from
Between The Wars

by Dan Cottone

 

The Allegheny National Forest closed quickly around Jake Wischmeyer as his car splashed into its depths. Somewhere else the late spring rain might bring a lightness that he welcomed, washing the air clean for the approach of summer. Here in these woods it brought only gloom, and a mist that reminded him of darker forests twenty years before.

Except here there were no pillboxes hunkered beneath the fallen logs, no snipers waiting to cut the life out of men in the tangled underbrush. And no sullen villagers, either, watching silently from German doorways later on. Only remnants of the great Adirondack forest mass, looming stands of maple and ash and pines nearly a hundred feet high, bordered along the roadsides by rocky outcrops where spring runoff still poured from rusted iron pipes.

It was bad enough. Even with light traffic threading its way down the twisting two-lane highway, you could never feel anything else here but alone.

Jake wondered what kind of reception he’d be getting on the other side of the forest; whether the far-off German villagers he remembered had any relatives there.

“You grew up there in Olean,” Tiny Johansson had said in the main office in Pittsburgh two days ago. “So what if you weren’t an oil man then? You’re one now. We need someone who knows their way around those back roads. You must have some connections left there.”

The only thing anyone there would want to see connected to Jake was a one-way ticket gone. But all he’d said was that there’d been some unpleasantness there once, thank you. Couldn’t they just make it simple on everybody and pick someone else?

“You know all the big oil money’s down in Texas and Oklahoma,” Tiny said. “Those wells up in New York are almost played out. How the hell can we spare somebody for a quick and dirty little job like this? It’s got to be someone who doesn’t have to waste time learning his way around. Come on, who’s going to watch those local boys string up the new electric pumps, see they don’t hurt themselves?”

“Christ, Tiny. They’ve had electricity for seventy years now. I think they can handle it.”

But Tiny was not to be persuaded. So here he was, rolling through Germany again in his mind, watching for woodchucks that might lumber into the road even in the middle of a rainstorm. Rolling toward his old home town, to help squeeze the last dregs of oil out of the land, and to find out how many of the villagers he’d known were waiting for him from a life he’d left behind.

“No!” Curt Wischmeyer shouted, jerking upright in the chair. Despite the damp blast coming through his window, he found he was dripping with sweat. He sat there for a moment, breathing heavily. God, he was getting tired of this.

Why can’t I just forget about it? Why can’t I just move on and quit having these fucking dreams? What happened, happened. They fought, Pa left. So what?

He shook his head and looked out the window. The storm that had been building up at dawn had arrived in full force, soaking the lace curtains Aunt Ivy had given him when he’d moved out of Ma’s house last fall. He closed the window and threw a dirty T-shirt on the floor to sop up the water.

It was a good thing somebody at work had listened to the weatherman for a change and told them all to stay home today. Wet, slippery shingles and lightning. Now wouldn’t that be a great combination to play with on the top of somebody’s roof?

He smiled grimly. That was western New York weather for you – icy storms off Lake Erie all winter and completely unpredictable the rest of the time. He sank back into the armchair and tried to convince himself the dreams wouldn’t come any more.

After a fitful hour, he gave it up. Another look outside told him they were in for nasty weather all day. Maybe he should call Krystal. She’d had the early shift at the pizza joint last night. She ought to be up by now. Yeah. That was what he needed. A little company to take his mind off the dreams.

He went to the stove and started making some coffee. The phone rang. It was Harley. But his voice was all funny, like his tongue had doubled in size overnight.

“You gotta come now! Now, you hear me? I don’t care what you’re doing with your girlfriend. I’m in deep trouble here!”

“OK, OK! Quit your whining, will you?”

Ever since Uncle Earl had got the job on the oil lease and moved Aunt Ivy and Harley up there on the hill, Harley’s calls for help had been coming closer and closer together. Curt was getting tired of dragging himself up there to help with Harley’s nutty ideas. Last fall, Curt had painted eyes on ceramic Santa Clauses until his wrist ached and his own eyes started to cross.

“How come you’re even calling me on a workday?”

“You can’t work on a roof in the rain.” To Curt, it sounded like, “You can’t wook on a woof in the wain.” What in the living hell was wrong with Harley’s voice?

“So what is it this time? Or maybe I don’t wanna know.”

“I don’t have time for this,” Harley wailed. “Just get your ass up here!”

“Hey, just because I always come running, that’s no way to ask – ”

“Please, OK? Please. Just hurry.”

“And what do you mean, what I’m doing with my girlfriend? I haven’t even seen her today. And if I did, and if we were – ”

“I don’t care! Help me! I. Am. In. An incredibly deep bucket of shit here. There’s nobody else around!”

Now it was getting embarrassing. “Oh all right. I suppose you want me to bring along the usual.”

There was a momentary pause. Curt could almost hear the sound of Harley collecting his thoughts. He waited.

At last, Harley came back on the line. “Yes,” he said. “Yes. The usual. Ballantine. Bottles, not cans.”

Jake drove out of the forest briefly at Kane, hitting US 6 before turning north through the last fringes of heavy woods where the forest ended. Coming through Bradford, he began putting on the hearty attitude he sometimes wore like a suit of clothes.

Now, Bradford – that was where the real oil money had been from the start. These Pennsylvania fields had always put the ones on the New York side to shame. Here, there were still fading mansions and eccentric millionaires, bringing truth to the clichés of oil wells pumping in men’s front yards. Here, a man with a little technical knowledge could have made a good living and stayed close to home.

He laughed. Maybe it was just as well he hadn’t stopped in Bradford when he’d pulled out. No telling what Estelle and the rest of them would have expected from him if he’d left Olean and plopped himself down right here in her family’s home town.

When he turned again at Derrick City for the long run over the hill, he started practicing smiles.

End of Chapter One