Evil Heights, Book III: Lost and Found

by Michael Swanson

  In a flash Lee was knocking at Phoebe's front door, hoping for anyone to answer except her uncle, Boyd. He held the screen door away with his elbow and tried to look up through the dirty pane of glass, which was installed diagonally, just above the height where he could see in without having to get up on his tiptoes.

  The door made a cracking sound as it opened, and a nasty, sour baby smell poured out.

  "Hi!” said Phoebe brightly.

  Lee was utterly relieved.

  He had to scoot back to let her out of the door. “Hi yourself."

  Once outside Phoebe stood in the bright sun, covering her eyes with her hand and apprised Lee, looking him up and down.

  "Where's you swim suit?"

  Lee pulled at a string from the ragged end of his cut offs, looking dismayed. “This is it."

  "I'm just teasin’ silly.” She treated him to her playfully limp-wristed shove, then whispered, “I've got my two-piece on under this."

  Lee looked at her dressed in her usual red shorts. The white blouse was gone. Today she had on a sleeveless pink shirt, trimmed with a line of white lace around the tight-fitting neck. Thinking about the two-piece bathing suit, he momentarily let his imagination go wild. He'd been doing a lot of that lately.

  Coming back to himself he asked, “So I guess you're all ready?"

  "Let's go!” Phoebe kicked up her heels and spun around as she jumped off the cement walk and skipped out onto the grass swinging her arms.

  Lee didn't follow suit, but he loped up to her, and they walked out across the lawn side by side. The sun was high and bright and the air incredibly sweet and still, as though somehow the world knew it was a Sunday morning.

  As they arrived at his driveway Lee broke away from Phoebe's side and retrieved the tubes. Lifting one up, he rolled it over to Phoebe then joined her with his own.

  "Carry it like this,” he suggested, picking his tube up with one hand and dropping it down on his shoulder and hip like a sash.

  "Why's that?” Phoebe replied. “Isn't it easier to just roll it?"

  "If you roll it on the road you could run over a piece of glass or something. Here,” he helped her get the tube adjusted right, “It looks good on you."

  Phoebe put a hand behind her head and struck a pose. “It's what all the ladies are wearing this season."

  "Just your size, too,” he grinned.

  He had to run away, with the tube slapping at his legs as she almost got him with a quick left hand.

  "You better run, Mister,” she called out.

  Stopping about twenty feet ahead, he waited for her to catch up.

  Once back together, Phoebe kept the dialogue going all on her own as they kept up a brisk walk.

  "What was going on over at your house last Thursday night?"

  Lee was startled.

  Phoebe didn't wait for an answer. “There was all this flashing in the windows. I was sitting out on the porch, getting a little cool air. It looked like a bunch of flash bulbs going off. I mean...” She flashed out with her fingers rapidly. “Pop, pop, pop,” she added. “What were ya'll doing?"

  For one quick moment Lee almost spilled his guts. But he caught himself, thinking he'd just sound stupid admitting he was scared. “We've been having problems with our new T.V. We're getting weird stations and static and stuff. How about y'all?"

  "Our T.V!” Phoebe almost choked. “That piece of junk, that's all it ever does. I wouldn't know what stations we do get; they all look the same. You should see it roll.” She animatedly spun her finger round and round. “I don't see how Aunt Darlene can sit there and stare at the thing. It gives me a headache."

  "What do you do then? I mean, when you're not taking care of the babies."

  "There ain't anything else to do,” Phoebe came back. “I wrote Raelene; you know, I told you about her. She's my best friend. I'm sure I told you about her, didn't I? Anyway, I wrote her everything about the train yard!” A huge grin bloomed upon her face. “Well, almost everything."

  Suddenly, Lee remembered he still wanted to find out what night sporting was.

  Phoebe broke his thoughts, though. Before he could ask, she pushed him, forcing Lee to grab his tube with his other hand to keep it from slipping off his shoulder.

  "Hey, come on,” he protested. “What'd I do?"

  She raised her eyebrows, looking shocked. “What'd you do? What didn't you do? You were there in the caboose, Mister International."

