“Your land?” Fergus called back.
The man dragged himself up to him. “I asked you a question, and I expect to be answered!”
“Let me take care of it, Mr. Elgin,” the ranger said, walking up to Fergus with a less than threatening gait, despite the uniform. “Sir, I’m afraid you can’t camp out here. This is private property.”
“It is?” Fergus said. “Well, okay. We didn’t see any signs posted, so we just assumed it was public land.”
“It’s always like that with you bums,” the fat man snapped. “Everything in the world’s free and ready to be taken. Well, not here. You two have exactly five minutes to clear out of here if you know what’s good for you!”
“Mr. Elgin, I believe we can settle this without threats,” the young ranger said. Howard was now standing behind Fergus, silently hoping he could absorb some of his friend’s coolness under fire. “Fellas,” the ranger went on, “I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to pack up and move along.”
“Since you’re asking politely, it would be ungracious of us not to comply,” Fergus said. “Just give us a few minutes to get everything together and break down the tent, and we’ll be out of your hair.”
“I think we can be on our way, now, Mr. Elgin,” the ranger said.
“I don’t know,” Elgin growled. “I think I should stay here and make sure these bums really leave.”
“I’ll do it,” said the younger man. “You go on up ahead, I’ll stay here and keep and eye on them.”
Elgin looked uncertain about the offer, but he didn’t say anything.
“I’ll be fine, Mr. Elgin,” the young man said. “I’ll catch up with all of you later.”
“All right, but don’t dawdle,” the fat man said, and then he and the ranger proceeded deeper into the woods, turning back every so often to check on the progress of the camp breakdown, until they disappeared from sight.
“Sorry about him,” the young man told Fergus and Howard. “Mr. Elgin’s a bear at the best of times, but we seem to be lost out here, and that’s made him even worse.”
“Lost, huh?” Fergus said. “If he’s looking for the way out of the forest, he’s headed the wrong way.”
“What we’re looking for is Wood City. Somehow we got off track.”
Fergus and Howard looked at each other. “What’s Wood City?” Fergus asked.
“Have you ever heard of Colonel Henry Jackson Breen?” the young man asked.
“The industrialist, right?”
“He’s bought up this land and he’s going to establish a town to support the lumber mill he’s planning on building.”
Fergus Randall stopped loosening the damp ropes of the tent and glared at the young suit. “Lumber mill?” he cried. “Kid, only a cretin would sink money into a lumber mill in an economic depression. They’ve been shutting down lumber mills all over the country because nobody’s building anything. What’s Breen think he’s going to do with the lumber?”
“Given my level in the company I’m not party to all his plans, but I hear that the Colonel has opened up a pipeline out of the country. I think he’s made some kind of deal with the Chancellor of Germany to supply wood.”
Fergus shot another look at Howard, this one expressing disbelief. Then turning back to the young man, he asked: “What’s your name, son?”
“Barnes, sir. Talbot Barnes.” This kid was probably not yet twenty, perhaps even younger than Howard, whom Fergus had started to think was the youngest living creature on earth. “I’m Fergus Randall and the lad here is Howard Kearney. I figure you should know who you’re throwing out of the woods.”
“I’m sorry about that, Mr. Randall.” Talbot Barnes stuck out his hand in greeting and friendship to both men, while maintaining a precarious hold on the rolls of blueprints with the other. “No hard feelings, I hope.”
Fergus took his hand. Despite his youth, the kid was showing far more class than grouchy, bald-headed Elgin. Given enough time, Fergus believed he might come to like him. “Mind if I ask you a personal question, son? Does it ever bother you to be working for a bastard like your Colonel Breen?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Robber barons like Breen and old man Hearst up the hill want nothing more out of life than to get even richer than they are, and they don’t care how they do it, who they have to stomp over, or who they have to crawl into bed with to accomplish it, including the Chancellor of Germany. Don’t you feel even a little bit twitchy about hitching your wagon to a guy like that?”
