Boy Who Shoots Crows (9781101552797) Read online

  “Mike, hi, it’s me, I’m here now.”

  “Didn’t mean to bring you running into the house. You sound all out of breath.”

  “No, it’s okay, I was . . . just doing some cleaning down in the basement. What’s, uh . . . what’s going on?”

  “I just wanted to let you know that a bunch of us are going to be heading into those woods out there in the morning. Didn’t want you to get a scare when you looked out and seen cars all up and down the road. Sheriff’s getting a search organized. Bringing in a couple of state boys and sniffer dogs.”

  Charlotte blinked at the wall. Felt the sunny room go dark. “He didn’t say anything about that this morning,” she said. “He said he’d been through there last night.”

  “Sheriff out to see you already, was he?”

  “About seven this morning.”

  “Nothing like a visit from the law to get your blood moving in the morning, is there?”

  “He said he thinks Jesse is with his father somewhere.”

  “Yeah, well, he finally tracked down Denny sleeping in his truck at a rest stop up at Benvenue. No sign of the boy. Plus, apparently the sheriff followed up on Denny’s story about where he’s been and who he’s been with all this time, and I guess it checked out. Not that the sheriff could be persuaded to share any of the juicier details with me.”

  “So now he thinks that Jesse’s still in the woods?”

  “Naw, I don’t think so. I think he just doesn’t know what else to do. Besides, there’s maybe a sinkhole, a burrow of some kind, even a hollowed-out old tree. It’s hard to say all the places a little boy might’ve gotten into.”

  Charlotte tried to swallow but could not. Instead she cleared her throat. Then asked, “Would it be okay if I came along? On the search, I mean.”

  “Absolutely. Around first light you’ll see the vehicles start lining up along the lane. Just come on over and join us.”

  “I will,” she said.

  “I’m just hoping we don’t get drenched. Weatherman says there’s a front coming through tonight. We might be in for a spring boomer.”

  Charlotte nodded but her mind was elsewhere. “Mike,” she said. “I told the sheriff about Dylan being out here on the tractor yesterday. I told him how Dylan got off and went into the woods for a while. I wasn’t saying he did anything because I’m sure he didn’t. He wouldn’t. But I just . . . I mean the sheriff asked, and I told him.”

  “Well that’s what you’re supposed to do when the sheriff asks you something, isn’t it?”

  “I suppose so. I just hope I . . . I mean I know Dylan couldn’t possibly be involved in any way.”

  “I told Mark the same thing. He’ll want to hear it from Dylan himself, though.”

  “He hasn’t talked to him yet?”

  “Naw, his class is off on a field trip all day. Far as I know, they’re not home yet. They went to one of those wraparound movies about penguins or something. Then there’s a museum or two and I think dinner at some place with belly dancers. I tell you what, if I’d had that kind of education when I was his age, I’d still be in school.”

  “So you’re not at all worried then? About Dylan being involved somehow?”

  “Not in the least. I mean, the boy’s got some issues, no doubt about it. But hell—you know anybody who doesn’t have issues?”

  “No,” she said. “Not a soul.”

  “Dylan will be okay, don’t you worry. Meantime, I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”

  “Mike, wait. I, uh . . . I was wondering if you would mind if I store some bags of garden compost in one of the barn stalls.”

  “Why would I mind? But put them upstairs where it’s dry. Those stalls are pretty much open to the weather.”

  “But that’s your storage space upstairs,” she told him.

  “How much room are a few bags going to take up? Besides, why go to all the trouble of having to haul the bags all the way around the barn to the pasture side? Set them inside the front entrance. In fact, now that I think about it, that shed of yours is only, what, twenty feet from your garden?”

  “Yes but . . . I think I saw a snake under the shed last summer.”

  “What kind of snake was it?”

  “I don’t know, it was . . . pretty big, I think.”

  “What color was it?”

  “Black?”

  “Probably just a king snake. They’re good to have around. They’ll keep the rodents away.”

  “Yes, well, that’s fine, I guess. I mean, in that case, he’s welcome to stay. But I still don’t want to go near the shed if I don’t have to, not if there’s a family of snakes living under it. So I’d really like to put the compost in the barn if you won’t mind.”

  “Then put it upstairs where the bags’ll be easier to get at. You can’t have all that many bags.”

  “I bought a dozen.”

  “That’s nothing. You got them in the back of your Jeep, right? So just drive on up to the barn door and stack them inside.”

  “But I’m afraid they’ll get in your way when you come for a load of hay next time.”

  “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “Just leave the bags in your Jeep. After the search tomorrow, I’ll run them up to the barn and unload them for you. What else are you using?”

  “What else?” she said.

  “What all are you planning to put in this year? Same as last year? You had, what—pole beans, squash, cucumbers, green onions . . .”

  “I did peppers and tomato plants too.”

  “You have any interest in doing cantaloupe? Because I’ve got plenty of extra seeds. Not to mention sweet corn. I plant both the Bodacious and the Kandy Korn.”

  “I don’t know, I’ll . . . I’ll have to think about it.”

