Spencerville (13 page)

The next several days passed uneventfully, despite the schoolyard incident. No police cars passed by, the phone didn't ring in the middle of the night, Baxter did not call to reschedule their showdown, and all was quiet. This was meant to be unnerving, the calm before the storm. But Keith was not unnerved.

At seven o'clock one morning, Keith walked across the road to the Jenkins house and found the family at breakfast, where he knew they'd be at that hour. Seated at the kitchen table were Martin and Sue Jenkins, a couple in their late thirties, and a teenage boy and girl, Martin Jr. and Sandra, both in high school.

Sue invited Keith to have breakfast, but he said coffee would be fine. They talked about the weather, which was definitely cool now, the coming harvest, the possibility of rain, and the Farmer's Almanac prediction of a harsh winter. Sue thought the almanac was idiotic, but Martin put great faith in it.

The two kids excused themselves to do their chores before school and left.

Keith said to the Jenkinses, "I know you've got chores, too, so I won't be long."

"What can we do for you?" Martin asked.

"Well, I just wanted to let you know about that horn honking a few nights back."

"Heard it. Saw it."

"I got into a little scrape with the Spencerville police, and they were doing some payback."

Martin nodded.

Sue said, "They have no business out here. I called them that night, but the desk sergeant said he didn't know anything about it, so I called Don Finney, the sheriff, and he said he'd check it out. He didn't call back, so I called him again, and he said nobody at police headquarters knew anything about it."

Martin added, "We were going to call you and see if you knew anything, but I figured you didn't."

"Well, as I said, they got themselves riled up about something."

The Jenkinses didn't ask what, nor would they ever ask, but Sue added, "Don is some sort of kin to Cliff Baxter, and they're two peas in a pod, as far as I'm concerned."

Keith said, "I'll try to see that it doesn't happen again."

"Not your fault," Sue said. She added, "Those people are getting out of control. Citizens ought to do something about it."

"Probably. Hey, the corn looks good."

"Real good," Martin agreed. "Good all over the damned state. Gonna be a glut again. Lucky to get two dollars a bushel."

And that, in a nutshell, Keith thought, was the problem with farming. Supply always outstripped demand and prices fell. When he was a boy, about ten percent of the American population were farmers. Now it was about two percent, and farmers were a rare species. Yet production kept rising. It was sort of a miracle, but if you had four hundred acres, like the Jenkinses and most family farms did, your overhead ate up your sales. In a bumper year when the prices were down, you broke even, and in a bad crop year when the prices were up, the yield was down, and you broke even. It was the kind of job you had to save up for. Keith said, "Sometimes I think I'd like to give farming a try."

Sue laughed, and nothing more had to be said.

Keith asked, "Do you want to sell or rent one of your horses?"

Martin replied, "Never thought about it. You need a horse?"

"I think I'd like to ride. Pass the time."

"Hell, you don't want to own one of them things. They're more trouble than a hay baler. You just take one out and ride it when you want. The kids only ride on weekends and holidays."

"Thanks, but I'd like to pay you."

"Hell, no, they need the exercise. Do 'em good. Just water 'em and wipe 'em off after you ride them, maybe give them some feed. The gray gelding is gentle, but the young mare's a bitch." He laughed. "Same around here."

Sue commented, "If I see you looking at that postwoman again, you will be a gelding."

On that note, Keith stood and said, "Thanks for the coffee. Mind if I take one of them now?"

"Go right ahead. Gelding's name is Willy, mare is Hilly. Hilly and Willy. Kids named 'em."

Keith went out to the barn and found the stable door. Inside, the two horses stood in their stalls, feeding. He opened both stalls, and the horses wandered out. Keith slapped them both on the flanks, and they ran out into the paddock.

He went out and watched them awhile. The gelding was sort of listless, but the young mare had a lot of spirit.

He found a bridle in the tack room and approached the mare, getting the bridle on her, then tied her to the fence post while he got a blanket and saddle. He saddled her up and walked her out the gate. Keith mounted and rode toward his farm, across the road, and out toward a wooded area that ran along a creek between his farm and the one to the west.

