Jewelweed (63 page)

Then they were off again. After another half hour they could feel the truck running through the higher gears, and the hum of the tires got louder and steadier. Every so often a car would pass and tiny holes in the trailer filled with pencils of light, then went dark again.

“Must be on a divided highway,” offered Ivan. They walked to the back, looking along the way for a place where they could see out. But the little holes in the sides were too small, and there was too much jiggling.

They climbed up on a couple of the boxes. “We should have brought something to eat,” said Ivan.

“We didn't know we were coming.”

After a while Ivan asked August how they were going to get out of the trailer without being seen.

“They'll start unloading it as soon as we get there,” said August. “We'll slip out when the forklift driver turns around with a load. It will be late and there won't be many workers in the warehouse. Then we'll get into the cab, where the bunk is.”

“You make it sound easy,” Ivan said.

“What are we going to do if he gets stopped by the police in a different state?” asked August.

Ivan shrugged.

A little later, August looked at his watch again. “It would be a good idea to get some sleep,” he said. “It might be a long night.”

Ivan had his flashlight on, staring at the picture of his mother and Blake. “There's something about this—”

“Let me see it again,” said August. Ivan handed it to him.

Someone honked outside, behind them on the highway.

“I know what you mean. The pictures of my parents before I was born do the same thing to me.”

“What is it?” asked Ivan.

“I don't know. But they always make me wonder about much more than you can see in the picture. We really should get some sleep though, Ivan.”

“Okay,” he said, taking the picture back.

They fell asleep, and when they woke up the truck was stopping and starting again, lurching and turning.

“We must have turned off the highway,” said Ivan.

Sometime later the truck came to a stop. Blake climbed out of the cab, and they heard voices.

“We're closed,” someone said gruffly.

“Don't you guys have watches?” replied Blake. “It's before eleven. Here's the shipping order.”

“Open the gate,” said another voice. The cab door closed, and the boys could hear it scraping open.

“Dock fourteen,” someone yelled, and they were moving again.

The sounds of animals—cows and hogs—got louder and louder, until they were on both sides, bellowing and coughing.

Someone yelled, “Bring 'er back easy. Easy.”

They backed up, then stopped and went forward. Then backward, forward, and backward again.

“I can't see around the corner!” yelled Blake.

“Drive much?” someone yelled back and laughed.

About ten minutes later, after a lot of stopping and starting and starting over, the trailer bumped into something.

“Easy!” yelled a voice over the sound of the animals.

Then Blake climbed out and they could hear the post jacks cranking down, lifting the front end of the trailer.

August and Ivan crawled off the boxes and hid in the narrow center aisle near the back.

“Say,” said Blake, “I'm having trouble with my alternator. Is there a place around here to have it looked at?”

“There's a truck stop just off the highway north of town, but I doubt you'll find any mechanics at this hour.”

“Can I park here until morning?”

“No. Everybody out by eleven. It's the company rule.”

“Okay. Do you need anything else?”

“No. That's it. Sign here. Take it easy.”

“Aren't you going to unload it?” asked Blake. “I thought this was a rush job.”

“Jackson does that. He'll come in the morning.”

Then Blake drove away, and there was only the sound of cows and hogs hollering, along with a real bad smell.

“I didn't count on this,” said Ivan. “We could beat on the sides of the trailer and yell until hell freezes over, but no one would ever hear us over the sound of those animals.”

“We'll be out in the morning,” said August. “But it might get a little cold tonight.”

“No problem,” replied Ivan. “I've got a couple matches. We can make a fire with some of this cardboard.”

K
evin Roebuck rested comfortably on his bed. Though it was nearly midnight, he was staying awake in order to savor the sensation of adequate quantities of air moving in and out of his lungs, banishing the anxiety that usually threaded through his respiratory system—the strained, impotent fury that resulted from never getting quite enough oxygen. He quietly experienced a new strength: his arms and legs joined to his mind through an alert network of muscle tissue and smooth nerves. Impressions from the world around him—the overnight nurse's steady raveling snore, the blinking of electronic devices, the sound of his mother's antique clock ticking in the hallway, even the wind outside the window—were accompanied by frolicsome thoughts. And while he understood on some level that the new corticosteroid responsible for these heightened sensory treasures would sooner or later lose its efficacy just as other new drugs had in the past, this understanding did not enter the contented circumstances he found himself immersed in. It felt almost as if he had never been sick a day in his life, and never would be again.

Kevin climbed from his bed and dressed in the dark, pulling on his clothes with a conscious fondness for both the texture of cloth and the movements that fit them into their proper places. He stepped from the room and put on his shoes, feeling the protective leather cushioning the soles of his feet. And then he quietly slipped out the back door.

The pond and moon welcomed him into their private greenish-blue performance. The clear sky was a speckled kettle placed upside down over the horizon. He breathed deeply and the night air became a willing part of him. Bumping against the dock, the tethered boat spoke in hollow, wooden syllables, a story of abandonment.