  “How’d your tomatoes do last year?”

  “The cherry ones did fine. But the Better Boys didn’t produce at all.”

  “You could probably use some 21-7-7.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He chuckled. “It’s a fertilizer mix. I’ll bring some of it along for you.”

  “You don’t need to do all this, Mike. In fact, I wish you wouldn’t.”

  “Don’t worry about it. We’ll have you growing blue-ribbon tomatoes in no time. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

  “Mike, wait.”

  He waited.

  Charlotte forced a little laugh. “I already stored the compost in one of the stalls.”

  “Now, what did you go and do that for? It’s bound to get wet down there.”

  “It will get wet when I put it on the garden too, won’t it?”

  “Yes, but first you’ll have to carry those wet bags out through the pasture. A forty-pound bag of wet compost will feel more like sixty pounds.”

  “Well . . . I can use the exercise.”

  “I’ll come out and move them for you,” he said.

  “Mike, stop it, please.”

  Even to her own ears, her voice sounded tight, too shrill. She wondered how it must sound to Mike Verner.

  “I didn’t mean to make you mad,” he said.

  “I’m not mad. I just . . . I was just so proud of myself after I carried all those bags into the barn,” she told him. “I felt like I had really accomplished something, you know? And now you want to come out and undo that for me and prove that I’m really just a foolish city lady after all.”

  “Now, did I say that?”

  “Not in so many words.”

  A few moments passed. Then he said, “You know . . . come to think of it . . . putting those bags in a stall might be a better idea than mine.”

  “And why is that?”

  “Well . . . it just is. Stop asking so many questions.”

  She laughed again. “You’re a good man, Mike.”

  “I wish somebody would tell my wife that.”

  “I will if I ever meet her.”

  “On second thought . . . no sense stirring up trouble, is there?”

  She said nothing to
that, only smiled to herself, felt her weariness returning, felt the morning looming out there on the other side of the horizon.

  “By the way,” Mike finally said. “What did you think of our Sheriff Gatesman?”

  “He seems like a nice enough man, I guess.”

  “The question is, nice enough for what?”

  “Oh, Mike.”

  “He’s single, you know.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “Been a widower for going on, what, a dozen years now.”

  “He never mentioned it.”

  “He wouldn’t. They’d only been married about a year and a half when it happened. She rolled her car over an embankment out on Route 74.”

  “I heard about it from Cindy at the post office a while back. What an awful thing to happen.”

  “I guess so. Patrice and little Chelsea, both.”

  “How old was the child?”

  “Four months. And she was the light of his life, you know? Both of them were.”

  “Jesus, Mike.”

  “Here’s what makes it even worse. It was just a week or so before Christmas, and they’d been to the mall in Carlisle so that Chelsea could get her picture taken with Santa Claus. Cindy tell you all this?”

  “No, just that there had been a car accident.”

  “Well, Mark was supposed to go with them to the mall—a family day, you know? But then there was this altercation up at Little Buffalo State Park, reported to be a shoot-out of some kind, but it turned out to just be a bunch of drunken kids shooting off firecrackers. But by then, Mark had sent Patrice and Chelsea off on their own. When they didn’t come home and she wasn’t answering her cell phone, he went out looking for them.”

  “He’s the one who found them? Oh God.”

  “So be nice to him, okay? Be very nice, if you know what I mean.”

  “I know exactly what you mean. But, Mike, honestly . . .”

  “He’s a nice, lonely man. That’s all I’m saying here.”

  “God, Mike, please. Don’t do this to me.”

  “I happen to know that he thinks you’re sort of special.”

  “You know no such thing.”

  “Charlotte, listen to me. I am the source of all knowledge. The sooner you accept that fact, the sooner you can start convincing my wife.”

  She laughed a high, strange, whimpering kind of laugh. “I really wish you hadn’t told me about his family.”

  “Part of my job as the town gossip,” he told her. “And one other thing.”

  “No more, Mike.”

  “Just this. I’ve got sixty Angus pooping machines over here putting out a fresh supply of manure every single day. That’s what compost is, you know. So don’t go wasting your money on store-bought again, okay? They sterilize that stuff and kill off all of the helpful bacteria. My manure, on the other hand, is crawling with it.”

  “I’m not one to impose on my neighbors.”

  “Hey,” he said, “if neighbors can’t give one another a little shit now and then, what kind of neighbors are they?”

  Again, Charlotte smiled. His kindness made her want to cry. “Okay.”

  “We help one another out around here. You need something, you pick up the phone.”

  “I will.”

  “You can count on me to fulfill all of your seed, heavy lifting, and cow poop needs. All of your other needs, Mark Gatesman is the man you’ll want to call.”

  “God. You just don’t quit, do you?”

  “That’s a good opening for something dirty. But I’ll save it until we know each other a little better, okay?”

  She nodded but did not answer. The call had exhausted her in so many ways. She felt an urge to let her body slide down the wall, to find its natural resting posture as a heap crumpled into the corner.

  “In the morning,” he told her.

