Thing With Feathers (9781616634704) (21 page)

The heat woke him, very hot weather and extremely hot fire. He realized that he was nauseous and his head was aching something frightful. When he tried to move, pain radiated through his torso. He was on fire. He looked down. No, he was not on fire, but he was in dire trouble just the same.

“El? El, can you hear me? El?”

There was no answer. Sean tried to push the heavy tree off his chest. He came to the cloudy realization that he was only alive because he’d been ten feet farther out from the falling timber than Elrod had been. Sean had been caught and slapped down by the very tip of the burned snag.

Oh my God! Elrod!

Now adrenaline was pumping through Sean, and he pushed mightily at the dead tree, pushing the excruciating pain it was causing him to the back of his mind at the same time. He wiggled and rolled beneath the weight until he was finally free. He tried to stand, but his legs wouldn’t hold him. Something was wrong with his back. He had a hard time taking breaths as well, and he knew that a couple of ribs must be busted. He tried to pay them no attention. He crawled down the length of the tree a few more feet and found his friend. Sean had no idea how long he had blacked out for, but his friend had been dead a while. There was nothing Sean could do for Elrod Tjaden.

Sean howled up to the treetops, “No!”

He’d tried to roll the tree off Elrod, but with all his serious injuries, he lacked the strength. The camp was too far for him to crawl, and the fire was raging too close. It was doubling back, the heat preceding it, which was why Sean came to when he did. He worked his way to the creek bed and rolled his beaten body down into it, spent. It might just be deep enough for the fire to pass over without incinerating him. It was the only hope Sean had of surviving. He used his arms to sweep the immediate vicinity of anything flammable and then pushed his face toward the creek’s floor, coming face to face with a scorched chipmunk. He shoved it away and instantly succumbed to the inky blackness that had been creeping in from the edges of his consciousness.

Chapter 45

H
e’d done this once already this week. He knew it was dangerous. He wasn’t rattlebrained; he might be reckless… But he’d weighed the chance he’d be recognized against the incredible number of firefighting men who came from all over the south, west and further, and swarmed the town of Tillamook. He then considered the propitious number of whores who had descended upon the town in response to all those men. Finally, the squalid room he’d rented was on the opposite side of town, about as far as one could be from the downtown strip, and Bowman was satisfied he would remain unnoticed. Not even Welby knew where he was at the moment.
Get a radio so I can contact you whenever I need to. Let the boy keep his pa’s gifts, or plan to replace ‘em yourself. Don’t go celebratin’ without my permission…(chug) you ain’t respectable, you ain’t worth a box a’ hair to me…”
he wagged his head from side to side as he silently mimicked Otis Welby in a most unflattering way. A slow smile stretched feline-like across his narrow-lipped maw. He took a good long pull on his brown jug, looked sideways and saw the whore was watching him. Then he took another long chug, that time splashing a little on his mushrooming midsection. He hated Otis Welby. The man had been ordering him around—intimidating him—ever since the Tjaden wedding.
Four years of extortion, that’s what it was
.

He looked her way again and the whore quickly averted her eyes. But he’d seen enough to know the woman was a little fearful of him. Bowman liked that. It made everything so much more exciting. Tied with her hands to the iron headboard, face down, Bowman had promised her she would not be hurt, but he could see she did not entirely believe him. Yes, there was that fear, that trepidation…my God, how he’d missed that… “Have you ever heard of the Marquis de Sade, my dear?” he asked.

Chapter 46

August 1933

Cloverdale, Oregon

T
he small cabin was modest at best. At worst, it was a haven for every kind of bug. Places where wallboard gaped from the floor boards, and the spots were numerous, provided access to the roly-poly’s, spiders, carpenter ants and beetles. Fleas were so prevalent they could be seen jumping around the dirty floor. They were more in number on that night because the heat was driving them inside. Young Victor slapped at his ankles and scratched bites until they bled. He couldn’t sleep.

