in the top of the bucket. I could follow his movements by the swinging arc of his flashlight. Meanwhile Poppy dragged a thick log out of the bramble and set this parallel to the cliff edge and draped the cable over it, so that the cable would ride smoothly across the log and not cut into the sand. They knew what they were doing, and moved with very little communication. When they were done the doubled cable from bulldozer to truck lay lightly on the log.
'Guys, this is fucking crazy,' I called. 'You're about to break the law, okay? Jay, you should just leave it there, let the police deal with it. Look, I'm a lawyer, take my advice!'
'This is how I want to do it,' Jay said. 'Poppy, you start the truck. Keep the emergency brake on. I'll start the Cat. When I hit the horn, I'm ready. Then I'll shift forward easy and you do too. Keep it in low. I'll be going very slowly, if I go at all. I don't want to snap the cable- I'll fall backward. But don't let the cable get slack, either. Tight. Bill, I want you standing right here with the flashlight. Poppy won't be able to see anything and neither will I, but I can see you and so can Poppy in the rearview mirror.'
'This is crazy. I don't-'
'Bill, I'm doing this whether you help or not.'
'I'm not helping- I'm not.'
'Then stand back, okay?' He stuck out his hand. 'Thanks for everything earlier tonight. If something happens to me, it was nice to know you.'
'What?'
'Hey, if the dozer falls backwards, I'm fish bait, man. Hundred and fifty feet, rolling over and over, then right down into the ocean. It's high tide down there. Like I said, fish bait.'
And with that he scrambled down the sea cliff in his good shoes. 'Hey!' called Poppy after him. 'Don't run around so much.'
But before I could ask why, Poppy retreated to the truck. I was miserable but shined the light up to the cab as instructed. Poppy gave a slow wave. From my position on the edge of the sea cliff, I could see both men. I signaled to Jay. He'd climbed atop Herschel and started the bulldozer again. He lifted the stabilizing pad and then the big front bucket so it wouldn't catch on the upward slope. A short blast on the horn followed. I signaled Poppy, and the truck lurched forward two feet. The cable snapped tight. The dozer didn't move. Then the treads shuddered and rotated a foot, sand crumbling behind the dozer. I signaled Poppy to pull ahead hard. Jay was shifting the gears with one hand, steering with the other. The dozer began to climb, one foot, then two, the snow shaking off it, the treads biting the frozen dune grass. Diesel smoke filled my nose. I could hear the truck engine grinding. The cable was tight. Now the truck was throwing back ice and mud, tires spinning. But Jay moved upward anyway. The cable slackened. Then the truck kicked forward four or five feet, delivering a jolt to the bulldozer. Both machines moved in sync then, and the dozer reached the top edge of the sea cliff, dragging a couple of small branches with it, and instead of breaking up and over the crest, the dozer crushed the crest beneath it, nearly throwing Jay forward, spinning a thirty-foot rooster tail of dirt and sand and snow backward until the thing was safely ten feet from the edge. I swung the light back and forth, and the truck stopped.
Poppy jumped down and came running back. 'It worked!'
'Damn right!' said Jay, sitting atop the dead man. He let the dozer idle and climbed down.
Poppy stood before the corpse, getting his first good look. The stiff hand extending into nothingness seemed to fascinate him most. 'Getting too old for this shit,' he muttered. Then his natural poison flowed through him again. 'I don't want to fucking drive into New York City every time there's a problem, you know?'
'There aren't going to be any more problems,' Jay said. 'We got rid of the only problem tonight.' He reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of bills, peeled off five fifties. 'Here, Poppy, for your time and everything.'
Poppy held the money. It was more than he expected. He pointed at the truck. 'I think the drive train just got fucked, though.'
'Will the truck move?'
'First gear, ten, fifteen miles an hour maybe.'
'Take it back to the barn.'
'I will. What you going to do with him?' He jerked his thumb at the corpse.
'I want you to move the Cat over to the blue barn.'
'Onto the old property, you mean.'
'That's what I mean, Poppy, yes. And park it.'
Across a property line. Why, I wondered. 'Hey, wait-'
Poppy understood the plan. 'Like he was just kind of parking the dozer near the barn when- right?'
Jay breathed heavily. 'Sure. Make sure the shifter is back under his hand, too, make sure it's perfect. Let a little snow accumulate on the dozer tracks. Maybe go up and down the road in the car a few times. Say you just got home.'
'I was out, I was doing something.'
'Then call nine-one-one and say you found him.'
'Okay.'
'I'm not part of this,' I told them. 'You're way out of bounds here. Way out. Jay, either drive me back to the city now or take me to a train station. Get me out of here.'
But he was still instructing Poppy. 'You're going to have to take the fence down and put it back up.'
'I know.'
'We got that straight?'
'I mean, Herschel died already,' said Poppy, running through the logic again.
'That's what I'm saying. You just found him out there on the Cat, and you called nine-one-one.'
'That's true. He looks the same, nobody moved him.'
'I'm not part of this.'
'Nobody is asking you to be.' Jay turned to Poppy again. 'Once you go through the fence, take the dozer down straight to the east road- you have to watch out for the drainage gully on that piece where we used to put in cabbages, and then cut over on that dirt road until you pick up the main driveway to the blue barn. Keep it on the main driveway, because we'll get a lot of drifting. Snow'll pretty much cover the tracks in half an-'
'Also anybody coming in and out of there, ambulance, whatever, is going to go right over anything that's left. Tracks'll be covered up that way, too.'
'Yes,' Jay said quietly.
Poppy rubbed his hands against each other vigorously.
'Guys,' I began. 'You're-'
'Hey!' Jay interrupted me. 'He was already dead, okay? Herschel had a terrible heart. I asked him if he was up to it. He was supposed to be done with his grading a week ago! When it was still warm! I told him I'd do it myself.'
I stood there then, snow in my face, feet cold, dumbfounded by the arc of the evening.
'It's just bad luck,' Jay explained. 'Okay? He was supposed to do a little grading to get the property ready. Smooth out the old ditches, as a courtesy.' He stared at me, mouth open and eyes unblinking, and I wondered if there was violence in the man. 'He called me and said he was done, but I guess he wasn't, I guess he lied to me.'
'So, Poppy, why did you find him?' I asked. 'Were you going for a stroll?'
'I saw the dozer. Wondered what was going on.'
'Hey, it doesn't change anything for Herschel,' Jay said. 'Also, you've got people walking the beach in the morning. Get a couple of kids climbing on that thing, who knows what happens? Poppy is calling the police. I can't lose the deal, man. I mean what fucking difference does it make whether Herschel died over here or over there?'
I could have said that clearly it made a large difference to Jay himself, since he'd driven out of the city in the middle of the night and a snowstorm to move the body, but I saw nothing to be gained by the comment. I wanted out of there, plain and simple.
'Look,' said Poppy. He pointed toward the main road. Car lights were coming our way.
'Take the truck,' Jay ordered Poppy. 'I changed my mind. Go without your lights to the barn. I'll take the Cat myself.'
They hurried to their respective vehicles. Poppy unhooked the cable from the back of the big potato truck,
