by Ron Hevener
They wanted answers about Phantom Lake. And they wanted to know right now!
“Thank you for calling WGPA Talk Radio Hour,” he said for the hundredth time. “I’m your host, Larry Landis,” he said in a resonant baritone. “What’s on your mind today?”
“I’m upset!” the worn-out voice of a woman managed to say. “I’m so upset I can’t sleep! I’ve tried everything I can think of—and nobody wants to help!”
“What’s wrong, ma’am?”
“They’re taking our land! They’re just stealing it!”
“Taking your land,” the host said.
“Along The Ridge!” she said, to the sound of kids crying in the background.
“We have a dairy farm—a lot of people around here do. They came around and made us an offer—and it’s not even enough to pay off the mortgage. They want us out of here in fifteen days!”
“Fifteen days,” the host said. “That’s not very long for most folks. Did you call a lawyer?”
“Oh, yeah!” the woman said. “We called him. But he said we’re better off taking the money before the state just goes and condemns the land and doesn’t give us anything at all. We’ve got kids to feed, Larry! And cows. I don’t know what to do!” she cried.
In the black sedan, Ruthie listened and laughed. “Too bad, Nancy,” she said to the radio. “The church won’t need you for an organist anymore because there isn’t going to be a church.” She laughed again. “This is fun!” she said to Theodore. “I’m so glad we bought the radio station. Oh, let’s go to your office—I want to make a call! ”
“Thank you for calling WGPA Talk Radio! I’m your host Larry Landis, and the subject today is land along The Ridge near Steitzburg, for the new Wildlife Project. We’re taking calls now and I can see the switchboard lighting up. “WGPA Talk Radio. Can I help you, please?”
“The last caller,” Ruthie said from the privacy of Theodore’s office in town. “Isn’t she a member of Phantom Creek Church?”
“I don’t know,” Larry said. “She didn’t say what church she went to.”
“Well, it sounds like her,” the caller said. “Wasn’t she the church organist?”
“I wouldn’t have any way of knowing that,” Larry answered.
“Well,” the voice took on a sly, womanly tone, “I really think she was. In fact…I’m almost sure about that. I’d like to say something to her, if I could.”
“That’s very nice of you, and I’m sure she’d appreciate anything a friend could say. She sounds pretty upset, being forced to move off their farm and all.”
“Well, tell her to be sure and take all of her kids with her. Even the ones that don’t look like daddy!” Click.
“Hello?” Larry almost choked on his coffee. In live radio, you never knew what people could say, he thought, rolling his eyes and gong for another caller.
“Larry! I called the other day about those farms they’re taking to make that goose park. I mean, who ever heard of a bunch of geese needin’ a whole park just for themselves like that, huh?”
“Hello? Am I on?”
“Uh, yes, we can hear you. Thanks for calling WGPA Talk Radio. Try turning down your radio. That’s better. Yes. What’s on your mind today?”
On it went…day after day…week after week. Foreclosures…refusals to move…women tying their children to trees…rocks thrown at Fish & Game officers…tires slashed…milk dumped by dairies from The Ridge refusing to deliver to grocery stores. Horse riders defying game commissioners by riding on trails once popular and now forbidden…on and on, the courts struggled with what little they had of a conscience, and one by one, the properties fell. One by one, families in Steizburg cried out for justice—and their voices were drowned by the buzz of chainsaws cutting down forests; the hungry, starving roar of bulldozer engines smashing down houses; the smell of fire burning wooden pulpits and pews of a church. Drowning under trucks, cars, surveyors, engineers, politicians and the rustle of papers making it all legal, all wonderful, all exactly what the shadowy deal-makers wanted.
Slowly, the people grew afraid. Slowly, their hope faded until the town of Steitzburg grew silent, except for an occasional squawk of a goose or the quack of a lonely duck.
It didn’t take long for Wembly to move some of his horses to the farm. Perhaps it was to be closer to those he cared about, perhaps for greater attention to business matters never far from his mind now that he was trustee for Ben’s investments. “I think we need to see this construction project everyone is talking about,” he said to Ben one day. “Can you take me there?”
