Final Turn: A story of adventure, intrigue and suspense. (7 page)

Roger and Sam stopped at the corner of what they thought was Jack's farm. Once again Roger checked his map. He was certain they had found it. Sam's silence reassured him. She seemed to be waiting for him to reassure himself. They turned the corner and drove until they came to a driveway that ran through an un-kept hedge and into a neglected farmyard. Roger stopped the car just inside the gate. Across the yard stood a garage or machine shed with oversized doors. It looked a generation younger than the other buildings. To the left was an old dilapidated log house with lime whitewashing on the outside walls tainted yellow with age. The walls were low, like the house had sunk into the ground. More likely it was the style of the era. To the right was a majestic old barn with several sheds grouped around and beyond that stood the farm fields, nearly reclaimed by nature.

Roger got out of the car and surveyed the scene. This had been Jack's playground as a boy. The yard itself still offered its warmth and security. It had the sheltered feeling given by lovely tall trees and the grace of long bright green grass played by the wind. It offered shelter from the harsh winds, shade from the sun and the soft quieting rustle of leaves that calms the soul. The wind conducted a rustling symphony with the trees, the sounds soothed like a running brook or like waves caressing a rocky shore.
The hedges, the bushes near the old house had all grown wild and spread themselves outward and upward. The garage stood almost like a last bulwark against abandonment, a final cry to the future. It was the only building not constructed of logs and plaster. It must have been built when someone still had hope. The rest of the buildings were tired and had long since surrendered, they had given all they had, thankful that there was no one to ask any more of them. They were spent.

"This is it all right. I already like this place." Roger said as they crossed the yard towards the garage doors. He looked to the ground in front of the larger door. There had recently been a heavy rain and the ground was still very wet. There was a small depression just in front of the door and the water had washed silt into it. The grass had been knocked down by the rain and was just beginning to stand upright again. It had rained heavily. Mud could be seen splattered against the door from the rain pounding the ground at its base. Water from the drain spouts had gouged holes in the ground.

Roger knelt and looked purposefully back towards the gate. He held his head low, studiously gazing just over the top of the foot long grass as he moved his head side to side.

"There it is." He said. "Look at that, you can just see the impression of vehicle tracks going out to the gate. And there, there you can see a set of tracks curving in from the side. There must be a roadway there too." He pointed out to the side of the yard in front of the old house. Roger sounded excited. He motioned for Sam to come and look. She knelt beside him.

"It's difficult to be sure about that." She saw that the grass was slightly different, perhaps it was only the color or shading, but it was slightly different in two thin lines running out to the gate. The lines were spaced correctly for vehicle tracks from a large truck. "It would be very difficult to be certain how long ago those were made."

Roger had already risen and walked around the garage and found a small side door. With a little prying and twisting he opened it. He stepped inside with Sam close behind him. It was dark and musty. He could not see the mechanism to open the large doors. They stood for a while to get accustomed to the light. There were no tracks on the concrete floor and no other signs of recent usage.

They went outside. Sam thought aloud. "I wonder if some farmer might have been storing machinery in the machine shed. It would explain the tracks.  That little road running along the main road was likely made to take equipment out to the fields in the back of the property. People might even be using this property without Jack knowing. There are no locked gates."

"Maybe." Roger stroked his chin. "Maybe. I wish this place weren't so isolated. There are no neighbors we can talk to. There is no one who can watch the entrance or the yard. That does make it a good spot for a temporary hideout."

Sam added, "Remember when Jack told us something about an old lady being the only one left in the neighborhood. I had the impression that she was not far away."

“You're right! He did say that. Let's take a drive around."

“However nice this place is, it’s gone now for Jack.” Roger said as they walked back to the car.

“What do you mean, gone?”

“He sold it. Some Hong Kong outfit. Told me the other day at the club.”

“Sold it. Already? Really? “ Sam said as they reached the car. She did not continue her sentence once they were seated in the car; didn’t seem necessary.

** ** **

From the road in front of the gate they could just see the driveway into an old farm house about a quarter mile away
.
It was the only thing that offered any hope. As they pulled into the driveway, they were stunned at the scene. The yard was a sea of swirling foxtails, thistles lined the driveway and only the splintered rails held up the fence posts. To the right stood the main house, ghostly and boarded up, the front veranda full with its own roof, the steps a gaping hole filled by shrubs and vines. Roger parked well back from the buildings and they walked to the left of the yard where a few spurious footpaths in the weeds indicated some recent activity. They approached a small shack, traditionally the hired hand's quarters, Roger thought. The wooden siding had surrendered to the sun and rain and the roof was an embarrassed patchwork of missing and broken singles. Repairs had been made with pieces of corrugated sheet metal from a grain shed.

A faint singsong humming voice drifted towards them. A footpath skirted the building and took them towards the source. In a small back yard sat a grayed old woman bent over a consuming task. Beside her was a box of freshly picked peas that she was shelling into the pan between her feet.

"Hello. My name is Roger Blackstone. This is Samantha Walsh. We are friends of Jack Fischer." Roger said as they came up to her.

The woman was not startled that they had come up onto her so suddenly. She said, "Jack Fisher. I knew his father. He's dead now. I am Mrs. Pezack." The woman went on with the shelling.

"Do you remember Jack?" Sam asked her speaking slowly and trying to sound personal.

"I remember Jack. Nothing’s happened to that boy, has there? Is that why you folks are here?" She looked up at Sam with near resignation. Sam wondered how often an old lady like this received news that friends or relatives had died. At that age it often became the only news people ever received.

"No, Jack is fine. Roger works with Jack. In the same company."

"Oh yes?" She said that as if she dreaded that they might start telling her what they did or some other damned thing she wouldn't understand.

