New Brew

by Mark Lashway

  There was a short, handwritten note lying on her cot, and she immediately recognized the writing as his. It read: “Honey, I had to go do something important. I’ll be back later. I really want to talk things over with you. Love you. Cam.”

  She didn’t know what to feel about this, and stretched out on her cot to think.

  ♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

  A man belonging to the abbey sighed as he tossed another bale of hay onto a detached hay wagon. Later, after he’d filled it, one of the brothers would drive a tractor over to haul it away. He was sweating heavily under his simple clothes, reflecting that although it was already September, this was an unusually warm day. It was welcome, however, since he did not look forward to the typical brutal winter of North Dakota, which he already knew was a lonely and bleak time at the abbey. Working outside was far preferable to being cooped up inside.

  Wiping the sweat from his face, he felt the grime of dust and chaff mixed in with the perspiration. A shower later would be luxurious. He took a minute to look around the area but failed to see the individual who was standing just inside a patch of brush a few hundred feet away, holding the binoculars used to spy on him.

  Going back to his work, the man grabbed another bale and tossed it onto the wagon. There was no hurry to it, things weren’t done that way here. Walking about 20 yards back from the wagon, he paused for another minute, since he was tiring now. Finally, he turned a little and bent down to grab hold of the next bale when some instinct suddenly told him that he wasn’t alone here anymore. He whirled around to see Cameron Witter standing only about 10 feet away, wearing an unamused smile, and was slightly unnerved that somebody had come up on him so quietly and quickly.

  “You won’t run, of course. You know that there’s no point,” Cam said. The man remained there as if rooted. “You know, you actually had me thinkin’ that I’d finally gone mad, Trub. When I was puttin’ all of the various pieces together, the end product was so unbelievable that I thought it was impossible.”

  “Cam!” Trub cried joyfully, showing more emotion at the reunion than Cam did. He came over and put his hands on Witter’s shoulders. “You don’t know how fucking great it is to be able to see you again!”

  “But you already have seen me, Trub. You know, at the competitions and around GWIBE, most notably last night when I chased after you….Betty.”

  “Heh heh, that was really fucking funny!” Trub chortled. “It just goes to show the benefits of the clean living I’ve done here. I outran you, bud. How did you know?”

  “Just the way you ran. It seemed familiar to me somehow, it struck a chord. By the way, you make for one of the ugliest bitches I’ve ever seen in my life.”

  “Yeah, you’re not the only fucking one who thought that. Some of the remarks that I heard were pretty vicious, bud.”

  “Ah, you still have the full repertoire of f-words, eh?”

  “Phew! That’s been the most stressful part of being here, bud. It didn’t go down well when I cut loose with my first ‘Fuck!’ after I got here. It took a lot of practice to get better. Anyway, I can tell by that familiar look on your face that you want to know the story.”

  “That’s mostly what I’m here for, other than confirmin’ my sanity. So, the whole show last year was just a bunch of bullshit you put on for my benefit, huh?”

  Trub didn’t answer at first, instead gazing at Cam. Then he silently walked over around the side of the hay wagon and returned carrying a small plastic cooler, which he set down on the ground in front of Cam. Opening it, Trub reached in and pulled out two brown glass bottles. Fishing an opener out of his pocket, he uncapped the bottles and handed one to Cam.

  “Here’s to you, bud,” Trub said simply, “for cracking another tough one. This beer is the lighter stuff that they give us for our daily labors.”

  “It’s still really good,” Cam declared after taking a sip. “And so….”

  “To answer your question, no, it wasn’t a show I put on for you. I really did intend to eat my gun and end it all.”

  “But then….”

  “But just as I was about to do it, a colleague appeared in my tent and presented me with an out, a way to simply fucking disappear.”

  “That’s why I never imagined you alive until the end. Dale Sassie? Really, Trub? You guys hate each other, don’t you?”

  “We despise each other, bud, we really fucking do. But in the end, we both belong to the kinship of brewers. Fuck, I would’ve done the same thing for him.”

