Northern Borders (16 page)

The sheriff came up to the open doorway and knocked on the outside wall of the camp. “Evening, Austen,” he said in his high squeaky voice.

“Yes, sir, Mason,” my grandfather said without looking up from his
Geographic
or inviting the sheriff inside.

“Very nice evening, Austen.”

My grandfather continued reading.

“Evening there, young fella,” the sheriff greeted me.

Following my grandfather's cue, I said nothing.

Sheriff White shifted his weight. He cleared his throat. “Well,” he said, “maybe it ain't such an all-fire fine evening after all.”

My grandfather wet his thumb and turned a page. He took a puff of his cigar, and read on.

The sheriff shifted again, before taking an official-looking document out of his coat pocket. “Now, Austen,” he said in a shaky voice, “this ain't nothing personal. But I have been charged with delivering you this court summons to appear at the courthouse tomorrow morning at ten in the a. of m. for a civil proceeding in the case of”—he glanced at the document, which was shaking in his hand—“in the case of Kittredge vs. Kittredge.”

Sheriff White held the court order through the open camp doorway. When my grandfather did not look up from his magazine, the frightened sheriff set down the paper on the floor and backed two or three steps into the dooryard. “It ain't nothing personal,” he said again.

“Neither is this,” said my grandfather, and he reached into the side pocket of his lumber jacket, took out the last remaining stick of Granite State Blasting Company dynamite, lit the fuse with his burning cigar, and with a sudden flick of his wrist tossed the lighted dynamite stick end over end out the doorway to Sheriff Mason White.

Sheriff White caught the dynamite stick reflexively. A look of terror came over his face. With the lighted dynamite clutched in his fist, he whirled around in the dooryard twice, like a man on fire. As
he came out of the second revolution he heaved the dynamite far into the woods. It flared through the twilight like a skyrocket. Just before it dropped out of sight into the dusky softwoods, an explosion accompanied by a bright orange flash split the quiet.

“Good thundering Jehovah!” Sheriff White roared out. “You Kittredges aren't only outlaws, you're lunatics!”

In his confusion he whirled around yet again, then took off at a dead run back down the trail toward the Farm.

My grandfather continued to read for a minute or so. Then he jerked his head toward the shelf behind the camp woodstove, where he kept his provisions. “I could go for a number ten can of peaches, Austen. I'm getting sick of Campbell beans and jelly sandwiches on store bread that pulls apart in your hands.”

I brought him the peaches and he took out his hunting knife and jabbed the point into the top of the can and haggled it open. He impaled a couple of peach halves and ate them off the knife, which he politely drove upright into the tabletop next to the open can for me to use. I ate some peaches with my grandfather, and neither of us spoke for a while. I looked over at the two bunks along the back wall, remembering how I'd awakened here one morning in deer season to find snow on my quilt, blown in through the chinks in the logs. Even before the border-country winter set in in earnest, the wood cookstove didn't keep the camp very warm. But if Labrador wasn't always comfortable, it was never less than a comforting place.

When we finished the peaches, my grandfather poured some kerosene on a few sticks of kindling in the stove and lit a small fire to take the chill off the evening. The wood flared up fast, reminding me of the lighted dynamite stick soaring through the dusk. I caught a whiff of that distinctive evergreen redolence my grandfather carried with him everywhere, imbued in his woolen pants and jacket, and remembered the first time I smelled that wonderful scent, on our way from the village to Lost Nation when I was just six years old. That seemed a long time ago now.

It occurred to me that I should get back to the house before my grandmother started to worry about me.

“So you're not going to the court tomorrow?” I said, getting up.

“Certainly I'm going to court,” my grandfather said. “We're all
going to court. You, too. Blowing up a two-bit sheriff is one thing, Austen. But a man can't be ignoring a summons to court. Tell them we'll be leaving shortly after nine o'clock.

“Kittredge vs. Kittredge,” he called after me as I headed out the door. “That should be a court to remember.”