Talbot Barnes suddenly deflated. “Mr. Randall, all I know is I have a job. I’m earning money working for the Colonel. Not a lot, but enough to stay alive and send some back to my family. My father hasn’t had a regular job since the crash. If I can keep working and earn enough to support my folks, I figure I’ll have time when I’m older to worry about the guilt.”
Howard Kearney looked long and hard at the young man and saw someone resembling himself. Howard had taken Hearst’s money and had literally crawled into bed with wealth when he was put up in one of the Castle’s bedrooms. If Talbot Barnes was guilty of some crime against society, he was too. “You know, Fergus, he does have a point.”
“He does at that,” Fergus muttered. “I meant no offense, son.”
Barnes smiled ruefully. “None taken. You’re not the first one to express that opinion, Mr. Randall. My older brother, who’s never held a job in his life, gives me the same line of talk. I’m supporting him, but he doesn’t see it that way. He plays his guitar and tries to sing away all the problems in the world, and tells me I’m a sell-out, all the while eating the food I provide.”
“Well, if there is such a thing as a good and honest reason for selling out, my young friend, you just might have found it,” Fergus said, stomping the folded canvas tent flat, “though I’d probably be expelled from the Party if anyone heard me say that.”
Barnes’ eyes grew wide. “Party? Are you a Communist, Mr. Randall?”
“Card-carrying, son, but that doesn’t mean I’m the devil, no matter what they say.” By now the tent had now been reduced to a two-foot square of canvas about a foot high. Fergus sat on it while breaking down the wooden poles that had held it up. “All Communism means is that you care about your fellow man and want to do something to help him. Just the way you care about your family and are trying to help them.”
“I never thought of it that way,” Barnes said.
“Communism is the way of the future for this country,” Fergus went on. “I’ve been trying to sign up the lad here, but he’s resistant, too. As far as I’m concerned, no self-respecting artist in this day and age should be without a card.”
“You two are artists?”
“Painters,” Howard said, glad to see the subject was changing.
“Do you know an artist named Igee? He’s with the Works Progress Administration.”
Fergus studied the dismantled tent poles in his hands, and then said: “Sure we know him. How is it that you know Mr. Louis Norman Igee?”
“He’s going to be painting a mural for the city hall building here at Wood City.”
“Is that a fact?”
Howard knew what his friend was thinking: how had Igee cadged this plum? Louis Norman Igee was rumored to have come from a wealthy family, which meant he didn’t really need the government support at all. The fact that he was part of the WPA meant that he was taking food out of the mouth of a genuinely struggling artist—if the rumors were true. Since nobody liked Igee enough to ask him about his background, nobody could confirm or deny the stories. Conversely, the fact that so many people actively disliked him meant that some might be more than willing to start spreading unfounded rumors about him. Whatever the truth may have been, there was an aura about Igee, and attitude that he was carrying some kind of great secret that he was not prepared to tell anyone.
For Howard’s part, he didn’t care how Igee had gotten the job. It was not like he would have wanted it. Howard did not parti
cularly like doing murals. Sure, the worst day of painting was better than the best day spent squatted down on the dirt picking string beans, but given the option he would rather do single-subject canvases. Fergus, on the other hand, reveled in creating the oversized, multi-themed, many-character frescoes because it was yet another chance to spread his personal gospel. In Fergus’s murals, every figure holding a book was reading Karl Marx and the predominant color palette was in the red range. Fergus was nothing if not blatant.
“Is our friend Mr. Igee going to be the principal painter?” Randall was asking.
“As far as I know he’s going to be the only painter,” Barnes answered. Reacting to the expressions of both Fergus and Howard, he added: “Is that unusual?”
“Usually a group of artists work on a mural,” Howard said. “But Igee’s going on his own for this one?”
“That’s what I hear. He apparently insisted on it.”
