‘Just tell me, hypothetically, if you had proof that God and the church were intentionally keeping something from us, what would you do?’
‘Well.’ Allie withdrew her hand and thought about it. ‘I’d make damn sure I had my facts straight, first off. And that I was thinking clearly. Then I’d probably talk to God about it before I started hollering in church.’
‘That’s a good idea,’ said Sander.
‘So is sleep. Can we please go to bed?’
Sander hadn’t the fight in him even to argue his own sanity. Or he feared, if he tried to do so tonight, he would lose. When Allie stood and took his hand, he let her lead him inside.
Indeed, sleep was a fine idea. Many impossible things are splendid ideas. The effort to remain motionless all night, so as not to wake Allie, took more from Sander than eight hours of staring at the television. He made some decisions, though, and had ample time to evaluate and reconsider them several times over. First thing on the list for the morning was business. Grant Beef was circling the drain in a hopeless spiral, but that was no excuse to abandon professionalism. He would salvage what he could before grappling with the bigger problem.
The insurance portion of Mr Loren’s plan went as expected. Ten minutes into the phone call, the company’s adjuster summarily disclaimed coverage, for reason of governmental action. Sander explained that was not the case and faxed over the contact information from the USDA. The claims supervisor spoke with Mr Loren’s office and whomever else, then called Sander back to tell him somebody would be out to look at the books and take a head count to determine the amount of the claim. Sander suggested they hurry.
Allie didn’t know the Department of Agriculture had their own earth-moving equipment. She wasn’t alone in her awe. Dalton and Jo sat on the back porch and watched as the massive dozers and track hoe excavators rumbled off a convoy of lowboy trailers, one after another. They shook the ground as they lined up abreast inside the gate. Dalton could not help but compare the sight to old World War II newsreel footage – Patton’s 3rd Army preparing to meet the Germans. Except, these machines were here to plough under a bunch of cows. The equipment operators shut down their engines in succession and climbed back into the trucks that had brought them, some tipping their caps towards the patio as they passed. They would return. Dalton sipped his coffee.
It wasn’t something Sander felt the need to see. At the roll-top desk in the living room, he organized bills into three stacks. There were the ones he intended to pay, come hell or high water. Next were the debts he would try to make good on, though the creditors held no collateral from the operation. Once done with the sorting, he dropped the third stack in the waste basket beside his chair. Allie watched him from the sofa.
‘We can work something out with the people you can’t pay right now, babe. Papa does it all the time.’
His head in the checkbook, Sander said, ‘We pay those in advance. Scheduled deliveries, insurance premiums and whatnot.’
‘You don’t wanna at least call them and cancel your accounts? I could do that part for you.’
He sighed in disgust. ‘Look outside, Allie. You think Mr Jack Loren’s plan to keep this a secret is feasible? I don’t care how fast they move, slaughtering six hundred head of cattle is gonna make the nightly news. I’m not expecting any delivery trucks to show up.’
She wanted a Coke from the fridge and she had to get out of the room before she snapped back at Sander, so she did take a look outside. Through the kitchen window, she saw the machines and the twin paths of chewed earth leading to each one. She saw Dalton and Jo from behind, holding hands. They were so calm out there, so incredibly strong with one another. Allie wondered what her mother-in-law was doing to console her husband, to steel him against this. Were she close enough to Jo to outright ask such a thing, then Jo might have told her before the question took shape.
Allie looked at the cold can she held and realized it was only part of what she wanted. She wanted to be standing in her own mother’s kitchen, drinking a Coke in the company of people she understood, people who would talk to her. She did not want this nearly so much, however, as she wanted Sander. When she called to him to ask if she could bring him something to drink, he surprised her.
‘I’m about to take a ride,’ he said. ‘Wanna go?’
‘Sure.’ She did not care where they went. From this place, away was a suitable destination.
When Sander pulled the truck into the lawn of First Unitarian, Allie was certain she had made the right choice in coming along. She would listen well and patiently, because she needed to know how to fix whatever Roger Carlson had screwed up in her man’s head. Then she had a few words for the good pastor, too.