“We can drive there, but I don’t know if they’ll let us in. The Zimmerman boys are on security and I heard they’re packin’ lead.”
“Guns?” It sounded unnecessary. “Do you know any riding trails we could take? And perhaps, get onto the consruction project ?” Wembly asked.
“The Game Wardens shut most of the trails off to horses,” Ben said. “But if we take a chance, we can still get there. It’s about an hour’s ride,” Ben said. “Do you want Sarah and Sidney to come along?”
“Too many riders can draw attention,” Wembly said.
Saddling up, they were soon trotting east through grass fields bordering birch, oak and poplar trees native to this part of Pennsylvania. As they rode, Ben noticed a pair of binoculars strapped to Wembly’s saddle. “Bird watcher?”
“Much bigger game.”
“All you’re gonna see there is geese,” Ben said. “Seen one, you’ve seen ’em all.”
“And what is so rare about these creatures for them to need their very own place to live?”
“Beats me,” Ben laughed. “It ain’t like they’re facing extinction! Wait’ll you see it. Huge! Aunt Sarah’s afraid they’ll make it even bigger!”
“What for would they want that?” “The border for the project is only about a mile from us,” Ben said. “If they start up again, she’s scared they’ll go after Mattison Farm just like they took all the others.” He reined in his horse and pointed off in the distance. “There it is! Through the clearing over there. Watch out for the wire fence.”
Wembly, guiding his horse carefully, was a better rider than Ben thought. From their vantage point, now, they looked upon a vast area of fields scraped bare by hungry, yellow bulldozers. Using his binoculars, the Frenchman said not a word as he studied the activity of workers like an ancient Egyptian might have studied the building of the pyramids. For a long time, Wembly watched the scene before them. “A lot of digging, yes?”
“Big lake.”
With just the slightest lift of a chess player’s eyebrow, it seemed as if Wembly had found his next move. What was he doing? What was he trying to see? Maintaining his poise, perhaps holding his breath, he handed Ben the binoculars after a while, and with a curious tone of confusion in his voice, asked, “Can you tell what is missing?”
Ben saw ’dozers. Trucks. Cars. Construction workers in jeans. Trees knocked over and acres of red dirt typical of the iron ore in the region. “What am I looking for?”
At first Wembly didn’t answer. Then he said, “Do you see the trucks? Where are they going?”
“Looks like they’re moving dirt out of the way. Using it to build up the dam, I guess.”
Noticing the waters filling up the lake, Wembly said, “But the dam is already finished and working, no?” Built high and beautifully landscaped, concrete had been poured and the dam was, indeed, starting to block and regulate the flow of water.
Ben gathered his thoughts. “You know, that’s a lot of dirt.”
Why was this sophisticated, cosmopolitan man so interested in something as mundane as a government recreation project? What could Phantom Lake out here in the middle of Pennsylvania farm country have to do with international fashion, Ben wondered?
*
Back at the stable, as they pulled off saddles from their sweating horses, Wembly ran his hand across his gelding’s frothy back and sides before reaching for a nearby brush. “By the way
, Benjamin,” he said softly. “Your mother was very beautiful, very imaginative and very capable. But when she left here for the last time, it was because she believed, really believed, some things must find their own solutions. And I believe,” he looked at Ben, “Ezra felt the same way.”
With the skill of a musician, he had selected the instrument, raised it to his lips and with his fingers danced the answer to Ben’s ear. Like the player of a flute, whose message bounces to the skin, skips and sinks within, he had understood the importance of the question asked hours before, and before that and before that in so different many ways.
“Wembly? At the lakeyou asked me what was missing, but you didn’t tell me. Can you tell me now?”
“Of course. What is missing at this great waterfowl reserve, Benjamin, is the waterfowl.”
With the clarity of one finely attuned to detail, Wembly had detected in an instant what might have completely escaped anyone else. Even if the idea of a special lake for wild geese and ducks made any sense, what happened to the birds? And, as if that wasn’t enough, why haul away dirt when all anybody had to do was dump it wherever they wanted to on five thousand acres?
