Seven Bundle

by Various Orca

  The fathers’ sins

  Leave a scar

  That you can trace

  Can you erase

  The devil’s mark

  Nowhere to hide

  Won’t let you hide

  Drag you into the light

  Not afraid to fight

  This is do or die

  Say your prayers tonight

  Monsters

  Taking out Monsters

  One by one

  Two by two

  Turn the tables on you

  Taking out my Monsters tonight

  THIRTY-FOUR

  NOW

  Webb jumped out of the back of a pickup truck with his guitar case strapped to his back, and gave a big thumbs-up to the farmer who had given him a ride down the highway.

  The old farmer gave a slight dignified nod, and left Webb at the only traffic light in the town of Eagleville, Tennessee.

  Five days had passed since he’d been at Devil’s Pass. When Webb had flown out of Toronto the day before, it had been a soggy, chilly day, wet leaves falling to the ground and sticking, unmoved by gusts of wind.

  In Tennessee, the sky was cloudless and the air pressed warmth upon him.

  Webb took in his surroundings, thinking of the beautiful, harsh desolation of the Northwest Arctic and comparing it to the comfort of the old buildings around him.

  There was a post office across the street. And a town hall, built with logs, with rocking chairs on the front porch. More importantly, there was a cafe called the Main Street Cafe, right beside a barbershop.

  Webb was hungry.

  He stepped inside, and the smile on the face of the waitress was as warm as the air outside. “Honey, git you a tea?”

  “I’d like something a little cooler than that,” Webb said. “I’m thirsty.”

  She stared at him, puzzled for a moment, Then grinned. “Honey, I kin tell you ain’t from around here. Minnesota?”

  “Canada.”

  “Same thing, honey,” she said. “Any tea you git here is nice and cool. You want hot tea, you have to order hot tea.”

  “Thanks,” Webb said. He looked at the menu. It said Meat and three.

  “Meat and three what?” he asked.

  “You order a meat, honey. Then you get your choice of three sides.”

  She pointed to the menu. “See there. Grits, maybe. Okra. But I’ll tell you what. That creamed corn? Today people bin telling me it’s like the cook put his foot in it.”

  “Probably won’t order it then,” Webb said.

  She laughed. “That means he done a good job. Gave it everything he got. If you haven’t eaten at a meat and three, I’d go with pulled pork, then creamed corn, sweet potato pie and taters.”

  “Sure,” Webb said. On his return to Toronto from Devil’s Pass, Webb had called the lawyer, John Devine, to report what had happened. Webb had learned from Devine that he was to make his way to Eagleville, a small town south and east of Nashville.

  “Honey,” the waitress said, pointing at the guitar, “you planning on making it big here?”

  “I just travel with it,” Webb said, thinking the waitress would never believe where the Gibson had been a few days earlier. “Maybe you can help me. I’m looking for Ruby Gavin.”

  “You kin?”

  “I’m glad I can,” Webb said. “Thanks. Just need directions.”

  More laughter from the waitress. “What I mean is, are you Ruby’s kin? Kinfolk?”

  “Just delivering something,” Webb said.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Ruby’s small white house was only a couple of blocks down the road from the Main Street Cafe.

  She lived near the Eagleville United Methodist Church. The paint on the house was faded, and vines crawled up the railing of the front porch. A woman Webb assumed was Ruby was sitting in a rocking chair, waving at him.

  “Honey, you look just like how Shirley described you,” Ruby said. “Was the pulled pork any good today?”

  Webb nodded, not surprised that the waitress had called ahead, given that Eagleville only had one traffic light and, so far, everybody called him honey.

  As he got closer, he saw fine wrinkles all across Ruby’s face. She had to be well over seventy. She was a slight woman, wearing a long dress with a pattern of pink flowers on it. A set of wire-rimmed glasses sat at the tip of her nose. She had a pitcher of iced tea on a table beside her and some glasses.

  There was also a white and orange FedEx package beside her.

  “Jim Webb?” she asked. “I’ve been expecting you.”