 

I had next to no hope that my grandmother would allow me to miss school the next day to attend the court hearing, but for once she let me off the hook. Like my grandfather, she seemed to believe that witnessing this ultimate confrontation between them was actually more important than my precious education. I was delighted to hear her tell me that I could come with them.

We left at nine sharp in my grandfather's truck. I rode in the middle. My grandmother wore her most funereal black dress and a plain black hat with a tiny gold crocodile stickpin. My grandfather wore a clean red flannel shirt, neatly-creased khaki pants, and his steel-toed work boots. As always, he was freshly shaven and his short white hair was neatly brushed.

It was a fine day in late May. Under the clear northern Vermont sky, the hills were as green as any hills in the world. In another week it would be haying time in Kingdom County.

On the way down the Hollow neither one of my grandparents mentioned the impending hearing. My grandmother sat silently with her hands folded in her lap and a determined look on her face, which could have been carved from granite. My grandfather mentioned that a traveling circus was coming to town soon, and that he would take me to see it. “How would you like to go off to work for the circus, Austen?” he said. “Or a traveling fair?”

I said I would.

My grandmother gave a long sigh, and I heard her mutter the word sashaying. But I envied my grandfather his sashaying days, and yearned to see for myself someday what lay on the far side of the hills and mountains.

My grandfather slowed down to a crawl about halfway to the village so that I could get a good look at the crew running the new electrical line up to the Hollow. I knew that my grandparents disagreed over the power line, as they did about nearly everything else.
Gramp was looking forward to having electricity in the sawmill, where he now had to rely on our water-powered paddle wheel to operate his machinery. But my grandmother had stated flatly that she would never have electricity in the house; too many Vermont farmhouses had caught fire from faulty wiring over the years, and she did not intend to run that risk.

We arrived in the village at nine-fifty by the courthouse clock. The following Monday was Memorial Day, and flags were already waving from house porches and in front of the stores. But the main excitement this morning seemed to be the hearing. A dozen or so curiosity-seekers were already standing on the long stone steps in front of the courthouse.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Kittredge,” said Bumper Stevens, the commission sales auctioneer. “Who's that young fella with you? Your attorney?”

“He's as much attorney as I'll ever require.”

Now that we'd reached the courthouse, I was afraid that they wouldn't let me in. But my grandparents marched right through the big front door as though they owned the place, and up a set of wide wooden stairs with me at their heels.

The courtroom was about the size of our double haymow at home. It had tall windows on three sides and smelled like a church. My grandmother sat with Lawyer Barrows at a shiny table below the judge's bench. My grandfather and I sat in two wooden chairs on the opposite side of the central aisle, about three rows back. A minute later I saw my Uncle Rob and my little aunts, Freddi and Klee, who were just out of college for the summer, come in and sit in the back of the room, opposite the curiosity-seekers, who by now numbered twenty or so. They waved to me and I lifted my hand.

The courtroom was very still. On the front wall, a large clock with a very white face and very black hands said nine fifty-five. At the table down in front, my grandmother and old Zack were conferring intently over a paper my grandmother had produced from her pocketbook.

My grandfather nudged me. “What sort of wood are the tables and benches up front made out of, Austen?”

“Rock maple,” I said.

My grandfather gave me a curt nod. “What's the floor made of?”

“Red oak.”

This time my grandfather didn't even bother to nod; it was enough that I knew.

A minute or two before ten, a man in a suit and tie came in and filled a water glass on the judge's bench. He nodded pleasantly to Zack and my grandmother, and to my grandfather. “That's the bailiff,” my grandfather said. “He keeps order in—There's the old judge now.”

A tall, rugged-looking man of about sixty came in through a door at the front of the room. He too smiled at us.

“All rise, please, the Superior Court of Kingdom County is now in session,” the bailiff said in a solemn voice. “Judge Forrest Allen presiding, in the case of Kittredge vs. Kittredge.”

The judge waved his hand. “Sit down, folks,” he said. “Please sit down. We'll dispense with most of the usual formalities this morning. After all, we're all friends.”

Beside me, my grandfather made that rasping sound in his throat, and glared in my grandmother's direction.