  “So how did he pull off your ‘death’?”

  “It was fucking beautiful, Cam. He got a few women to distract the coroner and get him plastered with various homebrews. In the meantime, some of the guys were putting the ice to me to chill my skin. By the time the coroner showed up at my tent he was so fucking hammered that he couldn’t even stand. It didn’t take much persuasion to convince him, even as he never got close to me, that I was fucking dead. The fake blood spilled around made it look real. Your partners, of course, weren’t about to get too close. My guys destroyed the ground inside....”

  “So I take it that the same crew got to the ambulance guys too,” Cam prodded him.

  “Yeah. You’d be amazed at the things you can accomplish with a few hot women and some great fucking brews to lubricate social interaction.”

  “No, I wouldn’t. Anyway….”

  “So anyway, the next part of the plan began, and that’s where it almost all went horribly fucking wrong. Smashed as they were, one of the ambulance guys did take great care to strap me firmly to the gurney. A friend made sure that he unlatched the back door to the ambulance, though. When they hit that tree across the road that another one of our guys so helpfully put there, my gurney slammed against the door, knocked it open, and on the fucking way I went.”

  “You were mostly helpless bein’ strapped down.”

  “Fucking A right you are!” Trub exclaimed, a wild look coming into his eyes. “I shot like a bullet down that slope, off the road and over that field. Thank God some of the guys were in that little depression just before the ridge. I would’ve drowned. They caught me, quickly unstrapped me and tossed the gurney over the edge into that river below. Goodbye, Trub.”

  “But there was still a complication, wasn’t there? Had the local emergency responders brought in somebody experienced in water recovery….”

  “Yeah, so that’s when our homegrown ‘FBI agents’ made their appearance. We knew it would be easy to scare off the locals with that, so as far as they’re concerned, Trub’s body was recovered by the fucking Feds and taken off as part of some national security matter.”

  Cam remained speechless for a moment, appalled by the sheer audacity of the operation while still holding a bit of admiration for it. He’d thought that by now that he possessed a solid grasp of the personalities at GWIBE. Finally, he continued by asking, “So then what?”

  “Well, it was the usual burying my real identity and starting fresh. Knowing I could never go back home, I ended up passing through this area and then happened to come across the abbey. It intrigued me, Cam, it really fucking intrigued me. I approached Abbot John and started the process.”

  “Trub, the holy monk,” Cam chuckled somewhat mockingly.

  “Yeah, isn’t that a fucking hoot? But laugh if you will, I entered the abbey with completely honest intentions to embark on a far different life, bud. I’d had a little time to reflect on my life by the time I got here and didn’t like what I saw, especially not when I compared it to the lives I saw the monks living here. They were giving their lives over to something far bigger than themselves, leading a daily existence of work, contemplation and humility. I immediately admired them for their dedication and selflessness, particularly the ones who had come from troubled backgrounds, as I had. I wanted to be part of it too, and become a better human being.”

  “But then….”

  “But then some dark clouds began gathering in the form of one Duke Lando. Although not part of the upp
er circles, I gathered bits and pieces along the way to put the fucking puzzle together. The monks, the abbey, were going to be stripped bare by Lando. Such upright, gentle souls simply aren’t equipped to deal with the likes of Duke. I was the only one willing, and able, to deal with the fucking crisis.”

  “I know what Abbot John would say to all of that,” Cam muttered.

  “Yeah, so do I. Unfortunately, my embrace of Christian principles has always been a little weak, bud, and the influence of my new life hadn’t been able to overtake me yet. I decided that some direct action was necessary to save the fucking day.”

  “And doin’ so directly contradicted the principles….”

  “Fuck, Cam, don’t you think I know that?!” Trub snapped, clearly irritated. “Don’t you think I know that the good brothers would’ve taken the position of mercy and forgiveness, of turning the other cheek? Whether you want to believe it or not, I agonized over the whole fucking thing as I decided what to do when I first became aware of Duke’s scheme.”

