“Charlie! Get away from there!”
“Something’s inside and trying to get out. It sounds big.”
“Get back here, boy! You need to get back here!”
Another thud. More scratching. I had a hand over my mouth, as if to stifle a cry. I don’t remember putting it there.
“Charlie!”
Like Radar, I ran. Because as soon as I couldn’t see the shed anymore, it was easy to imagine the door busting off its hinges and some nightmare coming after me, skittering and lurching and making those inhuman cries.
Mr. Bowditch was wearing his awful Bermuda shorts and his old slippers, which he called scuffs. The healing wounds where the fixator rods had gone into his flesh were very red against his pale skin.
“Get inside! Get inside!”
“But what—”
“Nothing to worry about, that door’ll hold, but I need to take care of this.”
I came up the steps and was in time to hear what he said next, although he lowered his voice as people do when talking to themselves. “Son of a bitch moved the boards and blocks. Must be a big one.”
“I heard something like that before, when you were in the hospital, but not as loud.”
He pushed me into the kitchen and then followed, almost tripping over Radar, who was cowering at his feet, then catching himself on the doorjamb.
“Stay here. I’ll take care of this.”
He slammed the door to the backyard, then went limping and scuffling and swaying into the living room. Radar followed, her tail drooping. I heard him muttering, then a pained curse followed by a grunt of effort. When he came back, he was carrying the gun I’d asked him to bring downstairs. But not just the gun. It was in a leather holster, and the holster was attached to a leather belt studded with silver conchos. It looked like something out of Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. He cinched it around his waist so the holstered revolver rested just below his right hip. Rawhide strings—tie-downs—dangled against his madras shorts. It should have looked ridiculous—he should have looked ridiculous—but it didn’t and he didn’t.
“Stay in here.”
“Mr. Bowditch, what… you can’t…”
“Stay in here goddammit!” He grasped my arm so hard it hurt. He was breathing in quick rasps. “Stay with the dog. I mean it.”
He went out, slamming the door behind him, and sidesaddled down the steps. Radar bunted her head against my leg, whimpering. I stroked her distractedly, looking through the glass. Halfway to the shed, Mr. Bowditch reached into his left pocket and brought out his ring of keys. He picked one out and went on. He put the key in the big padlock, then drew the .45. He turned the key and opened the door, pointing the gun at a slight downward angle. I expected something or someone to come bursting out at him, but that didn’t happen. I did see movement—something black and thin. Then it was gone. Mr. Bowditch stepped into the shed and pulled the door shut behind him. Nothing happened for a long, long time that actually couldn’t have been more than five seconds. Then there were two gunshots. The shed walls had to be very thick, because the sounds, which must have been deafening in that enclosed space, came to me as a pair of flat, toneless thuds, like a sledgehammer with its head swaddled in felt.
There was nothing for a lot longer than five seconds; more like five minutes. The only thing that held me was the imperative tone of Mr. Bowditch’s voice and the utterly fierce look on his face when he told me to stay in here, goddammit. Finally, though, that couldn’t hold me any longer. I was sure something had happened to him. I opened the kitchen door, and just as I stepped out onto the back porch, the door of the shed opened and Mr. Bowditch came out. Radar bulleted past me, no sign of arthritis then, and cut across the yard to him as he shut the door and snapped the padlock into place. A good thing he did, because it was the only thing he had to hold onto when Radar jumped up on him.
“Down, Radar, get down!”
She went to her belly, tail wagging like mad. Mr. Bowditch came back to the porch much more slowly than he’d gone down to the shed, limping noticeably on his bad leg. One of the scars had broken open and blood was oozing out in dark red beads. They reminded me of the rubies I’d seen in Mr. Heinrich’s back room. He had lost one of his scuffs.
“Little help, Charlie,” he said. “Fucking leg’s on fire.”
I slung his arm around my neck, grasped his bony wrist, and almost hauled him up the steps and into the house.
“Bed. Have to lie down. Can’t catch my breath.”