Shake the Trees

by Rod Helmers

  “I think we’ve found our guy.”

  “Huh?”

  Elizabeth thought Marc still couldn’t hear her over the noise of all the people on the deck, and spoke louder into his ear. “I think we found our guy.”

  “Jesus Christ, I can hear you. What the hell are you talking about?”

  Elizabeth was annoyed. “Damn it, Marc. Do you ever pay attention? You hear but you don’t listen.”

  Marc was angry. He wasn’t used to people speaking to him like that anymore. “Listen to me, and listen good. I have a business to run. I’ve got more important things to do than filing paperwork and answering the telephone. I’m under a lot of pressure, and I don’t need your bullshit.”

  Elizabeth took a deep breath. She was used to dealing with his adolescent temper, but it was getting more difficult after experiencing his calm, even-keeled father. “I’m sorry, Marc. I’m under pressure too, and as usual I’m taking it out on the one I care about the most. I’m sorry.”

  Marc was almost over his tantrum. “And I don’t appreciate these new investors snooping around either. The money is rolling in now. It’s absolutely rolling in. I don’t think it’s ever gonna stop.”

  “We don’t need any more investors, Marc. They helped us over the hump. They were a necessary evil. But don’t ever forget, the money will stop. We have an open faucet right now, and the drain is almost closed. That will change, and it will change in a hurry. It’s an actuarial certainty.”

  His lips protruded in a pout and he tossed his beer bottle among the sea oats. “What the hell were you talking about anyway? What guy?”

  “You may want to pay attention, because this is going to cost you some money.”

  “Talk.”

  “Okay. Do you remember our discussion about my friend Ellen Hughes? The headhunter?”

  “Of course I do. I’m not an idiot.”

  “Well, I think she has found our new executive, and he sounds perfect.”

  “How much?”

  “For Ellen or the new guy?”

  “Let’s start with the headhunter.”

  Elizabeth took another deep breath. “Ten grand on the books and fifty grand cash under the table.”

  “Are you freaking crazy? Those expenses are tax deductible, but I can’t pull that kind of money out of petty cash. So now we’re talking personal funds here.”

  Elizabeth paused several seconds. “Marc, I need you to think about the big picture. Okay?”

  Marc shook his head and kicked at a spider crab scuttling to its hole. “Go ahead.”

  “First of all, Ellen is worth it. She normally only works for Fortune 500 companies. She’s the best there is. She’s only doing this as a favor to me.”

  “Yeah, and for fifty grand cash under the table.”

  “Marc, listen to me. We need it to be cash under the table.”

  “We do?”

  “Damn right we do. I can’t rely on friendship alone here. Think about it. We have very unique requirements for this particular executive. Fifty grand cash under the table. You know damn well she won’t report it to the IRS. Don’t you think that fact might come in handy down the road if people start snooping around asking questions?”

  “Okay, already. I get it. Tell me about the guy. And this better be good.”

  “He’s perfect. Absolutely perfect.”

  “Tell me,” Marc prodded. Elizabeth finally had his full attention.

  “He has a computer engineering degree from Boondocks State, and a finance degree from Wharton.”

  “Whoa. A little over-qualified for our purposes, don’t you think?”

  “Well, at least you’re thinking now. Still wrong, but at least you’re thinking. Marc, this guy has to look good on paper when the shit hits the fan. Otherwise it’s all too suspicious. What’s great about this guy is what’s not on paper.” Ellen smiled.

  Marc smiled back despite the insult. He knew the good part was coming, and it’s what he loved about Elizabeth Hayes.

  “This guy is a total loser. Better yet, he has nothing to lose. No parents, no wife, no kids, not even a lover. Nothing. It’s completely plausible that he would go for broke.”

  “Go on,” Marc said admiringly.

  “The guy used to be a stockbroker in San Diego. He blew up when tech crashed. Got sued six ways to Sunday. Now he’s barely making it selling real estate in Hootersville in the mountains of northern New Mexico.”

