

  “You are my only woman. High school chicks are just girls.”

  “As long as we’re clear.”

  He laughed. “My dad’s here. I’ll see you tomorrow. Everything in the parlor’s done.”

  “Thanks, Zach.”

  I walked to the window and waved to Jethro Granger, Zach’s dad and Abe’s oldest brother. His bulk filled the driver’s side of his Chevy Dually, and his arm hung big and meaty out of the window. He waggled his fingers and they drove away, spitting up a cloud of dust.