The first sound was laughter.
The second was the deep, metallic groan of a seventy-year-old floodgate opening beneath the weight of thousands of gallons of water.
And the third came from somewhere beyond the pine trees, where the ground began trembling as though something enormous was waking beneath the forest.
Twenty-nine-year-old farm woman stood knee-deep in muddy water, both hands gripping the enormous iron wheel attached to the old wooden floodgate. Her long red hair was woven into a thick braid over her shoulder, and she wore a faded blue flannel farming shirt beneath mud-stained navy-blue denim overalls. Her rubber boots had sunk into the soft ground, and cold water splashed against her knees as the mechanism turned another quarter revolution.
Across the narrow drainage channel, three older farmers stood on the grassy embankment.
The largest wore a blue plaid shirt, faded jeans, a gray baseball cap, and heavy rubber boots. His weathered face was red from the autumn cold, and he pointed toward the young woman with the delighted cruelty of someone who had been waiting a long time to watch her fail.
"Look at her!" he shouted. "She's flooding the whole damn bog!"
The man beside him, wearing an olive-green work shirt, began laughing.
The third farmer, broad-shouldered with gray hair and a dark checkered shirt, crossed his arms and looked toward the widening stream of water.
None offered to help.
The young woman kept turning the wheel.
Behind her, the first crimson cranberries began rising from the flooded plants, floating toward the channel in thick, beautiful clusters. Within seconds, the dark water was turning red beneath thousands of tiny berries, their glossy skins catching the pale autumn light.
The sight should have been magnificent.
Instead, the three men regarded it as proof that the last surviving independent grower in the valley had finally lost her mind.
"That's a hundred thousand dollars floating away!" the largest farmer laughed. "Your daddy would be ashamed!"
The young woman's jaw tightened.
She didn't look at him.
Another turn.
Another metallic groan.
More water rushed through the gate.
The farmer in green leaned forward, laughing so hard he had to rest his hands on his knees.