The Will

by Reed Arvin

  Henry opened his suitcase and threw a shirt into it. And after a year or so, nobody will remember who Raymond Boyd was. No one will care about what really happened to him, or whether or not he was entitled to that money. Whatever secrets lay behind that will will go with him to be locked into a state mental health truck, transported to some godforsaken ward of a godforsaken mental hospital.

  Henry sat on the bed and stared at the bedstand. He opened the drawer and pulled out a Gideon Bible, a graceless, cardboard-covered black lump. And no more shrill sermons, no passionate, exquisite prophecies. No more visions of divine justice. Twenty-four hours after they take him, the fire that burned so brightly in Raymond Boyd’s belly and brain will be extinguished, dulled to sleep by drugs and endless boredom. Just the silence of the injection, the nurse-enforced stillness. Just the dark of a tiny hospital room, possibly for the rest of his life.

  He opened the book, letting his gaze fall on the pages. He hadn’t read a verse since the day he left seminary. Joshua. Ruth. Hosea. Ezekiel. He began to read absently, flipping pages; the words comforted him, their liturgical formality settling his mind. He read for a few minutes, using the pages as an excuse to avoid calling Parker. This is what the Lord says: On that day thoughts will come into your mind and you will devise an evil scheme. He stopped; an evil scheme. Those were Boyd’s exact words at the well. So it wasn’t just babbling, he thought. He read on, but for some time nothing else connected. Then, several verses later, he saw, I will execute judgment upon him with plague and bloodshed; I will pour down torrents of rain, hailstones, and burning sulfur. Henry sat up on the bed. Had Boyd simply chosen the verses at random, attracted by their apocalyptic nature? Torrents of rain, hailstones, and burning sulfur. Amanda had said that sulfur was the most dangerous thing about a well. Was it possible that Boyd had something truly destructive within him?

  Henry stared at the phone, letting the cost of answering that question settle into him. Parker wouldn’t give a damn about obscure Scripture references. He wouldn’t give a damn about intuitions. What Parker gave a damn about was his own ass and his own remarkable bonus checks, the maintenance of which required Henry’s presence. He would demand Henry’s return, and the inevitable result of disobeying that command would be Henry’s career. That was the choice. He could forget about Raymond Boyd, or he could write off two years’ work at the firm. Henry picked up the phone in his room, looking blankly at the numbers. No one to remember, he thought. Out loud, to the empty room, he said, “I’ll remember you, Raymond Boyd. I’ll remember your fire and brimstone to my dying day.”

  Henry mechanically filled Sheldon in on what had happened in the case, including Amanda’s suspicions about the Crandall wells. He had no doubt as to the eventual outcome. Parker listened attentively, asking questions and making sure he had all the facts. Then, in one short, dispassionate statement, he said the inevitable.

  “You’re out, Preacher,” he said simply. Henry listened to the silence that followed on the phone; Parker, having made his proclamation, evidently felt nothing more was left to be said.

  “Sheldon, I don’t need to remind you that I’m on my own vacation time.”

  Parker’s voice was unconcerned. “Nope, you don’t. Got a great memory. Came in handy in law school.”

  “And you’re saying your decision’s final.”

  “Of course.” He paused. “Look, to humor you, it wouldn’t have mattered what you said happened. I was going to call you anyway. As of late yesterday afternoon, the whole Centel Technologies thing has officially blown up. As in boom.”

  “What happened?”

  “You remember the nature of the takeover—it was hostile, in every sense of the word. Well, now it’s turned into an SEC thing. The original owners smell a rat, and they’re calling out the rat catchers.”

  “Is there anything to it?”

  Henry could almost hear Sheldon’s smile. “What difference does it make?” Parker answered lightly. “We have our client, the rats. They’re paying us four hundred bucks an hour to see things their way. I personally have no problem with that.” There was a pause, and then he asked, “Tell me, Henry, do you have a problem with that?”

  Henry held the phone quietly, understanding perfectly the significance of Parker’s question. It went to the heart of his job, and in reality his future with the firm. Every man for himself, and let the courts decide. If your client’s guilty, make sure he doesn’t tell you about it, then defend him to the death. If you’re on the other side, well, in the end it didn’t really matter what side you were on. The fees were the same.

