The Enumerator
His Last Will and Testament
By: Olaf Danielson
This is a copyrighted novel owned by Sandbares Press, PO Box 808, Summit SD 57266, an imprint owned by Orient Beach Publishing Inc. All rights reserved. Contact information: storolaf@yahoo.com, 605-949-0982. The novel is serialized to Planetnude.co in 2025, no reproduction is allowed unless authorized by Sandbares Press.
Chapter 11
We moved our census operation a week later into Sun City. I used the pronoun we because it was a team approach, both Nicole and I did it. I may have asked the questions but without Nicole, it was quite clear, I wouldn’t have known where to go or no one would have talked to me. We slept in Nicole’s apartment. It was small but functional. It was spartan like everything here but was painted in warm colors. I soon became very accustomed to sharing a bed with this woman. There was never any thought about me sleeping alone from that point on.
It took us just over two weeks to finish the official count of what would be nine hundred and thirty four residents of Sun City including Nicole. It was really a marvelous place to live. Everything there was designed for efficient living, ergonomics, aesthetics, and pleasantness. The buildings were placed to provide wind breaks, and in the apartments, you had both the feeling of communal living and the feeling of having your own space.
One of the Saturdays I was there it rained the whole day. It was a little weird walking in the rain to the religious service, but no one seemed to care. Afterwards, we had a community dinner in the large expansive school gymnasium and then we played card games since no one could go outside. It was odd walking around a school naked but everyone was here, so it didn’t matter. I wondered for a while if they were nudists. Yes they were almost always nudist on Saturdays, but outside of the bathhouse and the church they were just practical and efficient dressers, for lack of a better. If it was hot they stripped off and if it was cool, they dressed. Sometimes Nicole and others wore a robes in the living quarters and sometimes she was nude. Others rarely wore anything indoors. Others always wore clothing. No one it seemed dressed for dressing sake. It was like the whole part of the Garden of Eden about shame never happened to these people.
An example of this was when I found myself at the mercantile store in need of a new shirt. I had ripped mine on a fence and although I offered to pay, Nicole would have none of it. A woman was also in there buying a new dress. The clerk encouraged me to try on the shirt. I instinctively asked for directions to the dressing room. I was never answered as the woman standing next to me undressed in front of me and slipped on her new dress and asked me to move a bit so she could see herself in the mirror. I just shook my head as I started unbuttoning my shirt. Modesty was a word rarely used here or ever thought about. Why would there ever be a changing room in this place? It was a waste of space.
I was sad to leave Sun City but finished, it was time to move on. We spent a day cleaning up some single houses located just outside the city. One man who lived with a woman in a single bedroom ranch was named Rademacher. He sort of gave me the creeps and when we finished, Nicole shared with me he was a member of the leadership council and rarely if ever voted on anything.
We drove the next morning into Goodpasture and spent the day counting there. Just outside of the county seat we came upon two police cars on the side of the road. The ambulance was also there but the health professionals were standing talking to the deputy and not trying to help anyone out. I didn’t have a good feeling about it. Nicole slowed to a stop, and we walked over. The roads in Fillmore County were lightly used so seeing such a collection of vehicles was unique.
“What’s up?” Nicole asked.
The sheriff was leaning over what looked like a body with the other physician, Dr. Baxter. The doctor was on his knees.
“The coroner, Dr. Baxter is looking over the deceased.” The deputy said.
“Who died?” Nicole pressed him.
“I don’t know.” He said as Nicole looked with disbelief at that comment, since everyone was known. “I mean, he isn’t from around here, probably some hobo off the train.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“There is normally a bull in that pasture. Somehow, he got in and probably didn’t notice it.” I looked around to see the big animal but saw only a few steers in the distance. “It took us almost an hour to get the bull safely on another side of the fence and in a truck. The victim got gored pretty bad and he even has a hoof print on his chest. I think it was a quick death. Well it looks like he died before we got here.”
