The Caretaker of Lorne Field (16 page)

Durkin saw cold violent murder in her eyes and nodded accordingly.

“You are going to do exactly what that lawyer told you to do. And you’re not going to say another word to anyone about a weed biting off Lester’s thumb. If you do, so help me God.”

She stood up awkwardly, tottering for a few seconds on her feet before getting her balance. Durkin felt sick inside seeing how she held her injured hand and how swollen it had gotten.

“You need to have a doctor look at that,” he said.

“Only thing you should be worrying about now is how you’re going to explain to Daniel Wolcott why you didn’t have Lester’s thumb with you when you brought him home.”

He sat and watched her leave the kitchen, then listened to the sound of her heels clacking across the living room’s hardwood floor and later on the stairs leading to the second floor. When the sounds faded, he found the broom and dust-pan and swept up the broken glass. After that he washed and dried the dishes.

The more he thought about it the more that lawyer’s plans sounded like pie-in-the-sky dreaming to him, but if Lydia wanted to believe it then he’d let her. He didn’t see any harm coming from it, and if it gave her some hope, all the better. Eventually he’d get the town to increase his honorarium, and once that happened, Lydia would settle down. As far as Wolcott went, he pretty much expected the sheriff’s reaction to what he told him. But what else was he going to say? Make something up? He’d pay anything, though, to see Wolcott’s reaction when Lester told him his side of the story. Wolcott always treated him as a crank, as if what he did was one big joke, and he’d love to see the look on that smug bastard’s face once it dawned on him that maybe the Aukowies were something other than weeds. The only problem was if Lester couldn’t remember what happened. He had a nagging fear that that might happen. It seemed as if Lester went into shock almost immediately, and if he did and had somehow blocked out his memories of dropping the camcorder and having his thumb chewed off, then Wolcott would continue his snickering and treating him like the town loon. Worse, he’d probably arrest him and keep him from weeding Lorne Field. That thought had worried him most of the afternoon.

Durkin fished through Lydia’s junk drawer where she kept coupons and recipes and other odds and ends. In the back of it he found a torn piece of paper that had been sitting in there for years. The ink was mostly faded, but Durkin could still make out the phone number written on it.

He picked up the phone and called the last number he had for his brother. It had been almost ten years since Joe called and left the number with Lydia, and almost twenty-five years since Durkin last spoke to his brother. He had no idea whether the number was still good, but he prayed that it was.

Joe answered after the fifth ring.

“What do you know,” he said, “my big brother, Jack, calling. Never thought I’d hear from you again.”

“How’d you know it was me?”

Joe laughed. “Caller ID. You should get it and join the twenty-first century.”

“Joe, I need your help.”

“What, no pleasantries? After what, twenty, twenty-five years—that’s all I get from you, that you need help? You can’t even pretend to ask how me or my family’s doing? But then again you’re a busy man saving the world each day.”

“What are you trying to say? That you don’t believe I save the world each day?”

“I don’t know.” There was a long pause, then, “Look, Jack, you drank the Kool-Aid, I only sniffed it. I just don’t know.”

“You think I’m crazy then,” Durkin said angrily. “And pa and grandpa and every other Durkin before them. And you’re the only sane one of us ’cause you got to go off to college.”

“Jack, I’m not saying any of you are crazy, but this is something I’ve thought a lot about since leaving home. Maybe there’s some other explanation. For example, maybe the weeds secrete a mild hallucinogenic that can be absorbed through the skin when you touch them—”

“I don’t touch them. I wear gloves.”

“Do you wear latex gloves underneath?”

“What? No.”

“Then it could still be aborbed through the gloves and then into the skin. Or through the air. Or maybe the Aukowies are exactly what pa and grandpa always said they were. Anyway, don’t get mad, I’m not saying any of this to upset you. It’s been on my mind, that’s all. So how much do you need?”

“I don’t need money from you.”

“Then what?”

“I might need you to take over for me.”

“Jack—”

“I might not be able to do this much longer.”

“Jack, I can’t do that. I’ve got a wife and family. Three daughters and a son, not that you ever bothered to ask. I can’t just pack up and move halfway across the country.”

“They might throw me in jail tomorrow. Somebody’s got to weed the Aukowies if I can’t. It’s only two months or so ’til first frost. That’s all I’m asking.”

“Why are you going to be thrown in jail?”

Durkin rubbed some wetness from his eyes. “It’s not important,” he said. “It ain’t definite either. So you going to come if I need you to?”

“Jack, I can’t.”

“All I’m asking for is two months. Joe, I’ve been doing this over thirty years, and you know everything I gave up to do this. You can give me two months . . . Joe? Hello, Joe, are you still there?”

“Yeah, I’m still here. I’m sorry, Jack, I can’t. Listen, if they’re nothing but weeds then there’s no point in me taking over for you, but if they’re what pa and grandpa said they were, then it wouldn’t make any difference whether I tried weeding them or not because they’d rip me to shreds the first day I was out there. Remember, Jack, pa spent a whole summer teaching you how to weed them. Besides, I’d be violating the contract.”