They returned to the site the next day, just as a dump truck was grinding its way toward the day’s dig. Following behind in Ben’s car—no horses this time—they lagged behind, hoping everything they had learned from the movies would come in handy. Letting a few cars pass, they hoped the driver wouldn’t get suspicious and Ben turned on the radio. “OK?” he asked, tapping out the beat.
“Of course. I like music.”
Darkness folded over them as they followed the truck’s taillights, keeping a safe distance between them to avoid suspicion. One car between them…two…then one car turning off…a slight drizzle of rain, and on with the windshield wipers. Suddenly, the truck slowed, forcing Ben to brake and almost follow the driver into a gas station before catching himself, staying on the road and sailing by. “Close!” he said, looking straight ahead. A couple of blocks away, he pulled over and parked in front of a van, in the shadows of a tree.
“Binoculars?” Ben asked, rolling down his window for a better look.
“You’ll find them in the leather goods department,” Wembly said, amused and already having claimed them as he brought his target into focus. “The driver is inside,” he said. “I can see him calling someone on the pay phone. Do you know, Benjamin, there are some who believe one day everyone will be walking around carrying telephones?”
“How do you know these things?” the young man asked.
“In fashion, we must be part business man, part artist and part seer,” came the mysterious answer. “It helps to know something about the future, to improve your chances in life, yes?”
“Do you think he’s calling someone about us?” Ben wondered when the driver left the phone and went back to his truck.
They watched as the driver got a soda, paid cash to the gas station attendant and left without asking for a receipt.
“Careless,” Wembly said quietly, before asking Ben if they needed gas.
“Wouldn’t hurt,” Ben said, as the truck drove past. If they doubled back, then hurried, they could catch up. “We don’t know where he’s taking us.”
At the station, it was the same attendant. “Fill ’er up?” he asked, noticing the mud on their windshield.
“Yeah,” Ben said. “Lotta mud, man. Got caught behind some truck. Thought we’d never get around him.”
“Yeah, we get a lotta trucks through here at night.”
“Dump truck. Big yellow sucker. Slams on his brakes to pull in here and I think, wow, free at last! Then I check my gauge on down the road a ways and gotta double on back. Hope to hell I don’t get stuck behind him again!” he laughed, putting the guy at ease.
“That guy? Stops in here every night. Two, maybe three times a night sometimes. A lot of the guys stop on their way to Liebman’s,” he said, checking the pump to see how much.
Ben paid him, sped after the truck and slogged through the night toward a destination in the middle of no place. Twenty minutes later, they pulled into another gas station. “I wonder if you could help us find a place called Leibman’s?” Ben asked.
“The old junkyard?” a guy said. “Yeah.” A few bucks later, they found lights shining through windows of a corrugated aluminum shed serving as headquarters for a lonely outpost in a kingdom of rusted cars and Frigidaires amputated of their swinging doors. The chain link gate was branded with a sign announcing “KEEP OUT,” and the eeriness of the whole place made you want to run as far away as you could. Maybe in the daylight it looked a lot different. But here, in the blackness and drooping trees, rain still misting down, it wasn’t exactly inviting.
Pulling over, they got out, shut their car doors quietly instead of with the usual slam, and Ben felt his sneakers going cold as he stepped into a puddle. “Great,” he hissed.
“Goloshes,” Wembly whispered. “Available in the all-weather department. Direct from London.” He made it to the gate first and discovered it was unlocked. Ahead was the yellow dump truck parked outside the shed, empty, with the driver nowhere in sight. Quickly, they covered the few hundred feet to the building and looked through a window. There he was: the driver, talking with a small man in work clothes. When they had seen enough, they hurried to the car, and one on each side, pushed it silently away. Luckily, Ben had parked facing downhill. Lucky seemed to be the password tonight.
“Do you think he suspected we were following him?” Wembly finally asked on the way home.
“I don’t think so,” Ben said. “But don’t you think it’s time to tell me what’s going on?”