"Do you remember an unusual thunder and rain storm here about a week ago? Roger was anxious to get some information.

Unusual? I'll say unusual. I've never seen it rain so hard. And hail too. It was early; those storms are usually here afternoons. This one was in the morning. It knocked down all my plants in the garden. They came up again though. Mostly it was the rain. Not so much hail. Plants will stand up again after a heavy rain. Hail breaks them, it breaks the stems and they don't ever get up again. Potatoes are O.K., either way, especially this time of year."

"Yes, I'm glad you're garden is all right. You must depend on it a lot."  Sam said.

"Depend. I'll say depend. Without it I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you folks."

"Do you remember seeing anything odd that morning Mrs. Pezack? Do you remember seeing a truck, a large truck like a moving van? It might have gone into the old Fischer place across the road." Roger asked her.

"You better go inside the house there young man and get this lady a chair. There should be one in there. Something clean. Go on now, get the woman a chair. We can't have her standing out here in the sun all day."

Roger went inside and nearly banged his head on the low doorway. He stopped abruptly as he saw the chaos inside the room. Underneath a box of cornhusks, there was indeed a chair. He placed the box on the floor where space would allow and took the chair outside. Sam thanked the old woman and sat down. Roger found himself a block of wood and sat on it. He began shelling peas into the pan. It seemed like the right thing to do.

"Now about the truck Mrs. Pezack. Do you remember seeing a truck on the morning of the storm?" Roger asked again.

"Couldn't see much of anything that morning. Couldn't see out to the roadway while it was raining. And besides it wasn't a truck. It was a car, a nice new car."

"A car? You did see a car? Where was it?"

"In my driveway. All morning it sat there. Nobody in it. It was there when I looked out around nine. The man didn't come back until about ten and then just drove off. Never came to the house. Never came in to ask if he could park there. A lot of people drive by here and think no one lives here. They think this is just some deserted farmhouse. They get a surprise sometimes. I see to that." She smiled at Sam who returned an understanding look. Roger was quite sure that she could surprise people.

"Did you see the man return to his car?”

"Sure I did. I watched him all the time. He didn't see me though. He didn't even look for me. When he came back he was all huddled in his rain slicker and hurrying about to get inside. First he had to put that thing in the trunk. He did that and then he got in and just drove off. He backed out and he went that way, the road to town. Do you know that man?"

"No, I don't think I do. What was he putting in the trunk of the car? Did you see it?"

"Don't know. Couldn't see it. It was long. He had it under his slicker. Might have been trying to keep it from the rain. Didn't see it though. Maybe he was trying to hide it. You think he might have been hiding something?" She looked from Roger to Sam hoping for something surreptitious. A spark kindled in her eye. It occurred to Roger that he could mention about the armored car robbery. That would certainly get her interest. She might not have heard anything about it on the news and talking about it might entice her to remember something else. Still, he had a hunch that for now he should not let it be known why he was making these enquiries. If someone did use that garage, they might be back. They might run into Mrs. Pezack and want to know what she had seen. What Roger really wanted to know was what that man had seen, had he seen a large moving truck?

Roger told Mrs. Pezack that he and Sam were just out for a drive and decided to stop in to see their friend’s birthplace. Then they bid the wonderful old woman farewell and promised to stop in again if they were in the area.

** ** **

"That tells me three things." Roger said to Sam as they backed out of the driveway. "There was some type of vehicle in the yard recently, there was a big storm here the morning of the robbery and there was someone else around who might have seen something."

"I’m sure Jack drove in there that day he came out to visit the farm?" Sam suggested.

"Maybe. I think I'll make a call to the weather office and see if there were any other early morning thunderstorms on that day. If there was only one it would be interesting to know if the guards locked inside that armored car noticed a storm."

Sam let her seat back and settled in for a rest. Roger took a road running south along the eastern edge of Jack's property. Across the ditch and fence, just inside the property the rutted farm road they had seen from the yard paralleled the road he was traveling. Beyond was a grassy meadow that must once have been a hay pasture or grazing area. A line of heavy poplar and spruce trees separated the old road from the pasture. When he arrived at the southern corner of the property Roger slowed. He noticed a rough driveway leading to a gate in the fence at the corner of the pasture. He turned into the driveway and stopped. The uneven ground jolted the car and Sam came out of her trance.

"What are we stopping for? Where are we?"

"This is the other end of Jack's farm. I just want to have a look at something." Roger stepped from the car and walked to the gate studying the ground as he went. He went through the gate and stepped into the meadow. The breeze chased lazy swells through the tall grass. Warm air rose from the meadow and carried several hawks in lazy circles overhead. Roger felt a twinge of jealously for Jack. It must have been grand being raised in a place like this. To a child these meadows were vast expanses of grassy seas; young pirates on the high seas, sailing to distance shorelines of trees and shrubs. Once this place had heard the laughter of children and had guarded their young spirits. Roger knew he too carried that inexorable bond with the earth, everyone did. Here he could feel it. Here his spirit was able to flow from his body, roam amongst nature's finest and return to him with the freshness of the earth itself. He remembered how Jack had described the rocks, the bad soil and the springtime flooding. It was not a place to make a living, not with the standards Jack was accustomed to now. Roger thought of Mrs. Pezack down the road.

Bordering the far edge of the meadow Roger could see a fence line running off to the west. He walked towards the line of trees that sheltered the old road from the meadow. Once behind the trees he was in the cool embrace of their shadows. He studied the surface of the rutted roadway as he walked slowly in the direction of the farm buildings beyond. The ruts were filled with fresh silt as if after a heavy rain. The breeze filtering through the spruce trees carried the scent of a forest to him. Ahead of him a broken branch lay on the ground. A tree nearby wore the naked scar of a fresh break. He took up the branch and studied it.