  “It was the waitress at the Main Street, right?”

  “She did call,” Ruby admitted. “But this morning I received another phone call. From a lawyer fellow up in Canada named Devine. Said I’d be getting a FedEx package and asked if I’d give it to a long-haired kid named Jim Webb when he showed up later today.”

  She tapped the box. “It’s all yours.”

  She laughed. “First FedEx I’ve ever had delivered here, and turned out it was for someone else. Life’s funny, isn’t it?”

  Webb nodded.

  “And,” she said, “life’s curious. I’ve been sitting here all day, wondering why someone I don’t know would show up from Canada to collect a FedEx, when I see on the label that it came from the same place you just left.”

  “Well,” Webb said, “I don’t have an explanation for the FedEx. But I do have a reason for visiting.”

  Webb was nervous. He’d been thinking this through for a while, wondering how it might go, wondering how to start. So he sat down and told her about walking the Canol Trail, about the grizzly, and about Brent. How a helicopter had airlifted Brent back to Norman Wells, and how he’d been in serious condition but ended up making it just fine, except for the hundreds of stitches it had taken to pull him together.

  She leaned in and soaked up every word as he told her his tale, but when he finished he still hadn’t told her the most important part.

  Webb tried a few times and couldn’t find a way to say it.

  Finally she said, “It’s fine. Just say what you need to say.”

  What came out then, despite all his rehearsing, was only a few words. “I found something that might mean a lot to you.”

  He set the small ceramic pendant on the table. And the military dog tag with the name Harlowe Gavin.

  She leaned forward. She ignored the dog tag and peered at the ceramic pendant for a few moments, then sat back.

  Webb wondered if he needed to tell her what it was, but then he saw tears filling her eyes.

  “Oh, Lord,” she finally said in a near whisper. Then she was quiet for a while.

  She drew a deep breath, as if she was pulling in strength, and turned to Webb. “Every day since I was eight years old, I’ve thought about that heart. Every day. I made it for him in school. Smoothed out the clay. I can still smell it, you know. It was damp and covered in cloth and the teacher used a cheese cutter to slice off a piece and handed it to me.”

  Webb didn’t know how clay smelled when it was damp, but he nodded.

  “I wanted it to be perfect. For Father’s Day. I used a knife to cut the heart shape, and the end of a wire to draw in my initials on one side, and I love you forever, Daddy on the other side. Then I painted it with colored glazes, and my teacher put it in the kiln. When it came out, I knew that it was going to last forever too. I gave it to my daddy, and he was so proud of it, he bought a gold chain and strung it around his neck. I was proud too, seeing him in a uniform, knowing he had the necklace underneath it.

  He was a pilot in the war and then he was sent north to help with an army project, and he never came back. I never stopped hoping I’d see him walk down the street toward our house.”

  She was quiet for a while, lost in memory.

  Webb knew better than to break the silence.

  “Folks said he deserted the air force,” she said. “Said maybe he found another woman. They can be cruel like that, you know, thinking it won’t rea
ch a little girl’s ears. But I never believed it. Not my daddy.”

  She turned on Webb, suddenly fierce. “He wouldn’t run away on me. And don’t you tell me different.”

  Webb shook his head. “I won’t. Someone killed him.”

  “Oh, Lord,” she said again. Then she wept openly. When she regained her composure, she said, “I can die happy now I know my daddy didn’t run away on me.”

  Then she leaned forward, intensity glittering in her eyes. “Tell me who murdered my daddy.”

  THIRTY-SIX

  “My grandfather, David McLean, was a pilot in the same squadron as your father,” Webb began. “There were four of them, good friends. You probably have the same photo as Jake Rundell.”

  “Jake Rundell,” she said. “David McLean. Ray Daley. And my daddy.”

  “You went to an air show in Las Vegas,” Webb said. “You wanted to ask my grandfather and Jake Rundell and Ray Daley if they knew anything at all about your father.”

  “I did,” she said. “Ray Daley spent hours with me, talking about my father. He promised he’d do what he could. But I never heard from him.”

