A Simple Plan (9 page)

Jacob waved down the road. “Come on,” he said tiredly. “Let’s get this over with.”

W
E APPROACHED
the nature preserve from the same direction we had the day before, coming across the low cement bridge over Anders Creek, then down past Dwight Pederson’s farm along the park’s southern edge. There was a dog sitting at the end of Pederson’s driveway, a large collie, and it barked at us as we drove by, a deep, full-chested sound. Mary Beth barked back, high-pitched, startling us, and then, tail up, turned to watch the collie recede through the rear window.

I parked next to the gouge Jacob’s truck had left in the snowbank the day before and shut off the engine. I was appalled at the marks we’d left on the place. Our tracks moved off from the road, cutting a giant, ragged gash straight into the woods. Anyone driving by would’ve noticed them immediately. To the left the fox’s tracks trailed across the field toward Pederson’s farm, a string of tiny black dots in the snow, straight and precise. I followed them with my eyes.

“You’re going to park here?” Jacob asked. “Right out in the open?”

I considered this briefly. He was right, of course, but I could think of no alternative. “You see a hiding place somewhere?” I said.

“We could drive around to the park entrance, bring the car inside.”

I shook my head; this was something I’d already debated and put aside. I listed off my reasons now, one at a time. “The gate’ll be locked,” I said, “the road inside won’t be plowed, and we’d probably get lost if we tried to find the plane without having our tracks to lead us to it.”

Jacob glanced back toward the bridge. “It just seems like a risk, leaving it out like this.”

“We left your truck here yesterday.”

“Yesterday we didn’t know what was in there.”

“It’s okay, Jacob. We’ll do it quickly. In and out in a flash.”

“Maybe we should just blow it off.”

I noticed that he was sweating profusely, a hangover sweat, pungent smelling, like overripe fruit. He wasn’t worried about someone seeing the car, I realized; he was worried about the hike into the park.

“You drank too much last night,” I said. “Didn’t you?”

He ignored my question. He wiped his face on the sleeve of his jacket, and it left a dark spot on the fabric. “My truck yesterday,” he said, “your car today. It might start people wondering.”

I unhooked my seat belt, preparing to climb from the car, and as I did so, I felt the bag of money resting heavily against my gut. It’d be easier, I saw suddenly, if he didn’t come. I turned to look at him. He had ketchup smeared across his chin.

“This is what we’ll do,” I said. “You’ll stay here. I’ll go in, straighten things out at the plane, and come back as quick as I can. If anyone drives by while I’m gone, you can pretend you’re fixing something with the car.”

“And if they stop to help?”

“You talk to them.”

“Talk to them? What the fuck am I supposed to talk to them about?” His voice came out thin and tight sounding. I couldn’t tell whether it was from fatigue or disgust.

“Tell them it’s okay. Tell them you’ve got it fixed.”

“And what about the tracks?” He waved off into the woods.

“I’ll bring the dog with me,” I said. “If anybody asks, you can just say Mary Beth ran off, and Lou and I went in after her.”

“We’ll end up getting in trouble if someone comes by. They’ll remember we were here when they finally discover the plane.”

“It’ll be spring before anyone finds the plane. No one’s going to remember our being here after all that time.”

“What if the sheriff comes by again?”

I frowned. I’d forced myself to forget about Carl. “He won’t come by,” I said, with exaggerated self-confidence. “He had to work late last night. I guarantee you he’s still in bed.”

“And if he isn’t?”

“If he comes by, you can tell him we lost something here last night. Tell him I dropped my hat in the woods and wanted to come back to search for it.”

“Yesterday you yelled at me for taking risks. This seems like more of a risk than what I did.”

“It’s a necessary risk, Jacob. There’s a difference.”

“I don’t see what’s so necessary about it.”

I shrugged, feigning indifference. “If you want, we can just burn the money right now. It’ll save me the hike.”

“I don’t want to burn the money, I want to leave.”

“I’m going in there, Jacob. You can either stay here and stand guard, or come along with me.”

There was a long pause while he looked for a way out. He didn’t find one. “I’ll stay here,” he said.

