Brotherhood of Gold

by Ron Hevener

  The attorney put down his glass and for a moment—just for a moment—Ben almost felt like there was more he wanted to say, but couldn’t. When Trimble went on, the moment had disappeared.

  “She went to court for you. Did you know that?”

  Ben didn’t know that. Nobody had ever told him.

  “Oh, yes!” Theodore said. “She wanted legal custody after a while. But that would have blown the whole deal because, with you, she might get all the money and ruin Ezra’s plans. So he couldn’t allow legal custody. But at the same time, he didn’t want to hurt Ruthie. For some reason, she was desperate for all the land around the church. Every piece she could get her hands on. So he promised it to her. And—as you know from the will—he delivered.”

  “She went to Court for me?” Ben asked, surprised.

  “Absolutely.”

  “I never knew that,” Ben said.

  “Well, there’s a lot we don’t know about people. Wouldn’t it be boring if we did?” he laughed. “For one thing, Ruthie never gave a damn about money—unless power came with it. And there’s a big difference.”

  “Won’t she see me at all?”

  “If you want that, Kid, do what everybody else does. Go to The Temple and pray.”

  Trimble leaned back in his chair now, confident he had found Ben’s Achilles heel if he ever needed it. Pouring another Scotch for himself, he said, “I’ll say this. The two of you have a hell of a lot in common.”

  *

  When Ben told Aunt Sarah, she steadied herself. “He sure unloaded on you, didn’t he, Kid.”

  “Well, we got the passports back,” Ben said, handing them over.

  “That’ll make Sid happy. She wants to go back to Paris. I think we’ve created ourselves a travel junkie,” Sarah smiled. “Did he say anything about why they were following Wembly? And do you think he knew he was being watched?”

  “Nothing more,” Ben said. “And I don’t know if we’ll ever find out.”

  “Ben?” she asked now. “What about Ezra’s old files?”

  *

  History lives in attics, personal and cold, awaiting intruders with an aura of ominous expectation. As they climbed he narrow, dusty steps of the old farmhouse, Ben recalled the stories of an American woman crossing the desert with a tribe of Australian Aborigines. Last of their people, her friendly abductors decided to disappear from the face of the Earth. Guilty and ashamed that under her leadership they would all perish of thirst, she led the tribe in search of water. “Think water,” a tribal leader said to her. “Become water.”

  Weak and perhaps unable to reason otherwise, the woman did so and eventually they found a large cactus. The Aborigines went straight for the unlikely plant, standing there alone in the desert as it was. Chopping into it, they found water.

  Think answers, Ben commanded himself, as they pulled sealed boxes out from behind an old sofa, stacked with window blinds and curtain rods. Maybe answers and clues would spill forth on this trip back in time.

  The first box contained nothing but old records of little or no use—tax returns, checkbooks, receipts and business notes. Another box, more alluring than the first, contained family memorabilia, snapshots yellowing with the years and more books. Grandma Mary smiled happily from that box of faded memories, saddening Ben for not knowing her better. Replacing her mementos, he promised to look at them again someday.

  “Ben!” Sarah pointed to a stack of folders. “Esther and I found these in the old piano. I couldn’t go through them—I was too worried about you at the time, and then things just started happening so fast—but here they are.”

  Unraveling its string, they opened the stack of old manila envelopes. One of them contained nothing but a chart from an accountant’s ledger book, carefully notated. Written in fountain pen, with no heading indicating its purpose, was a list of what appeared to be bank account numbers, each followed by the words “Personal Savings” or “Bank Loan.” And beside those notations, there were names like Martin, Ulrich, Baker, Zimmerman, Weaver…Mattison. Beside each name, in the column marked “Paid” were notes like: medical bills…new car…scholarship…family shoes…house payments…new windows…wedding.

  “My father’s on this list, Ben,” Sarah said, curious. “In the Paid column, it says ‘Riding lessons for daughter, Sarah.’ What’s it mean?”

