Authors: Cameron Judd
Eli followed, and Ledford and wife found themselves in the odd position of being suddenly abandoned in another family’s home.
“I hope she’s okay,” Nancy said as Eli’s rambler turned onto the street from the driveway. “Melinda’s sister, I mean.”
“Me too, honey. Dear lord, what a strange evening it’s turned out to be!”
THEY FOUND THE TENT IN THE BACKYARD of the Lane house, as it should be. The house itself was dark, sleeping. There was no evident sign of anything amiss, or of shadowy strangers lurking on the perimeter of the property. Despite that, Melinda wanted fervently to be near her sister, to guard her.
Eli had the same impulse. As he parked the car on the side of the street, he said, “Once we get Megan home, I’m staying at your house tonight. I know it’s probably silly, but I have a feeling of danger that I can’t shake off.”
“Same here,” said Melinda. “And I’m glad for you to stay and stand guard tonight. I’ll even put Dad’s pistol into your hand. The same one he shot Rawls with. Just promise you’ll stay awake, and that you won’t get groggy and trigger-happy and shoot somebody you shouldn’t. Like me or Meggy.”
“Melinda, have you considered that you might be in danger from these people, too? You’re an attractive young woman.”
“I doubt anyone of my age would be of interest,” she said. “I remember well when the Flower Garden was in the news. The victims were like our ‘Broken Flower’ – very young, just children. A sick, sick business. You saw how young that girl was when they snatched her at Harvestman Lodge.”
“Let’s go over and get Meggy.”
“She’ll not be happy about it … she loves her ‘camping’ visits at the Lane house. She won’t want us to bring her back home.”
“Sometimes the grownups just have to be the grownups. That’s what my mother always said to me when she made decisions for me that I didn’t like.”
“Well?” Melinda asked. “Do we jump the backyard fence, go to the tent, and risk spooking two little girls, or do we knock on the door of the house and stir the family out of bed to explain something that will sound totally off the wall?”
Eli hadn’t thought out that part of it, and admitted it.
Melinda sighed. “Eli, I hate to say it, but I think what we do is spend the night sitting in this car, wide awake, keeping watch on that tent.”
“I hate to say it, too, but I think you’re right. And we’re probably being silly, doing it at all. But what if? That’s the big question. What if the two men Megan saw really were there, and really were watching your house, and really did have their sights on Megan? So no, I guess we aren’t silly to be out here after all, missing a night’s sleep to secretly guard a backyard tent. Too bad, though, we didn’t think to bring a thermos of coffee.”
Melinda agreed. “Tomorrow will be a hard day. Just from lack of sleep.”
“We’re big boys and girls here. We’ll be okay.”
BEING AFFLICTED WITH BUCK TEETH WAS a particularly poignant curse for one of Tylerville’s younger police officers. His name was Jimmy Beaver, and from elementary school on he’d heard every possible joke that could be derived from the combination of unfortunate name and matching dental structure.
In high school days, and slightly beyond that time, he’d also been afflicted with a horrifically intense crush upon the school’s most gorgeous girl: Melinda Buckingham. He’d never made any real attempt to connect with her, being too aware of her high standing in the social hierarchy and his nearly total lack of such. He’d seen others bring themselves sadness and embarrassment by aiming at too lofty a relational target. He’d not make that mistake.
As he told his best friend at that time: “I may look like the biggest goof who ever walked, but I’m not stupid.”
“You ought to ask her out, Jimmy,” his friend had encouraged. “You’re as good as anybody else in this school.”
“Not in looks I’m not. She’s just too good-looking for me. She can have her pick of any guy at this school. She can find one that doesn’t look like a woodchuck, and isn’t as poor as Job’s turkey.”
“If you don’t like your teeth, ask your mom about getting you some braces.”
