by Dave Daren
“To pair with the olive oil we already produce,” I explained.
Kerry looked back and forth between the two of us for several minutes while the Sheriff and I enjoyed the view of the mountains and the warming rays of the sun.
“Is he serious?” Kerry finally asked the Sheriff.
“As far as I know,” Harris replied with a shrug. “Could be making drugs on the sly or some such, but Mr. Morgan here insists they’ll be making vinegar.”
“Balsamic vinegar,” I added because that seemed important for some reason.
“Right, balsamic vinegar,” the earther mused.
“The thing is,” the Sheriff finally said, “ somebody spread paint all over Mr. Morgan’s rental car last night and left some anti-coal messages on the windows. And I know your group was involved in that incident over to Parkersburg where all those company trucks got hit with paintballs.”
“We already told you that our group didn’t participate--” Kerry started to protest as he scuffed one of his sandals against the soil.
The Sheriff held up a hand and Kerry fell silent, though his blue eyes still burned with righteous indignation.
“Well, they may not have pulled the trigger, but they didn’t stop it either,” Harris pointed out.
“Do you know how many people were there?” Kerry protested.
“About my car,” I interjected since we seemed to be drifting away from the whole reason for our visit.
“No one here participated,” Kerry sniffed.
“Do you mind if I look around?” the Sheriff asked as he got to his feet. “If you make me, I’ll go wake the judge and get a warrant, and you know he won’t deny me one when he finds out why I’m out there and rousting him from his bed before 9 a.m.”
Kerry was fuming, and he turned his back on us as if he was about to march away. He took two steps, looked around at the commune members who were scattered around the property, then turned back to face us.
“You can look wherever you like, except in people’s private rooms,” the leader snapped. “Those are strictly off limits, and if you do venture into one, I’ll bring an abuse charge against you.”
“I just want a look at the barns and such,” the Sheriff said in a soft voice that still managed to sound vaguely threatening.
“I’ll show you the way,” Kerry replied.
Apparently forgotten, I watched the two men head off towards a group of sheds just beside the main building. Uncertain what to do, I stayed at the picnic table until they were out of earshot, then stood up and started to walk towards the field with the cows. There were two people still in the field, but I saw them go still as they saw me approach, and then they hurried away when it was clear I wasn’t going to stop.
I stood by the fence and watched the cows as they spread out across the field and nibbled on the grass, and wondered what the reaction would be if I went and knocked on the door for the large building where all the commune members kept retreating. I wasn’t sure if they recognized me as the lawyer who had arrived in town to buy the mine or if it was just the fact that I had arrived with the Sheriff that had everyone acting so skittish, but I wanted to talk to someone, away from the Sheriff and Richard Kerry, team leader.
I saw my chance when I spotted a figure in a yellow jacket scurry from the back of the barn towards the tree line at the top of the hill. A woman, I decided, and she carried an object in each hand that looked suspiciously like a paint can. I looked around for Harris, but he had gone inside one of the other buildings with Kerry and I didn’t feel like wasting time figuring out which one.
I started to jog after the woman, and once I cleared the barn, I spotted the path she was using. She was almost to the top by then, and I was afraid I would lose her if she made it into the thick trees before I caught up with her. I picked up my pace despite the fact that I was now clambering on a rocky hillside, and managed to reach the top just a few steps behind her.
I stopped when I hit the ridge and looked around, and for a moment, I thought I’d lost her. But I spotted a flash of yellow moving down the other side of the hill among a thick stand of young trees, and I darted after the figure as it moved along a barely visible path. I’d managed to remain relatively quiet up to that point, but my sprint along the trail sounded like a bear thrashing through the woods, and the woman dropped the cans she had been carrying and turned around.
She was young and obviously terrified that a bear had indeed decided to turn her into a meal. I could see that she was about to scream, but then fear gave way to surprise as she saw that her pursuer was human and not ursine.
“I didn’t mean... to scare you,” I said in between sharply drawn breaths. “Just… wanted… to talk.”
“To me?” she asked in surprise.
I nodded and decided that I needed to get more air into my lungs before I said anything else. That gave me a few moments to study the young woman. She was probably in her early twenties, with long brown hair, earnest brown eyes, and a sprinkling of freckles across a cute nose. She watched me just as closely as I tried to calm my breathing, though now that she had established I wasn’t a bear, her expression was filled with curiosity.
“I’m Hunter Morgan,” I said when I wasn’t huffing any more.
“I’m Lila Atcheson,” she replied with a smile. She had perfect teeth, no doubt the result of years of dedicated professional dental care, so clearly there was decent money somewhere. She also had a faint accent though I couldn’t quite place it. Midwest, maybe, though her voice sounded too soft for that.
“What’s in the cans?” I asked as I tipped my head towards the cans that I could clearly see.
The paint smeared around the edges matched the colors that had been used on my Chevy, and I’ll admit that I felt a twinge of disappointment that the cute girl in front of me might have been involved in the vandalism of my car.
“Oh, paint,” she replied carelessly. “We use it for our signs.”
“Your signs?” I asked.