  “Beneficiaries,” Ben said, opening an envelope of ancient, darkened clippings from the Steitzburg Chronicle. It was the history of a town. It was a file of letters to the editor, marriage announcements, obituaries and a cluster of articles about various townspeople, their professions, their businesses and where they had gone.

  Sliding a finger across the ledger page, Ben looked at the dates of each original entry and his world turned into an ice sculpture.

  They were all the same. They were listed right before the stock market crash of October, 1929.

  * * *

  Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, Offices of Theodore Trimble, Esq.

  “Mr. Hoover!” the barracuda said the next day, looking nervously as if she had forgotten to write something on the schedule. “Do you have an appointment?”

  “I don’t think I need one,” Ben said. From the tone of his voice, she didn’t seem to think so either. Just as they had been the day before, the offices of Trimble & Associates were buzzing with activity and the waiting room was full. Picking up the same magazine as last time, Ben waited while reading about Arctic polar bears and their methods of survival. He was starting to read about South American rain forests when his name was called. “Ben! Good to see you again, my friend. Scotch?” he offered again, knowing Ben would decline and pouring one for himself. “Well! What was so urgent, you had to see me right away?”

  “Plenty.”

  “Feds bothering you again?”

  “I don’t think they have a leg to stand on,” Ben said, taking out a copy of Ezra’s notes from his briefcase. “You said you have connections, but you didn’t tell me everything, Theodore. Do you know anybody on these lists?” Trimble took the copies Ben handed him of Ezra’s ledger sheets and his faced drained white.

  “Well!” he said. “Will you look at that! Where the hell did you find this old stuff?”

  “You’d never guess,” Ben said.

  The Attorney, Esq., wasn’t amused and didn’t ask.

  “I couldn’t explain why the Feds would be after my grandfather,” Ben said.

  “Well, what did you find out, Ben?”

  “He was a loan officer, but…the Paid column doesn’t just show pay-off dates. It shows things like cars and paid-off mortgages and medical bills. I could understand if it was a list of trade-offs for loans back then. But something about it is all backwards. It’s like the whole thing was switched around—it’s like the bank owes them money instead.”

  Theodore Trimble sat perfectly still and the room went so quiet Ben could hear his breathing: quick, labored. Then, in a sudden, masterful stroke, Trimble spun the tables.

  “So that’s what happened to all the money!” he said, sounding shocked. “All this time, I thought it was the bank president who stole that money! Slick, Ezra. Slick!” He laughed, hard and sharp. Clearing his throat, he added, “Well, I guess that’s a good enough reason for the Feds to go after somebody, right? Good job, Ben! Now we know why they came after you.”

  For a rugged instant, Ben wanted to pursue what the lawyer had just said. Instead, on a crazy, jumping off a cliff chance, he gathered his courage. “He stole it?” Ben asked, unable to get a grip.

  “Well, he must have!” Theodore said. “How else can you explain all those investments you have now, from his will?”

  “I can’t explain anything!” Ben said, stunned. “But I’ll bet you can.” He brought out an old newspaper story and tossed it on the desk. “That’s a picture of you. And it says you worked in the bookkeeping department.”

  Whether it was him or the Scotch talking, Ben had no clue. But suddenly, Trimble was standing at the door, holding it ope
n. “Do you really think we have anything more to talk about?”

  “Not when you put it that way,” Ben said, gathering up his papers and standing to leave. As he walked slowly out, he reached for the copies Trimble had cherry-picked and held so tightly in his shaking fist. Look at a lawyer cross-eyed and he sues you, Ben thought.

  Not only had he looked at a lawyer cross-eyed; he had stuck out his tongue and given Theodore Trimble the dry finger all at the same time.

  * * *

  Mattison Farm

  It was the sound of muffled barking that woke Sarah that night.

  Instantly alert, she waited for the second round of barking she knew would come. When it didn’t, she sat up in bed and listened to the eerie, thin voice rising up through the darkened house: “Jannock! Jannock!”

  Damn that bird. Somebody forgot to cover his cage.

  “Bennie? Sid?” she knocked on their door. “Did you hear that, outside?”

  “The bird?” Sid answered from bed.

