Forty-three
The heat of the day had passed and the cicadas had fallen silent. In the muggy depths of the hollow Caleb stood before his lair at the end of the curving lane, hands on lean hips as Lachlan approached in his C10 Chevy. He had heard the vehicle slowing while it was still out on the asphalt.
-What’s under the tarp, Lachlan asked getting out of the truck, gesturing at a form on the picnic bench covered in canvas.
-Nothing escapes your attention.
-Not that.
-Meat.
-You thought i’d want some.
-Not hiding it from you. It sounded like your truck but a person can’t be too careful these days.
-These days?
-With the manhunt’n all. They walked over to the bench and each sat on the same side facing the remains of the house. Lachlan turned in his seat and lifted the edge of the tarp. An elongate carcass parted of its head, feet and viscera.
-Nice yearling. Roadkill?
Caleb just glanced at him and Lachlan took a longer look before lowering the tarp back down.
-So you heard about the manhunt, he said.
-I’m a participant.
-You bin out looking for her?
-That’s not been the nature of my participation, no.
-Wanna participate summore?
-I didn’t wanna participate in the first place.
-Well, they haven’t found her yet.
Caleb stood up and pulled an unmarked pack of cigarettes from his front jeans pocket and knocked out a smoke and offered the pack to Lachlan. He accepted. The elder cousin walked over to a small hardwood fire in its circle of stone and produced a burning stub and held it to the end of his cigarette, lighting it and tossing the stub back on the fire producing sparks that rose and whirled like motes of the sun. He returned to the bench and handed his smoke to Lachlan who took it, handing him the pack back. Lighting his own cigarette and returning Caleb’s to him. He took a drag from it and turned it before his face in contemplation.
-Organic?
-Very funny, Caleb said taking a pull, examining his. But yeah, so’s you mention it.
-Almost health food.
-Healthy profits.
-Hmm, Lachlan said, examining the thing some more, turning it and taking another drag. I mailed my college application he said.
-A little late isn’t it?
-Probably.
-What’s another year?
-I suppose.
-I thought you were ambiguous?
-I suddenly felt like a change of pace.
-I never feel like a change of pace.
-Says the guy who went out on the road. Lived in Nashville.
-Cured me I guess. My new goal is obsolescence.
-Well I need a goal, too.
They smoked, inhaling deeply, exhaling languorously. Caleb leaned back and looked up at the canopy and gestured with his cigarette at the fleeting splendor of a scarlet tanager. Lachlan wondered not for the first time how he made such hands fit the neck of a fiddle.
-So what was the nature of your participation?
-My hand was forced.
-Yes?
-I’d heard of the escape. McLeod grapevine you know. Gunderson and his dogs an’ all that. I was just getting ready to bed down for the afternoon when I hear this sound. I thought at first it was geese. It was hounds. Givin’ tongue. So I lit out.
-What’d you do?
-I did what needed done.
Lachlan nodded, taking a drag from his smoke and blowing out it in an upward arcing contrail. And what was the nature of your participation, Caleb asked.
-Did I say I was participating?
-Something about the way you broached the subject.
-Yeah, okay. The same.
-Same what?
-Did what needed done.
Caleb nodded and took another drag.
-You got anything to drink, Lachlan said. Caleb got up and closed the distance to the house in flowing strides. Disappeared down the outside cellar stairs. Lachlan smoked down the last of his cigarette and got up and threw the butt on the embers of the fire. He picked up some sticks of hop-hornbeam and blue-beech from the pile of kindling and tossed them on. He went back to the bench and sat back down. Caleb emerged from the basement carrying a mason jar of deep purple liquid with a label on the glass indicating $50. Whisking off the lid. He took a tentative sip and handed it to Lachlan. He took a belt and handed it back.
-You’re not apt to get violent are you, Lachlan said, sipping. That Iroquois blood’n all.
-I’m already violent.
-You need to come up with a different answer.
-You need to come up with a different question. And if I got the blood, you do too.
-I don’t claim it.
-Doesn’t change reality. What you claim.
-Whatever that is.
-Whatever what is?
-Reality.
-Thankfully not what it is for most, Caleb said, pulling from the jar and handing back to Lachlan.
-So do you wanna track her or not. Given what we already know. Given that we are pillars of the community.
Caleb spat in mirth the liquor he had been rolling about his palette. Some of it made the fire pit, flaring on the ignited kindling.
-I’m serious, Lachlan said. We aren’t exactly Rotarians like Cletus but we are McLeod. Around here that makes us pillars.
-Some might contest that, Rotarian or not. But yeah, it would be a nice gesture.
-And strategic, Lachlan said, taking a healthy slug.
-That too.
-What’s a pillar anyways but a strategy for supporting some larger design?
-You should drink more. Brings out the philosopher.
-Brings out the bullshit.