If it's not one thing it's another. Hick got a group text from our across-the-road crazy-dog neighbor. We have no gripes with her or her husband. They're good people. It's just their crazy rottweiler rescue dog, and the killer poodle, that we have issues with. Anyhoo...there's about 40 families who live out here in our compound. It's not an official compound. The land used to be part of a huge farm, and it was subdivided and sold in 10 acre plots.
When we first bought our land, there were only about 10 families living here. All the roads are gravel, not maintained by the county. There was a metal gate that was kept locked. To enter and exit, you had to get out of your car (most likely a truck) and unlock and then lock the padlock on the gate. If somebody was coming to visit, you had to meet them there, or give them a key ahead of time. Both entrances, on two different county roads, had padlocked gates. It's private property, not a through road.
Then somebody stole the gates.
More and more landowners started building homes and living here. We've always looked out for each other. Nobody belongs in here except landowners and their guests. Not salesmen, not trash-dumpers, not headless-body dumpers, not traveling-meth-lab dumpers, not sight-seers, not thieves. In the early days, it was not uncommon for a landowner to follow a strange car and stop the driver and ask their business. And make it clear that this is not public property. There's no good reason for people to be in here unless they live here. Only unsavory reasons.
So...this evening, just before sunset, Hick gets this text from the across-road neighbor. She said that two guys in a champagne (guess she's hoity-toity) colored car stopped her on the gravel road, and asked if there were any public caves out here. She said they looked like they were on drugs. She told them it was a private subdivision, and they needed to leave. They went on up the road and turned around. As she said, "They were shady. Looked to be on drugs. Keep an eye out for them."
I heard our dogs going crazy this evening. I didn't know anything about the shady cavers then. Hick said he went outside to look around, and drove down the road a ways, but didn't see anything. Apparently back-creek neighbor Bev is now in the loop, because she also sent Hick a text to warn him. Not that we're all as conspiracy-conscious as Bev.
Seriously. It's January freakin' eighteenth! The middle of winter. Who goes looking for a cave at sunset on a Thursday night? NOBODY, unless maybe they're planning some kind of spooky ritual.
Yeah. We may sound paranoid to you city-dwellers. But let's not forget, somehow a headless body got by us, and was discovered in a septic tank a half mile up the gravel road from Val's homestead.
You can bet we're gonna be nosy and unwelcoming to strangers.
I'd be popping a few shells in my shotgun...well first I'd buy a shotgun.
ReplyDeleteYou could patronize Hickmart. He has plenty, though they're put away, and only used for hoarding--I mean COLLECTING, and for sale or barter. He traded one for a kid's 4-wheeler, back when the boys were young, then he rode it himself because it was really peppy. He had to throttle it back for the young 'uns.
DeleteA headless body in a septic tank? yikes! I'll have to go back and read that story. I'd be suspicious of all strangers too. Maybe Hick can find some replacement gates on his auction rounds and a giant Private Property sign or two.
ReplyDeleteI don't remember if I did a whole story on it, but I know I talked about it in the comments. It was a missing tattoo artist, who got on the wrong side of some low-to-mid-level meth distributors, who had links to a motorcycle gang and Mexico. They murdered him at a house in a lake development, then brought his body out here to a for-sale house, and put it in the septic tank.
DeleteTruth is more sensational than fiction.
Send Jack and Copper as the welcome team. They'll chase away unwanted travelers...
ReplyDeleteThey would be like good cop/bad cop. Jack lures people in because he's so cute, then Copper scares them off with his imposing appearance and gruff bark.
DeleteSounds a bit fishy, unless those guys were looking for a place to dwell. Always be aware. Riff-raff is everywhere.
ReplyDeleteYou never know. A cave WOULD be climate-controlled.
DeleteBackroadsians fall all over themselves being polite to strangers out in public (unless you're in line with them at convenience stores). But that politeness is replaced with suspicion if the strangers invade Backroadsians' neighborhoods. We're a territorial lot.