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Chapter 16: All Things, in Their Season

'To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted..."
Ecclesiastes 3: 1-2

June 4th, 1988

The last half of May came like a growling lion with a succession of storms sweeping across the Appalachian foothills until it appeared Hazzard swamp had escaped its boundaries to infect the whole county.

The Duke's farm had become the stuff of gossip down at the Boar's Nest. Not much happened in Hazzard, and Bo buying up Ralph Harris' fields made for an embarrassment of riches for the family, especially since all the land had grown for the last fifteen years had been mosquitoes and goldenrod. Bo had struck up a deal with Jerry Collier, who was down with a broken leg, to borrow his Case 2670 tractor and the equipment he needed to plow, till, and plant in exchange for Bo working his land for him while he was laid up.

While that meant double work for her cousin, it also meant Bo wouldn't have to rent equipment on credit; the price of which made Daisy's head swim. Who knew a bunch of metal thing-a-ma-jigs with motors were worth more than their house?! She didn't want to know how much he had spent on seeds and fertilizer. They had pooled their money and now a new barn, not yet painted its traditional red, stood at the end of the pasture, large enough to shelter everything.

Bo took it all in stride, working from sun up to sun down to take care of Mr. Collier's farm and their own before the window for planting soybeans passed and the dog days of summer could take their toll on the vulnerable plants. Many was the night he staggered in, covered in dirt and grease and sweat, with only enough strength left to take a shower and drop into bed.

Daisy was proud of him, and as Providence had it, the last day of planting was the first day the rains came. The three of them watched together from the porch as it soaked the new fields, and prayed that God would bless it.

And then it rained...and rained...

On the fourth day, the sun broke through just long enough to let them remember what it looked like before sinking behind the clouds of a new storm as night fell. Day five passed by, then six dawned bright and cloudless. Soybeans generally broke through the ground a week after planting, but day seven came and went without any evidence of sprouting. On day eight, Bo was quiet and fidgety. Mr. Collier's crop had come up on day six, and he swore he had done everything the same.

That night, Daisy found him sitting in the kitchen long after Luke had gone to bed. Without a word, she warmed him a glass of milk and pulled up a chair. In front of him lay a crumpled five dollar bill, two ones, and a pile of change.

"What's with the money?" she wondered.

He turned to her, a depthless sadness in his blue eyes. "That's all I have left," he said, softly. "If this doesn't work, I don't have enough to try again."

Highway 123 wound north from the little town of Paradise, Michigan, and followed the shoreline until ending at the Whitefish Point's lighthouse. Most nights it was slow; this part of the county was sleepy at the busiest of times and the few houses along the two-lane road were occupied by retired, seasonal residents who tucked into bed after the ten o'clock news was over. Their porch lights flickered through the trees, tucked snugly back from the road.

Enos pulled off to the side and angled the spotlight onto the back of the man staggering through the black-eyed-susans and chicory in the ditch. After a brief consideration, he flipped on the police strobes as a warning to any drivers who might come along before climbing out and hurrying up to the man.

"Hey there, Mr. Kubienski. Where're ya' headed?"

The man stopped, swayed briefly, and peered up at Enos with red rimmed eyes. "Well hello dere, Sheriff!" he beamed, happily. "It's a nice one out, tonight, eh? So ah...yous wouldn't know where I left my car, wouldja? Seems I mighta lost it again."

Matthias Kubienski was a frequent flyer to the county's lockup. He spent most of his sober time driving down to the Red Flannel Tavern in Paradise, where he regaled the patrons with heartstopping tales of fighting Hitler's men in the trenches of France and Germany. He was a magnificent storyteller (Enos knew, he'd heard most of them while Matt was drying out at the station). The thing was, the old geezer only told stories when he was drunk, so the locals would ply him with free beer to get him started. It was a downward slope from there.

Invariably, this led to him losing his car which, when you're drunk as a skunk, is not a bad problem to have. If he turned the right way out of the bar, he usually made it home on his own; he only lived a block away, but a couple of times a month he would turn the wrong way and the Sheriff's Department would get a call that he was wandering down the highway.

Enos steered the man gently around to face his truck. "That's okay," he told he him. "How about you ride with me and get some rest. We'll find your car when it's light outside."

"You're a good boy," he said, patting Enos' uniform haphazardly.

"You know, I'm worried one of these days no one's gonna see you, Mr. Kubienski, and you'll walk off into the lake."

The old man just laughed. "Oh, don't you worry none, Sheriff. The Good Book says there's a season for everything. If God wants me, ain't a thing we can do about that. My daddy died in that lake, dontcha know? Back in '39. I can still remember the last time I seen him. Geez, it sure was a pretty day! The sky was as blue as one of dem china plates my granny would set out at Christmas. You know the type, Sheriff?"

"I do." While he talked, Enos had been leading him slowly back to the passenger side of the truck. "Here now, can you step up on in there, or do you need some help?"

"Ope!" Matt exclaimed, realizing where he was. "I think I can manage." He tried to put his foot on the stepbar, missed, and would have fallen except that Enos knew good and well he wouldn't be able to get himself into the truck and was ready to catch him. With a minimum of trouble, he safely ensconced the tipsy man in the Bronco and belted him in.

"I'll be right there," Enos told him, before shutting the door. Walking back around the truck to the driver's side, he stopped briefly to look down the road ahead. No one had caught Matt walking on the highway until after two this morning and the lake was only half a mile past the next curve. Sometimes he wondered what gave the old man more trouble; his memories of the war, or his memories of his father. There was a superstition up here that Superior called to people; especially those who had lost loved ones in its waters.

