A Planet with No Name Page 8

  She wondered if she would need more than a little luck for those seeds to germinate. The Halberd brain trust was rocky ground, but it was a hardy seed. She needed the marriage seed to grow in at least one of the Halberd’s brains. She wanted them to begin thinking there may be a better way to get her land than to chase her off.

  It was still early in the day, but they agreed to put off going to Twisted City for another week. It would take a few days for the garage in Twisted City to receive their order of shatterproof glass to replace the windows in the truck. It was not like Earth where they could order the glass overnight from the manufacturer. They had to send the specifications to a glass company near the ocean’s coast where they would make the window molds and flow the liquid to make the glass. It would have been faster and easier to have a 3D imaging company duplicate new windows, but the extruded plastic would not have the same clear visibility properties of glass.

  Once back from Peaceful Junction, she and Steve re-checked the onion fields. Her planting schedule said the onions should not be ready yet, but Steve insisted that harvest time was ahead of her schedule. It looked to be a huge crop, much better than she anticipated. The field she had chosen for onions lay in a low area with damp, black, muck-like soil. It would dry out some by the end of a dry season, but Cal had diverted a spring into the field. It almost flooded the area during the rainy season. She would consider rotating the onion fields with rice if she could get the seeds and build up embankments for the rice ponds.

  Prior to lunch, Veronica made a quick drive to a stream west of the house to check on her cattle. It was still too early to re-impregnate the original heifers, but according to Veronica’s research, the young cows could go into heat anytime in the next few weeks. Her first crop had produced two cows and two bulls. They were growing larger but were still only a few months old. She always kept them supplied with fortified vitamin salt blocks. She did not keep them inside a corral or a fenced pasture but allowed them to range along the stream where they could graze at will.

  She was more than happy with the Johannsens. Steve was a hard worker. He worked like he owned the farm, yet he always deferred to her decisions. Pushta had taken over the house and kitchen chores. The children were a joy and reinforced her desire to have children of her own. However, the house was not designed for this many people. She needed to invest in a second house. She also needed to talk to the Johannsens about their salary. So far, they had all ducked around the question of money.

  “Hey!” Steve said. He tromped in the kitchen door. “Thanks for waiting lunch on me.” He was laughing as he said it, so the words did not carry any sting.

  “You snooze. You lose.” Pushta said.

  Steve said. “Snooze? You must be thinking of yourself woman.” He grabbed his wife, picked her up and spun her around.

  Veronica thought of herself as a cosmopolitan woman, but the couple struck her as odd. Steve was tall and blonde. Pushta was small and dark, obviously of East Indian descent. The children were beautiful proof that God loves diversity.

  Steve struggled to the table with his wife wrapped in his arms and a child draped around each leg. He kissed Pushta and released her from his hug. He picked up a child in each arm and sat down at the kitchen table.

  He said, “Hi, boss lady. How’s the cattle business?”

  She pointed at his children. “It seems all the youngsters on the place are doing well.”

  He said, “These two youngsters are growing too fast. We need to quit feeding them so much.”

  She said, “The cattle are clustered along the stream near that small waterfall, you know the place? They seem to be content grazing there, so I’m content to leave them. We may have to think about fencing someday, but not right now as eight cows is not much of a herd.”

  Steve said, “No, but eight is a good start. Now for the bad news, the corn is going great.”

  “That is the bad news?”

  “No, but the wheat is not doing well. The dry season hit us before the wheat was ready. There isn’t enough irrigation in that section; we need overhead irrigation for wheat. Back in Nebraska, we used water walkers and many of our neighbors used the hover irrigators. I’m not sure anyone brought extras from Earth. People snapped up most of the available water equipment down south to keep a few of those fields from drying to dust and blowing away. Even if we did have some walkers or hovers, there isn’t enough water there.”

  “Are we going to lose the crop?”

  Steve said, “No, we’re just not going to set any yield records.”

  Veronica said, “You hand me one of those wriggle bottoms you call children and eat something. We can go look after lunch. You can show me what you mean.”

  Shortly after eating, they went to look at the wheat field with the children romping around them.

  Veronica said, “I don’t see what you mean, Steve. They look beautiful to me; there aren’t any dry leaves or anything.”

  Steve said, “You can’t see it so much, but it’s a total package kind of review. Here.” He handed her a leaf.

  She looked at it. “Okay…” She was baffled.

  Steve said, “Taste it. I’m serious. Put it in your mouth and give it a chew.”

  She did as instructed. It did not taste as nasty as she thought it would. After chewing it for a bit, she spit it out.

  Steve laughed, “Good. How did it taste?”

  “Like a leaf. I don’t get it.”

  Steve shook his head. “Did it taste juicy or dry?”

  She shrugged, grabbed another leaf, and pushed it into her mouth. She repeated the process of chewing for several seconds before spitting it out. “I can’t tell. Maybe I could tell the difference if I had both a dry one and a juicy one to compare.”

  Steve grabbed a handful of dirt and handed it to her.

  Veronica shook her head. “I’m not eating dirt.”

  Steve laughed. “No. Just feel it and smell it.”

