The Call of Distant Shores (11 page)

"Hell of a job," Jasper commented.
 
"Gonna make
settin
' up a
durn
site easier."

Bobby Lee nodded.
 
Now that he'd stopped working and started seeing what he'd been doing, he'd taken on a sort of glazed expression.
 
He heard
 
Jasper fine, but didn't seem to really be paying any attention to him.
 
He was looking at the earth he'd cleared, and glancing up now and then at the truck, as if there was something he couldn't quite make sense of.

"We have to put her here first," Bobby Lee said at last, tossing his rake aside.
 
"I ain't seen the door of that shed, but I'm betting it's not big enough to take her in through.
 
I brought us some pallets I had out back 'a my place to keep her out of the dirt."

Jasper blinked.
 
He hadn't thought about it, but damned if Bobby Lee wasn't right.
 
They'd have to build the shed around that thing, and even then it was going to come close.
 
The peaked roof of the shed would top out at around eight feet in height, and the roach ran over seven.
 
Jasper shook his head.

"We're damn fools, is what we are," he commented, turning away.
 
"Damn fools."

Bobby Lee didn't answer.
 
He was already headed toward his truck, the tarp, and the giant wooden body beneath.
 
While Jasper unpacked his own truck, setting up the tomatoes and beans in neat rows on the bench out in front of his stand, Bobby unfurled the tarp, rolled it and tossed it to one side.
 
Then he got in behind the wheel of his truck and very slowly backed it toward the space he'd cleared, being careful not to catch the edge of his tailgate on the corner of the produce stand.

Jasper paid him no mind.
 
He knew there'd be a short rush on the vegetables just before noon,
 
and he needed to get them out and in place to be inspected, detected and selected, as his ol' Pap had used to say.
 
No time for cockroach nonsense, nor for Bobby Lee himself, if it came to it.
 
That boy needed any help, he'd have to holler for it.

That call never came.
 
Jasper plunked down into his old rocker, kicked up his boots like he'd done a thousand times before, and started rocking.
 
Mrs.
Tefft
dropped by on her way back from dropping her kids at school and picked up two pounds of fresh tomatoes.
 
Edna Johnson came by for her regular order of green beans and potatoes, and Sheriff Ben Grouse pulled up in his cruiser to grab a small basket of strawberries for his Missus.
 
Jasper never charged the Sheriff for small things like the strawberries, and in return Jasper never got charged with anything himself.
 
Like drunk driving, or illegal parking.
 
Or running a produce stand without a business license.
 
Things in the country had a way of working themselves out.

All that while, Bobby Lee was out of site back behind the stand.
 
None of Jasper's customers commented on it, though Sheriff Grouse eyed Bobby's old pickup suspiciously while he perused the strawberries.

A couple of times Bobby Lee walked past to Jasper's truck, grabbed parts of the shed out of its long, corrugated box, and headed back out of site, but he didn't say a word.
 
He was moving fast and he kept his head down, mumbling to himself all the time.
 
Jasper figured it for cursing, but the one time Bobby Lee came close enough for his friend to hear, all that came across was some sort of rhythmic mumbo jumbo.

"What you
doin
', Bobby Lee?" Jasper called after him.
 
"
Takin
' up that rap music?"

Bobby Lee didn't answer, and Jasper wasn't inclined to raise himself out of his seat and follow after to insist on it.
 
Truth be told, he didn't rightly care what Bobby Lee was
sayin
' as long as he didn't say "Come on back and help me, Jasper."

The noon rush passed, and Jasper was popping the top on his second beer when he finally started to feel guilty.
 
Bobby Lee had been working quietly all morning long, since before Jasper himself had even arrived, and not a finger had been raised to help him.
 
It was true that Jasper himself had provided the land, the shed, and all the moral support a fella could want, but it was also true that he'd agreed to be part of this cockamamie project.
 
The least he could do was make a solid effort to pitch in and do his part.

Besides, the pile of shed parts still left in the truck was getting pretty small, and Jasper was beginning to wonder just what the hell Bobby Lee was doing back there.
 
They'd agreed to move the cockroach into the cleared spot first, then build the shed, but it seemed like Bobby Lee had changed his mind somewhere along the way and just started building.
 
Hell, from the banging and clanking Jasper had heard, the damn thing must be just about finished, and that was a job.
 
Jasper had built one just like it out back of his house for storing lawn tools and making home brew.

Shifting his weight forward, he sat up, drained his beer, reached with practiced ease into the cooler and brought out two more.
 
Then, with a long, drawn-out burp, he stood and headed around back of the stand.

For the second time that day, Jasper Winslow stopped dead in his tracks.
 
He felt the bottle in his left hand slipping free and gripped it very suddenly, stumbling back.
 
Bobby Lee's truck stood off to the side again, but it was empty.
 
The damned roach was nowhere to be seen, and standing smack-dab in the center of that cleared plot of land, the shed had taken shape.
 
More than that, it was perfect.
 
Jasper had had two cousins and his old lady helping, and he had not managed to get his shed up in near the time or manner that Bobby Lee had done this one by himself.

Bobby Lee was nowhere to be seen, and Jasper, taking a deep breath for courage, stepped forward to the door, slid it aside, and stepped inside.
 
The building's interior was shadowed.
 
There were no windows, and even the sunlight that slipped in behind him through the door could do little.
 
Jasper stepped forward, blinking, and ran smack into something hard after the second step.
 
Something jabbed his cheek hard, something smooth and cool.
 
Something hard.

