Harvestman Lodge (36 page)

“Forget about it, David. It’s not an issue. Like I said, I appreciate the fact you thought it was worthy of having the newspaper’s name associated.”

“Well, I felt like I put you in an uncomfortable position without giving you advance warning. I shouldn’t have done it.”

Eli smiled, honestly appreciating the sincerity his boss was displaying. “We’re good. No problems. And probably the thing I should have done was to tell you about Mr. Darwin’s offer to me when I brought the story in for you to edit. That way we would all have been on the same page.”

“Maybe so. Live and learn, huh?”

“Every single day.”

“Right. And isn’t it good that we can?” David rose to leave.

“David, can I ask you something?”

“Of course.”

“Several times since I’ve come here I’ve heard vague references to the Harvestman Lodge, the thing Keith mentioned that your father obviously didn’t want to talk about. Jake Lundy even showed me the road where the building stands. But he wouldn’t talk about it and told me to put it out of my mind, pretty much like Mr. Carl did today. I’ve picked up that some sort of scandalous thing apparently happened there, and that it’s sensitive. In the times I’ve looked through the newspaper archives, I’ve noticed very little about Harvestman Lodge or the Harvestmen organization, especially as time went on. The most frequent mentions were in the 1930s and ‘40s, when the paper was a weekly and bi-weekly. In later years there were a few mentions of typical civic activities, a picture of some Harvestmen marching in a July 4 parade in the 1960s … but before long it seems like the coverage just fades away to nothing. Oh, and as a side note, and are you aware there are some entire volumes of the archived papers missing?”

David Brecht nodded and said nothing.

Eli went on. “What is that Harvestman thing all about, anyway, and why won’t Lundy or anybody else talk about it? I’m just curious, that’s all. Puzzled and fascinated by the whole thing.”

David slumped and sighed, staring off into a corner.

Eli wasn’t going to let him off the hook. “Why does nobody talk about Harvestman Lodge, David?”

“Ultimately, nobody talks because nobody really knows what happened there. Well … I shouldn’t say nobody talks, because over the years there has been a lot of gossip and speculation, most of it transparent nonsense. Nobody talks and everybody talks, if you follow me. I’ve heard nonsense about satanic cult sacrifices, vigilante racist lynchings, strippers and drunken orgies, KKK activities masked behind the Harvestman name, kidnappings … any scandalous thing you can think of, you can be sure that somebody somewhere has claimed on the factory line or at the office water cooler that that’s what was going on at Harvestman Lodge.”

“The newspaper never investigated? Or law enforcement?”

“Investigate what? Over-the-top rumors that transformed and mutated even while they were being told? The Harvestman Lodge matter never moved onto official public turf … there were no crimes ever officially charged or even alleged, no clarity on who or what was involved, and nobody who ever came forward. The whole thing, whatever it was, became a tangle of rumors, with so many variations on each one that there was essentially no way to untangle the Gordian knot. The county sheriff at that time, Rudy Hawes, tried to get some clarity on the matter and see if there really was anything criminal going on, but whatever he found, if anything, was kept under wraps and no specifics ever were released beyond a statement from him that ‘unofficial allegations have been investigated,’ and ‘nothing was uncovered in the investigation of said allegations warranting further investigatory action.’ A real Barney Fife-like pronouncement, loaded with attempted ‘official’ jargon. I think we ran something small on the lower corner of the front page. Dad, who had talked to Sheriff Hawes privately and off the record, insisted we treat it as a non-story because there were never any specifics. Naturally the lack of detail only made the rumors flourish and grow wilder out among the public, up to the point that it grew so absurd that the whole thing collapsed of its own weight. The Harvestman group, however, never recovered from the taint of it all. The organization disbanded, and these days you’ll not find many who will even own up to having ever been in it. There’s a lesson in that on the power of gossip and ungrounded public speculation, Eli, and the need for truth to be put out there. That’s something I keep in mind every time we have to deal with something controversial.” Brecht paused and shifted his posture, then went on. “I was troubled, I admit, that the newspaper was no more able to find out what it was all about than was anyone else. I’ve always suspected Dad knew more than he was willing to say, but I don’t know that for a fact.”

