CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

March 10_free read_

Chapter 40

         It was time, I decided, for a nice, leisurely, well-thought-out dinner. Now, what were my choices? Well, I had no meat or fish set aside-the Toddley twins saw to that, every time I laid some in at the Ice House-and it being Sunday evening, the butcher in Rennald would be closed. There just might be a grocery open in Collins Junction, but that wouldn't be fresh meat or fish, not the way Butcher Tony's would be, and I didn't feature driving that 25 miles each way-50 round trip-just for supper, when I had to go down there tomorrow anyway, on business with Attorney Squires. What did that leave? Biscuits, pancakes, flapjacks-and oh! I could make hash browns. So it was breakfast for supper yet again. I pulled out my pocket spiral notebook and added an item to tomorrow's list: stop in at Tony's butcher shop first thing in the morning when I drove to Rennald to gas up at the Gas 'n' Go, ask him to lay in either a chunk of lamb, or trout if he got some in during the day; then check with Todd to see if he had any work for me this week, and to get my bonus pay from the Testament Tow Division job, if it came in earlier tomorrow than three PM. Laundry too: I'd get that done while in Rennald. Putting the notebook away, I proceeded on my suppertime breakfast, eschewing coffee for flat lemonade, then went to get the files back out of the Merc to look through over the meal.





         I didn't find any surprises this time looking through the file notices from the Tax Assessor's Office. Having already come to terms with the fact that I owned vast tracts of land, perhaps seemingly all adjacent-that was another item to add to the list for tomorrow, a visit to the County Offices to read the plat map-looked like Madison Mills would have to be put off for yet another day-I found nothing new of import in the notices, even though this time I went through each carefully. After all, I now knew, approximately, where the plots were, and I knew that I, by inheritance, owned land in The Big Forest. What I still didn't know for sure was if “Euphonia,” the name on the foundation stone in the center of the front of the ruins behind the old Calhoun family cemetery, signified just the homestead that presumably had been there, or the area itself-the home, and lot, and whatever portion I guessed the Calhouns had owned there; or did “Euphonia” have a wider ranging meaning? THAT I didn't yet know, but I surely intended to quiz Attorney Benton Squires on that point tomorrow-along with much else.





         Supper eaten, I stood up to clear the table and wash up after myself, as a slow twilight twinkled into existence. Then I carried all the files into the front room and placed them on the table, checked the front door lock and bolt, checked all the windows, then went outside to verify I had locked up the car, and that the tool box was locked and the wood pile covered securely with tarp. All that verified, I closed and locked and bolted the back door and went into the bedroom to undress and take a quick lukewarm shower. All the regional horrors aside, I did live alone in the country and did not like being closed up in the indoor privy without all the entrances and windows being locked. Afterward I quickly dressed in my pajamas-if called to the work of The GreenHouse it would only be a matter of minutes to change, made sure all my soiled laundry was loaded in the two baskets to carry down to the Washerette in Rennald tomorrow, then returned to the front room after fixing another glass of lemonade. Mindful of my mother's household etiquette, I placed a coaster on the table before setting down the glass, and then I made sure it was sufficiently distant from the files in case of spills. Checking out the curtain proved night was coming on too fast to use the natural outdoor light to read, so I let the curtain drop and then turned up the lantern, settling in to open first the envelope from the Attorney.





         I was so glad I was sitting in the armchair beside the table when I started to read the Attorney's files. Here were copies of the Plat Maps I had seen earlier this afternoon, suddenly attached to the  property tax notice forms from the County Assessor's office in Collins Junction, when none had been included when first I opened the Assessor's envelope. There were the papers and savings book for the Bank account about which Attorney Squires had notified me on Wednesday afternoon: the current total was sizeable and astonishing, but when I referenced the dates, I saw that the account had been opened in my Daddy's time: February 1932, the month I turned 2, the month Daddy inexplicably moved Mamma and me to Rennald to live in the house at the edge of town, backing on to fields. I say inexplicably now, because although at the time I was too young to realize anything other than, perhaps, that I no longer saw my grandparents all day, every day. Now as an adult I realized that moving to town in the month of my second birthday, seemingly unexpectedly, after I had been born and raised in my grandparents' cabin in The Big Forest, as had my Mamma before me, and her father, and so on back up the Calhoun line to the first set of Calhouns emigrating, in companionship with Knutsons and Cloverdales-all three clans tautly intertwined-to the New World, to the Northern Woods and specifically, to The Big Forest-moving away from “Euphonia,” completely out of The Big Forest, and into the town of Rennald, which did not abut on The Big Forest-was completely unexplained.





