The Fields are Bare!

…Sliding forward, wedging herself between the front seats, Alex broke the long silence by asking, “Arnie, why is this going on?” Arnie fixed his eyes on Alex’s piercing stare; the yellow dancing flames reflected on her black eye pupils, she didn’t waver. Child like, she waited, as if she had asked why the sun comes up or where did babies comes from. Tom’s eyes looked from side to side as he scanned the road for an enemy, only occasionally glancing at Arnie. He began, “Ok kids, here’s how I see it. Remember ARA, the company buying up all the farms? And Abdu Shimark—handing out tickets and money to eliminate the field hands? And the Mexicans not being able to sell oil, because the ARA was dumping oil on the market, and maybe even controlling the oil in this country. Just imagine, or now, just look around.” He hesitated, and then waved one arm in the direction of the burning fields, “Anyway, imagine, what if there is a master plan?” Tom looked in Arnie’s direction for an unusually long time. Alex cocked her head slightly to one side, questioning even more with her eyes as she softly repeated, “Master plan?” Arnie picked up where he left off, “No one needs nuclear weapons, rockets, or armies to destroy a country. All they need to do is to control, or destroy the basic food supply. What is it that people have to have? Food, water and air. Right? From those three items, what is in question here? FOOD! Plain and simple, who gets the food. Or who has control of the food supply. Or who has control of the land that produces the food.” “That is it? Aw, come on, Food? Who gets the food?” Alex insisted. “You’re right. There’s a lot more to it than just that... …“There’s someone coming up fast. And they’ve got guns!” Alex shouted as she watched out the rear of the van. …“Handle it! I’ve got my hands full!” Tom snapped without breaking his concentration on his driving. People and vehicles lined the road. Arnie was ready with one of the automatic rifles. Running at about 85 mph, Tom made quick snappy movements with the steering wheel, missing the obstructions by inches. He didn’t let off the speed. Leaning over, Alex unclipped one of the hand grenades from the ammo belt that lay at her feet. Turning back to the rear, she leaned far over the top of the transverse couch, unlatched the rear door and slightly opened it. She grasped the safety pin with her teeth and jerked it out. Reaching as low as possible behind the seat, she gently dropped the grenade out of the rear door of their speeding van. She watched as the handle snapped away and the grenade bounced several times along the path of the road. The men along the sides of the road dove for cover behind the parked vehicles as the grenade exploded under the front end of the chasing car. The hood blew off, the two front tires burst and the car became a cloud of steam. “What the heck was that?” Tom asked. “That? That was just a lousy driver!” Alex answered. ... …Alex asked the men to gather around the computer. As she rolled past the ‘paid’ accounts displayed on the screen, Arnie asked, “Is this for real? Are they actual, paid dollar amounts?” She cleared the screen, entered a few different codes, and the screen filled with check numbers, amounts, names, and dates. Alex commented, “That, my dear Sir, IS real. That is the central computer’s record of cutting checks, real checks, that a real person sent to a real bank, to a FALSE account! And later, a real person extracted real, cold, hard, CASH! Real money!” “But who?” Tom asked… …“TURN AROUND! GET IN THE SOUTH BOUND LANE!” Arnie yelled. Tom didn’t question. He braked very hard, cut into the right lane of traffic toward the off ramp, swung under I-4, and hung a hard left to head south. He floored the big Hemi-head up the ramp. Tom accelerated into the flow of the traffic, between two large semi cattle trucks loaded with live Black Angus. He swung out to the left lane, and as far as they could see there was a continuous convoy of cattle trucks—headed toward the ocean! “Where are they taking all those cows?” Arnie questioned, mostly to himself. It was just after dark as they sat, parked, watching the long line of trucks being unloaded directly onto the freighters. It was a long painful wait: painful for Arnie as he watched the cattle being herded aboard the freighters on the Florida coast, painful for Tom as he caught glimpses of the foreign workers under the bright, moving spot lights. It was about two or three in the morning when Alex walked out of the dark shadows, somewhat limping and dragging her purse. She climbed in the van, dropped to the bunk, kicked off her shoes, and said, “You know what those scum-bags are up to? They are transporting all the cattle that they can get their slimy hands on to Mexico, just out of Merida!” She sighed, and then continued, “They have PROMISED to finish raising the poor beasts for any stupid cow owner in the Southeast USA, and split the profit with them! Do they really think they’ll ever see their half of the profits?! That’s legalized cattle rustling!” She sat up, felt around for her comfortable sleeping sweater, and removed her crop-top at the same time as Arnie said, “The southeast has been hit hard by drought, but hell, we’ll be eating dog-burgers by September.” They continued to sit speechless, dumbfounded and helpless as they watched the dock scene. Tom then said to Alex, “Do you realize that you are topless?” She had forgotten to put on her nightshirt. “Oh!” she gasped as she quickly slipped on the garment…