The Gillespie Country Fair Read online

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Greenleaf Book Group Press

  Austin, Texas

  www.gbgpress.com

  Copyright ©2019 Marc Hess

  All rights reserved.

  Thank you for purchasing an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright law. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the copyright holder.

  Distributed by Greenleaf Book Group

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  Cover design by Greenleaf Book Group

  Cover images: ©Maverick C. Used under license from Shutterstock.com, ©Gordana

  Sermek. Used under license from Shutterstock.com, ©Chuck Wagner. Used under license from Shutterstock.com, ©Hank Shiffman. Used under license from Shutterstock.com, ©Fotoluminate LLC. Used under license from Shutterstock.com, ©Delcroix Romain. Used under license from Shutterstock.com, Back cover image: ©Jacqueline Cooper. Used under license from istockstock.com.

  Author photo courtesy of White Oak Studio, Fredericksburg, Texas

  Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data is available.

  Print ISBN: 978-1-62634-604-8

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-62634-605-5

  Part of the Tree Neutral® program, which offsets the number of trees consumed in the production and printing of this book by taking proactive steps, such as planting trees in direct proportion to the number of trees used: www.treeneutral.com

  Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper

  19 20 21 22 23 24 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  First Edition

  To Marc and Janet Bennett, who dragged

  me down here against my will.

  For that I am eternally grateful.

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  An Enduring Heritage

  A Night in Old Fredericksburg

  The Last Road Trip of Max Ritzi

  The Sin That Transcends Generations

  Evening Prayers

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Writers of fiction spend an inordinate amount of time alone in their cave—inside their own heads—toiling to coax a complete world out of a blank sheet of paper. That is what it takes to get a good story. But writers need to pick up a few angels along the way in order to make that story into a book that can be shared with others. Steve Adams, my friend in letters and Writing Coach, taught me that. Without his persistent encouragement and critical perspective you would not be reading this.

  My first developmental editor, Jo-Ann English, found a story in the mess of words that I showed to her and gave me a methodology for moving forward.

  Throughout this writer’s journey and throughout my life, Doug Stevenson has been my most enduring friend and the harshest critic of my work.

  Jodi Egerton kept the wheels on when I thought I should be saving the entire world in the pages of this one book. “Stop that,” she insisted. I did.

  David Aretha, with Austin’s Yellow Bird editors, and Donna Snow Robinson did the painstaking, nit-picky (or is it pernickety?) copy editing of this manuscript as it went through fourteen revisions.

  It was my editor at Greenleaf, Amy Dorta McIlwaine, who helped baste the diction and flavor these words to make them taste really good.

  More than anywhere else my depth as a writer grew through my long-time involvement with The Writers League of Texas—an invaluable resource for writers at all stages of their journey.

  But most of all it was Lorrie, who lured me out onto the precipice with that wry smile of hers, brought her lips up to my wincing ear, and whispered, “Say Geronimo!”

  An Enduring Heritage

  There was no need to switch on the bathroom light. He knew where everything was, and besides, it wasn’t his bladder that had him traipsing around in the dark. It was a different kind of rousing in his gut—a primal sense that something terrible was stirring.

  He toed his way across the bedroom, where his wife lay snuggled in the sheets as if she were chilly. The nightstand clock told him that he could slip in beside her and catch another hour of sleep, but a blush of color flickering in the night sky lured him out onto the breezeless terrace instead. A bolt of adrenaline shot through his body before his mind registered what he was seeing.

  In the town below, a fire billowed skyward like the blossom of some exotic flower: so rich and majestic that an entire neighborhood danced in its orange glow while its flames tongued a false dawn out of a black sky. Where, exactly, and how big? It was hard to guess from his hillside perch. Could be any one of those old stone workshops down along the creek. Whichever one it was, this would be an absolute disaster for one of the old families of Fredericksburg.

  He threw on the bedroom lights, jolting his wife from her sleep as he crashed about, grabbing for his clothes.

  “Fire. Down Lincoln Street. Near the creek. Where are my new boots?” He shot out of the room and then back in again. “It’s a doozie, too. Someone’s gonna be out a lot of building.”

  Cora Lynn sat up and pulled the retainer from her mouth. “Well, call the fire department.”

  “They’re already there.” He pushed his shirttail into his jeans while scanning the closet. There were probably six pairs of boots in there, but not the ones he wanted.

  “So, what are you going to do? You’re not a fireman.”

  He answered her with a shrug that fell somewhere between Don’t you get it? and I don’t know.

  But she wasn’t going to let it go. “You just let the fire department handle this, sugar.”

  On his way out the door, he called back to her. “You know it’s going to be someone we know.” Then, from further away: “Where the hell are my new ostrich-skin boots?”

  “Honey!” she called after him, then fell back against her pillow. “Turn off the light.”

  He stuck his head back in the door. “Found ’em.”

  • • •

  Heat singed the leaves on the old oak trees that lined Lincoln Street, where a rookie cop was rolling out yellow tape to block off the area. He walked right past the officer, mesmerized by the grandeur of it all, one hand holding the brim of his Resistol against the heat.