  “No! I wish he’d shut up! Out by the barn. I can’ tell if the dogs see something—they started barking and went quiet. Too fast. I’m going out to look.”

  “No!” It was Ben. “We’ll go with you.”

  They dressed in the dark, knowing with country-bred instinct to keep their lights out. Jeans, boots, shirts and jackets. Outside, they scouted the buildings. But something was missing. The dogs. There were no sounds coming from the kennel. Like a deer taking its next step from the shadows to the barn, Ben saw Sarah hesitating, glancing at the cars and turning away from the kennel. She had forgotten the rifle, but he had grabbed it on the way out. Unable to get her attention without making a noise, he headed for the barn, too.

  The smells of warm hay and horses comforted him as he forced his eyes to see. Feeling his way steadily along a row of stalls, straining for anything unusual or out of place, he was armed and ready for anything.

  Past the first stall…nothing.

  Past the second, third and fourth…still nothing, and more stalls to go. Normally, the horses would be asleep by now. But not tonight. Then he heard it: one of the horses was pacing in its stall. Suddenly, the stall door beside him flung open wide, smashing his nose and face, knocking the shotgun from his grip with a furious blast that went off at his feet and he smelled smoke.

  “Jesus H. Christ!” somebody swore as two men rushed past and Ben struggled to his senses. Stunned, unable to move, he felt somebody jumping on him. “Knock it off!” he heard somebody yell as a hand grabbed for the gun. And he heard Sarah scream—“Oh, my God!”

  “I’ll call the fire department!” Sidney yelled.

  “The cops! Call the cops!” Sarah demanded.

  “They’re on their way—I called before we left the house!”

  Their brief exchange sealed the fate of three men trapped together inside a burning barn, filled with confused and helpless horses.

  Struggling to his feet, forgetting about the intruders, Ben had to get the horses out. Lights flashed as Sarah ran in, oblivious to everything but the fire. Sidney Leigh right behind her, flinging open barn doors and turning horses loose.

  “NO!” Ben yelled, but it was too late to warn them of a back draft. In seconds, the stall beside him was a furnace of Hell, trapping a horse, screaming, stung by brightness and heat. The sound of it, the feel of it, went through Ben like hot, sudden terror as he pulled himself up to help any way he could. Sarah got to him first. “Bennie! Bennie! Help me get this horse out of here!”

  He looped Sarah’s rope around the horse’s neck. “Take him!” he said, over the hissing fizz of Sidney’s fire extinguisher. “Don’t scare him!” Ben yelled.

  “The hell I won’t!” Sarah hollered back, whipping and thrashing to scare the horse through the flames. “Get outta here, you lazy, son of a bitch thing or you’re dog food!” Ben took over the fire extinguisher and Sidney hurried for more horses.

  “I can’t get her halter on!” she yelled about a panic-stricken mare.

  “Forget it! Save the others!”

  One by one, horses were driven forward and out of the barn. After an eternity, there were fire trucks, police cars and people running everywhere. At the sound of the sirens, the horse Sidney was leading suddenly stopped, reared and got away from her. Sidney felt somebody grab her by the arm and twist. “Let go of me! Let go!”

  Slapping, biting, she fought her way halfway to the doors—blocked by the horse that had broken loose. Whirling insanely, the horse ran straight back toward the fare, brushing past, knocking Sidney and the man both against the wall. The man’s grip loosened, his eyes bulged. “Jesus H. Christ!” as a shot ripped out and a crazed, beautiful horse fell sharply, senselessly, to the floor and the arsonists escaped into the night.

  * * *

  Honeymoon tickets to Rio don’t wait for much. Not even for fires.

  “We can’t just leave you here, Aunt Sarah,” Sidney said in the kitchen the next morning.

  “Don’t be stupid,” Sarah said. “It isn’t me they want. It’s you and Ben! You’re doing the smartest thing you can. Take those tickets and get your butts out of here! I’ll get help to clean up the fire. My place is with the horses.”

  “Aunt Sarah! Please.” Sidney hugged her.