  Parker’s voice broke into his thoughts. “Preacher, I like you. So I’ll tell you something. It’s like I learned in church . . . how’s it go? ‘It’s not my will that any should be lost,’ something like that, right?”

  Henry, still holding the Bible, was surprised by Parker’s words. “Didn’t picture you a churchgoing man, Sheldon.”

  “Altar boy,” Parker said. “Long time ago. But like I said, I got a good memory. And right now I’m Jesus H. Christ Himself, with a message from on high. And I’m telling you to be careful, ’cause I don’t want you to be lost, understand? And lost you will be if you don’t haul your ass back to Chicago tomorrow.”

  Henry paused, feeling every second passing as a dangerous eternity. “I see,” he said quietly.

  “There’s nothing personal here, Preacher. This is fifteen years of legal experience talking. If your friend Amanda is right about some small-town oil scandal, and I’ll just add here that I personally think it’s a crock of shit and you’re letting your Johnson do your thinking for you, you’re entering deep into criminal territory. In that case the best thing for you to do is contact the district attorney on your way out of town, protecting the valuable name of Wilson, Lougherby and Mathers as you go. Meantime, whatever few dollars that estate was worth are going to go up in smoke, courtesy of back taxes and penalties to our friends at the IRS. We’ll be lucky to get our current fees out of it. Meanwhile I have real problems back here, and I can’t spare you another day. Hell, I can’t spare you another hour, but I can’t figure out how to get you out of there before morning. Now, Suzie’s going to book you on the twelve-fifteen tomorrow from Kansas City. That’ll give you plenty of time to drive in and make the plane. You’ll be in the office by three, and I have the rest of the afternoon cleared for you.” He stopped for a moment, and added, “I know it’ll be Sunday, but we billed a half million in legal fees on the Centel sale, for which the buyers expect to be bulletproof. For that kind of money we don’t have days of the week. I don’t intend to disappoint them. You don’t have any option, Henry. I’m ordering you to come back. Now.”

  With his instructions given, Parker’s voice lightened. “Gotta go, Preacher. The new board of Centel Technologies is in the conference room looking at Suzie’s ass until I get there. I figure her ass is worth about ten minutes, tops. So I’m outta here. She’ll pick you up at the airport.”

  “I’ll be there,” Henry said dully.

  “Good,” Parker answered. “Don’t miss the plane, Henry. You’ve had a nice little vacation, but your grace is all used up.”

  Henry didn’t have to reply; a dial tone followed Sheldon’s statement, leaving Henry holding a dead phone.

  Henry looked out the large picture window of his motel room. So Elaine will get her wish. I’ll see her moment of triumph after all. He would have to call Amanda, but resisted it for the moment; hearing her voice would just make it worse. In spite of how short a time they had known each other, he thought he knew what she would say. She would understand, and she would be grateful for the help he had managed to give. His leaving would complicate things for her enormously, but he had no doubt she would do everything she could to keep going. Life was different for her, a battle between good and evil that she fought with everything in her. But it was already too late for him; twenty-eight years old, already entrenched in a life that seemed beyond changing. He would go back to Chicago. He
would make partner in six or seven grueling years, senior partner in five more, and then get fat and rich. He stared out the window; the sun was setting across the big back field, dropping into the nothingness below a large, open alfalfa field. It looked so quiet through the glass, so thoroughly peaceful. The tips of the alfalfa breathed back and forth in the breeze, and a part of him wanted to sit quietly there forever, decisions permanently suspended, nothing good or bad happening, just quiet uneventfulness. He wanted the country life to sink back into him, the simplicity, the slow turning of days. Chicago suddenly seemed to him unnatural, a blur of motion. The energy of the place, which he normally loved, seemed oppressive to him in that moment, and he found he was reluctant to return. This time would be over, and the fury and pace of the place would take him over again, maybe not immediately, but soon. A month from now he wouldn’t even remember the differences. He would have been assimilated once again, taken up by a power bigger than himself that pushed and shoved and brainwashed and never stopped to rest, even in the dark of night. He wanted to push that time away. But instead, he turned his back to the window and began to pack.

