by Scott Smith
"The bird. It sat in the pilot's lap and ate out his eyes."
Jacob grimaced. Lou gave me a skeptical look.
"You can see his skull," I said. "See the bone." I crouched down, scooped up some snow, and held it, burning, against my forehead.
The wind had picked up a little, and the apple trees in the orchard were swaying in it, creaking. The crows on their branches had to lift their wings every now and then to keep their balance. The light was beginning to fade and, with it, whatever warmth there had been to the day.
I took the snow away from my forehead. It was light brown with blood. I removed my glove and touched the cut with my finger. It was cold from the snow, and tender. There was a bump rising up, as if a marble or a tiny egg had been planted just beneath my skin.
"You've got a little bump," Jacob said. His rifle was slung over his left shoulder; his jacket was buttoned up.
Lou crouched down beside the duffel bag. It was closed with a tightly knotted drawstring, and he had to take off his gloves before he could undo it. Jacob and I watched him work at it. When he got it loose, he opened the bag.
As he looked inside, his expression went through a remarkable transformation. There was an initial hint of perplexity, his eyes opening wide, as if trying to focus better, his eyebrows rising slightly; but this was followed quickly by signs of excitement and amusement, his face flushing a deep crimson, his lips pulling back in a smile to reveal his crooked teeth. Watching him, I felt sure that I didn't want to know what the bag contained.
"Holy fucking shit," he said. He reached inside and hesitantly touched whatever was there, a petting motion, as if it were alive and he was afraid it might bite.
"What?" Jacob asked. He moved heavily toward Lou through the snow.
With a sinking sensation, remembering the bag's weight, I decided suddenly that it must be a body, or parts of a body.
"It's money," Lou said, smiling up at Jacob. "Look." He leaned the bag forward.
Jacob bent over and squinted at it, his mouth dropping open. I looked, too. It was full of money, packets held together with thin paper bands.
"Hundred-dollar bills," Lou said. He took one of the packets out, held it up in the air before his face.
"Don't touch it," I said, rising to my feet. "You'll get fingerprints on it."
He glanced sourly at me but returned the packet to the bag. Then he put his gloves back on.
"How much do you think is here?" Jacob asked. They both looked toward me, deferring to my accountant's knowledge.
"Ten thousand to a packet," I said. I measured the bag with my eyes, tried to guess how many packets could fit inside. "It's probably close to three million dollars." I said this without really thinking. Then, when I thought about it, it seemed absurd. I didn't believe it.
Lou picked up another packet, this time with his gloves on.
"Don't touch it, Lou," I said.
"My gloves are on."
"The police'll want to get prints from the packets. You'll smudge any that are already there."
He frowned but dropped the packet back into the bag.
"Is it real?" Jacob asked.
"Of course it's real," Lou said. "Don't be stupid."
Jacob ignored him. "You think it's drug money?" he asked me.
I shrugged. "It's from a bank." I gestured toward the bag. "That's how they sort money. A hundred bills to a packet."
Mary Beth appeared suddenly on the opposite rim of the orchard, working his way down through the snow toward the plane. He looked dejected, as if we'd let him down by not joining in on his pursuit of the fox. We all watched him approach, but no one commented on his return. One of the crows cawed at him, a warning cry, and it hung for a second, sharp and clear in the crisp air, like a note from a bugle.
"This is crazy," I said. "That guy must've robbed a bank."
Jacob shook his head in disbelief. "Three million dollars."
Mary Beth came around the front of the plane, wagging his tail. He gave us a sad, tired look. Jacob crouched down and patted absentmindedly at the dog's head.
"I suppose you're going to want to turn it in," Lou said.
I looked at him, shocked. Up till that point I hadn't even considered that we had an option. "You want to keep it?"
He glanced toward Jacob for support, then back at me. "Why not each keep a packet? Ten thousand dollars apiece, and turn the rest in?"
"For starters, it's stealing."
Lou gave a quick snort of disgust. "Stealing from who? From him?" He waved toward the plane. "He won't mind."
