Chapters One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten, Twelve, Thirteen, Fourteen; Christmas.
(Flyover Planet, SF, starts here, and that’s the teaser.)
Ben sped along the road so fast the trees were a blur to him. There was a pickup in the distance, driving toward the Forrests' farm, and it was getting closer — was Ben gaining on it? No, it was slowing down for Ben. That was Ben's dad's truck, with him behind the wheel. In a few moments Ben had caught up. His dad looked out.
"Where are you off to in such a rush?"
"I was just... I was..." Ben was trying to catch his breath and look the truck over at the same time without appearing to do so. His dad grinned as if he knew what Ben was thinking.
"Pop the bike up and hop in," he said. "We are going to help Chris out a bit."
Ben hadn't even noticed that Chris Forrest, Mr. Forrest's son, was in the front seat next to his dad. He said hi and got in. Was it there or wasn't it there? He knew his dad wouldn't tell him till the time was right, but he couldn't help craning his head around to peek at the back of the truck or feeling under the seats. No, nothing...
In the front, Christ Forrest was saying, "... And so I told them I wasn't putting my girls into that school. They will be homeschooled here in the Valley. They weren't happy about it I can tell you."
"Your little girls?" Ben's dad was puzzled. Chris shook his head.
"No, they are all for it. They love your wife, and they had a great time with Susan, she is teaching them to sew, and her grandma is very good about helping with the food, everyone is just... So kind here." His voice caught.
Ben and his dad pretended not to notice. Chris Forrest was not a crybaby, like some of Ben's cousins from the city; it was just that since he lost his wife (some helpful doctors gave her a shot for disease she did not have, and made sure she would never get sick again — dead people don't) his heart was broken, and sometimes he had to turn his face away and hold on hard.
"Oh, you meant the social workers weren't happy," Ben's dad said casually, looking at the road. "Damn, that's nothing new. I guess that's why you got a farm inspection the very next day though."
"Yeah, probably. Good thing you and the others were there that day."
"Oh, when they tried to arrest your milk?" Ben snorted. It was the dumbest thought of the day for sure.
They turned into the farm's driveway. Old Mr. Forrest waved at them from the yard, and two little girls in gingham dresses, with long black braids swinging, ran out onto the porch. They looked a lot like Mr. Forrest's grandmother, to Ben, with big dark eyes over high cheekbones, with a rosy tan that was very different from old Mr. Forrest's coppery leathery skin.
"Daddy! Hi Ben!" (They liked Ben because he was a big boy but he still played with them and pushed them when they got on a swing and gave them piggyback rides.) "Can we help? I can carry this myself!" and they ran up to the truck and waited to have things handed down to them. The men and Ben unloaded it quickly: empty milk bottles in the crates, from the customers, and jars of homemade yogurt, and all the other stuff that had to be refrigerated quickly; and some other goods, and there, at the bottom, underneath everything, finally:
"Is that...?" Ben gasped, the goofiest grin imaginable taking his whole face over. Mr. Forrest and Ben's dad laughed, and even Chris Forrest smiled a little, his arms going around his daughters.
Yes, it was! It was a rifle, the most beautiful gun Ben had ever seen, because it was his own. He checked that it was unloaded, pointing it barrel down (yes, you should always do that, even if the Angel of Truth himself tells you there is no rounds in the mag), and stroked it lovingly, turning this way and that. Ben's dad asked casually:
"Like it?"
"Like it?!" Ben wanted to sing. "Thank you! That's the best... The best present ever!"
"Better than a bike?" Old Mr. Forrest asked, smiling. Ben's dad shook his head.
"Nah, the bike he mostly paid for by himself, it wasn't a gift. Ben, you should thank Chris here too," he clapped the younger man on the back. "He was delivering the last orders from the farm and picked this up for me."
Ben's thanks were effusive and came thick and fast but Chris shook his head.
"It was no trouble. This is a nice-looking piece," he said. "Hey, you still got my first gun somewhere, don't you, Pop?"
Mr. Forrest nodded, and the little girls piped up:
"Grandpa said we can try shooting it if you said it was ok, can we, dad, can we try?"
"I bet I can hit a bottle!"
"You are just a baby! I can hit —"
"Baby yourself! I am almost as big as you!"
"Grandpa, GRANDPA!"
"Girls, stop badgering your grandpa. Remember, ladies don't yell," Chris said with a sad half-smile. The girls shushed, giggling.
"That's what mommy used to say, right?" the youngest asked and Chris nodded with a faraway look in his eyes.
"Ben, can I try your rifle?" the eldest girl asked. She was about as tall as the rifle stood upright.
"Sure, if your dad says it's ok," Ben said. I'm sorry to say he would have given a different (and much ruder!) answer to his younger brothers, at first anyway, but of course he wouldn't make fun of little girls. Old Mr. Forrest, however, said firmly:
"Dinner first, and then we'll see. Hey, who is that? Oh, that's Craig, that city fella."
It was indeed Craig, turning into the driveway in his little rental car. He duly admired the gun as Ben showed it to him, and laughed to see the little girls trying to hold the big rifle up. Ben showed them how to aim it but the light was getting a bit sketchy, and the sky was cloudy. Craig stayed to supper — it was venison stew that Mr. Forrest had made, and some freshly baked bread that some neighbor brought over. The stew was spicy and meaty, and Ben asked for seconds and wiped the inside of his bowl clean.
