The Woods: The Complete Novel (The Woods Series), Page 3

  Waking up on the second day was a combination of uneasy misplacement and exhilarating relaxation. The first thing that came to his mind was the deer feeder. James threw on his shoes and bolted out the front door, sprinting through the backyard. He was amazed at the effect a quiet night’s rest had on him. All the anxiety and fear over a big bad wolf completely evaporated from his consciousness. It had instead been replaced by the wonder and hope that something he had made with his own two hands could work. The morning was already warm and it would only get hotter. He didn't know what to expect, but when he finally reached the feeder he was disappointed and happy. He was happy that it was still full. He hadn't missed any chance to see the deer or the wolf by running out of bait. It also vaguely implied that with no deer around, the predator was also gone. However, he was also disappointed by the fact that the apples looked untouched, which made him wonder whether it would work at all. Confusion occupied his mind and was only further intensified by the fact that the pool of blood and its trail into the woods was gone. He stared in disbelief at the ground. He was absolutely sure of what he had seen yesterday. Rubbing his eyes didn't change reality. The blood was gone.

  Did it come back and lick up all the blood off the grass? What the hell kind of wolf does that? This gave a whole new meaning to the term blood-thirsty. His head swam as he walked back to the house. Once inside, he saw his dad standing at the counter pouring himself some coffee.

  “Nice to see you up already,” Nolan said, blowing into the cup before taking a sip and wincing at the heat. “Want some?”

  “Seriously?” James asked.

  “You're a growing man, are you not?”

  “I'll pass,” he said, “it tastes like crap anyway.”

  Nolan laughed, “Of course it does,” he said taking another sip, “so, how's the feeder look?”

  “Not great, it's still completely full. Did I do something wrong?”

  “You can't expect to catch a fish on the first cast, but we could pick up some deer feed when we go out today. I was thinking last night that since you went through all the trouble of making that feeder, we should have binoculars so you could see it better. It's awfully far away." He turned toward the stove and plated some scrambled eggs next to some hash browns then put it down in front of James.

  "Wow," he said, "you can cook?"

  Nolan laughed, "Hardly! The hash browns were frozen. Eat, I'm going to shower."

  "Okay," James said before stuffing his face. After finishing one plate he went back to the stove and filled a second. He couldn't believe his dad had cooked breakfast. His mom had always done the cooking, and even when his dad lived in an apartment, they ordered out for every meal every time James stayed over.

  He sat at the table, now full, and thought about how his dad had changed. Now he was always friendly. Before, he was always cranky from work and was quick to snap over a couple of dirty cups in the sink. James didn't want to admit that his parents' separation had actually been a good thing, at least for his dad. He didn't seem to care too much whether his parents were together or not because he had hardly seen them together. If it had affected him, it was below the surface.

  After allowing his stomach time to digest, he got up to put his plate in the sink. At the sink, he glanced out toward the deer feeder, and again, the gray creature was out there. He stared but it didn’t move. No amount of squinting could traverse the sheer distance between them.

  "Dad!"

  Nolan didn't respond. James ran from the sink toward the back of the house. "Dad!"

  "What?"

  "Come here, you’ve got to see this!"

  “Hang on a minute.” Nolan held his breath as he dragged the blade across his throat.

  "Dad!"

  "I said hang on a minute," Nolan said, rinsing the razor in the sink. He cupped his hands under the water and rinsed the remaining white mess then patted his face with a plush towel. "What is it?"

  Without speaking they walked together back to the kitchen where James stopped and pointed toward the window. Nolan looked around then said, "You cleaned your plate. Good job."

  "What? No, look out the window, at the back of the yard."

  Nolan leaned over and squinted then shrugged. "I don't see anything.” James joined his side but the figure was gone.

  "That buck again?" Nolan asked.

  "Yeah," James said, his eyes darting back and forth in confusion, "that buck."

  Nolan headed back to the bedroom and threw on an old flannel shirt then returned to the kitchen. "Good to see you taking an interest in the outside. You know when I was a kid I was outside constantly. My parents couldn't find me because I was always out having adventures in the woods and playing in creeks looking for frogs to catch. I used to build little forts in the trees,” he smiled as he peered into his memories, “I spent most of my time fixing them, though. Every time I built one something usually broke. But that's what you get when trying to piece together something out there. The woods are unpredictable.”

  James had to admit that his dad was handy in a mechanical way. He was always able to figure out how to fix or build things around the house, which probably led to him being such a good cardiologist. Looking at his short and clean nails, smooth hair, and flawlessly shaved face, he couldn't imagine his dad as some sort of woodsman. He even looked strangely out of place in a bright red flannel shirt.

  "Isn't it a little hot for a flannel shirt? It's summer."

  Nolan laughed as he unbuttoned the sleeves and rolled them up to his elbows. "Just to keep the grease off me when I work on the car. Want to help?"

  "Sure!"

  "Great," Nolan ruffled his son's hair, "let's go get that feed now then we can work on the car when we get back."

