Front Yard (5 page)

6

“J
onas Peters? You mean
the
Jonas Peters? The infamous bandit, train robber, second only to Jesse James as a subverter of Midwestern public morals? The guy whose buried loot is supposed to be worth millions, but that no one's been able to find?”

Nan leaned back in her chair, swiveling it a bit to the right, then left, then rocking it back precariously. She drained the dregs of her Coke, then went back to work on a fresh gin and tonic that had appeared without her even asking for it.

“The same. And Beetle Peters and Jimmy Durko and the rest of the Peters Brothers gang,” Jim said. “They were probably camped out, um, a hundred and thirty-eight years ago right here where we're sitting.”

Jim looked earnestly from Nan to George, then back to Nan again.

“It's known to everyone that they robbed the bank at Millerton, what, thirty miles east of here, and that the townsfolk turned out en masse with guns and shot Jimmy and another gang member, Caleb Westerly. But the rest got away, and did something with $100,000 in Liberty Head gold coins that didn't involve spending them. But that's not all. They got another $250,000 in Liberty Heads from the train robbery near Fountainville, which is . . . uh . . .”

“About twenty miles.”

“Yes, thanks, George, about twenty miles west of here.”

“Well, it's known by anyone familiar with local history that they were hiding, more or less in plain sight, somewhere in Livia, There were seven or eight farms and homesteads in Livia at the time, and they had kinfolk and friends here. Of course, they couldn't stay long since everyone knew this was one of their stomping grounds where they could rest and refit. They must have lit out after just a few days. As you know, things just didn't work out after that; what was left of the gang were either gunned down or caught in a botched steamboat hijacking on the Missouri, in what was then the Nebraska Territory not two months later. Jonas and Jimmy were the only ones caught. They died in prison. And all that loot was never recovered.”

“I didn't know that,” said George.

“And you think that's what's under the backyard here?” said Nan.

“I think there is a distinct possibility. Mabel Gleason, Jonas's main squeeze, lived a couple of miles away. There was a little house and store here run by some European immigrant and his Indian wife. They might have known the gang. They might have let them bury the money here until it was safe to come back and dig it up. Consider this: You're on a hill here, and back them, there were hardly any trees, except by the lake. Great place to be able to see for miles around in every direction. Remember, everyone was looking for them then, and, of course, St. Anthony is only fifteen miles away. It wasn't much more than a glorified crossroads back then, but it was crawling with lawmen looking for Jonas. I'm betting they knew the store owner and his wife, got their supplies, and buried the money in the yard before heading out for that one last holdup.”

“That's quite a tale,” George said. “But you're just playing a hunch, aren't you?”

“Sure, George. All successful treasure hunters work off hunches.”

“A little country store here, eh?” said Nan. “I didn't know that. It seems as though our historian could have told us something about that if she hadn't been so busy having a good laugh at our expense, for heaven's sake.”

“The store burned down right around that time,” Jim said. “Along with the nearby house. That's no hunch, it's historical fact.”

“Wow!” said George. Nan shuddered.

“What happened to the store owner and his wife?” she wondered.

“Don't know,” Jim said.

“Good grief, this little piece of suburbia has certainly seen its share of history,” Nan said. “Still, that's not nearly enough to go tearing through our yard again. Besides, last time you dug, when everything was already ruined, we had nothing to lose. Then, of course, you filled in the holes like a good boy and everything came roaring back. This time, everything's in good shape as far as we know, and primed to burst through to the surface any day now.”

“So,” said George, “that's a nix on the digging. We don't want a bunch of big holes messing up our gardens. Is that clear?”

“Can't I just do a little more sweeping with the old TreasureTrove XB 255? Pul-eeeze? I would just bring it over and sweep for any old insignificant stray stuff and we can forget about the buried treasure. And whatever I find is yours! Can't you see, I just
have
to sweep. It's in my blood.” Jim started to tremble.

“In other words, you're addicted to it,” Nan said.

“I suppose that's one way of putting it,” Jim said sheepishly. George laughed. Nan shot him a cold, hard stare.