"It's a lot of money," I said. "Somebody knows it's missing, and they're looking for it. I guarantee that."
"You're saying you'd turn me in, if I took a packet?" He picked one of the packets out of the bag, held it out toward me.
"I wouldn't have to. Whoever's looking for it knows how much is missing. If we hand it in a little short and you start spending hundred-dollar bills around town, it won't take them long to figure out what happened."
Lou waved this aside. "I'm willing to take the risk," he said, flashing a smile from me to Jacob. Jacob smiled back.
I frowned at them both. "Don't be stupid, Lou."
Lou continued to grin. He slipped the packet into his coat, then picked a second one out of the bag and handed it to Jacob. Jacob took it but couldn't seem to decide what to do with it. He crouched there, his rifle in one gloved hand, the money in the other, looking expectantly at me. Mary Beth rolled in the snow at his feet.
"I don't think you'd turn me in," Lou said. "And I know you wouldn't turn your brother in."
"Get me near a phone, Lou, and you'll see."
"You'd turn me in?" he asked.
I tried to snap my fingers, but with gloves on they didn't make any sound. "Like that."
"But why? It's not like it'd harm anyone."
Jacob was still crouched there, the money in his hand. "Put it back, Jacob," I said. He didn't move.
"It's different for you," Lou said. "You've got your job at the feedstore. Jacob and I don't have that. This money'd matter to us."
His voice had edged itself toward a whine, and, hearing it, I felt a revelatory flash of power. The dynamic of our relationship had shifted, I realized. I was in control now; I was the spoiler, the one who would decide what happened to the money. I smiled at Lou.
"I'd still get in trouble if you took it. You'd fuck up, and I'd be considered an accomplice."
Jacob started to stand up, then crouched back down again. "Why not take all of it?" he asked, looking from Lou to me.
"All of it?" I said. The idea seemed preposterous, and I started to laugh, but it made my forehead ache. I winced, probing at the bump with my fingers. It was still bleeding a little.
"Just take the bag," he said, "leave the dead guy in there, pretend we were never here."
Lou nodded eagerly, pouncing on the idea. "Split it three ways."
"We'd get caught as soon as we started spending it," I said. "Imagine the three of us suddenly throwing hundred-dollar bills around at the stores in town."
Jacob shook his head. "We could wait awhile, then leave town, start up new lives."
"A million apiece," Lou said. "Think about it."
"You just don't get away with something like that." I sighed. "You end up doing something stupid, and you get caught."
"Don't you see, Hank?" Jacob asked, his voice rising with impatience. "It's like this money doesn't even exist. No one knows about it but us."
"It's three million dollars, Jacob. It's missing from somewhere. You can't tell me no one's searching for it."
"If people were searching for it, we would've heard by now. There would've been something on the news."
"It's drug money," Lou said. "It's all under the table. The government doesn't know about any of it."
"You don't--" I started, but Lou cut me off.
"Jesus, Hank. All this money staring you right in the face. It's the American dream, and you just want to walk away from it."
"You work for the American dream, Lou. You don't steal it."
"Then this is even better than the American dream."
"What reason would you have for turning it in?" Jacob asked. "No one's going to get hurt by our taking it. No one's going to know."
"It's stealing, Jacob. Isn't that enough?"
"It's not stealing," he said firmly. "It's like lost treasure, like a chest full of gold."
There was some sense in what he was saying, I could see that, yet at the same time it seemed like we were overlooking something. Mary Beth made a whimpering sound in the snow, and Jacob, without taking his eyes off my face, began to pet him. The crows sat quietly in the surrounding trees, hunch shouldered against the cold, like miniature vultures. Darkness was falling quickly all around us.
"Come on, Hank," Lou said. "Don't fuck this up."
