The Caretaker of Lorne Field

by Dave Zeltserman

  Durkin opened the door to the shed and took out a spade for Lester to hold onto. He was going to need that spade later when it came time to subdue the foot-high Aukowie. He next retrieved Charlie Harper’s video camcorder that he had left in the shed for safekeeping. He struggled for a moment to hit the power button with his thick index finger, then handed the camcorder to his son. “You remember from last night how to use this, right?” he asked.

  Lester rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I remember.”

  Durkin ignored the insolence and said, “Since you didn’t wear work boots we need to stay off the field where they’re growing more than an inch, otherwise they’d slice your feet to ribbons. Follow me and don’t put your hands anywhere near one of them, okay?”

  “Okay,” Lester muttered. He hesitated and asked, “How come you’ve been keeping your hand in your pocket?”

  “I got careless earlier.” Durkin took his hand out and showed Lester the blood-stained handkerchief tied a few inches above his wrist. “You can never let an Aukowie taste human blood. Not even a drop. Don’t matter how big they are, they’ll go nuts if they do.” He studied his own arm and nodded slowly. “Looks like I don’t need to worry about bleeding on them anymore. Be careful, okay, son? You might think this is all one big joke right now, but it ain’t.”

  Durkin untied the handkerchief from his arm and folded it back in his pocket. Blood had scabbed over his wound. He took his glove from his pocket, put it back on, then led the way along the edge of the field. When he got to where he had stopped his weeding, he told Lester to stand still.

  “I was hoping today to start teaching you how to kill these things, but I can’t do it without you wearing gloves. These critters are tricky. You got to grab them just the right way and pull up at just the right angle. After a while you’ll get the hang of it. For now, though, watch me. Also, take a deep breath and listen carefully.”

  Durkin waited until his son did as he was told, then he reached down and pulled a two-inch Aukowie from the ground. He turned his head sideways to look at his son.

  “You hear that?” he asked.

  “Hear what?”

  “The scream it made when I killed it.”

  “Nope. I didn’t hear nuthin’.”

  Durkin’s eyes and mouth weakened with disappointment. “You will eventually, son. Sometimes it takes practice. My pa told me it took him over a year before he started hearing it. Me, I started hearing it from the very first Aukowie I killed.”

  “I dunno. I didn’t hear nuthin’.”

  “It will just take some time.” Durkin straightened up and grimaced painfully as he worked a few kinks from his back. “We’re going to go over to that large one over there,” he said. “They’re longer than they look, so be careful.” He paused, smiling wistfully. “Can you see the face on it?” he asked.

  “Nope.”

  Durkin pointed out its eyes and mouth and horns. “You can’t see all that?”

  “All I see are a bunch of leaves and vines.” Lester narrowed his eyes. “Maybe some thorns, too, but that’s all I see.”

  “Sometimes it just takes a while, that’s all,” Durkin said with a heavy sigh. “You keep looking and you’ll see it.”

  “Dad,” Lester said, “do you really believe all this?”

  “What?”

  “That these aren’t just weeds?”

  “What have I been saying?”

  Lester scratched his jaw, then scratched behind his ear. “I dunno. That’s all part of the act, right?”

  “Son, you’ll be finding out soon this is no act.” Jack Durkin emptied out a lungful of air and sighed heavily. “Hand me that spade. And get ready with the camera.”

  Lydia called Paul Minter’s office at nine o’clock and was told by his receptionist that he was in court and wouldn’t be back until after one. From that point on she sat at the kitchen table chain-smoking through half a dozen packs of cigarettes, all the while keeping one eye on the clock over the oven. At one o’clock she thought about calling again but held back. When the phone eventually rang it jolted her.

  “Dorothy told me you called?” Paul Minter said.

  “It’s one thirty-five. She told me you’d be back by one.”

  “Things took longer than expected. What’s up?”

  Lydia told him about her husband planning to make a videotape of the weeds. How he was planning to show it to the town.

