by Josie Brown
“So, you’ve received the check,” I say, matter-of-factly.
“Um…no. Not yet.” Again, two blinks.
Jack smiles, hoping to put her at ease. “I think I should find Mr. Clement and fill him in on the situation. Mrs. Stone will finish up with a few more questions. How can I reach him in the back field?”
“Follow the path by the house. At the fork, between the two corn fields, turn left, which will take you north. He’s running the harvester, so he may not be able to hear you. You can use this flashlight to get his attention.” She hands him one of several portable lights lined up on one of the kitchen’s counters.
Jack nods in appreciation and heads out.
She waits until Jack leaves before turning to me. “What if we just return the seeds?”
“You can’t. You’ve already planted them.” I point to the acres of corn out the window, where the aqua-hued stalks catch the first rays of morning sun.
She frowns. She realizes that it’s a gotcha moment. “But we’ll get to keep the money, right? We didn’t know they were tainted, and he promised us!”
“From what we know so far, Dr. Wellborne wasn’t authorized by SeedPlenish to create the seed strain, let alone deliver it on the company’s behalf. It may be an issue for the courts to sort out.”
Her face turns to stone. “In the meantime, we lose our farm because we trusted SeedPlenish’s top scientist that it was a sure thing? Why, you’re—you’re going to bankrupt us!”
I pat her arm. “I’m sorry. I truly hope it isn’t the case. But I think you’d have a rock-solid case against SeedPlenish.”
She throws off my hand.
I take the hint—time to change the subject. “Mrs. Clement, what is the name of the broker who came for the corn?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I don’t know off the top of my head.” She points to the desk in the corner of the kitchen. “I’d have to look it up in Kurt’s ledger.”
She waits for my nod before heading to the desk.
What she pulls out isn’t a ledger. It’s a gun.
“Put your hands over your head,” she commands.
“Kerri, you don’t realize the importance of this. People’s lives are at stake!”
“Including ours. If we lose the farm, we have nowhere else to go! Kurt will never get over it!”
“Just how do you think he’d feel knowing that he’s responsible for the death of a staggering number of people? If that corn gets out, we’re talking about a body count that could climb into the tens of thousands! The Exodus strain carries a deadly virus!”
She wavers, but only for a second. “It’s already out—and…I…I can’t be responsible for that! It wasn’t our fault!”
“No one said it is. But we have to call the broker, to stop it from leaving his warehouse.”
“How do you know he wasn’t in cahoots with Dr. Wellborne?”
“I don’t,” I admit. “But if you let it go any further, you’re just as guilty as anyone else who knows about it but does nothing to stop it.”
“Kurt and I will be blamed anyway! Do you think anyone else will buy corn from us, once they hear about our role in this thing? And what about the seeds? Don’t you know birds pick it up and move it—not to mention the wind? Our land will always be tainted. Hell, we won’t even be able to sell the farm”—she pauses, as the full extent of her situation hits her—“unless—unless no one finds out where the seeds came from. So, just shut up”—she cocks the pistol—“or I’ll do something you’ll regret, because believe me, I have nothing to lose.”
I do as I’m told—for now.
She frisks me for a gun and finds one in the holster strapped to my back. With her free hand, she hides it in a kitchen drawer, then reaches for the wall phone, where she presses autodial and hits the speaker button.
A man’s voice exclaims, “Yep, what’s up, hon?”
Kerri picks up the receiver so that I can’t hear Kurt’s responses to what she has to say. “We have visitors…Feds. They came to confiscate the crop….I know, Kurt! Calm down! Listen—I agree! One is coming your way. Don’t worry, it’s—manageable. Trust me! Don’t…just do it—I don’t know, an accident. I’m covering the other one, here. But be careful! He’s got a gun…The drone? Great idea. You have it in the cab, right?” A look of relief sweeps over her face. “Kurt, I—I love you.”
Touching, what we do for love.
She clicks off. She takes a step closer. “I’m sorry, but this is the end of the road for you.”
