Badger Games

by Jon A. Jackson

  “Now what?” he said to Helen, who had gotten out to join him at the gate.

  “Maybe we have to climb over and walk,” she said.

  At that moment a voice spoke from a concealed speaker somewhere nearby: “Yes?” it said. “Mr. Humann?”

  Joe looked around. The best he could make out was that the voice emanated from a pile of field rocks about five feet high beyond the gate. He peered at it. There could be a television camera there as well, he thought.

  “That’s us,” Joe said, loudly.

  “Come on in,” the voice said. There was a buzz, and the gate swung open on oiled hinges. “The house is just down the road. You’ll see it.”

  They found the house all right. They drove up the road, accompanied by four large Rottweilers, and stopped in a yard in which were parked three four-wheel-drive pickup trucks of vintages ranging from old to current. The dogs waited patiently, tongues lolling, not barking, but watching.

  The house was impressive, essentially a rustic greenhouse. It was more or less oval, sheathed in rough cedar, with a roof that was covered with solar-collector panels and a lot of skylights. It even had a tower. The southern exposure and parts of the east and west sides were glassed in and all but bursting with cultivated greenery. It looked like Frank Oberavich grew more than just a little pot.

  The man who came out to greet them, shushing the Rottweilers, was not anyone Joe or Helen had expected to see. This man was short and slight, heavily bearded, with long blondish hair gathered into a ponytail that trailed out from beneath his battered old cowboy hat. He squinted at them in the bright sunlight through glasses mounted in clear plastic frames. His thin, wiry arms were deeply tanned, and he wore baggy frayed khaki shorts and mocassins with no socks. It was sunny, but cool in the fall air, and his stained T-shirt was inadequate. He crossed his arms on his narrow chest and rubbed his elbows. He was none too clean, and when he smiled they saw that his teeth were stained brown.

  “Hi,” he said, in a soft voice. He addressed Helen, who was in the driver’s seat. “I guess you must be Mrs. Humann?” He turned to the nosing dogs and told them to get back. They retreated but looked on with interest. Joe and Helen got out, warily eyeing the dogs.

  “Don’t worry about them,” Oberavich said. “They recognize dog people. They’re very reliable that way.”

  “I never thought of myself as a dog person,” Helen said. “I had a puppy once, but he got run over by a car, and I was so heartbroken I never got another one.”

  “I don’t think it’s necessary to actually have dogs,” Oberavich said, “just be … I don’t know … okay people.” He smiled uncertainly, as if embarrassed.

  “Well, I’m Helen,” she said, thrusting out her hand. “Sedlacek, actually. It’s more convenient to say Mrs. Humann. You know?”

  “Sid-logic?” he repeated. “You’re Serb?”

  Helen shrugged. “Could be. I’m not sure.” They both laughed lightly.

  This was not Franko, Joe was sure. Not Colonel Tucker’s Franko, anyway.

  But he was amiable. He invited them in, and while they sipped some wine, which they’d brought along on Denny’s recommendation (and at his extravagant price, for California jug wine), he enthusiastically showed them around his amazing greenhouse. It was plenty warm inside, and moist. There were plants everywhere, huge and small. One walked through and among them on a slatted walkway. Besides magnificent marijuana plants he had flowers, many kinds of cacti, and some ornamental shrubs. He had devised an elaborate watering system, run off the solar-power-generating system. A radio played classical music from a distant station.

  They got along very well, right away. He had a truly interesting house, albeit considerably disheveled and disorderly, except for his plants. There were books everywhere, dishes in the sink, clothes tossed about at random. Although there were a couple of bedrooms and a bath, it seemed that he lived in one large room, basically, except for a delightful tower room, which one reached by climbing a ladder. Here there were more books, a stereo system, and many recordings, mostly CDs of Mozart and Haydn. The tower room had a bench running about it at desk height. The room was barely large enough for the three of them to stand in; there was only one chair, a pretty good upholstered leather desk chair. He had a typewriter buried under some books and papers, and a very up-to-date laptop computer with the lid open, running a screen saver that displayed constantly changing geometric shapes.

