The Starlight Claim

by Tim Wynne-Jones

  The wind buffeted the lake side of the house, but there were other, smaller sounds: creakings and scurryings. In his headlamp’s beam, he located the mousetrap in the middle of the kitchen floor. The Hoebeeks had modeled it on the patented Burl Crow method: a bucket with a thin metal rod piercing either side near the rim. The rod held in place a pop can laced with peanut butter; a wooden plank led from the floor to the lip of the bucket. From there it was no big leap for a hungry mouse to the tasty treat spread on the pop can. Except once it made that leap, the pop can rolled on its axle and the mouse ended up in the liquid at the bottom — antifreeze, to keep the smell down. Nate looked inside. There were six small corpses. Six!

  He backed away. They’d occasionally find one at his place, but six? He looked around, caught sight of a live one that stopped for a moment, caught in the spotlight, then scampered away.

  He saw another and another. The place was infested. Which was very, very weird. It was a new place, and the Hoebeeks were every bit as strict about closing up as the Crows were. Then he remembered: they hadn’t closed up. His dad had done it, on his own, after the failed search for Dodge in November. He’d have done it right but he’d have done it alone, and who knew what state his head was in. He’d been in the search party. Still, that didn’t explain an explosion in the mouse population. Nate didn’t want to think what did explain it, but a barrage of haunted-house images crowded his brain. He growled and shook it off. All he knew was that he wasn’t going to be able to take this much darkness if an army of mice were going to be sharing the place with him.

  The Hoebeeks’ place was open concept but much roomier and more modern than the Crow camp, and with the benefit of a second floor. When you came in the back door, the kitchen was to your right and a bathroom was to your left, complete with a composting toilet. So — hallelujah — no need for the outhouse. Mind you, it wasn’t going to flush in below-freezing temperatures. So it was really just a glorified chamber pot. Whatever — beggars can’t be choosers.

  There was a deep closet-type pantry to the right of the bathroom door and then the staircase to the second floor. There was a counter separating the kitchen from the dining area, and the living room was to the left, just past the stairwell. Off the living room and around the corner from the staircase, there was a door leading to the master bedroom. The stove, a big green Vermont Castings beauty, was against the east wall. The front door to their camp led out onto the Hoebeeks’ expansive front deck overlooking the lake. There were picture windows to either side of the door, but they were boarded up. Everything was boarded up but for the windows upstairs. There was a skylight up there, too, he remembered, not that it made one iota of difference now, covered by snow.

  There was only one window that faced west — faced away from the Crows’ camp. Only one window that Shades and Worried Man couldn’t see if they just happened to mosey over. It was the window above the kitchen sink. The shutters were affixed on the outside. It was painful to even think of going back out again, but better now than after he’d gotten a fire started and was beginning to thaw. With the promise of that fire to look forward to, Nate turned toward the back door and immediately lost his footing — slipped right out — and only managed to keep from falling by grabbing the kitchen counter.

  He swore. He’d forgotten how slippery the laminate flooring was. But then he shouldn’t have been wearing his snowy boots inside. He shook his head and tiptoed toward the door, opened it, and took in a good, deep dollop of cold air. The wind off the lake was picking up, from the sound it was making on the front wall, but he was in its lee back here, and it gave him the courage to venture out again. He didn’t bother with the snowshoes, could hardly imagine summoning up the energy to bend over and strap them on. Instead, he edged his way along beside the camp, around the corner to the west wall on the hardened snow left by his earlier tracks. He got to work. There were four barrel-bolts holding the shutter in place. It was done in no time. He pulled down the three-by-five-foot plywood shutter and leaned it against the wall. No need to hide it. If they came this far, they’d know something was up. Then he raced inside, glad to see the difference the one seeing-eye window made in a blind house.

  The wood was dry. The fire burned hot. Stripping down to his socks, long underwear, and a turtleneck, Nate pulled a chair up by the stove to absorb every BTU it was pumping out. For one brief moment before he lit the fire, he had thought about waiting until dark so there was no chance they’d see the smoke. It would have been a worthy precaution but not one his trembling body could accept. Besides, he rationalized, the wind seemed to have shifted and was coming in directly off the lake now; the smoke would be blown northward; chances were good it wouldn’t even rise as high as the trees between the two camps.