  Webb remembered the young woman on the movie screen in Arizona. Then, as now, there was a sadness in her eyes that was impossible to miss.

  “Ray Daley loved to gamble,” Webb said. All of what he was about to tell Ruby had been waiting for him in a letter at the lawyer’s office on his return from Norman Wells. “He wasn’t good at it. Trouble was, he had a habit of pretending his name was Harlowe Gavin. They looked a lot alike, and he’d gotten away with it many times. Your father and Ray were sent to the Arctic to fly in and out of Alaska during the building of the Canol Road, and Ray kept gambling at the work camps, using your father’s name. He gambled with the wrong set of men, and they paid someone in the camp to make an example of Ray. Except the person they sent went to the real Harlowe Gavin, took him up the trail, away from one of the work sites, and—”

  Webb couldn’t say the words.

  “Took my daddy’s life,” Ruby Gavin finished for him.

  “With his own knife, a knife my grandfather had given him when their air force careers took them on different paths.”

  When Webb thought of the lonely pile of rocks and of a man buried there for sixty years and the little girl waiting for her daddy to come home to this small town, he had to turn his head and blink away tears before continuing.

  “Ray knew they’d kill him next if they found out what happened. He took your father’s paycheck too, and signed up for a flight to Whitehorse, pretending to be your dad. The work camp had thousands of military and thousands of workers, and it was easy to take advantage of the confusion. He cashed in the paycheck and bought a train ticket under your father’s name, and made sure people knew he got on the train. He jumped off just as it was leaving, and made his way back to the camp. And when the army went looking for your father, they tracked down where the paycheck had been cashed.”

  “But you weren’t born for fifty years after that,” Ruby said. “You show up out of nowhere and tell me this. I want to believe it so badly. But I don’t know who you are.”

  “A good man’s grandson. Ray Daley lived with his secret for a long time, but in the end, he had to tell someone before he died. A few months back, on his deathbed, he made a phone call to Jake Rundell and confessed.”

  “I should have heard about it from Jake then,” she said. “Not you.”

  “Jake didn’t want to believe Ray. The four of them had all been so close. Ray was old and not everything he said made sense.”

  “Alzheimer’s?” Ruby Gavin asked.

  Webb nodded. “Jake wasn’t going to go to the authorities and damage Ray’s reputation unless he was convinced it had happened the way Ray said it had. He called my grandfather for advice. They decided to send someone for proof. Me.”

  “You. All the way to the Arctic?”

  “My grandfather had his reasons.”

  “I’d like to thank your grandfather,” Ruby said.

  “He was the kind of guy who didn’t need thanks,” Webb said.

  “Didn’t?”

  “I miss him,” Webb said. He wanted to go now. He couldn’t bear the sorrow he was feeling for this woman. He couldn’t bear his own sorrow. He stood.

  “I expect you’ll hear something official from the police,” Webb said. “My grandfather’s lawyer, he made an arrangement. He wasn’t going to release any information to the police until I had a chance to come down here first and tell you myself.”

  “Makes me want to start dancing,” Ruby said. “I’m calling everyone I know. Harlowe Gavin didn’t run out on his family.”

  She pointed at the Methodist church. “We’re going to have his funeral right there. If you’re not shy with that guitar, maybe you can play a song for him.”

  Webb was about to say he’d be gone by then, but he made the mistake of looking directly at Ruby and seeing a little girl instead of an old woman.

  “Sure,” Webb said. “I might have a song or two for him.”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Back at the Main Street Cafe and armed with coffee and a cinnamon bun the size of a loaf of bread, Webb opened the FedEx package.

  He slid the contents onto the table. There was a note on Devine’s stationery, an envelope with his grandfather’s handwriting on the outside and a thin legal-sized folder. The note had simple instructions: Read your grandfather’s letter before looking inside the folder.

  Webb shook his head and grinned in admiration at his grandfather. He’d been larger than life in life, and now, even in death, he still managed to be as large as possible.

