Poison Apples (31 page)

“And how long does it take to grow a tree? Damn you anyway.”

He motioned for her to sit down, but she wouldn’t. She was here on business. Anyway, there was only one small red-flowered easy chair and then the double platform bed, where Pete was settling down. She wasn’t going to join him there!

“I’m here on business myself. To give you the first month’s payment.” She thrust a check for five thousand dollars at him. It landed on his flabby belly, and he turned it over.

He whistled. “You think you can do it, do you? Hundred thousand? In twenty-four months? Somebody give you a loan?”

“Never mind.” It was none of his business how she got it.

“This could have been a check to you,” he said, getting up, taking it over to the desk. “For a down payment on a town house. A flight to the Caribbean. You haven’t been out of Branbury in years, have you? Not since our trip to England that time? We had a good time then, Ruth.”

It was true, they had. It was ten years ago now, it was right after Pete’s father died, leaving them a little money. It was like a weight had been lifted from them, the father had been part owner of the farm, was something of a martinet. He knew how the farm should be run, and Pete wasn’t running it the “right” way. They’d laughed their way through the British Isles, gone to bed early nights, made love every night.

But things started to go wrong when they got back: blight on the corn, low milk prices, the herd buyouts. Then there was that film made in town, the bit part Pete had, the actress who lured him down to the city. And Pete not unwilling to go.

The old bitterness welled up in her throat again. She walked over to him where he stood by the desk, still gazing at the check as though it might disintegrate in his hands. “Before I go, Pete, there’s something I have to know.”

“If it’s about the farm,” he said, “ask Tim. He’ll know. I’ve been out of it too long now. Got other things on my mind. This little partnership I’ve gotten involved in.”

“That’s exactly it,” she said, facing him squarely, hands on her hips. She was suddenly aware that she still had on her farm boots; Pete’s New York shoes smelled of polish. But never mind. “I want to know who the third partner is. Besides you and that oily woman. Why is it such a secret? I think Lucien has a right to know. So do the Earthrowls. Come on, now, tell me.” She looked him directly in the eye. They’d had three children together, for God’s sake! He owed her something. Some honest answers.

He turned and walked across the room, looked out the window, blew out his cheeks. She stood behind him. Finally he turned, groaned. “Okay, if you can keep it to yourself. Promise?”

She hesitated; the name might or might not be useful, one never knew. But she had to know it. She promised.

“It’s Rufus Barrow. He’s related to my, um, female partner. This is a small town, all these old families are mixed up together. I hate to say it, Ruthie, but I think there’s a Barrow somewhere in my own past. It’s not any dirty secret, damn it—that he’s a partner, I mean—he just didn’t want people to know. Especially the Earthrowls—and don’t you go telling them! They’d just cause trouble, Rufus says. You promised, now.” He gripped her arm. It hurt, and she yanked away from him.

He followed her. “Come on, Ruth, have a drink, a little sherry. You used to like sherry. Let’s be friends. Talk about the kids. I—I’ve missed them, Ruth. Emily, Sharon, Vic. How’s Vic getting on in school now? I want to get him down to the city, show him around. Get him out of the boondocks.”

But she wasn’t going to let him seduce her, make her sorry for him. Pete was the enemy now. Until she completed the farm payments—if ever. Until she found out why Rufus was involved, how he was involved. Why would Rufus even want to be a partner in a development company—a fifth- or sixth-generation Vermonter, brought up on an orchard? Why would he be a party to this exploitation of the land?

But then, so was Pete a Vermonter. His father would turn over in his grave to know what his son was doing. For once she felt a certain warmth for that old curmudgeon. He’d be on her side in this battle.

“No, thank you,” she said to the sherry Pete was pressing on her, and she slipped gratefully into the hall and then out into the cool leaf-bright afternoon.

She opened her mouth wide; practically drank in the fresh Vermont air.

“Hey,” young Joey said when she got home: late, late for prepping the cows, “hey, Ruth, it all done. Emily got the cows all ready, Tim in there now doin’ the milkin’. I’m goin’ back in there t’help him, he said tell you go inside, relax. Re-lax.” He grinned at her out of his sunburned face, then waved and whistled his way back into the barn. At the door he doffed his feed cap, stuck it on backward, to show how “with it” he was. Hay wisps were stuck in his hair.

