The Starlight Claim

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  They return the next day, set out early with a machete (Dodge) and loppers (Nate), plus an ax and a Swede saw. They are dressed for the bush when they first get there, but as the sun rises, they strip back to the bare essentials, blackflies be damned!

  They’d made their way by instinct to the cliff head, finding the path of least resistance, a zigzag path, as it turns out. The island is rocky, with scarcely a rind of soil and clearer of underbrush than the mainland, so by the end of their second day they’d cleared a pretty good pathway from the shoreline on the west side. And now there is this runway to clear, as smooth and free of roots and snags as it can be, so that one crazy-ass best friend can charge toward his doom. That’s what’s supposed to be the crowning achievement of this second day of grooming. Nate has one other idea to stop Dodge. But he’ll have to play it just right.

  “Okay, I’ve enjoyed about as much of this as I can stand,” says Dodge, wiping his sweaty face with his forearm. He’s covered with dirt and little dots of blood where the vegetation fought back or the blackflies feasted. His ponytail has come undone and his hair is across his eyes and full of twigs. He pulls it tight, replaces the rubber band. “Prepare for liftoff,” he says.

  It’s the perfect segue.

  “Hey, wait,” says Nate. “Speaking of liftoff, how about we get the quadcopter and film the momentous event. Dodge Hoebeek throws himself off the Empire State!”

  You only have to appeal to his vanity to get Dodge’s attention.

  “Good plan, Numbster,” said Dodge, nodding. “Let’s do it.”

  Then he walks to the edge of the precipice. “I’ll be back,” he says in a bad Arnold Schwarzenegger imitation. As they make their way down the track they’ve cleared, back to the low side of the island, Nate grins to himself at how easy it has been to escape calamity. At least for now. It’s too late to come back today.

  A valiant effort.

  The door opened. The cowbell was gone. So were the chairs. Nate was washing up the cooking oil on the floor. It was Bird.

  Calvin.

  “A mop,” he said, nodding. “That’s more your speed, kid.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” But Nate didn’t want to explain about how you kept the place tidy for next time. Camp was always about next time.

  “I’m going to need the keys to the shed and the Polaris,” said Calvin.

  “You know about that, too?”

  Calvin smiled. “You know I do. That extra lock throw you off, kid?”

  Nate went back to mopping.

  “I make it my business to know everything that goes on down here.”

  Up here, thought Nate. The Northend. But he wasn’t about to argue. He looked again at Calvin Crow a moment and then placed the rag end of the mop in the wringer, pushed the handle, and listened to the dirty water drain into the bucket. When it was done, he soaked the mop again and commenced washing the floor.

  “I ast you a question, boy. D’ju hear me?”

  “You know my name,” said Nate without looking up.

  “What would that be, Dodge?”

  “My real name. You knew it all along.”

  Calvin sighed impatiently, then leaned against the wall by the door. “Well, you sure as hell ain’t that half-wit Hoebeek boy.”

  “Shut up!”

  “Whoa! Easy, now.”

  “He was my best friend, okay. It’s not his fault his father was a fricking lunatic. Dodge would have —”

  “Enough!” said Calvin, slicing his hand through the air. “This ain’t the time for discussion. The quicker I’m outa here with those hotheads, the better it’s gonna be for both of us,” said Calvin. “You get that, right?”

  Reluctantly, Nate nodded, but the anger raged in him, beating in his head, constricting his throat.

  “So whyn’t you just give me the damn keys.”

  Nate stopped again and looked at this man who didn’t resemble his father one bit right now. Nate had sure never seen a look of hostility like this on his father’s face. And the gleam in the man’s eyes was dulled to something dangerous.

  “Why’d you never visit?” Nate said.

  “Ask your father.”

  Nate looked away. Shook his head. “You got to admit this is a pretty screwed-up way of meeting for the first time.”

  Calvin had given him as much time as he was going to. He stood up tall again. “This ain’t no jeezly family reunion. The keys. Pronto!”

  Nate dared to stand up tall as well. Taller than his grandfather. He shook his head.