‘Too bad.” Nicole said as the doctor and the sheriff covered up the body and motioned for the crew from the ambulance to come and get the corpse.
The sheriff walked over and shook my hand. I was also introduced to the doctor. I hadn’t met either of them as I assumed they both lived in Goodpasture. “How did he get in?” I asked.
“Jumped the fence, I suppose.” The sheriff said. “I can’t feel sorry for what happened to him since he shouldn’t have been here in the first place.”
“Do you know who he is or where he was from?” Nicole asked.
The sheriff just shook his head. “No ID. I’ll take fingerprints but on these types of cases it sometimes is never known. We will throw him in the morgue for a couple of weeks and send the prints to the state but if we don’t get a match…” He just shrugged.
We watched the ambulance drive away and then we followed it into Goodpasture. “Do you get trespassers like that?” I asked.
“I’ve heard of a few. I don’t know what those guys are thinking. I remember a case as a child where a guy tried to jump the fence and got tangled up in the barb wire and strangled himself. It must have been terrible.” She said as we stopped and walked into a house with our suitcases. We ended up occupying a vacant room in the house where Nick Sartor lived with a woman named Joyce Davis. Although, here, it was actually more of the other way around. I expected some good discussions with them, but I learned that soon the next morning after I added them to the census, the couple was heading to Florida. All I learned that evening was some basics about the group’s southern retreat and a tutorial on the agricultural center. We speculated about the bull victim, but nobody knew anything more than what Nicole and I had learned at the scene.
Nicole had some other business to attend to before we would start on the next week and a half counting the three hundred and eleven residents of Goodpasture, so I decided it was as good a time as any to check in with my advisor in Berkeley. I had tried him two weeks back, but he was out. I worried he might think I had died. Nick had told me I could use the telephone in his office, so Nicole dropped me off. Sartor’s secretary reluctantly let me in.
“John! I figured they had done you in.” The professor answered surprised.
“No, not yet. They have not tried…yet.” I answered.
“How is it going?” He asked.
“After dawdling around the last month, it has started to become productive. Bad news on our extra questions though.” I admitted.
“How is that?” He asked.
“Nobody answers the questions. A couple of weeks ago after getting declines to answer them from everybody, I asked something off the wall. I looked at this old woman and said, what she thought about the theory of evolution and us being descending from apes? She just laughed and told me nice try and walked off. I’m certain all of their census answers are rehearsed, but they never admit it. They will not answer anything not on the official government list. To be honest during the last few days, I have just stopped asking.”
“Pretty quiet and reserved people. They won’t open up to you then?” He asked.
“No, not really. You really can’t imagine a place such as this. They are open about everything, almost too open. Gosh in the last week, I’ve had conversation about sex lives, what the menstruating women do in religious ceremonies, forms of birth control that work better than others, we’ve had detailed discussions about their religion, their food, their business structure, and a somewhat secret retreat they go to in Florida. They don’t appear to be keeping anything from me, so the organized refusal to answer those questions is sort of weird. These people have no shame, and I can ask them any question except when I’m doing my job or research for the University.”
“Odd.” He noted. “Business structure? I thought you said they were Marxist?”
“Yes, but they all own a piece of a company. It is how they have things structured. They are a bit hard to pigeon hole into any one thing. They think Stalinism and Communist Russia are evil incarnate, but they think Castro is probably the best thing to ever happen to Cuba. These people are socialist to the core, but they have no structure for nor any tolerance of elites, party membership, or anything like that. You cannot appreciate how ingrained social equality is here. It is refreshing on one level.”
“I have been thinking I should drop everything and come and see it for myself,” Lipset said.
“The only problem I think is, you’d be stuck in a three-week quarantine.” I told him.
“That is the reason so far I have refrained from buying a ticket.” He replied. “No one is married? I can’t believe that.”
“Nope. They are totally happy with that and since they literally own nothing, there is no problem with it either. Absolutely no need of any paternity. When they die, there ownership is purchased back to the company for the cost of cremation.”
