“They’re so fluffy!” Leah grinned at Deb.
“Well, yeah. You’ve seen baby chicks before. Fluffy and yellow.”
“I know—I just…I thought they’d be wet and scrawny the first day.”
“Not once they dry out.” Deb reached toward Tilly, who made a long cluck, nearly a growl. “Hey, mama, come on. You know I’m not gonna hurt ‘em.” She stroked the hen’s neck. Tilly turned and pecked the heel of her thumb, but not harshly. She was only complaining, not threatening. “Just want to see what you made.”
All six eggs in Tilly’s brood had developed, and all had hatched within a few hours of each other. A happy chorus of tiny peeps filled the air as the little birds toddled on new legs.
Deb picked up a little peeping puff and checked it for abnormalities. Then she turned her hand over, holding it so it was gently immobile and rump-up. She’d been teaching Leah about broody hens and hatching eggs, and the lesson continued. “You have to sex chicks right away, before they eat. They don’t usually eat on the first day, they’re still full from the egg, but once they eat, and their digestive system starts working, it’s too hard to find their sex organs, and then you have to wait until they start to mature to know what you’ve got.”
She pressed on the chick’s abdomen and evacuated its gestational waste, then gently spread the vent at its rump. “This is called the cloaca.” She squeezed until a small organ rose up. “And this little babe is a pullet—a baby hen. A cockerel would show a bulb here at the bottom.” She stopped intruding on the chick’s privacy, rubbed her thumb softly over its puffy head, and set her in the sorting box. “Sorry, missy. I promise your virtue’s intact. You can be with your mom in a minute.”
“Can I try?” Leah asked, leaning closer.
“Let’s see what Tilly thinks. Ask her first. Then, if she doesn’t fuss too much, scoop one up in your hand.”
With a wary cock of her head, Tilly let Leah scoop up a chick. Leah had obviously been watching Deb closely; she checked it gently, got the right hold on it, and turned it over. But she forgot to evacuate, and ended up with handful of runny chick poop when she tried to vent.
“Gross.” Leah looked up at Deb, unsure how to save herself.
Deb laughed and took the chick. “Here. I’ll do this one, and you can wash at the pump and try again.” That chick was a girl, too.
On her second try, Leah got the process, and, though she didn’t have much confidence in her determination, she’d gotten it right. Female. In fact, the whole brood was female. Six eggs, six chicks, six pullets.
“I might keep all six,” Deb mused, releasing the chicks back to their mother, who had had just about enough of people mauling her brand-new babies. “Marge hasn’t even laid a dozen eggs so far this year. She’s about done.”
“Does that mean we’re going to eat Marge, like we ate Becky?” Leah asked. She’d been a little stunned to learn that sometimes at the Wesson Farm—not often, but sometimes—their dinner had a name.
“Eventually, yeah. It’s the way out here, Leah. The chicken you get wrapped in cellophane and Styrofoam at the market was just as alive once as Marge is.”
“Yeah, but that chicken never sat on my lap and ate strawberries with me.”
Deb closed up the brooding pen and put up her supplies. “Here’s how I think about it. Marge has a life where she runs wherever she wants, sleeps on a cozy nest with plenty of room, plays with her friends, dozes in the sun, sits on laps and gets fed strawberries. One day, while she’s having that life, it will abruptly and painlessly stop. The chicken sitting in the cooler at the market did not have that life. Trust me.”
Leah watched Tilly collect her brood together in the nest. “You’re right.” She sighed. “I think I get why people are vegetarians.”
Deb laughed and hooked her arm with Leah’s. “You will give Max a heart attack if you tell him you’re taking meat off his menu. Come on, let’s leave Tilly alone to get to know her babies.”
~oOo~
It wasn’t a day that the stand was open, but Billy and Kay were on the clock that afternoon, tending to the garden and running deliveries into Wheaton and elsewhere. The garden had gotten too big, and the deliveries too many, for her to handle on her own. Deb had realized this season, with the Bulls trouble holding her back, that Wesson Farm Fresh, LLC, was exactly as big as she wanted it to be. Maybe someday down the road, she’d pursue her other ideas, but for now, if she wanted time for other things, like running the business side of the actual farm, she was busy enough. Two employees was plenty.
Deb was in the greenhouse, going through the baskets Kay had brought in before she’d left. Other than the pickings she did daily for use in her own kitchen, they harvested the garden on Tuesdays and Fridays, so everything would be as fresh as possible for the stand. She culled the harvest and stored it overnight in her greenhouse, where her dad and Max had installed a mister for her, keeping everything fresh and beautiful.
