• Peigra's Blog:

Fields Of Gold, Pt 2

By: Peigra

"She got a what?"

Perhaps it was the grinding gears of the trailers and trucks milling about like chickens (dammed things) and unloading of the horses and all their tack that Margaret hadn't heard Allen the first time. And she made a note to get that niece of Allen's, or whomever claimed her as kith and kin, to start keeping the chickens in line.

Four days of feeding them on a regular basis should have instructed them to keep themselves in one area of the property.

But, no...they had a tendency to roam, to find her best shoes sitting out on the porch at night where she'd neglected to bring them in after sitting on the hanging rocker, discussing figures with Garrison once again into the wee hours of what was eastern time, and barely smoking hour here at Emily's property. Margaret hadn't meant to sit for so long, or to be discussing quotes for the morning's round of represented clients and stare down at her bare foot (when had she taken her shoes off?) and to find herself irked that she had stopped pushing herself gently against the porch railing and was swinging in the light breeze.

The whole moment had irritated her, and she had taken out her anger on Garrison. He was too much a partner to argue that she was wrong, and merely ended the conversation with an empty lie about requiring sleep, to which Margaret knew he slept on the same couch where he seated his clients. Another note in her expanding list in her daytimer to remember for the morning.

But morning had come quickly, given that the room she had chosen to occupy...second floor, looking out at the driveway in case anyone dared to come in the middle of the night and attempt to steal anything of either value or harm her being in any way...the exact room that, by some misfortune of her own fate by simply being here on Emily's property, that was above where the rooster welcomed the morning sun with hearty gusto and large lung capacity.
He was lucky she had neither weapon handy nor the aim, had she been within reach of her gun. She knew he was mocking her, and she was already debating his fate of cordon bleu or a subtle orange glaze, had she been able to even attempt such a culinary creation.

But the trucks had rolled in before she'd been able to get a start on the figures and the e-mails, and she had pulled her clothing out of the antiquated dryer, groaning again at the dust that seemed to coat every inch of the fabric the moment she put it on. Ooh, but for New York again, and soon!

The two realtors had come and...well, better not think about those figures. She had expected a healthy price for the property, and it was...if you were a rancher, and you had the money, and you weren't from New York where an apartment could be on the market for an hour and be considered "old" if it wasn't contracted within that time.

The figure that had been passed to her, via consideration of local markets for homes and land, the current market of the area, and the last property that had sold (twelve years prior to Emily's death) and its listing and selling prices.
Margaret had been laughing too hard, at first, to see that they weren't joking with her. Hadn't she realized this was a depressed area? Well, Margaret knew about "depressed"...there was nothing for miles and miles but rolling hills and all the hay and alfalfa, and the wheat just beginning to show deep emerald heads that would later become a burnished buff-gold.

But they were serious about their figures?

They had looked at her as if she were a child who hadn't understood a question.

Margaret's hopes of several million dollars had begun to fade at that point, as well as the somewhat good mood she had been in upon fetching them from the airport (dammed town didn't have its own limo service? What type of place was this?)

Then had come the antique appraiser, and his appearance had offset the absence of the realtors who had gone to walk the property. Margaret's hopeful eyes had taken in every last little nook and cranny, opening drawers, pulling out glasses, showing cubbyholes and the tack room and even the tiny little shed with the door that opened to the sky, with a hole beneath it in the ground. She still didn't understand what that was for...mushrooms?

The appraiser had been kind, noting that many of the items were in wonderful condition, but that it would take several days for him to catalog the items and get back to her with a quote. Margaret had all but offered him her room so that he wouldn't leave, but he had taken photos for research, and asked to be shown back to the airport.

He had called back this morning, just before the trailers and trucks had returned, with a figure that she might have made in one month's good trading with the firm.

She was not a happy woman.

And now this, Allen leaping out of the first truck and nearly taking off the screen door and filthy with dust and smelling of things she didn't care contemplate and SWINGING her around with an exultant cry.

Now, if she could only get him to let GO of her hand and stop dragging her away from her laptop and outside to the nasty outdoors...