“Oddest thing to believe.” He shared his thoughts.
“It works for them. I am staying in the house of the leader, who is away. I initially was a little shy of using his items, but then thinking about it, it is everyone’s property. I got to watch the television last night. Here, they only have one in every village. They keep up with the news by radio and seem to entertain themselves and read. I have never seen such a well-read group of people.”
“What do they read?” The professor asked. “You mentioned the odd group of authors in quarantine. Is it more of the same?”
“They read everything.” I thought for a minute. “Sci-Fi, history, religious, left, right, center….”
“Wow.” He thought. “You must have some pretty good conversations.”
“Yes.” I said, “They discuss the deeper thinking behind fiction during the meals. It is like college level discussions. The children have read more than I have.”
“How are you doing for funds?” He asked. “Have you gotten your checks?”
“I haven’t even seen any money since I went through quarantine but I will ask about them.”
“No money?” He sounded startled. “I’ll have to look into that for you.”
“No, they do not partake in commerce in the sense you or I would. If I need some bread for supper, the shopkeeper helps me make my choice and I take it home. If I want something special, he has it for me the next day, assuming it is something actually needed. I’m sure they use money to buy or sell stuff to outsiders, but you never see any cash ever changing hands here. The car needs gas, you go and put in gas. I ripped a shirt, I went to the shop, the woman took my size and I came out with a new one.”
“Nobody abuses the system?” He asked me.
“Not that I’ve seen. You wouldn’t want someone to accuse you of that here. Coveting is a bad thing in the psyche here and so is stealing. As they do not lie very well, they do not bear false witness so if someone said you did something, even if you had a trial, the jury would almost always believe the accuser. Their main settlement is probably the best designed small place I have ever been to. They have no streets. They have only grass and green space—it is very at one with nature.”
“Well, keep taking notes, and I look forward to reading that more than seeing the census numbers.” He concluded and hung up.
I sat there for a minute thinking of how on earth I was going to present this place to my colleagues so that any of them would believe me until Sartor’s secretary came and kicked me out. I forgot she had probably been listening. If I wasn’t awake, I swear I was dreaming.
Chapter 12
I worked my way efficiently through the county taking the census. My efficiency came mostly as I realized that offering anyone the long form was a mistake. So, avoiding that and also the questions from Cal which no one ever answered either except for Nicole, visits became quicker, well at least until they started asking me questions, which they always did. I also eventually realized that I was getting answers to those special questions, but those responses came over Friday evening dinner or during the community gatherings on Saturdays. I also got them during showers or swims at the pools. I just stopped asking them during the interview and began writing down what I heard from people. It was fascinating to me what I learned.
In reality, all I had really had been doing was essentially double checking the list I had been provided, or better put, Nicole was double checking it. I did learn that there were no air conditioners in Fillmore County except for some in the hospital and I couldn’t count those. The county had a 100% prevalence of radios, and not a single house had a television, just ones in community areas of four of the villages. Four televisions in a county of over 4000 inhabitants, just one in a thousand.
When I started noticing discrepancies in my count, I learned that people were on assignment at the retreat that they owned in Florida. I didn’t even know how to list them but finally after Nicole told me nobody were permanent residents down there, so, I violated the rules of the census and just included them with the main village in the center of the county.
To sum up my summer of 1960, it was all one big waste of my, and conversely, Nicole’s time. My stubbornness had led to this. I would say this as almost the summation, except for two things. First, I was truly enjoying myself. It was like I had immersed myself in some foreign land but here I was, in rural Kansas. I had taken detailed and copious notes of this place, and I was sure that despite the failure of the survey, I would be giving lectures about Fillmore County to academics for the rest of my life. I even enjoyed the Kansas weather. I got to see my first tornado which luckily was just spinning its way harmlessly through a pasture unless you happened to be a poor squirrel living in a few of the trees that got toppled.
