Front Yard (24 page)

George quickly filled his and Nan's wineglasses.

“They scared me. I didn't exactly want them hanging around the apartment waiting for you to figure out what you wanted to do with them.”

Dr. Lick sighed. He slumped over and enfolded his face in his hands. Now that he looked more vulnerable, he wasn't nearly as attractive, thought a half-sotted Nan. Hell with him! Betcha can't pour wine like my guy. Naah, naah, naah.

“Well, that's a loss,” said Dr. Lick, disentangling his face from the clutches of his fingertips, which had left white marks on his semi-bronzed cheeks. “Oh, well, we move on. I want to make it perfectly clear that what's buried under here, or at least what we have cause to believe is buried under here, is not a treasure in the usual sense of the word. It is an
archaeological
treasure of use to people such as myself and historians. It would have little monetary value in the conventional sense. I doubt that you'd be able to actually
sell
what we found for ready cash and without any familiarity with the museum and antiquities markets.”

The Fremonts listened with feigned indifference, made easier by the effect of the wine.

“On the other hand, we're perfectly willing to purchase the rights to dig on your land. I don't think, say, $10,000 would be out of line for such an arrangement. In return, you'd grant us the rights to do whatever exploratory and excavation work we needed to do, and grant us rights to whatever we'd dig up. Then, we'd fill up the holes, clean up our mess, and leave. And you'd have the satisfaction of knowing that you've contributed to filling in a very big hole—ha, if you don't mind me saying it that way—in the recorded history of this country. Oh, yes, if we come up empty handed, you still get the money.”

“Hmmm,” said Nan.

“Hmmm,” said George. “And what if we say no, Dr. Lick? Seems to me like you're lowballing us on that price.”

Dr. Lick smiled.

“The price I mentioned is negotiable. I think I can speak for the university in saying we'd probably jack that up to $15,000. Maybe even $20,000. But that's the absolute limit. As a public institution, we are funded by the taxpayers, you know.”

“What evidence do you have that there's something here anyway?” said George, who loved the way the Sagelands made him feel like he was the one calling the shots. Dr. Lick and Miss Price looked at each other.

“Now you have the floor, Miss Price.”

“Well, there are the skeletons, for one thing, even though, I'll admit, it was silly of me to have disposed of them. And, by the way, Dr. Lick, there's no way to recover them; they emptied the Historical Society Dumpster Tuesday. For another, artifacts were found here when my great-grandfather dug his root cellar. Oh, gosh, that would have been back in the 1880s. They are very, very old. They are not Indian. They . . .”

Dr. Lick turned to Miss Price and touched her hand. Then, he pressed his finger against his lips. He turned back toward the Fremonts, smiled wistfully, and shrugged.

“Sorry, folks, this falls within the realm of unfinished research that is not yet ready for public consumption. We'll have to leave it at that. I should say that there is plenty of anecdotal and circumstantial evidence that has also lead us to this conclusion.”

“And if we say no?” said George. Dr. Lick continued to smile as he glanced at his wristwatch.

“Oh, my, I have a class in forty-five minutes, so we'll have to be wrapping this up. If you decline our offer, then we might have to move for a condemnation, an eminent domain proceeding. In that case, we could take your entire property and you would have no choice.” He nodded at Miss Price and both stood up.

“You know, Miss Price,” Nan said, “you've never told us exactly what this ‘treasure' is you're looking for. What is it you expect to find?” Miss Price and Dr. Lick exchanged furtive looks.

“Ah-hem,” said Dr. Lick.

“We'd rather not say at this point,” Miss Price said. “Let's leave it as a surprise. You like surprises, don't you? I don't believe I've ever referred to it as a
treasure,
have I? In fact, I don't believe I've referred to it as anything at all. I
can
say that it's something of immense historical significance that will amaze and enrich you.”

“Hmmm,” said George.

“One last thing,” said Nan. “Do you have any identification, Dr. Lick?”