  Now Lee was really feeling confused. “Mister International?” he echoed.

  "Yeah.” She cocked her head down looking up at him from the tops of her eyes. “Mister International: Roman hands and Russian fingers."

  Lee didn't have a clue how to react to this; he felt even more red-faced than when Maggie walked in on him in the bathroom.

  It was Phoebe's turn to look shocked. “Don't get all embarrassed on me,” she came back. I'm just funnin’ with you. Can't you take a little teasing?” She pushed him again, and then continued on never missing a beat, nor giving him a chance to reply. “Anyway, I doubt if Raelene will even believe me. Before I left Gatlinburg, I told her I thought Lenoir was going to be some old stupid, hick town with nothing to do. So having some fun running around with you has been the something I didn't figure on. She'll probably think I made it all up. But I don't care a twitch what Raelene thinks. She's not the brightest bulb in the lamp."

  Lee kept glancing over at her as she walked and chattered, very content for now to do all the listening.

  "I told her all about the ghost train, and the Ballard house, that old lady sittin’ out there like a store window dummy. Oh, oh...” Phoebe got real excited, skipping a step to twist about. “And about getting chased by the police who were shootin’ at us with real bullets, and...” she cocked her head down and looked up at him again, “I didn't tell her exactly everything about the train, but I did let on that I met a cute high school boy who lives across the street from Aunt Darlene."

  Lee almost asked “who,” before he caught himself. Instead he thought quickly and said, “You didn't tell her I was a Brainiac, too, did you?"

  She pushed at his inner tube again, but this time he was ready and jumped out of the way.

  Phoebe gave Lee her wild grin. “Who knows, maybe I'll have something new to write to Raelene about tomorrow about spending the day with a Brainiac?"

  Lee couldn't come right out and say it, but he fervently hoped so. Instead, he decided to squeeze in his question, and affected a close copy to Phoebe's accent. “So what was this here night sportin’ you was tellin’ me about the other day?"

  It was her turn to flush a tinge of red. “Wouldn't you like to know?"

  "I would,” he came back. “Sounds like fun."

  "Oh it is, and you'd like it. Oh! Oh!” she exclaimed, suddenly crying out as though she'd stepped on something sharp. “I forgot to tell you about last night."

  Lee managed to get in a, “What?” before she jumped into her new stream of thought.

  "You remember Uncle Boyd, well, he got drunk. I know there's no big news in that. He's always gettin’ plowed. But anyway, let me just tell you what happened.” She didn't seem able to speak fast enough. “Remember how hot it was last night, ‘bout a thousand degrees. It was hell even with the widows open. The twins, they was squalling something terrible with the colic, and little Evie couldn't sleep from the noise, so she was cryin', and Uncle Boyd, he blew up like a volcano.” She made an explosion sound and threw up her hands, her inner tube riding up on her shoulder and brushing against her cheek.

  Lee couldn't help but grin.

  "Aunt Darlene told him to shut up, telling him he was hollering worse than the babies. Well let me tell you, he got pissed. I'm not stupid, so I made myself scarce, staying back in the bedroom with the little ones. But I could hear everything. They was arguing and fightin'. And before long, sure enough, he started slapping Darlene around. I could hear him cussin’ a blue streak, and then she'd holler back, and then you'd hear ‘Whap’ when
he'd hit her, and then she'd just go crazy screamin'. She'd yell she was gonna claw his eyes out. It was wild. They was tusslin’ to beat the band. I'd have liked to have seen it, but I knew he'd probably have set in on me, too. After a while of this, I thought they were tired out and was gonna settle down. But Uncle Boyd went to get himself another bottle of shine, and found he was tapped out. He can't afford any good stuff, so he gets this old moonshine from some hermit who lives back in the swamps. Stuff stinks like gasoline, but it carries a hell of a wallop."

  Lee immediately thought of the other day in the tree house.