More importantly, I was also falling in love, or better put I was deeply in love. Despite these people’s capacity to talk about almost everything, it was clear that love in this culture was something never said, in fact, I’m not even sure that they had the word in their vocabulary or ever used it. It seemed to be sort of inferred by action, but it seemed to me it can be very difficult in such a circumstance to distinguish love from lust. Nicole and I we had been very lustful, in fact probably too lustful for a young man to even try to think about things clearly but something had changed in me and the smiles she gave me told me that it wasn’t one sided. I grew up in a world where one made plans, and men bought rings. Here, you just were invited to share a bed, and I guess you assumed things were the status quo unless you were kicked out. I never asked but men probably spent their days making sure they did not get kicked out. It was quite clear that we had become a couple. I worried about what would happen when I ran out of people to count, but as Nicole said, I should just enjoy the moment, and I was enjoying every moment.
I reached the last village of my tour. It was called Wheatland, and it was located in the southwest corner of the county, which was more of a collection of farm residences than a village. There were no local manufacturing based there. Being so far away from everything, it had its own small center of worship, the smallest one in the county from what I could tell, and it was located next to a large expansive park. There was essentially three other community buildings in town that housed the small industry that did happen. There was something like a bakery, which has its own name in French if this had been France, but I didn’t know what that was. What they made were baguettes and fresh bread for everyone in the community every morning. I had not seen one in the other communities and every morning younger members of each household commuted to pick up the day’s allotment of bread. There was also a meat and cheese shop next door, deep in the bowels of that building housed old cellars with aged cheddars and hanging slabs of beef and pork. The last building housed a general store for various things and I would learn later, it was a bit sparsely supplied.
The trip here went past Sunshine Lake and the camp where the teen coming of age camp was located and then the road turned southwesterly. It was still about a twelve-mile trip past the camp and as such having the local offerings, I’m sure, helped the residents and kept the community viable. It was a pretty spot for a village and it was set on a small knoll, something rare in this region of flatness and when we arrived, we stopped at what was essentially the end of the road and both of us got out and stretched. I looked between a pair of towering cottonwoods and could see the border fence to the south or me.
“The county line?” I pointed.
“Yes,” Nicole said. “Sort of a troubled point.”
“Why would that be?” I asked.
“This area was settled by some French families who had immigrated here and they put their village on top of this hill. As it was said, the French like their villages to be on a hill. Unfortunately, some of their daily lives can be seen by their neighbors. It has frequently been observed that the farmers in those two farmhouses,” she pointed, “occasionally will sit and stare up at us with binoculars occasionally and especially when they are working in the fields near the fence. There have been thoughts of buying that property to give us a buffer, but it has never come up for sale.”
“What have they said when people have approached them?” I asked the obvious.
“To my knowledge, no one has ever talked to anyone in either of those two farms. It has been discussed a few times that we should move the village northward and out of sight, but it hasn’t ever been done.”
I mumbled what I was thinking, but it was too loud, and Nicole heard what I said and then repeated it. “Someone should talk to them, maybe they’d like to join.” I had said it mostly in jest but it was what I was thinking. Nicole shrugged that off and never made a comment after her dismissive look.
“We will be staying at the Chigall family. They have room for us.” I looked down on my list after Nicole said this. “We have also been so graciously invited to spend the family dinner with them.”
“How do you hear about these invites?” I asked, knowing the answer. I knew the county had eyes, ears, and a voice. I just couldn’t hear, see, or talk to it. “It is not like you made a telephone call or anything.”
“The people at this morning’s first stop told me. We have to have some place to eat Friday dinner. No one should ever spend a Friday night alone.” She looked at my expression. “Word travels around here. People worry about those of us without a place to go. They knew you’d stop at that residence first.”