  “You’re Burl’s son, all right,” said Cal. “Had to knock his head a few times against the wall to get a little respect out of the boy.”

  “Respect? You call it respect? You almost killed him. The fire that burned down the old camp — if it weren’t for him, you’d have been dead.”

  Calvin laughed. “Oo-ee! I bet you’ve had an earful of stories about mean old Calvin Crow. Let me tell you —”

  “No!” said Nate.

  “What’d you say?”

  “No,” said Nate. “I didn’t hear a million stories about you. Just the one. And only when I’d bugged my father over and over. He told me about you burning down the Maestro’s place. That’s where he got the burn marks on his arms. ‘That’s all you need to know about your grandfather,’ he told me. And so I never asked again.”

  Calvin nodded, his lips puckered out as if giving this some thought. Then he walked over to Nate and stood across the bucket of dirty water from him and leaned forward. “Without the keys to the shed, I’m going to have to hacksaw that Yale lock off. That’s going to take way too much time, and I’m still going to need the keys to the friggin’ Polaris. So, here’s the deal. It would be just as easy — actually, way easier — to take the hacksaw to you. Maybe just a finger, maybe a whole hand, dependin’ on how pigheaded you wanna be. So I repeat: the keys. Now!”

  There was no point in arguing. Nate had seen nothing in the man’s eyes to suggest he’d stop short of sawing off his grandson’s hand to get what he wanted. He got him the keys.

  “Good lad,” said Calvin. He headed toward the door but stopped before opening it. “I brought back your snowshoes,” he said without turning. “There’s food in the fridge over at the other camp. Not that the fridge is on or nothin’; it’s cold enough in that sunporch. I know you’re gonna want to clean up all nice and pretty after your messy visitors. Might as well enjoy some good grub while you’re at it.”

  Nate swallowed. His instinct was to thank him, despite everything. He fought down that instinct. Calvin turned his way. Nate nodded, stone-faced. Calvin turned again to go, but still he hesitated. Then he turned one more time and the black anger was gone from his face. “I meant what I said back there when the boys was over here. Once I get paid for this business, I’m outa here — out of everyone’s hair. Headin’ west.” He looked around the camp. “Shoulda done it years ago.

  “But you can tell your father somethin’ for me, okay?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You tell him I always knowed he’d make it — make something out of himself. Knowed it all along. So I’m not gonna apologize for ‘sharing’ some of what’s his. I never had the chances he did. No, sir. What I done . . . let’s just call it spreading the wealth. Okay? You got all that?”

  It took a moment for Nate to respond. There was too much to digest in what the man said. He nodded anyway. Then the door opened and closed, and Calvin Crow was gone.

  Once he’d cleaned the cabin up to within an inch of its life and dumped the dirty water out in the snow and generally made the Hoebeeks’ place livable — knowing all along it was unlikely any Hoebeek would ever live there again — Nate stoked the fire and sat cross-legged in the big old easy chair in the living room and watched the snow slash down on ghostly Ghost Lake and tried to put together what had just happened.

  What was he supposed to make of a man who had broken into their place — and now the neighbor’s place — put Nate’s life in jeopardy, then save
d his life, in a way, and yet would have been willing to saw off one of his grandson’s hands to get what he wanted?

  Nate stared at the islands in the narrows, fading out of existence in the snow and failing light as if they were being whisked away to some other place, maybe Neverland. He thought of Dodge Hoebeek out there somewhere. Maybe that’s where he was, too. A cold place, Neverland. Not a place you get any older.

  Brave-on-steroids Dodge.

  You sure as hell ain’t that half-wit Hoebeek boy.

  Just thinking of what Calvin had said made Nate’s blood boil. Where’d he get off talking like that? Yeah, Dodge had gotten them into some tight spots, but nothing they couldn’t handle. Nothing Dodge couldn’t handle. He brought out something wild in Nate. Pushed him. He was intrepid.

