In the Woods Read online

  “Why don’t you all come inside and wait for my husband? It’s hot as hell out there.” She motions for us to follow her.

  Dad does this little hop thing, which she fortunately does not see. He squeezes my elbow, leans in, and whispers, “Our lives are going to change. I can sense it! Can’t you sense it?”

  I want to tell him all I can feel is the heat, but that would be mean, so I say, “Yeah, Dad. I do.”

  5

  LOGAN

  I can’t help but feel a little guilty when David and I follow Dad out to the alfalfa pasture, since Dad put his time on guard duty to use by bolting light fixtures to posts. What did we do? We talked about girls and hunting. He got a smooth two dozen posts laid out under the lights that had been burning last night. I look them over for a minute, then glance kind of sheepishly at David, then at Dad.

  “I guess we could have been doing some of this last night,” I admit.

  Dad grunts and shrugs. He’s unshaven and his face is haggard. “Don’t worry about it. You had each other to keep you company. I got bored.”

  With the three of us working, the job of planting the posts goes pretty quick. Dad holds the posts straight while David and I shovel dirt back into the hole around each post and pat it down. Normally you’d pour concrete in the hole to keep the posts from leaning after a while, but there just isn’t time for that.

  A couple hours after we get started, Mr. Thompson arrives with David’s older brothers, Brian and Carl. Work really zips along then. We’ve just about got all of Dad’s assembled posts in the ground by midmorning when Dad’s cell phone suddenly blurts out a bit of Mötley Crüe’s “Home Sweet Home”; that’s our home phone’s ringtone, obviously. In his younger days, back in the 1980s, Dad was a rocker, or so he says, which I guess explains the choice of ringtone. When Mom calls, though, his phone plays Johnny Cash’s “Jackson.” Weird. Dad pushes his cap back and wipes at his forehead with the back of his arm as he pulls the cell phone out of his jeans pocket with the other hand.

  “Hello,” he says. “Hi, Katie. What’s up?” He listens, and his face turns a little hard. “I’m on my way.” He pockets his phone, takes off his Oklahoma State University cap, and slaps it against his thigh. He curses. I know it’s not good. Dad almost never cusses. It’s another sign of just how tired and frustrated he really is.

  “What’s wrong, RJ?” Mr. Thompson asks.

  “People up at the house,” Dad answers, squinting across the field in the direction of home. “Reporters, probably. Man and a teenage girl.”

  “Why don’t you and your boy knock off for a bit and go on up there?” Mr. Thompson suggests. “Me and mine can finish putting lights on the rest of these posts or start stringing the cords. I think we’re gonna finish this job by early afternoon.”

  “Yeah, I think so,” Dad agrees. “Still…” He shakes his head and wipes away more sweat. “Damn interruptions. Logan, you want to come, or not?” he asks, fixing me with his gaze.

  I don’t really want to. I don’t care to talk to any more reporters, but somehow the idea of Dad clumping through the pasture all alone in the heat of the day makes me feel sorry for him. “I guess I’ll go,” I say.

  “Come on, then.” Dad turns away and starts walking. I stab my shovel into the ground and catch up to him.

  “This is just a story to these reporters,” Dad grumbles. “It’s our livelihood. Our safety. And they’re out here interrupting us at our work.”

  * * *

  There’s a dusty red Subaru station wagon sitting in our driveway. The back of the wagon is crammed with boxes and sacks and pages of newspaper that look like they held nothing of interest and were simply thrown behind the front seats. Reporters don’t usually carry that much stuff with them, I think. I point at the license plate on the back of the car.

  “Look at that. All the way from Maine.”

  “Looks like your mom let them into the house,” Dad mutters. I have a feeling this interview is not going to go well.

  Inside, we find Mom sitting at the dining room table with a tall man who has thick hair that sort of stands up wildly, like he’s been pulling at it or something. His eyes light up like Christmas trees when he sees me, and he jumps out of his chair and comes at me with his hand out.

  “You must be Logan,” he says.

  “Yeah.” I put out my hand too, more to stop him, but he grabs it and pumps it like my arm is an old well handle.

  “I’m Matthew Lawson Smith,” he exclaims. “We have traveled down here all the way from Maine. We would love to talk to you about what you saw.” He hasn’t let go of my hand yet.

