The Banks of Certain Rivers Read Online Free PDF Page B

go. We’re
stopped almost as soon as we begin, however, by a growing motorized
buzz off to the south that snaps Alan straight upright.
    “That son of a bitch,” Alan says, shielding the sun from
his eyes with a hand to his brow. “He got the Two-Ten. Son of a
bitch.”
    “Two-Ten? Who got what?” I rise and look in the direction
he’s gazing, toward the growing sound.
    “Leland Dinks got another airplane. He was talking some shit
about getting a new Cessna last week.”
    “Son of a bitch,” I say, as it dawns on me that Leland is very possibly the black man who paid Carol a visit earlier. Just
then a small blue and white plane roars over the trees and buzzes my
house, passing so close over our heads it seems like I could hit the
windshield with my spit. The plane circles over the field out back
and comes over again, prompting Alan to give the aircraft—along
with Leland and his pilot—the finger as it screams over us.
    “Beat it, Leland!” he shouts. “Go crash in the
lake!”
    “Alan, jeez.” I know he doesn’t mean it, but still.
    “That guy….” His voice trails off with the fading
sound of the plane, and he shakes his head. All that’s left in
the air is the buzz and rattle of insects in the tree line.
    “Let’s move your thing,” he says.
    Alan throws himself back into moving the fireplace with extra vigor.
I understand his frustration; Leland Dinks owns the chunk of property
immediately to the north of both of us, and has been pressing us to
sell him our land for the past couple years. He’s in the
early stages of building a lakefront condominium and golf course
development, and each new offer to buy seems to come with increased
urgency at an increasingly higher dollar amount. Every time,
we’ve refused. Leland’s been coming at me with kid
gloves, though: I’ve got the beach frontage he covets, more
than a mile of it, and he doesn’t want to piss me off. He
doesn’t care so much about Alan, though, and has accordingly
built a parking and maintenance area for his big construction
machines just beyond the river demarcating their shared property
line. Worse still is the airstrip he’s put in over there,
the final approach for which brings the private planes of Leland’s
prospective buyers and investors buzzing right over Alan and his wife
Kristin’s house. Alan has a right to be mad, I think.
    It takes us another ten minutes to get the pallet to the foot of my
front porch steps. Just as we’re trying to figure out the best
way to move the thing up the steps and inside we’re interrupted
again, this time by a shiny black Ford truck with tinted windows
coming up my drive. The truck loops around and comes to a halt in
front of us, the engine cuts off and the door swings open to reveal
Leland Dinks inside. He’s wearing dress pants and a white
button down shirt, the lower buttons just barely showing some strain
at the belly.
    “What, botheringus in that plane wasn’t enough?” Alan says,
dusting off his hands on his pant legs. Leland ignores him
completely as he jumps down from the big truck. 
    “Leland,” I say as we shake hands, “were you over
at Carol’s house earlier? Bugging her about—”
    “I was just checking in to see if anything had changed.”
    “The only thing that’s changed is that all the
paperwork’s done, I’m handling Carol’s stuff now,
and if you need to talk about the orchard, you can talk to me. Not
her.”
    “Well let’s talk then. And what the hell happened to your
face?”
    “Not important now. I’m telling you, like I have a
thousand times before, there’s nothing to talk about. We’re
not….” I stop myself, and look at the fireplace. “Wait.
I’ll make you a deal. We can talk about it.”
    Leland’s expression brightens. “Really?”
    “Really. But you have to help us move this thing inside
first.”
    He laughs, rapping the top of the fireplace with his
knuckles. “That’s all? That’s nothing. Let’s
see where