  Cam realized that Trub, shaking a fist in emphasis, was completely sincere. Letting out a deep sigh, he softly remarked, “I’m not here to judge you, Trub.”

  The comment had some effect, he noticed, as Trub calmed down a little, his expression becoming more serene. “Thank you,” Trub replied. “God will judge me, and I pray for his mercy. I hope he understands my fucking reasoning, bud, that sometimes one has to commit an evil to prevent a far greater evil. Otherwise the Duke Landos of the world run wild, never being brought to account, with a lot of good people being hurt along the way.”

  “But they will be brought to account, Trub, since they’ll go before God to be judged.”

  “That’s true,” Trub sighed, nodding. “So, you see, all I did was put them in the express line, Cam, and help make this world a slightly better place right fucking now.”

  “I didn’t think you were goin’ to be so open about everythin’,” Cam said.

  “Fuck, bud, you know me. I’ve never hung back on anything. Besides, it’s not like you’re gonna take me in or anything.”

  “Oh? And what makes you so sure about that?”

  “You’re not gonna re-open old wounds, wounds that are only a year-old, Cam. Career-wise, you’d be insane to risk having your bosses find out about this, right? Yeah, I can see that look in your eyes, bud. I still have my sources, after all. But the other, even more dangerous risk, involves your marriage. You know the effect it would have on Shauna. We both know, and I would bet my life that you would never risk putting her through that and maybe losing her. Yeah, I know that your marriage is on shaky ground already. By the way, not that it matters much here, but I know the fucking odds going around GWIBE on your marriage. I believe that you two love each other very much and want to see it work, so I laid down $500 on a bet for you two making it. I have to admit that the money I make off that bet will really help me in my travels now that I’m pretty much burned here.”

  “Wow, that’s the largest amount I’ve heard of bein’ bet on that,” Cam murmured, somewhat touched by his friend’s faith despite the circumstances. He took a large sip of beer from his bottle. Somehow it tasted even better now.

  “I know you’ve got other questions,” Trub continued after taking a gulp of his own. “I’m sure that you’re just dying to know about Betty.”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, I’m afraid that there’s no great story there, bud. She was just a disguise I had to wear in order to be around GWIBE. I have a lot of sympathizers there who would never give me up, but as we both know it would take only one person to burn me. Can you fucking imagine it if Phil Utah had seen me in the flesh?” Trub couldn’t help but laugh as he said it.

  “When I caught you about to….”

  “Yeah, that was a spur of the moment thing, Cam. After having such success taking care of the others, I couldn’t help myself, I just needed that cherry on top of the fucking sundae. Phil’s head over my fireplace would have been the greatest trophy of all.”

  “So I have to figure that GWIBE landed at this spot in the middle of nowhere thanks to you,” Cam said.

  “The credit goes to others,” Trub declared. “I was powerless in that.”

  “So how did it work?”

  “It was so simple for them to play Phil,” Trub began with a mighty grin. “Utah wanted Missouri and we started out with Washington, then Montana, although we were really hoping for something in the Midwest. The tug-of-war began, each side apparently giving a little at a time, until Phil had it outside Fargo and our side proposed outside of Glendive, Montana. They put on the fucking act of really wanting Glendive and digging in their heels. Utah, of course, couldn’t let it seem like they had won, so he put up a fucking fight about that.”

  “So how did the final manipulatin’ put it here?”

  “They had a relative newcomer, a guy obscure enough so he wasn’t identified with either side, call Sean Essex out of the blue….”

  “I can guess how that went,” Cam sighed with a sad smile. “The guy acted innocent, askin’ Essex where the festival was to be held. Essex told him that it was still up in the air, but had been narrowed down to some stretch between Montana and North Dakota. Mr. Innocent says ‘Oh, I just had a thought. You know, there’s a Trappist abbey in this one area that I know about that is developing its own beer. What a great matchup that would be, even if it isn’t close to any big town’. Then that idiot Utah, smellin’ the PR possibilities like a fly smells shit, accepted it, in the process notifyin’ every beer-related industry around. Duke Lando quickly picked up the news and thought that Fate was smilin’ down on him. Bein’ the greedy bastard he was, he never imagined that he was bein’ baited. Dale not only helped little Trubbie stay connected to his baby, but also smoothed the way for some more Trubbian justice.”

