The Backwoods

(III)

I don’t believe it, Patricia thought. She looked up the hill, lit by morning sun, and saw what appeared to be a Squatter family leaving the Point. A ragtag man and woman, plus a child, trudged up the hill toward the main road out of town, carrying sacks of clothes and beaten suitcases.

They’re leaving town. . . .

At the end of the trail she spotted a figure coming her way, a toolbox at the end of one strong arm. She scarcely had a minute to contemplate the idea that Squatters were actually moving away out of fear, and now more of this distraction.

Oh, no, not again.

It was Ernie who headed toward her. He smiled and waved.

Patricia had hoped for a nice, leisurely walk by herself, to clear her head. But the instant she saw him . . .

All that sexual tension returned.

Damn it.

He wended up the rest of the trail, the Stanherd house looming in the background.

“Mornin’,” he greeted her.

“Where have you been?”

“I just come from the Stanherd house. Last week Everd asked to borrow my tools to replace some missing shingles, so I thought I’d drop ’em off with Marthe for when he comes back from the boats.” He set the toolbox down, suddenly looking confused. “But he ain’t there.”

“He works the crabbing boats every morning, I thought. He’s probably on the water.”

“His boat’s still tied up at the dock, and so are half a’ the others. What I mean is Everd and his wife are gone. They left town’s, what the men at the pier told me.”

“They . . .” Then Patricia looked farther up the trail and saw yet another Squatter family trudging away. “It looks like quite a few clan people are leaving.”

“Things change. I guess it was bound to happen.” Ernie’s face looked deflated.

“I guess if I had a family, and drugs started popping up in the neighborhood, I’d move too,” Patricia reasoned.

“The others are sayin’ that ain’t the real reason,” Ernie said. “I just talked to some a’ the men at the docks, said a lot of clan are leavin’ ’cos they’re just plain scared.”

“Scared of what?”

“Well, it’s like we were talkin’ the other day. Rumors everywhere—ya never really find out what the true story is. But some a’ the clan are sayin’ that this whole drug business is a setup, and that somebody murdered the Hilds and the Ealds to scare the bejesus out of the rest a’ the Squatters, to get ’em to clear out.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Patricia replied. “Nobody wants the Squatters to leave. . . .” But then the rest of her sentence trailed off as she considered her words.

“Uh-hmm,” Ernie edged in. “That Felps fella would love for the Squats to leave. With nobody to run the crabbing business, Judy’d be much more tempted to just say to hell with it and sell the land.”

“To Felps, you’re right.” A breeze ran through her red hair. “He’s already made offers. But that’s still crazy. I don’t believe for a minute that Gordon Felps is murdering Squatters for the sake of his condo development.”

“Neither do I, but ya gotta admit the coincidence.” Ernie pointed to one of the shanties, where a man hauled a suitcase out the front door. “Looks like a lot of ‘em are figurin’ they’d be safer somewhere else. They don’t wanna wind up like the Hilds ‘n’ the Ealds.”

Like a chain reaction, Patricia thought. The murder of the Hilds, plus the fire, has started a mass exodus. Ernie’s suspicion of Gordon Felps was an overreaction; nevertheless, she wondered how long it would be before he came back to Judy with another offer to purchase the property.

“Let’s just go ask someone,” she said off the top of her head.

“Huh?”

“Come on. . . .”

He followed her back down the trail. High grass on either side shimmered in sunlight, while lone cicadas buzzed clumsily through the air. Patricia wasn’t sure what lured her down the hill; perhaps she just wanted to see more directly for herself. They approached one larger shack made of roofing metal. Outside was a chicken-wire pen that caged, of all things, several seagulls.

“Seagulls as pets?” she questioned.

“Not quite,” Ernie said. “The Squatters use gull fat to make candles, and they eat the meat. Roasted gull tastes just like—”

“Let me guess. Chicken.”

“Naw, tastes like mallard duck.”

Patricia shook her head. “I’ve never heard of anyone eating seagull. They’re like pigeons, I thought. Don’t taste good.”

“They pen ‘em for two weeks, and feed ’em nothin’ but corn. Just wait till the clan banquet tomorrow. You’ll have to try some.”

Patricia doubted she would. “I’d be surprised if they even had this banquet. With four of their own killed in a couple of days . . . that’s not exactly a festive occasion.”

“That ain’t how the Squatters see it. Every day they’re alive they consider a gift from God.”

Patricia appreciated the positive philosophy. Eat, drink, and be merry, she thought, for tomorrow you may die? But she honestly wondered how many of them believed the others had been murdered as a scare tactic.

A little Squatter girl—about ten—moseyed about the pen. She wore a frayed and obviously handmade sun-dress, and had a mop of black hair.

“Hi, there,” Patricia greeted her. “Are these your birds?”

The little girl looked up despondently and nodded. She looked on the verge of tears. Then she opened the makeshift door of the pen and began shooing the gulls out with a branch.

“Why are you letting them go?”

In a rush, all of the hefty birds scampered out of the pen and flew off at once. “Cain’t take ’em with us, my daddy said,” the little girl told them.

“Where are you goin’?” Ernie asked.

The girl’s accent warbled from her small mouth. “Someplace called Norfolk, ‘cos my daddy says he might git a job on the big crab boats. But we cain’t stay here, ’cos someone might kill us.” And then the little girl ran back into the shed.

“That’s so sad,” Patricia said.

“Yeah, but like I said . . .”

Patricia tried to unclutter her mind as they meandered back toward her sister’s house. She frowned to herself when Ernie turned his back to her.

It was that same distraction again—raging, fraying her sexual nerves. Whenever she tried to focus on something else, his aura kept dragging her eyes back to his unknowing body: the long flow of his hair, the strong legs in tight workman’s jeans, the strong back. What if I weren’t married; what if I weren’t. . . ? Her thoughts kept betraying her.

Just remember what Dr. Sallee said. Women my age experience their actual sexual peak. It’s normal for me to feel this way . . . as long as I don’t act on those feelings.

His boots crunched up the trail before her, and that alternate voice kept asking her: What if I weren’t married?

It didn’t matter.

“Well, how do ya like that?”

Patricia reclaimed her attention; Ernie had stopped on the incline of the trail, looking up toward the main road.

“What are you . . .” But then she spotted the vehicle herself, a new large pickup truck parked at the shoulder. Even at this considerable distance she could see the man sitting in the driver’s seat peering down into the center of Squatterville, as though he were actually watching the clan families trudging away from their homes in order to leave town.

The man in the pickup truck was Gordon Felps.