  Webb took a bite out of the cinnamon bun and a sip of coffee. He suspected this was going to be the last letter from Grandpa. He was in no hurry to read it, because then all of it would be over.

  Another bite of cinnamon bun, and another sip of coffee. Finally, he opened the envelope from his grandpa and pulled out the letter.

  First things first, Webby. I’ve been saving a surprise for you. I’ve paid for you to have a week’s worth of studio time in Nashville with a great producer. Get some of your songs on iTunes, okay? I know you’ve got the talent, and more importantly, I know you want it bad enough to achieve your dreams in the music world. When the songs get out there, I know the world’s going to come calling for you.

  Second thing: Webby, if you are reading this in Devine’s office, it means that you found nothing in the Arctic, and that poor Ray Daley was a delusional old man.

  But if you’re reading this after talking to Ruby Gavin, that means you found the remains of her father. I didn’t want you to get this letter and the folder until you learned the price she had to pay for the secret that was buried for so long.

  Webby, secrets are such a heavy burden; they can destroy lives. Ray was never the same after the war, and if you are in Tennessee as you read this, now we know why. The secret was destroying him too.

  What about your secret, Webby?

  It worried me greatly, watching you change in the years after your mother married Elliott Skinner. You were once so open and affectionate and joyful, like that beagle of yours. Nibbles? Or maybe it was Niblet.

  Slowly you became tougher and colder. I’d ask your mother about it, but Charlotte always kept a bright face, said things were great at home.

  Let me ask you this, Webby. Who sent the letter to your principal telling her to look in your locker for marijuana? Don’t be surprised I know about this. I’ve been worried about you for years, and I’ve tried to let very little escape me when it comes to your life.

  Here’s my guess. I think you sent the letter. I think you were looking for the perfect excuse to get out of the house without forcing your mother to wonder if the real reason was Elliott.

  Remember that day you asked me to co-sign a loan for a J-45? It got me to wondering why you’d need another guitar, because I knew nothing was more important to you than the guitar your dad left you when he died. That’s when I decide
d I would do what I could to find out about Elliott.

  I went to your mother, and she said Elliott never hurt her or hurt you. When I said I didn’t believe her, she admitted that she always felt afraid around him, even though she couldn’t explain it in a way that didn’t make her sound crazy, and that it was slowly making her feel smaller and smaller. She said it broke her heart when you left the house after telling Elliott you never wanted to talk to her again. But at the same time, she felt that somehow it was safer for you not to be living at home.

  Webby, that’s not how people should live. In fear.

  The folder should help. Read it, and then let Devine advise you on the best way to use what’s in the folder. Do it on your terms. Not Elliott’s.

  Webb wanted to throw his coffee mug through the front window of the restaurant. He hadn’t told Elliott he never wanted to talk to his mother again. Elliott had made sure Webb stayed away from her and then lied about it.

  He fought the rage, and finally, he slowly and calmly put the letter back into the envelope. It was the only way to control himself, because if he gave in to his emotions in the slightest, the dam would break and he’d go berserk right there in the Main Street Cafe.

  His growing feeling of cold rage told Webb that his grandfather was right. He was becoming Elliott. He had wanted to run over Brent in Norman Wells, he’d wanted to smash Fritz in the head with a rock. Normal humans don’t respond like that.

  Webb forced himself to sip his coffee until the feeling subsided.

  Then he opened the folder. It contained two pages. The first page was a letter from a private investigation firm, stating that the summary that followed was based on factual evidence that could be backed up in court.

  The second page was the summary of the investigation into the events that led to the dishonorable discharge of Elliott McLuhan Skinner from the Canadian Armed Forces.

  Dishonorable?

  But Elliott Skinner had presented himself as a soldier honorably discharged, and built up his security firm on that reputation.

  Webb read the second page three times. Phrases had been highlighted.Dishonorable discharge based on overly harsh discipline with recruits. Anger management issues with inappropriate responses to anyone who challenged his authority. Dishonorable discharge hidden by altered computer records and false references. Confirmed assessment as a borderline psychopath, according to the PCL-R testing standards.