Homestead

Chapter Fifteen

The Grange was a square, wood-frame box sitting at the four corners where a spur of the Delaware & Hudson Railroad had once connected the industrial cities along the Hudson River to the farms upstate. Farmers built their barns along the tracks so the train could off-load goods and machinery and pick up produce, hay, milk, and beef. Now the tracks were paved over, forming one of the main county roads joining the rural communities dotted over the countryside. The narrow two-lane intersecting the former rail line bordered the north hundred acres of Tess’s farm.

Tess decided to walk the two miles to the Grange for the meeting. Maybe the exercise would work out some of the knots in her neck and shoulders. The twinges and cramps had gotten steadily worse throughout the long afternoon and evening, reminding her of the sleep she’d missed. Not that a lost night was all that unusual—she’d gone plenty of nights without sleep over the years, waiting on a new calf to show up, watching the weather reports while hoping to beat a ten-day rain with an early haying. Catnapping was her specialty—anytime, any place—curled up in the cab of her truck, on an old shirt spread over a pile of hay in the barn, in the porch swing. Not today, though. She’d tried to nap but couldn’t. Even with all the windows open in her shady north-facing, second-floor bedroom, the solid mass of air crowding inside was heavy and hot. Not a breath of a breeze.

She’d tossed and turned on top of the sheets for twenty minutes, reliving the memory of Clay lying in the street, dazed and bleeding, and the sight of her naked back, bruised and beautiful all at the same time, and the way Clay’s face had softened in sleep, making her appear at once vulnerable and desirable. She’d lain awake thinking of the many facets of Clay, her skin tingling and her blood racing, excited in a way no other woman had ever been able to arouse her. And what bothered her most of all was knowing it wasn’t memory that tormented her, but a woman who loomed large on the canvas of her life right now. Clay wasn’t a figment of her imagination or a girl viewed through the cloudy lens of time. She was a handsome, confident, sexy woman whose voice struck long-silent chords in Tess’s heart. Irritated with herself for being so susceptible to Clay’s charm all over again, she’d finally gotten up, showered, and dressed, killing time until she could leave by reading one of the novels she’d been meaning to get to for weeks. Never mind that she had to keep rereading page after page when she realized she didn’t know what her eyes had just passed over. At least she’d kept herself occupied and thoughts of drowning-dark eyes and a seductive grin at bay.

At eight p.m., the sun finally dropped over the horizon and a faint breeze promised a little cooling overnight. She walked along the side of the road, assessing her fields and those of her neighbors. The earth was dusty and cracked, like the parched lips of a lost soul wandering in the desert. The corn was half the height it should be, yellowing at the base of the stalks, the shoots raggedy from insects, the fledgling plants unable to fight both the unending heat and the onslaught of nature’s pests. Soybeans were stunted, and hay grew too slowly for even a second cutting when it should have been ready for a third. The cows slumped with heads drooping, tails swishing listlessly in whatever bits of shade they could find under the trees along the edges of the pastures. Every living thing—human, animal, and plant—wilted in the unrelenting drought.

Finally she picked up her pace and stopped torturing herself with images of a woman she didn’t want in her life and weather she couldn’t change.

Pickup trucks filled the gravel lot in front of the white clapboard Grange building and both sides of the road adjacent to it. The big double doors at the top of the four wide wooden steps stood open, held there by iron planters used as doorstops. The slatted black shutters were folded back from the open windows. Men and women stood outside, talking and smoking. Tess nodded to some and made her way inside. Rows of wooden chairs formed uneven lines in the single large room. A wooden table along with four rickety chairs sat in the center of a makeshift platform stage at the front. The village board members and the Grange president congregated in a cluster in one corner drinking coffee, waiting for everyone to straggle in and sit down. Tess searched for a seat on the side of the room opposite where Pete Townsend held court with several of the larger landowners. Making her way down a narrow row, she said hello to Cliff Wright, her nearest neighbor.

“Keep me company,” Cliff said, motioning to the seat next to him, “and maybe I’ll stay awake.”

“How are things over at the farm?” Tess settled onto the slat-backed chair next to Cliff and tried to find a comfortable position. Cliff was a jovial man in his midfifties, of irrepressible good humor and optimism. Tonight, even he looked a little weary.

“Oh,” Cliff said with a hint of his usual good nature, “we’re doing all right. Watching the sky and doing what we can. I was thinking I might get Joni to do a rain dance one of these nights if it don’t rain soon. You know, one of those moon rites that are supposed to call up the woman spirits from the earth and whatnot.”

Tess laughed. “Why do I think you’re serious?”

His blue eyes twinkled. “Well, if it doesn’t rain, at least it will be a good show.”

Tess looked around the room. “If she hears you, you’re going to be in trouble.”

“She’s home—we’ve got a cow about to freshen. She wants to make sure the baby’s all right.”

“Well then, you’re safe for a while.”

“It might work even better if there were two females doing the dance—you’re welcome to come and join her.”

Tess regarded him solemnly for a moment. “Does this perhaps require being sky-clad?”

Cliff laughed, his ample belly shaking over his faded jeans. “I haven’t heard that since Woodstock. And I do believe it does.”

“Well,” Tess said contemplatively, “I really do want it to rain.”

“I’ll have Joni call you if she gets adventurous.” He laughed again and they both looked forward as three men and a woman scraped back their chairs on the plank floor and took seats behind the table facing the crowd.