She waved back. Joey was a sweetheart. He operated on five cylinders better than most people on six. How lucky she was, with Tim and Joey for helpers. How could she ever, ever consider selling the farm? And Emily: Emily doing the propping— unasked. Although there might be a reason for that. The girl still had some explaining to do.

She found Emily in the kitchen, scrubbing the floor. She had to smile, had to remember what it was like when she went to high school. It was senior year when she and Pete stayed out till three in the morning; her mother was waiting up in the rocking chair, she’d been rocking and rocking her distress. But when Ruth tiptoed in, her mother was sound asleep. And Ruth didn’t wake her, just crept on upstairs. She’d told some crazy story the next day about why she was out so late. She’d forgotten now what it was.

“Well, Em, what’s this all about? You and that floor aren’t usually such good pals.”

“I had all this extra energy, that’s all.” Emily looked up contritely; stood up. She inhaled as though she were preparing to make a speech. “Look, Mom, I know I told you I wasn’t going to the fair, I was staying over with Hartley Flint. And I didn’t intend to go. .. .” She hesitated. “No, that’s not true. Hartley couldn’t come home from college this weekend, and, well, Adam Golding asked me to go with him. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you liked him. I don’t know why you don’t like him, except that he’s older than I am. But he’s a good person, he really is. And we—we had fun together—at the fair. We did some rides and we went to the snake show. Adam likes stuff like that. I mean, animals.” She looked pleadingly at her mother for support.

Ruth nodded, went to the refrigerator to see what was available for supper. She hadn’t thought ahead. She’d let the girl go on with her explanations, then they’d talk. Emily had to realize that she couldn’t lie. True, she was older now, but communication had to be open between mother and daughter. She pulled out a pound of ground chuck, spread it on the table, began to chop onions.

“Mom, are you listening to me?”

Ruth said, “Yes, yes! You know I am. I’m waiting for you to convince me that you had to tell an untruth, knowing it would worry the hell out of me if I found out the truth!”

“I know. Mom, you were worried I stayed out overnight without telling you. You see, it was because of the concert. I thought maybe . .. you and Colm and the boys would go, too. I thought we’d all be late. I didn’t realize how late it was. And then Adam’s car started acting up and I...” She paused, and Ruth waited. “When I’m with Adam...” she began, and then sighed deeply and sat down beside her mother; took a second knife, and began chopping.

“I think I—I think I love Adam. I know I do. He’s had such a hard life. Mom, he had a stepbrother—a half-brother—who hanged himself. He told me all about it, it was awful. I want to— to fill that hole for Adam. Mother, will you look at me? Will you talk to me? Do you hear me?”

Ruth put down the knife. The onions were getting to her anyway, she had sensitive eyes; they were watering. “I hear you, Emily. I do! I’m sorry about the stepbrother. It must have been terrible for him.” She took Emily’s hands. “Look, Em, I’m sure Adam is ... a responsible person. Just promise me you won’t... do anything rash. Without telling me, that is. So we can talk, we can listen to each other.” She looked questioningly at her daughter.

“Mom, don’t look so worried! I’m not getting married. I mean, there’s been no talk about that. I’ll finish school, I’ll apply to college. Everything after that is, well. .. uncertain. But I won’t do anything rash.”

Ruth got up, her eyes stinging from the onions. She felt there was more that Emily wanted to tell her, but it was all right, she could wait. “I know you won’t. I trust you. And thanks, Em, for helping with the cows. I’d been to see your father, I was late.”

“What did he say?” Emily pounced on the turn in the conversation. She was still hoping to get her parents back together, Ruth knew that. But it was time to tell Emily about the deal she’d made. So she told her, and Emily was aghast.

“But how will you get all that money? Is it worth it? We could move into town, it’s all right, I wouldn’t mind. I could walk to school, I—”

“I gave him the first payment, that’s all I could—can—do. We’re keeping the farm, Emily. Somehow. And that’s that. We’re keeping it.” She found herself standing with the knife in her hand. She laid it down, the onion bits splattered on the table. She took a deep, shuddering breath. Emily’s hand was on her shoulder.

“I understand, Mom. I mean, I think I understand. And I’ll prep the cows every day when apple season’s over. I’ll clean the barn.”

“I know. I know. So how was Gypsy? Still skittish, I think. I’m wondering if she’ll ever get back to normal.”

