The Inner Circle (16 page)

“Yes it does.”
 

He shrugged. “I don’t know anymore, Ben. A part of me doesn’t want to quit, but another part of me agrees with Ronny. That now without Carver, what point is there to continue?”
 

I stared at him for a very long time. Then I said, “Yeah,” nodding slowly. “Okay, thanks.”
 

We left it at that. Drew went his way, I went mine. I started down the hill directly toward Graham while Drew headed toward the barn, where he would unlock the cabinet and take out one of the rifles and a box of ammunition and then ride one of the four-wheelers through the trees on a trail that led to the firing range Carver had set up with Graham five years ago. When I reached the apiary, I heard the four-wheeler’s engine as it revved to life, just beyond the constant buzzing of bees.
 

Graham had noticed me walking toward him earlier, was already finishing up his inspection of one of the honeycombs. Holding it in his gloved hands, bees crawling all over the honeycomb and his white suit, he stared at the honeycomb for a while before slowly reinserting it back into the hive. His wooden cane was leaning against the same hive, and now he grabbed it, started to slowly make his way toward me.
 

The apiary consisted of about fifty hives. Surrounding those large white boxes were white clovers Graham had planted himself, giving the bees enough opportunity to find a substantial amount of pollen without forcing them to fly too far away.
 

I stood far enough away from the hives that the bees mostly ignored me, only a few coming up to see who I was and what I wanted, then buzzing away when they realized I wasn’t a threat. I waited there until Graham caught up with me, moving slowly not just because of the bees but because of the cancer that had once ravaged his left leg.
 

When he was ten yards away, he extended his cane to me. I stepped forward, took it from him, then watched as he carefully brushed off the bees that still crawled about his body. Once he’d finished, he extended his hand toward me again, and I gave him back his cane.
 

“The Kid’s here,” I said. “He was asking for you.”
 

Graham looked up, and through the wire veil I could see his face. He nodded, and we started up the hill back toward the farmhouse.
 

As we walked, he said, “So why aren’t you with him now?”
 

“Why does everyone keep asking me that?”
 

“I don’t know,” Graham said. “Maybe because you’re the only one who doesn’t agree with Ronny.”
 

“I’m not the only one who doesn’t agree with Ronny.”
 

“No, you’re not. But many aren’t sure what to think. They’re still too shocked by what happened. All of us are shocked, and there’s nothing wrong with that. But eventually that shock will wear off. Eventually our time of mourning will come to an end. And then a decision has to be made. What Ronny is thinking is not selfish, believe me. He’s talked to me about this already, and it’s not something he wants to do but feels there’s no choice.”
 

We walked a little more in silence, slowly, Graham having trouble climbing the hill with his cane. Off in the distance came what sounded like thunder. But there were no clouds in the sky, and I knew exactly where that sound was coming from, could picture Drew laying on the ground with his rifle, aiming at the target two hundred yards away.
 

“I just don’t think it’s right,” I said.
 

“And neither does Ronny. But when it comes down to it, what choice do any of us have? You say you disagree and that’s fine, but what kind of argument have you given? Really, Ben, you have to stop blaming yourself for what happened. It wasn’t your fault.”
 

“But I could have—”
 

“No,” Graham said, stopping suddenly and turning toward me. He glanced back down the hill, decided we were far enough that he could lift the wire veil from his face. “Stop it, Ben. You always do this to yourself. Always with the buts, with the what ifs.”
 

I said nothing.
 

“I’d like to think I knew Carver pretty well,” Graham said, turning slightly and beginning to walk back up the hill again, “and I can guarantee he wouldn’t blame you. Ronny told me what happened. Ian told me what happened. And from what they both told me, all of it was Carver’s decision. None of it was yours. So stop blaming yourself.”
 

“But you weren’t there,” I said quietly.
 

“No, I wasn’t. You were. And you know something, Ben? I’m glad it was you. Because anyone else wouldn’t have been able to do what you did. Not the way you did it. Besides Carver, everyone stayed alive.”
 

“Ian—”
 

“Is still alive. Yes, his leg is broken, and it probably will never properly heal, but he’s still breathing thanks to you.”
 

We passed the five grave markers as more thunder sounded out in the distance.
 

“Let me tell you a secret, Ben. Well, it’s not exactly a secret, but it’s something I haven’t told anybody. When I was eight years old, I was stung by a bee. It was a small sting, right on the bottom of my foot, but I had to be rushed to the hospital. As it turned out I have a strong allergy to bees. And so I stayed away from them most of my life. When my wife and I had people over during the summer, we always stayed inside for our picnics, never went out because I was afraid of what might happen.”
 

We came to the back porch. Since there was no railing, I stayed a few feet behind Graham in case he lost balance as he climbed the steps. Finally we were at the top, and Graham went straight for the swing. He sat down with a heavy sigh. I sat down next him. He took off his hat, set it aside, took off his gloves and set them aside. He unzipped the top of his jumpsuit and sat back a little on the swing, keeping his cane between his legs, staring down the hill at the endless horizon of trees.
 

“So forty years passed and I stayed away from them. Then when Lois died and I had nothing else, I came out here to live the rest of my life. And one day I was out mowing the lawn and a bee flew around my head. I nearly pissed my pants. Can you imagine that—a fifty-year-old man nearly pissing his pants? I jumped off the mower and ran inside, actually locked the door. And I just waited in there.”
 

He shook his head, produced a small smile.
 

“I’ve been in wars, I’ve investigated murders, I’ve stared into the eyes of cold hard killers who no longer had souls, and at fifty years old I realized my biggest fear was bees. And I told myself I could not die before I faced that fear. So do you know what I did?” He raised his hand, pointed a gnarled finger down the hill at the apiary. “I decided to become a beekeeper.”
 

