The Croning Part 11

As Don recalled, those two had done more than gotten turned around: they'd been lost for nearly eight hours, wandering circles in the densely wooded hills where one hollow and briar patch soon resembled another. Luckily, they'd happened upon the creek and followed it home at roughly the time Don had gotten dressed to come hunting for them. They were ragged and dirty and traumatized, but essentially unscathed. The incident had become something of a family legend, although none of them spoke of it in recent years; a childhood experience Holly had grown resentful of and preferred to ignore-and pointedly suggested that others do the same.

"Pop, what about this? I found it last time I was here, took it home. Like I said-I was snooping. Occupational hazard."

"Eh, what do you have?" Don adjust his gla.s.ses as Kurt reached into his jacket and produced a book and handed it over.

"It's...actually, I'm not sure. Got me thinking, though."

The book proved to be an almanac of some manner, quite slender, its black cover embossed with a cryptic broken ring in crimson bronze. Don loathed and dreaded it on sight, was instantly repulsed such that he took an involuntary backward step and nearly fell. He'd seen this symbol. Lord knew where, for the details remained obscured in the muck and mire of his porous recollection, yet branded with a white hot current into his gray matter and muscle memory.

You've most definitely seen it, chum. Here? No, not here. Not here- elsewhere, in a book, at a gallery, a film... He doubted the memory sp.a.w.ned from any of the schlock cinema he'd so loved; this was too raw, too visceral.

It wasn't pleasant to contemplate the mysterious circ.u.mstances of his prior encounter with the broken ring, the skeleton of a demon Ouroboros. Grappling with the fact his brain increasingly resembled Swiss cheese each pa.s.sing day hurt like h.e.l.l; grasping the notion that this rune had meant something once, probably during his adventurous youth, and that it had frightened him, cowed him, was worse. Don Miller didn't consider himself as a particularly brave man in his dotage; nonetheless, he'd possessed more than his share of grit in the old days. If this mounting sensation of terror had taken root back then, dear lord, what could it mean?

He clenched his teeth and opened the book. The t.i.tle page said Morderor de Calginis with a notation this was the fifth printing, 1959, and auth.o.r.ed by Divers Hands. The pages were thin and pulpy and contained endless tiny monos.p.a.ced font paragraphs detailing queer and unusual locations across Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana. In the appendices were numerous occult diagrams and hand-scrawled maps. The Black Guide, was the rough translation from Latin. He rolled it on his tongue and it tasted bitterly familiar as an epithet. The Black Guide.

Abruptly, and with the galvanizing force of an electrical current zapping him, a piece of memory returned. Mich.e.l.le bought the almanac at a shop in Enumclaw, tickled by its novelty. The family was on vacation for the summer. He couldn't remember if they'd actually tried to track down any of the listed sites. It seemed probable, but the specific details evaporated as he strained to dredge them. There was more to dig up, more to unearth. He snapped the almanac shut and tossed it aside. He wiped his hands on his pants, rubbing at an invisible taint that had already seeped into his blood, already spread a chill through him.

"Pop, what's the matter?"

"Hmm? Nothing, Son. Too much blood to the ol' brainpan. Stuffy, isn't it?"

"There's some really nutty entries in there. I read part of one on the Valley; typeset about split my skull, though. Gonna need gla.s.ses as thick as yours. Some of it is explicit and kinda hokey. Other parts, not so much. Raised the hair on my neck. The Waddell Valley chapter mentioned a house and a rock, but only in pa.s.sing. The Sanguine Stone. Have to look up the name of the house; something to do with children. d.a.m.ndest thing, too. It's supposed to be within a few miles of here."

"The other shoe droppeth. Your motives become clear. Helping me clean, the camping trip..."

"C'mon, Pop. Don't be like that."

"Children, huh?"

"Yeah," Kurt said and rubbed his chin. "House of the children of old leaves...Nah, that's not it, but close. d.a.m.ndest thing, though. I swear to s.h.i.t it's impossible to locate entries in there after you close the thing. Like they move around."