“You’re making a big mistake, Kerri. If you kill us, you’ll have two murder convictions on your hands. Don’t forget, California still has the death penalty.”
“Sorry, but if we let you take our crop, we might as well be dead—at least, as far as the bank is concerned! This farm has been in my husband’s family for four generations. Sorry, but we’ll take our chances that they’ll never find your body out here—that is, if Kurt decides to bury you at all. The hogs in the barn will be glad to take care of the problem.” With the pistol barrel, she nudges me toward the door. “Let’s walk.”
It’s perhaps one hundred feet from the house to the barn. Next to it is the pigpen. Yes, I’d say the Clements’ hogs would enjoy something other than the corn they’re being fed.
Perhaps even more, considering all the vomit and diarrhea in the pen. I count twelve hogs. Two of them are laid out on their sides. Their eyes, open even in death, are covered in feasting flies.
Another four swine are also off their feet and wailing in pain.
I point at the pen. “Kerri, do you want to see the effect of the Exodus strain? Just look at what’s happening to your hogs.”
“Oh—my God!” She glances over quickly. When she sees what I see, she gasps and stares. “What the hell?”
I scoop down, grab a fistful of dirt, and fling it at her eyes.
“Shit!” she screams. It’s a direct hit. She tries to wipe it away with her free hand, but at the same time she waves the gun in my direction and shoots wildly.
The bullet ricochets off a metal barrel, and into the pigpen. One of her pigs cries out with a death squeal.
She probably did it a favor.
Instinctively, Kerri’s head turns toward the sound.
I tackle her so hard that she flips, head first, over the top rail of the pigpen.
Yuck.
She’s laying there, arms and legs askew.
Her neck is broken. The pigs that are not yet ill feast on all the fresh meat in front of them. Sadly, Kerri is no exception.
I turn my head, but I still heave.
I’ll never eat pork again.
When I can lift my head, I realize I have to warn Jack that he’s walking into an ambush.
I run down the road as fast as I can.
Damn it, I forgot that Kerri took my gun.
I stop short, and consider the possibility of heading back for it, but veto the notion. Even with a gun, Jack won’t have the advantage of hiding if Kurt launches his drone.
I’ll certainly add an element of surprise.
Then I hear it: the sound of an Oxbo corn harvester. The big hoe in front can take down eight rows at once: chopping stalks and leaves, husking the ears, and pulverizing everything else in its wake. It’s somewhere deep in the field beside me, but getting closer. I turn around—
I’m staring at it:
Like, say, right on my heels.
I feel an arm around my waist. In the nick of time, Jack pulls me out of the way.
I follow his lead, dodging through the corn. “Don’t run down a row,” he shouts. “Zigzag through the field—and stay out of the line of his turning radius, or you could get caught under one of the threshing wheels!”
“He’s…he’s tracking us with a drone,” I gasp.
Jack looks up. “Okay, then we need to separate.”
“You’ll have to shoot it down. My gun is in the house, so I’ll play decoy.”
“Be careful! That machine cuts a wide be
rth.”
I nod, then head left. He goes to the right.
I run out into the road.
The drone hovers in mid-air over the center of the field.
I shoot it a bird.
I must have caught its attention, because it veers my way.
We’re off to the races.
The sound of a row of ten-foot-tall corn stalks crashing into one another, and yet another, is akin to what we all imagine a giant’s footsteps would sound like. I don’t have the advantage of height to see if I should run left or right in order to avoid getting shredded to death.
So, I just keep running.
Suddenly, I hear a dull buzzing coming from above. The next thing I know, something comes crashing down behind me.
Ding, dong, the drone is dead. Jack must have made a direct hit.
Like Cyclops, Kurt is now driving blind through the field. I hear the corn harvester turning in my direction, so I leap into a dense row of corn.
One of the corn harvester planter’s fangs rips at my shirt. I groan at the pain from the gash in my arm, but I keep moving.
Kurt can’t back it up, or else he may mangle the blades on his harvester. If he’s going to follow me, he’s going to have to take another wide turn. This gives me the break I need: to get behind the harvester, as opposed to in front of it.