  "Now he's really pissed.” Phoebe was walking and talking, her hands working a mile a minute trying to keep up with her excitement. “But now he's hot not because of the babies cryin’ but because he'd run out of booze, and so he blamed it on Aunt Darlene. Before you know it, it's gone all crazy again, and he's whapping her, and the babies are all screamin', and Aunt Darlene is cryin', and Uncle Boyd's cussin’ a blue streak. Pskhewww!” Her imitation volcano erupted again. This time though, she was ready for it, and she did a better job of controlling her inner tube. Phoebe though she did have to adjust it while she pulled back a wisp of loose hair from her face.

  A few minutes back they had left Lee's house behind and were already more than half way down the section of road running in front of the Ballard house. Lee was so caught up in Phoebe's excitement he hadn't even noticed.

  "Well, Uncle Boyd, what'd you think he does?"

  Lee hadn't a clue. Didn't matter, he never even had a chance to say so.

  "He lit out."

  She stopped talking for a brief moment as she readjusted her tube.

  "Do you want me to help you with that?” Lee asked.

  "I can carry my own tube,” she shot back, her reply suddenly hostile, “I ain't no weakling, you know."

  Lee stopped and took a side step. “Sorry. I just wanted to see if I could help."

  Phoebe actually looked worried. She stopped and walked up sideways so she could face him. “I didn't mean to snap at you, hon. I just got all caught up for a sec. Don't mind me."

  "Okay, so what happened?” Lee was only too happy to get back to Phoebe's story.

  They started walking again. Phoebe was back to walking facing forward, but had to readjust her tube. When she had it again set right on her shoulder she launched back into her story. “Well, like I said, I was layin’ low in the back bedroom, but I could hear everything. Uncle Boyd, he hollered out he wasn't gonna take any more of all this shit; and without another word he slammed the door so hard two pictures fell off the wall and broke the glass, and he hasn't come back."

  Lee filed this bit of information away under good news.

  "Course,” Phoebe continued, “He'll probably come home tonight madder'n if someone'd called him a Yankee. But, I don't care. I'm getting my break. Aunt Darlene and the babies were all tired out and sleepin’ in after screaming and cryin’ all night, so I had my chance to skip out and go on this float trip. See? It all worked out."

  Lee was thoroughly impressed with Phoebe's optimistic attitude. Too, he'd really enjoyed noticing the more worked up she became, the more her back woods accent showed through. Actually he liked it. The way she rounded certain words, and clipped off her G's, to him, she sounded sweeter than molasses, as the rednecks would say.

  He decided to get his own two cents worth in. “So y'all ain't seen hide nor hair of him?"

  "Nope.” She wiggled her ponytail back and forth as she shook her head. “Not since about ten o'clock last night."

  Lee grinned, happy that she hadn't noticed he'd picked up his accent a notch to even out do hers on that one.

  "It's just horrible what they did to those trees.” Phoebe was looking over to her right. “I think the shadows they make on the ground look even worse than the poor trees themselves.” She stuck her fingers together, lacing them into a knot. “The shadows are all twisty and it looks like a bunch of snakes on the ground."

  With Phoebe walking to Lee's right, he picked his pace up a step to look around her. He could just make out quick glimpses of the red and black shape of the house lurking far and away in the distance. It was at least a hundred yards back in from the road. The cherry trees stood out in their carefully planted rows, their severed stumps and stubs jutting out helter-skelter. Here and there a few weak shoots had managed to grow out, even though the cuts had been sealed with creosote. The pitiful attempts the trees had attempted in trying to cling to life only caused the grove to appear that much more woeful. The shadows the severed branches cast crisscrossed the grounds angling away from the trunks in intricate patterns like a mad mosaic. He disagreed with Phoebe, though he didn't say so. The shadowy patterns looked sort of artsy, he thought, like something in one of those modern paintings, which rely more upon emotion than form. And there could have been no better representation of the emotions hovering over Cherry Heights than the picture presented by those dead trees and their shadows.

  "Did you hear that the old lady, Mrs. Ballard, she died,” Lee blurted out, coming back to his senses and seizing the opportunity to talk.

