I hauled it out, set it on top of the freezer, took a deep breath, and then dug my fingers in. As I raised out clumps of dirt, dozens of worms squirmed out between my fingers, slipping back into the bin.
“Okay,” I said. “We got worms. We got more than enough worms.” There was a roll of paper towels hanging from the wall, and I tore off three or four to wipe the dirt from my hands just as Hank Wrigley rapped on the door, wanting a dozen of the little wigglies for his bait can. I counted them out, then wiped my hands off a second time. “Just put it on my tab,” he said. I wished him good luck, then went around to the garage and planted myself into the seat of the lawn tractor.
There was a floor-mounted gearshift in front of me, a throttle lever on a panel under the steering wheel, and a single, tiny key inserted in the ignition. I guess Dad wasn’t too worried about tractor thefts up in these here parts.
I turned the key and the tractor roared to life. It was fitted with a variety of switches and levers for lowering the housing that enclosed the lawn-cutting blades, but before dropping it down, I wanted to drive over to where I was going to be doing the cutting. The area where the camp first came into view when you rounded the last bend as you came in from the highway was looking pretty shaggy, I’d noticed.
I grasped the throttle lever and shoved it ahead.
It had never occurred to me that a lawn tractor might benefit from a headrest. It was not the sort of vehicle that one would expect capable of inflicting whiplash.
The tractor shot ahead like a launched pinball. My body flung backward as my left hand lost grip of the wheel. The tractor became an unguided missile, coming out of the garage like the Batmobile emerging from its secret underground exit. It took a moment for me to struggle against the g-forces and lean forward enough to resume my hold of the wheel.
Dad was watching from the window as I shot past, my face no doubt frozen in terror. I had, for reasons I find totally reasonable, expected a lawn tractor to behave like a lawn tractor, and not a Ferrari.
I shoved the throttle back down, stomped on the brake pedal. Once the tractor was no longer moving, I turned the key to shut down the motor.
Dad approached on crutches.
“I can see why you didn’t want any advice,” he said. “Looks like you were born to drive one of these babies.”
I was still catching my breath. Finally, I said, “When did they start installing turbochargers in these fucking things?”
“It’s a bit modified,” Dad said casually. “I did most of the modifications myself.” He beamed with pride. “They do lawn tractor racing up here. At the fall fair. And it still cuts the grass pretty good besides.”
I swung my right leg over the wheel, and got off. “I think I’ll do the fish bucket instead,” I said.
“If my ankle doesn’t heal up before the fair,” Dad said, “maybe you’d like to race it for me. I wouldn’t be able to put much pressure on the brake.”
“Why not just install a parachute on the back?” I said, heading for the lake and not looking back.
This was terrific. Not only was I doing the camp chores and assisting my father in finding a way to save him from his whacko tenants, but I was now expected to sub for him in a race in which all the entrants employed John Deere emblems as protective headgear.
The garbage pail under the fish-cleaning table hadn’t been emptied since I’d seen it the day before, and it was as disgusting a bucket of anything as I could ever recall witnessing. Fins and scales and guts and heads and eyeballs, all swimming in an ooze that gave off a stench that made me want to lose the fried egg sandwich Lana had been good enough to make for me earlier that day.
I grabbed the gut-splattered handle gingerly and carried the pail as far from my body as possible, not eager for it to brush up against my pants. On my way back from the lake I saw a police car parked near the tractor, and Chief Orville Thorne engaged in conversation with Dad, who’d propped his crutches up against the tractor hood and dragged himself into the seat.
“Chief,” I said.
Thorne touched the brim of his hat, like he intended to tip it but ran out of gas. He glanced at the bucket. “Whatcha got there?”
“I heard you were coming so I made lunch,” I said.
“Orville here says he’s got a couple people rounded up to hunt down that bear and kill it,” Dad said.
“That so,” I said. I pictured Orville and others with skills equal to his roaming the woods, armed to the teeth. Put the ambulance on standby now, I thought.