Fergus Randall shrugged and began to lash the tent onto a small sledge, which he was prepared to drag through the woods out to the highway. “That’s just about it for me. You finished, lad?”
“I didn’t have much anyway,” Howard replied, rolling a cigarette and sticking it in his mouth, then lighting it.
“So long, then, Mr. Barnes,” Fergus said. “It has been a pleasure conversing with you, and you can tell Daddy Warbucks that you chased us off good and proper. Embellish it, if you like. Throw in a mob and a rail. He’d like that.”
“Take care, fellows,” the young man said, then turned and started slogging through the brush to catch up with his compatriots.
“To hell with the hitching a ride,” Fergus said. “Feel like a hike, lad?”
“Not really,” Howard said, but that did not deter the older man, who started leading him off in a different direction through the woods, away from the path to the highway. It took ninety minutes of trudging to get back to civilization, such as it was in Glenowen, which compared to San Francisco seemed like one of the last outposts of the frontier, and when they got there Howard was exhausted. “You’d better save up some energy for your lady friend,” needled Fergus, who looked energized by the hike. “Where is she, by the way?”
“She checked into the hotel here in town right after the party at the Castle,” Howard replied, dropping his gear and sitting down to rest for a moment. Fergus sat next to him and uncorked his canteen, took a swig, then offered it to Howard.
“This is water, right?” Howard asked, putting the canteen to his lips. Fortunately for him, it was water. Once rested, they made their way up into town.
“I’m assuming, Howard, my boy, that I will be seeing much less of you as the evening progresses,” Fergus said. “I will have to find something to do with my time.”
They continued on through the village until they came to the Saddleback Inn, where Althea was rooming, and went inside. Discovering a long bar instead of a lobby, Fergus cried: “How’d we miss this place last night?” Flagging down the bartender, a fortyish, handsome, but formidable looking woman with Lil monogrammed on her white blouse, Fergus ordered a whisky. Even Howard had to admit the place had an inviting atmosphere, unlike the dives they had discovered the night before, though its décor appeared so old that he half expected to see Gary Cooper saunter in and start a gunfight with somebody. What a painting this would make, he thought.
“Can I get something for you?” the bartender asked Howard.
“Just a beer, thanks.”
“Sure you’re old enough?”
Fergus laughed out loud. “I’ll vouch for him, Lil.”
“The name’s Charity,” the woman said as she walked to the tap and drew a long golden draft.
“Oh. I saw the name on your blouse, and assumed.”
“S’allright,” she said, coming back with Howard’s foamy mug. “Charity’s a terrible name for a barkeep ’cause the regulars start to think you possess it. Besides, it cost too much to stitch onto the shirt.”
“I do admire practicality,” Fergus said, bowing to her theatrically. The woman, in turn, accepted the bow with a genuine smile and a wink.
After taking a sip of his beer, just to see if it was going to stay down after last night, Howard inquired after Althea.
“Young, slim, and brown-haired, right?” Lil asked. “Went out, left her room key up here. I think she was going investigate some of the shops in town. She should be back soon, since there’s not much here to see.”
After getting Fergus to agree to look after his pack, Howard went out to try and find her. The bartender was right, there wasn’t much to Glenowen: a two-block main street dotted with the odd shop. If his hunt proved futile, he would simply come back and wait for her at the bar.
As it turned out, Althea was in the third place he visited, which was a small general store that smelled of liniment and horehound drops, hundreds of which were heaped in an open bucket on the counter. “Howard,” she declared, surprised at seeing him, “what happened to the camping trip?”
“We got evicted,” he said. “It seems we weren’t on public land like we thought.”
The man behind the store’s counter snorted. “I’ll bet it was someone from that Breen outfit,” he said, his salt-and-pepper beard seeming to stand on end. “They’ve been comin’ up here for the last year tryin’ to buy up land for a sawmill, or some such.”
