Deer Fence
So there she sat, on a padded chaise behind the house, keeping watch in the July dark, saved from the buzzing mosquitoes by the stinky repellent she’d sprayed on herself. Something had been raiding Robyn’s garden, despite a new fence, and even if seeing the culprit accomplished nothing, she meant to put a flashlight on it.
But the chaise was soft, comfortable. Lulled by a thin sliver of moon and the ostinato of crickets in the surrounding brush, her mind wandered to how it was that she had this nice address in the first place, not to mention the nice car, though she certainly thought she deserved them.
After decades of raising two kids into successful adults, she’d buried both parents and a husband in the last five years, and through everything, been a dutiful daughter and a good wife. She had also responsibly downsized from the family home and from that old boat of an SUV into a standard sedan.
Sure, the sedan was electric and cost twice what the big boat had, and the house was custom-designed in one of the new gated communities along the river – two bedrooms, stone-and-glass prairie-style, plus a special loft in hopes of visits from future grandchildren. But only now had Robyn come into money of her own, with no scheming involved.
She and her sibs had inherited equal amounts from their father’s will, and even as a distant cousin of the Moffat clan, he’d always been able to live as if financial considerations didn’t matter. The Moffats were old money, big-time California money from the 1800s, the class of people who endowed museums and after whom universities named buildings. In context, then, a peaceful spot along the San Joaquin, on the northwest edge of Stockton, not far from where she and Lloyd had lived, wasn’t that indulgent. And she did deserve it. Why not?
But the rules here were a pain. She’d bought a premium lot, no, the premium lot, on a nose of high ground forming part of the levee, and still had to fight for permission to build toward the rear of it, where she now treasured her view of the wooded channel and patchwork stretches of open water. Nor was that the end. Once she moved in, fight after fight over her choice of landscaping for the back patio, and later, over the deer fence.
She never used to be that combative and didn’t want to be a crank, but the arbitrary way the Barn Hollow Homeowner’s Association did things just set her off. She and Lloyd, over his long career as an administrator at Bay-Delta College, had learned not to rock the boat and were typically rewarded. Now it seemed that if she didn’t rock it, she’d be run over.
The idea of an edible landscape, for example, really appealed to her, not merely herbs, but compact things such as cherry tomatoes, zucchini, Japanese eggplant, multi-colored Thai peppers, and okra, a close relative of hibiscus. All of which the Association regarded as the end of civilized life, if not of the entire world.
“No, no, no,” Mrs. Stur-gis, “ornamental plantings only.” To this day, she could hear the annoying voice of the Association Manager ‒ his patronizing weariness, and his elongation of her name’s first syllable. “Everyone is bound by the same restrictions, stated in their deed. In return, everyone shares in the greenbelts, the clubhouse and the other amenities.”
”These are ornamental,” she’d insisted. “What could be the harm if my beautiful peppers are also good to eat?” So she fought them on it, first at the Landscape Committee, and then on appeal, the full board, where she won. But the deer soon trampled and devoured her initial effort, spread just outside the masonry of the thirty-inch patio wall the rules did allow.
Meaning that she re-planted, and a bit beyond the wall she had the handyman from her married years build ‒ a discreet, six-foot barrier of what he called hog wire supported by redwood posts. She owned the land. Shouldn’t it produce something? She knew she was taking a risk, and that the neighbors terraced below her place would undoubtedly see it. But only after her new plant babies had produced their first harvestable tomatoes and okra did a formal complaint arrive; so she fought them again.
Yet all the while, there’d been steady predation. Deer, in her experience, leveled things to the ground. Not this beast‒ a possum, or whatever it was. Some of everything that seemed ready, and this month her peppers and zukes, which were flourishing, would be gone every few nights, no noise, no scat, no tracks, nothing. How it reached that far up through the mesh, she didn’t know. Her only defense was to stay out here in the dark.
And to stay awake, which got harder and harder. She stretched, tapped her foot on the flagstone patio and did yoga breathing, but still caught herself dozing when unrecognizable little sounds would snap her eyes open. But there hadn’t been any intruders, just a weak flow of marine air, dissipating the daytime heat. Then she didn’t catch herself, and must have slept ninety minutes, until a jostling noise and tinny thuds forced her into consciousness.
