FrostLine (5 page)

Chapter 4

Mr. Butler—I could never call him by his first name; even in my own maturity, less than twenty years his junior, he would always be Mr. Butler—plodded out of the barn with a bale of hay on his shoulder. I couldn't see his face from where Dicky and I sat in the truck, but anyone in Newbury would have recognized him by his long hair swinging in the sun.

The cows closed in on him, their breath white in the cold air.

“Want to give him a hand?”

“Not in that mud.” Dicky held up one of his stitched cowboy boots by way of explanation.

A huge old yellow dog plodded at Mr. Butler's heels. DaNang, the last of three golden retrievers named for places Mr. Butler had been wounded in the war. “How the hell old is DaNang?” I asked Dicky.

“Old.”

He finished wiping his face. “Don't tell Pop what happened.”

“You got a knot on your head.”

He inspected it. Protruding from his bristly hair where he had butted Albert, it looked like a good start on a rhinoceros horn. “Shit.”

“Tell him you banged it getting out of the truck.”

Dicky stuffed my bloody handkerchief in his pocket and started the engine. As he put it into gear he looked at me with an unspoken question.

I said, “You can tell who you want. They won't hear it from me.”

“Appreciate it.”

“Do me a favor. Last thing you and your dad need is a war with Henry King. Will you let me see what I can work out?”

Dicky thought it over. “Just don't bulldoze him, Ben. I won't let nobody do that.”

I promised I wouldn't, and we drove into the farmyard.

Mr. Butler opened the hay bale with a wire cutter, scattered it with a few practiced kicks as the cows closed in, and climbed through the fence. Dicky's cleanup job didn't fool him for a second. His face fell when he saw the knot.

I said, “Hello, Mr. Butler,” and extended my hand. “I don't know if you remember me. I'm Ben Abbott.”

“I remember you. Heard you took over your dad's business.” (True—eight years ago.)

He took my hand in a work-calloused palm and squeezed politely, his eyes drifting to Dicky. “Whatcha looking at?” asked Dicky.

“What happened to your head?”

“Hit it on your truck.”

I could see he wanted to believe him. And he might have talked himself into it if Dicky's nose hadn't chosen that moment to resume bleeding. “You're home three hours and you're in a fight.”

“I was doing it for you.”

“For me? You want to do something for me, see if you can stay out of jail long enough to sue for that false arrest. You think getting locked up again'll help our case?”

Dicky said, “Tell him, Ben.”

Ordinarily, I excuse myself from family arguments. Entering in is a wonderful way of making mortal enemies of an entire clan. But Henry King had wedged me right into the middle of this one. Still, if I was going to ignore my instincts, the least I could do was cover my back. So I said, “Dicky, get lost. Let me talk to your dad.”

Dicky grabbed the bottle from the truck and stalked up to the house. His father looked mildly astonished that his son hadn't taken a poke at me for ordering him around.

“I'll explain,” I said.

He watched Dicky until the kitchen door slammed. Then he stared at me a long moment. “Come on, let's get out of the wind,” he said, and led me into the barn. There was a torn and bent webbed folding chair set in the open wall that faced the corral where the cows were eating. He sat heavily in it and indicated a rusty tractor seat welded to an old milk can for me. I pulled it close and sat beside him where we could watch the animals or turn to face each other.

“What's up?” he said. He leaned over to pick at the hay stalks that had stuck to his muddy boots, and his long hair draped his face. We were looking west, into the sun. It made the gray look almost silver. But when he raised his head, the same light was cruel, exposing hard years. His mustache was gray. Deep lines scored the skin beside his hawk nose. His eyes were dull.

“What are you going to tell me Dicky can't tell me himself?”

“It's not about Dicky. At least not directly.”

“Who'd he fight?”

“Dennis and Albert Chevalley.”

“They're working for King.”

“He went to see King. They tried to stop him.”

“Sons of bitches.”

“They're a couple of dumb kids. They do what they're told.”

Mr. Butler's shoulders sagged. “Ben, I don't want no trouble with Chevalleys. I got my hands full with that 'sucker down the hill.”