  She felt it and smelled it, but again she did not understand what he was getting at. She felt useless.

  “Does it feel like squishy mud or caked, dry dirt? Does it smell like a wet rain or like a dusty day?”

  She said, “I can’t tell. Sorry, it smells like dirt to me. I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  Steve said, “Well, it takes time. I’ve been doing this since I was Ransom’s age. Speaking of which…” He looked around. “Ransom, bring your sister over here. Now, Son, taste this leaf.”

  Veronica laughed when the boy grabbed the leaf from his father, shoved it in his mouth, chewed and swallowed.

  Steve said, “Ransom, that leaf tasted dry. Okay? Try to remember the dry taste. Now smell this dirt. It smells more like a dusty road than one of your sister’s mud pies. Okay? Try to remember the smell. Someday you may be a good farmer like your Daddy if you can remember that.”

  Veronica asked, “So, you want Ransom to be a farmer?”

  Steve shook his head. “Heaven’s no! I want him to be an accountant, or an actor, or even a literary agent, whatever he wants to be. Before then, I need to teach him, so he at least has options when he gets older. I was never offered a choice as a child to be anything but a farmer.”

  Veronica pointed to the top of a nearby hill. “Let’s walk up there and get an overview of the whole field.” They were halfway to the top when she asked, “What did you want to be as a child?”

  Steve laughed. “I always wanted to be a farmer and I hope Ransom does too, but I want him to have options in case he doesn’t.”

  When they reached the top of the hill, she could not see any indication that the wheat looked dry. Steve assured her it would start to dry out before it was time to harvest and insisted she take his word for it.

  The field lay flat at the foot of a hill. Ransom and Nikki rolled down the hill and scrambled back to the top to roll down again. The land behind them rose above the level of the plains to become rolling hills, mesas, and canyons leading up to the mountains in the near distance.
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  Veronica turned her back to the wheat field. Cal had diverted part of a stream into the field by cutting into the hill and forming a series of small waterfalls leading down to the irrigation ditches throughout the wheat field.

  She tapped Steve on the shoulder and turned him around.

  “Look,” she said. “We’re using this stream for irrigation, but we’re only using a part of it.”

  Steve said, “More water isn’t the answer, boss. The water is hitting the plants wrong.”

  She said, “I’m beginning to understand that farming is not only about crop management, but more about water management.”

  Steve laughed and said, “Don’t forget staff management.”

  She said, “Okay. Remind me to talk with you and Pushta later about pay. That was the staff you meant, right?”

  Steve said, “Only partly. You’re going to need a lot more help once we get this place up to full operation. It isn’t all about payroll. Honest, right now, me and mine are happy to have a roof over our heads and full stomachs, but we need to start thinking about later. Are we going to do this on the fly, just fighting fires, or are we going to develop a long-term production plan?”

  She said, “You sound like an old economics professor I had in college. You’re right. My head is full of several long-term plans, but I was forgetting to develop a plan for this place. I still don’t know whether I’m running a ranch or a farm.”

  “Gee, maybe it’s like we’re on a new world and the old rules don’t apply,” Steve said. “Maybe we should call it a franch or a rarm.”

  She said, “Well if we’re going to change the rules, why not modify the way we irrigate this field? Right now, the water is dropping down these steps into the irrigation channels. I think we need to design our irrigation channels to go over the plants.” She pointed at the hilly area behind them. “See that choke point in the stream? We can put in a pond if we dam it there, giving us a water reserve to irrigate this field and more as we expand with the next planting.”

  Steve said, “Now you’re thinking like a boss.”

  “Wallop me enough and it’ll wake me up. So, we run a series of water sluices over the field and let the water rain down from above.”

  “Can we afford to do that?”

  “Afford the money, time, or labor?” she asked.

  “I don’t know, maybe all three?”

  She said, “No, we don’t have the time, the labor, or the money. We need to start harvesting onions on Monday. Then we need to do green beans next. Like everything else on my schedule, they are maturing faster than I planned. But, we can’t put off doing this or we’ll begin to lose the wheat.”

  “What about the downstream user's water rights?” Steve asked.

  “There aren’t water rights on this planet. There is no mention of water rights in the Pioneer Compact. Besides, that’s a bonus in damming this particular stream. I haven’t walked the whole waterway, but I think this stream only runs to Dillon Halberd’s section.”

  “In that case, maybe I can put in a little overtime on this project.”

  She heard the children laughing. Ransom was counting how many times he could roll over until he stopped at the bottom of the hill. His numbers were mixed and he couldn’t get it right.”

  Veronica said, “There’s something else we have to start right away—please don’t take this as a criticism. I used to be a college professor and I’m starting to go through teaching withdrawal. Can I start teaching your two?”

  Steve looked relieved. “I promised Pushta I was going to ask you, but I was nervous about it. You’ve already done so much for us; I didn’t want to bother you.”

  “Bother me? Children are never a bother and teaching children is more along my line of work than planting peas and carrots.”

  “I’m glad. Pushta is doing what she can, but Ransom just doesn’t seem to get it.” He said.

