Chapter 11
Work of the Mowing Devil
"You should have been there last night!" Trixie cried from atop the ottoman in the Belden's family room. "When Miles put the moves on Di, Mart sent that ball right out of the park, Moms!"
Mrs. Belden, who was trying to pin up the hem in the gingham sundress she'd made for her daughter, let out a small sigh. "Trixie, how many times do I have to ask you? Would you please stand still? And what do you mean, 'Miles put the moves on Di'?" she finished a bit worriedly.
"He put his arm around her!" the rambling girl exclaimed dramatically. "Can you believe it? And that no-good creep also had the nerve to call me a dust mop! Of course, the mayor's son accused Dan of being a punk, too, and putting the moves on me."
Mrs. Belden accidentally pricked her daughter with one of the pins, and Trixie let out a little yelp. "Dan didn't, did he?" Moms asked with alarm.
"Oh no!" Trixie replied. "Dan would never do anything like that. We're just friends. Besides, Jim's his buddy, and guys don't do stuff like that to other guys girls. Not that I'm Jim's girl, really. I don't belong to anybody, but well, I do sort of wear his bracelet. And oh, Moms, I'm so worried that Mr. Wheeler will send Jim away to military school this fall! And it's all because Jim got into a little ol' fight with that no-good Miles. And it was all because Jim cares about the Bob-Whites more than well, just about anything!"
Moms felt like pulling out her hair. Not only would Trixie not stop moving, but the conversation had taken a turn down a bumpy road, and the ride was getting uncomfortable. Things like first crushes and I.D. bracelets were all a part of growing up. Her daughter was fourteen, after all. Still, that didn't make it any easier to be a mother and listen to such things. But Moms also knew how important it was that she did. She needed to be there for her daughter. Advise her as best she could. And most importantly, trust her - within reason, of course.
Thankfully though, Trixie's mother was granted a short reprieve when someone rang the front doorbell. Getting up to answer it, Mrs. Belden said, "Wait here…and don't move. We're going to get this done today – if it's the last thing we do."
A moment later, Moms returned with Dan Mangan trailing behind her.
As the young man caught sight of the fidgety girl in the pale-blue and white dress, he smirked, and Trixie had to wonder, "why me?"
"Hey, Tink!" he greeted her. "Where's the flower petal hat?"
"Oh, hush up," she told the teasing boy. "Moms, can't we finish this later?" she begged.
"No," Moms replied firmly. "At this rate, it will be Christmas before we're done. Besides, if you would just stand still, we'd be finished already."
The gloomy girl frowned, and as her friend laughed, she said, "What's up? I thought Mr. Maypenny had lots for you to do on the game preserve today?"
Dan looked at Mrs. Belden, then over at Trixie. "Yeah, well, that's an understatement," he hesitated. "But I ran across something I need help with. And I think it might be right up your alley."
Trixie was immediately intrigued. "You don't say," she replied, knowing that this was code for something mysterious was in the air.
"Mmm," Dan replied as a yes. "Seems something got into Mr. Maypenny's corn last night. You know, the stuff your brothers helped plant in the backfield to feed the deer on the preserve this winter?"
Moms let out a sigh and asked her daughter to turn to the side. "Raccoons, no doubt," she told the doubtful boy from experience. "Those masked bandits can tear apart a plot faster than you can blink an eye. They always choose the best ears, too," she added with a chuckle. "We have a couple of live traps stored in the garage if you'd like to borrow them? Mart hasn't gone into work yet. I'm sure he wouldn't mind digging them out and helping you set them."
"Can I go too, Moms?" Trixie asked hopefully. "I'll come right back when we're through. I know I've got a mountain of laundry to fold. But it isn't going anywhere, is it? I mean…."
"Trixie, if you promise to let me finish here, then yes, you may go. But not until we're done," the weakening woman stressed.
Dan cast the glowing girl a wink. She looked so pretty when she was excited. It seemed criminal that she didn't know it. Boys like Miles Murdock should be locked up for the damage they'd caused. Clenching both fists, pirate Dan made a vow. If the mayor's son ever called his friend names again, why he'd swab the deck with him! Maybe then Mr. Murdock would know what it felt like to be a dust mop.
"Mart upstairs?" he asked, putting his anger back in check.
Trixie looked to the ceiling and snorted. "Yeah," she replied. Mr. Sanderson called last night to congratulate Mr. All-Star on the big win and told him he could sleep in this morning. If you want to talk to him, just follow the music – if you can call that awful ruckus music."