         But more suprises remained. Attorney Squires had informed me that this Bank account was in my name, and so I saw it was. However, I had never signed for it; certainly when it was opened in the month of my second birthday I was both unaware and unable to write or read. I pulled the signature cards out of the bank envelope and took a closer look. I had brought in Mamma's magnifying lens from the Merc earlier when I carried in the files, and despite the crack in it from the Cemetery this afternoon (and how did that happen, I wonder, if I found it lying atop the folded plat maps on a fallen gravestone?) I was able to see clearly enough with it to examine the signatures on both cards. One card was clearly newer, and appeared to be perhaps five years old, which would have been 1952, when I turned twenty-two; the older card apparently had been made out when the account was opened. It was dated February 7, 1932; I turned two on the 19th of that month. On the newer card was only “my” signature, above the signature of a bank officer-Edwin A. Jackson. Of course, I had not signed it, since I neither lived in the area in February 1952, nor knew nothing about the account. However, the bigger surprise was on the older card. Faded as it was, its paper stock a sort of dull beige now instead of the newer card's strong tan, the signature line for account-holder held “my” signature (at least, it carried my name in script not mine on that line) but beneath it, faded almost to obscurity, I could just make out another name-my father, Edison Donald Lewes. The bank officer's signature was in Spencerian copperplate, much more classical than the signature on the February 1952 signature card, and read “Edgar L. Jackson.” Presumably the two bank officers, then, must have been father and son, or uncle and nephew, being as how the two cards were dated twenty-two years apart.





         Putting aside for later consideration of the Bank account signature cards and of the sudden inexplicable move from my maternal grandparents' homestead in The Big Forest to the town of Rennald, I dove on into the files. I still had a file folder from the attorney to finish perusing, and then Mamma's papers in the box still awaited as well. I had a full evening's viewing ahead of me, it seeemed. I decided another pot of coffee would be a wise idea; if necessary, I could sleep in a while in the morning as I was not expecting the Toddley twins. I went to the kitchen and fired up the wood stove, for the evening was turning cool, and put the coffee pot on to perk. While I waited for it, I pulled aside the curtain on the back window and gazed out into the evening. All was quiet, though from the corner of my eye, off to the right, I saw a shimmer of light through the line of pines. When I turned my head to look more closely, I saw nothing. My brain immediately told me to forget it [it's just The GreenHouse, Rory, never mind now!] and so I turned back to the whistling percolator.





         With a hot cup of coffee, and my thermos washed out and then filled up too, I returned to the living room. The kitchen wood stove's heat was nicely filtering into the front room, and I opened the bedroom door to let the heat waft in there too. Even Spring nights could be cold this far North, this close to the encroaching Big Forest.  Seating myself in the armchair, for a moment I thought I heard an engine groan on a grade, but when I looked around the curtain, I saw no vehicles nor lights, and the road appeared normally flat. I picked up the attorney's file folder in one hand and my coffee cup in the other, twisting till I made myself comfortable, and set the file on my lap. As I opened the folder, a distant train whistle rang out to the North, far back in the distance. From the direction of the sound, I knew the train sounding it would have to be passing within the confines of The Big Forest, which certainly made no sense. As far as I knew, Testament Corporation had never run a railway through The Big Forest, and if Testament hadn't done it-well, it had never been done.





         After I shifted the Bank envelope to one side, the next item in the file folder was a thick ivory-colored envelope on fine expensive paper stock. My name was typed across the center; under that was first the address of the home my Mamma and I had rented in Champaign, State of Illinois; then beneath that my address in Urbana when Leill and I were married, and finally on the fourth line down, “New Knox Road, Village of Knox, County of Collingham, State of Algonquin,” which I guessed was meant to constitute my current address-although I received my mail at a Post Office box down in Rennald, and that address was not included on this envelope. The upper left-hand corner read:

Benton Q. Squires, Esq.


Attorney-at-Law


Civil  & Estate Practice


Courthouse Square Annex-2nd Floor


Collins Junction, State of Algonquin”

That surely was a lot to fit on an envelope: five letters for the return address, plus four lines to fit my name and three addresses. I found myself almost surprised that the address of the home in Rennald where I lived from age two to age nine and a half, and the title of my grandparents' homestead, “Euphonia,” had not been appended as well.