Red flashed brightly in Durkin’s brain and burned deeply. He stood trembling as he held the phone, only half-aware of telling his brother to go fuck himself and putting the receiver down. It was a long time before the red faded and he could breathe normally again. He moved back to the kitchen table and sat down. He buried his face in his hands and wept until there was nothing left inside. Until he felt completely empty. Then he wiped his face off with the dish towel and went upstairs to join Lydia in bed.

The next morning Jack Durkin was out of bed two hours earlier than usual. Keeping as quiet as he could, he snuck down to the kitchen, poured himself a bowl of cereal, made a cup of instant coffee and was out the door before Lydia woke up, or at least before she had a chance to come downstairs and nag at him. He was two-thirds done with his second pass of weeding when Wolcott and two town police officers, Bob Smith and Mark Griestein, approached the field. The three men walked up to him, and Wolcott told him he was under arrest for cutting off his son’s thumb.

“It’s a long hike back to the cruiser, Jack. I’m hoping I don’t have to put handcuffs on you. You’ll come along peacefully, won’t you?”

Durkin nodded. He looked from Wolcott to the other two men with him. Griestein’s face was a blank screen, his eyes shielded by mirrored sunglasses. Bob Smith, on the other hand, looked deeply worried. Durkin had finished his freshman year of high school before dropping out. During that year he played third base for his school’s varsity baseball team, while Bob Smith, a senior, played first. His coach thought Durkin had major league potential, and so did the scouts who came to watch him play. That was the reason he dropped out after one year; he didn’t want to hear about all the potential he had when his future was already set. But during that season him and Bob had been good friends.

“Okay, Jack,” Wolcott said, “you can leave the canvas sack where it is. Let’s go.”

The last thing Durkin wanted to do was give Wolcott any satisfaction, but he couldn’t stop himself from saying how an Aukowie chewed off Lester’s thumb and if his boy couldn’t remember what had happened it was because of his being in shock.

“Is that so?” Wolcott said. “One of these weeds bit it off, huh? It’s funny, to me they only look like weeds. Maybe godawful ugly ones, but still just weeds. How about you, Mark? These weeds look like they could bite off someone’s thumb?”

Griestein shook his head.

“How about you, Bob?” Wolcott asked. “You think they could do something like that?”

“Dan, let’s just do our job and get out of here.”

“One minute. I just want to see how hungry these man-eating weeds really are.” Wolcott walked over to a clump of two-inch Aukowies and lowered his hand towards them. Durkin closed his eyes. He didn’t want to watch what was going to happen. After several seconds of squeezing his eyes shut tight, he was surprised when he didn’t hear any screaming.

“Come on, Jack,” Wolcott said, “take a look for yourself and tell me why my fingers aren’t being bitten off.”

Jack Durkin opened his eyes. Wolcott’s fingers were right in the middle of the Aukowies. He could see their little faces as they smirked at him, and he understood.

Somehow they knew they could hurt him if they resisted their natural urges. That they could beat him this way. But he could see the strain building on them. He could see them weakening.

“Just keep your fingers where they are,” Durkin said.

Wolcott stood up, not bothering to hide the disgust on his face. “Come on, Jack, let’s get you to the station.”

Griestein nudged Durkin, and he followed behind Wolcott while the two police officers stayed on either side of him.

“You don’t know what you’re doing,” Durkin told Wolcott. “Without me weeding they’re going to be four to five inches by nighttime.”

“I’m doing my job, Jack. That’s all I’m doing.”

When they got onto the path leading back to the cabin, Durkin asked if they could stop by his house so he could tell Lydia what was happening.

“Sorry, Jack, I need to take you to the station. After you’re processed, you can make a phone call.”

Bob Smith glared at Wolcott, then over Wolcott’s protestations, handed Durkin his cell phone. “Go ahead, Jack,” he said, “give Lydia a call.”

Durkin stared at the phone as if he were being asked to perform an emergency appendectomy. Trying to keep his voice low so Wolcott couldn’t hear him, he admitted that he didn’t know how to use it. Even if he did, he doubted whether he’d even be able to push the buttons on it with his fingers being as thick and swollen as they were. Bob Smith asked for his home number and dialed it for him. When Lydia picked up, Durkin told her he was being arrested and for her to bring his contract to Hank Thompson and tell him what was happening. “I know you know where it’s hidden, so don’t try arguing otherwise. And I don’t want that other lawyer involved.”

Durkin handed the cell phone back to Bob Smith and thanked him for his help. Bob Smith looked like he badly wanted to ask him a question, but he restrained himself.

Even though Lydia had been expecting that very call from her husband all morning, it was still a shock after she got off the phone with him. She sat at the table and chain-smoked through half a pack of cigarettes before she felt like she could move. Then she brought the phone to the kitchen table and tried to make up her mind about what to do.

Her right hand, the one she had injured hitting the table, had swollen to twice its normal size and was a purplish-bluish color around the base of her palm. It hurt too much for her to hold the receiver in it, so she had to rest the receiver on the table while she dialed with her left hand and then picked it up also with her left hand. When she told the receptionist who she was, she was put on hold for five minutes before Paul Minter answered. His voice sounded odd as he told her it was over.

“What?”

“It’s over, Mrs. Durkin.”

“What do you mean it’s over?”

He sighed. “Just what I said. The town council doesn’t want anything to do with this anymore. I spoke with all of them and it’s over.”