“I’m sixty-six and I’ve had exactly the kind of life I wanted to have. Not a lotta men can say that at my age. No one ever disappointed me, no one ever let me down or stole from me. I lived where I wanted to live, I had a good woman to live with. I was damned happy to see the sun come up every morning and I ended damn near every day pleased with the work I’d done. The only thing I regret is that I’ll be leaving Berta on her own — but I couldn’ta been married to a woman who couldn’t live on her own. Berta will be burdened, but she’ll be okay. The boys here’ll see to her.”
I sipped my whiskey. It was terrible stuff, but at least it was working. I felt my insides uncurl and my head go soft.
“So now?” I asked. “You just going to have poker games?”
They all laughed. “We wanted to get this all settled among ourselves before it got around,” Lip said. “We’ve been having coffee at the cafe and Cokes and beers at Wolfs about twenty years or so now. When things like this come up, we like to get it settled among ourselves.”
“Things like this?”
“Barn raising,” Wharton said. “Troubles among friends.” He pulled a Camel no-filter out of the pack. “There’s feeding to do here; there’s orchards and some crops and chickens. We always figure out who’s doing what. And when there’s something needs doing, we get each other in on it. When Ellen died — that’s my wife, Ellen — I called Harry to come before I called my kids. That’s how we do things here.”
“Does everybody do things that way?” I asked.
“Oh, hell no, gal,” Harry said. “We’re old-timers. When this wasn’t too much of a town, we learned to rely on each other. We don’t stand on ceremony, hon. We just get things done.”
I felt tears come to my eyes. I blinked and bit my lip and I know that my nose got pink. I sipped.
“Now, women is another story. Women are hang-er-oners. I imagine you’re going to drive yourself crazy trying to think of some way to make this go away... try to get me to change my mind or something. I want you to forget about it. I figure if I go get one more opinion, they’ll get their hooks in me. They wear you down with drugs and tests and pretty soon you don’t have the strength to get up and get out. Next thing you know you can’t even pee without help, and you sure as hell can’t blow your brains out. And there you are, six feet long and sixty pounds, staring at the ceiling and groaning.
“If I stay right here, that isn’t gonna happen to me. Hear?”
“What are you saying, Harry? Would you... you wouldn’t? You don’t mean to say you’d consider blowing your brains out?”
“Oh well, no. That’d make an awful mess.”
“Thank God,” I breathed.
“I got all these pain pills...”
“Harry!”
“Up to now, I never had any pills of any kind.”
“Hate to see you try to kill yourself on that whiskey,” George said.
“Or Milk of Magnesia,” said Wharton.
“That’s what’s nice about the mountains,” Lip said. “You could go right up the trail, sit yourself on the edge of Mount Sunshine, and kind of teeter off. No way you could live through that.”
“Naw,” Harry said. “I promised Roberta she’d have something to bury.”
I put down my drink and covered my ears with both hands. The men chuckled. “You’re doing this on purpose! You’re teasing me and it’s awful; Harry, you’re full of it.”
It got quiet for a minute. Serious. “No, I ain’t, Jackie, honey. I got a cancer. I got a whole bunch of cancers. I’m not a vain man; don’t make any difference to me if I get homely or lose weight. I don’t care if I have to go easy — I been meaning to do some light work for a long time now. But I ain’t gonna be six feet long and sixty pounds of moaning, groaning bag of bones. I’m leaving before it comes to that. The end.”
My attorney’s mind snapped to attention. “You’ve made us all accomplices,” I said. “You’ve told a bunch of people you’re going to do something illegal. Now we can’t let you.”
“I can,” Wharton said.
“Me, too,” Lip said.
“Ain’t up to me to stop him or start him,” George said.
Harry grinned. “You’re going to drive yourself crazy if you think you can do anything with me. Hell, if Berta can’t make up my mind for me, how the blazes can you?”
“What does Berta... ah, Roberta, say about this plan of yours?”
