Freeman Farm

Bruce C. Smith

Description

A heartwarming tale of family, love, and hope as a young man down on his luck travels to the North Woods of Minnesota in search of a new chapter.
It is seemingly another ordinary workday in an imports warehouse in Marietta, Georgia, as Burke Wickstrom unlocks his office door. What he does not expect as he flips on the lights is to see the dark muzzle of a DEA agent’s pistol pointed at his face. Moments later, Burke is under arrest, a suspect in a terrible crime.
Released after his story checks out, Burke, now unemployed and uncertain how to move forward, sells most of his material possessions and decides to visit his elderly uncle, Luther, at the old Freeman Farm in northern Minnesota, a place that holds fond childhood memories. As Burke renews family bonds and embraces a simpler lifestyle, he agrees to stay and help Luther with the farm. But while on this new path, Burke begins to realize that life might be leading him just where he needs to be.

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: LifeRich Publishing
• Date de parution: 16 août 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781489741226
• Langue: English

Extrait

FREEMAN FARM
 
 
 
 
 
 
BRUCE C. SMITH
 
 
 

 
Copyright © 2022 Bruce C. Smith.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
LifeRich Publishing is a registered trademark of The Reader’s Digest Association, Inc.
 
LifeRich Publishing
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www.liferichpublishing.com
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-4897-4121-9 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4897-4120-2 (hc)
ISBN: 978-1-4897-4122-6 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022906607
 
