Driftless (50 page)

“Why?”

“I would never adjust.”

“Oh, no,” said Olivia. “Vio, I didn’t mean for him to live
inside
the house. Heaven forbid. That would be intolerable. He will just have his trailer in the back yard.”

“His trailer?”

“I told Wade he could bring his trailer here and park it between the garden and the hedge.”

“His trailer?”

“Yes, the one he lives in.”

“What color is it?”

“The color isn’t really important because I’m sure it can be
repainted, and he’s going to pay us rent for the space. It will almost cover the mortgage payments, I mean almost. And Wade says the co-op is opening a new retail store in Grange and he thinks he can talk to someone and get me a job there.”

“Doing what?”

“Selling cheese.”

“What color is it, Olivia?”

“The cheese?”

“The trailer.”

“I’m not going to say because it can be repainted. Wade is very handy and he can do it. He’ll be a big help around here. He can mow the lawn and fix the roof and—”

“What color is it?”

“It isn’t the color so much, really. It has a variety of colors. He hired the person who put flames on the front of his car to paint some pictures on the sides of the trailer. And, well, even Wade admits it wasn’t a good idea and can be done over.”

“Isn’t he still on probation?”

“Yes, but I’m sure all that is behind him. He’s completely changed. Having him here won’t involve any trouble of any kind, I’m sure of it.”

“How would he get this trailer all the way over here?”

“July Montgomery is pulling it with Rusty Smith’s pickup, tomorrow.”

MEETING AT SNOW CORNERS

G
RAHM SHOTWELL FINISHED MILKING AND STOOD IN THE BARN doorway, looking into a red-glowing sky and the farmhouse beyond the tamaracks. The cool of evening delayed, it was still hot and humid. Sweat ran from his face and arms. Inside the house Seth and Grace stared into the blue-flickering television. Cora sat beside them on the couch, reading.

Grahm remembered planting the tamaracks, his grandfather holding the saplings in his wrinkled hands and pressing their hairy roots into the earth.

Cora went to the window to stare outdoors.

Grahm backed inside the barn, out of sight.

He turned out the lights in the milk house and drove away in his pickup.

“You’re in time for pie,” said July, opening the door.

A peach pie rested on the kitchen table. A half-eaten slice sat on a plate before an empty chair. Another slice, uneaten, sat in front of Gail.

“Your sister just brought over a pie. Want some?”

“Maybe some other time,” he said, ignoring Gail. “Let’s go to the meeting at Snow Corners.”

July reseated himself at the table and resumed forking pie into his mouth. “Don’t think I can do that,” he said. “I’d like to, but it’s too hot to go anywhere and I promised someone I wouldn’t go.”

Grahm glared at Gail.

“Hey, don’t look at me, I only brought the pie.”

“You said you’d go,” Grahm reminded July.

“I know I did,” said July.

Grahm stood in the middle of the kitchen while July continued
eating and Gail drank beer. When July finished his piece of pie and reached to cut another from the pan, Grahm turned to leave.

“I’ll go with you,” said Gail, standing up.

“No you won’t.”

“I’m coming,” said Gail. “I’m working on a new song and I need some new ideas. A drive will help.”

July let the knife fall back into the pie plate. “All right,” he said. “I made two promises and can’t keep both. I’ve got to be back early, though. This will give me a chance to leave off Rusty’s pickup.”

“Rusty Smith loaned you his truck?”

“It’s in the machine shed.”

“Better keep Seth and Grace inside the house from now on, Grahm,” said Gail. “Religious people are going to go wild when they find out that hell’s frozen over.”

She and July rode in the dual-wheeled pickup, parked it in front of the Smith house, and climbed in beside Grahm in his older and smaller truck.

They traveled most of the way in silence, the cab surrounded by the muggy darkness. With the windows down, they continued through Snow Corners and into the black pine forest, the hot, sticky air laden with the fragrance of pine sap, which seemed to ooze from the loud, churning hum of insects.

