Michael Bunker - WICK

“Okay, dude,” Calvin said, “you head out along that south fence line over there where it looks like there was a chimney that got burned out.” Calvin pointed out shapes across the field to Stephen as he talked. He directed his friend’s attention toward the distance. “Usually those kinds of places are picked over pretty well, but sometimes they were picked over in a different time, by people with a different mindset. You might find things that appear useful now that wouldn’t have meant anything to people then, back when the last set of looters went through it.” He leaned into the word “looters” and pointed across the land as if ironically. He winked at Stephen. “I’m going to go along that ridge over there. I’ll circle back down to you. Okay, bro?”

“Cool.” Stephen said. He looked up in the direction of the chimney. Like his mom, he saw triangles and boxes of color. He knew there would be bricks, boards, who knows what else…

Calvin walked out of the field, then up and along the fence line. He followed the fence for about fifty yards, stopping here and there to mend it when he could, when it poked out of the snow piles occasionally. He came out to a stand of trees at the northwest corner of the field and entered onto a rocky clearing. There, under the trees, he saw a couple of heavy boulders. Where, in such a landscape, could large boulders like those have come from? Calvin wondered. He thought of Stonehenge for some odd reason. He thought of the pyramids, and of Easter Island.

The boulders were huge and stacked on each other, and he walked under the trees as his eyes adjusted to the light and to the distance. There was a man sitting on one of the boulders. The man was peeling an apple in the cold morning air. He gave Calvin a little wave. Calvin looked at the craggy features of the man sitting on the boulder, and he knew who it must be. Until that very moment, he had never before seen an honest-to-goodness Amish man. Calvin looked at the man, and the man looked at Calvin, and then they exchanged head nods.

“You must be Jonathan Wall’s man.”

“Yes, Mr. Stolzfus. Calvin Rhodes. It’s nice to meet you.” Calvin had heard Clive and Red Beard talking about Henry Stolzfus, and figured that this had to be the man himself.

Henry Stolzfus waved off the offer of a handshake. He made a motion as if to say he would offer an apple if he had another.

“Good to meet yu’uns.” He looked Calvin up and down. “Is everything okay with Mr. Wall, then?”

“Yes sir,” Calvin explained, nodding his head. “We’re managing down in Texas. About as good as can be expected, I guess.”

“Good. Well, I appreciate the risk you ran in bringing up this package all that way. The medicines especially were much appreciated. The gold was important too, and you tell Jonathan that we’ll store the amount he said for him until he wants or needs it. Tell him we’re thankful for the help.”

“I will, Sir.” Then, Calvin snapped his fingers. He’d just remembered something he was supposed to tell the Amish man if he saw him. “Mr. Darling said he’d bring your shipment over in stages.” He paused to get the man’s reaction.

“Yes, well…” Stolzfus nodded his bearded chin. “It’s true. We’ve received some already. We need one or two more, I expect. I don’t foresee any problems.”

Calvin nodded his head and then moved to make his departure. “Okay. Well, then, thanks. We sure appreciate everything you’re doing. If you get down to Texas, you know you have a place to stay.”

“I know it, yung’un. Y’uns take care.” With that, Henry Stolzfus turned his head back toward his own field and rested his feet on the boulder. The conversation was over. He turned again, after a while, and watched the young Chinese man disappear into the shadows. What an odd choice for Jonathan to have made there, he thought. He watched as Calvin walked into the field, followed along the fence, and then dropped down into Clive’s place. Henry Stolzfus looked across the field toward his own farm again and pushed the last piece of apple into his mouth. He tasted it, pushing the piece around on his tongue, before standing and walking back down toward his own valley.

Calvin was just coming up along the fence line, across the field where they’d first sighted the chimney, when he saw Stephen in the distance.

His friend was standing, shaking his leg, tripping out from some woodpile or something. As he watched, he began to make out what was going on. Stephen was hopping, and then Calvin heard a series of bloodcurdling howls. Stephen fell backwards and caught himself against the pile, stumbling around, and from a distance, Calvin finally saw what it was. Stephen had a board attached to his foot. Sparked into motion, Calvin ran toward the screams, and as he ran, he stared into the middling distance watching the drama unfold. He saw Stephen drop like a rock, or like a man that was dead.

Stephen’s boot had a board attached to it. There was no getting around it. Stephen was passed out and Calvin was looking at his boot curled up under his foot, wrenched at the end of his leg in an agonizing position. Calvin wondered if anything was broken, and he saw on the other end of the board another nail, like the one in Stephen’s foot. He saw the gauge of the nail, its rusty length protruding ominously from the board. It likely went all the way through the foot, Calvin thought. He saw the nasty hook at the end, where the tip of the nail had broken off in a jagged slice of rust. He calculated that Stephen had slipped or stumbled backward and landed on a trashed piece of barn siding that was still home to the nails that had once attached it to an even older Amish barn or out-building. No doubt about it. Stephen’s foot was definitely nailed to the board.

Calvin reached down and woke Stephen, shaking him firmly by the shoulder. Stephen stirred and looked up at him, but the two brothers didn’t speak. The pain hit again just as he helped Stephen up. Pain gripped Stephen’s face, as the two brothers clasped one another tightly and nodded. They knew what they needed to do.

In the old world, they might have secured the board so that the weight of it wouldn’t do more damage, tearing flesh, dislocating bone, or maybe cutting a vein. They might have called an ambulance with paramedics on board that could come and immobilize or remove the board more professionally. But this wasn’t the old world.

Stephen put his weight into Calvin’s shoulder. Calvin placed his arms underneath the shoulders of his younger, new-found brother. Together, they lifted.

There was a vicious sound, unlike any that Calvin had ever heard. What was going on inside the boot—inside the foot—he could not know. Outside the boot, all he heard was a thud and a thwack of rubber and wood and snow. And screams of pain.

Then Calvin felt Stephen pass out in his arms.

“Dude, you should have seen yourself.”

Calvin was sitting next to Stephen, who was coming groggily back to life.

“You were doing this little dance with this board. I thought you were trying on skis, or waving your arms all James Brown like. I thought maybe you had stepped on a snake!”

Stephen looked down at his foot and began to inspect it while Calvin joked, trying to keep his friend’s mind off the pain. Laughter was the only medicine Calvin had with him. Stephen tried to see whether there were any broken bones first.

Stephen stopped Calvin and pointed to the pile of wood about ten yards away. “Yeah, I jumped across that pile over there. I should have taken the time to walk around it. My foot kind of slipped through a rotted piece of wood, and my weight came down directly on the nail.”