“Maybe sometime,” I said, turning and heading back to the road. “I’ve got a lot to do, Leonard.”
He came after me. “I’m going to bring Bob out here, win him over. I don’t think he’s quite sold on the idea yet.”
Back in the truck, I let Leonard guide me to the dump, which amounted to an excavation in the middle of the wilderness overseen by an old guy sitting in a small metal shack. Leonard wouldn’t shut up about his dream, the resort, the diaper business, his reality show where a mother and father trick their child into thinking they’re dead. But I had pretty much tuned him out, and merely nodded mechanically every minute or so, like a fake dog in a rear car window.
I was grateful Leonard had decided to go fishing the moment we returned, so once I had the truck parked I was able to head over, alone, to the outbuilding that sat back behind the fourth cabin. A small, open-air garage was attached, and inside were a green lawn tractor, stacks of cottage shutters, wood scraps, old gas cans. Inside, I found a freezer and an old refrigerator. There were a few bottles of beer inside, a couple of cans of Coke, and a plastic container that appeared to be full of dirt.
I hauled it out, set it on top of the freezer, took a deep breath, and then dug my fingers in. As I raised out clumps of dirt, dozens of worms squirmed out between my fingers, slipping back into the bin.
“Okay,” I said. “We got worms. We got more than enough worms.” There was a roll of paper towels hanging from the wall, and I tore off three or four to wipe the dirt from my hands just as Hank Wrigley rapped on the door, wanting a dozen of the little wigglies for his bait can. I counted them out, then wiped my hands off a second time. “Just put it on my tab,” he said. I wished him good luck, then went around to the garage and planted myself into the seat of the lawn tractor.
There was a floor-mounted gearshift in front of me, a throttle lever on a panel under the steering wheel, and a single, tiny key inserted in the ignition. I guess Dad wasn’t too worried about tractor thefts up in these here parts.
I turned the key and the tractor roared to life. It was fitted with a variety of switches and levers for lowering the housing that enclosed the lawn-cutting blades, but before dropping it down, I wanted to drive over to where I was going to be doing the cutting. The area where the camp first came into view when you rounded the last bend as you came in from the highway was looking pretty shaggy, I’d noticed.
I grasped the throttle lever and shoved it ahead.
It had never occurred to me that a lawn tractor might benefit from a headrest. It was not the sort of vehicle that one would expect capable of inflicting whiplash.
The tractor shot ahead like a launched pinball. My body flung backward as my left hand lost grip of the wheel. The tractor became an unguided missile, coming out of the garage like the Batmobile emerging from its secret underground exit. It took a moment for me to struggle against the g-forces and lean forward enough to resume my hold of the wheel.
Dad was watching from the window as I shot past, my face no doubt frozen in terror. I had, for reasons I find totally reasonable, expected a lawn tractor to behave like a lawn tractor, and not a Ferrari.
I shoved the throttle back down, stomped on the brake pedal. Once the tractor was no longer moving, I turned the key to shut down the motor.
Dad approached on crutches.
“I can see why you didn’t want any advice,” he said. “Looks like you were born to drive one of these babies.”
I was still catching my breath. Finally, I said, “When did they start installing turbochargers in these fucking things?”
“It’s a bit modified,” Dad said casually. “I did most of the modifications myself.” He beamed with pride. “They do lawn tractor racing up here. At the fall fair. And it still cuts the grass pretty good besides.”
I swung my right leg over the wheel, and got off. “I think I’ll do the fish bucket instead,” I said.
“If my ankle doesn’t heal up before the fair,” Dad said, “maybe you’d like to race it for me. I wouldn’t be able to put much pressure on the brake.”
“Why not just install a parachute on the back?” I said, heading for the lake and not looking back.
This was terrific. Not only was I doing the camp chores and assisting my father in finding a way to save him from his whacko tenants, but I was now expected to sub for him in a race in which all the entrants employed John Deere emblems as protective headgear.
The garbage pail under the fish-cleaning table hadn’t been emptied since I’d seen it the day before, and it was as disgusting a bucket of anything as I could ever recall witnessing. Fins and scales and guts and heads and eyeballs, all swimming in an ooze that gave off a stench that made me want to lose the fried egg sandwich Lana had been good enough to make for me earlier that day.
I grabbed the gut-splattered handle gingerly and carried the pail as far from my body as possible, not eager for it to brush up against my pants. On my way back from the lake I saw a police car parked near the tractor, and Chief Orville Thorne engaged in conversation with Dad, who’d propped his crutches up against the tractor hood and dragged himself into the seat.
“Chief,” I said.
Thorne touched the brim of his hat, like he intended to tip it but ran out of gas. He glanced at the bucket. “Whatcha got there?”
“I heard you were coming so I made lunch,” I said.
“Orville here says he’s got a couple people rounded up to hunt down that bear and kill it,” Dad said.
“That so,” I said. I pictured Orville and others with skills equal to his roaming the woods, armed to the teeth. Put the ambulance on standby now, I thought.
“Your dad says you might be questioning whether that’s really necessary,” Orville said, a hint of a smirk on his lips. I wanted to take his hat and subject the top of his head to a noogie attack. “And I heard you had a few words with Dr. Heath. He’s not very happy with you.”
“Look, he’s a nice man,” I said, “but I don’t think he conducted a very thorough autopsy on Morton Dewart. Betty Wrigley doesn’t think it was a bear killed him. But it might have been dogs.”
Orville rolled his eyes. “And what’s she, a nurse or something?’
“Yes,” I said.
That caught him off guard, so he adjusted his hat while he figured out what to say next. “Well, if I listen to you, and do nothing, and it turns out you’re wrong, and that bear kills again, then I’m gonna end up with egg on my face.”
“Do what you want,” I said. “Just let me know when you and your friends are combing these woods so I can run into town and get fitted for a Kevlar vest.”
“Zachary,” Dad said, “would you stop being an ass? Orville’s just doing his job.”
“I’ve got work to do,” I said, lifting up the bucket of fish guts.
Dad pointed into the woods beyond the fifth cabin. “Back in there. You’ll see a mound of dirt, a shovel, and a board. An old cottage shutter. Make sure you cover it up with lots of dirt. That’s really important.” He paused, and smiled. “Okay, chum?” He started laughing. He turned to Orville. “You get it? Chum?”
“No,” said Orville.
The scene was just as Dad described it. I set the pail down and hooked my fingers under the shutter that lay on the ground. It revealed a round hole, about two feet across and two feet deep. I’d expected to see maggots feasting on guts, but there was nothing visible in the hole but dirt. I dumped in the bucket’s contents, which slid out with a gag-inducing sloosh. Then I grabbed the shovel, buried the guts with an inch of dirt, and slid the shutter back over the hole.
Orville was nowhere in sight but Dad was still perched on the tractor seat as I did my return route with the empty bucket. “You got it, right?” he asked. “Chum?”