NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
He jumped the split rail fence with the casual ease of someone accustomed to clearing four-foot obstacles. It was a fox with a hairless tail poking out behind like a long thin pink stick. The fox trotted on a few yards and stopped, then started shaking, as if shivering from the cold. It has mange. The temperature is well below freezing after days in the sixties last week had brought up daffodils and hyacinths. It snowed a little in the night and the fox stands out against the white driveway as it crosses. It is moving behind a curtain of stems, becoming a shadow among leafless shrubs. It is gone from sight.
Steve and I are looking for the water shutoff valve on the Wittgenstein property. A plumber is due to start work in the house next week and needs to know where it is. If we could only give Lambert the scent he would find it in an instant even though it is hidden from us by a dozen square yards of ivy leaves.
Steve is looking at an old barbeque. He opens the rusty top.
“There’s a dead mouse in here.” He holds it up by the tail and throws the corpse into the ivy. Lambert turns toward the sound of it splashing into the dry green sea and runs toward it.
“Steve, there’s Boyd Nightingale.”
Boyd is standing by the back door talking on his cell phone. He notices us looking at him and waves. Lambert has found the mouse and Steve has to run over and exchange it for a treat before Lambert eats it.
“He’ll get sick eating that thing.”
“I wonder how long it has been in there. Might have been poisoned.”
“Fred I should have left it in there.” He puts the corpse back. Lambert can’t reach up to it and moves on; his nose to the ground near the base of a pignut hickory probably scenting a squirrels’ stash. He barks sharply once. Now he must have caught scent of the fox in the air, which he hadn’t seen with his head in the ivy, and pulls hard on his extended retractable leash, trying to bound ahead yet barely inching forward under the restraint. Though Steve holds him back he keeps pulling hard. Lambert suddenly doubles back towards us and over toward the fence. Finding the trail he follows it out to the full extent of the leash, breathing hard.
We follow him into the ivy carefully looking for a short length of steel pipe sticking up from the ground. It should be capped and lead down to the water main and valve to the Wittgenstein house. It may be painted blue. It may not have been seen for forty or fifty years in which case it will be rusty. The pipes were laid in the early fifties in this part of Fauxmont. People forget where their valves are, sometimes planting azaleas over them, or covering them with mulch, to keep some other shrub alive through a dry summer.
Boyd walks over to us from the house. He’s wearing a light brown Stetson and carrying his black briefcase in his black-gloved hand.
“You must be the water committee.”
“We are part of it.”
“Did Daisy drag you in on this too Fred?”
“I am now a member of the search party Boyd.”
“You guys seen Edie?”
“We haven’t seen any one but a fox with a bare tail.”
Boyd bends down to pet Lambert who has giving up on the fox expecting a new person to be bringing treats. “Haven’t got anything buddy.” Lambert keeps sniffing the bottom of his black jeans where they hit the top of his cowboy boots. “Hope you guys can find that valve. Then we’ll know where to find the service line to the house.”
“Does it matter? Thought Edie was going to start drilling the new well.”
“She is Fred, as soon as Daisy straightens out the contract payments.”
His coat swings open as he reaches into an inside pocket. Looks like he has a pistol holstered on his belt.
Steve is kicking through the ivy as we speak hoping to connect with the pipe. “We need to get this cut back.”
“You all bought anything to defend yourselves with?”
“What do you mean?”
“Steve, I mean one of these.” He pulls an automatic out from under his coat. “Pretty soon Obama is going to prevent you buying them.”
“What do I need one of those for around here Boyd?”
“You never know until it happens friend.”
“I’ll just call the police. That’s their job.”
“Steve, suppose an attacker came out of the house right now. What could you do? There’d be no time to call any one.”
“The house is vacant as far as I know. The agent called us about a plumber coming over.”
“Oh I thought it was about the new well. Anyway, just suppose someone might be squatting there.”
“I don’t feel the need for a weapon Boyd.”
“Well, Fred how about you buddy, what are you going to do?”
“I won’t be buying a gun.”
“Gentlemen, this is a Heckler and Koch P 30. “
“Oh, does that mean 30 caliber?”
“9 Millimeter Fred. Albrecht advised me to get this thing right away after the tragedy up in Connecticut, and I am just passing on his good advice to you. The government has got every nut case they can find screaming about it. Taking our guns away isn’t going to stop the homicidal maniacs from finding what they need.”
“Boyd, you have a nice looking Stetson there. Isn’t that the same kind of outfit Albrecht wears these days?”
Boyd takes his hat off. “Yeah some one has to get the old values back, and this is a pretty good symbol don’t you think?”
“Symbol of what?”
“The real individualistic values that made this the greatest country in the world.”
“Didn’t the railroads and cotton have something to do with that?”
“Steve, we are sinking into socialism here in the East. Pretty soon we’ll be like Europe.”
“Would that be so bad?”
“Fred, Europe is going under my friend. You see that gigantic mosque they have built in Rome. It’s the biggest in Europe. That’s way the Pope is retiring!”
“I think he’s just getting old Boyd.”
“Fred, the new Muslim majority is going to take over their weak socialist governments. The governments over there have all the guns too. I mean you can’t own or carry over there. Won’t happen here though.” Boyd puts his weapon back under is coat.
“Pretty soon it will be Sharia law over there. The Euro has been strangled by socialism already.”
“I was in England in 07, and didn’t see any signs of imminent takeover by Muslims. They aren’t in the majority, far from it.”
“You were in England! Daisy was going to take me over to London to look at paintings in the National Gallery. Yeah! she’s got people over there.”
He holds his hat with both hands in front of him slowly working his way around the brim with his fingers. I look over at Steve who looks back at me with a questioning shrug at Boyd’s sudden silence. He takes a step towards Boyd who doesn’t notice. He seems distracted, looking into the tangled vines of ivy. They have covered both wheels of the old barbeque and are growing up into the bowl where they have rooted in the remains of the last fire.