Everyone was discussing the news of the doctor's ("Medicine woman," Mr. Forrest corrected with a grin, and everyone laughed) and the troubles of the farm.
"We can't lose the money," Mr. Forrest said frankly. "And they got us by the short hairs. We would have lost all our milk if it hadn't been for your dad and Uncle Mac and the others, and I don't doubt it's a matter of time till the feds come again."
"Judge Joe said the same," Ben said, and his dad told him not to talk with his mouth full, what did he mean, "Shush show?"
"You could stop selling," Craig said. He'd been listening with a an expression of sympathy on his pleasant face. "You could just, you know, give the stuff away as gifts," he made quotation marks in the air to show what he meant, "and if folks happen to drop by your house and leave some cash now and again, well, so what? Maybe that's gifts too, or an old loan, personal-like. You know, the same way the doctor did, before she became a medicine woman."
"I could do that," Martin Forrest agreed. "If they are trying to stiff you, that's a rigged game: you lose your produce, you lose time and you lose what little you have on the lawyers; and they have got endless time and resource, which we don't. If I don't keep the farm running we won't have any farm next year." His granddaughters looked at him with big scared eyes.
"That won't happen," he said reassuringly, and Ben's dad added, "We won't let it, don't you worry. But it's not a good solution, Craig. I mean, it's all right if no one is paying attention, but we are on their radar. They are going to bug and badger and sniff around till something gives."
"At least you got guns," Craig said.
"You can't shoot all of them, and it's not the right thing to do anyway," Chris Forrest said heavily. Some thought stirred in Ben's mind, but he was too full and getting to be too sleepy to properly pay attention. His dad looked over at him.
"Time for us to be getting back," he said, rising from the table. "Let me give you a hand with the dishes first though." Mr. Forrest shooed him away.
"I will get them, after I put the girls to bed," Chris said. He looked tired, not sleepy-tired, but inner-tired, as if something inside him wasn't waking up. Maybe Craig, in spite of being a young man and a city fella, saw it too, because he said with his easy smile:
"How's this: I do the dishes, you put the girls to bed, and then you and I go over to town and maybe hit a bar for a couple of beers or catch a movie? I got a spare bed, and can get you back by morning?"
"Well, the milking..." Chris began but his father said:
"Go, boys, go! I can handle the milking by myself for a morning. It's time you had a night off, Chris." And as Chris went upstairs with the girls and Craig rolled up his sleeves, Mr. Forrest said gruffly:
"You're a good boy, Craig. God bless you."
"Oh, I'm all right... for a townie," Craig laughed, and started on the dishes.
In the morning Ben was hard at work over his chores: mucking out the chicken coop and the like; his mom laughed that he was working twice as fast as usual. Ben was doing his best indeed so he could go shooting in the afternoon. It was a nice cloudy day, not too hot, just right for target practice. He was really looking forward to competing with his friends (not everyone had a rifle of their own but there should be enough between the lot of them.) It was shaping up to be a pretty good day.
But around noon Mr. Forrest showed up in his truck. Ben was surprised to see him at such a busy time for farmers, and still more surprised to see Mr. Forrest's little granddaughters spilling out of the back seat, looking a little scared. Ben's mom came out, looking surprised too.
"Can you take them in for a day or two?" Mr. Forrest said after greeting her. He looked strained too, though he spoke in his regular manner.
"Sure thing, Mr. Forrest! Go on inside, girls, my lot is having a snack in the kitchen. Clara, guests! We'll try some drawing afterward, all right? Go on with Clara, I will be right back."
"Thank you, you and your family. I'm just really sorry to spring them on you like this, and — oh shoot, I've forgotten all about their stuff, clothes and the like," Mr. Forrest rubbed his face. Ben's mom said, lowering her voice a little, though the kitchen was on the other side of the house:
"Mr. Forrest, what's wrong, what happened? Is it Chris? What do you need?"
"Just take care of them for now, all right? Chris is... Chris has been arrested."
"WHAT?!" Ben and his mom said at the same time. "What for?"
"Drunk driving," Mr. Forrest said heavily. "For trying to drive off in a car that didn't belong to him."
"But that's impossible," Ben's mom said angrily, and Ben said, "He wouldn't do that!"
"Well, he didn't," Mr. Forrest said, "but they arrested him all the same. What the boys say happened was, Craig was getting their beers — they'd had a couple, so those were going to be their last; and he asked Chris to go get something out of the glove compartment for him, and tossed him the keys. He said, joking-like, "Let's go joy-riding," or something like that, pretty loudly; and out Chris goes and doesn't come back. So a few minutes later Craig comes out of the bar, and what he sees is the cops cuffing Chris and pushing him into the patrol car. So Craig runs over, and they tell him this man was going to drive off in his car while drunk; and Craig tried to reason and tell them it was his car, his rental anyway, and the long and the short of it, both of them are in the jug, no bail."
"What's gonna happen to him?" asked Ben, but Mr. Forrest just shook his head.
"I don't know," he said.