"Uh, well, some of the worst typesetting I've ever seen. Should use a magnifying gla.s.s when you read it."

Kurt said, "Right. I'm hungry as a bear. When do we eat?"

Don fixed ham sandwiches while Kurt lugged the boxes downstairs and out to the barn. They rested on the porch and smoked cigarettes. Late afternoon had already come sweeping down from the Black Hills and the breeze was chilly. He cast sidelong glances at his son. Conversation was always difficult, points of commonality spa.r.s.e and shallow. He considered relating his previous night's adventures and couldn't summon the energy to bear the incredulous response, the lecture about living so far removed from civilization that loneliness had surely begun to play tricks on his mind.

"Mom call you yet?"

"No," Don said too quickly, eager for any bridge. "She gets involved in sightseeing, or what have you, and forgets, I think. I might not hear from her until she flies back."

"Jesus, Dad. Next thing you know it'll be separate beds."

"Well, she does snore..."

Kurt took a deep pull from his bottle of beer. His eyes were slits, focused on the field, the flattening gra.s.s, dry as baked straw. Don realized Kurt had drunk the six-pack with mechanical efficiency.

Don also stared into the field. He remembered Kurt in kindergarten, their first summer here; he'd raced into the field, charged headlong into a hole hidden by that tall gra.s.s. Minutely serrated edges of gra.s.s blades dug a trench across the last three fingers of his left hand as he tried to brace against pitching on his face. Kurt had staggered back to Don and Mich.e.l.le, blood leaking from his fist. They drove to the clinic, the one that used to be on Prine Road but had been bulldozed and replaced by a mini-mart liquor store. Kurt got st.i.tched by Doc Green, two or three dozen and he didn't shed a tear. He observed the operation with the innocent fascination peculiar to most children of that age. Don noticed Kurt make a fist now as he stared bleakly at the undulating gra.s.s. "Okay, then. Ready for round two?"

They cleaned up in silence and went back to work.

That evening, they ate hamburgers for supper and watched John Wayne in The Fighting Seabees until nearly one in the morning. The television was a beast; a home entertainment center in a long box, an oversized coffin, complete with a Philco radio and record player. He and Mich.e.l.le picked it out from the Sears catalogue in 1971 and they'd recently gotten an adapter when the FCC decreed all old sets had to be digitally compliant. A couple of burly Italian gentlemen had originally brought the set in a van and spent the better part of two hours maneuvering it through the house and into the parlor on a dolly. Afterward, Mich.e.l.le made a pitcher of ice tea and little c.o.c.ktail sandwiches and they all sat around and watched Leave It To Beaver. Don had spent many a sleepless night sacked out at the foot of that behemoth. He drank a cup of tea and soaked his aching feet in a pan of water with mineral salts and fell instantly asleep.

He dreamt of becoming lost in the dark woods, of being chased by children with knives, of stumbling through the trees and falling among rocks piled high in a clearing, of lying helpless as a turtle on its back as the sun boiled red and dripped away into blackness.

In the morning, he heated coffee while the floors were yet cold and starlight leaked through the window. He warmed milk in a saucepan for Thule, who waited patiently beneath the table, his long pink tongue nearly dragging. Don hunched at the table and studied the photographs. He didn't like them any better than before, and even less when he considered their at least tangential relation to The Black Guide. Eventually, he stuffed them into the envelope and dropped it into a drawer and set to fixing breakfast.

Monday, Labor Day, was more of the same. They began at daylight and quit only when darkness stole over the land.

Kurt collapsed on the couch during the ten P.M. news and fell asleep with his mouth hanging open. Don left the television on for white noise, not tuning in to whatever atrocity the media had fastened on today. He idly rued the fact he'd lost track of current events-on the domestic front, he was aware of the current president, but had not a clue what the man's policies were; when it came to foreign events, he was marooned on a lee sh.o.r.e. If pressed, he seriously doubted his ability to quote the latest big ticket crises; he couldn't even name the current Canadian prime minister. The whole political mess, the universal squalor, the essential pettiness of mankind oppressed him and he'd submerged himself in work and writing and books.

