Cables Don't Break Like That

It hadn’t rained in three weeks. The soybeans were just up — small, green, and about a week away from dying in the ground. Andy said if they didn’t get water on that field now, they’d lose the crop.

So the three of them drove out to the pond in the northeast corner, where the irrigation pump sits ten feet from the water.

The power cable runs up the side of the pump housing in a spiral metal sheath. Andy spotted it before anyone else did.

Somebody had cut it. Partway through, with a hacksaw. Two wires severed and the third one left whole — so the pump wouldn’t fail outright. It would run, and heat, and burn itself out days later, and nobody would ever know why.

Kit Foxx has been on this farm since March. He is beginning to understand that owning it and being allowed to keep it are two different things.

And he has seen machinery tampered with before.

Sycamore Boy publishes September 1. The eBook is on pre-order at Amazon; the paperback at hlesbrown.com.