Brotherhood of Gold

by Ron Hevener

  “About what?” he said, knowing very well what she meant.

  She sighed. “Your stubborn wife? My niece? Sid?”

  “Oh,” he said. “Sid! That wouldn’t happen to be Mrs. Sidney Leigh Hoover, now, would it? Not the one who ups and leaves people without even saying good-bye! The one around whom the rest of the world revolves. Did I forget somehow to ask about She Around Whom the Whole Universe Rotates???”

  They both laughed at the same time, knowing Sidney Leigh would be waiting, sure of herself but not absolutely, completely sure, that he had nothing better to do than follow her to the end of the earth from Rio and find her wherever she was, and knowing exactly where she would be.

  “She’s been trying to keep busy with the horses, Bennie, but, well, you know.” There was no one like Sidney when it came to filling up the day and getting her mind off whatever she wanted to.

  Past the forests of the state game lands now, Sarah commented, “It’s like they own everything around here now.” She had a way of saying more than she was speaking, and there was more in her observation than he wanted to hear. Twenty minutes later, they were pulling into the entrance of Phantom Lake Wildlife and Recreation Park. Even in summer, they could sense a blue chill over the fields and ghosts of the past skimming across the icy surface of time—bursting forth and crying for justice, from hearts frozen over. Why had she stopped here?

  “Any takers for that expose’ you wrote, Bennie?”

  He rolled down his car window and answered quickly. “A publisher in West Virginia could be interested. Vanity press, though.”

  “Do it, Bennie. Get it done.”

  “Well, it might be the only way,” he said. “The really big houses don’t want to touch it. Sidney doesn’t want me to quit trying, but we’re losing time.” He shifted the conversation, taking in the celebrated wildlife park surrounding them. As he watched an unsuspecting family spreading a picnic lunch under a nearby tree, he thought to himself, if they only knew, would it make any difference? Or was everyone better off if he just dropped the whole thing and let politics roll on. “I don’t know, Aunt Sarah,” he said. “There has to be a way.”

  “Bennie,” she said, seriously now, “they’re talkin’ about widening the road that goes through here. They want more land and—oh, God, Bennie—this time, they’re goin’ right through the farm!”

  It was the only time he could remember her sounding like she couldn’t handle something.

  *

  Sidney wasn’t there when they pulled in the lane and rambled past the white birches and hemlocks that lined it so graciously. A few young horses raised their heads from lush pasture and scattered with tails high, snorting in irritation at the audacity of such an intrusion. I was here long before you were, my equine friends, Ben thought to them. You might think you rule this roost, but you look like babies to me. Not that babies couldn’t rule the roost.

  “Like ’em?” Sarah asked.

  “Nice,” he said.

  She smiled proudly. “Damn right, they are. See the bay filly over there?”

  “They’re just about all bay, Aunt Sarah,” he teased.

  “Yeah. Well, that one’s my star,” she said, pointing to a filly that, to a horseman, stood out like a young Audrey Hepburn at a casting call.

  She changed the subject. “Hungry, Bennie?”

  *

  Farmhouse kitchens are big and inviting. Like most stone places of the 1800s, the side door went straight into the kitchen; the front being reserved for guests, and entrance hall formality. The smells of chicken soup, stuffed peppers and shoo-fly pie hit them like a childhood smack in the face, waking him up from the fruits and cheeses of Brazil.

  The pungent aroma of meat tempted and repelled him at the same time, but he was more than familiar with the chef, in her apron with a kettle lid in one hand and a soup ladle in the other, pointing firmly to the cup of hot chocolate waiting for him behind a veil of corn soup steam. She wasn’t a bit embarrassed or remorseful for what she had done, leaving him alone in a foreign land. Hair piled high, she acted like she had seen him only yesterday instead of several weeks ago. “Well,” she said, as if it explained everything, “I was hungry!”

  “Shall we,” Sarah eased into the awkwardness of the moment, “set the table?”