"Damn!" he grunted, stepping back. "Bobby?
 
You in here?
 
What in hell did you DO?"

There was no reply, but Jasper could hear the murmur of voices near the rear of the shed.
 
He reached out with one hand, letting the beer bottle crack gently into the side wall of the shed, and followed the left wall around, being careful not to move too fast, in case any more of the damned cockroach's double-D goddamned appendages felt inclined to give him a whack.

About halfway back, Jasper stopped.
 
The shed had gone deathly cold.
 
And quiet.
 
The shadows, which shouldn't have been very deep in a building with open eaves and the front door slid wide, clung to him, blocking his vision.
 
The mumble of voices had shifted to more of a drone, like a bunch of midge flies hovering over the swamp.
 
The tone rose and fell in a steady, hypnotic pattern, but there was no sign of Bobby.

Jasper turned and edged his way back toward the front.
 
He had a big Halogen search light in the back of his truck he used for deer spotting.
 
That would light this place up and show him what was what.

Thing was, the further he slid along the wall toward where he knew that door had to be, the further it seemed he still had to go.
 
He saw the cleared dirt outside, plain as day, but his breath was coming in short bursts, and he knew, without seeing it, that it was shooting out of his mouth like fog.
 
It was cold enough Jasper felt the frost that suddenly coated the beers he held, and the burn of the cold glass against his skin.
 
His toes were numb, and each step he took toward the door, and the light, was an effort he wasn't sure he felt like making.

Then the sound stopped.
 
A hand fell heavily on Jasper's shoulder and he screamed, jumping back against the pressed metal wall so hard it dented.
 
He gripped the beers so tightly he wondered if they might shatter.

The shed had grown lighter.
 
Bobby Lee stood in front of him, grinning like an idiot, and holding out a hand for one of the beers.

Jasper teetered.
 
He leaned heavily on the wall, despite knowing full well it had been erected by the grinning idiot standing before him in about half the time the job should have taken.
 
It held.

"Hell, Jasper, what's wrong with you?" Bobby Lee asked, as though nothing was the matter.
 
"You look like you seen a ghost.
 
Or maybe," Bobby grinned, turning and raising a hand to the wooden monstrosity behind him, "a giant cock-a-roach?"

Jasper heaved off the wall and lurched to the door, stumbling out into the late afternoon light.
 
He took in several deep breaths, then turned back.
 
All he saw was Bobby, sipping on his beer and staring back at him.
 
The shed behind Bobby's back had no special characteristics, beyond being extremely well-constructed.
 
There was no way to penetrate the shadowed interior from where Jasper stood, but he heard no soft voices and he saw no deeper-than-normal shadows.
 
The air was warm, moist, and filled with mosquitoes.

Jasper shook his head.
 
He glanced down and noticed he was still holding his unopened beer.
 
With a quick twist, he decapitated it and tossed down half the bottle.

"Maybe you've been
sittin
' out in the sun too long, Jasper," Bobby Lee commented.
 
"You don't look so good."

"You didn't see, or hear, or feel anything wrong in there?" Jasper asked, eyeing his friend suspiciously.

"Like what?" Bobby Lee scratched his head and took a draw from his beer.
 
"I was in the back,
tyin
' down the straps to hold that big old money-
makin
' baby in place.
 
I didn't see or hear a thing."

"I don't reckon you want to tell me how you got that thing out of your truck, neither," Jasper observed, his eyes
 
narrowing.

Bobby Lee never blinked.
 
"I backed her up and used the winch.
 
How in hell did you think I got her
in
the truck, Jasper?
 
I ain't no Superman."

Jasper blinked.
 
He hadn't expected such a simple answer, and if he could've gotten his body to contort to the right shape, he'd have kicked himself in the ass for not thinking of it.

"Is there somethin' wrong, Jasper?" Bobby Lee asked.

Jasper turned away and lurched back toward his seat, and his beer.
 
He didn't say a thing until he was seated once more in his old rocker, staring out at the dying sun and route 17 passing in the distance.
 
He reached for another beer, tossed another one to Bobby, and closed his eyes, leaning back.

"So," he said at last.
 
"Just when did you expect we would start drawing in these 'Cockroach Suckers,'" he asked.

Bobby was grinning when he opened his eyes, and the two talked well into the evening, watching the sun dip deep orange behind the line of trees that bordered the swamp.
 
Finally, when the last of the beers had been emptied, Jasper rose shakily, heading for his truck.
 
He left the produce baskets as they stood and grimaced at the expected tirade when he reached home without them, drunk.
 
Didn't matter. For once, Jasper was convinced that Bobby Lee might border on human intelligence, and might actually, God forbid, be right about something.
 
They were going to make them a pile of money, and it was going to start the very next day.

Bobby Lee stood beside Jasper's truck and helped him up into the seat, slamming the door for his friend.

"I'll see you tomorrow, partner," Bobby said.
 
"Bright and early."

"You done a piece of work today, Bobby," Jasper replied.
 
"Maybe you should sleep in a bit.
 
Won' t be any good tomorrow if you're all worn out, or hung over."

Bobby winked at him, and something in that gesture, something sparking deep in his friend's eye, sent the cold air shiver and the murmur of distant voices caroming off his skull and ricocheting about his mind.

"Don't you worry about me," Bobby said, his voice low.
 
"I'll be here, ready to rock."

Jasper turned the key in the ignition and brought his old truck to life.
 
He punched down on the gas and shot out of the small gravel lot onto the feeder road without a word.
 
He was shaking, and his skin was coated in sweat.