  "No!” Phoebe came back immediately. “When?"

  "Last Thursday morning or afternoon some time. They said it was a heat stroke."

  Phoebe whistled. “I don't imagine. With the doors and windows all closed up it must have been a thousand degrees in that little house back there."

  "The funeral's Tuesday,” Lee added.

  They were nearing the junction where the drive into the Ballard house met Seminole Road.

  "Are you gonna go?” Phoebe asked.

  "Probably,” Lee shrugged his shoulder, reseating the inner tube, which had slipped down. “Maggie, my step mom, she really likes funerals and stuff like that."

  Phoebe made a show of shivering despite the ninety-degree heat. “I had a cousin Alvin, who died back in April. He got crushed when he was thrown from his car, and it rolled over on him. They had to keep the coffin closed. My mom said he was all mashed up and really just in a big ol’ bag.” She jumped forward just a skip step as they arrived at the drive and then lowered her voice. “To tell you the truth though, I would've liked to have seen it. I know it's crazy, but sometimes I kind of like gross stuff."

  Lee instantly thought of Mrs. Voorman in the dressing booth.

  A fleeting shadow fell across them and swept away rapidly up the road. Following up with their eyes they both caught sight of a big turkey buzzard, careening in to join a pattern with three or four others already in a high circle above. The spread of the feathers, like long, bony fingers at the tips of their great wings were a dead give away to Lee that they were turkey buzzards and not just common vultures.

  "Something must be dead,” Lee offered reflexively.

  "Must be in back of those houses.” Phoebe gauged the angle below where the vultures were flying. “Wanna go see?"

  Lee remembered once, coming up on a group of turkey vultures eating a dead pig along the bank of the Yalahalla, below the Falls. The pig was bloated, and the buzzards had been covered in the stuff. The smell of them down wind was something he didn't want to remember even to this day.

  "Naw.” He shook his head. “Let's keep going. I'll need to get home this afternoon before it gets too late."

  "You're just chicken,” she teased.

  Lee felt a little wave of anger pass through him. He came back with a quick, “You say I'm chicken because I'd rather float along on a cool river than go look at some dead dog?"

  Whether Phoebe caught the pique in his tone Lee couldn't tell, because she suddenly stopped in her tracks and raised the inner tube up over her shoulders and pulled it down around her waist.

  "Can you hula-hoop?” She suddenly began gyrating the bulbous thing about her hips.

  She looked so silly, Lee couldn't help but forget about the dead dog.

  "Give it a try.” She was having to work hard to keep the big, black do-nut from skittering down to her ankles. “Come on."

  Lee had
to admit, she really was pretty good. With her arms up high at shoulder level and her elbows akimbo she ground her hips around, her face blooming red with the effort.

  Before he realized where it came from, Lee heard the crunch of gravel and the sound of a car. Looking back over his shoulder, he was just in time to see the black Chevy pull up and come to a stop a few feet behind them.

  "Aye carumba!” Javier called out. He opened his door and got out only partially, so his elbow rested on the roof of the car and his other arm on the window frame.

  Phoebe's concentration broken, the inner tube slipped down.

  "Ahh!” Javier sighed. “Don't stop for me. I liked the show."

  Phoebe looked at Lee, the black inner tube around her ankles.

  "Hola, Javier!” Lee seized the opportunity to show off with some of the Spanish he remembered, and putting in a valiant effort to reproduce the accent and roll his R's. “Got any more cabrrrito?"

  "Sounding pretty good for a Gringo,” Javier replied, his smooth Mexican accent rolling off his tongue. “You almost got it.” He rolled his R's as an example, saying “Gringo,” again, then added with his teeth showing whitely from under his dark moustache, “I think you got yourself a little cabrita right there."

  Phoebe put her hand over her own eyes to shade them from the sun. “You know him, Lee?"

  Lee strode over to the Chevy and set his tire down against the massive front bumper. “This is Javier. He lives down at the end of the road, by the creek.” He turned back to face Javier. “This is Phoebe. She's spending the summer at the house across the street from me."