But the horses were being off-loaded, black coats shining and beginning to gather dust as they tromped down the driveway to the barn, two at a time, each led by one of the drivers.

"It's Emmie! She did it!"

Emmie? Who was Emmie?

Margaret's puzzled look must have given him a clue. Allen pointed to the last trailer, and gripped her hand tighter, skipping along...was that skipping? Hadn't she done something like that as a child? He was skipping towards the long metal trailer.

She gave a deep sigh, knowing her white cloth boat shoes would be ruined at this point, and staring as Allen finally released her and went into the trailer, and Margaret's sense of curiosity got the better of her. She, too, came to the edge of the trailer and peeked around the side, barely aware of the four, no, five others all coming to stand around her.

Inside the trailer was the horse, Emmie, looking quite pleased with herself. But there was something moving around her legs, spindly feet still wobbling from the long ride.

"Isn't he the cutest little thing?"

Margaret looked to Allen, eyes accusing. What HAD he been thinking? Bringing home ANOTHER horse that she'd have to get rid of? Another mental note...call the first auctioneer in the book and arrange for the beasts to GO.

Allen was all smiles, though, wiping his eyes and holding out a gentle hand to the skittish foal, eyes wide with deep fright and his dam nickering that nothing would harm him. "Ain't he a beauty? Emmie's sure proud of'im."

"Animals don't have feelings."

The temperature around her seemed to fall several degrees, and Margaret looked around with a haughy air. "Well, they don't."

"Emmie does," one of the young men said, nodding his head towards the mare and her foal. "She knew where to have the yung'un where it'd be safe."

The whole scene began to dawn on Margaret...something that Garrison had once said about Michael's wife, being pregnant and unable to travel after...

"You took a pregnant horse to the show?"

"Best place to have one, ma'am. Gives the judges sumpthin to smile'bout."

"Makes'em smile," another voice added. "They tend to look past faults for a while with little ones around."

"I see," was Margaret's dry answer.

She didn't have anything else to say to that, neither understanding what had happened, nor caring, well, perhaps caring for the fact that she now had eight...NINE horses to get rid of? A small part of her wanted to cry that she would have to deal with yet another person in the growing saga of simply selling a property. She had never encountered a problem in re-renting her spacious apartment in New York when she went on extended leave to Japan to speak to overseas investors.

Margaret stared at the horse, at the little version of it beside the larger one, and gave a snort that spoke several volumes of irritation and exasperation.

A familiar friend broke into the scene, however, and her cell phone chimed happily, to which the foal promptly charged out of the trailer in fear and Allen untied Emmie's lead rope, following quickly before the mare lost sight of the foal.

But the cause of the disturbance was already shuffling slowly back up the driveway to the house, beaming at the person on the other end, and several faces were following the figure and then glaring back at Allen. "She's one city folk."

"Don't like her," summed up another's opinion, to which Allen simply shrugged.

"She's Miss Emily's kin," was all the reply he could muster, and they all sighed heavily at that. Kin didn't abandon kin, it wasn't heard of...at least, here it wasn't, when kin was about all you had some lean years when the cattle brought in less of a price than expected due to drought or sudden blizzards, or the weather beat down the wheat crop before it was ready to be topped and then nearly a year's worth of effort and planning and planting and care were gone, as well as the finances to pay for the equipment or the assistance of other harvesting folk.

Allen took a deep sigh, settling Emmie as she caught sight of her foal charging around the first trailer. "She's Miss Emily's kin," he said again, more to himself now than to the others who had helped with the show.



It was late afternoon by the time Margaret began to notice that, for the first time in nearly six days, she had not been disturbed a second time.

Having mastered, in her own mind, the right dosage for a decent cup of coffee (seven scoops per cup, less water) and having blown two more breakers (she was becoming popular at the hardware store now) she was finally catching up on what little work she could accomplish out here via phone lines.

And those, for some reason, had begun to fade a bit on her.