When the late show started, Don rose and went to Mich.e.l.le's study. He hadn't exactly planned to bust in. The day's events had effected a sea change in him that eluded definition. He thought of Bluebeard's young bride, of locked doors and dire warnings, and smiled feebly. The image of Mich.e.l.le as Bluebeard was far less amusing than it might've seemed.

The door was locked; not to bar Don, who knew better than to disturb her things, but from ingrained habit of raising nosy, destructive children. Fortunately, he knew she kept the key in a decorative dish full of antique and foreign currency such as Buffalo nickels and rupees. It had been a while since he last entered the study. He'd probably ventured inside less than a dozen times since they began spending summers at the house. Mich.e.l.le discouraged it, claiming it as a sanctuary. She professed fear her unorthodox filing system (scattered papers and open texts everywhere) would be disrupted by a careless intrusion.

The room was large and stuffy in the manner of chamber a 17th century historian might've called home. Ceremonial spears and knives, and pink sandstone figurines of Brahma, Shiva and the celestial court contributed to the East Asian and British-India motifs. Mich.e.l.le tried to hang one giant wooden fertility mask specific to an Aboriginal tribe deep in the Australian Outback over their headboard until Don emphatically put his foot down; there it stood, canted in shadow, grinning terribly behind a wicker shield. She'd developed a love for Aboriginal art in recent years; she acc.u.mulated carvings and etchings, figurines of skinny, cadaverous Dreamtime spirits, an authentic didgeridoo (despite it being verboten among the tribes for a woman to play the instrument), and a boomerang cut from light, lacquered wood.

Leather and clothbound tomes weighted floor-to-ceiling shelves, overflowed her desk, a relic she'd imported from the British Consulate in Indonesia, which had in turn recovered it from a local museum that specialized in artifacts from the days of the East India Company, and it might very well have originally furnished the office of a company governor. Also upon the desk were a skull, an hourgla.s.s full of white sand, and a laptop; paper weights and inkwells, a calligraphy kit in a teak box, and cubes of sealing wax. Maps and parchment cascaded amid the piles of books.

The majority of the doc.u.ments were scribed in Greek, German, and Latin. Mich.e.l.le collected scholarly papers much as her aunt had collected dolls; a substantial portion of the material was purchased from European libraries and churches and private dealers; the remainder were transcriptions she endeavored during her spare moments. He was struck simultaneously with childish wonder and claustrophobia, the latter sensation serving to fend his natural curiosity more than Mich.e.l.le's mild neuroses could've managed.

He ran his hand over the spines of Mich.e.l.le's books, brushing fine dust from them, studying the t.i.tles, albeit randomly, uncertain why he'd chosen to snoop among her belongings, or what he expected to find. Most of it proved to be the usual fare: thoroughly pedestrian texts, a goodly deal of which he'd personally acquired for her, such as The Golden Bough. Then there were the books Mich.e.l.le had secured during her travels; primarily accounts by obscure (to Don, at any rate) anthropologists and daring explorers regarding remote expeditions to jungle tribes, replete with ill.u.s.trations and the occasional photograph. Nonetheless, the majority of the books came with the house; these latter comprised fragments of the celebrated Mock collection. According to Mich.e.l.le, Aunt Babette's portion, for example, rivaled the archives of a city library.

He'd counted seventeen encyclopedias in five different languages, and two hundred textbooks of varied subjects that ranged from architecture to metallurgy. There was a lesser sampling of esoteric ma.n.u.scripts detailing occult practices and theory by authors of formidable stature. Among them, Dee's Liber Loagaeth and De Heptarchia Mystica; and Trithemius's Steganographia; and a smattering of other masters, the likes of Agrippa, de Plancy, and Mathers. Don dabbled in comparative religion and European folklore as an undergraduate, had taken semi-permanent residence in off-campus bookstores and antiquarian shops-this morbid preoccupation with the macabre and the uncanny served as a useful counterbalance to his overwhelmingly rationalist bent, plus, it impressed the h.e.l.l out of Mich.e.l.le, who was quite scandalous when it came to reading habits. On the other hand, he suspected such h.o.a.ry tomes might be a contributing factor to his nyctophobia.

