(2006) When Crickets Cry (26 page)

"Yeah," I said, "it really depends on what we find in those tim hers. If they're in good shape, each one could bring fifteen hundred to two thousand. But we'll have to see. We still have a lot of wood to uncover before we get to them."

"Do you guys need anything?"

"No," I said, peeling back a blister. "Charlie's serenading me now, so we're in pretty good shape."

I hung up, and Charlie quit acting like he wasn't eavesdropping.

"Hey, Stitch?"

"Yeah."

"What's it look like around here?"

"Well," I said, looking around, "we're sitting in a big pasture amid what looks like about a hundred or so mostly dead pecan trees that were once really big."

"Are all the rows straight?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"I mean, how far can you see down the nearest row?"

"Couple hundred yards for sure."

He stood up, tightened his belt, and tied his shoelaces tighter. Then he looked at me. "I want to run flat out."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

Charlie pointed down what he thought was a row of trees. "I mean, I want to run as fast as I can, as long as I can ... until I give out."

I was tired. "Right now?"

"Yup. And if you don't go, I'm going by myself."

I knew he was serious. I stood up, grabbed a six-foot stick that would allow Charlie to stay in constant contact with me, handed him one end, and said, "Turn left half a step."

Charlie turned.

"If you run straight that way, you won't hit anything for what looks like a half mile.

"And at a half mile?"

"Well . . ." I studied the landscape. "If you're moving fast enough, looks like you'll cutyourself in half on some sort of fence."

"Barbed wire or just plain?"

I looked at him. "Charlie, it's a half mile away."

Charlie smiled and licked his lips. "You gonna keep up with me?"

"You keep this up, and I'm liable to run you smack into the nearest pecan tree."

Charlie nodded. "Waiting on you." He stood poised like a cat.

"Nope," I said, standing even with him, waiting for him to jump and yank the stick that linked us together, "on you."

Without so much as a warning, Charlie sprang forward, taking huge strides, floating over the earth as though gravity didn't affect him the same way it did the rest of us. His left arm was pumping up and down like a piston, while his right hand clutched the stick held between us. The sound of his lungs taking in and expelling air was like a train moving uphill.

Charlie was a blur, and when I finally caught up enough to turn and look at his face, he was smiling ear to ear. By the end of the night, we had made eight trips to the fence and back.

he next morning, we started at dawn. By noon the doubleaxle trailer was half-full, and I knew my dollar figure to Cindy had been low. Heart of pine brought a fair price on the open market, but heart of pine this old and in this good shape would bring a premium. By the following afternoon, we had stripped the barn down to its bare framing. What we didn't keep we had been mounding in a huge pile nearby.

Now the only thing remaining was the timbers. And we were in luck. Not only were they pristine, outside of the usual nick and scar that simply gave more character and drove the price up, but also there were almost twice as many as I had originally calculated. We might need a bigger trailer. It took us an extra day because the timbers were ten to twelve inches square and some were almost sixteen feet long. Wood like that just didn't exist anymore. We were sitting on top of some real money.

At daybreak on Wednesday morning, I called into the park service and requested a burn permit. Charlie tossed a match into the bonfire, and we backed up. That wood caught in a matter of seconds and burned hot and high until almost noon. The cloud of black smoke rose over a mile into the air.

Charlie stood close enough to singe his hair and asked me, "What's it look like?"

"It looks like a meteor that's just hit the earth."

He nodded and crossed his arms, and the glow lit up the sweat on his face.

We pulled out of the field, the truck engine whining under the weight of an incredibly overloaded trailer, and started the slow return north. I knew Cindy would rather not wait for the money, so an hour north of Atlanta, we pulled into a lumberyard where Charlie told me most custom-home builders from all across Georgia bought special-order lumber.

We pulled in, were met by a builder, and struck up a conversation. He nearly jumped out of his skin when we pulled back the tarp. Knowing what it would bring in Atlanta, he offered us a fair price, and we even helped him unload the timber. We had close to four thousand linear feet of planks that averaged seven dollars a foot, plus the sixteen timbers that averaged fourteen feet apiece. Each one of those brought more than $2,000. After it was all unloaded, the man cut us a check for $58,000. I would say that's not bad for five days' work, but it's all relative.

We pulled onto Burton Dam Road, the southern road around the lake, and I said, "You thinking what I'm thinking?"

Charlie nodded, and the smile spread. By the time we reached their drive, it had stretched ear to ear.

When we eased down the gravel drive, the two were eating dinner. Cindy met us at the door dressed in short flannel pajamas, which looked more like something a man would wear than a woman, and a red baseball cap. Charlie and I looked like two coal miners and smelled even worse. We were in desperate need of some Lava soap, a razor, five or six ounces of aftershave, and some real strong deodorant.

Charlie handed Cindy the check. She looked at it, and her eyes widened. She read it a second and a third time, and then erupted. She jumped up, threw her entire body around me, and squeezed me so hard I couldn't breathe.

Charlie heard all the commotion and said, "What about me? I was there too."

Cindy, now almost under control, let go of me and gave Charlie a bear hug and a wet kiss on the cheek. She showed the check to Annie, who gulped and then said, "Wow, that's a lot of lemonade and crickets."

Above our protests, Cindy served us bowls of black beans and rice, dotted with a few pieces of chicken for flavor, while Annie poured us each a glass of milk. We sat at the kitchen table for an hour while Charlie told war stories of the last five days.

