'I'm keeping it.'
'You're keeping it?' Jacob said. 'What do you mean, you're keeping it?'
'This is what we're doing. I keep it for six months. If no one comes looking for it during that period, then we'll split it up.'
Jacob and Lou stared at me, taking this in.
'Why do you keep it?' Lou asked.
'I'm the safest. I have a family, a job. I've got the most to lose.'
'Why not split it up now?' he asked. 'We each sit on our own shares?'
I shook my head. 'This is how we're doing it. If you don't want it like this, we can turn it in now. That's the choice I'm offering you.'
'You don't trust us?' Jacob asked.
'No,' I said. 'I guess I don't.'
He nodded at that but didn't say anything.
'They'll discover the plane before six months is up,' Lou said. 'Spring'll come and somebody'll find it.'
'Then we'll see for sure if anyone knows there was money on it.'
'And if someone knows?' Jacob asked.
'Then I'll burn it. The only way we'll keep it is if there's absolutely no chance of getting caught. As soon as it seems like we might be in trouble, I'll get rid of the money.'
'You'll burn it,' Lou said, disgusted.
'That's right. Every last bill.'
Neither of them spoke. We all stared down at the duffel bag.
'We don't tell anyone,' I said. I looked at Lou. 'Not even Nancy.' Nancy was Lou's live-in girlfriend. She worked in a beauty parlor over in Sylvania.
'She's got to know eventually,' he said. 'She's gonna wonder where all my money's coming from.'
'She can know when we decide that it's safe to keep it. Not a moment sooner.'
'Then the same thing holds for Sarah,' he said.
I nodded, as if this went without saying. 'We'll continue to live like normal. I'm just asking you to hold off for six months. It'll be there, waiting for you. You'll know it's there.'
They were both silent, thinking.
'All right?' I asked. I looked first at Lou, then at Jacob. Lou was scowling at me, as if he were angry. He didn't say anything. Jacob shrugged, hesitated a second, then nodded. He dropped his packet back into the bag.
'Lou?' I said.
Lou didn't move. Jacob and I stared at him, waiting. Finally, with a grimace, as if it pained him to do it, he pulled the wad of money from his jacket, stared at it for a moment, and then, very slowly, slid it into the bag.
'We count it before you take it,' he said, his voice low, almost a growl.
I smiled at him, even grinned. It seemed funny that he didn't trust me.
'All right,' I said. 'That's probably a good idea.'
2
IT WAS getting dark now, so we decided to return to the truck and count the money there. As we hiked back toward the road, Jacob and Lou started talking about what they were going to do with their newfound wealth. Jacob wanted a snowmobile, a wide-screen TV, a big fishing boat that he'd name
Lou and I carried the duffel bag together, walking sideways, each of us holding an end, and it slowed us down enough for Jacob to keep up. Jacob talked the whole way, chattering like a child. You could feel his excitement -- it was something palpable; he exuded it like a scent.
The temperature began to drop as soon as the sun went down, glazing the surface of the snow into an icy skin, which we broke through each time we took a step. There was very little light beneath the trees. Branches seemed to jump out at us as we walked, appearing suddenly from the darkness directly before our faces, making us duck and weave as we moved forward, like a trio of boxers.
It took us nearly thirty minutes to reach the road. When we got there, Jacob put his rifle back behind the truck's front seat and started searching for his flashlight, while Lou and I emptied the money onto the tailgate. We were both a little stunned, I think, at the number of packets that spilled from the bag, mesmerized by the sight of so much wealth, and that's probably why we didn't notice the sheriff's truck until it was almost upon us. Perhaps if we'd seen it earlier, if we'd made out its headlights when they were still hovering on the edge of the horizon, two yellow pinpricks moving slowly toward us, I would've acted differently. I would've had time to think things through, to consider my options with a little more care, so that when the truck finally got close enough for me to make out the bubble light on its roof, I might've decided to tell Sheriff Jenkins about the plane. I could've shown him the money, explained how we were just about to call him up on the CB, and, by doing that, I would've ended the whole thing right then and there, would've handed it to the sheriff in a nice, tidy bundle, disposing of it before it had a chance to unravel and entangle us all.
But it didn't happen like that: the truck was no more than two hundred yards away when we noticed it. We heard it first, heard its engine, the crunch of its tires against the frozen road. Lou and I looked up at the same time. A half second later Jacob pulled his head from behind the seat.
'Shit,' I heard him say.
Without thinking, acting purely on instinct, like an animal burying its store of food, I slammed shut the tailgate. The money tumbled out across the truck bed, the packets making a soft thumping sound against the metal floor. We'd dropped the duffel bag to the ground after we'd emptied it, and I bent to pick it up now. I draped it across the money, covering it as best I could.
'Go up front with Jacob,' I whispered to Lou. 'Let me do the talking.'
Lou shuffled quickly away, his head bowed. Then the sheriff was there, his brakes squeaking as he came to a stop on the opposite side of the road. He leaned across the seat to roll down the window, and I stepped out to greet him.
Technically Carl Jenkins wasn't really a sheriff, though that's what everyone called him. Sheriff was a county position, and Carl worked for the town. He was Ashenville's only policeman, a position he'd held for nearly forty years. People called him Sheriff simply from a lack of any other possible title of respect.
'Hank Mitchell!' he said as I came toward him, his whole face smiling, as if he'd been driving along just now hoping he'd run into me. I didn't know him that well; we were no more than nodding acquaintances, but I always felt like he was sincerely pleased to see me. I think he made everyone feel that way, even strangers; he had that quality about him, a disarmingly unguarded avuncularity, a smile that caught you by surprise.
He was a small man, shorter than I. His face was perfectly round, with a wide, shiny forehead and a small, thin-lipped mouth. There was an air of properness about him, an elegance: his khaki uniform was invariably perfectly pressed, his nails clipped, his thick white hair combed and carefully parted. He smiled often and always had a clean, freshly scrubbed smell about him, a sweetish mixture of talcum powder and shoe polish.
I stopped a few feet short of his truck.
'Engine trouble?' he asked.
'No,' I said. 'Dog trouble.' I felt remarkably calm. The money was just a small thought in the very back of my head. I could tell he wasn't going to get out of his truck, so I knew we wouldn't have a problem. I told him about the fox.
'He treed it?' Carl asked.
'We thought so, but we didn't get more than a hundred yards into the park before he came running
