White Birch Graffiti (White Birch Village Book 2)

by Jeff Van Valer

  Ted understood but didn’t speak. The wind howled outside. Cabin 7 seemed to shiver in the cold.

  “That’s how you found out?” Ted asked. He bought the story, believed it completely. To come to the same conclusion, Ted had to lose his wife, his two best friends, and get shot. All Hoss needed was a phony e-mail account, a newspaper, and a TV. Typical, Ted thought.

  “What I want to know,” Hoss said, “is if anybody else is dead or dying. You get me? But the nicknames. That’s all I have in my head. I need names, and I don’t have them. I never got anybody’s mailing address after camp, other than McDaniel’s. Did you?” Hoss didn’t wait for an answer. “I didn’t want anybody’s info, and I’m sure you didn’t, either. Last night, I couldn’t think of anybody else but Zeke. And you, of course.”

  Of course? “All right. Tell me about The Bugle, or I’m going to shoot you.” It looked to Ted like his acquaintance with Hoss was, as with Karen, like a simple turn of a page.

  “You’re the only one I could check on right away. So I open The Bugle, and my blood freezes in my veins. Your wife, Ted. You and she are on the front page. That made five of us from Cabin Seven. Five of Nine with sudden, big news. That’s when I knew.”

  “Why do you check up on me? Why’d you even remember me?”

  “Oh, Ted,” Hoss said, folding his arms over his chest and dropping his chin. “That’s a hell of a thing to say. Tell me you didn’t remember me.”

  Game, set, match. Hoss was right.

  “You’re a hard guy to forget, Ted.”

  “But the Bugle. The checking up. Why?”

  CHAPTER 56

  When Karen stepped out of the emergency door, she darted between the cabins, scanning every direction from which anyone could be coming. She wanted to get into Headquarters and call Bradie. Bradie could drive any number of pens and pencils—and her camera—back to Cabin Row. The phone line from Headquarters was live, but the phone was gone. So were all desk materials, all paper. They’d be in off-season storage. The double track behind Cabin 4 was quiet. So were the spaces between the cabins and the open area atop the waterfront.

  The bathroom window behind Headquarters was accessible, and the last anyone would check. It was the one she kept unlocked.

  She slipped between the north wall of Headquarters and the bell tower, a fifteen-foot structure made of railroad ties. Winter or summer, its black, tarry protectant made it smell like wooden telephone poles. A rope ran from the top of the bell into Headquarters through one of two fortuitous knotholes in the building’s siding. As she ran past it, Karen stumbled into the middle of an old memory.

  Headquarters was off limits to campers, and kids through the ages were known to peek through those holes to see what the place looked like inside. That’s just what Hoss did one day, with that pasty, white-haired, nervous kid they called Bud.

  Ted was at the office window when it happened, talking to Karen. She liked him. Especially after he tackled her dad on Tornado Night and kept that tree from falling on him. Some of the other boys at camp—nasty pigs-in-training—whistled when she walked by. But not Ted. He never whistled. He just ambled up and talked to her.

  She was typing reports for her dad that day, Ted egging her on to write more sloth stories. She could still hear his boy-voice echoing through Headquarters: Come on. That one was really good. When he said that, she filled with a peculiar sort of power that still flowed in her. The weird kind of power that keeps writers writing.

  Another thing, a darker thing, happened about the same time. Ted encouraged her to set another precedent.

  Hoss and Bud stood by the bell tower, peeking through those knotholes. Hoss vexed Bud, pretending to see Karen inside. In her bikini. All while she was sitting at the typewriter in jeans and a T-shirt, talking to Ted. When she heard Hoss making lewd comments about her appearance, describing her body, she knew only then all those whistles earlier in the summer were meant for her. She felt exquisitely and horribly naked.

  Her first instinct had been to run away. Hoss’s words shoved her through a state of awful surprise, then to anger. She remembered Ted’s expression. It showed more sadness than anything else, and he knew what those boys were doing. Her dad—if he’d been there at the time—would have marched outside Headquarters and shut Hoss down. Her mom would’ve said, Oh, get used to it, honey. You’re beautiful. You’ll have to learn to ignore those things.