Spread across one wall and a portion of a bookcase was Mich.e.l.le's great genealogical map in progress; a colossal mosaic consisting of dozens of parchment scrolls taped together at the edges. The Mock family tree branched and forked and branched again like mult.i.tudinous veins radiating from a burst capillary, the whole of this diagram taller than Don and twice as wide. Quite obviously the ongoing project of successive generations, it began in quill and was illegible to Don's eye, what with bleeding ink and moisture and mold discolorations, and, not the least of which, the fact it vacillated between various foreign dialects. Also, despite the enormous amount of labor, it seemed raw and incomplete; many of the branches and tributaries dwindled to dead ends and question marks. Mich.e.l.le had checkered its width and breadth with pushpins and sticky notes.

To supplement her drafting, she had stacked ten or eleven books of the Mock family history on a worktable and nearby stools. These dense, leathery tomes belonged to a nineteen-volume series normally tucked in a corner behind a low stand surmounted by a flock of stuffed Canadian geese. The books were products of exemplary craftsmanship. A number of her ancestors had earned livings as printers and lithographers, including several of moderate renown; a handful served at the courts of French and Spanish Kings, and, according to legend, the Vatican itself during the latter days of the Renaissance. These nineteen volumes purportedly doc.u.mented the Mock lineage and historical accomplishments, warts and all, and would const.i.tute the primary source of Mich.e.l.le's genealogical inquiry.

He asked her once if she intended to write a book; this exasperated query came on the heels of a particularly unpleasant summer wherein she'd locked herself into the study and refused to come forth for days at a stretch, leaving to him the housework, the bills, the raging bundles of hormones the twins had metamorphosed into when Mom and Pop weren't paying attention. Haggard and ill-tempered, she snapped something to the effect he was a blockhead. You are a G.o.dd.a.m.ned blockhead, was how she put it, in fact. He agreed with the correctness of her a.s.sessment; however, this in no way explained the nature of her obsession, nor mitigated her dereliction of duty. She'd given him a long, wintry look, the coldest he'd ever received prior or since. Then she said, Leave a girl her secrets, Don. And he had; although neither of them were kids at the time of the exchange-Kurt and Holly were seniors and already had their letters of acceptance to college. Don pretended disinterest in his wife's endeavor; a disinterest that became more or less reality as the years rolled by and they settled into their respective roles with clearly delineated boundaries. Accommodation had ever been a cornerstone of wedded bliss.

Don hefted a book that lay open on the table amid a clutter of Mich.e.l.le's crude charcoal sketches of female nudes. It bore a publishing date of 1688. Several pages were scorched; a circ.u.mstance shared by the majority of the books, indicating the collection had been rescued from a fire. The author's foreword, one Fedosia Mock, explained her work was undertaken solely for posterity. This declaration echoed down through the generations. The books were intended as heirlooms to be kept within the confidence of the family; and from what could be inferred, women had scribed all of them.

Curiosity piqued, coupled with the dread of sleeping in his bedroom, Don cleared a spot on the desk and switched on the wicker-shaded reading lamp. He unfolded his bifocals from his shirt pocket and casually flipped through thin, wrinkled pages of Old Church Slavic in block text. The whole was marred by copious handwritten notations and doodles in the margins. Quickly examining random volumes (the latter of said having reverted to standard nineteenth century English), hesitating over the last, which bore a printing date of 1834 by one R. Mock, he determined the scribbling was a recurring affectation of whomever perused the ma.n.u.scripts, and judging from its angular, cramped style, most definitely signified the handiwork of a Mock scion. He rummaged through the many drawers of the desk until he found a notepad and began to jot down observations of his own.

