Lee Klein: Jrzdvlz

Kirsch smirked. “Really?”

“Verifiable fact you can search on your internet,” Duven said. “They say it’s mahogany but it’s stained white cedar like right over here.”

The oaks gave way to pines that gave way to an open expanse of smaller, fuller, conical evergreens, like a farm of perfect Christmas trees.

“Dwarves,” Duven whispered.

Nothing out here but a sky filled with constellations and a horizon glowing with civilization. “As good a spot as any,” he said as he led us into the field of dwarf pines. “Put the night-vision goggles on.”

Kirsch faced the trail we’d made through the dwarves out from the woods. Moss had his back to him. Everyone else faced a horizon of weirdly perfect little pines in all directions.

“Remember to feel it first,” Duven said. “Feel it before you see it. Once you feel the Kid coming you’ll see him. No other way, unless he swoops on you.”

A bird of prey soared from the woods. Through the goggles it looked like something in a video game, a blast from an Asteroids ship.

Kirsch whispered into Mack’s ear: “If we see a winged kangaroo right now, it’s one of Duven’s buddies, right? Bet he works with some guy crawling out a pickup right now.”

“Shit,” Riv said. “No way.” Our tight circle of surveillance broke. He pointed into the pines. “Something bounced across that line of trees.”

“C’mon,” Moss said. “What’d you see?”

Riv scrunched down. He spoke slowly, clearly, restraining himself: “It was like one of those Chinese new year dragons, but smaller, with wings.”

Kirsch laughed to release the tension. He pulled off the goggles.

“There!” Riv pointed to the left of where he’d pointed before. “Just its head.”

Kirsch seemed to feel it now. I almost felt it, too. It was infectious when someone like Riv saw it first.

“You serious about this?” Kirsch said.

Riv stumbled through the tiny trees, rearing from what he’d seen.

Duven grabbed him. “You need to chill, my friend.”

Rivkin was not chill. He tried to look past Duven’s shoulder.

“It was probably nothing,” Duven said. “Shit what’s that?”

The sound came from where we had been minutes ago, toward the water. No way it was a whippoorwill. A whippoorwill’s like a model train compared to that locomotive. Riv squatted and wrapped his arms around his knees. Now that he’d heard the sound he needed to make, the night filled with so much grief it knocked him down.

Mack stood on her toes, waiting for something to move. “Seeing is believing,” she said. “Here I am, Kid, a rock-solid potential believer.”

“You set this up,” Moss said. “You set it up, didn’t you?”

“I swear to you, my friend,” Duven said.

“Swear to me then,” Moss said. “Put your hand in mine, look me in the eye, and swear to me no one’s there.” Moss nodded toward his hand.

Duven pulled a pistol from his camera bag. Moss stepped back with hands up. Duven pointed toward the woods and said, “If I had a friend out there would I do this?” He took long strides toward the place the wailing came from, and then he fired into the darkness. “Would I do that, huh? Would I shoot into the woods at a friend?”

“Please I can’t stand it,” Riv said.

Moss kept silent, an easier target than wailing in the woods. Mack and Corinne and I froze, all set to defend ourselves by running away.

Duven returned the gun to the holster. “Never fired it before,” he said. “No one’s ever doubted me. Not like that.” He looked at Moss. Duven’s skin barely covered striated muscle that clung like dark meat on a turkey bone. “Believe me,” he said. “I’m not working with people. But maybe one of you are screwing around… Tell you what, I’ll walk twenty steps off. One by one, you guys come and let me in on it.”

Duven stepped through the dwarves, head down.

He called back. “Who’s first? How bout my little Russian buddy?”

Riv followed the path Duven had made through the dwarves. The two men seemed like different species.

Moss and Kirsch stood side by side, arms crossed, elbows almost touching, watching Duven’s conference with Riv.

“Good thing he didn’t shoot you,” Kirsch whispered.

“You set this up?” Moss turned so Kirsch could see he was smiling.

“I’m just along for the ride,” Kirsch said. “You?”

“Never crossed my mind.”

“No reason to believe that,” Kirsch said.

Riv trotted back and said, “He wants to talk to you.” Moss jacked his hands in his pockets and slouched in Duven’s direction.

“You’re just joshing, right?” Kirsch said.

“I saw something,” Riv said. “Saw it enough to know it wasn’t right.”

Kirsch turned to talk to us. “Ya gotta trust the Rivster,” he said. “He never lies without revealing the truth.”

Riv was straight and honest and clear, a life preserver in the wash of it all. But after Francesca, the trainer, the picnic basket, and everything else no one knew about, maybe Riv learned to lie like a Jersey native. This is the state, after all, haunted by a kangaroo crane with ram horns, donkey hooves, and pterodactyl wings. No simple Bigfoot.

Our guide wanted to talk to Kirsch and me together for some reason, so we trotted over and slapped hands with Moss as we passed. Duven offered a shot from his flask. I politely declined but faked a swig when Duven insisted. Kirsch didn’t hesitate.

“They all say they’re innocent,” Duven said. He pulled off his cap and ran his forearm across his brow. He had a serious widow’s peak, like a volcano set to erupt down his face. “Just tell me straight,” he said, “these guys tell you anything they didn’t tell me?”

“Whatever’s up your sleeve tonight, as long as no one gets hurt, I’m down with it.” Kirsch said this quickly and clearly, as respectfully and as forcefully as he could, like a catcher settling some rattled pitcher on the mound. “Lead us around. Scare the shit out of us. Get us home. But whatever you do, don’t fire that gun again.”

Duven seemed to appreciate the talk. “Keep it quiet but the gun shoots blanks. Still, your friend Moss better watch it.”

“Six of us against one of you,” Kirsch said.

Duven took a step back. “I’ve got the Pines and the Kid on my side, too.”

I put my goggles down and scanned the perimeter for a sign of the supernatural.

Next few hours we hiked the trails. Kirsch armed himself with pinecones, one in each hand, ready to take out the Kid’s eye with one and beam him in the nuts with the other. Each time we crossed a spot that reeked of sulfur, Moss said, “Jersey Devil farts.”

We sat and sipped applejack whisky and talked and listened. Every nocturnal critter that rustled the underbrush made us jump as we waited for Duven to turn his trick, expecting one scary sight and sound after another.

We walked and rested. Riv bummed smokes from Duven and put them out in the sand. We’d been hitting a thermos of milky-sugary coffee. It was almost four AM.

Moss and Duven were serious Yankee fans. They complained about management’s lack of concern for middle relief.

Cranberry bogs and wild blueberry bushes everywhere. Vines of thickets, dense like kudzu, choked whole acres. Recently burned parts of the woods seemed like scrubby sand dunes, only the pines coming back.

Duven indicated the remains of an old bonfire spot. On the vernal equinox, he said, about two dozen people come here to dance around a fire. Wearing face paint, some dancers seem like white folks, he said, but others look like real Indians. Drummers beat a staggered rhythm that enlivens the dancers before they establish a common rattle. A reenactment of an annual ceremony the Lenni Lenape called “The Missing.”