Dad gave an astonished chuckle. “Heck, Dad, you’ll give yourself a coronary, all that bending over.”
Gramps waved it away. “The thing is, between three weeks ago and today, we’ve sold seven sheets of plywood, missing three. Sold fourteen planks, missing two. And a couple of fence posts.”
It would be easy to blame the missing pieces on Gramps’s arithmetic, Buck was thinking, except that the only thing Gramps was better at than running a log through a sawmill and turning out planks, was numbers. And every single purchase was itemized on the store receipt no matter who did the selling—Dad or Gramps or Joel.
“Hmm,” Dad said. “Can’t account for that. But you tell me how somebody’s going to get that stuff out of there without opening the front gate.”
“No, you tell me how it walks out on its own!” Gramps responded. “We don’t find out pretty soon, they’ll take the whole darn sawmill.”
Buck and Joel exchanged amused glances.
“I’ll say this for Gramps, he’s one stubborn dude when it comes to chasing down a penny,” Joel laughed. “Talk about stubborn…”
Gramps was getting annoyed, and Dad said quickly, “Now look who’s talking! Remember that argument you had with Mel, about what pitcher holds the record for most no-hitters in the major leagues?”
“And you were so sure it was Bob Feller you bet a whole day’s pay at the mill?” Mel said.
“And was it?” asked Buck.
“Heck, no. It was Nolan Ryan,” said Dad.
Katie turned to Mel wide-eyed. “Did you make Joel pay?”
“You betcha! Teach the kid not to gamble!”
Joel looked sheepish and gave Mel a pretend punch as the family hooted. All but Gramps, who silently continued eating.
“Okay, Pop, let’s talk about it,” Dad said. “Do you want to install some security cameras?”
“Never needed cameras before!” Gramps declared. “Been here sixty-two years, and my dad before me. Once we locked that gate at night, you could count on nobody even entertaining the thought of breaking in.”
“Except nobody had to,” Mom said, lifting her water glass. “All they have to do is climb over.” She took a few sips and set it down again.
“You’re telling me somebody hoisted all that over the top?” Dad asked.
“Why not?” said Mom. “Especially if there was more than one in on it.”
But Buck had another idea. “There’s a g…gap between the gate and the m…metal fence post,” he said. “Someone c…could climb over the f…fence, then slide stuff through the g…gap. Especially the lumber and p…plywood sheets. I don’t know about the fence posts.”
“He’s got a point,” said Dad. “Not hard at all.”
Gramps shook his head. “Can’t get my mind around the thought of someone wanting to do me that way.”
“Well, I can’t either, Dad, but you say you don’t want a security camera.”
“How about putting barbed wire along the top of the fence?” said Mel.
Gramps straightened. “And make Anderson’s Lumber look like a prison?” he declared. “All that says to customers is we don’t trust ’em.”
“But we don’t!” Katie said innocently, and Gramps frowned at her. “Just saying…,” she murmured, sitting back in her chair.
“What do you want, Dad? You want a couple of us to stay overnight down there? Watch who comes by?” Joel asked.
“I’ll d…do it,” Buck offered. “Me and Joel.”
Gramps ignored them both. “What I want is to find out who’s doing some renovating around here…adding on a sunporch or carport, and is likely using my lumber.”
Mom looked thoughtful. “Pearl mentioned the Iversons adding a room for her mother-in-law.”
“Murphys are building a shed,” said Joel, “but I can’t imagine one of them stealing. What about Buck and me holing up in the shop Saturday night?”
“Yeah. I’ll d…do it,” said Buck. If he and Joel and Katie were going to own the sawmill some day, might as well take some responsibility.
“Could be any night at all,” said Dad. “Could be anybody at all. Somebody with a truck. All he’d have to do is drive up around two in the morning—no traffic on the road—no one to see him coming in or out. Park it there in the trees, climb the fence, haul the stuff over the top or slide it through the gap. Then load it in the truck and take off. A few at a time. He’s got away with it so far.”
“So who do we know with a truck?” asked Katie.
