Part 22 (1/2)

The door was open. The parking lot was empty of cars. There was heavy traffic on Route 126, but all those people were going somewhere else. No one would notice a tourist walking into the house and not walking out again.

The summer dusk cast a pleasant green shade through the windows. Except for the fireplace the room was bare. There was no stove, no bed, no table, no electricity, no plumbing. But there was something else, a faint whiff of the spirit of the man called Henry David Th.o.r.eau. Palmer had taken a course in American lit at Boston University. He had even written a paper on Th.o.r.eau's poetry.

Now he had a sentimental idea. Before going to bed he went out into the woods and gathered fallen branches. When he arranged them in the fireplace and touched them with a match, they flared up brightly.

Palmer lay down and stared at the fire, remembering a verse of Th.o.r.eau's: Go thou my incense upward from this hearth

And ask the G.o.ds to pardon this clear flame.

*46*

When heaven begins and the dead arise, no

trumpet is blown... a”Journal, March 13, 1842

A wood thrush was singing beside one of the Andromeda ponds as thunder rumbled over the town of Concord. It was still singing as a ray of sunlight shot out of the clouds and threw a millionfold spread of color over the eastern sky.

Homer missed the wood thrush, but he saw the rainbow as he came out of the Concord Public Library. He stood for a moment, gaping at it, and then it faded, and he walked to his car.

If he had stayed in the library five minutes longer, he would have missed it. The trouble with nature's spectacles was that they didn't employ a public address system. n.o.body leaned out of a cloud and boomed: NOW HEAR THIS: KINDLY DIRECT YOUR GAZE TO THE.

EASTERN QUARTER OF THE SKY AND YOU WILL SEE.

SOMETHING RATHER ATTRACTIVE, IF I DO SAY SO.

MYSELF.

Actually Homer had stayed an hour longer in the library than he had meant to. He was late for the party at the Badgers' house. As he parked in the Badgers' driveway, Mary saw him from the porch, and she ran out and hauled him inside.

”Everybody's asking for you. Where were you?”

”I just stopped off in a bar for a couple of quick ones. You know that famous saloon, the Concord Library.”

”Well, come on in. Henry Badger is making a speech.”

Homer ducked under the lintel of the French doors and joined the modest crowd.

”In short,” said Henry, concluding his speech, ”We've all got to do what we can to support Oliver Fry in his campaign, if we want to save Walden Woods from the bulldozers of the developer. Am I right, or am I right?”

”You're right,” cried Homer.

”You're right,” cried everybody else.

Oliver Fry stood beaming in the middle, happily drinking his third gla.s.s of wine punch. The speech was over. The noise level rose.

Homer looked around the room with satisfaction. These people were friends from way back. They were just what he needed, a captive audience for his investigation, preselected for their true-blue support of conservationist causes. There were loyal Th.o.r.eauvians among them, members of the Audubon Society, the Appalachian Mountain Club, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Wilderness Society, the Concord Land Conservation Trust.

He b.u.t.tonholed them one after another, while they laughed and filled their gla.s.ses and shouted to make themselves heard. Homer asked what they thought about Pond View. Did they think the state of Ma.s.sachusetts should speed up the last days of the trailer park by moving the remaining residents out?

”Oh, no,” said Elizabeth Bates, ”they couldn't do that. Those people were promised life tenancy. That would be terrible.”

”Well, I don't know,” said Marcus McDowell, ”they don't bother me. It's the landfill that gives me a pain.”

”Leave them lay,” said Steve Freiburg. ”Bunch of old codgers. They're not doing anybody any harm.”

”Let sleeping dogs lie,” said Wendy Chin. ”Old saying of Confucius.”

”Get them out of there by hook or by crook,” cried Oliver Fry. But Oliver was Oliver, and he didn't count.

*47*

...trade curses everything it handles ... though

you trade in messages from heaven... a”Walden, ”Economy”

The rainbow that dazzled Homer Kelly was within Jefferson Grandison's line of vision when he came to town with Jack Markey.

If he had been looking up at the sky, he would have seen the arching bands of color glowing behind the steeple of the First Parish Church. Unfortunately Grandison was staring at the sidewalk, where Carl Browning was taking a late afternoon nap. When Grandison walked into the fragrant ambience of Mimi's Parfumerie, followed by Jack Markey, he was in a sour mood. But he was ready to do his duty. He had agreed to address Mimi Pink's Consortium of Concord Boutiques, and address it he would.

Mimi came forward to meet him, her hand outstretched. ”Mr. Grandison, we are so honored.”

Grandison's glance flicked over Mimi and flicked away. Then he looked back at her uneasily, reminded of something disturbing. Putting the thought aside, he took his place among the mirrored shelves at the rear of the store, while everyone stood up from the rows of folding chairs and clapped.