Dammed rural lines...she needed at least four T-1 lines right now to keep up with the changes in the market. It was dipping with fears that quarterly projected earnings might not be exactly what had been forecast.

Margaret was tired, simply from being in a place she was not used to, and from having so many other duties upon her right now. The realtors she had called a second time, asking, once again, if their figures were correct, to which they had kindly replied yes, and given her four other numbers in case she wished a second opinion. The area was recessed due to the wheat market's possible good showing come fall, as well as what looked to be a hopeful rise in beef prices come third quarter. Perhaps she might find a buyer then for the acreage...no, it wasn't the right place for a suburban community with gates. It was nearly seventy miles from the nearest city and when the homes were built they would not even begin to pay for the money invested that she was asking for.

And the antique dealer had finally seen fit to call back, with a quote that brought her nearly to tears. Didn't these people realize that Emily had been a collector of things?

Nothing in the house was of value, perhaps save the table with its intricate chairs and he was willing to pay an extremely high price for those. Hand-carved from the looks of it, and it would bring a healthy price, but the rest of it he wasn't certain about. Too many little knick knacks to deal with, various prices, and Margaret made an excuse and nearly hung up on him. Send me a list via e-mail.

She wanted to cry.

And now this...the computer's link wasn't keeping up with her work. She'd lost connection with the internet four times already, nearly a fifth, before finally looking up and stretching and seeing a world of shadows outside the window.

Margaret was city folk, imbedded into the culture of gray stone and pigeons that glared if you didn't drop anything for them and indifferent people who would only love to see you perish so that they could take both your seat on the subway AND your purse. She was used to those things, as her father had been, as her grandfather also. It wasn't something to be explained, it simply happened.

But this...she went to the window, looking out, and frowned at the skies above her. A deep, slick painter's hand, it seemed, had taken away the sun and barred it from shining, taking dark, angry greens and gray-purples combined with silver-white flashes tinged with blue in the distance. Thunderstorm, and a rather large one also. She doubted that Emily's house was protected from surges. Damn. Time to unplug the computers.

But a part of her simply stood at the window, watching the clouds simply swirling, twisting in invisible games with one another over the endless fields. It was fascinating, and only the splash of black against the dusty feeding area near the barn alerted her to the sudden lack of noise...ANY noise.

Margaret went outside onto the porch, walking into a wall of heat and dampness that she knew had ruined her silk blouse. But the air was like nothing...it wasn't describable. It clung to her, sucking at her lungs until she drew in short breaths to keep her lungs filled, and she pushed hair from her eyes in a vain attempt to see. The horses were on the feeding side of the barn, milling about restlessly...they reminded her of brokers who were about to lose their week's worth of earnings. Stamping their feet, expecting something, waiting for the worst.

The worst of what?

The chickens were gone, who knew where they were about at this moment, and the goats were no where to be seen, nor heard for once, and she took the steps down to the dust once again and looked around her.

Nothing.

Not a sound...save the thunder in the distance.

Oppresively hot now, and she plucked at her blouse and did a lazy turn to stare at the clouds above her, deep cottonballs of greenish-yellow above Emily's property, a dark, angry violet-gray down the road. She found it all fascinating, and for once wished she owned a camera. But that was silly, she didn't need to remember these clouds. She had her memory, and it was a welcome break into her day's reverie, as she'd skipped lunch again.

Margaret took the distance between she and the barn, going to the fence and staring at the horses. She knew nothing about them, only that at this moment they reminded her of some of her employees, making little noises, bumping against one another without realizing it with thoughts miles, and figures, away from the reality of the present. Childish thoughts caught her and she climbed up onto one of the fence rails, leaning over, ignoring her tailored pants and her dusty tennies and her sweaty blouse, and staring at the horses for a moment.

Something snorted against her hip, and she looked down to the foal, regarding her as if she were a new toy to behold.