  There were windows all around, and one could look out on a splendid panorama of mountains. The stream, Frenchy’s Fork, was beyond the line of scrubby pines, he pointed out. The bluff dropped down about a hundred feet, but there was a good path. If they liked, they could walk down there. The fishing was very good, he said. Fly fishermen came up there from time to time, but not many knew about it or were willing to drive back in this far.

  Joe was intrigued. How did he keep all these things going, the pumps, the stereo, and so on, without commercial power? Oberavich eagerly showed them his power system. It was multifaceted, employing not only solar converters but the windmills and even a couple of small stream-driven turbines, and was backed up with a bank of batteries. All of this, in turn, was connected to a very deep well that provided heat and water and served as an energy reservoir. It was fairly complicated, a little capital intensive, but totally reliable and over time almost free to run.

  “I never have power failures,” Oberavich said proudly. “The power company is always breaking down. Not me.”

  From there the conversation went on to topics like flowers, music, books, and so on, mostly conducted with Helen, while Joe drifted about, nodding and remarking approvingly. Oberavich built furniture, he raised vegetables, he had been studying the stars. Soon he was urging them to stay for dinner. Joe and Helen readily accepted. While he was preparing dinner they went for a stroll over to the bluff and looked down at the stream below. They could see up a narrow canyon, from which the stream issued, towering cliffs on either side.

  When they came back and sat down to a decent spaghetti with a marinara sauce, they asked about the canyon. You could walk up it about a mile, Oberavich told them, and it was spectacular, but eventually it got to be pretty tough going. There was nothing beyond it but more mountains, as far as Deer Lodge, he said. He owned several hundred acres of this, he added, shyly. How many hundreds? Actually, a couple thousand or so.

  Developers had been after him to sell for years. They’d bring in power, sell large acreages to wealthy Californians. He wasn’t having any of it. He was well protected, with a state forest and BLM land adjoining his. He didn’t think there would be any development in his lifetime, although across the river was some property owned by an old lady in Great Falls, which might eventually be sold. But the bluff isolated him from that. “I don’t need their power,” he said, smugly.

  Joe was enraptured. This was a Hole-in-the-Wall indeed! He was already trying to figure out how to get into this paradise. But he didn’t mention it to Oberavich. That would take some doing, he realized. A long, careful campaign would be required. He didn’t mind; he could be patient.

  After dinner, Oberavich was comfortable enough with them to roll some huge spliffs of his best stock. It was dynamite grass, potent but mild to the palate. They went out and sat on the grass in the yard, smoking and drinking the last of the wine. It had turned quite cool, and as night had fallen the sky had filled with an almost oppressive number of brilliant stars. Oberavich was mellow, relaxed in long pants now and a heavy sweater. He pointed out the constellations to Helen.

  Joe and Helen were having trouble focusing. They were absolutely swelling with good feeling from smoking so much powerful marijuana. Although they had discussed Joe’s quest for his old friend earlier and had dismissed it as a lost cause, Joe cautiously brought it up again. He vaguely described having met Franko Bradovich “back East.” They’d worked together, he said, on a “research project.” He said it was a “nature thing,” trying to organize some research materials for computers. It
was too complicated to go into. But he hadn’t really known Franko very well. In fact, he hadn’t given much thought to the guy since, but after coming to Butte …

  Oberavich didn’t press for details, fortunately. He was obviously feeling pretty mellow himself. But he did ask what this Franko looked like. When Joe provided the description given them by the colonel, however, Oberavich said, after a very long moment in which they all just sat back in the now cold grass and stared at the billions of stars, “Sounds like my cousin.”

  “Really?” was all Joe could think to say.

  After another long moment, Oberavich said, “Yeah. Paulie’s into that stuff, that research. Eco stuff. He’s the smart one in the family. Always traveling around. India. Got up into Kashmir. Loved Kashmir. Went to the poppy fields.”

  “Poppy fields?” Helen said. “You mean, like opium?”