  The wind battered the building. It groaned in its mooring. Nate looked around in the growing shadows. It was going on five and the sun would soon be blocked out by the hills to the west. He was not looking forward to the night.

  Just one night, he told himself.

  As his brain thawed out, he formulated a plan. He’d get up early and hit the trail in plenty of time. He wouldn’t bother sneaking away. He’d walk straight up the Hoebeeks’ lane to the fork. They find his tracks, big deal — he’d be gone. He wasn’t sure when the big storm was due to roll through, but there was little chance the train would be on time anyway, so once he got to the railroad, he’d just keep walking, heading southeast, following the tracks; the farther away, the better. He could walk on the tracks, which would be a heck of a lot easier than slogging through the snow.

  In the luxury of warmth and with a full belly, he thought again about the big snowmobile out back in its shed. The Hoebeeks had come up with an ingenious system. There were doors front and back to the shed and inside a ramp leading up to a steel platform about three feet off the ground. That’s where the Polaris sat. The front opening to the shed featured a Dutch door with the split at the same height as the platform, so you didn’t have to clear the snow in front of the door to launch the snowmobile. There were a couple of portable ramps you could fix to the front of the platform, out over the lower door and onto the snow, however deep it was.

  So. There was a fast sled out there. And as far as Nate could see, the guys next door did not have one, other than his dad’s old Ski-Doo. But he’d seen no tracks to suggest they’d used it. He could get out of here fast. The thing is, he’d have to leave the Polaris out at the trailhead. If his life were in danger, doing that wouldn’t be so bad. Was his life in danger? He thought about those guys back at the camp. What were they doing there? It seemed like they had complete access, but the only things worth ripping off were the Kawasaki four-by-four, which they couldn’t use in deep snow, the ancient Ski-Doo, a couple of outboard motors, a generator out in the shed, and a few power tools. There was a new trapper sled for the Ski-Doo, so they could transport some stuff out if they wanted, but they sure didn’t seem to be in any hurry. Thieves would have hit and moved on. These guys seemed to have moved in.

  So what did that mean? Well, for one thing it probably meant that Nate didn’t need to “escape,” he just needed to get out, which meant firing up the Polaris and leaving it out at the track was basically a whole lot of wasted time. He shook his head. Couldn’t deal with any of this now. He’d sleep on it.

  Ah, sleep . . . How exactly was that going to happen?

  He was counting on the intruders next door not seeing the smoke from the chimney, but he’d sleep upstairs anyway, just in case they did see it and came around to investigate. If he was upstairs and anyone came in, Nate would know about it, with half a chance of protecting himself. Then he wondered why exactly he was thinking this way. They were two yahoos who’d broken into his camp. Who knew what they were up to? But did he really expect trouble from them as long as he stayed out of their way?

  Before it got entirely dark, he made a trip outside and around to the front corner of the cabin, the side facing the lake. He couldn’t see the hole they’d made in
the ice from this vantage point because the brush between the two camps stretched right down to the shore. Even if they went out there to haul up water, they wouldn’t be able to spot the Hoebeeks’ chimney. It didn’t really matter in the end. He’d die without the stove. The weatherman had predicted twenty-five below again tonight. And as for water for himself, he’d be stuck melting snow.

  As soon as he’d gotten the fire raging, he’d dug out a box of mac and cheese and poured the contents into a boiling pot of melted ice on the woodstove. He also had Tetra Paks of milk. Butter was in the cooler out at the track, but he found some cooking oil in the pantry; it had frozen solid and looked pretty disgusting, but he wasn’t about to wait around for it to melt. The Ziploc bags of good stuff — baked beans, stew, and chili — were a very long hike away, along with the meat, cheese, and eggs. So mac and cheese it was. And toast made from bread pretty badly squashed from when he’d turtled out. The Hoebeeks had electricity run by a generator, which, obviously, he wasn’t about to turn on. Luckily, they still had an old-fashioned toaster, just like the Crows, basically a square of perforated tin with four wire frames sticking up at an angle on the top, against which you could rest the bread. He put four slices on to toast, turning them so that they burned equally on both sides.