A giggle of laughter burbled from Margaret, reaching down to pet the foal who promptly dashed back to the safety of Emmie's flanks, and then had the audacity to come just out of reach of Margaret's fingers and eye the woman wearily. The thing was cute, she had to admit, in a horsey type of fashion. If she'd liked horses, that was...or had...she stood up on the rail, leaning against the post and frowning for a moment. Whom had liked horses? Someone in the family had been horse crazy, wanting lessons, wanting to jump and race and feel the power of horseflesh and muscle beneath her legs as she leapt across the fields and onto the next jump with a poise and grace nothing in the world could match...

Margaret frowned...wondering whom in her childhood had been ready to run away to the stables just to be around horses. Which of her siblings had it been?

The foal closed the distance, thunder roaring in the distance, and retreated back to the shelter of Emmie's protective closeness. Even Margaret looked up to the dancing whiteness in the distance. Thunderstorms were a rarity in the city. They happened, but so infrequently that she couldn't recall the last time she'd seen one with such color. Who had sat with her on the balcony one hazy afternoon...had it been down in Virginia? Or Florida? Which had it been? So long ago that she couldn't recall sitting looking out into the deep crystal waters with someone and holding his ample hand against hers as they timed the lightning and the thunder, her father's rumble of pride when she got her figures...

Her father...it had been with her father, down in Tampa...but when? How long ago...she couldn't place the when, only that she had been on the hotel balcony, and no one but her father had wanted to join her...no, she'd been sick from something and stuck in the room with him while her siblings were being entertained down on the beach beneath her.

The memory disturbed her, more for what it had been...a vision of her long-gone father, who had left her the family business, who had charged her with the wealth that he had built, that his own father had passed onto his able shoulders. Margaret could see him now, talking on the phone for hours with people she knew only briefly, but whom came to assist her after his death with the business, but looking down at her, pausing, and having a moment of time to give her a goodnight kiss and hug and wish her pleasant dreams and what WERE those people thinking if they were going to sell now?

Her father...he'd had another name at one point, name of Daddy...because she had called him that for years before it had become unfashionable of her to do so both in those tenative days she was learning the business on Daddy's knee and then as a teenager streaking down the back roads in Chuck's camaro...

Chuck, she hadn't thought of him in years, not since the divorce. She knew he'd remarried, several children, happily ensconced in a thankless job without benefits as Margaret's company could have offered him.

She wiped her eyes, frowning at her own stupidity at letting her emotions show, and realized she wasn't wiping tears from them, she was wiping rain...huge, random droplets that were falling around her. The violet-silver skies were unloading just to the north of her, the green having taken an eeriness to the south of her that both fascinated and frightened her.

The clouds that had been so cottony earlier were a deep gray now, being able to still see for miles as Emily's house sat on the top of one of the larger "hills" in the area (better drainage, Allen had said that first day). But the clouds weren't staying up where they should have, and Margaret had no realization that the birth of the tornado she was witnessing would be a killer to the next county.

The bottom of the clouds seemed to peak, like a dripping ice cream cone, dancing with one another, and beginning to twist, a subtle thing that her eyes missed at first, but the cone began to build, dipping down briefly, giving a tease to her eyes. Margaret watched it dancing on invisible air currents, being built and destroyed as she felt compelled to watch its creation, and finally it took a deep plunge towards the ground, a delicate, nearly pencil-thin thing of deep, dirty white-gray.

She'd never seen anything so beautiful, a gentle puff of something on the ground all she could see to confirm that it had touched down. It danced on a field for a moment, and her own hips couldn't have done a better version on the dance floor, and she smiled at the comparison. She'd forgotten about her dance lessons, so long ago now, forgotten with...what else was nagging at her? Something she'd forgotten, something she had treasured...

Lightning flashed and the horses bolted as one group, the flash burning into Margaret's soul as it struck the pasture to the east, thunder knocking her from the post and rattling the area. She'd felt minor quakes before while being in Los Angeles, but they were nothing like this. The electricity in the air was beating at her, and self-preservation took over and she made a dash for the barn, as its doors were open and it was closer than the house now.