  James had no interest in working on cars but he did have an interest in spending time with his dad—all young boys do. James didn't want to be a doctor, but he imitated his dad in other ways. Starting that day, he vowed to be more neat and orderly and he even have a sip of coffee, even if it tasted like crap.

  5

  Nolan had been a successful cardiologist for as long as James had been alive, but he was frugal. The house he had built was very nice, with everything inside and out being brand new, but he still drove the same beat up red truck from the 1980's. It creaked and groaned as they stepped up inside, flexing slightly to their presence as the rusted frame threatened to give at any moment.

  "Dad, why don't you get a new truck?"

  Nolan pressed the radio knob but it didn't turn on. He smacked the dashboard above it with a closed fist and it sprung to life. “Why?” he asked. "This baby has plenty of life left in her. You never give up on a good thing."

  James tried to hide the sorrowful face he was sure was creeping across the curves of his eyebrows and lips at that moment by looking out the window. He wondered then how his dad could have given up on the family so easily and seem so happy without them.

  The dust plumed behind the truck as it bounced violently across the dirt road. James held on to the door frame and seatbelt as his body shook like an astronaut during takeoff. His father seemed unconcerned, bobbing his head and mouthing the words to the classic rock music that was being drowned out by the banging metal and earth noises of the truck as it flew. James was sure the old rust bucket was about to disintegrate, but as they reached the end of the road they hopped onto smooth blacktop and the violence stopped. Like breaking through the atmosphere into space, they continued smoothly and effortlessly.

  James observed the sparse scenery as they continued away from the dirt road. The first and only house he saw for the first mile or so was an old farm house set far back from the road by a driveway that seemed to go on forever, with the hollow shell of an old car parked near the sagging front porch. As it scrolled past him he could see a huge tree in the backyard. That would be perfect for a treehouse, he thought. It seemed that maybe some of his dad’s wilderness genes may be in him somewhere, dormant and waiting to be realized. He had never had thoughts about a
treehouse before. Following the road, the same woods that grew behind the house stretched on forever like an impenetrable wall.

  The crummy radio station Nolan had been singing to faded out and he finally said two words to his son. "Ah," he inhaled deeply, "isn't that country air nice? Makes me sad to think you had to grow up in the city."

  To James, air was air, and he could hardly tell the difference so long as he was still breathing. "I'm hardly grown up, Dad. Besides, the city isn’t so bad."

  "I guess," Nolan shrugged, "but I grew up out in the wild and wish I had never left. You see that?" he asked, pointing out at the open fields. "That is natural, that is peaceful," he looked out a bit longer and paused, “that is humbling."

  James didn't know anything about humility, but he did know what it felt like to feel small, so he felt that. "Why'd you become a doctor if you love it out here so much?" It was a question he had never thought to ask.

  Nolan's eyes rolled around looking for an answer. "W…well," he stammered, "I have always liked helping people, and when you grow up you realize that you have to do things like pay bills and put food on the table. When you have a family it's your job to do that, and I guess I was good at finding out what made people tick." He looked at James with one eyebrow raised and waited.

  James's eyes widened in confusion.

  "Get it?" Nolan laughed. "What makes them tick? The ticker. The heart." He smiled once he realized James wasn't laughing and said, "Well, I thought it was funny. I love being a doctor, I really do, but I hate how much time it takes away from being with everyone."

  James frowned. "I know."

  Nolan messed up his hair, "But hey, it's all right." He stopped mid-thought and pointed at a police cruiser on the side of the road where a man was leaning against the hood and cussing.

  Even in the bright summer morning sun, the blue and red lights of the cruiser pierced James’s retinas like small colored bursts of electricity. Nolan slowly approached the lights and the details of the scene became a little more apparent. The man leaning against the hood was dressed in filthy blue overalls and stomped his mud-caked boots on the pavement like an angry toddler. All the while, the officer across from him stood like a statue holding a small pad and pen. Whatever he thought of the rampaging farmer, he coolly concealed it behind an impenetrable poker face and dark glasses.

  James watched as the farmer threw his arms in the air, his voice inaudible as the words were slurred by the wind coming through the truck’s open windows. The man paced around and pointed across the road and into the trees, then back toward his farm house directly across the street. James followed the man’s finger and laid his eyes on a yard that made his dad’s look like a tree lawn. The countryside held a large farmhouse at the end of the longest driveway in the world that was barely visible from the road. As they passed the police officer and the visibly upset man, Nolan and James looked at each other and shrugged.

  Rolling waves of asphalt eventually took them away from Monroe and into an unincorporated piece of land called Bushnell. Bushnell was the last stop between the expansive country of Monroe and the city of Bugby. Bugby was a real in-between city. There were plenty of other cities in Ohio that were better and worse, which allowed Bugby to slip between the cracks of congestive innovation and the sparseness of a town where everyone knew your name, and still wrote checks.

  On the corner of the only traffic light in Bushnell, the rickety old truck pulled into the parking lot of Cray's Hardware, dodging cracks in the sun-beaten pavement that resembled the aftermath of an earthquake.

