Dark August

by Katie Tallo

  And these uncles of hers: an invalid and an overweight truant officer. It seems ridiculous. Responsible for assault and mutilation? Doesn’t add up. Then she remembers what that creepy neighbor at Desmond’s apartment building said. Dez has a younger brother. Tommy. Maybe he’s their grease monkey.

  Gus rights her bed and sits down. She calls Stu, hoping he’s found something on Tommy. No answer. She doesn’t leave a message. Not even sure what she would say. She feels a wave of dread wash over her. Her mind bounces in a million directions. What about Annalee and Todd? She’s dragged Stu into this mess too, and now he’s in danger. She calls him back and leaves a message.

  “Call me when you get this. I just want to be sure you’re okay.”

  She hangs up. Levi jumps up beside her. She looks at him.

  “Some other people might be in danger, Levi. And I have to warn them.”

  Next she calls the Home Hardware where Todd works. Relieved when he comes to the phone. Alive and well. Gus tells him she was just checking on him. Warns him to watch his back. Strange things have been happening to the people she’s been speaking to lately. He says he will. Tells her to watch hers too. She does the same with Annalee, who also appears to be safe and sound. Maybe Gus was successful in losing the tail when she went out to Kanata. Maybe they haven’t been watching her 24/7 and they didn’t see her talking to Todd or Annalee. But poor Ollie wasn’t so lucky.

  Gus grabs her satchel and car keys. Thankful she hid Rose’s gun in the glove compartment of the Buick or they would have found it. She’s also still got Rose’s cash. Shoved in the wheel well. Good thing Hubble didn’t let them rifle through her car too. Gus and Levi walk over to the motel office and she taps Hubble’s bell.

  “I told you it’s up to you to clean up that mess.”

  Gus ignores her.

  “My uncles. Were there two or three of them?”

  “You don’t know how many uncles you have?”

  “Please. How many men did you let inside my room?”

  “Two. Now we done with the twenty questions?”

  Gus turns, crosses the parking lot, and she and Levi jump in the Buick.

  Destination Elgin.

  There’s someone else she needs to warn.

  34

  Alison

  GUS CIRCLES SEVERAL BLOCKS, TAKES A COUPLE OF NARROW back alleys, waits behind a garage, then takes a detour through a grocery store loading zone. She almost gets lost, but eventually weaves her way through neighborhoods she’s never seen before and finds a sign for the 417. She hops on the highway, positive no one’s following her this time.

  Levi by her side on the front seat, they head south toward Elgin.

  Once she hits the 416 south, she feels like she can breathe now that she’s out of the city. Reassured by the clear blue sky and open spaces. By a sporadic herd of sheep dotting a hillside. By cows grazing under shady oaks. By winding rows of wood rail fencing and vast hayfields peppered with plastic-wrapped bales that look like giant marshmallows.

  Two hours later, Augusta is turning onto the gravel driveway beside a long white picket fence that surrounds the Pratt homestead. It was easy to find. She drove up and down the roads bordering the land James said was his until she found a mailbox marked J&A Pratt.

  There’s a large blue-and-white farmhouse at the end of the driveway. A truck is parked beside the house. Two black horses graze in the adjacent field. Chickens mill about the dirt yard. A large barn is set back from the house. A woman comes out onto the front porch. Shields her eyes from the midday sun.

  Gus gives her a little wave, stops the car, and gets out.

  James Pratt emerges from the barn leading a white horse by the reins. Jocko. He spots her, looks over at his wife who is descending the front steps. The couple meet between the house and barn. Gus approaches them.

  “This is the girl I told you about. The one asking about Elgin.”

  “I was passing by and saw your name on the mailbox.”

  The woman offers Gus her hand, after drying it on the dishrag tucked in the front of her apron.

  “Name’s Alison. And you’ve already met my husband, Jim.” Alison has farm girl written all over her sun-spotted face.

  “Augusta Monet.”

  “Pretty name. Czech?”

  “Georgian.”

  “Exotic. Georgia’s near Turkey, right? I’m a bit of a geography buff. It helps with the Sunday crosswords.”

