The Futa Infection

Futa Farm Girl Jackie Sinclair was woken by the sound of the rooster, the same way she had been every morning since she was six years old. Stumbling out of her bedroom, she walked through the bottom floor of the old farmhouse, yawning fit to c***k her skull. Aside from the dratted bird’s raucous crowing, it was a blessedly quiet morning. Warm weather had come to Illinois, and though she had left the windows open the night before, the muslin curtains barely stirred. A look out the back door showed her a sky that was high and blue, though a haze creeping in from the west hinted at a change, and the rain that the weather man had been promising for the last several days. She poured herself a cup of coffee and opened the door. She loved this time of morning, especially this time of year. The heads of the winter wheat were ripening in the fields to the north of the house, and the corn was already waist-high. Patches of fog drifted in the hollows to the south, where the ponds were, but that would surely burn off soon. Sitting down in one of the old cane-back chairs her grandfather had bought decades before she was born, she let out a contented sigh. The front yard was neat and tidy. The grass was newly mowed, the maple trees her mother had planted fully leafed out, and some of the tulips that flanked the front walk bravely held a few petals, though most had already fallen in tiny drifts at the base of the flowers. Lifting the cup to her lips, she took a sip. A place for everything, and everything in its place. Let the world outside go hang. Here she would have order. Here, no one knew, or cared, that she was a freak. She scowled at the unwelcome thought, and took another sip of coffee, black as night and sweet as sin. Soon it would be time to eat her solitary breakfast and get to work. But for now, she savored these moments of peace. Sometimes she went days at a time without hearing another human voice. And that was exactly how she wanted it. Farming the fertile land around Red Bud would never make her rich. Then again, wealth had never been her goal. All she wanted was to be let alone. A bawling noise came from her left, and her head snapped around. “All right, all right,” she said, raising her voice, glaring at the cows who looked over the wooden fence. She thought she could read reproach in their dull brown eyes. “I’m coming. You’ll get your feed in a minute. “Too bad none of you know you’re going to end up as hamburger and steaks. Maybe then you wouldn’t be in such a tearing hurry to get fed.” She drained her mug of coffee and set it on the rail of the porch, turning around to go back inside. Another day had begun. By three o’clock she had fed the six cows and four pigs, and had done a quick tour of the fields. Being a farmer was no one’s idea of an easy job, but with the spring planting done, her main concern was in monitoring the crops, making sure that no invasion of insects or outbreak of disease was decimating the wheat or corn or soybeans. She didn’t have a huge spread. Only four hundred acres. It wouldn’t take much for her to get in real financial trouble. Only two or three bad years. And some of the big operators would like nothing more than to snatch up her farm. They can go to hell, she thought, sipping on a glass of tea as she monitored a line of thunderstorms on the National Weather Service website. Farmers watched the weather the same way some of her high-school classmates had watched the Kardashians. It was never perfect. There was always too much sun, or not enough. Too hot, or too cold. Too much rain, or not enough. But she thought a nice soaker of a thunderstorm would be good, as long as there was no hail to flatten the wheat. They hadn’t had a decent spot of rain in nearly two weeks, and the last thing she needed was to start worrying about whether there was going to be a drought. This farm has been in my family for five generations. The only way they’re going to get it is over my dead body. Which would almost certainly prove to be the case. Who would have her? Who could look past her body and see her true self? Most likely, in thirty or forty or fifty years, she would die, and the farm would be put up for sale. Over a hundred years of her family’s history going down under the auctioneer’s gavel. The house would be torn down, and there would be only rows of soybeans and corn where the comfortable old farmhouse had stood for over a century. She scrubbed at her eyes. What has got you so worked up? You’re not dead yet. Far from it. And you’re only twenty-eight. It’s a little early to start planning your funeral. She needed something to do. Driving over her land and checking the crops for bugs and disease wasn’t any fun. And the cure for depressing thoughts was to put her attention somewhere else. A good meal, she decided. Preparing food had been one of the things which had brought her mother and herself together, even when the strain between them had been the greatest. She got a package of stew meat out of the freezer and put it in the microwave to thaw, then began to put together the rest of the ingredients. Beef broth, onions, flour, a pinch of sugar, marjoram and thyme, a bag of baby carrots from the fridge. By the time the oven had heated to the desired temperature, everything was ready to go, and she slid the pot inside and closed the door with a satisfied thump. In a couple of hours she would have to take it out to add the potatoes and mushrooms, but for now she was content to let it cook slowly and fill the lower story of the house with its rich aroma. She wandered onto the back porch, looking west. True to the forecast, dark purplish-black thunderheads were building in the northwest, slowly eating up the sky. Even as she watched, the westering sun was swallowed up behind them, casting the farm into an eerie, dim light. Here on the gently rolling Illinois prairie, where one could see storms approaching from dozens of miles away, it could be hours before it broke. Still, she