Scorched Earth (Book 1): Good Fences Read online

  It was bad enough that when the subdivision had begun to spring up that Landry had tried to have the land on the road all re-zoned, including mine, but then he built his house basically across from the barn and immediately started to complain about the farm. Lord knows what he was going to do when Mr. Matthews showed up with his combine in fall and cut corn. The man had been leasing the eastern fields for as long as I could remember and his lease paid the taxes on the property. I’d never mentioned that to anybody else, but if George Landry knew about it, he’d try to do something.

  The other reason I didn’t want to mention him was I didn’t want him to get caught up in my messes. Ben Matthews had been like an uncle or grandfather figure to me, where I didn’t have one. He’d been a good friend of my father’s and his grumpy nature even charmed my mother to pieces. He was what the kids now a days would have called ‘old school’, but a great man. He’d lived his entire life on the farm he was on now, born in the same room he now calls his own. I rather like the old codger and didn’t want to cause him any more grief. Especially the kind George was dishing out.

  “Why is your son trespassing on Brian’s… Landry? George Landry?” Kristen’s eyes went wide.

  “Yes, and I’d appreciate it if you put your gun away. You don’t need that here, I’m just trying to talk to Brian here and everyone is pulling out guns.” George fumed.

  “First things first Landry,” I said, getting myself under control finally, “you came here on my property uninvited. I told you last time that you and yours aren’t welcome here and I’d press charges if you trespassed again. Secondly, you coming here after making false allegations to the police sounds an awful lot like harassment to me, doesn’t it to you?” I asked Kristen, who nodded, “And lastly, it’s my land. You don’t have any say about it, you are not buying it, you are not rezoning it and if you keep pushing me I’m going to move the pig paddock directly behind your house instead of into the barn!”

  I wasn’t joking, and somehow George could see it.

  “Call your son, he’s got less than an hour to get off my property.” I told him, jabbing my finger at him to drive my point home.

  “Or you’re going to call the cops?” George asked incredulously, “Tell them my kid ducked your fence?”

  “No, I’m going to start target shooting. Your son is an adult, if you don’t want to give him the heads up, then that’s on you. In case you want to call and complain to the cops, I already have a range set up that my family has used since my father was a boy. It’s in the middle of the North West hay field with a dirt backstop. Make sure you give your buddies at the state police or the local yokels the right information, because I’m not going to be harassed like this.”

  “But, about the complaint, I came here to tell you we could all resolve this if you’d…”

  “George,” I cut him off, getting right in the old man’s face. He’d been almost a father to me for many years. “I don’t want things resolved. You and your son ruined my life.” I emphasized the last three words.

  “I came out here to regroup, and you bought up all the land you could on this road, and tried to buy mine out from under me. When your eminent domain attempt failed, you harassed me via the police. Five times now George, five times you’ve had the cops come out here. Now, I’m not a violent man, but I’m giving you less than thirty seconds to get your sorry ass in your truck and get off my land.” I was nose to nose with him now and his eyes fluttered in indecision.

  George stuttered, and then pulled a sheaf of papers out of his back pocket, throwing them on the ground at my feet. He stormed back to his truck, and I stood there, watching the dust cloud follow him out as he fishtailed back down the driveway.

  “You know, you can relax now.” Soft hands covered mine and slow, gentle fingers unclenched first one fist, and then the other.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that.” I stooped to pick up the papers George had dropped and turned to look at Kristen.

  Sometime during my last tirade against George and all he stood for, she’d re-holstered her Kimber. She stepped back and gave me a nervous look and then glanced at her car. I got it; she’d seen the ugly side of me and she wanted to go. I didn’t blame her. Eventually everyone saw the ugly side of me.

  “No, I’m glad I showed up when I did; it looked like you were going to deck him.”

  “I was. I mean, I probably would have. Thank you.” And I meant it.