“I can’t do that. With Daddy dead and gone, it’s all Mom can do to keep food on the table. Cafeteria lunch ladies don’t make a lot of money, y’know. Besides, Mom has the same buck teeth I do. She’s the one I inherited them from. I can’t tell her I want her to spent what little money she may have so I can make myself not look like her. Know what I mean?”
So Jimmy Beaver had gone on through high school admiring Melinda from a distance. He had been stunned and offended when she began dating the low-life Rawls Parvin, unable to keep himself from thinking how unworthy Rawls was to so much as touch her hand. As time passed post-high school, though, Jimmy gave up thinking about Melinda, persuaded himself that homelier males than he had found good girlfriends and spouses, and put himself out, so to speak, onto the market.
He was married now, to a shy little red-haired girl from Carter County. Her name was Sandra and now she was four months pregnant with their first child. Jimmy prayed every day that the baby would escape the inheritance of protruding teeth. If that didn’t happen, he would make sure braces were provided when the child was old enough.
He’d gotten braces for himself after joining the Tylerville Police Department. He took some kidding for wearing braces as an adult, but kidding was something he was used to, and could handle.
At the moment, Jimmy Beaver had his mind on a more immediate matter. He was in the midst of routine patrolling through one of the town neighborhoods, and had just spotted a car, a Rambler, parked alongside a fenced-in backyard in which a camping tent was pitched. The hour was just after two in the morning, and though the car interior was dark, Officer Beaver was nearly sure he’d seen movement in it. It could be nothing more than a couple of teens parking and making out. Or it could be potential thieves casing the property.
It was always heart-racing to approach suspicious vehicles. There was never a way to be sure what would be found. With flashlight burning, he walked to the parked Rambler, and half a minute later was looking into two sleepy-looking faces. One was a male, a stranger in his twenties.
The other face was that of Melinda Buckingham.
AFTER A FEW MINUTES OF CONVERSATION, the young policeman was still trying to wrap his mind around what he’d just been told.
“So, let me get this straight, Melinda: your little twelve-year-old sister is having a sleepover with a friend, and they’re camping in that tent. And you and Mr. Scudder here are keeping watch because your sister saw some men who spooked her recently, and you’re wanting to make sure nobody comes creeping across the yard to snatch her.”
“Jimmy, when you put it that way, you make it sound absurd,” Melinda said in a mildly scolding tone. “There’s more to this than just overactive imagination. There really are men in town like the ones Megan said she saw … Eli saw them too. And it isn’t their first visit. We’ve seen evidence of their presence here at least a decade back … and if they are doing now what they apparently did back then, this is serious business.”
To Jimmy, this all sounded crazy. “Meaning?”
“Well, those men were, and maybe still are, involved in organized child abduction and trafficking.”
“And you have evidence of that? Because that’s no small deal. That’s major crime.”
“We do have evidence. A piece of Super 8 film that was made, we think by Eli’s late grandfather, in Harvestman Lodge.”
“Oh my gosh. I’ve not heard that place mentioned in long time.”
“You know about Harvestman Lodge?”
“I know those of us on the force are told to leave that subject in the past, and not encourage public discussion about it.”
“Do you policemen know the secrets of that place?”
“You’ll find about as many answers to that as there are cops. Rodney and Mick Bowers – you know them? Tylerville’s two black policeman brothers? – they swear that their father told them the Lodge was a front for the Klan.”
“Do many believe that?”
“I don’t think so. And to my knowledge there is no real evidence of it … just the rumor, standing by itself. Just like the one claiming the Harvestmen were an organization descended from the Knights of the Golden Circle, looking to bring about a new Southern Secession in the 20th century. That one’s kind of a companion rumor to the Klan idea. And just as nutty.”
“What do you think the truth is, Jimmy?” Melinda asked.
“I don’t even pretend to have a clue. But I’ve heard my great uncle talk about it, and he was a Lodge member.”
“What did he say?”