It was clear that my time here had been carefully orchestrated. Although now having had nearly met everyone, I knew where we stayed was not coincidence. This had been planned down to the hour. We walked over to the large white ‘Chigall house’ which was odd in the sense that it was occupied by a sister and a brother. Marie Chigall had four children, all now in their twenties and she lived with a man name Clint Williamson, who was no more of French heritage than I was. Her brother Maurice, the chief cheesemaker, also lived in the same house that he was born in. He slept with a woman named Clairette. Clairette was clearly the best friend of Marie. In fact, they looked and acted like twins, despite not looking alike. They even finished each other’s sentences. It was quite clear why and how Brother Maurice had remained here and how both he and Clairette started sharing a bed together. They had three children, well, I assumed all of them were Maurice’s, one of which coincidentally was born on the very same hour, I would learn, as Marie’s second daughter. The women even ovulated and birthed children together.
As I was sorting this out, I learned about many pluses and minuses of communal living, like the advantages of wet-nursing for each other’s children. Not that I really wanted to know about this, but I guess these are things a young sociologist needs to know. Breast feeding someone else’s child appears to have been something that modern living in 1960 had largely removed from society at least in the upper classes of society, although in the truly upper classes, they hired out for it. I made notes of this and planned on discussing this with my advisor. I started to smell a research paper in my head.
I also learned that this was an extremely bright family as everyone, except Maurice, who had learned the fine art of cheese making from an uncle and didn’t need higher education, had gone to Southwestern to study and a few had very advanced training elsewhere. Clairette’s eldest daughter was currently at Vet School, the second student I had learned was doing that, and her son was learning engineering. One of Marie’s son’s had just become a pharmacist. Nicole reminded me who he was. It becomes a funny juxtaposition here that the men are frequently amorphous as with the women typically holding the occupancy of the houses and farms and the children taking the surnames of their mothers. The men moving around gives them a somewhat inconsequential appearance. It is like backwards and alien to my thinking.
During my interview, with Marie and Clairette finishing each other’s sentences, I started to laugh. They were twins from a different mother. I left the women after the census data had been gathered. Nicole was bound and determined to help cook something for the evening meal. Cooking here isn’t so much woman’s work, but they are just generally better at it…well, better than me. Maurice was making a community barbeque and sick of the female banter and graciously offered to give me a tour of the village.
“Comrade John,” Maurice was one of the few people I met who spoke in traditional communist stereotypical language. He also spoke with a very noticeable French accent. He laughed as we headed off towards the cheese shop. “When the ladies get into talking about breast feeding and nipple care, I have learned that it is time for us men to talk about cheese. John, my comrade, there are three things in life for us men, no more and no less. We are simple creatures. There is of course sex.” He winked. “When you are young, that seems to be the most important of the three and in many a man’s mind even the only thing. The carnal pursuits… ah yes… I love the word carnal. I see you have been sharing the company of Nicole.” He smiled. “So, you know all of this. Ah, Nicole….” He slapped me on the back. “ooh la la!”
I laughed at that. “Yes, we have, and I do.” I said quietly.
“Don’t be shy son, shout it from the rooftops. I have slept with Nicole!” He slapped me on the back again. “I sure would. It is something that should result in both great joy and honor. She is a handsome woman. Just like I have slept with Clairette.” He began shouting and announcing that. “We have been blessed, both of us.” He then concluded.
“What are the other two things?” I asked, changing the topic before we got too graphic if that was where we were going or before the neighbors would hear our conversation.
“This I shall share with you personally, my friend.” He said quietly as if it was a great secret. He opened the door of the cheese shop, and a young boy was sitting behind the counter looking bored. “These here are the gastronomical pursuits, and that is number two. Fine cheeses and sausage mixed with good wine you will learn as you age are better than sex… much better. Sex doesn’t last. You do it and there is a moment of bliss, ecstasy even, but then it quickly fades and maybe you do it again but again it is transient. A sausage satisfies for hours.” He motioned the boy to hand him a knife and a piece of meat. He sliced three pieces, one for me, himself, and of course he gave a piece to the boy. “Try this.”
I sampled something that just melted in my mouth, went down and coated my stomach with all the goodness of something truly special. “Wow!” I exclaimed. I even felt a bit of a rush. It was my first sausage orgasm.
