The Harrows of Spring (28 page)

S
IXTY-NINE

Karen Grolsch did not leave Daniel's place that night but retired with him to the big bed between the Hoosier cabinet in the kitchen area and the printing office that occupied the rear two-thirds of the building. There they did what young people hungry for affection, affirmation, and amity will do, and they did it repeatedly through the long hours of night, and remained awake even after that, so thrilled were they in the unfolding discovery of each other's bodies and beings. Moonlight poured into the room through the transoms of the fine old windows. They were far enough across town that the cries of the surgeries did not carry there.

“They say you've been out west,” Karen murmured, folded halfway over Daniel with her long, elegant fingers tracing the valley between his pectoral muscles.

“I was in Michigan for a while.”

“How did you get there?”

“On a beautiful ship. A big schooner. On the Great Lakes.”

“What did you do in Michigan?”

“I fell in with the government,” he said. “With what was left of it. What people now call the Federals. They moved their headquarters there, a town they named New Columbia. I stayed offshore at a place called Channel Island, out in Lake Huron, where most of the officials lived. I was enlisted into an agency called the Service and went through their training there.”

“What were you trained to do?”

“I was trained to kill people,” Daniel said.

Karen hoisted the top half of her body above Daniel to take in his face. Her breasts dangled before him. He cupped one and kissed it.

“Did you kill anyone?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She lowered herself back down and tucked her head beside his shoulder.

“Were they bad people?”

“They were bad enough in a particular way,” he said. “I'm not sure that anyone is evil through and through.”

“Did you decide who you killed?”

“One I had instructions to kill. The others I had to decide on my own due to the circumstances. One I had reason to kill, and he pretty much asked for it, but I let him go. I'm telling you this because I believe I can trust you. But you need to know who I am and what I've been.”

“You can trust me,” Karen said. “I think I know what you are.”

“What do you think that is?”

“It might shock you.”

“Go ahead.”

“You're a warrior.”

Daniel struggled to digest it.

“I never thought of myself that way,” he said. “I agonized over my mission.”

“Then you're the best kind of warrior.”

He was so disconcerted he searched for a way to reply.

“Does it scare you to be with someone who could do such things?” he asked.

“I feel safe with you. I feel you would protect me.”

“I would,” he said. “I'm grateful that you aren't judging me.”

“I'm not afraid of you. We must take the world for what it is and who we become.”

“Maybe you have some warrior in you too.”

“Right now I'm just the duck boss. Quack quack.”

“Translation?”

“I think I love you,” she said, and her lips went searching for his again.

S
EVENTY

The table in the conservatory was laid for a morning meal as Duane Terrio, aka Wawanotewat of the Pocumtuc people, was led in hobbled and shackled by Dick Lee, Stephen Bullock's estimable majordomo and Michael Delson, his second aide-de-camp. The latter two were armed and took wicker seats in opposing corners of the lovely room with its orchids, bromeliads, and other interesting specimens. Bullock was not there yet. The early morning sun traced a lacy pattern through the tangled vines that grew along the walls from brick-lined beds. Lilah the cook brought in a tray with two juice glasses on it. They were filled with a purplish liquid. She set them down and smiled at the prisoner. She had never been in a room with an Indian in native costume before.

“Morning,” she said, taking in his topknot and his exotic accessories.

“Morning to you, too, ma'am,” Terrio said. “You don't happen to have a key to these handcuffs, do you?”

She shook her head, smiled again, and withdrew.

“Isn't this pleasant?” Terrio observed.

After a suitable interval, during which Terrio grew increasingly nervous and the other men remained silent, Bullock swept in through the door in his riding togs, having been out since dawn inspecting his domain on a fresh Hanoverian gelding named Plutus.

“Why you're looking bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, my fine-feathered friend,” he said. “Forgive the mixed metaphor. How'd you sleep, by the way?”

“Oh, just great. All chained up on a wet tile floor in a basement.”