Steam and burning vegetation and something more blew across her face and she gagged at the stench, turning away from it and watching a second flash down the road, the rain undecided if it wanted to truly unleash itself here or in the next county. What had started as a fierce rain had stopped, and the air was still unbearably hot. The lightning had to have hit something close, as she hadn't had a chance to count before she'd fallen off the post.

But the barn was dry, and she looked around for something to sit on, as her legs suddenly felt that they no longer had the right to keep her standing. Bales of hay were stacked neatly along one corner of the barn, to be put into the upper storage sometime soon she hoped, and she found a seat upon these, watching, fascinated, at another lightning strike that burned her eyes and struck out past Emily's house. It missed the tree, thankfully, but she could see a deep flash of light as vegetation burned around it. She had no concept of the possibility of a fire in the area, and watched the wind play with the flames briefly, a hissing noise overcoming all others suddenly.

The air cooled before she had a notice to it happening, one moment watching the lightning play around the house and barn, and the next wondering if she shouldn't have made a dash for the house as the rain had started as friendly drops and was now a deluge. Watching it, the wind taking it in heavy sheets like curtains of silver, she sat back against the bales of hay and smiled. What a beautiful thing to watch...much more entertaining than the symphony her last beau had taken her to. No imagination...no one went to the symphony any longer. You had to turn off your cell phone for the entire performance.

Margaret smiled, watching the rain, and hearing sudden sounds around her, and realizing that the chickens were roosting on the edges of the horse stalls. She had to laugh at that, as she had followed their example and taken shelter in the barn also. Her chuckle was heard by none save their birdish ears, and she began to laugh at herself, tucking her legs beneath her and closing her eyes for a moment, just a moment...she felt sleepy for some reason...


He hadn't thought to look in the barn first, as he hadn't expected her there. The four twisters that he gone through the county, one just up the road from them, had worried him. But Allen had been stuck in town during the twister storm, and his first priority had been checking on his folks. There hadn't been any word from his brother up the road, nor had his sister and other three brothers checked in yet. Phone lines were down, he realized that, nor was it anything more than wanting to KNOW if his family was alright that prompted him to drain the batteries on his cell phone as he charged from house to house asking if anyone needed anything.

Allen had stopped at Miss Emily's place after doing the rounds, some perverse little part of him knowing that he should have done this second, but his normal route took him here last as it always did, for it was just a ways up the road to his folks house, and the circle was easier taking this route.

Then again, the circle also could have been done the opposite way, for once.

But Margaret hadn't been in the house upon questioning, nor had he discovered her in the place he believed he would find her, that being the tornado shelter, which hadn't been unlatched probably since Miss Emily had last used it the summer before.

But that dammed woman was asleep on the hay, smiling in her sleep, and Allen shook his head as the chickens bwucked at him for disturbing their rest. Well, might as well leave her there. There wasn't much he could do tonite, now that the storms were gone into the next state, and the damage would be assessed in the morning as far as the wheat crop and the twister's damage to any farms up the road. Dammed things didn't let a person make an honest living any more. They seemed to know when you were in straits and hit you with everything they had.

He wished he'd been able to get ahold of his brother and sister in law...he was worried.

The horses came to the edge of the fence, eyeing him as they always did, looking for food. "Not tonite, fellas," he said, but not without malice or a quick scratch against Emmie's neck. "People need me right now, she don't need anythin for now."

Back into the truck he went, writing a quick note on the back of another business card, and setting it in the crack between the screen and the moulding.

Above him, the clouds began to gather again, and he turned on the portable scanner in the truck. Another storm brewing behind the first one. He wasn't about to sleep tonite anyway. His parents were safe in the shelter, and he knew people that would need help up the road if the twister he'd seen had done any significant damage. And Miss Emily's place had never been hit by one...the old woman had smiled and called it her orneriness that kept the twisters away.
Allen looked back to the barn, to the clouds above turning, twisting from a murky gray to a greenish-violet, gathering strength again. Out of the truck again, back to the barn, and a gentle touch to Margaret's shoulder.

Her eyes opened slower than he would've expected, but once they saw him, the blue orbs narrowed with intent.