  Some boys might try to pick a fight to impress her. But Ted didn’t. His sadness seemed to dissolve. His lips drew tight and his eyes narrowed.

  When she decided she should sneak up behind those boys, Ted was wordless, but his expression was undeniable, indescribable. He looked like she’d just written him another sloth story.

  That look on his face changed everything. It changed her approach, flipped a switch. Helpless victimization turned to opportunity-seeking power that instant. Karen wasn’t going to let her dad handle her problems, and she wasn’t going to let her mom talk her out of defending herself. She was going to indulge in the kind of vigilante justice only a kid could get away with.

  She tiptoed out the front of Headquarters, around to the south and west outer walls, then inched her way up to the bell tower, where she stood just a few feet from Hoss and Bud. She kept her eyes on the boys, but she knew Ted was watching. Hoss and Bud plastered their faces against that wall, trying to get a glimpse through the knotholes. Their dirty talk continued. Slinking up behind them, she grabbed their hair, one head in each hand. She pulled back, then shoved them forward, stepping in with all her weight. Their heads smacked the wood siding of Headquarters hard enough to resonate throughout the structure. Neither kid messed with her after that.

  Without that experience, she was sure she’d never have slapped Lloyd across the face.

  As she slid through the mostly-hidden window to Headquarters, she felt the toughness she’d built over the years. Maybe she’d use it to wring Ted’s neck.

  CHAPTER 57

  “Why I subscribe to The Bugle…” Hoss regarded the ceiling and rubbed his chin. “I’ll tell you why. You saved my life, my friend. And I’m not talking about when you pulled my can’t-swim tookus out of the lake and tackled Mr. Dinwiddie on Tornado Night. You remember that?”

  “How could I forget?”

  “Yep,” Hoss said. “I’m talking about another time. I’m talking about after camp, over the next few years. You kept me from trying to control people. You let me know I couldn’t, always. Up here, that summer? I couldn’t control you, couldn’t wrangle you for anything. And God knows I tried.

  “You know what they say about ‘Don’t go around your problems’? That you should ‘go through them’ instead? Learn from ’em, like that crazy-ass monkey said in The Lion King? Well, that’s bullshit. Some problems you have to work out, but some of them you do have to go around. You, I had to go around.”

  Hoss had a smart way of talking. A good vocabulary, but every now and then, either by accident or deliberate theatrics, his speech drew from a patois worthy of his home state’s back woods. He had a drawl far more musical than the utilitarian yik-yak Ted shared with his fellow Hoosiers.

  “What did I do to save your life?” Ted asked. He didn’t know if this was another—more adult, more savvy, but classic—Hoss manipulation or the first building stones of friendship.

  “You became the first problem I recognized I didn’t have it in my power to fix.”

  Ted didn’t say anything. He did, indeed, after Lloyd, turn himself into a problem Hoss couldn’t fix. After their canoe trip, Ted asked Hoss a few key questions. Where’d you lose your knife? Okay, when? Did you drop it over there? Next to Lloyd’s body? Are they gonna find it when they put out the fire? Oh, yeah? What about Buck’s knife? Where’d he lose his?

  When it came to making Hoss worry, Ted’s crowning achievement brought up something else, something he hadn’t made up:

  You know Zeke’s flashlight? The one that says yasko on it in magic marker? It floats, Hoss. Zeke dropped
it in the water. Over there. Think they won’t find that?

  “Do you know the difference between arrogance and insecurity, Ted?”

  Ted narrowed his eyes.

  “I can tell you,” Hoss said. “Most arrogance is masked insecurity. I was insecure and didn’t know it. I hid behind boldness, toughness, control. Even by twelve, around kids at school, I was in control of them. Scared the hell out of them. My insecurity—it was the real thing that drove me, you know—kind of fizzled away. The only thing left was that arrogance. Most arrogance is masked insecurity. You follow me? By the time I came to White Birch that summer, my arrogance was real. I was just like you told Karen a little bit ago. I was invincible. I was fucking Superman.” Hoss stepped toward Ted. “And then you came along.”