  “How about we get this ammo inside and we can have a coffee and talk about it?” She asked

  I was surprised, but I smiled. “Sure,”

  * * *

  Kristen knew the basics about my wife’s death, but not who my new neighbors were. I’d largely ignored the fact myself until the harassment started. Every time I got a letter, I knew it all began with George. Or I’d have the cops show up like they did last Sunday…

  “Are you going to call the police?” Kristen asked me after listening to me rant for a while.

  “I don’t know. I do want to ride the fence to make sure there’s no cuts or breaks in it; I can’t afford for one of the sows to get out and get hit by a car.”

  “So he went in through the pig enclosure?” Kristen asked me.

  “I think so. Unless he went to the end of the subdivision, but that whole western fence needs to be checked now, especially if the goats get rotated into that pen this fall.”

  “Do you want a hand?” Kristen asked.

  I considered it a moment and then nodded. The funny thing about anger and rage, is when it leaves your body, you are left feeling hollowed out and empty inside. Even after finding out that Kristen was a gun nut like I was, I still only thought of her as a friend, and by the look she gave me she felt the same. One friend helping another.

  “Let me lock up the AR real quick,” I said, walking away from my kitchen table.

  I spun the combination lock to my father’s old gun safe, and put the AR in the middle. I’d already stacked the boxes of Ammo on top of the safe, until I could get things organized.

  “I see you like guns too,” Kristen commented.

  She smiled and reached out her hand out as if to caress one of the rifles. She was reaching for my father’s deer gun, so I pulled it out and let her look it over. It was an old Stevens .30-06 with Leopold scope mounts and my father’s favorite scope, an old Leopold 4x. It wasn’t the fanciest or nicest gun I owned, but it had been my father’s. It was accurate to a half an inch at 100 yards, and had probably taken over a hundred deer on our farm alone.

  She worked the bolt, held it up to the lights and then handed it back, making sure to engage the ambidextrous safety with her thumb. I smiled; of course she’d know this gun, and Savage Arms bought out Stevens. Kristen gave it back to me and I locked the safe.

  “Ready?” I asked her.

  She nodded.

  “Let me make sure the critters have water and throw them a couple treats. It’ll keep them from following us around.”

  “It’s your show,” Kristen told me, walking towards the door, “I’m just here to help.”

  We headed out, and when I got to the barn I opened the metal trash can I used to store my sweet feed. Usually the sound of the lid was enough of an incentive to bring the goats in in a rush, and this time was no exception. I gave my small herd two scoops, spread out on the inside of their barn enclosure and snuck out the back door where I’d shown the cops earlier.

  Kristen didn’t wrinkle her nose at the farm smell like the state trooper had, which surprised me. The other thing I noticed was that she wasn’t fawning over the goats and the new kids that had been born recently. She did smile when one jumped on an adult and then bounded to the front of the line, but other than that she was pretty straight faced.

  “Your fencing; three strand electric?” Kristen asked.

  “Yeah, with a barbed wire topper. Goats and pigs are escape artists. At least, mine are. That’s why I’m so worried about George Jr. cutting his way into the field,”

 
; “Well, let’s go check it out. You don’t have all of the property fenced, do you?”

  “No, just these two fields. Shouldn’t take us long.”

  It didn’t: we found a well-worn trail where a tree grew close to the fence at the back of the Landry’s property. I took note of that and then followed the trail, which mirrored the fence line. Normally I would have overlooked something like that, figuring it was one of the animals just following the fence. They do that kind of thing all the time until a dirt path is created. The kid could have seen it, boosted his bike over the fence, and used the tree to avoid the wires.

  “Up there,” Kristen pointed up the field towards the North West end.

  Coming out of the tall grass and crown vetch was George Jr. I immediately noticed his pale complexion and irregular gait, and he was pushing his bike. I started to go see if he was ok, when I was struck by the notion that I should instead call the cops and have him arrested. I discarded that and walked. I stuffed my hands into my pockets, lest they give away my feelings if I didn’t want them to, like they had with his father. Kristen put her hand in the crook of my arm, and we walked like that until the boy could see us both.