  “You’re reporters?” Dad growls.

  Matthew Lawson Smith finally releases my hand and turns to my dad. “No, sir, Mr. Jennings,” he says. “Cryptozoologists.”

  “What the hell is that?” Dad asks.

  “RJ,” Mom cuts in, her voice a little surprised. “Please excuse us, Mr. Lawson Smith,” she says. “RJ and Logan and a neighbor boy were up most of the night watching the cattle and, like I said, they’ve been putting lights up in the pasture for two days now. I’m sure they’re both very hot and tired.”

  “I’m tired and I still have a lot of work to do,” Dad says. “We’ve told the reporters everything we know.”

  “Dad, I think cryptozoologists are kind of like monster hunters,” I tell him.

  “Exactly right, Logan!” Mr. Lawson Smith says, and I swear he actually jumps up in the air as he says it.

  The girl at the table finally speaks. “Dad! You need to mellow.” She’s cute. She’s got wavy black hair pulled back in a thick ponytail, a perfectly oval face, and wide-set eyes as blue as the summer sky. She looks to be about my age, too. I’m suddenly very aware of how dirty and smelly I am. The girl looks right at me and says, “Sorry. He’s a kindergarten teacher most of the year, so he gets really animated when he talks. It keeps their attention.”

  “Oh.” I don’t know what else to say. Her eyes, though, seem to demand I say something else. I grasp for anything. “Y’all are from Maine?” No! Not the dreaded “y’all.” That didn’t really come out of my mouth, did it? Is there anything that sounds more hick than “y’all”? Other than the plural, “all y’all.”

  “Yes,” she says. “Mount Desert. It’s off the coast near Bar Harbor, Acadia National Park. The president came there for vacation last year.”

  “We’ve never had a president come around here for vacation,” I say, hoping it sounds like a joke. I think it might have succeeded, because the edges of her lips turn up a bit.

  “Logan,” Mr. Lawson Smith pipes up, obviously eager to be the one talking again. “Will you tell me all about your experience with the … with the thing you saw—”

  “Look, Mr. Smith,” Dad interrupts. “We have a lot of work to do. I’ve got a hundred and fifty head of cattle that has to be milked twice a day, a pecan grove that needs to be sprayed for bugs, and right now we’re in the middle of putting up lights to keep that thing away from the cattle, which we now have to herd into a pasture where I was growing alfalfa to feed them during the winter. This is a busy, working farm. We’ve told the papers everything we know, and we just don’t have time to repeat it. Go read the damn National Enquirer.”

  “Ronald James Jennings!” Mom says each word like she’s cutting it off a loaf of bread. “These people are guests in our house and we will treat them like guests.”

  “We don’t have time for guests,” Dad barks back. “Not today. I’m sorry, Mr. Smith, but that’s the way it is. Come on, Logan. Let’s get back to work.”

  Undaunted, our guest tries again.

  “We could help you,” he offers. “Maybe we could talk and work at the same time.”

  “You ever put up light poles? Fence posts? Ever dug a hole?” Dad asks, his voice almost vicious.

  “Dad,” I say, trying to calm him. He gives me an angry look, so I stop.

  “Well, yes, sir, I have,” Mr. Lawson Smith says. “You see, I often have to�
�”

  “The answer’s no,” Dad says, totally cutting him off. He stalks away toward the front door. I look after him, then back to Mom.

  “I am so sorry,” Mom says, shocked. “Really, my husband is never like this. It’s just the stress. I’m really sorry.”

  “No, no, that’s okay,” Mr. Lawson Smith answers. “Disappointing, yes, but completely understandable. Here, let me give you my cell phone number and the number of the hotel where we’re staying.” He pulls a small notebook out of his back pocket and scribbles in it, then tears the page out and hands it to Mom. “Maybe when the lights are up and everyone has some good, restful sleep, you could give me a call?”

  “I think that’ll be fine,” Mom agrees.

  “I need to go back with him,” I say. “It was nice to meet you, Mr. Lawson Smith.”

  I hold out my hand to shake with him again. He pumps it hard, like the first time.

  “I look forward to hearing your story, Logan. I really do,” he says, his voice as bright as the kindergarteners he teaches.