“Adam told me ...” Emily began—she obviously had something other than Gypsy on her mind. “Adam told me he thought Opal did it, hurt our cows. He says she has a knife, she keeps it with her. And I know why she does! I confronted her, you see. About the cows. She got pregnant by this guy. She was going to marry him, but it turned out he had a wife back in Jamaica. So she rejected him. But he’s been trying to get back together. Stalking her, maybe, I don’t know. So she’s afraid.”

“Opal? Why would she want to hurt our cows?”

“But she didn’t, that’s the thing. She said she didn’t, and, well, I believe her, Mom.”

“But why did Adam say she did?” Ruth was concerned now. “Did he see her over here? If not, it seems odd he’d say that.” She didn’t like it at all, the boy accusing Opal. Why would he make such an accusation? She sighed, tried to busy herself with supper. She felt Emily breathing into her neck.

“Come on, now, Mother. He was just trying to help. He was upset about the slashing, he was! He said so. Adam just saw her knife, that’s all, with a little blood on it—she probably cut her finger or something. He wondered why she’d have it. You wonder about things, too, Mom, I’ve heard you and Colm. Suppose this, suppose that...”

Ruth turned, gave her daughter an oniony hug. She guessed she
had
played the supposing game. Probably that’s all Adam was doing. She had to think that.

“The only thing is,” Emily was saying, getting a Pepsi out of the refrigerator, “Opal wants to get back at Adam now. She saw him with a key once in the storage shed, and now she’s planning on telling Rufus. To put suspicion on Adam for that spraying.”

“Oh? She has no proof of anything, has she?”

“Of course not! Don’t get any false ideas, now. I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I mean, I was there, Mom, when Opal saw him. He was just going after a bandanna he’d left when he was in there with Rufus. Why, I saw it in his hand myself.” She started up the stairs with the Pepsi. “Where’s Vic?” she called down. “Isn’t it time for his chores? The barn needs sweeping—you wouldn’t believe the mess. It’s that crazy Zeida. She knocked over the wheelbarrow when I went to grain her. I don’t know why you keep that cow, Mother.”

Ruth had to smile. She’d knocked over a few wheelbarrows herself lately. Her ex-husband was still trying to turn his upright. And what about Opal? Was she getting people in trouble— Adam, for example? Or was she right about Adam—that he had something to do with the poisonous spraying? She wondered. Maybe she should see Rufus
and
Adam. Before there was some kind of explosion.

Emily was in the upstairs hall, hollering down. “Don’t you get any crazy ideas in your head, Mom. I know you. Don’t you go suspecting Adam of anything. He’s a good person, a sincere person. I love him, Mother! Don’t you do anything to hurt him.”

Ruth froze in front of the refrigerator. What could a mother do after an impassioned speech like that? But good God—her cows knifed, her hemp torn up, that old man dead from a poisoned apple . . . Could love excuse all that?

But now she was supposing again. What would make her think that Adam was behind the malice at the orchard, at her own farm? There was no evidence. Only a mischievous girl’s report that she’d seen him in the storage shed where the paraquat was kept. Opal had let the Jamaicans’ goat loose, hadn’t she? And never owned up. Maybe Adam was right, and it was Opal, after all, who’d come after the cows with her survival knife. Jealous of Emily, maybe.

“Hey, I was about to call you,” Colm said when she phoned him at his real estate office. He was writing up a contract for a trailer, he told her, it was a cobroke with another Realtor. “It means beans, not real cash. But what does mean something is the latest report from headquarters. Fallon got word from the FBI— some abortion clinic task force they’ve put together—that Turn-bull and Chris Christ might be aliases for a guy connected with a rash of bombings—and shootings—of abortion providers over the past dozen years. Jeez, you wouldn’t believe it. An Army of God, Lambs of Christ. Lambs with rifles?”

She shuddered at the thought: the world gone sick. “Have they picked him up yet? Whoever he really is? Is he aware they’re looking for him?” She thought of Moira and Stan, any involvement the minister might have with their orchard. “I don’t want him getting away!”

“They’re on their way right now, couple of FBI guys. I’ll keep you posted. So what’s on your mind, Ruthie?”

“It’s Rufus, Colm. He’s the third partner. Pete told me this afternoon.”

“You saw Pete?”

“I went for that purpose, damn it, Colm. No other reason. And to give him the first payment on the farm. He wasn’t happy. He still hopes I’ll sell. I said no way.”