Chapter 20

John's words put a new twist to Roger's thinking about the land. If John was right -- and Roger had to assume the old man knew more about it than he did -- it put a different spin on things. Up to this point they'd been going on the six hundred and fifty thousand dollar figure that had been thrown around for months. John's words meant that it could be worth closer to a million!

It was hard for Roger to believe that a hundred and sixty acres of farmland could be worth that much. The figure seemed astronomical. Roger knew from listening to Max talk that farming was a lot bigger business with a lot more money involved than most people understood, but still, Roger was a retired factory worker and didn't think in numbers that big. All of a sudden, the $650,000 it would take to put a valid offer on the table in front of Delmer and deBoer began to sound like a bargain investment. But was it one worth taking advantage of? Would it be worth paying the interest needed to take full advantage of it, or do the administration and detail work involved? It was a damn good question, and he knew he wouldn't have an answer until he talked to Catalina, and probably not then.

Still, he couldn't help but examine the options as he loaded the Gator back on the trailer, then drove John back home, only half listening to the stories coming from the far side of the truck cab. It would probably kill the idea of going out west to spend the summer at Cedar Breaks. There was too much that would have to be done over the summer, and that put a twist into his thinking, too.

He still was thinking about it when he got to John's house. "John, I really appreciate your helping me out on this," he said. "At least I finally have some idea of what we're talking about. What do I owe you?"

"Not a thing," John told him. "It was nice to be able to get out in the woods for a few hours, and that was payment enough. I've had to spend enough hours inside looking at the TV set the past few months. I'm just glad to have been able to help you out."

"Well, it's appreciated. The next time I catch you in Becky's some morning, breakfast is on me. Now I suppose I'd better get this rig back to Max before he starts wondering what happened to me."

It only took another few minutes to get back to Max's house. Not knowing where Max wanted the stuff put, Roger just parked in the yard and went looking for his brother-in-law. He found him out in the shop, still puttering with the big green John Deere tractor that would start getting its seasonal workout in a few days. "So," Max said. "How did it go?"

"Pretty interesting," Roger said, realizing that he'd get better advice about what to do out of his brother-in-law, who was a farmer and who had to understand how to think about those kinds of numbers better than he did. "John said there was a lot of timber there that was worth a pretty good price." He went on to explain some of John's observations, and some of his ruminations about the numbers.

"Well," Max said. "I can't tell you about the woodland part of it that much since I've never dealt with it. Farmland, though, I can tell you this much: the prices go up and down. In the long run it's usually a good investment to buy land, but in the short run you can get your butt shot off. Prices go up and down, but the bottom line is not what the land is worth to you but what it's worth to a buyer, and whether you have a buyer around who will pay the price you want. I can tell you that's just as true of trees as it is of land. If you're willing to sit around and hold onto it until you can get your price, that's one thing, but you might have to wait years."

"Yeah, I've seen that fly in the ointment since this whole deal came up," Roger admitted. "The problem is that it's a lot of money."

"It is a lot of money," Max pointed out. "Even if you're used to having to deal with those kinds of figures. Sometimes you can get short-term and long-term value mixed up. Now, I decided to take a breather from working on this thing while you were gone, so I headed in and made some phone calls. It started out just trying to find someone over in that area who might be interested in a lease on sixty acres in case you needed it, but I heard an interesting story."

"What might this be?"

"Now, no names were mentioned, but it's breakfast-shop talk over in that neck of the woods that some guy has a hundred and sixty acres, sixty farmland and the rest woods, that's tied up in an estate. Sound familiar?"

"Pretty familiar," Roger smiled. "Delmer, you think?"

"I honestly don't know. No names were used, but it sure sounds like it. Anyway, it seems this guy has a big note coming due that's been extended a couple times, but his cousin has been sitting on the settlement to drive her share up. He's really pissed about it, because he has an offer to purchase the land sort of sitting under the table for enough to pay off that note, if she'll settle for what he offered."

"Holy shit!" Roger said. "That explains a hell of a lot that has never made sense before!"

"Sure does, doesn't it? Now this is just coffee-shop talk, but the offer is supposedly around four hundred thousand and change, so I suppose you can tell where the ninety thousand dollar settlement figure came from."

"Yeah, that much of it makes sense. So what it comes down to is that he wants to sell a million dollar piece of land for less than half that so he can make a third of it, with Catalina getting the short end of the stick."

"That's about the size of it," Max grinned. "The problem is that he needs the money in the short term so is willing to let go of the long term. It may sound stupid, but it may not be from the viewpoint of the guy who's got the bill to pay."

"So, you're saying that if the bid goes low to someone else besides him, he's screwed," Roger noted, a couple more things coming into focus.

"Pretty much. But if he can get it low, then he makes out like a bandit. There are a lot of screwy things around auctions, and this isn't the screwiest I've ever heard of."

"A lot sure has changed today," Roger shook his head as he mentally explored the ramifications, some of which he barely saw. "I guess I'd better go have a talk with Catalina and see what she thinks about it."