  “Leave that to me. He’ll get it if I have to spoon feed him for the next twenty years.”

  “Twenty years?” Steve said. “Then you’re planning on keeping us on?”

  “Keeping you on? Why? I mean, why would you ask that? Certainly, I plan to keep you employed, honest. Now let’s get back to the house and into some air conditioning. We have more to talk about.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Karen noticed the woman window-shopping along one of the busy streets of Twisted City. She knew almost everyone in town by sight. After all, it was not a large community.

  The woman’s upright carriage and stature struck Karen as unusual. The stranger was attractive, not in the beautiful model or movie actress way of good-looking, but in the appealing way that caught a man’s heart. She reminded Karen of her own daughter back on Earth.

  She could see this was a woman used to hard work, but she did not look like a farmer’s wife in a community of farmer’s wives. The woman had a fire about her.

  “Now this is one woman I want to meet even if I have to trip her on the sidewalk to get her into our store.” Karen smiled at her habit of talking to herself when no one was within earshot.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  A woman stopped in front of Veronica as she strolled along the main street of Twisted City.

  “I’m Karen Guirard. Are you looking for temporary housing or a permanent home?”

  Veronica surveyed the elderly woman’s face and smiled. She had not expected to find any business open on a Sunday. Peaceful Junction shut down on Sundays as it was the one day everybody took off. Twisted City’s population was of a different mind. Congested traffic centered on shops and stores with window-shoppers, but there was not a lot of buying and selling happening. It was more of a community festival than a shopping day.

  The movie theater was open and a community theater group was offering a live production of the musical, Fiddler on the Roof. She was keeping an eye on the time so she would not miss the theater group’s matinee.

  It seemed everyone for miles around was in town. Many farmers and ranchers came into town on Saturday and set up a tent city so they could stay over to the following day.

  “Miss Guirard, I’m Veronica Smith. Now that you mention it, I was looking for a permanent home for some people I have working for me. I need at least a three-bedroom place.”

  “You call me Karen, you hear? I’m going to call you Veronica. I know you’re a friend of Chuck and Sherry Reynolds. Chuck bought your tractor from us. Your place butts up against that mountain range up north. Did they ever name that range? It doesn’t matter. We have three bedroom homes in many styles available. Are you looking for three bedrooms as a bunkhouse arrangement or as a family unit?”

  Veronica was not sure “friend” was the right description for her relationship with Reynolds. She made a fool of herself when she made a pass at him, but he had laughed it off. She never heard the name Sherry Reynolds before, obviously, she was his wife.

  “It’s a family unit. Stefan and Pushta Johannsen from down south came through looking for work—”

  “I remember Steve and Pushta,” Karen interrupted. “They came through here a short while ago. It seems many people weren’t as cut out for farming as they thought. Steve now, he was a farm boy, born and bred, or is it born and bread? Anyhow, you can see it in his walk.”

  “How so?”

  Karen laughed. “Why it looks like he’s walking between the rows and avoiding the plants. Pushta now, she’s a big city girl.”

  Veronica said, “Now you have me stumped. How could you tell that?”

  “Why sweetie, I asked her when she was here,” Karen replied. “It’s sad about their families.”

  “I never asked about their families. I always figured that was personal.”

  Karen asked, “Come from out West back on Earth, did you?”

  “Yes, how did you know? I grew up in Arizona,” she said.

  Karen replied, “Sweetie, I’m originally from New Jersey. We poke our noses into everybody’s business. You cowboys follow some Old West code o
r something about not talking and sharing personal details. Steve and Pushta are here because her family didn’t approve of her marrying someone not of East Indian ancestry and his family didn’t approve of him marrying someone of East Indian heritage.”

  Veronica said, “This new planet was made for new starts.”

  Karen shook her head. “Not me and Tucker. We came out here for a new finish. We barely squeaked by on the Pioneer Compact rule for childbearing years. Retirement, you know. Only we found out we aren’t so much the retiring kind. Tucker started picking up this stuff here and that stuff there. Pretty soon, we’re in the re-purposing business, which is how I came to have this large stack of prefabricated buildings out back. A lot of people drew sections in desert areas and rather than even try to succeed they sold their stuff and moved to the city.”

  Veronica asked, “Is there anyone working on correcting that? It doesn’t seem right to take their money for land and then not give them something they could use.”

  Karen nodded and said, “A committee got formed for that. They had to put up a unique mapping satellite to redraw most maps. That’s why sending up the GPS satellites was put on hold. Once they get some things redrawn, they’ll be able to get anyone who lost their place a new one.”

  “Then maybe I don’t need a house for the Johannsens. They might end up with a place of their own.”

  Karen laughed, “You’re not listening to me, Veronica. I said a committee is doing it. Like all things done by committee, they won’t get anything accomplished until just before the next ship arrives in four years. Besides, many people like farming, but not everyone wants the hassle of owning the business. Farming is dirty work. Owning a farm is paperwork. On top of that, if you don’t sink the anchors on these houses, they’ll refold themselves, and you can sell them to Steve and Pushta later if they decide to move.”

  “They’re heavy, right? I have a farm wagon that should work to get them out to my—”