The Will

by Reed Arvin

  Durand stood, a menacing expression on his face. “What do you think you have there, Roger?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  “It’s what I know I have.” Roger stepped toward Durand, determined to face him down. “These are the accounts between my father, Carl Durand”— he turned to face Hesston—“and the supposedly honorable attorney-at-law Frank Hesston. It’s real interesting reading.”

  Durand crossed the space between himself and Roger in three steps and ripped the papers from Crandall’s hand. He flipped through the pages in quick succession, and to Roger’s satisfaction, a trace of fear could be seen through the anger. “That son of a bitch,” Durand snarled. “That little son of a bitch.” He took the pages, crumpled them, walked to his desk, and calmly set them on fire with a lighter. They burned orange and red as he dropped them into a metal wastebasket. He sat down, still visibly enraged but in control. “Well, Roger, what do you think about that?”

  Roger walked as casually as he could up to Durand. “I think you’ll have to burn a lot more of those before I give a damn about that.” He laughed. “You don’t think I’m stupid enough to bring the only copy here, do you?”

  Durand was about to reply when Frank Hesston spoke. He had retained his composure from the beginning, his face clouding over into intense thought. “No, of course not, Roger,” he said calmly. “No one thinks you’re stupid. Naturally you made copies, probably on the way here. Is that what you did, Roger? Did you stop and make copies along the way?”

  Roger turned to Hesston. “What difference does it make?” he said angrily. “I made the copies. That’s all you need to know.”

  Hesston’s face remained calm, even sympathetic. “It might make a difference,” he said. “And of course Carl here would be more likely to believe that you actually had these copies if you told us where you made them.”

  “I made them at the damn copy store!” Roger yelled. “I don’t know, Kinko’s or something.”

  Hesston turned to say something to Durand, but Carl had already had enough. “So you walked into a public place and made God knows how many copies of fifteen pages each. You’re a fool, Roger. A fool.”

  “What’s got you?” Roger said, confusion creeping into his voice. “They didn’t know what the hell I was copying.”

  “For twenty-five years nobody knows about the business we’ve been doing,” Durand said. “And Crandall told me there were no records at his place. Now, a week after he dies, his son is making copies of the books at goddam Kinko’s!”

  Hesston stood and walked over to Roger. “What’s done is done, Carl,” he said quietly. “But tell me, Roger, what do you think these so-called books mean?”

  “They’re not so-called books, Frank. They’re the real books. And they show that the Crandall ranch wasn’t a bunch of burnt-out oil wells hanging on for dear life. I don’t know how it works. Hell, those wells only pump a few hours every day. But somehow you two and my father were making millions of dollars that nobody knows anything about.” He stopped, a faraway look in his eyes. “Millions,” he repeated.

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Durand said. “He’s got nothing but numbers on a page.”

  “Just a minute, Carl,” Hesston said. He turned back to Roger. “Supposing, just for the purpose of discussion, that this were true. What do you suppose you would do with that information?”

  “Get in on the goddam action!” Roger exclaimed. “Take my share! Just like my father did.” He blinked. “With some changes.”

  “I see,” Hesston said. “What kind of changes, Roger? Again, just for the purposes of discussion.”

  Roger eyed the man narrowly. “For starters, you can kiss that even split good-bye. My share is going to be sixty percent. Sixty for me, twenty each for you two.”

  At this Durand lunged at Roger, but Hesston, in a surprisingly quick move, came between them and restrained him. His small but bulky frame proved remarkably tough, and he handled the much larger Durand with relative ease. “Sit down, Carl,” he said. “Putting marks on him won’t help matters.”

  “You heard that little punk!” Durand protested, but Hesston pushed him down into his chair.

  “Let me handle this,” he said. He turned to Roger, his voice absolutely level. “Don’t misunderstand me, Roger,” he said. “Stopping Durand from taking you apart doesn’t mean I’m opposed to it in principle. It just means I want to find out how stupid you are first. Then the appropriate pain can be applied.”

