Vermont Mosaic: Whizzers and Other Short Fictional Tales of Vermont

By Andrew DeQuasie

The 16 tales in this book range in length from 115 pages for "Whizzers" down to a single page for "Commuter," and are arranged in order of length from the longest down to the shortest. Each tale is distinctly different from its 15 neighbors and none is longer than it needs to be to carry the plot.

Some of the characters are those almost mythical 'real Vermonters' and some are folks who were born elsewhere but had the good fortune to relocate in Vermont. One is a wild turkey, one is a colonial ghost, one is from the very distant past, and one is from the future. The rest are folks you might meet at a town meeting or a restaurant. Two of the stories in this book were previously published; "A Long Winter's Nap" appeared in the February, 1999 issue of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, and "The Infernal Machine" appeared in issue Number 2, Winter 93/94, of OffWorld, a nice little magazine that didn't survive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Mar 12, 2000
• ISBN: 9781462814015

Andrew DeQuasie

Andrew Dequasie's day job has been chemical engineering. His previously published works include: THIRSTY - a humorous western novel. THE GREEN FLAME - an autobiographical non-fiction account of a rocket fuel project. THE SPRUCE VALLEY MIRACLE - an earth-bound science fiction novel. THE CROSSROADS TIME - a coming-of-age western novel. A LIFETIME NATURE WALK - a non-fiction book of nature essays

Book preview

VERMONT

MOSAIC

Whizzers and Other Short

Fictional Tales of Vermont

Andrew Dequasie

Copyright ©2000 by Andrew Dequasie.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

This book was printed in the United States of America.

To order additional copies of this book, contact:

Xlibris Corporation

1-888-7-XLIBRIS

www.Xlibris.com

[e-mail]

Contents

Introduction

Whizzers

Some Turkeys Can Fly

A Long Winter’s Nap

The Higby Haunt

The Treasure Of Darby County

The Infernal Machine

Heart Of My Heart

You Can’t Kill That Fly

The Winning Ways Of Wilber Wilson

The Stewardess

The Return Of The Pigeon

Brand XXX

The Cure For Alex

In The Time Before Mirrors

Life’s Web

Commuter

THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED

TO A NICE PLACE TO LIVE, CALLED VERMONT.

INTRODUCTION

The old Vermont of taciturn dairy farmers, bushy-bearded loggers, small rural schools, sugar maple tapping, and dirt roads nearly impassable in the mud season, still exists. But it coexists with the modern world and shares a problem with small nations and other distinctive states; it’s being homogenized.

The ‘real Vermonters’ are increasingly hard to find. You may have to travel the back roads or stop in at a town meeting to meet some. Stop in at any fast food place, and most of the people you’ll see and hear will seem little different from the people who appear on TV talk shows and quiz shows. Most, but not all.

Vermont today is a kind of mosaic where parts of the old Vermont persist here and there despite the influx of better highways and modern technology. As for myself, I’ve only lived in Vermont since 1972. Not long enough to be a real Vermonter. So the stories in this collection contain a mosaic of characters from both the old and new Vermont, even including such an original Vermonter as a wild turkey.

And, for the convenience of the reader, the stories are arranged in order of length, from the longest, Whizzers, to the shortest, Commuter.

WHIZZERS

Chapter 1—Hawk

The way 1990 started out, you’d never guess it was going to be my Whizzer year, one of the best years of my life.

We had moved from Yonkers, down by New York City, to a house in the country south of Bitterspoon, Vermont. My father had been transferred. He said it was an offer he couldn’t refuse; not exactly a promotion, but very necessary if he was to get somewhere in his company. It was a jolting thing, sort of like hitting an awful pothole on the road of life. My sister and I got yanked from our old high school in the middle of the school year and dropped into another, among a bunch of total strangers. Not an easy thing, with sis a sophmore and me a junior. We both missed our Yonkers friends. And Ma had to drop a secretarial job she liked and look for something new. We were all still sort of off-balance, but making the best of it.

One good thing about the whole deal was that I liked being away from those city streets I had grown up on. Getting away from the daily sound of wailing sirens was especially nice. Our old Yonkers neighborhood was sort of high class, but it used to be that we only went to places like Vermont on vacation. Now, I was living in vacation country. What could be so bad about that?

It was late May and Saturday, so I took my fly rod out and went to try my luck trout fishing. I had worked my way upstream to a place where shallow rapids followed along a wooded bank. It’s no easy trick, going through woods with a fly rod, but I thought there would be less chance of scaring the fish if I used the woods for cover. So I kept working down to the water, trying a few casts with a gray hackle fly, then circling farther upstream through the woods. I wasn’t getting any strikes, but it was certainly what my father would call a promising stream. I was about to abandon the riffles in front of me when a voice directly behind me said, There’s still one in there.

What? I said, whirling about and banging my fly rod against a tree.