Not five minutes later, Mart zoomed into the family room with his camera about his neck. As he slid to a stop in front of the two ladies, he told Trixie to meet the boys by the garage when she and Moms were through.
From her brother's exuberance, Trixie was sure that the three weren't going to Mr. Maypenny's to inspect and take pictures of raccoon damage. No, this had to be big, and it was all she could do to remain still until Moms finished folding up the hem of her dress.
But finally, they were done, and after slipping back into her more comfortable shorts and tank top, Trixie joined Dan and Mart out front. Dan had ridden over on Spartan and was giving him a cool drink from one of the galvanized watering buckets when she arrived.
The retired circus horse may not have been a spring chicken, but he came from good bloodlines and carried himself proudly. He'd been gifted to Dan by the Wheelers when the young man had begun working on the preserve.
Mart had told Trixie once that the name Spartan meant unyielding in the face of danger or adversity. And it always kind of struck Trixie as fitting, given the boy's past, that he'd come to own a horse with a name which could have been his own.
Now, wheeling her bicycle out of the garage, the curious girl paused beside Mart, seated on his bike, and noticed that her brother didn't have a cage trap.
"You goons going to shed some light on what's really going on? Or do you plan to keep me in the dark?" she asked.
"I think it's best if you just see this for yourself," Dan replied cryptically. Then, swinging up into the saddle, added, "Follow me, I'll lead the way."
The teens were headed to the cornfield, on the far side of the game preserve, via a near-forgotten logging road. The early settlers had harvested the timber from this area to build their cabins and outbuildings. Left more a meadow than a forest, the parcel of land was flat and open, allowing plenty of sunlight, making it perfect for farming.
Trixie had known that Mr. Maypenny and the boys had sown the large food plot, but she'd never once been there. Even when she and Honey had patrolled the preserve for poachers, they'd never ventured so far back.
Only now, climbing off her bike, the puzzled teen didn't notice anything amiss? Sure, it was all new to her. But it looked like every other cornfield she'd ever seen. And from the outer edges, none of the tall green stalks appeared to have been disturbed by anything?
But then, with alarm, the young detective thought of the marijuana plantation that she and Honey had stumbled across hidden at the center of Mrs. Elliot's cornfield. Had someone secretly planted cannabis in the middle of the deer garden too?
After Dan had tethered Spartan to a tree branch, he waved for his friends to join him as he started into the maze of towering plants.
Trixie wished now that she'd worn long sleeves and jeans as the rows were tight, and the corn's leaves were as sharp as razor blades as she forced her way through them. With each step, the watchful girl became more nervous that the trio might stumble upon a copperhead. She'd already jumped once when a mouse had scurried by – and where there were mice, there were copperheads.
"How far are we going?" she called out to Dan as she lagged back behind Mart.
"Not far," the young man hollered in return. "Only a few more yards."
And then, as the boys up ahead of her came to a stop, Trixie heard Mart exclaim, "Great googly-moogly! Hurry up, Trix, you've got to see this!"
Now rushing, Trixie gasped as she burst into a small clearing. Running to its center, the astonished girl spun around, laughing. "Why, it's a perfect circle!" she cried. "What on earth did this? No animal could?" Under the teenagers' feet, the rows of corn had been neatly flattened to the ground forming a thick carpet.
"Pretty far-out, right?" Dan chuckled, joining her. "Only I'm afraid Mr. Maypenny and Mr. Wheeler aren't going to think so. That's why I wanted you to see it before I told anyone."
Mart, who'd been busy taking pictures, thanked his friend for that. "Then, spying at what looked to be trails leading off from the circle, he asked, "Is there more to this to this amazing spectacle?"
The darker-haired boy nodded, sobering. "There are three smaller circles," he replied.
"However did you ever find them?" Trixie wondered with awe. "I mean, from the outside, a person would have no idea these are here?"
Dan reached for Trixie's hand and said, "Come on, I'll show you."
Leading his friends out of the field, the young man went on to explain," Yesterday morning, Mr. Maypenny asked me to inspect Mr. Wheeler's deer stands for this year's hunting season. Well, there's one right near here which I found had a few loose boards. Anyway, this morning, when I climbed back up to fix it, I got the shock of my life. I swear the corn wasn't like this yesterday. I would have noticed."