“I guarantee you they won't tell a soul that one guy smaller than them kicked both their asses simultaneously.”

Mr. Butler smiled. “No, I guess they won't.”

“So that's not a problem,” I said. “The problem is King.”

“What's it to you?”

“He asked me to intercede.”

“Intercede?”

“Make peace.”

“Why you?”

“Hell, I don't know, Mr. Butler. I thought he wanted to talk real estate. Instead he got this idea in his head that I'm some kind of local fixer.”

Butler smiled again. “Maybe he heard how you found poor old Uncle Pete.”

“He wasn't that lost.”

“Troopers couldn't find him.”

“I had more time on my hands.”

The Butler family—unduly impressed by my
oni
service—had hired me to track down a forgetful elder who had disappeared. “He had already been found,” I reminded Mr. Butler, who was distantly related to Uncle Pete. A waitress from New Milford had found him.

“Heard they got engaged,” said Mr. Butler.

“I wouldn't be surprised.”

“Shows there's hope for all of us.”

“Anyhow…”

“Anyhow, I don't see what business it is of yours.”

“Hey, I can only help if both sides want me to. I promised King I'd help. Are you interested? Or do you want to keep on fighting?”

“I'm not fighting. He's fighting. I was doing fine 'til the son of a bitch started throwing his weight around.”

“How do you mean?”

“I bet he told you he didn't understand the pasture lease. Said he didn't realize how close it was to the house, because he was a city boy. Did he?”

“That's what he said.”

“Bullshit. He saw it. He just figured he'd plow me under with lawyers. Blow me off. Screw the dumb farmer.”

“Well, he knows now he was wrong about that. I think he feels like a damned fool. Won't be the first time a city guy got his wires crossed.”

“He looks at me and I see in his eyes if I disappeared from the face of the earth, he'd be a happy man. Well, I ain't disappearing. This is my home. Been home to my family since my grandfather bought it.”

Most of Newbury's Butlers had migrated up from Bridgeport after World War One.

“And when I die, it'll be Dicky's home—I know what you're thinking. You think when I die Dicky'll sell. Well, that's his business. When I'm dead and gone I won't give a damn. But I'm not dying and I'm not going anywhere. I'm going to live my life here. And you can tell that son of a bitch down the hill I just passed my VA physical with flying colors. They told me I'll be farming at ninety.”

“Congratulations.”

“Damn straight—Christ, I'm twenty years younger than Uncle Pete. Maybe I'll meet a waitress, too….Wouldn't mind having a woman around here, again. I been alone a long time….You're not married, are you?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Seem to have a bad habit of falling in love with the wrong woman.”

“Tell me about it. Jeez, Dicky's mother was a looker….You know, Ben. If that sorry son of a bitch had just come up here, man to man, and asked, neighbor to neighbor, could we work out something with that lease—hell, I wouldn't have spit in his face. But he sent goddammed yuppie lawyers. I set DaNang on 'em. Then he sends a pair of washed-up bureaucrats: Bert Wills from Middlebury? And some jerk spook drummed out of the CIA giving me a song and dance about the lease isn't good. Ira Roth wrote that lease. Goddamned Devil couldn't break it.”

Mr. Butler liked Ira because back when he had hope that Dicky would straighten out, Ira had twice had charges thrown out of court.

“Wills and what's-his-name—?”

“Wiggens?”

“Yup, Wiggens. They treated me like garbage. What if I were the sorry 'sucker they thought I was? They'd have scared me into giving up what was mine.”

“How'd you happen to lease it? It's a funny-shaped little piece.”

“I didn't want the damned field. Crazy old Zarega insisted.”

“Why?”

“Oh, I don't know. The bear died. He wanted cows around.”

“The bear died?”

“Of course he died. Must have been hitting forty. So I leased it, strung some fence, and I made sure to run a few head in. Old Man Zarega would shuffle out on his walker, lean on the fence, watch 'em for hours. He was a neat old guy. Sorry I didn't get to know him sooner. But I was pretty crazy the first ten years I was home. Lived like a goddammed hermit.”

“Tell me if I'm out of line. But it sounds like you wouldn't miss it if you leased it back to King.”

