Land Run

Graham

Description

Developer Rusty Watson is determined to acquire, by any means necessary, a plot of land owned by an elderly man in the Willow Springs, Oklahoma, community. Driven by greed and personal torment, Rusty is hell-bent on retaliation against the one he believes took his son. But his adversary has different ideas.

Elijah Montgomery is the grandson of a former slave to the Creek Indian Nation. He resides in the local nursing home, though he still owns the house and land his grandfather was once slave to. Rusty and his cohorts believe Elijah’s tie to the land is simply sentimental. They hope he can, therefore, be bought with a price, but Elijah’s dreams show him something that no one else knows.

The story of this modern day Land Run twists and turns through events of fate, and everyone, including Elijah, will find that these events, like the extreme weather of their region, are driven by forces beyond their control. No one in Willow Springs will be left untouched by this battle. The unexpected conclusion to this contest of wills shows to all that this battle is not theirs to fight.

Dedication

For my wife, Christa, and her capacity to love and believe in me and this work. And for my children Caitlin, Kristina, Abigail, Matthew, and Ethan—that they may know to never drop their dreams along their way.

Acknowledgements

Special thanks to Carla Taylor, Scott McAllister, Pastor Steve Cobb, and Charles Curtis, for their constant encouragement.

Thank you to all my family and friends for their encouragement along this journey.

Chapter One

The remaining light of the sun spread across the lake and seemed to mourn with Rusty Watson. He could only see in this evening event the impending darkness that would soon envelop him. The hazy red and orange reflection of the lake was probably a pretty sight to someone, seen as something like the hope of a new day only a fool could find. Cold darkness came packaged in every pointless day. He took another beer from the bag next to his lawn chair. Rusty imagined this day’s dying as a changing of the guard and, in a way, just a nasty little play God put on every day, something done just to say, I’m in charge in case you forget. He sat down before the lake alone.

Contentment never suited Rusty much. He was moving all the time and excited at everything he found to do. And he remembered having a reason for everything he did, even trusted that there was always something bigger going on around him with even greater reason. What crap, he thought. He opened his beer.

The horizon was the same from every angle in central Oklahoma. A flat, straight line always lay before him, a seemingly benign constant where in a sudden moment, the weather could upset with deadly force, terrorize with lightning shows unmatched anywhere on the planet, hail like golf balls, heat so sizzling a body forgets it has mass, freak ice storms that would immobilize whole cities and then dry the very next day—a country that once produced such a man as him and his ways, steady but never boring or predictable.

The dark was now in full both outside and inside Rusty. He finished his Corona and pulled a blanket from the bag. He closed his eyes and saw his wife for a moment and then the boy. Rusty finally moved into the familiar state somewhere between falling asleep and passing out.

Within four hours, he woke before the opening act of the new day. Rusty stumbled to the nearby woods to relieve himself before breaking his makeshift campsite. He dreaded that he would have to stop at his empty house before going to the trailer at the stagnant construction site. The traffic was busier than he expected coming back from the lake. Then he remembered it had been a weekend. Time had recently become a problem for him. Rusty sluggishly sorted and prioritized the day’s tasks when his cell phone rang. Since he was jammed in traffic, he decided to answer it. He knew better but answered anyway.

Yeah.

Rusty Watson?

What?

Mr. Watson, we have been trying to get a hold of you for weeks. I’m Cort Johnson, and I need to inform you that you are grossly overdue on your construction loans with Sooner National. We need payment of—

Who is this?

Cort John—

Tell your boss that I’ll get it to him. I got a new deal he’s gonna like.

Rusty hung up and tossed the phone to the passenger seat of his truck. He was offended that he was just a name on some no-name list. He was better than that, generated more revenue than that.

The road took over the trip. Plans for the day abandoned now. He just drove with some sense of restlessness. Rusty found himself doing this more than ever. He would just drive as he did in high school when it was just important to be out of the house. Where you went never mattered, just away.

The morning’s lie came back to him after a time. There was no deal, no ready salvation with which to impress the bank. As he lingered on the lie he told, it seemed real to him or was becoming less fabrication and more like a possibility. Thinking back, he realized it didn’t even feel like a lie when he said it. It had been a long time since ideas came on him like this, in this way. That compelling muse that made him see what wasn’t there. Rusty pulled the truck over in a place strangely new to him. He had driven past these fields a thousand times but today could not help but stop for a closer look. The land took on shape little by little as he walked closer to the fence line. The last light of day seemed to hang a little longer and brighter as if just for him, for this revelation. Rusty closed his eyes tightly for a time and then slowly released them from captivity with great anticipation.