There’s still one in there, the voice repeated, and I saw a tall, lanky guy about my age standing no more than an arm’s length away.

How did you get here? I demanded. Same as you did, only from the other direction, he said, and he was very matter-of-fact about it. No grin. No apology for making me ding a top-of-the-line Orvis fly rod.

How do you know there’s another fish in there? You got ‘em counted? I asked.

Naw. It’s just that he took my bait yesterday and got off. I thought I’d come by and get him today.

Just like that, huh?

Well, you can have him if you want him, the lanky guy offered. He’s in the lee of that big rock just downstream.

He’s yours, I said, easing back to let him take my place on the bank.

Okay, he said, kneeling to set down a bait can and put a fresh, wriggling red worm on his hook. Watching him, I tried to convince myself that he had had the advantage of camouflage in sneaking so close to me, but it wasn’t quite so. He wore a faded grey cap over dark brown hair, brown and green plaid shirt, faded blue denim pants, and badly worn loafers. Not flag-waving colors, but not camouflage either. He rose, went to the edge of the creek, cast his worm on the near upstream side of the rock and let the current carry it past the rock before he reset the bail on the cheap spinning rod he held. The tip of the rod quivered a moment, then the hook was set and the fish was allowed to tire itself out before its captor sat down on the bank, eased his feet into the water, and coaxed his trout close enough to pick it up.

Well, sure, I thought, he’s using worms. It takes more skill to trick a trout into hitting a dry fly. Dad and I had fished places in Maine where fly fishing was the only kind of fishing allowed. Worms took just a little more skill than dynamite.

He took the trout ashore, unhooked it, and slipped it into a plastic bag inside a burlap sack. There were several other trout inside that bag, all of them plainly over the minimum legal size.

I’m Steve Tanski, I said as he stood up with his burlap bag and fishing gear. Just moved in from out of state.

I’m Hawk Howlee, the lanky guy said. My folks have a farm on the east side of the valley.

Is Hawk a nickname? I asked.

Naw. My folks say there’s some Abanaki Indian on both sides of the family way back, so they wanted to give me an Indian sort of name.

His eyes were a very dark brown and his tan could have been more than tan. I still had my city-pale look. Oh. Well, I said, maybe you are part Indian, the way you got behind me without my knowing it.

Naw. There’s nothing to it, he said. You weren’t watching for me and the creek makes enough noise to cover most footsteps.

You know where there’s more trout? I asked.

I knew where there were five of them upstream, he said, holding up the burlap bag with a knowing look. I expect there’s maybe another five back the way you came.

Yeah? Well, maybe the trout around here were brought up on worms and don’t know what their natural food looks like, I said.

There’s some truth in that, Hawk agreed. Most of these trout are from the state fish hatchery down at South Stream. They get raised sort of like a herd of cows, with regular feeding and all. Then they get released shortly before fishing season and most of them don’t get time to learn the ways of wild trout.

We could work back the way I’ve come and try worms, I offered.

You can have my worms, he said. I have to scoot for home. Got chores to do. The farm doesn’t allow as much fishing time as I’d like

Is it far? I asked. I’d like to see your farm.

Just a couple of miles, he said. You’re welcome to come along if you like.

I agreed, unjointed my fly rod and stuffed it in its case, then followed him as he started off through the woods, diagonally away from the creek. For such a lanky guy, he had an easy way about him in moving through those woods. To me, it was one tangled mess of obstacles; things to go around, climb over, or duck under. He went over and under things too, but he made it look so effortless that he seemed to be weaving his way through like a needle. And he was awfully quiet about it, compared to the thrashing and crashing I was doing in my determination not to be a slow poke.

We came out on a dirt road, directly across from the driveway to his farm. That’s a good short cut to the creek, he said. Nobody sees me coming or going unless I want ‘em to.

I can believe that, I said.

The driveway was lined with old maple trees, some still oozing sap from tap marks on their trunks. You make maple syrup? I asked.

Just finished. Takes a lot of evaporating. About forty gallons of sap for one gallon of syrup.

Expensive stuff, ain’t it?

Sure is. I’ve got a lot of cost figures on it, though. In some ways, I could prove that the price ought to be a lot higher.

You mean that?

Sure. Just figure it from scratch. You plant acres of maple trees, wait thirty years or so for them to get big enough, and pay taxes on the land all that time—

Aw, but the trees are already there. You didn’t plant them.

Doesn’t matter. The investment is there, no matter who made it.

Shazam! One minute you’re Daniel Boone, then suddenly you turn into a banker!

Hawk laughed for the first time. Naw, he said, I’m just a country boy who knows that farmers and such have got to get a fair return for what they do if they want to survive.

You really expect to keep on being a farmer all your life?

That or something like it. If there’s college money, I might get a degree in forestry or agriculture. Or I might work for the fish and game people. Either way, I’ll keep this place going.

