“It’s 684 acres.”
“I wondered what had happened to his promised land.”
“His what land?”
“His promised land. That’s how he referred to it, but he never did reveal its exact location or what he was going to do with it. But I do remember the acreage for some reason. When he died, and it wasn’t mentioned in his will, I thought maybe he had sold it somewhere down the line.”
“What about Bennett and Nelson?”
“What about them?”
“Did they get anything beside the money?”
“No, just the five hundred thousand. That’s a large piece of land.”
“Yes, I know.” He paused. “I’ll make good use of it.”
“I hope so. Have you done any more thinking about what you want to do?”
“No, Mother. I’ve been thinking about the land.”
“Mm-hm.”
After they hung up, Lee wasn’t sure how to interpret his mother’s reaction to his telling her about the land. At the very least, he had expected her to comment on his receiving more from his uncle than his brothers had.
Lee went to the dictionary in the study and looked up “promised land.”
A longed-for place where complete satisfaction and happiness will be achieved.
The definition was a little too lofty to fully comprehend, but it did seem to fit in with the letter, Lee thought, especially his uncle’s statement about Lee’s doing something worthy with it. It surprised him to think Uncle Nelson had put that much thought, any thought at all, into giving him a piece of property he called the promised land, when he didn’t really know him. And why him and not his brothers?
He created a mental list of additional questions to ask Stonebugger.
* * *
Lee had never been inside a hardware store nor had he ever pushed a shopping cart. He felt lost strolling up and down the aisles, observing one foreign object after another, each aisle with a different unfamiliar look, feel, and smell.
After wandering the store for ten minutes, a salesman approached him and asked if he needed help finding anything.
“No, thanks.” He picked up a foot-long tool that had a jaw-like thing with teeth at one end and weighed a ton. The man didn’t go away. Lee turned the tool over to view the other side. The man still didn’t go away. He wondered if perhaps his Ivy League-style button-down shirt, khaki pants, and loafers gave off an I really do need help message, and that was why the salesman didn’t leave.
“Here’s the situation,” Lee said. “I have a couple miles of fence line with small signs attached every hundred feet or so. I’m not sure how to remove them.”
The man glanced down at the tool Lee held in his hands. “Well, for starters, not by using a pipe wrench.”
Lee put the tool back on the shelf.
“How are the signs attached?” the man asked.
“They have holes in each corner and a heavy metal thread has been twisted into them and attached to the fence.”
“Chain-link fence?”
“Pardon me.”
“Follow me.” The man led the way to the next aisle to a display of sample fencing. “Does it look like this?”
“Yes.” Chain-link. He would have to remember that.
“If you have a sign every hundred feet on two miles of fencing, that’s going to take a while to remove them by hand. Why do you want them removed?”
“I just acquired the land, and I want to remove the previous owner’s name.”
“May I make a suggestion?”
“Sure.”
“It would be a lot faster to paint over the name. Are the letters raised?”
“I’m not sure.”
“If they’re not raised, then the right color paint will cover the lettering so no one will be able to read it. And then you could always paint your own name on the signs if you want.”
“I could do that?”
“Wouldn’t be that hard. You could use a stencil.”
Lee’s expression must have screamed I have no idea what you’re talking about.
“Follow me,” the man said.
They reached the ready-made stencils located on the other side of the store. The man picked up one that read PRIVATE PROPERTY.
“You could have something like this made with your name or whatever it is you want painted on the signs. One swipe of a paintbrush and you’ve got yourself a new sign.”
“Where would I go for that?”
“Let me ask you this. Do you like the idea of putting something new on the signs or would you rather remove them altogether?”
“I’m not sure.” The idea of branding his property appealed to him, but replacing his uncle’s initials with his, LOW, was out of the question, and the thought of painting Winekoop on all the signs seemed too...something.
“Know what I would do?”
Lee shook his head.
“I’d buy a pair of heavy-duty pliers, and then try removing the metal ties from one sign. See how long it takes and how it looks, and then do the math to estimate how long it would take to remove all of them. That could be your deciding factor. If you decide to leave them on, check to see if the letters are raised, in which case you can’t do much with them except cover them up with a coat of paint. But if they’re not, come back here, and by then I’ll have a contact for you to get a stencil made. Make sense?”
“Yes.”
They walked over to a display of pliers. The man picked up a large one and handed it to Lee. It was heavy and unwieldy. He was too embarrassed to ask the man how to use it.
“Is there anything else you need today?”
“I need a lock for a gate.”
“What kind of gate?”
“The one on the chain-link fence.”
He showed him a variety of locks two aisles down. Lee picked one he thought would fit.
“Will that do it then?”
“I think so.”
The man reached out to shake his hand. “I’m Lenny, by the way. Lenny Vinik. Come back any time you need help.”
Once in his car, Lee took a deep breath. He came from a family that hired others to do everything for them. What was he thinking? Even scarier, what would his parents and brothers think if they knew what he was attempting to do? More ridicule, no doubt.
