The men had a good chuckle about the girl who had run past them in such a panic, all arms and legs flailing. “Like a colt learning to run for the first time, eh?” Thorvald said.
The thin man, Russell, looked at him sideways. “You raise a lot of horses, do you, Wilf?”
“Well, no, but —”
“What do you think she meant by duck eggs?” the boy with them asked.
“Beats me,” Russell said. “I don’t understand girls. Raised two myself, and they been nothing but trouble.”
The boy hadn’t laughed with the two men when the girl rushed by. He had just watched her go, followed by her runt of a brother. Now he gazed across the top of the orchard and saw them clambering onto the shoulder of the highway. An empty mill truck was approaching from the south, raising a cloud of dust in the heat.
“Anyway,” Russell said, “let’s go see about this job, Thorvald.”
The two men walked away from the pickup, and the boy followed. About halfway down the lawn, the boy glanced back over the orchard and saw the girl and Thorvald’s dog running up the dirt road toward Perch Lake, leaving the runt behind.
Climbing over the rail fence, Russell said, “Old Tobias Hartmann used to keep his sheep out here.”
“Well, it’s all gonna be paved over soon enough,” Thorvald said, hefting his belly over the fence. “No place for sheep.”
They trudged up the field, cutting through the overgrown weeds. “I figure I can fit in a quarter-mile track,” Thorvald continued, “with some nice hairpin turns and cutbacks. Got twenty go-carts on order from Carter Brothers in Alabama. Coming up August 1. I figure on a couple of months of business before the cold hits. I wish I’d thought of it in January and gotten to work in the spring.”
“How come you don’t just leave the tree?” the boy asked.
Thorvald stared at him. “You ever seen a go-cart track with an oak tree sticking up out of the middle of it? Some stupid kid will crash right into it, and his parents will sue me. Besides, I already got a buyer for the lumber — some architect from Toronto.” Thorvald laughed and turned to Russell. “This boy wants to talk you out of a paycheque, Larry!”
Russell glared at the boy. “Keep your mouth shut or head back to the truck.”
They got to the bottom of the tree and peered up into its branches.
“What do you think?” Thorvald asked.
“Three-man crew,” Russell said. “A two-day job. When do you need it done?”
“It’s gotta be gone by the end of next week. The grader’s coming in to start levelling the field the following Monday. Construction and paving arrives the week after.”
Russell shook his head. “I can’t start till Thursday afternoon. We’ll have to work into the weekend.”
“Whatever it takes.”
“I’ll drop off a quote tomorrow.”
“There’s a tree fort up there,” the boy said.
“Yeah,” Russell said, “make yourself useful and climb up and have a look.”
The boy moved to the ladder and began climbing quickly. The moon was already out, floating in the blue sky. It was strange to see the moon in daytime. At the top of the ladder he swung himself onto the fort and saw how the five thick branches of the tree extended upward from the main trunk. The fort was like a raft, he thought. Striding across the platform, he noticed a knothole in its centre about the diameter of a golf ball. That board was a bit loose, but otherwise the fort’s construction was sound. “It seems secure enough!” he yelled down. He could see lines in the field, trails cut by the people who had walked through the grass that day. “We can use this as a base. Take out the larger limbs and lower them down from here before cutting the trunk.”
“Great!” Russell shouted back. The two men turned and ambled away, heading toward the pickup.
Before climbing down the boy scanned the field and orchard and the dirt road that led to Perch Lake. The road and highway were empty now. Both the girl and her brother were gone. Six crows were squabbling for position on the power lines.