Chapter 19

"Boy, isn't that just about like Delmer all over?" Bonnie said a few minutes later when they gave her a summary of the phone call. "There's no way in hell you can trust him as far as you can throw a fit. I knew he had to be up to something."

"We're just lucky Ralph caught him at it while there was still time to do something about it," Roger shook his head. "What it all comes down to is that we've got to hit the road. There's stuff we need to do in Wychbold next week to get ready for this, so there's no point in hanging around the Gulf Coast any longer."

"Yeah," Bonnie replied thoughtfully. "I think you'd better get going on that mortgage application as soon as you can, because you may well wind up having to pay full price on the thing. Bankers may say it only takes a couple hours but they usually mean a couple weeks when they say it."

"Well, it's not like I want to win the bid, I just want to bid it up as high as I can," Roger said. "If Delmer wants the land so damn bad he's willing to pay six hundred and fifty big ones for it, I think Catalina will be glad to take his money."

"He won't go that high, but he'll be prepared to go higher than a minimum bid, just in case," Bonnie told them. "He's been involved in land auctions before, he knows how that works."

"I pretty well figured that," Roger said. "While you can bad mouth him all you want, the bottom line is that he can't be stupid and still come up with this kind of a deal. Dishonest, sure, and after this I believe it, but stupid? I really doubt it."

"Stupid enough to think he's going to get away with it," Bonnie said. "So, you're saying to leave tonight?"

"We could," Catalina said. "But that would mean an extra night on the road. Of course, if we're taking the motor home we could find some place to boondock, so it might not cost any more. How soon can you be ready to go?"

"You're taking the motor home?" Bonnie asked. "I thought you were going to leave it here."

"No, we've made up our minds we're going to try and sell it, then get a bigger one to go out west with," Catalina told her. "That means taking it with us, unless we're in a huge-ass hurry to get home, and that would mean we'd have to come back down here to get it."

"Well, that simplifies things," Bonnie said. "Look, I don't want to have to rush around to pack up to be gone in an hour or so, and now that we're getting some people here I'd kind of like to hang around for a few days. But I'd like to be back for the auction, just in case. Roger, why don't you just leave the Taurus here, and I can drive it home in a few days?"

"That would work," Roger said. "Especially considering that we may well not be able to get back down here this spring. If something gets screwed up and I win the bid I may have to stay up there until I can get some arrangements made for the land, like having to get someone to get crops on it if I can't turn it over in a hurry. Plus there's several other things needing to get done."

"If we left Mom the Taurus, we'd have the Mustang up there to run around in," Catalina pointed out.

"Oh, I'm sold on the idea," Roger said. "Bonnie, you don't have to be back for the auction. Besides, if you went to it you might say something at the wrong time and wind up owning a half million dollar piece of land. I'd say to stay as long as you like. I probably ought to have the Taurus back before we head west, but I don't know when that'll be. Worse come to worst, you could drive the Taurus back home, hang around for a few days, and drive your own car back down here."

"All right, I'll figure on staying for a while, then," she replied. "Maybe if we're looking at a stretch of bad weather I could make a quick trip back."

"All right, then," Roger said. "Cattail, let's get started tearing the motor home down so we can get on the road."

Roger and Catalina were on the road heading north in the motor home in less than an hour. "Well, this beats having to tag along behind in the Taurus," she said as soon as they were out to the highway.

"Yeah, it does," Roger said. "Too bad we can't tow it, but we're not set up for it, and I don't think this thing would have the guts to do it anyway. Having your mother bring it home in a few days probably works out for the best. I got the impression that she wasn't real anxious about having to come home."

"Me, either," she replied. "Hell, if we see her at all before we head west it won't be for long. I'll bet she's planning on staying the summer. After all, she's going to be with her boyfriend at a nudist camp on a beach. What's to come home for?"

"It'll sure be interesting to see how that one comes out," he smiled.

"Yeah, I think so, too," Catalina said reflectively. "And I'll tell you what, I think I'm glad to see it. She's been at sort of loose ends ever since Dad died, and all the fooling around she's done has mostly been to kill time and keep from getting bored. Bill seems to be a nice guy, and they really get along well. I'll bet we're going to be spending more time at that place in years to come."

"Yeah, I suspect you're right," he said. "Of course, the best thing about spending time at a nudist camp is that I get to see your tattoo in full glory."

"Well, the best thing as far as I'm concerned is getting to show it off to you," she smiled. "I sure haven't had the chance to do it much the last few months, what with working with the Amish and all."

"Well, we're going to be home for a month or so, maybe more," Roger said. "We ought to be able to get plenty of time in the hot tub."

"Yeah, there's that," she said, her mind on something else. She was silent for a couple minutes before she spoke. "Roger, are we really going to be together for the long term?

"We are as far as I'm concerned," he told her. "I'm ready to have you for as long as you'll stay with me. What we do about the long term is your decision, just like it's always been. Do you have something in mind?"