  Okay, sometimes he was idiotic, when you had the time to think about it. But that was just it — when Dodge was around it was hard to think clearly. He emitted some kind of wave that fried your brain. But also lit it up. Man, he just shone! That’s what he did. He burned bright. And he took more space than any normal human being — took more of the air in the room than you did and left you gasping, just trying to keep up. Trick had a puffer he had to use when he couldn’t breathe. Asthma, it was supposed to be. But Nate had always wondered if it was just having to live in the same house as Dodge.

  His father had warned him about Dodge, pretty well right from the get-go. “You remember yourself, son,” Burl had said; that was all he’d said. Remember yourself. What it had meant to Nate was to not let Dodge take you over completely. Not let him change your name on you, make you into something he wanted you to be. And maybe what it had also meant was to remember yourself because Dodge wasn’t going to. He was never thinking of you, not really. He was generous, in his way, lending you stuff, giving you stuff. But when he set his mind on something — however bat-in-a-shoebox crazy it was — that something was bigger and more important than you were.

  Now there was no Dodge left, and Nate did not appreciate some battered old villain bad-mouthing him. Yeah, maybe Dodge was with the Lost Boys dive-bombing Captain Hook, but fantasy aside, he was still alive in Nate’s head. He figured Dodge would haunt him forever.

  The sound of a snowmobile firing up snapped him from his thoughts. First one, then two, then a third. They were going at last. Had Cal’s plans always included stealing the Hoebeeks’ Polaris? Maybe not. They could have made do with two sleds. But as luck would have it, Nate showed up. Luck — hah! Or maybe they’d have just torn the place apart to find the keys. Such things didn’t seem to matter to Cal Crow, one way or another. There was the Polaris and whatever machine Cal had arrived on, and then there was Burl’s vintage Ski-Doo. He wondered which of them would end up with the short straw, riding out on what Dodge had called “your dad’s prehistoric vacuum cleaner.”

  They seemed to have started up the trail, but then one of them must have peeled off because the noise grew louder, and Nate realized it was coming over here. He sat up in his chair.

  It’s my grandfather, he thought, come to say goodbye.

  Then his brain kicked in and he wondered what drug he was on to imagine that that’s what was happening. That wasn’t going to be Cal arriving at his door. In a flash, Nate was out of his chair, slipping and sliding in his socks and heading up the stairs two at a time. He had only just reached the top when the back door crashed open and the sound of the snowmobile, idling outside the camp, filled the house.

  “It’s your favorite nightmare!” shouted Shaker in a voice as loud as a dog pound, all smart-ass pretense gone.

  He stomped into the camp and, finding no one on the first floor, parked himself at the foot of the stairs. Stomped his feet a few times to make sure Nate knew exactly where he was. Nate was out of sight behind the trunk again, praying he wouldn’t come up. “I don’t have the time right now, Nathaniel — nice name, by the way — but I wanted to let you know something. I wanted to let you know that if you think you’ve seen the last of me, you’re sadly mistaken.” Shaker stepped up onto the first stair. “This shiner on my forehead is a constant, throbbing reminder of you. Do you know what I mean?”

  He took another step up. “I could shoot you right through that chest of yours, but I’ve decided I’d rather wait.”

  The outside door smacked against the wall, caught in the wind; the snowmobile stuttered. “Waiting builds anticipation. You know what I mean? First, I find my way out of this place, and then, knowing exactly where it is, I finds my way back. Easy-peasy.” He took another step. “Because you see, Nathaniel, what you’ve done . . . Well, I’m going to have to mess you up so bad that your dear mama won’t recognize her little boy.”

  Then he laughed, stepped back down, and headed out. He slammed the door so hard it broke. That’s how Nate found it when the sound of the snowmobile was finally soaked up by the wind and the only thing left outside was the all-consuming storm. The door swung uselessly on its hinges. That creature that had been circling the house had found its way in at last, and now it would devour him. No, it wasn’t like that. It was just snow, and all that snow could do was bury you. Already it was drifting through the shattered opening, the wind unrolling a white carpet across the floor. Nate stepped back, felt the wetness on his face, closed his eyes to it, resigned. The last thing he saw was an absence: the snowshoes and poles Cal had left him, sticking in the snow by the stoop, were gone. Again.

