Outside the Fire by Boyd Craven

Author:Boyd Craven
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: N/A
Publisher: Permuted
Published: 2018-05-09T16:00:00+00:00

The tractor was the loudest noise for a long time. The auger on the smaller tractor and the fact that there was little to no traffic noise from the main road made it a beacon. More than a few times, Amber would see the curtains on the Wilson’s house move and turned to flip them the bird. Steve stopped her the first time, but after a while, he considered joining her. The process was pretty simple, and it went much faster than Steve thought it would. Dwight backed his tractor up to the opening where the gate had been removed, stabilized the tractor and used a PTO driven auger to sink an eight-inch hole almost six feet into the ground. He would pause, every now and then for Steve or Amber to drag dirt out of the way with a shovel. It seemed to them it took less than a couple of minutes from when he started to where he was raising the leveler’s legs and pulling the tractor forward and killing the engine.

“Will that get you going good?” Dwight asked as he walked up.

“That’s going to save me a couple hours of digging,” Steve said looking at the mixture of soil and clay.

“Let’s hope you can get that sand point driven down into some water,” Dwight told him.

“What happens if he doesn’t hit water?” Amber asked.

“Well, then nothing comes up out of the pipe, genius,” Dwight said nudging her with a callused hand.

“No, I mean, do you pull it, drive it deeper….”

“Drive it deeper,” Steve told her. “Before the power and internet went wonky, I looked it up. Where we’re at, I should have to go more than twenty, twenty-five feet down.”

“Thanks, Dad,” Amber said and then turned to Dwight and stuck her tongue out at him in a very immature fashion.

The farmer laughed at the young woman’s antics and threw a finger flick at her nose. She ducked out of the way at the last second, but she was grinning too. Steve watched in amusement. Losing power and seeing the store shelves diminishing had a chilling effect on him. It was stressful, like watching a roller coaster that was under construction climb to the top, not knowing if the track down below was finished or not. Seeing Dwight and Amber goofing around was a relief. Sometimes he worried the stress was affecting everyone, but it wasn’t evident today.

“Quit flipping off the neighbors,” Steve told Amber, catching the motion as he was pulling a shovel full away from the dirt.

“Dad, that was Billy Wilson,” Amber said.

“Oh, well, in that case,” Steve said and turned, flipping off the general direction of the Wilsons.

He was joined by both Dwight and Amber who were grinning. The curtains opened and closed and briefly they saw him scowling.

“I wonder when they let him out?” Dwight asked.

“I don’t know. He was being held on a low bond. I wasn’t too worried; his dad’s the loose cannon.”

“Yeah, Billy is just creepy,” Amber repeated.

“Yeah, well, he’s going to be even creepier while you hold the pipe as I put the sections together I’ll bet.

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