“Your dad says you might be questioning whether that’s really necessary,” Orville said, a hint of a smirk on his lips. I wanted to take his hat and subject the top of his head to a noogie attack. “And I heard you had a few words with Dr. Heath. He’s not very happy with you.”
“Look, he’s a nice man,” I said, “but I don’t think he conducted a very thorough autopsy on Morton Dewart. Betty Wrigley doesn’t think it was a bear killed him. But it might have been dogs.”
Orville rolled his eyes. “And what’s she, a nurse or something?’
“Yes,” I said.
That caught him off guard, so he adjusted his hat while he figured out what to say next. “Well, if I listen to you, and do nothing, and it turns out you’re wrong, and that bear kills again, then I’m gonna end up with egg on my face.”
“Do what you want,” I said. “Just let me know when you and your friends are combing these woods so I can run into town and get fitted for a Kevlar vest.”
“Zachary,” Dad said, “would you stop being an ass? Orville’s just doing his job.”
“I’ve got work to do,” I said, lifting up the bucket of fish guts.
Dad pointed into the woods beyond the fifth cabin. “Back in there. You’ll see a mound of dirt, a shovel, and a board. An old cottage shutter. Make sure you cover it up with lots of dirt. That’s really important.” He paused, and smiled. “Okay, chum?” He started laughing. He turned to Orville. “You get it? Chum?”
“No,” said Orville.
The scene was just as Dad described it. I set the pail down and hooked my fingers under the shutter that lay on the ground. It revealed a round hole, about two feet across and two feet deep. I’d expected to see maggots feasting on guts, but there was nothing visible in the hole but dirt. I dumped in the bucket’s contents, which slid out with a gag-inducing sloosh. Then I grabbed the shovel, buried the guts with an inch of dirt, and slid the shutter back over the hole.
Orville was nowhere in sight but Dad was still perched on the tractor seat as I did my return route with the empty bucket. “You got it, right?” he asked. “Chum?”
I was thinking, he better get well soon, before I kill him.
11
IT WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN a long walk up to the Wickens place, but with Dad on crutches, it wasn’t hard to talk him into letting me drive us up there. I got him into the passenger seat of my Virtue, the hybrid car I’d bought at an auction some months ago, and even though we weren’t traveling more than a couple of hundred yards on a gravel driveway, and wouldn’t even get anywhere near the main road, Dad buckled his seatbelt.
“Are you kidding me?” I said.
“It doesn’t seem to offer the same kind of protection as my truck,” he said.
“Your tractor can outrun a Porsche and it doesn’t have a seatbelt.”
When we got to the gate of warning signs, I got out and waved at the Wickens house, figuring someone would probably be watching for us. One of the Wickens boys came running down and unlocked the gate, blond-haired, shorter than the one I’d seen when I’d walked up here with Orville and Bob.
“Wendell,” Dad said. “The less stupid one.”
As we pulled in, Dad cast a disapproving eye at the abandoned appliances, bits of furniture, bits and pieces of junk. “If I ever get them out of this house, there’s going to be one hell of a cleanup to do.” I glanced over to make sure his window was up, not eager for any of the Wickenses to hear that kind of talk.
Timmy strode out onto the porch, took the two steps down, and opened the car door for Dad, even reaching into the backseat to grab his crutches. Dad handed him a six-pack of Bud we’d brought along as a gift.
“That was a nasty fall you must of took,” Wickens said, handing Dad his crutches.
“Yeah, it was pretty stupid,” Dad said. I came around, took Wickens’s hand when he extended it. He introduced me to the boy—not a boy really, but a young man in his twenties—who’d opened the gate for us. He was broad shouldered, with blunt, angular facial features. “This is Wendell. His brother, Dougie, is around here somewhere.”
I shook Wendell’s hand, which, while huge, was strangely limp and doughy in mine, like he couldn’t be bothered to squeeze. “Hi,” I said. Wendell only nodded.
Timmy led us inside. I was looking around nervously beyond the open door, and Timmy sensed something was troubling me. “What’s the problem?”
“Well,” I said, “I’m just a little worried about the dogs.”