The preacher had left a single light burning before he departed in the morning, and there were a hundred moths flitting around it. The living room area was shrouded in an eerie, nicotine-yellow cast. Save for the insects, the room was too quiet. His grandpa had not come back all day. Maybe he would never come back. It had been dark for a long time, and Victor had missed dinner. He didn’t want to admit it, but he was scared. Then his ears picked up the sound of his grandpa’s jalopy pulling in the long drive. When Mavis Marshall donated the family’s old car to the church in Tillamook, she should have stipulated that neither the auto nor any funds derived from the sale of it were to wind up as property of Preacher Bowman, but she didn’t, much to Sean’s chagrin. Victor jumped up and raced to the window. A sticky strand of web stuck to his face, and he wiped at it, but his hands were no good at finding it. He peered through the black glass and saw his grandpa wrestling himself from his car. Something close to a smile formed on the little boy’s face.

The old man stomped the dirt off his feet just before the threshold, like it mattered, hung his hat and a pair of binoculars on the peg behind the door. Victor was a bundle of questions. “Where did you go, Grandpa? Did you go fight the fire? Did you see that man who’s my father?”

“What was that foul thing you said there, boy?” The preacher paused before putting his coat on the only other peg.

“W-w-w-what, Grandpa?”

“That obscenity about some other man being your father?”

The boy realized his error too late. Grandpa got furious when such things about Victor’s ma or pa were mentioned. Gone was the little boy’s tentative smile. His chubby face was suddenly frozen in fear.

“Your imagination has got the best of you, boy. You need to reflect on the truths as I have given them to you. You know what needs doin’ now, don’t you, boy?”

Tears escaped the little boy. He wished he wouldn’t cry, but he could not help it. A hard rock was in his tiny throat, and his childish voice quivered. “I didn’t mean it, Grandpa.”

The old man said nothing as he crossed the room in two large strides and opened the lid to the antique banana box. With one hand holding the lid, he gestured to the boy with the other.

“No, Grandpa. Please. Please don’t make me go in the box. There’s spiders in there!”

“Spiders! Bah! They’re no match for your size and strength. More importantly, there are truths to be found in there. When you discover those truths, then you may come out.”

The box was the size of a child’s coffin, and it felt like one. It was dark and close and especially hot in this warmest of Augusts.

The child whimpered as he approached it, his thumb jammed back into his mouth. “Please, Grandpa. I’m hungry.” He looked inside the box. Its bottom could be seen, with tiny little black specks here and there. “Please, Grandpa. Don’t make me go in the box!” The boy cried openly.

“No more of this nonsense, boy! Get yourself in there. When the evil that has crossed your mind is gone, you may come out.”

Victor climbed in. The lid closed with a
whump!
The little boy began sweating immediately. He closed his eyes in the blackness and tried to pretend there was nothing else in there with him. His tortured mind raced. Trickles of sweat ran from his hairline here and there, making like vermin as they tracked across his skin. Fleeting images of a red tricycle came to him. Then a foggy memory of riding on a horse with a pretty, dark-haired lady, who must have been his mother, drifted into his thoughts. Victor pinched himself on the upper arm, hard. But it didn’t help. His mind’s eye saw the man from the picnic. He was throwing Victor up in the air, laughing. Victor remembered that from when he’d been a baby.
No! That man was not his father.
Victor pinched himself repeatedly until he could think of little else besides the pain.
The pretty lady was not laughing and smiling. She was sad. The laughing man was mean and made his mother leave.
The little boy in the big black box made himself believe those “truths” that his grandpa recited for him regularly. Victor found those truths in the miserable confines of the box in great haste. He pushed open the lid and jumped out hurriedly, relishing the cool air on his clammy skin. The preacher had taken the opportunity to swig from his brown jug while the boy committed his ‘truths’ to memory. At the sound of the boy jumping from the banana box, he set the jug inside the deep sink where the boy’s eyes could not reach. He turned around and faced the boy.

“I saw it all, Grandpa! That man was mean and made my mommy leave home…she was always really sad. I was sad too, until you came for me.” The boy looked at his grandpa hopefully.

“Is that the truth, boy?”

“Yes, sir. Boy, Grandpa, the truth can sure make ya hungry.”

The old man turned to the sink board and began slicing ham to go with eggs and bread for their dinner. “Sit yourself at the table, boy. It is time for the truth to be rewarded.”