Eli said, “It’s an episode of local public life, according to Lundy, that should be ignored in the bicentennial magazine. Which is something I admit just doesn’t feel right, somehow. At journalism school, you get hammered continually with the concept of the public’s right to know the truth.”

“Yes. But Jake Lundy is absolutely right in this case. Exploring the Harvestman Lodge story would, well, poison the spirit of our 200th birthday celebration. All I can do is ask you to trust me on that.” David yawned and stretched, joints popping loudly enough to be heard. “Good talk, Eli. Good talk. Now back to the grind!”

RUBY WAS GATHERING UP her purse to leave for the day when Eli passed her desk on the way to take a new look at the huge photograph on the hallway wall. He was staring intently at it when she passed behind him on her way out.

“Ruby.”

“Yes?”

“Who is this person?”

Ruby walked over and looked at the image Eli was pointing at: a male face just visible over the shoulder of a ragged-looking woman. The man was looking directly at the camera and was close enough that his features were clearly seen.

“That? That’s one of the Parvins … you can always tell a Parvin by his eyes. I think that one’s Cale Parvin.”

“I would swear it couldn’t be anyone except Rawls Parvin.”

Ruby laughed. “Lord have mercy, Eli, Rawls was probably not even born when this picture was made! But I see what made you say that … I’ve never really noticed till just now how much Cale at that age looked like his son! All those Parvin men bear resemblance, but this one runs nearer to being identical. That face really could be Rawls’s, if he had a time machine and went back to get himself in that photograph. Funny how – ”

She’d cut off abruptly and wore the expression of a person experiencing a realization. “Eli, you know what? That image right there has to be the reason your girlfriend got upset that day when she looked at this picture. She looked up at this old photograph, and looking back at her was the face of someone who came real near to hurting her in the worst way a woman can be hurt … ”

“I know about what happened, Ruby. Melinda told me. I know she and Rawls were together for a time, several years back, and I know he tried to, uh, take wrongful advantage of her. And I know her father saved her from it by showing up at just the right moment.”

“Do you know about the shoot – ” Another abrupt cut-off, mid-word, and a quick look around to make sure no one else was listening. “Never mind that part.”

“You were going to say ‘shooting,’ and yeah, I know about that too. I know it was presented to the public as an injury suffered from Rawls taking a fall from a barn loft, but the truth is that Melinda’s dad actually shot that basta … sorry, that jerk, in the leg.”

“‘Bastard’ is the better word,” Ruby said, keeping her volume low. “Rawls isn’t a good young man, then or since. He was a good football player, but that was about it. Yeah, bastard fits.”

“I agree. Didja know he put a key scratch all the way down the side of my car while Melinda and I were at the Bicentennial Committee planning meeting last night.”

“But that couldn’t have been Rawls … he’s in prison for selling drugs.”

“Not anymore he’s not. He’s free and back in Tylerville. He keyed my car and followed me all the way to my apartment after the meeting. I saw him pass by, but he never stopped, so there was no confrontation.”

“You should turn him in for that.”

“No witnesses. I can’t prove he did it. And I don’t want to be on his family’s bad list.”

“You’re right to be careful. They’re a bad bunch, those Parvins.”

“I’ve heard.” Eli looked once more at the image of Rawls Parvin’s father in the election party crowd from decades back. It truly was astonishing to note the exactness of the resemblance to the face he’d seen illuminated by passing headlights through the window of Rawls Parvin’s truck.

It unnerved him to look at that face, even knowing it wasn’t actually Rawls. No wonder it had upset Melinda, seeing in a decades-old image a duplicate of the face of a young man who had been only narrowly averted from forcibly violating her, and who still remained a shadowing menace in her life.

