RikBarberi

DOWN THE ROAD

I dreamed I heard my phone ringing and then woke to the reality of it.

"A man can't even take a nap on a Sunday afternoon."

I said it out loud, but to myself since I was alone. I rolled into a sitting position on the sofa and reached for the phone. My
apartment was one side of a single story duplex. Two chairs and a kitchen table rounded out the furniture, with a bed in
the side room. Some families set down roots when they get a house, but my parents had always taken it as a signal to start
planning their next move. Once they had seen a TV show on the Grand Canyon and before the school year even ended we
had moved to Arizona. This was my first place on my own and I still wasn't sure how I felt about it.

"That you, Sheriff?" came the voice over the phone before I could say a word.

"I'm the only one here." Silence. "But I'm just the deputy." Silence. "And I'm not on duty."

"Sounds like you're sleeping."

The screechy voice was familiar, but I couldn't place it.

"Not any more."

"We don't pay you to sleep."

"You don't pay me to listen to nonsense on the phone either."

"It's Camelia Pickert. Someone just drove down my corn lot."

Camelia. Her parents had a sense of humor. Possibly she smelled sweet, but, somewhere in her seventies, she was past
looking sweet and certainly wasn't sounding sweet right now.

"Which lot is that?"

"It's got long green leaves that grow off a stalk. About knee-high here in June."

Smart aleck seemed out of place on an old woman.

"Camelia, I don't keep track of what's planted in every field in Cooper's Mill."

"It's just below my house. Towards the village. You ain't so old as me, but maybe you're too old to go out in the woods. I
voted you in every time except when my cousin ran. That was only because I was afraid he wouldn't get any votes
otherwise and then he'd know for sure I didn't vote for him."

"You're talking about Sheriff Baxter. You called the wrong number. This is Snyder Jakes. I was appointed."

"I know that, but I guess you'll do. He didn't answer his phone. Tell him that when you see him."

I didn't know whether she was confused, like older people can get, or she was attempting to confuse me into thinking she
hadn't made a mistake when she called me Sheriff.

"Sheriff Baxter said I could rely on you when he wasn't available. Just lucky I had this new cell phone in my pocket. Saves
me going back inside. My daughter got it for me."

Our family had moved to Cooper's Mill in upstate New York when I was a senior in high school. While I was in the Army, my
parents moved to North Carolina. Only when the sheriff's department offered me a job because of my Army police training –
the Army's choice, not mine - had I decided to stay on in Cooper's Mill. But a few months on the job had shown me the
difference. In the Army, you busted a dude and that was the last time you saw him. In Cooper's Mill, if you didn't know the
person you caught in the radar, you probably knew who it was when you saw the name. And then there were the house
calls to referee marital commotions. I didn't want to be "relied upon." When someone needs you it hangs on you like a
heavy coat. I just wanted to go home and forget what had happened during the day. The ability to turn off memory. What
an idea.

"Doesn't that road come out on the lake?" I asked her. "Somebody fishing maybe."

"It runs through a wet spot. I don't let anyone in there when it's all mud and if you've been paying attention you know it's
been raining. Leaves ruts to last the whole summer."

"I'd just make it worse going in after them."

"I'm betting you ain't seen thirty years yet and you can survive the walk."

"Twenty-four."

"You forgetting how I saved your hide up to Dingman Flats crossing last year?"

I remembered. I was stalled on the tracks – turned out to be a bad fuel pump - when the whistle blew down at the Valley
Road crossing – maybe five minutes away. Then Camelia came along and gave me a nudge off the tracks, but not before
taking the time to get out her camera. At the time it seemed like a joke. I even smiled for the picture. Now I wasn't sure.

"I always said they need to put in an overpass there," I said into the phone.

"You want them rattlers to slither on over here so's I can't go out in my own dooryard?"

I wasn't surprised that Camelia was one of those people who believed the myth about the train tracks – how they kept the
rattlers from coming down the mountain and into the valley. I didn't point out all the existing culverts the snakes already
had under the tracks because people can always make themselves believe something. Old age can't be all bad if you're
allowed to ignore reason.

"If that doesn't persuade you, Sheriff, I got another. You might not know it, but I have my afternoon tea and marshmallows
by the eastern window every day."

She offered a pause, but I remained silent.

