Migrators (21 page)

“Who are we talking about, Joe? Is this about Pauline McDougall?” Alan asked.

Joe shook his head.
 

“Who do you think doesn’t want us here?” Alan asked.

Joe rolled his eyes.

“Joe, come on,” Alan said.

“It’s everyone. Everyone says so—not just kids—the adults do too. They all say that we don’t belong here and we should go away. They say that we’re evil,” Joe said.

“Joe,” Liz said. She frowned.

“I’m serious, Mom,” Joe said.

Now Liz did pull her hand away from Alan. She took Joe’s hand in both of hers.

“Joe, let’s assume you’re right,” Liz said. “Even if everyone around was against us and thought we should move, would we let them bully us away? Our family has lived in that house for fifty years now. We belong here just as much as they do. They would have no right to tell us that we can’t stay. Does that make sense?”

“No,” Joe said. “It doesn’t make sense to stay somewhere when nobody wants you to.”

“But we want to,” Liz said. “We have history. We’re preserving that history by living in that house.”

“You have history,” Joe said. “Me and Dad could give a shit.”

Liz let go of his hand like it was hot.
 

“Joe,” Alan said.
 

Joe looked down at the table. His parents waited.

“I’m sorry I cursed,” Joe said.

“Your mother’s history is our family’s history,” Alan said. “The three of us are in this together. Nobody else has a say in where and how we live. If they don’t like it,
they
can move. You can’t control what other people think about you, Joe, you can only be true to your beliefs and live how you want to live. The next time someone bullies you at school, you come to one of us and we’ll help, okay?”

Joe nodded.

O
CTOBER
21

T
HE
WORLD
was orange and yellow. Sure, there were accent colors—the pale blue sky streaked with white clouds, and the occasional evergreen—but the leaves and lawn and even the carved pumpkins on the front porch agreed on the autumn color scheme. Alan stood a few feet from the road and looked up at the attic window. With the way the ground sloped away from the front of the house, the window looked way too high to get at, but it remained his best hope. Alan crossed his arms. It was a cold morning and he could see his breath.

Alan heard Bob jog up behind him and didn’t have to turn to recognized Bob’s stride. It was light and careful and persistent.
 

“Hey, Bob.”

“You preparing an assault?”

“In a way,” Alan said. He turned to look at Bob. He smiled. “Jesus, you’re wrapped up like a Spandex mummy.”

“It was goddamn cold when I left the house. I’ve got to get moving before I cool off too much. You need help later?”

“You read my mind,” Alan said. “If you’ve got some free time this morning, that is.”

“Nothing but time,” Bob said. “I’m not doing much at the house until I can get an inspector out. I can’t cover anything up until it’s approved, you know?”

Alan nodded.

“I’ll be by in about an hour,” Bob said.

“I’ll be up in the attic. Come on in if you don’t see me.”

X • X • X • X • X

“Hello?” Bob called.

Alan turned down his radio and cupped his hands around his mouth. He blew between his freezing fingers.

“Hold on, I’ll be right down.”

He went downstairs and found Bob in the kitchen.
 

“Come on up, I’ll show you what I’m up to,” Alan said. He led Bob up the stairs, through the opening in the closet, and then up to the attic.
 

Bob brushed a hand over the back of the tight insulation.

“This is looking good. You’ll have this place warm and toasty in no time,” Bob said.

“Here’s my problem,” Alan said. He walked his measuring tape over to the window. Laid diagonally across the rectangle, the tape read forty-four inches. “These windows are the only way I can get drywall up here and they’re only forty-four inches. I think if I take off all the trim, I might be able to bend the drywall enough to fit through, but then I still have to get the sheets up a ladder or maybe rent a bucket truck to lift them. I’ve got better access to the front window, but the back one isn’t as high. This project is steeped in issues.”

Bob looked at the window and ran his hand over the trim surrounding the frame. He wandered back to the stairs.

“What if you opened up a real door at the bottom of the stairs and just carried the sheets through the house?” Bob asked.