He got into the trees and rode down to the creek, which was nearly dry. He headed south through the creek bed, following it downstream toward Reeves Pond.

It was quiet except for the flowing water and a few birds. This was nice. His father never kept horses, and most farmers didn't, because they cost money and had no practical use. Now what extra money a farmer had for fun went into snowmobiles and road bikes, noisy things that went too fast for thinking and looking. Keith liked the feel of the animal beneath him, its warmth and living movement, and its occasional snort and whinny, and they smelled better than exhaust smoke.

He and Annie had borrowed horses now and then and ridden to secluded spots where they could make love. They'd joked that the only place they hadn't done it was on horseback, and Keith wondered if that was possible.

He gave the horse its lead, and it seemed content to follow the creek with a good gait.

Any thought he'd had about spending the rest of his life here, he realized, wasn't possible as long as Baxter was around. He'd let Baxter bait him, and he'd risen to the bait. This was bad strategy.

He reflected on his objective, which was not to engage Cliff Baxter in a contest, but to engage Mrs. Baxter in conversation. If nothing else, he'd like to speak to her one more time, for an hour or two, and resolve whatever issues remained between them. They'd never done that in their letters, and Keith felt he couldn't get on with his life until he understood clearly how and why they'd parted.

The next item on that agenda, of course, would be to see if they wanted to get back together. He thought she did, he thought he did.

Cliff Baxter obviously was an impediment to that, but it might be better for all concerned if Keith simply went around him rather than take him on. This was what he'd advise a young intelligence man on assignment in a dangerous environment.

The creek widened, and the trees thinned out, and within a few minutes Keith came to the big pond. No one was swimming or fishing, and it looked deserted. He used to come here a lot in the summer with his friends, to sail toy boats, to fish and swim, and in the winter people would build bonfires on the shore and skate or go ice fishing.

He reined the horse to the left and began riding along the muddy shoreline.

If this were actually a mission in a foreign country, he thought, it would be relatively easy to run off with the enemy's prize possession. But this was not exactly the same as escaping a foreign country with a codebook or a defector. No, there was another dimension to this problem.

Annie. This was not an intelligence operation, it was old-fashioned wife-stealing, not much different from what tribes and clans did in the past. But in this society, you first made sure the wife wanted to go with you.

It occurred to him that neither he nor Annie, separate or apart, could have Cliff Baxter on their trail for the rest of their lives.

Another option, of course, was to pack up, get in his car, and get as far away from here as he could. But he kept thinking of Annie standing there on the sidewalk, tears in her eyes, and all those letters over the years and the ache he still felt in his heart. "Can't leave, can't stay..." And he couldn't even declare a truce, because Cliff Baxter would just take that as a sign of weakness and step up the pressure.

Keith came around the far end of the lake and started back along the opposite shore.

Maybe, he thought, Cliff Baxter could be reasoned with. The three of them should sit down, have a beer, and talk it out in a civilized manner. "That is the answer to the problem. Right." No ugly scenes, no bloodshed, no rescues or abductions. "Mr. Baxter, your wife and I love each other and always have. She doesn't care for you. So be a good fellow and wish us well. The divorce papers are in the mail. Thank you, Cliff. Shake?"

Cliff Baxter, of course, would go for his gun. But if Cliff Baxter had the power of articulate speech, if he were in fact a civilized and clever man, he'd reply, "Mr. Landry, you think you love my wife, but more likely you're obsessed with a long-ago memory that has no reality now. Also, you're a little bored since being forcibly retired, and you're looking for adventure. Add to that the fact that you don't like me because of some childhood conflicts, and taking my wife is your way of getting back at me. This is not healthy, Mr. Landry, nor is it fair to Annie, who is going through a rough time now, what with empty-nest syndrome, the pressures of my job, and the realization that middle age has arrived. Annie and I are happy in our own way, and we look forward to my retirement and growing old together. Right, Annie?"

Keith didn't like what Baxter said at all, because it had a grain of truth in it.