"Ma'am...there's another storm comin, you better get into the shelter. Ain't safe inside here if one comes overhead."

The storm...oh, but it had been a lovely sight...she shook her head and blinked, gathering up her last thoughts before she'd dozed. "Allen, it was beautiful...all the colors, and the lightning, it hit across the road..."

He looked up, beyond the house and fences, to where she pointed. He couldn't see much, but any scars on the dusty ground would show up in a day or two. "Ma'am...it wasn't beautiful, it's a twister storm, and there may be another one coming soon. You need to get into the shelter and get safe."

"Shelter? The barn kept me dry..."

Allen was shaking his head, and took her hand again, with considerably more force and anger than she remembered from the morning's venture. Outside of the barn, into the mud, and he pointed to the small hill with the strange door that opened to the sky. "The shelter, ma'am...it's safer in there for you tonite."

"In there? I thought Emily was growing mushrooms in there?"

Something cold passed over his face, and Margaret cringed, backing away from him. "It's a twister shelter! You're safer there underground WITH the mushrooms than up here in the barn or the house if one hits!"

Years of angry clients, hostile people who lost money on the market's roller coasters, and her own wits came into play, and she cleared her throat politely. "Stop yelling at me."

"Ma'am...a twister ain't beautiful, it's deadly, and it's chopped up some of the road up there," he said, pointing over the ridge she couldn't see over, but he knew what lay there. "Three went through here earlier, and you weren't answering your phone. Now, look up there...see them green fluffy clouds? They're the ones that spawn'em...and they're coming back for a second shot, ma'am. You need to get inside the shelter, cause I ain't leavin till you do."

She was more amazed at his anger at calling the storm beautiful than his ultimatum, and stared at him dumbly. The storm had been beautiful, probably something she would never see again, and it had filled her with something peaceful she'd not had in years.

"Allen, I'm old enough to care for myself..."

"Ma'am, you don't understand..twister don't make any noise. One went right across that ridge, probly while you were sleepin, and you didn't notice, but go on up there and look...you'll see..." He shrugged at her, looking for the clouds above him to give him a sign, and shook his head. "I got family I gotta see to, ma'am...you know where the shelter is, you do what you wanna." Back to the truck, and Allen didn't spare her a second look in the mirror as he drove off.

Margaret stared at the tiny hill, with the strange door, and then up to the ridge. It was growing dark, and she needed to check her figures again...but...he said a twister had come close to the house? Up on the ridge, and she'd slept right through it? She was a light sleeper to begin with, as anyone in the city must be due to threat of break-in.

It took only a short while for her to crest the ridge, ugly green clouds swarming above her like bees once again. The grass was flattened all around her just on the other side, and she looked at the empty path that the furious little thing had taken.

It wasn't much to look at, and then she noticed something peculiar. There were no roots, nothing along the path...the twister had munched them up, stem, top and all, and left the soil behind...for only a six-foot swath, for as long as her eyes could see in the growing darkness. No machinery could have done any worse, and Margaret shivered. She'd seen the photos of tornado damage before, who hadn't? But tornadoes weren't something she needed to worry about, unless she was stopping with a layover in St. Louis during a storm...

But another, irrational thought came to her, as she looked down at Emily's property, and she looked up to the clouds, cottonballs of sickly greens and yellows.

Tornadoes didn't affect her...because she hadn't needed to worry about them...

Until now.

Margaret retreated to the house, stunned more by her own realization than by the tornado's damage across the road, and looked around the silent house. The power was still on, but it was flickering on occasion. Allen hadn't told her what to look for when a tornado...no, she had seen the one, beyond the pastures, earlier, the beautiful thing, whose distant brother had run along the ridge taking everything in its path like a hungry child.

It would be morning before she would see the damage to the houses beyond that ridge, to the twelve missing people, to the wheat fields that were, for the most part, ruined from the hailstorm that had preceeded some of the twisters and the rain.

While Margaret's cell phone rang, and she picked it up, staring in the distance.