Signs of Struggle (17 page)

“Sometimes.”

“Me, too. It’s usually called ‘sin nature,’” he laughed.

“I couldn’t agree more,” I said. “I thank you for your time and information. My eyes are opening fast.”

“It’ll be a while before they open completely, I think," Carl said, rising to his feet. “Say, would you like to go home with me for lunch? Molly’s a great cook, and I’m sure she’d like to meet you under better conditions than the first time.”

“I would, but I have someplace I need to be. I appreciate the invitation. Rain check?”

“Of course,” Carl said, smiling, his eyes merry again. “Why don’t you come and worship with us on Sunday? Do you have a church family yet?”

“No, I don’t. I still belong to a church in Belue. My pastor down in Georgia keeps nagging me to find a body of believers, and I know he’s right. I’ve just been a sluggard.”

“And the sluggee,” Carl pointed at my face.

“Are you preaching this Sunday?”

“No, actually Doctor VanderKellen is, and will be for a while. Then he’ll be gone on vacation in early September, and the pulpit will be mine for three Sundays.”

“Maybe then,” I said, turning to leave.

“Long way off. One more thing,” Carl said, and we both stopped walking. He looked at me, his glacier-ice blue eyes peering into my brain. “Maybe I talked too much. Just now. I know the details of the Trust are public knowledge, but the other things really aren’t. I don’t trust many people, but I trust you. Don’t let me down, Thomas.”

“I will not,” I said.

“I know this is nosey, but where are you off to that has you declining sweet Molly’s culinary arts?”

“I’m going by The Grain o’ Truth to get some takeout lunch, and then I’m going out to Hugh’s place to have lunch with Wendy. Of course, she doesn’t know it yet,” I said, and then I left, Carl Heisler’s eyebrows elevating once more as I headed out.

In my truck I wondered why Carl continually referred to his fellow pastor as Dr. VanderKellen, instead of Ernst. I turned the key in the ignition, the engine came to life, and I headed for The Grain o’ Truth Bar & Grill.

L
unatic Mooning had elevated eyebrows, too, when I told him the two Loony Burger Specials and a pair of Diet Cokes to go were for Wendy Soderstrom and me. Moon said, “Is this something I should know about? Is this the time for you and me to go into steaming tipi, sit naked and stick eagle claws into each other’s chests and beat the tom-tom? Then wrestle and plunge into cold stream?”

“No, oh chatterbox Ojibwa. Save that for the year the Hawkeyes win the College World Series, Rose Bowl and the Final Four.”

“Not much chance soon of eagle claws in chest.”

“Just fill the order, put it in a bag, please, and I’ll be on my way. I want to talk to her and see how she’s doing.”

“The boys from Dubuque put a hurting on you.” He peered at my face, then turned to toss the burgers on the grill and start the fries. He returned. “Your face is larger than when you dropped by this morning. Not good.”

“You should see the other guys.”

“I know what the medical reports say about last night’s miscreants.”

The small town was growing smaller. “What were the damages?”

“One man has seven broken ribs, a punctured lung, a ruptured spleen, and will need reconstructive knee surgery to elevate his mobility status to ‘crippled for life.’ He will always play golf from a cart. The other is blind in the eye you popped out, although, for cosmetic reasons, they were able to reposition it. The other eye is badly damaged and he may be blind in that one, too. It’s fifty-fifty. He also has a broken nose, fractured cheekbone, and several teeth that are probably downriver by now,” Lunatic said, looking at me with deep regard. Then he said, “Nice job, white eyes.”

“I didn’t think a forearm up under the chin would have been enough to discourage them. Heck, I’m just an aging behavioral health consultant seeking peace and quiet while trying to walk a reasonably straight and narrow path, and people keep interrupting my progress.”

“If you didn’t ask so many questions, people would leave you alone, Irishman.” Moon turned to the grill and flipped the burgers, pulled the wire basket of French fries out of the hot oil, shook them, and dropped the basket back into the cooking vat.

“You’d do the same thing,” I said.

Lunatic returned from the grill. “Yes. You have not asked, but let me advise you. I would take precautions. I would invest in better weaponry.”