My dad says farmers are slaves to their farm. He says they work hours that no factory worker would tolerate.

It’s all in how you look at it, Hawk said. Ask yourself what’s the difference between work and play. When you see a farmer working, it might be that it feels like play to him. Anyway, if he feels like he’s doing what he wants to do, what’s the difference? I betcha there’s a lot of those 8-hour factory workers who feel more like slaves than a lot of 12-hour farmers I know.

Yeah. Might be. But, supposing your farm has a bad year and you can’t pay your taxes?

It’s a business risk, same as any other business has. Good farmers can mostly survive one bad year, and most of us get our chance to prove it. What it comes down to is that a farm has to raise what people need and will pay for.

Hey! Are you computerized, or something?

No. I just don’t aim to be a loser like—

I waited for him to finish that sentence, but he didn’t, so I asked, Like what?

Ah! Forget it, he said. I gotta clean these fish.

It was a long driveway and I soon found myself keeping a wary eye on two german shepherd dogs that were trotting down the driveway, heads lowered, eyeing me like a piece of raw meat.

Fang! Snarl! Behave yourselves! Hawk commanded. They stopped and raised their heads, but stood their ground. They’re good watch dogs, Hawk said. Just don’t do anything sudden or make any angry noises and they’ll leave you be.

Fang and Snarl! I whispered. That sounds downright lethal!

It’s meant to, Hawk said. We’ve had some trouble.

I would have asked about the trouble, but I was too busy keeping an eye on those dogs. They let me pass, then followed along behind. I tried to seem unconcerned and turned my head one way and another to look the farm over, but couldn’t help glancing behind now and then.

Hawk went to a stump beside the barn, pulled a hunting knife from his belt, and proceeded to clean the fish. A cat came running from one end of the barn, snatched a fish head, and ran off. Several loose chickens hovered about, racing for any fish tidbits Hawk threw their way. The dogs laid down like a pair of stone library lions, heads up and alert. Only their eyes moved, swiveling at anything else that moved. Don’t the dogs like raw fish? I asked.

It wouldn’t matter, Hawk said. They don’t eat unless they hear the signal for it. We don’t want them taking anything from strangers.

I was beginning to get a creepy feeling about the place. Everything was as neat and solid as any farm I had seen on a Christmas card or calendar, but I could feel that there was a hidden enemy somewhere. I noticed a pair of spotlights high up on the side of the barn. Looking around, I began to see more spotlights. They were on the house and in the shade trees. Did a farm need all that much light?

Hawk took the fish to a spigot at the corner of the barn and put them in a basin for rinsing. From there, I could see a tractor pulling some piece of equipment across a long field at least a hundred yards away. Is that your father? I asked, pointing across the field.

Yeah. That’s him, Hawk agreed in clearly approving tones. Come on up to the house and meet my mother, he invited, She’s always starved for company. I went along and so did Fang and Snarl, though they stopped on the porch and went to lie on a sunny corner of it. The kitchen was warm and humid. A large pot of soup simmered on the stove, fogging my glasses for a moment, even though it wasn’t really cold outside. Hi, Ma. I got some more trout, Hawk said, showing the basin. Should we freeze ‘em or cook ‘em?

Put them on the counter for now, she said, barely glancing at the fish. She sized me up for a moment, then said, I don’t recall seeing you before.

No, Mam. We just moved in about two months ago, I said. Dad got transferred and we bought the old Jenkins house.

Yeah. This is Steve Tanski, Hawk said. We were both fishing down on the creek.

Well, sit and stay a while, Mrs. Howlee said. Fresh blueberry muffins are today’s special. Will you have milk or coffee with them?

Coffee, please, if it’s not too much trouble, I said, not letting on that I wasn’t usually offered coffee at home.

I’ll have coffee too, Hawk said, though something in the glance between him and his mother told me that coffee wasn’t his usual either.

The muffins were first rate and the coffee, whether it was good or not, was strong enough that Mrs. Howlee didn’t offer a second cup. She was full of questions, the way most mothers are, and, piece by piece, she got my life story and was working her way through my mother, father, and sister by the time Hawk said, I’ve got some things to do in my sugar lab. Want to see it, Steve? Sure, I said, knowing only that it would be good to get away from all those questions for a while. I waited until we were out of earshot of the kitchen before I said, I could see a couple of rifles on the wall in the room beyond the kitchen. Do you hunt?

Yeah. Most farmers do, Hawk said.

There’s no guns at our house, I admitted. Dad says an awful lot of people get shot with empty guns.

No danger of that, Hawk said. We keep ‘em loaded.