“Gristle and Bone?” Timmy grinned. “They’re just playful, is all. They’re in the kitchen. They spend most of their time in there, waiting for scraps when they’re not snoozing.”
I laughed nervously. “They, uh, gave me a bit of a scare yesterday.”
“Tell ya what,” Timmy said. “I want you to be able to relax, so I’ll have the dogs put out in the barn.”
“I’d be most grateful,” I said.
“Wendell,” Timmy said, “take the pups out, okay?”
“Sure thing, Timmy,” he said, and disappeared toward the back of the house.
A heavyset woman, about Timmy’s age I guessed, appeared. She was dressed in a dark T-shirt and stretch slacks, her graying hair pulled back with pins. Her neck was jowly, her nose red and splotchy. “I’m Timmy’s wife, Charlene,” she said, motioning for us to take a seat in the living room, which was littered with mismatched chairs, plaid couches, coffee and end tables buried in car and sporting and gun magazines.
Dad settled into a chair and I was about to take a spot on the couch when I was distracted by something.
Hanging above the fireplace mantel, slipped into a cheap black frame, was a military dress photograph of Timothy McVeigh. The Oklahoma City bomber. The man convicted, and ultimately put to death, for murdering 168 people when his rental truck, loaded with explosives, destroyed one side of a federal government building on April 19, 1995. I instantly recalled that less formal shot of McVeigh, in his orange prison jumpsuit, being paraded before the press on his way to a police van while an angry mob screamed out what they wanted to do with him.
The very idea that someone would frame that man’s picture and put it on a wall left me numb.
For a moment, I didn’t realize Timmy was attempting to make another introduction. “I want you to meet May,” Timmy said, and I turned around to see, standing shyly next to him, the young woman who’d fallen, weeping, into his arms the day before. If it weren’t for her tired and vacant look, she would have been a lovely woman. Her dirty blonde hair half hung over her eyes, which probably suited her at that moment, since she didn’t seem to want to look me or Dad in the eye. She tried to force a smile as she was introduced.
“I’m very sorry,” I said. “I understand you and Mr. Dewart were close. He was your boyfriend?”
Her smile cracked. “We were friends,” she said.
“Awful, awful thing,” said Charlene, and Timmy nodded along with her. “Just awful. Terrible for his family.”
“Daddy says he was looking for a bear,” May said, without, it seemed, much conviction. “It just, it just doesn’t seem possible.”
Timmy Wickens slid an arm around his daughter’s shoulder. “Honey, why don’t you go help Mom with dinner.”
She turned obediently and sleepwalked her way to the kitchen, Charlene following her.
“She’s very upset,” Timmy said, once the women were out of earshot.
“I can imagine,” said Dad.
I was about to sit down on the couch for a second time when another man, the one Timmy had referred to as Dougie the day before, strode into the room with a young boy.
“Well, now you can meet everyone,” Timmy said. “Charlene’s son Dougie, and May is my daughter, and this here is my grandson Jeffrey, May’s boy.”
Dougie nodded and continued on to the kitchen, but Jeffrey approached with his arm extended. He was holding, in his left hand, a TIE fighter, a model spaceship with two hexagonal wings connected to a round pod, from the Star Wars movies.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said, shaking my hand and then Dad’s.
He was a handsome young boy, shiny blond hair swept to one side, a look of innocence in his eyes.
“Hello,” I said. “Nice TIE fighter. You got an Imperial soldier inside the cockpit there?”
Jeffrey brightened. Imagine an adult knowing such a thing. “Wow. No, I haven’t got one of those yet. You like Star Wars?”
“I love Star Wars,” I said. “I love all sorts of science fiction. I’ve even written a few science fiction books.”
“No kidding? Were they made into movies?”
“No,” I said.
“But they were optioned, at least, weren’t they, son?” Dad asked.
“No, Dad, none of them were optioned.” To Jeffrey, I said, “My whole office at home is filled with sci-fi toys. Star Trek, Lost in Space, all kinds of stuff. I’ve never really grown up.”
