Spider Lake (33 page)

They backed away and ran the runabout along the shore where John last seen Morris. They went all the way along the lake searching the southern shoreline when they spotted the make-shift flag on the shore very near the monkey who was distracted apparently hunting for a frog or a crayfish. They ran the boat into the shore to scare the monkey from his new possession, positioning the boat hull in-between Morris and the flag.

John jumped over the windshield of his boat and grabbed the flag before the angered monkey could reach it. The stubborn animal shrieked at John using all the communication skills it had in his monkey repertoire to try and persuade John to give the thing up, and then he ran up a vine and disappeared into the forest.

John looked at the make-shift flag and turned the waistband for Paul to see it. The permanent marker that had been used revealed its owner. John was smiling ear to ear and he was crying when he showed the fireman the hand-written name. “Ben Fisher.” He thought about all the times he heckled Allie about writing the boy’s name on the band of his underwear. She was a creature of habit though, God bless her, and she still wrote his name long after she had stopped using the laundromat. John could still hear her saying, “John Fisher, do you want your son wearing some other boy’s underwear after swimming at the pool?”

The two men ran the runabout full throttle to tell Allie about the find. An hour later, the mansion grounds was once again buzzing at full steam with the news of the make-shift flag. Paul Everett had a megaphone and was informing the crowd of volunteers about the many possibilities of why the flag might have been made. He wanted to ask the volunteers to come forward if they had any ideas for the need of a flag before they all went looking.

In the end it was a little brownie girl-scout named Jill that walked up to the tent and asked to speak with John. One of the firemen walked in with her and introduced her. “John, this little girl says she might know where your son is. She said she wanted to tell you herself. Her name is Jill.”

“Hi Mister Fisher. I think I have an idea where the lost boys are.”

John kneeled down to be at eye-level with her.

“Well, Jill we are interested in any suggestions.”

“I think they might be at the Alamo.”

John had no idea what she was talking about. He thought she just had an over-active imagination. Maybe she just read a book about Davy Crockett. He thanked her and stood back up. He was preparing to go out with some firemen to search an area, when she followed him and tugged at his shirt tail.

“Mister Fisher, I don’t mean the real Alamo silly. I mean the Alamo here.”

John crouched again.

“What do you mean, the Alamo here?”

“Everybody knows about the Alamo. It’s in the forest.”

“Can you show me?”

“Sure I can Mister Fisher.”

She led John through the woods as far as she could safely, finally pointing to the general area where the Alamo once was. There were too many deadfalls for the little girl to reach the whole way, but she gave John a description. He sent her back in the arms of one of the firemen, and gave the man orders to bring more men and chain-saws and rescue gear.

Ben and Matt were asleep when John was being shown to the vicinity of the Alamo. Ben was dreaming that his father was calling him. The calling kept getting closer and Ben was happy. Matt was also hearing his friend’s father in a dream, and then he opened his eyes. There was dim light in the cellar so he knew it was daytime, but nobody was calling. He thought he would go back to sleep. Then he heard Ben’s dad call again and this time he was very close.

He looked over at his sleeping friend. Ben was snoring softly. He shook him to wake him. “Ben, I think it’s your dad. I think we’re saved!”

“What?”

“I think your dad is—”

“Ben! Matt! Are you in there?!”

Ben got to his feet and jumped to where he could see the opening. He didn’t have a flag, so he stuck his arm out the space in the jamb. A strong hand grabbed his own and then it squeezed when his dad said, “Ben, we will have you out of there as soon as we clear away the wood. Do you understand?”

Ben squeezed his father’s hand. He wanted to say yes, but his voice would only squeak. John tried to find a place where he could look down in, but it was impossible. He said, “Ben, I can’t see you from here. Is Matt okay? If he is squeeze my hand once. If he isn’t squeeze my hand twice.”

Ben answered his father with a squeeze. He was crying with happy tears. He could hear more men now. They were all getting very near.

“Ben, you and Matt stay away from the door. Keep away until we clear the deadfalls away. Okay?”

Ben squeezed his father’s hand once, and then he let go. The sound of chain-saws never sounded so good.

It took a half an hour to clear away the downed trees with so many happy firemen and volunteers. The cellar door was opened and the boys were carried out in stretchers. The firemen were surprised at the mechanical condition of the antique door of the root cellar. They thought about filling in the cellar with dirt to prevent anyone from ever getting trapped inside again, but finally decided just to bolt the cellar door shut with a heavy chain and padlock.

The two boys were hospitalized and treated for exposure. Ben was able to be discharged after a couple of days, but Matt was kept there longer due to his injuries. The x-rays they took of the boy revealed that he did indeed suffer a cracked rib and broken collar-bone. He would remain in the hospital for four more days, only because the medical staff wanted to keep a close eye on him.

The little girl named Jill was given a citation from the fire department for the part she played in the discovery of the boys, and she was interviewed by a newspaperman and had an article written about her.

Allie never left her son until Ben politely asked if he could play with someone his own age, and eventually the two parents got around to drilling the new rules about boats and storms into their son. They would also eventually have arguments about lost watches and the monkey, but that is a story for another time.

hen Ben regained conciousness it was still dark. He was lying on his back and his body was shivering. He was still beneath the old tower and for a minute, he thought he had fallen. His memory did come back to him though and he realized he had been badly beaten. He hurt pretty much everywhere, but his face and his head hurt the worse.