Dr. Lick looked puzzled.

“We had an odd situation a year ago where a Realtor purporting to represent an archaeologist tried to relieve us of our property.”

“Under somewhat similar circumstances,” George said.

“Yes, the situation was almost identical,” Nan said. “There was also the threat of an eminent domain proceeding. In that case, it was an alleged Indian burial ground under our property.”

Dr. Lick laughed. Miss Price cackled. George and Nan smiled indulgently.

“She turned out to be a fraud and a nutcase,” Nan said. “You wouldn't happen to know her, would you? A Dr. Phyllis Sproot?”

“No, never heard of her. But then I wouldn't have if she was a fraud misrepresenting herself as an archaeologist.”

With that, he retrieved a billfold out of his jacket pocket, plucked out a card, and handed it to Nan. “Here's my card. But anyone can print up a card, eh? I suggest you look up the university directory on your own. You'll find me listed in the archaeology department. I assure you I'm no fraud, though some of my competitors at other universities might beg to differ with that. Ha-ha! Good day to you both.”

George and Nan nodded as Miss Price and Dr. Lick got up and, with a slow and stately dignity, walked down the steps. Nan watched closely to see if either one mussed up her pea gravel.

“That eminent domain threat is just a bluff,” George said gruffly. “And they don't
know
anything's buried here. Besides, haven't we had enough of this mucking around on our property? Good Lord!”

“I don't know, George,” said Nan. “You've got a job now, sure, but $20,000 would be a nice cushion, and we could give the kids a little help with their college expenses instead of loading them down with so much debt.”

“We should make more money from the lawsuit.”

“That'll be months away. It's also assuming we win, or get a decent settlement. Then, the lawyers get their take, and what are we left with?”

“I guess we could bring back Jim for another sweep,” George said. “Then dig it up ourselves. But he's already swept the entire property, front and back. We'd have absolutely no idea where to look. That's assuming, of course, there's something to look for.”

“I'm tired of all this, George,” Nan moaned. “I'm tired of skeletons, I'm tired of explosions, and I'm tired of people stomping around in our gardens in ways that are generally intended to screw us. Why can't people just leave us alone?”

George and Nan moved their chairs next to each other and Nan laid her head on George's shoulder as he pulled her closer to him, then drifted off into a quick, turbulent dream about the hybrid tea roses sprouting stovepipe hats that she was busily spray painting red.

A couple of male goldfinches, their feathers impossibly yellow, landed on the top perches of the tubular feeder. A red-bellied woodpecker landed on the suet feeder and began to peck violently at the rectangular suet-and-peanut-butter cake. George caught a whiff of something on the breeze. The subtle grape of the clematis? Or was it the wild honeysuckle that grew at the edge of the woods? A motion above the variegated dogwoods caught his attention. Another monarch butterfly!

A car pulled up along the Payne Avenue curb, interrupting their brief reverie. A door slammed shut. Another car pulled up. Another door shut, this one less violently. George looked over to see Shirelle and an older woman scampering up the pea gravel steps. George soon recognized the older woman as Dr. Hilda Brockheimer.

“You know what you just said about being left alone?” whispered George to the stirring Nan, who lifted her head off his shoulder and rubbed her eyes. “Maybe you'd better hold that thought.”

28

“I
brought along a cassette recorder,” said Dr. Brockheimer. “I hope you don't mind my recording your plant talking. I'll need an auditory record of this to establish it as a field of credible study. Once we do that, we can do some kind of electrical hookup to some of your most voluble flowers to see if there's any sort of energy surge. That way, we can find out how they're reacting to your verbal cues.”

“Verbal cues?”

“Verbal cues. You know, like telling them you're going to water or fertilize them. Praising them for their appearance and growth. Scolding them for not putting out enough blooms. Threatening to lop them off mid-stem. That sort of thing.”

Shirelle looked away, trying desperately to avoid eye contact with Nan.

