Morning had brought a disconcerting blue tinge to Splash’s unshaven visage. Not that it was unattractive, but consensus polling suggested he ought to try warming up before launching on the day. There is a lot going on at The Farm on Sundays, so a certain amount of morning confusion is the norm. There are holy services for those who attend, a luxurious early buffet for those who do not, and when services are over and the devout return, the buffet is refreshed and those already fed might angle for a refreshing supplementary Bloody Mary.

There is plenty to talk about, and being free of legal supervision is both an incentive to say all sorts of things and a parallel disinclination to put anything in writing that might last longer than a day and find its way onto global distribution. So, wary but alert, the conversations were refined by two iterations. Not unlike the 9:45 and 11:00 services just up the road at the chapel where both J.E.B. Stewart and George Armstrong Custer occasionally took services in their turns in occupying our County by force of arms.

Splash was warm enough to speak after a few moments near the blaze in the cast-iron stove Melissa built with crisp efficiency. “Did you hear the crash last night?”

Rocket and DeMille were at services, so two of the usual seats were empty. Loma looked around carefully and then spoke. “Yeah. It was just at the turn from flakes falling gently to ice freezing on the road over Summerduck Run. It was interesting hearing all four wheels locked tight, all sliding over the ice in uniform scraping. No impact, though. It might have been someone who actually knows how to drive in snow and ice.”

“We could use one of those. We are normally restricted to the property when it snows, except for Sunday Services. DeMille prefers his drivers to have demonstrated competency in landing multi-engine jets on aircraft carrier decks.”

Melissa shivered a little and raised the lid on the stove to drop another of the excellent cedar logs on the pile already aflame. “I think the guys who did that for a living were nuts.”

Splash was warming to his task. “I saw the guy who had been driving. I think it was him, anyway. No one else would be on foot out here in the country, even if we only got an inch of fresh white stuff.”

“What did he look like?”

“Dunno. He had a blue parka with a yellow ‘M’ stitched on it. The parka hood was swathed over an KM-95 mask, so he was anonymous.”

There was a new voice, unexpected in volume, from the chair behind the stove. “Perhaps I should have announced myself. I was enjoying the warmth after my electric car ran out of juice up on the road. I saw the smoke from the chimney and came down hoping not to freeze to death.”

None of us were masked at that particular moment. We had all lived or traveled in the Far East where it was common for some people to mask up in cold and flu season. Others didn’t without managing to nag each other about what is a distinctly personal choice. Our guest pulled back his hood and plucked a string from his right ear so the mask dangled and we could see he was smiling. “See? Nothing but good will and mild amusement here.”

“That is one of the things the masks remove from social interaction. Good will is swaddled with fabric. The rest of us smiled to demonstrate our willingness to share some warmth.

“My name is Buck Tullock. I went to school with Chairman Socotra a long time ago, and times being what they are, I thought it might be useful to visit and catch up.”

“What sort of times are those? Our Attorney has the weekend off, and we are restricted by a commitment we made forty years ago that gets waved around when we start edging toward the boundary of the Reservation.”

“I have something something similar, but it used to be called ‘free speech.’ That was in academia, and we got rid of that years ago. Now I can pretty much say what I feel, based on the facts as I understand them and interpreted from years of study.”

“We don’t think the Attorneys would like that. We have to watch what we are saying or else we could wind up out in the cold.”

“This is a visit, not employment. I am a casual observer whose rights are untrammeled by conditions of previous employment.” Having warmed sufficiently, our guest rose to remove the bulky parka. He was a tall fellow with a certain athletic grace to his movements. He hung the parka near the assortment of protective clothing by the door that led to the snow-covered stones that led to the Fire Pit near the Loading Dock. Uncovered, he displayed a shock of hair that once might have been a light br own, but like the foliage near the eastern pasture was frosted with pale gray.

Splash was interested. “You claim to be a college professor?”

“In more precise terms, I claim to have been a tenured professor of Economics at a well-regarded educational institution who has been elevated to emeritus status.” Buck sat once more, and edged his chair closer to the stove. “Is there any indication about when the Chairman gets up? I would like to establish some ground rules in dealing with you folks. It seems a little like the crowd I see when I go to the range for some necessary practice.”

“We don’t need to go to the range. We live on it.”

We heard the F-150 sliding down the hill, which meant first service was done and the table needed to be re-set and the buffet table reloaded. Two metal doors slammed, and boots clattered across chunks of ice. The door swung open and Rocket and DeMille trudged in, uplifted by spirituality and bogged down with ice. Melissa gave a shiver at frosty fingers that beckoned from outside. It took a moment for the two arrivals to shed gloves, parkas, masks and mukluks. When the process was complete, they turned toward the welcome glow of the stove. DeMille’s eyebrows rose in unspoken question. Rocket was more direct. “Who is the stranger?”

Those are Sunday sorts of questions, so we started the conversation again to ensure we were all on the same sheet of music, but it looked like the eggs might be cooling, and decided the rest of the recap could wait until the buffet was cleared and the dishes were done.

“You can call me Buck,” said the professor, and that appeared to conclude his prepared remarks. Rocket shrugged and dug a couple slabs of neatly browned shredded potatoes to go with the thick-cut country bacon, sauteed tomatoes and savory ranch-style beans on his plate. The morning service clearly had influenced him. He said “Grace” efficiently and quickly and dug in.

The rest of us knew we could catch up later, and Splash just cut to the chase and began to compose another pitcher of Bloody Mary’s, based on his own recipe. Atop four ounces of Popov vodka and six of V-8 (don’t get him started on the supply chain issues regarding quality vodka and preferred tomato mix) It included:

Wedges of lemon and lime, a generous heft of celery salt, a pinch of ground black pepper, a couple dashes of worcestershire sauce inserted with a practiced flip of the wrist, a dash of smoked paprika stabbed forthrightly with a celery stalk in a tall crystal glass. As a side, a stout cocktail glass adorned with a variety of pickled ingredients for optional extras. He poured two, handing one to Buck with a flourish, and began again. “So, what the hell is going on with the economic thing?”

The consensus view was that it was doubtful that would be concluded before there was a need for another pitcher.

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