  Minter took the news quietly and finally asked, “Why does he want to do that?”

  “Because he wants to prove to everyone that these things ain’t weeds.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I was.”

  Another long silence from Minter’s end, then, “I don’t think this would be the best thing for us.”

  “I didn’t think so either.”

  “Who is your husband planning to show his videotape to?”

  “Probably the local news station.”

  Minter digested that and said, “No, that definitely would not be good for us.” Lydia could hear him coughing at his end, then spit something into a trashcan. When he came back, he asked, “Your husband doesn’t actually believe what’s in the book you showed me?”

  “I think that damn fool believes every word of it.”

  “This really isn’t good at all,” he said softly. He cleared his throat some more. “It’s one thing to have this quaint little fairy tale that everybody knows is only a fairy tale, it’s quite another to rub everybody’s nose in that fact . . .” He hesitated for a long moment. When he continued his voice was more controlled. “Did you tell your husband about our plans?”

  “Of course not. You told me you’d talk to him after your plans were worked out.”

  “That’s right, I did. How about if I meet with him later today. Do you think you can bring him over to the office this afternoon?”

  “He’ll be at that field until eight tonight.”

  “Can you get him to leave early?”

  “Not a snowball’s chance.”

  “How about if I stop by your house tonight?”

  “Fine with me.”

  “What time does your family have dinner?”

  “When my husband comes home. Eight o’clock usually. We should be done by nine.”

  “Expect me there at nine. I’ll have a talk with your husband then, and I’m sure he’ll be as excited about our plans as we are.”

  “We’ll see,” Lydia said, without much enthusiasm.

  “And, Mrs. Durkin, it’s not just us. I’ve had preliminary talks with several members of the town council. There’s a lot of excitement brewing over these plans. I’ll be meeting with potential business partners tomorrow. But it would be best if you can keep him from showing videotapes he may have made to anyone, especially to the media, at least until I have a chance to talk with him.”

  “He won’t be showing anyone videotapes,” Lydia promised. “At least not today.”

  Paul Minter told her that was good news. He put his receptionist on the line to get driving directions to her cabin. After Lydia got off the phone, she chain-smoked through half a pack of cigarettes, then put on a fresh pot of coffee. While she waited for the coffee to brew, she heard some noises from outside. It sounded like a sick dog howling off in the distance. She looked out the kitchen window and saw her husband and Lester maybe a hundred yards away. Her husband had his arm around Lester’s waist and seemed to be half dragging and half carrying him. Her son was shirtless and looked white as a sheet. It also looked like he was dragging something with his right hand. As they got closer she could see him more clearly. His face was screwed up as if he were dying and a redness around his eyes stood out in stark contrast to the unnatural paleness of the rest of his skin, almost as if paint had been used. She could also see he was-n’t dragging anything in his right hand—that instead his shirt had been wrapped around it. She remembered him leaving the house in a green tee shirt. What was around his hand looked like it had been dyed red. She could hear
him whimpering.

  Lydia stood frozen as her son and husband moved closer, trying to make some sense out of the scene. Then she sprang to life and rushed out the kitchen door to meet them.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” Jack Durkin told her.

  Lydia brought Lester’s head to her shoulder. His eyes were squeezed tight. What looked like paint was blood that had been smeared across his face. As she whispered to him, his mouth opened wide and he whimpered like a wounded dog. Thick strands of saliva dripped from his mouth onto her blouse. She rubbed her hand across his face wiping off tears, then started kissing his cheek, his eyes, his forehead, all the while telling him that everything was going to be okay.

  Her husband repeated that it wasn’t his fault. “It happened so fast,” he said flatly, his expression vacant. “I didn’t know what was happening until it was over.”

  She looked away from her son to her husband, her small eyes enflamed. “What did you do to my son?” she demanded, her voice shaking.

  “Nothin’.” Durkin shook his head. “I didn’t do nothin’. It wasn’t my fault.”

