Rob Scott - The Hickory Staff

Versen spoke, interrupting his anxious thoughts. ‘It’s getting too busy out here. I don’t have a good feeling about this.’ The street was growing steadily more crowded, despite the early aven.

‘Let’s take a side street and cut through the orchard,’ Garec replied. ‘At least we’ll get some protection behind the buildings that way.’

‘I’m worried it’s too light out for that. Why would a wagon go through the orchard unless there was something to hide?’ Versen’s face was grim. ‘If anyone sees us go, we’re as good as dead.’

‘We just have to make it to the corner,’ Garec replied nervously. ‘We’ll check the window above Mika’s and then decide.’ As they approached a crossroads, Garec stared straight ahead and whispered, ‘You do it. We can’t look up there at the same time: anyone watching us would find that suspicious.’ They didn’t know if spies were actively searching for partisan groups in Estrad, but they were determined to take as few chances as possible.

Versen glanced up, casually, and reported, ‘One taper, not lit.’

‘Get us out of here quick,’ Garec said into cupped hands, ostensibly warming them against the morning chill.

Jacrys Marseth watched from the window of a local merchant’s stop as the wagon turned slowly down a side street towards an apple orchard that flanked the neighbourhood. When they disappeared from view, he motioned to a Malakasian soldier waiting quietly in an adjacent room and whispered, ‘Two streets down. Take them now.’

The soldier hurried out of the back of the shop to join the remainder of his patrol. He leaped into the saddle and led a small group of heavily armed men into the crowded street. Their horses pounded through the morning mud, parallelling the wagon’s path, and then turned quickly to cut off the two suspected partisans. Bursting into the orchard, the small patrol briskly surrounded the wagon and forced them to a stop.

‘Step down,’ a ruddy-faced corporal directed.

‘We’re unarmed,’ Versen answered, slowly raising his hands above his head. Garec did the same and moved quickly from the wagon.

‘Kneel down,’ the soldier commanded, ‘there in front of the horses.’ Both men did exactly as they had been ordered. Garec felt his hands shaking uncontrollably and put them firmly on top of his head, tightly gripping two handfuls of hair as an anchor.

‘We’re farmers,’ he said, ‘just taking this morning’s load to the village market.’ He heard his voice crack and decided to remain silent unless absolutely necessary.

‘Check it,’ the corporal ordered a nearby soldier who dismounted and began unfastening ropes that held down one corner of the large canvas tarp. Finding an unruly knot, the soldier drew a knife from his belt and sliced through the cloth in a long gash that exposed the wagon’s cargo. Garec sneaked a glance at Versen, who gave his friend a conspiratorial grin.

‘Apples, corporal,’ the soldier called. ‘It’s just apples.’

‘Why do you suppose they call it a trash receptacle?’ Mark Jenkins wrestled to fit a large pizza box into their kitchen garbage can. ‘I mean, as much rubbish as goes into this thing eventually comes out again, right? So it’s not really a receptacle as much as it is a holding centre.’ He bent the box in half against his knee as if he were breaking up kindling wood for a fireplace. ‘I say we start changing the way people refer to it. We can call it the trash holding centre.’ He thought for a moment, then added, ‘That really doesn’t work, does it?’

Steven Taylor wasn’t listening. He sat at one end of the sofa in their living room turning Higgins’s safe deposit box key over in his hands.

He had been enjoying one of the most wonderful weeks of his life. He had taken Hannah to dinner on Saturday, Catherine’s Duncan Phyfe cabinet lashed securely in the back of Mark’s truck while they drove around Denver looking for somewhere to eat. The following day they had gone for a long hike above the canyon. Hannah had joined him for dinner again on Tuesday, when he had, on an impulse, driven into the city after work and told her he couldn’t wait until Friday to see her again.

Her reaction had been well worth the headache from using the interstate during rush-hour on a weeknight: as she saw him enter the store she excused herself from her customers and walked towards him, smiling – and she took the last three or four paces at a slight run. He had never had a woman run – even a few steps – to be with him before: it was exhilarating.

He was completely smitten with Hannah Sorenson, and that should have been enough to have him walking on air. But all the while, the question of William Higgins’s safe deposit box was festering in the back of his mind.

Mark came in from the kitchen carrying two open beer bottles and handed one to Steven. ‘Are you done with the pizza?’

‘Yeah, I’m fine.’ Steven took a mouthful of cold beer and slipped the key back into his shirt pocket.

‘You know, we should start learning how to cook a few things. This Chinese-pizza-peanut butter diet is going to catch up with us someday,’ Mark mused. Steven laughed as he looked across the room at his best friend. Mark, at twenty-eight, was in perfect physical shape. A well-built African-American, he swam several miles every morning with student members of the high school swimming team, and was invariably up for running, biking, or the most gruelling climbs Steven could find for them on weekends. Steven was in good physical condition, but Mark was a natural athlete.

‘Are you kidding? Look at yourself. You’re a specimen; you look like you were constructed by teenage girls during a pyjama party fantasy game.’ Steven grimaced, then added, ‘But I agree: we ought to start thinking about eating better.’

‘After tomorrow night. One last super supreme – with extra everything – tomorrow night. We’ll finish the beer and kick off a trial period of healthy nutrition on Friday. Deal?’ Mark offered a hand to his roommate.

‘Deal. And then on Friday we’ll… I don’t know, we’ll roast some fish or steam some vegetables or something.’ Steven had no idea what was involved in either roasting or steaming.

Apparently, neither did Mark. ‘Do we have a steamer?’

‘No idea. Maybe we can get a book, or find an idiot’s guide to the kitchen website.’

Mark raised his bottle. ‘To roast fish and steamed vegetables.’

Steven returned the toast. He thought for a few seconds, then suggested, ‘Maybe those things are available as take-out from someplace.’

They both laughed, and Mark headed back to the kitchen: if they were seriously planning to improve their eating habits, it would be best not to leave any leftovers before the start of Nutrition Hell was upon them. As he heaped the remains of the pizza onto two plates, he called, ‘You know, you ought to hand that key over to Howard.’

‘I know, but I’m curious. I can’t even concentrate on work any more.’ Steven switched off the television, a boringly one-sided baseball game. ‘I’m closing up for Howard tomorrow night. When he leaves, I’ll find some reason to go into the safe. I’ll grab a quick look and be home in time for our last night of real food: long live fat, sugar and cholesterol.’

Mark walked over and handed him one of the plates. ‘Enjoy it: we’ll miss it when it’s gone. I understand you’re curious. But whatever is in there has been in there for a long time. You still ought to give Howard the key. Let him decide whether or not to open it.’

‘He’ll say no.’

‘He’s the bank manager. Of course he’ll say no.’

‘Damnit!’ Steven took a frustrated bite. ‘One peek and I’ll throw the key in Clear Creek. It’ll be out of my system for ever.’