“God,” said Gail, “will you listen to that drunken feast. If only I could enjoy something the way bugs love heat.”

Fearing she had had too much to drink and not wanting to encourage her talking more, Grahm and July remained silent.

They turned down the narrow lane, branches folding over them like black wings. The steel gate was open and they drove into the clearing, where seventy or eighty trucks, cars, vans, and motorcycles were parked in the long grass around the barn. The lantern at the entrance burned with a hot, hazy light.

A huge youth with small blue eyes met them at the door, his hands in his pockets. When he recognized July he stood aside and let them enter.

The meeting was apparently just starting. Extra folding chairs
were being carried out of a horse stall to accommodate the large crowd. By their dress, most appeared to be farmers, but there were also twenty or more men in military-style fatigues and laced boots.

Grahm, Gail, and July found seats in the back row.

In front, three men sat at a wooden table. One stared intently into a notebook, another into his hands. The largest man sat on the far left. The one in the middle—a wiry man in his sixties with neatly trimmed Scandinavian features—inspected the two hundred or more people before him. Seeing Grahm, he spoke to the white-haired man to his left, stood up, and held his arms above his head.

“Can I have your attention,” he said. “We need to get started.”

In the manner of people not known to each other, the crowd immediately hushed.

“Thank you for coming. As a way of beginning I’d like to introduce Grahm Shotwell. Mr. Shotwell, stand up so everyone can see you.”

Surprised at being recognized, Grahm blushed as he rose to his feet.

“This is the farmer many of you heard about from the annual meeting of American Milk. I met him in the parking lot afterwards. Others maybe saw him on television. Mr. Shotwell stood up for rural justice and the police were brought in to keep it from spreading.”

Everyone rose, applauding.

Grahm’s face burned.

“Go ahead, Mr. Shotwell, say something.”

“I didn’t come to talk,” said Grahm. “I’m here like the rest of you—to listen.”

There was more applause as Grahm sat back down.

“Can I have your attention
please,
” said the man who just spoke. “Thank you. I’m Bob Finn, the owner of this place, and I’ve gotten tired of seeing my friends and neighbors driven out of business and off the land. Something needs to be done. I called this meeting to hear from these two men beside me. Maybe we can get something started tonight. So let me first introduce John Bryant.

The man nearest him, wearing a short-sleeved shirt and leather vest, smiled. He appeared to be about seventy. His nearly white hair
added an aristocratic flavor to his already cautious appearance. His expression was serious to the point of worried, his voice unusually soft, and the room leaned forward to better catch his words.

“I’m John Bryant,” he said. “I farm with my son in Marshall County. Three months ago my eyes were opened for the first time, at a legislative hearing in Eau Claire. It was advertised as a ‘listening session,’ to hear people’s ideas. It was held in the Legion hall, and there were over a hundred people. Representative Flange and his aides sat in front. Everyone was in favor of something being done about milk prices. Representative Flange promised to consider each suggestion.

“I didn’t speak because everything had been said two or three times before my turn came. By midafternoon, only several dozen farmers remained. One of the representative’s aides thanked everyone for coming and called an end to the meeting.

“I noticed as the farmers left through the front door that a number of others followed Flange and his aides into a smaller room in back. I followed them.

“After about twenty people were inside, someone closed the door. The younger assistants passed around drinks. People were stretching and yawning and joking with each other. I suppose they thought I was one of them, because I was wearing a suit. Anyway, this person beside me—who said something at the hearing about the need for more exports to raise the price of milk—said to Flange, ‘So, Ron, where’s Chairman Bucruss on the processor pact?’ And Flange said, ‘He rolled over, thanks to Ralph’—referring to a lobbyist for the Federation of Cooperatives.

