Bright Flows the River

  Mr. Prentice took out a gold-plated cigarette case, offered Guy a cigarette, lighted one for himself. He looked at Guy thoughtfully. Guy said, “So the Geiger land is of no use to you without mine. Let’s stop dancing around, Mr. Prentice. You bought the Geiger land for almost nothing; you want to buy mine. The Geiger farm is useless to you without my acres, and you know it. What’s your offer?”

  Mr. Prentice’s complexion became rubicund, but he smiled. “As I said, I am prepared to make you a—reasonable—offer.”

  “Such as three or four thousand dollars, perhaps?”

  “I think that’s a fair offer.”

  “For nine hundred acres to be converted into a suburb, which will make your company millions?”

  “That’s ridiculous, Mr. Jerald. You know nothing about the building business.”

  “Yes, I do. I went to see Chandlertown this morning.”

  A deep brown silence fell in the office, while the two men gazed at each other like bullfighters. Then Mr. Prentice said, “What did you think of it?”

  “Terrible. But—unless you meet my own terms I’ll go to Mr. Chandler, in spite of the tract houses he’ll probably build on my land, the instant slum.”

  Mr. Prentice nodded. “I agree Chandlertown is a blot on the landscape. I don’t build like that, Mr. Jerald. I have the best architects, with original designs. Most of this suburb was built by us—Mr. Grace, my partner, and I. And the houses didn’t cost any more than Chandler’s—slum. And better built, too, and not one exact duplicate of any other. I was born in Pittsburgh and so were most of my ancestors and I have a little respect for architecture, and I hate the present tract houses now going up like tawdry weeds all over the country. They’ll fall apart within ten years.”

  “And the poor damned bastards will have nothing except mortgages for hen houses.”

  Mr. Prentice did not detect any pity in Guy’s voice, only derision. For some reason he felt both relieved and yet more cautious. He said, “Yes, let’s get down to business. My final offer is seven thousand dollars for your land.”

  Guy stood up, “Goodbye, Mr. Prentice.”

  Mr. Prentice was alarmed at this abruptness. He looked up into Guy’s eyes and saw the ruthlessness there, the amused knowledge. “Mr. Jerald! Let’s not rush things. Please sit down. I’m sure we can come to some agreement. What did you have in mind?”

  Guy’s heart began to tremble. “I’ll sell you the first third of my land near the Geiger farm—and the easement—for forty thousand dollars. A bargain.”

  “Forty thousand dollars!” Mr. Prentice almost stuttered.

  “That’s not all, Mr. Prentice. I want to get in on this deal, too. After all, there are two thirds more of my land. I want to learn the business. I don’t expect to be an architect overnight. In fact, I don’t want to be a licensed architect at all. I just want to know as much as possible about it. Then, if you want to buy the other two thirds, I’m a partner. Prentice, Grace & Jerald. It sounds good to me.”

  Mr. Prentice leaned back far into his heavily padded executive chair which was guaranteed not to squeak. It squeaked. He regarded Guy with what he hoped was total incredulity and gentle mirth. “Mr. Jerald, your—terms—are impossible. You look and talk like a bright young man, yet you make an impossible offer.”

  “I think the Chandler people won’t find it impossible. Mr. Prentice, I don’t have time to waste. Take my offer, or leave it. Consult your partner, your banks. I will be here tomorrow to hear what you have to say. Early. So, if I’m not satisfied, I may go to the Chandler people, much as I dislike them.”

  “But you don’t know anything about this business!” Mr. Prentice had never felt so beset before, and by a mill hand!

  “I can learn. You’ve said I’m bright. You aren’t an architect yourself, Mr. Prentice, but you know a lot about architecture, as you’ve implied. I think I’ve made you a very reasonable offer. In fact, I should have asked sixty thousand dollars for that one third of my land. I’m sure the Chandler people will be glad to give me what I want.”

  Mr. Prentice was also sure. Again the chair squeaked. Mr. Prentice both hated and admired this bumpkin. He began to suspect that the Chandler people had already approached Guy. Guy said, “The only reason I won’t consider the Chandler Development Company is because I detest their tract houses. But if the worse comes to the worst—I like money, too, Mr. Prentice.”

