by Colin Kersey
“Want to know the really sweet part?” Stu smiled. “There isn’t a lick of debt. Not one dime.”
I did not know what to say. Much as I might have found the topic of money interesting once, under my current circumstances, I now found it depressing and even nauseating.
“Virgil owned an old Skagit Valley tulip farm handed down from his grandfather through his father,” Stu offered. “But it was Louise—the girls’ mom, bless her bones—with the cash. He spent some of her money on fixing up the place. Added two ponds and this barn. Then put the rest into mutual funds.”
I tried to change the subject by pointing to the clouds that piled high and blocked the view of the mountains. “Think it will rain?”
Stu stared at me like I was an idiot. “Around here, you don’t bother to ask a stupid question like that. The sky could be blue as robins’ eggs and it could still rain cats and dogs within thirty minutes.”
He led the way back inside the barn. “You Californians are all alike,” he added. “You move here during spring or summer, everything warm, dry, and hunkey-dory. Come November, you will be bitching night and day about the rain. A year from now, you’ll wish you were back in California. I’ve seen it a million times before.”
“Not me,” I said. California was now the last place I wanted to be.
“Yeah,” Stu said. “We’ll see.” Then his face grew serious again. “The grass is too high and wet for the bull. You need to get it all today with the hammerknifer. I see where you had it out yesterday, so I assume you know how to drive it.”
“I think so.” I waved an arm at the sprawling green expanse. “What’s the best route?”
Stu shrugged. “Start up at the road and work your way down. Or you can start at the ponds and work your way up. It’s the same amount of grass, either way. Be careful around the roses. They were Louise’s special varieties, something she fretted over and talked to like they were kin. And don’t fall asleep and drive into one of the ponds. I don’t want to be the one to have to fish your butt out.”
***
I drove in second gear, poking along, the hammerknifer chopping a nice, even wake in a sea of green. As a teenager, I had found driving a tractor to be the most incredibly boring and monotonous work. It was the same now with one important difference: I desperately needed the solitariness, the symmetry of the long, geometric rows, the comforting thrum of the engine vibrating up through the seat and floorboards. For the moment at least, I was the captain of my life once again and the John Deere was my ship. My mind, so burdened of late, was free to wander among the evergreen-bearded hills beneath a scudding armada of clouds driven eastward by winds launched far out in the Pacific toward an as-yet-vaguely-glimpsed fortress of formidable mountains. And in the sweet-smelling fragrance of newly mown grass, I rediscovered something as simple and rare as peace of mind.
After working my way up the driveway from the barn, I turned east along the road. Heeding Virgil’s warning, I kept one eye out for rocks or other debris. Fortunately for my ribs, I only had to stop once to retrieve an empty beer bottle.
When I finished the first pass along the road, I started down the tree line that separated the Van de Zilver property from its quarter-mile distant eastern neighbor, then made a wide turn back toward the driveway. Overhead, a flock of Canadian Geese arrowed north.
I had nearly finished a second, football-field-sized oval when I spotted Stu driving a white Mustang slowly up the drive. Stu stopped and waved me over. I dismounted from the idling tractor and approached the car on foot. Now what, I wondered.
“Got a reason for going so slow?” he asked. “The grass is growing faster than you’re cutting. If you plan on finishing sometime this century, you’d best get a move on.”
“Okay.” I watched the Mustang ease leisurely out the driveway and onto the highway.
Back on the John Deere, I slipped the transmission into third gear and resumed mowing. The great thing about a tractor is the enormous torque. You can start in any gear and be at full speed in no time without the need to shift. The clamor behind me was louder, the ride rougher, and it seemed to me that the mown grass looked more ragged, but progress was now at least fifty percent faster.
I completed the first oval and began another that overlapped the first. That was followed by yet another, each one a milestone of accomplishment and satisfaction. I made it a point to drive with caution as I neared the row of roses. Plastic identifying tags fluttered in the breeze. Fresh bark surrounded their roots to protect them from frost, and the canes looked to have been carefully pruned. Meanwhile, the clouds had gradually dissolved into a colorless, uniform ceiling that descended until it seemed to nearly meet the ground. Then it began to rain. Over the thrum of the hammerknifer, I heard the hiss of rain striking the earth.
If I had let myself, I could have easily drifted into a pit of depression over losing everything. Instead, I used the pain of physical exertion and the beauty of my surroundings to help heal my emotional wounds.
There was one more thing: every time I started to think about Heide or feel pity for myself, I would focus on the red-lipped monster who had shot me, killed my wife, and trashed my life. It was a cruel face, devoid of mercy.
Flash. Boom.
According to Catania, the cartel had virtually unlimited resources. Such that they would likely find the trail of the money and locate where it was hidden. Unless I found it first.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
In the steady downpour, I did not see the two figures waiting beneath the tall Douglas fir until I was nearly beside them. Valerie held up a brown bag with one hand while the other held Patsy’s halter. She wore a yellow rain slicker with the hood pulled back. I parked near the tree, shut off the John Deere’s engine, and climbed down to join her.
“Ready for some lunch?” she asked.
I checked the time; it was nearly one-thirty and I was suddenly starving.