Following two hours of lackadaisical study, he began to build patterns of a.s.sociation between the half-dozen texts Mich.e.l.le seemed to have currently settled on; collectively, their scope spanned from 1618 to 1753 and represented the labor of four successive authors. Originally called Velicioc, or Belikcioc, confusion reigned over which was correct, the Mocks had indeed emigrated from southern and eastern Europe, chivvied by enemies or misfortune-the antecedents were vague on the matter; nor was the year recorded anywhere; authorial a.s.sumption placed their arrival in Britain between 1370 and 1400, although this struck Don as extremely fanciful conjecture. The histories, what he could decipher via the English notes, proved by turns excruciatingly dull and t.i.tillating. He was interested to discover the bulk of the sprawling family hadn't embraced Christianity as per the social norm of the age except as a matter of expedience, a behavior reminiscent of the Vikings' grudging capitulation when the Great Church first laid claim to the souls of northmen. Instead, the Mock ancestors stubbornly clung to agnosticism, and, in less frequent instances, outright pagan customs. These customs derived from sects of ancient Slavic cults; secret societies that hearkened back to the nomadic tribes.

The references were manifestly intriguing, but equally oblique, as if the historians preferred to obscure the nature of their spiritual doctrine from all save the initiated. This frustrated Don, although he sympathized with the authorial discretion-in those times, men were often persecuted, even burned at the stake for the merest intimation of blasphemy. Yet, laboring to untangle the circuitous language of an entry regarding the year 1645 that touched upon various, evidently unwholesome ceremonies certain elder family members brought to Ess.e.x, Suffolk and c.u.mberland from the Carpathians and environs, he cursed the dearth of concrete details, the maddening ambiguity that hinted of the carnal and the sinister.

The narrative appeared in a volume wherein Mich.e.l.le had inserted scores of old, old bookmarks she'd plucked from various specialty booksellers; a peac.o.c.k fan of faded reds, blues and purples, each marker labeled with enigmatic abbreviations and notational symbols and cross references. The pa.s.sage in question was accompanied by an elaborate woodblock ill.u.s.tration inscribed, The Croning (fig. i); a depiction of thirteen naked, apparently middle-aged women encircling a ma.s.sive boulder. A buxom figure lay supine, draped across the face of the stone, shackled or bound in some manner. Don instantly recognized this piece as the subject of Mich.e.l.le's sketches.

The drawing was exceedingly baroque, freighted with peripheral figures: winged gargoyles; demonic beasts that resembled kangaroos with tusks (these latter feasted upon the carca.s.ses of men in Conquistadors' distinctive armor); cherubs; flautists; and, peeking from the roots of a mighty oak tree, shadowy woodland sprites, imp faces twisted in dark merriment. Its overall effect was singularly disturbing, like a Bosch simplified and shrunk to minuscule dimensions. Mich.e.l.le had scratched in a list of initials and alchemical symbols; she'd even gone so far as to make a charcoal sketch of the original on a piece of textured art paper. Aggravatingly, figures ii and iii (as promised by the index) were casualties of the fire, damaged beyond recognition by charring and smoke.

When the antiquated orange rotary rang, he nearly leaped straight up out of his chair. He picked up on the third ring.

Mich.e.l.le said, "Hi, dear. Just checking to see how it's going there." The connection was poor; her voice buzzed, fading in and out.

"Um, everything's fine. How are you girls?"

"What?" The roar in the background sounded like a jet lifting off.

"How's everyone?"

"We're all lovely. What are you doing, dear? It must be beastly late there."

Don flushed. "Oh, nothing much. Couldn't sleep."

There came a long, humming pause. Mich.e.l.le said, "What are you doing, then? Surely you must be doing something. I don't hear the telly."

"No, no television. I'm reading-"

"Reading! I'm shocked. Anything good?"

He sweated now. His pulse throbbed in his ears. Thousands of miles away and he felt no less guilty than a boy caught in the act of some dastardly mischief. "Oh, nothing good. Just the usual. Rocks." He laughed weakly. "Isn't it always about rocks?"

More static, then, "Yes, except when it's not." Her tone was unreadable over the connection. "Beastly hot here. We're on the cruise, by the way. We docked in Istanbul this morning. Holly's burned to a crisp-she's keeping below decks for a day or two. No air conditioning, can you believe it?"