He felt his teeth with his tongue and realized that he had lost one tooth and chipped another. He winced when his tongue hit the raw nerve of the chipped tooth and he reached up and touched his swollen face. He felt like he had been hit by a truck. He sat up and as he did, his right side ached near the bottom of his rib cage. He looked around, but it was too dark to see if the Jeep-man and the skinny guy were still around.

He reached down into his left pocket where he kept his wallet and his cell phone and he pulled the phone out. He thumbed the on switch at the top and waited for the phone software to boot. When it was on, he checked the time. It was three-twelve in the morning. He thought that it would be smart to call the police, but what would he say he was doing there? He put the phone back into his pocket and forced himself to stand.

He had never been beaten up in all his lifetime. When he was thirteen he had been hit by a car, ending up on the car hood with his mangled bike beneath the wheels, and his memory of that pain seemed less than what he was feeling now. He remembered more clearly now the blows he took by his two attackers, and he guessed that they had kicked him a few times after he went down.

They had stolen his backpack. That was clear enough. He thought about how he could possibly get it back. He calculated the value of a couple hundred coins guessing their weight to be an ounce. He thought that it would probably be close to four hundred thousand dollars. He had the gold right on him in a backpack! There was no way he could get it back and he knew it. He was the stranger in town. The Jeep-man had the friends, the money, the alibi. What was the old saying? Possession is ninety percent of the law?

Ben felt like crying. He didn’t though. It wasn’t because he was a punching bag, physical pain never hurt as much as mental pain. He had come all this way and he was right about the dream. The inscription on the painting obviously said look inside, and the water-tower in the foreground was what he looked inside of. It was all so obvious once he put it all together.

Look inside Ben! Look inside the water-tower Ben! Why had the dream pushed him up here hundreds of miles to the north? Was it so the son of Digger could finally find his father’s gold? Why had Carly been plugged in to the cosmic force that would cause him to be beaten up? Was she the Jeep-man’s guardian angel? Or was she the skinny pool player’s? Not only had he done all the work for them, but he also had a couple of thousand dollars worth of dental work as payment for bringing it down.

Ben looked up into the sky. The storm had passed and the stars were out, and he could see the stripe of the milky way. He held his gaze a bit too long and became disoriented and unbalanced. He probably had sustained some brain damage as well. Only in his weakest moments did he ask, “Why me?” There was so much confusion and despair. He fell on his knees and he asked, “Why me God? I know I am not perfect. I am flawed and I know it, but have I been all that bad? Aren’t I one of your believers? Have I not read your word? Was I wanting too much just to ask for a normal life? Was I asking too much just to be able to house and feed my family? Why did you send me here? Was it you or was it the devil? Was all this just a ruse to make a couple of barflies rich?”

Ben sat in the open field on his knees for a while, thinking nothing. He was too disappointed to move. He was too tired to think. What would he tell Jill? She would not care about the money. She was never materialistic. She always had strength even during these last three years. She always kept steady and rarely did she get depressed. He wanted so bad to come through for her. He wanted to roll his motorcycle in the driveway and throw the gold out of the bag onto the front lawn.

He looked up again. The stars were gone and it started to rain. Then, even before he got back on his feet, it poured. He was soaked in the span of thirty-seconds. He looked up again and said; “That’s just great! That is the perfect ending! Dump some rain on the guy. He can take it!”

Ben walked over to where he left his boat. It was gone. No doubt the J-man and skinny guy used it to make their escape. Ben thought of the old Snagglepuss cartoon “Heavens to Murgatroyd, exit, stage left!” He could picture the two assailants doing the stage left gag and laughing all the way to his boat.

He decided to walk back up the property to the road and walk back that way to the resort. The pouring rain did have the positive effect of soothing his wounds. The cold water actually made him feel better, to think more clearly. When he got to the place where the old foundation of the mansion began, he looked to the west; thinking about the black days and nights he and Matt spent in the cellar. He stopped there just for a minute looking at the edge of the forest, thinking about his old friend. He hadn’t seen Matt since the fight. He didn’t even know if Matt was alive. He thought about little Jill, the girl who had saved him by pointing out the Alamo. The girl he would eventually marry.

He did have a lot. He was poor in some respects, but very rich in others. “God always makes a way out.” He said out loud but to himself.

He walked up the hill in the pouring rain.

When he finally reached the driveway of his boyhood home, the sign was knocked down. It had been shot with a shotgun; the pattern of the holes were large and less numerous. Ben guessed correctly it was buck shot. No doubt the two criminals that stole his gold shot up the resort sign. He hurried up the driveway thinking the worse, that maybe the Jeep-man and skinny had been capable of even more heinous crimes.

When he reached the clearing, the resort looked the same, but different. The grass was not cut. The cabins seemed more shabby. He stood there for a minute, thinking that maybe he had the wrong place, but it was Spider Lake Resort alright. He had just looked at the sign. He noticed the old shed was back again. The shed where he and Sam had found his grandfather’s tool box.

He looked at cabin four, and luckily, his bike was still under the tarp. He thought maybe they would steal his motorcycle also, but they didn’t. He walked slowly in the pouring rain, looking to his left and right as he went, half expecting the J-crew to jump out of the bushes and beat him up again. Looking down at the lake, he noticed the boats were— yellow and made of wood.

He still walked slowly to his cabin. He knew that there would probably be more surprises and he was right. The cabin had no fancy actuating door. He looked back over his shoulder at the main house. He knew there would be no keypad, no Carly. He reached in his pocket for his keys. He pulled out his own set and there was another single one on a separate key-chain. No doubt it was the cabin key. He also pulled out one gold coin. He thought about it. He wished he had put two there, then he could give one to each twin. Maybe the coin would pay for his dental work.