  “Don’t just stand there, Darling,” Sidney said, as if it was perfectly natural for her husband to fly halfway around the world for her cooking. “Let’s all sit down and have a lovely American meal together, hmmm? All your favorites, right? Now, run along like a good boy and feed Jannock because he’s been screaming his damn dead off and driving me crazy. Be back in five minutes—and don’t forget to wash your hands!” She said it so lovingly, how could he refuse?

  Sidney followed him to the bathroom. “Remember how we’d wash up for dinner when we were kids, and how we’d both grab the towel to dry our hands together—and then drop it?”

  He remembered the game. “Friends forever,” he said.

  “See, Bennie? Didn’t we have fun?”

  “I thought so, Sidney,” he said. “So, why did you leave?”

  She fluffed her hair in the mirror and batted her eyes. “Well, sometimes, husband, a woman has her reasons. I mean, you do want me to be strong and independent like you and Aunt Sarah and Wembly, right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Well, isn’t the whole idea of The Brotherhood—even though I think it should be co-ed—about a person showing her courage? About the confidence and freedom to do what we really believe in, so this world can be a better place?”

  His darling had been listening.

  “Well, that’s what I’m doing, Bennie. I’m not hiding from newspapers or TV reporters or any of that anymore. I’m holding my head high and sticking my nose in the air and I’m starting something of my own!” With both arms around him, she smiled. “You’re publishing a book and I’m starting a family, Bennie! Did you hear me?”

  Like a good boy, he carried to the study a dish of scraps Mother Sidney had thrust upon him.

  Like a good boy, he winked to her as she set the table.

  Like a good boy, he said to Aunt Sarah “Still have that bird!” as he walked by.

  “The rest of my life!” she answered.

  “Live that long, do they?” he joked.

  She laughed. “Don’t you torment him, Ben,” she warned, as he approached the babbling raven in his cage at the corner of the study crammed with plants and sun.

  “Jannock! Jannock!” the bird cawed his name, like a scratchy, tinny-sounding vinyl record from long ago.

  “Self-centered as always, I see,” Ben chattered back. “Has anyone ever said you’ve got an ego problem?”

  “Jannock! Jannock!” The faraway, unearthly voice cackled on in a frenzy as Ben opened the door, walked inside the big cage and emptied cuttings of apple and corn and chicken Sidney had made for the old raven’s bronze tray about halfway up from the floor. For a while, Ben watched the bird devouring his feast, and for an instant—just an instant—he was young again and safe in Aunt Sarah’s house, with Grandpa nearby. He remembered their faces, voices, eyes, hands and their storytelling. He remembered their scolding. He remembered their beautiful, shiny love. And he wanted some, too.

  It must have been the raven’s sudden quietness that brought him out of the drift. The bird was sitting there, on his favorite branch, tilting his head intelligently side to side, watching. Certain that Sidney would be calling him for dinner soon, Ben reached for the door latch to leave and Jannock’s ever-curious eyes followed. It was the ring that had caught his attention. “You want this?”

  The bird just watched, the epitome of focus, as if nothing else in the world mattered to him in that moment. To Jannock, humans were wonderful, musical creatures meant to entertain the animal kingdom, of which he surely felt himself to be the luckiest. His was a life filled with wonderful food from the kitchen brought forth by human hands—hands that performed miracles like smoothing his feathers, tendin
g the plants and flowers around him, and, to his occasional delight, wearing for him glittering, sparkling mineral mysteries.

  He hopped closer. Perhaps he did this to see better—to grab this beautiful thing on Ben’s finger. His bird heart rushed with joy to possess such an unusual and precious treasure, and to think, he had not ever read The Hobbit. He was aroused to lightness at the mere sight of such beauty!

  But he dared not move. To move could frighten the human man and he might take away the magical circle of light. The bird remained still, perched on the walnut tree branch Sarah had used as a walking stick the day he had become hers.

