The Will

by Reed Arvin

  Chambers rose solemnly, dismissing the congregation for the interment. The organ began to play, and the Crandall family rose to leave, walking across the front of the church to the side door, vanishing back into the hallway. After the door closed behind them, the pastor motioned for the congregation to exit through the back. Henry filed out of the sanctuary with the others, blinking at the bright sunlight as he left the building.

  The burial was a short affair. Henry drove in the motorcade the short distance to the Everlasting Rest Cemetery, where the Crandall family had plots. The crowd stretched out around the grave site, spilling out over the grass. Henry stood some distance away, surprised by a sense of awe at seeing Crandall actually lowered into the ground. Death was still death, and it seemed improbable that such a small bundle of polished wood and brass could contain a man’s life. Henry glanced over at the family; they stood together beneath a dark green tent adjacent to the open grave.

  Henry walked over and took Margaret’s hand; she offered it to him limply, and her glazed expression made him wonder if she were in some kind of shock. Sarah nodded through her tears, and to his surprise, hugged him briefly. He had scarcely disengaged from her when Roger stuck his hand out, commanding his attention. “Be at our house at two,” he said.

  Henry showed mild surprise; the meeting had been planned for that evening, after the family had a chance to regroup. Roger, as though reading his thoughts, said, “No reason to drag things out. Best to just get it behind us.”

  “That’s fine,” Henry answered, “if the rest of the family feels up to it.”

  “They do.”

  Henry glanced at Margaret; she, at least, didn’t appear up to anything more than several days of rest. But Sarah nodded to him, and Henry moved on past the family, taking his place on the periphery of the crowd. When he looked back, Roger had picked up a bright silver-colored shovel and was pushing it hard into the freshly exposed earth beside the grave. The deceased’s body was laid to rest under a bright blue sky at the Everlasting Rest Cemetery, Council Grove, Kansas. The gravestone read: LET HIM WHO HAS RECEIVED MUCH GIVE MUCH. The wind ran along the greening grass, and Roger threw the first shovelful of black dirt onto his father’s casket. The dirt landed with a hollow sound, the clumps of topsoil exploding into tiny black granules, the particles running across the top of the last resting place of Ty Crandall. Without speaking to anyone, Henry turned back to his car and drove to his motel.

  In spite of Roger’s change of plans for the reading of the will, Henry still had time to kill before heading out to the Crandall place. He thought briefly of sleep; he hadn’t realized how hard Parker had been driving him until he got some distance from it, and now, the numbness of sixty-hour weeks only a single day removed, he began to feel deeply tired. But driving through town from the church toward the motel pulled up a set of emotions that drew him down street after street in spite of his fatigue, back into his old life.

  He had left town first in a fit of misplaced optimism, eighteen years old and anxious to put as many miles between himself and Council Grove as possible. His vehicle had been college, and he had excelled there. The second time he had left Council Grove he had left the bodies of his parents behind him, and he had felt nothing—merely a numb wounding. But to feel it now; to reenter that world voluntarily for a time and then to leave it definitively, passionless, intentional; that was what he wanted now. He wanted to shake the dust of the place off his feet, and that meant getting dusty first. He would look at every street, every house, and flick them off his finger as he headed back to Chicago to his life and lover and work. So he drove down Chautauqua toward the square, his face set, scanning the streets as he drove.

  Just before the square were railroad tracks, a symbolic line that severed the town cleanly, separating the prosperous from the redneck. On the west the shopkeepers and a small handful of commuters lived; on the east were the hourly workers and the failed pig and chicken farmers that had been forced off their land. Henry turned along the railroad where it curved past the high school, running behind the Crandall Feed and Farm Supply.

  The farm store was the financial center of Council Grove. Farmers funneled their existence through it, buying seed, hardware, supplies, and heavy equipment. They sold there as well; a row of grain silos just behind the store stood over the town like enormous banks, ready to spit out money if any farmers were prayed up enough with God and friendly enough with Crandall.

  The Crandall family towered over Council Grove as surely as the granary did, and Henry rolled past the huge silos with an involuntary, adolescent respect. Their size alone inspired awe; a row of monsters nearly a hundred and sixty feet tall and more than fifty around, they cast gargantuan shadows across three blocks when the sun moved behind them. They were caverns of dreams, a holding place for farmers who played roulette with grain prices controlled by people and governments continents away. Henry passed by them and swept back out toward the square, still passing Crandall holdings: the grocery store, the bank building, a number of rental houses. Beyond his sight was the real Crandall wealth, over eighteen hundred acres of good grazing land, large even by Flinthills standards. Those fields contained the prized possession: seven trickling oil wells, mostly played out but the historic center of the family’s money. It had been oil that made Ty Crandall’s luck run gold; he had bought the land on the cheap and soon afterward found the precious, underground pools. Twenty-five years of pumping had slowed them to practically nothing, but the wells were still famous for a freak accident that had killed a field worker in their drilling. One second the roustabout had been working on the well casing, and the next a sudden, lethal updraft of sulfur gas choked his brain and dropped him on the spot. That started a trend that linked good fortune for Crandalls with bad luck for everybody else.