  He turned his back on it. Turned his back on the storm pouring into the camp. He walked into the living room and looked out at the lake, what was left of it. Couldn’t see the islands or the shores of the bay to either side. The wind he could feel on his back funneling through the open doorway was playing havoc out on Ghost Lake. Maybe it would clear all the snow away, then tear up the ice and with its icy fingers dig Dodge from his silent grave, blow him to kingdom come. He stared into the reeling, whirling whiteness as if expecting at any moment to see him. Dodge, so light he could walk recklessly on air, so porous the wind whistled through him, his hair loose, like yellow fire.

  “I loved you, you asshole!”

  The tears came and he let them and he let the snow carpet the Hoebeeks’ camp because they would never come back and he couldn’t stop it anyway. Not the wind or the snow or the feelings that overtook him and were shaking him inside as soundly as the weather. He swayed. Just fall over, he told himself. Just get it over with.

  “Wimp,” said Dodge. “Numb nuts.”

  “Stop it!”

  Dodge laughed. “Go ahead and die,” he said. “I double-dog dare you.”

  And because it was Dodge and because it was a double-dog dare and because it was more important than anything to do exactly the opposite of anything Dodge wanted him to do right now, Nate opened his eyes, seething with anger. He turned and saw the snow creeping up on him across the expanse of open floor, saw it scintillate in the air like radioactive dust while it was already melting into puddles around the woodstove. He swore, big time, so loud it rocked his bones and burned his throat. Then he grabbed the easy chair he’d pulled up to the picture window, grabbed it and, howling with rage, pushed it across the floor like some insane tackle driving a linebacker back from the line of scrimmage.

  Bam!

  The chair plowed into the broken door. And the wind died inside. It still pounded on the door demanding entry. Nate ignored it. What stupid bastard ever listened to the wind?

  He shoveled and mopped until the H-house sparkled.

  “You’re such a girl,” said Dodge.

  “And you’re a first-class frigging idiot,” said Nate. “A lazy idiot.”

  “You hear that wind out there, man? We could hitch a sail to the boat and fly!”

  Nate managed a tired smile and squeezed out the last of the mop’s wetness into the sink. Done. Now to take the battle outside.

  He had to leave through the front door, which was sheltered from the blast. He looked back at his handiwork before he left. The chair was holding its own against the storm, just barel
y. Snow was still sifting in around the edges. He’d deal with the broken door when he had tools. Right now, he had only one thing on his mind.

  It was Saturday, four o’clock in the afternoon. He had been at camp almost exactly forty-eight hours, and yet here he was, standing in his own camp for the very first time. He had gotten here via the shutter shuttle. He had taken the six shutters he’d removed from the Hoebeeks’ windows and marched them across the yard, making himself a bridge over the snow. Stepping-stones. It took him a while, and it wasn’t a method of transportation that was going to get him out to the track, but all he could think about right at this very moment was what was lying before his eyes on the shelf of the little fridge on the sunporch.

  Steaks.

  Three T-bones. Obviously, the men had been planning on staying longer. So the biggest problem Nate really had at that precise moment was whether he was going to eat all three steaks right now or save a couple for another time. He wasn’t sure how long he was going to be stuck here. He could probably do the shutter shuttle out to the work shed. There might be an old pair of snowshoes there. But that would have to wait. He was exhausted — more exhausted than he had ever been in his life, both physically and emotionally. Drained. He didn’t know whether he’d be able to get out to the track by one o’clock tomorrow, but then again, the way the snow was coming down, he wasn’t sure the Budd would be there, either.

  He remembered times when he was younger and his father would go up for the weekend, alone, in the winter and not get home until three or four Monday morning. That was on the old timetable, when the train south was supposed to arrive at Mile 39 around four in the afternoon. His father had spent upward of eight hours waiting by the track, in the freezing cold, in the pitchblack. He’d get home with just enough time to shower and change and head off to work.