  “It was nice meeting you, too,” I say to the girl.

  “I’m Chrystal,” she says, smiling at me. She has nice straight teeth.

  “I’m Logan.” That’s a stupid thing to say. I stare up at the ceiling before I can recover enough composure to look back down at her. “I guess you know that, though.”

  “I saw your picture in the paper,” she says, blushing.

  I cough.

  “Do you really think you saw Bigfoot?”

  “You say that like you don’t believe me.” My heart beats faster in my chest for some reason.

  “I just.”

  “It wasn’t a man.”

  She raises her eyebrows and waits, I think, for me to say more. I don’t say more.

  “There are tracks,” I add.

  “People can fake things,” she says. “For a whole bunch of reasons. Practical jokes. Attention.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Well, I better get back to work.” Before I go, I see Mom grinning at me, but she doesn’t know what I know—that Chrystal Lawson Smith thinks I’m a liar.

  * * *

  Not long after we get back in the field, Kelsey rides out on the four-wheeler to deliver sandwiches and a five-gallon jug of ice-cold lemonade. As she’s getting ready to leave, I step up to the green machine and put my hand on the handlebar. She gives me an annoyed look.

  “It’s hot out here,” she complains, wiping her hair off her forehead and fixing her ponytail.

  “I know. So, those people leave? Mr. Lawson Smith and his daughter?”

  She looks at me like she’s trying to read me. “Yes. Right after Dad told them off.”

  “You heard?”

  “I was just in the living room.” She rolls her eyes like I’m the stupidest brother on the face of this Earth.

  “They seem mad?” I ask.

  “No, not really. That guy was weird,” she says.

  “Yeah, he seemed real, I don’t know, excitable.”

  “They left a number. Remember? You can call her,” Kelsey says, then pushes the button to restart the vehicle.

  “What?” I ask, trying to sound more innocent than surprised.

  “I’m not as dumb as you think, Logan.” She winks and sticks out her tongue, then stomps the four-wheeler into first gear. It jerks forward, making me step back, then she guns it and goes roaring back toward the house.

  * * *

  We finish up around two thirty and all step away from that last weather-treated wooden post to survey the rectangle of new lights and orange extension cords strung around the pasture.

  “Hell of a job,” Dad says.

  We’ve worked our way back around until we’re close to the big barn where we park the vehicles in winter and store all the tools. The milk barn is kind of behind it and is a little smaller. We drag our shovels and a couple extra cords into the barn and put them away, then stand around for a few minutes.

  “You men are welcome to stay for dinner,” Dad offers to Mr. Thompson.

  “We appreciate that, RJ, but I figure we need to get back home. Beth was pretty nervous about all of us leaving her there alone. Haven’t heard of anything happening during daylight hours, but I guess you never can tell. She’s a good shot, though.” He grins and winks. “That’s how she’s kept me in line all these years.”

  Carl, his oldest son, laughs a little at that, probably remembering last summer when his mom won the family skeet shooting competition on the Fourth of July. Carl played football in high school. I remember the university in Tahlequah was going to offer him a scholarship to play defensive end, then he blew out his knee. Sometimes he still walks with a slight limp. David keeps talking about the day Carl will finally move out so David can have a bigger bedroom, but I think Carl will probably be the one who keeps the Thompson farm running when their dad retires.

  “Yeah, we should go,” David says.

  Mr. Thompson snorts and Brian punches David in the arm.

  “That girl ain’t goin’ nowhere,” Brian says.

  “Kid’s as randy as a billy goat,” Mr. Thompson says. “Can’t tell him how he’s too young to be so serious about one girl.”

  “She’s damn sure got him by the balls,” Carl agrees.

  “Can we just go?” David asks, his face reddening. I want to laugh at him, but instead I try to rescue him.

  “We really appreciate you helping us, Mr. Thompson,” I say. “All of you.” I look at the two oldest brothers, then take my own little jab at David. “You better shower or Yesenia will think you’re that forest monster.”

  He gives me the finger, sticking it by the side of his belt so only I can see it. I choke on a laugh.

  Dad seems to shake himself out of his reverie, and extends his hand to Mr. Thompson, then all three of his sons, thanking each of them. We watch them get in their truck and drive away. Dad arches his back and it pops.

