The Pines (28 page)

“Pamela, where’s Matthew? I thought I told you to stay with him.”

“He’s over that way somewheres.” Pam shrugged. “Playing with Chabwok.”

“If you can’t watch him, I want him inside. I have to leave soon anyway.”

“Oh, but he’s just right there.” Complaining under her breath, Pam wandered back outside. “I’ll get him.”

“This is the wife of the man who was killed? She seems to be taking it okay. What did she say? Chabwok? What’s that, an Indian name or something?”

“’Thena, I just want to tell you one thing.” Pam stuck her head back in the doorway. “If you want…I know you want me to watch Matty and all, but I just want to tell you this. I can’t find Dooley anywheres, and he wasn’t around for breakfast neither. That’s all I wanted to tell you.”

When she withdrew, he asked, “Is Dooley your dog?”

“More or less.”

“Then you better find him and keep him in the house. That’s why I wanted, I mean, the reason I stopped by was to tell you the state troopers are hunting the dogs.”

“Oh?” Suddenly, she became aware of the condition of the kitchen. Dirty pots covered the stove, and newspapers were spread on the floor around the sink. To keep him from looking around, she stepped closer to him.

“Yeah.” Confused, he backed away from her, out onto the porch. “They’re down that direction now.” He pointed toward the woods.

“That’s something, anyway.” Following him as far as the doorway, she raised one hand against the sunlight. “Or don’t you believe me either?”

He shuffled his big feet. “Feels like you got another weak spot.”

Silence.

“In the floor,” he added, avoiding her eyes. “You should do something about it. Place could fall down.”

“No such luck.”

He let out a sigh. “I’m not sure what I believe anymore. I can’t find what could connect those two deaths. Is it possible…? Could your brother-in-law have been involved in an attempt to steal what looked like an abandoned car? An attempt that somehow ended up…?”

She stared at him with sad disbelief.

“How long has this screen door been down like this? House must get full of bugs. Hinges look all right.” Moving quickly, he dragged the door loudly across the porch, stood it upright. “Where’s that hammer you had? Are there nails?” He pushed past her into the kitchen.

“Uh, yes…in that can…there. Wait, you don’t have to…”

Smiling and humming, he started hammering the door back onto the old iron hinges. “Quite a house.”

She gave a laugh. “Thanks. It’s a little big and pretty ugly, but we hate it. You don’t have to do that,” she repeated over the banging. “I’ve been meaning to get to it myself for—”

“You really hate it?”

“I’m a city girl. It’s like being buried alive out here. Really, you don’t…” She stood and watched him. “Why do I get the feeling this is my cue to say how nice it is to have a man around the house?”

“What? Can’t hear you.”

Red flakes of rust settled from the screens. “You want to fix the shutters next?”

Hammering away, he ignored her. The full heat of summer beat at the edges of the porch. “Good solid cedar,” he said between grunts, crouching to work at the lower hinge. “These old houses. Built to endure.”

Reeling from the heat and the hypnotic pound of the hammer, she murmured, “Tell me about it.”

His hair fell across his forehead like a golden claw, curling at the back where it grew long. Heat stinging his sweat-washed face, Matty stood rapt, one hand cupped about the slender pine. Cloud light, filtering through the trees, conveyed a greenish tinge to everything it bathed.

The insect had to be close to three inches long, and he thought it the fiercest, most evil-looking thing he’d ever beheld: the leering caricature of a face, the crablike pincers that reminded him of a crawdaddy. Especially, he stared at the cruel claws, then reflexively pulled away his hand. Seventeen years ago, years before his own birth, a rattling cloud had swarmed the woods, leaving their grubs beneath the loam, and now again it was their season, the air thick with the beat of transparent wings and with the urgent, rasping love song of the males.

Clinging tightly to the bark, the thing never moved.

He tapped it with one finger, and the carapace crackled like paper. Now he saw the jagged hole in the back, and he put his eye up close. Empty. Hollow. As though something had pecked through and eaten the insides. But, no, that wasn’t it….

And suddenly the boy understood.

The bug had climbed out of that hole in its own back. He pictured it, pliant and green, struggling to squirm from the prison of its old dried body. He could almost see that horrid face pressed against the translucent tightness, chewing its way free, giving birth to itself.

“Matty! Matty, where are you?”

“You there! Keep it moving. Spread out. Keep your formation.”

