Going Where It's Dark (3 page)

hey dude u must have been sitting on it whuzzup?

u won't believe

what? WHAT????

i found something. a hole. and i went in

alone? how far?

And then…slowly…sentence by sentence, Buck told him about the Hole. About sticking his head in as far as it would go and shining the flashlight, climbing down about eight feet, then crawling, sliding, following the draft, and wriggling to where the passage made the first turn.

And every so often David interrupted with a
u got to b kidding!

When Buck finished at last and gave his thumbs a rest, there was no reply for some time. Then David's words on the screen,

is this 4 real?

And Buck answered,
it's real.

The question they kept coming back to was whether Buck should be going in there alone. Discussion was pointless because they both knew that, number one, he shouldn't, and number two, he would.

He
had
to. Someone else might discover the Hole if he didn't explore it first. What if that dip in the earth he'd come to meant that water erosion was the beginning of a sinkhole? What if the ground just collapsed someday, and when the Wilmer place was sold and the property surveyed, the new owners could walk right into a cave, no exploring necessary?

Or what about “the Pit,” an underground chamber out near an old quarry? The police had found some college kids partying in it a month or two ago. Before anyone could explore it, the county declared it unsafe and boarded it up, with a space for bats to go in and out, Buck had heard, until they could put a metal grill over it. They might do the same to the Hole if they found it.

Was it too much to want to discover
something
? Buck wondered, keeping this particular thought to himself. They didn't have to name a cave after him. It didn't have to make him famous. All he wanted was to be the one who found it. How many places were left on earth where no one else had ever been? Oh, yeah, mountains and the ocean floor, but somewhere he had a chance to get to, he meant. And he'd never had a chance to go far.

Their discussion had even made David nervous, though.

r u sure u can find it again?
he asked.

Of course, Buck told him. It was either the second or third outcropping of rock into the meadow, and he had counted off fifty-two paces from the sun-bleached skeleton of a dog or a fox, he wasn't sure, to the Hole.

a pile of bones?
David had texted back.
dude, any animal could come along and carry those off before u got there again

Embarrassed, Buck punched in,
don't worry i'll find it

i'm making notes
, David texted.

Before they signed off, however, he wanted a promise: that when Buck went in the Hole again, he would leave a note in his room that if he didn't come back, his folks should call David. That only David could tell them where to look.

And Buck had promised.

U
ncle Mel got back two hours after the family returned from church on Sunday. The big noon meal was over, and Buck sat at the kitchen table eating his second piece of butterscotch pie. Although his uncle usually knew before he started a long-distance trip just how many days it would take, there was always the possibility of mechanical problems with the big semi, or a delay in unloading at a docking station.

“Well, look who's just in time to do the dishes,” said Mom when Mel came through the back door. “Should have called and told us to keep a plate warm for you.”

Her brother grinned as he set his thermos on the counter. “Don't trouble yourself,” he told her. “I stopped at Holly's for some fried chicken.”

“You
what
?” Mom whirled about. “Ten minutes from home and you stop at a restaurant to eat?”

Curly-haired Mel broke into laughter.

“Don't get your britches in a twist. Naw, I met up with a buddy of mine in Hanover and we had lunch. Even got my truck back on time. I'll heat up your leftovers for supper. Be just as good then.”

“Oh,
you
!” said Mom, and she gave him a swat with the dish towel.

Buck smiled at his uncle as Mel hung his cap behind the door, where a faded assortment of jackets, raincoats, hoodies, and an apron or two dangled limply on painted white pegs, waiting to be claimed. Except for Mel's dark curly hair and Mom's straight, they looked a lot like each other. Both had eyes that squeezed into slits when they laughed, and both were slightly plump in the midsection. Because Mel was divorced and supporting an ex-wife and daughter in Cincinnati, he'd been glad to make his home with his sister and her family. And being a long-distance trucker meant he couldn't have kept up a house and yard even if he'd had one.

“How's everyone here?” he asked. “Been away for five days. Anything exciting happen?”

Yes!
Buck was thinking, but he couldn't tell it.

“Not much,” Mom answered. “Garden's going good. Don and Gramps are watching the Nationals. Go on in.”

“Naw. The Ford's acting up. I'm gonna try cleaning the spark plugs. Then I need to look in on Jacob. Like to stay off my fanny for a while, anyway. Grab me a rag, will you, Buck?”

