The White Way
The springs of the truck squeaked as it bounced along the dirt road towards the river. Flashing like a strobe light the sun shone brightly through the patches in the leaves making the drive even more annoying. Another lousy job at the river, how could Wildflower be talked into taking another job in that wretched area? The lot plans were always a mess, people have moved some of lot corners, and other corners are missing. She had sworn that she would never take another job in that area.
So, why were we now bouncing down that wretched road to Dead River once again? I’ll tell you why; vanity. Last week Wildflower received a call from a woman on Dead River. Wildflower had it on speakerphone as she usually did.
“Wildflower; this is Demona Blake. I have been looking for an expert land surveyor and you came highly recommended. You have a reputation for being honest and open minded.”
She had hit Wildflower’s soft spot and had her attention. “How can I help you? Wildflower replied.
“I need your expert help. I need the help of a woman. You are one of the few women surveyors in the state and you have a sterling reputation.” She paused a moment. Her voice became softer and more pleading. “No one else but you can help me.”
“Wildflower, you are the best and I need your help.” Her voice ended with a needy tone.
Alarms should have been going off inside wildflower’s head but instead her Vanity and the praise of the woman had allowed her to be drawn into the web. “Where is your property located?” Wildflower asked.
“I live on the edge of Dead River. I know you don’t take any jobs in that area but I beg of you. You have to help me.” Her voice was now full of desperation.
Wildflower’s spirit had visibly sunk. Not Dead River. Not that hellhole. Tiny little lots with owners at each other’s throats fighting for every square inch. Now her vanity had been replaced with a dread for that area. “You’re right! I don’t do work in that area.” was Wildflower’s quick reply.
Every job we ever took in that area was a dog. Every job was so complicated that we never got paid enough to even cover expenses. I was in no hurry to go back to that area and see Wildflower lose more money. The people down there practiced the white ways. Treachery and backstabbing was their way. It was a collection of old summer camps turned into homes. Many of the lots were 20’x100’ and contained a house, a well and a septic system. All of the lots were grand fathered and most did not meet any current zoning or health regulations. People were always fighting over every inch.
Dead River was northwest of Nashua New Hampshire. It used to be a summer retreat for the people from Nashua to escape the summer heat on the weekends. A slipshod survey company subdivided the area in the early 1900’s. The land was subdivided into roughly 3,000 lots, which measured 20’x100’ per lot. The lots were on these paper streets and sold for $40.00 a lot. The survey did not account for wetlands or terrain so as a result only about ¾ of the lots were build able and about ½ of the roads ever were built.
“Wildflower please help me! I have seen some of your articles in the paper about your being on the welcoming committee at the church. I know you are an accepting person. My neighbors hate me for who I am. I am a….” Wildflower had turned of the speakerphone and I could not hear the rest.
Wildflower talked on the phone for quite a while. The tones were somber and quiet. After about ½ hour on the phone I heard Wildflower say “I’ll come by and look at what you have and we can talk.
So why was I sitting next to Wildflower as she drove back to that area? What had that woman said that convinced Wild to go back to that wretched area?
Long ago Wildflower’s foster parents shortened her name to Wild. They had given her the name of Wildflower at birth but as she matured she had an uncanny connection to the earth. She spent all her time growing up as far away from civilization as she could get. She was wild and free so it was easy to shorten her name to just wild. It just seemed so natural.
The windows were open and the breeze was blowing Wild’s hair around. We were just making small talk on the way to the job. I had met Wild several years ago at a meeting of the tribes in Machias Maine. She did not look Indian, her fair skin and blond hair made her stand out from the others. She was dressed in the style of the Seminoles.
When things at the meeting were quiet I approached her. “Hi I’m John Leatherman. I’m part Indian from the tribe here in Machias. You are part Seminole?”
“My mother and father were full Seminole. My name is Wildflower. But most of my friends just call me Wild.” As she said it she threw her hair back with a flick of her head. At that moment her eyes flashed in the sun. The name Wild somehow seemed appropriate.
“You don’t look full blooded. Your skin is pretty white.”
“That’s cause there is no Indian blood in me. My parents were my foster parents. My foster mother was the midwife when I was born. My real mother died after my birth, never regaining consciousness. It was a small backwater town in central Florida. The nearest doctor was 60 miles away.”
“Where was your father?”
“Who knows?” Wild snapped back. “My foster parents said my mother just showed up one day in town. She had no place to go and my foster mother gave her a job in the café she ran in town.”
Wild’s mood turned sad. “She had no place to go. There was no one in her life at the time. She never talked about her past. I know nothing of my bloodline.”
“How did you get the name Wildflower?”
The sadness rose for a moment as tears came to her eyes. “My mother was very ill. My foster mother would keep wildflowers on the bed with my mother to try and calm her troubled spirit. My birth came suddenly and I was born on the bed amongst the wildflowers, which clung, to my wet body. I guess the name came from them.”
“So what brings you this far north, especially in the middle of winter?”
“I live in Hollis, New Hampshire. I run a small land survey office. Right now work is very slow and I have laid everyone off but I hope to be back in operation this spring. How about you? What’s your story? So far I’ve been standing here just blabbing on about myself.” Wild said as she flicked her hair again.
“Well I’m half Indian and I’m up here to show my daughter some of her heritage. I’m a handyman and like you work is slow right now. I live in Pepperell, Massachusetts. That’s my daughter over there listening to the toms.”
“Well, John,” Wild said, her eyes once again bright and alive. “Come March, if work is still slow, give me a call.”
