Ed Howdershelt Anne

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generator as I put some gas in the tank and primed the carburetor, then
flipped the ON switch and got a grip on the starter cord.
The engine was a small Briggs & Stratton like you'd find on a lawnmower;
the kind that will last twenty years with any reasonable care. On the fifth
pull or so it cleared it's throat with a cloud of smoke and settled into a
very rough idle.
Anne cheered and clapped as the lamp cast a cone of light toward the
ceiling through the cloud of dust and smoke. The generator was making a
phenomenal amount of noise, but I let it run a while to clear itself as I made
a quick inspection of the barn wiring.
There didn't seem to be any problems in the barn, so I turned off the
engine, reconnected the barn wiring, and restarted the engine. Anne plugged
the lamp into a socket on the far wall; it worked fine. She tested some of the
other wall sockets and switches before declaring a success. I shut off the
engine.
"Looks as if we pull those outside wires down or fix them up there," I
said, "And I didn't see a ladder. Did you?"
"Not one I'd trust. If you take off your boots you can stand on the car,"
said Anne.
She almost ran into the house for the keys. It wasn't long before the
Mustang was parked next to the barn and I was standing on the edge of the
car's roof.
Rubbing against the barn had worn away the insulation in a few places on
the house cable. I used half of a roll of black tape to cover the exposed
copper wires. There weren't any other visibly bad spots along the cable, so I
reconnected the wires to the generator and started the engine again as Anne
ran to the house to turn something on.
A few moments later Anne gave me the 'OK' signal from the kitchen window
with a big grin. She ran back to the barn and gave me a bear hug and a kiss
and stood bouncing like a cheerleader as I shut down the engine and filled the
tank for the night ahead.
The tractor was a certifiable antique, manufactured sometime in the
thirties, that had been included in her purchase of the farm. No key,
naturally. Just a place where wires had been touched together while pressing
the starter button. The battery was one of the huge old six-volt type that
aren't in use in farm equipment any more.
"Junk, huh?" she asked, eyeing it from the back.
"Not necessarily," I said. "Let me ask around. Volkswagens use six-volt
batteries."
"If you say so," said Anne.
She wandered over to a door in the side wall, where a room-sized portion
of the barn interior had been walled apart. A layered-steel padlock secured a
hasp about four feet above the ground. Anne checked her keys, but none of them
matched the lock.
I looked into the keyhole. It was the kind with a simple cotter-pin spring
gripper inside. Maybe two springs, but I doubted it. I looked around the barn
for a piece of wire and found a chunk of coathanger hung on a nail.
Wedging it in a hinge plate, I closed the other door on the end of the
wire to create an eighth-inch bend. Rubbing it on the concrete wore the sides
down enough to fit the keyhole. After some probing and twisting, the lock fell
open. Anne was mildly amazed. She arched an eyebrow as I handed her the lock
with a small flourish and bow.
"Would you mind telling me where you learned to pick locks?" she asked.
"Quite honestly learned, Ma'am," I said. "I once lost the key to my bike
lock."
I opened the door and felt the wall for a light switch. There was a string
hanging down, so I pulled it. An overhead bulb illuminated a room full of odd
tools, an engine block on a stand, a grinding wheel, and multitudes of metal
parts that could only be for vehicle repair.
After a thorough prowl of the room, I made a proclamation. "We should be
able to get the tractor back on its feet."
"Do you mind if I put the tractor on the last part of our list? It really
isn't very important," said Anne.
"Put it last, if you want. But if we want to use the barn's back doors, it
has to be moved, and I don't think you want to haul things in from the fields
with the car."
"Okay," she said, "I'll add it to the middle."
The next part of the tour involved driving around the farm in the Mustang.
Old farm equipment dotted the landscape and there was a rusting car body down
by the creek that bisected the property.
At the bottom of a gully with gently-sloping sides, a few strands of
barbed wire crossed the creek. One pole was lying on its side, probably
knocked over by a side-scratching cow.
The car was a late-forties Ford, mired to the bumpers in the mud flat. It
had no wheels, no doors, and no glass that wasn't broken, and people had used
it for target practice so often that it was liberally speckled with dents and
holes.
We added it to the growing list and moved on, following an ancient set of
vehicle tracks in a circuit around the property. The tracks crossed the creek
in three places; North, South, and in the approximate middle of the property,
where the water looked deeper than a couple of feet. Anne stopped the car.
"I don't think I want to try driving through that," said Anne.
We got out to have a look. Minnows and other small creatures were
scattered by our approach to the streambank. Something moving in the weeds
along the opposite bank caught our attention. The water exploded as a
good-sized bass grabbed something near the surface.
"There's been flooding here," I said, pointing at a gap in the weeds, "The
water overruns the bank right over there."
"That's just great," said Anne, gazing out at the creek.
"Maybe not so bad. We can dig the curve out of the creek bed down there."
I indicated the area. "Water takes the easiest path. Right now, the path isn't
easy, so the water backs up a little here. Let's go have a look at the other
end, where the cattle come through."
We drove back to the other area, where we spent a few minutes propping the
fence pole back up and examining the shallow gully that surrounded the creek.
The gully narrowed from about thirty feet wide to less than ten feet where the
fence crossed. There were bottles, cans, and other trash littering the area.
"Cleaning this place up," said Anne, "Could take a week by itself."
"No doubt about that," I said, "How would you like having a pond up here?"
Anne looked at me oddly. "Don't we already have a flooding problem?"
"I was thinking of carving a straighter course through the flood area to
here," I said, indicating the fence, "And making this spot deeper and wider.
Wouldn't take long with a bulldozer."
"You just happen to know how to run a bulldozer, too, Ed?"
"Lots of room to learn," I said. "Up, down, left, right, and stop. We
don't need finesse, Anne. We just need a trench in the creek."
"Right," said Anne. "How about we discuss things a bit more first?"
"Fine by me," I said, grinning at her.
Anne gave me a wry smile and looked at her watch. "Lunchtime."
"That's fine, too."
Chapter Seven
Lunch amounted to cold cuts from a cooler, canned vegetables, and some
Dr.Pepper. Kelly turned out to welcome us back and stayed to mooch some
lunchmeat as we put sandwiches together. We ate and talked about things we'd
have to do to the place until a knock at the door interrupted us.
I opened the door to find the same cop who'd visited the night before. His
truck and jeans told me he was off-duty. He looked to be about forty in
daylight.
"Well, come on in!" I said, "Hey, Sis! Look who's here! Come on back to
the kitchen and have some lunch."
"Well, I just came by to see how y'all were getting along since last
night," he said, "I've had lunch already."
"We're fine," said Anne, on her way from the kitchen.
"Yeah, well, I thought I ought to drop by and check," he said, "By the
way, my name's Don. Don Vine."
We shook hands all-round and took seats in the living room. After some
moments of conversation about nothing in particular, Don came to the point of
his visit.
"I make a point of knowing who lives where and what they drive," he said.
"I try to get to know people so they can talk to me when there's a problem."
"Is there one? A problem, I mean?" asked Anne. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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