The Bookwoman's Last Fling (10 page)

“Most of those boys got good pretty fast. Mr. Geiger was a great teacher back then, and his boys listened to what he said. If they didn't, they didn't last long. Lotsa big-name jocks started as bug boys with Mr. Geiger.”

“Tell me about the ones who took the hard way out.”

“Yeah, well, you know. There's always some of those.”

Geiger's first boy for one, he said: “Not the very first one, I never knew that one, I'm talkin' about the kid who was here when I first hired on.”

A word-picture of a ninety-eight-pound punk billowed up from the past. Johnny Brewer, his name was…a self-important fool who strutted along the shedrow, bossed the ginneys rudely, and rode recklessly when he thought he could get away with it. One day he tried to squeeze through on the rail where there wasn't any hole and caused a bad spill. He broke his back and had been in a wheelchair ever since.

“What about Sandy Standish?”

“Oh yeah, but that's different. Mr. Sandy was okay.”

“You ever hear from him?”

“Miss Sharon keeps in touch. They was real close.”

I scribbled some thoughts in my notebook. “Who else?”

“Some other fellas, they wasn't with us long.”

I asked him what else he remembered and wrote down some names. “We had a good crew then,” he said. “It was a real happy shedrow in those days. We had laughs, man, I thought I'd die at some of the stuff them daggone white boys pulled on us.”

The only trouble with good times is they never last, I said, but bad news always seems to come around again. “Like now. I heard Cameron's come back.”

“Yeah, I saw him prowlin' around the house last week. He got outta there fast when he seen me comin'. So I didn't see him to talk to.”

“Did you tell Sharon?”

“Oh yeah, sure. I couldn't let something like that pass.”

“What'd she say?”

“Sluffed it off. She's not afraid of anybody. But she needs to be more wary.”

“Of her brother?”

“Maybe especially.”

There was something about his voice, his face, what he was saying and what he hadn't said. An evil thought went through my head and the moment was pregnant with rank implications. “I heard Cameron was bad news.”

“They all are. But yeah, he'd be the worst.”

“Do you think he stole the books?”

“We got blamed.”

“I know you did. But it might have been Cameron.”

“That'd be my guess. Since you asked.”

“Tell me more about Cameron and what he does.”

He shook his head. “I don't understand…”

I think you do, Louie,
I thought.

“What's the worst thing he's ever done?”

He was surprised by the question; I could see him struggling with it. Whatever he knew, it was not something he wanted to talk about.
What could that be?
I thought. Again a brutal, rank image crossed my mind and I didn't have to be Albert Einstein to see it.

“I'm not just asking this to shovel the dirt, Louie, it's a question I often ask. It helps if I know what a guy is capable of.”

“Just figure anything. He'd do just about anything you can imagine.”

“What's he actually done that you know about?”

His eyes looked away.

“We're not talking about money now, are we, Louie?”

He looked back at me and his face was a thousand years old. I could see the shape of it now, a dark secret he had never told anyone. I was guessing but in that moment I'd have bet a small bundle on it. I cocked my head and looked in his eyes. “Louie?”

“I don't know what you want. I don't know anything…”

Softly, I said, “Did Cameron do something to Sharon?”

He had been watching me edge closer to this moment. Now it was here and he was shocked. “Man, I can't talk about this,” he said, and his voice quaked.

“How old was she when this happened, Louie?”

“I don't know…Jesus, I'm just a ginney; how am I supposed to know stuff like that?”

He looked in my eyes. What he really wanted was that nothing had ever happened. That Sharon would perhaps tell me something he himself couldn't say. That Cameron had never come back. That Cameron had never been born in the first place.

“Maybe I could come out in the morning and talk to her some more.”

“If you would just do that much. But don't tell her what we're talking about.”

“Are we talking about something?”

“No, sir. We didn't talk about Cameron. He's…”

After a while I said, “What is he, Louie?”

“He's fishin' around for some way to approach her. He must be down to the end of his rope. I think he must need money really bad to come back here and show his face. That means he's gotta try something soon.”

“I'll see you tomorrow morning then.”

I would have to be there early, he said. “We're going over for a load of hay tomorrow, so she'll want to get the animals taken care of by daybreak. We'll be out of there at six-thirty.”

He reached for his wallet. “I could give you something now, more in a few days.”

“Keep your money, Louie, I've already been paid.”

After he left I looked at my untouched drink. I dumped it in the sink and went to bed.

I awoke thinking of Sharon and her menacing half brother. The dream had faded even before my first awareness of the new day, leaving only a vague impression of the brother, a man I had never seen but who now made me think of the worst characters from Dickens. I saw him as a big hulking man, a bruiser who preyed on children, but even Dickens in his day couldn't write the stuff that lingered in my mind.

Again I was out well before dawn. The weather had finally cleared, the streets were still pocked with slushy puddles, but the forecast was for blue skies the rest of the week. I drove past the all-night café in the dark and went out along the road where twenty-odd hours earlier I had ridden as a passenger with Junior Willis. I got on the dirt road without a hitch, went past the
KEEP OUT
sign as if I belonged there, and soon I saw the lights of the old man's house.

