A Tale of Two Trucks

An experience I can't seem to get used to. The pounding of your heart, your stomach's in your throat, and all the hairs are standing on your flushed skin. Gripping the wheel as I am chased out of Aubry by blue and red lights, my mind is everywhere. What and who let slip about the operation? How long have they known? The sun hasn't even come up! Taking a deep breath, I think about her, about pop and the town. I shift gears.

Growing up in a small town of less than 1,000 can be pretty dull. Especially if you find yourself working on a farm at twenty-five, recently graduated with a Master's in Business. Pop's got the farm, young, from Granddaddy Stephens in the late eighties after mom passed. We grew mostly corn in the Summer for Fall market and tons of berries in Winter for Spring. Our farm not only put food on our table but also put me through college at the University of Pennsylvania. It was the best business school in the country and the best six years of my life. However, Pop almost lost the farm in the drought last Winter before I graduated. Feeling too guilty to leave Pop alone for Spring and next Fall harvests, I turned away an internship in Colorado. Pop usually had my sister Ash's help in the last few years, but so got accepted into a University in Florida. So it was my turn to pull some weight on the farm.

Taking my hands off the wheel to cool them in the A/C. They still have me followed as the sun is finally rising over the fields and dirt paths ahead. My phone is still dead, I bet she's trying to call. I bet Pop has heard by now of what his son has done. I just hope I haven't affected the farm. I began adjusting the rearview mirror from the beam of light coming from the load in the bed of Pop's truck. Now, where is that damn charger? 

Pop and I worked every day before daybreak and hours after it gets dark. Farming takes more work than people know. You prep soil for months, collect supplies, and plant all hours of the day. Starting in April, we'd plant corn in a different quarter of the fields each month to start harvesting the sections in 60-90 days. This method allowed us to quickly rotate in vegetables priced higher than corn if need be before having to prep the fields for Winter. The reason prices of corn wouldn't be high is because Aubry became a dry county in 1948. Other farm counties in western Kansas had distilleries' demand for corn inflating the market prices. However, Aubry wasn't always in a dry county. Granddaddy would tell stories, when I was a child, about the beginning of Stephen's Farm in the 1800s. Stephen's Farm was a name the whole town knew not only for its miles of cornfields but its on-site distillery. When the prohibition in the Roaring Twenties swept the nation it took down not just the stock market but Stephen's Farm too. We nearly lost the farm. But, in 1922 supposedly Great-Grandaddy Stephens ran an underground liquor distillery and bar in Aubry. Townspeople and gangsters from all over the West would load up crates with bottles of liquor hidden under corn from our farm. When the police found out, they blew up the underground entrance to the distillery under the silo not knowing my Great Grand-Daddy Stephens was still in there with all the money. After everything my Great Grandfather did to pay off debts, it was still not enough. The Stephens Farm went from miles to acres and corn prices getting slashed with each year. I always didn't believe the tales until I was 18 and started working on the farm with Pop and Ash. So with granddaddy spewing off the same tales over dinner, it gave me an idea.

My phone finally had a charge and there was a constant ringing of notifications flooding in. Finally silence, from the phone, not the sirens. A new call started coming in. It's her! I answered immediately listening to the shouting of a worried voice, 

"Is this what you have been doing in the silo at night? Why didn't you tell me? More importantly, what were you thinking?" 

I responded, "Lea listen, I was thinking about our future, about Pop, the town, everyone!" 

More shouting came from her end, "I know Danny put you up to this but you could just stop this now! Just stop the car Ty!" 

Knowing I could make it to my pal Hal in the next twenty minutes for the next part of the plan I burst out, "No! I have to see this through. And Danny? I will explain everything later Lea I shouldn't be talking about this on the phone. They're probably listening to this call. I love you. Bye."

My palms were sweating and my stomach was in my throat again going over the plan in my head. Every minute counted till the next part of my plan. It is going to work I know it.

Finally, it was June. Meaning it was a harvest week. We'd go to the fields cut the corn to bundles, store them in the silo, till the whole first growing quarter of corn was picked. The next morning, we made a pit stop at the local grocers before heading to the farmer's market for the rest of the profits. When we got there I saw the going rate for our harvest my heart sank to my ankles. $0.15 an ear bringing us less than $2.5K total after fertilizer, gas, property tax, etc. Pop was relieved when I looked to see his reaction. He was telling me in 2014, the year I left for college, the sale price for corn crops was down over 80%! He had to pull out another mortgage from the bank for him and Ash to get by while I was away. I had no clue things got this bad. As a kid, we would earn $6 to $7K for a quarter of the harvest. After unloading Pop handed me the invoice, "Go get this signed in the office. Lea should be there." Lea was a childhood friend of Ash's that was a messy-haired, overweight dork with a stutter. The three of us were inseparable for the longest time. That was till she and Ash got to middle school and stopped being friends after Lea dropped the "baby weight" and became boy crazy. I was a senior in high school at the time so I didn't remember the details. Ash called me though when she and Lea made peace after they graduated high school. She told me the night of their graduation she always had a crush on me, then left two days later to work on a "herbal" farm in Europe for three years. Walking into the office I didn't know what to expect until I saw her father Mr. Hart. I was confused and slightly disappointed, yet relieved. We exchanged hellos and he signed the invoice. As I headed back to the truck I heard a familiar voice from behind me, "Oh my God! Is that Tyler Stephens?!" 

I turned. Thrown off by this black-haired woman in fitness clothes before me that didn't match the voice I knew. "Now don't tell me you don't recognize me?"

She was not the short, blonde overweight girl I remembered. "Hey, Lea! You look amazing." I muttered out like an idiot.