“I wish I knew, Benjamin. Very much. But why does a government send trucks of worthless rocks and dirt to a faraway junkyard…night after night…unless something about it is not worthless at all?”
Getting a job working for one of the landscape contractors was easy for a guy like Ben, saying he’d take his pay under the table. Somehow, he had to get inside Liebman’s Junk Yard and he was riding with a driver named Joe tonight. Joe would teach him “The Drive” and how to handle the truck. After this, if the company was short a driver, Ben would fill in. For now, he’d tag along and learn the ropes. His luck, Joe turned out to be the one he’d trailed.
After a few miles Joe yelled over the noise, “So! You the new kid!”
“Guess so!” Ben hollered back without appearing too eager, too bright, too much of anything. He just wanted to do his job for Wembly, get out and hope nobody remembered anything about him.
“Ever drive one of these babies, here?” Joe started.
“Nah. Biggest thing I ever drove is a tractor.” That ought to do it, Ben thought. Just be a regular farmboy.
“Yeah?” said Joe, interested. “What make? John Deere? International? What make?”
Uh-oh. The guy knew something about tractors and he wanted to talk. “John Deere.”
“Uh-huh. Like on a farm,” Joe said. “An’ a pickup. Like on a farm. So, you a farmer?”
“Yeah,” Ben said.
“Pickin’ up some change, huh?” Joe guessed.
“Yeah.”
“Corn? Steers? Chickens?” Joe asked.
“Chickens,” Ben lied.
“I could use some eggs,” the guy said. “My ol’ lady’s always on my case about fresh eggs right off the farm. She grew up on a farm. Minnich family. Ever heard of them?”
“Near Manheim?” Ben asked, relieved that he knew a family by that name. “Yeah. When I was in 4-H, I ran into them at the Farm Show in Harrisburg.” That much was true. He didn’t want Joe knowing anymore than he had to, but a smattering of truth here and there couldn’t hurt.
“Well, if you can handle a John Deere, Kid, you can handle Lila, here. She’s my baby. My home away from home. So I guess I’ll be teachin’ ya everything I know about her. Teach you everything I know, so they can fire me and get a farmer cheaper. Fuck ’em! I don’t give a shit! I got enough money saved up. Maybe
I’ll pack up and take off, huh? Hang around me an’ I’ll teach you right. Startin’ with the rules—Rule Number One: Get your stinkin’ feet off my dash!”
“Sorry!” Ben said.
“You’re the sorriest kid I ever seen! Rule Number Two is: No candy wrappers messin’ up Lila’s floor—understood?”
Ben snatched up the candy wrapper and stuck it in his pocket. “What’s next?” he asked.
“Rules, ya mean? Let me think about that!” Joe laughed, slapping his knee. He’d be a great one for that knee-slapping Aunt Sarah of mine, Ben thought, vowing never to introduce them as Lila pulled up to the gate now at Leibman’s. “Hop out, buddy!” Joe said, handing him a key he kept in Lila’s ashtray. After rolling through the gate, he called out, “Rule three: Shut the gate—and lock it!”
They were met by a small man in coveralls. “Hey, Seth!” Joe said, handing over his paperwork as he and Ben helped themselves to coffee. “I’m teachin’ Ben, here, everything I know so I can get out of this racket and retire!”
“Shouldn’t take long,” Seth joked. Turning his attention to Ben, he said, “Hey, Kid. Why don’t you take Lila over to the shed out there and wait, OK?”
Nothing like being told to get lost, Ben thought, climbing into Lila, tickling her starter and backing her to an empty platform next to a forklift and a conveyor belt. Driving past the shed, he glanced through a window without trying, and saw the conveyor belt emptying dirt into a giant wash bin. Plastic pipelines appeared to drain off the dirty water, leaving stones and debris to be dumped onto an even larger platform with giant fans. On either side of the platform, workers appeared to be sorting through the debris, tossing rocks back onto the conveyor belt leading to a furnace. Before he could see anymore, Joe puffed his way into the driver’s seat, pushing him aside. “That’s it!” he said. “Back for another load!” Sticking his head out the window he hollered, “Later, Seth!”