A shadowed form ‒ no, two forms ‒ stood close against the outer fence. She flicked on the LED beam and saw a deer up on its hind legs groping a foreleg in through the mesh near a pepper plant. “Hey!” she yelled, to frighten it, her body tense.
“Oh, crap!” the deer said, but it was a man in a full-length buckskin coat, locks of silver hair down to his shoulders, a silver beard and a floppy, frontier-style hat. “We’re sorry, we’re sorry,” he said. “Please don’t call the cops.”
Partially behind him was a short, dumpy woman holding a metal pail. She had stringy gray hair, a complexion like oiled teak, a woven skull cap, and from the shoulders down was swathed in exotically contrasting saris, or something similar to saris, made of woven fabric. Her eyes looked as fearful as Robyn’s probably did.
“Who are you?” Robyn asked, but her voice came out squeaky. Yet at 5’10,” she was a tall vigorous woman and they could likely sense it. She kept the beam on them full force.
“River people,” he answered, dropping his head and blinking. “Or mainly she is, but she don’t speak English. Like I say, we’re sorry for bein’ grabby.”
“Well, you should be,” Robyn said, voice recovered, and now advancing to almost ten feet from them. “I guess I won’t call the police, but this has to stop.”
“You got my word on it,” he said. His skin was pinkish, healthy and clean, his clothes reasonably clean as well. The woman was grimier than anyone would want to think about.
“Do you have names?” Robyn said. “I want to know who I’m dealing with.” She lowered the beam and let it play across their knees.
“Faulkner Briggs is mine.” He put out a hand for Robyn to shake, but she didn’t respond. “Hers is AbNag,” he went on. “She’s Hmong…from Vietnam.” At that, the woman bowed slightly in Robyn’s direction. “She lives down in there,” he motioned toward the river, “but her garden ain’t bearing yet, so…well…” He cleared his throat. “Anyway,” he continued, “everybody calls me Faulk. I didn’t get what you go by.”
“Just Robyn…with a Y.” She hadn’t meant to let her guard down like that, but since she had, she brought the light toward her face, so they’d see she was about their age. Her auburn-toned hair would have been as gray as the woman’s too, if it weren’t dyed.
“Nice name,” he said. “And real good that you’d take it easy on us. We was thinking rich folks wouldn’t miss a few peppers and the like. Ab’s a great cook…veggies only.”
“Don’t the deer wreck whatever she grows?” By then Robyn had switched the light off, so only the skimpy moon worked against the night. A breath of breeze from the delta rustled the cottonwoods in the channel behind him. “The powers that be,” she added, “are making me remove that fence you reach through. These plants won’t have a prayer.”
“Ab knows a special trick,” Faulk said. “Puts down a boundary of coyote piss that deer won’t cross.”
“Where does she get that?”
Faulk gave a mouth-closed chuckle through his nose. “From coyotes, a’ course. They’re all over these woods.”
“We have coyotes?”
“Can’t believe you don’t hear ’em some nights.”
“I thought that was dogs.”
He gave another of his chuckles. “Yeah, in a manner a‘ speaking. But you’re somethin’ else, Robyn. Far as my young niece and I are concerned, anybody we ever see in this Barn Hollow place acts like theirs don’t stink.”
Robyn felt herself smile. “Well, mine does, I assure you.”
Faulk laughed uproariously, from deep in his chest, and she hoped he wouldn’t wake the neighbors. “Just have to trust ya’ on that one,” he said, taking Ab by the elbow and guiding her off into the dark.
In bed the next morning Robyn awoke remembering that she’d dreamt of strange half-deer, half-coyote Centaurs marauding in her garden as she helplessly watched, and wondered if she’d dreamt the whole thing. Yet out back, carrying a coffee mug across to her table in the post-dawn light, she noticed near the outer fence a crude pail. A #10 can, actually, with a piece of looped coat hanger as its handle, and inside, a double handful of cherry tomatoes, okra and peppers. A tingle ran the length her spine. Dream or no dream, the rest had been real ‒ the Hmong woman, the guy in the buckskin coat, and she had told them her name.
