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Or it could have been nothing.
“Lare?”
“Sure. One more day, then we go back. I have to clean the gutters before the snow flies, and I keep putting it off.”
The next day was cool and clear and perfect for hunting, but neither of us saw so much as a single flick of a single whitetail. I heard no birdsong, just the occasional crow-call. I kept an eye out for squirrels, but didn’t see any. I didn’t even see a chipmunk, and the woods should have been full of their scurry. I heard some gunshots, but they were far away, near the lake, and hunters shooting didn’t mean they were shooting at deer. Sometimes guys get bored and just want to let off a round or two, especially if they’ve decided there’s no game to scare away.
We met back at the cabin for lunch, then went out together. We no longer expected to see deer, and we didn’t, but it was a fine day to be outdoors. We walked along the creek for a mile or so, then sat on a fallen log and opened cans of Bud.
“This just isn’t natural,” Butch said, “and I don’t care for it much. I’d say drive out this afternoon, but by the time we got loaded up it’d be dark, and I don’t trust NellyBelle’s headlights on those woods roads.”
A sudden breeze kicked up, rattling leaves off the trees. The sound made me startle and look over my shoulder. Butch did, too. Then we looked at each other and laughed.
“Jumpy much?” I asked.
“Just a little. Remember when we went in the old Spier place on a dare? 1946 or so, wasn’t it?”
I remembered. Old Man Spier came back from Okinawa missing an eye and blew his head off in his parlor with a shotgun. It was the talk of the town.
“The house was supposed to be haunted,” I said. “We were… what? Thirteen?”
“I guess. We went in and picked up some stuff to show our friends we’d been there.”
“I got a picture. Some old landscape I grabbed off the wall. What’d you get?”
“A fucking sofa cushion,” he said, and laughed. “Talk about stupid! I thought of the Spier house because the way I felt then is how I feel now. No deer, no birds, no squirrels. Maybe that house wasn’t haunted, but these woods…” He shrugged and drank some of his beer.
“We could leave today. Those headlights will probably be okay.”
“Nope. Tomorrow. We’ll pack up tonight, go to bed early, and leave at first light. If it suits you.”
“Suits me fine.”
Things would have been very different for us if we’d trusted NellyBelle’s headlights. Sometimes I think we did. Sometimes I think there’s a Shadow Laird and a Shadow Butch who led shadow lives. Shadow Butch never went to Seattle. Shadow Laird never wrote a novel, let alone a dozen of them. Those shadows were decent men who lived unremarkable Harlow lives. They ran the dump, they owned a hauling company, they did the town’s business the way it should be done—which means so the books balance at Town Meeting in March and there’s less bitching from mossbacks who’d be happy to bring back the Poor Farm. Shadow Butch got married to some girl he met in a Lewiston bop joint and had a litter of shadow young’uns.
I tell myself now it was good none of that happened. Butch told himself the same thing. I know, because we told each other when we talked on the phone or, later, via Skype or FaceTime. It was all good. Of course it was. We became famous. We became rich. Our dreams came true. Nothing wrong with those things, and if I ever have doubts about the shape of my life, doesn’t everybody?
Don’t you?
That night Butch threw a bunch of leftovers into a pot and called the result stew. We ate it with Wonder Bread and washed it down with well-water, which was really the best part of the meal.
“I’ll never let you cook again,” I told Butch as we did our few dishes.
“After that mess, I’ll hold you to it,” he said.
We packed up what we had and put it by the door. Butch dealt the big first aid kit a sideways kick with one sneaker. “Why do we always bring this thing?”
“Because Sheila insists. She’s convinced one of us is going to fall in a sinkhole and break a leg or one of us will get shot. Probably by a flatlander with a scoped rifle.”
“Bullshit. I think she’s just superstitious. Believes the one time we don’t haul it out here is the one time we’d need it. You want to go take another look?”
I didn’t have to ask what he meant. “Might as well.”
We went down to the clearing to look at the sky.
There were no lights up there, but there was something on the bridge. Or rather, someone. A woman, lying facedown on the planks.
“What the fuck?” Butch said, and ran onto the bridge. I followed. I didn’t like the idea of three of us on it at the same time, and close together, but we weren’t going to leave her lying there unconscious, maybe even dead. She had long black hair. It was a breezy night and I noticed that when the wind gusted her hair blew in a clump, as if the strands had been glued together. There were no gauzy flyaways, just that clump.