"I think so," she said. "If we're going to be in Wychbold for a month or six weeks, do you think there'd be time to get my stuff out of Mom's house and over to yours?"

"We can make the time and in that big a house there's more than enough room. There's no big rush on moving your stuff I can see."

"I don't know, either," she said. "Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I keep thinking that if this gets halfway serious between Mom and Bill, she may want to think about selling her house in Amherst. Of course, that means she'd have to sell all the shit she's accumulated in her house, and that could turn into a huge damn garage sale that could last all summer. Or maybe, God help us, an auction."

"You think it's that serious?"

"It could be," she said. "But if she decides to do it, I think I'd just as soon have my stuff out of there in case we're way the hell out in back of Bourke, as an Aussie friend of mine used to say. We might have to store some of it for her."

"We could do that," he conceded. "There's a lot of space going to waste in that house, and since it looks like Erin is never coming home again we could use it constructively."

"You know of anything at Mom's house you might like?"

"I don't really know it that well," he said. "But I'll be honest, I wouldn't mind having those Red Wing hunting boots of your father's. They fit me so well it was like I'd broken them in."

"They're yours as far as I'm concerned, and I'll square it with Mom later," she smiled, and then added. "I always knew it was going to take a good man to fill Dad's shoes, and it looks like I've finally found him."

While the motor home was a comfortable ride, even compared to the Taurus, it wasn't quite as fast, and it seemed like it took them longer to get where they were going. They boondocked the first night out at the Walmart in Dothan, Alabama, and the second night out in a truck stop parking lot north of Nashville. Late on Sunday night they pulled into Roger's driveway in Wychbold, and were glad to be there for once.

Things had changed a lot in Michigan in the six weeks they'd been gone. Where, in the middle of February, there had been hip-deep snow all over the place, the snow was all gone now, replaced by bare trees and brown grass left over from the previous year. Here and there things were starting to show signs of green, and the mud that's usually common right after a major snow melt had mostly dried out. Michigan didn't seem like such a bad deal as it had six weeks before.

They didn't waste any time getting into the hot tub -- once again they'd called ahead to tell Larry to turn the heat up -- and it felt good to have it take the road weariness out of them.

They'd talked about what needed to be done in the next few days most of the way back from the Gulf Coast, and they couldn't help talking about it some more. Obviously, the first thing on their list was to see Gerjevic as soon as they could get an appointment in the morning, and anything to do with preparing for the auction was going to have to take priority over other things. But they'd also agreed that a high priority was to get everything possible out of the motor home to prepare it for a possible sale. If it turned out they wound up having to take it west, then at least it could be reloaded with things that would be needed for the summer -- lots of carpentry tools wouldn't be needed at the campground at Cedar Breaks National Monument, for instance. It seemed likely that the motor home might be worth more on a private sale than it would bring as a trade-in. That meant they wanted to at least give selling it themselves a quick try before they got involved in looking for a new motor home, which could wait until after the auction. Looking for a new one could also wait until after the auction, when Catalina's financial picture would be clearer, but there was still a lot to do before the middle of May and their projected date of leaving for Utah.

The next morning they were at Becky's for breakfast well before Gerjevic's office opened. Jason Daugherty was there, of course, and asked, "So, Roger. Have you had any thoughts about selling your house?"

"Yeah, and I'm not going to do it just yet," he said. "Things have changed a little since I talked to you about it. I may, and I emphasize the may, have something else for you to list. You remember that piece of farmland and woods we were talking about last winter?"

"Over around Amherst, as I recall?"

"Yeah. I don't want to go into the ins and outs of it just yet, but I may be forced to buy it at an auction. If I do, it's going to be up for sale immediately, and I'll want to be able to turn it over without getting stung on the deal. Do you think you might be interested in that?"

"Possibly, but it's a little out of my area," Jason said. "I'll help you out on it if I can, though. How soon are you going to know about it?"

"I'll know one way or the other a week from tomorrow. I really hope I don't have to be in the barrel on this one but it's beginning to look like I may not have the choice."

"Just to throw in a thought, you might want to split the property," Jason suggested. "The farmland might go quickly at a high dollar this time of year, but you might have to sit on the woods for a while until some buyer comes along who can see it as an investment."

"Yeah, that's an angle I hadn't thought of," Roger said. "Farmland is one thing, but a woodlot is something else. I'll have to kick it around."

They sat and talked about it for a few minutes, and then since Roger didn't want to get into the details of the deal too completely the talk drifted to other things. A minute or two after nine Catalina called over to Gerjevic's office, where Linda told them to come on over. "Actually," she said, "I'm a little surprised the two of you weren't waiting at the door when we opened."

"About one more sip of coffee and we'll be on our way," Catalina told her.

In a few minutes they were sitting in a comfortable chair in the attorney's office. "For the most part you know what the options are, and we covered them pretty well on the phone Friday," he said. "Linda and I pulled together an ad, and we made the deadlines of several of the local papers in the area Friday, and she'll be working on the rest of them this morning, so there's that angle covered."