“Ruby, how is it you know the truth about Rawls Parvin being shot by Mr. Buckingham? Jake knows it, too. It makes me wonder if maybe it’s actually general knowledge despite the cover story about the barn accident.”

“Eli, one thing to know about a small town is that secrets don’t tend to stay secret long. Things leak out, sometimes the truth, sometimes just stories people tell until they persuade themselves and others around them.”

“Yeah.”

“Speaking of Ben Buckingham, what do you think of him?”

“I haven’t met him, Ruby. I’m dating his daughter, but I haven’t met him. Melinda has kept me away from her family so far. It’s a little awkward, to tell the truth. But she says he’s very ‘intense,’ and I think she worries about how I might react to him.”

“‘Intense.’ That was the very word for Ben. Ben Buckingham is a man with strong opinions. And he’s a religious fundamentalist, the kind that can get obnoxious about it, and he’s made a name for himself by harping on and on about how alcohol is the reason for America’s downfall. Although, last I looked, America is still moving along. Limping every now and then, maybe, but there’s been no downfall.”

“I can’t say I look forward to meeting the man. Although, when I see that key scratch down the side of my car, I feel like shaking his hand for shooting Rawls Parvin. Then maybe slapping him for for shooting Rawls in the leg instead of the skull.”

“I’ve got a theory about that,” Ruby said, pulling a little closer and repeating her surreptitious glance-around routine. “I think he might
not
have been aiming at Rawls’s leg. Considering what Rawls was doing when Ben caught him, I think he was probably aiming at … uh, something else. Something near the leg but not part of it. Catch my drift?”

“I think I do. Ouch. Wow.”

“If he’d hit that particular part, Rawls maybe could have found a way to keep up his football career without his full personal downstairs inventory, but it sure would have ended his career as a raping son of a bitch. Sorry about the language. Melinda wasn’t the only girl he tried that with, y’see. She was just the only one lucky enough to have a daddy who came in at the right moment and put an end to it all. The general knowledge out in Kincheloe County, though, is that quite a few of those Parvin men have been known to be violent with women and girls. It gives a whole new ugliness to that Parvin glare. They’re a nasty, filthy, depraved bunch. I swear, I’ve heard that the Parvin men deliberately raise their sons to be rough with women. That’s their notion of what a man should be.”

“Have there been prosecutions?”

“Some. None involving Rawls, though, even though there probably should have been.”

“Lack of proof?”

“More like a lack of women willing to go through the humiliation of making public what they went through. You know how that goes.”

“Yeah.” He studied the piercing gaze of Cale Parvin in the big photograph. “Ruby, this is sure not a conversation I expected to have today, with you or anybody else. But I’m glad at least to know the truth about why this picture upset Melinda so much. She told me that if I would look at the picture closely enough, I’d find what upset her. Thanks to you, we’ve done that. It makes sense now.” Eli took one more look at the image of Rawls Parvin’s father, and shuddered. “Gives me a chill, seeing that face.”

“Me too, now that I’ve noticed it. I never did before today. Now it’ll jump out at me every time I look at this picture.”

“Is he still living, Rawls’s father?”

“If you can call it living. He took a knife through the spine in a brawl one night in a redneck bar at Mansfield Creek. The Wild Cat Lounge. He hasn’t walked since. He’s in a wheelchair now, and pretty much stays in his house, from what I hear. He had a disease of the eyes on top of it all, and he’s nearly blind now – completely blind in one of his eyes, I think. He can’t move his legs, and only has enough movement in his arms and hands to let him control his power wheelchair. Deluxe model. He wouldn’t have that wheelchair if somebody hadn’t given it to him just as personal charity. Somebody with a kind heart.”

“Who was it?”

“A lot of people think it was Caine Darwin, but I know it wasn’t. It was somebody most people wouldn’t ever think of. Coleman Caldwell.”

“I’m going to have to meet that man. He’s also been good to Curtis Stokes.”

“Yeah. Curtis lives in his house. Have you seen the house yet?”

Eli grinned. “From what I’ve heard, nobody’s really seen his house in a long time.”