Travis had known there was a house out here in the deep bush – several times his family had driven this far out River Road to picnic at a nearby widening of the river that everyone in town called “The Lake” – but he had always believed the old place to be abandoned. The entrance was badly overgrown and the old black wood-frame building was barely visible from the gravel road.
There was, however, a mailbox. “B. D. Fo tai e,” it read. Both the n‘s were missing, but Travis had no trouble recognizing the name. Where, he wondered, did they get “Zeke” from?
There was also a sign, worn and fading:”BEWARE OF DOG.”
“You’re on your own, pal,” Nish said as he brought his bike to a gravel-spewing stop. “No way I’m goin’ in there.”
“I went to see the bears with you,” Travis answered. “You can come here with me.”
Reluctantly, Nish dismounted. “Personally,” he muttered, “I’d rather take my chances with the bears.”
They pushed their bikes up the long, overgrown laneway, the grass in the middle so high it was a wonder anyone could drive through. Travis listened for the first bark of the dog, but there was no sound.
He looked around for a car, or a half-ton truck, but could find none. Perhaps he was out. More likely, however, he had no car and Muck was picking him up and dropping him off. That would be just like Muck.
There were orange irises growing on one side of the laneway, but they had never been tended to – or at least not for years. They weren’t at all like the irises in Travis’s grandmother’s garden, and yet in their own way they were spectacular, almost as if their survival here gave them a doubled beauty. A few of the irises had recently been cut, the stems sliced off as neatly as if a razor blade had swept through them.
All around were rusted metal bars, old bedsprings, tires, car engines, a fishing boat with the bottom rotted clean through and, surprisingly, an old homemade lacrosse net made out of galvanized steel plumbing pipes and covered with burlap instead of netting. The burlap was rotting off. The net hadn’t been used for years.
Travis edged his way up to the rickety porch that hung off the main building. It looked like it was held in place by old Scotch tape rather than nails. The boards were soft and gave. He wondered if he might fall through.
“I’m outta here!” hissed Nish.
“You’re not going anywhere,” Travis whispered quickly.
Nish was sweating as heavily as if he were in full goal-tender’s equipment and playing the third period of a lacrosse game. His face was beet-red and twisted in a grimace. Travis would have expected nothing less.
Travis arrived at the door. It was open a crack. There were flies – bluebottles, mosquitoes, horseflies, deerflies – all around the opening, but it was impossible to tell whether they were trying to get in or out. From what little Travis could make out in the dark, he wouldn’t blame them for trying to escape. The floor was filthy and littered with junk. It was dark and it smelled of greasy cooking and kerosene and something else, something familiar.
Travis took one look back at his sweating pal and realized what the odour was: stale human sweat, worse than a lacrosse dressing room.
His heart pounding, Travis swallowed, took one deep breath, and knocked.
The boys waited. No movement. No barking. Nothing.
Travis knocked again, this time rapping his knuckles a little harder on the old door, which swung open slightly. He jumped back, afraid he’d be accused of just walking in.
But there was nothing.
“Thank God,” breathed Nish. “He’s not home.”
Travis stepped back. “I guess not,” he said. He didn’t know if he was disappointed or not. He didn’t like the idea of having to come out here again.
“But he specifically said this afternoon,” Travis said.
“I guess he forgot,” Nish said, seeming greatly relieved. “Let’s go.”
“Let’s just check around back first,” Travis suggested.
He caught Nish’s look. It was as if he’d suggested they both do a little extra math homework or stay after school to help. A look of absolute, disbelieving disgust. But Travis knew Nish would be too afraid – both of Mr. Fontaine and the bears – to strike out on his own for home. He would have to wait for Travis, no matter what.
“Hurry it up, then,” Nish hissed. “I haven’t got all day. I’m a busy man.”
Travis led the way around the side, shaking his head. What on earth could Nish mean, “I’m a busy man”? Was his cellphone ringing? Did he have to take a private jet to Hollywood? This movie stuff had gone to his head – and all they had was a little footage of three bears fighting over a garbage bag.
“It won’t take long,” Travis said in a whisper over his shoulder. He was still listening for the dog, once again wishing that instead of the lacrosse ball he had thought to stash a rock in his pocket, just in case. But still there was nothing. Not a sound anywhere but for the buzzing flies.
They turned around the side of the building, following a well-worn track. There were sheds out here, machine sheds and hay sheds and what must once have been animal sheds. He could still, faintly, smell the distinct odour of chicken and horse manure. But it seemed old. Very old. Decades old, for all Travis knew.
He checked each shed, but found no one. He dipped his head into what was obviously the tool shed and noticed a lamp burning – a coal-oil lamp, its wick flickering in the slight breeze that slipped in through the door. Travis knew that Mr. Fontaine must be around, or must have been around not long ago.
He turned to tell Nish that the shed was empty, that they could go home now. But Nish, moments ago as red as the bell on his mountain bike, was now as white as a sheet. His mouth seemed frozen open. He was pointing off into the bushes.
There, in the distance, someone was kneeling beneath a tall hemlock. Travis could tell from the man’s back, the long grey-white hair, the thick eyeglasses, the old grey shirt, that it was Zeke Fontaine. He seemed to be picking at something on the ground. He was flicking off pebbles and small branches, carefully arranging something on the earth. Something orange.
Irises!
Travis quickly looked at Nish again. His friend was still white, but his mouth had become unfrozen, and he was carefully mouthing something to him.
A grave!
Zeke Fontaine was arranging flowers over a grave. The ground had been cleared under the hemlock and carefully swept. A rough rectangle of earth rose slightly above the surrounding ground, the space not quite as large as a plot at the local cemetery. But big enough for a boy.
Liam Fontaine’s grave?
Travis shuddered. Was this the secret burial place of little Liam Fontaine? Was this what the father had done with the body after he had murdered his own son?
Travis and Nish exchanged a look of terror. It was time to get out of there. Travis turned quickly, and stepped onto a dry, dead twig.
SNAP!
“We’re dead meat!” Nish hissed.
Travis felt what little blood there was left in his face drain to his feet. He nearly went down with it, instantly dizzy, in full panic.
“Hey!” a voice called out. “Just stay right where you are!”