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HANCOCK COUNTY |
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| The camp's dingy porch commanded a light step from the boy up there with the gun, or else it threatened to creak and groan, and he wanted to be absolutely deft to be able to slip in and slide others into his trap to replenish his stock of stolen goods, and stuff his angry jaws with food. No boats tied to the dock, but a light on inside the near window. The door stood wide open, no screen, no lock, so he held his gun out in full view and gave a casual knock, then stepped inside with it cocked to announce that he was in charge, and that everyone would be just fine if they did what he told them to. But the surprise he intended was not quite the shock he thought he had in store; no soul stirred, except for the dog, and still he didn't even bark. The gun held up high, he looked at the room, a kitchen with a wide iron stove in the corner, a large table of heavy oak, cupboards in a single cabinet of rotting wood grey with age like the outside walls of the shack. Flames licked around in the oven's large belly, puffing smoke up the little chimney, as it kept a big black pot nice and warm. The room was long, all the way to the back; empty back there, except for a box or two and a musty old throw-rug on the floor, a wooden keg and a few burlap sacks. And way back there, the air smelled dim, as if he'd been there before, long, long ago or in a time yet to come, like a visiting spirit he once knew someplace else he never would expect, like the ethereal touch of some revelation stopping him cold just for a second as he breathed it in deeply to understand. But no message to come ever that way; nothing revealed--past, present or future, just goose bumps and shivers, but only for a moment that day. No more windows back there, except through a door, the threshold to the cabin's other half, just as long, but narrower by a hair, no doors to the outside in this one, only a window front and that window back, each hung with a curtain of rags on a string. And in that room, a chest of drawers with rusty metal adornments, an iron-framed bed with moss-stuffed mattress piled with dusty woolen blankets, and a high set of shelves on the opposite wall, standing from floor to ceiling, as long as it was tall, holding row upon row of little rag dolls, most carefully dressed in tiny sets of clothes, all individually blessed with different eyes, mouth and nose, with hair sewn on from donors unknown; one, maybe two hundred of them crammed together on those shelves with nothing else, the only souls other than his in the house, other than his and the poor dog's; that poor dog, just outside the front window, still limping around in circles just off from where the dock landed-- still no boats tied up at it. A breeze had somehow been summoned through that wide clearing of water outside, and it moved and twisted the tiny camp, making it gnaw at itself and crackle, scraping together and creaking. And, again, the sun beat the water with rays, choking steamed air after the rain, coming in now to the shack trickling down his armpits and back, as he held his gun up high and studied all those dolls, all their tiny faces so hauntingly real, their tiny dresses and trousers so neatly sewn, some even with needles still in them, some still without any clothes, stuffed with moss, rice and other things, someone's little hobby, one would think. But not what he was looking for. No, not what he was there for. Creek! Groan! Snap! The breezes pressed against the shack. Creak, groan--WHACK! He felt the back of his head get smacked, and his consciousness go black as he hit the wooden floor . . . . |
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