Farming Fear Read Online Free PDF Page B

Costello replied dryly, “seems to me that if you were trespassing, he had a right to shoot at you. You got your gun with you, Elan?”
    “No, Pa,” Elan replied.
    “Lucky thing I do, then,” Vic said. “You never know what kind of varmints you might run into on the back forty.”
    “This isn’t your land,” Iola said nervously. “It belongs to the power company.”
    Vic Costello spat into the snow. “A technicality,” he said. “It was Costello land before they put up these metal monsters, and it’ll be Costello land again once the towers have rusted away.”
    “That could take a while,” Joe noted. “You might not want to wait around.”
    The elder Costello’s gray eyes narrowed. “I seethe Mortons’ guests are as short on manners as the Mortons themselves,” he said. He spat again.
    Elan Costello brushed the snow off his coat. “Go on home, all of you,” he said, “before we call the cops.”
    “Call ’em if you want—,” Joe began, but Frank put his hand on his brother’s shoulder, stopping him in mid-rebuff.
    ‘We’ll leave,” the elder Hardy replied. “But we’ll be keeping an eye out for more intruders on the Morton land. If we see any, then we’ll be the ones calling the police.”
    The Costellos didn’t reply. They merely glared at the four friends.
    “Come on,” Chet finally said. “Let’s get back to the house.”
    All four teens saddled up and rode back into the woods, being careful to skirt around the edge of the Costello property.
    “No sense giving them another chance to shoot at us,” Chet said angrily.
    “Actually,” Frank said, “I’m not sure they did shoot at us. Mr. Costello had a shotgun, not a rifle.”
    “And it was a rifle shooting at us in the woods,” Joe continued. “We could tell from the sound.”
    “But if Elan and his father weren’t shooting at us,” Iola said, “who was?”
    Frank and Joe both shook their heads.
    “It might be the same person who was lurkingoutside the house last night,” Joe said. “But right now, we just don’t have enough clues to form a good hypothesis.”
    All four of them rode back to the Morton farm in silence. The sky clouded over and a steady snow began to fall. It was nearly a blizzard by the time they got back to the house.
    They put the horses up in the barn, then rubbed the animals down and groomed them. Then the four friends hiked back through the barn toward the big white farmhouse. The snow was falling even more heavily now, and a blustery wind had already begun piling up small drifts all around.
    As the teens crossed the driveway, Grandma and Grandpa Morton pulled up in the family station wagon. Huge bags of groceries filled the back of the car. The brothers and their friends carried the food in, then helped to put it away.
    “I know your brother eats a lot,” Joe said to Iola as he stuffed another can of tuna into the pantry, “but this much grub could feed a whole army of Chets!”
    Chet laughed and slugged Joe in the arm.
    “We’re stocking up,” Grandpa explained. “The weatherman says we’re going to get a heap of snow over the next few days. We need to make sure we have plenty of provisions in case we get snowed in.”
    “Do you think that’s likely?” Frank asked.
    Grandma Morton shrugged. “It’s happened before,”she said, “and it’ll happen again. If not this winter, then the next, or the one after that.”
    “It’s been a while since Bayport’s last big blizzard,” Grandpa noted. ‘We’re due for another.” He finished stocking some bottles of lantern kerosene under a cupboard near the sink.
    “That’d make an interesting twist to our vacation,” Joe said.
    “It wouldn’t be so bad,” Iola insisted. “We have plenty of candles and lanterns, and all three fireplaces work really well. This old farmhouse can stay pretty toasty, even without modern power and heat.”
    “Don’t go counting on a snow day yet,” Grandma replied, laughing. “If this blizzard