"No doubt," Mart replied as the teens spied the tall oak, supporting the stand.
Sprinting for its ladder, the older Belden then scaled to the top like a monkey in a banana tree and whistled as he looked out across the field. "This is straight out of the pages of Cosmo Mc Naught and the Sinister Circle!" he cried. "Appears to moi that 'They' have bequeathed us with an encrypted communication in the form of a crop circle."
"So it is a crop circle, and I'm not losing my marbles?" Dan asked.
As Mart began shooting away with his camera, he replied, "Affirmative, your bag of rainbow-colored aggies is very much intact."
Trixie had heard of crop circles before but thought they only appeared in grain fields in places like England. Usually, the circles mysteriously appeared in the dead of night after U.F.O. sightings. Some were simple solitary impressions in the crop, but still others were made up of intricate geometric patterns.
People, like Mart, tended to believe these enigmas were a product of extraterrestrials that were trying to send messages to mankind using complex mathematical equations. Still others preferred to think that at least some of the circles had been created by natural earth energies, such as wind vortexes and ball lightning. But the only thing that had so far been proven was that certain crop circles had been hoaxes, created by humans for profit or nothing more than kicks.
"Well, hurry up and get your pictures, and then get your 'dairy-air' back down here!" the impatient girl cried, hurling a small stone her brother's way. "I want to see too, you know!"
Unbothered, Mart proceeded to take his sweet time in documenting the fantastic scene. But once he'd finally clambered down and Trixie had taken the perch, she immediately understood why her brother hadn't wanted to budge. The sight was even more remarkable from the air than it had been on the ground.
The pattern of circles, embossed in the corn, was as beautiful as it was spooky. It wasn't a difficult stretch to think that something otherworldly had created it. The center circle, like Dan, had said, was the largest. And the three smaller ones orbiting it were evenly spaced and connected to the big one by straight tangents. The pattern looked vaguely familiar to Trixie - like a diagram out of one of her geography books, maybe? But she wasn't sure and again wished that she'd been paying more attention to her lessons.
"What do you think it means?" she asked the boys, once her feet were again firmly on the ground.
Dan laughed, and as the three young people wandered back to where they'd left Spartan and their bicycles, said, "I think it means you've got another mystery heaped on top of that growing pile of yours, Sir Isaac Newton. But that damage to the crop also says to me that Mr. Wheeler will have to buy deer food this winter," he added more seriously. "So we'd probably better go tell Mr. Maypenny."
Mr. Maypenny's log cabin sat in a small clearing near the center of the game preserve. Out front, using a handsaw, its owner was cutting freshly hewn logs into lengths to do work on one of the wildlife feeding stations.
Mr. Maypenny was a towering older man with a great handlebar mustache, who possessed more strength and tenacity than most young bucks, half his age. And Trixie had to laugh as she thought back to how she and Honey had first imagined the gamekeeper to be a crazy circus freak, who rode through the game preserve on a unicycle, poaching Mr. Wheeler's deer. Of course, none of it was true, as they later discovered, but it'd made for a fun and sometimes scary adventure.
"Good Morning Mr. Maypenny!" she chimed to get his attention.
Glancing up from his work, the leather-skinned man grinned like a Cheshire Cat. He was always pleased when Beldens paid him a visit - or any of the Bob-Whites, for that matter.
"Well, good morning to you, too!" Mr. Maypenny bellowed robustly. "What brings you to my neck of the woods on such a smothering morning? Flies not thick enough for you at home?"
As the older man swatted away several of the nasty fellows, which were resting on his salty arms, Dan said, "I asked the Beldens over to get their opinion on something I ran across this morning on the game preserve."
"Show Mr. Maypenny the pictures you took on your camera, Mart," he added, waving the boy over.
Bringing up his first masterpiece on the device's back display, Mart then shielded the glare on the view screen so the interested woodsman could take a look.
Only as he did so, Mr. Maypenny dropped his saw. "Curse it be!" he cried. "It's the work of the mowing devil, it is!"
Stooping to recover the dropped tool, Trixie repeated, "The mowing devil? Are you referring to some new groundskeeper of Mr. Wheeler's, Mr. Maypenny?"
Taking the saw, as the young girl offered it up, Dan's guardian replied, "By all that is holy, we had better hope not. You see, dear Trixie, I'm speaking of the godless fiend himself. The one foretold of in the Bible."