“My weaponry is fine.”

“It is not enough,” he said. And then he reached under the bar and brought out Chief Justice and held it out to me. “Take it. Six shot magazine, fully loaded.”

I stood silently, stunned. He set the shotgun on the bar, reached back under with one hand, and brought forth a box of shells and set them on the bar.

“I can’t take Chief Justice.”

“Do you think I have only one weapon such as this?” He strode back to his office and came back out with an identical shotgun: pistol grip, pump action, Mossberg. “This is Associate Justice,” he said, and slid it under the counter.

“You’re serious.”

“As Little Big Horn.”

“Thank you,” I said, taking the shotgun with one hand and the box of shells with the other. The Mossberg was surprisingly light, even fully loaded.

“I guess I need to find Larry as soon as possible. What do your sources tell you?”

Moon pulled the fries from the deep-fat fryer and assembled the Loony Burgers, placing them in white Styrofoam containers and sliding everything into a large, heavy-duty brown bag turned on its side. He turned back to me, took my money, and said, “He has disappeared. But he is still in the Rockbluff County area. Be careful.”

“Thanks, Moon, I will. I did not get to this advanced age by being careless.” Then I left, increased ordinance in hand, and headed for my truck. I stashed Chief Justice and the shells on the floor behind the seat and fired up the engine.

Wendy Soderstrom did not look well when she came to the door of her farmhouse. She was pale and her forehead looked sweaty. But she still looked good. She was wearing snug low-cut jeans that emphasized her flat belly and long thighs, and a short green halter-top that was cut low enough to be distracting. Her exposed middle was tan, and there was a little hoop piercing thingy in her navel.

“Hello! Mr. O’Shea, isn’t it?” she said through the screen door, her eyes fixed on something over my right shoulder.

“Yes it is, Mrs. Soderstrom, and I apologize for not calling first, but I brought out lunch from The Grain o’ Truth Bar & Grill with the hope that you’d join me,” I said, feeling a bit awkward. I mean, I’m a single man at a young widow’s home in the country, and there is no one else around. I should have arranged to meet Wendy in town, perhaps at The Tenderloin Tap or The Grain. It was not appropriate for just the two of us to be at the farm right then, and I suddenly understood my mistake. Too late. At least I had told two people where I was going, so when the lawyers showed up I could prove I wasn’t being sneaky. I stood on her front porch while, inside the screen door, Wendy looked curious, but friendly.

“You’re very kind,” she said, her voice now low and husky. “Won’t you come in?” she asked, her gaze dropping to my feet.

“I think I’d be more comfortable out here on the porch, if that’s okay with you. It’s a nice summer day.”

“That’s fine. The fresh air might do me some good.”

Her comment struck me as peculiar. “Are you ill?” I asked.

“You might say that,” she replied vacantly, pushing open the door and emerging onto the big porch. Then, finally noticing my face, she said, “My God! What happened to you?”

“Actually, I had a difference of opinion with a couple of rude individuals. We worked it out.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“It’s not necessary. I’m a quick healer.”

“Won’t you sit with me at the table? I’m feeling better already, especially compared to how you’re probably doing,” she said, putting one hand on my shoulder and gesturing with the other toward a redwood patio set on the porch. When she spoke, I detected a hint of mint mouthwash.

We sat and I handed her a Diet Coke, withdrew the Loony Burger Specials, and slid one across the table to her. She opened it, and her face turned a rather subdued shade of seafoam mist, a color I had seen in one of the clothing catalogues that had frequently appeared in my mailbox in Belue, when I had three females in the house who had educated me about the nuances of hue.

Wendy Soderstrom’s hand flashed to her mouth and she lurched from her chair, knocking it over backwards, and rushed for the house. The sounds of her throwing up did not contribute to the rural peace; you know, the lowing of cows, the sweet “tue-a-lee” of bluebirds, the satisfied grunting of hogs. I rose and returned her chair to its upright position by the table. I sneaked a peak at her food, expecting to see a bug or a worm or something else moving there, but everything looked fine. It smelled good, too, with the cooked beef melting the sharp cheddar cheese slice inside the Kaiser roll.

