Farming Fear Read online

  “We’ll take a ‘snow check’ though,” J. J. added, smiling.

  “You could stay the night if you like,” Grandma suggested. “We’ve got plenty of blankets and space. It’d be safer to go home in the morning, probably.”

  “No, thank you, Marge,” J. J. said.

  “I really have to go too,” Backstrom added. “Gotta feed my dog.”

  “Suit yourselves,” Grandpa replied. “Can’t say I blame you. Drive safely.”

  J. J. and Backstrom said their good-byes, got back in their trucks, and headed off into the storm.

  “They don’t have far to go,” Grandma said, watching them drive away. “They should be all right.”

  The Mortons and the Hardys tidied up as best they could around the barn. The side where they’d been fighting the fire was all ice and rapidly freezing slush.

  “You all watch your steps around here for the next few days,” Grandpa cautioned. “I don’t want anyone slipping and breaking their neck.”

  The storm grew even worse as they shoveled slush, and the group was soon forced to retreat back into the farmhouse. They stripped off their sopping wet gear in the mudroom at the back door, then went to warm themselves by the fire.

  Iola and Joe put themselves in charge of the hot beverages and took turns ferrying drinks from the kitchen to the living room. Soon everyone was feeling toasty and warm once more. Grandma set up an old-fashioned wooden drying rack near the fire. Frank brought in their wet clothing and hung them up to dry.

  Fighting the fire had drained most of the energy from the Morton grandparents. Dave and Marge Morton retired early, first making sure all the teenagers had extra blankets to keep warm during the night.

  Joe and Frank decided to sleep in the living room. Their room on the second floor was far enough away from the fireplaces to be pretty chilly.

  “I’d rather wake up with a stiff neck from sleeping on the couch than a stiff body from freezing,” Joe joked.

  The rooms Iola and Chet had were warmer because they were closer to the central chimney. The Morton teens turned in not long after their grandparents.

  Outside, the wind howled relentlessly and the snow began to climb higher up the clapboards of the old farmhouse.

  Frank and Joe sat by the fire, listening to the storm and thinking about the troubles at the farm.

  “I’m betting the fire was the work of those guys who jumped us last night,” Joe said.

  “Hit-and-run does seem to be their M.O.,” Frank agreed. “And the smell of gasoline around the fire seems to rule out any kind of an accident. The question remains, though, who’s behind it all?”

  “Backstrom and J. J. Zuis came to help,” Joe said, “but they could still be in on it. They’ve known the Mortons a long time. Maybe there’s some kind of grudge there. Plus, they arrived awfully fast. Maybe one of them set the fire to begin with.”

  “Maybe,” Frank said, “though they could just have spotted the blaze like they said. I’m leaning toward the Costellos right now. There are two of them, and they definitely don’t seem to like the Mortons. We have only Mr. Costello’s word that someone else let his dogs loose.”

  “It could be he was covering up for kidnapping Bernie,” Joe suggested, “making it seem like dog troubles were widespread in the area.”

  “Gail Sanchez or Patsy Stein might be responsible too,” Frank said.

  Joe nodded. “Trouble at the farm could mean more business for Sanchez’s farm supply outfit. And we know that Stein wants to buy up this place, along with other properties in the area. She’s already got her eye on the Myint factory.”

  “Malls need a lot of space,” Frank admitted.

  “I’m with the Mortons, though,” Joe replied. “Bayport doesn’t need another mall.”

  A sudden thud outside brought both brothers to the window.

  After taking a look, Joe breathed a sigh of relief. “It was just a big pile of snow that slipped off the roof,” he said.

  “We’ll probably hear a lot of sounds like that before the night’s over,” Frank said. “Look at the way the snow is piling up! There must be five inches more since we came inside.”

  “Its a regular blizzard, all right,” Joe agreed. “We’re lucky to be in here, not still trapped up in those trees.”

  “I’m just hoping we’ve seen the last of our troubles for the night,” Frank said.

  “You’d have to be a pretty determined criminal to venture out in this kind of snow,” Joe replied.