  True or not, Sarah would always say it was the bird that saved her from stepping on a copperhead as she made her way home through the woods at the same time the raven had crashed senselessly for shelter beneath the trees, blood dripping from wings never to carry him into freshly planted corn fields again. Leaving the path to catch the wounded bird, Sarah missed the snake sunning itself on the path just in front of her—a snake no doubt mesmerized by the very raven blood of the bullet hole Sarah pressed tightly closed as she held the bird against her chest. Grudgingly, the snake yielded to her humanitarian sense of urgency. She needed no further proof. It was divine intervention. She would take care of him always.

  And now, Jannock, as he was Sara-named, fastened his substantial powers of concentration onto Ben’s ring. His eyes craved it so much, he almost shook with desire when, slowly, Ben pulled it from his finger, thinking, Why not? Since Wembly, he certainly wasn’t bringing any honor to it. As the covetous raven tried snatching it from his fingers, for an instant—just an instant—Ben saw the image of the tree etched inside the ring’s symbolic circle of gold and he knew he must face the dragon once more.

  *

  If the enemy had its way, Phantom Lake and anyone who cared about it would be dry-raped all over again. This time, by a road right up the middle—clever torture by a nameless, faceless enemy. Scraping up the dirt, hauling it away, covering everything with macadam: Uranium insulated in the perfect way; the perfect plan as Mattison Farm and its innocent horses waited out their days.

  But Mattison Farm was more than a place. Like all farms, and all homes, it was a life. It was a sacred haven where a woman had shaped her fortunes; where Ben could escape to sanity and seclusion. In many ways, Mattison Farm and the horses were his soul and this was his last chance. With a child to think about now, his representative in the next generation, he must stand up for confidence and all that was noble.

  Ben shook his head. He could step aside. It would be easier. Why should he care if nobody else seemed to? Why should he care about the natural world crumbling? About ancient trees of North America being cut away, and tropical rain forests being lost forever? Or care about Aborigines taking final walks in Australia? The DeCroy Man had an empire to run. He lived in the States, in Paris, London and Rome. Urbanization and its problems were the future of mankind and its inevitable numbness.

  Not knowing exactly why, perhaps because such things come to us only when needed, he remembered once tripping over a man on a crowded street in New York in broad daylight. Stunned that no one was helping, he remembered going into the restaurant in front of which the man lay, collapsed. When he asked what had been done for the man, the manager said, yes, of course, they had called the police. But no police had come.

  On the street, stooping beside the fallen man, Ben took all the money he had and shoved it in the man’s pocket, awakening him. “Take it,” he said. “Someone’s coming to help.”

  But he couldn’t leave. Curious, he stood behind the plyboard barrier of a construction project across the street and he began counting, counting, counting the people who walked by.

  One hundred.

  Two hundred solemn faces looking straight ahead as if this human being was completely invisible and insignificant to them.

  Young faces.

  Professional faces.

  Different nationalities. Different backgrounds. This was American life in the televangelist age.

  Three hundred…four hundred…attractive secretaries and women in business suits; handsome men carrying briefcases and gym bags. Some stepped over the man carefully, others simply walked around him without looking down and Ben knew that not all beggars in the city lie helpless in the streets.

  Four hundred fifty…four hundred seventy-five. The man moved his arm, then his leg. When would someone stop again to help, Ben wondered?

  Five hundred.

  Five hundred people had walked past this man on the street and that’s when Ben knew he had just seen five hundred well-dressed beggars.

  It was Friday.

  It was Good Friday.

  It was the Friday before Easter. Was this the future he wanted for anyone? Grandpa was right. He was lucky, indeed. As dolphins swam out of the oceans unable to explain their plagues in a world fading into distant memory, could anyone blame new generations for not respecting what those before them didn’t find worth saving? Could people ever learn that by standing up for natural creation they were standing up for themselves as well? Surely, they could understand how respect for other forms of life meant respect for their own.

  Surely, in saving the Mattison Farms or Phantom Lakes in each of us, it was something beautiful in ourselves we were saving as well.

  * * *

  Phantom Lake

  As he waited now, the lake was suddenly still. The Phantom, after years of covering the scars of profiteers ripping her off without a conscience, listened as her birds raised their young in dangerous waters. For a moment, Ben considered the innocence of the natural haven around him. For a moment, he was tempted to leave well enough alone. Would Trimble show up, he wondered? In the cool summer morning, as mist evaporated off the lake, he approached the picnic table under the trees beside the parking lot, and waited.