  “In the morning,” she said weakly, and hung up the phone.

  12

  THUNDER rumbled in the early evening, high and distant in the darkness. Charlotte sat alone in the living room with the television on, but she was unable to concentrate on the Lifetime movie, something about a young girl trying to locate the half brother she had never known. Charlotte had fixed a plate with a few crackers and slices of fontina and a half dozen Greek olives, but the plate went untouched, though the bottle of white merlot did not. Because the movie’s dialogue struck her as more distracting than engaging, she finally muted the sound and put on a Michael Bublé CD instead. The music, however, struck her as inconsistent with the rumbling night, so she searched through her CDs until she found the Berlin Philharmonic’s recording of Mozart’s Requiem. Then she went through the house and turned out all of the lights. By the time she settled onto the La-Z-Boy with her feet up and a light fleece blanket laid over her and the last of the merlot in her glass, the first movement was well under way, and a forceful rain was blowing hard and tapping like a thousand fingernails against the living room windows.

  She dreamed that she was sitting in a lawn chair in her backyard in the early hours of morning. She was very old and her feet were bare and cold in the wet grass. There was just enough chill in the air to make her think it must be September already, or maybe October, and she was glad to have a mug of hot tea cupped in her hands, its subtle fragrance of oranges warm on her face and the cup warming her palms and fingers. She could still hear the rain, but it was falling against her house, gurgling down the drain pipes, but not touching her, some ten yards away. The night was very dark, the sky overcast. She could make out five stars in the Big Dipper plus the hazy reddish glow that was either Mars or a communications satellite. She was aware of being very old in her dream and very tired, yet she did not wish to go inside the house where she could be warm and dry and alone. She wanted to remain outside awhile longer, looking at the stars and asking them, Who’s up there? and waiting to see if one of them winked at her in any fashion that could be interpreted as a response. She found that if she stared at the stars long enough, their fuzzy edges would elongate somewhat, stretch out a bit like hazy wings, and it seemed then that she might be staring at the negative image of a daytime sky, the sky black instead of sunlit, and the birds, instead of black, were full of light.

  After a while she became aware of somebody walking toward her from the direction of the pond. She could not see him at first but only felt him coming. The figure of a man was perhaps twenty-five yards away when he finally began to take form in the darkness, but he came to a stop, still sufficiently distant, at least fifteen feet away, so that the features of his face were not distinguishable and he remained little more than a silhouette imposed upon a lighter darkness. Even so, she could feel his eyes on her, and she felt emanating from him a not unkind emotion, something neither particularly warm nor cold but interested and curious. She was not afraid of him, but neither was she comfortable with his presence. She felt that he was looking at her much as she had been regarding the stars. When he finally turned and walked away from her and disappeared completely in the darkness again—not just concealed by the darkness, but more like a man who, walking into a deep pool of water, gradually returns to water himself, actually becomes the water—she was overcome with a terrible sorrow, a sense of loss that rose up out of the darkness to surround and engulf her, a sorrow so intense and suffocating that she awoke herself with the breathless violence of her sobs.

  13

  ALL night long the wind whistled and pulled at the house. The windows rattled sometimes and the house seemed to be straining to hold on to its foundations, and Charlotte had the peculiar feeling that the darkness itself was doing the blowing, that it was trying to pull her up by the roots and hurl her away.

  After waking from the dream of the man made of shadow, after sobbing for a long while until she convinced herself that it had only been a dream, she had dragged herself up the stairs and crawled into bed, but she could not sleep well for thinking about the morning. At times she felt feverish and at other times she shivered, and the few times
she dozed off through the next five hours, she always awoke with a start.

  The dawn came gray and dirty as she lay listening to the rain gurgle down through the gutter and drain pipe. She was not aware of when the gurgling stopped, but when she heard distant voices, she knew that the search party was beginning to gather. She climbed out of bed and went to the window. The four vehicles parked along Metcalf Road near the edge of the woods were indistinguishable in the mist except as two sedans and two pickup trucks, and near the tailgate of the last truck, two orange embers glowed dully in the mist, moving as the men moved the cigarettes to their mouths and away again.

  She stood there for several minutes, still feeling the sadness of her dream and the awful hollow heaviness it had invoked in her. There was also the very strange feeling that things were happening peripherally or behind or above her that she could not discern, that her head could not turn fast enough or her eyes could not be quick enough to catch the activity. It was a feeling she had experienced only once before, in the city with June, who had insisted that they visit the Guggenheim for the King Tut exhibit, so Charlotte, who had wanted only to suffer her head cold alone in bed in an unlit room, took four antihistamines and a Valium on an empty stomach and joined her friend.

  Consequently, every artifact in the exhibit appeared menacing and evil to Charlotte and seemed to permeate sinister intentions. The same was true for all of the other visitors and especially for the security guards. The old lady docents who stood by smiling or prattling on helpfully were frauds of the highest order. Charlotte had felt that the moment she walked past any of these individuals they immediately dropped their facade and whispered conspiratorially about her.