“Just about everyone in the county!” said Gramps.
“Okay,” Dad said. “Buck and Joel can sit watch at the sawmill on Saturday night. We’ll see what happens.”
Out in the kitchen, Katie and Buck filled the dishwasher.
“Whoever thought owning a sawmill had so many problems,” Katie said.
“You wouldn’t want it?” Buck asked.
“Never!”
“Really? What about the house?”
“This house?”
“Yeah. M…might be yours s…someday, you know.”
Katie paused, a saucer in her hands, and looked around. “Oh, wow, if I owned this house, I’d take out the wall between the kitchen and dining room, and have one big space, and I’d put a skylight in the front hallway and extend the porch all the way around both sides….”
Buck laughed. “S…sorry I asked.”
Katie slid the saucer onto the stack in the cupboard. “Why would it be just my house? Why wouldn’t it belong to all three of us?”
“It w…would, I suppose. Any of us who stayed.”
“Maybe we’d decide to sell it and all of us just go and do what we wanted.”
“Well, that too,” said Buck. “It’s a l…l…long way off.”
Buck: just call me private eye
David: yeah? who u spying on? male or female?
Buck: don’t know yet someone stealing stuff from the sawmill
David: he walk away with a saw or what?
Buck: lumber and plywood mostly. gramps been keeping a record. joel and i are on watch saturday night. 2 bad ur not here
David: yeah. i’d rather b caving though
Buck: me 2
David: i want to discover something i want something named after me
Buck: get a dog and name him david II
David: ha ha i want a cave
Buck: david’s den?
David: how about weinstein caverns?
Buck: or not
David: they’ll probably name a weed after me my allergies are awful since we moved
Buck: so tell your mom pennsylvania’s bad 4 your health
David: its good for hers tho she loves her new job, but not her boss
Buck: u could always join the navy that’s what joel wants 2 do
David: we could both join navy seals underwater caves and stuff
Buck: im 2 short 4 the navy
David: and sharks freak me out
Buck: bummer
On Friday, Buck went looking for all the numbers that Gramps had penciled on the edges of the plywood sheets, the pine boards…everything he kept stored outside under tarps. He found the numbers, faint and shaky—never noticed, perhaps, by a customer, but distinct enough for Buck to catch.
At noon, halfway through the sandwich he had brought, he remembered his appointment with Jacob. He’d already changed it from Thursday to Friday, because he’d been in the woods with Dad and Joel. Jacob was expecting him at one o’clock, and Buck had ridden in with Dad, who let him off with Gramps. He had no bike this time.
His heart thumping, Buck looked Jacob’s number up in the directory. He waited until Gramps had gone to the back of the shop to measure a cut for a baseboard, then picked up the phone and punched in Jacob’s number.
It rang three times, and then Jacob picked it up. “Jacob here.”
Buck tried, but all he got out was a puff of air.
There was a pause. “Jacob Wall,” the voice said. “Whom am I speaking with?”
“B…Buck.” The answer came in a struggle. “I c…c…c…can’t…” He stopped, breathing hard, and tried again. “I c…can’t g…g…get…” It was impossible. The words wouldn’t come.
“Buck? Where are you?”
“The m…m…m…m…mill. I h…have to w…w…w…work….” Buck’s heart was pounding so hard it hurt, and his hand was wet with perspiration.
Jacob’s voice was stern, unforgiving: “We had an agreement, Buck.”
“I know, b…b…but my d…dad…”
“See me tomorrow, Buck. Excuses won’t work.” The phone clicked.
Buck wiped the sweat off the handset and put it back. Maybe it was time to tell Mom and Dad. But even as he thought it, he shook his head. He could already hear the questions:
Why is Jacob offering this, Buck?
I don’t know.
Why isn’t he charging?
I’m not sure.
Is the therapy working?
I can’t tell yet.
What kind is it?
He used it on soldiers and sailors, that’s all I know.
It wouldn’t be enough. They’d keep asking. And asking. They’d listen to him stuttering more and ask if it wasn’t getting worse. And what if it was?