“You looking for a commission?”

“It's how I make my living, Mr. Butler. You farm. I broker property.”

“I hope you're doing better than I am.”

“I've seen better years.”

“Thank God I got my disability. Only way a dairy farmer can make a living is get shot for his country—you know people pay more for Perrier water than a quart of milk?”

“I know that people send yuppie lawyers when they should have sent real estate agents.”

“Bullshit. He should have come himself. But he's always been a guy to make other people do his dirty work—”

He cocked his ear, suddenly tense. A second later I heard it too, the heavy thudding of a helicopter. It got closer and louder until it shook the rafters, screamed over the tin roof, and thundered toward Fox Trot.

Mr. Butler sat rigid, hands clasped in double fists, strings of muscle trembling in his neck. When the sound had died entirely, he spoke in a cold and bitter voice.

“They're using you, Ben. I thought you were better than this.”

The helicopter had derailed what had felt like an increasingly cordial conversation. DaNang raised his huge head and gazed at me inquiringly. I asked for both of us, “How do you mean?”

“Didn't they teach you any history at Annapolis?”

“History? Some. Mostly naval.”

“Ben, I personally knew five guys who wouldn't be dead if that son of a bitch hadn't been grandstanding in Paris. There's
twenty thousand
of us would still be alive today.”

“You mean Vietnam?”

“Yes, I mean Vietnam, you goddammed draft dodger.”

Spit flew. He had screamed the accusation. The dog stood up, and positioned himself close to Mr. Butler. Something unpleasant rumbled in his chest.

I shifted my feet to move quickly, and tried to keep it light.

“I was five years old, Mr. Butler. I had a kindergarten deferment.”

He worried his mustache with his work-blunted fingers. Then he expelled a whoosh of breath that hung in the cold like a comics balloon. “Oh, yeah. Yeah, musta been thinking of somebody else. You're Dicky's age, right?”

“Yes, Mr. Butler.”

“Lotsa times I still think he's a kid. You guys aren't kids.”

“No, sir.”

“Time blows my mind. Sometimes I don't know what year it is.”

I said, “My mother's father farmed over in Frenchtown. He used to say seasons count more than years.”

“You know anything about the war?”

“Not a lot.”

Mr. Butler stared at his cows, who had demolished the hay. DaNang settled at his master's feet. When Mr. Butler finally spoke, in his soft voice, he sounded normal again, almost professorial in his measured statement. “King egged Nixon on. Who do you think dreamed up, ‘I'm not going to be the first American president to lose a war'? We'd already lost. Johnson knew it. Goddammed MacNamara knew it. Us grunts knew it.

“I was a demo man. That's how I got my license for blowin' ledge. Want to know what I was blowing in Nam? Microwave relay towers.
Our
microwave relay towers. The Viet Cong took territory, they left the towers standing, figured they'd use 'em after they won.

“King and Kissinger made their careers at the Paris peace talks. Page one news every day it dragged on. King encouraged Kissinger's fantasies: You know, their nineteenth century tin-soldier politics. What did they call it? Had some fancy name for it. Real politics. Something like that. Jesus H. Christ, Ben, we're talking about eighteen-year-old flesh and blood. We weren't tin. Not us, not the poor gooks either.”

And just in case I didn't fully comprehend how the Vietnam War affected the lease, he added, “So when Henry King sends lawyers, and flunkies, and real estate agents creeping up my hill, he's just doing what he always did: treating ordinary people like tin soldiers. Tell him no, Ben. Tell him no I won't lease it back. Tell him I won't sell an acre. Tell him he can't run pipes on my land. And tell Henry King he better stop bugging me or one of these days I'll bug him back.”

“How do you mean, ‘bugging' you?”

“He's got people spying on me.”

“Spying?”

“They're watching me. I'll be out in the field and get this feeling I used to in the war—when someone's lining a bead on you.”

“Watching you? What for?”

“Saw the sun glint on binoculars—or a sniper scope.”

“Who's watching you?”

“Could of been a sniper scope.”

“Mr. Butler, if someone were aiming a sniper scope up here alone on the hill, you'd be dead, wouldn't you?”