“She says it’s my life.” He lowered his eyes in an almost shy fashion. “Oh, she says some tenderhearted things, too. Kind of hard to imagine, me and Berta, whispering tender things. We’re tough old boots; we don’t get too sentimental.” He lifted his gaze. “I been married to her forty years now. We promised we could rely on each other in good times and bad. What that means to me is Berta will miss me, but she’ll go along with me. She’ll make her own decisions about what kind of life she wants to live... and respect mine.”
I could feel that I would soon start to snivel. I took a breath and it lurched into a hiccup. I sniffed. Harry handed me a tissue. “I’m not going to allow a lot of this,” he said. “If you think I’m going to let you make my last days miserable, you’re dead wrong.”
“I gotta go,” Wharton said abruptly. “Gotta feed. See you tomorrow.”
“Me, too,” Lip said, pushing back his chair and standing. “I think a three-hour lunch oughta do it.”
George rose without a word and the men moseyed... an easy, unhurried shuffle to the door. There were no showy farewells, handshakes, or emotions. They all said, “See you tomorrow” and didn’t look back. The door slammed. I sniffed. “Good bunch,” Harry said. “Want another whiskey? Coffee?”
I blew my nose and asked for coffee.
I didn’t break down; I didn’t lose it. I indulged my stunned sadness with some quiet sniveling and Harry comforted me with country tidbits like “A good, short life is better than a long miserable one,” and “It’s not a question of whether you die, just when and how.” And how that damned old mare could have stepped on his head and saved him all this trouble. I dried up and Roberta came back to the kitchen. She filled her coffee mug, put down her magazine, and joined us at the table.
“I’m planning to go to the office tomorrow morning, Jackie,” she said. “I’d like you to know that I’ll be taking extra time here and there when I want to. I won’t stick you with anything, I won’t leave you stranded or in trouble unless I have a legitimate emergency. I want to keep my schedule flexible.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“And,” she went on, “I don’t do this sort of thing well or easily, but I want to tell you that I’m glad you’re in the office and I appreciate the way you handled this. You’re right; you’re entitled to demand an explanation from me about anything that concerns the practice. My unexplained absence affects our practice.”
That was the first time she had said that — “our” practice. And that was as close as Roberta would ever come to telling me how much she appreciated me.
We didn’t talk anymore about cancer, about death, or about saving pills. Roberta talked about an article she was reading on an ecosystem set up and lived in by an ecological scientist. Harry talked about getting a woman he knew named Gladys Hermosa to take his elderberries and make gourmet jam. And they both talked animatedly about the coming “Showing the Colors” town festival, which was scheduled for the weekend.
I learned that at the end of September every year, when the trees began to turn and the weather cooled, there was a huge town party; parades, booths, dances, food and drink, and many vendors and visitors from neighboring towns. The banners and posters announcing the event had started going up. I had been only vaguely aware of them in the way I was vaguely aware of everything. With Harry’s sickness and the news of the immensity of this town fair, I became conscious of how self-centered I’d been, how suspicious and obsessed. I had thought of nothing other than the strange happenings in my house — though they weren’t overtly threatening. And th
e four-year old murder, though I could see no way it was connected to me or anyone I knew. My suspicions of Tom dominated my thoughts, though the only things I knew of to make me suspicious were things he had openly shared with me. I vowed to take notice of this: that people had troubles bigger than mine, that there were events larger than mine.
I asked Harry, “Why is it that Wharton hates Tom Wahl so much?”
“Says who?” Harry returned.
“Well, I’ve seen that Wharton doesn’t have much chat for him.”
“And who does Wharton have chat for?” Harry bounced back.
“Okay... Tom says that Wharton hates him. Anything to that?”
“Hmmmm. He’s pretty perceptive.”
I glared at Harry and then Roberta. “Now I know where you get it. Come on, Harry. What’s the deal?”
“It ain’t that much a deal; it seems to be Tom wants to make something bigger than it is. See, Tom wanted his own road to Sixteen, but it would have cut across Wharton’s pasture, and Wharton said no. Told Tom to grade a road from his house out to Wharton’s road and they could share the road to Sixteen. They argued about that for quite a while; Tom wanted his own road — not to have to drive past Wharton’s house all the time.”
