a storm’s runoff reduces it to little more than a stream crossing. But, as I approached the Hescock Road turnoff, the reward proved worth the effort: a view of operatic scale, extending south-southeast into Massachusetts and seemingly forever beyond. Blue-gray hills, spiky with evergreens, mountain passes, and the occasional glimmering pond, all lay before me with the same hopelessly romantic artificiality of a mural-sized landscape painting.
I followed Hescock’s semicircle less than halfway around until I came to an overgrown driveway marked by a mailbox and the rutted ‘passage of years’ worth of four-wheel traffic. The driveway—more of a grass-tufted lane—meandered a few hundred yards through the woods to a clearing as spectacular as the one I’d just left, where I found a rambling two-hundred-year-old Greek Revival farmhouse, weatherbeaten and in need of paint, but as seemingly solid as the boulders poking through the lawn at its feet. By my calculations, I was still within township lines.
I killed the engine and swung out of the car, automatically slinging the department’s 35-mm camera over my shoulder, my eyes irresistibly drawn to the hundred-mile view at my feet. I noticed then that a few leaves had already begun to fall from some of the trees, in reaction to the cool mountain air. In the valleys, early September meant a slight chill at night. Up here, that chill stayed put until mid-afternoon.
“Who are you?”
I turned at the voice, at once challenging but unthreatening. A tall, stooped, white-haired man had rounded the corner of the house, wearing a red-and-black-checked wool overshirt and holding a rake in his hand.
“Joe Gunther. I’m from the Brattleboro Police Department.”
The white-haired man stopped about ten feet from me, his pale eyes still and watchful, glistening like polished stones in a narrow, much-seamed, expressionless face. “What do you want?” He quickly glanced at the camera.
“Are you Fred Coyner?”
“Maybe.”
I couldn’t suppress a smile. The answer was a parody of how “real” Vermonters speak. “I wanted to ask you about Abraham Fuller. I gather you called the ambulance several days ago that took him to the hospital?”
Coyner remained silent, seemingly uninterested in confirming the obvious.
“Did anyone give you an update on his condition?”
“Nope.”
“He died, Mr. Coyner. Of a very old bullet wound.”
There was a prolonged silence, offset only by distant birdcalls and the occasional rustle of a few crown-top leaves. Coyner’s expression, what there was of it, didn’t change, but after a pause, he shifted his gaze from me to the vague and distant horizon.
“Did you know he’d once suffered a gunshot wound?” I asked.
He still refused to answer. After several moments of contemplation, he finally muttered, “What do you want here?”
“I’d like to see where he lived, for starters.”
“Follow me.” He turned abruptly and began marching off at a surprisingly fast and steady pace, given his age. Having studied him up close, I guessed him to be somewhere in his seventies, lean, leathery, and hard, shaped by the weather and the personal isolation he wore like a mantle.
We walked for about fifteen minutes along a barely discernible path cut through the woods. I noticed to my surprise that running from tree to tree, fastened by bent-over nails or just looped over branches, was a heavy-gauge electrical wire.
“How long did you know Mr. Fuller?” I asked at one point, but the response was much as I’d expected: total silence. We trudged along quietly after that. I began to wonder if I would get any more from Coyner than I might from the surrounding trees.
We eventually came to a large opening in the woods, completely hemmed in by an impenetrable circle of trees and brush, as if a giant’s heel had crushed the woods flat in this one spot, leaving the rest of the forest untouched. At the edge of the clearing, across from where we
I followed Hescock’s semicircle less than halfway around until I came to an overgrown driveway marked by a mailbox and the rutted ‘passage of years’ worth of four-wheel traffic. The driveway—more of a grass-tufted lane—meandered a few hundred yards through the woods to a clearing as spectacular as the one I’d just left, where I found a rambling two-hundred-year-old Greek Revival farmhouse, weatherbeaten and in need of paint, but as seemingly solid as the boulders poking through the lawn at its feet. By my calculations, I was still within township lines.
I killed the engine and swung out of the car, automatically slinging the department’s 35-mm camera over my shoulder, my eyes irresistibly drawn to the hundred-mile view at my feet. I noticed then that a few leaves had already begun to fall from some of the trees, in reaction to the cool mountain air. In the valleys, early September meant a slight chill at night. Up here, that chill stayed put until mid-afternoon.
“Who are you?”
I turned at the voice, at once challenging but unthreatening. A tall, stooped, white-haired man had rounded the corner of the house, wearing a red-and-black-checked wool overshirt and holding a rake in his hand.
“Joe Gunther. I’m from the Brattleboro Police Department.”
The white-haired man stopped about ten feet from me, his pale eyes still and watchful, glistening like polished stones in a narrow, much-seamed, expressionless face. “What do you want?” He quickly glanced at the camera.
“Are you Fred Coyner?”
“Maybe.”
I couldn’t suppress a smile. The answer was a parody of how “real” Vermonters speak. “I wanted to ask you about Abraham Fuller. I gather you called the ambulance several days ago that took him to the hospital?”
Coyner remained silent, seemingly uninterested in confirming the obvious.
“Did anyone give you an update on his condition?”
“Nope.”
“He died, Mr. Coyner. Of a very old bullet wound.”
There was a prolonged silence, offset only by distant birdcalls and the occasional rustle of a few crown-top leaves. Coyner’s expression, what there was of it, didn’t change, but after a pause, he shifted his gaze from me to the vague and distant horizon.
“Did you know he’d once suffered a gunshot wound?” I asked.
He still refused to answer. After several moments of contemplation, he finally muttered, “What do you want here?”
“I’d like to see where he lived, for starters.”
“Follow me.” He turned abruptly and began marching off at a surprisingly fast and steady pace, given his age. Having studied him up close, I guessed him to be somewhere in his seventies, lean, leathery, and hard, shaped by the weather and the personal isolation he wore like a mantle.
We walked for about fifteen minutes along a barely discernible path cut through the woods. I noticed to my surprise that running from tree to tree, fastened by bent-over nails or just looped over branches, was a heavy-gauge electrical wire.
“How long did you know Mr. Fuller?” I asked at one point, but the response was much as I’d expected: total silence. We trudged along quietly after that. I began to wonder if I would get any more from Coyner than I might from the surrounding trees.
We eventually came to a large opening in the woods, completely hemmed in by an impenetrable circle of trees and brush, as if a giant’s heel had crushed the woods flat in this one spot, leaving the rest of the forest untouched. At the edge of the clearing, across from where we
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