11 HE KNOWS NOT WHO SHE IS

11

HE KNOWS NOT WHO SHE IS

When Vida steps onto the front porch, a vintage Pontiac Trans Am—from the late 1980s—comes to a stop, having raised a thick plume of dust to wither in its wake. The elephantine pulse of the idling engine dies, and the subsequent quiet, though only what it had been, seems funereal. The driver steps out and closes the door. Exiting the car, he holds his cowboy hat in hand, but he pauses to set it on his head just so before he approaches.

Vida has seen countless such hats, but she can't say if this is by Stetson or Resistol or some minor maker, because she doesn't care about such things. Judging by the precision with which her visitor places his hat and adjusts it, and considering the way he carries himself with a subtle swagger, she judges him to be a vain and calculating individual, possibly a narcissist.

If she were a gambler, she would bet a hundred dollars to a dime that this is the watcher in the woods, at last come forth to advance whatever scheme he's taken so much time to develop.

Thirtysomething, tall, lean but muscular, he's wearing brown leather boots, tailored khakis, and a tan shirt. A department patch on the right sleeve and a badge with nameplate where a shirt pocket otherwise would be do not surprise Vida. Not much does.

He halts at the foot of the porch steps. "Ma'am, I'm Deputy Nash Deacon, with the county sheriff. I've a need to talk with you."

He's neither handsome nor unattractive, plain enough that only his mother or his wife would recognize him under any circumstances, if he has a wife. He has no memorable feature other than his brown-black eyes, in which she sees a rapacity perhaps akin to what the field mouse saw if it met the gaze of the predator that snatched it from the meadow as Vida had been gathering mushrooms.

"That's a most unusual patrol car," she says.

"My own wheels. I'm a deputy, but I'm not here as a deputy."

"The uniform seems to say otherwise."

"I just got off duty, didn't take time to change."

"Do you have more ID than what you're wearing?"

He climbs one step, flips open an ID wallet, and holds it out to her. As far as she can tell, it's the real thing, with a photo. Also real is the light fragrance of marijuana.

"What's this about?" she asks.

"It's best if we sit a spell and chat."

"Last I heard, I can have an attorney present when I talk to an officer of the law."

"Like I said, ma'am, I'm not here in that capacity. And I'd rather not be."

"You'd rather not be. Yet that's how you introduced yourself."

He is quick to take offense at her restive response to his informal assertion of authority, but he's professional enough to bite back his exasperation. "Sorry if I got off on the wrong foot."

She needs to hear him out and learn his game as much as he needs to say his piece, so she moves back from the steps.

Although her beloved uncle has been gone for ten years, she keeps two rockers on the porch, with a small table between them.

Deacon is only the second person to sit in Ogden's chair in a decade. This is more a violation than a desecration, but Vida finds that she is clenching her teeth.

They sit in silence for the better part of a minute, staring out at the meadow where, just above the blades of grass, midges ceaselessly agitate. From her uncle, Vida has learned to use silence as a tool for encouraging others to think about what they just said or to give them the opportunity to retract some error that they shouldn't have put into words. The deputy uses silence, instead, as if it were a vise with which to squeeze his companion into a state of discomfort.

When that doesn't work with Vida, Deacon is first to speak. "How many acres is this spread?"

"Never thought of it as a ‘spread.' It was my uncle's retreat, and now it's mine."

"Eighty acres."

"If you knew, why ask?"

"For the most part surrounded by federal land. It's a lonely place by any measure."

"Not lonely," she corrects. "It's peaceful."

"People wonder why a young woman such as you would hide herself away like this."

"Am I hiding? I seem not to be hiding from you. What people would they be who wonder such things?"

"Townspeople."

"They're twenty miles away. I go into town just once a month. And they're obsessed with me? How desperate are they for gossip?"

Relaxing in her rocker, Vida begins to arc it slowly back and forth, but Deacon remains rigid in his chair. "They understand a man like him, Ogden, being the way he was. But you—"

"A man like him?" she interrupts. "What is it they think they understand about him?"

She's staring at Deacon now, and he knows it. He shifts his attention from the meadow to her. "Korea. The war. How he came back changed—stressed out and antisocial."

"My uncle was kind and personable and more sociable than most people. He didn't suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder."