I still didn't say anything -- I was hesitating, wavering. As much as I delighted in my power over Lou and Jacob, I didn't want to do something I'd later regret merely to contradict them. Without even realizing it, without even intending to do it, I began searching for a way to take the packets. And it was like magic, too, like a gift from the gods, the ease with which a solution came to me, a simple plan, a way to keep the money without fear of getting caught. I could just sit on it, hiding it away until the plane was discovered. If someone found the wreck and there was no mention of a missing three million dollars, I'd split it up with Lou and Jacob and we could go our separate ways. But if, on the other hand, it seemed like someone knew the money was missing, I'd burn it. The duffel bag and the packets themselves would be the only evidence that could be held against me. Up until the very instant I gave Lou and Jacob their shares, I'd be in complete control. I could erase my crime at a moment's notice.
Looking back on it now, after all that's happened, it seems insane with what little fear I picked this path. It took me perhaps twenty seconds, a third of a minute's worth of debate. For a brief instant I was in complete control, not only of the money's destiny but also of my own, and Jacob's, and Lou's, yet I was utterly unconscious of this, had no feel for the weight of my decision, could not sense how, within the next few seconds, I was going to set into motion a series of events that would radically transform each of our lives. In my ignorance, my choice seemed straightforward, unambiguous: if I were to give up the duffel bag now, it'd be an irrevocable step -- I'd hand it over to the sheriff, and it'd be gone forever. My plan, on the other hand, would allow me to postpone a decision until we had more information. I'd be taking a step, but not one that I couldn't undo.
"All right," I said. "Put the money back."
Neither of them moved.
"We're keeping it?" Lou asked.
"I'm keeping it."
"You're keeping it?" Jacob said. "What do you mean, you're keeping it?"
"This is what we're doing. I keep it for six months. If no one comes looking for it during that period, then we'll split it up."
Jacob and Lou stared at me, taking this in.
"Why do you keep it?" Lou asked.
"I'm the safest. I have a family, a job. I've got the most to lose."
"Why not split it up now?" he asked. "We each sit on our own shares?"
I shook my head. "This is how we're doing it. If you don't want it like this, we can turn it in now. That's the choice I'm offering you."
"You don't trust us?" Jacob asked.
"No," I said. "I guess I don't."
He nodded at that but didn't say anything.
"They'll discover the plane before six months is up," Lou said. "Spring'll come and somebody'll find it."
"Then we'll see for sure if anyone knows there was money on it."
"And if someone knows?" Jacob asked.
"Then I'll burn it. The only way we'll keep it is if there's absolutely no chance of getting caught. As soon as it seems like we might be in trouble, I'll get rid of the money."
"You'll burn it," Lou said, disgusted.
"That's right. Every last bill."
Neither of them spoke. We all stared down at the duffel bag.
"We don't tell anyone," I said. I looked at Lou. "Not even Nancy." Nancy was Lou's live-in girlfriend. She worked in a beauty parlor over in Sylvania.
"She's got to know eventually," he said. "She's gonna wonder where all my money's coming from."
"She can know when we decide that it's safe to keep it. Not a moment sooner."
"Then the same thing holds for Sarah," he said.
I nodded, as if this went without saying. "We'll continue to live like normal. I'm just asking you to hold off for six months. It'll be there, waiting for you. You'll know it's there."
They were both silent, thinking.
"All right?" I asked. I looked first at Lou, then at Jacob. Lou was scowling at me, as if he were angry. He didn't say anything. Jacob shrugged, hesitated a second, then nodded. He dropped his packet back into the bag.
"Lou?" I said.
Lou didn't move. Jacob and I stared at him, waiting. Finally, with a grimace, as if it pained him to do it, he pulled the wad of money from his jacket, stared at it for a moment, and then, very slowly, slid it into the bag.
"We count it before you take it," he said, his voice low, almost a growl.
I smiled at him, even grinned. It seemed funny that he didn't trust me.
"All right," I said. "That's probably a good idea."
2
IT WAS getting dark now, so we decided to return to the truck and count the money there. As we hiked back toward the road, Jacob and Lou started talking about what they were going to do with their newfound wealth. Jacob wanted a snowmobile, a wide-screen TV, a big fishing boat that he'd name Hidden Treasure. Lou said he was going to invest half his share in the stock market and spend the rest on a beach house in Florida with a deck, a hot tub, and a wet bar. I just listened, wanting all the time to warn them not to make plans, that we might not be able to keep it, but for some reason remaining silent.
