He turned away from the garage window and saw a man in overalls and a yellow straw hat coming toward him. The man took off his hat and wiped his sweaty skull with a blue bandanna handkerchief.
“Good afternoon,” said George.
“Hy, there, Mr. Lockwood. Don’t rememper me, hey? Sam Kitzmiller from the Haven. I work for Chester Stengler. I took care of your garden all summer.”
“Uh-huh. Where is Chester?” said George. “I expected him to be here.”
“He won’t, though. He’s down with a case of di’rea. The shits. They all got the shits from the Methodist picnic. Sauerkraut and pork, they say. I wouldn’t eat no pork in the summertime if you paid me.”
“Well, I am paying you, I guess. But not to eat pork. The garden looks pretty good, from here.”
“We need rain. The son of a bitchin’ dry spell, water from the hose line ain’t the same as rainwater. It got chemicals in it.”
“No it hasn’t. Our water comes from two wells.”
“I know that, but the ground has chemicals in it. Rain. Rain is what we need.”
“I suppose you have a point. What else has been going on? Do you come every day?”
“You don’t rememper me. I worked for you when you were building here. I was here one day the fellow got bit with a copperhead.”
“I do remember you, now. Kitzmiller. Your people go to our church. You have a brother about my age.”
“Lamarr.”
“Lamarr, that’s right. What’s he doing now?”
“He moved to Gippsville. He’s clerking in Stewart’s store, the rug and carpet department.”
“What the hell does he know about rugs?” said George.
“I guess he learned. He’s there twenty-five years already.”
“For Christ’s sake. When I knew him he had trap-lines and spent all his time in the woods.”
“He got married. She made him get a chob.”
“And now he’s selling rugs at Stewart’s.”
“He makes more than me, but I wouldn’t trade him,” said Kitzmiller.
“You must have married the right woman.”
“Christ, they’re all the same, but I don’t take no bullshit. If she don’t like how much I make, she can take in washing. But a son of a bitch if I let a woman tell me what work I do.”
“A man after my own heart,” said George. “Let’s take a walk around. Have you got a pencil and paper? If not, I have.”
“It’ll be better if you write it. I don’t get much practice.”
“You can read, though, can’t you?”
“Reading I don’t have any trouble, but writing I don’t do much of. What are we writing?”
“Taking notes on what I want done. I’ll print the notes, but I’d like you to go along.”
“Whatta you doing with such a Buick? Where is them other two nice cars?”
“In Massachusetts. The Buick doesn’t belong to me. Why?”
“When yuz get ready to sell your Packard, let me know how much. If she’s around four or five hundred I’ll make you an offer.”
“She won’t be around four or five hundred. I expect at least fifteen hundred on a trade. So let’s forget about cars and get down to the business at hand,” said George. “What’s that pile of lumber doing there? That was here when we left, two months ago.”
“I guess maybe it was left over from some carpentring.”
“It was, but they were supposed to come and get it. If Ed Muller thinks I’m going to pay him for those planks, he’s in for a rade shock. If you see Muller, tell him I’m going to charge him storage. And if it’s still here when I come back again, I’m going to burn it in my fireplace.”
“I’ll tell him,” said Kitzmiller.
“God damn inefficient, and an eyesore,” said George. “Smoke out that hornet’s nest on the back porch.”
“I’ll do that tomorrow.”
“And if you see any more, get rid of them. Did you leave that hose lying there overnight?”
“I guess I did,” said Kitzmiller.
“How much is a foot of hose, do you know?”
“I guess it runs around ten cents a foot.”
“There’s a sixty-foot length of hose and a good nozzle. Half full of water and lying there to rot. No wonder you think I’d sell you my Packard for four hundred dollars. You must think I like to throw money away. Well, I don’t.”
“I’ll blow the water out of the hose before I go home.”
“You’re damn right you will, or don’t come back tomorrow. Say, the rhododendrons look nice and healthy.”
“I water them with the sprinkling can. But take a look at the ground, how dry it is. The sprinkler’s all right for the grass, but the plants and flowers all gotta be done by hand. I’m here till eight o’clock every night, watering. It don’t do no good to water till the sun goes down.”
“I’m glad to see you know that,” said George. “Most people don’t. Let’s go over this way.”
“I got the arbutuses looking nice,” said Kitzmiller.
“So I see. My compliments.” They were walking on a line parallel with the west wall. George Lockwood came to an abrupt halt, not knowing why. Then he looked at the wall and saw what had stopped him: all along the wall, from one end to the other, ivy had been planted so that in two years the growth fairly well covered the bricking. But there was a gap in the growth about three feet wide that left the wall blank from the ground to the top. “What happened here?”
“How do you mean?” said Kitzmiller.
“Can’t you see, man? You’re supposed to be a gardener. Look at this wall. A fine growth of ivy the whole length of it except for right here. How do you explain that?”
“Search me,” said Kitzmiller. “It don’t look like there was anyting planted there.”
“Don’t tell me this is the first time you noticed it,” said George Lockwood.
“Well, it’s the first time you noticed it,” said Kitzmiller.
“But I’ve been away all summer. And as a matter of fact I haven’t walked in this part of the garden—in quite a while.” He involuntarily looked up at the top of the wall, and he saw that Kitzmiller was watching him with an expression of loutish cunning. “What do you know about this, Kitzmiller?”
“I don’t know what yuz are talking about,” said Kitzmiller.
“You’re a stupid, lying bastard,” said George Lockwood.
“You watch what you’re calling me, Lockwood. I don’t get paid for insults, and I’m a man.”
“Was it you, or was it Stengler? You left this space blank deliberately.”
“It was Stengler, but it would of been me.”
“Because this is where the Zehner kid was killed.”
“The Zehner kid was related to Stengler and I’m related to Stengler. You come any closer to me and I’ll chop you with this sickle.”
“Get off this land,” said George. “Get—off—my—land!”
Kitzmiller backed away, keeping an eye on George Lockwood until he was at a safe distance. George Lockwood remained where he stood, quivering with the suppressed impulse to murder the man. He was unconscious of time until he heard Stengler’s half-ton Ford leave the property, no more than five minutes later, but he felt sleepy. In another minute he would have had to lie on the ground and give in to sleep.
He walked to the house and let himself in through the front door and went to his study. He was too tired to turn on any lights, to do anything but slump down in a chair and yield to the desire to sleep. When he awoke he had again lost track of time, but oddly enough, in spite of the total darkness of the curtained room, he knew where he was and the deep sleep had restored his vitality. He sat in the dark silence and could very nearly feel the strength coming back as his heart pumped the blood through his veins. Eleven seconds, was it not, that it took for a single complete circuit of the cardiovascular system? About five times a minute, if that were true, he was getting new energy. The luminous dial of his wristwatch was so bright that it demanded his attention, although for the moment he was content to forget about time. It was eighteen minutes to six. It was seventeen minutes to six. It was sixteen minutes to six. Fifteen more times the blood had flowed through all those arteries and organs, and as it cleared his brain almost his first thoughts were of Angela Schultz-Schuyler. He knew that tomorrow in New York he was going to interrupt his journey to begin the conversion of her way of life to a way that would be more desirable to him and certainly an improvement for her. If she were with him now they would make love, but he appreciated the favorable aspect of the circumstance that prevented him from appearing over-eager. She must be made to feel that his company was increasingly indispensable to her happiness. He was dealing with a woman whose ugly life had made her a monster of selfishness, defensively and aggressively. She was aware of the cash value of every tooth in her head and every hair on her body, and it was essential to his relationship with her that she be made to believe in love.