  Eventually Henry entered the square, the junction of the town’s four main streets: Chautauqua, Elm, Main, and Pawnee, each an arrow-straight thoroughfare running directly from the center to the outskirts of town and endlessly beyond. Originally made for several wagons abreast instead of for cars, the streets were now unnecessarily wide, and in front of the town’s only café an actual hitching post stood. Now trucks parked in front of the long wooden pole, and at Christmas it was decorated with ribbons and electric lights. Outward from the café spread a run-down smattering of craft stores selling trinkets and handmade kachina dolls, a beauty shop, and a Radio Shack.

  Just off the square was his father’s old office, and as Henry drove past he kept his eyes firmly on the road, refusing to be drawn into that painful memory. Even to see the run-down place would have put an arrow in his heart. Henry glanced reflexively at his watch; there was still an hour to kill, and unwilling to have the time filled with thoughts of his father, he turned toward the town park to fill his mind with another man.

  Henry had spent a good deal of his adolescence wondering about this man—more than wondering, at times obsessed with thoughts of him, and the idea of seeing him again filled him with both dread and curiosity. He was called the Birdman, and he was an anomaly in a town that badly needed one. Night and day the man staked an outpost on a concrete bench in a corner of Custer’s Elm Park, a small area named for a spreading tree that Custer and his men had mustered under one night on their way to their graves. The tree was still there, an enormous, stretching umbrella that gave shade twenty yards across. The Birdman endured harsh Kansas weather there like a wooden statue—only high winds and rain would occasionally beat him indoors. His only concessions to the elements were a shapeless coat he wore in the cold and an infamous floppy Stetson that had been so beaten down by sun, rain, and wind that it had become moldy and stiff. With the Stetson pulled down low over his eyes, it was hard to distinguish where the man’s grizzled face finished and the hat began. But when he looked up he showed simple features, with a small nose, brown eyes, and a pale mouth with lips dry from constant exposure. Raggedy hair fell down over his ears, with wiry arms that looked like solid bone.

  The
Birdman stank, and it was work to get near him. He rarely washed, and his pants were always shiny with grime and sweat, especially during the hot summer months. He wore flannel cotton shirts, often penetrated by a hole or two and hanging loosely about him.

  The Birdman’s circumstances fueled the speculation about him. In spite of living on the streets he owned a small house: a meager place close by the park over on Owendale. His owning the house created one of the longest-running mysteries in Council Grove: how the Birdman paid his bills. Even a run-down place meant county taxes, and there was certainly no visible income to the man. But the Birdman always paid in cash, rumpled green bills stuffed into envelopes left in the night box at the post office.

  The source of the Birdman’s nickname was a large carrion bird—a kind of vulture that flies high and alone over the plains looking for carcasses to pick apart. The bird was covered with purplish-black feathers and had a vicious-looking yellow beak that he squawked through. With his wings extended he was nearly four feet across, and when agitated he would stand up on wirelike talons, stretching his wings out wide and shrieking in a loud voice. The bird had a mean streak, and people didn’t need much encouragement to keep their distance. It was plain scary as it flapped across town, landing here and there on the courthouse or some other building. But he would always return to the Birdman’s concrete bench. Worst of all was the smell; the bird stank worse than the Birdman, and had a habit of relieving himself on the park bench and sidewalk, making a white mess on the concrete.

  Now Henry turned onto Owendale and drove slowly toward the big elm on the edge of the park, rolling to a stop and lowering his windows. He scanned for signs of the Birdman, hoping to spot him at his usual bench. After a few minutes of sitting quietly he thought he might have heard the harsh calling of a bird, but it was distant and he couldn’t be sure. He got out of the car and walked toward the bench; there was scratching in the dirt nearby, and the telltale droppings that meant the bird, at least, was still around. But there was no trace of the man, and Henry had the sinking feeling that something might have happened to him. It had been a long time—the aborted year of seminary, three more for law school, then more than two with the firm—since he had seen him, and a lot could happen to someone living such a rugged lifestyle in that amount of time.

  Henry leaned against the tree, and in his mind he could hear the man’s voice crackle out into the park. The Birdman talked almost ceaselessly, sometimes shrill, sometimes mumbling, but always a bizarre combination of foulmouthed cursing and religious sermonizing. The incoherence of such religious speech and obscene language had held the town’s children spellbound for years, and Henry had been no different. But unlike the others, his fascination continued, and even as a teenager he had come many times, hiding behind a tree to listen. He never tired of watching the Birdman rise to preach to some invisible congregation, his voice cracked and urgent.