I run alongside of it until I grab hold of the back ladder and leap onto it.
He feels my presence and turns around. He’s shocked to see me there. He speeds up, hoping to shake me off. When he can’t, his only alternative is to open the cab and grab hold of me.
He reaches for me, but I dodge his grip. He’s mad enough to come at me again. But this time, when his head comes out of the cabin, despite the speed of the harvester, Jack is close enough to take his shot.
The bullet hits him in the chest. His body slams into the cab, only to bounce off, right into the harvester’s blades.
As he’s mangled, the machine grinds to a halt.
I reach into the cab to turn off the engine, but I’m not going to look at Kurt.
The sun has risen. The stalks look like a turquoise sea. On any other day, in any other cornfield, this sight would be beautiful.
Kerri was right. The broker’s name is in Kurt’s ledger. It’s Barnaby Phillips out of Bakersfield. He purchased seven acres of the stuff, the equivalent of eight hundred and forty bushels.
We hang tight until the FDA agents show up. Their directive is to confiscate enough of the corn to make the case, and to flash incinerate the rest, so that no residue is left.
I’m taking corn off the family menu, at least for now. I don’t think I’ll get an argument from Jack.
Chapter 8
Spreading Manure
Despite the stench, organic matter excreted by animals is a nitrogen-rich soil amendment and fertilizer. Sometimes in the fall, farmers till green (that is, fresh) manure into the soil, giving its nutrients time to be released before the spring planting. Otherwise, it can “burn,” or dehydrate them.
A more efficient way to spread manure is by first composting it for a time, with a carbon-rich bedding, such as hay, wood shavings, or straw. You’ll know it’s ready when it’s a beautiful, crumbly, black, odor-free substance.
Should you be holding some bad guy hostage and interrogation is necessary, I’m sure that your methods will lead to the release of his own fresh manure. By all means, save it for your garden! Your roses and ranunculus will appreciate your thoughtfulness!
And should your prisoner expire during the course of your interrogation, never fear: a decomposing body makes for a nutrient-rich fertilizer too!
Abu already has a truck pulled in front of Farm Fresh Ventures when Jack and I get there. The produce brokerage, owned by Barnaby Phillips, is located outside Bakersfield, right off its principle highway, Route 99, not far from Interstate Highway 5. These two roads run the length of California’s agriculturally rich central valley. We are parked in front of a warehouse surrounded by several silos of different sizes. Giant plastic blow-up corn is tethered on the warehouse’s roof. The wind is brisk, making the loose green husks sway like a hula skirt, and its polyester corn silk shoot straight up over its head.
Polyester is the fabric of choice for Barnaby Phillips too. Considering his territory is all of California and Arizona, I’m surprised his suits don’t melt into his skin. Thank goodness for cotton undershirts and tighty-whities.
Before we go inside, we call Ryan to discuss a strategy, since Jack and I are split on what will work best. “Should we level with the guy?” Jack asks.
“But, if we tell a civilian, it’ll cause a panic,” I counter. “Why not just buy the Exodus seeds outright?”
Ryan thinks about it for a moment. Finally, he says, “I agree with Donna. POTUS’s mandate is that this mission be wrapped up without the public knowing there was even a possibility of an outbreak, let alone an outbreak because of an act of terrorism.”
“Yeah, okay. So, what price do we offer him?”
“Give me a moment, so that I can look up the going rate for a bushel of corn…okay, it looks like it’s around three dollars and eighty-four cents per bushel.”
“The Clements’ ledger showed only seven acres of the stuff was planted. It yielded an average of one-hundred and fifty bushels per acre,” Jack points out.
Ryan pauses to calculate a dollar total. “That’s four-thousand and thirty-two dollars.”
“That was chump change for the Clements. No wonder they jumped at the opportunity for that extra million bucks Wellborne paid them to be the ‘test farm’ for the Exodus seed,” I add. “By the way, Ryan, I don’t think he’ll take my Visa card.”
“Very funny. When the time comes I’ll do a direct deposit into his account.”
