The Caretaker of Lorne Field (20 page)

Durkin felt a tightening in the pit of his stomach. He nodded miserably.

“Any idea why they left his fingers alone?”

“I don’t know. I wish they had bit them off.”

Hank laughed uneasily at that. “So do I,” he said. “At least his pinky finger. Not that I wish too much ill will on our good sheriff, but it would make things easier for us. I’ve got a confession to make, Jack, and I hope it doesn’t make you mad. When I was twelve I snuck down to Lorne Woods and watched your grandpa weeding them.”

“You saw what they were then.”

Hank nodded. “They weren’t weeds. I can’t say why, exactly. It’s nothing concrete I can put my finger on, but I knew watching them that they were something other than weeds. And when your grandpa pulled them out of the ground, I swear I could hear something. Kind of like this shrill noise, almost what you’d expect from a dog whistle, but I’m positive I heard it.”

“Their death cry,” Durkin said.

“That’s what you call it? I thought that sound was going to make my ears bleed. Anyway, it’s always bothered me that I violated the contract. I apologize for that, Jack.”

They drove in silence for the next ten minutes or so, then Durkin told the attorney why the Aukowies resisted biting off Wolcott’s fingers. “I don’t know how they knew they could cause more harm for me, but somehow they did.”

Durkin looked over and saw the belief in the older man’s face. He swallowed back a sob and bit down hard on his tongue to keep any more from coming up.

“If my grandpa had known he would’ve skinned you alive,” Durkin said. “But that was a long time ago. The statue of limitations must’ve run out years ago.”

Hank laughed good-naturedly. “That’s
statute
of limitations. But thanks for the absolution, Jack. It’s kept me up nights hoping none of you ever fell sick and couldn’t weed that field. I lost many a night’s sleep during my lifetime over that transgression.”

Hank pulled into the supermarket’s parking lot. Once inside he told Durkin to load up his cart with whatever he wanted. “Only a small payment for services rendered,” he said.

As they went up and down the aisles, Durkin chose frugally, adding to the cart only the cheapest cans of baked beans, sardines, tuna fish and hotdogs he could find. Hank shook his head watching him.

“Christ, Jack, that’s no way for a grown man to eat,” he said. He brought a reluctant Durkin over to the meat department and had the butcher select several pounds of sirloin steaks, lamb chops and pork loin. Then he did the same at the deli counter, loading the cart with roast beef, ham, salami and an assortment of cheeses. After that he added packages of baked goods. When they checked out the bill came to well over a hundred dollars.

“When I get my affairs straightened out I’ll pay you back,” Durkin told the attorney.

“Absolutely not,” Hank said.

They drove silently back to the Caretaker’s cabin, but it was a comfortable silence. Hank helped him bring the grocery bags inside, and at the door when he was leaving, told Durkin not to worry about a thing and that he would call him after his deposition with Lester. Later, when Durkin was unpacking the groceries, he found two hundred dollars tucked in one of the bags.

The next week Durkin’s spirits were as good as they’d been in years. Having a cupboard and refrigerator stocked full of food was a big reason for it, but an even bigger reason was not having to ride Lester’s mountain bike into town any longer. It was bad enough that a day of weeding Aukowies left his muscles aching and his feet killing him, but the last thing he wanted to do after that was get on a bike and pedal for an hour so he could beg for food at the Rusty Nail. He was grateful he no longer had to do it. Accepting Hank’s charity didn’t seem nearly as bad, mostly because the older attorney believed in what those Aukowies were. Hank Thompson didn’t have any doubts, unlike the rest of them. It was a relief not having to ride into town so he could see doubts—or in some cases outright disgust—creeping onto faces when the townspeople saw him. It was a blessing to simply be able to go home after his weeding, eat dinner and soak his feet. While it was quieter in the house than he’d like, he was comfortable by himself. Maybe at times he’d find himself missing Bert and, to a lesser degree, Lydia and Lester, but he found the emptiness of the house peaceful. At least he didn’t have to see his own family doubting him, or worse, acting as if he were a joke.

A week after Hank had taken him food shopping he got a call from Hank that Child Services was delaying the deposition. “It’s probably going to be pushed back another couple of weeks,” the attorney told him. “Nothing to worry about, Jack. Just red tape, that’s all. Child Services can be a real pain in the ass.”

It was ten days after that call—a Monday—that Jack arrived back at the cabin after a day of weeding Aukowies to find boxes and furniture stacked up on his front yard. A padlock had been put on the door. There was also a notice nailed to it. In the early dusk, it was hard to read. Durkin had to strain to make out the single word
SEIZURE
that was printed in larger letters than anything else. He gave up and searched through the boxes until he found a flashlight. Then he went back and read the notice, read how the town council had terminated the Caretaker position and that the cabin and all associated lands were being seized by the town. If Durkin or anyone else entered the house they’d be arrested for trespassing. He read the damn notice half a dozen times before his anger subsided enough for him to think over the situation.

 

He sank to the ground, his mind and body numb.

It struck him then that he was no longer bound by the contract. Not if the town was going to cancel it. Which meant for the first time in his life he was free. But free for what? To live aimlessly for the next eight days while the Aukowies grew out of the field and matured? And then to watch the world end?

 

It wasn’t his concern anymore,
he told himself.

 

That thought left him dizzy. It would no longer be his fault. He no longer had to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. He was absolved. Free. If the town could turn their back on him, why couldn’t he do the same?

 

 

Lydia would still be chewed up by the Aukowies, her small, hard-as-nails body turned into mincemeat. The same would happen to Bert and Lester. And every other living creature.

With a leaden heaviness weighing down his heart, Durkin realized it didn’t matter that they turned their backs on him. The field still needed to be weeded. The world still needed to be saved. And that responsibility fell on him.