  “So I gather, Mr. Jerald. I’ll have to talk this over with my partner. It’s a lot of money, and I don’t even know, as of now, if we care to undertake the development of your land. It’s still all up in the air.”

  Guy smiled and Mr. Prentice found that smile both knowing and disagreeable. “There’s a recession on just now, Mr. Jerald, and money is tight.”

  “I shouldn’t worry about that, Mr. Prentice. Washington will think up a war to make us prosperous again.” His young voice was now bitter and harsh.

  “War?” said Mr. Prentice, raising his eyebrows.

  “Brushfire wars, to make war workers happy again,” said Guy. “I read that in the newspapers. And only recently a State Department official remarked that ‘wars are America’s traditional way to pull out of depressions.’ Yes, indeed. Let young men die on foreign battlefields so that the men who work in ‘defense’ factories can buy houses in bigger Chandlertowns.”

  Again the savage bitterness and harshness were in Guy’s eyes and voice. “I was in the last one,” he said. “My father knew what it was all about—to make the world safe for Fascistic Communism, among many other things. I saw the dead. I saw the burning cities. That war made you very rich, too, didn’t it, Mr. Prentice?”

  Mr. Prentice was silent. He could only look at Guy, who suddenly seemed formidable to him, a symbol of the younger generation of men who had returned home shaken and embittered, or in wooden coffins, or in wheelchairs or on stretchers.

  “I didn’t approve of that war myself, Mr. Jerald,” he said. “I wasn’t drafted, though I was only thirty-eight or -nine then, in 1941. Eight years ago. My eyes.”

  I wonder, thought Guy. But he only nodded. “And a heart murmur or two,” added Mr. Prentice. He sighed.

  “Weren’t you lucky,” said Guy, without sympathy.

  Mr. Prentice suddenly smiled and for the first time the smile was not sour. He said, “I guess I was, at that.” He scrutinized Guy more closely; he no longer despised him. He began to think very rapidly, but still with caution.

  “All right. I’ll talk with Mr. Grace. We’ll all get together tomorrow, though I can’t promise you anything as of now. Where are you staying in town?”

  “I haven’t found a place yet.”

  “Let me recommend a fine motel right here in this suburb. We built it ourselves. Be our guest!”

  They shook hands. Then Guy said, “We almost missed each other. The fault of that little tramp outside. I wonder how many other people she’s driven off.”

  “I’ll take care of Ethel,” said Mr. Prentice, and his smile went away.

  In the dream Tom appeared, as young as Guy remembered him over fifteen years ago, and he said, “I admire you, son, you dealt as a rascal with a rascal. It was even Stephen, as they used to say. But was it necessary to hurt that faceless little wretch who used her ‘little brief authority’ on you? What else did she have to live for? What else do little scanty people like her have to live for but their pitiable arrogance to compensate for their meaninglessness?”

  12

  As the dream continued it moved faster and faster, spurred by the jockey of memory.

  The motel was very luxurious, at least to Guy, who had slept in but a few dismal ones with a casual girl. He was accepted with cordiality, the manager explaining that Mr. Prentice had made the reservation. The manager was proud of his establishment. He personally conducted Guy to his room, which was large and warm and well furnished, with a tiny television set and an expansive bathroom. Guy deposited his small suitcase, noting with some amused anger the manager’s acute recognition o
f its shabbiness, and then washed his somewhat grimy face and hands and combed his hair. He then went to the dining room, sharply conscious of his old clothing and his cheap suit. He felt, more than ever before, the sordidness and the humiliation of poverty, for all the diners were well dressed. He imagined they surveyed him with scorn and repudiation. Then he remembered his offer to Mr. Prentice, and his shoulders straightened and he looked about him with a new assurance.

  The meal was very good; he spent far more than he had intended, and he tipped with a careless generosity. When he opened the door to his room he heard the telephone ringing, and with elation he thought: So, they couldn’t wait! He ran to the telephone and caught it up. He was surprised to hear Sal’s voice.