  In the distance, birds were fussing over a scrap of bread and his thoughts went to Sidney Leigh and the poem he had written to her on the plane back from India. “Wherever you are, listen to me. Even if I can’t be there, our love will still be growing.” Just like his flight back from India to Phantom Lake, his life was a boomerang. Even the great Marlene Dietrich couldn’t say it better in her tight, flesh-colored dress performing the song she found in Australia:

  “Boom boom boom boom, Boomerang Baby…

  “If you fly, if you fly away from me…

  “You’ll come back, my Boomerang Baby…to me!”

  Was it the crunch of gravel he just heard? Turning, he faced a black limo slowly winding its way in his direction. Motionless, he waited as it slowed to a stop and the rear window, passenger side, buzzed down to reveal a face shielded by dark glass until now. Funny, Ben thought, how darkness surrounds some people. For hour-long, emotional seconds they stared at each other without speaking. Then, with merely the lift of an eyebrow, Theodore Trimble said just, “Well?”

  Anger flowed through every inch of his flesh, yet Ben heard himself saying only, “There’s a rumor you and your friends are digging another road through here.”

  “Rumor,” Trimble said, unimpressed, but gritting his jaw in a way particularly characteristic of him. “Is that right. “Well, Ben, when you live as long as I have, you get used to rumors.”

  “Is it true?” Ben asked.

  Weighing his reply carefully, Trimble debated whether to answer or ignore the question. Making up his mind, he directed a few remarks to his driver, shifted his weight and opened the door. “I need to get out and stretch my legs.”

  He had changed, Ben noticed. Grey where once there had been the color of life, and even more bald than Ben remembered, the old lawyer appeared heavier. Steadying himself on a black cane with an ivory handle, Trimble said, “Shall we?”

  Together, they made their way to the edge of the water and looked out over the lake. If intended as a maneuver to get them out of earshot, Ben couldn’t tell.

  “You never liked me,” Trimble said suddenly. “Why is that, exactly?”


  “No,” Ben said. “It’s you who never liked me.”

  “Bullshit. You had a chip on your shoulder ever since that day in Harrisburg with DeCroy—now there was an interesting man.”

  It was an unusual appraisal from one fighting Wembly’s every move. Hearing Trimble say Wembly’s name now felt rude and disrespectful.

  “About the road, Theodore.”

  Leaning on his cane, staring out across the reflecting water, Trimble said, “Just a little something I got the state to take care of,” he smiled. “Traffic’s getting heavy around here now, Ben.” He looked around. “This is going to be a real playground some day. We have to widen the roads.”

  “We? The ones cleaning up the dirt?” Ben said.

  “Well, that would be sloppy of us, wouldn’t it? To widen a road and just leave piles of dirt laying around all over the place?”

  “So, you’ll take it to Leibman’s.”

  “They still in business?” Trimble pretended surprise. “Well, I’ll be damned!” He coughed once or twice. “Damn cold. Can’t seem to shake it,” he said, as if Ben cared. Even so, Ben steadied him.

  Trimble shook him off, acting tough. “Do you know what it’s like to be drowning? Like that duck out there, surrounded by water.” It was a feeling Ben had known many times, but he let Trimble finish. “The only thing you can do is swim, Kid. Or carry a big stick!” He held up his cane.

  “I’ve been there,” Ben said, wondering if they might be reaching common ground.

  “Thank you,” the attorney said, satisfied. “That’s all I wanted to know.” He placed both hands, ragged and twisted, on his cane now and stared at the duck across the water.

  After an uncomfortably long silence, Ben ventured forward. “Do you mean something by that?”

  “I mean, a country isn’t really any different from a person,” Trimble explained. “Especially when it’s surrounded by enemies, like most countries think they are.” He straightened up. “Want to make a fortune, Ben? Convince a country they’ve got enemies. It ain’t that hard. And make ’em think you’re the only way out.”