“No. But the way it works is, it charges that bank of batteries,” Paul said, pointing at a row of batteries stacked against the back wall. “All of them seem fine. The exhaust pipe is still solid, too.”
“Great. But the engine is not. Not to mention that however it was connected to the house is no more than a memory.”
“Well, let me show you what I’ve done. There were two plugs on the frame, and I got those out and then the frame came off and I could get at the flywheel and the camshaft and the main bearing. All of those are intact.”
“How in the hell do you even know what they are?”
Paul shrugged. “I’ve read a lot about engines. My point is, the main assembly of this thing is fine. So now that I’ve got it cleaned up, it’s just a matter of figuring out how it went together in the first place. That’ll be common sense.”
“Sure,” Arlen said, looking down at the gears and wrenches and belts scattered on the porch floor. “Common sense.”
“I got the inspection plate off,” Paul said, oblivious to Arlen now, focused on the machine, “and you can see the connecting rods in here. Looks like they got loosened up when it was knocked around. See here, when I move the crankshaft? It’s wiggling down at the bearing. That shouldn’t happen. It needs to be tight. So I’ve got to get those tightened up before we try and run it again.”
“Even supposing you get the thing in a condition that it could run again,” Arlen said, “you’ve got to get it set up so it actually feeds power the way it used to. Those wires were all torn apart.”
“Oh, that’ll be easy. Just a matter of looking, seeing how it makes sense.”
“I suppose that leaves me to that damn widow’s walk myself?”
Paul’s lack of response allowed that it did, and Arlen walked out into the yard, grumbling and swearing, and stared up at the peak of the roof. The widow’s walk was perched onto the back, affording an expansive view of the Gulf, and all except for one corner piling had been torn off. They’d gathered the pieces from out in the yard and stacked them up alongside the house. Even from down here, Arlen could tell that it was going to be awkward and dangerous work.
He found the stairs to the attic, sweat springing out of his pores as he climbed into the dank, closed space. It was so dark he had to feel around with his hands to locate the trapdoor, but it opened easily enough and he poked his head up through the roof and into fresh air. He’d never been unsettled by heights, but this roof was pitched steeply, and he felt a swirl of doubt as he climbed out onto it, keeping a tight hand on the braces of the door frame. Ordinarily the railings would keep you from tumbling off, but they were stacked on the ground now, nothing between him and a broken spine but a few bounces off the shingles.
Had to admit, though-once he was up here, the view was stunning, like being in a lighthouse. He could see out into the sea and along the shore. This was his first realization of just how damn isolated the inn was. To the south the beach ran on unbroken, and to the north the trees grew thick along the winding inlet. No such thing as a neighbor. He turned to look east, inland, and saw the boat in the inlet.
It was positioned around a bend, where there was a slot in the trees that afforded a view of the house. The boat was flat-bottomed, outfitted only with oars-a craft you could move damn near silently if you knew how to use it. There was only one man inside. From here, all Arlen could tell was that he was an older man: stringy gray hair showed along his neck down to his shoulders.
Don’t stare, he thought. He’ll know that you’ve seen him.
He turned away and got busy taking measurements for the roof deck, working with his back to the inlet for a while. When he finally turned around and risked a glance, the boat was gone.
That night they all sat together on the porch, as had become their custom, and ate dinner as the sun went fat and red in the west and slipped down toward the horizon line. It moved at a crawl right until the bottom edge touched the water, and then it was as if something greedy were waiting for it on the other side, snatched it away quick, leaving only a crimson smear on the horizon.
“This place sure is something,” Paul said, stretched out on the porch floor with the already empty plate on his lap. “It’s beautiful.”
Rebecca nodded but didn’t speak, and he turned to her.
“Why doesn’t anyone ever come out here?”
“Excuse me?”
“Well… why don’t you have any customers?”
She looked away from him. “Corridor County is a very rural place. There aren’t a lot of people. Less now that the lumber mill closed.”
“Well, still, somebody has to live around here.”
“I don’t have much business from locals. Mostly people who rent it out for a few days at a time. There’s less of that now. Hard times.”
“Have you always been out here alone?”
“Not always.” Her voice was tight. “Tell me, where are you from?”
If Paul sensed that the redirecting of the conversation was intentional, he didn’t show it.
“New Jersey. Town called Paterson. Back there, we’d be sitting in an alley and looking at trash cans if we wanted to eat outside.”
“You don’t care for it?”
He looked uncomfortable. “I don’t know. It’s just a place… doesn’t look anything like this, though.” Then, after a pause, “But there’s a bridge you ought to see. Just up from the waterfalls.”
Rebecca Cady laughed, and Paul looked perplexed.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I just thought it was amusing that you’d mention a bridge before you would a waterfall.”
He shrugged. “I just like it, that’s all.”
Arlen smiled and sipped his beer. She didn’t know him yet. With the exception of the ocean in front of them, Arlen had never known the boy to show the slightest interest in the natural world, only in man-made structures. He was mighty American in that way: show him a river, he’d want to see a bridge; show him a mountain, he’d wonder how you could get a tunnel through it. For all his carpentry experience, Arlen didn’t have the same mind-set. The older he got, the more he wished people would leave things alone. As a boy he’d watched the hills around his hometown blasted open with dynamite, laced with gouges that looked like wounds of the flesh, and in their own way they were exactly that. Had watched the skies above them turn black with soot and coal smoke, the stretches of ancient forests replaced by stump fields. No, he wasn’t the conquering sort. That was one of the things he’d liked so much about the CCC. Back at Flagg Mountain, they’d spent weeks at hard labor to build a tower. Its purpose? To afford a view of the beauty around it. That was all. Arlen loved that damn tower.
He didn’t know for certain what he’d even have thought of the bridge in the Keys, that attempt for road to conquer water. Maybe it would’ve been impressive. Maybe it would’ve been heartbreaking.
“Did you always live in Paterson?” Rebecca was asking Paul, and Arlen looked back at the boy, realizing Arlen himself didn’t know the answer to this one.
“Yes.” Paul got to his feet and set the plate aside. “I’m going to go for a walk before it gets too dark.”
He left without another word, headed south with his hands in his pockets and his shoulders hunched. Rebecca Cady said, “Did I say something wrong?”
“I think you both did.”
“Pardon?”
“You didn’t want to answer questions about yourself,” he said, “and neither did Paul. Everybody’s got a few things they’d like to keep quiet on.”
He finished the warm beer and tilted his head and studied her. Her face was lit with fading sunset glow, and it made her blond hair look red.
“Can you really see the dead?” she asked. The question hit him like a punch.