“This is just something we have laying around. I got better stuff in the basement, stuff that will give Nicole’s hips and nipples a good contest for your lust. Life is too short to eat crap food or drink bad wine. Now I’m not an expert in what goes on outside of here but all of these things they make for so-called convenience has no taste. I have heard about this TV dinner. Oh, my stars! Blasphemy!” He held out his arms proudly. “We do it all here, cuts of meat, bacon, smoking, and curing, it is more of an art form than anything. To make a good sausage can take five, ten, or even more years of aging. I have cheeses older than you in the cellars. These are cheeses I would risk my life to save.”
He led me down a set of stairs and into large cellars of aging cheeses and huge rooms of hanging meat. “All you need now is your own winery here and it will be like a little part of France.” I said flippantly and smiled. Maurice stopped short.
“You are wise in your young years, my comrade. I say that every so often, too. This winter I will get two more apprentice cheesemakers so that they can learn my craft and start at two other locations. You have emboldened me. We need a place like this in every village. Rudy upstairs, just fourteen already knows more about cheese than any other person in the county, well, except for me. I would be shocked that after he is of age and finishes school if he doesn’t become my full-time assistant and take over all of this when they will be singing about me.” He took me to what he called a special room. “This here is the sausage for my death celebration.” He smacked his lips. “It is my magnum opus. It gets better with time. I only sample a little piece on my birthday and in that way, I will be there with all of you. Remember this in case I die before you do.”
“I am not a resident of here, you know Maurice. You included me in your sentence.” He looked at me with a funny look that I didn’t understand, then. “He is one of yours?” I asked changing the subject pointing at Rudy.
“One of my what?” Maurice looked at me. “Are we giving sausages he and she designations now? Yes, comrade John. You are wise! We should name sausages. I will name my death sausage, Maurice.”
“Children…” I said before realizing what I had just said. “Rudy.”
He laughed at me. “I don’t have any children unless I have grown breasts and have a womb without noticing, my comrade. But I will not mock you. I know that this is something different in our cultures. He is just a lad who started hanging around my store when he was six. His mother is Mathilde LeTourneau, she lives at the large wheat and cattle operation. I will lie to you if I say I have not had sex with his mother, but the timing is ...not correct. Ha! Ha! You make me laugh. You will census them on Monday. The boy needed what the third pursuit is, what us men truly need. We need a man space, or men time. We need a place to go and be free from our mother, our sisters, or the women we sleep with. The boy had no place to go from his mother or his older sisters. He doesn’t have a brother, poor boy, so they couldn’t help him to direct him on this vital need, so he started hanging around here. Men need barns, woodshops, tractors, fishing holes, and in the outside world, pubs, union halls, ballparks, or churches as places to hide from women.
“Women don’t acknowledge this need, but deep down they know it. I became his place to go. I figured since he was here anyways, he might as well be put to work and learn something.” He took a coring out of a large brick of bluish marbled cheese that smelled a bit rank to John. “Try this. It is sort of cross between a blue and a Roquefort. I call it Rudolfort. The boy made it. It is excellent cheese. He has a knack and an interest for creating the blues. I don’t like the moldy breads, but he just loves them. He is 14, and probably maybe already in the top one-hundred cheesemakers in the world. The boy could teach the French a thing or two, but don’t tell him that, it will go to his head. All I say to him is that it will pass…for a beginner. It will keep him striving for more.” We laughed.
“What does his mother say?” I said. “Him coming here.”
“Any productive, polite, bright child is smiled at and encouraged in our society, whether he is a whiz with tractors, numbers, plants, or in Rudy’s case, cheese. He eats at the table in Clairette and Marie’s house as much as he does in his own home. There is no unhappiness about that, we all know in this village that Rudy has found his niche.”
