Firefly Rain (16 page)

Finally, we came through a thick stand of trees into a little bit of a clearing. Carl took a few steps in, then turned and stopped.

“This is it,” he said. “It’s where I needed to bring you.”

I stopped, too, right on the edge of the opening in the trees. A couple of feet between me and Carl still didn’t seem like a bad thing, though I also figured that if he really wanted to do me harm, there wasn’t much I could do to stop him. So I did the next best thing and looked around.

The clearing was maybe thirty feet across, shaped more or less like a circle. The trees that ringed it were among the tallest and, if I had to guess, the oldest in the Thicket. There was barely space enough between them to pass through.

The floor of the clearing was covered in greenery, most of it ferns and the like. Nothing was more than a foot or so tall, and I didn’t see any saplings growing out there. A gap in the foliage overhead let the sun beat down on it, and despite myself, I was impressed.

“Very nice, Carl,” I said, and I leaned up against the nearest tree. Sweat dripped off my forehead, and my arms had started to ache from lugging the damn shotgun around with me. “So what is this place?”

“It’s where everything else ain’t,” he replied, and he took a
couple of steps back toward the center. “Come on closer. It ain’t gonna bite you none.”

“You sure?” I said, and I looked around, left to right. There was nothing but greenery and Carl, but neither looked particularly threatening at the moment. So I shot a short prayer straight up through the trees, then walked out to join him.

He wasn’t smiling when I reached him, but he wasn’t frowning, neither, which I regarded as a small victory. “I’m here, Carl,” I said to him. “Talk to me.”

“I’ll tell you what I can,” he said, and he scratched the back of his head. “I can talk to you here, I think.”

I think?
Uncertainty from Carl was a new thing to me, and I looked around again to see where it might have grown from. There was nothing strange that met the eye, but I’d been saying that a lot lately.

“What’s so special about this place?” I asked. “I mean, there’s no trees, but there are a lot of places in Carolina these days that don’t have any trees. Of course, this one doesn’t have a mall being built on it, so I guess that makes it different.”

Carl shook his head. “For a minute, I thought I’d gotten through to you, but I see I was mistaken. You spent too much time in that city, boy. Too much time forgetting who you are and where you came from.”

My temper started rising when he said that, and I shoved it back down as best I could. “That’s not fair, Carl. I am who I am. I’m from here just as sure as anything else.”

“No.” He shook his head. “You were born here. But you ain’t from here. You decided not to be a long time ago.”

I could feel my face getting red, and I could see that Carl saw it, too. “Give me a break. I’m not the only kid who left this town to go to college.”

“You’re reading it too simple. You’re right, you ain’t the only one to go. But some of them came back and chose to be here. And some left for good and never looked back. But then there’s you.”

I squinted at him. “And then there’s me what?”

In answer, he reached out and took the shotgun from my hands. “You know how to fire this, boy?” I nodded, flushing with embarrassment. Carl plowed on. “You know how to lock and load it, how to take care of it, how to clean the choke and how to put a snap cap in there?”

“Yes,” I said, irritation growing in my voice. “So what?”

“So how many of your friends in Boston town could do that? Not a one, I’d reckon. Am I right?”

I snorted. “You’re right. So? It’s not exactly a useful skill up there, at least not in the neighborhoods you want to be in.”

He nodded sagely. “I’m sure. But you were proud that you knew it, weren’t you? Proud and just a little bit standoffish, right? ’Cause when push came to shove, you knew those people couldn’t survive ten miles past the city limits, but you could.”

“Maybe,” I said, still guarded. I thought back to the years I’d spent in the city, how I’d always found myself lingering on the outside of any circle of friends I’d found. Great people—all of them, no doubt—but there was always a distance there, a shared experience I couldn’t bring to the friendship.

And when it had all fallen apart, I’d come back here.

“Maybe,” I repeated. “But what does that prove?”

Carl grinned at me, looking like the world’s happiest death’s head. “Let me ask you another question. How many cars like yours are there in this town, you think?”