  Roger looked at Hesston cautiously. The lawyer’s physical prowess had proved a surprise, but his relative calm when applying it had been more unnerving. There was a quiet menace to the man, a casual disinterest in the way he talked about Durand hurting him that made Roger’s skin crawl. But it was too late to reconsider; if he were ever going to get the power, he couldn’t back down now. He heard his father’s voice: You got to have the will to act, boy. You got to have the will. He had seen his father stare down adversaries, taking control of them with a word or a look. He would push through. “I’m not gonna argue about this, ’cause it’s a waste of my time,” he said. “It’s real simple. There’s new rules, and I’m telling you what they are. First, you bring me completely up to date on this little scam of yours. Second, I’m in for sixty percent.” He turned to Durand. “You can understand that, can’t you, little man?”

  This time Durand was too quick for Hesston. He ducked under him and hit Roger with a roundhouse to the jaw, knocking Roger backward several feet. Roger’s lip exploded in pain, and between the force of the blow and the booze he found himself toppling backward, sprawled on the carpeted floor. Now his athletic competitiveness came to the surface, and he struggled to his feet, determined to repay Durand with everything he had. But the drinking had diminished his balance, and he ended up teetering back and forth a moment before falling sideways against a chair. The chair broke under his sudden weight, a leg snapping cleanly off and dumping him once again on the floor. Durand cursed and walked away. “He had that coming, Frank.”

  “And now you have a split lip and a broken chair to explain,” Hesston said with irritation. “For God’s sake, I can’t stand either one of you right now. At the rate we’re going we might as well just invite the police in for coffee. Carl, sit down and let me sort this out.”

  Durand held up his hand and said, “Then get on with it, damn it, because if that idiot mouths off again I’m not going to be responsible for what happens.”

  Roger sat slumped in his chair, watching Durand and Hesston and feeling his isolation growing like a hideous cancer. Durand and his father had worked together for twenty-five years, their strength increasing with each other’s help. If Durand and Hesston really were going to be his enemies, he had no plan of attack save one: to threaten them into cooperation. But he didn’t feel very threatening at the moment. Nothing had gone according to plan. But he had one card left to play, and he could think of nothing else to do but play it. “If you don’t like my terms you can both go to hell. I’ll shut the wells down tomorrow and go straight to the police. You’ll both fry.” He looked at Durand. “You, especially.”

  Hesston stopped Durand with a look. “So that’s your big plan, Roger?” he said sarcastically. “You’ll run to the police?” He smiled, a relaxed look on his face. “You wasted your punch, Carl,” he said casually, and pulled another chair out and sat. He looked at Roger placidly, saying nothing.

  “Do you hear me?” Roger demanded. “If I don’t get what I want, I’m going to the police! I’ll tell them I had no idea that this was going on, but like a good little citizen I’m turning you bastards in.” He pointed to the burnt fragments of paper in the wastebasket. “I have everything I need to put you both in jail for the rest of your lives.”

  Hesston smiled and crossed his legs. “Go ahead, Roger,” he said. “Do it.”

  Roger blinked, frustration and rage filling his mind. “What?” he stammered. “What are you saying? You want me to turn you in?”

  Hesston’s
face showed an infuriating lack of concern. “You see why I told you to wait, Carl,” he said. “I wanted to see how stupid he was. Unbelievably stupid, it turns out.” He laughed. “Go on, Roger. Go to the police. Turn us in.” He picked up the receiver of Durand’s phone. “Here, I’ll dial it for you.” He dialed a number and held the phone out to Roger. “Go ahead. They’ll be on the line any second.”

  Roger trembled in his chair, unable to move. Several seconds passed silently, and Hesston hung up the phone. “Congratulations, Roger,” he said. “You’re stupid, but there’s at least some instinct for self-preservation in your small mind. I’m so pleased.”

  “What’s this game?” Durand said uneasily. “Why toy with him? Just let me kill him, okay?”

