Moonbog (29 page)

The two men exchanged curious glances. Finally, Jack cleared his throat and spoke. “We’re part of an official search party. Ordered by the police. I’m not so sure you could have us arrested.”

“We could find out, though,” Marshall said. His voice was edged with challenge. “I didn’t give no one permission to go traipsing all over my land.”

Grunting, Marshall rolled forward onto his knees and started to stand. His legs wobbled, especially his left leg, and threatened to collapse several times. But he supported himself with his walking stick well enough to finally get his legs underneath him. He stood bent forward for a moment and then, with a hissing intake of air, stood erect. He stared intently at the two men who kept looking from his eyes to a point somewhere between his and their feet.

“Well?” he said, after a few tense seconds.

“Well?” Jack replied warily, “are you going to let us pass?”

Marshall jabbed the end of his walking stick into the ground and leaned heavily on it. He stroked his unshaven jowls with one hand and surveyed the two men. “Yeah . . . yeah. I suppose so,” he said at last.

Both men visibly relaxed. They started to step forward, but Marshall suddenly pointed at them, jabbing his bony index finger in line with their chests.

“You just make damn sure you don’t go wreckin’ nothin’. Understand?”

Jack and Carl nodded as they edged their way past Marshall.

“You can walk on the land, but you be damn careful not to wreck anything!”

“No, sir! We won’t!” Jack mumbled, still intimidated by the old man. “We’ll be careful, for sure.”

Once he was past Marshall, Jack picked up his pace, followed closely by Carl. They came to a bend in the path and, briefly, chanced a glance back at Marshall. He was still standing there, leaning on his walking stick, staring at them with suspicion. They went around the bend, and it wasn’t until then that both men let out their breaths.

“Christ, that old man gives me the creeps!” Carl said, glancing back along the path.

Jack grunted as he ducked under a branch that hung over the path.

“Still gives me the creeps,” Carl repeated.

“Come on,” Jack said sharply, “let’s get moving. It’s gonna’ be dark soon.”

VIII

M
arshall listened and watched as the two men walked away from him in the direction of the Bog. He was angry and upset that his privacy had been invaded. What the hell was the world coming to, he wondered, if someone couldn’t even get a bit of peace and quiet in his own goddamn woods! He kept looking angrily down the trail to where it turned off. One thing for certain, if they hadn’t been part of the search party, he damn well would have had them arrested for trespassing.

Marshall turned and started walking down the path in the direction opposite to the one Jack and Carl had taken. He wanted to make sure he didn’t meet up with them—or anyone else—again. He walked with a strong, purposeful stride along the thickly grown path, swinging his walking stick in time with the steps. Had he been a younger man, and had his thoughts that late afternoon been more pleasant, he would have let the quiet solitude relax him. But his thoughts were still churning with twenty-eight-year-old incidents, and his mind still burned with the intrusion of the two men. As the sun lowered and the woods grew darker, the Bog perfectly reflected his state of mind. Peepers began to sing a low, spooky undercurrent.

Suddenly, he halted in mid-stride. Catching himself with the walking stick, he cocked his head and listened. He
had
heard something—something other than the usual sounds of the Bog.

He waited, listening, sure that there had been something other than the gathering chorus of peepers and occasional note of a bird. Something. Or else he had imagined something.

A sudden feeling of uneasiness took hold of him. There was something—something in the Bog not related to his thoughts of the past—something there now—nearby.

He looked both ways along the trail, trying to find what could have made a sound or subliminally suggested that something was wrong. The trail was empty either way. Marshall felt certain that it was not Jack and Carl returning along the path. He was sure that they wanted to meet up with him again just as little as he wanted to meet them.

With a deep gut-wrenching fear, he realized—he
knew
that there was someone on the path ahead of him. His eyes tried to pierce the thick green trees and shrubs; his ears strained to hear the sound repeated that had alerted him. For a while, the whisper of blood in his ears was all that he heard. Then the sound repeated.