“I am now.” I took a bite of the sandwich she offered and began to chew. “Strawberry jam and cheddar,” I mumbled through a mouthful of bread. Patsy licked her lips and wagged her tail in appreciation.
“Like it?”
“It’s great.”
“Liar.”
Once more, I was struck by her ability to hear beyond the words that were spoken and without the benefit of being able to see body language or gestures. “I admit, I’ve never had it before.”
“Cheese is boring by itself, don’t you think?” she asked. “I hate boring sandwiches. How are your ribs doing?”
I shrugged, embarrassed that she might feel pity, then remembered that she could not see. “Fine. Just fine.”
“Good.” She scratched behind the dog’s ears. “I’m glad. Well, it’s time to get back, I guess.”
She turned to flutter off toward the house, but I was not quite ready for her to leave. “What’s for dinner? Trout?”
She stopped, tilted her head up toward the underside of the tree, and barked a short laugh as if she saw something funny up there in its naked limbs. “Daddy doesn’t like fish. Mostly, he likes me to cook red meat. Occasionally, I will roast a chicken or ham. We’re pretty much a meat-and-potatoes family.”
“No spaghetti? Or maybe some ravioli, fettuccini, tortellini, or lasagna?”
“I don’t even know what all of those are. Are they all noodles? Occasionally, if there’s leftover hamburger for meatballs, I manage to sneak some spaghetti in.”
“How subversive. What about stuffed eggplant?”
She pressed her lips together and shook her head. “Nope. Vonda usually does the shopping, unless I have the food delivered. One time, we decided to experiment with fajitas.”
“‘Fah-hee-tahs,’” I corrected.
“I had a hunch I didn’t have it right.” She smiled, her eyes half-closed.
“I like your way of saying it better. Just be careful if you ever visit La Jolla.”
“Anyway, you would have thought we had served up garbage. Daddy made us throw it out.”
“Sounds positively dull. Don’t you ever get a craving for salmon or swordfish, maybe some squid?”
Her nose scrunched up. “What’s squid taste like?”
“Rubber.”
“Ewwww. Just what I always wanted for dinner: Goodyear radials.”
We both laughed. I realized that I had not laughed since Heide had died. It felt good. Together, we listened to the rain falling all around us. Dead needles and fir cones carpeted the ground and gave off a clean, pitchy smell. Under the tent-like protection of the tree, it felt like we were standing in an enormous cathedral surrounded by the quiet rustlings and murmurs of the congregation.
“I better go. If Daddy gets home early, he’ll wonder where I am.” Valerie waved her fingers. “See you later, alligator.”
She pulled up the hood of her raincoat. “C’mon, Patsy.”
I watched her and the dog walk back toward the house, then climbed onto the tractor and resumed making soggy ovals in the sea of green.
***
“He came!” I was so excited, I needed to tell someone. “He’s just like you said, Momma.” After all these years of waiting, I had nearly given up. But now Gray was here, and he was just like Momma said he would be.
I was chopping vegetables by the sink while I talked to Momma like I did when I was a little girl. “Ever since you died there has been no one to talk to, no one to take me places, and no one to make plans with. He has only been here a few hours and we have already talked twice! Three times if you count last night when I took a sandwich out to his truck.”
“He was so pleased and thankful for the sandwich I made him today. We stood beneath a fir tree and it was so still and quiet in the rain. My hands were sweating, even though it was cool, and I could hear my heart beating so fast I thought I might die.
“He even said he wants to hear me play the viola. I think he likes me, Momma!”
“Jesus Christ, Valerie.” Vonda startled me. “You talking to yourself?”
“What are you doing home?”
“I wasn’t feeling well.”
I heard her open the refrigerator and take out a bottle of wine. “Kind of early to start drinking, ain’t it?”
“Just a small glass to settle my stomach. Where’s Gray?”
“Working. Why do you care?”
“Just asking. You talk to him?”
“He misses his wife. Said she was pretty and smart.”
“Yeah?” I heard her pouring wine into her glass. It sounded like a tall glass.
“He’s just like Momma said he’d be,” I blurted. I could not help myself.
“‘Like Momma said?’ I hate to be the one to tell you this, Valerie, but Momma has been dead for ten years. And, far as I know, she did not tell fortunes. Least not to my knowledge.”
“She said Gray would come. She even described him. A sensitive man. Intelligent, not full of pride and self-importance.”
“Did she also say he was brown-skinned?”
“I don’t care what color he is.”
“Got it all planned out, don’t you?” Vonda said. “Poor Gray. Arrived here just twenty-four hours ago and he’s already spoken for.”
I could not see my sister, but I recognized the snarky tone in her voice.
“Don’t mess this up, Vonda. I’m warning you.”
“Why should I care what you want?”
“You’re married!”
“Well, ain’t you the observant one.”
Without thinking about it, I realized I had chopped the vegetables up into smithereens. I began twisting the knife in my hand. “I swear, Vonda. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
“Yeah? What are you going to do? Cry? Stab me with a potato peeler? Tattle on me like you used to do when Momma was alive?”
