by David Rhodes
No, he hadn’t gotten over her. In all the ways that mattered he was still married—happily married—though he could never explain this to anyone. No one would understand.
July took down the chain hanging from the rafter and put it around his neck. Carrying the rod and reel, he returned to the truck.
Along the road, he met another group of wild turkeys. They looked as though they could be the same ones he’d seen earlier, heading in the opposite direction.
LETTING GO
MAXINE GOT UP AT 4:00 A.M. AND WALKED BEYOND THE BARN to the small lean-to her husband had built on the south side of the woodpile. A light rain during the night had moistened the ground, and the air smelled fresh. A fine mist hovered over the valley and the trunks of the trees were dripping wet. She found him sitting on the army cot, his rifle leaning beside him, in the ramshackle guardhouse he’d built several months ago.
“Thought I heard something,” he said, and inspected his watch with a flashlight. “You’re up early.”
“I couldn’t sleep,” said Maxine and set out their breakfast: oatmeal with raisins; boiled eggs in the shell; toast with butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon; two six-ounce cans of tomato juice; and coffee. She arranged the meal on two folding trays next to the cot and sat in the lawn chair while they ate.
“Ever notice how food tastes different outdoors?” asked Rusty.
“It’s because of the smells,” said Maxine. “Most of taste comes from smell.”
“I was thinking we might want to build a cabin back here in the woods.”
“Why would we want to do that, Russell?”
“For when we felt like getting away.”
“Getting away from what?”
“The house and telephone.”
“We’d probably want a telephone inside the cabin.”
“Why?”
“In case someone called or you wanted to call someone. Oh yes, July Montgomery called last night.”
“What did he want?”
“He wanted to know if he could borrow your truck to pull a trailer somewhere.”
“What did you tell him?”
“I said you’d never loaned your truck to anyone that I know of and he’d have to talk to you himself. And I also told him that I didn’t think your truck was big enough to pull a whole trailer. He said he’d call again.”
“How big is it?”
“I don’t remember. An average-sized one, I think.”
“My truck could pull that like nothing.”
A sound came from the direction of the barn and Rusty climbed to his feet and squinted through a space between several logs in the woodpile. He motioned for Maxine to come look.
In the dim morning light, a cougar walked along the roof of the barn, jumped into the nearby tree, and climbed to the ground. It walked forward several yards, turned around, and lay down.
Out of the ground-level door on the back of the barn walked another black cat, about a third smaller than the first. The older animal stood up and they circled each other twice, their tails moving back and forth. The adult ran down the valley. The cub followed, then stopped, turned, and looked directly at the makeshift guardhouse and Rusty and Maxine, and growled.
Then it ran after its mother.
“Beautiful,” said Maxine. “It makes your heart sing to see something like that.”
“They’re finally gone. Now I’ve got to get that upper window closed,” said Rusty.
“I doubt they’ll come back anyway, Russell. July was right—the cub was hurt and stayed in the mow until it got better. They won’t be back. You can move back into the house now. That hunter you saw will never find them. I mean if they’ve survived this long there’s a good chance—”
“My brother never would have let that son of a bitch shoot an animal on his property,” said Rusty. “He had a pet raccoon and used to worry over that animal like it was a person. That’s the way Carl was.”
“Are you going to talk to your niece now?”
“No. Right now I’m going to eat another boiled egg.”
LAWYERS
GRACE SPOTTED THE GREEN CAR FIRST. SHE WATCHED IT MOVE into the farmyard, and a tall old woman climbed out. She seemed momentarily stunned by the heat of the afternoon and walked very, very slowly around to the other side and helped an old man out. He brushed the sleeves of his suit coat, buttoned the front, pulled a briefcase from the back seat, and looked at the weather vane on top of the barn. He moved even slower than the woman did. Grace did not recognize them and asked her brother if he did. Seth was busy nailing a wooden box to a tamarack.
“Never seen them,” Seth said. “Must not be from around here.”
“They’re here now,” said Grace, setting down the sack of squirrel bait. Together they ran into the house.
“Can we help you?” asked Grahm, meeting the two visitors in the yard.
“We’re looking for Grahm and Cora Shotwell,” the old man said, his gray hair parted as straight as a stretched string.
“I’m Grahm Shotwell. This is my wife, Cora.”
“Perhaps we could talk somewhere out of the sun,” he said.
“Who are you?” demanded Cora.
“The name is Pikes,” he said, handing her a business card from his inside coat pocket. “Tim Pikes. This is my wife, Leona. We’ve been retained to represent you in your dispute with American Milk Cooperative.”
“You’re lawyers,” said Grahm, as though naming a disease.
“We have much to discuss,” said Leona.
“You’re wasting your time here,” said Grahm. “We don’t need a lawyer.”
“As for the former, Leona and I are uniquely capable of determining the value of our time. Regarding the latter, you are very much in need of a lawyer so perhaps we should get out of the heat.”