  “Perfect.”

  “Hold on. He’s only agreed to an interview. Now it’s up to you.”

  “Not a problem, babe. It’s as good as done.”

  “Don’t blow this off, Marc. It’s important. And speaking of blowing things off, have you been to the doctor?”

  “You mean Dr. Happy Pills? I’m on a maintenance schedule. Every thirty days I go back and complain about my horrible back pain and he renews the prescription. Regular as clockwork.”

  “You’re not taking the pills or . . . selling them to anybody are you? OxyContin is serious stuff.”

  “Will you start giving me a little credit for god’s sake? I flush the damn pills down the toilet. Come on. Let’s get a grouper sandwich on the deck and go to my place. I’m horny as hell.”

  They had crossed the isthmus of land that separated the causeway to St. Petersburg and Clearwater from the exclusive neighborhoods of South Tampa. The most exclusive neighborhood in South Tampa was Hyde Park, and the most exclusive addresses in Hyde Park were on Bayshore Boulevard. This was where Marc Mason had purchased a penthouse condominium overlooking the water.

  He’d grunted himself to an orgasm, and to Elizabeth’s great relief had immediately fallen asleep. She quickly left his bed and was now standing on the balcony admiring the view. The sidewalk and balustrade curved around the bay, and along with the twinkling old-fashioned streetlights disappeared into the distance. Somebody had told her that this was the longest continuous sidewalk in the world.

  The lights began to flare as Elizabeth’s eyes filled with tears. She wished the path was long enough to take her home. To her childhood - to her father - to happiness. She knew that wasn’t possible, but at least she had James now. He reminded her of her father in so many ways. He was a good man. A good man that had produced a bad seed. But he was good. Too good to do what had to be done.

  CHAPTER 7

  “I don’t care about the raise, the time off, or even going back to school. I don’t care about any of that.”

  Sandi turned away so Sam couldn’t judge the depth of her feelings. She had been taken by surprise and was trying to keep her emotions in check. She took a deep breath and turned back to him.

  “I don’t trust that woman, Sam. I don’t trust what she’s telling you. Are you sure about this?”

  “I’m not sure about any of this, Sandi. But I need to find out. I need to check this out.”

  “So what if it checks out? Then what?”

  “Sandi, San Luis is where my heart is. But this could be a good thing for both of us. For a while.”

  “This is about San Diego, isn’t it?”

  “You know about San Diego?”

  “You haven’t googled yourself, have you?”

  Sam shook his head. “There’s no such thing as privacy anymore.”

  “Is that what this is about? About proving yourself?”

  “I failed, Sandi. I failed and this is where I ran to hide.”

  “You’ve proven yourself here, Sam.”

  Sam looked up. Her statement touched him, and he paused a moment before speaking.

  “There’s more to it, Sandi. And you know it. Why are we still just friends after all this time?”

  Sandi looked shocked. An unspoken taboo in their relationship had been breached, and she wasn’t expecting it.

  “I . . . uh. We work together, Sam. That’s very difficult. I don’t know if . . .”

  “Lots of people work together. It’s more than that. You know it is. It’s me. It’s something I need to fix or at least find out
about myself. Maybe this will help.”

  “Sam, I don’t understand. But if this is something you have to do, I’ll support you. I’ll support you any way I can.”

  Sandi was a welcome surprise to a father approaching fifty and a mother well into her forties; she came nearly sixteen years after their last child. She had grown up on a ten thousand acre ranch, which in the semi-arid high country sounded like a lot more than it really was. The land had been in the Rimes family for four generations. Five generations if one of her two big-city brothers eventually returned to the valley, though their off-ranch success made that appear unlikely. Ranching had always been a difficult way to make a living, and with the run-up in property values the options were now more tempting. The Rimes family was land rich and cash poor. But for many men like Sandi’s father, the options were never given serious consideration.

