“We just want to make sure there are no other contaminated sprays.”
“I tell you that I cleaned out my chemical shed. You people got it all. The only other chemicals I have are fresh.”
“If this organism had caught hold, it would have spread like wildfire.”
“Just mind your own business, Gray, and let a man get to work.”
Looking at his corn now, he could not see what all the fuss had been about. There was nothing wrong here. Nothing at all.
He turned around and headed back toward the access road. Bacterial organisms, Dr. Gray had said. So he wasn’t out of the woods yet. But five days with nothing… well, it was heartening, that’s all he could think. It was damned heartening.
Near the end of the cornrow, Bormett stopped again to examine one of the stalks. It looked good. Healthy. The ears were already more than six inches long, and from this point on they would fill out, and grow very fast to fourteen or even eighteen inches in length.
He pulled an ear off a stalk, and immediately knew that something was wrong. Drastically wrong. The ear was soft. And very light. He could dent it with only a slight pressure from his thumb and fingers. It was rotting on the stalk.
He dropped the ear, then pulled several others from neighboring stalks. But they were all the same. Soft to the touch, and very light.
Maybe it was just as this edge of the field.
He turned and raced down the row, stumbling to a halt a hundred yards along, where he snatched four ears off as many stalks. But it was the same. The cobs felt mushy.
Oh, God. It was happening. His fields were dying.
He pulled another ear off its stalk and raced with it back out of the row, up to the access road, where he could see better in the waning light.
This ear was as soft as the others. Whatever was wrong with this one was wrong with the entire field.
He grabbed the husk and pulled it down, exposing the cob and kernels. A powerful smell of rot assailed him, and for several long seconds he stood there, staring at the terrible thing his corn had become.
Something had eaten at the corn. The kernels were blackened and rotted on the cob. Instead of beautifully even rows of kernels, there was nothing here but putrescence.
He made to throw the terrible thing down on the ground, but then he thought about Joseph and the. others. They’d be out here in the morning. They’d see it lying here in the open. They’d know what was happening.
Instead, he turned and threw the infected ear back out into the field as far as he could, a noise like a wounded animal’s cry escaping from his throat.
He stumbled back away from the field, as if it were a malevolent, living creature now, bent on destroying him.
“No,” he cried, the sound strangely weak from a man so large, and he scrambled back up into his pickup truck.
He started the engine and spun the truck around in front of the tank farm, but stalled the engine before he could start up the hill. He managed to get it started again, then raced away from the field, up the hill, over the crest, and then down the other side into the farmyard. He parked behind the big barn.
He sat there behind the wheel for a long time, trying to understand. But there was no reason for it. Kedrov and the little man had no reason to do this to him. No reason at all.
He thought about the girl, Raya, but as hard as he tried, he could feel no animosity toward her. None of this had been her fault. No doubt she had merely followed orders. If she knew what was happening, and how much it meant, she would feel guilty, he thought. But he was a foolish old man.
What had he done or said to attract the Russians to him? He had done nothing. He had done nothing. He was nothing more or less than an Iowa farmer. A successful corn farmer, but nothing more than a heartland farmer.
The United States has become the breadbasket of the world, he had told the Russians.
Was that what they had objected to? Could they have gone to such extremes out of mere envy?
He got out and started up toward the house. He could clearly see Kedrov’s sickly sweet smile as well as Dr. Lubiako’s sympathetic expression when he had introduced the farm journalist.
Well, I, for one, am worried about hybrids. I think we should move away from them.
Kedrov had not minced his words. Nor had the little man in the military uniform minced his words the next day.
“I’ve come to see you this morning because I would like to do a little horse trading with you,” the little man had said.
“What do you want?”
“I need a favor, Mr. Bormett. Not a very large favor, and certainly nothing illegal by your own country’s laws. I’m not, as you may fear, trying to recruit you to spy for the Soviet Union. But you can be of some small help to me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I’m talking about an experiment that I would like you to help me with.”
“What kind of an experiment?”
“Oh, it is harmless, I assure you. Harmless. But it does require your absolute cooperation.”
Bormett said nothing. He was too frightened. He could only think of Catherine, and her reaction if she saw the photographs. It would kill her.
“Am I going to have your cooperation, Mr. Bormett?”
He had nodded. What the hell else could he do?
“Someone will be coming to see you. Follow his instructions to the letter. No questions asked. Do I make myself clear?”
Again he had nodded. The little man held all the aces.
“When you are finished, the negatives will be returned to you, and we will forget that we ever heard your name. Simple.”
The negatives would be destroyed, the photographic record of his misdeeds erased. But what of the memory? It would endure. It was something he was going to have to live with for the rest of his life. That, and the fact he had killed his fields.
The porch light was on. As Bormett mounted the front steps, he had a vision of Katy coming out and saying, I’ve seen the pictures. What have you done? Why did you do it? What were you thinking about?
Inside, the house was quiet, except for the grandfather clock out of sight in the living room. He stood just within the vestibule listening, holding his breath.
After a minute or two, he went into the kitchen and turned on the light over the electric range. He got himself a drink of water at the sink, and then took down a bottle of bourbon from a cabinet and poured a stiff shot into his water glass.
He leaned against the counter, straightening up every now and then to take a sip of his drink as he tried to think this all out.
He had done what they wanted, because it would have been impossible to live without Katy. And he was sure that the pictures would have killed her or driven her off. So he had done what they wanted. He had sprayed his fields. But now he was faced with a second, and in some respects worse, dilemma. He had killed his corn. Dr. Gray would remember his tests. He would remember warning Bormett about the bacteria in the milk jug. When it was discovered that the corn was dead, they’d blame him. There’d be no insurance, no federal aid, nothing. He wouldn’t go bankrupt, not quite, but his reputation would be destroyed. Next year, when there was a good crop, no one would bid on it. They’d be afraid of his corn.
Which meant he was ruined. How in hell could he explain to anyone what had happened? If the real reason for what he had done ever came out…. No matter the outcome, he was the loser.
He poured himself another stiff shot of bourbon, then left the kitchen and slowly trudged upstairs to his and Katy’s bedroom.
He stood in the doorway, the only light in the room from the dials of the bedside clock radio. She’d be back in a couple of hours. He’d already be in bed, and she’d crawl in next to him and snuggle up close. They’d talk for a while, until they both drifted off to sleep.