She handed me her business card and turned and walked away. The feathers in her hair were blowing in the cold winter breeze. It seemed long ago. It was that chance encounter which drew me into the world of survey. So there we were bouncing down the dirt road to Dead River. I still wonder what that woman had said to Wild which would have changed her mind and made her take this job. Why did she take a job in that shabby area? Poor white trash living in shoddy houses, which were nothing more than poorly, winterized summer camps. Houses located on tiny lots with neighbors fighting for every square inch of land. It was what Wild and I had come to call “The white way.” Take, take, and take. What ever you have it is never enough.
I looked down at the plan and shuddered. I had sheet 2 of 6. That 24”x 36” plan showed almost 500 lots. There was not a single dimension shown on the entire plan. No record corners to measure too. No starting and ending place. Why were we down there? Wild always seemed to have a soft spot for a woman in a bind. Maybe she was trying to compensate for her mother, to offer the help in life she felt her mother never got. I don’t know why we were there. I just knew that I had a feeling of doom as we descended the road down to the river basin.
When we arrived Demona Blake was there. All smiles, “Can I get you guys some water?”
“We’re all set,” Wild replied. She was already in work mode. Scanning the land for lot corners. Planning the work we needed to do.
Wild’s diligence to work soon dispelled my feeling of doom. We got into our work routine and were too busy for anything else. The day was spent surveying and we finally got to leave that ugly river valley and head back to the office. My spirit rose as we left that spot behind.
It was a hot summer and the days just drifted by. True to its nature the job at Dead River turned out to be a mess. We went back several times over the next few weeks and ended up measuring everything within 1,000 feet of the site.
One morning I got to work and Wild was arguing on the phone. “No Demona your lot is only 80’ deep. The other 20’ has been lost to erosion over the last 100 years. You live on the outside bank of a river and the current of the river washes the soil away. In 1901 your lot had 100’ of depth, now it has only 80’. Over time 20’ of soil has washed away. That’s just the facts and I can’t change them. I can’t argue about this any longer. John is here and I have to get to a job site.”
She hung up the phone and turned to me. “You know John I got into land survey because I loved the land. I worked at survey because I thought I could work outside and not have to deal with people.”
She paused for a moment “I thought it would be some kind of nobler work. I did not know it would help destroy my faith in humanity. I’ve come to believe that land is the most corrupting thing in the world. That people will say and do stuff for land that they would never do for money or anything else.”
“I know Wild. It’s that thing we talk about all the time. It is The White Way! Take more than you need. Never leave anything behind. Use up the planet and then throw it away.” Over the years I had come to believe what she said. It was not the first time she ever said it.
A few days later Wild was on the phone again. She was white; all the color was drained out of her. “I can’t change it no matter what you do. I can’t change it no matter what you do. I CAN’T CHANGE IT NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO!!” With that she slammed the phone down, her eyes filled with tears.
“John this is terrible. The woman is insane. That was Demona Blake and she is out to ruin my career. I got drawn in by her friendship and am now in trouble with her. She has lost land due to erosion and she can’t accept it. Over the summer I came to trust her and let her into my life. I spent a lot of time at her place with her and her friends.”
Wild paused and drew a breath. “I took her job on because I felt sorry for her. She is a woman alone and I tried to be her friend and she used it against me. She said she was an editor and I believed her, after all she works for the local newspaper. So I asked her if she would read my manuscript. I’ve told you about it. It is the story of me growing up wild and free in the backwaters of Florida.”
Again there was another deep breath. “The woman is insane. She is trying to blackmail me. She said that she is going to write the board of registration and register a complaint.”
There was a long pause. “She is going to complain that we had a lesbian affair and that we had other business going on and that when we had a fight I decided to screw her on her survey and that I have acted in an unprofessional manner.”
“Well did you?”
“Of course not! I’m not a lesbian and never had anything to do with her sexually. I never did anything like that with any woman!”
“Well what do you have to worry about?”
“If she sends a letter to the board of registration they legally will have to investigate the claim. She says that when they do their investigation she intends to put an article in the paper about the investigation. It will make me the laughing stock of the whole town. She has pictures of me with her friends at her house and she has my manuscript that she intends to use as evidence that my relationship with her is more than just survey work. It doesn’t matter that it is not true. People will believe what they want to believe and the fact that I never married will be proof positive of her claims.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know what to do. If I go to the board of registration and try to tell them about her they will think I’m crazy. If I hire a lawyer then she will use that as evidence that I am acting irrationally. Until she does something there is nothing that I can do. She is in the drivers’ seat.”
We sat in silence for a while. Finally Wild picked up a job folder and we headed out to a job site. She was very quiet that day and for several days after. I missed our chatter at work. When it is just the two of you working outside side by side, day after day you talk about everything. I could just imagine what her manuscript was like. She had told me many of her tales of living wild. There were stories of taking off for weeks at a time and living off fish and fruit. Living life the old way. The life that seemed that it had lasted forever and would continue for at least as long. A life of being dedicated to the earth. A life of taking only what you need to survive. Life before the white way.
A couple of week’s later things seemed to be back to normal. We had a nice job. It was a 100 Acre piece and it was going to be a couple of weeks of work. It was on quiet country road that lead in the direction of Dead River. We were just above the rim of the river valley on a back road. Wild was setting up the transit and not paying attention to the road and I was pulling gear out of the back of the truck when a car headed towards Dead River slowed for a minute and sped off. I thought it was a little strange but we were about to begin work and I forgot the incident.
About an hour into our day, Wild had the transit set up by the side of the road and I was off to the side drilling the wall, making a survey point when I heard a vehicle speed up. I looked up to see and an old truck veer off the road and (Purchase "Summer Dreams" for the conclusion of this story.)