Ace In The Hole

Everyone needs the proverbial, ace in the hole, to be a success. Sometimes, it is a technique, sometimes its luck and maybe sometimes, it is the dead.

The Windermere land was farmed by the same family for more than three-hundred years. Old Zebedee Windermere had settled the land back in 1648, when he arrived from England. He and his sons had cleared it all; themselves and he had lived a full life and left an equal portion, to all six sons, in his will. He was laid to rest in the family cemetery, on the land inherited by his eldest Elijah, along with his bible, his favorite dog’s collar and an old hex sign; a treasured family heirloom, painted by Zebedee’s grandfather, back in England.

Windermere’s chief crop being corn, the family had thrived growing organic crops, to this day although, many of the townsfolk wonder how, since a number of the other farms had more than their share or droughts and flooding through the years. Even during the dust bowl, Windermere produced an unusually regular crop of corn, much to the chagrin of surrounding farmers. Consequently, there were rumors throughout the area that the Windermere’s had some sort of magic going for them. Whether or not this was true, could never be proven; eventually the rumors stopped. Regardless of individual beliefs and town gossip, the Windermere’s were a generous family, helping their neighbors whenever they could; donating to the town’s progress and upkeep. Their money had given the small town a new hotel and one of the finest primary schools in the vicinity. Thus, later generations of the family had stayed in good standing with the townsfolk.

Presently, Robert Windermere was the keeper of the family plots and adjacent the old cemetery was the center of his corn crops. Therein stood sentry, an old iron pole, a timeworn, rust laden spine of his scarecrow. Robert, being of a somewhat dark and humorous nature, greeted this scarecrow regularly; he nicknamed it, “Johnny”, after the character in his favorite film, “The Shining”. Robert often joked about the scarecrow being his, “ace-in-the-hole” and indeed, the way the farm thrived; it seemed so.

To keep the crows at bay, he would periodically change Johnny’s appearance to fool them. Locals often saw an old pipe or cigarette sticking out of Johnny’s mouth. They may occasionally see him reading a newspaper, dressed as a witch or sitting on one of the many old jalopy’s that he'd collected over the years because Robert also rebuilt cars as a hobby. One thing was consistent, Johnny, was never dressed the same two days in a row.

Among the children in the area, this was fodder for some delicious, horror stories, by which they would try to scare the living daylights out of one another. Robert, although he would never admit it to anyone, somehow seemed to enjoy having a little fun with the kids, especially at Halloween.

Robert went to great lengths to prepare Johnny and his cornfield just right, for Halloween, for the sake of the kids.

Everything went smoothly for the younger generations and the land continued to yield an abundant harvest for them. Then, Jared Tate, who had planned to use it for factory farming, bought the neighboring farm; this was a devastating blow to Robert because the Windermere’s had the last pieces of organic land in the state. It made it quite difficult for Robert, especially to keep his crops, organically pure.

Tate neither cared for Robert or Johnny, in fact, he tried to humiliate Robert into taking down Johnny; whenever he was in town, he would poke fun at Robert for his, “superstitious”, belief in scarecrows. He even went so far as to get a court injunction against Johnny, which he claimed was an, “eyesore” but, the judge didn’t agree. Tate ran an electric fence around his land to keep out trespassers and crop eating animals.

Tate was a man who always got what he wanted and what he wanted eventually was the Windermere land, all six farms. He was determined to own them, even if he had to run them out of the state.

In quite a short while, Robert found that unexplained things were happening to his land and crops. The very first crop failed the year Tate began farming. Robert had his soil retested and it seemed fine, not yet tainted by any toxins from Tate’s, near incessant spraying. His chickens contracted some sort of rare infection and he lost them all, along with two cats and his favorite Labrador, Charlie. Though he couldn’t put his finger on it, he had an eerie feeling that Tate or his workers had something to do with it.

Jack Winston, his other neighbor had overheard Tate boasting that, he would own the Windermere farms one day. Jack reiterated this to Robert and after the second year of crops failed, Robert knew he was in trouble but, with no proof, he felt hopeless to stop the devastation.

This string of unexplained hard luck, continued for five years, eventually radiating towards all of the Windermere farms. During that time, Tate’s boasting became more frequent and even the townsfolk began to grow sick of it. The Windermere’s being the town’s best donors; even the town was beginning to suffer from the effects. When the town was hit with a severe tornado that took out the local hospital, the Windermere’s were approached by the town counsel for help, only to meet with denial, due to lack of funds and the fact that Robert and his brothers may have to sell out and leave Virginia. It was at this point that a strange twist of fate, created a serious alteration of events that revived not only Robert’s farm but also his brother’s as well.

Jack overheard Tate in the local bar talking to one of his hired farmhands about, “poison” and the “lab sample”. Not long after that, the hand had quit his job and Jack, being Robert’s best friend, was determined to find out why. A little legwork on his part and some spare cash easily turned up some startling answers; unfortunately, the hand wasn’t willing to make an official statement and quickly disappeared after spilling the news.

Tate had plans to own every farm that he could in the area and he wasn’t going to stop there; he also had plans to sell every farm in the whole town to an overseas company.

The whole revelation was devastating to not only the Windermere’s but also, every farmer in the vicinity but still unproven fact.

During all of these events, poor Robert had taken to sitting by old Zebedee’s grave and reiterating events, as they unfolded. Not a day went by that he didn’t wish there was a way old Zebedee could help them. Robert’s one joy throughout all of this was the excitement of the neighboring kids at seeing the old scarecrow, still standing or sitting atop an old truck, as the case may be, with a different look, every single day. For Robert, it had become a sort of ritual that helped him to deal with his losses.

When Halloween rolled around, there stood the scarecrow in Robert’s dried up cornfield. It was dressed in the same jacket as the day before and Jack decided he would visit Robert. He found Robert sitting by old Zebedee’s grave, as he approached; he thought he heard Robert, chanting something in a low voice.

He greeted his friend with a light pat on the shoulder and Robert stood slowly. It seemed clear to Jack that Robert had finally given up the fight. They walked back to the farmhouse and sat on the front porch with a couple of beers talking. About half an hour into the conversation, Robert made the remark, “Zeb says it’s going to be alright, Jack. He’s going to take care of things.” Jack left Robert’s place that evening with an incredibly heavy heart.

By some twist of fate, that no one in the town could understand, the next day, Tate was found in his own field, dead from a heart attack, lying beneath a scarecrow that looked strangely like Johnny. The curious thing was that Tate had never put up a scarecrow. When Jack went to Robert’s farm to tell him about Tate’s demise, he passed, “Johnny”. He stopped for a moment, looking down at the newspaper in his hand; Tate’s new scarecrow was the spitting image of, “Johnny”. When he raised his head, he noticed Robert coming towards him with a smile on his face. “Jack, I told you Zeb would take care of things.”

Jack assumed that it was the stress of the whole situation, that had made Robert a bit, off-in-his-head but it wasn’t long until the farm thrived once again. In fact, all of the farms in the area thrived, as did the town.

Copyright, 2019, M.L. Kiser

Comments