Danger at the Edge of the Farm: Chapter 19 of "Lady Slipper Farm and the Summer People," by Holly Nadler

Danger at the Edge of the Farm: Chapter 19 of Lady Slipper Farm and the Summer People, by Holly Nadler

“There’s Cassiopeia!” said Sam as he, his girlfriend Nandika, his sister Mandy, and their partner, Thorn, gazed at the sky from the vantage point of four outdoor Barcaloungers positioned to place their heads together, feet pointing out to all points on the compass.

“Where’s Cassiopeia?” said Thorn.

Nandika cackled. “You don’t know Sam does that to show off?”

Sam said, “Give me a break! Cassiopeia’s up there somewhere!”

Thorn said, “Okay, so there’s Taurus the Bull!” 

Sam put on a snide voice, “Yeah, where, buster?” 

In a helpful tone he said, “Ya gotta back it up with other b.s. constellations, like, ‘See, it’s just a scootch up from Andromeda and alongside the Jilomitis Galaxy.’ If you find you’re in the company of an actual astronomer, you’re screwed.”

At the end of Nandika’s chaise, Boobie, one of the two Chihuahuas, growled. This awakened the second Chihuahua, Mimi, slumped under the same chair, who also growled just to keep up her end of the protection racket. 

Sam said in what he thought of as his Rod Serling voice, “An eerily quiet night, a lonely woods, and four farmers are about to enter The Twilight Zone.”

Thorn leaned up on his elbow to peer into the dark fringe of woods. 

Boobie kept up a low growl, up on all fours now, big ears protruding over his tiny pert face.

All seven dogs sprawled around the supine people. The black labs, Ollie and Andy, were bedded down alongside Mandy and Sam. The whippet, Normie, was curled up at the foot of Thorn’s lounge chair, his head camped on the man’s ankle. And, of course, Albert the pig rested in the crook of Mandy’s left arm. He made little porcine grunting sounds of satisfaction whenever his mistress contributed something to say.

Now she spoke, “Shall we call the meeting to order?”

Sam sighed, “Shall we not? I second my own motion.”

Mandy said, “Nandika, tell the others about our call from the bank this morning.”

The others groaned. Thorn said, “I think I saw this in a silent movie.”

Sam laughed. “Wait! That was the plot-line for all the silent movies: Farm’s in foreclosure, evil banker with a handlebar moustache snatches the farmer’s daughter, and ties her to the railroad track.”

“He can tie me if he wants to, but how does it come out in the end?” asked Nandika.

Thorn said, “The hero rides up on a white horse, rescues the damsel, and all of that implies that he’ll be marrying her, and saving the farm with cash on the barrel head.”

“So who’s our hero?” asked Nandika. “Certainly not either of you lazy bums.”

Sam cried, “Oh! Look at that shooting star!”

Mandy said, “I hate when people call out shooting stars! Makes you feel like such an inobservant slug for missing it. Did you really see one?”

“Of course,” said Sam. “It flashed right over Cassiopeia!”

Boobie went on growling. Finally Mimi took her Chihuahua partner seriously, and edged up to mount a dual warning system.

Sam spoke to the dogs, “What’s up with you bozos? Aliens in the woods? Happens all the time. Just ask Dan Aykroyd!”

Thorn sensed Mandy’s unease. “Okay, boss lady, what do you need for us to do?” 

“Here’s the deal: We’re in the red for the bank line-of-credit, so we’ve got to throw every dollar we make into the kitty. We rake in the biggest bucks on the catering. The Lytton party was a huge windfall. And, I haven’t told you guys yet, but we’ve got a gig in August for Fiona Neal. She seems to think she’s getting married, although I gotta say, her poor young boyfriend looks like it’s all news to him.” 

“What’s she like?” asked Nandika.

“She’s lovely. Straight-down-to-the-core lovely. But I found myself worrying that she’s received too much money, too much adulation too soon. That never works.” 

“It really doesn’t,” sighed Nandikia. “F. Scott Fitzgerald, Janis Joplin, Arthur Rimbaud . . . ”

Thorn added, “Mama Cass, Emily Bronte, John Keats . . . “

Sam groaned, “My God, we’re a literate crew! No wonder our farm’s in the toilet!”

Boobie and Mimi continued to growl softly. Smitt, the yellow Lab, stretched into a down-dog, then straightened up and lumbered over to join the Chihuahuas. He sat and stared into the woods. The lowest of growls was tangled in his throat.