“Ouch,” said George, flinching.

“We don't want to be encouraging your addiction,” said Nan.

“Yeah,” said George. “Maybe you should kick the habit and try something healthier and less annoying to the neighbors, like maybe using a magnifying glass to set ants on fire or playing the ocarina in your basement, ha-ha.”

“How about gardening?” said Nan. “We could help you get started. George, could you please consider shifting to the diet Coke, dear? You're getting a little noisy.”

“Well, I'd be the last person who'd want to mess up your wonderful work of art here,” Jim said. “Gardening, huh? You know what kind of landscaper I am. Brown thumb.”

Even before Jim's wife left, the Graybill property was a disaster. Shrubs and bushes went untrimmed for years. Dandelions were allowed to sprout and spread their noxious seed fluffs unchecked. Jim and Alicia had dabbled in snapdragons, potted palms, and “purple misanthrope,” a flower neither George nor Nan had ever heard of, but which looked like several pansies grafted onto a milkweed. But they had watered and cared for their flowers only intermittently.

As a result, the Graybills' flora always had a burned-at-the-edges, gone-to-seed look.

With Alicia went any semblance of order to the yard. Weeds found fallow ground in the topsoil, springing up unhindered and muscling out their tamer brethren weakened by neglect. The lawn was rarely mowed. It was currently flourishing as a knee-high thicket of just about everything the more conscientious homeowners of Livia strove to keep out of their own yards.

Nan was beginning to get bored with all this false-treasure talk, especially now that the good effects of the wine and gin and tonic were being replaced by a wistful sobriety and mild headache.

She became even more wistful as she stared at the little birdhouse that was screwed into the bedroom window frame, under the eaves. No activity at all, even though their hyperactive house wrens should be back by now. The males would be first, making themselves prominent on high branches, fence tops, and telephone wires, burbling away with their territorial warnings, rustling through shrubs and popping in and out on their inspection tours of the three wren houses George and Nan had placed around the backyard.

So, where the hell were they?

Jim's head drooped abruptly to within an inch of the tabletop. When he lifted it up, his eyes were red and moist, and his eyelids flickered spasmodically. He rubbed them shakily with his fists.

“Jim, what's wrong?”

Jim glanced, teary-eyed, at Nan, then George, before turning away, embarrassed, his throat choked with sobs.

“Is it the metal detector thing?” George said. “Heck, you can mess around with that a little if you want to so badly. Just don't count on us getting a backhoe to dig up the yard is all I'm saying.”

“It's not that.” Jim sniffed. “Who cares about the stupid metal detector? It's the canary. I can't stand that canary dying.”

“The what?” said Nan. “Oh, the goldfinch. That wasn't a canary, that was a goldfinch.”

“Gee, Jim,” said George. “Do you think you could tell the difference between a turkey and a robin? Or maybe . . .” A hard look from Nan stopped George in mid-sentence as Jim cradled his head in his hands and began to sob.

“I really have to go,” he said, his voice cracking. “Sorry to be a burden. Why do things have to die? Why do . . . that poor canary!” With that he jumped up and strode awkwardly back down the steps, losing some of Nan's sympathy by kicking the pea gravel all over the place.

“Jeez, talk about sensitive,” said George. “You witness one of nature's little dramas, and you want to celebrate it, not start bawlin'.”

“You lout!” she spat at him. “You stupid lout! It's not the canary . . . I mean the goldfinch. It's not the goldfinch he's thinking about, it's death. And death means the loss of a spouse, who, okay, maybe she didn't die, but she might as well have died, at least to Jim's way of thinking, by running off with that repair guy.”

Chastened, George lapsed into silence. For three seconds, you could have heard the respiratory sighs of a goldenrod. Then, Mary and Shirelle threw open the screen door panting with excitement.

“Mom, Daddy,” cried Mary. “We've got a new plan for the front yard. Shirelle just came up with it. It's a stroke of genius!”