  As the darkness set in, he decided that sleeping upstairs was probably not a good plan. He’d be feeding the fire all night. Better just to stay put. He manhandled the queen-size mattress from the downstairs bedroom and tugged it right up close to the stove. There was a big trunk on the landing upstairs where the family kept bedclothes. He gathered blankets and pillows and curled up in the warm. It was early, not yet eight, but he was exhausted and aching all over. The day had started with a lie to the man he most admired in the whole world. It had gone downhill from there. And now he was lying in the house of a dead friend, more alone than he could have ever imagined it was possible to be. And sleep . . . sleep was going to be an almighty struggle. It was a precious cargo shackled to a sinking ship of worries.

  In horror movies, there was always a lot of rodent activity when there were ghosts around. But it wasn’t mice that were thumping around outside on the front deck. And the voices were not the voices of mice.

  “For God’s sake, Trick, hold up your end!”

  “Give me a break. I’m trying.”

  “Boys, that’s enough bellyaching.”

  “Ow!” Trick howled. “Dad, Dodge kicked me.”

  “Did not.”

  “Did, too.”

  “Boys, I’m warning you!” There was an exaggerated sigh. “I swear, sometimes . . .” said Art Hoebeek, but he didn’t continue, and Nate was left to wonder what it was he swore.

  The front doorknob rattled. It rattled again.

  “Who locked the door? Dodge?”

  “No way, Dad. How could I?”

  Art swore under his breath while the boys shoved each other around and quibbled. Then there was the unmistakable sound of a key fitting into a lock, and the front door swung open.

  “Okay, fellas, let’s get this done.”

  Before Nate’s eyes, three moonlit figures entered the camp from the front deck, carrying between them a gleaming white Servel propane refrigerator. Big Art out front and the boys each at a corner of the end, Trick’s corner drooping, Dodge scoffing, their father growling. They passed right by Nate sitting up on his mattress by the fire. Didn’t seem to see him at all. He tore his eyes away from the grim parade heading toward the kitchen and stared out the open door. The snow was gone, the lake shimmered with luminescence, and the water lapped gently against the beach. The silvery sides of a sixteen-foot aluminum boat pulled up on the shore glittered in the moonlight.

  Nate stared toward the kitchen, where the trio had deposited the fridge. They were standing there not doing anything, their backs to him. Then they turned, one by one: Art and then Trick and Dodge last of all. They were soaking wet, their clothes hanging from them in tatters and their skin so white it glowed as brightly as the refrigerator. Their eyes were hollow, their expressions numb. They stood there like statues. Then slowly, Dodge separated himself from the others and walked like a zombie toward Nate until he stood above him, dripping cold water on his bedclothes, his face.

  “This is on you, man.” A hand that was mostly bone pointed back toward the kitchen, to his father. “You could have stopped him, Numbster. Why didn’t you come?”

  Nate lay in his bed wide awake, grabbing at breath hungrily, as if he’d just run a marathon. He glanced at the front door. Closed. Shuttered. He listened to the sounds of the night, the wind banging about as if some giant were pressing his massive shoulder to the southern wall, determined to push the camp back into the forest.

  A mouse ran across the foot of his bed. He slapped the floor beside the mattress with the flat of his hand, heard the skittering. Meanwhile he tried to rein in his breathing, talk himself down. Tomorrow was going to be crazy, and he would need every ounce of energy he could muster.

  It’s just a dream, he told himself. But he thought of how Dodge always finished what he started, no matter what. He’d set out with his father and little brother on a mission. It was hard not to believe they wouldn’t be here any moment.

  He slammed his hand down on the floor again.

  Sleep, he told himself. Or if not sleep, rest. He thought about his parents, imagined his mother doing homework at the dining room table and his father sitting in the living room nearby, reading — neither of them with any idea of the predicament he was in. He thought about Shades and Worried Man and wondered what they were up to over in the Crow camp. Anger made his stomach grip. That was where he should be! Where he knew his way around. A ghost-free zone. He didn’t mind being alone, there.

