Category: STORY

“Received by whom?” I asked.

I waited behind the split-rail cedar fence until Ross shifted his tractor into high gear and bounced away down the tractor lane toward the lower honeycrisp block.

The gravel crunched beneath Deputy Miller’s boots as he waited by the tailgate of my beat-up pickup truck.

The red dust of the lower valley blew across the chain-link fence behind the fairgrounds administrative annex.

“Put it on the counter,” I said.

The gravel crunched under my bicycle tires as I coasted behind the high cedar hedgerow outside the apiary line.

The livestock pavilion smelled of cedar shavings, damp wool, and sweet molasses feed as the exhaust fans droned overhead.

Emma was five, unstoppable in pink sneakers with her left lace dragging through the dust, clutching a crinkled plastic bag with only one gummy square left inside.

“Emma, stay on the mulch,” I called, but her pink sneakers were already crunching across the gravel toward the bench by the sycamores.