Chapter 14
The thought occurred to Righty as he went traveling along in his carriage full of barrels of Smokeless Green seeds towards home that he was quite possibly making a huge mistake. Maybe the biggest mistake of his life. If things went sour, he’d lose his job. That would be bare minimum.
If he was really lucky, old Rog wouldn’t report him to the local sheriff as a thief but instead would just give him the chance to pay him back for whatever the supplier charged him for the “lost” inventory (that is, if Rog was feeling particularly generous and told the supplier the seeds were lost).
But even in that rosy scenario (which Righty didn’t feel particularly likely at the moment), he knew he’d lose his job for sure, and with still not even a high school diploma to show for all his evenings of silent study he’d be lucky if he could even get his job back at the lumberyard. Indoor work wouldn’t even be remotely possible. After all, he couldn’t think of any other store owners in the area whom he had helped get rid of a bully way back in high school, as he had done for Rog.
No, just like a bird migrating back to its home, he would head back to the lumberyard. And Foreman Steve wouldn’t let him back because he had a heart. Ha! It would be to relish the sight of that now pallid face turning first lobster red underneath the hot sun and then back to its desert brown, just like the rest of the beer-guzzling, lumber-hauling oxen there.
But if you don’t even try, you’ll torture yourself day in and day out at Roger’s Grocery Store. Wouldn’t it be better to end up back at the lumberyard knowing you took a chance that came along?
The argument in his head between Mr. Doom and Gloom and Mr. Devil’s Advocate was about as relevant to a deeper part of Righty’s mind as a debate between two stowaway children in the back of a wagon concerning its most advisable course would be to a driver oblivious to their existence.
He was going to act, not contemplate. His heart was racing, and his head was almost spinning, and the only reason he wasn’t whipping his horses into a full gallop was the fact he realized that at this particular moment he wanted to appear as inconspicuous and immemorable as possible.
Thus, while his heart and mind raced wildly, the horses trotted along as if they had not a care in the world, and the whip, which held the power to turn them into racing blurs of speed, sat idly in its sheath next to Righty.
The rules of the game changed, however, as he entered the path encased in solid woods leading up to his home. “Yaaaaa!” he shouted and gave a crack of the whip to the horses.
Off they flew down the path, and then Righty suddenly gave a gentle tug on the reins. He felt like a fool for ordering the horses to stampede when he was carrying rather valuable merchandise in the back.
After what seemed like an eternity but was in actuality a mere ten minutes, Righty arrived home. It was noon, and he thanked Kasani that he had been supportive of Janie’s decision to work. Right now, the last thing he needed was someone inserting coals of doubt into his mind. He leaped out of the wagon, ran into the barn, and grabbed a shovel and a pickax.
Then, he ran back to the wagon and gently urged the horses forward with a slap of the reins. He was headed into the woods. He knew he wouldn’t be able to take them as far as he himself was going, but that was okay. He didn’t want these seeds to end up anywhere easily accessible.
He knew which areas of the forest near here had sufficient space between the trees to allow the wagon to pass. Once he got to where the trees were too thick, he would have just a little walking to do. He knew the exact spot he was looking for.
After about ten minutes of slow riding from his house, he stopped the wagon. He got out, and as he hoisted one of the large barrels into his beefy arms he found himself grateful for his years of lumber hauling, as this felt light as a feather by comparison, though it would have squashed many a man to the ground.
He knew there was no time to waste. He went walking into the midst of the thickly packed bushes and trees. He winced as one thin branch after another went whipping into his face, something he was completely unable to prevent, and he wondered if it wasn’t perhaps karma for whipping the horses.
Then, to his pleasure, he arrived, and it was just like he remembered it. A small, rectangular area free of large trees and bushes. He remembered that as a child he often came here to look up at the stars at night and just get away from it all.
Realizing there was no time to reflect, he quickly ran back to the wagon, picked up another barrel, and repeated the process. Once all dozen barrels were there, he began digging large holes along the perimeter of the area. It was backbreaking work, but yet again he was finding his lumber-hauling days to be of service.
He tore into the ground viciously with his pickax, and then followed up by digging away with all the enthusiasm of a man tunneling his way out of prison. Several hours later he had fully buried eleven of the twelve barrels, replaced the soil, and then smoothed the ground over it.
The twelfth barrel was located inside a hole, but this particular hole had not yet been filled in. This was going to be his working barrel. The others would be stored for a rainy day.
He was now soaked in sweat, but his adrenaline was flowing nicely still, and he wasn’t even about to slow down. He began digging small holes one mighty shovel thrust at a time.
SMUSH!
SMUSH!
SMUSH!
He realized he knew little about horticulture in general and nothing at all about Smokeless Green gardening, but he figured the seeds went into the hole. He laughed out loud at what a fool he would probably appear to be to anyone who knew about such things, but he decided he would go ahead and experiment. So, he put one seed in a hole here, three seeds in a hole there, about a dozen in a hole there, and so on. He hadn’t the slightest idea how easily these plants would grow, whether they would need constant water, etc. It looked to him that he had enough seeds to do some significant experimenting with, but time was running out if he was to carry out the burgeoning plan he had in mind.
He put the lid back on the exposed barrel, made sure it was nice and snug, and then covered up that final hole with as much care and attention as he had to the others. He looked at his garden with shrewd eyes, trying to put himself into the shoes of some snot-nosed brat (or worse) that came traipsing through here. Sure, it was clear there was a garden of some kind here, but even his eagle eyes had difficulty seeing even the slightest traces of a burial in the areas where the barrels were sleeping cozily under the ground.
Good enough, he told himself.
When he got home and realized Janie was not there yet, it seemed the stars were aligning in his favor. He changed into a clean pair of clothes, grabbed a few empty barrels from his barn of roughly the same size as the Rog’s, sloshed a little water on his hands and face from a bucket, and then picked up a pen and paper:
Sorry to miss you, my love. I’ll be back tomorrow. Rog is sending me on a bit of a field trip . . . nothing major, just returning some inventory. But I think it shows his growing trust in me. See you soon.
Yours forever,
Richie
Righty shuddered at what he was about to do next. He picked up the floor plank where they kept their savings and looked at it longingly. He removed most of it. It would be just enough to cover the inventory and . . . a little something else.
Paranoid that at any moment Janie would appear out of nowhere, her all-too intuitive eyes sensing something much more than a business trip was afoot, Righty sprinted out to the wagon, gave the horses a nice slap with the reins and got them moving.