"It's a crime."

"What?" Mich.e.l.le shouted.

"I'm sorry to hear it," he shouted back.

"Are you sure you're quite all right, love?"

"Why wouldn't I be fine?"

"No reason. Everything's jolly, then? No problems?"

"Problems? Heavens, no dear. Don't worry about me. Enjoy your trip."

"I've got to go. Give Kurt my love. I'll call you from town, later." Mich.e.l.le disconnected while Don was fumbling his goodbyes.

He stared at the mess of books and papers spread everywhere and shook his head. "Good lord, whatever Kurt's got is contagious. Don, old bean, you need your head examined." He put everything away and kept a couple of the latter editions for bedside reading. He locked the door behind him, chuckling in retrospect over his foolishness. A bit of domestic skullduggery had never killed anyone.

Much later, he paused to wonder why she'd called him at that hour, knowing full well he'd be fast asleep.

Don saw to the record-keeping, Kurt performed the hefting and toting. As Don sardonically pointed out, occasionally the lad's brawn was good for something besides swelling his collar. By noon they'd ama.s.sed an impressive stack of boxes. Unfortunately, they'd but scratched the surface of the project.

"At this rate, it'll only take another five or six months and we'll have all your junk b.u.t.toned up and ready to go," Kurt said, wiping his brow on a beer bottle. He was into his second six-pack of Rolling Rock and getting mellow. He'd stripped to a pair of running shorts and a sleeveless tee shirt. His neck and shoulders flushed deep red from exertion and alcohol. That's when it happened, the lightning bolt of inspiration that ruined Don's day. "Say, Dad. I think tomorrow we should take the day and go camping like we talked about the other night. I haven't gone since-well, since me and Holly were kids." He nodded, animating as the notion took root. "I've a few more days of vacation. We can fish for trout up the creek, roast marshmallows; the whole bit."

Don swallowed bile. When he became capable of speech, he said, "I hoped you were joking. Where on earth did you dream up this c.o.c.kamamie scheme?"

"Exactly," Kurt said. "I dreamed about camping."

"What the blazes-"

"I was in grade school again, nine or ten. It was late summer and you and Mom and me were on the hill behind the house. You'd caught some fish and Mom was frying them in a skillet. Then you took me hiking into the woods. We were hunting for rabbits or something-you had on your old Elmer Fudd hat with the dumb ear flaps, and carried that single shot .22 we used to keep lying around. Whatever happened to that rifle, anyway?"

"I don't recall. Rusting away in the barn, I suppose. Hunting's not for me, you know that." Guns made Don nervous. The idea of shooting an animal made him slightly sick to his stomach. His youngest brother, Tom, hunted squirrels as a boy when they were growing up in Connecticut and it always disgusted Don to no end.

"We got separated. In the dream. I wandered through the woods and started getting panicky, like someone or something was watching me, chasing me. That's how dreams are, right? There were kids playing in a meadow. I called to them for help, but they didn't hear me. They were dressed in dirty pajamas and playing near some big rocks. The pjs kinda make sense since the kids were bald like those poor tykes in cancer wards. They sang a nursery rhyme that I couldn't make out and when I got close, they ran behind the rocks and disappeared. Then you put your hand on my shoulder and I woke up. End of dream. Thing is, I've been dreaming about this area for a few months now, going back to the days me and Holly ran wild. Once or twice a week, I get these."

"And that makes you want to go camping?" Don suspected his son's sudden interest in exploring had everything to do with their recent discoveries in the attic. His hands shook.

"Nostalgia, Pop. It reminded me of when I went exploring around here. Holly tagged along and...who was that kid? One of the farmboys who lived around here I think. There's this enormous tree in the hills back there. I ever tell you about the tree? Petrified wood." Kurt rapped his fist on the wall. His manner seemed more manic than usual; his eyes darted and he paced. "Yep, and we found some other things. A shed, some fire pits, pieces of rusted metal like the doors on a box car. h.e.l.l, Lyle claimed he saw some skulls, but he couldn't find the place again. Crazy."