As afternoon moved toward evening on Friday, all the hands had clocked out for the day. Deb’s father was in the barn, fiddling with the engine on his main tractor. He’d groused about it at lunch, complaining about its choppy run. He’d already had a mechanic out twice to look at it, and he didn’t want to pay again for a repair that wasn’t working, so he meant to figure it out himself.
Leah sat at the picnic table with her journal. She wrote every day, sometimes more than once. Deb occasionally found her sitting on the porch, or at the picnic table, or on the sofa in the living room, staring into space, her journal open before her, the end of her pen in her mouth. A perfect picture of a writer lost in thought.
Once, Deb had asked what she wrote about so much, but Leah had only blushed and shrugged without giving much of an answer at all. Deb took that to mean she should butt out. So she had.
The dry heat of midday was already cooling, and crickets and frogs had found their cue in the weakening sunlight and begun to sing. It was a typical early-summer evening on the farm. A day that would seem idyllic, and that might have been, without the pall of the Bulls’ war hanging over their heads, keeping people they loved away, keeping worry in their hearts and minds.
Still, over the weeks since Leah had come to stay with them, and Max and Simon had stayed away, day-to-day life had remained fairly normal. It was only in the quiet moments that Deb truly felt the stress. Though worry for Simon and Max both had taken up permanent residence in her head, what she thought of foremost while she sorted through the pickings to make sure everything at the stand tomorrow would be fresh and pretty was what she’d make for supper. On Fridays, she usually put together a meal from the week’s leftovers, so she ran her mind through the contents of the refrigerator, puzzling out an appetizing meal from her options.
The crunch of gravel on the drive caught her curiosity right away, but she didn’t rush out. It wasn’t routine for them to get an unexpected visitor, but neither was it wholly unusual. Sometimes, neighbors pulled in on their way by, to check if Deb had eggs for sale, or to borrow a tool from her dad, or just to share some gossip they’d come across in town.
She finished sorting through the fresh rhubarb and went into the yard, brushing her hands. Justin Walsh was there, just sitting down across from Leah. When Deb came out, he stood right back up, smiling broadly.
“How do, Deb!”
“Hey, Justin. What brings you by?” She was honestly curious; though Justin had flirted with her a few times, he’d by no means pursued her, and it had been weeks since they’d crossed paths.
“Seems like if somebody wants to see you, they got to come out here. Don’t see you around much in town lately.”
Ah. So he was still interested. Well, time to put that truly to rest. But not in front of Leah. No need to embarrass him. “Yeah, It’s been a busy summer. In fact, we’ve got a lot going on tonight, too.”
“Yeah? Anything I can help with?”
“I appreciate the offer, but we got it. Thank you. Not much time for socializing, though.”
She saw him get it, or get enough, at least. Disappointment sagged across his face. “Well, okay. Sorry to get in the way.” He turned back to Leah. “You have a good night, Miss Leah.”
“You, too, Justin. See ya.”
Deb fell in beside him as he headed back toward the drive. Alone up front would be enough privacy to tell him straight out that he should set his sights elsewhere. “I’ll walk you to your truck.”
Her words kindled hope in his eyes again, and guilt kicked at her.
As they went around the side of the house, Justin said, “Deb, I was hopin’ to talk to you. I’ve been tryin’ to find the right time to say it, but I guess I’m not good at stuff like this.” He paused, and Deb warred with herself. This was one of the things she’d despised about dating and relationships and all the nonsense attached to it. All this damn awkwardness. He was going to tell her he wanted to see her, and she was going to say no, and he’d be disappointed and get mad or just dejected, and…just…blech. She and Simon had done it right—they’d just fucked until they’d figured out there was more to it, and then they’d been more. No dance. Or not much, anyway.
Now, with Justin, she wondered if she should cut him off before he got the question out. Would that spare his feelings at all? But what if she was wrong about what he meant to ask?
Before she’d worked that through, he said, “I like you, Deb. Have since high school, really. I was wonderin’ if you might see it to have supper with me some night. Nothin’ fancy—unless you like fancy. I could do fancy.”
They’d arrived at his truck. Justin took her arm in his hand. “I really do like you, Deb. Don’t know what you think of me, but…”
This sucked. He was a good guy. Not long ago, her answer might have been different. “I like you, Justin. You’re a good guy.”