Bullock sighed, then said to no one in particular, “Why do people think that sarcasm enhances communication, I wonder. Saying the opposite of what you mean for effect.” Then he turned his attention back to his guest at table. “Anyway, I'd think you'd be used to sleeping rough, living as you do.”

“We don't sleep wet, generally.”

“I take your point. But then, admit it, you've been a rather naughty fellow. Trying to burn down my horse barn and scaring the servants. Of course I treated you harshly. But not as severely as your compadres, who sleep in bliss like never before because they are all dead now. Every last one of them. I've got them stacked like cordwood over in the apple storage barn. And Mr. Goodfriend, your patron? Why, he's as stiff as a board this morning having, unfortunately, drunk himself to death.”

Terrio flinched and then squirmed in his comfortable wicker chair.

“Take off the cuffs, Michael,” Bullock said. Delson handed Bullock his rifle and freed Terrio's hands. Terrio shook them to get the blood circulating. Delson returned to his seat with his weapon. “So perhaps now you're thinking why have they kept me alive?” Bullock continued. “Are you thinking that?”

“Maybe.”

“Come on, be a little more definite?”

“Okay, I'm thinking that.”

“Good, now we have some basis for conversation. Cheers!”

Bullock hoisted his juice glass and drank down the contents.

“What is that stuff?” Terrio asked.

“Sumac tonic,” Bullock said. “Loaded with vitamin C. Try it. It's great for you.”

“You want me to be healthy, huh?”

“Well, you seem a little wan. It's not so easy living off the bounty of field and forest, I suppose.”

“We've gotten better at it,” Terrio said.

“But mostly you steal stuff, right? Come on, be frank.”

“Okay, we had to supplement our diet.”

“But I give you credit. You must be a pretty clever fellow to even attempt this aboriginal thing. Ah! Here come the blessings of Western culture!”

Lilah reentered with another tray and slid plates before Bullock and his guest, along with a basket of freshly baked corn bread and little ramekins of butter and blackberry jam.

“Dig in.”

“I'm not hungry.”

“Oh please! Of course you are. Running around the countryside like a goddamn savage, looting and burning. Doesn't that work up an appetite?”

“Mister. You scold me for being sarcastic, but you talk in circles,” Terrio said. “Why don't you just get to the point. How come you're keeping me alive?”

“Well, all right, then. First, I wonder if you might clarify this Berkshire People's Republic baloney. What was that all about?”

“It doesn't exist,” Terrio said.

“I suspected as much.”

“Just a line of bullshit to get hard money out of suckers. We're from over there, but it's no better off than this part of the country, maybe worse. It was all Buddy's idea. He picked up kids with no family, no parents, along the way to front him. Then he brought us into the picture and things got a little rougher. Now, here we are.”

“Yes, here we are,” Bullock said. “How do you like it here?”

“What? This place?”

“Yes. Does it seem comfortable? Civilized?”

“Civilized,” Terrio echoed him. “I've been struggling with that.”

“Evidently.”

“Look, the old me would say it's a hell of an operation,” Terrio said. “I was sorry to try and burn it down.”

“Why, thank you,” Bullock said. “And so now I'm thinking, perhaps this man—you—may prove useful in an enterprise like this, a person with the skills you have, and elastic scruples. You're like a good piece of equipment, a weapon of war, say, that might come in handy. So why throw it away? Do you see what I'm getting at?”

“I think so.”

“Of course I had to sacrifice your traveling companions. I couldn't keep such a crew around, wondering if you'd try to cut our throats some night. Please taste the omelet. It's our own cheese and the ham comes from pigs that are finished off on acorns before we slaughter them.”

Lilah returned with a pot of coffee and filled each man's delicate pink luster cup, then set down the cream pitcher and honeypot.

“Is that real coffee?” Terrio said.

“Puerto Rican arabica, a sassy Mondo Nuevo.”

“Damn. Where do you get it?”

“If you make a little effort you can get stuff,” Bullock said. “We get stuff.”

