Scott Nicholson - The Farm

"Miss Norwood?"

"Odus? Come on back, I've got a mess on my hands."

Odus Hampton wasn't really a regular, though he occasionally bought some fishing hooks or monofilament line. She sometimes hired him for heavy work if big shipments came in, and he was happy to work for store credit. He had taught her a lot about the river, and she'd taken him out in a canoe a few times so he could show her the currents, falls, and rough patches. She had offered to hire him as a river guide, but he wasn't interested in steady work, though he'd filled in a few times when Sue was under the weather. She trusted his outdoor experience, partly because he camped out for most of the summer, even though he did it on the cheap, without a Coleman lantern, mosquito netting, or a pair of steel-toed Herman Survivor boots.

"Busted a boat?" Odus said. "You ain't been crazy enough to take that out on the river? The water's probably forty degrees."

"I'm getting it ready for spring. This is the only time I have to catch up. Did you go fishing today?"

Odus shook his head his full beard brushing the tops of his overalls. "The fish won't be biting."

"I thought they always bit for you." The fumes from the epoxy were giving her a headache.

"Not when the water's tainted."

"What's wrong with the water? Did it get contaminated?" The Blackburn River had been designated a national scenic river, and President Clinton had even given a speech there. No factories or major commercial farms lay along its banks, and the headwaters sluiced down from largely undeveloped mountains. If Sue had suspected problems with water quality, she'd have screamed for Greenpeace, the Southern Environmental Defense League, the local branch of the Democrat Party, such as it was, and the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources. Clean water was money, just like scenic beauty was money. A lot of mountain communities were selling out their slopes to millionaires who built garish houses, and change was inevitable, but Sue planned on Solom's not going to hell until she was ready to retire.

"It ain't what's in the water. It's what's got the water," Odus said.

"Don't scrunch up your eyes that way. Makes me worry."

"Maybe you ought to."

'Talk to me plain. This isn't one of your legends, is it? The kind you tell for money?"

"You're not from Solom, so you won't understand."

"I'm as much a part of this place as I'll ever be."

"All right, then." Odus's eyes roamed over the store and settled on me bike rack. "You got two bikes out."

"Yeah, a couple rented them yesterday and hasn't turned them back in yet. I figure they pulled a few muscles and are lying in bed trying to recuperate."

"Where were they going?"

"They didn't say, but they headed east up the river road."

"I think I'll run my truck up that way and have a look."

"Do I need to call them? They left their cell phone number on the deposit slip."

"It's probably nothing. Just some odd goings-on got me a little spooked."

Sue looked up the number and punched it in on her phone. A monotone female voice came on the line and informed her that service to the number was unavailable. "This valley's got more dead spots than a cemetery," Sue said.

"You got that right," Odus said. "If you see any strangers, keep a close eye on them."

"I like strangers. They usually have money in their pockets."

"Not the one I'm talking about."

"Damn it, Odus, why do you have to be so mysterious? Why don't you just come out and say it?"

"Because you'll think I'm drunk. Or worse."

Sue nodded in agreement. "You got me on that one."

"We're having a meeting at the general store after closing time. Come over and you'll find out more than you want to know."

"Sure. It's not like I got anything better to do."

Sue followed Odus to his truck, checking out the river where it made a gentle bend below the store. She'd built a small ramp leading into the water to serve as a launch for canoes and kayaks. A patch of brambles, stalks of Joe Pye weed and tangled polkweed stirred along the riverbank. The yellowed vegetation parted and a goat's head emerged. The animal's horns caught the autumn afternoon light and gleamed like a couple of bad teeth.

"Hell of a lot of goats around here lately," Odus said through his open window. The engine wheezed to diseased life, throwing a clot of blue smoke into the air.

"Should I call the police about the bikers?" "Solom likes to take care of its own."

That's the trouble, Sue thought, as Odus guided the truck down the road between the post office and the general store.

Sarah watched Odus drive by in his Blazer. If only he didn't have to stir things up. Just like a Hampton. Back in her father's day, a branch of the Hamptons had operated a gristmill and feed store on the back side of the mountain. When the state paved the roads in the 1930s, people found it was easier to drive into Titusville and buy their cornmeal and flour than to pay to have their own crops ground. The general store had lost some business as well, but her father had expanded with the times, going for cigars, candy, and pulp magazines. The Hamptons stuck to tradition and tradition left them busted. The gristmill still stood by a silver creek, like the bones of a dinosaur that had died standing up and was too dumb to fall over. The Hamptons had retreated back up into the hills, selling off their land, and generally ending up like Odus, either drunk or living hand-to-mouth.

Sarah changed with the times, too, and times lately had gone deep into the contrary. She had convinced herself she hadn't seen the Circuit Rider, but Odus wouldn't let her hold on to that pleasant deception. And Gordon Smith's wife had been in today, buying the oddest assortment of goods the shelves could conjure. The last person to shop so impulsively had been Gordon's first wife, Rebecca, that pretty, black-haired gal with dimples. Rebecca was magic in the kitchen, and every fund-raiser in the park or volunteer fire department potluck brought out a few of her finest offerings. It was a terrible tragedy for her to run off the road like that. The emergency responders had stopped in the next day for Dr Peppers and a pack of Camels and told Sarah all the gruesome details. The car had rolled, and Rebecca's head had been sliced clean off, her body bruised as if she'd been beaten with hammers. It was a closed-casket funeral. Sarah thought at the time the Jews had it right by burying their dead on the same day, the better to get it over with and move on.

A stack of cans fell over in the back corner of the store. It was the area where she kept the number 10 cans of vegetables, product that moved so slowly the cans often had flecks of rust before someone bought them. She grabbed the broom, determined to addle the brains of any mouse that might be causing trouble. The store was empty of customers, not that unusual for midmorning.

She moved past the black metal woodstove in the center of the store and through a few mismatched tables where the lunch crowd could enjoy their deli sandwiches. A sprinkle of black spots appeared before her eyes, but she told herself she wouldn't pass out again. She'd rather go down with a stroke than have Odus Hampton haul her to the hospital again. Shelves on each side of her were packed with jelly jars, mountain crafts, floral arrangements, mass-produced folk art, motor oil, tire chains, boxes of cookies, assorted screws, Thanksgiving table settings, dinner candles, rubber gloves, and mousetraps. She figured her store was as general as they came, and she held to a pet theory that customers were more apt to buy things they didn't want if they had to hunt hard for the things they did.

She turned the corner between the Coca-Cola cooler and a rack of picture postcards and came face-to-face with a goat. It must have been a wether, because she hadn't smelled it. Billies liked to piss all over themselves when they were in rut, and they didn't smell too good any other time, either. She'd never owned goats, though she sold stakes, chains, and collars for people who liked to use them as cheap lawn mowers. Sarah didn't have any particular grudge against goats, but she didn't want one messing around in her store.