  Lester let loose a low cry. She gently took his hand and unwrapped the shirt that had been tied around it. Underneath was a bloody mess. She saw that his thumb was missing.

  “It wasn’t my fault,” her husband insisted. “He was supposed to film me while I dug up one of the Aukowies. I heard something, looked over and saw he dropped the camera. Before I could stop him he reached down for it.”

  “You monster,” she said to him, her voice still shaking and barely a whisper.

  Durkin flinched. “There was nothing I could do,” he said.

  She flew at him, beating him over and over again in the chest, her hands clenched into tiny fists that were no bigger than small Cortland apples. Durkin stood helplessly and took it.

  “There was nothin’ I could do to stop it.”

  “Where’s his thumb?” she cried. Tears streamed down her raisin-like face. “What did you do with it!”

  “It’s gone.”

  “What do you mean it’s gone?”

  “The Aukowies got it,” he said.

  “You bastard!”

  “There was nothin’ I could do. They took his thumb. Next thing it was gone. Nothin’ left but a pink mist.”

  She flashed him a look mixed with hate and disgust and utter contempt, then led Lester away from him.

  “You better take him to the hospital,” he said, acting as if Lydia were still listening to him. “I can’t. I have to go back. I have to finish weeding.” There was a desperate pleading in his eyes. He waited for her to look back at him. She didn’t. He wiped the back of his hand across his brow, then under his nose. “Lydia, there was nothin’ I could do.”

  “Go to hell.” She guided Lester into the passenger seat of their car and secured the seatbelt around him. She stopped for a moment to kiss him on the cheek and forehead, then got behind the wheel. She floored the gas, revving the engine to a high pitch. Durkin stood staring helplessly. He didn’t bother to move when she backed the car out at full throttle, coming within a hair’s breadth of clipping him.

  “There was nothing I could do,” he repeated to no one. He stood and watched the car race down the dirt road and saw it barely miss spinning into a tree before Lydia regained control of the wheel. When it was out of sight, he turned and headed back to Lorne Field.

  The nearest hospital was two towns over in Eastham. When Lydia arrived there with Lester, the doctor handling the emergency room gave her a funny look when he saw Lester’s hand. He wanted to get Lester into surgery, but before that he had questions for her. The first one was where was the thumb. All she could do was tell him she didn’t know.

  He was checking Lester’s vital signs while a nurse attached an IV and another wrapped gauze around Lester’s hand. She recognized the nurse attaching the IV as Abby Huffman’s girl. She had never seen the doctor or other nurse before, knew they weren’t from her town. The doctor asked how the injury happened.

  “I don’t know. My husband says it was an accident. That’s all he told me.”

  “He was with your son at the time?”

  “Yes.”

  “Anyone else with them?”

  “Nope, just Lester and my husband.”

  “What happened to the thumb?”

  “All he said was it was lost. Anyway, I don’t have it and I don’t know where it is.”

  “That’s too bad,” the doctor said. “It looks like a clean cut. The thumb probably could’ve been reattached.”

  “H-how do you think it was cut off?”

  “A knife.”

  Lester was sedated when he was brought in. He started moaning. Abby Huffman’s girl told the doctor that the IV was in. He told Lydia that they were taking Lester to surgery. That not only did they need to operate on his hand, but his blood pressure was dangerously low and he needed a transfusion as quickly as possible. He looked away from her and told her that she would be escorted to a waiting area.

  “I want to be with my son.”

  He turned only partly to face her. He was a lean man in his early thirties with a face like a razor. The look he gave her had about as much warmth as a sheet of ice.

  “We have certain rules we need to follow for cases like this,” he said.

  “Cases like what?”

  He ignored her, nodding instead to two orderlies standing nearby. They took hold of the gurney Lester was on and started wheeling it away. The doctor followed them. When Lydia tried to follow, the nurse that she didn’t know stepped in her way.

  “I’m sorry,” the nurse said, “but I need to bring you to one of our waiting rooms.”