In reality, there would be no such meeting, and Keith Landry, Cliff Baxter, and Annie Prentis Baxter would just stumble and fumble their ways through this, the way most people did, causing maximum damage and hurt along the way. And when it was all finished, there'd be remorse and deep scarring, and no happily-ever-after.

On that note, Keith entered the tree line and found the creek. He headed back to the farm, resolved now to pack his bags and leave home again, as he'd done twenty-five years before, but this time with less expectation of ever coming back.

Early that evening, Keith sat at the kitchen table, trying to draft a final letter to Annie, but he was having trouble with it. Should he suggest a last meeting before he left? Should he be brief, with no long explanations, or did he owe her a full baring of his mind and soul? No, that would just open the possibility of more misery. No long good-byes, no last meeting. Be noble, be strong, be brave, and be brief.

He wrote, "Dear Annie, We can't undo the past, we can't go back to our Spencerville, or to Bowling Green. We've lived and made separate lives, and, as I wrote to you once, I'm just passing through and intend to do no damage while I'm here. Take care and please understand. Love, Keith."

There. That was it. He put the letter in an envelope and addressed it care of her sister.

He stood and looked around the kitchen. He'd packed a few things, but his heart wasn't in it.

He knew he should mail the letter after he'd left, and he knew he should leave very soon, before something else happened to affect his decision. Every day he stayed here opened the possibility of a confrontation with Baxter, or the possibility of seeing Annie.

You arrived in life, he reflected, at a time not of your own choosing, then you stayed for a time, also not of your own choosing, and finally, you left, and the only choice you had then was to leave early, but not one moment later than the time you were allotted. Between your arrival and your departure, however, you had some real choices, but choices came in four varieties — good and bad, hard and easy. The good ones were usually the hard ones.

"Choice. Pack up or have dinner?" He chose dinner and opened the refrigerator. "What should I have for dinner?" Not much choice. "Coors or Budweiser?" He chose a Bud.

The phone rang, and he chose not to answer it, but it kept ringing, so he changed his mind and picked it up. "Landry."

"Hello, Landry. This is Porter. Can you tell which one?"

Keith smiled and said, "Gail."

"No, Jeffrey. My shorts are tight."

"What's up?"

"Reminding you of the meeting at St. James tonight. Eight P.M."

"Can't make it, buddy."

"Sure you can."

"Sure I can, but I don't want to."

"Sure you do."

"No, I don't."

"Do you want the revolution to start without you?"

"That would be fine. Send me the minutes. I'm about to have dinner."

"Don't fuck with me, Keith. I have fifty calls to make."

"Look, Jeffrey, I'm... I've decided..."

"Hold on..." He covered the phone, but Keith could hear his muffled voice, then Jeffrey came back on and said, "Gail says she'll do whatever you want if you come, and anyway, you owe her for the great weed."

"Look... oh, all right..."

"Good. Do you want to say a few words?"

"Yes. Good-bye."

"At the meeting. Do you want to talk about your impressions of Spencerville after a twenty-year absence? Your hopes for the future?"

"Perhaps some other time. See you later." He hung up and said, "I'm still working on the past."

That night, Thursday evening, Keith drove out to St. James Church. The grass parking areas were filled with about fifty cars and pickup trucks, far more than he'd ever seen at St. James, except for Christmas and Easter.

He parked near the cemetery and walked toward the church. At the door, a few young men and women were handing out pamphlets. In the narthex, a group of people were welcoming the arrivals. Keith saw Gail and Jeffrey and tried to slip past them, but they spotted him and hurried over. Gail said, "So, what do I owe you?"

"A kiss will do."

She kissed him and said, "You're easy to please. I was willing to give more."

Jeffrey said, "Please, Gail, we're in church. I'm surprised the ceiling hasn't fallen in on us already."

"Surely," Keith remarked, "you don't believe in divine retribution."

"You just never know," Jeffrey answered.

Gail said, "There are over a hundred people here already. The pews are full, and so is the choir loft. I told you, people are fed up. They want a change."

Keith informed her, "No, Gail, they're here became things have changed. They want to turn back the clock, and that can't be done. You should make them understand that."

She nodded. "You're right. The three of us have rural roots, but we've forgotten how people here think. We have to change that thinking and change old attitudes."