“Not much, in terms of details. Mostly he said the place could have become a real force for good in the community, and started out with that intention, but it was corrupted by some of its later members. They began to turn it into a place where ‘mighty bad things went on.’ That’s the way I remember him putting it. ‘A place where mighty bad things went on.’ And he talked about some of the older members wanting to document the decline of the place in hopes of finding a way to reverse it. Folks like Rudy Hawes, who used to be county sheriff … ”
Eli said, “I’ve met him.”
“… And Benton Sadler, of course, and some others. Uncle Sam said one of the most active in trying to get Harvestman Lodge back on the straight and narrow was an old farmer named Will Keller. He had himself a home movie camera, and when he thought things were going to go on at the Lodge that were heading in the wrong direction, he’d set his camera up and record things on the sneak. Documentation, y’see.”
Eli looked at Melinda. Suddenly the existence of that piece of film in his grandfather’s cellar made sense. Will Keller maybe wasn’t a dirty old man after all. He had an entirely different reason for recording those dancing girls. Nothing prurient in his intentions. Quite the opposite.
“Will Keller was my grandfather,” Eli said.
“No! Really?”
“Really.”
“You had a good man for your grandfather, then. I’ve never heard a word spoke against Will Keller.”
“Other people have said the same to me. I’m always glad to hear it.”
“Where’d you go to high school, Eli? I don’t remember you.”
“My grandparents and my mother were from Kincheloe County, but I grew up in Strawberry Plains. So I wasn’t in high school here.”
“I see. Me, I went to high school with Melinda.”
“Jimmy was one of the nice guys at school,” Melinda said to Eli. “And he’s done well for himself. Police academy, then making the force … and I’ve got to say, Jimmy, you look quite handsome these days. Something’s different about you.” Melinda realized her words had a double edge, and immediately tried to temper them. “That’s not to say you didn’t look handsome in high school … just that you’ve … ”
“Melinda, I know as well as you do that, no, I didn’t look handsome in high school. My big old buck teeth made me look like a damn cartoon. That’s what’s changed about me: I got my teeth corrected so I’d look better in my wedding pictures.”
“Oh … yeah, I heard you got married! Congratulations!” She’d heard no such thing, Jimmy Beaver not being a subject of conversation among the young women who were Melinda’s peers. He’d been a nobody in high school, and was mostly forgotten afterward.
“Thanks,” he said. “Our first baby is on the way now.”
“Well! Congratulations again!”
“I heard a rumor about you, too,” he said. “Engaged?”
“I am.” She put her left hand out the car window for him to see. He smiled down on her ring, which caught a glimmer from a street light that made it look a little bigger than it was.
“It’s beautiful,” Jimmy said. “Congratulations to you … and you too, Eli. You’ve found yourself a good one here.”
“I agree. Thank you, officer.”
“Just call me Jimmy.”
“Sure thing, Jimmy.”
OVER IN THE TENT, MEGGY WAS DREAMING. In the dream she heard voices talking not very far away, and one of them sounded like her big sister’s.
She murmured and rolled over, eyes opening a moment and taking in her surroundings. They were different than usual. Where?
Oh yeah … she was in the tent in the backyard of the Lane house. With her was her friend, Nelly Lane, now snoring softly just half an arm’s length away. Meggy listened for the voices again, and heard a male voice she didn’t recognize saying something about bringing somebody some coffee, if they planned to be awake anyway. She heard Melinda’s voice voicing happy acceptance of the offer.
Was Melly really out there? Out in the yard or on the street, or wherever? In the middle of the night? If so, why?
Megan crept to the zippered flap door of the tent to investigate. She found herself unwilling to actually look, though, because into her mind came the image of the two men she’d seen watching her house that earlier night. What if the sounds she was hearing, or thought she was, had to do with them? What if she unzipped the tent opening, thrust out her head, and saw them, right there, looking down on her? Then reaching to her …
No. She’d leave the tent door as it was. It separated her from the darkness out there, and gave her a sense of protection, however meager. Crawling back to her sleeping bag, she curled up to await the coming of daylight and to pray that those troubling men were not out there.