Thorn mused, “There seems to be a code that the Chihuahuas are freak-out artists. The other dogs won’t participate until King Kong comes crashing through the trees.”

Sam said to Mandy, “I’ve got my website for the T-shirts up and running. And we’ve sold some at the farm stand which, itself, is doin’ good.”

Mandy said, “Your T-shirts are awesome! I love the crazy characters you design. Just like you.”

Thorn inquired, “So what’s the holdup with the bank and everything? We were socking some real loot away last year.” 

Sam said, “I’m gonna give it to you straight, bro: After you set fire to the corn fields, our insurance premium went through the roof.” 

Thorn let out a strangled sound. He boosted himself to a sitting position, leaning in to his three supine buddies. “I had no idea! I’m so sorry!” 

He raked his hands through his hair. “I’ll do anything! I’ll go back to writing TV episodes! I’ll say yes to the Sonja Dash gig! That’s a grand a week, it goes straight to the bank, every penny of it. I’ll be eating my way through every Vineyard party, so I won’t need any pin money! I am so sorry, guys! I had no idea! Or maybe I did, but I just couldn’t bear to think of it!” 

All four Lady Slipper farmers fell into a reverie of that fateful night last summer. 

Nandika and Sam had finally settled down to sleep after Thorn had come home from the bars and begun slamming doors and throwing around pots and pans in the kitchen. Then, later, a tinted red light glowed in their bedroom window, waking them both up to see – what?! – an inferno fringing the beets and onion fields. 

Mandy recalling running out, her feet bare, the dogs charging ahead of her, howling and barking as if a tribe of Hottentots had been set loose on the farm. And then she saw Thorn in a clearing between twin rows of flame. He wore nothing but grey boxer shorts and a red do-rag. She beheld glistening, fire-reflected rose-colored skin with its buff outlines. It was all that gym work, she realized, forgetting, for a moment, the fire. He looked like a statue by Michelangelo, trimmed down to human scale.

Thorn recalled . . . nothing. He had passed out, drunk, and had only begun to recover his wits the following afternoon in the hospital. What had caused him to set that fire? He remembered zero, zip, nada. No triggering incident. His last memory of the evening had been leaving the Ritz in Oak Bluffs, then having a last few nips for the road down by the parking lot of the East Chop Beach Club, where all the other drunks went for a view of the sea and one for the road.

Now Thorn said, “I promise, I’ll make it up to you, if it takes the last ounce of – “ 

Suddenly all seven dogs leapt to a row of warriors some ten feet away from where Boobie had first begun his growling tom tom. The four friends also leapt to their feet, their Barcaloungers heaving with rusty creaks.

The dogs charged towards the woods. A figure with a flashlight appeared just where the line of trees met rows of compost bins.

Behind the fleet of dogs, little Albert hobbled on his short pig legs, like a general in the rear flank, keeping track of the battle. 

The humans trekked behind. Sam leaned down to pick up a fallen branch which he wielded as a club.

“Who goes there?” he called in a sepulchral voice that the other three farmers were glad he practiced on them in fun. Now it sounded genuinely spooky.

Some fifty feet away and surrounded by dogs, a man’s voice called behind the concise round light. “Are these guys gonna nip me? And can I nip ‘em back?”

The voice was familiar. 

Nick Diehl.

The Lady Slipper crew stopped in a tight knot. Their intruder walked further into their purlieu, and now they could see him distinctly. He wore his usual frayed jeans and dark T-shirt. Little Boobie had sunk his teeth into the movie star’s right cowboy boot and was being yanked forward like a lopsided furry spur.

“Sorry to intrude,” Nick explained. “I parked down the road, and asked this crazy lady decked out in Indian medicine woman feathers for directions to your equally crazy farm. Guess she had a weird sense of humor. I’ve been wandering in the woods for two hours.”

By this time, Sam had wrapped a long strong arm around the man’s shoulder. “Well, come on in! We can’t have a movie star perishing in our haunted woods. Did you know a pack of flesh-eating zombies live there?”

Nick heard nothing as he cast a haunted, forlorn glance at the mistress of Lady Slipper Farm.

Mandy felt a squeezing in her chest. In the space of a few minutes she had gone from a memory of Thorn like a god in a blazing field, and now Nick Diehl materializing under the summer stars in her backyard. It was unreal.

Maybe she wasn’t completely dead. In that way. As much as she wished to be.