  "I thought we were getting deer feed?" James asked, “The sign says it's a hardware store?”

  "Oh, they have it. Out here, a hardware store does a little bit of everything."

  Right in front of a thirty-year-old ice chest sat a police cruiser that looked out of place in front of the worn-down hardware store. It was shiny with curves everywhere. This cruiser was considerably nicer than the one they had just seen and across the door a decal read BUGBY POLICE in bold bright letters.

  "Don't see many city cops out here," Nolan said as if he was exclusively from the country now. It annoyed James that his dad had drawn a line between city and country and boasted about his side so openly. The man he used to know as his father drifted further away from who James had known his entire life. He was now different than before, which dashed his childish dreams of his parents ever getting back together.

  As they walked in together, an officer passed them and returned to his car. James couldn't believe how he looked so like the other officer he had just seen. An old man walked around from behind the cash register to greet Nolan and his son.

  "Hey Nolan," the old man smiled, "good to see you again!"

  "Hey, Sam," Nolan said wrapping his arm around James's shoulder, "my son and I are looking for some deer feed."

  "Of course, got some in the back.” Nolan and James followed in his wake which smelled heavily of medicated ointment and grass clippings. At the back, they reached racks of bagged feed on pallets.

  "What happened, Sam?" Nolan asked.

  "Oh, you mean the cruiser out front?” he asked as he pulled a rag from his back pocket and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “He was just asking questions about Farmer Dell down the road. You couldn't have missed him on the way in?”

  Nolan and James nodded in unison.

  “Dell’s had Route 193 blocked all morning. Apparently, he woke up to find that his prized tractor had escaped from the field.”

  “Escaped?” James asked.

  Sam shot a glance at him and laughed softly. “Yes, Dell’s had nearly a half-dozen of Bugby’s finest tied up all morning. He insists that someone stole his tractor. Probably just got on it drunk again and drove it off the property. He was always in and out of here picking up things to give it more torque than a tugboat.” Sam laughed at his analogy. “I told him by the time he was finished he'd be able to pull his whole house around the farm!”

  James laughed politely along with his father and Sam. He didn't know anything about torque.

  "Well, here's the feed,” Sam said, “Do you want me to get Charlie to take it to the truck for you?”

  Nolan looked down at James and smiled, "Want to give it a shot?"

  "Uh sure," James said. He grabbed the twenty-five-pound bag from the rack and struggled to lift it, sinking down from the force as it landed on his shoulder.

  "You got it!" Nolan shouted then walked to the counter with Sam to pay.

  James couldn't carry the weight and quickly dropped it. He managed to start dragging it across the floor, at least. Sweat dripped into his eyes and he stopped for a minute to catch his breath.

  "Let me help you," a shaky voice said. James looked up to see the hardware clerk, Charlie, standing above him. Charlie was a seventeen-year-old senior with bright orange hair that hung in his eyes and the strength of two grown men. His pale frame was splattered with freckles and his muscles bulged beneath a lime green t-shirt. He lifted the bag with ease and offered James a hand up. They walked out to the truck and Charlie set it down in the back effortlessly.

  "Thanks," James said still catching his breath.

  "No prob," Charlie said with a smile. He patted the bed of the truck then walked back toward the store without saying another word. James stood against the truck and watched as the police officer finished doing whatever it was they did in their cars and pulled out. He hit the pavement and sped away. James had no doubts that he was headed back to deal with Farmer Dell. He remembered the look on his face as they drove by, a curious mix of anger and concern. The more James thought about it the more he felt bad for the old farmer. His hysterics were only because something he loved was lost, and that's as normal a response as he could imagine.

  "Ready to go?" Nolan asked as he approached the truck. "I was thinking ice cream, what do you think?"

  "Sure," James said hopping into the passenger’s side.

  “Good, we can avoid Dell that way, too.” Nolan threw a bag
onto James’s lap. It was heavy.

  "What's this?" James asked before even looking.

  "I thought it would help," Nolan said smiling.

  James opened the bag and inside was a pair of binoculars. "Awesome," he whispered.

  6

  After getting the ice cream, James was left with nothing to do except stare out the window. Everything seemed better with chocolate ice cream—that was James's mantra, anyway. He thought that maybe his dad was on to something when it came to the country. It was only his second day and the hardened shell of city-life conditioning was already beginning to fracture. He didn't miss TV, large numbers of people, or the constant noise. In fact, he was really starting to enjoy the quiet. He always thought the city was full of life and color, but the countryside was slowly revealing itself to him—and it was amazing. Even the binoculars had given him new eyes.

  He stared out the window and licked his ice cream, desperately trying to keep it from melting as the sun turned up the heat. Through the binoculars, he saw trees, rolling hills of grain, and the faces of houses set way back from the road. It seemed to be a trend, he noticed, for a house in the country to have a long driveway and be far from the road. It was as if they were trying to avoid the last lifeline they had back to the city. Most of the houses he saw were much older looking through the binoculars than he first thought and he saw a lot more animals than he thought were out there—even a couple of turkeys.