Yes, rewrite #3.
I don’t want to talk about it.
Vincent Quarrals watched Monique Modine exit Martin’s store from deep in the shadows of the Kristoffersen’s barn. Stacey Knox headed south a few minutes earlier.
He considered walking over when he saw her pull in, decided no. She seemed okay enough. He did a cursory read of her background at the state capital using what little Monique knew as a starting point, and something about Knox told him to go deep, go further, do some more reading beyond her litigation histories.
She bought the Campbell’s farm. He never noticed her in town before. What, did she come into town on a lark, saw a broken down farm badly in need of repair with a for-sale sign on it, and decided hot damn, that’s for me? One of the top lawyers in New York City decides to go country?
Bullshit. Only a flake would do that and she didn’t seem the flake type.
Did she even know the Campbell farm’s history?
Sad place if ever there was one.
The Campbells owned the farm since dirt was young. Al Senior, Al and Blanche’s father, never came back from Korea. MIA or POW or KIA nobody knew, and Mrs. Campbell did what she could to hold things together. They dirt-farmed their small patch but that gave them enough for themselves and a little more. Kind-hearted neighbors, most of them farmers themselves, bought what little overflow she had. She’d drop off baskets of produce and they’d return the baskets, often with new or at least not too worn clothes for her and the kids.
They raised chickens and pigs. Mrs. Campbell planned on selling off the livestock and Al had none of it. “We have two good breeder sows and all our hens are good layers. I can learn how to slaughter and get things to market. We do this right and we can grow the farm, Ma.”
Ballsy for a twelve-year old kid, but nobody knew what a head for business Al had. By the time he graduated high school he was one hell of a butcher. He handled chickens and pigs with razor sharp knifes and never pricked a finger or thumb. Neighbors brought their livestock to him for slaughter. He smiled and only took some good cuts for payment.
Al was fourteen, Blanche twelve, and the widow Campbell gets a suitor. Within a year Mrs. Campbell is Mrs. Stockton and Gus Stockton, a woodsman out of the Canadian Maritimes she meets when a hen-party went to a movie in Albany, is chocolates and flowers and smiles and works the land, helps Al with the livestock and getting it to market, Blanche with her schoolwork, and doubles over laughing when Al and Blanche imitate his eh? accent.
Then one day Gus walks the property and discovers some good timber ready to harvest, complete with a warm little knoll in the center. He talks it over with everybody, leases two good Suffolks and begins harvesting.
Those Suffolk were skittish at first, didn’t like going to that part of the woods, but Gus was good and talked them through, made sure he kept them away until he had the trees ready for hauling.
Then something strange happened. Vince’s mother said “Glory train passed through him.”
Whatever it was, Gus Stockton changed. Oh, he’s still chocolates and flowers and helpful and handy when people are watching, but it turns into fists and belt and a water pipe when people aren’t.
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