  He didn’t hesitate at first, but when he got close enough to see it was me, he went even paler.

  “Mr... Mr. Cartwright, I’m sorry I know I’m not supposed to be—“

  “You ok? You’re dragging your left leg pretty bad,” I let him get closer to me rather than walking to him.

  “I don’t know. I crashed my bike and hit a rock,” George Jr. said, wincing with every step.

  “Let me look,” Kristen said, forcing him to stop and pull up his pant leg.

  The ankle was swollen up as fat as the kids calf muscle and the shoe was straining.

  “Ok, tell you what, get on the bike, we’re going to get you to your dad,” Kristen said, a note of concern in her voice.

  “I can’t ride,” George said, his voice betraying the pain he must have been feeling.

  “You can’t keep walking on a broken ankle either,” I almost snarled, “Call your dad. He’s been trying to get ahold of you.”

  George hopped on one foot and held onto his bike for balance. He pulled out the smashed remnants of a cell phone and tossed them to me.

  I sighed. “What’s his number?” I typed it into my own phone and George picked up on the third ring. “Hey George, this is Brian Cartwright

  “What do you want?” The anger coming out of the phone almost matched what I felt deep inside.

  “Meet us at the back fence, by the big willow tree.”

  “Why? You planning on threatening me again?” George Sr. asked.

  “No, I decided to check the fences and found your son. He fell off his bike and –‘

  “What did you do to my boy?” George snarled, but in the background I could hear him moving and then the sound of wind making the speaker crackle.

  “He fell off his bike. He’s ok, but you’re going to need to get him to the doctor. I think he broke his ankle.”

  “Let me talk to him,” the demand was cold, the anger still there.

  I handed the phone to a now sweating Jr. who had a quick terse conversation with his dad before hanging up and giving me back the phone.

  “He thought you were going to shoot me?” George Jr. asked, looking at me funny.

  “No kid, I was making sure you hadn’t cut my fence to make your shortcut into the state land and trails back there,” I told him, watching relief flood his face, “Get on the bike, Kristen will take one side, I’ll take the other. Keep your bum foot off the pedals and let us roll you there.”

  It worked out well on the dirt path. Never since the accident had I been so close to the kid. Though he was closer to being a young man now. I’d had dark thoughts of throttling him on more than one occasion, but being this close to him, I felt torn. Confused. He was just a normal kid, not the reincarnation of Beelzebub like I loved to picture him in my mind’s eye. We were about a hundred yards from the willow tree when I heard a siren light up.

  Of course, he’d called the cops. As we got closer I saw I was wrong. Two EMTs stood at the fence line with George Sr., one of them rubbing his hand.

  “Those wires are hot,” I warned him, too late unfortunately.

  “Found that out,” the young EMT smiled back, showing me his palm.

  “Georgie, are you ok?” Sr. asked, almost interrupting.

  “It hurts, but not so much now that I’m off my foot. They pushed me back on the bike so it wasn’t as bad as getting out of the woods,” his son replied.

  “Listen, Jr., slide off on your good foot, I’ll get a grip under your arm and then Kristen will hand the bike to your dad.”

  “Got it,” he said, groaning as he bumped his ankle trying to dismount the bike.

  “Want us to come around the fence with the ambulance?” the older of the two EMT’s asked.

  “Naw, he’s still light,” I scooped Jr. up, one hand under his knees, the other around his shoulders, and handed him over the fence to the three men.

  Sr.’s face went white when I picked his son up; I knew the kid would be heavy but farming and getting back into living life had left me ample opportunity to get healthy again and the kid didn’t weigh more than three sacks of feed.

  “Thanks,” Jr. said through gritted teeth, and I nodded in acknowledgement.

