Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
C ountry music crooned from the radio as Jenny sat across from Hemingway at the kitchen table, drinking strong coffee because it was going to be a long night. They had already distributed and filled the smudge pots throughout the grove earlier this afternoon and the temperature was dropping rapidly. It was only a matter of time before one of the electronic temperature gauges stationed at three different spots in the grove set off an alarm. Twenty-eight degrees was what she dreaded, the temperature at which fruit began to die.
“You deal the next hand,” Hemingway said as he pushed a deck of cards toward her.
Jenny shuffled the cards while eyeing Hemingway’s flimsy jacket. “Is that going to be warm enough?”
Hemingway snorted. “I suffered through two years in the Icelandic Coast Guard. You don’t think I can cope with twenty-eight degrees?”
“You said that you quit the Coast Guard because you weren’t cut out for it.”
Hemingway narrowed his gaze. “How many people on the actual face of the earth want to live on a boat in the arctic circle?”
They both laughed as she started dealing the cards. Hemingway had a number of short-lived jobs during his colorful life, but in his heart, he’d always wanted to be a writer. He’d been at the grove for six years, spending his free time working on a manuscript for “the great American novel” and it was nowhere close to being finished. He took ghostwriting jobs on the side, which had been his only real form of income aside from the paltry amount she’d been able to pay him.
It was quite a step-down from being a college professor. Hemingway tried to pretend he didn’t carry a grudge from being denied tenure. The students had loved him and he was a great teacher, but he refused to raise grant money or publish dry, tedious academic articles.
A warning buzzer sounded from the computer, and her heart plummeted. It was now twenty-eight degrees, and time to light the smudge pots.
“Let’s go,” Hemingway said as he shrugged into his flimsy jacket. She pulled on a hat and her winter coat, but the chill still made her shiver the moment she stepped outside. It was a moonless night and the grove was shrouded in darkness. She followed in the circle of light from Hemingway’s lantern, the rhythmic sound of their boots striding through ankle-high grass the only noise as they headed toward the first smudge pot.
Jenny hunkered down beside it, unhooked the cap from the fuel tank, and ignited the flame with a long-barreled lighter. Smoke billowed from the three-foot exhaust stack, sending a warming cloud directly up into the branches. Hemingway secured the lid, then they walked to the next pot.
After an hour they both peeled off their jackets, their bodies heating up as they labored. Constant bending and lifting was strenuous work, and she started sweating despite the chill. Halfway through the grove her arms were aching and just walking felt like wading through sludge. Once she made the mistake of rubbing the sweat from her face and the sting of oil caused her eyes to scream in protest.
By the time all the pots were smoldering, they went back to the top of the grove to monitor the oil level in each pot. It was nearing four o’clock in the morning and the temperature was now twenty-six degrees.
“The smokestack on this one is cracked,” Hemingway said as he tipped a pot toward her. Smoke seeped up the side of the stack, leaving an oily trail in its wake.
Jenny glanced up at the trees being warmed by the smudge pot. The crack was probably harmless, but she couldn’t be certain. The oil might leak and start a fire. Better to lose the oranges from a few trees than to risk a blaze in the middle of the night.
“Let’s choke it cold,” she said.
“You’ll have to show me how to do that.” Hemingway had been so efficient through the night that she forgot this was his first experience with smudge pots.
She demonstrated shutting the hatch to cut the air flow. It took less than a minute to accomplish, but the sharp edge of the lid managed to slice through her cotton glove. She squeezed her hand against the sting, wishing she’d remembered to put on her leather gloves before fastening the caps like her grandfather taught her when she was a kid. At least her tetanus shot was up-to-date.
At eight o’clock the temperature was thirty degrees and would warm quickly with the rising sun. It was time to begin extinguishing the pots and saving as much of the precious oil as possible because the cold snap might go on for days.
She handed Hemingway a pair of old leather gloves and they settled into a routine. Hemingway lifted and fit the cap, Jenny fastened the hatch, then they walked to the next pot ten yards away. She was cold, tired, and hungry. Her feet hurt, her eyes stung from the grime and smoke, and she needed to go to the bathroom.
She looked at Hemingway, whose job lifting the lids was even harder. He had no ownership of the grove and was being paid peanuts for wages, but he hadn’t complained once throughout the night. The sun had risen and she got a good look at his exhausted face for the first time in hours.
“You look like a coal miner.”
His teeth flashed white against his smoke-darkened face. “You look like a dirt farmer.”
Jenny smiled and forced her aching feet onward toward the next smudge pot. She supposed she was just a dirt farmer now, but that didn’t diminish her love for this place. The sun crested the horizon and the melting frost glinted like diamonds on the leaves of her trees.
She straightened her spine and her muscles wept in relief as she rolled her shoulders. Acres of trees stretched across the land in perfect, orderly rows that sloped down the hill toward the river. It looked like heaven.
Euphoria caused her to stand taller. They’d done it! She was exhausted and so tired the bones in her face hurt, but she had saved her oranges.
