Two of Pentacles [Reversed]

A Farm—DAY

The crew is staggered around the farm, digging test pits and I drive the field van around to them to check progress.

My guys are making quick progress in the field. The small parcel has been surveyed before and it is full of test holes. They are digging large square tests but have to squeeze them in between older holes. I am telling the crew that if we finish early, I will take them to work on another job for the end of the week.

The Boss in what I am told is her usual haste has had us start digging tests before I have really looked at the survey map. These first tests have yielded prehistoric artifacts, specifically quartz projectile points, necessitating more testing. But now as I see the map, these tests are really outside the construction zone of impact and therefore out of our accepted territory. We should only be working between the Farmer’s driveway and the barn. Not across his yard.

I point the crew in the right direction to dig while I decide what to do next. One asks why we are slowing up. Wasn’t the project going to be finished today? I assure them that there is still time, as the Farmer bangs out of the house to show me the survey boundaries. He tells me how valuable this plot of land is, and how the Boss assured him we’d be quick as usual.

“I’m doing my best,” I assure him and pace the distance between a ditch and its associated berm. There is no need to even inspect this disturbed area.

The Farmer wanders off and I think to duck behind a tree to piss, but the new girl, tall, skinny and with curly red hair, is quickly gliding through the trees looking for me, waving a machete and smiling broadly.

I offer the redheaded girl to drive her to a new test, but am worried the others will be jealous. That’s when we see the Boss step out of the bushes and out in front of the van brandishing a large buck knife.

“Is she going to cut some of the vegetation with that?” the redheaded girl asks, considering her own machete.

I gulp and smile, “That’s just called the Boss’s way of solving problems.” In any case, it is signal to get back to work. I shut off the engine and usher the girl out.

I join the Sailor in the house.

The Sailor and I are in a dirt-filled cellar digging test pits; as the Boss hasn’t permitted us to fill them in without he inspection, I am piling dirt all around and running out of plastic to pile it on as well, as space to keep each test’s soil separate. Meanwhile, I can hear the Sailor on the phone upstairs somewhere, and realize slowly that he is talking to a potential woman friend, and not his wife. I wonder if he is joking or really flirting.

“Oh, no! I’ll give you a workout!” I hear his side of a flirty joke. He continues, “Yeah. Really. I like biking and yoga and...”

I think “Ahh, Lou, you old dog!”

The Sailor has walked out of earshot and it is suddenly silent. I sense there is a ghost here now so I quickly head for the door. The cellar is dark but I can see the way out. A table smacks me in the stomach as I go. I am not sure that it moved to hit me, but I am sure at least, it moved on its own into the path since I entered. 

“Okay,” I call to the ghost, “I see how it is, and I am going.” When I get to the door and open it I am blinded by the sun, and then am tackled by a babbling child, possessed, and stabbing at me with a knife.