by Alan Black
There was enough gunfire to assume the direction of origin, but she was not familiar enough with shooting to know how far away it was. She thought the sound of a gunshot carried for many miles, but she would have to research the subject to know for sure. She would not worry about bullets fired beyond her property unless someone was firing at her house. She did know bullets could easily travel from the edge of her property and reach her house.
She was not morally averse to hunting. Her father and uncles were avid hunters. They also loved fishing and camping. He would love camping on this new world, but the hunting and fishing were non-existent. Her family members were rabid wildlife conservationists. She grew up with guns in the house and had no fear of guns unlike many of her university colleagues. Guns were simply tools, not dangerous in the hands of skilled operators but growing up she was more interested in reading and school activities than hunting and shooting. It had been twenty years since she last held a gun, except to fain admiration for one of her Dad’s new acquisitions.
There was nothing to hunt anywhere on this new planet. She might have brought a gun for hunting if there had been, but at the time, it did not seem prudent to take up their allotted space for such a tool. She regretted that decision more than once after meeting the Halberds.
Maybe Maine was right and someone was practicing shooting near her property. Her dad liked to shoot at targets whenever there was no open hunting season. Target shooting was a sport, even an Olympic sport, after all. North and west of her property line would be good places to put up a shooting range. There were plenty of hillsides and canyons to use as a backdrop for safety. Maybe he was right…but she doubted it. The sick greasy feeling in her stomach caused her to doubt Maine’s analysis.
She wondered about the Halberds. They came from the south, nowhere near the gunfire. Nevertheless, their air skis were quiet enough they could have shot at something and then circled around. Still, there was nothing to shoot at. Her workers were at the new houses to the north—she hoped. The last she had seen, her cattle were grazing much farther to the northwest along the stream.
What would the Halberds be up to if they were involved? Somewhere in the back of her mind she had an inkling, but she pushed the dark thought away as unthinkable.
The walk took long enough that her thoughts wandered. I wonder if Tatum has changed his policy on giving advances for future crops. Maybe my advertising stunt drove enough customers away that he had to offer an advance or go under. Still, it seems odd that he would give an advance to the Halberds. Supposedly, they never plant more crops than they can eat.
Speaking to herself, Veronica said aloud, “I wonder if Tatum is helping the Halberds push me off my land or they are helping him?” Tatum definitely seemed the most ambitious when it came to any possible collusion. It was the first time she had given voice to the thought.
She walked through a small dale covered in clusters of aspen-like trees. Their wood was so soft she and Cal could not use any of it in the construction of her house. Once cut and dried the wood became powder-like. She wondered if she could replant some of it up by the house. Their white bark and bluish-green leaves would make an excellent color match to the white and pink oleanders she recently planted. The trees seemed to be getting along well with the Earth grasses that had already pushed out the native grasses.
She topped the rise. The reverse slope led down to a stream, then up and over a couple of rolling hills to her property edge. She considered asking the shooters to move on a bit to preserve her peace, once she found them.
She stopped. There in a small glade along the edge of the stream lay her cattle. Four young cows and four calves lay dead in the grass.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Veronica released a bloodcurdling scream, though no sound escaped her gaping mouth.
These gentle animals, no more dangerous than a skittish cat, ran away when approached. Gentle as they were, they were farm animals, not pets. They existed to be food for another species. She planned someday to send some of her cattle off for slaughter, but not like this. These few cows were to be the start of her beef cattle herd. To see them laying in the grass, unmoving, their blood pooling around them and flowing into a blood red stream, was actually painful. If only she could cry. No tears came.
If she could not cry, anger would have to do. She walked in a wide circle around the dead remains of her small herd. She splashed through the stream, unworried about the blood red color of the water. She circled inward studying the ground for any sign of disturbance. She saw nothing other than the cows themselves.
There were no spent cartridges, no tire tracks, and no footprints. Whoever had done this used quiet, air-ride vehicles. Veronica knew who the culprits were. Knowing it and proving it were two different things. There was no one to report it to even if she could prove it. This was well outside of Sheriff Eustace’s jurisdiction. The Pioneer Compact did not specify any law enforcement agency beyond town or city borders. Colonists who opted for agribusinesses were responsible for their own safety and justice.
She silently stood over her lost herd. Pulling a knife out of her pocket, she flipped it open. Initially, it felt strange carrying a knife in her pocket. Back on Earth, college professors lost their jobs for carrying a weapon onto school grounds even if it was a small penknife. Steve had convinced her that a knife was a necessary tool on a farm. She did need it now, but she did not want to use it.
Sadly, she looked at the calf at her feet. It would be easier to cut into because it had less meat and gristle than a mature cow, but she could not bring herself to start the chore. Instead, she knelt next to the smallest of the original four young cows and poked the blade into a bullet hole, judging the angle of the shot.
She cut.
Steve shouted as he approached the scene. “Hey, boss.”
She glanced up in time to see the truck slide to a stop on a puff of air. Returning to her work, she cut deeper. She was digging in along the spine, carefully feeling with her fingertips as she went. Her arm was bloody to the shoulder and blood splattered the rest of her.