Jenny slept until two o’clock in the afternoon and was still groggy as she made her way downstairs to start a pot of coffee. The kitchen floor was cold, but she was too lazy to go back upstairs for her slippers. If she got rich from the sale of the Fabergé egg, she would add central heating to the house. She leaned against the counter, smiling at the sunlight filtering through the blinds and listening to the percolating coffee, drawing energy from the aroma. Maybe she’d buy one of those fancy coffee machines if the Fabergé egg paid off.
A knock on the front door broke her concentration. She must have accidentally locked Hemingway out because he usually just walked in.
Except it wasn’t Hemingway.
Wyatt Rossiter stood on the other side of the door, looking tense and grim and something else. Worried? As usual, he was in the khaki uniform with a fully loaded service belt around his hips. The only thing that looked out of place was the legal-sized manila envelope in his hand.
“What’s up?” she asked, feigning a casual attitude.
Wyatt looked away as though pained, then drew a deep breath and blew it out. “Can I come inside?” he asked. “It’s cold out here.”
She stepped back to let him in. Something was wrong. Instead of looking steely and annoyed like he did the last time she’d seen him, he seemed ill at ease and worried. Wyatt only took a few steps into the house before he closed the door, then turned to extend the envelope to her.
“I’m here on business,” he said. “I got a report that you’re hiding citrus canker on the grove.”
It hit her like a kick in her chest. The breath left her in a rush and she crossed her arms, refusing to take the envelope from his hand.
“Who said that?” she asked, proud of how calm she sounded.
“It was an anonymous complaint. You’ve got a burned section in your west field. It looks like you’re already taking steps to mitigate the disease, right?”
She clamped her mouth shut. Wyatt was a lawyer and could use whatever she said against her. She wouldn’t admit anything.
He opened the manila envelope and withdrew a single leaf. It was scattered with brown crusty dots, each with a familiar yellow halo. He held it up without a word.
“You didn’t find that on my grove,” she said, praying it was true. She and Hemingway burned the infected patch until there was nothing left. They spent days raking through the ashes and cinders, ensuring all the infected leaves had been incinerated.
“I picked this off a tree five yards from the entrance to the grove,” he said. He reached into the manila envelope again and took out another leaf, this one in a clear baggie. “This one came from the north field.”
“No,” she whispered in horror. Wyatt was many things, but he wasn’t a liar.
She reached for the back of the chair to steady herself. After the skeleton was found, her life got so hectic that she quit inspecting for canker. It was a mistake. She’d gotten careless and assumed the danger had passed.
The leaf with the brown specks and yellow halos proved otherwise.
“I’ll take care of it,” she said. “I’ll pull down and burn every infected tree.”
Wyatt remained unmoved. “It’s too late for that.”
“No, it’s not. I’ll do a spot eradication and then everything will go back to normal. I know how to fix this.”
Pity took root in Wyatt’s gaze. He strolled deeper into the family room and pulled aside a white cotton drape from the southern-facing window.
“Look out there,” he prompted.
Her mouth went dry as she joined him at the window. A line of pickup trucks was parked on the far side of the field, and half a dozen field agents walked through her grove, taking samples. There was no more hiding. They knew everything.
The disease had spread. All her work clearing the west field had failed.
“I didn’t realize it had spread,” she whispered. How pathetic she sounded. It was horrible for Wyatt to see her like this . . . a pitiful, pathetic failure.
“I’m sorry, Jenny. The state is going to take over and eradicate the disease.”
She shook her head. There were ways to treat canker short of burning everything down. It might not work but she ought to be given the chance to try.
“The oranges are still good,” she said. “The disease won’t hurt the oranges. I can still have a decent crop in April.”
“Jenny, I’m not going to let you harvest these oranges.”
They were fighting words. “You’re not going to let me? The fruit will be ugly, but who cares? It will still be fine for juicing and you know that.”
“The law says?—”
“Screw the law! I can use a fungicide to get it under control.”
“That can only treat it, not cure it.”
She swallowed hard, trying to keep a cool head. “The law is wrong. You people have no right to seize my entire grove over a few sick trees.”
“Jenny, we can and we will,” he said, not unkindly.
“I’m getting a lawyer,” she snapped, and he nodded.
“That’s probably a good idea. There may be some government programs to help you?—”
“I don’t want a government program; I want the government to mind its own business! I’ll bring in an arborist to help.” She glanced out the window at the strangers in uniform who wandered through her grove, taking samples.
“I want those people off my land,” she said. “They’ve got no right to be here.”
He sighed and reached into his pocket, removing a slip of paper and holding it out toward her. “This is the state statute that allows plant inspectors onto your grove. We’ll take the samples back to the laboratory to confirm the outbreak, but you need to prepare yourself to lose the trees.”
She folded her arms and refused to touch it. She wouldn’t even look at it.
Wyatt set the paper on the coffee table. “Someone from my office will contact you later in the day with a report from the inspectors. Assuming they confirm my suspicions, the state will start clearing the grove within a week.”
“How much of the grove?” she asked, trying not to shake at the freezing chill racing through her veins.
“All of it. I’m sorry, Jenny.”
He left without a backward glance.