“I guess grain farms aren't doing so well these days.” Katie picked up a dishtowel. This is good, she thought, she would ease gradually into the list of questions in her mind.
Aunt Margaret placed a cereal bowl in the dish rack. “Farmers have always struggled, Katie. We never know what the weather will do to us. Your Uncle Al and I had some good years though, when Megan was little. Then there were several summers when crops dried up in the fields. A few years back we had the best crop ever, and we were thrilledâuntil everything was destroyed by an early frost.”
“But, if it's so hard, why keep doing it?” Katie asked.
“Your uncle and I thought about selling because so many big corporations are taking over farms.
They cultivate huge tracts of land using the latest, most expensive equipment money can buy and the fewest workers possible. It's almost impossible for family farms like ours to compete.”
“So, why didn't you sell?”
Aunt Margaret rested her soapy hands on the edge of the sink and gazed out the window. Her eyes misted over. “Your uncle loved this land, just like Cliff does. Al always believed the next year would be better. âNext year we'll be fine, Marg,' he would say every fall.”
She picked up a plate and rubbed a gob of peanut butter from it. “Now I'm stuck with this farm.”
“But, if Cliff loves farming so much, why not let him take over?”
“Trust me, if I could afford to, I would. Last year I considered selling out to a big corporation, or maybe leasing land to the Hutterites.”
“Who are they?”
“The Hutterites? They're members of the Hutterian Church who moved to Canada seeking religious freedom. Most of them are farmers and they live and work together in large communitiesâso they can make a go of it where people like us can't.”
“Then, why didn't you lease to them?”
“Cliff talked me out of it. He's sure, if we have a good crop this year, he'll be able to buy from me next summer at a fair price. I promised I'd wait. He's been so good to us over the past two years.”
“I don't get it.” Katie dried another plate and piled it on the growing stack in front of her. “Why would Cliff have more money if you have a good crop? Isn't that your money?”
“Not exactly. We made an agreement. I can't pay him what he's worth, so he'll take a share of the profits this year.”
“Okay,” Katie said thoughtfully, “then that means he really wants the farm to do well.”
“Of course he does!” Aunt Margaret put a plate in the dish rack. “But we've had so much bad luck lately, with the fire, and then a damaged cutter bar. Before that some cattle escaped and cost me a bundle. I only hope nothing else goes wrong.”
“Do you think the accidents have anything to do with those phone calls?”
Aunt Margaret frowned. “Phone calls? Of course not. That's just some idiot playing a silly game. Threatening me for the fun of it. I guess they've got nothing better to do.” She picked up the frying pan. “At least, that's what I thought until⦔ She broke off, madly scrubbing egg from the pan.
Katie dried the last plate and waited. Finally she said, “Until that call last night? When he mentioned GM canola? What is it anyway?”
Aunt Margaret glanced up. “You are on top of things, aren't you? All right then, yes, that was the first time he mentioned GMO, and it scared me. GMO stands for Genetically Modified Organisms. Basically, it means scientists take a gene from one species and implant it in the DNA of another, to create a new organism. GM canola is genetically engineered, or modified, to be resistant to herbicides.”
“Oh! You mean like superweeds?”
Aunt Margaret looked surprised. “Not exactly, although GM plants can behave like weeds. The pollen blows in the wind or is spread by insects; seeds are dropped by birds, or fly from passing trucks. Since GM canola looks like any other canola plant it can sprout up on your land without you even knowing it. If they spread into your wheat field though, or mix with other crops where you don't want them, they are very difficult to get rid of. Only the most toxic herbicides will touch them.”
“So, you didn't plant any GM canola?”
“No. Even though Cliff thinks it's a good idea, I'm sticking to what Uncle Al and I decided. We thought GM crops hadn't been tested enough and might cause all sorts of problems in the future. By then it would be too late, and GM canola would be impossible to get rid of without killing everything else too.”
“Wow, that is scary,” Katie said. “Are you afraid GM plants will take over your farm? Is that why that phone call scared you?”