I put on a wool hat, the same dark blue as my jacket and gloves. Then I took the keys from the ignition and shoved them into my pocket.

M
ARY
B
ETH
ran on ahead as I moved into the woods, disappearing through the trees, then came galloping back, the tags on his collar jingling, his fur dusted with snow. He made a few tight circles around me and sprinted off again. I strode after him, feeling good, the cold air invigorating me, waking me up.

It took me about fifteen minutes to reach the rim of the orchard, and I paused there for a moment, surveying the scene. The plane sat in the middle of the shallow bowl, its metallic skin looking burnished, like silver, amidst the dark branches of the apple trees. Our tracks surrounded it, black holes in the snow.

A wind came up, making a rushing sound through the trees around me, and it carried with it a subtle wetness, a sense of imminent change. I glanced at the sky. It was a deep, slow-moving gray, full of the promise of snow.

The crows were still in the orchard. I didn’t notice them from the rim of the bowl, but as I started down into it, they suddenly seemed to be everywhere, moving restlessly from tree to tree, cawing incessantly, as if they were arguing with one another.

I moved toward the wreck, my hand cupped against my stomach, supporting the weight of the baby pouch. The dog followed at my heels.

The plane’s door was hanging open, exactly as we’d left it. I could see the mark the duffel bag had made in the snow when I’d pushed it out, a long, shallow trough. Mary Beth circled the wreck, sniffing the air.

I stuck my head in through the doorway, allowed my eyes a moment to adjust to the lack of light, then squeezed my whole body inside. I was hurrying, thinking about Jacob sitting out on the road in my car, and of all the possibilities for things going wrong because of that, when I felt the same unnatural warmth on my face I’d noticed the day before, the same heavy stillness to the air, and the memory of the bird shot through my mind.

I crouched on the floor, right where the duffel bag had been sitting, rested my hand against the wall to keep my balance, and peered toward the pilot.

He was in his seat, in the same position I’d left him the previous afternoon. His head was leaning back, staring upside down toward the rear of the plane, his arms thrown out, crucifixlike, to either side. His face was wearing the same mournful expression—the white rings of bone around his eyes making them seem clownishly grief-stricken; the bloody icicle coming out of his nose and protruding up past his open mouth; the tip of his tongue—swollen and dark—sticking out between his lips.

I slapped my hand against the plane’s fuselage.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Get out of here!”

My voice echoed back at me. I listened to it, waiting. Mary Beth approached the open doorway, sniffing loudly. He made a little whining sound but didn’t stick his head inside. There was no sign of movement from the front.

“Hey!” I yelled again. I stomped my boot against the floor.

I waited, but nothing happened. Finally, satisfied that I was the only living thing in the plane, I stood up, scanning the floor to see if I’d dripped any blood the day before. Finding none, I started to inch my way toward the front. I unzipped my jacket as I went.

I came up quietly behind the pilot, walking in a slight stoop, trying to decide where I should plant the money. I’d planned to just lay it on the copilot’s seat, but now I saw that this wouldn’t work—it would’ve fallen off in the crash. I’d have to put it at the dead man’s feet, stuff it up tight against the nose of the plane.

I unzipped my jacket and removed the money from the knapsack. I wiped the garbage bag with my gloves, to erase any fingerprints, then crouched down and slid it forward along the floor. I pushed it past the two seats, past the pilot’s boots, all the way up to the front of the plane. My back started to sweat while I worked, a cold, clammy feeling. I was holding my breath, and it made me dizzy.

When I’d jammed the money in as far as it would go, I stood up, grasped the pilot by his shoulders, and eased him forward. He bent at his waist with surprising ease, his feet sliding backward along the floor. At the last second his head rolled forward on his neck, landing on the plane’s control panel with a smacking sound, like a bat hitting a ball. The bloody icicle broke, fell to the floor, and shattered.

I took a deep breath, and stepped back. I straightened my body until the top of my hat touched the plane’s metal roof; then I held myself there, thinking, checking things off in my head. I’d looked for blood, I’d planted the money, I’d repositioned the pilot. There was nothing left to do.

