Dreamcatcher(23)

'I hope you're wrong, but . . .' Jonesy shook his head. 'Did you ever smell anything like those farts?'

'Nope,' Beaver said. 'But there's a lot more going on with that guy than just a bad stomach.'

'What do you mean?'

'Well, he thinks it's November eleventh, for one thing.'

Jonesy had no idea what the Beav was talking about. November eleventh was the day their own hunting party had arrived, bundled into Henry's Scout, as always.

'Beav, it's Wednesday. It's the fourteenth.'

Beaver nodded, smiling a little in spite of himself. The tooth?pick, which had already picked up an appreciable warp, rolled from one side of his mouth to the other. 'I know that. You know that. Rick, he don't know that. Rick thinks it's the Lord's Day.'

'Beav, what exactly did he say to you?' Whatever it was, it couldn't have been much  -  it just didn't take that long to scramble a couple of eggs and heat a can of soup. That started a train of thought, and as Beaver talked, Jonesy ran water to do up the few dishes. He didn't mind camping out, but he was damned if he was going to live in squalor, as so many men seemed willing to do when they left their homes and went into the woods.

'What he said was they came up on Saturday so they could hunt a little, then spend Sunday working on the roof, which had a couple of leaks in it. He goes, "At least I didn't have to break the commandment about working on the Sabbath. When you're lost in the woods, the only thing you have to work on is not going crazy."'

'Huh,' Jonesy said.

'I guess I couldn't swear in a court of law that he thinks this is the eleventh, but it's either that or go back a week further, to the fourth, because he sure does think it's Sunday. And I just can't believe he's been out there ten days.'

Jonesy couldn't, either. But three? Yes. That he could believe. 'It would explain something he told me,' Jonesy said. 'He - '

The floor creaked and they both jumped a little, looking toward the closed bedroom door on the other side of the big room, but there was nothing to see. And the floors and walls were always creaking out here, even when the wind wasn't blowing up high. They looked at each other, a little shamefaced.

'Yeah, I'm jumpy,' Beaver said, perhaps reading Jonesy's face, perhaps picking the thought out of Jonesy's mind. 'Man, you have to admit it's a little creepy, him turning up right out of the woods like that.'

'Yeah, it is.'

'That fart sounded like he had something crammed up his butt that was dying of smoke inhalation.'

The Beav looked a little surprised at that, as he always did when he said something funny. They began laughing simultaneously, holding onto each other and doing it through open mouths, expelling the sounds as a series of harsh sighs, trying to keep it down, not wanting the poor guy to hear them if he was still awake, hear and know they were laughing at him. Jonesy had a particularly hard time keeping it quiet because the release was so necessary  -  it had a hysterical seventy to it and he doubled over, gasping and snorting, water running out of his eyes.

At last Beaver grabbed him and yanked him out the door. There they stood coatless in the deepening snow, finally able to laugh out loud with the booming wind to cover the sounds they made.

6

When they went back in again, Jonesy's hands were so numb he barely felt the hot water when he plunged his hands into it, but he was laughed out and that was good. He wondered again about Pete and Henry  -  how they were doing and if they'd make it back okay.

'You said it explained some stuff,' the Beav said. He had started another toothpick. 'What stuff?'

'He didn't know snow was coming,' Jonesy said. He spoke slowly, trying to recall McCarthy's exact words. "'So much for fair and seasonably cold," I think that's what he said. But that would make sense if the last forecast he heard was for the eleventh or twelfth. Because until late yesterday, it was fair, wasn't it?'

'Yeah, and seasonably f**kin cold,' Beaver agreed. He pulled a dishtowel with a pattern of faded ladybugs on it from the drawer by the sink and began to dry the dishes. He looked across at the closed bedroom door as he worked. 'What else'd he say?'

'That their camp was in Kineo.'

'Kineo? That's forty, fifty miles west of here. He - ' Beaver took the toothpick out of his mouth, examined the bite-marks on it, and put the other end in his mouth. 'Oh, I see.'

'Yeah. He couldn't have done all that in a single night, but if he was out there for three days - '

' - and four nights, if he got lost on Saturday afternoon that makes four nights - '

'Yeah, and four nights. So, supposing he kept pretty much headed dead east that whole time . . .' Jonesy calculated fifteen miles a day. 'I'd say it's possible.'

'But how come he didn't freeze?' Beaver had lowered his voice to a near-whisper, probably without being aware of it. 'He's got a nice heavy coat and he's wearin longies, but nights have been in the twenties everywhere north of the county line since Halloween. So you tell me how he spends four nights out there and doesn't freeze. Doesn't even look like he's got any frostbite, just that mess on his cheek.'

'I don't know. And there's something else,' Jonesy said. 'How come he doesn't have the start of a beard?'