Driftless (12 page)

Jacob felt ashamed of these thoughts. Protective of Angela’s memory, he attempted to lay them aside. It could only mean that fate had endowed one at the expense of the other. Angela had not escaped the harsh levies that fall on all who would be honorable and true, while the beauty of the young woman before him obviously issued from outrageous good fortune, undeserved luck, and perhaps even outright theft.

As though to confirm this thought and wound him further, Gail shifted slightly, and in this nearly imperceptible twitch of positioning her beauty became even more pronounced—a trick of proportioning magic. She had instantly crafted an enhanced visage through which to be seen, arriving in it with an effortless flinch. A wicked shiver moved through Jacob.

Gail looked up and discovered someone behind her screened- in porch, someone in stained clothes with greasy hands.

Her first conscious thought was terror. Her imagination dutifully informed her of impending doom, illustrated in lavish detail from its arsenal of anticipated horrors, but this soon subsided. Even strangers can know things about each other, and the stance of her unannounced visitor seemed too upright, his gaze too worried, his hands, though thick, unwilling to play the roles her imagination scripted for them. Indeed, all those brutish qualities he shared with other men were supervened by a determined refusal to face up to the fact that he had them. This guy thought too much, lived too much
in his head, and, whoever he might be, he was no threat. Something about him was broken.

Her next worry concerned her privacy. A sense of violated propriety—her house, her yard, her porch, her
her
—found expression in contemptuous anger mingled with mild curiosity and surprising embarrassment at being discovered naked. Without looking away from him, she rose to her full height, slowly untangled herself from the sequined strap, set the guitar on the glider, turned around, walked in hieratic, ceremonial steps inside the house, and closed the door.

A minute later, she emerged in denim cutoffs, yellow top, and yellow running shoes.

Both pretended the earlier moment had not occurred. Something completely unrelated to it caused them to be unable to make eye contact.

“July Montgomery said I should come over and check your lawn mower. I’m Jacob Helm.”

“Hello,” she said, without offering her name.

“I called earlier, there was no answer . . . I knocked on the front door, but, I’m sorry . . .”

“July should have said something to me. I hate him. Nobody minds their own business anymore.”

“No, I don’t suppose.”

She stepped off the porch and into the back yard. Jacob looked away from her mouth to the ground, but soon had his attention drawn to a yellow shoelace, untied, falling loosely over her instep and quickly gathering significance—a drama threatening to invoke the scene of her ankle—and he looked up again.

“Did you look at it?” she asked.

“No,” he said.

“It has gasoline but it won’t start.”

“What?”

“The lawn mower.”

“I mean yes, I did look at it. A switch needs replacing. You can use it, though, while I order a new one, but you have to remember not to start it with the blades engaged. It’s hard on the motor and solenoid.”

“You’re the owner of the repair shop,” said Gail, as though making a general announcement.

“Yes, and I’ll be leaving now. Remember not to start the engine with the blades engaged.”

“What do I owe you?”

“Nothing. I was on my way home anyway . . . and that was a Barbara Jean song you were playing. I recognized it: ‘Cradle of Your Smile.’ ”

Gail tried to keep her face still, but a pleased-with-herself smile that she couldn’t swallow crept into her mouth.

“Really?”

“Really. It’s unmistakable.”

HOT MILK

T
HE MORNING FOLLOWING CORA’S CALL TO THE DEPARTMENT of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection, early, her husband, Grahm, walked to the barn. The air seemed unusually fresh, and the sky drew the dew away from the ground in long curls of smoking water—hundreds of tiny, silent geysers erupting.

Unlike on other mornings, the dog did not greet him. Once Grahm was inside the barn, he discovered the north door, which he routinely closed each night after milking—a door that could only be fastened from inside because of a broken latch spring—wide open. But this seemed of no consequence.

The dog appeared in the afternoon, with dried blood in her fur and a lump above her left ear, but Grahm thought no more about it until the following day when the driver of the milk truck handed him a bill for $5,314—the cost of a tanker-load of milk.

“What’s this?” he asked.

“Sorry, Grahm,” said Hubert Shorn. “Your antibiotics contaminated the whole load.”

“Can’t be,” said Grahm.

“Sorry. There it is—black and white. I don’t do the testing, just haul milk and bring in samples.”

“There’s some mistake.”

“Talk to the lab about that, or management. The whole lot was hot. Had to be dumped. Your sample, when tested, turned as green as food coloring.”

“It says penicillin.”

“That’s what they mostly test for.”

“We haven’t used penicillin since summer before last. We applied for organic certification and they won’t allow it. Don’t use antibiotics.”

“Like I said, I just haul milk.”

“Five thousand dollars!”

“Talk to management. Hell, I’m on your side.”

Grahm drove to the branch office in Grange, met with the plant manager, and talked to the head of the testing lab. He insisted they run a second test on a sample he had brought with him. The test showed no antibiotic residue and Grahm asked how his milk could be contaminated one day and clean the next.

The technician rearranged utensils on the counter. “Milk from treated cows was not put in the bulk tank today,” he said.

“But the amount of milk was the same. If I’d withheld milk it would show up in volume. If I’d added water, the butterfat would be off.”

“Perhaps treatments were discontinued, or milk was brought in from another farm. Ninety-five percent of hot milk clears up the second day.”

“Are you calling me a liar?”

“Of course not,” said the branch manager, stepping between the technician and Grahm. “Mistakes are always possible. If you want to contest the assessment you can file a complaint with DATCP. They set the standards and make the rules.”

By the time Grahm returned home, his thoughts were swimming in mud. He needed help. He needed Cora.

But when Cora came home, Grahm could tell from clear across the barnyard that something was wrong.

“What’s the matter?” he asked when he reached her.