I zipped up my jacket, turned, took a single step, and froze. There were two birds sitting just inside the open doorway, watching me. It was the strangest thing—I seemed to think of them before I actually saw them, their images floating across my mind as I turned my body, two shadows emerging from the plane’s darkness to confront me. It was eerie; it was as if I’d willed them into being.

I stared at them. They didn’t move.

I waved my arms. “Scat!” I yelled.

One of the birds edged toward the doorway. The other remained where it was.

Very slowly, I took a step forward. The first bird shuffled quickly to the door. It stopped on the threshold to watch me, its plumage shiny in the light streaming in from the orchard. The second bird lifted its wings, as if to threaten me. It moved its head from side to side on its shoulders. Then it stretched its neck and cawed. The sound ricocheted off the walls. When it died down, the bird settled its wings back into its body and took a tentative step toward me.

“Out!” I yelled.

The first bird gave a little cry and disappeared with a quick hop through the doorway. I could hear the push of its wings as it flew away. The other bird simply sat there, turning first one eye toward me, then the other.

I stepped forward, stomping my boot against the floor.

The bird shuffled backward, away from the door. It lifted its wings again.

I watched it, waiting. “I’m leaving,” I said, like an idiot. I took two shuffling steps forward, closing in on the door.

The bird retreated, sinking into the darkness at the rear of the plane, its wings still raised. I had to move at a stoop, my shoulders hunched over, my boots making a rough, scraping sound against the floor.

When I reached the door, I went out backward, so I wouldn’t have to take my eyes off the crow. It raised its wings a little higher, turned its head to watch me disappear.

“I’m leaving,” I said again, squeezing myself out into the snow.

Outside, the world seemed brighter, just as it had the day before. I leaned my shoulder against the door and, straining, pushed it shut. It swung closed with a violent metallic shriek.

Mary Beth had disappeared. I followed his tracks with my eyes. The trail headed off toward the road. I called his name, twice, halfheartedly, then gave up, assuming that he was already back at the car with Jacob.

As I started up the gentle slope away from the wreck, I sensed that there was something different about the orchard, something besides the illusory change in light, but it wasn’t until I reached the bowl’s rim that I realized what it was. It was a snowmobile, a low, whining hum hanging beelike in the air around me. It was coming from the direction of the road.

I paused, my body tense, listening, trying to decide what it meant. The wind had died down, the day felt warmer, and when I glanced at the sky I saw that, rather than thickening toward the predicted storm, it was actually clearing. I could even make out a large patch of blue to the south.

The snowmobile’s buzz slowly gained in volume, far away still but moving closer. The crows in the orchard called loudly back and forth to one another.

I took one last look at the plane, glinting dully in the bottom of the hollow, then turned and started back toward the road at a run.

I
STRAINED
to listen for the snowmobile while I ran, but I couldn’t hear it. The sounds of my breathing, of my arms rubbing against my jacket, my boots slapping down into the snow, and the trees flashing quickly by, all hid the hum of its engine. The footing was slick, my boots heavy, and I tired quickly. I slowed to a walk after a few minutes, when I was still only halfway back to the road. As soon as I ceased to run, I heard the engine. It was close now. It sounded as if it were right in front of me, just out of sight through the trees. I could hear Mary Beth barking. I listened, walking for about twenty yards to let my heart slow down a bit, then took a deep breath and started to run again.

I saw the car first, my dark green station wagon pulled off at the side of the road. It appeared like a shadow before me, suddenly materializing between the trunks of the trees. Then there was my brother, standing in front of it like a giant red beacon. Next to him was a smaller man, and beneath this man, between his legs, was the snowmobile, its engine idling now, spitting out a dense cloud of light gray smoke.

The man was tiny, old, dressed in an orange hunting jacket. It was Dwight Pederson—I recognized him immediately. He had a rifle slung over his shoulder.

When I saw who it was, I dropped back to a walk. I still had about thirty yards to go before I reached the road, but I realized instantly that whatever damage Jacob had managed to produce through talking to the old man would only be increased by my sprinting frantically up to them out of the woods. I had to go slow now, react rather than act. I put my hands in my pockets and carefully picked my way toward them through the trees, trying to appear calm, in control, casual.