Lee drove to his property and parked his car in the usual spot on the side of the road. Pliers in hand, he walked to a section of fence that was obstructed by a clump of high brush so as not to be seen by anyone passing by. If he was going to make a fool of himself, he wanted to do it in private.
The lettering on the signs was not raised—good start. The ends of the metal ties that pinned the sign to the fence had been twisted together several times after having been woven through the hole in each corner of the sign and then through a link in the fence. Someone must have spent a lot of time installing them. A lot of time.
He opened the pliers. Something clicked. He tried to close them, but they wouldn’t close. “Okay, what did I just do?” he said out loud.
He fiddled with the pliers until they closed back again. “This is not going to go well,” he muttered.
The sun was low in the sky. Lee glanced at his watch—4:33 P.M. He’d have to work fast before it was too dark to see what he was doing. He held the pliers open, grabbed the end of one of the ties, and tugged on it. His left hand slipped off the pliers, which fell to the ground with a heavy thump. He picked it up, planted his feet wide apart, and went in for another try at it.
After several more failed attempts, he glanced at his watch again—4:57. Twenty-four minutes, and he didn’t have even one tie off. And he had cut the side of his hand on a rough spot on the fence. And his arm ached from the weight of the tool. And he knew he was not likely to ever get even one sign off the fence.
Giving up on the pliers project for the time being, he headed toward the back corner of the property to the gate.
Even in the scant light, Lee could see two sets of footprints in
the snow ahead of him. As he got closer, he could see two sets of man-sized prints going in opposite directions but were likely made by the same person. He followed them through the large clearing—the same clearing where he had pulled up the mystery roots—to the gate. They continued on the other side of the gate and then stopped...right next to a set of tire tracks.
He closed the gate and affixed the lock he had bought.
* * *
CJ greeted him in her usual style. “If it isn’t Socrates. Lookin’ for a Bud?”
He nodded, smiled, took his favorite stool at the end of the bar, and waited for his mug to come sliding down the bar toward him. Instead, CJ walked it over to him.
“Com’ere. You’ve got grease or something on your face.” She took a napkin and dabbed at his cheek, then examined his hand. “What the hell! Have you been in a fight?”
Lee laughed. “Yeah, with a pliers.”
“Let me guess. The pliers won?”
“Something like that.”
She walked away and came back with several Band-Aids. “Here. I don’t want you getting any blood on my bar.”
“Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Shoot.”
“What is that you’re wearing on your legs?”
“Get with it, Soc. They’re leg-warmers.”
Inside?
“CJ!” someone yelled from the other end of the bar. “Phone.”
CJ walked away and picked up the phone, her back to Lee. After several seconds, she turned around, tore off her apron, and said to the other bartender, “Cover for me. Travis is in the Emergency Room.” She ran out of the bar.
Lee followed her out into the parking lot and called to her to wait up.
“Can’t talk now. My son broke his leg,” she said, without looking back.
He caught up to her as she was standing next to her car, an old beat-up gold Camaro. “Let me drive you. You’re too upset.”
“No. I need my car.” Her hand was shaking so badly, she struggled putting the key in the door lock.
“Let me drive you. We can take care of your car later.”
She stared at him for a long moment before consenting. “Okay, let’s go.”
Lee guided her toward his Datsun. “What hospital?”
“Swedish American. I know how to get there.”
Lee tried to calm her down on the fifteen-mile drive to the hospital. “How did it happen? Do you know?”
“Frankie said he fell out of a tree.”
“Frankie?”
“My sister. She was watching them.”
She had two sons. Travis was the younger one, only six. Wayne was nine. She explained Travis was the more rambunctious of the two, a child who would try most anything without any forethought. Wayne, though older, was less assertive, more predictable, and much easier to parent.
When they reached the entrance to the ER, CJ had her door open before Lee even brought the car to a complete stop. Lee parked his car and went inside to find CJ.
The ER was very crowded, and hospital staff were busily scurrying around. From what Lee could discern, there had been a serious car pile-up on Route 51—people were lined up on gurneys in the hallway outside of the treatment area. Lee had never been in an emergency room before, and the combined smells of rubbing alcohol and disinfectants made him feel lightheaded.
Soon he heard CJ’s voice and followed it to one of the treatment bays.
“May I come in?”
CJ sat on the bed, one of her hands on a young boy’s thigh and the other one pushing his tousled sandy-colored hair off his forehead. He had an I-don’t-know-what-all-the-fuss-is-about look on his face.
Without taking her eyes off him, she responded, “Sure. Come on in.”
A woman who appeared to be older than CJ stood in the corner with a child who Lee assumed to be CJ’s other son, Wayne. The woman surveyed Lee with a skeptical eye.
“Everything okay?” he asked CJ.
“Yeah. He’s okay.” She turned toward Lee and introduced him—as Socrates—to her sons and her sister, Frankie.
He held out his hand. “Nice to meet you, Frankie.”
She shook his hand. “It’s Francine.”
