by Rick Hautala
He was so involved with his thoughts and his off-key singing, and the chainsaw was blotting out all other sounds, so Bill was caught by surprise when somebody suddenly shouted from close behind him.
Wheeling around, he raised the chainsaw as if it were a weapon. He felt suddenly embarrassed when he saw a woman standing about ten feet away from him.
She was tall and had long, dark hair. Dressed in cut- off jeans and a tight-fitting halter top, she looked, for a moment, almost unreal. Just the fact that she didn’t look like Lori helped calm his jangled nerves. At least there were no ghosts out here.
The woman smiled and said something else, but the buzz of the chain drowned her out. Bill flipped the control to off and let the saw sputter to silence before placing it on the ground and nodding a greeting.
“Howdy,” he said, letting his smile widen as he took in the plain beauty of the woman. He could see that she was in fact real, not a hallucination. “I hope this wasn’t bothering you.”
The woman shook her head, letting one side of her mouth curl into a grin. “Not at all. Living out here, you hear chainsaws all the time...along with three-wheelers in the spring and snowmobiles in the winter. It’s louder than living in town sometimes.”
Bill shrugged and with a curt nod of his head indicated where he had been working. “It’s been a while since I was out here,” he said with a chuckle. “Just clearing the land a bit.”
“Planning to build?”
Bill nodded. “Yeah...I had to...ah, put the work on hold for a while.” Taking a few steps toward his visitor, he held his hand out and said, “I don’t believe we’ve met. My name’s Bill Howard.”
The woman took his hand and gave it a firm shake. Bill noticed that her hand was cool and dry in his grip. Her wrist was dotted with freckles.
“My name’s Gail...Gail Fleischer.” She released the grip and let her hand fall slowly to her side. “If you’re planning on building here, I guess we’ll be next door neighbors. I live in the green Colonial down the road on the right.”
Bill nodded. “I was wondering who had moved in there. I, uh—I haven’t noticed you around town.”
Feeling suddenly foolish, standing there half-naked in front of a strange woman, Bill moved over to the car and picked up his shirt from where he had left it on the front seat. He wiped his forehead and chest with the shirt then pulled it on over his head. It stuck to his sweaty skin, but he managed to get it on.
“I just moved in about three weeks ago,” Gail said. “I got some money recently and decided to move here. I’m originally from the Springfield area.”
“Maine?”
“No, Mass.”
Bill noticed that her voice had a clear, pleasant ring to it, and he found himself wondering if she was a singer. Whenever she was talking, he studied her a bit more, and he had to admit that the longer he looked, the more inter- esting he found her. He almost laughed aloud because he found himself already thinking that if the occasion arose, he wouldn’t mind asking her out for dinner or a movie sometime. He hadn’t felt like that since...well, certainly not since Lori died. Maybe he’d take a shower first, though, he thought, wiping his slick forehead with the back of his arm.
“I’m from Massachusetts, too. I grew up in Danvers,” Bill said, “but I’ve been living in Maine now for...jeeze, more than fifteen years.”
Gail laughed softly and said, “Why, you must be just about considered a ‘local’ by now.”
Bill shook his head sadly from side to side, making an exaggerated frown. “No way,” he said. “Even my sons, who were born here, are considered to be ‘from away’ by any old timers I’ve met.”
“Sons?” Gail inquired, her eyebrows making two semi-circles high on her forehead. “You’re married, then.”
Bill felt an icy splash in his stomach, and he had to take a deep breath before answering. “No...my, uhh, wife died five years ago.” He’d smiled and shrugged. “It’s just me and the boys.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Gail said. Her expression fell as she cocked her head to one side.
Bill shrugged again. “It hasn’t been easy. It happened five years ago and—well, as they say, ‘time heals all wounds.’ ”
“Or wounds all heels,” Gail added with a bright laugh.