“I would never threaten my plants in such a manner,” Nan said. “Well, just once with the Dusty Miller, but that's all forgiven. And speaking of forgiveness, my flowers would never forgive me if I threatened to cut them off. It's one thing to deadhead spent blooms, or to make cuttings. Flowers know when their blooms are done and should be removed to promote healthy growth. They're also willing to make a sacrifice in the name of beauty. But malevolent cutting, just to destroy, is an entirely different matter.”

Dr. Brockheimer smiled, but on her, a smile looked more like a poorly executed sneer. The penitent and pitiful version of Dr. Brockheimer from FremontFest had apparently given way to her arrogant and authoritative doppelgänger.

“No need to lecture me, Mrs. Fremont. I'm the holder of three advanced degrees in my field. I understand everything you've said and so much more, I can assure you.”

Nan grimaced and looked over at Shirelle, who blushed.

“Say,” said Nan. “Did you know your soon-to-be-ex-husband was here just minutes ago?” She figured this would be just the time to introduce what she hoped would be an unpleasant topic for Dr. Brockheimer.

“Eh?” said Dr. Brockheimer, registering neither shock nor an elevated level of curiosity. “He was? Whatever could that be for? Well, who cares, at least as long as he's not horning in on my territory. And I doubt that. Ferd can't tell a rose from a ponderosa pine. Ha-ha! I haven't even spoken to the bastard in months. Now, Shirelle, if you'll be so good . . .”

“Dr. Brockheimer wants to inspect the new front yard,” Shirelle said shyly.

“Well, what Dr. Brockheimer wants, Dr. Brockheimer gets, I guess,” said Nan, standing up to lead the way around the north end of the house. “C'mon.”

“I love your Russian sage,” said Dr. Brockheimer as she gazed into the catmint.

“That's not Russian sage,” said Nan. “That's Walker's Low catmint.”

“I could swear that's Russian sage. In fact, I'm sure of it. I've been around flowers all my life, Mrs. Fremont. I know what I'm talking about.”

Nan was speechless. She didn't want to keep going around in circles with someone whose professional ego would never allow her to admit to an error. But, my gosh, couldn't she tell the difference between Russian sage and Walker's Low catmint?

“Mrs. Fremont is right—it's Walker's Low catmint.”

Dr. Brockheimer turned, stunned, to look at Shirelle.

“How dare you contradict me!” Dr. Brockheimer croaked. “I am your mentor and your teacher. I was immersing myself in plants when you were running around in soiled diapers chasing chickens. And you dare to tell me what my business is?”

“I do. This is Walker's Low catmint. I should know. I studied it specifically and included it in my plans for the front yard gardens. I picked it out at Burdick's personally. The little identification tags stuck in the soil next to each seedling said Walker's Low catmint. Look at any of your photographs of Walker's Low catmint and you will find them to be identical in appearance to these specimens here. Look up Russian sage, and you will find that while they look similar, they are certainly not identical. You are wrong, Dr. Brockheimer.”

Dr. Brockheimer blinked rapidly, then turned to address Nan as if Shirelle didn't exist.

“Well, okay, let's get going.”

“What is it you want to learn? What do you want me to do?”

“Start talking. Get down really close, and I'll have this microphone positioned right next to your mouth and the particular flower you're talking to. How about the hybrid teas up there on top? Do you talk to them?”

“
Talk
is not really the word.”

“What is it then?”

“Oh, communicate, I guess. I don't know how to put it. Sometimes, yes, I actually do talk to them and then listen. But that's more for my benefit, sort of like talking to your pet, though please don't let them ever hear me calling them my pets. But you're not going to hear actual words coming out of them. It's all part of the sensation. And, yes, they all do have different characteristics.”

“I want to learn how to do it.”

“I'm not sure it's something you really learn. You have to have sort of a natural knack for it. At some point, you just find yourself doing it. What they're feeling and thinking fills you up, sort of like a jolt of energy going in one direction or another. Or lots of jolts of energy going in lots of different directions that you have to sort out.”