Buck scraped his fork sideways across the plate to get the last of the butterscotch, then put his plate in the sink, got some old rags from the pantry, and followed his uncle outside. He liked to hang around when Mel worked on his car.

“N…need any help?” he asked.

“Not unless you got a batch of new spark plugs for this sucker,” Mel said, and opened the hood of the old green sedan. “So how you doin'?”

“Doing okay,” Buck said, resting his hands on the side of the car and looking down into the belly of the Ford. More than okay, but he couldn't say it. He watched as his uncle removed a spark plug, wrapped a rag around it, then stood, twisting it back and forth.

“Doing anything special this summer?”

Buck avoided Mel's eyes. He couldn't guess, could he? He shrugged.

Mel inspected the plug in his hand, then glanced over at Buck again. “Got a favor to ask. I know your dad needs help in the garden, with vegetables coming up overnight, almost. I was thinking about something the other day, though, if you've got some extra time. It's another job for you, but the kind you do partly because you want to, not just because you're getting paid.”

“Like what?”

“Well, one of our drivers quit last week and another's going to retire. I'll be getting some of their cross-country runs, and that means I'll be on the road a lot more. I've been looking in on Jacob Wall a couple times a week. But if I'm going to be gone four and five days at a time, maybe you could look in on him for me when I'm away.”

Buck tried to remember if he'd ever seen the man who'd moved into the small yellow house halfway between the Andersons and the general store. “What do you m…mean, ‘look in on'?”

“Take in his mail, see if he needs any groceries, get something off a shelf for him—just see if he's okay. He's not an easy man to get along with; doesn't even want me there half the time. But he needs me—needs someone—and he knows it.”

“What's wrong with him?”

“Not sure. Moved in last year. Rheumatoid arthritis or something. Walks like every joint in his body gives him pain. Gets disability checks, Ted Beall told me. The only way he'll accept help is to give me a five-dollar bill on Fridays. Hands it to me without a word, and I take it without a word. Doesn't want thanks from anyone, and sure as heck doesn't want pity.”

“You d…don't ever talk to him?”

“Oh sure, but not much. If you take over for me when I'm out of town, you can keep the five on Fridays. Any big repairs he needs, I'll do when I get back.”

Buck shifted his weight to the other foot. “I d…don't know….”

“Well, I don't either, and I'm not about to make up your mind for you. I'll get Joel to do it if you can't.”

Buck thought about that garden. If he weeded five rows a week, got a five on Fridays…Buy that headlamp sooner than he thought. More than that, though, he didn't like saying no to Uncle Mel.

“I'll g…g…give it a try,” he said.

“Good.” Mel closed the hood of the car, handed the rag to Buck, then reached in the backseat and grabbed an old pair of overalls rolled up in a bundle. He gave those to Buck as well. “Those can go in the trash. So torn up I'm embarrassed to wear 'em even when I'm changing a tire.”

No way,
Buck thought. No matter if they were four sizes too big; he could cut them down and wear them over his clothes the next time he crawled in the Hole.

They walked a half mile down the road to Jacob's house. Buck was still in his Sunday pants, but had traded his white shirt for a brown tee from Bealls'. Printed on the front were the words
Bealls' Country Store
in yellow, with the outline of a rooster beneath.

Mel bent his elbows and pulled his shoulders back in a giant stretch.

“Whoo!” he said. “Sure does feel good to walk around. Someday I'll be trying to get out of that semi and find my butt's sprouted roots to the seat.”

Buck laughed. He and his uncle both had the same sort of loping walk. Like Buck, Mel was on the short side, but he was definitely muscular. He might have spent a good part of his week sitting in the cab of a truck, but the hauling of freight on and off when he got to where he was going kept the muscles in his arms and legs as thick as a boxer's.

“You like your j…job, though,” Buck reminded him.

Mel nodded. “Like sitting up high while I drive, seeing the country, the way it changes, south to north and east to west. Like talking with other truckers on our radios. Makes me feel for Jacob all the more, trapped inside that little place.”

The sun shone through the trees and made leaf shadows on the pavement. Buck and his uncle kept to the side of the road and shifted over even farther when a car went by.

“How'd you meet him?” Buck asked.

