Stolen Honey

STOLEN HONEY

Nancy Means Wright

Chapter One

When Gwen Woodleaf’s father died back in February, leaving the Woodleaf Apiaries to his daughter, Gwen was in the hospital recovering from viral pneumonia and couldn’t “tell the bees” about his death. It was an old ritual, one that had been in the family for three generations of beekeepers. The way you did it was to tap on each hive three times and say, “Your former keeper has died—but please don’t fly away, I’ll be here to care for you.” If the ritual was ignored, Gwen’s father had warned, someone else in the beekeeper’s extended family might die—or, at the very least, be severely traumatized—within a year.

But then Gwen was told by her doctor to rest at home on the bee farm for several weeks, so how was she to travel practically to the Canadian border to visit two hundred hives and tap on each one? After all, a beekeeper kept only a few hives on his property; the rest were spread out for miles. How silly it all was, she told herself at the time, and she’d curled up with a Victorian. novel and watched the snowflakes fly past the window. The
bees
weren’t flying then, of course—winters, they clustered snugly in their hives, dining on honey made from last autumn’s asters.

But now it was mid-April and the worker bees were happily sucking up dandelion pollen and packing it into the baskets on their rear legs. Hearing their
hm-mm-mm
as she unpacked a case of new bees, Gwen felt optimistic about the future. At least there hadn’t been anything so unthinkable as a death in the family— after her father’s, of course. Nothing, she felt, could faze her today, not even the gloomy face on her helper Leroy Boulanger, just back from town, the truck keys dangling in his hand. Leroy’s mouth looked like someone had sewn it into a down-curve; his rust-colored hair was standing on end from the wind.

“I run into Harvey Ball in town,” he announced in his high-pitched, pebbly voice. “And he’s mad as hops, all right. Seems the bees we left there got in the feed bins and spooked his cows. He wants you should come and do something about it.”

He stood in the barn doorway; he slapped a feed cap onto the back of his head. He was wearing a blue and white Branbury College T-shirt—to impress her daughter, Donna, no doubt— Leroy had quit school after tenth grade. He had an unrequited crush on the girl. He couldn’t see that Donna, at this point, was involved only in her studies at the local college—or so Gwen hoped.

“Is he sure they’re bees and not flies?” she asked. “There’s a breed of flies that look exactly like bees.” She’d read, in fact, that Native Americans called the first honeybees brought over by the settlers “white man’s flies.”

“He says they’re bees. He wants that you should go up right now.” Leroy’s lips squeezed stubbornly together.

Gwen sighed. “I’ll go up this afternoon. Help me feed these new bees and get them into the hives, would you? Then I’ll get some lunch going.”

They were just finishing up when she saw Donna come laboring up the hilly road on her green bicycle. She jumped lightly off, a slim girl of medium height with her mother’s dark blue eyes and the long shining black hair of her Abenaki father. She was home for the afternoon, she said—her chemistry class had been canceled. She ignored Leroy, who had managed to intrude himself on the walkway.

Gwen followed her daughter into the kitchen. Her father-in-law was already in there, fixing a huge tuna fish, onion, and chive sandwich. Mert LeBlanc was a basketmaker, a pleasant-looking man, dressed in loose leather moccasins and faded brown corduroys. His skin was weathered, his eyes a warm walnut brown;

blue tattoos gleamed on his strong arms. He held up a braid of newly picked sweetgrass, his left hand shaking a little.

“It’s not right, not quite,” he said. “My damn fingers are too big. But yours, Donna, you could make ’em beautiful.”

Donna had heard this before. “Someday, Grandpop. Not today.”

Mert sighed, grimaced at Gwen. “Okay for now, but you’ll see the light. Use the braid for a bookmark, maybe—those heavy college books of yours.”

“Thanks, Grandpop.” Donna dropped it into her book pack. “I’m going to a frat dance tonight,” she announced, with a sidelong glance at Leroy, who was standing in the doorway with his lunch bag. He ate with the family but insisted on bringing his own fast food from McDonald’s. The words “frat dance” had made the blood flare up in his broad cheeks.

