There was a long, long pause and again John had to deposit money.
Finally a crisp man’s voice said, “Sullivan speaking. Understand you’re worrying over Harlowe.”
“Right,” John said, relieved.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“There’s this auctioneer come in, sir. A stranger. First he come round to half the town and collected up their life’s belongin’s to sell at his auctions. And then there was all these accidents, all to them as didn’t see things his way. And now he’s after land and livin’ children.”
“Whose land and children?” asked the man.
“Everybody’s, sir. Everybody who ain’t a deputy. Or the doctor or the storekeeper or some others.”
“That doesn’t sound like quite everybody. You personally are on hard times? That what you’re trying to tell me?”
“No, sir. I mean yes, maybe...”
“You talked to Bob Gore about this?” he asked. “I should think he’d understand your situation better than I can. I was talking to him just last Tuesday, and he was telling me how Harlowe is just bustin’ out all over. Construction, and new people, and money coming in hand over fist. If times are hard for you, maybe the town can help you out some, tide you over the winter. You ablebodied?”
“Course I’m able-bodied.”
“Well then...”
“That ain’t the point. The point bein’ that this here auctioneer who’s gobblin’ up the townsfolk—”
“If you mean Perly Dunsmore,” said the voice, laughing, “I’d best tell you he’s the luckiest thing ever happened to Harlowe. Now there’s a man knows which end is up. But I understand some of the old families like the old ways and don’t want to move with the times. These big developers always have their enemies. You got to get with it though, mister. We’re in the twentieth century. There’s no stopping progress. As for that fellow Dunsmore, he’s three lengths smarter than most. A real winner. You should count your blessings.”
“I got no grudge with the twentieth century,” John said. “What Perly’s up to’s got nothin’ to do with any century.”
“You’re wrong about that, of course, but listen. What did you say your name was? Maybe you could come in here and we could talk this over.”
Moore held the receiver to his ear. “Whatever you do, don’t breathe the name of Moore,” Mim had said. And Ma had said. “Its a sorry day when you’re ashamed to say you’re a Moore.” John took a handkerchief out of his pocket and wiped his forehead. The telephone booth was so steamed up now that he couldn’t see out at all.
“Hello?” said Captain Sullivan.
John hung up.
He opened the door and breathed the cold air. He doodled in the steam on the inside of the glass with his fingernail, thinking about Captain Sullivan knowing he meant Perly right off the bat like that.
Finally he closed the door and dialed the operator again. “Give me the State House, please,” he said.
When the woman with the licorice voice answered, he said, “I talked to the police and the state police like you said and they won’t help at all. You got to let me through to the governor.”
“I don’t ‘got to’ anything, sir. Didn’t I speak to you before?”
“I said so, ma’am,” John said, feeling the sweat start beneath the collar of his wool jacket.
“What was your problem again?”
“Where I come from, there’s a man takin’ people’s children, their own flesh and blood. He’s shootin’ people and knockin’ greenhouses down and jimmyin’ up the steerin’ so’s—”
“Who is doing what?”
“The auctioneer—”
“Didn’t you call me last week too?”
“No, ma’am. No. Not me.”
“I think you did. This sounds familiar.”
“No, no,” John said, his spirits rising. “But there’s plenty on the receivin’ end along with me. Stands to reason. Must be others called.”
“Listen. Crackpots call in here all the time. You wouldn’t believe the calls we get. Obscene phone calls. People wanting him to come to their grandmother’s birthday party. People will say anything on the phone. You know some guy called in here the other day, thought I was the governor’s wife.” The voice laughed heartily.
“Please, ma’am,” John said. “In my whole life no one ever called me a crackpot. I been tendin’ my business, bidin’ my time, waitin’ for this to blow over. I never lodged a complaint before. I let others better outfitted than me do that. But I can’t wait no more. I’d be real quick. Three minutes. You got no call to stop me when I got a reason good as this.”
“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, resuming her licorice voice. “He’s unavailable to random callers. You must understand the governor is a very busy man. There’s an election campaign just over, and Christmas coming. And then there was that terrible fire over in Manchester, and he’s very busy trying to organize some relief. And right at the moment all his aides are pretty well tied up too. Think of all the important things they have to look after—that broken dam up in Artemis that’s left all those poor people homeless. The welfare problem in the state—you just don’t know how bad it’s got.”
“But this here is people in trouble too,” John said, but he wasn’t sure, even as he stood there begging, that his problem was as important as all those other things. A broken dam was, after all, something you could stand in front of and look straight at.
“I would suggest that your problem is one for the police,” said the woman.
“Gosh sakes, who?” John asked, feeling the quick heat rise to his face. “I called all them. What’s a body got to do around here? Bust a dam? Burn a town?”
“That’d do it all right,” said the woman, giggling. When John made no response, she said, “Look, if you’re all that upset, you can come in here and make out a formal statement. The girls in the office here will tell you how to do it. If you want to bring charges, we’ll help you with the forms, and get you in to see a judge. But you can’t do these things on the telephone. How do I know who you are?”
“I can’t do that,” John moaned. “There’s too many people ready to steal my child, shoot my wife—God only knows.”
“If you feel the need for police protection, sir, you should discuss the matter with the police,” she said, more gently now.
John held onto the phone until the woman asked if he was there still and if he didn’t want to come in. Then, because he was incapable of speaking any more, he hung up.
11
He walked back to the truck, his body aching with fatigue. He folded his arms on the wide black steering wheel and rested his head against them. He more or less believed in the police, despite Cogswell’s warning about the troopers. At least he always had. It didn’t come naturally not to believe in them. In the police, and the army, and the country, and the goodness of his neighbor. He had accepted the inflation that made his milk worth less and less, and he had accepted the certification regulations which finally made it impossible for him to sell his milk at all. He accepted the fact that he was still living the way his grandfather had, while people in the towns and cities were filling their lives with expensive gadgets. He saw all the cars and the dishwashers and the cabins on the lakes and the trips hither and yon in fancy trailers and he dismissed them as a fragile tower that could be toppled in a cold wind. He let the tables and chairs go, and the tools and machinery, and even the cows, because of the land. Because the land was free and clear. Because he believed that a good piece of land was the only true security there was—the only security a family needed. Some man with a ski resort in mind had offered him forty-five thousand dollars for his land when Hildie was a baby, and he had laughed. “You could retire on that,” the stranger had reminded him. Money ain’t like land,” John had answered.