At the kitchen table, Tim Pikes took a handful of papers from his briefcase and explained, “First of all, Miss Gail Shotwell has asked me to convey an apology for her. The papers she earlier identified as missing and perhaps stolen were in the spare bedroom of her home where she had stored them but subsequently did not remember doing so. They were only recently discovered. She misspoke when several weeks ago she said to Cora that they were no longer in her possession and she regrets whatever confusion this may have caused. You will notice that I have taken the opportunity to look through them, and have brought copies of the most germane.”
“She was drinking again,” said Cora, frowning.
“That speculation is one of several which Miss Shotwell anticipated you might offer, and one she does not wish to dispute out of hand. However, it need not concern us now. I see you do not have air-conditioning and I wonder if I could have some bottled water.”
Cora looked quickly through the copies of shipping receipts and tax forms. “It’s them,” she said with satisfaction, smiling in a conspiratorial manner at Grahm. “Now we can nail those bastards to a wall.” Grahm returned the smile, then grew self-conscious and closed his face.
Leona laughed. “That’s the spirit,” she said.
“If we have the papers,” said Grahm, “we don’t need you. The papers prove everything.”
Tim Pikes took off his coat and laid it across the back of a chair. “Mr. Shotwell, proof applies well to mathematics but everything else is a matter of precedent and persuasion. By notifying the agriculture department of the existence of these papers and the illegal practices they serve to record, you’ve entered a world of litigious grief.”
Leona sat at the table. “We’ve received transcripts of all department activity as well as the files at the district court, and have drafted a petition to overturn an improper administrative ruling and reopen all proceedings. We’ve challenged the fine and have prepared a petition on your behalf asking for an injunction to cease and desist against the cooperative as well as a civil suit addressing the prejudicial termination of your employment. A petition has been drafted for the removal of the administrative judge assigned to the investigation because of
his prior association with the cooperative and other conflicts of interest, and we have outlined a preliminary petition to present to the attorney general and district court.”
As Leona named the documents, Tim pulled them from the briefcase and set them on the tabletop, with the blank lines above “plaintiff” circled in red ink.
“We don’t need help,” said Grahm. “We need justice, and I’m beginning to believe that justice is something that means nothing to the government or the people who work for it.”
“Everyone needs help, Mr. Shotwell,” said Tim. “And as Aristotle was fond of pontificating over two thousand years ago, justice exists only between those who are equally involved in making and enforcing laws. You’ve offended some very wealthy and powerful people, and they will do anything and everything to defend their positions of privilege.”
“This is the United States of America,” said Grahm, “or at least it used to be. ‘Positions of privilege’ means nothing to me and should mean nothing to judges and lawyers like you.”
“Mr. and Mrs. Shotwell, contrary to what you may think, the legal system was neither founded upon nor designed to reflect the common decency found in normal human relationships. It primarily works like the rules for a lunatic asylum. It tries to govern people driven insane by the inflated idea of their own worth. You’ve unfortunately become caught up in it, and the outcome is anything but certain.”
“What are you saying?” asked Cora.
“I’m saying that if you value your reputation in the community and want to avoid receiving anonymous death threats in the middle of the night, including threats against your children, and going to jail and losing your farm, you should pay attention to us.”
“But we’ve done nothing wrong,” said Cora.
“Telling the truth is always wrong if it threatens those for whom being wrong can never be true.”
“Who hired you?”
“Look,” said Tim, directly addressing Grahm. “You have a good life here—far better than most. You can work for yourselves, visit with your neighbors, and grow old watching your children become fully conscious adults. It’s unlikely you will ever go hungry and you can go to sleep nearly every night in each other’s arms. People have no right to wish for any more than that, and if they do they’re idiots. A good life is worth fighting for and Leona and I are presently your only way of fighting.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Grahm.
“We understand these problems,” said Leona, addressing Cora. “But first, it would be nice to get to know each other better. Our four children and our grandchildren are coming to visit in a week and we’d like for you and Grahm and Seth and Grace to come over for the afternoon. We live not far from here. We’re planning on lamb, if that’s all right. Tim wants to roast one on an open fire, but that seems extravagant to me. We’ve never done it before. I’m not sure what we should have to go with it. I’m unfamiliar with lamb. What do you think? We can talk about it later. I’ll call.”
“There are no guarantees, Grahm,” said Tim. “Something can always go wrong, but with our help you have a good chance of winning against American Milk. After several years of exhausting administrative remedies we will finally get into the district court and there will probably be a verdict in your favor, and a fine against the cooperative. Both will be appealed to a higher court and after five or six more years the fine will be reduced to an insignificant amount. But you’ll keep your farm and your reputation, and you’ll be able to take pride in knowing the good guys won a battle against institutionalized greed.”
“We don’t have bottled water,” said Cora, filling him a glass from the faucet. “Our water was tested, though.”
