Linwood Barclay - Lone Wolf

“Dad?”

“Zachary?”

I found him on his knees, patting the ground, looking for the crutches he’d lost when he’d fallen.

“What the hell are you doing?” I asked. “Dad, we thought you were a goddamn bear. I almost nailed you with bear spray. If that hadn’t worked, Lawrence was ready to shoot you.”

“I saw you two heading out here and wondered what was going on.”

“Are you out of your mind? Trying to walk up here?”

“My ankle’s been feeling a lot better lately and I thought I could make it without much trouble.”

“Have you twisted it again?”

“I don’t think so. I just got a branch in the face is all. Lost my balance.”

“Dad, go back to the cabin.”

He reached out a hand so that I’d help him up. “I wanted to talk to you,” he said when he had hold of me.

“Listen, Dad-”

“I haven’t had a chance to talk to you since Lana and I, since we tried to explain things, and, well, I don’t know. I wondered if you were okay.”

“I’m okay, Dad.”

“Because, I wouldn’t want you to…I guess what I’m saying is, it’s been nice.”

“Nice? What’s been nice?”

“Having you up here. It’s been nice having you up here this week. I mean, it’s been kind of crazy around here, but it’s been nice. That’s all.”

We were both quiet for a moment, listening to the sounds of the night. The odd cricket, the breeze blowing through the branches.

“I’ve liked it, too, Dad.” I paused. “I’ve got to go back and help Lawrence.”

“Sure. What are you two doing?”

“We’re listening to the Wickenses.”

“Really?” Surprised, and intrigued.

“Shhh! Keep your voice down.”

“Can you do that? Listen in on them, without their permission?”

“Dad, if we got their permission, wouldn’t that sort of defeat the exercise?”

“Oh yeah, I suppose.”

“Listen, Dad, head back to the cabin. We can talk some more later, okay?”

“Zack!”

Lawrence was whispering at top volume. “Zack, Jesus, get back here!”

“Okay,” Dad said, “I’m going. But we’ll talk later, right?”

“Yeah. Get home without getting eaten, okay?” I reached into my pocket to offer him my bear spray.

“No,” he said. “I got my hands busy with crutches. I’ll be okay.”

He turned and started hobbling back. I watched him until he was swallowed up by the trees and the darkness.

A moment later, I was squatting down next to Lawrence again, slipping my headphones back on, pointing the shotgun mike at the house.

“What I miss?” I said.

“Shut up,” Lawrence said, trying to listen.

There was still the faint dog heartbeat in the background, and its breathing. But the voices were coming in pretty clear again.

“I can do it, Timmy.” Dougie, I thought.

“I don’t know.”

“Trust me, I can do it. I’ll show you. I won’t forget anything. And I’ll find a good parking spot for the van, then find a good spot to watch from.”

A chair squeak blocked out Timmy’s reply. All I heard was “…parade to remember…”

“Yeah, for sure.” Wendell. “The remote, I think the button’s a bit sticky.”

“It’s fine.” Timmy. “Want to double-check the…though.”

“I get to take the remote.” Dougie.

“Yeah, if you don’t fucking forget it.” Wendell.

“Fuck you.”

“What kind of sandwiches you want?” Charlene again.

“Ham,” said one.

“With cheese,” said another.

“No mustard on mine.” Timmy, I thought.

Whatever they planned to do at tomorrow’s parade, I guessed no one wanted to do it on an empty stomach.

“Okay, let’s get this done.” Timmy Wickens.

More chair scraping, people getting up from the table. Seconds later, the back door of the farmhouse swung open and three figures made their way across the yard to the barn. A large door, big enough to admit a vehicle, was slid open, and someone flicked on a light, and once the three of them were inside, the door was slid almost all the way shut with just enough space left for someone to squeeze through.

“You heard that?” I said. “Remote? And parade?”

Lawrence nodded solemnly. “We need to get a look at what they’ve got inside that barn. Whatever they’re putting together, it’s in there.”

“So, how do you propose to do that?”

Lawrence smiled. “We’ll sneak over.”

“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.

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.