Chapter 5. Pitches and Pitchforks #2
Another loud thunderclap sounded as I clutched the bag to my body to protect my purchases and rushed from the store to my SUV.
Through the window, I saw the shop’s lights flicker again and go out.
This time, they stayed out. A lack of electricity wouldn’t affect anything I needed to do at the barn, but for the sake of the shops, as well as Deborah and her sisters over at the Victory Garden, I hoped the outage wouldn’t last long.
I headed down the dirt road or, more precisely today, the mud road.
While the scarecrow family offered their ever-present grins, no tail-wagging collie escorted me today.
The chickens remained in their coop. The sheep and pigs were out of sight, too.
Four of the five Holsteins were still huddled in their three-sided cowshed.
Undeterred by the deluge, the fifth cow was back at the oak tree, rubbing her rump against the trunk.
Wind gusts slammed against the side of my SUV, and I had to fight to keep control. The heavy rain made the road slippery, and twice my tires nearly got stuck. I gunned the engine, sending up a spray of mud behind me.
As I approached the barn, I noticed that the manure shovel and pitchfork were now leaning against the exterior wall, and that door that had been hanging askew had given up the ghost and finally fallen off the track.
The door lay face down in the mud to the right of the doorway.
The upside was, with the door on the ground, I was able to drive into the barn and park my SUV out of the elements behind the old carriage.
I glanced at the clock on my phone. It was 10:37, more than an hour before my scheduled meeting with Gail and Tyler. Enough time for a good nap. I set the alarm on my phone to wake me at 11:45.
I went to lean my seat back, but met with resistance.
Argh. I’d forgotten my back seat was laid flat to accommodate the sawhorses I’d used when working on the deck with my uncle and cousins.
I looked around the barn, my gaze traveling up to the hayloft.
Straw was used as bedding for animals. Even Jesus had slept in a manger.
If it was good enough for a messiah, surely it was good enough for me.
Taking my cell phone and the romance novel with me, I slipped out of my car and climbed the ladder to the hayloft.
Several empty cans of cheap beer and hard cider littered the floor, along with an empty bottle of Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Whiskey.
My guess was that teens cruising the countryside had spotted the barn, assumed it was abandoned, and decided it would make a good place to party.
Thank goodness they’d only left trash behind and hadn’t damaged the carriage or the structure.
Thank goodness, too, that none had fallen through a trapdoor and broken a leg, or worse, their neck.
Rain fell outside the open hayloft door and ran in sheets from the overhang, blurring my view of the countryside.
A barely audible clang-clang-clang came from outside, too, as the maverick cow continued to scratch herself on the tree trunk.
I stomped my feet to encourage any mice who might be hanging out in the hay to move out of the loft.
Gingerly, I lay back on the tarp that covered the old hay and settled in with the book.
I was just four pages in when the lull of the rain had me setting the book aside. I closed my eyes and drifted off into dreamland.
Sometime later, I woke with a start. From outside came an angry shout. “You can’t stop me!”
Is that Tyler yelling? I sat up. Through the hayloft door came the sounds of a struggle below. Grunts. Cries. A thud that could indicate a fist impacting a cheekbone.
I leveraged myself to my feet and eased toward the hay door, keeping a hand on the center beam that spanned the ceiling to brace myself. The rain was coming down even harder, and wind gusts carried it into the hayloft, dousing my lower legs as I approached the opening.
“Tyler?” I called tentatively, hoping that revealing my presence wouldn’t put me and my baby in danger. “Is that you?”
I had nearly reached the hay door when something big and gray came flying up through the open space, flapping its wings.
Reflexively, I cried out, threw up my arms, and turned my head to protect my face.
Is it an owl? I hoped it wasn’t a barred one.
The raptors had incredibly sharp talons and had even been known to kill a human being on occasion.
Whatever it was landed on the hayloft floor with a thump, but the flapping sounds continued for a few more seconds.
When the noise stopped, I took a deep breath and looked down.
The flying thing wasn’t a bird after all.
It was a backpack. It looked like the one Tyler Yee had been carrying last week.
What I’d thought were flapping wings were loose papers that had escaped the bag.
Several pages were picked up by the wind and fluttered down from the hayloft, all the way to the dirt of the barn floor below.
“Tyler?” I called again.
There was no response, only the sounds of a car door slamming, an engine roaring, and tires spinning in the mud as someone floored their gas pedal and drove off.
I continued to the hayloft door, holding tight to the edge, and peeked out.
All I could see at first was Tyler’s car.
Holding my breath, I leaned out another inch or two.
There, lying face down atop the broken barn door next to the car was Tyler Yee himself.
Five roundish bloodstains spread across his white shirt from the tines of the pitchfork lodged in his lower back.
I fell to my knees in the open hayloft, my hands over my mouth doing little to stifle my scream.