Scott Nicholson - The Farm

The corn was about two feet over Ray's head. It had been a good year, rainy in the spring and sunny in the sunnier, and fall had been pretty slow and mellow. From between the rows, he couldn't see the scarecrow where it hung on a tall oak stake in the center of the field. But he could almost feel its gaze sweeping across the rows, alert for the slightest flicker of black feathers. Ray grinned, his feet crunching in the high weeds and dirt clods. The air smelled of that sweetness the grass and trees only gave off just before winter, when the sugar was breaking down inside.

At the center of the field was a rusty fifty-five-gallon drum that caught rainwater. Ray didn't have an irrigation system, but the barrel would provide some backup in case of a dry spell, especially when the seedlings were young and tender. That was also when the crows liked to swoop down, when the green shoots were easy to spot from above. The birds would tug the nubs out of the ground and eat the just-split kernels, sprouting roots and all. A few tools leaned against the barrel, and the scarecrow stood sentinel beside it

Ray eased back the cluster of stalks that separated him from the clearing. The first thing he noticed was the empty pole and cross-piece. He thought at first old Buck had slipped to the ground, blown by a strong wind, even though the scarecrow had been tied in place with baling wire. But there were no rags on the ground beneath the pole. The dirt was scuffed as if someone had been dragging away a heavy load. Ray dropped the scarf and ran to the pole.

Not a scrap remained of the scarecrow. Ray squinted over the rows of corn to the edges of the field. Some kid was probably playing a prank. One of those Halloween trick-or-treat deals. But whoever had stolen his award-winning scarecrow didn't know that some tricks weren't worth playing.

Ray looked in the weeds surrounding the barrel, figuring he'd at least find the air rifle or the battered straw boater. He studied the dragging marks for footprints. That's when he realized that something hadn't been dragged away, it had been dragged to. There were no footprints, just fine squiggles that looked as if someone had swept the dirt to erase tracks.

The marks led to the water drum. The stagnant water gave off the scent of rust and something ranker.

Ray looked in the water. At first all he saw was a reflection of the sky in the greasy surface, the frayed strips of cirrus clouds and a sun the color of a rotten egg yolk. But a shape hung suspended beneath the surface. Ray thought of one of those carnival sideshows he'd seen as a kid, back before polite society decided freaks couldn't earn an honest dollar with their talents. He'd seen the conjoined fetus of Siamese twins floating in a milky jar of formaldehyde, two tiny arms complete down to the fingernails, two legs curved like those of a frog. The two heads hung at different angles, one leaning forward with a single bleary eye open. Ray got in plenty more than his fifty cents' worth of looking before the crowd nudged him along.

This shape was almost like that, except indistinct. Somehow, the extremities didn't quite add up. Ray took the hoe from beside the barrel and dipped it into the tainted water. He hooked and lifted, straining from the weight. The odor hit him before his eyes could make sense of what they were seeing.

It was a goat, at least a week dead, its meat beginning to turn to pink soap. The animal had been gutted and a few ribs glinted in the afternoon light. The head hung by a narrow scrap of skin and the horns had been sawed down to blunt stumps. One leg was missing, and in the lower part of the goat's body cavity was a furry lump. Ray lifted the hoe higher to get a good look, and the head broke free and plopped into the barrel, splashing stinky water onto Ray. The head bobbed in the surface, the lips puffed into a grin.

Ray twisted the hoe handle so he could see what was inside the body cavity. He'd slaughtered plenty of livestock in his time, and he knew that guts were gray and pink and most major organs were ruby red. Nothing grew inside that was furry. He shook the corpse, expecting pieces of it to slough off and slide back into the water. It held together long enough for him to see what was lurking where the stomach, kidneys, and liver should have been.

It was another goat head, that of a billy, the horns long and slick. One of the horns had perforated the animal's skin, Ray let loose of the hoe and it slid into the barrel along with thirty pounds of scrambled goat parts. The stench was stronger now, and Ray wiped at the front of his soaked shirt. He forgot all about Buck Owens as he made his way into the sanity of the long, straight rows.

The Circuit Rider might have come riding through, but he wouldn't have any business with scarecrows. He'd never been known to slaughter livestock, either, at least not since he'd passed from the mortal coil. This business was different. As mysterious as the Circuit Rider was, at least he was a part of Solom, regular, reliable, not given to trickery.

"Better the devil you know," Ray figured. But some new devilry was afoot, and he didn't want to be caught out alone if that particular devil came calling.

Ray glanced back once as he entered the corn. A murder of crows had settled onto the crosspiece. One of them fluttered down and gripped the rim of the barrel, dipping its head to drink at the sickening soup.

Jett tuned out the monotone of Jerry Bennington, her earth sciences teacher. That was no challenge, because Bennington was lecturing about gravity and even though gravity tied all the stars and planets into place, he managed to make it sound as simple and boring as a math problem. Like there was no magic or mystery in it at all. Public school teachers weren't allowed to address religion in the classroom, and explaining how heaven stayed in place might have made the subject a little more colorful.

The boy sitting in front of her, Harold Something-or-Other, must have raided his dad's medicine chest, because he reeked of Old Spice or Brut or one of those stinky-sweet colognes. She could endure it as long as Harold didn't bend forward to pick up a pencil or something and flash his sweaty crack over the belt loops of his low-riding blue jeans. She slipped Dad's letter from her backpack and read it for the fourth time since yesterday.

Dear Punkin,

I miss you so much mucher than all the chocolate donuts in the world. Right now I'm looking at the picture of us from the Outer Banks trip we took the summer you were seven. You look a lot like your mother in that one, more than you do now. I guess you were getting ready to be your own self.

How do you like the mountains? I'll bet they're not as strange as you thought they would be, but I wish you were down here right now so we could go to Discovery Place or a Panthers game, or anywhere that sold cotton candy and root beer. You'11 have to tell me all about your school and teachers. I would e-mail you but your mom told me her new husband (I don't like to say his name, I guess that's small of me but that's the way it is) put a password on the computer so you can't use it without his permission. Plus ink and paper give you something real to hold on to, and you can keep a letter nearby for when you want it.

Are you making new friends? I finally went out with that poodle woman but I don't think any sparks flew. If they did, I didn't get burned. I guess it's taking me longer to get over the breakup than it did your mom. But she's a great woman and a great mother. I tried my best but things happen, and I'll still always try my best for you no matter what. Listen to your old man going on like this. A good parent leaves the kids out of it, they say. I wish I could have left you out of my other problems, too.

It's not that long until Thanksgiving and I'm so much mucher looking forward to having you down for a few days. You know I'm not a cook but even turkey cold cuts will taste fine with you at the table. Work's going great, I'm designing some new wrought-iron furniture, wine racks and chandeliers, fancy stuff. They pay me for all the designs they use and then I get a royalty on each piece cast from my design. I hope that will allow me more free time in the next few years so I can get up and see you whenever I want. Maybe I can even move near you, since there's nothing keeping me in Charlotte now except the manufacturing plant. All I would need is a small house and a workshop, and maybe we can work it out so you 're with me on weekends.