“Who cares? Other people’s cars are their business.”

He waggled a finger at me. “You ain’t answering the question. How many cars like that you think there are? How many people
are there used to being able to go out shopping in the middle of the night, or find a fancy restaurant, or do any of them big-city things you’re carrying back with you in your custom?”

“It’s different, okay?” I turned away and studied the trees, just so I wouldn’t have to look at him. “It’s a change, but everyone goes through those changes when they move. I’m not planning to stay that long, anyway.”

He cackled. “Now you’re getting near it, Mr. Logan. Now you’re starting to get near it.”

“Get near what? I’m right here.”

“That’s right,” he said calmly, “and that’s the way it’s going to be for a good while.”

I took a step back. “Are you talking about keeping me here against my will, Carl? That’s not exactly what I was paying you for.”

Carl spat on the ground, right between my feet. “Boy, if it were up to me, which it ain’t, I’d say sell the land to someone who wants it and leave now. Hell, I’d help you pack and drive you to the airport if that’s what it took. But it ain’t up to me, and it hasn’t been, not ever. So do both of us a favor, and just shut up for one minute, while I try and tell you a few things that might be useful to you in keeping your mind and your soul in their right proper shapes. That is, if you think they’re worth keeping that way.”

I bit my tongue and counted to ten, then waited a little longer before I trusted myself to respond. “I’d be very grateful for anything you could tell me, Carl,” I said in as pleasant a voice as I could manage. “As for the state of my mind, well, all I can tell you is that what’s going on right now isn’t helping it any.”

Carl looked at me then—really looked at me in a way that said he was seeing me, instead of Mother’s son or some snot-nosed
punk from the big city who’d intruded on his farm. He blinked twice, and suddenly he looked very old and very tired.

“It’s real simple,” he said. “You don’t belong here, not really. But you belong enough to fool some folks who ought to know better, so they’re going to keep trying to fit you in to a life that ain’t yours.”

“By stealing my car?” I asked.

“Stealing ain’t the right word for it, no. But that’s a little bit of what’s going on, just the smallest part. The fit ain’t right. And you know what happens when a man’s got a part that don’t quite fit into the slot it’s supposed to, right?”

I frowned. “You get a different part?”

He gave me a sad little smile. “A sensible man does that, maybe. A clever man tries to shave off a few bits so it’ll fit easier. And a stubborn man gets a hammer.”

Thinking about that for a second or two gave me all sorts of unpleasant images. I looked up to meet Carl’s eyes, and he was nodding. “Now you’re starting to get it. You think on that, all right, boy? You think on that for a few days, and maybe we’ll have something else to talk about.”

“All right. But I still don’t know where you fit into all of this.”

He grinned. “I’m the caretaker, remember? Now go home. Groceries are on the front porch. You’ll want to bring them in before they spoil.” He squinted up at the sun. “It might have been cold yesterday, but the heat’s back today, you know.”

“Wait a minute.” There was an edge of panic in my voice that I hadn’t put there. “How do I get back to the house?”

Carl grinned a purely evil grin and tossed the shotgun to me. I caught it, barely. “It’s your land,” he said. “You should know it.”

With that, he turned and walked off into the deeper wood. He looked like he knew where he was going.

Me, I waited until Carl was gone, then took a look at where the sun was hanging in the sky and made my best guess at a direction that would lead me back to the house. That worked fine, in that in short order I hit the fence that served to mark the back property line, and I followed that around the long way until I got my bearings again. It didn’t take me more than another hour or so, give or take another half hour I didn’t really want to spend. I spent the time wiping sweat off my forehead, wishing the damn shotgun had been lighter, and thinking about what Carl had said. As pleasant as he’d been—for Carl, anyway—I wasn’t convinced. If there was anyone in Maryfield who had an interest in messing with my head, it was him, and he’d had plenty of time to rig whatever the hell he wanted to in the house. He’d had ten years of access, he had the closest thing going to a motive, and I had no doubt he could put together any sort of door-swinging, window-jamming doodad he wanted to.