“As if that's not bad enough, my problem is even worse, Katie. You see, GM seeds are patented. That means I'd be in big trouble if any plants were found on my farm, since I didn't pay for the seeds. And this caller threatened to phone a snitch line.”
“But that's not fair! If you didn't plant GM canola, it's not your fault.”
Aunt Margaret sighed. “That doesn't seem to matter these days, which is why so many farmers are worried. All it takes is a rumor, and someone could show up to test your crops. No one ever knows what they might find.”
“So, then that's what the threat is about,” Katie mused. “Who do you think made it?”
Aunt Margaret kept scrubbing the frying pan, even though it looked perfectly clean to Katie. “I don't know. It could be someone hoping to pick up my land cheap, maybe an employee of a big corporation. Either that or it's simply someone out to scare me.”
“Like Scott? Trying to get even for getting fired?” “Maybe. I don't know. Sometimes I wonder if he was innocent all along. That might explain why he's so angry.”
“How could he be innocent? Didn't you find that necklace in Scott's room?”
“Yes.” She handed the frying pan to Katie. “But Megan always liked that necklace. She used to wear it around the house sometimes. It was Megan who had cleaned the room before me. I just wonder⦔
“You think Megan put it there to get Scott in trouble?”
Aunt Margaret shook her head. “Megan would never do that to Scott. But, what if she put the necklace on, just for fun? What if she was wearing it when she did the housework? It could have fallen off, and she didn't notice. I found it on the floor under the bed when I was vacuuming.”
“That doesn't make sense. If it was Megan's fault she wouldn't have let you fire Scott.”
Aunt Margaret's face sagged. She pressed her lips together and blinked back tears. She stared down at her hands immersed in greasy water.
“I don't know, Katie,” she whispered. “I can't understand Megan lately. It's like she's in her own little world. She barely eats and she's always angry at everyone, especially me. I hoped that seeing you, so young and full of life, she might come to her senses.”
Katie heard the clink of coffee cups being gathered together on the porch and rushed into her next question. “Do the calls ever come when Cliff or Megan are with you?”
“No, it's always in the evening when I'm alone.
At least, I always was alone until you all arrived this week.”
A peal of laughter was followed by soft footsteps.
“Could it be Cliff?”
“What? Making threatening calls? No. Definitely not. He's the one person I can rely on.”
“It looks like you two are out of dishes.” Katie's mom came up behind them. “Never fear, I have more here.” She laughed and put four coffee mugs in the sink.
A few minutes later GJ stepped into the kitchen. “How about I set to work finishing that rock planter out front?” he suggested. “It looks like you ran out of time for it.”
“Oh, that was Megan's project,” Aunt Margaret told him. “Since it's her job to clear the fields with the rock picker, she wanted to put the rocks to good use. She had visions of a flower garden and a birdbath and I don't know what else to attract birds. But she lost interest after a few days.”
“Looks to me that there's enough rocks to finish the section she started,” GJ said. “I'll take Rusty and Sarah with me. They're looking for something to do together.”
“Katie,” her mom said, “Gram and I are going to weed the kitchen garden out back. Do you want to come and help us?”
Katie wondered if she had a choice. “Uh,” she said, “maybe later, Mom. I want to write in my new notebook first. Besides I helped with all those dishes!”
“Thanks so much, all of you,” Aunt Margaret said. “I'm off to the canola field; it's due for spraying.
Cliff's busy trying to repair the cutter bar, and Megan needs to move the cattle to the west pasture and see to their water.”
Grateful for some time to herself, Katie settled on the screened porch to make notes about her talk with Aunt Margaret. She checked back through earlier notes. So farânot so good. She still had no idea who to blame. It was beginning to look as if the accidents were only that. Accidents caused by Megan's carelessness. But the phone calls?
They could be from someone who works for a big company that wanted this land, like Aunt Margaret thinks.
They might be from Scott.
In spite of what Aunt Margaret said, Katie wasn't ready to cross Cliff off her list. If he wanted the land as badly as Aunt Margaret said, would he resort to any means to get it for himself?