Keith rolled his eyes. No wonder revolutionaries scared the hell out of everybody. He said, "No, they don't want their thinking or attitudes changed. They want their values and beliefs endorsed, and they want government and society to reflect their values and beliefs, not yours."

"Then they want to turn back the clock, and that can't be done."

"No, not literally, but you should paint a picture of the future that looks like the past, with brighter colors. Sort of like a Currier & Ives lithograph that's been cleaned up."

Gail smiled. "You're as manipulative as we are. Did you do this for a living?"

"Sort of... yeah, I worked in propaganda once... but I didn't like it."

"It sounds fascinating. You could use that stuff in your personal life and really make out."

"I wish." Keith changed the subject. "By the way, who's the pastor here who was crazy enough to let you use this place for seditious activities?"

Jeffrey replied, "Pastor Wilkes."

"Really? I thought he'd be retired or dead by now."

"Well," said Jeffrey, "he could be both. He's really old. But he was amenable to this. In fact, I had the impression he didn't particularly care for Chief Baxter."

"Is that so? I wouldn't think he'd know Cliff Baxter personally. The Baxters always went to St. John's in town where the important people go. This is just a farmers' church."

"Well, apparently he knows Baxter by reputation, and apparently he talks to the other clergy in town. I wish we had that kind of intelligence network. Anyway, what you're going to hear tonight is that Chief Baxter is a sinner and an adulterer."

"Doesn't make him a bad guy."

Gail laughed. "You're impossible. Go stand in the corner."

"Yes, ma'am." Keith went into the small church and found standing room behind the last pew. He saw that the church was indeed filled to capacity and also that screens had been set up to block the altar, so that the simple interior, which had no stained-glass windows, now more resembled a Quaker or Amish meeting hall than a Lutheran church.

The people around him and in the pews seemed to represent a cross section of Spencer County. There were men and women who, no matter how they dressed, Keith could identify as farm folk. In fact, he saw Martin and Sue Jenkins. There were also people from town, working people and professional people, and there were all age groups, from high school kids to the very elderly.

Keith remembered a time, before television and other electronic diversions had taken a firm hold, when meetings of one sort or another were deeply ingrained into rural life. His parents were always going to a club meeting, a church meeting, a civic meeting, or something of the sort. And there were sewing bees and quilting groups for the women, and political meetings and grange meetings for the men. Keith even had some early memories of gathering in people's parlors for piano playing, punch, and parlor games. But this way of life had passed, and, in truth, a good movie or football game and a six-pack was preferable to bad piano playing, parlor games, and punch. Yet there had been a time when rural people depended on themselves for entertainment. But more important, many of the great social movements in the nation, such as abolition and populism, had begun in small country churches. As he'd already noted, however, this was no longer an agrarian nation, and there were neither the numbers nor the will to affect national policy. So the hinterland turned in on itself, and feeling perhaps abandoned by and isolated from the urban centers of power, they were beginning to act and think for themselves — maybe with a little help from urban and academic refugees such as himself and the Porters.

He looked at the people still filing in and spotted Jenny, whom he hadn't seen or spoken to since Labor Day. She saw him, smiled, and gave him a big wave, but she was with a man, and they squeezed into a pew together.

Keith watched the crowd settling in. Undoubtedly, there were at least two spies — people who would report to Chief Baxter after the meeting. This was a given, and he was certain that Jeffrey and Gail, old revolutionaries, knew this even if the simple citizens of Spencerville had no inkling of it. Keith hoped that the Porters understood what they were involving these people in. The professional revolutionary, Keith reflected, came in two basic varieties — the romantic and the pragmatic. The romantic got themselves and people around them arrested and killed. The pragmatic, like the early Nazis and Bolsheviks, were total whores who did and said anything to stay alive and win. The Porters, despite their obvious longevity, had a romantic bent and had survived over the years only because American culture was still hospitable to revolutionaries, and because the government knew better than to create martyrs out of people who posed no threat of stirring a nation that was perpetually ready for bed.