“I thought you didn’t like fraternities,” Gwen said. “You and your friend Emily.”

The pair openly boasted that they’d never attended a college football game or a frat party.

“Emily’s been invited by a guy in her French class, and I’m going along. She’s picking me up. The college is closing down any frats that won’t take in girls—and ZKE won’t, so this is the last chance. I mean, we want the
experience
of it. Look, Mother, it’s spring.”

“ ‘Spring’ meaning the hormones are beginning to dance? Full moon tonight?”

“Really, Mother.”

“Well, if you’re going with Emily, I suppose it’ll be all right. She seems a sensible girl.”

“I’m not asking your permission. I’m simply telling you. So you’ll understand if I come in late.”

“How late?” asked Gwen, who locked the door nights now, since they’d been vandalized the month before, and three frames of honey taken. The bee farm was on the East Branbury Mountain Road, and relatively isolated. The nearest neighbor lived a half mile south, and Harvey Ball to the north had blinders on when it came to neighborly assistance.

“I’m eighteen,” was the answer. “You and Dad don’t seem to realize it.” When Leroy gave a snorting laugh, she grabbed a red pepper and slashed it in half as though it were someone’s head.

“Okay, I’ll leave a light on. You have a key. But be careful,” Gwen warned her daughter. “I don’t like all the binge drinking that goes on in those frat houses.”

“Don’t worry. Mother.” Donna leaned into the cutting board. Black hair falling across her face, she chopped the pepper into a hundred tiny pieces.

* * * *

Donna and Emily had barely pulled out of the driveway that evening when an ancient Honda pulled up and Gwen’s activist husband, Russell, got out, ablaze with silver: neck band, armbands, wrist bands, brooches, earrings. He hadn’t removed them since his latest Revolutionary War reenactment. “Hey, Gwennie, babe,” he bellowed even before he came through the door. “Any food in the house? Drove me straight here from Montpelier via Swanton, just stopped for one little drink at Big Joe’s. All he had was Fig Newtons to eat, you know I hate Fig Newtons. Where’s the girl gone? I got the one night home, have to shuffle off to Buffalo six A.M. You got any gas in the barn?”

He was all the way in the house now, filling it; his long black ponytail caught in the shutting door. She pulled it out just in time, let herself be enfolded into his muscled arms. The bear hug he gave her matched the bear tattoo on his right arm. He swung her around twice and then deposited her on a kitchen stool.

“Which question should I answer first?” she said, laughing. His original plan had been to go straight from Swanton across the lake and then down the Northway and over to Buffalo. But she didn’t mind, did she? She rather liked the unexpected, the unpredictable coming and goings. And she certainly had those with Russell!

“The gas, I guess,” he said. “Damn thing fizzled out right in front of the house. Hey, Pop,” he called, “I’m home. Full moon tonight! Though it might rain later—or snow. God knows we need something wet. Got a pack basket I can take? The latch busted on my old case.”

“What’s it this time? More war games?” Mert lumbered into the kitchen, a beer in his hand. A silver earring swung from his left earlobe. “I got pack baskets, all right, come on in and choose.”

“The usual, you know,” said Russell, answering the first question, “the battle stuff. I got to run a lot, answer questions from the dumb tourists. ‘Say, now, what
is
that thing you wear at your waist? Ooh, what side
are
you on, French or British?’ Ha! I tell ’em I’m on the side gives me a good meal, a good deal. I watch their heads go click click, sure, he’s an Indian, no loyalties, he’s a cat: Feed him, he licks you.” Russell laughed again and followed his father into the basket room.

“We’re done eating, but I can fix you leftovers,” Gwen hollered after him. “We’ve got venison left from last fall’s kill. Just have to thaw it in the micro, okay?”

“Whatever,” Russell sang out from the next room. “I’m so hungry I could eat you.”

“Try me,” she called back; then, hearing a noise, she felt her cheeks heat up. She hadn’t realized Leroy was still there, guzzling a Pepsi, his face a morgue.