“Okay, what can I do for you?” Terrio said, and hoisted his fork to address the contents of his plate.

“Do you know what a Pelton wheel is?”

“I got no idea.”

“It's the key part of a hydroelectric generator system. I have such a system here. The Pelton wheel is what the running water hits to spin the turbine. As it happens, mine broke. I thought I was being clever to lay in several backup replacements, but they broke too. Serves me right. They were manufactured in China. If the goddamn thing was working, we'd be listening to some Erik Satie right now—just the thing for a beautiful spring morning. Did you know that Satie and Claude Monet were born in the same town in France about twenty-five years apart?”

“No,” Terrio said.

“I think of them as absolutely complementary, the music, the paintings—like
fromage
and
jambon
.”

“Huh?”

“You wonder what was in the air of Honfleur in those days.”

Terrio just shook his head and tucked into his omelet. They ate silently for a minute.

“Why didn't you go solar?” Terrio eventually said.

“Intermittancy,” Bullock said. “Sometimes the sun shines, sometimes it doesn't. The Battenkill always flows.”

“Even in the depths of winter?”

“Oh yeah. The penstock is well below the ice formation.”

“What's the penstock?”

“It's a pipe that concentrates the flowing water into the turbine.”

“Oh—”

“But this is getting didactic.”

“Huh?”

“Too much information,” Bullock said. “The thing is, I know a gentleman over in the Camden Valley, just over the Vermont line, who purchased the exact same system as I did. Name of Blake Harmon. He's doing pretty well over there, considering these times. He laid in some extra parts too.”

Bullock hoisted his coffee cup.

“You want me to go over there and get 'em?” Terrio asked.

“I was thinking of something along those lines,” Bullock said.

“I could do that. I could get 'em for you.”

“Then maybe I could find some other ways you can be useful here. You'd have to live on the property, of course.”

“I could live on the property.”

“And not in some silly-ass wigwam, either.”

“I can return to your ways.”

“Oh, come on. They were your ways, too, most of your life. Plus, you have to wear regular clothing. Grow your hair back like a normal person. Halloween's over.”

“Whatever.”

Bullock dashed his damask napkin into his empty plate and downed the last of his coffee.

“I think we've reached a framework for understanding,” he said.

Terrio lifted his coffee cup, a wary smile for the first time lightening his not unhandsome features.

“Cheers to that, sir, and second the motion,” he said.

“That's the spirit. All right fellows, take him back.”

“Huh? You're putting me in that hole again?”

“Well, I have to think about this,” Bullock said. “Weigh the pros and cons.”

“But you said we had an understanding.”

“Yes, a nice framework for an agreement. I won't shilly-shally over it. Don't worry. But this is a large establishment with a lot of complex parts and relationships. And it's my responsibility to consider the big picture.” Bullock turned to his aide. “Oh, Dick, better put the cuffs back on.”

“What!”

“Just a formality. To preclude any transitory temptation.”

“Oh, fuck you, mister . . .” Terrio said.

“See what I mean? How am I supposed to keep you around if you fly off the handle so easily?”

“Okay, okay, I'm sorry,” Terrio said. “I apologize. Really. Go ahead, put the cuffs back on. Look, I'm cooperating.”

“Noted,” Bullock said, then he left the table. Dick Lee and Michael Delson led Duane Terrio back to the basement of the carriage barn.

Ten minutes later, Bullock emerged back into the courtyard, where Dick Lee held the reins of a fresh mount for him. His lumber crew was cutting some old-growth cedar on Lily Pond Hill two miles over at the west end of his property and he wanted to make sure they didn't overdo it.

“I've been thinking it over, Dick,” Bullock said as he put one leg on the mounting block.

“Yes?” Dick Lee said.

“That fellow's just not going to work out.”

Dick Lee nodded.

“It was worth a try,” Bullock added.

“I'll take care of it, sir.”

Bullock climbed on board his fresh horse and rode off to supervise the morning's work.