Chapter 8

13 months later

On the second Saturday of my third May in Raleigh, I received my degree. As I had in high school, I graduated second in my class. My family was there to cheer for me, as were several officers from the Raleigh PD. Holly and Glenda were there, along with Holly’s fiancé, Lenny. Also in the crowd were a couple FBI agents, several Marshals, and the heads of the local ATF and DEA.

Holly had started seeing Lenny a year ago and moved back into her apartment a month later. Glenda was torn until I told her that I understood all along that she was here with Holly. Still, she stayed with me for three more months. At that point, Holly knew she was serious about Lenny and told him about Glenda, who quickly joined them, leaving me alone ... again.

Part of me was glad that Holly had found someone before I did. The other part of me felt like I’d been punched in the gut. Still, I was happy for her. We both knew early on that we had no future together, no matter how much we wished we did.

Oddly, Lenny and I got along well once he realized that I was serious about being a farmer, and that, while Holly had managed to survive a few days a year at my family’s farm, she had no intention of spending more time than that on a farm.

I dated one girl after Glenda left, but it wasn’t serious. Most college girls aren’t interested in dating a “cop,” and even less interested in dating a farmer. A few women who somehow found out that I was rich were quickly disappointed when they saw that I was still driving my Camry and found out that I refused to spend money lavishly.

“Well?” Dwight asked after the ceremony. The other three agency heads were there too, eager to convince me to join their agency full-time.

“Same answer as before, gentlemen; I’m a farmer. My agent has three properties for me to look at. One is in Virginia, and one each in North and South Carolina.”

“I vote for North Carolina,” Dwight said with a grin.

“That one has piqued my interest,” I admitted. “I’ll still be available,” I reminded them.

With Senator Ludmill out of the picture, my life had quieted down significantly these last two years. I had only gone into the field four times, but had dozens of other calls where I could drive to what had become my favorite stopping place fifty-four miles from my apartment. It’s a 24-hour coffee shop with great homemade ice cream to top their delicious apple pie. From there, I’d take a second reading to get a fix on whomever I was helping to locate.

The owner had asked me once what I did when I came there, curious about me standing and turning slowly back and forth, one time to my right, and once to my left, verifying that both vectors were the same. I showed him the app I used to get the vector and transfer it to Dwight. I also showed him my badge.

I’d give Dwight the vectors to find whomever they were searching for and let them do the legwork; Charlie was frequently one of the agents doing the legwork. Eight of the Ten Most Wanted fugitives were no longer fugitives. Since I had received no feeling for the other two, they were either out of my range, if I had one, or dead.

I ended up buying the North Carolina property without even looking at the other two. It was located seventy miles southeast of Raleigh. The previous owner had purchased just over 2,700 acres intending to build tract homes. The nearby city of Hallston was growing rapidly, and he foresaw the need for more housing in the near future. He felt that the geography of Hallston made it necessary to build satellite communities and people would have to commute. This land was only nine miles from the city limit of Hallston. It was closer to the small town of Hiaville, and part of the property line adjoined the Hiaville city limits.

He had been ready to begin clearing the first tract to build homes when the housing market collapsed. Still, he held onto the land, leasing as much as he could to farmers to help offset what he owed in taxes and mortgage payments each year. When he died a month ago, his creditors became more demanding, insisting that the three-month arrears be paid up to date. There wasn’t enough money in the rest of the estate to do that, so the bank was selling everything.

Since the economy was still sluggish, the bank was skittish about making a new loan on the property. When I offered cash for all 2,729 acres, it was a done deal. During the two weeks it took for escrow to close, I rode back and forth across the property on a horse I had purchased and stabled with one of the farmers who leased part of the land. I talked to the farmers with the current leases, asking about the growing season, what crops they grew, what their yields were, and so on.