"If you say so. I'm glad to hear it."

"My uncle also didn't suffer fools easily. The way he saw it, there are too many of them out there, all hell-bent on making other people as unhappy as they are. Too many and more every year."

The deputy attempts reconciliation. "Don't forget my line of work. I know all that too well."

"If you say so," she replies. "I'm glad to hear it. By my uncle's service, he earned some peace and happiness. He found it here. That's all."

Deacon's silence now seems to have a new purpose, as if he's casting around in his mind for a fresh approach that will assuage the offense she has taken and alleviate the ill will he has brought upon himself.

He's incapable of that, and thus he resorts to an authoritarian tone and an implied threat. "We both know why I'm here."

She smiles because the last thing he expects is for her to smile. "If you're not here on official business, may I call you Nash? Good. Nash, you apparently mistake me for a mind reader or a criminal mastermind with great powers of deception. I'm glad you know why you're here, but I'm really clueless."

A moment earlier he had unsuccessfully sought a way to appease her. Now he reacts perversely to her smile and the concession she has made by using his first name. His god is power, and he doesn't have the grace to mediate a more agreeable relationship than the one that he established when he arrived in the thunderous, supercharged Pontiac Trans Am and declared his need to talk with her. Previously cool and officious, his tone is now icy when he repeats, "We both know why I'm here," as if blunt repetition identifies his statement as a dogma of the Church of Nash, which may not be challenged.

Vida waits without speaking.

She had waited for years until José Nochelobo came into her life and became her love, her lover, waited without knowing what his name would be or what he'd look like, but bided time with patience, certain that innocents and repenters receive the happiness that is the promise in the warp and weft of this woven world. Nearly a year ago, when José was taken from her after only ten months together, her grief was profound, but it didn't destroy her. Hope is armor against despair, and as her uncle taught her, patience is a polish that keeps that armor bright. We can't know the ultimate why of anything, although if we train ourselves to read the intricate fabric that time weaves, we see a pattern certain to console and inspire.

And so, since José Nochelobo's death, Vida has waited patiently for all the good that is promised to come next, as she waits now in her rocking chair for Deputy Deacon to say something more.

Aiming a glare at her that is meant to be a blow, which lands with no more force than a shadow, he says, "Belden Bead."

With puzzlement, she says, "Belt and bead?"

His hands have moved from the arms of his chair to his thighs, where they are now white-knuckled fists. "It took me a while to see what must've happened and a while longer to find evidence of it, but I know what I know, and you know what I know, and there's no chance of you escaping the consequences." He looks toward the part of the meadow that is second in significance only to the spot where Uncle Ogden is buried. "Would've been quite a job if you didn't have that backhoe."

"Belt and bead," she says more to herself than to him, as if trying to make sense of those three words.

Deacon gets to his feet, opens his fists, and blots one hand against his shirt before realizing a perspiration stain will reveal his anxiety. He isn't as sure of himself as he pretends to be.

"Belden Bead was my cousin," he says, his voice flat, emotion pressed from it perhaps to compensate for the sweaty palm and to convince her that he's all business, that he'll succeed at what he intends. "Belden and I were born the same month, same year. We grew up together, each other's best friend. I became an officer of the law, and he became what he became, but we never drifted apart. We remained close in our way. I protected Belden, and he made my life easier whenever he could." Deacon crosses the porch to the steps, descends to the yard, turns, and looks up at her where she stands at the railing. "I want what I want, and I want this to be as smooth as glass between us. I came today to let you know the consequences. You think about your situation until you fully understand there's just one path forward for you. I'll give you some time. I came off mean today. I won't be that way once we've settled on the terms of our arrangement. You'll find me agreeable enough. You'll be happy with me—and if you aren't, it'll be only because you don't want to be."

He proceeds to the Trans Am and opens the door and takes off his cowboy hat and spins it onto the passenger seat.

Before Deacon gets into the car, Vida says, "What do you want from me?"

"Look in a mirror. You've got what I need, and you need what I can give you, now that you've been alone the better part of a year."

"Say it plain—what you want."

"Submission," he says.

She watches him drive away, until the Trans Am is out of sight, until the plume of dust settles in his wake and the air is clear.