  The phone rang an hour later. Henry recognized Amanda’s voice at once.

  “I’ve got news,” she was saying, “and I wanted to fill you in as soon as possible.”

  “All right.”

  “I’ve found a geologist who’s interested in the Crandall ranch. He knows the area inside out, and when I told him about the extruded limestone he agreed to come out and examine the well sites.”

  “Wonderful.”

  “So all I need is to set it up with you and Raymond.”

  “I see.”

  Amanda’s excited voice ground to a stop, dragged down by Henry’s flat responses. “You don’t sound very pleased.”

  “I’m going back to Chicago, Amanda. I’ve been called back to the firm. There’s nothing I can do about it.”

  There was a moment’s silence, and Henry could almost feel Amanda’s enthusiasm draining away. “When do you leave?” she asked quietly.

  “First thing in the morning. I’m sorry about it. Very sorry.”

  “What happened?”

  “Another case has gone critical, something with a lot more zeros involved. The Crandall case is a luxury the firm can’t afford any longer.”

  There was a silence, and Amanda said, “I was just getting used to the idea of having someone on my side for a change.”

  “If it helps any, I’m as disappointed as you are. The idea of leaving Raymond to the wolves is killing me. I pushed as hard as I could, but things were made pretty clear. If I’m not on the plane to Chicago tomorrow, it’s my job.”

  “It’s so ironic,” Amanda said, and there was real disappointment in her voice.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You were the break I needed on my case. But I got the feeling you were hoping I was the break you needed on yours, too. It fit so perfectly.”

  “I know. So what are you going to do? Roger will never let you bring a geologist on the land.”

  “I don’t know. Find some other way. Or not. Stay home and drink. Something. Anything.”

  Henry paused, and said, “You know, I have the feeling you wouldn’t have made my choice.”

  “Between staying to protect Boyd and your job?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I don’t know what I would do. I can’t be in your shoes.”

  “I know what you would have done. And it disappoints me that I’m not doing the same thing.”

  “It’s all right. Protecting Raymond’s not worth your job.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  There was a silence, and after a moment she said, “No, I don’t.” Before Henry could speak she added, “But look, Henry, you’ve already described my problem. Fatal desire to save somebody. Joan of Arc complex, remember? You’re lucky you don’t have it.”

  “I remember.” Henry paused, and said, “I had the feeling we were becoming friends. I’m sorry we won’t have the chance to do that now.”

  The silence after his statement lasted a long time. “Me, too.”

  The flight back to O’Hare ran ahead of schedule, a stiff tailwind defying Henry’s longing to delay the moment he would be thrust back into his Chicago life. He had tried to sleep, seeking an escape from his ambivalence. But closing his eyes only brought the characters in Council Grove forward in his mind, highlighting them in his inner darkness. He saw Boyd, grizzled and fractured; Roger, so ready to take matters into his own hands; Sarah, desperately trying to keep her family intact; Ellen, bitter and concupiscent, a keeper of secrets. Behind them all floated Tyler Crandall, unreachable and silent. And now the possibility of Carl Durand’s involvement, although that was little more than Amanda’s premonition. He wanted to discount that, if for no other reason than her understandable dislike of the man. But when he thought of Amanda he didn’t see an overly emotional woman on a vendetta; instead he saw a kind of crusader, relentlessly believing in her causes.

  They had spent only a brief time together, but her image came to him easily, with surprising clarity. He was jealous of her, in a way; she had what he himself had possessed and then lost: real passion for battle, and the belief that somehow one had to fight even if there was no winning. And not blind passion; she felt her defeats to the core, their last conversation had shown that. But even after defeat there would always be another battle, and another, and another, and for people like her, that was the glory and the power of the thing.