He crouched low, and stared ahead on the trail. A clump of bushes on the side of the trail suddenly shook violently, making a sound that reminded Marshall of the rush of blood in his ears. Branches snapped beneath the heavy tread of someone walking in the brush. Marshall felt a sudden rush of fear when, not thirty feet from him, a man suddenly stood up out of the brush.

He was back-to Marshall and didn’t see him, but Marshall immediately recognized him. Marshall’s mouth moved as though to speak, but before he could say anything, the man suddenly ducked back down into the brush.

“Goddamn trespassers!” Marshall whispered. He took a few, quick steps in the man’s direction, but something made him stop suddenly and freeze in a crouching position. Something, an inner sense, warned him of a danger that was very unlike his earlier meeting with Jack and Carl.

Keeping his eyes focused on the spot where the man had ducked down, Marshall waited, his breath held until it began to hurt. The bushes shook wildly, and Marshall saw the man stand up again. With a loud grunt that Marshall heard clearly, he bent forward and swung something up onto his shoulder. His legs buckled slightly from the weight of the load. At first, Marshall didn’t realize what the man’s burden was. His old eyes just saw a white blur. But with a sudden, dizzy rush of nausea, Marshall’s vision resolved the small, pasty-white body of a boy. The thin legs looked like frail, bloodless sticks; they were smeared with rusty, dried blood and streaks of dirt. The legs dangled behind the man’s back, swinging and feebly knocking him as he adjusted the weight of the corpse. With another grunt, the man shook the body until the crook of the stomach rested comfortably on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“Mother of God!” Marshall whispered, too stunned to move. “Sweet Mother of Jesus!” He stood there shaking, watching with amazement. As the man slowly began to turn around, Marshall felt the pressure in his bladder threaten to release. Not knowing what else to do, Marshall let his legs give out from under him, and he tumbled to the ground into the brush.

For long, tense seconds he listened as the man walked with his grisly load on his back. He was picking his way carefully through the undergrowth toward the trail. Marshall wasn’t sure if he had been seen or not. He waited in a crumpled heap on the ground, listening to his frantic heartbeat as the plodding, shuffling steps came toward him. Marshall’s hand fearfully clutched the haft of his walking stick.

The footsteps got louder, closer, filling the Bog with their heavy tread. At any moment, he expected the man would trip over him as he lay there, hiding. Horror filled his mind as he pictured the stiff, lifeless corpse the man was carrying. He imagined himself as the man’s next burden, if he was found. A whimper of terror threatened to break out into a scream.

But in his sudden fear for his own safety and life, Marshall made the necessary conclusions from what he had seen. Talk about the missing Hollis boy had dominated all conversation and attention in the town for the past two days; Marshall had no doubt about the identity of the dead boy. The only question that echoed like distant thunder in Marshall’s mind was:
What in God’s name is he doing with the body?

Of course, the most likely explanation was that the man had joined the search party and had been the one to discover the body of the missing boy. That was the simplest answer, but on a deep level—the same deep level that had initially alerted Marshall that he had not been alone in the Bog—Marshall knew that was not the answer. He knew for certain that the man was in the process of hiding the body, not discovering it.

Marshall listened as the man, puffing and panting beneath his burden, slashed through the thick underbrush. Suddenly, he heard a deep, relieved sigh followed by a dull thump. Marshall figured that the man had made it to the trail and was taking a rest. So far, he hadn’t been discovered.

Getting up onto his hands and knees. Marshall slowly crawled forward to where he could see the man on the trail. Fortunately, he still had his back to Marshall, so Les Rankin didn’t see Marshall in the brush. Marshall ducked down as Les, after prodding the corpse with the toe of his boot, cocked his head in all directions, scanning the bordering woods. The sounds of the Bog filled the air; the spring peepers’ song swelled and shadows thickened and reached out.