  “No, the state.”

  Jocko blows air from his nose. Jim does too. Then he mumbles, “Just passing by, eh? There’s nothing down that road but a dead town. Like I told you.”

  Levi barks from the car. Alison peeks around Gus.

  “Better let that one out before he does his business all over your front seat.”

  The second Gus opens the door, Levi takes off like a shot after the chickens. They flutter away, some landing on fence posts, others on a wagon out of Levi’s reach. He barks. Circles. Then sits and waits.

  “Was there some reason you came by, dear?”

  Gus doesn’t want to scare them. Alison links her arm inside her husband’s. Jim is itching to get on with his chores. Jocko stomps one foot.

  “You’ve lived here a long time?”

  Alison looks at Jim and pulls him a little closer.

  “Oh, generations. You looking to move to the area?”

  “No. I was just curious if this was always your address. Maybe you had a post office box.”

  Jim pipes in. “You said yourself you saw the mailbox, so I think you’ve answered your own question.”

  “I’m sorry. Yes, I did say that.”

  Jim’s getting impatient. “You looking to send us a Christmas card or something, young lady?”

  Alison slaps Jim’s arm lightly and gives him a scolding pout. “Manners, Jim. Let the girl speak.”

  Gus gets to the point. “Did you happen to get an envelope from Gracie Halladay a few years back? Maybe five years ago?”

  Her question strikes a nerve. Both their faces freeze in half smiles. They give each other sideways glances. Jim fields this one.

  “Don’t see how that’s your business.”

  “Now, Jim, be nice.”

  Alison pulls on his arm. Seems to be her way of keeping him in check. Like he does with Jocko’s reins. Gus feels she owes them some clarity.

  “I only ask because she sent me one too. With a lock of hair.”

  Gus skirts around the bank draft for now. Still not sure who to trust.

  The horse dances. James holds the reins tighter. Still suspicious.

  “If she had, you wouldn’t be telling us about it.”

  “And if she hadn’t, you wouldn’t know I shouldn’t be telling you.”

  Alison tries not to smile. She whispers to her husband, “She’s got you there, Jim.”

  “I got a fox to roust. Go on then and tell her what you like, Allie. I know there’s no stopping you.”

  James hikes himself into the saddle with incredible ease for a big man. He clicks his tongue, then horse and rider gallop down the lane and across the field. Alison winks at Gus. “Tea?”

  Ten minutes later, Gus is sitting in the couple’s country kitchen sipping Earl Grey tea from a gold-rimmed china teacup. Gus feels completely at home sitting at the large oak table near the hearth. Reminds her of Rose’s kitchen. An earthy breeze flows in through the screen door. The sharp smell of yeast floats out from underneath a tea towel covering a bowl of dough set to rise in the window. Alison gives Levi a large bone to gnaw on. At first he’s not sure what to make of it, but soon he discovers the sweet marrow bulging from one end and sucks on it like a baby with a bottle.

  Alison tells Augusta about the envelope from Gracie Halladay. The note and the lock of black hair. Alison signed for it herself. Almost fell over when she saw the bank draft for five million dollars. The note said it was for royalties owed to them by her grandfather. That they were to tell no one. They never did. Until now.

  Gus tells
Alison that she got a bank draft too. Same amount. Alison smiles. She figured as much. Then Gus tells Alison about her mother’s death, about boarding school and inheriting her great-grandmother’s house and about finding the evidence from Shannon’s wall.

  They drain a pot of tea and eat an entire tin of homemade oatmeal cookies.

  “Jim and I both grew up in the county. We’ve lived on this land our entire marriage. Jim took over the eastern ridge of his father’s farm thirty-five years ago. Then when his father died, the whole farm was ours. Hard work, long hours, raised a family. They were prosperous years till the drought came. It lasted five summers and sent us deep into debt along with every other farmer within a hundred miles. Kep Halladay offered us a lifeline. A way to keep the land that had been in Jim’s family for generations. He offered a pretty penny too. Enough to pay off all our debts, put in a fancy irrigation system, and get things up and running again. All he wanted were the mineral rights. It seemed like the only way to save the farm. And as far as we knew, there wasn’t any value in those rights, so we sold them. Thirty-two other farmers took the same offer we did from Halladay.”