They both laughed, and again, as he watched her, he felt drawn to her; there was something about her—an open, cheerful nature—that instantly attracted him. She made him feel something he hadn’t felt since...well, since way back when he and Lori had first met. It was something he had honestly resigned himself to never feeling again. And now, here he had met this woman and in less than five minutes, he was wondering how he could bring the conversation around so he could ask her out.
Goddamn, he thought, nearly laughing aloud for no apparent reason. Ain’t it amazing what can happen?
“How ‘bout you?” Bill said, deciding the direct approach would be best. “Are you married?”
Gail’s grin widened, and a devilish sparkle lit her pale blue eyes. “I guess you could say time wounded that heel, too...at least, I hope so.”
Bill nodded his head slowly. “Divorced, then.”
Gail cocked her head to one side again—a motion Bill already considered to be characteristic of her. “Yeah. It’s been three glorious months since I dumped the useless sack of— Ahh. Let’s just let that drop, okay?”
“Okay with me,” Bill said, feeling suddenly awkward and a bit taken back by her reaction.
Gail clapped her hands together, rubbing them vigorously. “I can spare you the bloody details. My ex-husband—” She snorted and looked at the ground, shaking her head from side to side. “God, I’m still not used to using that word. Anyway, my ex-husband was a high school English teacher, and he, uh, he had a ‘thing going,’ as they say, with one of his students. I didn’t even suspect it until he dropped the bomb that he’d gotten her pregnant and wanted a divorce so he could marry her.”
Groping for an appropriate response, the best Bill could come up with was a weak “I see.”
“Anyway, once I found out what had been going on right under my nose for more than six months, I took him to court and sued him for everything except his underwear. I would have taken that, too, if I could have used it. So to make a long story short, I took the money and ran. I decided I wanted to live in a small, rural town, so I moved to Maine.”
“What ever made you pick Thornton?” Bill asked. “I mean, even for small and rural, it isn’t much.”
Gail giggled, and her smile returned again, casting aside the shadows that had gathered while she had been talking about her ex. “Believe it or not, my roommate freshman year at U. Mass, was from here, and she always talked about her hometown, so I decided to give it a try.”
“Who was your roommate? Does she still live here?”
Gail shook her head. “Her name was Lois Snell. She’s married now and living in Colorado, last I heard.”
“So do you like it here?”
Again, Gail cocked her head to one side. “So far,” she said, nailing him with a piercing stare. “And I’m liking it better all the time. You look beat, and I’ll bet the last thing you need right now is to be standing around here listening to my boring stories.”
“No, I, uh—”
“What do you say we go down to my house, then?”
Gail said. “I can fix us a nice lunch, and we can eat on the sun porch. I’ve got some cold beer in the fridge. You like tuna fish?”
Bill nodded numbly, thinking how nice it would be not to have to drive out to McDonald’s out on Route 25 as he had planned. “Sure. I like tuna. The beer sounds even better ‘cause I forgot to pack anything for while I was out here. I didn’t realize how hot it was going to get.”
“Come on, then,” Gail said, stepping forward and hooking her arm through his. There was a spring in her step, almost a skip as she started leading him down the dirt driveway. “I’ve been listening to your buzz saw all morning. I thought you needed a break. Oh
, and when you see about a hundred pounds of fur charging at you, don’t worry—it’s just Barkley, my dog.”
“Barkley?” Bill said, laughing aloud. Arm in arm, they walked down the road to Gail’s house. It felt so odd to feel so comfortable so fast with Gail, but he couldn’t deny that it also felt damned good.
As it turned out, he spent the better part of three hours, talking and laughing with her while scratching Barkley behind the ears. By the time he made his way back to the house site, he had lost whatever momentum for work he’d had, so he put the chainsaw away and drove back home. Besides, he had to take a shower and shave because he was going to pick Gail up at seven so they could drive into Portland for a movie.
3
Twigs snapped, and leaves crinkled underfoot as Marty and Al made their way side by side down the narrow wooded path. The slanting sunlight did its best to slice through the leaves overhead, but what little light that made it was misty and dim. The further they went along the path, the more the woods seemed to darken and lean inward.