"Are crop circles mentioned in the Bible, Sir?" Mart asked, truly intrigued.
While twisting one of the ends of his mustache unconsciously, the burly gamekeeper replied, "No, no, Martin. But when I was a child, my grandfather spoke of such things. His family, you see, immigrated to America from England and brought with them tales of the mowing devil."
"Gleeps, that sounds almost frightening," Trixie breathed, taking a seat on the log Mr. Maypenny and Dan used as a chopping block. "What did your Grandfather have to say?" she wondered.
"Well now," her superstitious elder began, "Back in the 1600s, near Hartford-shire, England, there was a very wealthy farmer who needed his oats cut. But when he went to his poor neighbor, who'd done the work before, the farmer found the man had raised his price. The rich farmer, believing the man was trying to take advantage of him, refused to pay it, and a terrible argument ensued. But in parting ways, the poorer man had a change of heart and ran back to the wealthy man, offering to mow the field for less than he had in years past. Only the farmer, still enraged, swore that he'd rather the Devil, himself, mow it down."
"Gleeps!" Trixie gasped as the storyteller paused to take a drink of water from the bottle he had sitting nearby. "That can't be good!"
"Indeed it wasn't," Mr. Maypenny agreed, going on. "For you see, Trixie, that that very night, the wealthy man saw his field burning with flames, and he feared that come morning, all that would be left would be a great pile of ash. Only the farmer found that the oats hadn't burned but had been cut and laid in circles so perfect that no human hand could have done it. It is believed that the Devil had taken the farmer at his word and sliced the grain down with his fiery scythe. After that, the farmer was too afraid to go gather his crop, thinking it was cursed."
Mr. Maypenny's story left the Bob-Whites thinking.
"Did you say this happened near Hartford-shire?" Mart asked, recalling the trip that he and Trixie had taken with Honey and Jim to England. "Mrs. Wheeler's maiden name was Hart. What a remarkable coincidence? It makes one wonder if she had ancestors there?"
Mr. Maypenny appeared almost uncertain if he should reply. "Very well could be," he admitted cautiously. "But the coincidences don't stop there, Martin. You see, this all happened in August too. And last night, concerned about what I'd just learned about International Pine, I spoke with Mr. Wheeler. And in doing so, Matt confessed to me that he told Mr. Turner that he'd rather sell the timber from the preserve to the Devil than to Mr. Banks."
Trixie's eyes nearly popped from their sockets. "He didn't?!" she exclaimed. "Oh, Mr. Maypenny, so you think the Devil took Mr. Wheeler at his word and carved the circles in the cornfield?"
"Could be," Mr. Maypenny replied.
Dan, who'd been listening quietly, now voiced his opinion. "I don't know? That all sounds rather farfetched to me," he said. "Mart seems to think aliens did it. You saw the craft the other night, Mr. Maypenny."
"That I did," the older man concurred with a sigh. "And I still don't know what to make of it. But, my boy, why is it easier to believe that little green men made the circle than Satan?"
To that, Dan had no reply, so Mr. Maypenny finished by saying, "As far as I'm concerned, that that field's been hexed by Evil and should remain untouched."
"So you don't plan to cut down the rest of the corn?" Trixie asked.
"Certainly not," Mr. Maypenny replied, to the young girl's relief.
Trixie was anxious to get back home and give Honey a call. There was always a chance that the crop circle was man-made, and if so, the girls might just be able to track down the person responsible if they did some investigating. Still, the idea that the Devil may have left the impression was a bit unsettling. And the young detective had to wonder if Mr. Maypenny was right, and it should be left alone. But surely E.T.s, if they'd been the ones who'd created it, wouldn't mind if the two girls poked around? Especially if it was meant as some kind of message?
But then, accidentally glancing down at her watch, Trixie became aware of the time, "Gleeps Mart, we should be going!" she cried. "You need to be at Mr. Sanderson's in half an hour. And I promised Moms I'd be back fifteen minutes ago!"
Mr. Maypenny, knowing Mrs. Belden would be worried, suggested that Trixie run into the cabin to call her mother. "Door's unlocked," he said with a smile and a wink. "Phone's in the same place it was the last time you were here and running late."
Thanking the gamekeeper, Trixie dashed off, and when she returned, she heard Mart asking Mr. Maypenny if it was alright to show Mr. Sanderson the pictures he had taken of the circle. "I'm worried about his crops," her brother finished. "That's Mr. Sanderson's sole income, you know?"