  “How did you trace me here?” he asked.

  “Well, Jerry, it isn’t any mystery. I did see Mr. Prentice’s name and address this morning, on his letter to you. So I called him and asked him if he knew where you were, and he told me.” Now her voice became excited. “I just had to tell you so you’ll come home early in the morning.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just something very funny. Right after you left this morning some men came, with all kinds of instruments. And they went out on the farm and I went after them and they said Mrs. Jerald—your mother—had given them permission to be there, and had told them that the farm was really hers and she was seeing lawyers. They said they were geol—I don’t remember what it was—geol, or something.”

  Guy moved closer to the telephone, as he sat on the edge of his bed.

  “Geologists, Sal?”

  “Yes, that’s it. Geologists. They kept moving around, picking up pieces of clay and earth, and making notes on a pad. I asked them who sent them and they said it was ‘someone.’ They wouldn’t give me a name.”

  Guy’s mind clamored furiously. What in hell were geologists doing on his land? Sal said, “I told them your mother didn’t own that land, you did, and they asked for you and I said you was away for a couple days. I was going to call the police to put them off, and they said your mother had given them permission and they would tell you all about it when you came home. They’re coming back tomorrow morning, early. Oh, something else funny. You know the Schwartz’s farm, three miles away? They dug a well, or something, and they found oil, not a big well, but fifty barrels a day, they said. Mrs. Geiger told me this afternoon.”

  Oil. But his land was not in the area of the oil fields and few new wells had been discovered in the Commonwealth, and these had been hardly worth the expense of drilling. Still, there was the possibility. Unable to sit any longer, Guy got to his feet. He looked at his watch. It was nine-thirty. He could make it home in a few hours, at night. He said to Sal, “I’m coming home right now, Sal. This may be important.”

  “I thought it might be,” said Sal, with some satisfaction. “But you must be wore out now, and then driving again for hours.

  “I’ll be there,” said Guy.

  He walked up and down the pleasant room with increasing elation. Then he called Mr. Prentice. He said at once, “I’m sorry, Mr. Prentice, but something has come up. I was just called from Cranston. There’ve been oil prospectors, geologists, on my land all day, and they’ll be there tomorrow. So I am leaving now for home.”

  He could actually hear the thick silence on the telephone. He added, with some agreeable malice, “It seems oil has been discovered on some property three miles away.”

  Mr. Prentice’s voice was both shrill and shaken. “But—but what about our meeting tomorrow?”

  It gave Guy pleasure to say, “Call me in Cranston—tomorrow—or when you wish.” He spoke with deliberate carelessness. He gently hung up. He found he was breathing with deep rapidity. He packed his few articles. The telephone rang again. Guy smiled at it. It stopped, then began to ring again. Guy closed his suitcase and ran from the room. The night was bright with, stars, and his elation made him forget his tiredness. Like many people, he believed that the roads would be almost empty at night, but the roads were roaring with the big interstate trucks and as he passed them he could feel the thunderous wind of their passage. He suddenly felt a mysterious brotherhood with the brawny men who drove these vehicles in the night, yet it was a brotherhood of the body and not of the mind. He realized, with some surprise, that he had never been one with the men who completely utilized their bodies and not their intelligences, and therefore there had always been a subtle barrier between him and them, which they had recognized at once and he had not, until tonight. That, he now knew, was the reason for the resentment his contemporaries had always felt for him, even in childhood, much to his young bewilderment, and his isolation in the Army, and his present isolation. Had his father known that all the time?

  He arrived at the farm at nearly three in the morning. He saw that the kitchen was lighted, and he was not surprised to find that Sal was waiting for him and that there was a warm refreshing fragrance of coffee in the big room, and that she had placed one of her fine apple pies on the table. She was nodding in a chair near the stove, but awoke alertly at the sound of his entrance. Seeing his exhausted face, she said, “Maybe I should have waited until tomorrow—I mean, after you had breakfast.”

  “No, you did exactly right, Sal,” he said, and in his exuberance he kissed her over and over, until she laughingly protested. He then sat down and drank coffee and ate part of the pie, while he told Sal of yesterday’s events. She listened with that intense interest she had always given his father, and her approval.