“That’s the story we got, too,” Howard said, pulling out one of those new comic magazines from a small rack and flipping through it. He couldn’t say much for the level of artwork in them, and figured their novelty was quickly going to wear off. Sticking it back in the rack, he added: “What’s that going to mean for the village here?”
“It’s gonna big lumber trucks roarin’ up and down the highway all hours of the night and day, that’s what,” said the bearded proprietor. “There’s no river anywhere’s around here to float the logs, so they’re gonna have to use the highway. Don’t make no sense, if you ask me. But they’re gonna cut down the forest and chase all the critters up this way, so we’re gonna have everything from deer to cougar walkin’ through the streets here till it ain’t safe. Then once the forest gets all chewed up, they’ll leave and move onto another patch o’ woods somewhere and start razin’ it to the ground.”
“But won’t it bring extra money and jobs into the village?” Althea asked the man.
“The workers ain’t comin’ from here,” the man said. “They’ll ship ’em in from who knows where, anyone they can find to pay slave wages. We ain’t gonna see a penny, ’cause Breen’s buildin’ his own town with all his own stores.” The proprietor shook his head disgustedly. “See, that’s the way it works: you move people in and pay ’em to work for you, but then you put up shops and services that they have to patronize, so you’re gettin’ all the same money back again, so you’re really not payin’ anybody. My grandpap fought in the war to end slavery and now it’s comin’ back, only now they call it industry. Back then, the country was fightin’ itself, and it was a pretty even fight. Ain’t no more. Ain’t nobody can fight those with the money, ‘cept someone with even more money.”
Another customer came into the store, a man who knew the proprietor well enough to call him by his name, and while the two of them talked, Howard led Althea over to a corner, near the canned goods, and stole a kiss. “What were you planning on doing for the rest of the day?” he whispered.
“Just walking around the town,” she said. “What were you thinking?”
“I can’t say out loud what I’m thinking.”
“Stop it,” she said, play-slapping his arm.
“Let’s just go back to the inn, what do you say?”
“Howard, do you think they’re just going to let me walk you up to my room without saying anything?”
“No, but I can walk up to Fergus’s room like I’m supposed to, and then sneak over to yours.”
“And what’s Fergus going to think about that?”
“If I don’t make a move like that, Fergus is going to concl
ude that he’s been wasting his precious wisdom on the wrong artist.”
“You men,” she said, trying desperately to look scandalized. Secretly, this sort of talk was arousing her. Althea pulled her wool sweater closed in hopes Howard wouldn’t see just how much so.
“Okay, fine, we’ll do things your way,” Howard said. “Let’s go down to the water. Moonstone Beach is only a couple of miles up the coast.”
“I don’t really fancy a two-mile walk,” she told him.
Howard, who was getting his second wind after his earlier hike, said: “We’ll take bicycles, then. There’s a place in town we can rent them.”
“But the expense.”
“Honey,” Howard admonished, pulling a wad of Hearst money from his pocket.
Althea gave up pretending she did not want to go off with him. Before the left the store, they bought a small supply of pemmican and apples and a couple of cold bottles of Pepsi-Cola to take with them.
Biking out of the village, they followed the path to the beach. The ocean announced its presence through its salt-and-fish smell and the rhythmic rushing of its waves even before the vast blue expanse of water came into view. They walked the bikes past the craggy rock jetties of Moonstone Beach, against which the waves crashed dramatically, until they found a calmer patch of sand. The sun was high in the sky and casting warming beams down on them as the walked across the beach, side-stepping the piles of green, slimy kelp that had washed up. The place was surprisingly deserted. Althea took her shoes off and felt the cool damp sand squish between her toes. She began to examine some of the shells and rocks that were randomly scattered by the tides. Howard took his shoes off too, and then his shirt. Althea removed her sweater. They were alone on the beach without another soul in sight in any direction, and not even the shape of a boat dotting the horizon. Howard removed his trousers, and now wore only his shorts. With some coercion, he got Althea to take off her blouse, and then everything else.
The Mural Page 22