I went on past and turned into Sharon's yard. Suddenly she was there in my headlights, walking around a big closed truck that had been parked at the side of the porch. The three dogs swarmed around her. She looked my way and waited for me to stop, then she came around and said hello. “I'm glad you came back. Come on inside and eat something.”

Inside the talk was easy. I said I had come out to work again, she didn't seem surprised, and I figured I'd save the trumped-up explanation for if and when I needed it. We sat and had some coffee and a moment later the servants came in. It was immediately clear that whatever they had been at Geiger's, they weren't servants here. Sharon pushed her own place aside to make room for them at the table and they all sat down and hunkered close. “People, this is Cliff,” Sharon said; “Cliff, that's Rosemary on the end, the young man beside her is Billy Young, next to him is Lillian Wheeler. That tall handsome gentleman next to the wall is Louie Young.” I grinned affably, shook hands, and said hello to them all.

Sharon had made a large breakfast casserole; she brought it out herself in two trays, they all helped themselves liberally, and everyone ate with good appetites. Lively, uninhibited talk flowed around the room. Rosemary turned out to be Louie's younger sister. She was most interested in the news of the day, presidential politics, and the coming day's work. Lillian had the loudest voice, rich, high-pitched, and full of infectious laughter. Billy was a strapping kid about twenty years old. He had two years of college under his belt, he wanted to get into law enforcement, and Sharon had told him about my police career. He asked how I had broken in and why I had left the department to go into the book trade. I couldn't sugarcoat that part of it, so I told him the shortest version, that there was a thug in Denver who was brutalizing a woman and wouldn't take no for an answer. “One day I pushed him into a fight, and maybe I shouldn't have done that. It was a pretty big scandal in Denver.”

“What happened?”

“I was suspended pending the outcome of an investigation.”

“How'd that turn out?”

“I quit before the final report was finished. The writing was on the wall.”

“They were gonna sandbag you.”

“There are some fellows in the department, including my old friend and partner, who'd tell you I sandbagged myself. There's one thing you've got to remember if you get in with the cops, Billy. Always do it by the book.”

“What if you can't?”

“Then I guess you've got to follow your heart like I did. Just be ready for the consequences when they come down, because they will, and you've got to be at peace with yourself when it's all said and done.”

Sharon said, “What about you, Cliff, are you at peace?”

I told her I had never been completely at peace with myself about anything. I accomplish something and then right away I get bored with it and I start looking for something new. “Looks like I was born with a restless spirit.” Billy said, “I can't imagine being a police officer and being bored,” and I told him it's like anything else in life, it's got its highs and lows. “The highs can be really high, but when the lows come—when you know a guy is guilty of really bad stuff, when there is no doubt and there's absolutely nothing you can do about it, and what's worse, you know he'll do it again—that can be pretty debilitating.”

“What about now? Are you sorry you took on that creep?”

It took a while, but I finally said, “No.”

“You don't miss it?”

“Sure I do, but that's a different question. That's why I still do some work on the side, to keep my hand in. But you're right, it's not the same.”

“Have you ever had to kill a man?”

“Billy!” Rosemary said sharply. “What the hell kinda question is that?”

“I guess the real question,” Sharon said, “is whether you'd go back to it if you could.”

That was a strange moment: I had seldom allowed myself to consider such a possibility and now here it was in my face. It wasn't real and yet it was, and suddenly I was aware of the scrutiny of the group. “I don't know,” I said, and in that moment, perhaps for the first time, I didn't know. “Maybe,” I said. “The job would have to be right, wouldn't it?”

I hadn't ever let myself think that way. I had had a good career then and I had a good one now. In my mind, that was a thing for its time, but this lingering doubt had always nagged me.

Across the room a clock chimed.

“Quarter after six, boys,” Sharon said. “Time to head 'em up, move 'em out.”

Three of them were going on a sixty-mile trip, out to a farm where she had bought hay for years, and I would make it four if I wanted to ride along. She spoke to me privately in the hall while Louie went outside and warmed up the truck.

“I've been thinking about what Junior told you. Have you made up your mind yet about working for Junior?”

“I left it in limbo, but it doesn't look good. I can't work for a guy who won't talk to me.”

“How'd you like to work for me instead? Same job with maybe a few new wrinkles, better working conditions, happier people, fringe benefits, time-and-a-half for overtime, a good pension plan, no pressure…”

We stood in the dark hallway for another thirty seconds. Softly she said, “Whatever he's paying you, I'll double it.” Then I heard a door open and saw a light. She was standing about ten feet away. “Come here, I want to show you something.”

I followed her into a sparsely furnished bedroom with a winner's circle picture on the far wall. Her mother looked out at us with deep intense eyes.

“Of all our pictures, this is the one that's really her. She's not putting on a face or trying to be what she thought he wanted. Come over here a minute.”

We crossed the room and she opened a closet. Hanging there, looking like new, was the bookwoman's white dress.

“She died in that. They were out at the farm in California.”

I stood waiting for whatever might come next. She said, “Go ahead, touch it,” and I felt the silky-soft material.