As we were standing at the door, saying our good-byes, Cindy disappeared to her bedroom and reappeared a moment later with a check made out to me for $29,000.

Charlie heard her tearing the check from its binding, and his ears pricked up. "What's that?"

I read the check and looked at Cindy. "Charlie, I'm not real good with my figures, but I think this is equal to about four or five days in the ICU." I handed it to Charlie, who pretended to read it, and said, "Wouldn't you say so?"

Charlie nodded as if he could read every word and then handed it back. "Yeah, maybe six."

I tore the check in half and handed it back to Cindy.

Charlie smiled, shook his head, and said, "It's just that high cost of health care."

Cindy picked up Annie, who looked taller in Cindy's arms, and sat them both down, rocking Annie sideways and brushing her thin hair out of her tired eyes. Cindy closed her eyes and shook her head, kissing Annie's cheek.

"That's all right," Charlie said, gesturing with his hand. "Sometimes I even leave me speechless. Happens all the time. Especially with a few of the women at bingo who just love me."

Cindy managed a half whisper. "I don't know what to say."

"How 'bout saying you'll fix us dinner tomorrow night at Reese's place? He loves salmon. Boy eats it all the time."

Cindy smiled and nodded. She tried to say something, but just stuck a finger in the air and nodded again.

Charlie smiled. "Cindy, honey, life is either a daring adventure, or it is nothing."

Cindy bit her lip.

Annie looked at me and whispered, "Does he know Shakespeare too?"

I nodded. "Yes, but that's not Billy. It's Helen Keller."

"Oh, yeah, I remember her."

I dropped Charlie and Georgia off at their front door. After Charlie shut the car door, he felt his way around to my side, put his hand on my shoulder, and patted me. "Thank you," he said. "I needed that."

I nodded. "Yeah, me too."

I took my foot off the brake, but when Charlie turned around, I stopped, and he leaned inside the car. He thought for a minute, then pointed his face in my general direction. "You looked in the mirror lately?"

"No."

He paused and rubbed his chin. "Ought to."

"What am I looking for?"

"Something that ain't been there in a long time."

hen the phone rang a few days later, I was buried beneath the middle cockpit of the Hacker trying to repair some electrical lines. I placed a greasy hand on the receiver and said, "Hello?"

The high-pitched screaming from the other end almost burst my eardrum.

"Aaaaaahhhh! Oh-Ohmy ... Aaaaaahhhhhhhhh!"

I knew two things: it was Cindy, and she was out of control.

"Cindy?"

"Aaaaaaaaaaahhhh! "

"Cindy!" I heard the phone drop, but the screaming continued.

"Is it Annie?" No response. I heard things crashing and breaking in the background.

I didn't wait for the answer. I jumped off the boat and hit the dock running. "Charlie! Put her in the water!"

Driving in a car would take me fifteen, maybe even twenty minutes because I'd have to circle the lake. Podnah could get me there in five if I pushed her. I bounded into my office, grabbed the backpack stuffed into the top of the closet, and shoved the cell phone in my pocket on the way back out the door.

When I reached the dock, Charlie had her in the water, engine running. I jumped in, rammed the stick into reverse, and planted Charlie against his seat with the thrust from the propeller. We banged both doors on the way out, putting deep grooves in the wood. When clear, I slammed the stick forward and pushed down on the throttle, moving it from one o'clock on the steering wheel to almost six o'clock, where it stopped. The boat dug in, made the turn, and shot out of the water. Within seconds we had planed and I was dialing 911 on the cell phone.

The noise from the wind kept me from hearing too well, but when I thought they had picked up, I handed the phone to Charlie, who began talking as best he could given the speed and bumps. We flew into the creek, where we were met by every overhanging limb in north Georgia, and turned hard to starboard. I flew off the bow, hooked a loop around the first piling I came to, and bounded up the steps and past the cricket box.

The crickets were quiet. The house was not.

The back door stood open, and the inside of the house looked like it'd been hit by the Tasmanian devil. Stuff was everywhere. If somebody had been looking for something, they'd evidently not found it. Brooms, kitchen utensils, pots and pans, and every magazine or book within arm's reach littered the floor. Cindy stood on the kitchen countertop holding an iron skillet in one hand and a very frightened Annie in the other.

I grabbed Annie, sat her down on the countertop, and began monitoring her eyes, her airway, and her pulse. It took me about three seconds to assess that, other than an elevated pulse, she was fine. I was about to place my heart-rate monitor across her chest, but she looked at me like I was just as crazy as her aunt. When it registered that Annie was relatively okay, and not in need of the man I once was, I looked at Cindy, whose eyes were trained on the far corner of the room.

Meanwhile, Charlie had crawled up the walk and made it to the back door with the cell phone up to his ear. When he poked his head in, he said, "Talk to me, Stitch! They're en route."

"Cindy?" I asked. I pulled on her jeans leg. "Cindy, what's going on?"

She pointed an iron skillet to the corner, but still didn't look at me.

I turned to Annie. "Can you tell me what's going on?"

Annie whispered, "There's a snake in the house. Over there."

I looked up at Cindy, then back at Annie. "She called me because of a snake?"

Annie nodded.

"So, there's nothing wrong with you?"