We left the cheese house, or cheese shop, I guess would be the correct description. After a eating a couple of more samples and walked over to inspect the dry goods and hardware store. It was so odd to have stores where you just asked for things, and they were given to you. That wasn’t absolute as of course you just never came over and cleaned out a place of say macaroni just because you could. These stores also served as repositories for extra things, like nails, screws, canning jars, etc. Very little extra was carried in any of the houses. If you needed one thing or another, you came here and asked the keepers. If you have leftovers, you brought them back and everything was kept under strict inventory. I called it sparsely supplied, but the store had a surprisingly larger selection of items than I assumed just less than the others. Here, I met another member of the community, a younger girl who I was told was one of three people who typically worked here.
Then we looked at the bread making operation at the bakery. Maurice called it something else. It had artisanal properties like Maurice’s shop. Maurice told me that bread made the world run properly and after eating a sample, I agreed. Finished, we headed back to the house. Nicole and one of Marie’s daughters, were talking. Sarah had just arrived with a truck from Sun City, and they were drinking lemonade on the porch. We stopped as I saw a tractor baling wheat straw in the field just on the other side of the fence. Nicole saw what we were looking at.
“John thinks you should go and be friendly with the outsiders.” Nicole said somewhat off-handedly and then she laughed.
“Hum,” Maurice looked at the machine in the distance. “John certainly has an enlightening perspective. He told me we should also start a winery. John is wise.” Maurice appeared to be distracted and then talked about cheese and the upcoming barbeque and about my idea of starting a winery. I really decided I liked Maurice. He was quite gregarious. After a while, he motioned for me to follow him. I didn’t know where he was going. I thought we had seen everything.
In the center of town stood a white Ford pickup truck. There were always communal farm trucks, and a few cars scattered around and when someone needed them, they just borrowed them and returned them where they were found. The keys were always in the ignition. He motioned me inside and he started it and gave me a smile like we were on a special mission. He threw it in gear, and we drove down a road around the village and then down a road or more aptly a trail that went between two wheat fields toward the fence.
“There is an opening in the fence down in this valley that can’t be seen well from the houses.” He said with a smirk.
“What are you up to?” I asked hoping that whatever it was wouldn’t throw me back into quarantine again.
“You’ll see comrade.” He patted me on the arm. “You are my witness.” We soon disappeared from the view of the houses from which I suspected no one was watching us as Maurice seemed to have a way of doing everything and was unpredictable enough so that he usually got ignored. He was like everywhere all the time, so no one noticed what he was up to.
We drove into the depression and I saw a gate at the fence. It was locked. Maurice slowed the truck and stopped. “Why are we going to a gate?” I asked.
Maurice sort of ignored the question. He reached in the ashtray of the vehicle and pulled out a key. “Follow me.” He said as he hopped out of the door. He opened the padlock and then motioned me to help swing open the section of the fence. It was clear it hadn’t moved in a while. The hinges were rusty, and prairie grass had grown up around the bottom. “We own the quarter section here next to the piece the farmer is working on.” He pointed to a fallow piece of land. “We left it fallow this year. In the past, we have farmed it ourselves, and I think for five years we rented it out.” We could see in the distance that the neighbor farmer riding an Allis Chalmers tractor was coming our way finishing up the row right on the county line.
“Be careful not to step on his property.” Maurice said jumping into the weeds of the fallow piece. “The rules officially state that all members have to be evaluated for quarantine if they have left Fellowship or company property unless they are in transit to and from Florida in a company approved vehicle or released from the health director.”
I followed suit and watched as the farmer slowly came forward. When close you could see that he was watching us. Maurice made hand motions, and the farmer stopped, turned off the tractor and hopped down approaching us. He was a man in his mid-forties and was wearing a straw hat. He wore overalls and looked hot and sweaty like we were.
“I’m Maurice, this is John,” Maurice said holding out his hand after pointing to me. The man cautiously reached over from his side of the line and we shook hands.
“You are from up there?” He said pointing through the open gate looking a bit shocked.
“Yes,” Maurice said. “My Great-great Grandfather settled here nearly a hundred years ago.”