  Hoss was Superman. At least that day he confronted Lloyd with the whiskey bottle. Ted had never seen such raw power in one human being, much less a twelve-year-old boy.

  “Gotta tell you, Ted. It’s good to see you. I’d jump up and down, but I’m a little tired.”

  Ted couldn’t think of a thing to say.

  Hoss grabbed Ted by the shoulders and squeezed them. Then he dropped his arms, stepped back, and softened. “Maybe you made me think twice about doing stuff that would’ve killed me before I grew up.”

  “What the hell are you talk—”

  “You remember Jake?”

  Your bullshit brother Jake? Sure. I remember him. “Yeah.”

  “I was pretty sure back then you didn’t think he even existed.”

  Ted realized Hoss had heard the entire conversation with Karen.

  “Oh, Ye of Little Faith,” Hoss said. “I don’t blame you at all for being suspicious, but my story about Jake is true. And it wasn’t over when I told it back then, either.”

  Ted pursed his lips and decided to listen.

  “Jake killed my parents when I was about eighteen.” Ted opened his eyes wide and shook his head. “Shot ’em both at home, while they sat in their chairs, watching The Price is Right or something. Then he shot himself. I swear it’s true, Ted. Even with all the drunken-brawl holiday gatherings we Cartwrights grew up with, that living room never saw carnage like that.”

  Ted could only muster a hoarse apology. For what, he wasn’t sure.

  “There’s more,” Hoss said, “but I won’t bore you with—”

  “Like what?”

  “My oldest brother was so upset over the whole thing he offed himself.”

  No!

  “My last brother’s in prison for life. He’s not worth a damn. I’m basically all that’s left. I was on a lot of news shows, local and even one out of Chicago. I got tired of the spotlight and decided to disappear.”

  “That’s why you ‘got out of the business of being’ a Cartwright.”

  “Abso-damned-lutely, my friend. My life’s been interesting…”

  Ted heard Hoss’s initial question again. You don’t think she’s actually coming back, do you, Ted? She could be all the way up to the office by now. Dialing the phone.

  “…but I don’t think I’ve influenced many people, though,” Hoss said. “Not in a profound way like you did me. But I’m still…”

  “Still what?”

  “Still looking, you know… for that worthy cause.”

  “Worthy cause?” Ted shook his head.

  “Yeah, my raison d’être. I don’t have anything or anybody left. No goals. No battle to fight. Nothing… no one to save. But I’m sure I’ll find something some day.” Hoss smiled and said softly, “My worthy cause’ll come along.”

  Humility. If that was what Ted had given Hoss, Hoss had just given some of it back. Against all of Ted’s self-teachings, he felt like consoling Hoss. Ted did lose almost everything dear to him in his journey back to White Birch, and Hoss didn’t. But that was only because he had already lost everyone and everything.

  “Hey, Hoss?” Ted asked.

  “Yeah?”

  “I’m beginning to think you’re right about Karen.”

  “How’s that?”

  “She might not be coming b—”

  The emergency door scraped and opened. Ted started horribly. Hoss hunkered down and reached for his empty holster.

  “Yoo-hoo,” Karen said.

