“Are they friends of yours?”
“No, not friends. We’ve had a couple of nasty run-ins over the years.”
“Run-ins?” Jeff reached for the binoculars again.
“Long story. They’re locals. They’ve lived here in Oakwood for a few generations. They were offended when I bought this land. They used to think of it as their own private hunting preserve.”
“Tell me about the run-ins,” Jeff persisted.
“We used to keep a hunting tent at the top of the canyon. After we asked them to stop trespassing, one of their clan broke into our equipment locker and crapped all over the handles.”
Jeff lowered the binos. “They literally shit on your equipment locker?”
Jason shrugged. “They’re rednecks. Down on their land, they’ve built a ghetto survival retreat—they’ve got foxholes, buildings made out of pallets, tripwires. It’s like a scene out of Deliverance.”
“What did you do about them shitting on your locker?” Jeff drilled down.
“We let it go. Eventually they quit coming over the mountain to hunt.” Jason’s answer made him feel self-conscious, like he had compromised his “man card” by not making the Beringers face consequences for their disrespect.
By all accounts, Jason was a man’s man. Tall and broad of shoulder, he had taken care of himself, working out daily, lifting weights and completing a handful of half-ironman triathlons over the years. He had been an Eagle Scout and, since boyhood, he had spent a large chunk of his life in the woods. But even a “man’s man” felt self-conscious around Jeff Kirkham. No amount of civilized outdoorsmanship compared with two-and-a-half decades living in the muck as a Green Beret.
“Those Beringer people can’t stay,” Jeff concluded, not inviting discussion.
“I’d like them gone, too, but they own that land. I don’t see how we can run them off their own land without inviting others to do the same to us.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” Jeff handed back the binoculars with a blank smile.
That smile made Jason uncomfortable. It implied gamesmanship. It hinted at a desire for a chess match, like something out of a Kipling novel, a penchant for cheating, a pleasure at defeating others through superior maneuvering. Nothing implied by that smile put Jason at ease with Jeff Kirkham.
Jason was well aware that American Special Forces operators cheated. They fought at night with night vision and air support. They used technological advantage to win with grotesque dominance over the enemy. Top-tier Green Berets were often loaned to the CIA, where the deeds ran dark and deep. Jeff had almost certainly triggered foreign insurgencies by employing carefully set layers of intrigue and connivance. He had spent a lifetime in the mind-bending juxtaposition where an operator’s personal reputation and integrity among Americans was everything. That same operator would smile at a terrorist across the table, call him brother, use him like a dishrag, then radio in an air strike to kill him.
During the decades Jeff fought for his country using every trick in the book, Jason built wealth and honed his ability as a leader of enterprise. He made a career out of full disclosure and fair dealing. He had been taught early on that virtue won most battles on the fields of commerce and had made a great deal of money through cooperation, collaboration and respect.
Jason didn’t know the half of Jeff’s career, and he suspected Jeff had spent time within the shadowy elements of the United States government. Jason worried that the same subterfuge might someday be turned on him.
He looked at Jeff for a long moment. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. What befell the Beringers could easily befall the Ross family, Jason thought to himself.
“What?” Jeff’s thin smile broke a little wider. He seemed to have an idea of what Jason was thinking.
“Hmm, nothing.” What more could be said? Trust and ruthlessness danced a dangerous dance, especially now that the Ross Homestead might live or die based on Jeff’s judgment. If the stock markets stayed closed, the world that Jason knew—the world of win-win contracts and business-casual lunches—was about to morph into something far more primitive. If that happened, it would be a world Jeff knew from the ground up, and a world Jason knew not at all.
Jeff headed back to the OHV and Jason followed. They drove down the hill toward the “Big House” but, halfway home, a lanky guy with long hair stepped to the edge of the OHV trail and waved them down. Teddy worked for Jason Ross, handling construction projects, landscape and heavy equipment work. Jason pulled over and Teddy propped his arms across the door of the vehicle.
“Morning, gentlemen,” Teddy said, glancing from Jason to Jeff.
“Jeff, this is Teddy, our head of facilities. He runs all the grounds and construction projects. He’ll be the guy digging your observation posts.”
“Howdy do.” Teddy shook Jeff’s hand. “So, do you guys want to see the holding ponds? We’re filling them with water right now for the first time.”
Jason blinked. The water project wasn’t something he wanted Jeff to see, but Teddy jumped the gun, more friendly than cautious. Jason and Teddy had agreed their water system would be top secret, but the cat was out of the bag now, so Jason went with it.
He popped open his door and Jeff followed suit, stepping out of the OHV and following Teddy down a narrow trail. The oak brush opened into a small clearing with several large excavations, lined with a black plastic sheet covered in river rock.
“Check out our secret reservoir, gentlemen,” Teddy said. “The ponds will hold eighty thousand gallons of spring water and they’ll be home to hundreds of trout and bluegill.” Teddy had tucked the reservoir into a tiny meadow encircled by a tangle of oaks, hidden from view everywhere but inside the clearing. No doubt it would become a refuge for deer, elk and turkeys.
Once Teddy got going, he was hard to stop. He bragged about how he worked this project for the last two months so they could get the Homestead off municipal water. It would save a few thousand bucks a month and it would make the property self-sufficient, pulling water from a buried spring, stringing it across the mountainside beneath the maples, and dribbling it into this picture-perfect pond—much better than relying on the city for water.
“I borrowed the design for the spring from Eivin Kilcher in the TV show, Alaska: the Last Frontier.” Teddy had watched the show several times, then dug a bigger version of Eivin’s spring-fed well. “I planted six huge plastic pipes standing on end, punched small holes in them, surrounded the whole shebang with gravel, then re-buried it.”
Sticking his chest out, Teddy kept talking. “Natural spring water will irrigate the whole property starting tomorrow.”
While Jason shifted from foot to foot, Jeff stood like a statue. Teddy waxed philosophical about his water project.
“Most people don’t think about water pressure. They only think about getting water to their mouths. But ground water isn’t very helpful. A person can drink ground water with a purifier, but that’s about all they’re going to do. Gardening, washing clothes, showering―those tasks require water pressure. When a guy plans on carrying water to his garden by hand, he’s not thinking about how many calories he’ll burn carrying the water. He would have to eat every last plant, and then six times more, just to replace the calories spent hauling water.”
“Thanks. Good work, Teddy.” Jason turned to walk back to the OHV.
Teddy finally picked up on Jason’s cues. “Oh, yeah. Thanks, guys.” He reached over and shook hands with both men. “I just wanted you to see this. I thought you’d want to know we got it done, you know, especially with the problems going on in the stock market and all…”