“Well,” Judge Allen said good-humoredly, “most of us are friends.”

A suppressed snicker or two broke out from the loafers at the rear of the courtroom. Then it was quiet again. Everyone present was eager to see the forty-year-old running feud between my grandparents come to a head in a public spectacle. I glanced over at my grandmother to see how mortified she looked, but this morning she did not seem discomfited at all. She looked severe and triumphant, as though she had won her case already.

I realized that the judge was smiling at me. “Hello, young man. You must be Abiah and Austen's grandson.”

I nodded.

“How's the trout fishing up in the East Branch this year?”

Thinking that this might be some sort of trick question designed to get me to take sides, I looked at my grandfather. “Tell him,” he said.

I told the judge that the trout fishing had been good, and he nodded and said he'd have to get up and try it some evening soon, assuming that he'd still be welcome on my grandparents' property after the hearing. Some of the spectators laughed out loud. But neither my grandfather nor my grandmother cracked a smile.

So far, all of the judge's good-natured efforts to break the ice had failed.

“Now, then, folks,” Judge Allen said in a more businesslike voice, “the matter before the court today is a civil proceeding. This isn't a criminal case. Nobody's broken any laws or been accused of breaking any laws. Two people have had a misunderstanding and they've come here to iron it out in the fairest way. That's the long and the short of it. The fact that the two litigants in disagreement are married is interesting, but it isn't really relevant to the case.”

I glanced back at my young uncle and two little aunts. All three were rolling their eyes. My entire family knew very well that the fact that the litigants were married, and couldn't stand each other, had everything to do with this case.

The judge picked up a sheaf of papers and fanned the air casually with them. He seemed determined to maintain a friendly air. “To put all this in the simplest terms,” he said, “the plaintiff in this case, Mrs. Abiah Kittredge of Lost Nation Township, has requested a permanent injunction to prevent the defendant, Mr. Austen Kittredge, from raising the level of his millpond. Mrs. Kittredge has alleged that raising the pond would flood out her apple orchard. Does that fairly represent your client's contention, Mr. Barrows?”

Old Zack shoved himself partway to his feet. “Yes, Your Honor. It does.”

The judge nodded. “How many apple trees do you have in your orchard, Abiah?”

“Thirty-six,” my grandmother said. “Here's the list.”

She walked up to the judge's bench and slapped her written list of apple trees down in front of him.

Judge Allen read through the list, mentioning some of the names aloud. “Tetofsky, Fameuse, Smokehouse . . . I haven't encountered these fine old varieties since I was a young rapscallion robbing Old Man Quimby's orchard up on Anderson Hill on my way home from school in the fall.”

The judge looked at me and winked. I winked back. I liked him very much because he seemed to like both of my grandparents. Surely this amicable man could work things out between them if anyone could.

“So, Abiah, raising the level of the pond would destroy your old-fashioned apple trees?”

“It would.”

The judge looked at my grandfather. “Is this the case, Austen? You intend to flood out your wife's apple trees, do you?”

“I intend to conduct my sawmill and lumbering operation without interference,” my grandfather said. “I'm not a rich man. If I'm to proceed with my business and keep my own head above water, I need to enlarge my pond.”

“Why is that?” the judge said with what appeared to be genuine curiosity.

“Because I've got fifty thousand feet of softwood logs jammed in the bend just upriver, and I need to float them free, that's why. It happens every spring. I've tried every other way in the world to get that timber out of there, including dynamite.”

“So we hear,” the judge said dryly. “But what about your wife's claim? Would the enlarged pond drown out her apple trees?”

“I suspect it would,” my grandfather said. “What of it? Why should her apples be any more important than my logs?”

“I didn't say they were,” the judge said mildly. “Or, for that matter, that they weren't.”

Judge Allen frowned slightly. He tapped the list of old-fashioned apple trees with a long finger. Then he said, “Well, I can plainly see that there's only one way for me to get a complete picture of this situation. That's to drive up to Lost Nation Hollow and see for myself.”