“Across the yard? You’re joking, right?”
“The dogs are inside. They’re probably asleep now. It’s late. We should be fine.”
“Lawrence, really, there has to be another way to-”
“We need to know what’s in that barn. And we haven’t got that building bugged, the dogs aren’t there, and it’s even farther away from here than the farmhouse. The shotgun’s not going to work. We need to hear what’s going on in there.”
I patted my jacket, felt the can of bear spray inside it.
“I guess if this stuff will slow down a bear, it ought to slow down a dog,” I said.
“Maybe,” Lawrence said. “Those dogs, they might be too dumb to know they’ve been hit.”
Lawrence removed his headphones, folded up his laptop, placed his equipment in their cases. Then he had his foot into a gap in the wire fence, and it sagged under his weight as he got his other foot into a higher opening. In a moment, he was over the top and hopping down onto the other side.
He looked at me on the other side of the fence, his fingers wrapped around the top wire. “Are you coming?” he asked.
I sighed, and started climbing.
31
WE HUGGED THE INSIDE OF THE FENCE that ran along the edge of the forest. Taking it to the right would get us closer to the barn, so that when we had to walk across open territory, there wouldn’t be as much of it. We were worried that, with the moon shining down the way it was, there was a chance someone looking out a window of the Wickens place might catch a glimpse of us.
We crept, and raised our feet with each step. If we came across a stick or small stone, we’d be stepping on it from above, rather than tripping over it. I resisted all temptation to say anything to Lawrence, who was ahead of me by about two yards.
We heard a door and froze. Together, we craned our necks around to look back at the farmhouse. The back screen door swung open, and there was Charlene, silhouetted in light from the kitchen, a washbowl of some kind in her hands. She tossed some water from the top step, then slipped back inside.
As best as we could tell, no little critters had taken the opportunity to scoot out the door.
Lawrence and I exchanged glances, nodded in silence, and kept on moving.
In a few minutes, we were around the far side of the barn, the farmhouse now obscured from view. If we couldn’t see it, no one in it, we figured, could see us. Pencil-thin slivers of light seeped out from between the barnboards, offering us a number of places where we could peek inside. We approached the side of the barn, a step at a time, mindful of the grasses and twigs and stones beneath our feet. We were more worried than ever now about making any sounds. Tentatively, I reached out and touched the barn with the tips of my fingers, like a tired climber reaching his hand over the crest of the cliff. We sidled up close to the building, each of us putting an eye to a crack.
I didn’t have much of a view. The back third of an old white van, the one I’d seen in the yard earlier in the week, with its back door open. Wendell, Dougie, or Tim, passing through the scene. Lawrence, only three feet down from me, must have had pretty much the same view.
The good thing was, even if we couldn’t see them all that well, we could hear them perfectly, a nice change from our pit bull mike.
“What about the water tower?” Wendell said. “Wouldn’t that be a good place to watch from?”
“Too out of the way, perfect place to get caught, too,” Timmy said. “You get spotted up there, what are you going to do? No, stick with the original plan, Dougie. Couple blocks off Main, that seniors complex, you get up on the roof, you can see from there, press the button whenever you want. Boom it goes.”
“That’s way better than a fuse,” Dougie said. “A fuse, you gotta run, hope it goes off at the right time.”
“Did you bring out those wiring diagrams?” Timmy asked.
“Oh shit,” said Dougie. “I left them in the house.”
“Honest to God, Dougie,” Timmy said.
“I can go get ’em.”
“Never mind, I don’t think I really need them.”
Timmy passed by the end of the van, appeared to go in the open back door. From inside, his voice slightly muffled: “This looks fine. You did this, Wendell?”
“Yep.”
“I think that’ll work just fine.”
“Fucker’s gonna blow huge,” Dougie said. “It’s gonna be awesome.”
“Are people gonna know why we did it?” Wendell asked Timmy, still inside the van.
“They’ll figure it out. Especially if we set it off right when the gay float goes by.”
Float? Would you believe four people and a banner?
“Hey, Timmy,” said Dougie. “How’m I gonna know, exactly, just when they’re going by the town hall so I know when to hit the button?”
“I told you, they’re supposed to be right behind the high school band, and ahead of the grocery store float, which is the huge piece of beef or something.”
“Okay, that should be easy.”
“Thing is,” Wendell said, “parade’s probably so fucking small, wouldn’t matter when you hit the button, you’ll take everyone out. It isn’t just about the fags. It’s a bigger statement, about the town government and the mayor, right, Timmy?”
“Dougie,” said Timmy, “I’m thinking, maybe I should let Wendell handle this part.”
“Come on! Mom said I could do this. She said you promised her.”
“I know, it’s just…”
“She said you need to show more confidence in me.” He paused. “You know, for my self-esteem.”
“Jesus,” Timmy muttered as he hopped back out of the van. “Fine. Just so you remember, be very careful with the remote. You press down on that button, the van blows, right then. That’s why I’ve made a little box for the remote, with foam all around it, so even if the thing falls off the dashboard when you’re driving into town, you’re not going to blow yourself up. But once it’s out of the box, it’s very sensitive.”
“I’m not stupid,” Dougie said. “I just forget things once in a while. But that don’t make me dumb. I’ve even been writin’ some of this stuff down, so I won’t forget any of it. Mom’s idea.”
“He’ll be okay, Timmy,” Wendell said. “I’ll be driving in after him, if he has any problems, I can help him out.”
I couldn’t see Timmy, but I could sense him mulling it over. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Lawrence’s arm moving. He tapped me lightly, motioned me toward him.
He put his mouth right up to my ear. “A lone wolf,” he whispered.
I looked around, expecting to see a large, dog-like creature sneaking up on me.
“No no,” Lawrence said. “It’s an FBI term. A lone terrorist. Timmy’s out to make a statement of his own. Not part of a larger group.”
“A lone wolf with family support,” I whispered back.
“We have to get help, do something right away. We need everybody. Forget Orville. I’m talking the feds. Now.”
I nodded. Then Lawrence did a series of motions-pointing to himself, then pointing around the barn, then pointing at me, and finally, pointing at the ground. I thought I got the message. He wanted to get a peek inside the barn from the other side, and I was to stay put.
As he crept away, I put my eye back to the crack and heard Wendell say, “I’m starving.”
“When’s Mom coming with sandwiches?”
Jesus. I didn’t figure Lawrence had heard that. He was on the move, slipping around the corner of the barn. Timmy and the boys were expecting a visit from Charlene, any moment now.
“She’ll be out soon enough,” Timmy said.
“I hope she doesn’t put cheese on mine,” Dougie said. “I think I forgot to ask.”
Wendell said, “Jesus, she’s only been making you sandwiches for twenty years. I think she knows you don’t like cheese on ham, even if the rest of the entire fucking world does.”