•••
He explained as best he could on Saturday. But all Jacob said was “If you want to feel better about yourself by the time school starts again, then you come here three times a week. You’ll have to make up your third session tomorrow. Will that be a problem?”
“I’ll b…be here,” Buck said. There was something challenging in knowing that he was being treated like a military man; the urge to see if he could take it.
The session that followed was more of the same, but this time Buck found himself facing the big mirror that Jacob had propped against the wall. Jacob asked him to recite something from memory—anything—the Pledge of Allegiance, even—and to watch himself in the mirror.
Already the Ps and the Fs and the Ss loomed up before him. Buck made it through the first P by crashing forward, bulldozing his way in with explosions of spittle, but by the first T, he saw his face transformed, as though it were made of modeling clay. Something, it appeared, was pressing down on his forehead. His teeth were clamped tightly together, his lips stretched into a hard tight line, and he was straining so hard that the sinews on his neck were visible.
“…t…t…t…t…t…to the United St…St…St…States of America, and t…to the r…r…r…r…r…”
It was hideous. He was hideous. It was like he was changing into Wolfman, right there in front of his eyes. Was this the way he looked to other people when he stuttered? What friends saw when he tried to tell a joke or a story? What teachers saw when he recited in class?
As before, Jacob worked with him to relax the forehead, the jaws, the lips, the tongue, and when they went through the jaw flapping exercises together, both making the ploh, ploh sound, Buck looked so ridiculous that he laughed out loud and this time Jacob actually smiled.
But when Buck tried to recite the Pledge a second time, Jacob stopped him on almost every word.
“Stutter!” he commanded. “Slide right into it, easy like, and stutter as long as I hold my finger in the air. Watch yourself in the mirror.”
Buck took a deep breath and faced the mirror again, Jacob’s raised finger very visible off to one side.
“I p…p…p…pledge…”
“I didn’t put my finger down. Stutter and keep stuttering, Buck.”
“I p…p…p…ppppppppppppppppp…”
“Good!”
“Pledge allegiance t…t…tttttttttttttttto the flag of the United St…St…Ssssssssssssss…”
He got used to it after a while. It was only Jacob, after all. If Jacob could sit in that armchair across from him and listen to this all day, what did it matter?
“…and to the Republic ffffffffffffffffffffffor which it stands…”
It was still embarrassing, whether he kept repeating the first sound or simply holding it for a long time, but it did seem as though he wasn’t fighting it quite so much.
Maybe he was doing so well that he could skip Sunday, Buck thought as Jacob said another “Good! Keep it up!”
But when the session was over, Jacob said, “Tomorrow. Whenever you finish your Sunday dinner.”
As Buck headed for the door, he joked, “So when do I g…get the speech about all the famous ppppppppeople who’ve st…st…st…stuttered? Moses and Isaac Newton and K…King George and M…Marilyn M…Monroe?”
Jacob’s eyes too had a twinkle. “You want a speech?”
“Nnnnnot particularly. It’s just that anyone who wwwwwrites about stuttering always tttttells about the f…famous people who stuttered.”
“Well, I don’t think King George or Moses are going to do you any good. When you’re standing in front of the class and your jaws tighten, the fact that King George did it isn’t much help. You’re you. The sooner we can get you to accept that you are not a stutterer, just a guy who happens to stutter—one of the many things you do—when you can concentrate on the rest of you and the things you have to offer, the better your speech will be.”
And Buck had to believe it, because there wasn’t anything else.
•••
Around eleven that night, Dad drove Joel and Buck to the sawmill. The Buick moved slowly around the bends in the road, their wanting to take any truck by surprise that might be parked near the mill. A quarter of a mile away, the two brothers climbed out with sleeping bags to sit on and sandwiches and went the rest of the way on foot.
At the sawmill, the only light came from a bulb just inside the entrance. It illuminated a square patch of concrete beyond the door and window, but the fence and gate were largely in shadow, lit only by an erratic moon that slid in and out of the clouds.