  “Oh yeah,” Oberavich said. “He said it was bitching stuff. Too good, he said. Scared him, I think. He left, went to … I don’t know, somewhere in Yugoslavia. He spent quite a while there, I think. Another great place. But then they had the war, you know. Whew! Are you guys as fucked up as I am?”

  They all laughed at the incredible wit of the comment, almost uncontrollably. Eventually they staggered to their feet and went inside. It was warm indoors. They were amazingly hungry again. But when they’d devoured the remains of the spaghetti, they were soporific. No way they could drive out. Oberavich invited the visitors to sleep over—an extra bedroom that he used for storage had a mattress on the floor, and he had blankets. Joe and Helen fell asleep in seconds.

  Goods

  The next morning there were the usual awkwardnesses, inevitable in such situations. The parties realize that they’ve experienced an unanticipated intimacy with someone they don’t really know. It was surely more awkward for Oberavich. Two strangers had waltzed into his life and he had fallen into perhaps a too familiar easiness with them, unusual behavior for him. He couldn’t be sure how much he had said. But he didn’t think he had said anything too revealing. If it had just been the grass, he thought, but there had been all that wine. He had more than a slight hangover.

  As it worked out, the three people were quite agreeable to one another, and the awkwardness soon dissipated. Oberavich, with Helen’s assistance, cooked up an enormous breakfast of bacon and eggs, with plenty of coffee and toast. They fell on it like famished dogs, and it was only in the eating of it that they recalled that they had polished off all the leftover spaghetti before bed. But that didn’t stop them from mopping their plates clean.

  After that, however, it became apparent that Oberavich was eager to get on with his normal routine. Joe and Helen politely refused his invitations to linger, and they left after pitching in to help him clean up. Helen and Joe drove away promising to come back soon and declining a generous offer of a grocery sack of the excellent grass. Nobody had as much as mentioned Paulie.

  Nothing may have been said to Oberavich, but it was the major topic between Joe and Helen as they sped back to Butte. Joe was sure there was something worth pursuing here. He recalled very well the things that Oberavich had said. He had drunk very little wine, leaving the greater quantity to Oberavich and Helen.

  “There were several things about Paulie that were too good to ignore,” Joe said.

  “Evocative, you mean?” Helen said. She was driving, as usual.

  “Exactly. That stuff about poppies, opium, and then Yugoslavia, and the fact that the description fit. Paulie could be our guy. Maybe, for who knows what reason, Paulie used a version of his cousin’s name while he was in Kosovo. He probably entered the country on his own passport, as Paul Oberavich. That’s why they didn’t catch it.”

  “Not that they tumbled to Frank Oberavich, for that matter,” Helen pointed out. “We should get the colonel to check both names out.”

  “The next, obvious question,” Joe said, “is, Where do we go from here? Where is Paulie, assuming he’s the guy we’re after? We’ve got to be gentle with Frank. He’s a little skittery.”

  “A little! I kept cringing every time you brought up the subject of buying land.”

  “I didn’t think I even mentioned it,” Joe said. “Did I? Was it obvious?”

  Helen said it was obvious to her that he coveted Oberavich’s property, but Frank might not have noticed. “He was bombed,” she said. “Anyway, you didn’t push it, thank heaven.”

  “It’s true, though,” Joe said. “I’d love to get a foothold back in there on the Forkee.”

  Helen thought it would take some doing. Joe agreed. It was obviously a delicate issue. But he thought it could be done.

  “How?” Helen asked.

  “You,” Joe said. “He’s got the hots for you.”

  “Oh, bull,” Helen said. “The guy’s probably gay,” and she cited Carmen’s hint. “He didn’t display it, but he’s probably one of those deeply closeted guys, afraid of his attraction to men. If anything, he’s probably got the hots for you. He was hanging on your every word.”