“For the protests,” she explained. “We usually buy whatever’s on sale, but Richard likes to buy the neon colors whenever he can because it’s easy to see and read.”
“Looks like they were used recently,” I noted.
Lila nodded and turned a puzzled look towards the cans.
“I’m not sure what they were used for,” she said. “We don’t have any protests coming up for at least a week, and I didn’t think anyone had started making signs. Besides, Richard said we should reuse our old signs instead of making new ones every time.”
“That would be more eco friendly,” I replied as I watched the woman.
She did seem genuinely confused by the fact that the paints had been recently used, but I still wasn’t sold on her innocence in the matter. She was studying the cans as if they were a puzzle she couldn’t solve, and she seemed to have forgotten I was even there.
“Why are you bringing them out here?” I asked.
She finally turned to look at me again and gave me another bright smile.
“Oh, Eliot told me to put them under the tarp,” she said.
“Whose Eliot and why would he ask you to put something under the tarp?” I asked.
She pondered that for a moment and I wondered if I had overwhelmed her by asking two questions at the same time. But she rallied and looked back down the trail for several heartbeats before turning to me once again.
“Eliot’s one of our team leaders,” she said. “He’s got a place just down the trail where he sometimes leaves supplies and such that he might need when he takes his rambles in the woods.”
“And he’ll need paint cans when he goes on this ramble?” I chuckled.
“Well,” she hesitated as she looked at the cans again. “Sometimes we put other things under the tarp.”
“Like what?” I asked.
She shrugged and I could see that she was starting to get uncomfortable with the line of questioning. I guessed that she was probably a very open and trusting person by natu
re, but life on the commune had taught her the need for secrecy as well.
“Tell you what, I’ll carry one of the cans for you,” I said.
She didn’t brighten, like I had hoped, and she shifted uncomfortably as she looked back towards the commune, then further down the trail into the woods.
“I’ve already seen the cans,” I pointed out. “So it’s not like you’re hiding them from me.”
It wasn’t much of a reason, but it was good enough for Lila. She nodded and stepped aside so I could pick up one of the cans. She then grabbed the other one and started down the trail again. I followed her as she picked her way through the brush and across a stream, then marched halfway up the other side of the opposite bank. There was a small shelf, just wide enough for a human to stand on, carved out of the rock thousands of years ago when the stream had probably been a roiling river. There was a thin crevice in the rock wall and someone had draped a black tarp across it. If you hadn’t known it was there, you would have missed it entirely.
Lila lifted the tarp and placed her can inside, then took mine and added it to the collection. I tried to peek at what else was in there, but Lila was sharp enough to keep her body between me and the opening, and all I could see was the glint of something metallic before she dropped the tarp and turned to look at me with an expectant look.
It was my turn to lead the way, at least as far as the stream, since there wasn’t enough room for Lila to go around me. I managed to lead us safely back to the water and across to the other side, then stopped to look at Lila.
“You should probably lead from here,” I said. “I’m not sure I remember enough to keep us on the right path.”
Lila laughed, a pleasant sound that made me smile in return.
“Silly,” she replied. “It’s not that hard to find the trail.”
She set off, though only when I was walking next to her instead of behind her.
“I met Richard,” I mused as we started up the other side. “He seems nice.”
“Oh, he’s very nice,” Lila assured me. “He used to do some sort of tech work in Boston.”
“Really?” I asked as I pictured the braided and comfy clothed leader sitting at a desk in an office building in downtown Boston.
“Made a ton of money when he sold his company,” she added. “Spent a lot of it, too, doing all the usual things.”
“Umm, like buying stuff?” I guessed.
She nodded and politely held a branch out of the way so I could walk by.
“But he realized that he wasn’t happy,” she continued. “That’s when he got involved in the movement.”
“And what about Eliot?” I asked. “You said he was a leader as well.”
Lila considered her response, and for a moment, I thought she wouldn’t respond.
“He joined us not that long ago,” she said. “He came from one of the other groups.”
“So you don’t know him as well?” I guessed.
She shrugged and glanced back over her shoulder.
“He does things differently than Richard,” she noted.
“Well, that’s not a surprise,” I said. “I mean, that can be good, right? He can show you new ways of doing things, maybe something that works better?”
Lila nodded but I saw that she bit the corner of her lip. We were near the top of the ridge by then, and she stopped to study the commune that was spread out below us.
“I don’t recognize the breed of cow,” I noted while she tried to decide how much more to say.
The cows in question had short, curved horns and a long, red coat that reminded me a bit of an Irish Setter. One long lock even hung over the face so that the cows looked a bit like Cyndi Lauper during her eighties haydays.
“Highland cows from Scotland,” Lila replied. “They’re well adapted for rocky terrain and cold weather.”
We watched the cows for a minute, and then I spotted the Sheriff and Kerry as they stepped from one of the buildings. The Sheriff started to walk slowly towards his car, then stopped and looked around. It wasn’t hard to guess why.
“We should get back,” I suggested. “The Sheriff will be wondering where I’ve gotten off to and we don’t want to tip him off about the tarp.”
