Page 1 of Mending Fences
CHAPTER ONE
All Mandy needed was four more inches to get the perfect shot, but no matter which direction she moved along the gate, the black-walnut tree blocked part of her view. She glanced over her shoulder. The only vehicle on the neglected lane was her ancient blue VW Golf, or the “Golf Ball,” named for the many dents inflicted by an Indiana hailstorm. Vehicles sped by on the county road beyond. Still, she felt as if someone were watching her.
Sometime in the last decade, the old wrought-iron gate had been replaced with a standard metal five-row pole gate. The rock columns that supported the archway now crumbled from their lofty height to little taller than her own five and a half feet. Haphazard piles of rubble lay within the fence line—a victim of the tornado that had hopscotched across the area three years ago. New chain-link fencing replaced the old pole fence.
Mandy tested the gate. The chain didn’t swing more than five inches either way. Climbing on the lowest rail and leaning over the top, she tried again, but the tree still obscured her view. The second rail wasn’t any better, nor the third. On the fourth, her positioning became precarious but gave her the best view so far. After checking to make sure no one was watching, she swung her leg over the top rail and straddled the gate, adjusting her flowing skirt to keep the fabric from tangling around her knees. Grandma Mae’s voice echoed in her head: “Amanda, ladies don’t climb in dresses,” but she needed to take the shot. Not as clean a shot as she would get from inside the gate, but good enough. Mandy leaned as far as she dared to the right and focused through the viewfinder. Click.
“Hey! No trespassing!” a harsh male voice bellowed behind her.
Mandy turned to see who, and her world turned upside down. Her foot hit the ground first, but she kept going.
As the air came back into her lungs, three things came to her—the pain in her left foot, the blue, plastic-looking gun pointed at her face, and the portion of her skirt waving at her from the gate. Ignoring the toy gun, she sat up and yelped. There would be bruises. She tugged the remains of her skirt down. A chunk was missing from the right side, exposing more of her thigh than she was comfortable with.
The camera. Where was it? Several black lumps lay four feet away. She closed her eyes, hoping she was seeing double. No use. The camera lens lay in three pieces on the cracked asphalt. If she were lucky, the man holding the funny plastic gun would shoot her, and maybe it would fire real bullets and not water. Death would be better than facing her faculty adviser. She turned her attention to the gun holder.
“Can’t you read?” He waved the gun toward one of the “No Trespassing” signs hanging every ten yards along the fence.
“Of course, I can. I was on that side of the fence. I am only trespassing because I fell.” She attempted to look him in the eye, but the sun peeking at her over his shoulder forced her to squint.
“Get up.”
Standing up in a skirt from her position was no easy feat.Grandma Mae would have a hissy fit if she saw me now.
“Hurry up.”
“You can be a gentleman and put the gun away and give me a hand, or you can wait.”
He chose to wait.
Mandy suppressed a cry as she stood, then adjusted her weight to her right leg.
“So, what were you doing? Coming to vandalize the old Crawford place?” Even standing she couldn’t see his face well. The shadow of the hat he wore hid most of it.
“I think it should be fairly obvious my intention isn’t to vandalize anything.” Mandy pointed to the broken camera.
“You were climbing over the gate.”
“I climbedonthe gate. I had no intention of setting foot on the ground.”
“Who sent you?” He waved the gun again.
Mandy gritted her teeth to keep the sarcastic comments inside. “No one sent me.”
“That is what the last one said before hightailing it off to the land developers in Chicago.”
Mandy hopped a step to the gate.
“Hold it right there.”
She rolled her eyes. “Will you please put the squirt gun away so we can sort this out?”
The man shifted. He was younger than she’d first thought, only a year or two older than her twenty-six years.
She hopped again. “I know you don’t believe me, but in case you haven’t noticed, I am hardly in a position to run away or to hurt you.”
He lowered the gun. “This isn’t a squirt gun; it is the newest prototype of printable gun.”
“That thing can shoot real bullets?” The thought that the plastic gun didn’t squirt water caused a tremor to pass through her.