I had my own ideas about what I intended to grow, as well as how, and their observations helped to reassure me that I could do it. When I had my final land use map complete, I sought a contractor. After interviewing three that were big enough to do the work I wanted, I found the man I was looking for. I had the same reaction to his voice over the phone that I had with Bradley Vaughn, my money manager.

When I shook Ryan Wilson’s hand, the feeling I got verified that he was the man for the job. He was surprised at the scope of my proposal. Some of the work didn’t really require a contractor, but I wanted everything done by the same crew so there would be continuity in the work. “That’s quite an extensive plan,” he commented when he finished perusing my map and notes.

“Yes,” I agreed. “Once we reach full production, I expect to be employing fifty to a hundred full-time hands, and even more part-time help. I want to do this my way, not the way everyone else seems to be going,” I explained.

Most of the initial construction would be on land that had lain fallow for thirty or more years. A small river made a lazy ‘S’ diagonally across the property. Three to seven hundred feet on either side of the river was thick with trees. I could tell from the size of the trees that they were all at least thirty years old. The guy who had intended to build houses may have been knowledgeable about property values and building (or maybe not), but he didn’t know anything about the land itself.

More than a thousand pine trees that were seventy or more feet tall populated the woods along the river. Add in hundreds of mature white oak, hickory, and red maple trees, and the price for the salable lumber increased greatly. Lastly were three pockets of black walnut with 117 mature trees and 242 smaller trees, down to thirty feet high. Just the timber from this place would have made a sizeable dent in the arrears on the loan, if not paying them off completely.

The four farmers who were leasing part of the land all agreed eagerly to work for me once I explained the scope of my plan. Carlos had the most experience among the four. I put him in charge of the tomatoes, since he had twenty acres of tomatoes that he grew every year. Most of those he sold at the small produce stand the four families operated every summer.

Ramón took on growing corn since that was all he did now. Tim got the responsibility for the hogs, and Jason the responsibility for the chickens and turkeys. He already had about a hundred turkeys and five hundred chickens to supplement what he got selling the vegetables his family grew in their truck garden.

The main reason I chose this land was that more than two-thirds of it had lain fallow for years. That meant it would be easy to certify it as herbicide, pesticide, and chemical fertilizer free, so I could raise the organic crops I wanted. I was surprised to learn that Carlos had been farming organically, although he didn’t go through the trouble of getting certified.

The first two things I had Ryan do was build a fence around the perimeter of the property, and to survey sites where we would be building. While I wanted to sell the timber, I also wanted to keep shade trees for the people and the livestock.

When he finished the survey of each site where we would be building, he and I chose the best trees to keep and painted “NO” on the bark of each in a gaudy, bright orange. We left trees to shade the livestock and poultry, as well as numerous shade trees where I intended to start a small village of motor homes, trailers, and mobile homes for my employees to live in. There would also be empty space for seasonal workers to use.

I warned all four farmers that they needed to make sure any current employees were legal. Any that weren’t, but who could qualify, I would sponsor and assist in getting a green card. Anyone that I discovered after October 1, I would fire and report to DHS. It would be very embarrassing as a Deputy Marshal to be caught with illegal immigrants working for me.

The rest of the summer was a zoo. Within a week there was constant truck traffic coming and going. Trucks delivered heavy construction equipment and metal posts and rails for the perimeter fencing. Other trucks began hauling away the timber as it was cut. A third crew went behind the timber cutters and pulled stumps out to grind up and use for wood pulp. They used high-pressure nozzles to wash the dirt off the stumps so we didn’t lose the rich soil. I didn’t get much for the stumps, but I was just happy that I didn’t have to pay to have them removed and hauled away and didn’t have to do the work myself.

The first area I had cleared of timber (except for the trees we wanted to keep) was for employee housing. The interstate ran near the northern border of my property, and I built the housing area near the freeway. We kept a thick buffer of trees between the housing and the freeway to reduce the traffic noise.

When I bought the property, I found it odd that there were already two off-ramps to the undeveloped land. Still, it made things go a lot smoother. By October 1, I had fifty manufactured homes set up and ready to be occupied. The four farmers got first choice, and the rest of their employees got their choice based on a lottery. I had eleven left over, which I had expected.

