Hellstrom's Hive

As the sun moved lower behind him on the hill above Guarded Valley, Depeaux took care that the light did not outline him. There were both advantages and disadvantages in such light. It tended to throw some details of the farm into relief—the fencelines, the paths on the opposite hillside, the weathered boards on the barn’s western face.

There still had not been one sign of human activity outside the buildings and no sure indication of humans within them. The irritating hum continued to issue from the barn and Depeaux had exhausted his speculations on what it might be. He had opted tentatively for air conditioning and wished he could enjoy that relief from the hot afternoon in the dusty grass.

A long, cold drink, that’s what I need, he told himself.

The fact that the farm fitted all of the reports and the descriptions (including Porter’s) did not really say anything for it.

Depeaux scanned the valley once more through his binoculars. There was a peculiar waiting air to the emptiness of the place, as though forces were being marshaled to fill the farm with life.

Depeaux wondered what Hellstrom did with his farm’s products. Why was the entire area so devoid of human activity? There’d been no vacationers or picnickers on the dirt road to the valley—although the area seemed attractive enough. Why were the Fosterville residents so closemouthed about Hellstrom’s farm? Porter had been intrigued by this, too. This was a hunting area, but Depeaux had seen no deer sign and not one hunter. The stream obviously held no attraction for fishermen, but still . . .

A Steller’s jay flapped into the tree behind Depeaux, called once with its raucous voice, then flew across the valley into the trees of the far slope.

Depeaux watched the bird’s flight with peculiar interest, realizing it was the first higher life form he’d seen in Hellstrom’s valley. One damned jay! That was some record for a day’s work. But he was supposed to be a bird watcher, wasn’t he? Just a simple little old vacationer, a traveling salesman for the Blue Devil Fireworks Corporation of Baltimore, Maryland. He sighed, worked his way back to the oak’s shade. He had studied the maps, the aerial photographs, Porter’s descriptions, all of the accumulated reports. Every detail had been committed to memory. He scanned his back trail with the binoculars. Nothing moved in the tall grass of the open area or in the trees beyond it. Nothing. The oddity of this became increasingly demanding of his attention.

One damned jay?

It had been a thing long inserting itself into his awareness, but now he focused on it to the exclusion of all other considerations. One bird. It was as though animal life had been swept away from the region around Guarded Valley. Why hadn’t Porter mentioned that? And the grazing cattle down there to the north toward Fosterville. No fence kept them from approaching the farm, but they kept their distance.

Why?

In that instant, Depeaux recognized what it was that had made the farm’s fields appear so strange to him.

They were clean.

Those fields had not been harvested. They had been swept clean of every stalk, every leaf, every twig. An orchard occupied the upper reaches of the valley and Depeaux crawled back to study it through the binoculars. There were no bits of rotten fruit on the ground, no culls, no leaves or limbs—nothing.

Clean.

But the tall grass remained all around on the perimeter hills.