The room slowly quieted, except for the shuffling of feet and a few people clearing their throats. Once in a while a cell phone chirped, and someone would mutter sorry.

Most of the business was the usual affairs of a small town—what roads were on the docket to be resurfaced and which ones would have to wait until the next year, a proposal to ban the dumping of discarded oil and gas tanks and heavy machine parts in the local large-refuse area, another to enforce the long-ignored ordinance against butchering game on private property. The arguments flowed back and forth between those who opposed regulating what a person could do on their own land and those who insisted the practice was a health risk and some who just enjoyed a good squabble.

Finally everyone agreed to table the more contentious items and investigate what neighboring counties had done to resolve similar issues.

Tess listened with half an ear, knowing that nothing major would be decided and any changes would be small and not likely to substantially alter the way of life in the local community. No one really wanted anything to change, at least not the kind of change that might threaten the independence everyone prized. Sometimes progress was slower in coming, but most people valued the benefits of preserving what mattered most—the vitality of the way of life the community had known for hundreds of years. Everyone enjoyed a good gossip about who was doing what where and maybe with whom, but in the end, live and let live was more than an empty aphorism.

Finally, the Grange president, Sybil Worth, a widow who now ran the family franchise, rose and said, “I think it’s time we talked about the issue that I know a lot of you are here to discuss. That’s the drilling that’s about to go on around here. We’ve debated the pros and cons in the last few years, but until a thing is about to happen, that’s all it is—talk. Now we might need to make some decisions.”

Pete Townsend stood up. “I don’t think there’s much deciding that’s necessary. This drilling could endanger the livelihoods of most of the people in this room.” He looked around, his gaze lingering on Tess for a moment before moving on. “We need to stop them before they get started.”

“And how do you plan to do that, Pete?” Herb Brown, the owner of a big brush clearing business, called out from the back of the room. “Shoot ’em?”

“By any means necessary.”

“Well, I don’t think we all agree with that,” said Don Walsh, a dairyman from the eastern part of the county, standing up and facing Pete. “Some of us have made agreements with NorthAm. They’re willing to pay us good money for limited access on our land, and I for one think that the money they’re gonna bring into the community—and you can bet there’ll be a lot of it—is gonna be good for all of us.” He turned to Tess. “You’ve got a big spread right close to NorthAm’s main camp. They’ll be drilling near you or on your land, if you’ll let ’em. What do you think about it, Tess?”

She stood, the gaze of everyone in the room shifting to her as she rested both hands on the back of the wooden chair in front of her. She gazed around at her friends and neighbors before facing the town board and Grange president. Nothing like the looming advent of fracking had divided community sentiment since the move to reforest clear-cut pastureland and preserve some of the mountainous areas a century before. Whatever she said, she’d make some people angry.

“The most important thing to me is that my land stays clean and the water stays safe for my herd and my crops. Right now, I don’t know how to judge what the danger really is. I’m no chemist or geologist. But bringing the fuel company into our lives is about more than whether some people make money or whether the community benefits with new roads or if there’s a real danger to some of us that might not ever actually happen. We need to make smart decisions now so we don’t box ourselves into a corner in the future—for or against drilling.”

“Well, how do you expect to get that information?” Pete said, his tone and body language a challenge. “You sure as hell can’t expect NorthAm to provide it.”

“That’s not the case.” Tess tried to keep her anger from showing in her voice. If the discussion deteriorated into bickering, they’d get nowhere. “Clay…Clay Sutter, the head of the project, said her team can look at the water table and backflow projections and give me a risk assessment affecting my land. I imagine anyone else who wants to get—”

“And you trust her?” Pete scoffed. “Why in hell should you? Why do you expect Sutter to tell you the truth? All her and her company care about is getting what’s under the ground. She won’t care about what happens to those of us who have to stay here when NorthAm has its wells and she leaves for the next project.”

“I don’t think you can automatically assume that NorthAm, or the people who run it, don’t care about what happens here.” Tess wasn’t sure how she found herself arguing for Clay’s side of things, but she didn’t like being pushed into corners, and she didn’t like making decisions without all the facts. And she especially didn’t like the way Pete seemed to be singling out Clay, making her the face of the enemy. The decision came easily when she thought about what she wanted—the truth. “I’m going to let them run their tests on my land.”

“Well, you can help them out all you want,” Pete said, “but there’s no reason any of the rest of us have to believe what they say.”

“What I would suggest,” Clay said from the back of the room, “is that you also get an independent group to verify our findings.”

Every head in the room turned toward the back as Clay walked confidently down the aisle. Tess doubted anyone but her, and probably Ella, would know Clay was holding herself stiffly. Her gait never faltered and not a flicker of pain showed in her face. Clay smiled at Tess for an instant before stopping in front of the table and turning to face the room.

“I’m sorry I haven’t had a chance to talk to any of you before this. I’m Clay Sutter, and I’m in charge of the NorthAm project here. I know we’ve taken a lot of you by surprise, and I hope that I’ll be able to answer all your questions over the next few weeks.” She looked at Pete, nothing showing in her face. “Even yours.”

A few people laughed and Pete scowled. Tess slowly sat, watching the cool, confident, commanding woman slowly charm most of the people in the room with her candor and willingness to listen to their concerns. After spending days trying not to think about Clay, Tess finally admitted she wanted to know everything about her.