“That doesn't prove anything, does it?” she said. “I just had a silly notion that if you touched it she'd come to life and you'd have to find out what happened to her.”

It doesn't work that way, I told her. Having a burning mission doesn't automatically mean success.

“I know that. I'm prepared to fail, but I think you're the last best chance I'll ever have of finally learning the truth.”

God help the truth, she was probably right.

“So what do you think really happened to her?”

“I don't know that, do I? My biggest fear is I won't ever know.”

Out in the hall she asked me again. “Stay. Help me bury her once and for all.”

“I'd have to think it over. Decide what the ethics are and whether I can do that. I took a fairly large retainer from Junior.”

“Give it back to him. I'll give you a bigger one.”

“That doesn't just make the ethical problem go away. In a way it makes things worse. All it does is turn me into a hired gun, for sale to the highest bidder.”

We walked out onto the front porch. “There are ways around these problems,” she said. “You're a smart cookie, Cliff, I know you can come up with something.”

“I could work for you free. That would probably do it.”

“Oh, be serious.”

“I am serious, in a crazy kind of way.”

“Okay then, I'll pay you
exactly
what he was paying you. Not a penny more.”

“Good-bye pension,” I said sadly. “So long time and a half.”

She walked across the porch and stood looking into the black morning. “I happen to believe these are important questions, no matter who's raising them, who's paying the tab, or what their motives are. I've been thinking about it for years…more than half my lifetime. Now you're here and you're about to leave us. If I let that happen there won't ever be any answers.”

She balanced on the edge and sighed loudly. “Look, I know there's no guarantee. It's a longshot any way you cut it, but now Junior's raised the question and I've got to try. All I'd ask is that you give it your best. If that doesn't work I'll have to find some way to forget her.”

 

We were out on the road before seven. The truck was capable of transporting at least eight horses or many bales of hay. Sharon drove and I rode with her in the cab; Louie and Billy sat on a bench in the back. We passed a feed store, already open at that early hour. A sign on the building said
FREE DELIVERY ON ALL ORDERS
, and suddenly what we were doing made no sense. Why take four of us away from the farm for most of a day when the feed store was almost within spitting distance? But when I asked her, she said, “I've been dealing with this same farmer a long time, way before that feed store ever opened. Nothing wrong with the feed store, but I need the exercise and I want to do it this way.” She said nothing more for a while, but I could sense her ongoing struggle to find the right words, some true thing that would make her a little less strange in my eyes. “I know a lot of people would find this odd,” she said. “And I find it hard to explain even to myself. What we're about to do today is hard work. And it's got nothing to do with Louie and Billy. Before they came, I did it all myself. I had fewer horses then but at the end of the day I would go home just drained; when I hit the bed I didn't have another ounce of strength left in me. There were nights when I just lay there, so dead tired I couldn't move, still unable to sleep, and I'd think,
You're a strange, weird woman, Sharon.
” I told her those were just screwy words. “Hell,
I'm
strange, by any standard the world uses to define itself. Strange has at least two sides and a dozen shades, and from what I can see you're way over on the good side of it.”

The farm was about ninety minutes from town, along a dirt road that led back from the highway. First there were fields, stretching out to the east; then we saw the barn, then the farmhouse in a grove of trees. We pulled up in a warm Idaho sunshine and she parked under a tree at the side of the house. The old farmer and his wife came out to greet us and we all shook hands. It was well after the cutting season: If we had come a few weeks earlier, the baled hay would still be in the field. Now it was stashed in that immense barn. “This makes it easier,” Sharon said. “We might get out of here before noon.”

The work began. It was much the same as Sharon and I had done at her place, only more of it. Louie and Billy tossed bales down from the loft, I heaved them up onto the truck, and Sharon stacked them tightly from the floor to the ceiling. The farmer's wife brought us coffee for a break at ten o'clock and we all stood around laughing and talking. The farmer, whose name was Adams, never once asked to double-check her tally. Sharon wrote everything down meticulously and rounded it off in his favor. At the end of the morning she gave him her total and her check. Hilda, the farmer's wife, insisted that we stay for lunch, and we sat around a large table on their back porch, talking about the old days of farming and horse racing.

Everything's different today, Adams said. In another thirty years there won't be any independent farms like this one. It's all going corporate.

And life changes, life endures, and life goes on.

There was one nice touch: They had a large shelf of books inside the old farmhouse, and I found a good one:
Oh, Promised Land,
by James Street, Dial Press, 1940. I had cherished this as a boy, loved it right up there with
The Black Stallion
when I was fifteen. It took me straight back to the early American frontier just to see the almost flawless jacket. The farmer's wife said she had loved that as well when she was young. “You've kept it in remarkable shape,” I said: in fact, the only problem was no problem at all, a slightest bit of fading to the jacket's spine. I hadn't researched it: all I knew was that I hadn't seen any hardback in years, and here was a gorgeous first edition. “I don't suppose you'd want to sell it,” I said, and the woman took it from her shelf and tried to give it to me. I told her I'd give her five hundred and she almost fainted. I ended the day asking her to pack it carefully and ship it to me in Denver, and I wrote her a check for $525.