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“Don’t wave it at me!” Marcia covered her mouth with one hand and stifled a laugh.
Tyler gripped the dead raccoon using one yellow rubber glove. The bottom half of its body had rotted clean away. Only one leg remained, and that was hanging off by a sinew. “I think it’s dead. What do you think?” He held it inches from her face now.
Kevin took a snap of the attack with his iPhone.
“I’m warning you, Tyler.” She tried to keep her expression straight. “Take it outside.”
“Want some, skidmark?” Tyler swung the raccoon carcass in Kevin’s direction.
He’d been standing behind his brother, looking through his phone, but his expression turned to abject horror. He stumbled back and knocked the box of groceries off the kitchen table. Cans scattered and tomatoes rolled.
“Tyler, that’s enough.” But Marcia couldn’t deny she’d enjoyed seeing the sadistic glee on Kevin’s face evaporate. “I’m serious. Put that in the trash and help your brother clean up or we won’t be going to Elkhorns.”
They’d all detected the smell as soon as they’d unlocked the front door. It had happened on more than one occasion. Raccoons were great climbers. The animals got trapped in the attic crawlspace and died there. It was a familiar aroma to be greeted by. Bizarrely, it had become a “your vacation starts here” ritual.
Tyler lunged once more at Kevin with the animal, but Marcia knew it would be the last gesture of defiance. He reluctantly butted the screen with his shoulder and carried the raccoon outside.
“Kevin, they’re rolling under the refrigerator.”
Her youngest pocketed his iPhone and started gathering up the rogue groceries. Ted had always drilled the boys, while Marcia had concentrated on feeding them and making sure they looked presentable. Now she was responsible for all three.
She’d always thought she would be the one to buckle under the pressure of what the boys demanded from her every day, but when Ted had split, Marcia had no choice but to assume his duties. She’d been surprised at how little he’d contributed bar his salary, but she knew they still needed a father figure. Despite her being a Montana native, Ted was the one who’d used to take them hunting and out onto the river in his motorboat. He’d always filled their vacation with boys’ pursuits, enjoying the fire-building, cookouts and canoeing as much as they had.
Whispering Brook, the vacation hunt lodge with the increasingly flea-bitten animal heads in the den, belonged to her folks, but they were getting more infirm, so the six-room property on the edge of the Flathead was empty most of the year. She liked to come stay in the fall or early spring. With fewer vacationers, they got the place to themselves. It wasn’t exactly wilderness. West Glacier village was less than a mile away and Martin City only ten. But it was sufficiently removed from civilisation to feel like a getaway.
Despite her upbringing, Marcia never liked the idea of renting somewhere too isolated, didn’t want to be far from other people. There were so many ways for the boys to endanger themselves. She couldn’t think about that too much. But, as Ted had pointed out on their first family vacation here, there were probably more immediate dangers in Auburn.
Ted was out of the equation now, though. No tree-climbing, trap-building or target practice. His guns had been locked away, and the boys weren’t allowed to take the boat out without her being present. The keys to both were always in her pocket.
Marcia pushed the screen and looked down the jetty to the afternoon sun coruscating on the dirty blue water. She tried to breathe in the chilly serenity, but Tyler was scraping his gloved hand on the edge of the trashcan with a look of disgust. He glanced up at her and was obviously mortified to be found looking as repelled by the carcass as his mother.
“Raccoon fudge,” he said, trying to salvage his image.
Marcia wrinkled her nose for his benefit. “Come and get washed, squirt.” She didn’t know why she suddenly used the term. It was Ted’s and she’d always hated it.
Tyler grinned uncomfortably and it reminded her of the way he’d smirked when they’d had the conversation about the porno stars on his laptop.
He scuffed past her and into the lodge. He was nineteen next month, and Marcia was sure her parents would have been shocked to know what she had at that age. Besides, where did she get off lecturing him about exploitation? She was the one who encouraged Tyler to upload his phone clip of the British couple to his YouTube channel. Had she thought about their dignity when she’d seen an opportunity to make a fast buck?
There had been so much online interest in that woman’s assault on the crowd. To begin with, she’d squared it by telling herself she’d been pissed because her son had been on the receiving end of her fists. Tyler hadn’t got as much as a scratch from the episode, though. He shouldn’t have used his phone to shoot something like that. But some of his friends had. Peer pressure. It was how the world operated today. Everything got recorded and sometimes it was a damn good thing. It was like another form of insurance.
Marcia had seen how one of the other YouTube clips had attracted advertisers, and decided her own family’s precarious financial predicament overrode any issues of privacy the couple would have expected in that moment.
When she got Tyler to upload the clip, she certainly hadn’t known the woman’s husband had died. Not immediately. It had happened in France, and the couple was from the UK. It had taken weeks for that to filter back. But she still hadn’t told Tyler to take it down.
She’d never been to France or Europe. It had cost her a small fortune for Tyler to go on that student exchange. Ted had said it was way too expensive. But her oldest had wanted to go so much, and she’d known he might never get another opportunity. That and Ted’s opposition had made her mind up. They were still financially recovering.
And if it wasn’t for the revenue generated by the clip, they wouldn’t be on vacation now. Tyler liked dinner at Elkhorns, and she wanted to take him there every night if he wanted. She followed him back into the lodge and wondered how her older sister Jess was doing back home. She’d jumped at the chance to house-sit. Marcia’s brother-in-law Tim was drinking again, and when he hit the bottle, looking after Marcia’s place was her only safe haven from it.