Chapter 47

August, 1933

Chicago, Illinois

N
ews of the great Tillamook Burn traveled coast-to-coast. Cindy dated several successful reporters, and even one newspaper mogul, so it was not difficult for her to get details about the Tillamook County destruction.

On her date the night before with Chester Lasley, who, as one with controlling interest in one of Chicago’s largest newspapers, had up-to-the-hour information, she’d learned Oregon had lost more than 300,000 acres, and over 24 billion board feet of prime timber. The loss of forest creatures numbered in the millions. He also confirmed for her that lives had been lost among the unskilled, volunteer firefighters. Cindy had wanted to question further on the matter, but not from Chester. As far as that man was concerned, she had no more and no less interest in the Tillamook Burn beyond a natural curiosity. Chester Lasley made Cindy a bit nervous. Truth be told, he reminded her of the preacher, and she didn’t want him knowing details of her past life. He was willing to pay a small fortune for a single night with her, though, and he’d always remained a gentlemen. Nonetheless, Cindy counted her chickens for the day she could afford to bring to an end her dates with Chester Lasley, without becoming one of his enemies. Especially since, in recent months, Lasley had been making it known to Chicago’s upper-crust he had political aspirations.

Her friend Wendell did not like Lasley at all. He had begged her to step lightly about the man, if she absolutely
must
date him. “He’s a bully. A silver-spoon’d scoundrel in hundred-dollar suits. Believe me, I know the type,” Wendell had said. He believed the man held his wickedness in check only because he had a reputation to protect. “Beware,” Wendell had warned her just that morning, “of Lasley’s formidable anger.”

Cindy thought her friend was spot on about Lasley. And there was something more about Chester that reminded Cindy of the preacher, his word had reputation and influence over that of most others. He, too, may be untouchable.

She’d happened by a favorite watering hole of another reporter she dated, found him there, and learned worse news out of Tillamook: Sean had been a volunteer firefighter and he’d been hurt. Thank goodness he’d survived. Elrod Tjaden had died in the fire. Elrod was Rebecca’s husband, Cindy knew, and she was heart-broken for Rebecca. She’d always counted the couple as Blair’s closest, truest friends.
Think of something else.

Cindy sighed and looked about her room. She was going to move. Her top-back room was cramped. And she could never have men visit her there. Her meddlesome, ever-inquiring landlady would never hear of it. She could manage those nuisances; Cindy was easy-going about most anything. But, there was the arrangement of her bath; she was growing less facile about her bath being shared, and located a floor below her room. The only thing Cindy did like about her current apartment was the three flights of stairs to get to her room. She’d rather liked getting the exercise.

She’d saved up money enough to move across town to a spacious apartment with a water view—and it’s own water closet, of course. It was not one of the swanky new ones they were building on the water. Those didn’t appeal to Cindy. Instead, a few streets back away from the water, she and Wendell had happened upon a swanky
old
one. It was a small two-story publishing house, purpose-built in 1888, of brick and floated glass and tall ceilings, and capable of accommodating heavy industry equipment. It had been erected during a construction heyday, created by abundant available space near the rails, that came about after the fire of 1871. By the turn of the last century, the whole row had become a magnet for the printing industry. All of the other old buildings on the street were multiple stories high, and were being converted into luxury apartments. But no investor had taken up the restoration of her little two-story, deeming it hardly worth the trouble.

Cindy fell in love with the vastness of private space and the dazzling natural light pouring through tall windows. But what had sold her was the character of the building. It had functioned in a specific way for a long time, then found itself transformed to function in another way—something quite different, but beautiful and grand—precisely because of that first function’s influences. The space lived two lives.

She’d instructed Wendell, who acted as her agent, to release the necessary funds, and Cindy purchased the space on the spot. She’d had the building split top-from-bottom, and renovated into two luxury residences. Cindy would be taking the top floor, with its tall windows and water view; she had a renter in the form of a quiet, elderly gentleman for the bottom apartment. The new place was the first thing Cindy can remember being truly happy about since—
No. That was not your life and it does you no good to think about it.