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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Joe and his wife, Billy, have been farming the scrub of New Mexico for thirty years. It was always hard but now it's getting impossible. A government sponsored program to grow sej, a plant designed to stop erosion in the dry country, looks like a good way to stay on their farm. But the sej has unexpected qualities.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: Twilight Zone, 1985
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2005

17 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [190 KB], eReader (PDB) [26 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [12 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [12 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [74 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [83 KB], hiebook (KML) [88 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [43 KB], iSilo (PDB) [10 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [13 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [41 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [21 KB]
Words: 3782
Reading time: 10-15 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

The agriculture agent's name was Wilson, Something Wilson. Joe Santista couldn't remember what his first name was. Didn't matter. Joe was having too much fun with him to break it up by asking. Billy, Joe's wife, watched the desert through the window.

"Don't you even have a phone? Something we could use to communicate with you?" Wilson loosened his collar. He was pale and wet looking, a pudgy man from Oregon or Washington or somewhere else pale and wet.

"Nope." Joe smiled. "Nobody left around to call. Telephone lines fell down and never got put back up. Used to have one, though." Joe's smile showed crooked teeth under an Indian hooknose. His skin was the color of tea, though from some recent ancestor or the desert sun was uneasily obscure.

Wilson sweated. "But Mister Santista, it's two hundred miles from here to Albuquerque. You must have some way of talking to people. To order supplies. To get mail."

"Used to go into Flagstaff once a month. Got the mail then, too. No one there, now. Just a few drifters. For supplies," he waved towards the helicopter and grinned, "I got you boys. Got rattlesnake bit two years ago. Took care of it ourselves. You don't worry about me and Billy. We been here thirty years and we'll be here thirty more."

Wilson looked at him, down at the floor and around the adobe house, sighed, seemed to struggle against something inside himself. "Okay. You have to be on your own out here, I guess. Do you understand the agreement?"