“Why not?”
“Who knows? He has to share maintenance out to Sixteen with Wharton now; seems like that would be easier and cheaper than maintaining your own stretch.” Harry shrugged. “Now, what Tom was stuck with was a straight shot from Sixteen that forks off — east goes to Wharton’s and west goes to Tom’s. Tom’s got a big piece of land, but from Sixteen to his road is Wharton’s, everything east of his road is Wharton’s, and everything north of his road is Wharton’s. Everything south and southwest is Tom’s. He’d have to build and grade a seven-mile road to get out of passing by Wharton’s. By forking with Wharton’s road to Sixteen, Tom has a total of four miles to maintain, three and three quarters of which he shares with Wharton. Makes no sense to me that Tom needs a private road. So to start with, Tom didn’t like that.
“Second, Wharton told Tom he was getting the dogs barking at all hours by driving up and down his road to the fork — and then some — with his lights off or dim. Tom said he was doing no such thing. Wharton said then it was his company or visitors and Tom says he doesn’t have any, hasn’t in a long while. Then the fence gets run down and Wharton ends up chasing half a herd of milk cows and by now he is furious. He spoke to Tom about fixing it, Tom swears up and down that he never got near it, they got into a row, and they haven’t patched it up yet.”
“Who do you think is right?”
Harry chuckled. “Well now, Jackie, you gotta remember that I knew Wharton a long time before I knew Tom Wahl. And I don’t hold nothing against Tom — he seems a nice enough young man, and he’s good with wood — but Wharton would cut off his tongue before he’d tell a lie, and if he says Tom or Tom’s friends are running up and down that road with their lights off, then he saw it. Wharton says that Tom likes people to think he’s some young hermit, except he’s gone as much as he’s there. I suppose if Wharton says that, it’s because he knows it.”
I leaned forward in my chair. “Why?”
“Why would he be gone? Oh hell, he might be out buying supplies, he might be out giving sermons, out drinking whiskey, or just plain out. He likes everyone to think he’s some quiet kind of loner... Don’t ask me.”
“Why would he drive up and down that road with his lights off?” I asked.
“Truth?”
“Yeah. Truth.”
Harry half whispered: “Because it pisses Wharton off. That’s the only reason in the world: Because it pisses Wharton off and Wharton can’t prove it. See, it wouldn’ta hurt Wharton a bit to let Tom cut through a piece of his property; he’s not grazing on it or anything. Wharton’s an old-time rancher who believes you don’t let anyone, not even your best friend, get a foothold on your land. You don’t let ‘em dig wells, put through roads, plant, or build fences. It’s his land; it stays his land — which we old-timers respect. This younger generation thinks like sharecroppers.
“Wharton’s dogs get barking and his cows got loose once and he gets himself mad as hell and looks like a damn fool. Now Tom, he stays just cool as can be, never lets his irritation show, and says to Wharton, ‘Mr. Wharton, I will gladly build you a whole new fence and a whole new barn if you can dig up one witness or one piece of evidence that I damaged your property.’ And old Wharton says it can’t be anyone else; no one else drives that road. And Tom says maybe it’s kids... Of course it ain’t likely. Nothing out there but two houses. Once they got down to that fork, they have to go all the way to one house or the other.”
“Harry,” I said, “maybe that’s how the fence was broken. Maybe some kids got out on that road and tried to turn around.”
“No, Jackie, it’s after the fork you got one lane. If you’re going to Tom’s house from the fork, you got one narrow road. If you’re going to Wharton’s, you got one narrow road. From the fork to Sixteen there’s plenty of room for turning around, two lanes. No, Tom’s probably doing it mostly on purpose. I told Wharton to shut up about it and it would stop.”
“Has it stopped?” I asked.
“Hadn’t heard about it in a long time. But then, Tom said something to you.”
“Yeah. It was the same story, at least. Except for the part about the lights being off. And also, Tom says Wharton wanted that piece he built on.”
“True. He didn’t want it at that price, though. Can’t have it both ways, can you?”