  The EMTs immediately went to work, stabilizing the leg, then gave me a jaunty wave as they each got under an arm and helped him hobble towards the front of the McMansion and the awaiting ambulance.

  “Is your life always this exciting?” Kirsten asked after we stood there in silence, listening to the motor’s sound fade away.

  “Sometimes, it gets even better,” I told her deadpan.

  “How’s that?” Kristen asked me.

  “Well, sometimes I get to shovel manure.”

  She smiled. “I wanted to let you know, McKayla and Pastor White won’t be bugging you or I anymore, you know, matchmaking. I’ve started seeing someone. I wanted to tell you, I mean… You’re a good friend. I figured I’d mention it since Randy—“

  “Randy’s an ass. He teased me the whole way home after the gun show,” I admitted with a grin and walked back towards the barn next to Kristen.

  “Oh, I mean, he’s a nice guy but I wanted to tell you. In case, I mean, I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea.”

  “Kristen, don’t worry. There were some times I wondered, I’ll admit, if I should have tried to make some sort of relationship happen because everyone says we’re perfect, or we would be. I like you for a friend, and if anything ever happens in the world and you need a place… well, you get your stuff up here and bring your guy friend too. He’d have to be a nice enough guy to catch your attention, so I’m sure I’d like him.”

  That was a long speech for me, and I realized I meant every word of it.

  “Thank you,” Kristen said, putting her hand in my arm again, giving me a squeeze.

  We finished the walk in silence, both of us smiling. The elephant in the corner had been identified, shown the light and was no longer an issue. I’d worried about trying to make it more than it already was, because if I screwed it up, I’d lose a friend. At that point, friends were what had brought me through Cathy’s death to the point to where I didn’t run around all day pissed off. Except, of course with regards to the Landry’s. Maybe I could call Pastor White and schedule some time. He’d always been a good one to talk to about Cathy’s death.

  4

  A week flew by in a flash. Pastor White had suggested that the reason why I suddenly wasn’t angry with George Jr. was because maybe I was angrier at the father for his callous and illegal behavior. I admitted that could be true, but it wasn’t his father driving. In the end, maybe it was because I was starting to forgive him and letting things go? I couldn’t decide.

  I’d fired off a certified letter from my lawyer, informing the Landrys that further trespass on my property would be met with charges fro
m the cops. I didn’t get an answer back, nor was I really expecting one. They’d moved on, and so would I, after I’d added another three feet of height and two more strings of barbed wire near the subdivision that butted up to the animal pens.

  Work took forever it seemed, because I found that the custom AR I bought was a tack driver. I couldn’t even tell how far I could sight the little beauty in for. Three hundred yards was good for me and the brushy portions of the property I walked. I still had my father’s gun for long range hammering if the nails were far enough out.

  The thing that had been swirling around my mind though, was security. The kid had scaled my fences and in a SHTF scenario, who else would? That question, as well as keeping the Landrys out, was my reasoning for upping the fences. So when Friday hit, I went to Family Farm & Home and picked up more posts, more staples and two huge rolls of barbed wire. They were loaded on my truck by a nervous kid on a fork lift, but the kid was well practiced and the load went in safely. I was headed home when my phone rang; a number I didn’t recognize.

  “Hello?” I asked.

  “Hello, this is Bill. I drive for Estes and I have some pallets to be delivered?”

  He rattled off my address and I smiled. It was Randy’s gear, food or whatever.

  “Yeah, you on your way?” I asked him.

  “I should be there in an hour if you’re going to be there?”

  “Yeah, I’ll be there a little before that. See you then.”

  I hung the phone up and smiled. I pulled over into a random parking lot and dialed Randy’s cell before putting it on speaker and pulling out.

  “Hello?”

  “Randy, your stuff is coming today,” I told him.

  I expected a big bundle of excited happiness, but all I got was, “Oh, ok.”

  “Randy, bud, what’s wrong man?” I asked him, confused at his lackadaisical answer.