The Great Sand Fracas of Ames County (31 page)

W
ith all the rain that accompanied the tornado, Ambrose's garden perked up and he once more began selling late-summer crops such as tomatoes, sweet corn, potatoes, broccoli, onions, and more in his roadside stand. He worked in his garden each morning and opened up the stand after his noon nap, around one thirty or so, keeping it open until four in the afternoon. Noah Drake was back in school, and although the boy stopped at the stand nearly every afternoon on his way home, he was not able to help out as much. He did manage to come on Saturdays to help with the garden harvesting, digging potatoes, picking tomatoes and zucchini, and pulling onions. Ambrose found harvesting his garden crops increasingly difficult. He could work only for a few minutes and then he had to sit down and catch his breath, especially if it was a warm day.

Business at the stand had been brisk on this September afternoon. In fact, Ambrose wished he had brought more potatoes and zucchini to the stand—he had some extra sitting on his kitchen table, but he didn't have enough energy to walk back to the house for them. Just then Noah Drake appeared on his bike on his way home from school.

“Hi, Ambrose,” said Noah as he leaned his bike against the side of the vegetable stand and looked for Ranger. “How's it going?”

“Pretty well,” said Ambrose. “B . . . but I need a favor.”

“Sure, what can I do?” said Noah, always ready to help.

“I am out of p . . . potatoes and zucchini. Have more on the kitchen table.”

“Sure, I'll fetch them for you,” said Noah. He hopped on his bike and rode down the dusty driveway to Ambrose's house, climbed off his bike, and went inside. Noah knew that Ambrose never locked his outside doors. He found a couple of small pails on the kitchen table, one filled with zucchini and one with potatoes. He picked them up and turned to go back outside when he noticed the door just beyond the kitchen table, one that was always closed, stood open. Always curious, Noah put down the vegetables and peered into the room. What he saw both surprised and intrigued him. He knew that Ambrose was an avid reader, but he had no idea that the old farmer had such a vast collection of books. One entire wall of the room consisted of bookshelves. He began pulling a few off the shelf: John Muir,
The Story of My Boyhood and Youth
; Henry David Thoreau,
Walden
; Loren Eiseley,
The Immense Journey
; and Aldo Leopold,
A Sand County Almanac
. There were many, many more. Noah was astounded at what he was seeing. He glanced at another wall and saw that it was covered with framed awards,
Stony Field, Outstanding Environmentalist Award of the Year; Stony Field, Nature's Way Award
, and at least ten more. Noah then saw an open scrapbook with past Stony Field columns carefully arranged by date. He thumbed through it and was amazed at how many there were. Noah glanced around the messy office and saw piles of newspapers and magazines, as well as books that had not found their way to the shelves. It was a room like he had never seen before, certainly different from the other rooms in Ambrose Adler's home, which Noah had seen many times.

It didn't occur to Noah what he had discovered until he glanced at the old upright typewriter sitting on the scarred desk. Noah glanced at the partially typed page in the typewriter. It read:

The truth of what he was seeing hit Noah Drake like the kick of a horse. Stony Field was Ambrose Adler. He absolutely couldn't believe it, but the evidence was all there. He saw the wastebasket near the desk, reached in, and grabbed a crumpled-up piece of paper. He smoothed out the paper and saw the typewritten words:

Carefully, Noah folded the sheet of paper and put it in his pocket. He engaged the lock and pulled the office door shut. He did not want his friend Ambrose to know that he had been snooping where he didn't belong. Once outside Ambrose's house, it hit Noah what he had discovered.
I know who Stony Field is. I know something that almost no one else knows—in the whole country. And this piece of paper I have in my pocket is proof. But who should I tell? Maybe nobody. I should keep Ambrose's secret. Friends don't tell others about the secrets they know.

Noah quickly hurried back to the vegetable stand with the extra produce. When he arrived, Ambrose thanked him for helping him out. Noah said, “I've got to go on home. Pa said he had some extra chores for me tonight.”

Noah was ashamed to admit he had snooped into Ambrose's secret room and had discovered the answer to questions that thousands of people across the country and in many foreign countries were asking: who is Stony Field and where does he live? Noah now had the answer, but he didn't know what to do with the information, if anything.

Meanwhile, Ambrose sat thinking once again whether it was time to disclose who he really was.
If I reveal that I am Stony Field, will it divide the community even more?
he wondered.
Those supporting the mine and the jobs it will create have been mad as hell about my recent columns.

When he closed up his vegetable stand for the day, he had sold about all the vegetables he had on hand, including the new supply of zucchini and potatoes. He slowly shuffled down his driveway toward home, Ranger and Buster walking along behind him. Little did he know that this would likely be the last day that he would be able to do so without somebody watching, somebody wanting to talk with him, somebody wanting to snap his picture, someone wanting to get in his face about the things he had written.

54

W
hen Noah Drake arrived home that afternoon and saw his dad working in the machine shed, he hurried out to help him.

“Where have you been?” his dad asked. “There's work to be done around here. You know I don't put up with people being late.”

“Sorry, Pa,” Noah said. “I stopped to help Ambrose with his vegetable stand.”