  “We’ll worry about those pecans later,” he says. “Maybe even call Wayne Wilson and have him dust them over the weekend. I’m beat. Might sleep all day tomorrow.”

  I nod, then ask, “Are we going to spend the night in the pasture again?”

  He puffs out his stubbly cheeks in a big sigh. “I don’t know. That damn thing, whatever it is, is so unpredictable. It has a big territory. I don’t have any idea if it’ll be back here tonight, or where it’ll be. If anywhere. It carried off four hundred pounds of pork last night. Why would it even need to hunt again tonight?”

  “Could there be more than one?” I ask.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t even want to think about that.” He pauses, then says, “I was a real ass to those folks who came out today, wasn’t I?”

  “Well…”

  He smiles at my hesitation. “I was. I know it. I guess I shouldn’t have been. What did you think of them? The guy seemed kind of squirrely to me.”

  “I don’t know. He was pretty hyper, but he seemed okay. Different than any of the reporters, that’s for sure.” And so was his daughter, who is totally out of my league, who I shouldn’t even think about, who thinks I’m lying, who I refuse to think about.…

  “You were an ass, and they’re staying at that filthy Cherokee Country Inn down on Highway 10.” At some point Mom came outside and is now standing right behind us. I jump a little when she speaks, and I can’t help but notice Dad jerks pretty good too.

  “You ought to know better than to sneak up on us at a time like this,” Dad says, his voice mostly joking.

  “Let’s have an early dinner, then me and Kels will help you with the milking,” she says to Dad, but she’s giving me a look.

  “What?” I ask.

  “Thought you might want to visit the inn,” she says. “That Chrystal was cute as a bug and couldn’t take her eyes off you.”

  “What? That’s crazy.” I can feel my face flushing right up to my hairline. Part of the tragedy of mothers is that they always think their own sons and daughters look like supermodels, no matter how ugly we
are. “She didn’t look at me at all.”

  “Uh-huh. Go in and shower. The chicken’s already frying and Katie’s shucking ears of corn,” Mom tells me.

  I feel like I should protest, but the heat of my face seems to have burned away the words. So I leave them and go into the house. The shower is cool and it feels really good to watch the dirt sluice off me and down the drain. Afterward, I get dressed and head for the kitchen, but the cooking is almost done and Mom shoos me to the dining table to wait for Dad to join us, which he does a few minutes later, water still dripping from his hair.

  I refuse to gulp my food. But I don’t participate in the conversation much, either. Is Mom really making me go talk to a monster hunter and his daughter? It’s a pretty bizarre thought, but Mom talked to them more than I did, so maybe she trusts them. Obviously, she trusts them. I know she wouldn’t send me to meet some guy she thought might be a serial killer or something.

  I scrape up the last of my mashed potatoes and gravy, then swallow half a glass of sweet tea. I look to Mom and ask, “Do I have to go?”

  She openly laughs at me. Seriously. Katie makes kissy noises. This is outrageous. I only saw the girl once, and barely spoke to her. Dad ducks his head and says to his nearly empty plate, “Please tell them I’m sorry for how I acted earlier.”

  “Dad’ll clear your dishes,” Mom says. “I want you home before dark. Way before dark.”

  “Logan,” Dad says, raising his head, very serious now. “Bring your shotgun, just in case.” That takes away all the snickering. I nod and leave the table.

  * * *

  The Cherokee Country Inn is just north of town. The highway twists and dips, but is pretty easy to navigate. I drive a Ford F-150 that’s about ten years old. It has a granny four-speed transmission, and I can’t help but remember what Mom said about it when Dad brought it home for me.

  “That gear stick will keep his hands busy when he’s driving,” she said.

  Mothers think of the weirdest things.

  I pull into the parking lot of the inn and shut off my engine. The inn was built as an apartment house almost 130 years ago, back when there was more coal mining going on. It was empty for a long time, then some businessman from Tulsa bought it in the 1970s and turned it into a hotel to serve the tourists who came to the area, mostly to go boating on the Illinois River. I’ve never been inside it, but the outside has always seemed very dreary and depressing with its dark-red bricks, white-framed windows always in need of paint, and the sad glass front door that looks like it belongs on a five-and-dime store.