The clubhouse had columns, tall, thick ones. There was a circular drive filled with fresh flowers of every color. The long drive was perfectly laid brown brick. Plush, green carpets of grass rolled out before him, and house upon house filled the scene, each custom and strikingly different. All the right trees remained and the wrong trees vanished from his view, as did acres of ugly woods as his mind now peered over the land as if in flight. Eighteen holes zigzagged between perfect island strips of the tallest trees. Rusty almost smiled.

Business was bad. Rusty only had two half-completed spec homes out in the middle of nowhere near the county line. One buyer backed out, and interest rates were on their way up again. He had been in this same spot once before, but it was a challenge then. This time was different; he was different. He didn’t much care if he got paid or even met payroll. But now he had this new dream. He had to have that land and would divert whatever funds were needed. Rusty was going for broke the way he had during the condo craze of the eighties but without the baggage of weighty concerns of debtors and workers. Thinking back, he wasted many late nights bending his wife’s ear about other people’s families. No more.

There were just a few calls to be made this morning, and the rest of the day would be spent at the future site. The obsession had begun in him with unusual urgency. The core of Rusty’s thinking now was this new property. Also, he thought, this is news and she needs to know. He had the perfect impersonal purpose, a task to discuss, and would try to get his wife’s number again.

Rusty, hon, I just can’t right now. She needs some time. I’m sure—

Yeah. Rusty cut his mother-in-law off and hung up.

The foreman at the worksite had called Rusty to tell him of the progress over the weekend. The man was new. Lately, there was always someone new working for him. Rusty cut him off as well and didn’t even get a kick out of what he was about to give the man.

Here’s the thing. I’m about to get real busy across county. I’m not going to be able to track this job. Can you handle it?

What do you mean? he asked.

I mean you need to supervise this. Just make the date before they start the mortgage, and you get a twenty-percent increase. You find some buyers, and you get another twenty of the sale. Deal?

But…yeah. Okay. Yeah. Thanks, Mr. Watson.

By midday, Rusty was back at the new land site and became one with his Blackberry. In just a day, he managed to shed all his track homes and nearly felt excited about it. The afternoon sun warmed him into sitting down against a large, lone pecan tree atop an almost-hill. Rusty ran through the checklist on his clipboard again, looking to this: sell the vision to two core investors, and timeline the project with a rough cost estimate. Most everything Rusty did he did with a compelling sense of urgency, but not to create something, as he had in the old days. Today, work was just another thing God used to steal time from him—time he could have had from his boy. He hated every second of work now with the same passion with which he had once loved it. Now he felt within himself in a way he never had before. He felt an extra kind of power in his heart, in his mind. He sensed a freedom and an attending hardness growing in him. But it was a darker, focused kind of freedom that presented untold strength. Deadlines could be shortened, payroll reduced, books altered as needed. His mind opened to cutting corners, corners he had never acknowledged existed. The call finally came.

Hey, partner, his lawyer, Frank Howard, said.

What do you got?

Okay. Well, you hit the jackpot. I don’t know how you do it. This whole quarter-section parcel is owned by a young man named Elijah Montgomery. He is like ninety years young and abandoned the place years ago.

Look. Okay. What do I need?

You name this one, Rusty. He’s got no kin. None. And he has no need of it, I am sure. It’s gonna go for a song, my man.

Ten per acre?

No way. Let’s start with five thousand. Good with you?

Yeah. Rusty answered and hung up. He wondered for a moment how Frank could learn so much so quickly. But he was the best land man Rusty knew, and corners were all that man Frank could see.

The early rain stopped short the morning Rusty started his truck to head to meet the banker. He couldn’t remember the guy’s name, but he was confident that the clerk would get onboard. Rusty intended on being late and entering the meeting on his terms. He used to think of these moments as serious future-making battles, but today he was painting by the numbers. He had been making too much of a big deal about them. Bankers were just people wanting to turn a profit but needing extra confidence. He fought so many years to buck the caricature of the shyster developer, but this morning he would embrace the perception. He would fill their need and be the confidence man. He had played the original and authentic, fair-minded man so long that the counterfeit was easy for him to spot. And now, with this last deal, he would take on the mantle better than he had seen his former competitors doing. He knew these guys better than themselves. And bankers, he knew, were no different. He was going to impress and dazzle, and then when the time was right, he would suddenly lay prostrate to the mercy of the money-giver, a moment when the pride of a man, a banker, inclines toward sublime benevolence. Rusty well-knew the irresistible drug of mercy. It was always a seemingly act of the moment to the one being manipulated, the illusion of power used for good.

A baseball field was an odd place for a meeting to Rusty. He made it to the game at the bottom of the second inning. As he walked to the gate entrance, he saw his man. My God, he thought. Some people just looked the part.

Hi, Mr. Watson. Thanks for meeting here. I couldn’t get out of this one today. Cort Johnson reached out his hand.

Rusty took the hand reluctantly. No problem.