  “I think it’s safe to say that the people causing these problems—whoever they are—are pretty determined,” Frank said.

  “You know, it occurs to me,” Joe said, “if anything else goes wrong before this blows over, we’ll be on our own. There’s no way fire and rescue or even the police, could get out here to help. You’d have to call in the National Guard to plow through this weather.”

  “And it’d be pretty hard to call the guard with the phones out,” Frank added.

  “And the cell phone on the fritz,” Joe finished.

  Frank looked grim. “Face it,” he said in a low voice, “as of now, we’re completely on our own. It’s you, me, and the Morton family against the people behind this trouble. Every one of us is trapped in this blizzard with no way out.”

  11 Stranded in the Snow

  * * *

  Neither Frank nor Joe slept well that night. It seemed they woke up every thirty minutes or so to check on some new noise—whether real or imagined. Nothing came of any of the noises, and when morning finally arrived, all they had to show for their lonely vigil was bags under their eyes.

  Dawn broke in muted tones of gray and white. Snow was still falling, though less fiercely than it had during the night. The wind had quieted some as well, after pushing drifts up to the windowsills on the west side of the house.

  The old farmhouse was chilly inside, and everyone came to the living room wrapped in blankets, pajamas, and robes. Frank and Joe soon got the fire stoked up. Then they volunteered to put on their dry snow gear and fetch more wood from the shed out back.

  They had to push the back door through a snow drift to get it open. Bernie’s doghouse lay completely buried; only a vague bulge in the blanket of snow showed where it stood.

  While the Hardys fetched wood, the Mortons fired up the kitchen and made breakfast. Pancakes, ham, eggs, and hash browns were the order of the day. “A body needs lots of fuel to fight this kind of cold and hardship,” Grandpa Morton explained.

  “Can’t argue with you there,” Joe said, wolfing down his second helping.

  “There’s at least a foot of snow outside,” Frank said. “More in the drifts. One came up above my waist.”

  “I remember about thirty years ago, we got close to three feet of snow in a day and a half,” Grandma said. “Shut down the whole state for a week. They had to call out the National Guard to clear the roads and ferry sick folks to hospitals on snowmobiles. We didn’t have power for six days.”

  “Let’s hope it’s not that bad this time!” Chet said.

  “Don’t worry,” Grandpa replied. “They’ve got better equipment now than we did then. They’ll have this cleared up in a couple of days, I expect.”

  “The food in the fridge might go bad before the power comes back,” Iola noted.

  “Why do we need a fridge with all this ice and snow around?” Grandma asked. “We’ll just transfer the perishables out of the fridge into the mudroom.”

  “Good idea, Ma,” Grandpa said. “The back hall ain’t heated, and we’ve got that storage bin we could keep things in.”

  “Sounds like our next project,” Frank said.

  “You boys can help Grandma take care of it,” Grandpa said. “Iola and I will go tend to the animals, after I have another helping of these excellent hash browns.”

  Chet smiled. “Gramps is right, Grandma. You’ve done it again.” He reached his plate out for seconds as well.

  Cleaning up the dishes had to wait until the boys carried in
water, so they bused the dishes to the sink and then tackled their chores after eating. It didn’t take the brothers and Chet long to help Grandma empty out the fridge. They put all the food in the big storage box near the bench where they changed into their snowsuits, while Grandpa and Iola fed the horses and cows.

  Soon the teenagers all went out and ferried in buckets of water from the rusting water tower. They filled up the first floor bathtub as a reserve supply and topped off all the clean pots and jugs they could find. Then they filled a big kettle on the stove to boil warm water for the dishes.

  “Thank goodness winter storms can’t drag down the gas lines!” Grandpa joked.

  “It’s like the old days, isn’t it, Pa?” Grandma said. “Before everything got so fancy and electrified.”

  “It’s kind of romantic, really,” Iola noted. “Getting warm by a fire, hauling the water, cooking by candlelight. Some people pay good money for a ‘get away from it all’ vacation—and here we are at home in Bayport having the same experience.”