LifeRich Publishing rev. date: 07/20/2022
Contents
1Hindsight
2North by West
3A New World
4Mentor
5First Muster
6A Good Storm
7Sugaring
8Sticks
9Harbingers
10In an Orchard
11Good Earth
12New Life
13Sawdust
14A Real Garden
15Suddenly Summer
16An Arrival
17Market Morning
18Frost
19Bounty
20We Gather Together
21Beyond the Horizon
22Christmas at Freeman Farm
23Winter Anew
24Late Dawn
1 Hindsight
Colorless sparrows, neither brown nor gray, picked at the bare ground beneath the flat, tinted office window. Burke stared blankly at them for several minutes before he saw them. They were house sparrows, a dozen or more, unremarkable, hopping silently in a sluggish group on the urban pavement for no apparent purpose, annoying him as they often did. What are they good for? he thought to himself. And for that matter, what am I good for right about now? He left both questions unanswered.
The building that held him was not a place he’d expected to visit when the day began. He remembered it was Thursday, February 2, another drab day like many winter days in Marietta, Georgia where he lived and worked. Only a few pines beyond the sea of dully hued cars added some dark green for contrast. The low clouds and the bleak landscape seemed to be mixed with dirty gray like the sparrows, and like his mood.
Burke Wickstrom felt the handcuffs on his wrists and looked at the clock in the sparsely furnished room. It was almost 4 PM, or more like finally 4 PM. It was much harder standing up from a chair with his hands behind his back. With his slim build and 5’9” frame, he wouldn’t pose a physical threat to any of the burly DEA agents he had seen that day, and yet the cuffs were still locked in place. He wished he could rub his eyes, and tried to think clearly. How did I get into this mess? He had spent much of the day in a different, windowless room, first waiting for the DEA agents to interrogate him, then waiting again after they finished. The office he had been in for the last hour at least had a window, even if he could see only the sparrows. For about the twentieth time that day he went back over the events that had brought him here only a few hours before.
Burke had gone to work in the warehouse of Craft & Quality, his friend Steve Hall’s import business, almost seven years before, right out of college. He and Steve had graduated on the same day from Ohio State, Steve with a degree in business, Burke with one in literature and history. Steve launched his company at a good time, but when the economy began to slow in 1999 he opted to expand rather than cut back. The attack on the World Trade Center stalled businesses across the country even more, Craft and Quality among them. Burke had worked steadily in Steve’s warehouse from day one, but the slump hit the company hard enough that Steve began to lay off employees. Before long, only Burke and one other employee remained in the warehouse, and office staff had been cut severely.
Burke had handled every company order since business began, so it seemed a little odd when he read the memo saying that a container coming in via Miami would go to a warehousing firm in Tampa instead of being handled the usual way in Marietta. The paperwork came through in a few days, and Burke forgot about it until four months later when another container, this time via Jacksonville, traveled the same way. He asked Steve about it but was brushed off with an explanation about contracted shippers and discount chain buyers. The business continued limping along, but barely.
Those two containers were the beginning of Steve’s efforts to keep his business from folding. Over the course of the next two years Steve participated in a scheme to import certain containers for a Japanese supplier of stainless steel cookware. Had they contained nothing else, this morning would have begun routinely like the others.
In the early morning of Thursday, February 2, Burke unlocked his office and flipped on the lights as usual. The sight of the big, dark muzzle of the DEA agent’s .40 caliber pistol pointed at his face was a surprise, to say the least. The two agents seemed convinced he was completely deaf as they screamed their orders.
“FREEZE! ON THE FLOOR! HANDS BEHIND YOUR HEAD!” were all more than perfectly audible, and Burke hoped the blue jackets with DEA AGENT in big yellow letters made them the real thing. He had never been handcuffed before, and at once decided he didn’t like it. When things calmed down a little, an agent showed him an official-looking badge and a lengthy search warrant. Burke was under arrest for drug trafficking.
“Drug trafficking? I’ve never used anything illegal in my life, and I’ve never been a dealer, that’s for damn sure! You’re making a really big mistake. You’ve got the wrong place.” The agents made no reply, and walked him out behind the warehouse to a parked gray Ford Victoria with tinted windows and US government plates. They read Burke his Miranda rights from a card, but as the agents were about to go back in to wait on the arrival of the other employee, Burke reminded them that he would normally unlock the outer doors about ten minutes before starting time, and told them where to find the keys in the office. Soon John White, the only other warehouse employee, emerged, also in handcuffs. Agents put him into another waiting car. Once the arrests had been completed, Burke saw two vans full of agents and a K-9 unit arrive and begin searching the warehouse.
While this was in progress the two agents drove Burke to the DEA building in Atlanta and seated him in an interrogation room. After Burke waited alone for an hour the two agents who transported him came in and said, “We have some questions.” Burke nodded. The first agent asked him if he wanted to make a phone call for legal counsel.
“No,” Burke replied, “but does Steve Hall know about this?”
“Yes,” was the answer, “and he’s under arrest, too, in Jacksonville.”
“Are you sure you don’t want a lawyer?”
“I’m sure,” Burke replied with confidence. “I’ll tell you everything I know, but I don’t know anything about drug trafficking.”
Four hours of grilling and repeated questions left Burke exhausted. He knew he had nothing to hide because he knew every detail of the Craft & Quality warehouse operation. He told the agents about the receipts coming through from the Jacksonville warehouse company, and gave them Steve’s explanation. He flat didn’t know what was in those containers other than what the paperwork said, which was stainless steel cookware from Japan. He had never been to Jacksonville or Tampa on any occasion, and none of those containers had passed through his warehouse in Marietta. He didn’t know anything about where they went other than what Steve had said, to a discount chain buyer.
When the questioning finally ended, Burke waited alone for yet another hour. He was just about to call urgently for a trip to the john when the two agents returned and unlocked his handcuffs.
“This is your lucky day,” the lead agent remarked as he put the cuffs back on his belt. “The canine agents didn’t find anything in the warehouse or the offices. It looks like your story checks out.”
“Thank you,” Burke muttered as he drew a very deep breath and wondered what would come next.
“You’re free to go, and White has already been released.”
“What about Steve?”
The agents looked at each other, then told Burke, “Steve is not free to go. He’ll be held on charges of trafficking in a controlled substance, namely, heroin.
“Oh, crap. How serious is this?” Burke asked. The agent only said, “Call Hall’s attorney. He’ll fill you in.”
Burke got a ride back to Marietta with the agent who had first surprised him at the warehouse that morning, his mind racing as they drove to Marietta. To help settle his thoughts, Burke drove his own car home the long way out into the countryside, then back through the curvy suburban streets. It was well after seven by the time he pulled back into the apartment driveway and went inside.
Burke wasted no time calling Walter Ritter, Steve’s attorney, after arriving back home. Burke asked the attorney about his friend Steve.
“Well, a federal judge will no doubt order the business seized pending the charges and a trial,” Ritter said. “Mr. Hall will be arraigned on the charges, there’ll be a