I grinned at the joke, but he was serious and then I didn’t know what to make of it. Maybe all farmers kept their rifles loaded? I didn’t want to look foolish by asking. We followed a wide trail into a patch of woods that was sort of like a park; all medium or big trees and not much brush. The sugar shack was made of un-painted vertical boards, and at least a hundred yards into the woods. Hawk showed me a galvanized tank the size of a bathtub sitting on a bank behind the sugar shack and said, Sap from trees uphill from here flows straight to this tub through plastic lines. We have another tub on a wagon to pick up sap from the other trees. Either way, it all comes to this tub and flows from here to the evaporator inside the shack.

He took me in to see the big stainless steel evaporator and the firebox under it. It was all interesting enough, but it was sort of what I expected to see until he opened a door at the end of the shack, saying, My sugar lab is in the add-on room here.

It wasn’t a big room; maybe only ten feet by fifteen feet, but the walls were lined with shelves full of labeled plastic bottles. A bench in the middle of the room had a weigh scale and propane stove on its top and a gridwork of steel rods that supported the kind of clamps and glassware you see in a chemistry lab.

Wow! I said. Am I looking at my first moonshine still?

Naw, no self-respecting moonshiner would fool with a still this small, Hawk said. What I’m doing is measuring the performance of individual maple trees. I already know that Euwell Gibbons was right. Now I want to measure whether the trees behave the same from year to year or if they just have good years and bad years.

Uh-huh, I said. What’s with Euwell Gibbons?

"He was a guy that wrote a lot of books on natural foods like berries, nuts, roots, and shoots; that sort of stuff. Anyway, he did some sugaring and said that all maples, even the striped maples and plane trees, produce good sugar and that the richness of the sap can vary a lot between trees of the same species."

Uh-huh, I said. And this will help you get more sugar from your trees?

Mostly, it will tell me which trees are most valuable and which ones might not be worth tapping. It can save time and firewood.

Where did you get all this lab stuff? I asked

The sample bottles are orange juice bottles I get from a restaurant. Dad got some of the stuff from people he knew at the tool factory; they considered it obsolete. Like that weigh scale; people in regular labs use electronic scales now because they’re quicker. And I’ve got a vacuum pump I made by reversing the valves on an old refrigerator compressor.

What’s with the vacuum pump?

Oh, maybe nothing, Hawk admitted. Sort of a plaything. When I vacuum distill the sap I need less heat and the syrup comes out a lighter color, which makes it a higher-priced grade. Trouble is, some people judge how rich it is by how dark it is, so I might have to add some color back in, and I’m hoping I can do that by adding spice or herbs to come up with a special new flavor; something people couldn’t get anywhere else. Like, I have a small grove of black birches coming along. Some Indians used to make syrup from black birch sap and I think it’s still done in Alaska. That’s something else I might come up with and get a better price for.

As he said this, Hawk took a clipboard, paper, and pens from a bench drawer, then brought two of the sap samples over to the bench and measured their temperature and density before weighing samples of them into stainless steel pans. He put the pans on the propane burners and mounted thermometers in the sap.

Now I boil it down until its temperature reaches 219 degrees Fahrenheit, then I cool it, weigh it, and store it overnight in a measuring cylinder.

What? No taste test?

Yeah, just a drop of what’s left in the boiling pans before I wash them.

What’s with the loose paper for notes? I thought you mad scientist types were always supposed to use bound notebooks for posterity and the patent office. I read once where Alexander Graham Bell almost lost the patent on the telephone by keeping sloppy notes.

Well, there’s no patent likely here, and I don’t risk losing all the notes at once this way. I used a notebook until last year and the cops got it.

The cops!

Yeah. Remember that crack you made about moon shining? Well, the cops didn’t see this as a sugar lab either.

No kidding!? I said, as awestricken as I’d ever been.

Yeah. You should have been here. A constable saw it first and he thought it was a moonshine rig, and what you do with a moonshine rig is smash it. So he’s in here, bashing everything with a poker from the big evaporator. Then the FBI guy comes in and crawls down the constable’s throat for destroying evidence. He thinks it’s a drug lab. And I’m outside with my hands behind my back in handcuffs, not knowing whether to laugh or cry.

Bad scene! What brought ‘em down on you?

Fox. He’s my older brother. If you want to meet him, you go up to the Federal Prison in New York State and talk to him on a phone through a glass wall.

What could I say? Hawk’s tone was bitter and I had no trouble seeing how badly he felt about those things.

You wonder about the dogs and the loaded rifles? Well, that goes with the territory. It’s what you get when you’re invited to the drug wars, even if you don’t accept the invitation.

You wouldn’t try to fight off the cops, would you? I asked.

No. No way. But the other side wanted Fox as much as the cops did. He crossed them somehow. We don’t know what’s going on, but Fox being in prison hasn’t been an end of it.

What a bummer! I said, and I meant it.

Look, Hawk said, "you know the score now, and there’s no hard feelings if you want to steer clear of us. The reputation of the Howlee family ain’t what it used