  “Sorry, sir,” the cop called out. “This is an active fire zone. You can’t—”

  “That’s okay, son.” He hurried by without making eye contact. “I’m Carel Geische.”

  The scorch of the blaze pressed against his body and warmed his cheeks. The fire trucks and all the grisly action were playing out on the far side of the one-lane bridge. Dissolving into the blazing crucible was the old Ortner Gingerbread Trim factory, where three generations of Ortners had cut and pieced frieze boards into a Bavarian-style latticework that used to be popular in the old cottages of Fredericksburg. This morning that material provided the ideal tinder for a Class A fire that would devour every timber, collapse every doorjamb, and melt away the wavy crown glass windows of the old mill. After this fire, even those fourteen-inch limestone block walls would be charred—but still standing.

  What a perfect location, Carel thought. It was just far enough off Main Street to avoid the zoning restrictions of the Historic District and there was the quick access to the San Antonio highway—the perfect locatio
n for professional office suites built in the signature Geische, neo–Hill Country style: burnt limestone walls with rustic beams but none of that old gingerbread trim.

  The greedy flames reflected in the plate glass windows of Ritzi Agricultural Equipment, the first shop across the bridge, where Carel’s gaze found the plug-shaped Heinie Ortner standing with the willowy Jock Ritzi, two grown men who ran the enterprises their fathers had started on opposite sides of the creek. Carel approached them with the demeanor of a summons server—somber and erect. When he was within reach, Carel threw his arms around Heinie and took his old friend in a bear hug.

  “Looks bad, Heinie. Real bad.”

  It was Jock who looked like he was on the brink of tears. “Look at that.” He gestured with his chin as if none of them had seen the fire yet. “Looks to me like you’re gonna lose it all. Everything.”

  Heinie was the calmer of the two—just standing there, his head bobbing up and down, responding to every sympathetic comment with some random biblical reference. “Everything has a purpose. We can’t know His plan.”

  The three of them stood in a row, each one watching the fire from under the brim of his cowboy hat, dolefully going through a litany of what was lost.

  “All those template-tables my pa and my opa made before I was even born,” Heinie mumbled. “Gone. Can’t be made again.”

  They shook their heads in unison.

  “That old Kluge embossing press y’all hauled over from Germany,” Jock remembered. “Probably the last one of its kind.”

  “Oh, we got that out a couple weeks ago,” Heinie told them. “It’s out in our barn now.”

  “What’d you go and do that for?” Jock asked.

  “Oh, we’re gonna fix it up. Sell it. It’s worth some money, you know.”

  When the tallest of the flames could no longer reach over the top of the limestone walls, the first streaks of the true dawn lapped the horizon, absorbing the colors of the fire and promising another hot day across the Texas Hill Country.

  Jock turned to their friend. “You’ve got this insured, right?”

  “Sure thing. Yeah. I figure I’m gonna take away some seventy-three, eight hundred.”

  Carel slowly turned his eyes to the shorter of his two buddies, keen to catch the expression on Heinie’s face when he answered the next question. “Seventy-three thousand, eight hundred dollars. That’s a pretty precise number. How do you know that?”

  Heinie thrust his hands down into the pockets of his Carhartt overalls, his head still bobbing under that black hat of his. “Well, we checked on that already. A bit ago.”

  “Un-huh,” Carel acknowledged.

  Jock nodded too. Then they all returned their stares to the slow-burning remnants of the millworks and stood in uneasy silence. In those coals Carel saw yet another small piece of his hometown that was gone forever.

  Struggling with a reverence for the moment and an impatience welling up inside him, Carel broke into the awkward hush. “Hey, Jock. Can we use your office for a moment?”

  “Sure.”

  The three men each put a hand to their hat as they ducked under a garage door to enter the Ritzis’ workshop. Jock led them across the concrete floor in darkness and then flicked a light on to reveal a cramped office swollen with dented file cabinets and odd machine parts.

  Carel sat down in the chair at the desk, which was divided into two messy parts by a fat-back computer monitor. Behind him, Jock went to a small window to switch on the air conditioner. Heinie had to wait until Jock came around and lifted a stack of file folders off the seat of another chair before he could sit too.

  Carel removed his Resistol and placed it on the desk before him. “You got any coffee?”

  “Sure,” Jock responded, “I’ll get y’all some,” and he left the two of them alone in his office, letting the door shut behind him.

  Carel put his elbows on the desk and leaned into Heinie’s face. “If you listen to anything I say, old buddy …” He left a pause long enough for Heinie to realize that this was serious. “You got to listen to me now.” He stared at Heinie until he was certain that he had his friend’s full attention. “Don’t you file that insurance claim.”

  Heinie furrowed his brow, anger welling up in his eyes. “That’s no business of yours, Mr. Geische. I just lost everything I own. That money is going to get me paid off. Up and goin’ again.”

