Scott Nicholson - The Farm

"Do you really like them?" Katy asked.

Gordon was staring out the window at the darkness that had settled on the farm as they ate. The crickets chirped, katydids rubbed their wings together, and moths fluttered against the window screen.

"They were fine," Gordon said absently.

"Can we get rid of the scarecrow?"

"The scarecrow?"

"The one in the barn."

"What about it?"

"I don't like it hanging in the barn. It spooks me."

Gordon laughed. "That's been in the family for years. I put it up for the winter so it doesn't rot."

"I thought you said Odus Hampton put it up."

"Yeah. I guess he did."

"It's out there now. I saw it."

Gordon reached across the table and took her hand. He smiled, his eyes bright, cheeks crinkling in the manner that had first attracted her. "Let's forget about the silly scarecrow."

"You shouldn't be so hard on Jett."

Gordon drew his hand away. "It's just that I care about her. About both of you. I want you to be happy here."

Katy was about to say she would be a lot happier if she didn't feel the invisible presence of his first wife. But as she opened her mouth, a brittle clatter arose from the kitchen and something broke on the floor.

"Sounds like you have some work to do," Gordon said.

David Tester cut over Lost Ridge, taking the shortest route from his house to the church. Though it was dark, David knew the path well and carried a flashlight. An owl hooted in the unseen treetops and other nocturnal animals scurried on their way to put up winter supplies. The leaves were still crisp underfoot, though dew was starting to settle on the ground. A sodden wedge of moon tried to break through the canopy overhead.

He was on the upper edge of the Smith property, a forested hilltop that Harmon Smith had owned and that now belonged to Gordon Smith. Rush Branch started as a trickle between some worn granite boulders near the peak, but gathered momentum and a few stray springs before churning into a frothing waterway by the church. Harmon Smith had deeded property for the church, though the original log building had been torn down and replaced after the turn of the last century. Harmon had ridden his horse over this very trail, had slid off the saddle for a sermon many times before mounting up and heading to neighboring counties. This walk had become something of a pilgrimage for David, as if he expected to find an answer to the mysteries of the Circuit Rider, faith, and love lying along the trail.

Too bad Gordon took only Smith's surname and none of the fervid passionate blood. Primitive Baptists didn't have the duty of saving souls, but the preacher had to tend his flock all the same. David knew the weight of that responsibility. His brother Ray had disowned him because of it and had taken up with the Free Willers. Maybe Ray needed the little extra comfort that came from bringing the Lord into your heart. But Ray was born to believe he already had a place waiting in heaven, whether he forgot it or not.

David played the flashlight over the trail, dodging the snakelike roots of oak and buckeye. Walking this trail had always soothed him and rejuvenated him, as if he were drawing on the spirit of those who had served before him. Walking right, that was the ticket. Following the path.

Occasionally an acorn or nut slapped through the leaves and bounced silently on the ground near him. The woods had the earthy scent of loam and the salamander smell of muddy springs. David came to a strand of hog wire and knew he had reached the corner of Gordon's pasture. The professor's flock was made up entirely of goats. That said plenty about the current state of the Harmon Smith legacy.

"Don't be bitter, now," David said to himself. "Gordon likely has a place in heaven the same as everybody else."

That was one of the things that bothered David about predestination. If the Lord already knew you were going to be worthy of eternal reward why did he make you go through the whole works? Why didn't he just beam your soul straight up to heaven from your mother's belly? But that would make God little more than a parody of Scotty from the old Star Trek show.

So God had to want something more. He laid out tests for you. David wondered if even thinking about God's plan was somehow wrong, the kind of sin that wasn't written about in the Bible.

David climbed across the fence. His boot hung in a bottom strand of wire as he planted it on the far side, causing him to lose his balance. The flashlight fell to the ground and the beam flickered and died. David hung on top of the waist-high fence, the top wire digging into his upper leg. He righted himself and tried to free his boot. A wetness trickled down his left hand, and he felt the first burning of a cut.

Something scuffed the leaves twenty yards to his right, inside the pasture.

The moon glinted off the flashlight's metal switch. David reached down from the top of the fence for the flashlight, but it was just beyond his fingertips. He stood up again, the wire yawing back and forth between the support posts. He yanked his stuck boot, but one of the eye hooks must have been caught on a stray sprig of rusted steel.

Crackling leaves heralded the approach of something big. There was little to fear in the mountains except rabid animals. All the large predators like mountain lions had died out along with the buffalo and elk that had fed them. Black bears might attack if threatened, but David didn't feel very threatening with his foot stuck and his crotch riding the thin line of the fence top. He swung his free leg over and planted it on the ground, giving a painful twist to the ankle of the trapped foot.

Now his back was turned to the approaching creature. David twisted his neck and almost laughed.

"What in tarnation are you doing out here?" David said. "Trying to figure out who's trespassing?"

The goat stood ten feet away, head lowered, the bottom half of the face lost in shadows. Its emerald eyes glittered in the muted moonlight.

"The Lord's Prayer says forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

The goat lifted its nose and sniffed at the air as if it couldn't care less about the Lord's Prayer. The wicked curves of its horns suggested it was a billy buck. Though the horns were angled flat against the slope of the animal's skull, they had the look of serious business. Goats butted heads as a mating ritual, or used their horns to drive away predators like foxes, bobcats, or wild dogs. But they didn't attack people.

David put his free foot beside the stuck one and tried to jimmy the wire. He was sweating from the exertion. After a few seconds of struggling, he sat down, scooted himself close to the boot, and began unlacing it Maybe once his foot was free, he could work the boot loose. Now he could see the cut on his hand, the blood black in the weak light. It would need a heavy bandage, maybe stitches.

Served him right, walking in the dark like that. Even though he thought of the trail as a sacred path, that didn't mean it wasn't treacherous. Rattlesnakes lived in the granite crevices along the ridge, and it was easy to trip over a root or stone and break a leg. Out here, he might not be found for days if he became immobilized. And it wasn't like the Lord cast down a holy beacon to show the way.

No, this wasn't a test. Just too much tread on a Timberland workman's boot.

As his fingers loosened the square knot, he looked back at the goat. It was three feet away now, and its strong musky scent filled his nostrils. Goats were such nasty, stubborn animals. David didn't understand their growing popularity among local farmers, no matter how exotic goat cheese and goat meat sounded to people raised on beef and beans.

"Just be glad the Lord doesn't require sacrifices like he used to," David said. "Abraham would have you up on a rock altar right now, a blade against that stringy neck of yours."