“Oh, man. There’s always a ‘but’ at the end of that sentence.” His tone suggested that he’d be disappointed but not hostile. He seemed to be ready for rejection, expecting it. That was a little sad.
“But…I’m with somebody. I’m already involved.”
His brow tightened into a scowl. “Deb. If you don’t want to go out, just say so. Everybody knows you’re not with anybody. You haven’t been with anybody for years. Everybody knows that.”
Okay, well, now she felt less guilty.
Before she could get out the rant that had surged to her tongue about what ‘everybody knew,’ the roar of tires going fast over gravel shut her down. She spun to the side and saw a big vehicle flying down their long drive. It had formed such a cloud of white dust that she didn’t make it out until it had stopped hard behind her Buick.
The SUV from town. The one that had parked Aly in. The one that Deb had thought had followed them to the market. Days ago. She hadn’t thought about it again.
Apparently, she’d been right. It had followed them.
Now, all four doors flew open, and four men piled out, all of them armed with large, terrifying guns.
Her first instinct was to run for the house, but Justin’s truck blocked her path, and in the half-second it took her to plot her course around it, Justin grabbed her and shoved her to the ground. “Stay down!” he ordered. “Get to the other side of the truck!”
She did as he said, thinking that he’d go with her. But he walked away. She looked over her shoulder and saw him walking toward the armed men, his hands out. The sight froze her, on her knees near the rear of his truck.
“Trouble, fellas?” Justin asked, his tone conversationally curious, but his voice shaking.
One of them lifted his gun and fired it. A short burst of gunfire—automatic gunfire. Justin flew backward, hitting the back of her station wagon. He dropped and landed on the gravel. His face was turned to her, and one arm had fallen extended. His eyes were open, and he seemed to reach for her, as if his last act had been a plea.
Deb got back on her feet and ran, fully expecting to be shot in the back, but she had no choice but to run.
Leah came around to the front, probably drawn by the unexpected racket. “LEAH! RUN!” Deb shouted, changing course and going for her brother’s fiancée. “RUN! RUN!” In the second or two it took Leah’s gears to shift, Deb reached her, almost knocked her down, grabbed her, held on, and dragged her along.
Not the house. The barn. They needed to get to the barn. Her dad was there. Hiding places. Tools. Weapons. A phone. Her dad. Her daddy. She needed her daddy.
Behind her, men shouted and stormed after them, but they didn’t fire. That scared her more than anything. They’d killed Justin without hesitation. If they weren’t trying to kill her and Leah, they had other plans.
As they approached the barn door, her father came out, his Mossberg in his hands. “NO! DAD! RUN! RUN!”
Her father fired. Deb looked back and saw one of the men go down. And another aim his huge gun. He fired.
“SAM! NO!” Leah screamed.
When Deb turned back, still running, her father was on the ground, and she couldn’t run anymore. “DADDY! DADDY, NO!”
She stumbled to her father and tried to grab his arm. Leah grabbed the other. He was dead, she knew he was dead, most of his head was gone, but she still had to get him away, somewhere safe, somewhere quiet, away from this, away, away, away.
Leah screamed again, a split second before Deb’s head rocked forward, exploding in pain.
And then she was away.
~oOo~
When she woke, her head hurt so badly, she thought she was on fire. Her whole body burned, and sweat flooded from her pores. After a moment, she understood that she was bound—hogtied—and gagged. Leah was crushed into this tight space with her, also bound and gagged. Leah’s body shuddered rhythmically, in time with her moans—she was weeping.
It was so hot, and Deb hurt so bad, and it stank like smoke—that, more than her pain, was why she’d thought she was on fire. Where was she? Blinking her sight clear didn’t seem to help; everything was dark grey and wavy orange. And so hot. And it stank.
Finally, her senses cleared, and she understood. She was in the back of an SUV. She looked up and saw the windows and could recognize that the truck was still parked on the driveway of her home.
She remembered everything else. The four men. Justin’s death. Her father’s. And now she knew why it smelled and was so hot.
She screamed into the gag.
The wavy orange light was fire. She looked out the side windows and, through the odd filter of blacked-out glass, saw her family home burn.
Her father. Their home. Everything. Gone.
The SUV doors opened, and the truck rocked as men climbed in.
“These fuckers like fire. We’ll see how they like ours,” one of them snarled.
“Let’s hit it before we get company,” another said. The engine turned, rumbling the floor under Deb and Leah, and the SUV moved. These men, who had killed her father and destroyed her life, took her and Leah away.
Deb knew that horrors awaited, but she could barely care. Everything was already gone.