She took the pail inside and washed it in the sink, along with the produce, which she bagged to go in the fridge. Then, after dinner, with the sun hanging low in the sky, still in her golf clothes from the round she’d just played, Robyn put the bag of produce back in the pail, added a handwritten note, and hung the pail in plain view on the mesh. Her note read: “It was lovely meeting you. This is yours, and I’m happy to donate what’s inside. When I can, I’ll put out more that you can have, as long as it’s me doing the picking.”
Sure enough, the pail was gone when she went out with her coffee ten hours later, but there was a new note, scrawled on the reverse of hers. “Thank you kindly, Robyn. You’re a good friend. –Faulk.” Which not only made her smile, it lifted her mood all day, despite the nagging knowledge that early the following morning her handyman, Ralph, would knock on the door to undo the wonderful fence he’d built less than two months before.
He was right on-time, too, and the minute she greeted him and unlocked the side gate, he brought in his tools and went at it. But unexpectedly, his voice came through the screen, “Hey, Miz Sturgis, there’s weird stuff out here and a note with your name on it.”
She’d been doing kitchen cleanup and wore her apron when she joined him outside, standing near the metal pail, its top sealed with her former plastic vegetable bag and an old shoelace. With it were a folded scrap of cardboard and a closed mason jar of rusty yellow liquid with pieces of what looked like scat settled at the bottom. “Oh,” she said, “no problem. I know what this is.” Gingerly, she picked up both items, as well as the note. Ralph seemed baffled. “Whatever,” he shrugged, causing the wire cutters and claw hammer slung from the loops of his work pants to sway against his legs.
Back inside, she read the note. “Hi, again, Robyn. Here’s some of Ab’s special potion and a pot of her veggie stew. What you gave us is in there with all the rest. – Faulk.” Smiling, Robyn poured more coffee, refrigerated the stew in a proper container and put the jar with her gardening supplies. She checked at the window and half the deer fence was down already. Well, she thought, how perfect, assuming the potion worked.
Wearing rubber gloves, Robyn carried the jar outside shortly before dinner, shook it, then eased off the lid. The cloudy liquid looked and smelled vile. There were no directions, but deer supposedly had sensitive noses, so dribbling the perimeter with a third to half the jar seemed like plenty, and she kept it well away from her shoes and clothes.
Ab’s vegetable stew, however, was beyond delicious. Thick and flavorful ‒ some of the peppers must have been smoked beforehand ‒ it was right at her tolerance for spicy hot. The sliced okra pods, chick peas and celery chunks bathed in the mix provided satisfying texture, but guessing the seasonings was hopeless. She perhaps picked up cardamom, star anise and possibly fenugreek, along with salt, basil and lots of garlic, all of which stood up beautifully to the rice, cucumber salad and sauvignon blanc that rounded out her meal.
Crossing the patio at dusk to leave the pail, scrubbed and dry, where she had found it, Robyn heard what she now knew were coyotes, as tonight’s slightly larger moon pushed above the horizon. The pail held a return note: “Faulk, Please tell Ab the stew was utterly great. The fence is gone, and I’ve applied some of her potion, so these next nights are the test. I’m truly grateful, and the way to show it is by hosting you both for a visit. Please come next Monday at 3 for iced tea and snacks on the patio.”
She awoke later to the sound of hooves somewhere behind the house but forced herself to stay in bed and eventually slept. Then in the morning, coffee in hand, per usual, she didn’t know which delighted her most: finding the garden unmolested, or the piece of folded paper under a handsome new greenish rock near where she’d left the pail. “Your note touched our hearts. We’re almost never treated like real people. Yes, 3 o’clock Monday. Hope you don’t change your mind.”
Monday morning Robyn was excited, as if this would be the most interesting thing she’d done in years, which in many respects, it was. She made a big pitcher of mint-chamomile tea, tomato and garlic crostini, celery stuffed with herbed goat cheese, and a bowl each of salted almonds and Nicosia olives. Shortly before three she staged everything on a large tray in the kitchen, but at ten after, she was clenching her nails into her palms and at a quarter after, had all but given up. Then, from behind her garden, she heard Faulk’s voice before she saw him. “Hey, hello! We’re late but we’re here.”