  Hesston gave Durand an annoyed look. “Killing isn’t the answer to everything, Carl,” he said. “Anyway, that won’t be necessary.” He smiled once again at Roger. “You see, Roger here is a mean-spirited little man, weak and greedy. And he knows that if he turns us in, the IRS will come to his little farm and take every bit of it away. The penalties and back taxes that his father accrued will be in the millions. His family will have nothing, which he doesn’t give a damn about, but more important, he will have nothing, the thought of which he can’t stand. He’ll be nothing but the penniless son of a felon.” He laughed. “Maybe you can get a job in the hardware store, Roger, after the government auctions it off. Of course you won’t be able to buy it yourself, because you won’t have a dime. You’ll be homeless, because your house will be sold with everything else. You know who you’ll be, Roger? You’ll be the fucking Birdman.” His laughter grew louder. “Now, Roger, I hope you feel better for having got this off your chest. But the fact is I’m going to represent you in a legal action. You’re going to contest the will, because I can’t have things screwed up by the land getting outside our control. I need unrestricted access, and if it goes out of your family I can’t have that guarantee. Your father was pretty damn smart, thinking he was sending our little scam south.”

  “Damn ironic, too, giving the land to Boyd,” Durand said. “But that doesn’t matter now. You see, Roger, Frank here’s the best lawyer in this state. You’re going to do what he says, and he’s going to get things back to normal. In the meantime, you’ll live with ten percent, plus you get to walk around that little shithole of a town and act like you own it.” He stretched, and to Roger’s horror he actually yawned. “I think I’ll have a drink,” he said, walking to the bar. “Can I get you anything, Roger?” he asked. “A little shot for your nerves?”

  Henry pulled his car over at the edge of Custer’s Elm Park and asked Amanda to stay put. She nodded, and he detected a bit of apprehension on her face. “We’ll see how he is,” he said. “I’m not making any promises. But if he’s calm, I’ll ask him.” She blinked and smiled.

  Henry got out and spotted Boyd across the park. It didn’t look hopeful. The man was in one of his fits of sermonizing, gesturing to the sky. Henry stopped and watched for a moment, transfixed as usual. Boyd’s thin frame seemed as fragile as his mind; he looked as though a stiff wind might suck him up and carry him away like a scarecrow in the breeze. But my God, he believes, Henry thought. Total faith. No doubts, no questions. He could do anything.

  Henry walked across the grass and heard the man’s voice carried back to him in the wind. “I will free the slaves from the yoke of the black sea, the black ocean! I will redeem them with my mighty arm, says the Lord!” Boyd strode back and forth in front of his bench in full cry, passionate and fiery. The great bird was squawking and flapping, his wings beating the air. Henry watched in horrified fascination; the two seemed connected somehow, as if the bird were some kind of animal extension of the man’s madness.

  Henry stepped softly forward, and the bird whirled to face him, rising and hovering two feet in the air. Boyd turned as well, his face agitated. With the sight of Henry, however, he calmed, and lowered his arms. The bird flapped down to the ground and stared with yellow eyes. “The virgin awaits. She is untouched by the black sea. She is undefiled.”

  “Hello, Mr. Boyd.”

  “Have you seen the virgin?” Boyd asked eagerly. His eyes were shining. “She is untouched by the black ocean. Pure and without stain.” He sat down on his bench. “Do you have more papers, junior Henry? More papers about my buildings?”

  Henry radiated calmness. “No, Raymond. I’ve come to ask you a question. Try to answer as honestly as you can.” Boyd sat quietly, apparently waiting. “I have a friend,” Henry went on, “who needs to go on the Crandall property. A part of the property that was willed to you.”

  Boyd looked steadily back at him, and Henry almost felt that they were communicating in a normal way. He wondered how long it would last. “The thing is, Raymond, this person would like for you to come along.”

  Boyd’s face grew troubled. “Go see my buildings?” he asked.

  “Not the buildings this time, Mr. Boyd. She wants to see the wells.”

  At the mention of the wells Boyd diminished before Henry’s eyes, retreating into a small space on the park bench. He withdrew, beginning his singsong of unintelligible muttering.

  “Mr. Boyd?” Henry moved toward him, but with the first step, Boyd’s agitation seemed to increase. Henry stopped. He had known it was a long shot, but Boyd’s emotional response to going out to the wells was still a surprise. “We don’t have to go,” he said quietly. “If it upsets you we can forget about it.”