Nostalgia, my eye, Don thought with mounting unease. "There were some logging camps in the hills. Many, many years ago. They shut down before we moved into the area. Sheriff Camby said a few tramps lived way back there in tarpaper shacks and lean-tos like Snuffy Smith up until the '70s. Mainly Vietnam vets who couldn't adjust to the civilian life. Everything's gone by now."

"I know I've seen those rocks in the photos. I wonder if Aunt Yvonne knew about an Indian burial ground or something. Maybe I can find them again."

"Holy cripes. You're really convincing me to go camping with that malarkey."

"It'll be fun. We've got nice weather all week. Call Uncle Argyle; he's not doing anything."

"I don't know-"

"You owe me for all this backbreaking labor. Besides, if you're nice, I'll help you move more of this stuff next weekend. What do you say?"

There wasn't anything to say. Don felt like a rat in a trap. He rang Argyle and relayed the invitation, hoping the old boy would beg off. Argyle prided himself the consummate outdoorsman and had indeed spent a good deal of his life tromping in the wilderness. He said he'd be thrilled to "wallow about the brush and bivouac for a night in the wild" and promised to conscript Hank to serve as a porter. Ten in the morning sound about right? Don's fate was sealed just that quickly.

Good grief, don't be such a ninny! He slapped his hand on the table. You're afraid of the dark; won't go into the cellar to save your life; avoid sleeping in your own bed if you can humanly avoid it. My word, Don. Are you the same fellow who once caved the Dahl Sultan with a miner's lamp and a knapsack? What's done you in? The self-motivation didn't help much. Dread remained, a clammy vise on the back of his neck. He hoped he wouldn't disgrace himself by succ.u.mbing to hysterics or wetting his pants. To be on the safe side he packed three gas lamps and a bottle of Valium he'd saved as insurance against Mich.e.l.le's threatened hike into the Appalachians. At least that trek never materialized, praise the G.o.ds.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

The Backyard Expedition (Now) The hike was predictably delayed-Argyle didn't bother to inform Hank of the camping trip the day before, thus they arrived two hours late. Worse, Kurt was notoriously disorganized, while Argyle was the polar opposite; the type who suffered near paralysis from dithering over the most trivial detail. Come noon, the Miller kitchen proved a disaster area of loose camping gear, sleeping rolls and various articles of mismatched clothing.

"Gads, people!" Don brandished a sock hat and a pair of insulated gloves. "We are not sailing to the Antarctic. The weather forecast is sixty with a low of forty-five. It isn't even going to rain. And if you think I'm walking more than a mile, you're off your rockers. Let's get moving before nightfall, eh?" The idea of spending a night in the dark still made his stomach roil and his palms sweat. Since the situation appeared to be inescapable, the sooner they got started, the sooner they'd come home.

No one bothered to answer him, but they began to pack more quickly nonetheless and by mid-afternoon the small company trundled up the hill behind the house and followed the trail along the creek bank. It had rained the previous evening and the gra.s.s soaked the cuffs of their pants.

"Does the county own all this?" Hank said, sweeping his arm in a vague arc. "Or is it private land?" His broad face shone with sweat.

"Some of this is ours," Don said. "Darned if I know where the lines are, though. Somebody else owns a big piece of this area-Goodwyn or one those other lumber companies. Goodwyn owns mineral rights to every parcel in this county from what I understand; it's in the fine print on the deed."

"Crooked b.a.s.t.a.r.ds," Argyle said and spat.

"I think the state controls a lot of this," Kurt said. "You'll notice the logging is selective and there's some prime areas completely untouched. I bet the boys at the capitol are saving it for a rainy day."

"Ever walk all the way to the source?" Argyle said, indicating the creek. He wore heavy lace-up boots, a wool coat and a soft cap and carried a madrone staff that he constantly used to flip rocks and sticks. Don couldn't help but see the truant schoolboy masquerading as a white-haired old man.