She couldn’t exactly run with the tray in her hands, but she wanted beat him to the patio, and did, because he stopped to wait for Ab. Robyn stood smiling as they found the gate in the low wall and stepped tentatively through, as if the flagstones could be landmines. “Come in, please, and sit.” She gestured toward her Pottery Barn table and matching umbrella. This time, as Faulk extended his hand, she shook it, then exchanged a Namaste genuflection with Ab and slid out chairs for them.
“Gorgeous up here, Robyn,” Faulk said. “You can almost see Ab’s little island.”
“Island?” Robyn answered.
“Yeah, we’ll tell ya’ about it. Your garden looks good, too.”
“No problems, not since I put out the potion. And that rock is beautiful.”
Faulk’s fingers traced rapid patterns in the air. Ab smiled, less with her lips than her cheekbones, and made similar gestures in return. “She’s glad it worked,’” Faulk said, “but you gotta’ refresh it ’bout once a month, ’specially if there’s rain. The rock’s for luck, she tells me.” He turned toward Robyn and the table. “My God, look at this food!”
“Help yourselves,” she said. “I’ll pour tea.” She watched them load up the tapas-sized plates she’d put out, not the behavior of her usual guests, but it made Robyn happy ‒ or happier, because she already was happy.
Clearly, too, Ab had washed and dressed for the occasion. Her hair had a fresh lift to it, and her teakwood skin, unusually translucent, showed fewer wrinkles than Robyn’s did. Her wrapping of coarse fabric was clean as well, and in different colors than before: turquoise, orange and purple.
Face flushed, Faulk held out his glass for a refill, but still wore the full-length coat, open like a robe, along with the floppy hat. Robyn was in shorts, while these two could be Bedouins in the summer heat. Of course they were Bedouins in a way, though Faulk was as clean or cleaner than he’d looked that first night, his silver hair shiny and his beard newly trimmed. For all the time he spent at the river, how could a camp account for such neatness?
Ab caught Robyn’s attention, patting her tummy and pointing to the celery as if it was an unparalleled treat. “Please, take more, both of you,” Robyn urged, adding olives and almonds to her own plate so they’d feel at ease.
Eventually Faulk hung his hat on the gate, exposing a head of Santa-Claus/mountain-man hair with a bald oval at the crown. “You can’t imagine how special this is,” he said, chewing a big bite of crostini, “and we’re dyin’ to know about you, Robyn. Why would ya’ trust us and do it?”
“Maybe later,” she said. “I’m boring. I’d much rather know about you.”
And what Robyn learned was wild and unbelievable and made her feel more boring yet. To start, the AbNag that Ab was short for means precious rain in Hmong, and she’d come to California via the Philippines as a former boat person. Both in Vietnam and the USliterate all the while, she’d been a midwife and shaman, and before being homeless, had lived in the Stockton attic of some loose-knit family members. But a disastrous fire broke out, killing two children and one of their mothers, and Ab was thought to be at fault. Not by the authorities, but by neighbors and certain of her family, and she was shunned for bringing a curse. She, too, blamed herself, wandering the woods, penniless and babbling. She had no idea how old she was, then or now, or how long she’d existed as a dumpster-diving hermit.
By chance, one day at the river several miles from Robyn’s area she met Faulk. He was then recovering from twenty years of alcoholism, mainly through a program run by Bread on the Waters, or BOW, which offers services to homeless people throughout the city. He had also qualified for Social Security, reunited with his niece, and just been hired by BOW as an outreach counselor, scouring the riverbanks and sloughs on a daily basis to save souls. “In a physical sense, that is,” he added with a chuckle. “I don’t give a hoot for religion.”
More recently, he’d been living in his niece’s garage, in an ordinary subdivision eight blocks from Barn Hollow. He had his own entrance, a cot, a window, a hotplate and access to laundry machines, the entire arrangement begrudged but tolerated by her husband. A bus pass took him back and forth to BOW, where he showered and often ate their free midday meal. His remarkable coat had been left behind by an ex from his niece’s hippie days, and the hat, someone stopped him on the street and gave him because of the coat.
