Bumstead's Well

by R E Swirsky

  "That's not true." She hesitated and flicked a finger back and forth in front of her face as if deep in thought. "Okay, you're right. I came back because Dad called me and asked me to come."

  "He only asked you because he thought I was dead," Vincent replied quickly.

  She suddenly looked hurt as if she was going to cry. "You are all grown up now. Look at you. You're tall. Taller than me even and we're both adults now. I know why you’re upset with me. I really do know why your upset, and I completely understand. Can’t you just forgive me?"

  Vincent shook his head in disgust. She was impossible and he was infuriated.

  "Forgive you just because you show up and smile at me like everything is fine? No, I can't just forgive you."

  "Please don't be like that. We should try to get to know each other better. It's been so many years. Itty bitty baby steps, maybe?"

  "You've had all of those years to try to get to know me. You could have come back anytime. I'm not your little boy anymore. I haven't been your little boy for nine years."

  Arlene wiped at her eyes.

  "But I always loved you," she said.

  "Ya, right," Vincent scoffed. "If you really cared even a little bit about me, you would have come to see me before now. We’ve been living in the same damn town for two years now."

  "I wanted to. I really did."

  "Did you know that I was in the same town as you?"

  Arlene started at him in a full pout. She didn't answer.

  “By your lack of response, I’m guessing you did." He clenched his fists.

  "I wanted to come see you. Honestly, I did."

  "But you didn't. That's my point, mom. I went to school at UBC and you lived only a few miles away the entire time. You never called. You never dropped by. You never even came back at all to see me until you thought I was dead."

  "That's so unfair."

  "Unfair? Ha!" he balked. "Gramps and Grams giving up the last nine years of their life to look after me is what's unfair! It wasn't fair to me, and it wasn't fair to them."

  Arlene looked at the computer screen and remained silent. She fiddled with the mouse.

  "I'm only being polite to you out there in front of the others today because Gramps asked me to. That's the only reason. He knows how much you even being here is upsetting me. I haven’t forgiven you. I haven't."

  She fiddled with the mouse again and looked up at him. She stared strangely at him before her eyes lit up once again. She pointed at him and shouted, "You! It's you!" she called out and cackled like she did a minute before. "You know who you look like? Richie Cunningham, that's who." She thrust her finger at him and laughed so hard she nearly fell backwards out of the chair.

  "Who?" Vincent asked. He was perplexed by her sudden change of focus.

  "The guy who played Richie Cunningham on that TV show. You know who I mean. He played Opie on the Andy Griffith Show when he was little."

  She suddenly whistled the theme music of the Andy Griffith Show and carried on until Vincent shouted at her.

  "Would you just stop it? You're driving me crazy! I'm leaving here with Anna. I can’t even stand to be around you!"

  She stopped whistling and leaned forward in the chair. A solemn look crossed her face. "Anna seems real nice," she said. "Do you like her?"

  Vincent rolled his eyes.

  She squinted at him and studied his face. "You really do look like Richie Cunningham now, but you didn't look at all like Opie when you were little." She smiled and continued to stare at him.

  "Seriously?" Vincent countered. He was flabbergasted that his mother could be so flippant.

  "You were chubbier."

  Vincent laughed in disbelief and shook his head. "I really think I'm done here." He turned away and walked towards the door. He stopped before he exited and looked back towards his mother. She set her focus back onto the computer screen in front of her. She clicked away with the mouse as if he had already left the room.

  "Hey!" he shouted.

  She stopped tapping on the keyboard and looked up at him.

  "Gramps is taking me and Anna to Roger's funeral in a few minutes."

  She pushed back the chair and stood up suddenly. "You want me to come with you? I'll just be a moment getting my things."

  "Are you kidding me?" he replied flabbergasted. "No, I don't want you coming with us. Only Gramps and Grams are coming. Why would you even want to come? You never knew Roger, and you don't know me at all!"

  "But, I thought..."

  "Think again."

  Vincent hesitated at the door and stared at his mother. She truly looked hurt, and it bothered him that she couldn't understand how and why he was so upset with her. He wanted to say more but he couldn't find the words. He left the room.

  CHAPTER 41 Day Six - Wednesday 10:22 AM

  Dean stared at the well and shook his head.

  "The stupid things teenagers do sometimes."

  "Is that blood?" Jet asked.

  "Looks like it," Dean replied.

  Bloody, claw-like scratch marks were visible on the surface of the stones that capped the well in a smooth limestone doughnut. He imagined Vincent reaching up from the hole in the centre, clawing desperately across the stones for a ridge to grab hold of, and leaving the trails of blood now smeared into the stones. The pattern told a vivid story that seemed much more frightening than Vincent described.

  Dean gently touched the rope that was still secured to the post alongside the well. He leaned over the opening of the well and peered down toward the bottom.

  "Shit."

  It was a complete blackout inside. He couldn’t see anything.

  "What the hell were those boys thinking? Did you bring a flashlight?" he asked.

  "You didn’t even tell me where we were going. You just asked me to come with you. It's in my cruiser back at the precinct."