“As did mine, my name is William Taylor,” He hesitated. “I’ve never met anyone from Fillmore County before and I’ve lived here my entire life. So, glad to finally meet two of you.” I kept quiet that I wasn’t really a resident and was apparently along just for the sake of science or a witness or something. The farmer continued. “What do I owe this honor?”
Maurice smiled, I could see him thinking. “I am one of the leaders of our larger community and well, I thought it was time to reach out so to speak. I’m sure when you drive your equipment on this field year after year and look up on our houses and people you wonder about us.”
“Yes,” he giggled a little. “I do see some strange things, especially in the summer months. I have wondered, we have all wondered…”
“Well, in the vein of a new openness and communication, I would like to invite you to our great barbeque and community gathering we are having tomorrow and Sunday. If you would like, I will come back to this gate at eleven thirty, just after our religious gathering and escort you to our park. You, your woman…” he caught himself but seemed to have difficulty saying the word. “Your wife, her children, and direct neighbors from around your farm are invited. Come expecting to stay the night if you wish. You will be put up in many of the houses we all live at, like any visitor. After dinner on Sunday evening, you can leave. This opportunity may never come up again. Something like ti has never been offered in seventy years. I ask however three things from you if you accept this invitation. I will repeat them tomorrow if anyone shows up to accept my offer of hospitality.”
The farmer did not leave. “What three things?” He asked.
“First, we are a different culture. You maybe have noticed that during your observations of us. Don’t judge our culture and we will try not to judge your culture. We all work the land and share in the bounty of Kansas. Come with an open mind and an open heart, maybe some things will shock you and maybe you will learn a different way to live.
“Secondly, this is a very unscheduled and off the cuff invitation. I just thought about it watching you work the land. There is no larger agenda. The other leaders would be shocked to learn that I am standing here talking to you the way it is. We appreciate each other in our community and have very little tolerance for outsiders and for any publicity of any kind. So, I would ask that what happens, what you learn, and what you see be kept just between those that come. I cannot keep you from sharing your weekend with your local newspapers, the farmer grape vine, and others, but if you do, I can guarantee you this will never ever happen again. This is an experiment and consider it much like a secret meeting between the Soviet Union and our government. Picture Kruschev and Ike meeting like this.
“Thirdly, if you do come, please ask questions, get to know all of us and participate as fully as you feel comfortable. I think we live openly and honestly, as such this may be your only opportunity to experience something that for decades has been so close in proximity but so far away from you.”
The farmer scratched his head and looked through the gate only seeing unharvested wheat, a pickup truck, and a hillside from his vantage point. “I thank you for the offer. I don’t know what to say. I’ll speak for my wife and myself only. We will come tomorrow. We will never say anything about what we see. Nobody would believe us, and it is none of their business. I will ask a few people, one of my neighbors asks often about those the live up on the hill and I really don’t know anything. I cannot guarantee if anyone else will come but I’ll bring those who wish to.”
“Young and old are welcome. We have very fun community gatherings in the summer for all ages and this will be no exception and I’ve been preparing for my biggest and best barbeque for months. I will even bring out some of my special sausage and chesses in your honor. The food therefore will be like nothing you have experienced—good food, new culture, enjoyment, and friendship that is all of what we have to offer.” Maurice reached over and patted the man on the shoulder. He motioned for me and we both jumped over the property corner and without another word shut and locked the gate.
In the pickup he slapped me hard on the thigh happily. “The bait has been set.” He said starting up the six cylinder truck.
“Bait for what?”
“…not sure yet myself, comrade.” He smiled. “Could be lions or tigers, even a shark maybe, but we could end up catching a nice gazelle, a nice fat juicy gazelle. We’ll see how this goes. I’ll bring it up during discussion time tonight, during the family meal. I had been thinking I needed to find something to talk about. It has been a slow week worrying about my barbeque and I have no pithy anecdotes to share. This was a good idea you had…but keep this between us until then.”