Picturing that, Robyn burst into a laugh, which he freely joined. “Kind’a my touchstone, this coat. Wear it year-round and seems to let everyone know…river people or regular folks …that I ain’t too badass to deal with.”
How he and Ab communicated was also remarkable. They each spoke some Vietnamese, and he knew sign language because in Bakersfield, growing up, his mother was deaf. Then at BOW, once he got Ab to accompany him there, a Hmong-speaking nurse in the clinic also knew sign language. By then Ab had given up on English and wouldn’t try, but she took to sign language like no one in the nurse’s experience.
By default Faulk became her American brother, in part to atone for things he and other GIs did along the Mekong during the war. He moved her to a safer part of the river, near his niece, kept in daily touch, and acted as her agent to obtain food stamps and cash assistance from the county. Winters, he knew the ropes and could get her into shelters most nights, but summers, she and sometimes a group of deer lived on an island that she had to hitch up her clothes and wade to, where nobody bothered her or her near-invisible garden.
“Oops!” he said, glancing at the sun, “we stayed too long.”
“No, no, you’re fine,” Robyn assured him, then was shocked that her watch read 5:15, and she was due to attend a seven o’clock chamber concert that night.
“Really,” he countered, pointing downstream. “I got work to do, and Ab has her rounds to make.”
It seemed natural that these visits would repeat more-or-less weekly, with the green rock serving as a message drop. Robyn soon learned, for instance, that Ab’s “rounds” were to local markets, scrounging for discarded produce. Also, her potion wasn’t strictly coyote piss. It was coyote scat plus twigs, leaves and earth they’d peed on and marinated in Ab’s own urine. Robyn would have been fine with less detail, but the truth wasn’t as far-fetched as persuading wild animals to pee in a jar.
Gradually her guests supplied more details about Vietnam, and Robyn revealed things about her marriage, herself and her kids she didn’t often bring up. She hadn’t planned to, but Faulk’s manner put her at ease. She didn’t mention her lineage, though, because she never did. People got weird, like they were supposed to curtsy or ask for her autograph and had forgotten how. The neighbors, no surprise, took note of her visitors’ comings and goings, which she deflected by implying that Faulk was an old family friend whose wife was Thai, and they liked to walk the riverbank pathways. If the truth came out, the Association, on some ridiculous pretext, was bound to file more complaints.
But one thing Faulk spoke of on his fourth or fifth visit haunted Robyn’s mind. “Before the drinking,” he used those words like a proper noun, a tangible thing, “I had a wife, a house, kids and worked at the big Moffat Industries plant in San Leandro. When they shut it down and sent those jobs to Mexico…” He lowered his eyes and slumped his head, as though studying his own hands, where they rested on the table, and not recognizing them. “...I went straight downhill myself. Lost everything…years a’ my life. Funny part is, I’ve seen pictures of the Frisco skyline, and that big Moffat headquarters don’t look like it wants for paint or upkeep. Guess they just couldn’t afford runnin’ their own factory.”
The summer turned out to be perfect for gardening, not too burning hot, so she and Ab made Faulk their courier for an ongoing vegetable swap. Any bag Robyn put out would cycle to her again in a few days with things she didn’t grow, like green beans, tiny melons, full-size tomatoes and long, slender cucumbers.
At her desk, mid-morning, paying September bills, Robyn Googled BOW and explored its website. Impressive. Very, in fact, with multiple programs operating out of the old Navy base to address basic needs and some she’d never thought of ‒ like veterinary services for homeless people’s pets, a library and computer room, sending volunteers to visit homeless jail inmates ‒ all without taking government funds. She then phoned the director’s office to confirm that donations could be kept anonymous, wrote a $5,000 check and mailed it.
That same night she was watching a Netflix video when her cell rang. “Hi, this is Julie Adorno, Faulk’s niece. He said his friend Robyn gave him this number?”
“Yes, I’m Robyn.” She felt a rush of alarm. “Is he all right?”
“He’s OK, but he can’t find Ab. Have you seen her?”
“Not in days, since the last time they were here.”
“Oh. He’s frantic and still out looking, but he asked me to call.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open,” Robyn said. “I have his work number for emergencies.”