Lila nodded and we started down the hillside, though we used a different path than then one from the back of the barn. We ended up near an old well and a pile of rusty equipment on the other side of the fence line, and I realized that to the Sheriff, it would look like we had been poking around the pastures rather than anywhere near the barn.
“Eliot meets with him sometimes,” Lila blurted out as the Sheriff caught sight of us and waved.
“The Sheriff?” I asked in surprise.
Lila bit her lip again and I guessed that bit of news was supposed to be in the the ‘do not discuss’ category.
“Well,” I mused as we started to walk towards the cruiser. “I mean, he probably wants to stay on the Sheriff’s good side.”
“Sure,” Lila agreed quickly. “And let the Sheriff know that we’re peaceful.”
“Sure,” I agreed.
The Sheriff had draped himself over the fence post to the cow pasture by the time we caught up with him. Kerry stood nearby though it was clear that he was ready for us to leave. He barely spared a look for Lila, and I was pretty sure that he didn’t know about Lila’s assignment to remove the paint cans.
“Find anything?” I asked as Lila and I joined the Sheriff at the fence.
“Nope,” the Sheriff said as he studied the cows.
The Sheriff then turned towards me and Lila, and though the sunglasses were back on, it wasn’t hard to guess that he had a speculative look in his eyes as he looked at the two of us.
“I see you found someone to talk to,” Harris noted.
“I saw her working with the cows,” I said blithely. “I asked her to show me the layout of the land.”
“Did you?” Harris snickered. “And did you see anything interesting?”
“Lots of trees and hills,” I said.
“So, Sheriff Harris,” Kerry cut in. “May we return to our work?”
“Nothing keeping you from it,” the Sheriff replied as he stretched his back and motioned to me to follow.
“It was nice to meet you,” Lila said as the Sheriff and I started away.
I nodded but the Sheriff made an impatient grunting sound, and Kerry was already tugging Lila towards one of the other fields where several people had started to gather. Lila and I both smiled at each other, and then turned in opposite directions as we were led away.
“So, no paint,” I noted as I climbed into the Sheriff’s cruiser.
“Oh, it’s out here somewhere,” the Sheriff said in a contemplative tone. “But they’ve got a hundred hidey-holes out here, and unless I can convince the state troopers to help, we’ll probably never find it. And before you ask, the state troopers aren’t really going to be that interested in vandalism.”
The Sheriff took a last, long look at the commune before he turned the key. The roar of the engine sounded out of place in the idyllic scene, and I saw the cows and several people turn to look at the disturbance in disapproval. The Sheriff chuckled, then swung the car around in a wide loop that tore up a chunk of grass before he had us pointed in the right direction. Neither of us spoke until we were back on the road and the tunnel of trees had faded from view.
“Learn anything interesting from that girl?” the Sheriff asked.
I considered my options for the moment, and wondered how much I could really say given Lila’s revelation about the Sheriff’s meeting with the other leader.
“Not really,” I said. “She said the other leader is someone named Eliot.”
“Eliot Crenshaw,” the Sheriff supplied.
“I gather he’s fairly new,” I added. “She didn’t say anything bad about him, but I wouldn’t say she liked him either.”
“Crenshaw can be a bit much,” the Sheriff agreed. “I’ve had to deal with him a couple of times
. I’d definitely prefer a visit with Richard Kerry any time.”
“She also seemed certain that no one from the commune had painted the car,” I added, which wasn’t strictly true but I felt confident that had I asked, Lila would have given that response.
“Uh-huh,” the Sheriff muttered as he drove around a tractor.
“Do you think they’ll stop any other attacks they might have planned now that they know we won’t be mining coal?” I asked.
“Depends on whether they believe ya,” the Sheriff noted.
“Do you believe me?” I asked.
The Sheriff was quiet for a full five minutes before he finally puffed up his cheeks, then exhaled noisily.
“Your story’s just too weird to be anything other than the truth,” he finally replied. “I mean, who the hell goes around town talking about making vinegar in an old mine?”
“There is that,” I agreed.
“You really think this thing could take off?” he asked as we squealed around the hairpin turn.
“People love balsamic vinegar,” I replied as I tried not to look at the sheer drop just outside my door.
“Well, I guess it would be cleaner than digging coal,” he sighed. “Still, coal brought a lot of money into town. I can’t imagine that vinegar will do the same.”
“Maybe not,” I replied. “But it’s a start. And like I said, if the vinegar does really well, the business could expand to other items. Like that cherry pie at the diner, or, I don’t know, wild honey.”
“My neighbor has bee hives,” Harris observed.
“And I’ll bet it’s really top notch honey,” I said.
“It is that,” he agreed.
There was another long silence, and then I saw the first buildings that meant we were once again near the town. A visit to the government building would be in order again, and I thought about asking the Sheriff to just let me off at the corner. But the Sheriff turned onto one of the winding roads that dotted the hillside and we plunged deeper into the valley floor.
“Ummm,” I murmured. “I was hoping to get back to town so I could call my employer about the car.”
“Plenty of time for that,” the Sheriff replied. “But we’re going to make a little detour first.”
