Two Kansas farm families, the Hutchins and the Crowleys, had been arguing for three months over a shared electric fence. Whenever one family repaired it, the other would destroy it, to the point where the local police had to intervene several times. But then one morning, a cow on the Crowley side was electrocuted and killed. The whole town accused the Hutchins of “revenge-driven power surges.” When the police removed the fence to inspect it, they discovered…

# **“The Kansas Fence Case – And the Secret Under the Red Soil”**

## **1. The Three-Month Conflict of Two Farm Families**

In **Ellis County, Kansas**, in the middle of a vast cornfield, two farming families have lived side by side for more than 20 years:
**The Holts** and **the Merricks**.

They had always been on good terms. Until three months ago, when an energy company offered to buy both their land to build a gas pipeline.

Soon after, the electric fence dividing the two farms became the center of every argument.

* The Holts say the Merricks “intentionally turned down the electricity, causing Holt’s cows to rush toward them.”

* The Merricks say the Holts “turned up the electricity to scare them into selling their land.”

The local police had to come to mediate five times.

The townspeople joked:

> “Never before has a $900 fence created a $90,000 drama.”

But then it happened.

—

## **2. The Dead Cow and the Town’s Rage**

One morning in June, Mr. **Daniel Merrick** found the purebred cow lying motionless next to the electric fence.

Its head was singed.
The ground around it was as black as if it had been roasted.

Within hours, the story spread throughout Hays:

> “The Holts turned up the electricity to get revenge!”
> “They’re jealous because the Merrick herd has a big win this year.”
> “The power company must have promised the Holts a better price!”

The crowd began to crowd toward the Holts.

The two families stood facing each other across the fence like two medieval armies.
Sheriff **Alden Brooke** immediately arrived on the scene and ordered the fence to be **removed and inspected** to avoid a riot.

No one expected the twist to be right under the wire.

—

## **3. The fence was removed – and the horror was revealed**

When the police cut the wire to check the power source, the ground beneath their feet rose in lumps as if pushed from below.

An officer bent down, picked it up… and **turned pale**:

> “Holy shit… what is this?”

Under the fence was not a shorted wire.

Not a sabotage device.

It was **a strange metal mound** buried 30 cm underground, nearly two meters long, full of wires, a high-capacity battery, and a small copper tube pointing upwards.

The device **was not from the Holt or Merrick houses**.

The police did a preliminary check:
**Copper pipes** shot out **high-frequency electric pulses**, many times stronger than regular electric fences.

Enough to kill a cow in an instant.

The entire town fell silent.

> “Who buried this in the land between the two houses?”

> “Why is the current directed directly at Merrick?”

> “Could it be that someone wants to blame the Holts?”

But the twist didn’t stop there.

—

## **4. Infrared cameras reveal something no one expected**

Sheriff Brooke asked to check the hunting cameras of both houses.
Nothing unusual happened at the Holts.

But Merrick’s camera recorded a clip at **3:17 AM**, two days before the cow died.

A hooded man in a brown coat dug right at the suspected fence location.
He pulled a heavy metal box, put it down, buried it quickly, and left.

The shape is unclear, but the **shoes** are very special: Hartwell **steel-toed work boots**, worn only by construction workers or oil well workers.

The whole town is staring.

Only **one group of people in Ellis County** regularly wear those shoes:

**Workers of the Red Mesa Energy Company**.

The company… is the one that wants to buy the land from the two families.

—

## **5. Red Mesa appears – but the answer makes things even more shady**

The police summon a representative of Red Mesa.
The area manager, Mr. **Colin Meyer**, denies:

> “We are not involved.
> The company would never do anything illegal to buy land.”

But when the police show him the equipment that has been dug up, his face **changes**.

The young police officer asks directly:

> “You know what this is, right?”

Colin swallowed:

> “… This isn’t a company device.
> But I know who made it.”

The conference room held its breath.

> “An old engineer of ours – **Ethan Crowe** – was fired last year for building a device to increase the electric pulse to… test ground transmission.

> He’s been missing since then, wandering around Kansas farms.”

Ethan Crowe’s name exploded like a bomb in the middle of the room.

—

## **6. Found the device maker’s shack**

The police tracked Ethan’s old truck.

They found a **shack pitched in an abandoned field**, just 3 miles from the fence.

Inside:

* A series of electronic drawings
* Photos of farms in the area
* Notes on “soil conduction testing”
* A map marking… **every house in the area with an electric fence system**

And a tattered diary:

> “I’ll prove that the land in the west holds electricity better.
> Just create enough problems and they’ll have to call the power company in to fix it.
> Then I’ll have the money to improve my equipment.
> No one understands my brain – but the future will.”

The police realized:
He wanted to create **a big problem**, putting two families in

dispute, forcing them to sell the land to the energy company to “solve the problem”.

But Ethan acted **alone**, unbeknownst to Red Mesa.

—

## **7. Climax: Ethan returns to the fence**

As the police were sealing off the scene, a figure appeared in the distance – limping.

It was **Ethan Crowe**.

He stood right at the dug-up fence, his voice excited:

> “You guys destroyed my project.
> You don’t understand… If I succeed, I’ll solve the problem that the entire energy industry can’t solve!”

The police surrounded him.

Ethan laughed:

> “I don’t want to kill the cow.
> I want to create enough of an incident, so that this whole area will be re-surveyed.
> So that I have the resources to continue my research.”

A farmer shouted:

> “You almost made two families here fight to the death!”

Ethan looked around, his eyes slightly lost:

> “Humans are easily agitated. Just a spark is all it takes.”

The police restrained Ethan.
As he was handcuffed, he kept muttering:

> “The soil on the west side holds electricity better… I was right…”

—

## **8. Final twist: more than just a personal conspiracy**

Just as the case seemed to be over, Sheriff Brooke received the soil test results from the Kansas State Geological Laboratory.

When he opened the results, his face turned pale.

The comparison showed:

* **The soil on the Merrick farm** was **12 times** more conductive than the Holt side.
* The amount of metallic minerals in the soil was unusually high.
* The area coincided with **the location of the Red Mesa gas pipeline**.

Ethan was not crazy.

He knew there was something wrong with the soil.

And Red Mesa knew too — but **didn’t say it**.

If Merrick sold the land, the company would win big.

If Holt sold it, it would be worth less.

The fence dispute inadvertently obscured a larger secret:

> **A superconducting mineral deposit lay beneath the Merrick ranch.**

No one knew its true value.

Millions of dollars. Maybe more.

—

## **9. Conclusion**

The two families stopped arguing, but their trust in the power company and the government was shaken.

The town murmured:

> “At least Ethan Crowe has found something that 10 years of research never found.”

The electric fence was rebuilt.
The cow was buried.
Ethan was sent for a psychiatric evaluation.

But every time the sun set in the west, the red earth around the Merrick ranch glowed… as if a gentle electric current had passed through it.

Some whispered:

> “This isn’t over. That mine will change Kansas.”

And everyone knew — the fence story was just the beginning of a bigger war that the town was not prepared to face.