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Chapter 1
Mornings like these were spectacularly special for Brady Rogers. He could sit on the back porch without hearing the sounds of civilization, except for an occasional airplane flying way overhead. From his deck, he could view his lush acreage, fenced and terraced to protect his vegetables from the deer and an occasional wild boar that would try to land in his garden, usually winding up being some future dinner for him and Tate.
He had sensors all around the perimeter, originally set up to keep people from his weed stash, but after he’d given all that up, it became a wonderful way to grab another boar, strip it down, and make jerky and wild boar steaks that were barbecued to perfection. Add some fresh corn, ripe green peppers, red onions, and carrots still crunchy and filled with juicy goodness—it was the feast of kings.
He had created this little patch of paradise when he thought he’d stay here until they hauled him out or tried to. He knew California was way beyond the gun debate and planned at some point having to defend his right to bear anything he fuckin’ wanted to lock and load. He might die in a shootout, since he never planned to leave his beautiful farm and he wouldn’t let any government entity tell him what or who he could shoot. He’d seen enough of the world to realize it was dark and dangerous, even on this glorious of mornings, and he wouldn’t give up his freedom unless he had to die trying to keep it.
The greenhouses were used for starter plants, and his wife, Maggie, enjoyed creating flower baskets with their daughter. She took her arrangements and the starts to the farmers markets on Saturdays, along with the eggs they collected.
They owned about sixty chickens, plus or minus the eggs his rebellious hens tucked away and hatched, fat layers that grew old and died, or roosters that got so testy he had to blast them out of existence.
He didn’t mind that he didn’t keep accurate count. It wasn’t about how many but the quality of life he was after. Emma loved watching the baby chicks hatch from blue, green, purple, and brown eggs, each one a special celebration of life. His little daughter had taught him this, and it was one of the best lessons he’d learned.
Brady had thought, as he got older, that his heart would become more and more hardened. In truth, the exact opposite was happening. The more he spent time around his daughter and his beautiful, only-woman-in-the-world-wife, the softer and gentler a man he became, still protective, still ruthless if he needed to be. He simply preferred to stay on the soft side, because that’s the one Maggie loved the most. That was also the side that didn’t scare little Emma.
Tate accepted the two new women at their conclave, especially Emma. The black Doberman slept with her every single night, except for occasional dark night stretches—quiet stares out the window when he suspected somebody or something was intruding on their space. Occasionally, there’d be another animal trying to get through the fence or making their way underneath somehow, in spite of the electrical grid and trip wires, and in those events, Tate would wake up Brady.
The first thing Brady would do was pick up the shotgun he had mounted over their bed, go outside with Tate, and let him silently run the perimeter. Tate barked when he came upon whatever it was that had alerted him. Brady couldn’t see him at night unless it was a full moon; all he could hear was the rustling of cornstalks, vegetable plants, bushes, orange trees, or blueberries or the way he plowed through Maggie’s flower garden. He could often faintly hear Tate grunting in the background, but once he locked onto something, the dog exploded in a roar of barks that still hurt Brady’s ears thirty or fifty feet away.
The twelve-foot fence around the perimeter was a rather expensive undertaking, but he’d lost Maggie once, and there were still people out there who wanted to do him damage, so he knew it was the easiest way to protect his family when he couldn’t be there, was sleeping, or had to be otherwise occupied. He’d rigged the gate up with a photo camera and the bridge with a booby trap, which would make it collapse if the wrong person happened to come calling. All of Brady’s friends knew they couldn’t just stop by. They needed to text him or call him ahead of time. If they didn’t, well, they deserved whatever consequence they earned.
This morning, Brady sat alone on the back porch with his first cup of brewed Black Rifle coffee. His favorite blend was a medium, with easily a quarter cup of heavy cream added. His feet rested on the stool he’d made out of branches he’d cut and cured himself. The sun was just beginning to come over the east ridge and shed long pink and yellow shards of light over the pine trees on the next crest filtering down into his little garden below. He heard a hawk in the distance soaring, looking for breakfast or just playing in the early morning air.
Smaller birds jumped around the vegetable and flower garden or mucked around the various birdhouses filled with assorted black sunflower seeds he’d grown himself and other wild seed he’d bought and laced with hot pepper sauce to keep away the squirrels. Bird seed was for birds, not for squirrels. He wished he could find something that he could use to keep away the black birds, because he enjoyed the cardinals, blue jays, red finches, and pretty little tiny yellow tweeters, as he called them, who liked to travel in clusters of ten or fifteen and almost buzzed like butterflies over his head from time to time.