“Come on,” Marty said, sounding agitated. “Just let me take a peak at it.”
Without missing a step, Al patted the huge bulge under his T-shirt and shook his head. “No way, man. Not ‘til we get there.”
Marty bit his lower lip and huffed with frustration. He hadn’t had time to shower since finishing mowing the lawn, and when Al poked his ugly mug into the house, grinning like an ape, they had taken off right away. Marty’s T-shirt clung to his back like clammy hands, and he was in no mood for any of Al’s fooling around. If this was all some kind of put-on, he was going to be pissed.
“You ain’t gonna believe this when you see it,” Al said. His words concluded with a squeaking upward note. “You just aren’t gonna.”
Marty shook his head disgustedly. He was pretty sure Al had dipped into the stockpile again before coming over to get him.
“Al, my man, I already saw it. Don’t you remember? You came by my house yesterday after school.”
Al giggled and once again patted the package he was carrying under his shirt. “Yesterday? Man, that was barely a taste. This is the whole enchilada.”
Marty snorted, rumbled deeply in his chest, and then spat. The ball of spit arced in the air and then hit a tree with a dull plop.
“Bulls-eye,” Al said, punctuated with a chuckle. “Well I ain’t so sure I think hiding it out here is the swiftest idea, you know.”
Al was apparently tuned to his own private mental radio station and apparently didn’t hear him. He was bopping his head from side to side and uttering hissing, funky noises.
“Well...it isn’t, you know,” Marty said.
“What?” Al asked, shaking his head as though he had water in his ear.
Marty shot him another disgusted look. “I said, I didn’t think hiding the stash out here is such a great idea. I mean—everyone knows about the Indian Caves. People come out here all the time.”
Al shook his head. “So? We’ll bury it. No one will ever find it. And with this much, where would be better?
You wanna keep it at your house?”
Marty nodded.
“Well I wouldn’t trust you with it. Not this much.”
They had reached a leaf-choked stream where the ground was soggy. With each step, when they lifted up their feet, the small depressions they left behind filled with dark, brackish water. Their sneakers made gross sucking sounds in the muck.
Marty placed one foot on a stone, rocked back and forth a few times to make sure it was solid enough, and then springing off it, leaped to the other side. When he hit the ground, his foot caught on a tree root, and he went sprawling face-first onto the ground. From the other side of the stream, Al rocked back on his heels and roared so hard with laughter he nearly fell over.
Marty swore softly to himself as he stood up slowly, brushing the wet leaves and mud from the knees of his jeans. “Jesus, cut it out, will yah?” he said with a snarl.
Al suddenly drew back, giving him a haughty sneer.
“Well, I’ll be. Look who’s the touchy one, why don’t you.”
“Come on,” Marty said. The fall had done nothing to help his sour mood.
Al nodded, his face taking on a stupid, stoned glaze. He seemed to consider his options for a moment, then stepped back and made a dash toward the stream. Just at the edge, he flung his arms into the air and, screaming wildly, leaped across the stream. He landed on the other side standing up, so he didn’t understand why Marty was practically falling down with laughter.
“What? What’s your fuckin’ problem?” Al asked.
“You did—” Marty said, snorting with laughter. “You did just fine, except you left your sneaker back there.”
Al looked to where Marty was pointing at the other side of the stream. One of his sneakers—one of his brand-new Nikes—was almost completely sunk in the muck. The opened top was angled toward them, and Al could see that it was rapidly filling with dark water.
“Jesus H. Fucking Christ,” he muttered. He sat down heavily on the ground, unlaced his remaining sneaker, kicked it off, and then rolled up both pant legs and waded back across the stream to retrieve the sneaker.
“Water’s damned cold,” he said, but by the time he had retrieved his sneaker and sat down to lace it back up, he was chuckling.
“I told you, man,” Marty said with a sigh. “This is a stupid place to hide the stash.”
Al stood up slowly and patted the bulge under his shirt, reassuring himself that it had made the crossing safely. As they started walking down the trail again, Al’s left sneaker made a squishing sound with every other step.