On the other hand, he’d just had his second chance to get me out of the picture permanently, and he hadn’t taken it, not even when he could have rightly called it self-defense. Besides, the shape I’d seen in my car couldn’t have been Carl, not unless he squeezed three of himself into the driver’s seat.

But if it wasn’t Carl, who was it? I had no answers, and all of a sudden concentrating on how damn heavy the shotgun was seemed like a real good idea.

The groceries were right where Carl had said they would be. And this time, he’d brought beer.

The phone rang twice while I was putting the groceries away. I ignored it both times, figuring that if it was important they’d call back, and if it wasn’t I didn’t want to talk to them anyway. Carl had given me a lot to think about, and very little of it was good.

It rang again—with more urgency than you’d give an old push-button credit for—as I was closing the door. I considered just letting it ring, then decided that persistence ought to be rewarded.

“Hello?” I said as I picked up.

“Jesus, Logan, about damn time.” Jenna’s voice washed down the line with the force of a spring flood. “Where the hell have you been?”

“Out back,” I said in my best exaggerated drawl, though I
realized as I did it that it didn’t take that much exaggeration. “Damn, it’s good to hear your voice. How are you?”

“Frustrated,” she answered, “because the man who calls me up telling me how much trouble he’s in can’t be reached due to his sudden need to take nature hikes. Other than that, pissed off at American Airlines, irritated with Hertz, and not entirely thrilled with the MBTA. How are you?”

I almost laughed, but I managed to hold it in. “It’s been eventful lately,” I told her. “Let’s just say that I’ve been out in the rain more than I should have.”

“Sounds ominous,” she replied. “Care to tell me about it?”

I pulled up a chair and sat myself down, near where the empty shotgun leaned against the wall. “Not particularly, but I have a feeling you’ll beat the answer out of me anyway.”

That got me a laugh, at least. “Good boy. You’re learning. But the good news is, you don’t get your beating right now.”

“I don’t?”

Her voice was full of satisfaction. “Yup. Because I’m coming down to see you, like you asked. I’ll be coming in to RDU on Friday and staying a week. If these directions are right, I’ll be hitting your place around seven thirty, and I fully expect there to be a jug of moonshine on the table and a barbeque going in the backyard. Banjo music is optional.”

“It’s not all like that, you know…,” I started, but she shushed me.

“Of course I know that. But you get so puffed up whenever anybody says anything like that to you that it’s absolutely adorable. I’ll bet you’re bright red right now.”

“Pale pink,” I replied, “and that’s because of the sun.”

“Whatever you say, dear. Just make sure that you’re ready for me come Friday. Is there anything you want from Boston? I can
pack up some Buzzy’s roast beef sandwiches if you want—it’s not like they can go bad on the trip.”

I opened my mouth to tell her that I didn’t want anything when it hit me that I meant it—I didn’t want anything, and I wasn’t even sure I wanted her to come down anymore. There was silence on the line for a moment while I tried to figure out how to say it.

“Look, Jenna, I’m very pleased to hear you’re coming down,” I finally stammered. “But I know you’re busy, and really, this is a long way for you to come. If it’s a hassle for you, it’s all right. We can make it another time, if that’s easier for you. Better, even.”

Now the silence started on her end, and when she finally started talking, her voice was clipped and a touch nasty. “Are you saying you don’t want me to come down?”

“Well,” I started, and then I paused. “I just know it’s a big hassle.”

“No. A big hassle would be trying to get the money back for the tickets and canceling the rental car and trying to get my vacation time back from our HR department. Coming down to see you when you’re in trouble is not a hassle. What the hell is going on, Logan? Last time we talked you sounded like you were caught in a cross between
Deliverance
and
The Amityville Horror
. Now you’re dropping hints about strange North Carolina rain dances and acting like there’s nothing going on. Next thing you’re going to tell me you got that bruise when you fell down the stairs, and that it’s all right, Daddy really does love you but he just gets mad sometimes.”