Stuart Woods - Under the Lake

The whole place was furnished with what looked like remnants of various White households. There were an old, leather Chesterfield couch and a couple of beat-up armchairs in front of the fireplace. A large round table sat near the kitchen door, surrounded by eight chairs, three of which matched. At the far end of the room there was a small rolltop desk and an office chair. Next to the desk was an old-fashioned player piano with a stack of dusty rolls on top. The bedroom contained a double bed, a bureau, and a room-width length of iron pipe concealed by a curtain, making an ample closet. A bathroom led off the bedroom. He tried the bed. Not bad. In fact, the whole place was not bad. Denham White had been too modest about his building skills. Oh, there probably wasn’t a square angle in the place, Howell thought, but it was snug and comfortable. Everything he needed. For a small moment he felt uprooted, forlorn. Quickly, he gathered himself up and went about getting settled. An hour later the wagon was unloaded, his clothing put away, and the word processor sat in its boxes next to the desk. Tomorrow would be soon enough for that. He sat down at the piano and played a few chords. Needed tuning. He had played in a dance band in college, but since, only at the occasional party. He pumped the pedals. Nothing happened.

He went into the kitchen and opened cupboards. Dishes, jelly glasses, the usual for this sort of place. There was a curtained-off pantry at the end of a counter. Howell brushed it open and found a dismantled outdoor grill, half a sack of charcoal, and a double-barreled shotgun. He stood, looking at the weapon as if it were a deadly snake. There was a sourness in his stomach, a weakness in his knees. He would have to share this place with that thing, that black, shiny, tempting instrument, that key to the Big Door, that way out. He had owned a pistol until recently; he had thrown it off a bridge into the Chattahoochee River, afraid to have it handy. He jerked the curtain back into place and resolved to forget that it was there.

There was no food in the place, and he needed to go into Sutherland anyway. In town, he found an attractive little shopping center with a large supermarket. He was puzzled by an extremely large display of electric heaters in the hardware department. Ten bags of groceries in the car, he stopped at the post office to tell them who and where he was, then at the locally-owned telephone exchange to ask them to turn on the phone in the cabin. On his way back he stopped at a Sinclair station for gas.

A wizened little man with snowy hair stopped fixing an inner tube and shuffled out to the car. “Fill ‘er up with the high-test and check the oil and water, please,” Howell said, as he got out of the car to stretch. There was another man tilted back in a chair against the building, whittling.

“Lotsa groceries, there,” the white-haired man said as he started the gasoline pump. “You staying around?”

“Yep, up at Denham White’s place on the lake, near the crossroads.”

The man’s brow furrowed and he shook his head. “Better you than me, friend,” he said.

“Huh?”

“I know young Denham,” the man said, seeming not to want to pursue his first remark. “His daddy used to come up here and hunt with Mr. Sutherland. I used to run dogs for ‘em. He’s under the lake, now, Mr. White.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Under the lake.”

The other man got up and walked over. “Passed on,” he said. “Local expression. I’m Ed Parker. You staying with us for a while, then?”

“A few weeks.”

“I’m Benny Pope,” the little man said. “Hope we’ll have your business while you’re here.” He looked at Ed Parker to see if he’d said the right thing.

Parker smiled at him. “Benny’s my number one salesman,” he said.

As Parker spoke, another car pulled into the station, and a man wearing a tan gabardine suit and a Stetson hat got out. “Fill ‘er up, Benny,” he said, then turned and looked at Howell.

“Aren’t you John Howell?” he asked.

“That’s right.”

“Recognized you from your picture in the paper. I’m Bo Scully. I used to read your stuff in the Constitution.” He stuck out his hand. “I liked it,” he grinned, “most of the time.”

“Most of the time ain’t bad,” Howell laughed, taking the man’s hand. “That’s more often than my editors liked it.”

“How come I don’t see your column any more?”

“Oh, I left the paper a couple of years ago. I’m staying out at Denham White’s place for a few weeks, working on a book.“

“Well, that’s a right nice place out there; nice view,” Scully said. “Say, I was just going across the street to Bubba’s for a cup of coffee. Join me? Benny’ll park the car for you.”

Howell shrugged. “Sure. I could use a sandwich, too. Missed lunch.”

“Bubba will feed you,” Scully said, starting across the street. He was a big man, six three or four, Howell reckoned, with the musculature of an ex-athlete, fading red hair with a touch of gray; an open, freckled, Irish-looking face; probably in his mid-forties. Howell came up to his shoulder. Scully ushered him into the cafe. “Bubba, this is John Howell, you remember, the columnist for the Constitution?” Bubba waved from behind the counter. “Fix him one of your best cheeseburgers. How you like it, John?”

“Medium is fine.” Howell heard a loud click and looked toward the back of the place where a couple of men were moving around a pool table. Howell had followed up stories in a hundred places like this in little towns across the south. It smelled of chili and stale cigarette smoke. The church-going people of the town would think it was a fairly disreputable place, but a man could get a cold beer here, and Howell liked it.

“Medium, Bubba, and two cups… could you use a beer, John?”

“Sure.”

“A beer and one cup of coffee and a beer. I’m working this afternoon.” He showed Howell to a booth. “So, what sort of book brings you up this way?”

Howell told him what he had told Sutherland.

“A novel, huh? Guess you don’t want to talk about what it’s about.”

“Not yet, I guess. How many people live in Sutherland, anyway?”

“Oh, round about four thousand, now, I guess, what with the new hair curler factory that opened up this spring.”

“Much industry?”

“Much as Mr. Sutherland wants.”

“He decides that sort of thing?”

“He decides pretty much what he wants to. Mr. Sutherland is responsible for the prosperity we’ve got here.”

“You mean the lake, the tourists it brings?”

Bo Scully chuckled. “Tourists are just about the last thing Mr. Sutherland wants. They’re noisy, dirty. There’s a public beach way down the other end by the fish camp, but that’s it. The power company owns the whole lake shore and leases lots to those folks Mr. Sutherland feels are all right.”

“Then what’s the source of the prosperity?”

“The dam. That was built with Sutherland family money, and it’s owned by Sutherland Power. They wholesale the electricity to the Georgia Power Company, which brings in a bunch of money, you can bet your ass.”

“I can see how it would,” Howell replied.

“The nice part for the town is that Sutherland Power sells electricity dirt cheap, locally. With what’s happened to fuel prices since the Arabs got mean, you can imagine what a magnet that would be for industry to come in here.”

“That must be why the supermarket sells so many electric heaters.”

“You bet. There’s not a gas stove or furnace in the town. Most folks have got heat pumps and electric furnaces, and those who don’t use electric room heaters. It wouldn’t even pay to chop your own wood around here, unless you’re just a romantic who likes to gaze into a fire.”