“Thanks, and thanks for being so good to him. The rest of the family hasn’t forgiven his …well, you know, but he’s always been my favorite uncle.”
“That I can understand. Where are his wife and children?”
“Ex-wife. They’re all in Texas and just hang up if he calls.”
“I don’t think he’s forgiven himself yet, either.”
Robyn walked down behind the garden to the base of the flanking levees, and repeatedly called Ab’s name as loudly as she could. Some phase of a full moon was up, either waxing or waning, and she didn’t need a flashlight, but distant coyotes were the only reply.
After breakfast, no sign of Ab, and likewise when Robyn checked every hour until lunch. But Ab had never visited alone anyway, so what could she expect? Then her cell rang, and it was Faulk. “BOW found her,” he said, almost breathless. “In jail.”
“Safe, I hope. But why?”
“Shopliftin’. At a bottle store over by I-5.”
“Liquor?” Robyn couldn’t believe it.
”No, they have veggies, too, and sometimes the stuff’s so mangy she don’t wait for ’em to throw it out. Kumar, the guy who runs the place, has warned her before.”
“Have you been down there yet?”
“No, no…I’m hell-and-gone upstream along the river. This here’s my BOW TrackPhone. They called and filled me in, but afternoons like this, there’s nobody they can send. I need to move that way fast as I’m able.”
“Hold on, Faulk. I’ve got this. “I’ll have a lawyer post bail and pick her up myself. Just head over to BOW. I’ll ring you on this number.”
Her father had called it a white-shoe firm and they’d handled his estate, but one of the senior partners, Willard Bowen, was an old family friend, and they had a local office with departments for every kind of case. So in less than three hours, Ab was scheduled for immediate release, and Robyn had signed on to guarantee bail. By further agreement, Robyn would also underwrite any restitution, fines or fees associated with a hearing that the lawyers would handle when the time came. Robyn picked up Faulk on her way to the jail, and before sunset, both he and Ab were in the sedan heading north toward Brookside Road, agog at the thing’s silent, surging power, which Robyn still was too.
Ab looked frightened and exhausted, but someone must have coaxed her into the shower, since she was clean even if her clothes weren’t. Faulk didn’t translate most of what she told him about it, their hands busy as Robyn drove. She pressed Ab to stay in the guestroom, but Ab insisted on returning to her island, and Faulk on making sure she got there OK. Faulk realized that money had been involved, Robyn’s money, but he had no idea how much. He just told her, emphatically, that she was “the best person on earth,” and Ab all but dislocated her neck making Namastes as they left.
In the morning Robyn called BOW with instructions to re-budget the $5,000 she’d sent as a quarterly amount and also set a 1 p.m. meeting with the executive director to formalize things and discuss another idea she had. She then called her realtor, the one who’d handled the sale of her former house and overseen the deal on the new property.
“OK,” he said, “I pulled the file.”
“Double check for me,” Robyn asked. “I have title all the way to the bottom of my little hill here, right, and it’s not part of the levee along the channel because it’s a natural feature of the land?” She heard papers being flipped on his end.
“Yeah, yeah,” he said. “Right here on the site map. It’s why you paid thirty-percent more than the places around you. Not only for the view, but their property lines and the Association boundary quit at the top, with the rest controlled by San Joaquin Flood Prevention District.”
“Thanks,” she said. “Just what I remembered.”
“But you can’t remove any earth or build down there, not even a fence, nothing to cause debris build-up and backflow during a flood.”
Robyn smiled. “No problem,” she said, ready to head downtown right after lunch.
From her car, where she’d parked during her meeting at BOW, Robyn called Faulk. “Got a minute?” Homeless people, alone or in groups, carrying grimy blankets and backpacks, streamed by in both directions outside her windows.
“Yeah, but this phone’s work only.”
“It is a work call,” she said. “Next season, I’m putting in a community garden at the base of my hill along the river, and I want you and Ab to run it. BOW says they’ll pay you.”
“Won’t be easy,” he said. “There’s rough folks in them woods.”
“Trust yourself,” she told him. “We’ll figure it out. What do you say?”
She heard one of his beguiling chuckles. “Well…square between yes, and hell yes.”