  The nurse was a good forty pounds heavier than Lydia and had a thick neck for a woman. Her forearms were also thicker than Lydia’s thighs. Lydia felt very tired at that moment. Weak also. She nodded and followed the nurse to a small room that had only a table and two chairs in it. The nurse asked Lydia whether she could get her a magazine. Lydia shook her head, sat down and started to cry. She didn’t want to cry in front of this other woman but couldn’t help herself. She heard the door close as the nurse left.

  While she waited, a woman from the hospital came to ask her questions. She was about Lydia’s age but looked much younger. She wore a turtleneck sweater and a long wool skirt, which seemed to Lydia like an odd choice for the summer. Most of her questions were about their family life. It was a blur to Lydia. She was only half-aware of her answers. A short time after the woman left, two local police officers came in to talk to her. They didn’t have many questions, mostly the same ones the doctor had, and a few about her husband. It was also like a blur with them. It seemed as if they were only there for seconds before they were gone. She knew it was longer, but that’s what it seemed like.

  When Sheriff Wolcott walked into the room she was surprised to see that it was already a quarter to five. He looked ill at ease as he sat across from her, his skin color not quite right.

  “Mrs. Durkin,” he said.

  “Daniel.”

  “I understand there was an accident?”

  “Yes.” She looked again at her watch and slowly made sense of the fact that she’d been sitting there over two hours. “My boy should be done with surgery by now,” she said, her face crumbling as she expected the worst.

  “I understand the surgery went well. A doctor will be in here soon to talk to you about it, but I understand it went well and Lester’s recuperating right now.”

  “Thank God.” She started crying then, her sobs wracking her nearly skeletal frame. “Oh thank God for that.”

  Through the sobbing she could see Wolcott studying her, his eyes queasy and his lips turned up into a forced look of sympathy. He looked like he wanted to bolt. She sniffed a few times, got control of her crying and wiped a hand across her eyes.

  “Why ain’t I allowed to be with my son right now?”

  “You will be,” he said. He looked down at his hands, didn’t seem to know what to do w
ith them, and ended up folding them in front of him with his fingers interlaced. “I understand Lester’s still in post-op, but you’ll be able to see him soon. I have some questions for you.”

  “Well, why don’t you get around to asking them!”

  He smiled weakly at her then, reminding her of the way he was when he was five and she used to babysit him. The smile faded quickly. “I need to know about the accident, Mrs. Durkin.”

  “There’s nothing I can tell you,” she said. “You’re going to have to ask Lester or my damned fool husband about it.”

  “I plan to,” he said. His manner shifted momentarily to something more formal, more police-like. When he met Lydia’s stare, the hardness about his face faded. “I was hoping you might have some idea what happened.”

  “Nope. I wasn’t there.”

  “The doctor I spoke to thinks Lester’s thumb was cut off with a knife.”

  Lydia didn’t say anything. Wolcott tried to meet her eyes, but instead lowered his gaze back to his folded hands. “Do you think Jack might’ve done something like that?” he asked.

  “All I know is he told me it was an accident.”

  “But you know him as well as anyone. Could he do something like that?”

  She laughed. “Know him as well as anyone? Ha! I don’t have a clue what goes on in that block of cement he calls a head. But no, he wouldn’t intentionally hurt Lester. He never once laid a hand on me or the boys. It’s not in him to do something like that. He makes a lot of noise but that’s all it is.”

  “He does seem to have quite a temper.”

  “Not really. His bark’s worse than his bite.”

  “What about his mental state?”

  Lydia laughed again. “He’s no crazier now than he’s ever been.”

  “I don’t know,” Wolcott said. “I was talking to him just last night and he acted pretty crazy to me. You know that a bunch of boys snuck down to Lorne Field and threw tomatoes at him? He wanted me to track them down so he could have them hung publicly in the town square.”

  She shrugged. “That’s what’s written in his contract.”

  “I don’t care what’s in his contract, that’s insane!”