“Yeah,” Alan said, “that’s probably the only way to go. I just think that Liz will freak out if I bring it up. She’s awful touchy about making changes to the house. I figured that if I finished off this space and made it livable then she would soften about putting in a real door and real stairs.”

Bob nodded. He put his hand on the back of the rocking chair that sat in the center of the room. He looked down at the chair and seemed puzzled. Then a smile spread across his face. “Did you screw this rocking chair to the floor?” he asked, laughing.

“Yes. Yes I did,” Alan said. He jiggled the chair to show that it was locked in place. “The wind was making it rock at night and it woke up Joe.”

“Spooky,” Bob said. He grinned.

“It’s the time of year for it,” Alan said. “Plus it was always underfoot, so I figured I would just make it a permanent obstacle instead of moving it around all the time.”

Bob nodded. He walked over to the back window and looked out.
 

“Okay,” Bob said. “Why does it have to be drywall? What about bead board or tongue and groove paneling?”

Alan frowned. “I don’t know. Do you think that would look cheesy?”

“In an attic? I think with the sloped ceiling of an attic, you can get away with more. And it doesn’t have to be permanent. You can put something up, live with it for a couple of years, and then when you get around to re-thinking the stairway you can make a change then. Didn’t you say you eventually wanted to panel the inside of your camp? You can re-use the material for that down the road.”

Alan was nodding by the time Bob finished his proposal.

“That could work. It would certainly be a lot easier to get up here. That stuff is thin enough that I can bend it a little to fit through the window.”

“For sure,” Bob said. “Why don’t I help you finish up this insulation and then we’ll go shopping?”

“That would be great,” Alan said.

“And I’ve got a surprise for you, too,” Bob said.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yup,” Bob said. He smiled.

X • X • X • X • X

At the lumber yard, Alan found a suitable treatment for the attic walls, but it didn’t make sense to carry the sheets home in the big green truck. The salesman offered to deliver it for free, and that would save a lot of hassle. It was about noon as they drove back from town. The steep angle of the light was starting to make Alan claustrophobic, like the sky was too low or something. And it was still two months before the days would start to get longer and the sun would be higher in the sky at noon. Alan wondered if he would be able to stay sane in the darkness of winter.
 

“Turn left here,” Bob said. He had a paper bag propped between his feet on the floor of the truck. He’d brought the bag from his own SUV with no explanation.

“How come?” Alan asked after he put on his signal.

“The surprise.”

“Ah. I forgot,” Alan said.

Bob directed him down a dirt road overhung with bare tree branches. At the side of the road, the mailboxes were suspended at the end of long poles. That gave plenty of room for aggressive snow-plow trucks.
 

“This is it,” Bob said when he saw the number of the next mailbox.
 

“Where?”

“Right there,” Bob said. He pointed at a patch of dirt that descended away from the road at a steep angle.
 

“If you say so,” Alan said. He slowed and downshifted as they made a sharp turn around a rock wall. The driveway led back the way they’d come, parallel to the road, before it took another turn between the trees. The house they saw at the end looked like a museum of discarded building supplies. Every window was a different shape, Alan saw three types of siding, and the roof was half metal and half shingles. “What is this place?”

“You know that lumber yard we were just shopping at? The guy who started that business had a brother. The brother’s name was Clyde, but everyone called him Buster. This is Buster’s house.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Nope.”

“What are we doing here?”

“We’re going to see if he can tell us anything more about that body we saw, and maybe the nest of bones.”

“What makes you think he’ll be any more forthcoming this time?”

“I brought a bribe,” Bob said. He picked up the paper bag and pulled the bottle from within. “It’s very rare. It says so right on the label.”

Alan pulled the truck to a stop. “You think that will work?”

“I have it on good authority that Clyde would do almost anything for this particular brand of Irish whiskey.”

“Good authority from whom?”

“That guy at the dump. You know the really big guy? He told me,” Bob said. “Come on.”

Bob got out and started across the lawn. Alan hesitated, but Bob was already underway. Alan got out and headed after his friend. Bob held the bottle against his chest, label out, as he knocked on the door. Despite the yard sale impression of the house, Alan decided the house looked well put together, as soon as you got close enough to assess such things. The paint was fresh and the construction looked tight.
 