checked the yard, making sure there was nothing loose lying around. The violent winds some storms brought could hurl a piece of metal right through the side of a house. Far away, on the edge of the horizon, a bolt of lightning flickered down to the ground. She caught herself counting, using the old method to try to see how far off the lightning was, and smiled. That far away, there was no way the sound would reach so far. The wind was freshening, and she went back inside. The smell of the stew was filling the house, making her belly rumble. She pulled out a box of rice and set it on the counter, then went around both the lower and upper floors, shutting windows. The air began to feel close, so she pulled a beer out of the fridge and went back onto the porch. God, I love this place. She twisted the cap off the bottle and took a swig, leaning against a post. A gust of wind made her skirt flatten briefly against her legs. The temperature began to drop as rain-cooled air flowed outward ahead of the oncoming clouds. She stood, sipping her beer, watching the clouds slowly boil up. Another stroke of lightning stabbed down, and she grinned in anticipation. This was going to be a good one. One last circuit of the barn to make sure the cows and pigs had their feed, and she was back on the porch. She loved thunderstorms, loved their raw, visceral power. The thunder and lightning and noise and fury of them, the wind that could make the entire house shudder and moan. A fat drop fell on the sidewalk, making a wet spot the size of a coin. Another followed, but then there was a pause. And then Jackie saw what looked like a gray curtain bearing down across the fields. Cool wind advanced before it, lightning strobed the clouds overhead like God’s own camera, and the crash of thunder was so loud she could feel it in her chest. Rain began to blow in under the roofed porch, so she retreated to the chairs, sighing contentedly, watching the life-giving water fall down from the sky to soak into the black earth of her Illinois farmland, some of the richest and most fertile in the entire world. And then Danielle appeared, her form emerging from the falling rain like a ghost. She wore an expensive dark jacket, now turned black by the rain which soaked it, over a pink blouse that was plastered to her body. Her navy-blue skirt cling to slim, shapely hips, but her shoes were plastered with mud, which reached halfway up her calves. A newspaper was held over her head in one hand in a futile effort to keep herself dry, and she moved with that awkward half-walk, half-run that a pair of high-heeled shoes forced on a woman who was in a hurry. She turned off the dirt road that led to the farm and onto the sidewalk, her eyes focused on the ground. When she looked up and saw Jackie staring at her, she gave a surprised flinch, but then smiled awkwardly. “Hello,” she said, over the sound of the rain dripping from the eaves and the grumbles of thunder. “My name is Danielle. Danielle Pearson.” She waved her hand to the west, where the state highway ran. “My car broke down back there. Can I come up?” Jackie folded her arms across her chest. Why now? Why her? “Can’t you call a tow truck?” she asked, her tone polite but unwelcoming. “I would.” She touched the side of her jacket, where a cell phone apparently lay hid. “But I can’t get a signal here. Apparently I’m out of my coverage area.” She shivered as another gust of wind blew a sheet of water against her, briefly molding her blouse to the sweet curves of her chest. “Can’t I please come up?” she asked plaintively. Water dripped down her hair and into her eyes. “I’m soaked.” Jackie blew out a sigh of frustration. There was a difference between being a recluse and refusing to help someone who obviously needed it. She nodded shortly. “Sure. Come on up.” “Thanks.” Her heels wobbled precariously as she made her way up the wooden steps. As soon as she was on the porch, she reached down and pulled them off, setting them neatly out of the way. Jackie’s opinion of her rose a degree or two. At least she wasn’t walking in like she owned the place, the way too many city women did. “So where did you break down?” she asked, leaning against the side of the house, not quite blocking the door. She ignored a flutter in her belly at the sight of Jackie’s bra, clearly visible through her soaked blouse. “Oh.” Tardily, she remembered her manners. “My name is Jackie Sinclair. This my farm.” “Pleased to meet you, Jackie.” Danielle folded the newspaper under her arm. Jackie wondered if the woman realized that as wet as it was, newsprint was almost surely going to ruin that expensive blouse. “I’m a bank examiner, and work for the Treasury Department. I was on my way back from a job in Vandalia, going over the books. But the engine started making funny noises and I got off the interstate, hoping to reach a service station or something. But the temperature light was red-lining, so I pulled over. I didn’t want to make things any worse.” Jackie nodded in grudging approval. “Sounds like you might have snapped a belt. I’ve had that happen once or twice. If you kept going, you could have cracked a head. That would be expensive as hell to fix.” “Anyway, the car’s not that far off. Just a few hundred yards down from where your driveway hits the state highway.” A gust of wind hit and she shivered. “Can I use your phone?” “I suppose.” ***** “Wait here,” Jackie said as they entered the house. She left Danielle in the entranceway, coming back in a few moments with a heavy towel. “Dry off so you won’t drip everywhere.” “Thanks.” The clothes were a lost cause, she knew. But she was able to dry her hair and her arms and legs, and wipe the worst of the mud from her feet and calves, which had spattered up on her mad dash through the storm to this strange haven. She wished to heaven that she had a change of clothes. Under her soaked garments, her bra was cold and clammy, and her panties were uncomfortably damp, and not at all in a good way.