  “Dodge?”

  “Right. Dodge Hoebeek,” he says. He’s eight, like Nate, but three months older and light years cooler in his gold-and-navy-blue Pacers shorts. They’re meeting for the first time down on the shore, where the new boy is skipping stones on the placid water. He lets a rock fly. Gets five skips out of it.

  Nate kicks around the sand a bit, trying to think of something else to say, somewhat in awe of this boy with really long blond hair and actual biceps. He bends down and picks up a flat but jagged-edged piece of slate. “Look at this,” he says.

  “You can’t skip that,” says Dodge. “It’d never go anywhere.”

  “I know,” says Nate, “it’s an arrowhead.”

  Dodge takes it from him. “Really? It doesn’t look like one.”

  “Well, not exactly. It’s what’s left over when you make an arrowhead.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “It’s true. There was this archeologist here and she said it. They’re all over the place.”

  So they look for them and Dodge finds one. “There’s lots of them,” he says, as if it’s true now that he’s proven it to be so. He grins and his eyebrows float upward, as if shards of prehistoric arrow make just about anything possible.

  Dodge. A lonely figure in the dark, his clothes tattered, his blond hair all woven about with the plant life that only grows in the darkest reaches of the lake, holding out a hand, so white it glowed, in supplication.

  Why didn’t you come?

  Nate checked his cell phone: 9:14 p.m.

  He sat up, put on his headlamp, and climbed to his stocking feet. He shivered and fed the woodstove. Then he stood at the bottom of the stairs, looking up into the deeper darkness, where there was no glow from the fire to lend it any warmth. It had been one thing to venture up to the landing for blankets; had he ever really thought he could sleep up there — sleep in Dodge’s old room? Then again, could he imagine actually trying to sleep without having a look around? Not now. He was wide awake and possessed.

  There was Dodge’s mitt on the chest of drawers across from the bunk beds. The old scuffed hardball still sat in the pocket, yellowed with age. Dodge had told him he’d caught it at a Cubs game — a loud foul ball by Ramírez, back in 2010. Nate had never cared
much whether it was true or not. With Dodge, you took everything with a pinch of salt. Beside the mitt was the V303 Seeker, sleek and white. Nate picked up the drone. The GoPro video cam was still mounted in the frame on the bottom. He sat on the edge of the lower bunk, the copter in his hands. Dodge had bought it only last spring, brought it up with him for the summer. They’d taken it to the jumping rock on the eastern flank of Picnic Island and taken turns filming each other aerially. There was one piece of footage where Dodge had brought the drone in so close over Nate’s head, he could almost grab it out of the air as he plummeted toward the lake.

  One day they’d taken the Seeker out in the boat and flown it up high over the eagle’s nest on the tallest tree on Garbage Island to see if there were any eggs. They made the mistake of telling Burl, who put a kibosh on any further attempts. “You don’t want to scramble those eggs, boys,” he’d said.

  They’d flown the quadcopter out to hover over Art Hoebeek when he was fishing until he stood up in the boat and shook his fist at the thing. He was yelling; Nate could see that through his binoculars. Luckily, he was too far out for Nate to hear what he was saying.

  “The darn thing’s worse than a squadron of mosquitoes,” Mr. H. said when he returned to shore. “Scared the damned fish away.”

  “C’mon, Dad. It’s no noisier than a power drill.”

  “More like a leaf blower,” his father argued. “And anyway, I didn’t drive seven hundred miles to have a power tool hovering over my head.”

  “How many kilometers would that be, Dad?”

  Dodge loved to tease his father, mostly because it didn’t take much. He was a man with a good enough sense of humor and a laugh as big as he was, but with a low tolerance for pranks.

  Nate clutched the quadcopter more tightly. Too bad Mr. H. hadn’t had a lower tolerance for tragic and idiotic stunts.

  Nate swallowed hard, grabbing hold of a good memory: he and Dodge on the beach, operating the Seeker, taking it higher and higher up into the August sky until there was no sound from it at all.