Jason appeared on the porch as Sander and Allie approached. He wore the look of a mourner and held his arms wide.
‘I hoped you would come,’ he said. ‘Tough times, huh?’
Sander broke his nose with a quick right hand. There was no warning and it hardly looked vicious enough to do the damage it did. That was because Sander stood on the ground while Jason was up on the top step, making them appear the same height. When, in fact, the fist that collided with Jason’s face actually outweighed his head. He dropped to the painted boards without a sound.
‘Whoa!’ shouted Roger. He rushed between the two men as though Jason might jump up swinging. ‘I won’t have that here.’
‘It’s over,’ said Sander. ‘Does he have his car?’
‘Somebody dropped him off last night,’ said Roger. ‘He’s waiting on a ride now.’ Then, kneeling down, ‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah,’ said Jason, through bloody fingers. ‘I’ve had worse. You got a towel or something?’
As Roger helped him to his feet, Sander said, ‘Put him upstairs. I have to talk to you.’
When they went inside, Allie whispered, ‘Careful, babe. We don’t need you in jail.’
‘Like I said, it’s over. He had it coming and he knew it.’
Roger came down the stairs a few minutes later in a mood to chastise. He found Sander and Allie seated in the back pew.
‘You could have seriously hurt him, Sander.’
‘You bet your ass. I could’ve pulled his arm off and beat him with it. But I didn’t.’
‘No, I guess you didn’t.’
‘He deserves it, though. And I think you know why.’
He did know why. Sander could tell by the way he turned his attention to Allie and introduced himself.
‘Alejandra Grant,’ she said. ‘I’ve heard much about you.’
‘Likewise,’ said Roger. Then, turning back to Sander, ‘He knew he was wrong in taking your work without permission–’
‘Stealing, you mean,’ said Sander.
‘–but he did not realize what it was he took.’ Roger shot a furtive glance at Allie.
‘She knows,’ said Sander. ‘And that’s where the blame shifts to me. Rest assured, Jason got off easy compared to what’s raining down on us.’
‘He’s leaving out my part,’ Roger told Allie, ‘the influence without which none of this would’ve happened.’
‘Are you afraid?’ Sander asked.
‘Of you? No. If you wanted to do something to me, you would’ve done it.’ Roger then pointed to his temple. ‘Far as my head is concerned, I figure the Almighty’s had ample time to do his thing as well. My culpability aside, it does no good to hurt me now. Whoever ends up with that drawing of yours will either figure out what it means, or they won’t.’ To Allie, he said, ‘You understand, I’m not–’ Roger stopped. She already disliked him. It wouldn’t help matters to tell her what he wasn’t sorry for. ‘I’ve apologized to your husband, and I want to apologize to you. I’m sorry, Alejandra, for the hurt I’ve caused.’
Allie didn’t have the whole picture, but the curtain was still rising.
‘How much did you tell Jason?’ asked Sander.
‘Betrayal of a friendship is a tough sin to forgive, I said. He mitigates his behavior, in his mind,
with the knowledge that you were paid well for the artwork and you need the money right now. I told him nothing else and he didn’t ask, which is probably why his most pressing concern is a busted nose. So we can be reasonably sure this gallery owner in New York doesn’t know what he’s got, either.’
‘Then why all the rest of it?’ asked Sander. ‘Why destroy our ranch, our livelihood? Tell me what you think I should do.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that since Jason came to me with his story, and I just don’t know. What’s going on at your place is all over town. I don’t see how it will stay off the national scene. Possibly nothing’s required of you but to go away. Fade to obscurity, along with your art. Kinda makes sense in that light, though not completely. Doesn’t keep you from doing it again later, and it could backfire. What if it draws more attention to your art? I’m sorry I don’t have a good answer.’
‘You son of a bitch,’ Allie spat. ‘You apologize like a rattlesnake, knowing you’ll hurt somebody again.’
‘You’re right,’ he told her. ‘I hate that it caused you pain, but I do not truly repent of this.’
‘Well I do,’ said Sander. ‘I repent meeting you, coming to this church, and everything we discussed inside it. I repent my drawings and I even repent Jason stealing one of em. Now what do I have to do so I can talk to my granddad again?’