"Like as not, chamomile tea. It settles the stomach."

"Uh, huh."

"Of course, on a warm day I take it on the porch. And I make up ice tea."

"I'll try to stop some day."

"You could, since you're nearby that time about everyday."

"How's that?"

"Sure. Down at the pull-off above the crick."

"You mean where I lay in for speeders?"

"I'm guessing it's not speeders you're laying for."

"Thought I was the detective."

"Then let me give you some evidence. First, Rosa Farrett pulls in with the empty school bus and then you park in the
weeds next to her where the bus blocks anyone driving by from seeing you. Doesn't block me though. Especially since my
grandson, Barton, got me these binoculars to see what I can't get around to see no more. That would be Barton Farrett.
Her husband. These binoculars put everything right into focus, especially that curly red hair. Rosa gets into your car – the
police cruiser, that is – and I suppose she just tells you how the driving was that day. Been every school day for the past
three weeks."

"Sheriff Baxter was telling me just last week how you had nothing to do now that you can't get around. I'll have to reassure
him."

"Those big SUVs you've got now must have all kinds of room inside. If you've got the strength for all that foolishness, I'm
guessing you've got the energy to walk down my farm road."

A year on the job had taught me that the Cooper's Mill Sheriff's Department was always on duty. It was my day off, but I
summoned the energy to rise up and find my way out the door to the SUV cruiser. My father's advice had been to always
rent. Owning a house really meant that it owned you. A man with any sense wouldn't allow himself to be tied down.
America was all about following your dream. Commitments only interfere. I didn't necessarily disagree with the old man.
Dreams had just been scarce. The Army was hardly what you would call a dream – only something to do after high school.
But that's where I learned that my father had been right – don't tie yourself down.

I knew something had recently limited Camelia to getting about with the help of a walker. When my knock on her front door
wasn't answered, I made my way around the house. A hayfield bordered her dooryard. The blooms on the alfalfa told me it
was past being ready for first cutting. I found her sitting in a rocking chair on the porch, which faced a rail fence that
separated her yard from the cornfield. The farm road ran along the far side of the rail fence on the edge of the cornrows.

"Don't you wear a uniform under that badge?"

"Told you I'm off duty."

I must have been staring at the small bowl of marshmallows that sat next to a cup and saucer on a small table next to
Camelia's chair. She picked up the bowl and extended it in my direction.

"Marshmallow, Sheriff? You're welcome to go in and make yourself some tea. It would take me a half hour."

I declined and tried to imagine the effort required to keep up her daily ritual. There was a walker next to her chair.

"I know Rosa Farrett, so don't think I was surprised to see that red hair climb in your car door. I just thought you might want
to know what I know."

I was flustered and couldn't find a place to look, then thought of the cornfield. Just beyond it I could make out the road pull-
off, within easy distance of binoculars.

"Whoever it was drove down the other side of this fence line we're looking at," Camelia said. "I keep it trimmed so just any
low-life can't sneak in. They rolled on by like they didn't care who saw them. If I hadn't forgotten my binoculars inside I
would have seen for myself who it was."

"Billy Porter still lease out that field, Camelia?"

"Has for twenty years, but it wasn't him if that's what you're thinking. He knows I wouldn't put up with it."

I sat down on a porch step. A dog was stretched out in the other rocker.

"That's a quiet hound," I said. "Seems like I saw a report that one of the road crew hit and killed your dog."

"You heard right, but I can't blame the driver. Besse was always chasing the town trucks. I had her stuffed. Couldn't bear
to put her in the ground. Could I Bessie?" she said to the rocking chair. "I'd get another for the company, but I can't do it
living here alone. You have a dog, Sheriff?"

"Deputy," I reminded her, shaking my head. "If there's nothing calling you home, you don't have to go."

I half-expected the dog to raise its head, but it remained motionless.

"I guess I got some false information about you moving into Pecks Retirement Home," I said.

"Retirement? More like waiting in line to die. I let my daughter move me in there last month. People drugged up to where
they're not really people. I came back as soon as she'd gone home to Chicago. This is where I live, isn't it?"

A badge seems to give people an urge to talk as long as they haven't been accused of something.

"Yes, Ma'am."