  "Then run back to my car and get my flashlight, will you?"

  "Seriously?"

  “Yes, seriously. Go back down the path to my vehicle and grab my flashlight. You know where it is."

  Jet shook his head and hurried away across the grassy field to the patrol car. He returned with the flashlight and handed it to Dean.

  Dean pointed it down inside the well. The two men leaned in and peered down to the bottom.

  "Dammit!" Dean said. The flashlight was dim. He slapped the side of his flashlight with his hand until the beam increased intensity. It wasn't bright, but it was enough to satisfy him. He shone the flashlight back down the well.

  "You should really put new batteries in there," Jet said.

  Dean ignored him. "Now this just gets better and better, I must say."

  "What does?"

  The light barely reached down to the bottom and flickered as if it was about to die, but Dean could still see the pile of stones on the bottom. He smacked the flashlight with his palm again. He could just make out what he thought was the stool and bag that Vincent said were lowered down with the food and water.

  His heart raced as he studied the scene inside the well. He couldn't believe anyone could have possibly accomplished the feat Vincent described. He really did remove the stones one by one from the wall. He could see that every word of Vincent’s story was true. He continued to study the scene on the bottom as much as he could in the dim glow.

  "Take a look at that. That is one serious pile of rocks. That kid worked like hell to save his life. Would you have been able to do what he did here?" He moved the flashlight around to see more but the dim flashlight didn’t allow him to see any other details.

  Jet shrugged his shoulders. “That sure is a pile of rocks down there.”

  Dean slapped the flashlight again.

  "Yeah. That one stone resting on top of the pile looks different from all of the rest. It looks almost pure white as if it didn’t even come from inside here."

  Dean moved the light away from the bottom and followed the pattern of holes in the walls as they corkscrewed their way up to the top on opposit
e sides. He stopped when he came across the one large hole where the collapse Vincent described took place.

  “Wow. That sure is one bugger of a hole."

  Jet smiled and laughed quietly. "He's lucky the entire well didn't come down on top of him."

  Three square feet of stones had fallen from the wall in a V shape above where Vincent removed the stone. An abundance of dirt from behind the stones also fell away and left a large, deep cavity behind. If not for the top ten feet of stones set in mortar, Dean suspected that the entire top of the well would have collapsed in on itself and pulled Vincent down to the bottom.

  He kept the flashlight aimed at the bottom edge of the mortared stones that hung above the collapsed area.

  "Do you see something sticking out of the dirt inside that hole?" He squinted and twisted his head to one side of the opening to get a better look. "Looks like something is poking out of there."

  "A few sticks maybe? Roots?"

  "I don't know. Maybe." He lifted his head and looked around. There were no trees anywhere near the well.

  The opening between the capstones lining the top was too small for either of them to see any more of the inside. Short of dropping themselves down inside the well, they would have to settle for what they could see from the top.

  "Damn it," he said.

  "What?"

  "I really wish I could see more. This bloody flashlight ain't worth a shit."

  Jet smiled at him. "Maybe if you kept good batteries in it..."

  "Oh, shut it."

  He aimed the flashlight back to the bottom and stared at the stones again. He had a feeling there was something more down there that needed checking. He tried to remember Vincent's words. Vincent said something the afternoon they found him that didn't make sense to him at the time, but he couldn't quite remember what it was. He said a word that sounded wrong and out of context. Dean had assumed it was because Vincent was weak and disoriented.

  He pulled out his smart phone. "Let's see if my camera lights up the inside of this well any better."

  Dean flashed off a number of photos of the inside of the well and outside. Even from the small screen on his cell phone, he could see that the flash was much more powerful than his flashlight.

  "Here," Dean said and handed the phone to jet. "Pop these onto the computer when you have a chance."

  "Me? Why don't you do it?"

  "I'm not good with this techno computer stuff. Besides, you're new here, and I outrank you. You are under my watch for the time being, remember?"

  Jet's usual smile disappeared momentarily. He nodded. "Sure."

  "Load those pictures when you get back later. I can get by without my phone for one night. Just leave it with Millie once you're done, and I'll grab it in the morning from her. The download cable is in the drawer in my desk.”

  "Old man," Jet said and took the phone from Dean. An amenable smile stretched across his face.

  "What?" Dean asked.

  "You," he replied and looked down at the phone he held in his hand. "You may outrank me, but you are an old man."

  "I'm thirty six. I'm not old."

  Jet lifted the phone up and wiggled it in front of Dean's face and laughed. "Can't upload pictures? You are an old man" he said and pointed at Dean.

  "Oh, bugger off."

  CHAPTER 42 Day Six - Wednesday 10:34 AM

  "It is the very same one," Chris replied simply. He puffed heavily on his cigarette.

  "But it can't be." Anita replied. "After that shemozzle ended and everything died down, you told me the three of you went back out there and filled in the well. It can't be the same one."

  All of the guests from earlier left, and Chris and Anita were seated alone on the patio with fresh cups of tea. Vincent was somewhere in the house with Anna, and Arlene had buried herself in front of the computer in Chris' study for the past half hour. In less than an hour’s time, they would take Vincent out to Roger's funeral.

