Hero to the End (part 2)
Charlie was up before sunrise. He’d need to get his chores done before Momma got home from the hospital. That way, he could leave her a note letting her know he was out riding bikes with Andy and not have to lie right to her face. Not that the bit about bike riding was a lie.
He would ride his bike down to Andy’s house and then, together, he and Andy would ride out to the old sawmill. Strictly speaking, he wasn’t telling her a lie. He just wasn’t volunteering any more information than necessary. More of an omission than an actual untruth.
Still, not being completely honest with Momma left a twisting, greasy feeling in the pit of Charlie’s stomach. Like when they went to the carnival, and he rode the tilt-a-whirl after eating too much cotton candy. Nonetheless, it had to be done. He needed proof, and proof was in the old sawmill, and the old sawmill was definitely not on the list of approved places for play and exploration.
So, Charlie ate a hasty breakfast of instant oats, rushed through his chores of vacuuming, window cleaning, and watering the plants. Chores complete, he committed his lie of omission by note, which he left on the kitchen table held down by Momma’s tea mug.
In Charlie’s well-considered opinion, the mug with a tea bag already in it and a full kettle waiting on the stove was a nice touch. Momma’d be tired after her overnight shift at Mercy Regional, followed by the half-hour-long drive from Durango to Spruce Bend.
He figured Momma not having to do much besides turn on the stove, put her feet up, and wait for the water to boil would keep her from thinking about much more than what a nice boy he was. And might keep her from discovering he’d gone off the reservation.
Subterfuge complete, Charlie mounted his battered BMX and pedaled through the early morning shade to Andy’s house. Andy didn’t live in the Aspen Estates Mobile Home Community. He lived in a real house about a quarter mile up the road toward Spruce Bend proper. Not quite in town, but close enough that it might as well have been inside the so-called city limits. His dad was a plumber. Made damned good money, according to Jackson and Mister Bill both. It was one of the few things they agreed on.
“Morning, Mister Meads.” Charlie locked up the brakes on his bike and slid to a sideways stop on the gravel drive. Andy’s dad sat on their broad front porch reading the news, a cup of coffee on the small table to his right.
“Charlie,” Andy’s dad folded the newspaper and gave Charlie a broad grin. “Andy’s around back sweeping up the shop. Once he’s done, he can go race bikes or climb trees or whatever it is you two yahoos get up to this early in the day.”
“Thanks!” Charlie lowered the bike’s kickstand and made sure it would stay up before he ran around the corner of the house toward the big, half-circle style metal building that housed Meads Plumbing.
Andy was, as Mister Meads said, sweeping the bare concrete floor of the shop. Not that it needed much in the way of sweeping by Charlie’s estimation. The whole shop was neat and orderly. Mister Bill said you could probably eat off the floor in that shop. But Andy was sweeping anyway.
“Andy.”
“Charlie!” Andy looked up from his task, a broad grin splitting his heavily freckled face. “What are you doing here?”
“Recruiting.”
“Recruiting?” Andy leaned on the push-broom and cocked an eyebrow.
Charlie smiled. Andy’d been working on that Spock Eyebrow for most of the summer. He was getting pretty good at it, too. “For a mission of grave importance.”
“Oh?”
“A mission to find evidence that Mister Bill did indeed apprehend the Triple Six Slasher in the old sawmill.”
“So, we’re going to see Mister Bill?”
“Nope.” Charlie shook his head. “Going to go see what’s in the old sawmill. Bet we can find some bullets or some blood or something.”
“What for?”
“Jackass is saying Mister Bill’s a liar. Saying he’s just telling stories.”
“Dad says Mister Bill’s the real deal. Said he knew a few guys like him in ‘Nam.” Andy said the last word in a reverent half whisper.
“Yeah?”
“Yep,” Andy nodded.
“Well, Jackson doesn’t believe me.”
“You sure about this?”
“Where else are we gonna find proof?”
“Okay,” Andy returned to sweeping. “What are we telling my dad?”
“About?”
“About what we’re doing, where we’re going?”
“Tell him we’re going bike riding,” Charlie said. “Leave it at that.”
“I don’t like lying to my dad.”
“We aren’t telling him any lies.” Charlie put a conspiratorial arm around Andy’s shoulders. “We just aren’t telling him everything we’re doing. Besides, he might not even ask.”
***
The old sawmill loomed large at the juncture of Spruce and Buck canyons. It sat precisely where the two-lane blacktop heading up Buck Creek canyon toward Crawford Springs turned into washboarded gravel.
That old sawmill was the entire reason for the paving in the first place, if you cared to listen to any of the old timers. Shut down long before Charlie’s momma was born, the sawmill served as the setting for ghost stories and urban legends among Charlie and his friends. Especially after they heard Mister Bill’s story about the Triple Six Slasher.
Charlie and Andy sat astride their bikes and stared at the weathered siding, faded to the color of dirt. The plywood sheeting that covered the windows and doors, though somewhat newer, was in a similar state, splintering and peeling at the edges.
“Wonder how the Slasher got in there with it all boarded up like that?” Andy asked.
“I don’t think it was like this back then.” Charlie lifted his ball cap and scratched his head. The slight breeze felt pretty good after racing all the way from Andy’s house.
“Maybe,” Andy allowed. “When did Mister Bill catch him?”
“Spring of sixty-two.” Charlie did his best to mimic Mister Bill’s drawl. The old man had a voice like the inside of his ball glove. Smooth, soft, and well-worn.
“Geeze that’s twenty…”
“Twenty-five years, three months, and six days.” Charlie finished the math for Andy. He’d done it so many times it was like a running calendar in his head.
“Long time ago.”
“Yeah.” Charlie nodded in agreement. “Mister Bill said the Slasher was going in and out where the mill hangs out over the creek. Where they brought in the logs.”
“That how we’re getting in?”
“Nope.” Charlie pulled the backpack over his shoulder, unzipped it, and retrieved a small crowbar and a hammer he’d liberated from Momma’s tools. “We’ll just pull a couple boards off the window on the other side by the sawdust pile. Go in that way. Then on the way out we put the boards back.” He waggled the hammer.
***
“Where’s all the big saw blades and conveyor belts and stuff?” Andy wondered.
“Mister Bill said they were sold off not long after the mill closed down in the late Fifties.” Charlie let the anemic beam of his flashlight play over the inside of the old mill.
Here and there, dust motes, kicked up by their passage, drifted through the light’s wan beam and floated in the shafts of sunlight shining through gaps in the window boards. It smelled weird, sour, and musty; like old sawdust and axle grease.
“Are you sure we should be in here?”
“I need proof, Andy.” Charlie rounded on his friend. “I’m sick and tired of Jackson. He says Mister Bill’s a liar. Mister Bill says I should do what he does and ignore it. But I can’t Andy. I just can’t.”
“Okay.” Andy nodded. “Where do we start?”
“In the back where the old water wheel used to be.” Charlie pointed with his flashlight.
Well, hey there, friends. I wonder what Charlie and Andy’ll find? Hopefully, something that’ll shut Jackson up. Maybe trouble. Check back next week for the conclusion.