No question about it, she needed to question him. Katie closed her notebook, slipped it under her arm and set off to find Cliff.
Beyond the equipment shed was another outbuilding, similar in size, with a steep metal roof and vertical siding. Until now, Katie had not paid much attention to it, but as she approached, she heard the quick sharp rap of metal on metal. There was no door on the driveway side, only a small high window. A well-worn path led through tall brown grasses along the sidewall.
Before setting out on the path, she stopped on the driveway and looked toward the front of the house where three figures were hard at work. GJ was on his knees, smoothing a layer of mortar around a volleyball-sized rock on the low wall. Rusty and his mom were piling rocks into a large gray wheelbarrow from a short stack on the front grass.
Katie tried to get Rusty's attention, willed him to look in her direction. He staggered under the weight of a large rock, took several wobbly steps and dropped it with a loud clanking thud that shook the wheelbarrow. Rusty brushed his hands against one another to rid them of dust and grabbed the handles. He put his head down, his baseball cap pulled low on his forehead to block the sun, and tried to lift the loaded wheelbarrow. He pushed. His feet made walking motions, his heels kicked out behind, one after the other, but he was going nowhere. His mom hurried over to help.
As much as Katie would like Rusty along as back up, she didn't dare wait. Cliff was alone right here and now, not out on a distant field where they wouldn't be able to find him. She walked boldly along the path to the far side of the building.
Facing a dirt roadway that led toward the fields was a wide-open garage door. In front of the door was yet another piece of farm equipment. A dark green, metal contraption, it had two fat knobby wheels near the back. At the front was a hitch, like the one on Gram and GJ's trailer, to attach it to a truck or tractor. Between the wheels was a kind of bin, like an oversized wheelbarrow bucket. In front of the bucket, low to the ground, was a wide row of metal teeth, like a gigantic comb. This comb, or fork-type thing, was attached to a reel and it looked like the long teeth were supposed to scoop up something from the ground. The reel would then turn to lift the load and dump it in the bucket. Katie had no idea what this machine was used for. There were so many different machines around here; no wonder Aunt Margaret had no money left over if she had to pay for all of them.
Katie stopped at the open door where the metallic clang of the hammer was so loud it hurt her ears. At first she didn't see Cliff, only his shadow on the far wall. A shadow hammer rose and fell in perfect time with each ear-splitting clang. She gripped her notebook a little more tightly and checked that her cell phone was safely tucked in her pocket; then she stepped into the workshop. She lingered for a moment near the door. Hot sun streamed in and landed on Cliff.
As if the shop weren't stifling already, Katie thought, Cliff was working in hot sunshine and his T-shirt was damp with sweat. Sweat poured down the side of his face, and his jaw was set in a grim line. She wondered why he didn't take the cutter bar outside and work in the shade of the building.
She took a few steps closer and stopped again when she realized it wasn't the cutter bar he was hammering on so furiously. It looked instead like a long thick bolt with a dark green head. The bolt was held in a vice while Cliff hit it with strong sharp blows of his sledgehammer.
“What are you doing?” she shouted. But he didn't hear, probably due to those fat orange sound protectors, like earmuffs, over his ears. She stepped so close he couldn't fail to see her.
Cliff jumped, the hammer poised above his head.
“Are you nuts?” he yelled. “You don't sneak up on a man when he's working!”
“I didn't sneak. I just wanted to talk to you. Can I help it if you didn't see me?”
Slowly Cliff lowered the hammer. He slipped the ear protectors down around his neck.
“What are you doing?” Katie repeated. “I thought you were fixing the cutter bar.”
“I am. At least I'm getting to that next. I had another little job to do first.”
“What's that machine just outside the door?” she asked. “Is that what you're fixing?”
He looked at her as if she didn't have one scrap of brain in her entire head. “That's the rock picker. I need to check it over before your aunt uses it to finish clearing the field Megan started.”
He put down the hammer and wiped his damp brow with the back of his hand. Then he grinned. “Your aunt figures if she gets more rocks today, your grandpa will be able to finish that rock wall while he's here. Kinda like getting two birds with one stone.”