“Remember that big windstorm we had last September? I was coming back from the gas station and I see the screen door on this house flopping back and forth. And here's this crippled man holding a hammer in one hand, the other on the screen, trying to set it straight. So I stopped.”

Uncle Mel reached up to push some branches out of their way. “Can't say he was glad to see me. In fact, I wasn't sure he saw me at all, 'cause when I asked if I could help, he didn't even look my way. But a hinge had lost its pin, so I found it, wrestled the screen in place, then let him hammer the pin back in….”

“D…did he thank you?”

“Nope. I'd been studying the way his legs shook, and the spotty way he'd shaved that morning. I put out my hand and said, ‘I'm Mel Turner. Live with the Andersons down the road there.' And all he did was give me a nod and hobble back into the house.”

Buck waited until a pickup without a muffler roared by. Then he said, “I wouldn't have ever g…g…gone back.”

“I sort of felt the same way. But when I walked out to the road again, I saw how the flap on his mailbox had been blown open too, and the box was full. Stuff had been there a week, maybe. So I pulled out all the mail, walked it back to the house, and set it between the screen and the door. One envelope read
Jacob Wall,
so at least I had his name.”

The small square house was coming into view now. Like many of the other houses along the road, it was dwarfed by the land on which it sat. Folks along here were said to be land-rich and house-poor, Buck had heard.

When he and his uncle turned up the gravel drive, an old Volvo crookedly parked at the head of it, Mel said, “So…I just started dropping by couple times a week, walking the mail up to the house. And one day I knocked and said, ‘Jacob, it's Mel. You got a pliers and screwdriver handy, I could fix the flap on your mailbox.' And after that—maybe because I was asking
his
help, wanting to borrow his tools—he thawed a little.”

“Like you were friends?”

“Naw. Never that. But when I'd ask if he needed anything, he'd let me pick up something from the store, mail a letter, fix a leak. The Bealls say he comes into town 'bout once a month, but driving's a chore for him. I never learned much more about him than I'm telling you now. But every Friday he hands me a five-dollar bill. Told me I couldn't come back if I didn't take it, and he doesn't want any thank-yous. Strange, though. The inside of the house doesn't fit with the outside, and he doesn't quite fit with either one.”

Buck wondered if Jacob heard the gravel crunching underfoot as they approached the house—if he'd been watching from a window, maybe. It seemed a long time before the door opened, though. Then he found himself staring up into two fading blue eyes, half hidden by bushy white eyebrows that matched the thick thatch of hair reaching down under his collar. Jacob's face had so many wrinkles it looked like a shriveled apple.

“Afternoon, Jacob. Brought the lightbulbs you needed. This is my nephew, Buck. He's going to give me a hand. Buck, this is Mr. Wall.”

“Hi,” said Buck, and waited.

In response the man stared at him two seconds longer, then shakily turned himself around and wordlessly set off for the kitchen.

Buck looked up at his uncle, but Mel only shrugged and followed Jacob through the house.

It was more like an antique store than a house. So much furniture that in places Buck had to turn sideways to get through. Two large leather couches, when the living room was only suited for one. Two leather armchairs, three end tables, and bookcases that not only lined the walls but covered one window as well. Only a few of the framed pictures had actually been hung, the others propped against a buffet.

Uncle Mel stepped up on a low stool, removing a glass globe on the ceiling and handing it to Buck. And Buck had never felt so unwelcome. He could see himself reflected in the tall framed mirror leaning against the wall, looking as stiff and awkward as he felt. He could sense the glare of Jacob's deep-set eyes boring into his back. When he glanced at the old man once, it made him so uncomfortable, he had to look away.

“Here's the thing,” Mel said, when he stepped down again and they moved toward the bedroom to replace a bulb there. “Since I've got a few longer hauls coming up, I'd like you to let Buck come in my place when I'm not here. He'll pick up the mail, run errands….Any repairs you got, I'll do when I get back.”

Jacob's face didn't change, and he said nothing.

“He's a good worker,” Mel continued, positioning the stool at the foot of the large bed, the headboard shaped like a scroll, and climbing up a couple of steps. “Won't touch anything he shouldn't. He's got a bike, so he could ride to the store for you.” He looked at Buck. “Where's that wire basket you can hook on a bike if Jacob needs a few things from Bealls'?”