"Frances is a good man," Mr. Maypenny replied. "And will keep things under his hat, if you ask. But I'd be cautious telling anyone else about the circle, other than your parents, Martin. And I certainly wouldn't go posting the pictures on the internet like you youngsters do these days. We don't need all the crazies from town out here in the woods, you know?"
"No, we certainly don't need that! Dan agreed. "Mr. Maypenny and I have enough to keep us busy, as it is," he added, as Trixie gave Spartan a rub on his nose goodbye. "You got all that, didn't you, Trix?"
"Sure enough," she replied. "And my lips are zipped."
"Only, you are you going to call up Manor House and let people there know what's going on, aren't you?" the young lady asked Mr. Maypenny, thinking of Honey and Jim. As if they didn't have enough troubles.
"Of course, of course," the responsible man replied. "And I'll speak with Mr. Wheeler, too, Trixie. But I'll let him decide whether I call the police. In the meantime, Dan and I will ride out and put up chains across the logging road in case word gets out about all of this somehow. Thankfully, that old trail is the only access to the field by car. But it's the trespassers on foot, or worse ATVs, that have me the most concerned."
Back at home, Trixie did her best to explain to her aggravated mother why she'd been delayed. Mart had ridden straight to Sanderson Farms from Mr. Maypenny's, so the floundering girl didn't have his photographs to back up her unbelievable account.
"So you see, Moms, it wasn't raccoons," Trixie said, throwing herself down on a kitchen chair as Mrs. Belden removed a batch of toll-house cookies from the oven. "Mr. Maypenny thinks the Devil made the crop circle. Of course, Mart thinks it was aliens. But I don't know what to think. It's sure weird, though."
Sliding the chocolate-chip-laden treats off of the baking sheet and onto a piece of newspaper to cool, Moms admitted that it certainly did sound strange. "Likely a downdraft of some sort," Moms said, doing her best to be logical. "It did get a bit breezy last night."
"But Moms," Trixie objected, snatching one of the warm cookies. "It was hardly windy enough to keep Grampa Belden's old whirly-gig spinning in the back yard. And just wait until you see the pictures Mart took! You won't think it was a downdraft then."
As Moms turned off the oven, through with her early morning baking, Trixie got up and washed her hands at the kitchen sink. "I'm going to go call Honey," she told her mother.
Only Mrs. Belden put a quick stop to that. "Not until you finish folding the laundry," she scolded her daughter. "Once you're done, then you may call your friend."
Letting out a groan, Trixie made her way to the laundry room and resigned herself to the chores at hand.
An hour later, as she was rolling the last pair of her father's work socks, Trixie heard the sound of tires, skidding to a stop in the gravel driveway. Tossing the navy blue ball back into the laundry basket, she hurried to the back door to see who it was and nearly collided headfirst with Brian as he came rushing through. He was home rather early, and as Trixie started to inquire why, her brother interrupted her.
Grabbing his sister's arm, he cried, "Quick, we've got to turn on the T.V.! I heard on the car radio on the way home that a search and rescue helicopter just pulled a guy from Hudson, who'd capsized his kayak. "
"Oh, dear!" Trixie exclaimed as she followed the alarmed boy into the living room. "Someone, we know hasn't drowned, have they?"
"No, no," Brian hushed her as he flipped on the television using the remote. "You didn't let me finish, Trix. The guy's fine. But chopper's pilot spotted a crop circle in some corm field around here, on his way to the landing strip. I guess he took a video of it. It must be all over the news!"
It was rare to see Brian so worked up about anything, and as he flipped to one of the local stations, he yelled for his mother to join them.
Bringing Moms, Bobby, and a barking Reddy flying into the room, the frantic older boy raised the set's volume as the family watched the breaking news report.
"That's Mr. Maypenny's cornfield! Brian cried, recognizing the deer plot from the aerial footage the station kept replaying.
"See, Moms!" Trixie added, dropping onto the sofa next to her baby brother. "I wasn't lying. Have you ever seen a raccoon or wind do something like that?"
Mrs. Belden, stunned, didn't know what to say other than, "No dear, I can't say I ever have."
But then, as the reporter announced that the crop circle site was as yet undisclosed, Trixie let out a big sigh of relief. But she also knew that it probably wouldn't be long before someone figured it out. She and Brian ought to warn Mr. Maypenny and Dan!