  “I owe him big-time,” Trub admitted, “but it’s what you do for a fellow brewer.”

  Cam said nothing, trying to take in the enormity of the story. He felt some joy over the fact that his friend was alive after all, but it was tempered by anger from the knowledge that his efforts beside Ned Inkwell had never really stood much of a chance. They had affected things only minimally as a sideshow. What he thought he’d learned about GWIBE in the past year turned out to be only a superficial understanding of the surface, beneath which there roiled many undercurrents that he’d been completely unaware of. Alliances between known enemies due to some inexplicable psychological bond between brewers? It was incredible. The whole thing had been so byzantine, so convoluted, that he wondered whether or not he would ever be able to untangle the shifting loyalties between the players.

  “I’m amazed, more appalled, that a man who was supposed to turn his life over to God racked up a bigger body count than last year. Manuel….Joey Creed….Duke Lando….Cheryl Ramirez, AKA Maria….”

  “And there was that Tex Cutter guy. I didn’t do that one, bud. He was an innocent man, and I would never kill an innocent man.”

  “We guessed that. We’re just couldn’t be exactly sure why he was killed.”

  “I know that one. He came across some information that would’ve blown Maria’s cover.”

  “The poor guy ended up as collateral damage. So, amigo, was there anyone else involved whom you didn’t get?”

  “Yeah. Deville and Sharper, mainly. You probably didn’t know this, Cam, but they were acting like they were part of another Utah….”

  “Another Utah stunt,” Cam interrupted, “but they were workin’ with Lando. It fits. Their overactin’ made me suspicious.”

  “Yep, but they were minor players, so they weren’t my main targets. Those two idiots could never be the brains behind any plan.”

  “Somethin’ else had me curious, Trub. Who are those two new guys who are buddyin’ around with Dale?”

  “Frank and Lyle, you mean? Oh, they were originally….umm….troubleshooters. They handled problems for Duke and other people, if you know what I mean.”

  “So yo
u gave Dale the heads-up on ‘em and he made sure to intercept ‘em before they could meet up with Duke.”

  “Yeah, and Dale’s efforts were wildly successful, they worked beyond our dreams. I mean, yeah, they were taken with Britt and Chloe after all, but the most intriguing part is that they’re now totally consumed by the idea of brewing. Dale says they’ve got the look in their eyes, the fire in their bellies. They’ll rever the craft and be a credit to our kind. They’re fun as hell, from what I’m told. I wish I could’ve been able to knock down some brews with them around a fire, you know? But hey, maybe sometime in the future.”

  Cam merely gave him a hard stare while knowing that he shouldn’t be surprised. He realized that even if Trub had been able to remain undetected and stay at the abbey, the Trappist life still wouldn’t have done any good. Trub was incorrigible, a zealous avenger who would never see, much less admit, the wrongness of his actions.

  “Although I do it for GWIBE and other good causes, I don’t consider myself any kind of a hero,” Trub said, as if he could guess Cam’s thoughts. “When you come down to it, bud, people like you, me….Dale….Inkwell….are actually victims. We….”

  “Stop, Trub. I don’t want to hear it. Goodbye.” He turned and walked away.

  “Cam! Make sure your mind walks away from this too!” Trub called out after him. “You still have every chance of having a great life ahead of you. Keep it in perspective!”

  Cam walked with a quick stride as he headed back to the brush, knowing that he had about a 10-minute walk back to his vehicle. He felt lightheaded from the encounter. Last year I left GWIBE disenchanted, he told himself. Good God, now I’m actually frightened by it. How do I know that somebody I’m acquainted with there isn’t a conspirator, that someone I have a drink with isn’t part of a death squad? I’m sick of this bullshit, of being the chump who’s the last to know anything. Trub knew how I wasn’t going to do anything, either. Or….