  Thoughts of Amanda led him inevitably to Elaine. He fought off a moment of self-revulsion at his own inconstancy. He ordered a drink and sipped it thoughtfully, feeling his dilemma. He couldn’t go around falling for women wherever he went. Falling for women. Was that what he had done? He hadn’t put it that way to himself before that moment. Yes. Falling. Or would have, if I had spent much more time with her. For whatever reason, he was vulnerable. He wasn’t the playboy type; monogamy wasn’t the huge stretch it seemed to be for the other young lawyers at the firm. The surprising, painful reality was that it was possible he didn’t love Elaine. Not love the most beautiful, ambitious woman I have ever known? He let the thought surface, assuming it would vanish as quickly as it came. But minutes passed, and it gained strength, refusing to release him. If not love, then what? The question deserved an answer; he couldn’t cast away a year-and-a-half investment on a whim. He leaned back in his seat, letting the first word he thought about Elaine materialize. It was disappointingly clinical: admiration. Yes, he thought. Admiration. She had succeeded in a world just as competitive as his, and he knew what that took. Is that all? A year and a half, just to admire her? He closed his eyes again. Lust, absolutely. From the first second, lust. That was better; at least it was human and romantic. Her naked form took shape in his mind, and he felt the familiar stirring. But as quickly as she appeared, the insufficiency of the thing pressed in on him. Before Amanda, admiration and lust could have passed quite easily for love—he was certain it was doing so with half the people he knew. But the idea of something more was alive now, glimmering with possibility. To love a woman’s core, not for what she had accomplished or her sexual appetite but just for her, that was what he wanted now. He knew his picture of Amanda was idealized, but wasn’t that the fuel of every new relationship? Given the chance, he couldn’t promise not to rush headlong into what he suspected was deeper than what he could ever have with Elaine. And if that was true, Elaine deserved to know it. Their plans for each other were too far along to ignore a self-discovery like that.

  Resolved, he began to form the words in his mind, searching for a way to explain what had happened. He was surprised to find he wasn’t emotional about it, and then, with a shock, he realized that he didn’t expect Elaine to be either. In that moment what there really was between them coalesced in his mind with perfect, sudden clarity; they had been so objectively right for each other, neither of them had actually stopped to fall in love. They hadn’t stopped for
anything, when he thought about it. There was always a pressure to be more, to race with and against each other up a ladder of success that he was already suspecting had no end. Their relationship had been just one more piece of a comprehensive plan for success for both of them. Sooner or later, someone would touch Elaine in the way that Amanda had touched him, and when he did, she was sure to respond.

  It was strange, seeing it all so clearly, so instantly, without the typical scenes and breakdowns a relationship normally went through in its devolution. The idea that he would part from Elaine came to his mind fully formed, inevitable and uncontestable.

  The plane landed with a harsh jolt. Henry pulled himself together and entered the terminal, instantly submerged in an ocean of frenetic noise. After the decompression of Council Grove the chaos surprised him; he looked around, expecting to see a throng in some dispute. But the terminal was no more crowded than usual on Sundays. The typical thrumming sound of humanity had simply grown louder to him after a week in the plains. Around him Spanish, Japanese, and English swirled, converging in his ear into one unintelligible babble. He grasped his briefcase and headed toward the moving sidewalk that led to the baggage claim area. As he approached it, he found himself suddenly enthralled by its monotonous, circular motion. Somehow, he didn’t want to get on; its motorized, unthinking obedience repulsed him. He turned to step away, but a group of loud teenagers brushed by him, four boys dressed in urban uniforms, their baseball caps turned backward, wearing untucked T-shirts, their out-sized pants slung low over slim hips. Henry stepped back quickly to avoid being run over. One of the group, a boy of about sixteen, turned and looked directly at Henry as he pushed brusquely past. The boy was brown and muscular, hard and streetwise. He was laughing, a razor-edged accent that cut across the minute space between them. Then he was gone, receding into the distance with his friends. Henry watched the boys vanish into the crowded terminal, feeling inconsolably like a stranger. At the boy’s age Henry was playing Babe Ruth League baseball and riding the Millers’ tractor across enormous, empty fields. Seeing the boy made Henry realize something that had never occurred to him before that moment: he was a stranger in this town, nothing but a visitor looking across a chasm that no law degree or job could bridge. Preacher they called him at the firm, and that was a lie, because he couldn’t preach what he didn’t believe anymore. But they were right to call him a name from the past; they knew him to be an outsider, and the name branded him as such.