“KNEW YOUR DAD VERY well,” Leo Garvix was saying while they flailed and churned their way through a patch of tall, dense mullein grass. “Though we didn’t see too much of him these past few years.”
“He came and went a lot,” Gage replied. “Traveled a good deal since his retirement. Hardly got to see much of him myself.”
“That’s right,” Garvix said, a slightly censorious edge to his voice. “Shame about him. Awfully sudden wasn’t it?”
“Yes, it was.”
“Looked hale and hearty last time I saw him.”
“He wasn’t though,” Gage said. “Matter of fact, he was quite sick these past few years.”
Garvix made a clucking sound intended to suggest remorse. “That’s too bad…. worked out nicely for you though.”
“Beg pardon?” Gage said, staring at him oddly.
“Well, that old Stuart place is a nice hunk of property. And I’m sure the old boy was pretty well heeled.”
Gage felt his spine stiffen. “Yes, he was. What precisely does that mean?”
Garvix turned and shot him a lewd wink. “That’s a nice piece of change for a young fella, if you know what I mean. But what I don’t understand, Doctor—”
Leo Garvix’s voice droned on far back in Gage’s mind. It came at him distantly as if through some long, damp tunnel. It was curious the way he’d suddenly found himself alone with the man. Only a moment before it seemed he was with the others, chatting with Sybil Jamison and Ollie Gelston while he hung on every new reading from the surveyor. Then suddenly they were all gone and he was alone with this offensive, truculent little man. He didn’t care much for Garvix with his snarls and his nasty smirking. He had the feeling no one else did either. Particularly his wife, poor woman. He could’ve kicked himself for having been caught by Garvix leering at his wife’s attractive thigh when she’d been hauled squirming up over the top of the butte about an hour or so back.
He had the feeling too that Garvix suspected him of something, and that something had something to do with Gage’s sudden inheritance of his father’s estate. Gage knew that all these people had a vested and mutual interest in keeping the land as it had been kept over the centuries—pristine, virginal, untainted by all the filth and ruck of civilization, automobiles, highways, dwellings, fumes, all the inane, grimy, and thoroughly useless claptrap of advanced technology.
Gage had a fairly good idea what worried Garvix and undoubtedly the others. They imagined that he’d taken over the Stuart property with the intention of developing the land. That he’d come there like some dismal little realtor with pie-in-the-sky notions of how to make a sure killing. The chilling vision of airports, blacktop highways, shopping centers, trailer camps, and wretched sprawling bungalow colonies for summer trippers, rose up like specters before them.
It was typical of people like Garvix—pirates who’d made fortunes savaging the earth in the name of progress—to get awfully concerned about the possibility of progress coming too close to their own backyards.
Now, as they walked along, Gage was certain that this was what stuck in the back of the man’s mind, what lay behind all those sardonic little smiles. That’s why Garvix had been watching him, waiting for some moment to get him off alone, separate him from the pack, and then pump him for information.
“—is what a young fellow like yourself wants to retire for,” Garvix droned on amicably. “Why, at your time of life I was chewing up the world. And if you ask me, I still am. Chewing it up and spitting it out.” He laughed heartily.
A shudder of revulsion fluttered through Gage. “I’ve chewed about all the world I care to chew, Mr. Garvix. It begins to stick a bit in my craw now. And frankly, I prefer these days to lie down beneath a tree and gaze up at the sky.”
There was something ironic about the short, grunting little laugh that issued from Garvix at that moment. “And no wife?”
“No,” Gage said, rather baldly. He knew that Garvix was awaiting some additional information on that subject too. It amused him to simply let the matter drop there. Leave him dangling in midair.
Now he’s certain I’m some kind of pansy, Gage thought with growing delight. That weak nerves and sexual inversion have caused me to flee from the world to this woody retreat. He has a picture now of the stately old Stuart place being turned into some den of iniquity. Lots of limp-wristed, very tan, pretty young men in very white shorts mincing and prancing all over the damned place. A lot of goddamned ballet dancers.
“Well, you’re wise to have had no truck with them,” Garvix said, full of good-natured indignation.
“With whom?”
“With women.”
“Oh,” said Gage.
“They’re all a pack of vultures if you ask me. Where their hearts ought to be they have a great big credit card. It says American Express or Diners’ Club.” Once more the hoarse guffaw shattered the still sultry air. And then he nudged Gage in the ribs and winked at him. “Well, if you ever get lonely rattling around in that big old house up there, just say the word and I’ll put you on to some good stuff.”
“Stuff?” Gage pretended confusion.
Garvix winked again. “Don’t be lonely. Know what I mean? There are some delicious little lovelies I can show you around here. And when you’ve had a bellyfull of that, then come over to see me. Like to shoot ducks?”
“I don’t like to shoot anything.”
“Don’t like to shoot? What’sa matter? You one of those Bambi people?” He gave a gruntish laugh.
“No—I just don’t like shooting.”
“That’s because you haven’t tried. Nothing as exhilarating as knocking a mallard or a pintail out of the sky. Take ’em right through the eye. Zing. Clean as a whistle. My heart leaps when they plummet to the earth and hit with a THUNK.” A small trajectory of spit hurtled from his lips. At the thought of that fallen duck he’d waxed poetic. Now suddenly, with a short, harsh laugh, he clapped Gage on the shoulder.
“Well—no matter. We’ll find something for you to do around here. Can I call you Willoughby?”
“God, no.” Gage laughed. “Not if you want to be friends—call me Harry. That’s my middle name.”
“Oh, that’s right. Now I recall. It was Harry—Little Harry. Very well then—Harry it is.”
“23 north-northeast. Southwest 5 degrees 16 chains 17 links—” The surveyor’s voice gonged through the forest somewhere not too far ahead of them.
“Extraordinary man your Mr. Rogers,” Gage said, leaping at the opportunity to change the subject.
“Rogers? Oh hell, yes. But not a man. An institution. We all follow Rogers around here. Have for years.”
“Interesting fellow. Superb physique.”
“It’s the work I s’pose,” Garvix sucked in his stomach and threw out his chest as if Gage’s remark had called attention to his own rather flabby frame. “County surveyor over half a century,” he went on. “No one else there can read these deeds. Lead us through these woods. Our compass and rudder. Sybil, John, Gladys, Ollie, myself—known him since we were kids. First man to take me hunting and show me how to use a gun.”
“I remember him vaguely,” Gage said. “How old is he now?”
“He’ll admit to seventy-five, seventy-six. But you can add ten to that if you ask me and still be on the safe side. Still sharp as a tack and strong as a bull ram.”
“He’s a splendid specimen.”
“I think he still has women,” Garvix sniggered.
“Funny,” Gage murmured. He was pondering something as yet unshaped in his mind.
“What’s that?”
Gage turned to him questioningly.
“What’s funny?”
The doctor laughed lightly. “I don’t know. Nothing really.” He looked up and saw Rogers ahead waving at them.