Lost autistic child changes lives as secrets are revealed.
Excerpt
Prologue
The dog raised his head. For a moment he remained absolutely still, listening.
Crickets and katydids were in full chorus, and although dawn would not come for some time there was a faint lightning of sky laced with haze to the east—the promise of another scorcher on the way.
He peered intently into the dark shadows at the bottom of the lawn. At first it was just a vague feeling of something out of the ordinary that had interrupted his sleep, some slight sound that didn’t fit the usual August night repertoire of insects or the rustlings of small creatures that busied themselves about the place at night. He could hear the distant hum and whine from the highway far below, eighteen-wheelers on their way from Boston to North Adams downshifting as they began the steep ascent over the mountains, but that wasn’t it either. He rolled onto his stomach and rested his large head on his paws, body relaxed but alert.
The dog had spent the night stretched out on the back porch. Much earlier Annalee had come to the kitchen door and called to him: “Mac, you big lump, get on in here!” But he had just thumped his tail on the gray painted floor, not even looking at her. “All right, then. But leave the skunks be, you hear?” And she had sighed and locked up, and one by one the lights had gone out until the house was in total darkness.
It had been a hot, still night—not a breath of a breeze—and now, well into the early morning hours, shreds of mist hung just a few feet above the ground. Earlene, who lived with Dutch in the farmhouse apartment, called these pale, torn remnants haints, a notion of restless spirits she’d brought north with her from the bayou; all Mac knew was that sometimes they came at night and disappeared by day as natural as sun and shade. His eyes fastened on the outline of the two forsythia bushes at the entrance to the path that dropped down several hundred yards through fields to the highway. Something, he now sensed, was on the path and moving upwards.
As a watchdog Mac was a failure; he had been pampered and indulged his entire life. Very little frightened him—his size alone gave him dominion over other dogs, and he was smart enough to keep his distance from the moose and bear that occasionally wandered through his domain. He was, however, inquisitive, and now his interest was fixed and a deep rumble that was primarily an expression of curiosity rose from his massive throat. He surged to his feet, all attention focused on the entrance to the path.
There it was now just emerging up through the mist, first a head then the rest of the body rising into view, a shadowy person shape against the sharpening background of sky, a child person from its size; and Mac heard its voice for the first time—a thin keening sound that touched a chord deep inside of him. Some genetic imperative—a vestigial memory of mountain rescues passed down through generations of his forebears—directed his next actions as surely as a spoken command. Lumbering down the steps and across the terraced gardens and expanse of lawn heavy with dew, he kept his large body low and whined a greeting. He slowed instinctively not wanting to alarm, and at a distance of several feet he stopped altogether and lowered himself to the ground. The child person, a boy child Mac realized, froze as the dog approached and now stood silent, breathing hard, only his head turning first this way and then that as though searching for something. A ragged length of fabric hung from one hand and he had a small blue bundle clutched to his chest.
The lawn was visible to eyes used to the dark, the many gardens forming shadowy islands its entire length. At one down-slope corner stood the shed that smelled of mulch and potting soil where Sonny Nyguyen kept his tools; at the other, partially obscured by bushes and bugle vine, was the playhouse that had been Annalee’s and was now Dutch’s although she seldom played there anymore. Its white paint was gray in the pre-dawn light but still visible through the overgrowth. Later by day the boy would see that the paint was blistered and fading, that there were green shutters at the two small windows and a green door on rusty hinges and that a sign so faded you could barely make out the words ‘Bolt Hole’ was nailed beside the door. He would note with some interest that this tiny house was a miniature in many respects of the house at the top of the lawn.
He finally moved. If Mac had expected him to reach out, perhaps rest his hand on Mac’s great head, take some comfort in his offer of friendship, he was to be disappointed. The boy now barely glanced at him and instead turned his steps toward the playhouse. Lifting aside a vine, he hesitated only briefly on the narrow porch then pushed the small door open and crossed the threshold, closing the door carefully behind him. Mac, who had followed closely, flopped down across the entrance—available and on duty. The keening began again in concert with Mac’s whine, but eventually it gave way to small intermittent sounds of distress and finally to silence. Mac dozed.
. . . . .
Somewhere twenty or so miles away in a wooded valley up in the Berkshire Mountains a pickup truck turned off of a state road onto an unmarked grassy lane. In about forty feet from the highway a chain barrier stretched between two posts. A rough sign was nailed to a nearby tree: “Keep Out! And that means you, Charlene!”
A small wiry man in jeans jumped down from the passenger side of the truck and unlocked a padlock releasing the chain, waited for the pickup to pass through and then refastened the chain.
He climbed back up into the truck.
“All I’m sayin’ is I ain’t crazy. There really was someone, a kid maybe—or somethin’—that was back there messin’ in our stuff, cuz I seen it when I come out of the gents at that convenience store back on Route 2. It seemed like it slipped out over the tail gate right then, and…well, it just kinda disappeared in the dark.”
“Jeez, Ray, you’re beating a dead horse here. For the last time, nothing was stolen. Drop it, okay?”
“No, nothin’ was stolen, but how do you explain the baseball cap? Huh? Huh? I wished it hadn’t been so dark. ‘Course it might a bin a bear, pokin’ around. ‘Cept bears don’t wear no baseball caps!” The truck lurched from side to side. “Damn bears are gettin’ too friendly. One of ‘em took Ma’s bird feeder last winter. Drug it, post and all, into the woods. She was fit to be tied. Got me outta bed at two in the morning to ‘do somethin’ about it.’ Yeah, like what was I supposed to do? Chase some stupid ass bear into the woods in the middle of the night? Anyways, I saw what I saw is all I’m sayin’.”
“Yeah. Right. Okay.” The other man laughed. “Middle of the night, huh? Your ma’s bird feeder.” He shook his head, then tensed. “Aw, jeez, Ray, you just reminded me of something. Shit!” he exclaimed, slapping the steering wheel. “I forgot my mother’s birthday again. Remind me to call Charlene, will you? She’ll have to wire flowers or something.”
The truck jounced over deep ruts, the headlights bouncing wildly off fir and oak until a few hundred yards in they arrived at a small clearing on the edge of a lake.
“We won’t be setting up camp till it’s light, so get some shut eye, Ray.”
“I saw what I saw. That’s all I’m sayin’. That’s my story and I’m stickin’ to it. Call Charlene.” He settled his head back against the seat and tipped a stained hat, bristling with fishing flies, forward over his eyes until it was resting on his nose. “And whisper.”
. . . . .
Further west in New York State a motor home pulled over at a rest stop on the Thruway. The driver shook the girl who was slumped over in the seat beside him.
“Hey, Lisa. Wake up, will ya? I gotta get out and stretch—I’m starting to nod off. Brew us some coffee, okay? And check the kid while you’re at it. He’s been quiet for a helluva long time back there. He must need to pee or something.” He yawned. “I’ll be glad when we get to Illinois and can dump him. He’s starting to give me the creeps. I sure wish it was just you and me on this trip, babe.”
He had just two minutes left before she’d open the side door and call out to him, “Hey, Andy, we’ve got a major problem here!” and he’d remember his mother’s frequent warning: “Be careful, Andy, what you wish for.”
Read more about The Bolt Hole and Lyn Clark HERE
Copyright 2008 Lyn Clark. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
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