“I can’t keep this at my house, and,” he said, cutting Marty off with a wagging finger, “And I sure as fuck don’t trust you to keep it, not without smoking it up. But if my sister knew I had it, you’d find me bound and gagged in someone’s car trunk with a bullet hole in my forehead...right...here.” He tapped a spot on his head between his eyebrows.
“Come on, your sister knows you smoke pot,” Marty said. “She’s even sold us some every now and again.”
“Yeah,” Al replied, and a snigger of laughter shook his shoulders, “but she might be a little bit pissed off if she knew I snagged this from her boyfriend’s stash.”
“You mean Woody?” Marty asked, stopping short and grabbing Al by both shoulders. He couldn’t help but feel a splash of ice water running in his veins.
Al nodded. “Yup. The fucking idiot just left it there in the trunk of her car. I was changing a flat for her, and I just happened to see it, so I—”
“Are you out of your mind?” Marty yelled. “Christ, that’s just great! Do you have any idea what you just did?”
Still holding Al by the shoulders, he shook him as if he could drive some sense into him.
“Fuck, give me a break, will yah?” Al said. His voice sounded chattery because Marty was shaking him so hard. “I’m sharing it with you, ain’t I?”
“I can’t believe you stole this from Woody. Jesus Christ, he’s heavy into dealing. I’ll bet you this wasn’t his own personal stash. I’ll bet you this was some stuff he was getting set to deal.”
Al stuck out his lower lip and shrugged when Marty let go of him. “What the fuck do I care?”
“Woody’s in jail. Did you know that? And I’ll bet you didn’t realize my old man’s trying to get him out, and do you know what for? For beating up on your sister.”
Al tossed his hands up. “What the fuck do I care? Woody’s a fucking idiot. He’s always slapping her around. I figure he’ll be freaked out for a week or two ‘n then it’ll blow over. What’s the sweat?”
Marty began pacing back and forth, running his fingers through his hair. “Come on, Al—this is serious shit. Woody got thrown in jail for what he did to your sister. My father said he might be facing some time in Warren, but if you’ve got pot Woody was supposed to sell for someone, then that someone’s gonna get burned.”
“Serves ‘em right for doing somet
hing illegal,” Alsaid with a snorting laugh.
“Yeah?” Marty said. “But what if they find out we have it? We’ll be fuckin’ dead.”
Al’s snicker turned into a braying laugh. “Well, then, we’ll just have to smoke it up as fast as we can before they kill us. Come on. Let’s get out to the caves, and then we can round up some people and have one helluva part-tee.”
Marty wanted to throttle him, but he held back and cast his eyes up and down the trail. The woods seemed to draw closer, tightening around him like his own clammy T-shirt. Sure, he thought, it was one thing to smoke pot and screw off at school, but stealing pot from a dealer—even someone as small-time as Sid Wood—was getting into it just a wee bit deeper than he wanted to.
What were the chances Woody would actually do something to them if he found out they had stolen his grass? Well, for one thing, he’d beaten up Susie bad enough so she’d been taken to the hospital. It was possible he could do a lot worse to them.
“Hey, man,” Al said when Marty’s hesitation finally cut through his stoned fog. “Com’on. You wanted to see it? Let me just show it to yah.” He reached up under his shirt and started slowly drawing out the package.
In spite of himself, Marty couldn’t help but step closer. All around him, the woods seemed to go silent as Al brought the package to the edge of his shirt, paused dramatically, and then produced it with a magician’s flourish.
“Mother-fucker,” Marty exclaimed, his voice low and awe-stricken. He couldn’t believe what he was looking at, but there it was right in front of him. The transparent baggie looked as big as a five-pound bag of flour. The contents of the bag were so compressed Marty thought he was holding a brick when he took it from Al and hefted it.
But it wasn’t a brick. He could see the yellowish green leaves and buds, and he didn’t have to open the package and sniff it to know how powerful this weed was. He had tried it yesterday. He couldn’t believe Al had this much weed, especially weed so potent.