She snickered as she left the room. I gripped the knife tightly in my hand and, for the hundred-millionth time, thought about how much I wanted to kill her.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The wind swept in late in the afternoon, bringing with it a precipitous drop in temperature. The rain slanted heavier and, although sundown was still officially a good way off, the sky darkened to a dreary charcoal. Unfortunately, the John Deere had no lights, either to read its fuel gauge or to illuminate where I was going. I was now shivering so hard that I could hear my teeth chattering above the engine noise. I fastened the snap of my coat collar as I peered through the gloom, trying to decipher firm land from the quagmire. My jeans, cotton pullover and nylon jacket had long before given up any pretensions of water-resistance. The muscles of my arms and legs were stiff and my ribs screamed their displeasure. There remained a good amount of area yet to mow, however. Stu had advised me to finish today and I was determined to try.
Call it stubbornness or its evil twin: stupidity. My father had told me so many times that I was good for nothing, that I had spent most of my life trying to prove him wrong. The only professions he considered worthy were a doctor or engineer. The uncle who had tried and failed to become a professional photographer was considered the black sheep of the family. More than the bruises my father had given me, his words were the reason I had left home two days after graduating from high school and never looked back.
Hunched over the John Deere’s rain-slick steering wheel, I worked my way down to the ponds where the rain had made the ground wet and treacherous. Even with their enormous tread, I could feel the tractor tires beginning to slip. I looked back toward the barn hoping to spot Stu, but there was no welcoming light or sign of life. Was Stu watching me now to see what I would do? Perhaps he had already knocked off for the day. On the other hand, he might think me a coward—“afraid of a little rain”—if I quit now. For better or worse, I was on my own. I decided to proceed further downhill and finish the less challenging mowing first. I would save mowing around the ponds for later, unless Stu showed up and offered to call it a day.
Something like an hour later—it was too dark to read my watch—I finished mowing the lower reaches of the property and motored slowly back up to the smaller of the three ponds. I glanced once more toward the barn—where was Stu?—then geared down into second. I was nearly abreast of the oblong pool of black water when the wheels found too little substance to grab onto and began to spin. Abruptly the tractor careened to one side as the right wheel began to dig itself into the mud and the left tore gouts of sod from the ground, pitching them toward the blades of the hammerknifer.
“Shit!” I stabbed the clutch to the floorboard. I disengaged the hammerknifer, then lifted it clear of the ground before trying to ease the tractor forward out of the grave it was digging for both of us. Slowly, I released the clutch. The tractor bucked like a stallion as the wheels dug deeper into the soft soil. I put the clutch in again, this time shifting into reverse.
“C’mon. You can do it,” I pleaded.
Again, the tractor surged, but could not free itself. I climbed down to inspect the damage. The ground was so soggy that my footsteps made sucking noises. To my horror, I saw that the huge tires had torn deep troughs into the earth, destroying the lawn.
Briefly, I considered drowning myself in the pond and getting it over with. It being my very first day on the job, my mental state was somewhat less than ideal.
“Fuck!” I kicked a tire in frustration, slipped in the mud, and, quicker than the blink of an eye, landed flat on my back. Rain pelted my face.
I tried sitting up, but could not because of my damaged ribs. I had to roll over onto my knees. I pounded the saturated earth with a fist in frustration, angry at Heide, the cartel, Stu, myself, and the world in general.
Because isn’t that the way of it? Just when you think there might be a reason for hope, a chance that something good could still happen, that there might be a God who cared about his people, the bogeyman jumps out of the bushes and rabbit-punches you in the back of the head and then stands over you, hee-hawing.
***
Vonda answered the door wearing a pink sweatsuit and white socks. Her
initial surprise changed quickly into a look of alarm.
“Holy crow.”
“I need to speak to your dad.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Come in.”
Patsy came close enough to sniff, then backed away, wanting nothing to do with me. I could not blame her. I was soaking wet, bespattered with mud, and unfit for company—human or hound.
“Who is it?” Virgil called from the living room.
Valerie appeared at her sister’s side. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t want to mess up your floor,” I said.
“Oh, the hell with the floor,” Vonda said. “Get your ass in here where it’s warm.”
She dragged me by the coat sleeve. “It’s Gray,” she said.
“How come you’re so late?” Stu growled from the other room.
“He needs to see you, Daddy,” Vonda said.
I walked past the piano to the edge of the indoor-outdoor carpeting that marked the border between the family room and the living room. Virgil reclined in a La-Z-Boy near the television, which was showing CNN. Somewhere on the planet, the sun was shining. Probably Southern California.
Stu looked up from the couch. “You decide to go for a swim?”
“More like a mud bath.”
Virgil raised the remote control he was holding and hit mute. “Let’s hear it,” he said in the silence that followed.
“I’m bogged down by the lower pond. I’ve tried everything I can think of but can’t get out.”
It was so quiet that I could hear Virgil exhale through his nose.
“I’ll pay for the damage to the lawn.”
“Dammit!” Stu threw down his newspaper. “First damn day on the job. I told you he was a fuck-up.”
“Watch your language.” With his lips pressed tightly together, Virgil stared at me. “How come you didn’t quit when you saw the ground was getting saturated? Didn’t anybody tell you about the ground around the ponds being soft?”