I’m right over here.

The men walked to the top deck of the stands to an area where they were visibly separate from the masses. Neither man talked until the top of the third inning. Rusty was thrown a bit off his own game thinking this man was not on script. He didn’t like being thrown off or having to think off the checklist.

What’s your name?

Cort. Sorry. Thought I introduced myself. I’m a little preoccupied lately, I’m afraid. That’s my son on third base.

Uh-huh. I got a pitch for you guys, Cort. But, honestly, it’s so good I just want to ask you a question.

Sure.

You know how cheap the land is here. And all these guys from Tinker Air Force Base are moving out here.

Sure, Cort replied, staring out at the field.

Well, I got a line on a quarter section of land within town, the southwest end. It’s going to be a golf course with the best boxes you can imagine.

That’s the Montgomery place, Cort answered.

Yeah. Good. Look, why don’t I know you? You aren’t much younger than me.

I was kind of a chess club guy, Mr. Watson, Rusty. Cort laughed.

Okay. You pass this on to your boss. I have all the numbers and can get it faxed to you.

Rusty, I’ll tell you what. If it looks good, I can put a threemonth stay on the current debt. But if not, then we really need to move on a payment schedule for your current construction.

Rusty took some time to reflect on how he got to this juncture. This guy was different for sure. He wasn’t going to leave with the assurance that this deal was closed, and there was no time to adjust.

That’s how you want to move? How ’bout you tell your boss that I said this was golden. I will have the numbers on his desk first thing. He can update you with what to do next. How does that sound?

We just need the information, Mr. Watson. And I’m just letting you know the course we naturally take if the result finds us back at our current situation, Cort replied, leaning away from him.

Rusty stood up to leave, but something from way back, something from his own hopes and dreams, stopped him. He looked down intently and steadily to Cort.

Cort, right?

Yes.

A crack of the bat sounded and everyone around them was on their feet, shouting.

Your boy. I’ve been watching him and watching you. He’s got it. Probably as far as college ball. You know he’s been looking up here?

What?

Yeah. I don’t like you, but I’ll work with you. But your son there, he’s tracking for your eyes more than the ball. That’s why he let that one past him. You watch him. You make him not worry about you, and he’ll get his head back into it.

Rusty turned and walked down the bleachers and out to his truck. He started the truck and heard his Blackberry go off. It was an e-mail from his lawyer in Tulsa. Hey, partner. We got a snag, but nothing we can’t tackle. The Montgomery guy won’t take five per acre. He won’t take anything. Seen these guys before. No problem. Will call you tonight.

Rusty read the e-mail over and again. He hated that his involvement with this lawyer was deepening and would require a level of trust and money that was distasteful to him. Rusty refocused on the land as he drove. He would still make it happen. That is how it would be. Hard or easy, this deal was going to go through.

Chapter Two

Just before sunup, Marty Black grabbed his hoe and gloves from the weatherworn woodshed out back of his place. He tightened on the old, soiled gloves and moved unusually fast to the garden plot, anxious to start to work. He knew an early row of snow peas waited for him to harvest and another row of tomatoes needed planting. Early spring always felt good to Marty, and he loved the smell of the morning dew after and upon the evening rains. The storm season in central Oklahoma offered great hope to him each year—so much so that he would forget about the certain midsummer battle with heat and drought that lay ahead. But in the here-and-now, where he most liked to be, this was the best time and he would get to plant and harvest all at once.

He dug in and planted half a row before he decided to switch gears. The sun heated up early as he plucked the new snow peas, plopping them one by one into his tin bucket. His efforts turned his face red, and soon the sweat poured over his wrinkled face so much that he no longer bothered wiping it. This time of year allowed him to be old without really feeling old. But Marty listened to his bones more than he used to and took up a moment on the garden stool. He made the stool special for his wife, Ruth, because she was a woman and he figured she would need it. He found that funny now. He got amused at a lot of things he once thought or did.

Marty took advantage of these times when his body was spent well before the whole town of Willow Springs even had breakfast. He liked the quiet and pondered his Maker and all that He made and all that He was still making. Sometimes he would feel Him come on like a sudden warm breeze, a felt presence that was pleasant and familiar. Most mornings, they just enjoyed each other’s company. Marty didn’t like to talk much, and he knew that was understood. But if his thoughts got heavy, like this morning, the two of them would normally hash it out a bit.

I got to tell you, I don’t like what happened to Rusty’s boy. It was a nasty way to go. You know that, Marty started in.

I know. I hate it too.

I’m not accusing you or nothin’.

Yes you are.

Marty nodded at that and stretched up to pick through the tomatoes. These meetings made him a little nervous. It dawned on him that only two people made him feel this way after Korea: Him and Ruth, when she got those ideas to visit family.

I just don’t get it,