7

T
he Scroggit brothers stared dumbfounded at their part-time bookkeeper, Mrs. Tuertle, whom they had just hired to go over their neglected records.

It had been a year since they had been forced to fire Mrs. Monck for hectoring them about unpaid taxes and threats of retribution from various socialist agencies they did not recognize as legitimate institutions empowered to order them about. Once they got notification from the proper elected authority—the county sheriff—then they would listen.

Two weeks ago, state agents appeared at the store and spoke with the manager. They demanded a meeting with the owners, and relayed a threat to shut the store down if back state debts weren't paid. The Internal Revenue Service dropped by two days later.

Feeling powerless to stem this rising tide of government tyranny, the Scroggit brothers decided that perhaps an update on their tax status was advisable. They hired Mrs. Tuertle because she came highly recommended by their aunt Florence, who had met her at an over-eighty croquet tournament.

Mrs. Tuertle, fifteen years their senior and twenty years removed from her last job, that of staff accountant for PeeWee's Black Forest Pretzels, held a letter in her shaking hands. Her voice quaked as she read to them the order from the State Department of Revenue and Budget Management. It appeared that Scroggit Brothers Enterprises, doing business in three locations as Fightin' Yankee Antiques, had neglected to turn over taxes to the state on sales totaling $6.5 million over the past six years.

Not only that, said Mrs. Tuertle in her barely audible voice, but they had failed to withhold income tax over five years from the wages of all eight of their current employees and fifteen of their former ones.

This was the second threatening letter Mrs. Tuertle had brought to their attention. The first was from the IRS making a similar withholding tax claim, and also daring to accuse them of failing to report and pay taxes on personal income totaling $3.4 million since 2002.

Both letters cited numerous previous warnings, and contained some threatening language about seizures and jail time.

“The nerve of these socialist entities!” thundered Artis. “Abrogating the right of businessmen to make a decent living right here in the U.S. of A. Why . . . why . . . it's un-Christian. It's un-democratic. It's socialism, and I won't have it! Won't have it!”

“Me neither,” said Nimwell.

“We need our attorney. Uh, what's-his-name. With Crabshaw, Oates, and Crabshaw. Which one is it?”

“Donaldson,” Nimwell said.

“That's right, Donaldson of Crabshaw, Oates, and Crabshaw. Ring him up, please, Mrs. Tuertle. Right this instant.”

Mrs. Tuertle just sat there shivering, her head bowed, the letter in her hands still shaking like a brittle leaf caught in a gale.

“Well, what's the matter, Mrs. Tuertle? Got the dt's or something? Ha-ha. Let's get a move on. What's at stake here is nothing less than the right of a couple of small entrepreneurs to prosper in a free capitalist society.”

Mrs. Tuertle made a noise akin to a French horn croaking a misplayed note. Then, she whispered something.

“Please speak up, Mrs. Tuertle,” said Nimwell. “Just like Mr. Scroggit said, there's no time to lose.”

“Can't,” said Mrs. Tuertle.

“Can't?” barked Artis. “What do you mean, can't? Don't be afraid, Mrs. Tuertle; all we can do is fire you. Ha-ha.”

“Mr. Donaldson no longer works for us.”

“What! And why not?”

“We haven't paid him,” Mrs. Tuertle gurgled, her voice now broken by sobs. “Haven't paid him in two years. We've already heard from a collection agency. They're taking action. I've got their letter here somewhere.”

“This is monstrous!” said Artis.

“Monstrous!” echoed Nimwell. “A monstrosity!”

“And how long have we known about this, Mrs. Tuertle?”

Mrs. Tuertle cringed and seemed to transform in her chair and before their eyes into a very old fetus.

“I just found out. You just hired me.”

“Eh?”

“You had no accountant or bookkeeper for years,” she whimpered. “Until you hired my predecessor, whom you terminated, nobody knew. You were supposed to know, as the owners.”

The ire of the Scroggit brothers, focused up to this point on bloated socialist bureaucracies, now redirected itself onto this miserable lump of humanity, who had been toiling away for them for a mere three weeks, trying desperately to assemble documents, letters, and computer e-mails that had not been filed or dealt with since Mrs. Monck left.