“I guess they’re just at odds,” I said. “Too bad they can’t resolve it, help each other out. Tom doesn’t have livestock, but he’s got dogs and horses.”
“He does?” Harry asked. “Hmm. I didn’t know that. Usually hear when someone has animals; unless you’re around twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, you need a friend or neighbor to feed.”
“I guess he is. There, I mean.”
“Seems like he’d mention dogs and horses when the rest of us are talking about animals. Can’t figure that. Oh, well, I never said Wharton was easy.” He reached for Roberta’s hand and gave it a pat, a sentimental if not romantic gesture that reminded me of what I had been thinking a moment earlier: People have serious lives to get on with.
We talked for a few minutes more, and then I left. Harry and Roberta both walked me to the car. “After we get this town party behind us, I’ll cook you up a big pot of chili some night,” Harry said. “Come out to the house and eat, maybe play some cards.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’d love that.”
I went to my office for the rest of the day. When I went home, I longed for Sweeny’s company for the sole purpose of having three nights’ sleep in a row. Though I had been up once at four-fifteen to observe the Sweeny test, I still rested better that week than I had in a while. Some of these Coleman people — Harry, Roberta, Bodge, Sue, Sweeny, Nicole, even Wharton — were becoming generous with themselves; I was feeling accepted if not embraced. I didn’t know if I had anything in common with any of them, nor did they know whether I had the makings of a good friend. They tugged at me a bit, inviting me to participate. And there didn’t appear to be any strings.
There was one thing I didn’t think about until I went to bed that night. It was something Harry had said that had meant nothing to me at the time, about Tom wanting people to think he’s some young hermit. And there was something else he’d said that I had ignored, concentrating on the incident of the road, the fence, and the feud. Harry had said it irritated Wharton that Tom talked all the time about building his house from scratch, even the furniture. Wharton said Tom had subcontracted almost every step of the house and hadn’t done any more than put up the shelves and paint. Wharton had seen the construction trucks and delivery vans. Tom, Wharton said, could make some passable, simple wood things, but he wasn’t an artist. He was just a handyman.
I wondered why Tom billed himself as such a clever craftsman. Why wouldn’
t he tell the truth about something like that?
10
The streets of downtown Coleman had become so busy by three p.m. on Friday that we closed up the office for the rest of the afternoon. The banners were stretched across the main street between buildings, vendors and clubs were setting up their booths for Saturday, and a huge bandstand was erected at the end of the street for the Friday night kickoff dance.
Tuesday afternoon with the Musettas and five nights with Sweeny on my couch had changed my whole perspective. Not part of my perspective, all of it. Now, as the town was coming alive for the weekend of celebrating, I took the time to retrace my thinking. I went home, changed into jeans, grabbed a diet soda, and sat on my front steps. For the first time since moving to Coleman, I watched the children coming home from school and reminded myself that the world, even in this small town, is very big. Grade-schoolers were skipping down the street, easily distracted by a rock or tree or piece of trash in the gutter. They hauled their book packs on their backs, as Sheffie had done, shuffling along and daydreaming, or playing with others. Of course I missed him; always would. I was learning not to face every memory with only pain.
Older children walked in groups or rode their bikes, yelling at each other, laughing, calling out plans to meet later. High-school kids rode by in cars with tops down. It was like the afternoon before the homecoming game; there was a feeling of expectation and vitality in the air. Though I’d lost my child, I could still be a part of this, of life. I would have more and more friends with families; I would let them pull me closer.
The afternoon was sunny and cool, invigorating. The tree-lined street on which I lived was a colorfest in itself; the breeze made dried leaves scuttle along the street and gutters. I waved to neighbors I didn’t know, talked with Sybil over the fence that divided our yards. It was, in fact, white picket. I shouted a greeting to bitchy old Mrs. Wright, who didn’t respond in kind; she merely turned her head in my direction. I hadn’t been around a resplendent fall like this in years; I had forgotten how cleansed it made me feel, how safe and warm. I believed I was coming to my senses.