I was even living in one of the manufactured homes, myself, while my house was being built. The house I was building was nearly identical to the house I had grown up in, a 1940’s era two-story farmhouse.

I purchased chickens, turkeys, and pigs once their enclosures were ready. Until next spring, I planned to keep all the chicken and turkey hens that hatched. By then, we should have enough to begin selling them. We had to be careful with their feed, so we could advertise them as being raised organically.

We had large runs for the chickens and the turkeys and rotated the birds among the runs to let the ground cover grow back. The pigs had huge pastures in which to roam. We chose which pastures they used with a series of chutes and gates. Since we fed them additional food in the main enclosure each evening, they made sure to be there. They lazed and grazed all day in the pasture, but we fed them grain mix inside at night, and eventually, extra milk and buttermilk from our small, private dairy.

There was running water throughout the pasture area since adult pigs drink three to six gallons of water a day. Occasionally, one of the little pigs would tarry in the evening, getting locked out at night. We would hear it squealing in protest until we let it in. I don’t think the same piglet was ever locked out twice. We used a loud warbling whistle each evening to call them home. Pigs are extremely smart, and quickly figured out that the whistle meant get yourself home or miss dinner.

It was funny watching the mad scramble of the shoats each evening (a shoat is a young pig just after being weaned) as they headed for the main enclosure and the “good stuff.” In a way, their mad scramble reminded me of a stampede, just on a much shorter scale.

People in the small town of Hiaville (population 3846) quickly got to know me. The local weekly newspaper printed articles, updating everyone about the progress we were making. At first, it was weekly, then every two weeks, and finally monthly. It’s a sad commentary when the day-to-day goings on at Reynolds Ranch were front-page news. Of course, the fact that ten percent of the population of Hiaville lived or worked at Reynolds Ranch, and that the paper was only four pages might have something to do with it. Those four pages were one sheet of newsprint folded in half, front and back of each half.

Then again, our business was making the town more prosperous. If they weren’t too outrageously priced, I would buy things from local suppliers. Otherwise, I went to Hallston, Raleigh, or other big North Carolina cities. Ryan even had twenty-three people from Hiaville working on his expanded construction crew, fourteen men and nine women. Four of the women drove heavy equipment, two of the women actually swung a hammer, and the rest did cleanup work, keeping the ground free of cutoff pieces of lumber and other junk that ended up on the ground. One of them pushed what looked like a power mower with a small generator atop it that powered an electromagnet to pick up nails, screws, and any other ferrous material from the ground.

With the crops finally harvested for the four farmers who were leasing the land, their employees began helping more and more around the place. I decided at the last minute not to sell most of the hickory trees, saving all but a few of the best specimens to use for smoking turkey breasts. The employees began cutting, chopping, and splitting the hickory, building stacks to dry for future use. This winter, we planned to transplant hickory saplings into areas along the river. They would provide us with future sources of hickory wood for smoking turkeys as well as providing soil stabilization in low-lying, flood-prone areas along the river.

Other employees took over the day-to-day care of the livestock. They liked my idea of a small dairy for our private use so much that I expanded the dairy herd almost immediately. I already knew how, but Ramón’s wife showed everyone how to separate the milk, how to make butter, and even how to make ice cream from real cream. Within three months, they were making cheddar cheese, cottage cheese, and yogurt. That meant we had to increase the dairy herd even more. It also meant that we had more male calves to raise for slaughter, and more homegrown beef for our tables.

I got the name and number of the Kroger liaison in my area from the Kroger representative that my parents sold their crops through. He was happy to have another supplier, especially for what I planned to specialize in--organic, fully ripe, beefsteak tomatoes. The tomatoes would have to be handpicked and packed in single layers in plastic Reusable Produce Containers (RPCs), and Kroger would have to get them into the stores quickly.