Chapter Five
Mickey
The herd were calm when I went to checked them first thing.
They’d been shorn a couple of weeks earlier and their wool was growing back in, leaving them looking a lot cuter than when they were all bare and freshly shaven.
I filled the feeders with fresh hay and laid out some alpaca pellets in a large shallow bowl so they could graze on them as they liked.
Most crowded around me, eager to snaggle up the pellets, but a few beelined for the hay.
Mulan nuzzled my pockets, hoping for carrot sticks.
I patted her neck, comforted that as I counted the flock I knew everyone was accounted for.
It was early, but I could already tell it was going to be a hot day.
I went around the outside of the fenced fields, eyes to the ground to see if there was anything on the soft dirt paths. Hopefully there was nothing. Aster had been freaked out last night, but there was a possibility that it had just been in his imagination. Maybe a bad dream?
I hoped it was nothing. I didn’t want to entertain the thought someone had been wandering around the farm late at night.
Then I saw it.
A clear shoeprint in a muddy bit of the path. It wasn’t a work boot, and it was too small to be mine. Aster hadn’t been walking about on this path, not yet, anyway.
I didn’t know how to tell how fresh it was, but it looked pristine.
My stomach twisted.
Someone had been here.
Maybe I should borrow a dog from someone?
Hopefully, it was just some insomniac from nearby on a walk. Nothing more than that.
If anyone had their eyes on my alpacas though... The thought made my jaw clench.
I’m not an angry guy, Harlow complains that I’m far too easy going, and as a younger sister, she has to work hard to wind me up.
But threaten something close to me, like my herd?
The anger flows easily.
I didn’t have any evidence of ill intention, though.
I walked up and down the lanes, finding more tracks here and there that matched the first one I’d found. They were entirely on the forest side of the farm, although some came alarmingly close to the farmhouse. My gut twisted, making me nauseous. What were they here for?
I went to the feed shed to get some hay for the alpacas, brooding about what I should do.
The best first thing would be to talk to my closest neighbors.
I definitely needed to talk to Hayes at the fruit farm, and check if he’d noticed anything. As the neighbor closest to the road, it would be good to alert him, if nothing else.
I grabbed the farm bike and made my way over, taking the road. It was mid-morning by the time I pulled in.
Hayes was in the front, unmistakable in his white cowboy hat. I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen him without it.
I pulled the bike up, and raised my hand to wave. “Morning, Hayes!”
He waved back, already walking towards me. “Morning Mickey.”
Hayes was tall and favored a Western style of clothing. Today he wore blue jeans and a plaid shirt. His beard looked particularly well-groomed and I touched mine self-conciously. I was overdue for a trim.
A dog started barking and bounded through the field towards me, a puppy.
“Easy Shadow, that’s just Mickey. He’s a friend.”
Shadow stopped barking but came over to sniff me as I came over the stile to enter Hayes’s field.
I wasted no time in explaining my visit. “Someone was walking around my place last night. Not sure how close they came to the house but there’s definitely evidence they were close to the herd. You see anything?”
Hayes shook his head. “I did hear Opie last night, but sometimes he gives a false alarm.” He glanced towards where the miniature donkey was grazing.
“Okay, that’s good.” I exhaled. “That’s good if they didn’t come close to you. Uh, you’ve got my number right?”
Hayes nodded. “Yeah, text or call if it happens again, I can come out and search with Shadow.”
A weight lifted off my shoulders. “Thanks, that’d be great. And you, too, if you notice anything, let me know okay? We gotta look out for each other.”
Hayes grinned and shook my head, sealing the deal. “That we do.”
Next I visited the guys at the Meadery and Taphouse, but they hadn’t seen or heard anything out of the ordinary.
Paxton thanked me for the wildflowers that had grown in the field closest to him. Apparently his bees had enjoyed them. I tried to smile and make small talk, but the shadows of the night hung over me.
Too many unanswered questions.
Aster
I’d driven the farm truck before. A few times, actually, when Harlow had driven us into town and then got too drunk to get home again, but knew she had to get home again and not just crash in town with me.
Driving it now was familiar, kind of a comfort.
And boy howdy, did it ever make me feel masculine.
My mind drifted as I drove into Foggy Basin, imagining a life where I lived on the farm and helped Mickey with the herd and drove the truck all the time because... well, because we were together and maybe married and Mickey and I were a partnership. In business and in love.
It wasn’t a good thing to daydream about. I mean, it was, it was delicious. But it felt sorta wrong, especially after sleeping part of the night in his bed.
I pulled up by my family’s grocery store and parked the truck.
“Get it together, Aster. Just... focus on your one job.” I cleared my throat, shook my head and rolled my shoulders.
Focus.
Focus. So easy. It was something I was super great at, as long as it was something I was passionate about.
Cooking dinner for Mickey, I could get passionate about that.
I went into the store.
Dillon was at the checkout, ringing up Evelyn, the town busybody. He nodded at me but kept his attention on her.
