Dark Sky (Joe Pickett #21)(53)

He attached the heater to the tank, opened the valve, and could hear the hiss of gas. After three attempts with the wooden matches, the coil caught with a whoosh and quickly turned bright red. He adjusted the valve to keep it low and positioned the heater dish toward the center of the room.

Next, Joe peeled back the army blanket on the bed, and when he did, a half dozen mice shot out like sparks and skittered across the floor. The mice had nested in gnawed-out holes of a rolled-up mattress at the foot of the frame. There were still some in there, he thought. The bedroll quivered with them.

It answered the question of who would get the bed that night. Anybody but me, Joe thought.

That’s when he noticed a long bulge running lengthwise down the middle of the ancient box spring. He lifted it.

Between the frame and the box spring, on top of several cross slats, was a small-caliber rifle. It was old and the stock was rubbed clean of varnish.

He picked it up and walked over to the nearest window to see it better. It was a single-shot .22 bolt-action. The stamp on the barrel identified it as a J. C. Higgins Sears and Roebuck Model 41. There was a knob on the back of the receiver that was used to cock it. He tested the action and the spring still had tension. He guessed the gun was likely sixty years old and it had probably been used for plinking or to rid the place of rodents. It was the kind of rifle once given to twelve-year-old boys as their first gun. Joe had had a similar model, but it hadn’t been given to him by his dad. His dad never gave him anything like that. Joe and his brother had found the rifle beneath the floorboards of the rental house his parents lived in. They’d taken it out to kill rabbits, and the single-shot capability made him always cognizant of the importance of not taking foolish shots and of placing each round. The .22 wasn’t good for much else. It was too cheap and underpowered for game larger than a rabbit or a bird.

Then he noticed a box of cartridges on a shelf next to the door. The brass of the small rounds were mottled with age and the lead seemed so soft he could crease each round with his thumbnail.

Would they fire? He had no idea. Would the rifle still operate? Again, no idea.

Would he share the news of his discovery with Price or especially Boedecker?

He answered his own question as he turned back with the rifle to the battered mattress on the bed. He unrolled it and more mice scattered. The mattress itself was so damaged as to be useless. Joe placed the weapon on the end of the thin cushion and rolled it back up with the box of cartridges. He checked to make sure the butt of the stock couldn’t be seen by Boedecker from the outside.

Just as he finished, the door opened and Boedecker thrust the cleaned and plucked grouse inside, holding all three birds by their naked necks.

“Damn, it’s practically cozy in here!” Boedecker said. “Let’s eat.” Then, over his shoulder to Price: “Don’t just stand there being useless. Bring in a load of firewood.”



* * *



—

While Joe roasted the birds in a griddle on the stovetop, rolling them with a wooden spoon often to brown the skin evenly, Boedecker rooted through the junk pile for anything, he said, that could be useful to them. Joe kept a wary eye on him to make sure he didn’t roll out the bedroll. His mouth watered as the aroma from the roasting grouse filled the cabin.

Price sat in a chair with his legs splayed and his arms hung down between them. There was a vacant, almost hopeless look on his face, Joe thought. He got up only to peer over Joe’s shoulder at the crude cooking and then sat back down.

“Well, halle-fucking-lujah,” Boedecker called out. Joe turned as the man hoisted a three-quarters-full fifth of Ancient Age whiskey from a wooden box on the side of the pile. “We just might make it after all.”

“I don’t drink,” Price said sullenly.

“Further proof that you’re less than half a man,” Boedecker said as he crossed the room. “What makes you think I’d offer you some?”

Next to Joe, he unscrewed the cap and sniffed the open neck of the bottle. “I think it’s okay,” he said. “Bourbon doesn’t go bad over time, does it? I think it just gets better.”

He lifted the whiskey and took a long pull. His eyes teared up, and he said, “Damn, that’s the best bad whiskey I’ve ever had. It warms you up inside.”

He offered the bottle to Joe, who sipped it. The burn spread throughout his mouth and down his throat.

“We better take it easy on that,” Joe said.

“Oh, we will,” Boedecker said with a grin saying otherwise.

In addition to the whiskey, Boedecker found two misshapen cans of green beans under the wash table.

“What do you think?” he asked Joe.

Joe shook his head, not sure. The cans had obviously frozen and thawed, frozen and thawed over the winters.

“They haven’t burst,” Boedecker said. “I say we boil the hell out of ’em.”

Which they did. Boedecker wiped the dirt from inside a pot and dumped the contents into it. He drank from the bottle as he watched the pot begin to smoke. Then he wandered back to the junk pile and left Joe to oversee the cooking of the meal.

“What the hell?” he said, and Joe turned around again to see Boedecker displaying a battered eighteen-inch speargun. “Why would they bring this up here?”

“Can’t even guess,” Joe said.