  Rodger Rimes loved his God, his family, his country, and his land - in that order. He appreciated the cowboy lifestyle and admired the sacrifice made to acquire and hold onto the land by those who came before him. His great-grandfather had homesteaded the ranch, and every generation since had worked it and improved it. He wasn’t going anywhere. Except for nineteen bloody months in Korea, Rodger Rimes had spent his entire life on his ranch, and he expected and hoped to die there.

  “It’s about time you two knuckle-heads talked about it, for god’s sake,” Rodger said to his daughter the morning after her emotional conversation with Sam.

  Sandi was having morning coffee with her parents in their sprawling adobe-style ranch house. It was part of her daily routine. She lived in the old foreman’s cabin, which was nearly a quarter mile from the ranch house and sat next to the “maternity ward”. The maternity ward was a narrow and lush area in a box canyon where the cows that were “springing”, or expecting to calve soon, were pastured.

  Actually the term “box canyon” was a bit of a misnomer, because the tiny valley was open to the rest of the ranch on the end where her cabin stood. The log cabin was separated from the well-watered pasture by a split rail fence. Inside the pasture stood a simple three-sided lean-to structure made out of old telephone poles, rough-cut cedar siding, and a tin roof. The building gave the cattle relief from the sun in the short summer and protection from the snow and cold wind in the winter.

  After driving Dustin to the bus, which stopped on the highway at the end of the dusty two-mile-long ranch road, Sandi headed back to the maternity ward. Her tasks there essentially involved checking on the health and well-being of the prospective mothers and newborn calves. Her father had assigned her those duties ostensibly as rent for the cabin. But she knew how the old man’s mind worked - it was all to remind her about the circle of life after her husband died.

  She understood the unspoken plan and it probably helped. It was hard to keep thinking about death when new life was celebrating its entrance into the world just outside your front door. The newborn calves - kicking up their little hooves on spindly awkward legs - always brought a smile to her face. Even through tears.

  Sandi cleaned up at the cabin before stopping by the ranch house on the way to her “town job”. Among ranch people a job in town was just that - no further description was necessary. It was a way to make ends meet. But Sandi enjoyed her in town job more than most. Next to her Dad, her boss was also her best friend.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Sandi shot back as she stared across the kitchen table at her father.

  “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about. You two have been doing this dance for going on four years. It’s about damned time.”

  Sandi looked down and became serious. “Why?

  “Why what?”

  Why have we been dancing?”

  “Why him, or why you?”

  “Why him.”

  “I’d like to talk about why you first.”

  “I figured.”

  “How long has it been since you buried your husband, Sandi?”

  Betty Rimes was across the kitchen preparing some part of one of the meals she would serve that day. She’d heard enough and picked up a frying pan air-drying in the plastic drainer next to the sink. “Rodger Rimes, I’ve been married to you for nearly fifty years, but I swear to God I’m gonna come over there and put a knot on that thick overgrown skull of yours.”

  Sandi had married Joe Johnson a little more than one year after she graduated from high school. He was a cowboy like her Dad, and everybody thought they made a perfect couple. Dustin came along in a couple of years; there was never enough money, but always plenty of happiness and joy in the little family. Joe loved the outdoors and loved to rodeo. He actually made a good bit of money riding the bulls. At least until he landed wrong on a sunny Saturday afternoon and nearly severed his spinal cord at the base of the skull. He would have died immediately if there hadn’t been an ambulance and skilled medical personnel a few yards from where he lay. As it turned out, that wasn’t a blessing.

  Rodger Rimes was very close to Joe. He loved him nearly as much as Sandi did. The way he looked at it, he’d finally acquired a son who wanted to ranch. And they were a lot alike. Rodger knew what he would want for himself under those horrible circumstances, and he knew what Joe would want as well. Rodger insisted that the neurologists and Sandi assemble in Joe’s hospital room, and fully explain the dire situation. Joe could not breathe on his own - a ventilator did that for him. All he could do was blink. No one offered any hope that his condition would ever change for the better. Joe was trapped in a slowly deteriorating body.