If there had been any doubt in Marshall’s mind concerning Les’ activities, the fiendishly hunted expression Les wore would have convinced him otherwise. Apparently satisfied that he hadn’t been observed, Les bent down and lifted the body from where he had let it drop.

Marshall took that time, while Les settled the body on his shoulder, to crawl on his hands and knees into the underbrush. Flattening himself on the ground, he pulled branches down in front of his face to screen himself.

Les groaned under the boy’s dead weight and then started walking directly toward Marshall. The pale white of the boy’s back seemed to glow with a phosphorescence. Marshall noticed, with some relief, that Les carried the body on his left side, the same side of the trail where he was hiding. He hoped that, when Les was close to him, the body would shield him from Les’ view.

The heavy tread of Les’ boots drew closer, and Marshall shrank back, trying to dissolve himself into the leafy mat on the woods floor. The damp ground seeped through his clothes, giving him a bone-deep chill. Les came closer, his footing steady and strong on the narrow trail.

As Les came right up to where he lay, Marshall closed his eyes. He couldn’t watch. His bladder ached with pressure. Right in front of where Marshall was hiding, the footsteps stopped. Marshall almost yelled with fear and tension. He slowly opened his eyes, expecting to see Les’ smiling face glaring down at him.

Les was muttering to himself, swearing softly as he shifted the corpse from his left to his right shoulder. Marshall could have reached out and touched the toe of Les’ work boot.

“Fuckin’ bastard!” Les mumbled softly.

Marshall tensed, waiting for the hand to shoot out and grab him roughly by the collar.

“I can’t wait to get the fuck rid of you,” Les said. And then he started on down the trail, away from Marshall’s hiding place.

Relief flooded over Marshall as he saw Les walking away, down the trail toward the Bog. He craned his neck so he could watch the man and his horrible burden. The dead boy’s legs flopped behind him, looking like mere bones in their thin whiteness. Marshall groaned and let his face drop onto the ground where he stayed for a while as his heart gradually slowed its racing.

Finally, using his walking stick and a sapling for support, Marshall pulled himself into a standing position. He strained his ears to see if he could hear Les walking on the trail, but nothing but the spring peepers’ song filled the air.

Marshall realized with a sudden fright that Les had walked off in the same direction the two searchers, Jack and Carl, had taken. He was heading toward the Bog! Marshall quickly concluded that Les intended to sink the boy’s body in the Bog—remove the evidence! He considered what he should do about it. What could he possibly do to prove that Les had killed the boy?

Marshall realized that he would have quite a bit of difficulty convincing Shaw or anyone else that Les was the killer. Les’ reputation around town, although not perfect, was still solid; he was a family man who worked hard for the town highway crew.
He
wasn’t the kind of person who would kill little boys!

With these thoughts came another thought. Marshall realized that, if anyone was under suspicion, he was. He knew that there were plenty of people in town who didn’t trust him. Living alone as he did and not at all neighborly, he knew that he would have a hard time convincing anyone of what he had seen. He would have to have some solid proof.

Deciding that knowing where Les hid the body was his best possibility, Marshall started off down the path in the direction Les had taken.

Marshall walked swiftly for his age. His left leg was beginning to ache, and his limp became more pronounced, but he hurried, trying to close the gap between himself and Les. He tried to balance speed with caution but decided to maintain a steady pace so, in case he bumped into Les, he could convince him that he was just out for a late afternoon walk. He was, after all, still on his own property.

The further he went along the trail, the closer and denser grew the vegetation. Marshall became apprehensive as the sky grew darker and the shadows in the brush thickened. It wouldn’t be dark for another few hours, but here, deep in the woods, night came sooner. The sound of the spring peepers grew increasingly louder until it was almost a wall of sound.

As Marshall turned a corner in the trail, he suddenly jolted to a stop, almost falling over. Ahead of him, on the trail, he could see that Les had stopped and was standing there in the middle of the trail. He still held the boy’s corpse on his shoulder, but he was leaning forward, as though listening intently to something.