The butterflies were out today too. They ranged in colors from bright yellow to orange and brown—tiger swallowtails, regal fritillary, buckeyes, greenish cabbage moths, and dragonflies—making his garden look like JFK airport with the tiny air transports. He was fascinated by the huge Polyphemus moths, resembling a bat. Those things were so big Brady wondered if they might even taste good if he tried to grill them but never had the stomach for it.
It was the most beautiful sight after the look on Maggie’s face in the morning as she woke in his arms or the sight of Emma excited about seeing a new baby chick or eating fresh ice cream with strawberries she’d picked herself. Those were his most coveted views. But this view of the garden, the valley, the paradise that was his life now, he could never drink in enough.
He took a long sip of coffee, set the mug down on the arm of the chair, and inhaled the early morning dewy air. He used to have to plan out his day. He had a long list of things to repair, fences to mend, things to plant, things to start, but none of that existed now. Now that Maggie came back, now that he found her, now that she was alive and she once again became the lightning rod for his life, suddenly there was a reason for him to stay alive. His sole purpose in life was to protect her, to make her happy, to give Emma every kind of support and feeling of security he could. He would never let his women down now that he had gotten them back.
Finally.
A door behind him opened, and Tate slipped his nose through the crack, coming out to sit by his side. He knew Maggie had gotten up to let him out.
“Go ahead, Tate, do your business. Or do you want me to walk with you today?”
The black Doberman walked down the steps, aimlessly sniffing right and left, lifting his leg several times, watching the sky, examining the tall trees in the distance, and the way they swayed back and forth. Tate looked for danger just like Brady did.
“It’s a pretty morning, isn’t it, Tate?”
The dog looked back up to him as if agreeing. After a few seconds, Tate struck out ahead, jogging down one of his garden paths and leaving Brady behind.
“Go do your business. I promise I won’t try to look. Come back when you’re done though.”
Brady walked through the ears of corn rising above his waistline, the plants beginning to develop blooming fronds that would turn into that luscious yellow and white mixed kernel that was his favorite. He let his hands smooth over the stiff deep green leaves, that grew sort of like his banana trees. The stalks were wrapped around each other strong, waving in the morning breeze, attracting butterflies and the buzzing of honey bees.
“I wonder if Maggie would like to get some bees. That might be kind of fun, wouldn’t it?” Brady said to himself.
He walked out toward the orchard past several rows of golden and red beets, the two rows of carrots—Nantes half-longs, his favorite variety. They were deep orange flesh with a rounded tip, not pointed like store bought carrots. Brady liked the smooth sweet carrots that were about eight inches long. He searched the row and picked up one that was about an inch cross on top, where the green part of the carrot’s ancient pedigree still lingered before the Dutch bred them orange to match their national colors. He pulled the tuber from the loamy, sandy, and manure-filled soil, turned on the faucet nearby and cleaned it up, and then took a bite. There was something right about having a fresh carrot right out of the ground for breakfast. After, of course, he’d had his coffee.
He tossed the carrot top back into the flock, grabbed his coffee cup, and headed down toward his banana patch. Last week, he’d mail ordered some special bananas from Costa Rica, and he wanted to make sure they were transplanting correctly. One of the things he’d read about bananas was that they liked urea, and even though he’d tried to get Tate to pee on them, the dog had his own ideas about where he liked to do his business, so Brady liked to go out and give them a pee himself. After all, he was hoping for some really nice Cavendish bananas maybe later on in the season.
He had several other tall ones that had started to bunch and had developed several brown hands on some of the stalks. At the bottom of the bananas there were pups, little mini banana trees started from the root of the mother.
He was so excited with this new venture, this new epicurean delight, he was now looking into finding exotic blue and red bananas, hoping to plant a huge patch and perhaps build a net around them so he could protect them from the occasional frost they got in the wintertime. But so far, his frost level was usually protected by the tall trees on the ridge, and with good circulation and the wind coming right through the canyon, he very rarely saw frost and never snow.
Tate appeared from deeper in the garden, sniffing where Brady had peed on one particular banana plant that was now nearly twenty feet tall. He lifted his leg and added his part.