  As Alison shares her story, an image from Shannon’s wall fills Augusta’s head. The deed of trust. The one with the thirty-three names on one side and Kep Halladay’s on the other. James Pratt’s signature likely among them.

  Alison recounts how a few months after signing away the rights, Kep Halladay hit pay dirt. Discovered a vein of shale, inked a deal with the gas company, and the fracking started.

  Gus can see the headline from the newspaper clipping.

  “Prominent Tycoon Inks Landmark Mineral Rights Deal.”

  Alison gets a little choked up when she talks about how the groundwater became contaminated. How their fields went fallow within a year and the debts started mounting again when the farm yielded not one ear of edible corn that year. How James had to get a job at the Tim Hortons on the 401. They took out a second mortgage. Alison picked up a few graveyard shifts at the chocolate factory in Smiths Falls. They hung on for close to a decade. The bank was about to foreclose.

  Then the envelope arrived from Gracie Halladay.

  “Like pennies from heaven. Millions of them.”

  Jim and Alison told folks her great-uncle had passed away in England and left them a fortune. They put the money in a bank in Whitby. Far enough away from the county so as to not raise any eyebrows. They paid off both mortgages. Put a new roof on the house. Paid for a major sanitization project to clean up the fields and well water around their house. Couldn’t get the farm back up and running, though. That was too big a clean-up job. But what they did manage to decontaminate meant they could live in their house safely with a few animals. Run a hobby farm. Small operation. They even took their first holiday. To Tuscany.

  “We still pinch ourselves for how it all worked out.”

  Then Alison gives Augusta her take on why Gracie did what she did.

  “That girl was righting wrongs. Most of us had our suspicions that Halladay knew the mineral rights were worth more than what he paid for them, but there was no proof. It was just too big a coincidence. Him buying the rights, then he finds the shale right after. None of the thirty-three ever talked about it. Most had to just up and walk away. Leave their dead fields where they lay. Board up their farmhouses. Move in with relatives. We heard some of them retired to greener pastures some years later. Florida. Arizona. I’m guessing Gracie Halladay took the money her granddaddy made off our land and gave it back to each and every one of us. Poor sweet thing.”

  James Pratt ambles in through the back door as Alison finishes talking. He wipes sweat from his brow and downs a big glass of water before adding his two cents.

  “Gracie Halladay was cursed the day she was born into that family. The whole lot of them lived under a dark shadow that goes all the way back to the days of old Jacob. Even that godforsaken house he built way up on that hill. The place is cursed. Now look at it. Left to rot.”

  Gus doesn’t understand.

  “Didn’t it burn down in the fire?”

  “Not so much as seared by a stray ember.”

  Alison pipes in. “It’s too far outside town. Up on Lockheath Hill just beyond the cemetery. Quite the mansion. It overlooks the entire valley. That was the idea old Jacob had when he chose the spot. He wanted to look down on the common folk.”

  Gus kicks herself. She already knew Halladay House was outside Elgin. Renata told her as much. Kep was sent to live there after his parents died. With his grandfather in a mansion outside town.

  Augusta pulls her pen and notebook from her satchel. Poised to write. “Where exactly is it?”

  “Oh, you can’t get to it anymore, dear. It’s inside the zone.”

  Gus nods at Alison. Knowing she’ll figure it out later. First she’s got to tell them why she’s really come to see them.

  “Someone has the list.”

  They both stare at her. Clearly they don’t know about the list.

  “There’s a list of names. The postmaster kept it. A list of the people Gracie sent letters to. A list of people who got those bank drafts.”

  They look at each other. Clearly understanding this is serious. James puts his arm around his wife.

  “What would someone want with this list?”

  “You should leave. These people are dangerous. They cut off a man’s fingers for that list. I think they want the money. All of it. I’ve been investigating and I think one of them is Gracie’s real father. My guess is he thinks the money rightfully belongs to him.”