Yet, on the local level, people could be awakened and could be called to action. Obviously, the entrenched establishment of the town and county had violated paragraph one of the social contract, which was and would always be, "Keep the citizens happy, or confused, or both."

The meeting began with the pledge of allegiance to the flag, which Keith thought must have given the Porters heartburn. The pledge was followed by a prayer for guidance, given by a young pastor whom Keith didn't know. Keith glanced at the Porters, who were standing at the dais, and saw they were bowing their heads. Maybe, he thought, they'd learned a little pragmatism over the years.

Everyone except the standees sat, and Gail Porter went to the center of the dais and tested the microphone by saying, "Keith Landry — can you hear me back there?"

Nearly everyone turned in his direction, and Keith had the urge to strangle Gail. Instead, he nodded, and Gail smiled, then began. "Welcome to what I hope will be the first of many meetings like this. The purpose and objective of this meeting is simple — to explore ways that will lead to a city and county government that is clean, responsive, and competent." She glanced at Keith, then added, "Just like it was years ago. A government that reflects our values and beliefs."

Keith and Gail made brief eye contact, and she went on, without being specific about values and beliefs.

As Gail spoke, it occurred to Keith that, whether or not Cliff Baxter was in or out of power, Cliff Baxter was still Cliff Baxter. And knowing how small towns worked, Keith was sure that the county sheriff, kin to Cliff Baxter, would just deputize the stupid bastard for a dollar a year, and he'd still have his gun and badge.

Gail continued, "As a member of the city council, and, I think, the only elected official here, I want you to know that I extended invitations to all the other elected officials in the town and county, but their response was to call a joint meeting of the city council and the county commissioners at the courthouse. So I don't think any of them are here." She looked around and said, "If any of you are here, please stand and come up to the dais. We have room."

No one stood, and Keith was impressed with Gail's showmanship.

Gail said, "I've asked the Spencerville Gazette to send a reporter tonight. Is he or she here?" Gail looked around the church. "No? Could that be because the newspaper is owned by the mayor's family, or because Baxter Motors is the biggest advertiser?"

Several people laughed and there was some applause.

Keith saw that Gail was enjoying tweaking some prominent noses, and he was sure she understood she was going to make more enemies than she had friends in her adopted community. Gail might spark the revolution, but neither she nor Jeffrey would lead it or have a place in any new regime. In fact, they'd remain outcasts, poor and friendless, cut off from their original hometown roots, alienated from the larger world they helped bring about, and now strangers in a strange land. They sort of reminded Keith of himself.

Gail went on for a minute, speaking in generalities, then got down to cases, beginning with Chief of Police Cliff Baxter.

She said, "In my dealings with Chief Baxter, I've found him to be, in my opinion, incompetent, ineffective, and dictatorial. But don't take my word for it. We have several people here tonight who have volunteered to come forward with their own stories about Chief Baxter. Some of these stories will shock you, and it takes a lot of courage for these people, your neighbors, to tell you their stories. Most of what you're going to hear brings no credit on the people who will speak, but they have decided to do something positive for themselves and their community. They will tell you about corruption, bribery, bid fixing, voting irregularities, and yes, as you already know, sexual misconduct."

Gail knew when to pause and listen to the murmurs and startled sounds coming from the good citizens of Spencerville. Despite the fact that everything Gail said and was going to say was probably true, and likewise for the people who were about to speak, Keith had the sense that he was attending a seventeenth-century witch trial where witness after witness got up and told stories about one of their neighbors. The only thing missing was the defendant.

Gail made a few more remarks, then related her own story about Cliff Baxter regarding his illegal file on her and ended with, "I'm bringing a civil suit against him and will subpoena that file and make it a public record. I have nothing to hide or be ashamed of. My past is known to many of you, and I'll let you be the judge. I cannot and will not be blackmailed. Furthermore, I'm considering pressing criminal charges against Mr. Baxter, and I've spoken to the county prosecutor about it. If I can't get justice in Spencer County, I'll go to Columbus and speak to the state attorney general. I do this, not for myself, but for everyone in the county who has been the subject of illegal investigations and file-gathering by the police chief."