          No matter: the envelope was sealed, yes; but it bore my name as addressee, and I was mightily certain that Attorney Benton Q. Squires had kept back at least one copy of the contents, and probably of this envelope as well, with all its address variations. So naturally and logically, I set the coffee cup back on the coaster, and proceeded to open the envelope. Oh, how I wished from that moment on I had not! For contained inside, very simply, was a Will in triplicate-the Last Will and Testament of one Rory Donald Lewes, dated February 19, 1952-my twenty-second birth date-and signed by me. Like the Bank account, my signature completed and verified a Will I had never composed, never requested, never considered-a final Will and Testament bequeathing everything I owned, every last jot and tittle of land, property, buildings, vehicles, every last cent in that Bank account-to Testament Logging Corporation of Madison Mills, State of Algonquin.

Chapter 41

         Suddenly, I wasn't scared any more. I wasn't frightened, I wasn't horrified, I wasn't terrified. The events of the last week dropped away as if I had never been terrorized nor tormented by the horrors. I was FURIOUS! How dare-Testament Logging Corporation-or any business, firm, Attorney, individual of any stripe-DARE to ORDER MY LIFE FOR ME! I, Rory Donald Lewes, scion of Calhouns and Knutsons, would not accept this!





         This was MY life, and although it had not always been a happy one (I had lost my Daddy at age nine-and-a-half, my mother only two years ago, my wife of eight months ran off three months earlier, for the last week I had lived among The Dead and the Scary) but it was still MY life to live as I pleased, as long as I did no harm to any one else! I lived a peaceful, proud, morally upright life; I always had and I intended to always do so. Even now, my move to this land had not appreciably stirred the waters of the area culture. No! I had helped: I worked for Todd's Garage on weekends, sometimes during the week, when Todd needed a good diesel mechanic-which I was-and by doing so I helped Todd's business and I helped the farmers in the area, and the few truckers, who needed diesel repairs and maintenance and otherwise would have had to travel the additional twenty or so miles to Collins Junction, the County Seat. Now with the construction of the Plant Nursery, I would be of additional benefit to local homesteaders AND farmers, as I planned to offer a much more extensive range of products for both than the little General Store down at Knox could provide. I would be helping out the Store also, if I could persuade Old Bat Aunt Jennie to go in with me on joint trips to Madison Mills for supplies and merchandise, and to work out some kind of arrangement where I could supply items she didn't offer for sale, and she could possibly also expand her line of merchandise available. So my living here was good for everyone, or at least for many, and I would not be run off, I would not be hoodwinked by Testament Logging Corporation and its tame pet attorney, I would live my own life as I saw fit, and so be it. I, Rory Donald Lewes, son of Edison Donald Lewes and Maggethe Knutson Calhoun Lewes, had decided so.





         This would stop-this ordering of my life for me. I was angry about the Bank account, yes-I did not like receiving funds I had not earned. Of course, in a sense the remittance fees for lease of my lands was earned-but then, I had never agreed to lease any land to Testament Logging Corporation, and the way I now felt, I never would agree. In fact, I would find an attorney in the morning-no, not Benton Squires, Pet Attorney on Retainer for Testament Corporation-nor  Attorney-at-Law Richard Layles Carnathy, Esq., of Madison Mills, he who had sent the original letter to me which had been addressed to my row duplex in Urbana. Attorney Layles specifically billed himself as Counsel for Testament Corporation, so I knew immediately he would be no use at battling the Corporation which made his career viable. No, what I needed, and what I now determined to find, was an attorney who did not walk on the Corporate side, who was not a pet monkey in the pockets of the far-ranging Testament Logging Corporation, who did not cower and grovel at the feet of whatever-whoever-powered the Testament Logging Corporation engine. I would find an attorney with fire in his heart and clarity of vision in his soul, a man-or woman-who would understand my need for divergence from the Testament web, my struggle to run my own life as I saw fit, an individual who would fight for my right to remain myself, Rory Donald Lewes, in perpetuity. This land was MINE, inherited from my mother and my father, MINE to bequeath to my heirs, should I ever produce any; and if I produced no heirs, then mine to bequeath as I wished, to an individual, a group, to charity, or however I chose-which would NOT and NEVER be, to Testament Logging Corporation nor its subsidiary corporations nor its assigns.