  “I kind of doubt that your mom and dad would trade their cruise for this,” Joe said, smiling.

  Iola laughed. “Trade lounging on a secluded beach for hauling water through the snow?” she said. “No, I doubt they would.”

  “Personally, I’ll take the electricity every day of the week, Iola,” Grandpa said. “All this strain and exercise might be fine for you young people, but I’m getting too old for it. It’ll probably take a week for my back to recover from this ‘fun.’”

  “We’ll try to handle all the back-breaking work, Mr. Morton,” Frank said. “Just point us in the right direction.”

  “All right, young man,” Grandpa replied, “next on the list is to go out to the barn and patch that wall a bit. It may not have burned clear through, but I bet it’s even draftier inside than usual. Our animals would appreciate keeping whatever warmth their enclosure’s got.”

  “Chet, you can fetch the snowblower out of the barn and clear the drive and walkways,” Grandma said.

  “But they’ll only drift over again,” Chet complained.

  “Be that as it may,” Grandma replied, “if we don’t keep up with the drifts, we’ll soon be buried in them up to our eyeballs.”

  “It’d also be nice to be able to get out of the driveway if we need to,” Grandpa added. “We don’t have any snowmobiles like J. J. or some of our other neighbors do.”

  Chet flexed his muscles. “Sure thing, Grandma and Grandpa,” he said. “If the snow needs clearing, I’m up to it.”

  “I’m wishing now that we’d bought one of those small, truck-mounted plows from that Sanchez woman,” Grandma admitted.

  “We’ll get by,” said Grandpa. “We don’t get a blow like this more than once every twenty years or so. By the time the next one comes, we’ll be retired and loungin’ on that beach where our kids are right now.”

  The Hardys went and patched the barn wall under Grandpa’s direction while Chet cleared the driveway. The repairs were more difficult without power tools, but Mr. Morton still had plenty of old-fashioned woodworking implements lying around the barn, in addition to the boards they needed for the patch.

  Iola helped Grandma with the household chores. Then the boys carried in enough wood to last them for the night.

  By mid-afternoon, they all had some free time, so the teenagers went outside and built snowmen and a snow fort while the Morton grandparents napped. After a snow fight, the teens happily sipped hot chocolate while sitting around the fireplace and recounting tales of their exploits.

  “Maybe those snowmen we built will scare off the prowlers,” Chet speculated. “In the dark, they might look like sentries.”

  “They’d look more like guards if you hadn’t been plunking them with snowballs,” Iola noted. “Now they’ll only work if the burglars think we’ve hired the Big-Puff Marshmallow Men to guard our house.”

  “Or that TV salesman guy who’s made out of car tires,” Joe added, laughing.

  “Fear me! I am the amazing blubber man!” Frank said. He lumbered across the room, imitating a walking snowman.

  “Okay, so maybe that won’t work,” Chet admitted.

  “I doubt these felons would be frightened off by a scarecrow anyway, Chet,” Iola said. “After all, Bernie didn’t chase them away, and he’s a pretty good watchdog.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Joe said. “I’m wondering if maybe someone fed Bernie some drugged food.”

  “That occurred to me, too,” Frank said. “You remember how sleepy he was the night someone was skulking outside? And then he got taken away with no signs of a struggle.”

  “None we could find,” Chet said.

  “Either he was drugged, or he got nabbed by someone he knew and trusted,” Joe said.

  “That makes sense,” said Iola. “But who?”

  The Hardys shrugged. “Joe and I are still working on it,” Frank replied.

  Dinner time soon rolled around, and their supply of water had already run low.

  “Why don’t you fetch enough from the water tower to last the night,” Grandma suggested.

  All four teens groaned. They were starting to feel the aches of all the work and play that day.

  “Count your blessings,” Grandpa Morton said. “If it weren’t for that water tower, we’d either have to melt snow to get water, or you’d have to pump it out by the animal stalls and haul it in from the barn. That’d be almost double the work.”

  “I suppose we should be thankful that the big tank isn’t frozen, too,” Iola said.