“Someone asked who I was with and I said, ‘American Milk.’ That was good enough, I guess, because they didn’t ask me anything else. Turns out they were talking about a deal to raise the quota for imported cheese and milk protein concentrate. Flange’s aides said everything was arranged—the shipments of over-quota New Zealand cheese would be covered under the new compact. The milk protein would come in under Department of Defense procurement and not even show up as food imports. When they explained this part, half the room applauded. “Brilliant!” one man said.

“That was my education, you might say. The next day I called my National Farm Organization representative and told him everything. I also talked with the NFO lawyer, and he helped me draw up a petition for a repeal of the compact and a demand that the USDA make regular reports of all imported dairy products. If we get enough signatures, we can force action from our legislators.

“I’ve taken it around to my neighbors and have more than a hundred and fifty names so far.”

The man on the other end of the table waited for his turn to speak. Dressed in fatigues and combat boots, he shifted his bulky frame impatiently.

“My goal is five thousand signatures,” said John Bryant, and he held up the petition so everyone could see it.

“Are there any questions?” asked Bob Finn.

“How are you going to get five thousand signatures?”

“Neighbor to neighbor and farm to farm. This is true democracy—the power of the people.”

“Who will you present the petition to?”

“I’m going right to the top—the president of the United States of America.”

“Didn’t he sign the last farm bill, lowering our prices in the first place?”

“You’re right. But with this petition—when the president sees that five thousand farmers understand what’s going on, that our own co-ops are secretly importing surplus cheese and using it to undercut our pay prices—we won’t be ignored. We’re taxpayers, producers. We employ veterinarians, feed salesmen, equipment dealers, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, insurance agents, bankers, and many others. The rural economy depends on us.”

The man on the other end of the table grimaced and knotted his hands together.

“You mean our own co-ops are importing foreign cheese and ultra-dried milk?”

“Yes, and it’s legal. That’s what this petition is all about.” He held it up again. “We’ve got to unite around a common goal. We can start with this petition and after we’ve had a victory we can go on to
bigger things, like sponsoring people to run as co-op directors and change the policies of the co-ops.”

On the far end of the table, Moe Ridge grimaced for the last time and stood up. The agitation on his face served as his only introduction. He pressed his fists against the tabletop and leaned forward.

“You people have got to wake up!” he said. “Have you worked so long and hard that you can’t see what’s right before you?”

He walked in front of the table and gestured back at the white-haired speaker.
“This,”
he said, his voice level and intense, “
is futile.
You will grow old and useless listening to this. That petition means no more to the people in Washington than your grandmother farting into her rocking chair.”

He began pacing, the veins in his arms and neck pulsing.

“There’s
pure evil
staring you in the face and you’re afraid to look into its eyes. You’re like sheep led to slaughter and people like
this,
” and he gestured again toward the white- haired man, “are the Judas goats leading you into the slaughterhouse.

“Being driven off your farms is a result of planned policies, and if those policies ruin thousands, millions of farmers, it means nothing to those designing them. We don’t have true democracy in this country anymore.
Right now
there are people meeting in Eastern Europe—people you never voted for—signing secret trade agreements that will flood this country with cheap milk from Argentina, New Zealand, Australia, Mexico and Europe.
Right now
they are working out the details to bring Russian, African, and Canadian wheat pouring across the borders.
Right now,
” he shouted, “they are acting with the full knowledge and approval of your representatives.”

He resumed pacing.

“How do they get away with it? They get away with it the way great liars have always gotten away with lying, by smiling when people carry boxes of petitions into their offices, like ringmasters grinning when circus animals perform in pink costumes. Each signature is proof their deceptions are working, each handshake assurance their manipulations are bearing fruit.

“They depend on you talking to them about democracy, freedom, and equality, when in fact true democracy, freedom, and equality
would end their reign of greed tomorrow. They talk of better education, when in fact an educated public would run them out of the country tomorrow. They talk about peace and security, when in fact they are most secure when the country is frightened and confused. And most of all they talk about personal integrity, because integrity is something that truly threatens them.