“There you are,” Steve started. He finished the sentence with a string of curses. Veronica doubted the man ever spoken like that in front of his wife.
Polat and Auggie climbed out of the truck and started down the hill after Steve.
“Freeze,” she shouted. “Watch where you step. I did a cursory search of this area, but look to see if you can find any proof on the ground as to who did this.”
Polat circled one way. Auggie went the other.
Steve swept the ground with his eyes as he walked up to her.
“Let me do that, Veronica,” he said.
She shook her head. “They’re my cattle, my chore. What’s with the new guys?”
Steve said, “I brought them along in case we needed some extra hands against, well… against whoever was shooting out here. I left Maslow back to keep an eye on our families.”
“Well, don’t do it again,” she said. “Bringing unarmed men to confront people with guns just brings more lives to the slaughter.”
“Halberds?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” she replied. “We don’t have security cameras on any of our fields. I only have enough video equipment to set it up around the house. We’ll get that set up there right away, but we don’t have enough equipment to cover a couple thousand acres. Even if we did, we don’t have the staff to continuously watch the video feeds.”
Polat stepped up, “Sorry, Mrs. Smith. We don’t see anything here.”
Steve said, “Halberds for sure. We need to take care of them.”
Veronica said, “No. These are my cattle, so the Halberds are my problem. There.” She pulled her arm out of the cow with a sucking noise, holding a bullet in her hand. She walked upstream a bit and swished the bullet around in the water. It came clean like shiny brass. “And…and…” She shook her head as she lost her voice. She put the bullet away in a deep pocket.
She washed her knife
and put it away. She began washing her hands until she realized blood covered her from her neck to her waist. She sat in the stream, fully clothed, and washed the blood away. Her three farm hands stood by, watching her in silence. It took a minute before she could talk again.
“I don’t want any of you going after the Halberds. One, we cannot prove they did this. Two, we’re unarmed and they have guns. Cattle are one thing. I won’t lose anyone to the Halberds. Three, I’ll take care of the Halberds. You have my word on it. Do you understand?”
Steve said, “I hear that you treat your enemies to a cold beer on a hot day. I also hear that you were flirting with one of the men who did this.”
She said, “Steve, Maine could not have done this. He was with me. He was probably used as a diversion so his father and brother could slaughter my herd, but he didn’t pull a trigger.”
Polat placed his arm on Steve’s shoulder. “Steve, my mother-in-law is a backstabbing, devious snake of a woman. I doubt there are few people on Earth who could out vendetta a scorned Turkish woman. When my father-in-law got caught in bed with a neighbor woman, she went after him like you wouldn’t believe. Nothing personal, Mrs. Smith, but you got the same look in your eye.”
Steve said, “You’re the boss. You need something—you let me know.”
She said, “What we need is to get back to the house. Even after scrubbing in the creek, I don’t feel clean. And I need to use the vidphone.”
Steve gestured at the cattle. “What about…?” He let the question hang.
She shrugged. “Leave them for a minute. No coyotes or bugs to get at them.”
Auggie held the front door open for her, but she climbed into the back. She was wet and bloody. There was no sense in getting the truck upholstery all dirty.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Auggie watched Veronica climb into the back of the truck, before slowly following her.
He could see she was upset and not just at losing her cattle. The Halberds weighed heavy on her mind. He had a solution. He wanted to discuss it with Mags first before he brought it up with Veronica. He and Mags were a team and her counsel meant more to him than he could explain. He knew Mags would understand what he had to do. She had to understand because she understood him better than he understood himself. He needed to talk to Veronica now, in the back of the truck, before they got back home.
Veronica had saved him and Mags from having to fall back into old habits. They left Earth to change their lives. Maybe it was fate, destiny, or providence. Maybe they were not supposed to change. Maybe their lives were set and no matter how hard they tried the world would tolerate no changes.
He was honest with himself and with Mags. He loved what they used to do. It was not always fun, but there was certainly a lively thrill to the work. Then he met Mags and his life went all topsy-turvy. He loved Mags more than his own life. He wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. He wanted a long life to spend with her. He thought about children for the first time in his life since meeting Mags. He thought of Mags and their future children; born natives of this world, growing into adulthood and having children of their own. He desperately wanted to watch their grandchildren grow into adults.
His childhood had been hard. His parents disappeared so early in his life he could not remember their faces. He was a ward of the state for so long he knew no other home. Other children were adopted, but not him. He was different enough the other kids shunned him, as did any prospective parents.
He wanted his own children to grow up in a loving, caring family. He wanted them to feel protected and…wanted. He almost broke into tears when he realized what he had to do might kill all of his unborn children.
The former profession he shared with Mags was not conducive to a long life. Even marriage and children were not possible. In that line of work, the future was a thing of myth and mist. Considering that, and his recognition that Mags loved him, he still felt compelled to offer his services to Veronica. He owed her a debt. He was honor bound to repay any honest debt regardless of the effects it had on his life.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Veronica watched Auggie climb in the back of the truck with her.