Lou and I carried the duffel bag together, walking sideways, each of us holding an end, and it slowed us down enough for Jacob to keep up. Jacob talked the whole way, chattering like a child. You could feel his excitement -- it was something palpable; he exuded it like a scent.
The temperature began to drop as soon as the sun went down, glazing the surface of the snow into an icy skin, which we broke through each time we took a step. There was very little light beneath the trees. Branches seemed to jump out at us as we walked, appearing suddenly from the darkness directly before our faces, making us duck and weave as we moved forward, like a trio of boxers.
It took us nearly thirty minutes to reach the road. When we got there, Jacob put his rifle back behind the truck's front seat and started searching for his flashlight, while Lou and I emptied the money onto the tailgate. We were both a little stunned, I think, at the number of packets that spilled from the bag, mesmerized by the sight of so much wealth, and that's probably why we didn't notice the sheriff's truck until it was almost upon us. Perhaps if we'd seen it earlier, if we'd made out its headlights when they were still hovering on the edge of the horizon, two yellow pinpricks moving slowly toward us, I would've acted differently. I would've had time to think things through, to consider my options with a little more care, so that when the truck finally got close enough for me to make out the bubble light on its roof, I might've decided to tell Sheriff Jenkins about the plane. I could've shown him the money, explained how we were just about to call him up on the CB, and, by doing that, I would've ended the whole thing right then and there, would've handed it to the sheriff in a nice, tidy bundle, disposing of it before it had a chance to unravel and entangle us all.
But it didn't happen like that: the truck was no more than two hundred yards away when we noticed it. We heard it first, heard its engine, the crunch of its tires against the frozen road. Lou and I looked up at the same time. A half second later Jacob pulled his head from behind the seat.
"Shit," I heard him say.
Without thinking, acting purely on instinct, like an animal burying its store of food, I slammed shut the tailgate. The money tumbled out across the truck bed, the packets making a soft thumping sound against the metal floor. We'd dropped the duffel bag to the ground after we'd emptied it, and I bent to pick it up now. I draped it across the money, covering it as best I could.
"Go up front with Jacob," I whispered to Lou. "Let me do the talking."
Lou shuffled quickly away, his head bowed. Then the sheriff was there, his brakes squeaking as he came to a stop on the opposite side of the road. He leaned across the seat to roll down the window, and I stepped out to greet him.
Technically Carl Jenkins wasn't really a sheriff, though that's what everyone called him. Sheriff was a county position, and Carl worked for the town. He was Ashenville's only policeman, a position he'd held for nearly forty years. People called him Sheriff simply from a lack of any other possible title of respect.
"Hank Mitchell!" he said as I came toward him, his whole face smiling, as if he'd been driving along just now hoping he'd run into me. I didn't know him that well; we were no more than nodding acquaintances, but I always felt like he was sincerely pleased to see me. I think he made everyone feel that way, even strangers; he had that quality about him, a disarmingly unguarded avuncularity, a smile that caught you by surprise.
He was a small man, shorter than I. His face was perfectly round, with a wide, shiny forehead and a small, thin-lipped mouth. There was an air of properness about him, an elegance: his khaki uniform was invariably perfectly pressed, his nails clipped, his thick white hair combed and carefully parted. He smiled often and always had a clean, freshly scrubbed smell about him, a sweetish mixture of talcum powder and shoe polish.
I stopped a few feet short of his truck.
"Engine trouble?" he asked.
"No," I said. "Dog trouble." I felt remarkably calm. The money was just a small thought in the very back of my head. I could tell he wasn't going to get out of his truck, so I knew we wouldn't have a problem. I told him about the fox.
"He treed it?" Carl asked.
"We thought so, but we didn't get more than a hundred yards into the park before he came running back."