He didn’t know quite how to read her. They didn’t look much like sisters. CJ was tall, blond, and curvy. Her sister was shorter, brunette, and wore conservative loose-fitting clothing that hid her figure.
CJ’s attention was on Travis. “It was a bad break, a compound fracture,” she told him.
An hour and a half later, Travis was ready to be released. They all walked out of the hospital together, Travis on crutches, having mastered their use very quickly.
“How do you want to do this?” he asked CJ. “Do you want me to drive you and Travis home?”
“What about my car?”
“After you get him settled, I can drive you back to the bar so—”
“The restaurant,” Francine corrected him.
“I mean restaurant, so you can pick up your car.”
“Okay.”
CJ and Travis sat in the back seat. Wayne rode with Francine. CJ gave Lee directions to her house.
She lived thirty minutes away on the outskirts of town where most of the houses sat on at least an acre of land zoned as farmland. Many of the homesteads included a barn or two, including CJ’s. A long dirt driveway led to her house. CJ pointed to a section of yard that appeared to serve as a parking area. Francine pulled up beside him.
“C’mon in, Soc. Take a load off for a bit while I get things settled in,” she told him.
The small clapboard house was in need of repair, with several missing shingles on the roof, broken downspouts, tattered screens, and sagging stairs leading to the porch. A variety of bikes and toys were strewn around the yard.
CJ led the way through a mudroom to the kitchen from which Lee could see the main living area. The house was small but neat and clean.
Once CJ got Travis settled in the living room, she, Francine, and Lee sat at the 1950s-style kitchen table on a variety of mismatched chairs.
“Want a brewski? I know I sure do.” CJ went to the frig, pulled out two beers, and handed one to Lee. “Frankie doesn’t drink.”
Francine gave Lee a confused look. “So your name is Socrates? Really?”
CJ let out a loud guffaw.
“Not really. That’s just CJ’s nickname for me.”
“I see.”
“It’s a long story,” CJ added.
“I’m sure it is,” said Francine. She turned to CJ. “Are you going back to work, hon?”
“I think he’s fine. It’s not like he hasn’t been through this before. Will you be okay with him?”
“Sure. Go.”
After they finished their beers, Lee led the way to his car and opened the door for her. “What’s so funny?” he asked her when he caught her smirking.
“I am so not used to this.”
“What?”
“A guy opening the door for me.”
“No? I thought all men opened doors for ladies.”
“Hey, who are you calling a lady?” Her laugh was loud and nervous.
Lee didn’t know what to say, so he said nothing.
“It’s just that I haven’t been—”
“Hey, you don’t have to explain anything to me,” Lee responded before she could go any further.
“I know.”
On the way back to Deer Bottom, he wanted to ask her about the boys’ father, but didn’t dare. There was no disputing they were brothers, but they didn’t look much like CJ.
It occurred to him that, except for his mother, Catherine, and Robin a few times, he had never been in a car with a woman before. A surge of something rose up into his chest, soon followed by an all-too-familiar queasiness in his stomach.
CJ broke the awkward silence. “I appreciate you taking me to the hospital, Soc. I admit I was probably too upset to drive. My sons are my world, and when anything happens to them, well, I panic.”
“This is his second broken leg. He’s had two broken wrists and a concussion as well.”
“Clumsy?”
“No. Fearless. He’s a climber. Has been since birth. He’ll climb anything if you don’t watch him. Today, all it took was for Frankie to go into the house to the bathroom, and when she went back outside, he had managed to climb that big oak tree on the side of my house. I wish I could talk the landlord into trimming the lower branches for me, but...”
“I know someone who could do that for you.” He had no idea where that came from.
“Really?”
“Sure, and he owes me a favor. I’m sure he’ll do it for nothing.” I can’t believe I just said that. Who do I know who can trim a tree?
“Hey, that would be great. I suppose I’ll have to—”
The sound of a blaring siren behind them interrupted her.
She tuned around to look behind them. “Shit,” she said under her breath.
Lee saw in his rearview mirror that a sheriff’s car was closing in on him. “What did I do?” He slowed down and pulled over to the side of the road.
“I’m sorry, Soc. I really am.”
He looked over at CJ. “Why are you sorry?”
Before she could answer, Sheriff DeRam appeared at his window, and before Lee could roll it all the way down, he shouted, “Get out!”
“What?”
“Do you need a translator, asshole? Get out of the car,” DeRam barked, his chest puffed out proving he could probably bench-press more than Lee weighed.
Lee’s chest tightened. As he got out of the car, he glanced down at the sheriff’s gun in his side holster. The strap that held the gun in had been unfastened.
“What’s the problem, Sheriff?” he asked.
“Shut up, and walk to my car.”
Lee felt his heartbeat quicken and did as he was told.
“Get in the back seat, and stay there until I return.”
DeRam slammed the car door and walked away, lingering for several seconds behind Lee’s car before walking to the passenger door. Lee watched as CJ rolled down her window and spoke with the sheriff. Their exchange was highly animated.
After what felt like an eternity, the sheriff returned to his car and opened the back door for Lee.
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