He sat for a few minutes sorting out his thoughts. After making up his mind about what to do next, he unpacked the boxes looking for his contract and the Book of Aukowies. He went through all of the boxes without finding them, which didn’t surprise him since whoever packed up the house had no clue about his hiding place in the basement. He did find his wallet in one of the boxes. It had been packed away since he never took his wallet with him when he weeded Aukowies. There was no point in doing that. He wished he had when he opened the wallet and saw that the two hundred dollars Hank Thompson had given him was gone.

 

 

But as much as he wanted to, holding his empty wallet before all those boxes scattered on his front yard, he couldn’t just walk away.

The food from his refrigerator had been packed in a couple of the boxes and left in the sun to spoil. He sniffed the salami and sliced American cheese, decided they were still okay, and made a sandwich. He ate it slowly, then found the container of milk, sniffed it also, and poured out the spoiled contents. Fortunately, Hank had added a case of soda to his shopping cart. Jack Durkin found a can in one of the other boxes and drank it. When he was done with his dinner, he got to his feet and walked around to the back of the house.

When Durkin left that morning the back entranceway to the kitchen was covered by a screen door and an almost equally flimsy wooden door. The outer door’s paneled windows would’ve been easy to punch out so the door could be unlocked. Both doors had since been replaced with something solid, and a padlock and seizure notice were attached to it. Jack Durkin hit this newer door with his fist several times and saw that he had little chance of breaking through it. He walked around the house sizing up his windows and settled on one in the kitchen. He broke the glass, cleared it away and used several of the boxes as a makeshift stepladder. The phone and cord had been packed away in one of the boxes. He took them with him, along with the seizure notice that he ripped from the back door, and crawled through the window.

It was awkward getting his thick body turned around and onto the kitchen countertop, and worse to lower himself to the floor, but he did it without cutting himself on any of the glass he’d broken. He turned on the lights. With the kitchen emptied out and all of Lydia’s clutter removed from the countertops, the room looked small and foreign to him. He plugged the phone into the jack and heard a dial tone and was thankful they hadn’t cut off phone service yet.

He called Hank Thompson and told him that his house had been seized.

“Whoa, slow down, Jack, tell me again what’s going on.”

“I came home today from weeding and found everything I own on the front yard with a padlock and notice on the door. According to the notice, the town council cancelled my Caretaker’s contract and had my house seized.”

“Do you have the notice nearby?”

“Yep. I can read it to you.”

“Please do.”

Durkin read the attorney the seizure notice. When he was done, Hank’s voice sounded unnaturally tinny as he told him that the town had no right doing this. Durkin realized this was the first time he had heard Hank Thompson scared.

“They have to notify you first, Jack. They can’t just storm into your house like Gestapo agents. This is America, for God sakes. It’s not right. I promise you I’m going to get to the bottom of this. Wait a minute . . . Jack, where are calling from?”

“My kitchen.”

“You’re inside the house?”

“Yep.”

“That’s not good, Jack. You don’t want to give them any excuses to arrest you.”

“They left the Caretaker’s contract in the basement. I’m getting it.”

“Okay, I understand,” Hank said, sounding almost panicked. “Get your contract as quickly as you can and leave the house. I’ll head over there now and meet you out front.”

Hank Thompson hung up.

Durkin took a step towards the basement steps and then wanted to kick himself for not bringing the flashlight in with him. He thought briefly about going back outside for it, but the thought of crawling out and then back in again through the window changed his mind. He left the basement door wide open hoping that enough light would filter down so he could see, then headed down the steps.

The light from upstairs didn’t help much. By the time he got a few feet into the basement it was too dark to see anything. When he reached the back wall he tried to find the loose stones by memory, but pulled on half a dozen wrong stones before he found the ones that slid out. He could feel the book and contract in their hiding place. He took both of them out and headed back upstairs.

Durkin did a quick walk through the house to make sure nothing else was left behind. After satisfying himself, he went back to the kitchen, turned off the lights, and maneuvered himself so he was kneeling on the countertop and could lower himself out the window. Facing the kitchen, he put one foot out through the window, felt for the stack of boxes outside and steadied himself before sticking his other foot out.

“You’re trespassing, Jack. I could arrest you for that.”

Wolcott’s voice startled him and he lost his balance and did an unintentional stutter-step off the box. He landed awkwardly, rolling over his left ankle and dropping the contract and Book of Aukowies. Wincing, he grabbed his injured ankle. He gritted his teeth and told the sheriff he had to go back into the house to get his belongings.

“We packed everything of yours up,” Wolcott said.

“You left my contract and book in the basement,” Durkin forced out through a clenched jaw. With horror, he saw that the binding for the Book of Aukowies had split open when it hit the ground and its pages were scattered around him. He fought back a sob. Hell if he’d let this son of a bitch see him cry. He gathered up the pages and placed them back in the book.

“You had no right doing what you did,” he said. “No right at all.”

“I had every right, Jack. I only did what the town council ordered me to do.”

“You had no right. Dumping everything I own on my front yard. Not even giving me a day’s notice.”

“Jack, a notice was placed in your mailbox over a week ago. It’s not my fault you’re too busy saving the world each day to read your mail.”

Durkin looked away from his injured ankle and into the placid face of the County Sheriff, who was staring him down as if he were nothing more than the town drunk. Durkin had never hated anyone more. He was overwhelmed with the thought of letting the Aukowies develop so that Wolcott and his family could experience their full horror.

“You’re enjoying this,” he said.

“No, I’m not, Jack. While I’m happy we’re no longer wasting taxpayer’s money on this nonsense, I’ve got to be honest and tell you that I find your situation sad. But, Jack, you’ve got no one to blame for this but yourself. You could’ve kept this gravy train going for years.”