I was hungry: Wendy, apparently not. A few moments later she reappeared, even mintier than before. She had tidied up, and looked much better. The tan had returned. We both sat down again.

“Are you all right? I’m sorry about bringing this kind of food. I thought it would be okay. Lunatic Mooning said that you and Hugh used to come in for lunch, or sometimes in the evening.”

“I’m fine, and I appreciate it,” she said, eyeing her lunch. She reached out and, with the fingernail of her right index finger, closed and delicately latched the lid to the Styrofoam package. I noticed that her longish fingernail was not the fingernail of a devoted farm wife. The dark purple polish was freshly applied.

She said, “I love Loony Burgers normally, and I’m starving. Hugh and I were more or less regulars at Moon’s place, of course, but I’m fighting a nasty bug. Hugh’s death has weakened my defenses, I think. But thank you so much for thinking of me, and thank you even more,” she said, looking at me with her large, lovely blue eyes, “for helping me that day, when Hugh…well, I just never got to thank you before, except briefly and impersonally at the funeral. Had you not come by when you did, I might have lost my mind. I needed another person there, and then, there you were. Molly said you were an angel. Anyway, Doctor VanderKellen’s exhortation to honor my privacy has been taken to the extreme by the people around here. I’ve been nearly out of my mind.”

I had been a bumbling oaf, but if that was a comfort, so be it. “You mean no one’s come by to check on you since the funeral?”

“Oh, there have been several. Molly came by twice, and she brought food, and some others have called, and Rachel Schoendienst and Olivia Olson stopped by, but that’s been about it. Pretty lonely out here,” she said, looking around and hugging herself.

I could feel my stomach growling, grateful it was silent. I opened my Styrofoam box. Wendy eyed the contents briefly, then looked away and took a deep breath. She said, “Please, go ahead and eat. I’m fine.”

I closed the lid and shoved both boxes back into the brown paper bag. “I was just wondering how you were doing and what you were going to do with the rest of your life. You’re young, you’re lovely and bright,” (
and have a gorgeous figure
, I thought but did not say), “and you still have a long future ahead of you, God willing. Will you be staying on and managing the hired hands?”

Wendy paused, picking at the edge of the paper bag as if there were a rabid gerbil inside, ready to lunge for her throat. She said, “What do you want me to call you?”

“My first name is Thomas. Please call me that.”

“Thomas, Thomas O' Shea,” she said in a singsong voice. “Irish,” she said. I nodded. “Well,
Thomas
, just let me say that I love this land! I love the way it looks and feels and smells. I love what it does—how it produces so much to take care of us and thousands besides. I love the way it changes over the seasons, as if it were a living thing with a mind and a spirit and a soul. But,” she said, looking down at her hands, “I cannot stay. There are just too many memories. I could not bear to look out our bedroom window and remember the joys of our marriage bed and then see that place in the yard light where it was taken away from me forever.”

“What will you do?” I asked, wishing she hadn't mentioned "the joys of the marriage bed." The woman was distracting me from my altruistic agenda.

Wendy Soderstrom, widow, looked out over the land that she said she loved and said, “I will take my time to sort things out, and then make plans. Hugh’s parents made provision for me in their estate plans, so I have no complaints there. I will just, well, leave. And live.”

Wendy looked at me and smiled a brilliant, white-toothed smile made all the whiter in contrast to her suntanned skin. She was a beauty when she smiled, and she knew it, and I found myself longing for Karen and envying whoever ended up with Wendy, except for the fact that she was lying through her perfect teeth. My stomach growled. Wendy ignored it. I did, too.

I pulled the paper bag to myself. “Well, I’ll leave you to your travel plans and packing. I wish you well,” I said, standing. She stood, too, brushing back her blonde hair from her forehead. “Let me know if I can help you in any way at all,” I said, escorting her back to the front door. Even if she was a liar, and she was, there was no reason to be unkind, uncharitable, as C.S. Lewis would have put it.

“Thomas, I know about your own losses, it’s a small town, you know, and the fact that you thought about someone else’s pain when you have plenty of your own speaks well of what a decent man you are, and I appreciate it. That’s very special.”