I slunk behind the displays so she didn’t see me. Being interrogated about living at Mickey’s was the last thing I wanted.
Thankfully she left without spotting me.
I filled my basket with supplies for the best soup I knew how to make: sweet potato, red lentil and carrot soup.
I wanted to impress Mickey, show him I wasn’t a freeloader taking advantage of a place to stay with no rent...
not that Mickey would be thinking of me that way.
He was a better guy than that, but he’d made something amazing for me the night before and I wanted to return the favor.
I’d spotted a crockpot in the kitchen so I knew I could do my soup the way I was used to.
I grabbed some garlic bread to go with it. I looked at my favorite cereals and realized Mickey’s granola was all I wanted for the next while anyway.
I picked up some of my favorite energy drinks and a box of the orange and turmeric tea I preferred, and snacks...
I got a lot of snacks. Mostly potato chips and candy bars.
Dillon was going to have something to say about that, but it wasn’t like I could just pop down to the store if I got snackish in the middle of the night.
“How’s it going?” Dillon’s smile was sincere, but, judging by his eyes, I knew from long habit that his mind was working on some problem.
I set my basket on the checkout.
“You don’t have to pay you know.”
“Just give me the family discount, Dill it’s fine.”
He rang me up. “Good, the farm is so serene. Mickey made fried chicken last night.”
“Sounds good.” Dillon realized how many packets of potato chips he’d rung up. He raised an eyebrow. “Aster...”
“I’m a grown man with grown man money, Dillon. If I want to drown in sour cream and onion chips that’s up to me.”
Dillon shook his head and smiled. “Fine.”
I paid the bill. It was very low, he’d maybe skipped a few items.
Dillon came out from behind the checkout to hug me. “Come round for dinner soon, yeah?”
I hugged him back. How had I lucked out so hard in the brother department? “Yeah, absolutely. See you soon, big bro.”
I was carrying the paper bags to the truck, and minding my own business when I overheard it. Actually, I was considering a trip to Don’t Go Bakin’ My Heart for cinnamon rolls, but that’s beside the point.
“Yeah, an AI data center.”
My eyes cut immediately to the person speaking. Some cis white guy in a blue suit was on his cellphone, pacing up and down.
Did I recognize him? Maybe he was on the town council?
AI data centers were awful. I’d read articles and social media posts about the damage they did to fresh water and the local wildlife where they’d been built. Foggy Basin was a tiny town and the farms surrounding it relied on healthy land. And AI data center was the last thing we needed.
I stowed my bags in the back of the truck and lingered, eavesdropping shamelessly.
“Yes, that’s right. Just need to scout the area a little more but it’s got everything you said you needed...” The man paused, listening to the person on the other end of the phone.
I pulled my own phone out and took a surreptitious photo of the guy.
“Mmhm, next week. That’s right, I’ll see you then.”
He hung up.
I resisted the urge to activate lazer eyes and cut him down where he stood. Or run up to him and demand to know what his conversation meant.
Had whoever had been snooping around the farm the night before had something to do with this?
I caught myself. It was a leap of logic. The two things were probably unrelated.
Besides, if someone was opening a massive, energy and fresh water draining building near our town people would know about it. There’d be an intention-to-build newsletter or something on the Facebook group or something. Wouldn’t there?
Did Foggy Basin even have a community paper? There had been something when I was a kid but it might have gone out of business.
After stowing my bags I went back into the grocery to see if there was anything on the community noticeboard Dillon put up there. Nothing.
"You forget something?" Dillon asked. I couldn't slip anything by him.
I pulled up the photo I'd taken of the man and showed it to him. "You know who this is?"
"He's on town council I think." Dillon frowned. "He buys a lot of bran cereal but I can't remember his name."
My suspicions were confirmed. "Thanks Dill, talk to you later."
I hurried up the road I checked on the noticeboard at the community center.
There was a yoga class that looked good, and I took a flyer for the artists retreat that had opened out of town, but... there was no official notice, or even... something asking for feedback on a new planned development.
Something that big, they’d have to ask for community feedback, right?
Maybe I was being naive about that. Big private corporations could buy whatever permits they needed, right?
My stomach knotted.
I made my way to the bakery, stewing over every possible meaning of what he’d said. Sure, I could have misheard something. I could have overheard something that wasn’t about Foggy Basin at all.
But my rock-solid gut said that wasn’t the case.
He’d said AI data center. He’d said something about everything you need. And he worked for Foggy Basin council.
I barely remember what small talk I made with the guy at the bakery.
I came away with a dozen cinnamon rolls, fresh-baked brownies and a blueberry pie.
It was too much bakery.
Whatever, we’d eat it eventually.
I climbed into the driver’s seat of the truck, my mind racing.
I was now certain of what I’d heard. There was no way to interpret those words differently.
This guy, whoever he was, was in talks to build an AI data center right here in Foggy Basin.
I had a new mission: stop the data center at all costs.