“I need to learn the language of plants,” Dr. Brockheimer said. “I can learn anything I put my mind to. Just show me how.”

“I doubt that you will ever be able to do this, Dr. Brockheimer. Why waste our time here?” Shirelle looked stricken.

“Oh,” she moaned. “Mrs. Fremont.” She gazed at Nan with sad, pleading eyes.

“Can we just go up to the hybrid teas and try?” pleaded Dr. Brockheimer, whose tone suddenly took on the characteristic of the supplicant, losing its hard-edged arrogance. “Look, Mrs. Fremont, I'll be frank with you. I've not been doing very well lately as a professor of floriculture. Nothing published in two years. I hate teaching undergraduates. I'm sure Shirelle can attest to that.” Shirelle forced a wan smile. “And I've fallen behind most of my colleagues on the track to becoming a full professor. When Shirelle told me about your gardens and their unworldly opulence, I didn't believe her at first. But I wanted to see for myself. Now that I've seen, I believe. There's something amazing going on here. Something that no years of stored knowledge or chemical analysis can explain. I want to tap into that. Not just for myself, though that is, I'll admit, a big part of it. But for others, too. Maybe others can capture lightning in a bottle and make the world so much more beautiful. Please help me tap into that.”

Aha, thought Nan, we're back to the helpless and humble Dr. Brockheimer. And how long will that last? Never had she seen someone go through such a character transformation so quickly and convincingly. Except maybe for the Mikkelsons, those timid souls who a couple glasses of Sagelands two years ago at this very spot had turned into fire-breathing louts.

Who knows? thought Nan. Maybe it's the flowers.

“Well, I suppose we could give it a try,” she said. “George, after all, learned, though he's still kind of stuck at the beginner's level. If George figured it out, maybe even you can. Now, what exactly is it you want me to do?”

“Can we do it with the tape recorder, please, if for nothing else, to prove that the ordinary ways of collecting data won't really work here?”

“Okay, who knows—maybe they'll surprise me. Try to leave your holier-than-thou academic attitude behind, please, Dr. Brockheimer. They won't respond to that. If anything, they'll clam up just to spite you. Understand that this is the longest of long shots. Also, the hybrids are haughty and full of themselves and they know it. But, maybe they'll respond to a like-minded creature.”

Nan winked, and Dr. Brockheimer couldn't help but smile in a self-effacing way she wasn't accustomed to.

“I'll do my best,” she said.

Soon, Nan was lying prone on the grass bordering the hybrid tea rose bed, her mouth within a sneeze of the stalk of their most resplendent Full Sail hybrid. She fought off the urge to laugh, which she realized might be somewhat startling and off-putting as far as the hybrids were concerned. Dr. Brockheimer, also lying on the grass, thrust the microphone into the few inches separating Nan's lips from the rose.

“Tape's running,” she whispered.

“You really don't have to whisper,” Nan said. “Okay, this is kind of awkward, doing it sort of on demand here. It won't seem as natural, but here goes.

“Hello, my beautiful Full Sail rose. How lovely you look today. You have made me so proud. Oh, that fragrance. You fill up my senses. Sun's out nice and hot. You like that, don't you? More of that tomorrow, they say. We'll give you more water tomorrow. And special rose fertilizer's coming on Friday . . . uh . . . right, Shirelle?” Nan twisted her head to the left to look up at Shirelle, who nodded. “Your friend Shirelle says yes, yummy fertilizer to make you even more beautiful. Okay, that's it.”

“Now, we just wait?” asked Dr. Brockheimer.

“I don't know; I've never done this before.”

Dr. Brockheimer snorted. One minute passed. Then, two. Three. The rose's leaves rustled.

“A message?” wondered Dr. Brockheimer.

“The wind,” said Nan. Two more minutes passed in absolute silence. Not one car rumbled by on Sumac Street. Not one jogger, noisily leashed dogs leading the way, tromped down the sidewalk. Shirelle barely moved. Suddenly:

“Beat it, lady, you're interrupting my sunbathing!”