He cut the strobe lights and drove away, taking the long way around the point and back to Tamarack.

"Say, they're making good ground on our courthouse!" Matt tapped on the window as Enos rounded the corner towards the Sheriff's station. "'Bout time, too. Licking all dem stamps to mail my fines to Soo gets awful nasty."

The shadow of the three story building blotted out the moonlight from the courtyard. Most of the exterior had been finished except for the bell, which would be installed at the dedication ceremony. "They say it'll be finished by the Fourth of July." Enos parked at the station and helped Mr. Kubienski down and into the building.

"Which one do ya' want me in, Sheriff?"

"You can take your pick tonight," he answered. "Pete's coming in at five, and I thought I'd see if I remember where I live."

"I think I'll take this one then," he said, tottering into cell number two. "The bed's softer." He rolled the door shut with a clang.

"Alright Mr. Kubienski. Do you need another pillow or blanket?"

Matt waved him off. "Nope, this'll do just fine."

Enos turned to walk back to the front office, wondering how long he could stretch out the paperwork to keep busy.

"Say, Sheriff?"

He turned back around. "Yes, sir?"

"I heard you've been working on dem two fellas from the Elcid Barrett."

If Matthias Kubienski was looking for a way to catch his attention, he had it. No one he had talked to knew anything, and the Elcid Barrett wasn't due back in port until the weekend of September 16th. He grabbed the folding chair from the hallway and sat down in front of Matt's cell.

"If you know something about one of them guys," he said, "I'm all ears."

"Didn't hear nothing about them," he said, taking a seat on the edge of the cot, "but I was out and about last year right before da Packers played the Falcons - what a stinker of a that game was, eh? - and this young fella comes into the bar and he's going on about how he got kicked off this boat he'd worked on for the last fifteen years. So I says to him, 'What boat you talkin' about?' and he says to me, 'The Elcid Barrett' and I says to him, 'Well, why'd they go and fire you?' and he says, 'Near as I can figure, cause I was asking too many questions about the new owner.' Now, what d'you make of that?"

Enos shrugged. "Maybe the owner was in financial trouble? Or maybe the guy just wasn't a good worker." He was hoping for juicier tidbits that these.

"Yah, that could be, but this fella seemed to think the whole operation was pretty darn shady. Said they ran back and forth for a whole month between Thunder Bay, through the Soo Locks, and down to Detroit without carrying any load, but the shipping logs said taconite like usual."

That was certainly strange for a Great Lakes ship. "They ran a whole month empty?"

"Dat's what he said, true enough. 'Course he was drinkin' at the time, so's I didn't give him much credit." Matt yawned and stretched out on the cot. "I think I'll lay down a while, if you don't mind, Sheriff."

By the time Enos put the chair back by the first cell, Mr. Kubienski was snoring.

Daisy looked up at the ceiling. Having no particular reason to get up before six, she was woolgathering and waiting for the sunrise. Already the silvery light of pre-dawn was leaking across the sky and blotting out the stars. If Uncle Jesse was here, he would already be up, puttering around the yard and doing whatever it was he did that early.

The sky was clear, she was happy to see. After four days of dry heat and no rain, she was beginning to feel more like a person and less like a frog. She had spent a great deal of time during those rainy days thinking about her childhood; the parts that she could clearly remember. and the parts which, try as she might, she could not. The memories that stopped with the vision of Aunt Lavinia canning in the kitchen had advanced no further, and yet she found herself imagining a life woven around the pages of her old journal. Some of her daydreams were so real it made her wonder if they might have a thread of truth.

There was no way of knowing, and it wouldn't do to go asking her family about Enos. They got antsy when she brought him up, and she understood their reticence to talk about him at Christmas. It would be hard to explain a dear childhood friend to her when she didn't remember him. Lately, he was all she could think about - a boy, now a man - who she didn't know and she wouldn't recognize if he walked in the door.

She had tried writing him a letter, and got as far as explaining her amnesia before ripping it from her journal and wadding it up. The whole idea was ridiculous. She knew absolutely nothing about him and besides, she didn't even have his address.

Her morning ruminations were interrupted by Bo throwing open her door and scaring her half to death.

"Beauregard Duke!" she screamed, pulling the covers up around her thin nightgown. "Have you lost your mind!?"

"Sorry, Daisy!" he gushed, breathless. "Get up! You've gotta get up!"

"What's wrong?" When she was little, she used to be afraid that the house would catch fire at night while they were sleeping. "What's happened?"

He shook his head and laughed. "Nothing's wrong, just come on!"

"Alright...throw me my housecoat."

He took the faded robe from its hook on the back of her door and tossed it at her. From the hallway, she could hear Luke muttering about getting up with the chickens. She slipped the robe around her and tied it, sliding her feet into her slippers before Bo grabbed her arm and pulled her after him, collecting Luke along the way. She shot her older cousin a questioning look and he shook his head.

"Where the heck are we goin', Bo?" Luke complained. "I ain't even dressed."

"Just come on you two."

Bo pulled them through the kitchen and down off the porch into the dew laden grass. Streaks of pink and red rose from the east, like feathered plumes in an old lady's hat, and the crisp air goose-pimpled her arms after her warm bed.

At the edge of the field, he let them go and pointed. "Look."

In the morning light, as far as the eye could see, the fields were lined with narrow strips of green seedlings.

There had been moments over the last week when Daisy had seen fear in her younger cousin's eyes, and she had worried what might become of him if his dream should fail. Now there were tears in his eyes, but they were good tears.

She threw her arms around his waist and hugged him tight. "See, Bo," she whispered. "I knew it'd be okay."