“Who is going to pay you?” demanded Grahm. “We don’t take charity.”
“We don’t give charity,” said Tim. “We’re mostly retired and can do what we want with our lives. This is something we want to do.”
Tim took a long drink of water and Cora said to Leona, “You have four children?”
“Yes,” said Leona. “Four children and ten grandchildren. You can meet every one of them next week.”
Tim put on his jacket and left a pile of papers on the table, indicating the places where Grahm and Cora needed to sign their names. Then, carrying his briefcase and coat, he returned to the passenger side of the green German car, with Leona holding his arm.
“I don’t think we should accept their help,” said Grahm, watching them drive away.
“We have to,” said Cora. “Under the circumstances, it wouldn’t be right to refuse.”
Seth and Grace ran downstairs, across the kitchen floor, and outside in urgent pursuit of something known only to them.
Cora went to the stove and continued cooking dinner. She listened to the sound of water coming to a boil, and for the first time in a long while the warm feeling of being safe glowed inside her, a lantern on the edge of a still lake. And now that the subject had been brought into the open where she could examine it—first in the shape of envy and then in the color of desire—she knew her mind quite well: she wanted more children.
RESEMBLANCE
RUSTY KNOCKED ON THE FRONT OF THE PARSONAGE IN WORDS and waited, then knocked again. While he was knocking the third time, Winnie walked around from the back yard where she had been working in her flower garden and asked, “May I help you?” Her hands and forearms were covered with dirt and she held a small trowel.
Rusty took off his seed cap and put it back on, the bill curving low over his eyes.
“Most people call me Rusty,” he said, a cigarette bobbing out of the corner of his thin mouth. “Rusty Smith.”
“I think I’ve seen you before,” said Winnie, staring at him uneasily. “Doesn’t your wife, Maxine, volunteer at the library in Grange?”
“Yup.”
“I’m Pastor Winifred. How may I help you?”
Winnie felt an instant and unexplained loathing for the shape and manner of the man standing in the yard. Something in the way he moved, his facial muscles and the attitude with which he stood in his silver-toed cowboy boots, set loose a primordial cascade of neural firing in her lower brain. She instinctually avoided eye contact, hoping to sever the connection between him and her emotions.
“Your last name Smith?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“I’m your uncle.”
Winnie dropped the trowel and backed away.
Rusty couldn’t help staring, recognizing in Winnie—despite her gender and tall, birdlike stature—several unmistakable features belonging to his brother, and these came as some surprise because before seeing them in her, he did not know that he remembered them in Carl. He stepped forward, as though to draw closer to his own memories.
“I’m your uncle—Carl’s older brother. We should talk.”
“Why?” said Winnie, and again stepped backward, her long legs creating more space between them, separating herself from her memories.
“Didn’t know you had an uncle, did you?” asked Rusty. He flicked an ash from his cigarette.
“For years I hated my father,” said Winnie. All the twisted and fearful associations that her childhood had locked away in little wooden drawers migrated into the person standing before her. He truly seemed like the kind of man who set traps for others by luring them into despising him, and even as she recognized the bait as bait, she felt herself taking it.
“I’m afraid your father is dead.”
Winnie said nothing.
“You’re my niece,” said Rusty.
“Please go away.”
“I should show you something. Will you come?”
“No.”
“Yes you will. I can’t do this without you, Pastor Winifred. And even if you don’t want to cooperate I still need to do my part, don’t I? All these years, I haven’t been able.”
Rusty drove for more than an hour without speaking. Winnie sat on the far other side of the truck seat, staring out the window and concentrating on her breathing.
On the north end of the dusty village of Domel, he pulled into an abandoned quarry, steering around pools of stagnant water, rock ledges, and rusting machinery, and parked next to a gate made of steel posts and barbed wire.
“Come on,” he said, dragging the gate aside.
Winnie stepped through and they walked uphill.
“There used to be a road here,” he explained. “It ran all the way west along the ridge. It’s grown over now. Somebody logged off the bigger trees. But the view of the horizon is the same as it was sixty years ago.” He stared into it for several minutes.
They continued up the hill, stopping twice for Rusty to sit on a flat rock, rest his knees, and smoke. Scrub oak, sumac, and ash poked out of the sandy wasteland. Near the top, Rusty headed through a thicket of brambles. Winnie followed, and at a place that looked no different from any other place, he stopped and said, “This is it.”
“What?” asked Winnie.
“The place we grew up, your father and I. Those foundation stones—that’s where the house stood.”
“What happened to it?” asked Winnie, noticing five or six irregular stones jutting out of the ground in a ragged line, apparently the only signs of a once-existing homestead.
“Our dad set it on fire one night when he came home from town. He did it on purpose. We were all sleeping inside. One of our sisters woke up and Mother got us out. We stood right here and watched it burn to the ground with everything we owned inside. Carl tried to save his raccoon and was badly burned.”