“The second set of files in the Madison office—the filing cabinets—are gone. They just disappeared. I asked about them and everyone ignored me. That woman, Harriet, who has worked there for twenty years said she couldn’t remember any file cabinets.”

An hour later a solid blue Chevrolet pulled into the drive. A deputy sheriff walked disdainfully around the tractor ruts and through the yard. Cora met him on the porch and he placed a legal summons in her hand. It ordered her to appear before an administrative judge at the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

Monday morning, Grahm and Cora dressed in their best clothes
and drove into Madison, the cardboard box of photocopied documents in the back of the station wagon.

Inside the slate gray building they were directed to the fourth floor. They waited in an empty waiting room for almost an hour, sitting in sculptured plastic chairs.

“Cora Shotwell,” said a woman with short reddish-orange hair, carrying a yellow notepad. “Come with me, please.”

Grahm rose to follow but was told to remain. Cora walked behind the woman down a long hallway and into a room with men seated at tables. She was told to sit down, and she did.

The five men seated at the tables appeared to be reading from papers in ringed binders. Because of the position of her chair she could not face them all at once. They continued reading and paging through the thick volumes without speaking.

“We understand you have a grievance with your milk plant,” said one of the two men seated at the furthest table from her.

“It’s not a grievance,” said Cora, turning her chair to address her comments in his direction. She thought he might be a judge, but wasn’t sure. “I have proof American Milk has been robbing farmers, keeping a second set of records, and selling illegal milk.”

“How long have you been working for the cooperative?”

“Five years.”

“What position do you currently have there?”

“Assistant bookkeeper.”

“How long ago did you begin to think irregularities were taking place?”

“Seven months ago, and they’re not irregularities.”

“Why didn’t you report this immediately?”

“I had no proof.”

“Did you report your suspicions to your supervisor?”

“Yes, and it become clear that if I continued to ask questions I would lose my job. He said the main office had a different accounting system.”

“What did you do then?”

“I made copies of the reports and billing sheets. I have them outside in the car.”

“Did you have authorization to make these copies?”

“What do you mean?” asked Cora.

“Were you given permission by the American Milk Cooperative to make copies of their internal records and reports?”

“No.”

“Are you aware that making unauthorized copies of proprietary information and other data can constitute a felony?”

“No, but I have the documents outside in our car.”

“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” said a man seated at the table directly behind her. “This agency is not in a position to accept any documents before a review panel can be convened.”

“Nothing was said about this when I called last week.”

“We are bound by law,” said the man seated closest to her, without looking up.

“I talked with Mr. Wolfinger. I told him—”

“I
am
Mr. Wolfinger and I never told you we could accept your papers before a department review had been convened.”

“Then why am I here?”

“We have begun a preliminary investigation and American Milk has offered to cooperate in providing us with all the information we require.”

“I can’t believe this. I have the documents in my car. They prove everything.”

“During this phase of the investigation it would be improper for us to accept them.”

“I can’t believe this!” shouted Cora, rising to her feet. “Shame on you.”

“Sit back down, Mrs. Shotwell.”

“I will not.”

“Let me assure you, Mrs. Shotwell,” began a very large man seated near her, his silhouette resembling an enormous pile of unfolded laundry. “Let me assure you, Mrs. Shotwell, that we are making a thorough and diligent effort.”

“I don’t believe it,” said Cora. “I don’t believe it.”

“This is only a preliminary hearing,” said the man she thought was a judge. “As we move forward, our own independently verified
real documents will be forthcoming under department rules of discovery in compliance with the judicial administrative code. Until that time, I must ask you not to discuss this matter or other issues related to this with anyone.”

“Why not?”

“It may interfere with our investigation.”

When Cora reached Grahm in the waiting room, her face glowed bright red and she was shaking. “Let’s get out of here,” she said. “This is an unholy place.”

“What happened?”

“They insulted me.”

On the way home, Grahm said, “Maybe they didn’t mean to.”

And Cora said, “I guess if that were true you wouldn’t need to do anything about it.”

HIRING HELP

J
ULY MONTGOMERY AND HIS TWENTY-EIGHT-YEAR-OLD NEIGHBOR Wade Armbuster sat at a round metal table on the front deck of July’s house. They were drinking coffee and eating the last of a peach pie. Despite the cool morning air, a cloudless sky permitted an uncommonly brilliant sun to heat up everything it could reach into, and their clothes and the brick front of the farmhouse were saturated with warm comfort.

Wade wanted to borrow July’s block and tackle to pull the engine out of a car he was fixing up.

July wanted help with his third crop of hay.

The negotiations were complicated. Wade worked at the cheese plant, and his schedule was inflexible yet erratic. He had the strength of two ordinary men and would be good help, but July wasn’t sure he would bring the hoist back.

July forked another piece of pie into his mouth, contemplated the texture with his tongue, and gazed into the shrubs growing along the edge of the house.

“How long you need the hoist?”

“Long enough to trick out the motor—pistons, rings, stroker crank, roller cam, and three-way valves.”

“Sounds expensive.”

“Power costs money,” said Wade.

“Young people get hurt in cars like that.”

“People get hurt doing lots of things,” said Wade, his face thin and intense. The sunlight reflected from the jewelry in his ear and nose. “How much hay you got?”

“Two full days, maybe four. Can’t pay you much.”

“If I can use your shop—here—I’ll work for nothing. You’ve got good tools.”

“Here?”

“That way the folks won’t be nagging me.”

“You still on probation?”

“I guess so.”

“Sounded like a bad deal to me—what I heard,” said July. “Wasn’t entirely your fault. Someone backed you into a corner and you came out of it.”

Wade looked away, following a sound on the road. He admired July but didn’t care for him to know it. The older man lived alone and made his own rules. No one told him what to do and something in his eyes said two things at once: I like you but I don’t compromise on anything important.