I thought my best chance was to gossip with Camelia until the car came out on its own. She seemed to be nodding off, but
then spoke.

"Lucky you're wearing long sleeves, Sheriff. The mosquitoes down in those woods can suck a tomato dry."

"That Billy Porter's alfalfa, too?" I asked and pointed toward the field I had passed on my way around the house.

"You don't need to tell me it's out to flowers. I rang him yesterday about it. My grandfather would have been embarrassed
not to get his hay in on time. Mr. Porter said his baler was broken."

"I'll walk through the hay field to stay out of the mud."

People say you shouldn't walk in tall grass anymore because that's where the ticks are that carry Lyme disease, but they
never bother me. I hugged the fence line, knowing not to tramp through the middle of a farmer's hay crop. The rain had
evaporated out of the alfalfa.

After stepping over an old barbed wire fence I found myself in a burial plot on the edge of a woods. One stone stood
upright. Several older ones were leaning. The grass was recently mown. I passed behind the stones, stepped over
another rusty fence and entered a grove of tall trees and scant underbrush. I slapped a mosquito on my hand and picked
up the pace. The car was at the end of the road, parked near the lakeshore. Someone was casting from the end of
Camelia's dock – three boards wide, built up on posts and jutting twenty feet into Hamilton Lake. I assumed it was a real
live dog – a black Labrador – that lay behind the fisherman, though it remained motionless. I still hadn't been noticed when
I reached the point where the dirt ended and the dock began. Not wanting to give the fisherman a fright, I took a step onto
the dock to make a slight noise. The dog rolled over and fell backwards into the water. By then the man had turned
around. Of all people, it was Bart Farrett. The dog swam to the shore, barking all the way, and continued the racket after
he was standing on ground. Probably embarrassed more than anything. A whistle from Bart brought an end to the barking.

"Sorry about scaring the dog," I said.

Bart waved his arm to say it didn't matter. Unable to think of anything to do about the situation, I did nothing. Bart and I
were about the same age. I only knew him because he was a volunteer and I'd seen him at fires, but I liked him well
enough. It was Rosa who had hit on me at the fire company's Memorial Day picnic. In Cooper's Mill, a short greeting is
neighborly, but a fifteen-minute conversation is flirting – serious flirting if the chitchat ends with a request to check a
school bus's turn signal lights.

"She could see my car fifty times and still wouldn't know it from any other that came down the road," Bart said after I gave
my reason for being there.

"I won't tell her who it was destroying her road."

"Let her think what she wants. Always has."

"Any luck?"

"Nah. Trying for bass in the weeds. Mostly I'm finishing off a six pack."

I took the beer that was offered from the small cooler.

"That woman's going to drive me crazy if I let her. And it looks like I'm going to." Bart snapped the fishing pole with his
wrist and watched the lure soar and then drop just beyond a maple branch that hung over the water. "She convinced me to
move her back here after my mother put her in a nursing home. Said she'd give us free rent if we moved in when she can't
get around anymore."

"That time's coming."

"When I was a kid Mother used to send me over to help put up vegetables. Corn, beans, peas. Her freezer was packed. I
never would eat any of it. Probably because it reminded me of her ornery disposition. Acted like she knew the right way to
do anything. Hammer a nail. Hoe corn. Pull a weed. Like the sun didn't come up until she told it when."

The Lab had now inched up close enough for me to scratch its ear. Bart whistled a tune as he reeled in.

"That sounds familiar," I said.

"Merle Haggard." Then Bart sang. "'Turn me loose and set me free somewhere in Montana...' That's all I know. Heard it on
the radio last week and it was enough to make me consider Montana. That's when my mother was here and all four of us
were screaming, bouncing off each other. She's trying to run our lives from way out there in Chicago. Doesn't trust me.
Never has. Of course, I don't trust my mother. Camelia wants me to live with her. Mother doesn't. Then my wife gets into it
and Mother's yelling at her. I felt like I was loaded in a pulled-back slingshot, wondering where I was aimed. You know US
Route Twenty that crosses the northern part of the county?"

I nodded. I didn't know if it was a regular habit of Bart's, but he didn't say much about one thing before he jumped to the
next. Still, his friendly manner told me that he didn't know anything about Rosa and me.

