then, suddenly, there was a gun in his hand and he was shouting at me, his voice squeaking a bit, “Freeze!”
Well, I froze. Except for the parts of me that were shaking. I may not have actually appeared to be quivering, but I sure felt that way inside.
Thorne’s gun was visibly shaking. He put a second hand on the gun to help steady it, both arms outstretched, and there was something very Barney Fife about him at that moment. Not as thin and spindly, but equally erratic. He might not intend to shoot me but end up doing it anyway.
“You just hold it right there!” he shouted, glancing at me and then over to his hat and then back to me.
“Don’t worry,” I said, a bit winded from the fall. I shook my head back and forth slowly, raised both my palms to suggest a truce.
“Christ, Orville, put that fucking gun away!” my father shouted from the ground. “That’s my goddamn son, for crying out loud!”
“He started it!” Orville Thorne whined.
Even with a twisted ankle, my father had the energy to roll his eyes. “Orville, for God’s sakes, put that thing away before you hurt yourself.”
Thorne got to his feet, lowered the gun slowly and slipped it back into his holster, brushed himself off. I went over and got his hat and handed it to him.
“Sorry,” I said.
Thorne snatched the hat away and put it back on, shielding his eyes, unwilling to look at me after being scolded by my father.
“Yeah, well,” he said.
“It’s just, I thought my dad was dead. And then he drove in. I guess I went a bit crazy, having just seen that body and all.”
“Sure,” he said.
I stuck out a hand. Without being able to see Thorne’s eyes, I wasn’t sure he saw it, so I took a step closer.
“Go on, Orville,” said Arlen Walker. “Shake his hand.”
He took my hand, half shook it, then withdrew. We both had reason to be embarrassed, I guess, but Thorne looked particularly red-faced.
“Okay,” said my father. “Now that that’s settled, could someone tell me what the hell is going on around here?”
Bob Spooner spoke up. “Arlen, there’s a body in the woods. A man’s body.”
“Jesus,” Dad said. “Who is it?”
“We don’t know,” Orville Thorne said. “It’s no one from here. Now that we’ve found you, everyone from the camp here’s been accounted for.”
“For a while,” I said, “everyone thought that it might be you.”
“I wasn’t here,” Dad said matter-of-factly. “I got a ride into town last night. I’d had a bit of wine with dinner so I didn’t want to drive.” That would be Dad. As long as I’d known him, if he had so much as a drop of wine, he wouldn’t get behind the wheel.
“I don’t understand,” I said. “Where were you going? Who gave you a lift into town?”
He was up on one foot now, an ambulance attendant on either side of him, about to lead him in the direction of the ambulance. He winced instead of answering.
“I bet I can guess,” said Bob, a sly grin crossing his face.
“Bob.” My dad glared at the man, said his name like a warning.
Bob seemed unafraid. “I’m just saying.”
I noticed that the older woman and her husband had slipped back into the woods. I could just make them out, standing by the tarp. Then I noticed him holding up the tarp at one end so that his wife-I guessed she was his wife-could take a closer look.
Ghouls, I thought.
“Hey, Doc,” Dad said to Dr. Heath as the paramedics moved him closer to the ambulance, “couldn’t I just go lie down and put an ice pack on it?”
“Arlen, just come in to Emerg. We’ll get an X-ray, make sure nothing’s broken, confirm that it’s just a sprain.” There was a small hospital in Braynor, I remembered.
“But I gotta run this place,” Dad protested. “I’ve got boats to get ready, firewood to cut. Place like this doesn’t run itself, you know.”
“You’re not gonna be putting any weight on that ankle for a few days,” Dr. Heath said. “Longer, if it’s broke.”
Dad closed his eyes and grimaced. “That’s great,” he said. “That’s just great.”
The words were coming out of my mouth before I realized it. “Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll look after things. Until you’re better. I can get a few days off.”
His eyes settled on me, weighing this offer. “It’s a lot of work,” he said. “It’s not sitting around on your ass in front of a computer all day.”
Well. He likes my offer so much, he’s going to butter me up to make sure I don’t withdraw it.
I ignored the comment and instead returned his stare, waiting for an answer. He drew in air quickly, like the ankle was flaring with pain, and looked away.
“Fine, okay,” he said.
“And I’ll come to the hospital with you.”
“No, no, no, stay here. I’ll just be sitting around for hours down there. You look after things here, I’ll give you a call when I’m done, you can pick me up.”
I nodded my assent as they put Dad in the back of the ambulance. They said that once they had Dad admitted they’d come back for the body, which they’d now been cleared to remove, the coroner having had a chance to give it the once-over. The light on top was flashing, but the siren was off. We all watched as it went up the hill and went round the bend in the driveway.
“Well,” I said, standing next to my new friend Chief Thorne. “I guess that just leaves one thing.”
“What’s that?” said the chief.
I pointed back into the woods at the body. “Who the hell is that?”
4
AS IF TO ANSWER THAT QUESTION, we all decided, like some collective alien intelligence, to return to the woods for another look. The one Denny’s Cabins guest who’d introduced himself, Bob Spooner, Tracy the reporter, the seemingly inept Chief Orville Thorne, Dr. Heath, who’d chosen to stay here rather than accompany Dad to the Braynor hospital, and the portly but well-dressed guy with the Caddy.
The older couple were still in the woods, standing by the once-again-covered corpse, watching us approach. We were walking all over the place, matting down grass under our feet, making a mess of what might, under other circumstances, be considered a crime scene, but Thorne didn’t seem all that concerned. How much evidence did you really need to convict a bear, if it was, in fact, a bear that had done this, and not a band of rabid chipmunks?
I felt more up to it this time, since I now knew that the dead man under the tarp was not my father. Thorne gingerly took hold of the corner of the tarp and pulled it back, much farther than before, revealing all of the body this time, instead of from head to waist.
The woman in the kerchief glanced down again, not as repulsed as I would have expected, as if she was not unaccustomed to death.
“Tell them,” I heard her husband whisper to her.
“Not my place,” she whispered back, turning away. If anyone else heard their brief conversation, they gave no indication.
“I’m going back to the cabin,” she said, loud enough now that anyone could hear.
“I’ll go with you, lovey,” the man said, and they slipped away quietly.