“Maybe he’s out hunting again?”

“Could be,” Bob said.

The door opened. A wave of warm air billowed out.

“Well now,” a deep voice said from the dim interior. “Looks like my best friend has come to visit.”

The old man’s hand came out from the dark and took the bottle from Bob’s hand.
 

“Who are these two scoundrels he’s brought along with him?” the voice asked.

“Buster? We met the other day in the woods?” Bob asked. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the orange bandanas. Alan had forgotten about them. “We didn’t see your truck, and we wanted to give these back.”

“Come on in,” Buster said.

Bob entered and waved Alan through the door. It took Alan’s eyes a few seconds to adjust to the interior. Buster had the shades down and heavy curtains bracketing the windows. He shut the door behind himself and felt the warm room’s embrace. It was a dry, baking heat coming from the wood stove against the wall. Buster had a stack of short pieces of wood against the wall. There was a teapot atop the little stove. In the center of the room, Buster had a chair flanked with two end-tables. On one, he had a stack of newspapers. On the other, a reading lamp gave off the only illumination.

“Have a seat,” Buster said. He motioned to the loveseat across from his chair.

The old man wore blue overalls today over a white shirt. His feet had only socks. Alan looked down and wondered if he should remove his own shoes. Bob didn’t—he just went to the loveseat and sat down—so Alan didn’t either.

Buster didn’t sit. He set the whiskey down on the coffee table and disappeared through doorway. He returned with three mugs on a little tray. He didn’t speak, but he grunted with each movement as he set the tray down on the table, opened the whiskey, and dropped a dollop of liquor in each mug. He held the tray out towards Alan and Bob.

Bob took a mug and nodded to Alan.

The one Alan took said “Get Bent,” on the side. It had two stick figures—like pictograms you’d see on a restroom sign—of two men under the words. One of the men was bent over and the other man was pulling up very close behind.

“Thank you,” Bob said. He took a sip.

“Thanks,” Alan agreed. The coffee was thick and looked oily. Alan took a tiny sip—the coffee was unbelievably strong and so was the whiskey.

Buster gulped at his.

“So you made it out of the woods in one piece? Just the right number of holes in you, I gather?”

“Yes, thank you,” Bob said. “Did you have any luck?”

“Me? I’m not really out for moose anymore. I like to get out there, but I wouldn’t know what to do with one if I shot it. Take me fifty trips just to carry it out.”

Alan glanced at Bob. He got the message—let’s get this conversation on track.

“So, Buster, we were asking the other day about the body we saw in the marsh grass,” Bob said.

Buster held his coffee mug up in front of his face. He seemed to want to inhale all the steam rather than let it get away. His eyes bounced between Alan and Bob.

“Do you have any idea what it was we saw?” Bob asked.

“
You
saw the thing,” Buster said. “How should I know what it was?”

“Have you ever seen anything like it? Looks almost human, but with weird hands and no face?” Alan asked.

“Them woods is lovely, dark, and deep,” Buster said. “My old man started taking me back there hunting since before I was tall enough to pee in the trough at the fair, and I’ve only ever seen one black bear. You know how many bear are back there? Generations have raised their cubs in that same forest, but have I ever seen them? Just the once. Of course they like to hibernate in the winter. There’s only so much opportunity to see them.”

Buster took another gulp and then burped.
 

“Pardon,” he mumbled.

Alan puffed out his cheeks and looked at the ceiling. The warm living room with its low ceiling, covered windows, and wood stove pumping out waves of dry heat, seemed like a little den. He could imagine Buster curling up in here and not emerging until spring melted all the snow and ice outside. The old man would probably indulge in one last big meal and then fall asleep in his recliner, not waking up for another five months.

“I think you know what we’re talking about, whether you’ve seen one or not,” Alan said. “I’ve never seen an octopus in the ocean, but I could name it if someone described it. If those things live back there, I bet you know about them.”