"You might want to run it by your attorney, too," Max pointed out.

"Yeah, him too," Roger agreed. "But Catalina first."

Roger and Catalina went to bed early the following Monday night, but set the alarm for midnight. At that, they didn't sleep very well, if they slept at all. They'd talked over the whole deal for several more days, coming to some conclusions, changing their minds, talking some more, and changing their minds again. Roger was lying in bed wide awake when the alarm went off, and although he and Catalina had tried to be quiet, it proved she wasn't asleep, either. "Well," she said. "I suppose that means we ought to get up."

"Yeah, that's how I figure it," Roger agreed. "I guess we'd better go do it."

"Nothing else to do," she agreed. "At least we've worked out what we're going to do. There's no point in talking it over any more, just play it like it comes and hope it works out for the best. If we wind up winning the bid, we win it, with all that means. If we don't win, we can start looking for a motor home to take out west, so I guess we win there, too."

"Right, we come out of it winning something," he agreed. "I'm still not sure whether I really want to win it or not."

"Me, either," she sighed, throwing the covers back and sitting up. In the low light of the room, Roger could see the cattails tattooed on her back as she started to get dressed. The tattoo seemed to still make her unbelievably exotic to him, even though they were so much closer now than they had been when he saw the tattoo for the first time. Most people didn't even know the tattoo was there, but somehow to Roger it made her even more exceptional. "Whatever happens," she said as she fastened her bra backwards around her obscuring the cattails in the process, then slid it around to put her arms through the straps, "I guess we just do the next thing."

"That's what we agreed," Roger said, conceding the need to get his own act together and get out of bed. "I guess we'd better dress warm. It looks like it's going to be chilly out there."

In a few minutes they were dressed; Roger had pulled on Catalina's father's old Red Wing boots for good luck, or something. He wasn't exactly sure why, but it seemed like a good idea to wear them. A few hours before they'd set the timer on the coffee pot, and the aroma of fresh coffee filled the kitchen. They poured travel mugs full, and put the rest in a thermos to take with them. Soon they were in the Mustang, heading for the auction.

Wychbold seemed dead at that hour. It was indeed dead; there might have been a few people awake in town besides them, but it couldn't have been very many. The familiar road to Amherst was just as dead; they only saw a couple vehicles moving. As they drove along, they could see that the sky was mostly overcast, but every now and then a nearly full moon showed through a break in the clouds. "I wonder how many people are going to show up," Catalina commented once.

"Hard to say," John answered. "Maybe not many. I sure would like to have a lot of buyers who could bid the price right up. That'd be the best of both worlds."

"I'm not holding my breath," she shook her head. "We might get a few people who will come out in hopes of grabbing a bargain, but they'll probably drop out when things get serious."

"You never know. I've never spent much time around auctions, but Max says you never can tell."

"Well, I'm hoping we can go looking for a motor home tomorrow," she said. "That's after we get some real sleep."

"Yeah, me too," he said. "We got lucky on the motor home." That had indeed worked well; while they'd still been working at cleaning out the previous week, Larry had stopped by from next door to see what was going on. When he found out that Roger was planning on selling it, Larry had said he knew someone who was looking for an older cheap motor home, mostly to go to races and not have to drive back home half drunk. When he asked Roger what he wanted for it, Roger quoted a price a thousand dollars higher than he'd paid for the thing, just to leave him some room to dicker. The guy showed up a day later, and after giving it a good looking over, met the price. It had been a little sad to see the motor home head out of the driveway without them, because a lot of good things had happened to both of them in it during the last seven months. But it had been a worthwhile bargain all the way around. The thousand dollars extra Roger had gotten on the sale more than paid for the repairs, the gas he'd burned going down to the coast and back, and the campground fees for the few nights he'd had to pay them. He hoped it would bring as much luck to the guy who bought it.

"We did," she smiled. "Maybe that means this is going to go our way, whatever way that is."

They'd wanted to pull into the auction a little early, if for no more reason than there was the possibility that someone might not be able to tell time, but that didn't prove to be a problem. The auction was being held near the corner of the two intersecting roads, and they found cars parked along the road in all directions. In the dark, it was hard to tell, but there may have been a couple dozen of them. Roger pulled the Mustang off the road as far as he dared, and he and Catalina got out after topping off their coffee cups.

They'd already agreed they were going to stay back in the darkness until the auction got under way, just so Delmer wouldn't know they were there. That had been on the assumption that only a handful of people would show up, but with the relative crowd of a couple dozen or more, they weren't sure it mattered anymore. In any case, they decided to stick with the plan they'd made.

However, they were looking for one person, Ralph Gerjevic, and soon found him, thanks to the big Cadillac Escalade he drove. "Looks like it's going to be a few minutes yet," he said after Roger tapped on the window. "Bigger crowd than I expected."

"Yeah, me too," Roger agreed. "But I think maybe we'll stay outside until it gets going."