"Back in high school I used to dream about taking it out west. It goes through all the big cities along the Great Lakes.
Makes these amazing ninety-degree corners in Iowa. When I heard that song last week I couldn't remember if it went
through Montana, so I told myself if it did, then we were packing up."

"It's just a song."

"So? Why bother to listen if we're not going to ... listen? Anyway, I got out a map. Turns out it crosses Wyoming, not
Montana."

"Sounds like you might go yet. You're still whistling it."

"Can't get it out of my head."

"Montana's still there."

"Yeah. But then I'm married, too. She thinks mountains and desert means rattlesnakes and wolves. Says she'd like to live
on a lake. We could walk down here in the evening. You know Rosa, don't you?"

That threw me off balance. I turned the other way to hide the agitation on my face and accidentally stepped on the dog's
foot. The yelp was a welcome distraction. Right then, I knew I wouldn't be meeting the school bus again. A few quick
coughs allowed me to regain my composure and answer the question.

"Swallowed a bug. I've met her. Drives a school bus?"

"Only thing is, she and Old Lady Sunshine don't get along. I need to do something about that."

"Hope it works out."

"It has to. I already gave my landlord notice. Did I mention Camelia's going to leave me the place? What's my mother
expect, escaping to Chicago like that?"

That was more than I wanted to know. Bart had worked himself into a corner. I didn't envy him.

"I'm going to head back to Camelia's."

"Leaving myself. Didn't really come to fish anyway."

Back in the graveyard, I sat on a boulder that had apparently been placed there for that purpose. The engraving on the
newest stone read:



JOHNSON PICKERT

AUGUST 6, 1935 - JULY 2, 1980

           TOO SOON

   CAMELIA PICKERT

APRIL 10, 1936

It seemed unhealthy to be able to come out and read your own name on a gravestone. I called Rosa on my cell phone, but
only reached her voice mail. That made it easier to tell her I was calling it off.

There was some barking in the woods and then a car started up. Bart passed by on the other side of the wild rose hedge
that separated the cemetery plot from the farm road. A path led through the hedge to the road – another way back to
Camelia's - but I retraced my footsteps along the edge of the hayfield.

The stuffed dog was now lying on the porch floor, leaving the rocking chair open.

"Who was it you kicked off, Sheriff?"

"Drove out before I got to them, Camelia."

"I couldn't tell without my binoculars. I wish Barton was living here with me already. He'll do anything for me. Used to love
to come over and help me put the garden up. I'd tell stories about his mother and he'd just laugh. She was a handful. Still
is. I don't think she knows the meaning of that word. Daughter." Then she looked right at me. "Obviously, Rosa isn't the
picture-perfect wife. Can't boil water. No more sense than a bitch in heat. But my one night in the nursing home shined
her up right now."

When Camelia adjusted her position, I caught a glimpse of the binoculars under her blanket.

"I stumbled onto that little cemetery plot," I said. "Didn't know it happened way back in 1980."

"A quarter century of being alone in this house. Makes a woman want to cry."

I settled back in the rocker. It's hard to leave an older woman crying.

"Well. Of course, I heard how it happened," I said. "Suicide settles one thing, but it leaves all the rest unresolved."

"You know what a secret is, Sheriff? It's the truth in a box. You can't kill it, but you can throw away the key."

"Yes, Ma'am."

"Johnny and I vowed to never keep anything to ourselves. On our wedding day. And it worked. There's nobody can say
we weren't happy. Then one time I..."

"Camelia, please."

"I'm not Rosa Farrett. It was only the once. I'm just saying I'm smart enough now to throw away the key."

"A person can know too much," I said as I stepped off the porch.

"Do yourself a favor, Sheriff. Don't ever get so old that binoculars are your only excitement."

At home that evening I found a message from Rosa on my machine saying she couldn't break it off. "Bart can't give me what
you can," it said. Before I heard any more I erased it. To me, it had been a fling, but Rosa sounded reckless. When I dug
out my road atlas I realized Bart must have looked at a less-detailed map. My Montana map had Route Twenty crossing a
low corner of the state where the border comes down next to Yellowstone Park. There wasn't a person I knew in the whole
state of Montana. I packed that night and gave notice on Monday morning. By noon I was headed north on State Route
Twenty-two to where it would cross US Twenty and I would then head west.

                                     THE END