Joel put the key in the lock at the gate, closing it again after them, and went across the clearing to the shop. Once inside, they placed their sleeping bags in the shadows on either side of the entrance, then sat across from each other so they were facing in two directions.
The shop smelled of fresh-cut wood, old oil and new paper, of metal and printer toner.
When the first hour had gone by, Joel said, “This. Is. The. Slowest. Hour. I. Ever. Spent. In. My. Life.”
Buck laughed. “W…which would you r…rather be? T…tired or bored?”
“Tired,” said Joel.
“Cold or b…bored?”
“Cold,” said Joel. “Shoot, I’d rather be almost anything than bored. That’s why I want to join the navy.”
His brother was serious about it, Buck realized. He silently stretched one leg, then the other, and tried to make out Joel’s face in the darkness, but all he got was a faint pale blur.
“Wh…what would you d…do in the navy?”
“Whatever they tell me to do. Eat when they say eat. Sleep when they say sleep. Heck, I’ll bet you even spit when they say spit.”
“Not m…me. I’d hate for s…somebody to always be telling me what to d…do.”
“Well, that’s what you’ve got here, isn’t it? Dad and Gramps always calling the shots? Work in the shop: I’m in the shop. Cut timber: that’s where I’m at. Trees and sawdust. That’s all I see. At least in the navy you learn new things, go new places—see the world. We’ve been looking at the same darn hills since we learned to walk….”
“Shhhh.” Buck suddenly learned forward. “Something’s out b…by the fence.”
Joel crawled over on his hands and knees. “Where?”
“To the l…left of the gate.”
“Don’t see it. How high up?”
Buck gave a disgusted sigh. “Aw, j…just an old fox. What’s she think she’s g…going to find to eat around here?”
Joel leaned back against the wall and put his hands behind his head. “Didn’t you ever want to do something different, Buck? I mean, I’m not knocking it, if you like to hang around home. It’s prett
y here, I’ll grant you that. But me? I just want to get away.”
It was all Buck could do to keep his secret. Yes, he wanted to do something different too. He wanted to see what was down under the earth they’d grown up on. Go somewhere that nobody—not even the United States Navy—had ever been.
“Yeah, I think about it sometimes,” he said. “Have to w…w…wait and see what happens.”
Buck: all night and nobody came
David: figures
Buck: going in the hole again next week there will always b a reason not to go so i won’t wait 4 the perfect time
David: yeah if ur mom finds out tho that’s the end of it. where do u say u’ve been all day?
Buck: remember nat waleski? i hang out with him sometimes i say i’m with him
David: u won’t tell him about the hole will u?
Buck: u crazy?
David: just don’t get urself stuck tho. U don’t have me 2 pull your butt out when u get in those tight squeezes
Buck: i’m careful so what do u do all day when u don’t have me 2 entertain u?
David: i joined a canoeing club
Buck: u?
David: something wrong with that?
Buck: canoe didn’t sink or anything?
The minute Buck thumbed the last response, he wished he hadn’t. Knew he shouldn’t have, when David didn’t answer. The thing about texting was that you couldn’t slap someone on the back or make a funny face or squeak out “just kidding” in a Mickey Mouse voice or anything. He tried, though.
Buck: kidding! kidding!
Finally, an answer from David:
David: actually i’m pretty good at it. i’ll paddle all the way down the shenandoah someday and say hello
Buck started to say, “Yeah, right!” but thought better of it.
Buck: sure wish u could
David: me 2
Buck’s chance in the Hole came sooner than he thought.
It hadn’t rained for at least a week and there was no talk of more timber cutting soon. Logs from the last cut were still piled on the two-ton truck; Gramps and Dad hadn’t had time to run them through the saw yet, since summer was also a season for remodeling, and both Dad and Joel were hired occasionally for carpentry work in town. Gramps told them to keep an eye out for any job using his plywood, but it wasn’t likely that any person stealing from Anderson’s Mill would want Dad or Joel on the job.