“Damn.” Out of earshot of their sergeant, one of the troopers kept up a steady stream of complaints. “Ain’t seen a damn thing all day. Course there could be elephants out here for all we know, let alone a couple mutts.”

“Duke bagged a deer,” said his buddy. “Didn’t ya hear?”

“Damn, it’s hot.” He tried to estimate the distance to the green-covered hills. As the horizon wavered, hazing toward invisibility, he strained his eyes, and vision blurred and flattened. One mile? Or five? He squinted from the blinding clouds. The sun looked enormous through the haze, bright hot only at its center. “When are we supposed to get a break anyway?”

Their uniforms darkened under their arms and down their backs.

“Not until we meet up with one of the other squads, I heard.”

“Damn.” The tiny round burrs that stuck tenaciously to clothing turned cruel where they touched flesh. The thorned seeds held life, waiting only to be carried to richer soil.

Their uniforms a dull gray through the scrub, the men trudged, shotguns held low. “Hey, what’s that over there?”

Twenty yards away, the thicket had begun to rattle and shake. They took aim. Another trooper, battling vines that clung to his uniform, broke through the brush. “Don’t shoot!” The newcomer saw the barrels pointed at him. “Don’t shoot!”

“What the hell’s going on over there?”

“Oh shit. Here we go,” the first trooper muttered darkly as the sergeant charged toward them. “I wasn’t gonna shoot him. What the hell’s he coming this way for anyhow? Supposed to be going the other way.”

Before anyone could speak, there came the first faint sound of gunshot, a rapid spattering through the trees, followed by a thunderous and sustained volley.

The Plymouth pulled up behind Doris’s station wagon. Athena let the motor run. A look of horror and disbelief on her face, she just sat at the wheel, staring.

The rig—diagonally across the middle of the road—was a burned-out hull. It looked like nothing so much as some huge dead insect. Nothing remained of the ambulance hall but so much wreckage. Doris hadn’t even looked around when the car pulled up. Her back to Athena, she stood amid the debris.

Slowly, Athena got out of the car and approached. An acrid stench hung heavily in the air. The two women only gazed into the rubble, and a buzzard wheeled high overhead.

The building’s shell held thick soft mounds of ash and charred wood, among which rested half-recognizable objects: the blackened metal frame of the card table, a file-cabinet drawer. It looked as though, for a single moment, the summer had intensified. Here.

“No.” Doris put out a hand to stop her. “Stay out here, honey. It’s still hot, and what’s left of the roof could come down easy.” She kicked at a bit of wood. “Besides, there’s no point in going in anyhow. Ain’t this a bitch?”

“You went inside already, didn’t you?”

Black with soot in places, she shook her head and smiled slightly. “You can still smell the kerosene.”

“Does anybody else know?”

“Yeah, Larry and Jack showed up in the Jeep. They left a while ago, I guess. Larry mentioned something about going down the shore, some kind of a job or something. May as well, I guess.”

“The police?” She gazed into the sooty ruins.

“Not yet. Anyway, what’s the use? I guess we’re out of business all right.” She lit a cigarette, curling her hand around the match to shield it. “They didn’t take much though, did they? Not that I can see anyway. Not even the tires. You have to wonder.”

“Why would…?” Suddenly, Athena raged. “We tried to help them! Why would they do this?”

“Pineys?” Doris shrugged, then tossed a bit of junk back into the rubble. “Don’t let it bother you, kid. Sure was fun for a while though.” She gave her an odd kind of smile. “Wasn’t it?”

What am I going to do?
Athena just sat in the car, knowing that at any moment, Pamela might discover she was back and descend with a million questions. She wanted to start the car and drive away again, drive anywhere.
What am I going to do now?
The question echoed in her mind with increased urgency, mingling with thoughts of all the days to come, all the nights when there would be nothing to occupy her, nothing, until finally she became like Pam, until finally…

She became aware of someone calling.

“Matty? Maaatty!” It came from the other side of the house. “Maaatty!”

Getting out of the car, she walked around back, the day heavy upon her.

“Matty!” There was no mistaking the alarm in that voice from the woods beyond the shed. “Matty, where are you? You be a good boy for Pammy. Okay? Matty, you come home now!”

Dappled and patterned with shadows, Ernie stood on the edge of the pines and stared at a cluster of dismal shacks. He hesitated.