“Get out!” barked Artis. “Get out now. You'll get no severance or reference from us, Mrs. Tuertle. We're firing you on the spot for incompetence, and maybe even dishonesty. Someone will have to check your books. Have you embezzled anything from us? Oh, stop your blubbering.”

“Please, Mr. Scroggit, please . . . Please . . . Need the work. My husband, Frank. He can't work. Sick. Please.”

“I tell you what, Mrs. Tuertle, you can keep that box of Kleenex over there, but that's it. Now, out you go. You don't have anything to worry about. Our socialist state specializes in cases like yours. Once you and your husband go on welfare, you'll probably be making twice what we're making by not working at all. Ha-ha!”

Nimwell nodded and pursed his lips in righteous indignation. With that, the Scroggit brothers stalked out of the office and into their retail showroom.

The showroom of Fightin' Yankee Antiques was a history nut's dream come true. Civil War muskets and rifles, both real and replicas, lined the walls. There were cavalry sabers, artillery sponges, and spiral-coiled worms, flagstaffs, pennant staffs, and moth-eaten uniforms colored blue, gray, and butternut. The big showpieces, covering half of the north wall, were bullet-ripped American and regimental flags captured by the Rebs at the Battle of Gaines' Mill.

In the center of the floor sat a replica Napoleon six-pounder, complete with sponging bucket and attached sight. The replica had been cast in 1934 to exact historical specifications and had been in the hands of rich collectors for years until the Scroggits bought it at an estate sale in 1981 for $12,000. It and the flags were for sale only if the price was right.

The glass display cases housed minie bullets dug up from battlefields, bayonets, uniform blouse buttons, canteens, real letters from the battlefield, medals, eating utensils (which were usually bent), decks of playing cards, surgeons' saws and scalpels, haversacks, and gum blankets.

The St. Anthony Fightin' Yankee Antiques store was the flagship of a chain started by the Scroggits in 1974, more as a place to store their sizable and growing collection of artifacts than anything else. Business boomed for a while, and they expanded to another store, in the suburbs, in 1981, and then a third, in the midsized city of Chester, about seventy-five miles to the south, in 1985. The sprawling thirty-three-part Civil War public television epic,
Four Awful Years,
in the mid-nineties, kept interest high and sales brisk. The Scroggits expanded to three more stores in two neighboring states and plowed their profits into what had become the largest Civil War artifacts chain in the nation.

At that point, the Scroggits turned the day-to-day operation of the St. Anthony store over to their staff, and concentrated on beating their competitors to the most highly prized artifacts of American history they could find, by whatever means possible. Their cutthroat methods kept their stores filled with top-flight merchandise and the mail order branch of their business humming, but it alienated other dealers, who began blackballing them from shows and leaving them out of the dealer-to-dealer sales loop.

As mass interest in American history in general and the Civil War in particular waned, the embargo on dealings with the Scroggits by all but the most unscrupulous dealers began to hurt their business. By 2005, they had shut down the three out-of-state stores and scaled down the rest of their operation. By 2010, they had found smaller spaces for the two other instate stores.

It was now becoming clear, even to the Scroggits, that the market for the kinds of big-ticket artifacts they specialized in—an authentic .58-caliber Springfield rifle-musket and Revolutionary War–era ceremonial sword, for instance—was fading fast. And now, to have to deal with this irksome matter about some unpaid taxes, which were being illegally assessed anyway!

On this particular day, the store was empty except for Matthew, the manager, and a geeky-looking teenager who was looking at the minie bullet collection.

“Hey, kid,” barked Artis. “Either buy the merchandise or scram. No loitering in the store. We're a business, not a museum.” The teenager stared up at him with owl-like eyes, then slithered silently out.

“Kinda slow today?” said Artis to Matthew, who was standing at the counter, his elbows splayed out languidly over the glass case displaying replica Confederate money and authentic letters home from three officers who served in the Iron Brigade.

