The Farm

'Yes?' She clutched the key in her fist so that it was hidden.

'Where's that daughter of yours?'

'Isn't she upstairs in her room?'

'I didn't hear her come in from feeding the goats. She's proba bly out there shooting up heroin.'

God, how long had it been? She tried to remember Jett going out the front door, but her mind was blank. Considering the stack of dirty dishes and the leftovers being put away, Jett must have been gone at least half an hour. 'Will you go check on her?'

'I've got a faculty report to get to the dean tomorrow. Departmental politics.'

Katy wiped her hands, opened the odds-and-ends drawer, and slid the key into an envelope of pumpkin seeds. She pulled out a penlight and went out the back door, the wind chilling her bare legs. The goats were gathered at the back side of the barn, probably eating the hay Jett had thrown down from above.

Passing through the gate, she called Jett's name, but the wind and the low murmuring of the goats smothered her voice. The pen light did little against the darkness, and she dreaded climbing the narrow wooden stairs into the loft. The hens clucked uneasily, dis turbed in their nests.

'Just like last time,' came the voice she'd heard in the pantry. Or it might have been the breeze whistling under the eaves of the tin roof.

Just like which last time? Katy thought.

'The time Jett freaked out, and you found her in the barrel.'

Maybe she was imagining a voice, but this voice was insistent, and the words tugged at her memory. The door was open, which probably meant Jett was inside. Gordon was a stickler for closing gates and doors, and hammered his point home at every chance. Jett wouldn't have left the door open despite her rebellious streak, because the bitterness of the punishment more than offset the plea sure of the crime.

Though the inside of the barn shielded the bulk of the wind, the open room was cold. She ran the penlight over the wall. The scare crow hung on its nail, grinning in sleep. The back door was open as well, and the cluster of goats gave off a strong, musky odor. She hesitated afraid of them, the moon shining on their curled horns.

'Get the fuck away from me, Fred,' Jett yelled. She was among the goats, and must have risen to her knees because the top of her head was on level with those of the goats.

Katy ran among the goats, flailing the penlight as if it were a weapon. 'Shoo, damn it,' she said, pushing at the animals, careful of the flashing horns as the animals bucked and started. There were so many of them. It seemed as if the flock had swelled dramatically in just the last few days. She finally reached Jett and pulled her to her feet, and they backed away from the goats.

The animals fell quiet and still, all eyes on Katy and Jett as they retreated into the barn. The goats stared with interest (hunger, thought Katy) until Katy threw her weight against the barn door and it began its groaning path along its track. The goats hesitated then moved forward as one, not in a rush but with purpose. Katy slammed the door home and took Jett's arm.

'Are you okay, honey? What happened?'

'I fell. I don't know. I saw something up mere.' Jett's gaping, tear-flooded eyes rolled toward me loft. 'The scarecrow...'

'The scarecrow's hanging on me wall, honey. See?' Katy di rected me light toward me spot near the stairs. The scarecrow was gone.

'Let's get out of here, before the goats come around front.'

They linked arms and jogged out of me barn, not stopping to close the door. Let Gordon be pissed. He could come outside and deal with it himself. They were his damned goats, after all.

They reached the gate, and Katy fumbled with me latch. The goats had come around me barn but were not in pursuit. They stood in that mocking, silent way, working their hooves back and forth under the moonlight.

'Jeez, mere's so many of them,' Jett said.

'I shouldn't have let you come out here alone.'

'Mom, I'm freaking out.'

'I know, baby. We'll get you tucked in and everything will be all right. We'll get through this together.'

'What about the scarecrow? He was walking around, he smiled at me, he—'

'There's no scarecrow, honey.'

They headed to the porch, the scent of manure and brown oak leaves riding the wind. Katy looked back at the barn. The goats still watched, their dark noses lifted and ears twitching as if they were awaiting some unspoken command. Katy shivered and led Jett into the house. As soon as the door closed, she was overcome by the scent of lilacs and tomatoes and forgot all about the goats.

Alex surveyed the perimeter from the small glass windows along the front of his house. All clear for now, and Meredith was waiting the night shift at the Ruby Tuesday in Titusville. He finally had time to ponder his encounter of the day before, not distracted by her silly needs.

Goats as government conspiracy. It finally made sense to Alex. That's just how they would do it, come at him in the most unpre dictable way possible. If only he had an Internet connection, he could go into some of the freedom organization chat rooms and learn from the fighters on the front lines. But he had no doubt the government was tapped into every Web server in the country, and that in big underground caverns near Washington, D.C., FBI agents sat before banks of computers, monitoring every e-mail.

If the government was behind the whole thing, then the man in the black suit must be some sort of genetic freak, the result of a se cret experiment gone wrong. The fact that he was prowling near the Eakins compound meant only one thing: they were on to him. Four years of tax evasion wasn't that serious of a crime, not when Congress was stealing billions, but it was the principle of the thing. They didn't care about the money, they just didn't want word to get out that the government could be cheated and was therefore vulnerable. What better way to catch your enemy off guard than to come disguised as a backwoods preacher?

Except this preacher had been eaten alive. Even if he was an FBI agent in disguise, such a stunt took some effort. Maybe they had used some sort of hologram. Classic brainwashing technique involved challenging the subject's notion of reality and eventually replacing reality with the desired set of beliefs. Alex nodded to himself, finished twisting a pinkie-sized joint, and lit up. He liked that answer better. Sure, he was paranoid, and like any freethinking man, he had good reason. But he wasn't crazy.

With the joint hanging from lips a la Bogart in Casablanca, he made his way to the back room, a space barely larger than a walk- in closet. He unlocked the two Case dead bolts and entered, search ing for the candles he kept on an overhead shelf. Lighting one, he stood before his shrine: a wall covered with small arms firepower. His pride and joy was an AKR submachine gun, a favorite deadly toy of the Russian Special Forces that held 160 rounds. Alex had traded four pounds of seedless buds for the short-barreled gun, worth about eight grand on the street. The lethal and compact grace of the gun appealed to him as much as its country of origin. Not that the Russians could be trusted either, but at least they were more sincere in their oppression.

Then there was the Swiss SIG 510 assault rifle. The good old Swiss claimed neutrality, but during every war of note, the country served as a clearinghouse for whatever loot happened to be pil laged by the victor. The Swiss made their weapons with all the love and precision they invested in their watches and chocolate. With bayonet, the rifle made a nasty but sleek package.

A row of well-polished handguns lay spread across a velvet- covered shelf. A Mauser C-96 was the centerpiece. No hidden arse nal was complete without a piece of German hardware. It was an older model, manufactured between the two World Wars, but it had a heft and sheen that justified its place in the collection, though he'd only been able to procure two ten-round clips for it. The Germans were arguably the most militaristic people in modern history, ex cept perhaps for the Japanese, Montana freedom fighters, and Republican presidents.

He owned an Austrian-made Glock, a weapon currently in favor with police officers, though he preferred the proven accuracy of the Colt Python. Occasionally, Americans mustered up some pride in their craftsmanship, and the Colt had pedigree. The Beretta resuited from a sense of romanticism only, because he'd never bet his life on something Italian, unless it was manicotti or a young Sophia Loren. He owned a few other sidearms, a couple of M-l practice grenades a staff sergeant had smuggled out of Ft. Bragg, and a Mossberg twenty-gauge shotgun. The collection also included the Pearson Freedom bow, which retailed at around six hundred dollars, unless you