Jack and I exchange looks. I’m sure he’s thinking what I’m thinking: If the time comes.
It may not, if the corn has already been sold.
What a nightmare that will be.
Barnaby Phillips sits at an old metal desk in the middle of the warehouse’s reception area. The twenty-by-ten paneled room doesn’t hold much else, except for a couple of vertical file cabinets and a broken couch that sags against the far wall.
Barnaby is so busy good-ol’-boy-ing somebody on his desk phone that he doesn’t hear us enter. Jack lands on the couch so hard that it groans as it rocks back onto its hind legs.
This certainly gets Barnaby’s attention.
I elect to stand against the wall.
He holds up a finger, signaling us that he’ll only be a moment longer.
By his chuckles and comments, he’s being optimistic. “Yeah, boy, I hear ya…Yeah, boy, that was one whopper of a yield…the name of that waitress at Hot Wheels on Interstate 10? Wasn’t it Jolene?” He chuckles. “Yeah…you can say that again.”
He looks over at me, and gives me a wink.
How badly does he want to hold on to that eye?
When he sees that I’m not smiling, let alone winking back, he shrugs. “What’s that—the Mustang Ranch? Ha! You don’t say! Well, in hindsight, I wouldn’t doubt it. She could suck the chrome off of a—”
He doesn’t get to finish his overused metaphor because I’ve slammed the phone receiver into its cradle.
He tries to hide his annoyance with a grin that shows a bumper crop of bad teeth. “So, now, what can I do for you folks?”
Jack smiles back. I have no issue with him playing good cop—for as long as that lasts. “We’d like to buy some corn. Specifically, the corn that came from Clover Hill Farms.”
“Clover Hill?” Barnaby taps his forehead, as if the name escapes him.
“You know, the Clements’ place.” Jack’s smile stays in place, but I notice he’s balled his fists.
Barnaby must notice too, because he snaps his fingers as if his memory has suddenly come back to him. “Oh, yeah! Right! They grow some good ear up there in Dixon, don’t they?” He leans back in his chair—unfortunately, too far, because it almost
tips over. He rights himself quickly. “I’ve got it right out back.” He motions to one of the silos outside the window.
“All one thousand and fifty bushels?” I ask.
Barnaby frowns. “You want it all?”
“Yes,” Jack and I say in unison.
He looks at us suspiciously. “What kind of business do y’all have?”
“It’s for…” Hmmm. Let me think fast. “A restaurant,” I say at the same time Jack says, “Food processing.”
Barnaby’s head turns from Jack to me to Jack again.
“We process a lot of food in our restaurant,” I explain. “People like to take home big to-go bags. So, we use up a lot of corn meal. We’re now making our own meal, from scratch.”
“Yeah…I get it.” Barnaby shrugs. “You must sell a heck of a lot of corn dogs.”
“The chef,”—I point to Jack—“is very particular about the ingredients. The Clements’ corn comes highly recommended.”
“So I hear.” Barnaby lumbers over to the file cabinet, comes up with whatever paperwork he needs, and sits back down. His knuckles roll across the calculator. “Okey-dokey, folkies! We’re looking at five thousand five hundred bucks. Wanna pony up to the bar?” He looks up, expectantly.
Jack frowns as he cracks his knuckles. “Don’t you mean three-thousand six hundred and forty eight dollars?”
Barnaby winces, but is smart enough to recalculate. I’d love to see what is really on his calculator tape. My guess is that the right figure is apt to come from a room full of chimpanzees diddling calculators before we ever get a straight answer from him.
“Why, what do you know?” he chortles. “You hit the number right on the head! We’ll take a check, and you can come and pick it up in three days.”
“We prefer to do direct deposit, and take it with us now.” Jack points to Abu’s truck.
Barnaby frowns. “Yeah, okay. Tell your driver to roll it under the number three silo, there.”
Jack heads out the door, while Barnaby gives me the bank number for the deposit.
A few minutes later, the deposit is made. “Nice doing business with you,” he hollers, as I run out the door.