“Yeah, boss. As usual. We sold a couple of minies, three uniform buttons, and some old Civil War cards. No big-tickets, though. We got that other battle flag coming in Tuesday. Fair-to-poor condition. A couple possible buyers. We're asking $16,000, but I doubt if we'll get that. The sale's coming up next month. We're advertising in the local papers. I bought a spot cheap on the university radio station.”

“We're still losing money, though?” asked Nimwell. “Hand over fist?”

“That would be correct,” said Matthew. “But that's nothing new. We've been losing money for the past three years, ever since I've been here. And you were already in the hole when I got here. Unless we can find something unique, like an intact sutler's wagon or a
real
six-pounder Napoleon, we're gonna be shit outta luck.”

Artis didn't like his manager's tone. He didn't like his track record either. Besides, why did he seem to be in the dark about the big-government wolves at the door? Artis wondered why they had kept him on as manager so long. There was no reason in the world why genuine relics of American history couldn't sell, and sell for a pretty penny, given competent and enthusiastic sellers. Obviously, the staff that remained were getting jaded. Maybe they needed some fresh blood to get things back on track.

“Are you aware of our little tax problem?” asked Artis.

“Yessir. I've been telling you about it for as long as I can remember. I'm sorry you decided not to pay attention.”

“That's not the kind of tone we should have to hear from an employee,” said Nimwell, blinking rapidly to fight back the tears of indignation. “Where's the respect these days that employees used to show their employers?”

Matthew shrugged.

“How much are we paying you, Matthew?” Artis asked.

“Sir?”

“You heard the man,” said Nimwell. “How much do we
over-
pay you?”

“Uh, hmmm. Maybe sixteen hundred a month. About twenty thousand a year.”

“That's too much!” barked Artis.

“Um-hmm,” said Nimwell.

“It's not that much,” Matthew said. “Especially for someone like me, who has the contacts and knows the market.”

“And where is that getting us?” said Artis through clenched teeth. “We should be in a position to be the foremost retailer of Civil War and historic American memorabilia in the nation. Huh? It's Mr. Scroggit and I who have to come up with all the big finds.”

“Maybe you should pay your taxes.”

“There's some more of that lip,” said Nimwell. “Stop it, please, with the lippy backtalk.”

“I'd like to suggest a new salary deal for you, Matthew,” Artis said. “A hundred dollars a week, plus a ten-percent commission on whatever you sell. Maybe that'll get your ass in gear.”

“That seems really fair,” Nimwell said.

Matthew stared at them, his mouth agape. “You've got to be kidding me.”

“No joke,” said Artis. “Take it or leave it.” The bell on the door jingled, signaling the third customer in the four hours the store had been open.

“Leave it,” said Matthew. “I'll take care of this last customer, then I'm outta here. Maurice comes in at noon.”

The Scroggit brothers looked at each other, stunned. They had expected their manager, disheartened by lagging sales and afraid of getting fired, to jump at their new offer. It had never occurred to them that he just might up and walk. And when he did, which it appeared would be in about five minutes, who would run the store?

“One of us has to check in at the store in Gable Oaks,” said Artis. “That should probably be me since I'm sort of the brains of the operation. You stay here and man the store for the rest of the day once Matthew takes off. You know how to operate a computerized cash register, right? And run credit cards?”

Nimwell shrugged and forced a wan, tremulous smile.

“Okay, whatever,” said Artis. “We're gonna have to sell this place and file for bankruptcy anyway, so don't sweat the customers too much. You'll probably just end up twiddling your thumbs. You know what? That treasure deal Miss Price was talking about is looking better all the time.”

Nimwell nodded furiously as Matthew put on his jacket and walked out, barely a minute before the constant jingling of the bell signaled that a busload of foreign tourists had just crossed the threshold.

“Go get 'em, tiger,” said Artis as a dozen new prospective customers gawked at the display cases. “Just think, Miss Price is gonna make us millionaires. It's just a matter of figuring out how to get to it.”