At his feet, plants with furred leaves sagged against the ground, blasted by heat. Everywhere lay brown patches and fissures in the sand. Late afternoon sun fuzzed through the heat haze, and from the woods came a cicada’s rattle, twitching faster and louder into one long, fading rasp. The day burned at the back of his neck, and his head throbbed.

Sweat glued the red hair to his forehead, and his eyes felt dried and crusted. A long smear of blood streaked his left arm.

The not-so-distant sound of gunfire decided him.

Dustily, he plodded toward the ramshackle buildings. The earth began to hum softly as he staggered. Droplets ran down his arm, fell from his curling fingers, leaving a trail of red dots on the sand.

“Yes, I’ll hold.” Athena held the phone to her ear, while Pam watched her, waiting for her to speak again. Beyond the doorway, the crickets had begun their deafening rattle.

Through the back door, gunfire still sounded, muted and faraway. Violent burning colors streaked the sky, deep purples and reds. Small stars emerged, and bats commenced the evening’s hunt for flying insects.

“But where is he? Where could he be then?” Pam had nearly doubled over. “We looked everywhere. Did you get them yet?”

“Could you be still? Hello, operator? I’m trying to reach the state police. That number’s busy. Could you—? Yes, it may be an emergency. No, I want the…”

Pamela shrieked.

A massive bundle in his arms, Matthew stood at the door. His face ran with grimy tears. Both he and his burden were covered with a mixture of fresh and drying blood.

Athena dropped the phone as the boy stepped unsteadily into the house. He panted, a shining line of bubbles at his mouth. He staggered, and she ran to him. “Matthew, give him to me. Let go. Let me take him. Matthew, give me the dog.” She got the animal away from him, grunted and stumbled under the weight. “Jesus! Clear a space! I’ve got to put him down!” Almost dropping the beast, she marveled at the boy’s strength.

“Oh, ’Thena, your blouse,” Pam sobbed. “Blood, ’Thena, blood gettin’ all over you.” Her hysteria unabated, she pointed a trembling finger as she backed away from the dripping, unmoving animal. “No! Get it away! ’Thena, dogs! The dogs! Oh, my baby! Get it away! Get it away ’fore he gets rabies!”

Already, blood coated the floorboards, and almost slipping, Athena set the dog down carefully. Dooley whined and squirmed feebly, eyes rolling in pain. “Matthew, are you hurt anywhere? Matthew, look at me. Does it hurt?” The bloody boy only stood still, breathing heavily and looking at the dog.

Pam had backed up against the wall. “Oh my baby oh my Matty.” She made desperate, clawing grabs at the boy but kept snatching her hands away.

“It’s all right. I don’t think he’s hurt. At least, I can’t find anything. Just exhausted, I think.” She turned back to the animal while Pamela began to fluster and shriek around the child.

The dog lay with its tongue hanging out, sides heaving.

“Oh, my God. Oh God, it’s dead! Oh Matty, poor Dooley’s dead!”

Athena got the first-aid kit from under the sink and crouched beside the animal. “Pamela, please, shut up.” She poked at the bloody fur, prodding, examining the furry lips of a wound. Taking a bottle of peroxide out of the kit, she uncapped it and poured it over the gash with one hand, groping in the kit for a package of sterile gauze with the other. “Pamela, I need…Pamela, would you be quiet and listen? I need more peroxide. This stuff. Run upstairs to the bathroom. In the medicine cabinet there’s a brown bottle. Just like this one. Bring it to me.” She returned her attention to the dog. “Now, Pamela! I need it now.”

Wringing her hands, Pam slowly wandered out of the room.

Something nudged Athena’s arm. She turned to find the boy crouched beside her, fresh tears streaking the dirt on his face. He gazed into the eyes of his dog, eyes that had gone all milky.

She mopped blood with a small sponge and snipped away fur with a scissors. “It looks as though the bullet passed right through the shoulder muscle. I don’t see any other holes.” Soon she was red to the elbows. “It may not be as bad as it looks,” she added more gently. “I can’t feel any broken bones. He’s in shock, Matthew.” She watched the boy’s face. “How did you find him?”

Matty only stared down at the scarcely moving dog, at the leaking mess of Dooley’s back.

“Is this what you wanted, ’Thena?”

She snatched the bottle from Pam, emptied the contents over the animal. “Damn it. I wish we had better light in here.”

Pam hovered uncertainly, still trembling a little and looking nauseated. She watched as Athena began to thread a needle. Matty sat on the cracked, worn floor beside his mother, closely observing everything she did, taking it all in.