  “I doubt there’s anything to be found in the way of profitable oil in this area,” he said. “But it will give Mr. Prentice thought, and that’ll give me an opportunity. Wake me early, Sal.”

  She was smiling. She said, “Hope you don’t mind, Jerry, but Mr. Kurtz called in the afternoon and asked me to go out to dinner with him, tonight.” She blushed like a young girl.

  “Well, well,” said Guy. “For a slow man he is moving pretty fast, isn’t he? Of course I don’t mind. I think we’d both better get some sleep.”

  But he could hardly sleep much, in spite of his weariness. In his thoughts he went over and over a coming conversation with John Prentice.

  He awakened early. The April sun was sharp and piercing, as was the wind. He and the boy he had hired to do most of the farm chores went out into the wet brown fields, where, here and there, there were greening spots. At all times Guy watched the road. At eight o’clock, when he and the boy were bringing in the milk pails to the “second kitchen” for Sal to put in the separator, he saw several large polished cars driving up to the house. Muddy and damp, he went to greet the nine men and they eyed him and his clothing with cool indifference as they left their vehicles. He stared at them with a quick bright black light in his eyes and said, “You’re trespassing.”

  An older man in his fifties regarded him with less than pleasure and said, “We have the written permission of Mrs. Thomas Jerald, who is part owner of this land.”

  “Mrs. Thomas Jerald is my mother, and she owns no part of this property. You don’t have my permission.”

  The men looked at each other for a long moment, then the older man smiled agreeably and held out his hand. “Sorry. We were misinformed. I’m George Random, and these”—he indicated the watchful others—“are part of my company. Random Geological Associates.” He named them and Guy merely nodded abruptly. “What are you looking for? Gold? Diamonds? Silver? Mica? Or, is it oil?”

  Mr. Random apparently changed his opinion of Guy, for he said, very pleasantly, “Well, there is that—oil. A small well has been drilled three miles from your land. We are prepared, if there are any indications of oil, to offer you an option.”

  Guy smiled, and not pleasantly. “Well, what have you found so far?”

  A glaucous look came over the other’s eyes. “Not too favorable. But we are still prepared to offer you an option on all your land, Mr. Jerald.”

  Guy leaned against a fence post and assumed a parody of a country innocent. “We
ll, now, is that so? An option on land you are pretty sure doesn’t have oil, or only a little? Not enough to make drilling one well worthwhile?”

  “We are willing to take the chance, Mr. Jerald.” An ominous flush stained his bony cheekbones. “About the option. For your nine hundred acres we offer you, now, fifty thousand dollars, ten thousand paid on signing the option. What have you to lose?”

  Guy studied him for several long moments. Then he said, “You wouldn’t know the Chandler outfit, would you?”

  Mr. Random was startled. He drew a little nearer to Guy. “Chandler?”

  Guy waved his hand carelessly. “Never heard of Chandler, the builder, the land developer? He’s been buying up land around here for his instant slums. I thought everybody knew him. Biggest builder in the Commonwealth.” Guy was amused at the suddenly taut attitude of the other men. “Now, yesterday, I was in Pittsburgh. I’ve been talking to the Prentice and Grace people. They’ve offered me forty thousand dollars for one third of my land, with an option to buy the rest. A better offer than yours.”

  They stared at him in silence. Two, who had been taking instruments from their car, paused and looked at Mr. Random. “You never heard of John Prentice, either, did you?” said Guy, as no one spoke. “Well, I’ve been considering his offer. It’s better than yours. I don’t think there is oil here, and neither do you. Excuse me, gentlemen, I’m going to call Mr. Prentice now and take up his offer.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Mr. Random. “Let’s be nice and easy. Suppose I consult—somebody—and talk to you this afternoon? Come into town, at the Old House, and have lunch with me.” He gave Guy a most friendly smile. “Perhaps I’ll have good news for you.” He looked over the quickening land, which was now steaming in the sun. The other men were quietly putting away their instruments.