  “That foam insulation in the tank usually keeps it usable,” Grandma said, “so there should be enough in there to last us a while. I’m just glad we didn’t empty it for the winter like we usually do.”

  “I have to admit,” Grandpa said, “I just plain forgot. It turns out to be a blessing in disguise, though.”

  “Too bad we can’t just run that old firehose up to the house,” Frank said.

  “The hose is pretty frozen from the other night,” Grandpa noted. “You could hit it with a hammer and not bend it. We should probably take it into the barn to thaw out, now that I think of it.”

  “I don’t think that old hose is very sanitary, anyway,” Grandma added. “I certainly wouldn’t want to drink out of it.”

  “C’mon, gang,” Joe said. “It’ll go faster if we form a bucket brigade.” He rose and headed for the back hall.

  “Sounds like a plan,” Frank agreed. He, Chet, and Iola followed.

  Their snowsuits hadn’t completely dried yet after the snowfight, so they were all a little damp and miserable as they trudged outside.

  Chet shook his head. “Look at this,” he said, gazing at the drifts covering the driveway. “I’ll have to blow it all clean again tomorrow morning.”

  “Maybe they’ll get the phones fixed and be able to call for a plow,” Iola said.

  “Let’s hope,” Chet replied. “I think J. J. usually clears out their driveway during the big blows. And he’s welcome to the job.”

  They all went to the water tower to fill up their buckets once. After that, they planned to form a line back to the house and pass the buckets along as they filled them.

  Chet had the most experience with the temperamental spigot at the tower’s base, so he was elected to be the main bucket filler. “I always did want to find a vocation,” he joked as he fiddled with the ancient valve.

  As he began to twist, the tower shook suddenly.

  A loud snapping sound filled the air, followed by a tremendous groan.

  “Look out!” Frank cried. “The tower’s falling!”

  12 Water Wonderland

  * * *

  One of the four stout wooden legs holding up the tower buckled, tipping the huge container toward the startled teens. The three remaining legs creaked and protested before they started to snap.

  Frank grabbed Chet by the collar and pulled him out of the way. At the same time, Joe put his arms around Iola and thrust both of them
to one side.

  The four teens scrambled as the huge metal container gave a final groan. Then the legs gave way completely and the whole thing tumbled toward them.

  “Jump!” Joe cried.

  He and Iola dove to one side, and Frank and Chet leaped toward the other. The tower crashed to the icy ground and burst open, spraying countless gallons of water in every direction. The four friends landed in the snowdrifts to either side of the falling tank.

  The horrible sound of rending metal filled the air as the tank caved in at the seams. Its wooden top smashed when it hit the ground, filling the air with fragments of timber. Frank ducked as a big board soared past his head, barely missing Chet.

  The icy water hit the teenagers like a tidal wave, drenching everyone right through their parkas. For a moment a huge sloshing sound filled the chilly air. Then the barnyard fell silent.

  “Is everyone okay?” Joe asked.

  Iola and the rest nodded. “Yes, aside from being soaked to the skin,” Chet said.

  Frank stood up and shook himself. Droplets of water dripped from his parka as though he were a wet dog. “We were lucky,” he said. “If that tower had fallen any more quickly, someone could have been killed.”

  “I’m wondering why it fell at all,” Joe said. He sloshed through the chilly water and drenched snow to the tower’s broken base.

  “What in tarnation?” Grandpa Morton cried. He and Grandma dashed out of the house, pulling on their coats as they came. The two looked around the scene in disbelief. Sorrow and frustration welled up in their aged eyes.

  “It just . . . collapsed,” Chet said apologetically.

  “It was pretty old, Pa,” Grandma Morton said consolingly. “All the snow and wind must have taken a toll on it, especially with it being full and all.”

  Dave Morton nodded slowly. “Must have,” he agreed sadly. “Are any of you young’ns hurt?”

  “No, we’re all fine,” Iola replied.

  “Though we’re going to need to change our clothes . . . again,” Joe added. Already their parkas had begun to freeze up.