  Rodger Rimes shocked Sandi and the doctors when he asked Joe if he wanted to live that way, and then asked Joe to blink once for yes and twice for no. Joe blinked twice. Rodger told him he’d be back every day. And he did come back. Every day until the doctors and Sandi agreed to unplug the machines. It took almost three months.

  “Who are you mourning for, Sandi?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, you sure as hell aren’t mourning for Joe. He’s in a much better place. I know you believe that as much as I do. And you’re not mourning for Dustin. He’s too young to remember his father. He just wishes he had one. You’re mourning for yourself, and I think six years is long enough. No, it’s too long - it’s selfish and it’s not fair to the people who love and care about you. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and while we’re here the Lord expects us to celebrate and enjoy his gifts. Life is for the living, Sandi.”

  Sandi began to cry and responded angrily. “You’re not the one who pulled the plug on her husband. You’re not the one who killed the father of her child. You wouldn’t understand.”

  “Honey, I’m the one who put you in that position. You didn’t have a choice. If you need to blame somebody for the hand you were dealt, then blame me. And I do understand all about the taking of life. I understand it far too well.”

  Sandi was doing her best to compose herself. “Can we talk about why him now?”

  Rodger smiled softly. “That’s an easy one. You’ve googled him haven’t you?”

  Sandi shook her head yes as she dried her tears on her shirtsleeve and blew her nose in a paper napkin.

  “Let me tell you about a guy in Korea.”

  Sandi was more than surprised that her father had made two references to the war he had fought. Two references in the last five minutes. He never spoke about it. He tersely ended all conversation that even touched on it. Maybe the old man was finally dealing with some demons of his own.

  “He was in my platoon, and woke up with a hell of a hangover one day. Claimed he was sick and reported to the infirmary. So his platoon got ambushed that morning and took god-awful casualties. His best friend was killed. They had always covered each other’s backs. After that, he volunteered for every dangerous mission that came along. Everybody said he was trying to commit suicide by volunteering. Probably was. But he had to do it. It was the only way he could deal with the guilt and prove that he wasn’t a coward.”

  “
Did he make it?”

  “Somehow. Got a bunch of medals. Everybody said he was a hero, but he knew better.”

  Sandi understood his point. Sam also had something to prove before he could move on. It was time to lighten up the mood before she left for work. She gave him her best dumb blond look. “So you’re saying Sam’s trying to commit suicide by taking this job?”

  Rodger scowled. “It’s a comparative metaphor, not a literal one, bonehead.”

  Sandi challenged the old man with her tone. “Where do you get all those big words? Do you even know what they mean?”

  “Yeah, I do. Because I read instead of sitting in front of the flickering mind mush machine all night. It’s a good thing that kid of yours doesn’t take after his mother.”

  Sandi smiled. “He is a smart one isn’t he? Says he wants to be a vet like his Uncle Jack.”

  “Well, you tell him his Uncle Jack’s a wuss. Cows and horses need vets a lot more than poodles and hairless cats.”

  Betty Rimes was roused out of another task. “I warned you once already, Rodger. Why don’t you put your boots on and think about getting a little work done around this place.”

  “Oh, settle down. I’m just kiddin’ around. But Sandi has a point about Dustin. Looks like I’ll need some more grandbabies around here if I’m gonna con one of ‘em into taking over this place someday.”

  Sandi jumped up and planted a big kiss on her father’s cheek. “It’s definitely time for me to go. And I really am late. I love you, Daddy.”

  “I love you too. You have a good day, honey.”

  It was 11:15 on a bright fall morning. Sam was using both hands to maneuver the creaking Land Cruiser around the spiraling entrance ramp to the short term parking garage at Albuquerque International Airport. Sandi sat next to him and eight-year-old Dustin occupied the back seat. Even though it was a three-hour drive from San Luis, she had insisted on going along. After dropping Sam off, she would hit Costco and Sam’s Club for supplies for herself and several others before returning home. The return leg of Sam’s ticket was open, and he would call her with the details as soon as he knew.