These Silent Woods: A Novel(10)

“Where’s Jake?” His raspy voice, just there, all of a sudden.

I’m at the edge of the garden, cutting back the raspberry bushes, absorbed in thinking about what Finch and me are gonna do, how much time we’ve got. “You ever think about finding some sort of hobby, Scotland? Something besides spying on your neighbors.”

Well, maybe that sounds rude. Unnecessary. But here’s the thing. That first time he showed up in the yard with the flare and the rabbit—those newspapers he brought, they weren’t just a random assortment. They were carefully selected. Every single one of them had an article about me. Turned out Cindy’s parents had exerted their influence and gotten the word out, far and wide. Made me look like some kind of lunatic. One of them even had a big headline that said AMERICAN PRODIGAL, just like what Scotland had called me. Scotland, in that subtle and insidious way of his, was sending a message that he knew who I was, what I’d done, why Finch and me were in the woods. He wanted me to know he had me. I pictured him watching us through his spotting scope, reading the papers, curating the ones that had something about me in them, then making his delivery with the AK-47 strapped across his back. Well, I never mentioned those papers and their content to him—I refused to give him the satisfaction of knowing just how much they ruffled me—but I decided right then and there that I could never let my guard down around him. I could never trust him.

I continue cutting the bushes to the ground, piling the branches behind me. Working faster. Crow is perched on Scotland’s shoulder, and when I look at him, he opens his beak and caws, mouthing off.

“No time for hobbies,” Scotland says, placing a stack of newspapers on the porch. He still brings them, from time to time. Finch likes to read them, I never even look. “Besides, ‘Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.’ That’s what the Good Book says. Now, back to the matter of Jake. Tell me what’s going on. It’s the fifteenth. He should be here by now.”

I shake my head. It’s only been a few hours since I had to tell Finch. “You sure do like to keep track of things, don’t you, Scotland.”

“As a matter of fact, I do, Cooper. I’ve always kept a calendar. A journal, you might call it, though it’s more just a log of what happens each day. Fastidious. ‘Attentive to and concerned about detail.’ That’s what my daddy used to call me, and I do believe he was right.”

Finch, who’d been at the back of the house paying respects to Susanna the chicken, bounds around to the front yard. “Scotland!” She runs to him, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Jake’s dead,” Finch says.

“Finch.” I look at Scotland. “We don’t know that.”

“He is,” Finch says. “I can feel it in my soul. He has departed this world.”

Scotland shoves his hands into his pockets and turns away from us. He walks out of the little garden and heads over to one of the apple trees. “He helped plant these trees. I remember. Oh, I bet he wasn’t any bigger than you, Finch.”

“You knew Jake?”

He cocks his head to the side, twists his mouth. “I knew he was here, with his family.”

“Did you look after them, like you do with us?” Finch asks, finding a spot on the grass and plopping down.

“You could say that.”

“With your spotting scope?” She rolls a stick back and forth in her palm.

“The very same one.”

A red-tailed hawk sails overhead, casting a shadow that waves across the yard. Crow flaps off to a nearby white pine.

Scotland lowers down and sits cross-legged beside Finch, his knee touching hers. “You doing all right, little bird? I know how much he meant to you.”

“He was my friend,” she says. She places the stick in her lap and folds her hands across her chest. “‘O past! O happy life! O songs of joy! In the air, in the woods, over fields, Loved!’”

Whitman. I look at Scotland and shake my head.

“He was a good man,” Scotland says. “A very good man. With a kind spirit and a heart of gold.”

“And now we won’t ever see him again.”

Scotland reaches and holds out his hand and she takes it, her tiny hand swallowed in his fat, dirty fingers. “It’s terrible to lose someone you love, terrible. Makes you hurt in ways you didn’t know you could hurt.”

Finch begins to tremble, and I keep pruning, a little stumped by Scotland, as usual: this unexpected wisdom. And also just a little irritated at the way he is so at ease with extending comfort, how he just knew what to say, how he offered his hand. Over the years he and Finch have grown close—unavoidable, perhaps, given our lack of social opportunities, not to mention her general propensity to get so attached to people—but still, I don’t like it.

“It’ll get better, Finch. Right now the sadness is all there is. Maybe it feels like there’s something so heavy pulling at you that you’ll sink right down into the earth and never feel light again. But you will, in time. I promise.”

She wipes her eyes and then asks, her voice shaking, “How long? How long does it take?”

Scotland shakes his head. “I can’t say, Finch. Wish I could. It sort of differs from person to person. But time will tell. Most likely, you’ll just realize one day that you don’t feel as sad as you did the day before. And the day after that, you’ll be a little better, and so on. I’m guessing it’ll never fully go away, but it gets better.”