“Just going,” Leroy said. He didn’t look at her as he walked out. He was still put out with Donna. He didn’t like Donna going off to a fraternity like that, not giving him the time of day—not that she ever did anyway.

Gwen wouldn’t tell Russell where Donna had gone. Russell didn’t approve of fraternity dances, either; he had nothing good to say about Branbury College boys, period. Anyway, there was no point telling him, he was only home on a quick overnight. Why would he have to know?

It was all so normal. A young woman going off to a dance. She’d gone to a dozen dances herself, hadn’t she—in the year and a half she’d spent at the university? And nothing out of the way had occurred. Donna would be fine, just fine. Gwen would like to go dancing herself tonight. She would! She snatched up an aluminum pot and waltzed—onetwothree, onetwothree— around the kitchen. Until she banged—ouch!—into the center island.

* * * *

It was only midnight and already Emily Willmarth had announced that she was going back to her dorm. Emily was lucky enough to live in the dorm instead of at home. But then, Donna knew, Emily had been paired with a rich, stuck-up roommate from Greenwich, Connecticut, and as early as October the society girl
and
Emily wanted to switch roommates. But the school wouldn’t let them, so they were sticking it out.

“You can’t go,” Donna cried. “Not yet. Shep’s coming back. He’s making a beer run. The keg ran out. I mean, this is the last big blast. That’s why you wanted to come, right?” She pulled her short black rayon skirt down over her butt. She’d bought it in town just that afternoon—hadn’t realized how tight it was until she began to dance in it, and then it wriggled up.

Emily’s roommate, Alyce, undulated past with a glass in her hand, a silly grin on her made-up face. “We don’t usually see
you
here,” Alyce gushed in one of her ingratiating, be-nice-to-the-locals modes. Donna never knew quite how to respond to her. She usually just turned her head and murmured something dumb.

Now Emily was arguing with Alyce, who had turned to her accusingly. “No, I didn’t borrow your art book,” Emily said, “why would I do that when I have my own?” It seemed Alyce was always losing things and then accusing Emily of taking them.

“It was there on my desk when I left for class, and it’s not there now.” Alyce lifted a painted eyebrow, like she’d made a weighty statement.

“Let’s get out of here.” Emily grabbed Donna’s arm. “Anyway,” she confided to Donna when Alyce had waltzed on past, “I want to leave before Bozo comes back.”

“Bozo?”

“You know, Billy Bozeman. He’s a nerd. He’s always craning back his neck and grinning at me in French class. I didn’t realize he was in this frat. He went to get me a vodka and I don’t want it.”

“What happened to the guy who invited you?”

“He’s out of it. They took him up to bed. Honest to God, it’s been nothing but losers since I came to this school. Either they want to discuss astrophysics with you or they just want to get you into bed. Or both.”

“Well, Shep isn’t like that. At least I don’t think so. I can’t leave now, since he’s told me to wait. You go ahead.”

“How will you get home if I take the pickup? Mom needs it in the morning.”

“Shep will take me. He’s already offered. He has a motorcycle. Whee-ee ...” Donna threw up her arms and whirled about. The black skirt spun with her and settled halfway up her ass. She yanked it down.

“You watch him, then, okay? I gotta go. Bozo’s on his way with that drink. And you gotta bet it’ll be lethal.” Emily ducked behind Donna and out the front door.

Now Donna was sorry she hadn’t gone with her friend. Together she and Emily could face the collegiate world. She felt suddenly gauche with her black hair hanging loose down her back, while Alyce and the other girls all seemed to have blond hair done up in a sophisticated twist or, at the very least, an expensive short cut.

“Hey.” She wheeled about to see Shep grinning down at her. He patted her on the rump. “Nice dress,” he said, and handed her a glass. “Drink that,” he ordered.

“It’s only a little whiskey,” he said, when she stood there staring into the glass. “I went all the way across campus for it.” He held the glass to her lips and she sipped—spilled it on her blouse. He stooped to lick it up and she had to laugh. He kissed her lightly on the lips. “Come on. Just this one and we’ll dance. You dance, huh?”