Nan jerked away from the hybrid tea and Dr. Brockheimer dropped her microphone.

“Jesus!” cried Shirelle. “Ha-ha. Ha-ha.”

Nan looked up to see George leaning over them, laughing. He gave her a hand to help her up, then offered one to Dr. Brockheimer, who declined.

“Damn it, George,” Nan cried. “We had a scientific inquiry going on, and you go and spoil it, you goof!”

Dr. Brockheimer self-consciously brushed some blades of mown grass off her shirt and slacks.

“Well, at least you gave us a little chuckle, Mr. Fremont,” she said icily. “I'm not really sure the exercise was going to give us much in the way of quantifiable information.”

“Heck, I could have told you that,” said George, who from the looks of things, had refreshed his wineglass a couple of times. “It has to come from the heart, Dr. Brockheimer, and it has to be genuine. You think, what, the delphinium over there is going to sing out, ‘Hey, Dr. Brockheimer, give me a drink; I'm parched'? Heavens no. It's not actual human conversation. It's . . . it's . . .”

“George, dear, how about a pitcher of ice-cold water for the three of us? Dr. Brockheimer and I have some things to discuss.”

“Okay,” said George. “But here's something to think about: I'm picking up bad vibes from some of the guys. Started about fifteen minutes ago, and it's powerful.”

“I think that's the merlot, George,” said Nan. Shirelle and Dr. Brockheimer tittered nervously. “Now, water, please! And for you, too.”

George disappeared behind the north end of the house, mumbling something about nervous Nelly plants.

“Okay,” said Nan. “Where were we before being so rudely interrupted? You know, Dr. Brockheimer, I was actually starting to feel something as I was lying there. Probably not anything you could pick up with your cassette recorder or some electric impulse sensors. But something. Hmmm.”

“Mrs. Fremont!” said Shirelle. “Mrs. Fremont! I'm feeling something, too. Wow!”

“What is it?” said Dr. Brockheimer, fumbling with her recorder and trying to jot down notes in her steno pad at the same time. “What is it, Shirelle? Can you hear anything?”

“She doesn't really
hear
anything, Dr. Brockheimer,” said Nan. “She feels it. I'm feeling the same thing right now. Wow! It just started.”

“What is it? What is it you're feeling?” Dr. Brockheimer dropped her pen and steno pad and stuck her microphone in Nan's face.

“Please, Dr. Brockheimer,” said Nan, gently guiding Dr. Brockheimer's microphone hand away from her. “For lack of a better definition, it's what I guess you would call a dissonance in the life force. Something is turning the smooth sort of hum vibration of growing and flourishing into a sort of bumpy, staticky sound track, though there isn't any sound in the conventional sense. It's like you suddenly pushed the wrong button on your remote and got something weird on your TV screen. But in this case you can't actually hear anything. I really don't know how to describe it, because it's not like anything else you'll ever experience.”

“That's just what it's like, Mrs. Fremont,” said Shirelle.

Nan smiled. “You should be very happy that you feel it, too, Shirelle. You are blessed.”

Dr. Brockheimer gazed around disconsolately.

“Why can't I feel it?” she said. “I want to feel it, too.”

“I'm not sure you want to feel what I'm feeling now, Dr. Brockheimer,” said Nan, ominously. Hundreds of little energy impulses were shooting through her like blinking lights of varying duration and intensity.

“What?” said Dr. Brockheimer. “What!”

“I don't know what. Just something bad. But there's nothing in the forecast that even hints of violent weather. And look at the sky. Just a few puffy fair-weather cumulus clouds. A little purpling at their bases, but that means nothing.”

“Oooh, gross!” cried Shirelle. Nan and Dr. Brockheimer turned to look at her. “There's a slug on one of the delphiniums, Mrs. Fremont. Ecccch! A slimy slug.”