Face of Evil

CHAPTER TWO

On a chilly dawn less than two days before his death, Matthew Cahill chopped wood outside his cabin, which he'd built by hand with lumber that he'd cut at the sawmill where he worked.

He split the firewood with his grandfather's ax, working with a steady rhythm that somehow seemed in step with the cold breeze whistling through the tall, frosted pines and the beat of the water running over the rocks in the creek.

This was how Matt started every day, rain or shine, whether he needed firewood or not. He had enough wood to survive several winters, though this would be his last one here.

He did it partly for the exercise, to loosen up and get his blood pumping. But mostly he did to align himself, spiritually and emotionally, to the world around him, to renew his relationship to the most reliable, dependable, and enduring thing in his life.

Wood.

It was comfort, warmth, and shelter. It was the roof over his head, the heat in his stove, and the bed where he slept. It was how he earned his living.

Wood was history and heritage. He could see the past in the rings of every log he cut, in the scratches on a tabletop, in the sag of a bed frame, and in the fading planks of a home's siding. And he could feel it in the rough bark of the pines, in the smooth handle of his grandfather's ax, and in the memories emanating from the cabin walls like heat from an ember that never cooled.

And wood was pain, sorrow, and loss. It was the pine coffin that he'd made for his wife, Janey, who'd died a year ago in the bed they'd shared in the cabin that he'd built for her.

But each morning, with each swing of the ax and snap of split wood, his heartache ebbed and his reconnection to the life he was about to lose was strengthened.

Matt was shirtless this morning, a sheen of sweat on his muscled body despite the cold. He had a rugged physique and tanned skin that came from labor, not applied through hours spent in gyms and sunning on chaise lounges. His body was lived in, not worn like a stylish, tailored suit. It was real muscle, as Janey liked to say.

He stacked the wood in the storage shed, hung his ax and gloves on their pegs, and went back to the cabin, where he took a cold shower and dressed in his usual mud-caked work boots, faded jeans, and a heavy flannel shirt over a gray hoodie.

He made his bed, looked wistfully at Janey's photo on the nightstand, and remembered all the mornings that he'd awakened to her smile and her warmth before the cancer claimed her two days shy of her thirtieth birthday.

This, too, was part of his morning routine.

He had a quick breakfast of black coffee and buttermilk biscuits, got in his pickup truck, and headed down the hill towards Deerpark, a logging town built on the banks of the Chewelah River.

The truck bounced along the rutted old logging road, past a few scattered cabins and old farmhouses, before hitting the smattering of mobile homes that dotted the weedy fields at the bottom of the hill.

Matt was surprised to see his old buddy Andy Goodis leaning against Lissy Okrum's dented mailbox, smoking a cigarette and watching the road, obviously waiting for him to show up, though they hadn't made any plans.

Andy was brown haired and blue eyed, laid-back and loose limbed. He wore torn jeans, a faded denim work shirt over a white thermal T, a leather jacket, cowboy boots, and a Stetson. He looked like he was auditioning to be a model in a Levi's ad, something that might have been within the realm of possibility if not for his nose, which had been broken so many times that it looked like it had been molded out of Play-Doh by a very untalented child.

Matt pulled over in front of the mailbox and looked out the passenger window at Lissy, standing on the steps to her mobile home in her pink bathrobe and cradling a mug of coffee in her hands. Her patch of land was overgrown with weeds and she had a Buick up on blocks, where it had become a home to cats and other strays. Her bed was like that, too.

In high school, she'd been revered for her tit fucking. The boys lined up for the experience. Matt had been one of them. That was more than twenty years ago. Now Lissy was a cashier at the supermarket, and ever since Janey died, she smiled at Matt the same way she did that day in her father's shed when she removed her shirt.

Matt waved at her politely and she waved back. Andy flicked his cigarette in the mud and got into the truck.

"Thanks for the lift," Andy said. "My truck is down at the Longhorn."

"Ernie took your keys?" Matt asked as he got back on the road.

Andy nodded. “I was shit-faced drunk."

"You'd have to be to land in Lissy's bed again."

"Lissy's not so bad. She still knows how to use those tits, even if she can sweep the floor with 'em now. She asked about you. Wanted to know how you were doing."

"What did you say?"

"I said she should go up and see you sometime in your monastery, that you're lonely up there."

"I'm not," Matt said.

"Of course you are. When was the last time you had a woman?"

"You know the answer to that question."

Andy shook his head. “No wonder you're chopping so much wood. Save a forest and jerk off instead."

Matt grinned despite himself. “You're an asshole."

"That's what you like about me," Andy said, grinning back at him. “I do all the things you don't have the balls to do. It's been that way since we were kids."

"I never wanted to steal Mr. Erdmann's Mustang and drive it through the front window of the Nussbaums' store."

"You wanted a Mustang, didn't you?"

"I was eleven," Matt said.

"But I got us the Mustang, didn't I?" Andy said. “I'm just saying that while other people dream, I make dreams happen."

They drove through the center of town in silence. Most of the storefronts on Main Street were empty, the businesses long since euthanized by Walmart and the big-box retailers along the highway.

Matt pulled into the Longhorn parking lot beside Andy's pickup. Ernie had left the keys for Andy on the front tire, as he always did. There was no danger of anyone stealing Andy's truck. It was old, dented, and rust eaten and would have been recognized as Andy's anywhere in Clarion County.

"Thanks for the lift," Andy said. “See you at work."

"Maybe I should stick around and make sure it starts up," Matt said. “You don't want to show up late again."

"Bye, Grandma," Andy said, turning his back on Matt and walking to the car.

"What if you need a jump start?"

"I'll call triple-fucking-A." Andy snatched the keys and unlocked his door.

"You don't belong to triple-fucking-A. I'm your triple-fucking-A."

Andy climbed into his truck and started the engine. Or at least he tried. It didn't catch.

He looked up sheepishly at Matt, who sighed, reached behind his seat, and pulled out his jumper cables. Rescuing Andy was just another part of his routine, one that Matt would have been shocked to learn would continue even after his own death.