‘What?’ said Roger.
‘My granddad. It’s like he’s not there. I don’t want my father going up to that hill and hearing the silence.’
‘Now that’s interesting.’
‘You think so, Roger? Cause I think it sucks.’
Something in the air about Sander had slowly been changing, building, and must have neared critical mass. The difference in his tone and bearing was obvious now, and it wasn’t a congenial shift. Both Allie and Roger felt a primitive urge to get far away from him.
‘Hang on,’ said Roger. ‘What I meant was, it’s interesting that your ancestors stopped talking to you at the same time the Lord cut me off. Have you asked your mother if she’s heard from Him lately?’
‘The subject didn’t come up, no.’
A car pulled up outside the meeting-hall window and they heard a horn.
‘That’s Jason’s ride. Let me get him out of here,’ said Roger.
As he climbed the stairs, Allie said, ‘We should go, too. This man is loco and he doesn’t care about you.’
‘In a minute. He knows something else.’
Jason said nothing as Roger ushered him out and shut the door.
‘God isn’t talking to you anymore?’ Sander asked.
‘Not a sound. Like you said, it’s as if He’s not there. And if He’s not where He usually is, it means He’s somewhere else.’ Roger’s eyebrows were up, hopeful Sander would arrive at his own conclusion. Sander didn’t.
‘Maybe He’s answering for something,’ said Roger, sitting down in front of them again. ‘I figure two things to be true. First: even ruined and shamed, you can raise serious questions about the scripture. Take what I’ve told you, add to it the very fact that you exist, and it would make for one hell of a tent revival. Your woes might even add to your credibility with some. That’s the card you hold on God. The second thing I’m sure of is that I won’t live to find other Nephilim. If there are more of you out there, they’re hidden so far from civilization as to preclude the vaguest rumors of their existence. You and your dad may well be the last. That’s the card God holds on his council. And no startling revelation here, time is on His side.
‘The rest of what’s going around in my head is conjecture, but it fits. I believe God is perilously close to breaking whatever agreement He made to not harm the Nephilim. At a minimum, He’s trampled all over the spirit of it. He would not have done that for some picture of a big guy hanging onto the side of Noah’s boat. I think that card of yours is higher than the one I gave you. You discovered quite a bit more about the past. Am I right?’
‘Yes.’
‘See, I’d wager that somewhere in their agreement was a stipulation regarding who could talk to whom and for what reasons. Otherwise, why could I hear God and not his council? Why could you hear neither but, until recently, you could chat with your dead relatives?’ Roger was on a roll, though Sander would not confirm anything else before hearing him out. ‘The only reason I can guess they would halt communications altogether is if there was a kind of temporary cease and desist order in place. I think they’re hashing something out between themselves.’
‘I can’t believe you’re a minister,’ said Allie.
‘How does that help my family?’ Sander asked him.
‘I don’t know,’ Roger said once more. Allie huffed and rolled her eyes. ‘What I mean is, there’s no way to know until it’s over. Since that could take centuries, you might as well let your descendants worry about it.’
‘Come on,’ Allie told Sander, ‘Let’s go.’
‘Unless,’ continued Roger, ‘you’re of a mind to get in the game with that high card.’
‘And how would I do that?’
‘First you take your wife home. I’ll have things ready when you come back.’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Allie. ‘Babe, this crazy bastard just wants to make you some kind of pet martyr for his cause.’
Roger spoke to her with such sincerity Sander found it impossible to ignore. ‘Alejandra, I really don’t think things will get any worse than they are. Even so, if you’re not in a position to stop us, then hurting you doesn’t benefit anyone.’
‘By “anyone,” you mean God,’ she said. ‘Why doesn’t God twist my arm now so Sander wouldn’t even consider this?’
‘If He could, I think He would. That’s my point. We’ll be shaking things up a little, though. Any arms get twisted in the process, I’d rather they be mine.’ He looked from her to Sander, then back at her for a long moment before he stood to open the door. ‘You two need to talk about this. Sander, I’ll be here if you decide you’d like to try it. Give me a call. It was very nice meeting you, Alejandra.’