  “They’re going to figure out you torched your own place, and you won’t get nothing but a stretch of time down in the Huntsville state pen.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” Heinie jumped to his feet, his fists clenched, ready to fight. “I didn’t do nothin’ like you’re sayin’.”

  Carel held his palms up and softened his eyes. “I don’t know anything, Heinie. And I wouldn’t say anything if I did.” He gestured, and Heinie sat back down. “And those guys down at the volunteer fire department aren’t going to go looking for anything either.”

  “Ya don’t think so?”

  “Macht nichts. They’re only going to talk about this one until the next one comes along. Then they’ll just forget about it.” Carel’s eyes narrowed. “But before those insurance guys lay out one dime, they’re going to find out how that fire got started.”

  Heinie’s entire face dropped into his jowls. His breathing went shallow, almost panting, but his eyes never left Carel’s.

  “They’re going to bring a special team up here from San Antonio. They’ll shine around one of those blue lights on all the burnt marks.” Carel swung his arm through the air to mimic how they might work it. “They’ll have a fancy chemistry set that’ll tell them everything: where it started, how fast it spread, how hot it got.” He paused. “And what started it.”

  “Oh, Scheiße!” Heinie sank down in his chair, removed his hat, wiped his brow, and put the hat back on. “I didn’t think they’d bring one of those things down here.”

  “I really don’t know how all that works, but they probably can’t do an investigation unless you file a claim.”

  “And I was really … really …”

  “I know you were.” They sat in heavy silence without making eye contact until Carel spoke up. “I might be able to help you out, buddy.”

  Heinie raised his eyes hopefully.

  “What if I buy the property from you?”

  “You mean … Won’t that look kind of funky?”

  “I would have to buy it from you before the fire.”

  Heinie’s face screwed up in confusion.

  “We’ll have to backdate some documents. When was the last time you spoke to your insurance company?”

  “Last week of July.”

  “Okay. I’ll have to get it dated before that. It’ll be a letter of intent to buy. With some cash money up front for earnest. Something to get you going for now.” Carel could see that Heinie wasn’t fully following how this plan might work, but the man was desperate for a way out. “Of course we’ll have to settle on a value after the fire for a final sell price of, say …” Carel shrugged. “Twenty grand.”

  “Twenty grand!” shouted Heinie, coming out of his seat again. “I was going to get more than seventy-three from insurance.”

  Carel shook his head. “You were going to jail, buddy.”

  Heinie threw up his hands as though he could fight his way out of this trap. “Gott verdammt!” he shouted. After exhausting himself with air punches, he fell back into the chair and squirmed around for a bit.

  When Heinie stopped his contortions at last, Carel stood and put his hat on, rounded the desk, and held out his hand—the time-honored way that old Fredericksburg families sealed their agreements.

  Heinie gave him a bitter look but took his hand.

  Carel held the handshake firmly. “I’ll get the paperwork done. You’ll just have to sign it all.”

  “I will, Carel. And I guess … I guess I should thank you. But damn it all.”

  “I know. This isn’t what I wanted to happen, either. But I’m glad th
at I was here to help you out.”

  Jock kicked the door open with his boot, struggling as he clutched three Styrofoam cups steaming with coffee. “First pot. I had to get the water heated up and all.”

  Carel took one cup off Jock’s hands. “Hard day, buddy.” Carel gave Heinie a reassuring pat on the shoulder and walked out the door, calling back over his shoulder, “Thanks for the coffee, Jock.”

  • • •

  Including its clock tower, the bank on the corner of Main and Llano was the tallest in a block of two-story buildings that stretched from the little shops wrapped around the Marktplatz all the way down to the old Nimitz Hotel, now a museum. One street: That was pretty much all there was to Fredericksburg, a small dot on a Texas road map that reminded visitors of a quaint hometown where they imagined that they would have liked to spend their childhood.

  Outside the bank, a teller was setting out a board that advertised the Rate of the Day like a burger joint would announce the daily special. Carel grabbed the door before it closed behind her. “Oh, Mr. Geische,” the teller called after him. “You can’t go in yet. The bank isn’t open until—”

  “That’s okay, sweetheart. I’m here to see Mr. Schrubb.”

  Charles Schrubb, an old school chum, had inherited the bank president’s position from his father back when it was called the Gillespie County Savings and Loan. Now he was the branch manager working for new owners in Houston. Carel crossed through his lobby, greeting several of the bank employees by their first names before swinging into Schrubb’s office as if it were a public restroom.

  Carel dropped himself into one of the deep leather chairs without so much as a glance at the deer head mounted on the wall above it. He cleared a spot on Schrubb’s desk where he could set his Resistol. “I need about fifty grand. Short term.”

  “You are truly amazing, Carel.” By his broad grin, Schrubb seemed amused by the request, but his tone was brusque. “Can you even grasp how overextended you are at this point in time? End of this month, the Loan Committee meets here, and one of our agenda items is ‘Carel Geische, Foreclosure.’ We have a whole agenda item devoted just to you, Carel.” He paused, squinting across the desk. “We have already sent you a thirty-day demand letter. Didn’t you get that?”