  Sarah pulled away and stayed firm. “Listen,” she said. “Ezra wanted me to go with him when he died—did you know that? And I often remember saying the dumbest thing. I said, ‘But, Ezra, who would take care of the horses?’ How stupid that must have sounded to him! But he said to me, ‘I’ll help you’ and last night I knew—all the way through me, I knew—he’s doing that! That’s a sign to me, Sid. And I believe in those things. And I need to believe in it!

  “I’m staying. You don’t think I should, but this is where I want to be. I’m not a threat to anybody, like you guys are. I’m no target for anybody. I’m just a horse-crazy woman who doesn’t care about anything else but this farm, right here with Ezra and Arden—and Wembly now, too. I’m gettin’ old, kids. I’m seein’ too much and it’s gettin’ to me. I need the trees and the grass and the horses to get fresh and strong again. I need my memories. I’m sorry. I love you guys. But I’m staying.”

  “Aunt Sarah—the barn,” Sidney said. “Look at it. They poisoned the dogs. They shot your horse!”

  She looked to Ben as if Aunt Sarah must be in shock.

  “The dogs’ll pull through,” Sarah reasoned with her. “Horses? Well, they don’t live forever. But do you guys remember when I got this place? I went to Ezra after they found Arden with a broken neck. Remember?”

  Of course they did. She had told the story many times. How she had never believed it was an accident and how she could never prove it. “Well, Ezra was helping me last night and Arden was, too. Wembly, I don’t know about. But, Arden….”

  “Tell us,” Sidney said gently.

  Sarah smiled, sipped her hot chocolate and savored its taste. “Bennie…Sid… That mare they shot? The one you were leading out of the fire?” How could they forget. “You didn’t see it,” Sarah said, “but one of those men was standing in the aisle aiming that gun right at me.”

  She grew calm remembering it. “I was beating the flames out with a shovel—it’s all I had. His bullet hit the mare instead of hitting me only after I threw the shovel at him and jumped out of the way. Arden saved me, I know it.”

  “How could you know that, Aunt Sarah?” Sidney wanted to know.

  “Well, don’t you see? That mare was Arden’s! She went all the way back to old Juanita! Nope. This is where I stay. You and Ben—you go someplace far away from here and think about what you want to do. Nobody else. Just the two of you.”

  “Aunt Sarah?” Ben asked, knowing it was now or never.

  “Yes?”

  “The stuff we brought back with us from Customs,” he said.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “It wasn’t lost in the fire,” he asked. “Was it?”

  She shook her head. “Everybody just wanted to get home yester
day. We were too tired to unload anything.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief. “Would you mind taking a look with us, just to make sure?”

  “Well, just let me get my boots,” she said, with an inner beauty shining through.

  Outside, at the horse trailer, she opened the side door. Together, they went to the changing room. There, in a neatly folded stack on the floor were Wembly’s beautiful costumes, waiting for them.

  Sarah smiled and put her arms around them. “Arden wasn’t the only one here last night,” she whispered.

  “How long did you know?” Ben asked her.

  “The night before we left,” she said, “he told me something. He said, all that glitters is not diamonds. Sometimes, he said, it’s emeralds, pearls, rubies, sapphires…”

  “…and gold,” Ben finished, with a smile.

  CHAPTER 19

  Face the Dragon

  “Ben, why didn’t you bring this out to the press sooner? I mean, why spend your whole life like this. Money laundering, embezzlement, murder, nuclear threat…in all fairness to the press, they didn’t have a clue.”

  Ben laughs. “Well, I have to laugh when you say money laundering because the whole idea of real jewels sewn onto Bedouin sheets was money laundering literally! Interesting, isn’t it. As for the press, they want to believe they know so much. In a sense, Diane, on a certain level, I was really alone. My grandfather was dead. Wembly, my mentor/father figure, wasn’t here for me to rely on anymore. By now, I knew for certain that at least one of the insiders of the company had sold us out.”

  “You’re talking about Theodore Trimble and his law firm,” she says. “The one who negotiated a settlement with the Treasury.”

  “Some settlement,” Ben says. “The treasury pays a reward for such things, Diane. And I guess we know who that went to.”