  Boyd suddenly reached up and rubbed his head with startling ferocity, and for a moment Henry was afraid that the man would do damage to himself. He was on the verge of reaching out to stop him when Boyd looked up suddenly and said, “I will spread my net for him, says the Lord. I will execute my judgment.”

  “It’s all right, Mr. Boyd. Just stay right here and take it easy, okay? It was just an idea.”

  But Boyd stood up from the bench and looked across the park at the car. “Absolution,” he said. “Let there be absolution.”

  Boyd headed resolutely past Henry across the park, forcing him to follow. Henry looked past Boyd and could see Amanda watching them with a nervous expression. But to his surprise, she got out of the car while they were still some yards away. He could see she was anxious, but she was controlling it beautifully. “Hello, Mr. Boyd,” she said calmly. “This is a lovely place. However, you spend a lot of time here.”

  Boyd looked at her intently a moment, then continued forward. “Apparently Raymond’s decided to go,” Henry said. “So let’s get out there before he changes his mind.” Amanda nodded, and Henry put Boyd into the back seat of the car.

  “Government work is getting more interesting,” Amanda said, walking around to her door.

  “If somebody had told me two weeks ago I’d be driving across the prairie in a rented car with an insane millionaire to see some dead oil wells, it’s vaguely possible I wouldn’t have believed them.”

  To Henry’s relief, Boyd was relatively quiet as they rolled down Route 12, content in his subdued singsong. It was a fifteen-minute drive to the Crandall land with the wells, a large section of range about three miles away from the main house. Henry pulled off the highway, opened the big gate, and drove his car through. He closed the gate behind them and started slowly across the bumpy field, glad to be in a rental. “A truck wouldn’t hurt right now,” he said.

  “It still beats climbing fences.”

  He looked at her. “There’s a story there.”

  She nodded. “Another time.”

  As they approached the well, Boyd’s singsong message steadily grew in intensity. Amanda turned to listen; Henry was impressed with how quickly she came to terms with the man, and Boyd, in turn, seemed not to be disturbed by her presence. After a moment she asked, “What’s he saying?”

  Henry glanced at Boyd in the rearview mirror. “I’ve picked up bits and pieces. It’s all religious stuff. He goes back and forth between judgment and absolution. When he’s on the judgment thing it gets nasty, real se
rious hellfire.”

  She turned to look at Boyd again with curiosity. “He doesn’t look mean to me.”

  “He scared the hell out of me as a kid.”

  “Really? So you’ve known him for a long time, then.”

  “I wouldn’t say I’ve known him. But I’ve known of him, yeah. I used to go out to the park and hear him preach.”

  “What do you suppose he means by absolution?”

  Henry shook his head. “I don’t know. Absolution from what? From past sins?” He turned left to avoid a big gully, then let the car roll to a stop. The closest well was a hundred yards away. “That’s it by car,” he said. “We’ll have to walk from here.” He nodded toward Boyd. “Let’s just leave him where he is. I don’t want to push things. He’s on the land, and that’s what you wanted.” He turned to Raymond. “Just stay here, okay, Mr. Boyd? We’ll be back in a few minutes.”

  Henry and Amanda got out and Henry opened the trunk. He grabbed the parcels and the two of them set off toward the well. They had gone less than twenty yards when they heard the car door open.

  Henry turned and saw Boyd standing in the field, the open door forgotten. Never was the man’s inner turmoil more apparent; his face was contorted into a kind of anguish, and he was shaking. “Plague and bloodshed,” he cried, “burning sulfur and hailstones! There will be judgment, judgment by my mighty hand!”

  While Henry and Amanda stared, Boyd headed off briskly toward the dead well, walking directly past them without a word.

  “This is not good,” Henry said. “I don’t know what this is, but it’s definitely not good.”

  “I didn’t realize what I was asking when I wanted him out here,” Amanda said quietly. “Henry, we should just take him back.”

  Boyd was approaching the first well, and he stood erect, lifting his arms into the air. “I will pour down torrents of rain,” he shrieked, “hailstones and burning sulfur!” He threw his fists at the well in anguish. “The hidden things will be brought into judgment! The wicked will not hide from my arm!”