Jeffrey giggled at that. “I haven’t seen you around very much,” he said. He nodded toward my dad. “I’ve seen Mr. Walker down by the cabins, but not you. Are you renting a cabin?”
“I’m borrowing one. I’m Zack Walker. That’s my dad.”
Jeffrey nodded, then frowned. “I guess you heard about Morton.”
“Yes,” I said. “We have.”
“He was looking for a bear and it killed him. That’s what happened.” He said it with conviction.
“How old are you, Jeffrey?” I asked.
“I’m ten,” he said. “I don’t go to school. I learn right here at home. My mom teaches me, and Grandpa helps prepare lessons for me.”
“Isn’t that great,” I said.
Jeffrey said he had to go and ran off after Dougie. Timmy smiled proudly as I sat down on the couch. “He’s a great kid.”
“Who’s that?” Dad said, pointing to the McVeigh portrait. Jesus, Dad, don’t go there, I thought.
Timmy smiled reverently. “That’s Timothy McVeigh, a famous fighter for freedom. You must have heard of him.”
Dad, who’s never been quite as plugged into the news as I, might not have recognized the picture, but he had no trouble with the name. “Christ, he’s the one blew up that building, isn’t he?”
Timmy shook his head sadly. “That’s what they’d have you believe, but there are a lot of interesting questions about that day. Did you know that?”
We shook our heads.
“Well, one big question is, why did some federal employees who did FBI work not come to the Alfred P. Murrah Building that day? Huh? Did you know that a lot of them didn’t report for work? Pretended to be sick? Do you know why? It’s because they knew something was going to happen, that’s why.”
I leaned forward on the couch. This was not something I’d heard before. “What are you getting at, Timmy?”
“What I’m saying is, they had to have been tipped off by the military. You see, the amount of damage done to the building could never have been accomplished with the kind of bomb they say Mr. McVeigh had in that cube van. Absolutely impossible. Had to be something much bigger, something that detonated either instead of, or in addition to, that rental truck.”
“I’m a bit confused,” I said. “You’re saying the military, the U.S. government, knew the bombing was going to happen, and got some of its people out of there, but let the rest die?”
“They didn’t just know about the bombing,” he said, and paused. “They’re the ones that did it.”
I was speechles
s for a few seconds. “The government bombed its own people?”
“It’s incredible, isn’t it?” Wickens said, as if sharing in my astonishment. “There are a lot of parallels between that event and what happened at the Twin Towers. You know how they pancaked down, one floor collapsing on top of another?”
The unforgettable images flashed in my mind. “Yeah,” I said.
“That was because there were already bombs in the buildings. That’s how they came down so perfectly, like when those demolition experts go in and drop a building, you know.”
I paused. “You noticed those two planes, right?”
Timmy smiled and waved his hand at me. “Anyway, with the Oklahoma City thing, it just shows you what lengths the government will go to.”
“To do what?” I asked. “What lengths?”
“To discredit honest, hardworking people, patriots, people like Timothy McVeigh, people like us and yourselves. You know,” he said, smiling, “I’ve always found it a curious coincidence that he and I share the same first name.”
“I’m still not sure I follow,” I said. “How did this discredit people like McVeigh, and you?”
Timmy Wickens nodded patiently, as though he’d had to explain this to others many times, and was willing to go through it as often as was necessary to get his message out there. “The government, when it becomes too powerful and strives to interfere too much in people’s lives, by tracking their movements, their financial transactions, by taking away their ability to defend themselves by bearing arms, will go to drastic measures to turn the public against those people who are fighting back to reclaim their constitutional rights and stop this country from slipping into moral bankruptcy and the watering down of the races.” He was jabbing a finger in the air at me to make his point. “What are we to make of a world that lets colored people run rampant and turn our cities into jungles, that lets faggots get their own TV shows and lets them live together without no shame at all? Did you know, right here in Braynor, the faggots want to put a float into the parade? And that the town, our white mayor, who is married to a colored, is probably going to let them? Can you imagine such a thing? They’ll probably build a huge purse and ride in it.” He chuckled at his own joke.