He looked at me, his dark eyes searching my face, this sixty-five-year-old man who lived out in the middle of nowhere. And I watched him, I watched this old man who had outlived his wife, who had never been blessed with children, who all he had now were bees, I watched him as he said:
 

“As far as I know Carver wasn’t afraid of bees. But do you know what his fear was? That something terrible would happen to his wife and son. And then all of a sudden they were taken from him and he had nothing else to fear. He didn’t even fear for his own life. But he knew the risks, just as I know the risks. And just as I keep working with my bees, Carver kept trying his best to stop these people—Simon and Caesar and whoever else. He knew that one of these days his luck was going to end. And still he kept doing it. So if it’s anybody’s fault what happened this past weekend, it isn’t yours.”
 

“Beekeepers get stung all the time,” I said.
 

“Some do, certainly, but not all. I haven’t yet.”
 

I started to nod, but movement caught my attention, a small yellow and black dot on Graham’s arm.
 

“Graham,” I said, my voice suddenly tense, and he looked down at where I was staring, at the bee crawling across his white jumpsuit.
 

And at that moment Graham did the strangest thing: he slowly raised his hand, palm up, against his arm. Held it there, waiting, until the bee crawled onto it. Then he moved his hand until it was right in front of my face, and I could see the bee there on his palm, its black eyes, its wings, what I took to be its stinger.
 

Graham said, “What is your biggest fear?”
 

I swallowed, almost mesmerized by the bee. “That my family is dead.”
 

“And do you believe they are?”
 

Still watching the bee, waiting for it to sting the hand now holding it, I whispered, “Yes.”
 

Graham moved his hand back to his face. He raised it to his mouth, pursed his lips, and gently blew the bee away. When he looked back at me, his dark eyes had softened, the crease in his brow had disappeared, and he looked just like he had when I arrived yesterday, before he stepped forward to embrace me.
 

“Then why are you still afraid?”

26

Four years ago, when Carver had woken up in a crummy motel room in Maine, the bloated body of a baby in the toilet, the realization hit him hard that the life he’d always known was now gone. Believing that both his wife and son were dead, that it was no use playing Simon’s game, Carver had simply walked away.
 

When he met up with the Kid again, when they tried everything they could to stop Simon and his cohorts, he’d asked the Kid to look up Graham Fredrick, a man he’d known briefly in the army, and a week later Carver had come out here, in the middle of the northern Colorado wilderness, shook Graham’s hand and explained the situation. Graham had listened intently, never saying a word, until Carver finished with his story. Then Graham had said, “Feel free to stay as long as you’d like,” and since then the farmhouse had become Carver’s base of operations.
 

Graham Fredrick had moved here fifteen years before, after his wife passed away. The property consisted of just over one hundred acres, mostly woods, and it was at least ten miles from the closest town, at least three miles from the nearest residence.
 

The farmhouse was an old two-story stone-sided colonial, built over a century ago. A barn that had been built maybe fifty years ago was slumped half a football field away, its shingles falling off, its paint peeling.
 

The outside of the barn was the first thing I’d painted two years ago.
 

It was clear that Graham didn’t care much about the barn, that it was only used to store the lawn mower and supplies for his bees and—after Carver had arrived—extra artillery. The flaking paint didn’t bother him in the least—it didn’t seem to bother Carver or anyone else either—but it bothered me. As a painter I couldn’t bear to see it the way it was, not while I was around, not after it quickly became clear my four days of nonstop writing was not going to somehow make the world a better place.
 

And so I got the necessary materials and spent the next several days taking off all the old paint, sanding down the wooden boards, then painting it again. Next I did the farmhouse itself, all the interior rooms, the downstairs and the upstairs. Neither Carver nor Graham had asked me to do this, and for all I knew they would have preferred I didn’t, but by that point I had just started my training, going down to the shooting range, beginning the early morning runs and then Carver’s intermediate instructions of tae kwon do and jujutsu, and still I was scared. I was scared of going back into the game, or at least going back as some walk-on character in someone else’s game.
 

The first person Carver and Ronny and Drew saved two months after me was Maya, then Jesse three months after that, and by then I had finished painting the farmhouse, had finished sanding down the floors, the tables and chairs. I had no more excuses, no more reason to stall the inevitable, and so the next time the Kid called saying he’d come across a game—ever since our surprise attack on the Paradise Motel there had been fewer games—I volunteered.
 

The person who’d been thrown into Simon’s game then was Vanessa Martin, who in less than a year would be raped and murdered by someone else we had saved from Simon’s game.
 

I don’t know why, but as I made my way up the stairs to the second floor, I found myself scrutinizing the paint job I’d done two years earlier, noticing a few wayward brushstrokes near the wainscoting that never should have escaped my attention.
 

Carver’s bedroom was at the end of the hall. Its door was open.

I heard voices from within, murmuring voices that belonged to Ronny and the Kid. I approached that opened door slowly, passing by the other bedrooms where the majority of us slept when we were here, always bunking up with someone else. Then my slow steps had brought me to the end of my journey, and I was standing in the doorway, staring inside.
 

It was a small room—all of the bedrooms on the second floor of the farmhouse were small—but Carver had kept it neat and clean. The bed in the corner, two bookcases stacked with books, a desk on the other side of the room with his computer on top. Carver was the only one besides Graham who had his own bedroom, who had a computer in his room so that he could work at anytime, unlike the rest of us who were forced to use the computers in the basement when we wanted to visit the Internet.
 

Right now the Kid sat in front of Carver’s computer, typing at the keyboard, Ronny standing behind him and staring over his shoulder, and there was something about the image of the two of them right then that struck me as particular, like something out of a Hopper painting.