Will’s buried in his newspaper, reading an article on Senator Kennedy campaigning in California. I catch his eyelids fluttering, and I know he’s fighting sleep. Across from me, Pete’s on his third biscuit, honey dripping from his fingers. Of the four of us boys, only he seems completely awake. At the stove, Ma tells him to get a napkin for the last time. When a big, fat yawn takes hold of me, I decide on a nap after breakfast.
The floorboards creak and a second later Dad strides into the kitchen, looping suspenders over his wide shoulders as he comes in. The kitchen shrinks around him, the whole place somehow smaller now that my father has entered it. He kisses the back of Ma’s head, then crosses to the coffeepot to pour himself a cup of steaming black liquid. Without waiting for it to cool, he lifts it and drinks. Then he says something that makes my hair stand up straight:
“Arthur Madliner came by early this morning.”
At his words, Will’s head snaps up from his newspaper and Pete’s hand stops with a biscuit halfway to his mouth. A thin strand of honey doodles shapes on Grandma Elliot’s table.
Dad takes another long, slow sip before going on. “Storm the other night knocked down that oak in his yard. He needs help clearing it.”
Us boys trade looks around the table, but Pete gives the barest shake of his head. I stuff another strip of bacon in my mouth and chew to keep myself from speaking, but the bacon does not taste so good anymore.
“So eat up,” Dad continues. “And be ready to go after breakfast.”
“Did Mr. Madliner say anything on Mrs. Madliner?” Pete asks, dabbing the spilled honey with a napkin, real casual, like he doesn’t care a whip one way or the other.
“He did not.” Dad drinks more coffee.
Will and Pete trade looks.
“Is Caleb gonna be there?” Will suddenly asks.
“It’s his house,” Dad says, sitting down and reaching for the bacon himself now. “I expect he will.”
I shudder. Caleb Madliner. The bacon turns to hot lead in my stomach.
“You treat Caleb Madliner right,” Ma says. “He’s different and difficult, but he’s got a harder life than you. And no brothers to help him live it.”
“Frankie’s got no brothers and he turned out fine,” I say, before I can think any better. “Caleb could have fifty brothers and he’d still be awful.”
Ma gives me a dark look. “Some people fight hard battles, Jack. Just be glad yours are so easy.”
At Ma’s words, I remember Mrs. Madliner wandering among the tombs last night, weeping like a lost soul. I guess I’d be awful if my mother was that way. Or if I had Arthur Madliner for a father. Now there was something to make you rotten. He was creepy to look at, like a pale aspen tree that had uprooted itself and gone wandering for better soil but couldn’t find any.
Then there’s what Pete said about him last night: He hits a lot.
Ma joins us at the table and our family eats together. If my parents know anything about last night, they don’t let on. When Dad takes the sports page from Will’s newspaper, I decide we must be in the clear. Only now I’m fretting this trip out to the Madliners’ will force us to delay our search for the fighter jet another day.
Waterfall of sunshine soaks the whole world in gold as we climb into the pickup. Butch hops up for the ride and blinks his big brown eyes sleepily as he hunkers down by me and Frankie in the bed, his thick fur warm to the touch.
Dad brings the Ford to life, and soon the big tires are crunching gravel as we roll down the dirt lane. Apple Creek flashes at us through gray sycamores, calling to us. We turn onto Hopkins Road’s smooth pavement and Dad gives the engine some gas. Warm wind makes Butch’s fur ripple, and there’s a sweet scent of honeysuckle in my nose. I imagine us stopping a while at the bushes along the road’s edge, breaking the fragile green stems and drawing out the tiny, delicious drops . . .
But Dad keeps the Ford moving.
Almost a mile later, we come up on Sam Williamson’s place: his trailer with its sagging porch and corrugated roof; his red-white-and-blue painted mailbox. Sam himself is sitting in a rocker on the porch, dressed in his same long underwear and wide-brimmed hat. He lifts a hand at us as we go by, and Dad gives the horn a tap.
Lonely Sam.
I watch his colorful mailbox drift into the distance for as long as I can, until green trees slide in between us and the little cheerful mailbox is gone. Then I feel Dad hit the brakes as he turns off Hopkins Road and onto a bumpy dirt lane that leads up a hill through dark, lonely trees.
The old white house does not stand at the top of its steep, rocky hill. It leans.
The walls are a dead, chalky white, and cracks run in the plaster along the wind-bitten north face overlooking the valley. They remind me of bone.
The trees don’t get too close; they stay back, making a wide ring around the place, and as our dusty Ford leaves their protection, Butch raises his nose for a sniff, his pointy ears standing up straight.
Black, empty windows stare at us as we climb down—like deep, cold, fishless lakes.
“I like what they’ve done with the place,” Pete says. When he slams his door, the sound is eerily loud, and it echoes off the house.
We follow Dad across the yard to the northwest corner. Coming around the side, we see that this was where the great oak tree stood. It alone had the courage to stand so close to the house, and it stands no more.
The great gray trunk lies across the yard. The top is hidden in a violent plume of green leaves. Branches, broken and blistering white in morning sun, lie trapped under the trunk, pinned by its incredible weight, or curling into the sky like the fingers of a dead hand.
There is a man beside the tree.
Tall. Lean. Black hair twitching in the wind. Mr. Madliner shakes Dad’s hand when we come up.
“Right good of you to come, Gene,” Mr. Madliner says. “Hate to trouble you with this.” There is no feeling in the words.
“No trouble, Arthur,” Dad answers him. “She was a terrific tree. Sorry you had to lose her.”
Mr. Madliner casts coal-fired eyes over the giant that so narrowly missed his house. That’s when a funny thought comes to me: maybe the old tree wanted to come down, not across the yard but on top of the house—just come crashing down with all its old strength. Maybe it knew what evil lurked there and had simply had enough. Watching Mr. Madliner look with such hate at the tree, I can see it being that way.
His eyes drift toward us boys, and my stomach tightens as I wait for it, wait for him to tell Dad what we all guess he knows about last night: Gene, did you know your boys was out late spying on my wife? In a graveyard, no less?
He doesn’t.
“Bring the axes, Caleb,” he says instead.
Like a ghost, Caleb comes out from the side of the house. I did not see him there before, waiting in the house’s shadow. His dark hair falls in greasy swaths, covering most of his angular face. He’s skinny under a faded flannel shirt. He crosses the yard in long, awkward steps, like a fawn fresh on its legs, carrying an armful of frighteningly clean and bright-looking axes. He drops them at his father’s feet, where they lie, gleaming in the grass.
Mr. Madliner draws a breath, and I hear it rattle around inside him. Then, in that same toneless voice, he begins to explain how we’ll cut up the oak. Listening to his odd, unwavering voice, I know it for sure: he don’t know about last night.
“We’ll trim those branches first, cutting each into logs,” Mr. Madliner says. “Those leafy boughs we will dump over the side of the hill, down to the ravine. Then we’ll cut the trunk into pieces. Gene, you and your boys take whatever you can haul. The wood will be good and dry come wintertime. It should burn well.”
He explains a few other things, but I don’t listen. My mind is reeling. I look over to Pete, but he shakes his shaggy head ever so slightly in a wordless warning.
We take up our places along the oak. Looking along the trunk, I try to guess how high it stood, and I figure it must have been at least eighty feet. I lay a hand on the rough, gray bark, warm in the sun.
“It died with a scream.”
I turn and look at Caleb Madliner, who is suddenly standing beside me.
“What do you mean?”