  "I worked out on that farm for two full years as a labourer after coming back from the war. There only ever was one well on that entire property. I should know. You do remember why I was out there in the first place, don't you?"

  "Of course I do. You were hiding."

  "I wasn't hiding."

  "Call it what you want, Chris. I remember very well what you were like back then. You had just come back from the war, and you were such an awful bugger. Moody and grumpy. You wanted nothing to do with your father. I remember that much. I was barely seventeen when I started working in Bumstead's office, and you were that arrogant young man who always found some reason to be hanging around me instead of working outside like you were supposed to." She laughed.

  "That's not what I meant. I'm talking about the well."

  "Oh. After you quit you mean."

  "Yes. After I quit working for Bumstead."

  "You and those two others went back out to Bumstead’s to rebuild the well. It was one of the first real jobs you did when you finally went to work for your father. Bumstead gave your father the contract to rebuild that well. I remember that very clearly, but I never really understood it."

  "You remember it well, Anita. The stones at the top were on the verge of collapsing. I didn't like going back out there after I had just quit working for Bumstead." He shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "I think dad sent me out there on purpose." He paused in his memory. "It doesn't matter why, but I was back out there. We reset the loose stones at the top eight feet of that well with mortar and then capped the top with a half dozen polished limestones. Town water still wasn't out that far, and Bumstead really needed that well to keep his business afloat."

  "That was just before that whole scene," Anita replied. She made strong hand gestures as if to emphasize her point. "It was just as you were finishing the repairs to that well when all of that bad stuff started to happen. So you didn't fill it in back then like you told me. If you had, Vincent wouldn't have found his way down there to the bottom. You were supposed to fill it in. That’s what you told me you did. I don’t understand why you didn’t.” She shook her finger at him. “This could be very bad, Chris."

  Chris let loose a long, heavy sigh. "What we should have done was remove that scaffolding and backfilled around the outside of that damn well the very day we finished the work. We would have left that place that same day for good, and there would have been no reason to go back. None of what went down that day would have ever happened then on that property."

  "Why did you tell me you filled it back in?" Anita asked.

  "For Christ sakes, Anita! I was a young man. We were all young… Young, stupid, and scared. I just wanted to put all of that behind me and end it, and so I lied. I lied to you. I lied to my father too."

  “Well, it's just all come back now, hasn't it. Over fifty years later."

  "I know, Goddamn it! You don't have to tell me!" he barked. "We don't know if anything's even been exposed, so let's not jump to conclusions."

  "I still just can’t believe it. How could you? It was those two fools you hung around with."

  Chris grunted. He was getting annoyed at her persistence. "Do you know how much rock and gravel we would have needed to fill in that well? Truckloads. It didn’t make sense to those other two workers why Dad would want us to fill in a well that we just spent two weeks repairing, and I certainly wasn't about to explain it to them. I certainly didn't want to bring any more attention out to that property with backhoes and trucks full of rocks and gravel, so I lied to my father. And those two I was with were content with just getting off of that property, and neither of them had any idea what I really staged out there.”

  He put out his cigarette and immediately lit another.

  "They were already watching us," he added. "What was I supposed to do? We just went out to the property like we were finishing up our job and pulled out the scaffolding.” He puffed hard, and the embers glowed brightly on his cigarette. “That's all we did.”

  Anita stared at him. He knew she was in deep distress ov
er the whole thing.

  "I wanted nothing more to do with that damn property. So we cheated and just boxed it up. Most of the buildings out there were burned completely down to the ground. The bigger barn was still smouldering that night. Everyone who lived and worked out on that property was moved out. The place was completely deserted and after what happened they certainly weren't going to rebuild. It was over and dad won."

  "No one won," Anita replied.

  "Well, it seemed like it to me at the time. Dad was at least happy again. We salvaged some boards from what was left of the main house to build a big box to hide the well." He laughed lightly. “We even tore down the shelter above the well. And then we covered it with shrubs and branches. Such fools we were."

  "What happens if someone starts looking around there now, Chris? I couldn't stand to go through all of that again. Not at my age."

  "They won't find anything," he said confidently.

  Anita hesitated. He knew she was reliving the details before she responded. She turned to Chris, and he could feel the tension in her voice as she spoke and waved one finger in the air.

  "I know there's nothing in the bottom of that well to find. I have not forgotten any of this, Chris. I remember every detail you told me at the time." She paused for a moment. "Is there something else about that night you didn’t tell me the truth about?"

  "Nothing else," he replied firmly. "Not filling in the well was the only thing about that whole mess I ever lied to you about."

  "I still remember it so clearly," she said. "They spent days searching through all of those burned buildings and they didn't find a single one of them. And I remember they kept hovering around that property until someone tipped them off to have a look down inside that well. I never heard who that was, but they were so sure they were going to find them down there under the water. They poked and prodded through the water with long poles and found nothing. And then they decided to pump the water out just to be sure. It took them two days to empty it all out. They even dug up the mud on the bottom and still didn't find anything."