  Hoss leaned toward Ted and whispered, “Oh, Ye of Little Faith.”

  ~~~

  Bradie’s headache was a little better, but nowhere near turning the fluorescents back on. She drained her first cup and reached for the coffee pot.

  The phone’s sudden ring felt like someone had put a metal bowl over her head and banged it with a spoon. If she had it her way, the phone would be stored in a back room. She grabbed it in an effort to keep it from ringing again.

  “Good morning,” she said, not sure how to answer the camp’s phone. “White Birch Camp. How may I help you?”

  “Good morning,” said a pleasant male voice on the other end. Bradie sat down at the desk, shaded her eyes, and took a sip of her coffee. “My name is Frank Bruska.”

  CHAPTER 58

  Despite seeing what Karen had been willing to do so far, Ted still couldn’t believe she’d come back.

  “Ted?” Karen asked.

  “I’m here,” Ted said, rounding the corner into the sink room. An ineffable relief filled him. “Ready to write these names down?”

  Karen looked sheepish, almost ashamed. One arm was hidden behind her back.

  “What do you have?” Ted asked.

  She frowned as she lifted her arm. From her fingers hung an ancient cross-cut saw. “From now on, we’ll leave pens and paper in Headquarters all year ’round. All I saw was hidden up on a top shelf. A toolbox as old as me, a hammer,”—she bounced the saw in her hand—“and this.”

  Ted shrugged. “I think that’ll do fine. We won’t copy the graffiti, we’ll just take it with us.” It solved a lot of problems, in truth. Something about having an original record pleased him. The board could be matched to the cut rafter, if it came to it. Newfangled forensic techniques could verify the graffiti was authentic.

  “Two grown-up professionals, and not one pencil or piece of paper between them,” Karen said.

  Ted cleared his throat. “Make that three.” He leaned back and faced the cabin space, beckoning the waiting Hoss, who stepped forward slowly into the sink area.

  “Karen, Hoss. Hoss, Karen.”

  “Hello, Karen. It’s been a long time.”

  She didn’t—or couldn’t—speak.

  Hoss said, “Karen left a good impression on me, too, Ted. A lot better than the one Headquarters left on my forehead.”

  “What’s he…?”—she pointed at Hoss—“What’re you doing here? What is this?”

  “He came here looking for the plaque, Karen. It’s okay.”

  Ted and Hoss gave Karen a Cliff’s Notes summary of the last few minutes in the cabin. She asked if they were all on the same side, and Hoss reassured her they were.

  Hoss didn’t seem to be the fang-toothed viper he once was.

  ~~~

  Bradie hesitated to answer any specific questions. She frowned, trying and failing to make sense of the call. What does some detective in Blue Whatever, Indiana, want with Aunt Karen? Sitting up as straight as she could to see over the counter to the outside, she felt like a fish in a bowl. Keeping the doors locked and the cars hidden in back suddenly made perfect sense. “Uh, Karen isn’t here at the moment. May I take a message?”

  “So it is the right place. That’s good to know. Thank you. I know this must sound strange, but I’m all the way down here in southern Indiana, looking for someone, and one of my leads ended up being Ms. Dinwiddie. I just wanted to ask her a question or two. I wonder if, at her first convenience, she could—”

  “Who are you looking for?” Bradie asked.

  ~~~

  “Okay,” Hoss said. “How ’bout we get pictures of the cabin list broadcast to every news outlet on planet Earth, before you call the police?”

  Karen said, “That’s pr
etty much what we wanted.”

  She’s all in. Ted felt guilty he’d ever doubted her.

  Hoss: “Digital camera. Got it in my car.”

  Ted: “Where’d you park?”

  Hoss: “Archery range. Behind the hay.” The square bales that catch the stray arrows, Ted thought. The location was, bar none, the best place to hide a car up here. Too far to be seen from the highway, and perfectly hidden from Cabin Row.

  Hoss: “Batteries are even charged. We could snap a picture of what you need and send it around the world. Then call. I have a feeling this is going to be the shortest presidential candidacy in US history.”

  Karen: “Good. Let’s get this done.”

  ~~~

  Frank stood at sudden attention and snapped his fingers three or four times to get Maddox’s attention. He covered the phone’s mouthpiece with his palm and whisper-hissed at his partner, “Ted’s at the camp! White Birch Camp. Benzie County sheriff. Michigan. Now.” Frank threw Maddox the napkin on which he’d written the sheriff’s office number. It flew halfway and stalled, drifting to the floor.

  “Hello, Bradie?” Frank said, his voice calm as ever.

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I’m sorry for the interruption. Is it okay if I call you back in a minute or two?”

  ~~~

  Hoss: “Karen. Do you have a computer at the office up there?”

  Karen: “Yes.”

  “With a U-S-B port or S-D card reader?” To Ted, Hoss had just begun speaking in Russian.