Kevin found his grandfather's walking stick leaning against the deck and grasped it with his right hand. Pleased that the shape of his palm and fingers so perfectly conformed to the indentations carved into the wood, Kevin walked along the edge of the pond. A current of cool air brushed against his cheek and he instinctively reached to readjust the sterilized plastic tubing from the oxygen tank. His hand discovered the tubing's absence like a distant memory of a once-tragic event that had become comical.

He lingered at the place where the heavy wire cage rested half-submerged in water. Inside, the head of the ancient reptile rose above the shining water, the moon reflected in its eyes.

“Hungry again?” asked Kevin. The head turned toward him.

The air was rich with clicking sounds, followed by shadows darting in and out of the moonlight above the cage. They looked like bats.

Walking as fast as he could into the house, he climbed to the second floor, went down the hall, and walked into his grandfather's room.

“Wake up. Wake up.”

“What's the matter?” asked Wally, emerging slowly from a warm swamp of sleep.

“Plenty,” said Kevin. “Get up, Grandpa.”

“I'm having a dream.”

“Ivan and August are in trouble.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Wally, slowly removing the covers from his body, swinging his legs over the side of the bed, and warily locating the floor with the bottoms of both feet. Balancing with one hand on the mattress, he reached over and pulled the cord on the bedside lamp. A phalanx of yellow light invaded the room. Wally's eyesight slowly came to his assistance, and he noticed that his grandson was fully dressed.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Big trouble,” said Kevin. “I can feel it.”

“I'm not following this, Kevin.”

“Get dressed. We need to drive over to Blake Bookchester's rented farmhouse.”

“Why do we need to do that?”

“Because August and Ivan said they were going over there tonight, to break into his house while Blake was taking his father's truck on a
run into Iowa that will break the conditions of his release if he gets caught.”

“I don't think I'm awake enough to understand this,” said Wally. “Help me find my glasses.”

“Here they are, Grandpa.”

“Where were they?”

“On your nightstand.”

Wally put them on, found his notebook, and wrote something in it.

“Get dressed, Grandpa,” repeated Kevin.

“Shouldn't I understand what this is all about first?”

“I'll talk and you dress,” said Kevin. “And try to be quiet, because we don't want to wake anyone up. Don't put on your shoes until we leave the house.”

“Where's your oxygen tank?”

“I don't need it tonight.”

“I'm not going anywhere without one, just in case,” said Wally.

“All right. We'll have to take the heavy one, though. The small ones are empty.”

“Where are we going again?”

“Over to Blake Bookchester's rented house in the country.”

“What are we going to find there?”

“Hopefully nothing.”

When they arrived in the farmyard and climbed out of Wally's pickup, there were no electric lights burning anywhere, inside or outside. The moist, still air was filled with the smells of late summer.

“Come on,” said Kevin, shining the beam of a flashlight ahead of them and following it up toward the house.

They knocked on the front door, and tried the knob.

The door opened and they went inside. While searching through the empty rooms, they found the back door open several inches.

“I don't see anyone out here,” said Wally, stepping into the backyard. “Maybe Blake just didn't close the door the last time he used it.”

Kevin came out too, but after looking around and finding nothing, they went back inside and finished searching through the empty house.

“Well, I guess they didn't come over here, after all,” suggested Wally, wishing he were back home in bed. He closed the front door behind them.

“Maybe not,” said Kevin, waving the flashlight through the front yard in broad, slow, sweeping arcs. “I still have this queer feeling, though.”

“Someone recently backed a heavy truck up to the house,” said Wally, stepping down into the yard. “See, Kev, the way the grass is smashed down. By the driveway they dug up some sod. Keep shining that light around.”

“I told you,” said Kevin. “Blake had his dad's truck tonight.”

“Wait a minute,” said Wally, pointing off to his left. “Hand me that light.”

Kevin gave it to him, and he directed the beam toward the corner of the house, where they both saw something shiny.

“What's that?” he asked, and they went over toward the aluminum rim and spokes. Two bicycles leaned against the side of the house.

“August and Ivan actually came over here, and now they're in the back of the truck,” concluded Kevin.

“That's a lot to imagine,” said Wally.

“They're in trouble. We've got to go down there.”

“Down where?”

“To Wormwood.”

“Where's that?”

“Somewhere in Iowa. I've got a smartphone in the truck.”

“Shouldn't we call August's parents if they're in trouble?”

“No,” replied Kevin. “They'll say I gave them up. Ivan would never let me live it down.”

“But telling me doesn't count?”

“You're one of us.”

“I'm honored, I guess.”

“Besides, I might be wrong, and I don't want to look like a fool,” added Kevin. “But I know I'm not wrong. They're in trouble. I can feel it. Come on, let's go.”

“We should at least take that woman your dad hired with us.”

“No. It would take too long to go back and pick her up, and besides, she already thinks she's too important.”

“We should at least tell her we're leaving.”

“It's none of her business.”

“I'm still going to call and tell her we'll be gone a couple hours. I don't want that gal for an enemy. She'd chase a fella all the way into the afterlife. By the way, wasn't your nurse working tonight?”

“She sleeps like a horse. You can tell Dart we're driving something up to Dad and Mom, and she can tell Gladys if she wakes up.”

Kevin began coughing, then quickly recovered.