She laughed and hugged me, "Thanks! It is good to see you too Ty! Ash told me you were coming back. I was hoping the three of us would be together like old times, but guess it is Ash's turn to leave Aubry." We swapped number and talked for a while till Pops came looking for me to go back to the bank. Walking into the bank, my phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Lea, saying we should get drinks sometime with a winky-faced emoji. Smiling still the teller asked if I wanted it in the business' account or to pay the overdue mortgage. I asked how much and after getting a printed summary of what Pop owed the bank in loans, the mortgage, and overdue credit cards my smile turned sour. How are we ever going to pay this? All I could think about was the tales of my Great Grandfather's distillery that technically saved the farm. Pops said we should take a week or so off till the next harvest since we reset the harvested quarter for picking in 60 days again. I was not going to say no to sleeping past 3 a.m. and texted Lea to getting those drinks she mentioned. 

After two more months of harvests, we luckily salvaged over $10K. A small dent in the overdue bills was made after Pops decided to let me in on the money we owed. Even though this was a small success in getting the bank slightly off our backs, there was still at least $20,000 owed and a sister off at college in Florida. Pops refused to feel worried because the farm always seemed to get by. I, on the other hand, spent the last two months measuring, sketching and planning until I finally located the old distillery cellar under the silo. There was one more harvest in two weeks, so I had nothing to lose and two weeks to dig. Lea offered to help, she did not know what it was for, but we had got close the last few weeks of us dating and her sleeping over. I made breakfast, went down to the farmers market to rent an excavator, and got working. After a day I knew we were getting close to the cellar. I told her she could go to work because I was "going to work on the irrigation system that runs under the silo tomorrow". She kissed me goodbye and I watched her leave till the white, dusted sedan was out of sight. Going back into the ground dug up I shoveled for another hour till I heard a thud. I found it. The tales were true. Uncovering more till there was a body-sized opening. I jumped in with a flashlight and was blinded. Reflections of countless amounts of bottles! If the whiskey in them were still good they'd be over 90-years-old and worth a fortune more than gold! I took pictures of the room and came to notice two other doors. The first room I went in was filled with barrels and empty bottles it smelt sour and had so much dust I'd be sneezing for hours. But, as I walked to the other door, I prepared myself for the 95-year-old decaying body on the other side of the smell lingering from the crack at the bottom of the door. I held my breath. It had a desk, bookshelves, a stack of papers, a quill and ink, and as a skeleton next to the corner on a chair that made me scream. The tales were true! I took crates up of the whiskey, the papers, photos of a child that is clearly great-granddaddy, and a few trinkets till I would plan what to do with the rest the next day. Climbing out I hadn't realized the time and had no service. I spent the whole day digging and bringing up crates in the silo. Not realizing it was already dark. Lea had called to say goodnight and Pops to say my super was in the fridge. I covered back up the very obvious hole and brought everything over to the house. Next was figuring out who to tell or what to even do.

The following week I drove to visit old friends in Colorado; the ones got me a job in Denver. I brought a bottle of Great-Granddaddy's whiskey for us all to try. They said it was the best whiskey they ever had and I conquered. We were freaking over how much a bottle would or should cost "if" it went in liquor stores. A week later one of them called saying the word had got out and liquor store owners were calling for me, the boy in the dry county for some bottles to stock. I brought samples for them the next day. Many placed invoice orders worth a million and not even for half of what was still in the cellar at home. Lea eventually found out walking in on me changing bottles and labels. She freaked because we live in a very strict dry county that blew up my ancestor over it not that long ago. However, she cooled off having time to think and began helping organize the invoices. Eventually, local police came knocking at the house as talk spread into Kansas weeks later and in our town about a 95-year-old whiskey. They asked a few questions but no warrant because there were multiple dry counties in Kansas besides ours. I had to come up with a plan though. One that wouldn't end with anyone in jail and us not losing the farm in the Spring with the way harvest prices were going. Lea drove her brother Danny's truck over one day and it clicked. I would more than likely get caught driving a big, black truck out of town with rattling crates.

She was right. Danny was in on it, but not what she expected. I offered him a cut for their family to stay the night in the town over the day before I moved my actual crates of illegal substances. He was to be parked on the side of a dirt road behind a diner our families would go to after harvest to celebrate. I pulled in to the back lot with still not a cop in sight and there he was. We hugged and laughed. I gave him my hat and my jean jacket, then we swapped plates. Danny brilliantly thought about my gas situation and helped fill me up with a tank he got down the road. He was to drive out first and drive an hour nonstop South with no communication between the two of us to avoid even more complications with the law. Ten minutes after he pulled out I heard sirens again. It actually worked! I waited another twenty minutes after not hearing sirens and casually drove up to Denver for my family's payday.

When getting payment the owners made the checks out to a different service from another small business they owned. I had over half a million in checks made out to my "hard work". Getting home Lea was, of course, enraged at Danny and I. The cops, of course, got a warrant to search our books, home, farm, barn, and silo that I filled with the remainder of crops scraps that season. After their snooping thinned to nothing, I finished paying off our debts and split the money up between our family and the Hart family. When I came clean to Granddaddy Stephens I gave him the photos and documents I collected from the cellar and he smiled at the photo of him, his mother, and father. But he was confused by the photo of the skeleton I took of the cellar's office. That wasn't his father that was left in the cellar almost 100 years ago but he recognized there was a blurry sewn-in patch on one of the shoulders. When I went back in for a better photo my stomach was in my throat again. This wasn't my grandfather. I knew the drawing from one of the businesses I sold whiskey to. The lady said her great grandfather went missing over 90 years ago. Does she know the tales? Is someone coming for the rest now?