  Alison looks confused. “That Todd lad?”

  “No. Someone far more evil.”

  Alison gives her husband a knowing nod and then busies herself with clearing away the empty teacups. Jim sits across from Gus.

  “We’re staying put.”

  “But you can’t.”

  “It’s our land. Our home.”

  Alison chimes in without looking up from the sink. “We got a rifle or two.”

  Gus can tell from the look on Jim’s face that they’ve spent their whole lives fighting to stay on this land. They’ve poured their blood and sweat and tears into this piece of dirt. They’ve raised their children here. And they won’t be scared off by threats or thugs. As Jim said, this is their home. It’s sacred ground.

  Gus rises from the kitchen table. She smiles and thanks Alison for the tea and cookies and for sharing. But a question needles at her. One she’s not sure anyone but Gracie can answer.

  “Do you know why she left me money and not just the farmers on this list? The farmers Kep wronged.”

  Jim shrugs. Alison shakes her head, then a thought comes to her. “Perhaps you were wronged too.”

  They wish her well and tell her to be careful. She tells them the same. Jim and Alison watch from the front porch as Levi and Gus head for the Buick. Jim’s arm around his wife. Alison calls out, “Don’t get stuck in the mud or you’ll never get out, honey.”

  Gus knows Alison means the mud in the driveway. But as she pulls away slowly, Alison’s words follow her and take on new meaning. The muddy past has her in its grip. She comes to the end of their driveway and checks her rearview mirror. The couple are still on the porch watching her go. Gus turns left toward Ottawa. Right leads to the barricade. A dead end and the town of Elgin beyond. She knows she can’t go that way with them watching.

  Gus drives toward the highway and finds an abandoned barn about four miles up the road. She parks behind it and settles in for a nap. She’ll wait there until dark. Drive back down the road. Past the Pratt homestead. Headlights off. Park in the lane under the willow and go in by foot.

  Shouldn’t be that hard to find it.

  35

  Halladay House

  GUS RESTS HER CHIN ON THE BACK OF THE SEAT AND LOOKS at Levi. He’s already snoring on his back, hind legs wide, eyes rolled back in his head. As the sun sets, the lavender fields turn a deep purple. Levi twitches as he dreams. Gray eyebrows gently lifting. Whisker
s quivering. He’s getting old. Sleeping more. Stumbling a little when he jumps in the car. Old bones weary. Joints stiff. Appetite waning. Gus has no idea how long dogs live. Her mother said every year of theirs was like seven of ours. So that would make him about eighty-four. An old man. Levi sighs as if he knows she’s pondering his mortality.

  Unable to sleep, Gus waits until she can barely make out the looming shadow of the barn against the night sky. She drives back toward the Pratts’ farm. Slowly. Turns off the headlights. Passes their mailbox. The porch light glows yellow. The kitchen light is still on. The blue light of a television glimmers from another window.

  Gus finds the dirt lane. Same spot under the weeping willow where she first parked when she met James Pratt on his horse. The day she first met Stu. She checks her phone. Six new messages. Stanton and Stu have both been calling. Rory must have given her number to Stanton. She leaves her phone on silent and grabs Rose’s gun from the glove compartment. She checks the chamber. One bullet. Forgot to reload it. She puts it in her satchel. Levi wakes up.

  The night sky is alive with stars. A full orange moon sits close to the horizon. Perfect. She checks her map. Remembering what Alison told her.

  Up on Lockheath Hill just beyond the cemetery. It overlooks the entire valley.

  She finds Lockheath Hill. It’s a couple of miles due south. The willow is alive in the breeze. Gus emerges from its bows. Heads southwest. Levi ambles ahead, nose down.

  Despite the moon lighting the way, the going isn’t easy. The fields are thick with purple loosestrife. Gus wades through thigh deep. She reaches a barbed-wire fence strung across cedar posts. Launches herself over, cutting a knee and half falling into the grassy ditch on the other side. Levi squeezes through a gap by a post. Leaves a swath of golden hair hanging off the barbed wire. They follow an overgrown tractor path. The ground begins to rise. She knows she’s close.