As Allie followed Sander to the truck, she believed she had much more to say on the subject. She knew her husband well enough to realize he wasn’t seeing any harm in coming back to this place. He was as vulnerable as he was desperate. Allie was convinced she could open his eyes. When she started putting together the words in her mind, however, it occurred to her that the things she was about to tell him were simply variations on a theme. She would push Sander away by continuing to rail against Roger, so she decided to settle down and reason her way through it before she spoke. Until she could attack his ridiculous assumptions and Ivy League religion from more solid ground, she would stay close to Sander to keep him from doing anything foolish.
They rode home with the windows down, the sounds of wind and traffic filling the space between them.
13
The USDA livestock disposal operation commenced one day after Sander received notification of the autopsy results and definitive diagnosis of BSE. The fifty-three-ton Caterpillar bulldozers rumbled to life and before the sun was midpoint between the eastern and western tree lines they had pushed two great depressions into the center pasture. Down into each crawled an excavator. They dug deeper, sinking steel claws into sedimentary flakes and hard-packed subsoil unknown to Grant men. They heaved out fistfuls of moist earth until their yellow arms weren’t visible from the house, only the diesel smoke they exhaled as they worked. The dozers meanwhile scraped out wide, gradually sloping avenues down into the cavities.
A crew of laborers showed up after lunch. They had the look of field hands, but their collared shirts bore the same government emblem as their pick-up trucks. Which was a badge of authority, Sander concluded, for the rifles they loaded on the side lawn. Evidently, there had not been a method contrived for the mass slaughter of cattle that was more efficient than bullets. It made for compelling pictures to accompany tomorrow’s news articles. For the most part, the photographers were the same ones who had come
before, when the story was Sander’s success, and they knew better than to leave the road onto Grant land; one small mercy.
Jo and Dalton sat on the patio again and listened to the gunfire in the distance. The crews used their trucks to corral the cattle down the avenues into the pits, the crack of their rifles like bullwhips driving the animals ahead. They would do this, Mr Loren had said, to avoid spreading diseased tissue in the pastures. Once there were forty or fifty head of cattle circling below, the riflemen took up perches around the rims and tried their best to kill each animal with a single shot. Sometimes it took three.
After each volley, one of the trucks drove down to drench the corpses with gasoline from a pump it towed. When the pyres were lit, columns of black smoke rose, then receded, over and over. A single layer at a time they burned them, else the fires would go out. It took longer than they expected and by early afternoon, neither Jo nor Dalton could tolerate more of that smell. They retreated into the house to join Sander and Allie and they decided not to watch tomorrow. Or the next day.
The house seemed to shrink around the four of them and quiet tension rose. Dalton thumbed the remote control and cursed daytime television while Jo compulsively dusted furniture and wiped down the kitchen because she thought she felt soot on every surface and it made her ill. All telephones in the house were unplugged. Jo’s parents came over on the third day – unannounced, since they couldn’t call – and they found they could do nothing right.
Doris answered the door when Jack Loren came by to inform them that his guys were under instruction to restore the landscape when they were done. The equipment should be gone by the end of the week. Two more days, three at most.
‘It’s about time,’ said Doris.
Almost as if, thought Jo, she genuinely believes she has some notion of what it’s like to suffer this.
School would start again soon and Sander was glad that Allie would have that reprieve. Until then, they spent much of their time upstairs. Between their bed and the studio, there was enough breathing room so that it was preferable to the scene on extended replay down below. That’s how they saw it at first, when they talked to one another as little as possible. Within a day, though, roles had switched in the household. From the onset, Jo and Dalton had looked to be handling things with a coolness that baffled Allie. Their composure deteriorated as the ordeal stretched on. Above them, meanwhile, Sander began opening up to his wife – in his own way – and the young couple at last saw for themselves how a small thing can support a very big thing when both cooperate. This was despite the elephant named Roger Carlson who shared their private space. Allie maneuvered under and around the beast until she could slay it, while Sander shoved it aside.
The Legend of Sander Grant Page 18