He said, “Mrs. Smith, I know you did right by hiring us on when you didn’t really know us. Mags and I owe you. I can get to these Halberds for you if you want me to. I don’t need a gun, a knife will work okay for me. I don’t want to, but I will if you want.”
Veronica looked closely at the man’s face. He seemed like the quiet neighbor type, like a surfer who spent too much time on the beach. His expression was of a man who had spent too much time away from his beloved beach. “I assume you’ve done that type of work before?”
Auggie shrugged but remained silent.
“Auggie, it doesn’t matter what any of us did back on Earth. This is our new home. New, as in we get to start over. I hope I don’t ever ask you to do something that you don’t want to do and if I do, you tell me. I hired you to do farm labor. That’s all. Thanks for your offer, but no.”
Auggie looked relieved. “I suppose you got the right to know. That’s why Mags and I left Earth, we—”
“No. I don’t need to know Auggie. I have no need to know and no right to ask. New planet. New lives. You’re not some sociopath who’s going to slit my throat as I sleep, are you?”
He laughed, “Mrs. Smith, you’d already be dead if that was what I wanted.”
“Good, then maybe you’d better start calling me Veronica.”
The truck sighed, settling to the ground in front of her house. She heard children laughing and squealing around the side by the ramada. She headed for the house, followed by her crew. Regardless of the condition of her clothes, she went straight to the vidphone and sat down.
The call connected and a man said, “Chuck Reynolds.”
“Chuck Reynolds, this is Veronica Smith. Do you have a price line on slaughtered cattle?”
Reynolds turned on the viewing screen. “Veronica, how are you? Sherry and the kids are looking forward to Thursday night. Even the Guirards are excited about seeing your place.”
A lovely redhead appeared on the screen over Reynolds’s shoulder. She waved and smiled. She had the soft, round look that many men prefer. Reynolds’s wife did not look like a typical colonist, except her eyes had the fiery, no-nonsense, committed look of a fighter. Veronica immediately liked her, imagining Sherry would be a great friend, but a dangerous enemy.
Veronica smiled back at the couple and shook her head. “It looks like we’re having steaks on the grill Thursday night instead of frozen chicken patties.”
Reynolds shook his head, “Hold on, Veronica. Beef prices are through the roof, but now is not the time to cull your herd. Live cattle prices are skyrocketing just as fast. If you need a little extra cash—”
“Money is not the issue,” she interrupted.
Maslow came in followed by Arianna and Mags. Veronica assumed the other two women stayed in the ramada with the children. She gestured for everyone to sit down.
Veronica said, “I’ve lost my herd completely, Chuck. The original four heifers and all four calves are dead. It wasn’t disease or illness. There was no pack of wild animals. What can I get for the beef?”
“More than you’d expect. It’s been a long time since most of Landing City has had fresh meat that wasn’t frozen or locked in stasis for a year or more.” He flashed a few numbers on the screen. “How do these numbers look?”
She looked at her growing crowd of farmhands. “Is Anyone any good at breaking down a beef?”
Auggie raised his hand, “Like I mentioned before, I’m pretty good with a blade, I know what cut of meat comes from where.”
Veronica said, “Okay. Chuck, can you send a small shipping container out to my place? We’ll keep the meat from one young beef for ourselves, but the rest is yours to sell.”
Reynolds looked past Veronica. “You’re Auggie, right? Listen, don’t cut that beef up until you get it inside the containe
r and over a barrel. Even the blood and offal have a high value right now. You strip out what you want and let the rest go with the container. If you need help, I can get a local butcher to come up there.”
Maslow said, “I can help. I’m better at cutting up hogs, but beef ain’t that much different.”
Reynolds said, “I’ll have the container at your place in fifteen minutes. You mark the spot you want it to set down.”
“I don’t have a lot left in my bank account, Chuck, but please check around and see if I can pick up a starter herd, cheap.” Veronica said.
He shook his head. “I know how much you have left and you aren’t going to get anything much with that. Not even after your onions come in. I mean, onions aren’t the biggest cash crop you could’ve planted. Maybe the wheat or corn will replenish your bank account, but not onions. Still, I’ll look around and see what I can find.”
She ended the call. Pulling the bullet out of her pocket, she set it under the reader. It only took a second for the machine to recognize that the lands and grooves on the bullet matched the ones from Cal’s body and the ones from the truck. The reader managed to extract a partial fingerprint on the slug. It matched, but without any fingerprints to compare it to, she still did not have a direct line of proof.
She stood up and headed for the door, but Steve stopped her.
“Veronica, you get cleaned up. I’ll drive Auggie and Maslow back out to the cattle and mark the spot for the container. Polat, you head over to the tool shed and get that hand winch. That’ll make it easier for us to get the carcasses into the container.”
Arianna, Maslow’s wife, shrugged and said, “I might as well go along too. It isn’t my first rodeo. You men can quarter the beef and break them down. I can cut it into manageable sizes until we get them into Mrs. Smith’s kitchen to properly cut steaks and roasts and grind some for burgers.”