  “I thought you said he didn’t notice my hints about buying land? No, no, there were no vibes. Hey, I’ve been around gay guys,” he said. “I know when I’m being hit on. Frank is just one of those guys who are so leery of attachments of any kind that they find it much more congenial to be a hermit. There are plenty of guys like that. But that doesn’t mean that he wasn’t attracted to you. I saw the way his eyes followed you around the room. He pitched almost all of his talk at you.”

  “I wonder why it is that men so hastily reject the idea that another man could be gay and might be interested in them?” Helen observed. “Is it some fear of homosexuality in themselves?”

  Joe scoffed and reiterated his belief that Frank was interested in her. She didn’t like where this was heading.

  “What are you suggesting?” she demanded. “I should seduce him? So you can have a place in the bush?”

  “Hey, I’m not pimping you,” Joe said. “You don’t have to go to bed with the guy…. But if the attraction is there, why ignore it? Every guy is in a more agreeable mood when a woman he likes is being nice. It’s an angle, that’s all.”

  Helen’s glance was severe enough to convince him that it was a topic that had better be dropped.

  In Butte, while Helen took a shower Joe went down the street to an outdoor phone booth with a pocketful of quarters, to check in with Tucker. But for some reason, once they were connected, Joe didn’t report their success to the colonel. He merely suggested that the Lucani use their contacts to check out Oberavich as a variant name for Franko. He said nothing about their meeting with Frank, or about Paulie. A check on the name would do for their purpose. Other than that, he told the colonel, they had just gotten started in Butte. The colonel seemed satisfied, even pleased.

  In the afternoon, Joe checked in with Carmen Tomarich. He was curious about the property across the creek from Oberavich, he said. He told her he’d met Frank, who wasn’t his old buddy, but they’d gotten along quite well. Frank had mentioned something about plans to develop property up that way. She said she hadn’t heard anything about that, but she’d check it out.

  “Are you thinking of building?” she asked. “I’ve got loads of good building sites, private and picturesque, but much more convenient than clear out on the Forkee—accessible roads year-round, with power, wells already drilled, sites laid out.”

  Sure, he was interested, he told her. He meant it. But he told her that the inaccessibility was part of the attraction. If there was one such place like Frank’s, perhaps there were more. You just had to look. Montana was a huge place. As for commercial power, Frank got along without it. In fact, Joe pointed out, Frank’s system was probably less likely to fail than the power company’s.

  Carmen was skeptical. “To me, power is something you get when you plug into the wall. He probably didn’t tell you about all the days in the winter when the sun doesn’t shine.”

  Joe assured her that he had. But, he conceded, he wasn’t as obse
ssed with self-reliance as Frank was. “I like good groceries,” he said.

  “Well, I’m glad you guys got along,” Carmen said. “I’m just sorry Frank didn’t turn out to be your long lost pard. But it’s funny, last night I bumped into my friend Trudy at Gamer’s restaurant? And she says when she called around for me, to find out where Frank was? Well, somebody else is looking for him, too.”

  “No kidding?” Joe said. “Coincidence, I guess. But then, Frank is pretty reclusive. Probably a bill collector.”

  “It didn’t sound like it. Some guy like you, an old acquaintance. Trudy said her friend, the guy who knows Frank, said when she asked that Frank must be getting popular in his old age, somebody else was asking about him.”

  “Maybe it’s his high school reunion organizer,” Joe said. He didn’t want to seem too interested. After all, his ostensible reason for finding Frank had gone bust. Unless, it occurred to him, there was another Frank Oberavich in town. “Or maybe there is more than one Frank Oberavich,” he said.

  “There’s plenty of Oberaviches,” Carmen said, “but no other Frank, that I know of. There’s Gary, Vic, Jim, and, let’s see … Bill.”

  “How about Paul?” Joe asked.

  Carmen didn’t think so. “Who’s Paul?”

  “I was just thinking,” Joe said, “my pal used to talk about a cousin, or maybe it was an uncle, named Paul. But now that you mention it, there are a lot of possibilities, aren’t there? Frank never said he was from Butte, just from Montana. I imagine the Oberaviches have spread out to other cities. Oh well, this is getting to be too much trouble. Heck with it.”