  “Come to me, all ye merciless bastards,” the man would say. “Ye of talon, beak, and feather. Come to me, ye who rip and kill and tear. Come, ye murdering sons of bitches, for I will give ye rest.” Such words were accompanied by grand, electrifying motions sent into the air and sky. Henry’s young mind was transfixed by the sight of madness and faith entwined and alive, the two powerful forces locked together in a single, tortured mind. It was the most potent combination he had ever seen, an explosion of dangerous, brilliant color in the black and white of Council Grove. Faith, deranged but real, ran through the Birdman’s veins like electricity through a circuit. By comparison, Henry’s own had been a trickle. But faith had been their silent bond, although Henry had never spoken to the man. They both believed, the Birdman in his imagined forces, Henry in the god of William Chambers and the Evangel Baptist Church. Now, his faith destroyed, he found himself wanting to see the man again, wanting to feel that the electricity between them had at last been cut.

  No one appeared. Minutes passed, and after some time Henry reluctantly walked back to his car, still hoping to see the man suddenly appear from behind a tree or even out of thin air. But there was nothing, and at last he got in his car and started the drive to the Crandall place with a sense of melancholy. He wanted, at a minimum, to know that the Birdman was all right, that none of the ugliness of children had fallen too hard on him, or that simple disease hadn’t taken him away. But in a few minutes he was turning into the circular drive that led to the Crandall home, and the seriousness of what he was about to do filled his mind.

  The Crandall house itself had changed through the years, transforming itself as the Crandall fortunes grew from a large but straightforward two-story frame home into a rambling structure with two additions, each almost as large as the original home and obviously built at different times. The effect was unsettling, creating a great hulk put together from unrelated parts. Henry stared for a moment before he got out of his car; the Crandalls were intensely private in spite of their power, and he realized that he had never actually seen the inside of the house. After a moment he grabbed his briefcase and walked to the entrance. Before he had a chance to ring the bell Sarah opened the door, looking a little better than she had at the interment. She had changed into more casual clothes, and her deep sadness seemed to have lifted somewhat.

  “It’s good to see you,” she said quietly. “I wanted to say more at the funeral, but there wasn’t a chance.”

  Henry gave a solemn nod as he crossed the threshold. “How are you holding up?” he asked. “Did you get any rest?”

  “A little,” she answered. “I laid down for a few minutes, but Mother’s needed a lot of attention.” She smiled sadly. “She’s taken things so hard. I’m not letting myself feel anything until she gets settled. It won’t help if I fall to pieces.”

  “She’s lucky to have you.”

  “Of course, we’re in Roger’s good hands now. Everything will be fine.” She turned and led him down a hallway toward the rear of the house.

  Henry glanced discreetly into a few of the rooms as they walked. The unifying force in the decor appeared to be the overt display of wealth, or what passed for it in Council Grove. There were no signs of the kind of real money Henry had been introduced to in Chicago, but instead rooms littered with items that smacked of upscale mail-order catalogues. Some of the pieces were attractive, but there was no real feeling imparted by the sum of the parts. There was one lovely painting of a landscape in a sitting room, but it was contained by a frame so overwrought that the picture was spoiled.

  Sarah led him into a large family room where her mother sat on an ivory-colored couch, her expression as blank as it had been at the funeral. Roger stood beside her and then moved quickly toward them. He was still in his suit.

  “Mathews,” he said. “You’re on time. That’s good.”

  Henry stuck out his hand. “Hello, Roger. You okay?”

  “This town’s ground to a halt. You couldn’t cram another living soul in that church today.”

  “It was a beautiful service, Roger.”

  Roger motioned Henry to sit, and Henry smiled at Margaret as he took his seat near her, but no connection was made. She looked through him for a moment, then turned to stare at a wall. Roger sat down heavily in an expansive, well-worn leather chair facing the two of them. His father’s chair, Henry thought.

  “So,” Roger said, “you’re up in Chicago.” He said the word as if he had said “Africa,” or “Mars.” Henry nodded. “What’s the name? Wilton and something?”

  “Wilson, Lougherby and Mathers.”

  Roger smiled languidly. “Why ain’t your name in there, Henry?” he asked. “What’s the problem?”

  Henry found, to his relief, that it was easy to ignore Roger’s tasteless competitiveness; he had expected it, in fact prepared himself for it unconsciously. Even in high school Roger had needed to win every game, every argument, every competition no matter how trivial. Seeing him again, it hadn’t taken long to discover that he was stuck, still mired in the same adolescent compulsions. “It’s a pretty larg
e firm,” Henry said easily. “Getting my name on any doors could take a while.”

  “Yeah?” Roger leaned back in his chair. He seemed suddenly interested in the idea of a Chicago law firm. “How many lawyers you got up there, anyway?”

  “About a hundred and eighty,” Henry answered, assuming it was at least ten times what Roger had imagined. Roger stared, and Henry had the satisfaction of seeing that his point had been made.

  “Hell,” Roger said, “I hate to think how many crooks it would take to feed a hundred and eighty lawyers.”