“You spend too much time with that old codger. I want you here when there's work to be done,” Lucas Drake said in his gruff voice.

Noah didn't respond. Try as he might to please his dad, he always came up short. Noah couldn't remember when his father had ever said a kind word to him, praised him, said he had done a good job. All Noah could remember was being criticized. But now he knew something that would surely evoke some praise from his dad.

Without thinking of the consequences, Noah blurted out, “Pa, I found out something today that you will never believe.”

“What?” asked Drake, a man of few words but with strong opinions.

“Ambrose Adler is Stony Field.”.

“What did you say?”

“I said Ambrose Adler is Stony Field.”

“Can't be. That stuttering old vegetable farmer is too dumb to write the stuff that Stony Field writes.”

“Pa, Ambrose is Stony Field, no matter what you say about him. Ambrose writes all those columns.”

“Well, that just can't be so. You must be wrong.”

“Pa, I got the facts. Ambrose is for certain Stony Field.” Noah went on to explain how he had talked with Ambrose on his way home from school and Ambrose had asked him to fetch some extra vegetables from the house. Then he went on to describe that he had been in Ambrose's office, which had always been locked. He told about the books, papers, awards, and typewriter.

“And,” said Noah, “look at this.” He handed the folded sheet of paper to his father, who unfolded it and carefully read the words.

Lucas Drake rubbed his hand over the stubble of beard on his chin. “Well, that old bastard. That damn old bastard,” he said. “And to think he lived just down the road from us all these years and we didn't know that he was doing all this damn writing. Stirring up people across the country and making it about impossible for some of us to make a living. Good God, if we'd do what Stony Field writes we should do, everybody would starve to death. That damn old fool Ambrose is a menace, a damnable menace.”

“Pa, he's just an old man who has a pet raccoon and raises vegetables,” Noah said. He quickly realized he should never have told his dad what he had learned. He had deceived his best friend.

“Son, don't you understand? Old Ambrose would have you think he's just a stutterin' old dirt farmer. Sure as hell fooled me all these years. Bet the old bastard doesn't even stutter.”

“Pa, he does so stutter. I worked for him all summer. He can hardly spit out a sentence without tangling it up. And besides that, I think he's kind of cool.”

“Kind of cool? Kind of cool?” said Drake, raising his voice. “Guys like that are dangerous. He's got folks in Link Lake so screwed up with his columns about the sand mine coming in that half of the people don't know if they're for it or against it.”

“I like him,” said Noah quietly.

“Like him? He's not to be liked. Young man, you will have nothing to do with that old bastard anymore. Don't let me ever catch you stopping at his place again. Good God, and to think he's our neighbor. What in hell kind of neighbor writes some damnable column about saving the environment, paying no attention to those who need jobs and reminding us commercial farmers, the ones who are making a difference in this country, that we're somehow ruining the land? What in hell does he know about ruining the land? The little farming that old bastard does won't matter one way or the other. Who does he feed? A handful of people who stop by his decrepit little vegetable stand. How many do I feed? Well, think about it. I farm a thousand acres.”

Lucas Drake and his son stood quietly for a few moments. Then Drake broke the silence. “I've got to do something about this. I've got to let people know about Stony Field. And now that we know who he is and where he lives, maybe we can do something about what he writes. Son, you've done a great service. A great service to your country.” He clapped his son on the back, pulled a cell phone from his pocket, and punched in some numbers.

“Marilyn,” he said, “have I got news for you. I am immediately calling an emergency meeting of the Ames County Eagle Party.”

55

M
arilyn Jones couldn't believe it. She sat quietly for a few moments, trying to make sense of what she had just heard. Could it be true that old Ambrose Adler, who stuttered so badly that no one could understand him and who lived as a subsistence farmer, was the famous environmental writer, the person who had given her Economic Development Council so much grief over the development of the sand mine?

Lucas Drake had explained to her how his son, Noah, had stumbled onto Ambrose's secret writing room and was dead certain about Ambrose being Stony Field. He even had a partially typed piece of wastepaper from one of Stony Field's columns.

Once Marilyn had decided that what she had heard was true, she became furious. She of course had known Ambrose Adler since she was a little girl. She had mostly ignored him, until her sister, Gloria, had taken up with him. She was rather proud to have shared with her parents the details of Ambrose and Gloria's dating, and that the couple had even spent a night together at Gloria's apartment. Marilyn knew she had helped convince her parents that they should not approve the couple's marriage. She just couldn't see having a stuttering dirt farmer as a member of the family. But she wasn't proud that her interference had resulted in her sister moving to California, never to return.

Marilyn drummed her fingers on her desk.
Why wasn't I able to figure out that old Ambrose was really Stony Field? The evidence was right there in front of me. How else could Stony Field have known so much about what was going on in Link Lake? How else could he have known about the Trail Marker Oak and the sand mine? It was because he was here. He was attending the meetings. We all ignored him—we all believed he was a harmless, bearded old stuttering vegetable farmer. I knew he spent time at the library. I knew he was no dummy. But a writer? A nationally known environmental writer?