37. Tyler
THIRTY-SEVEN
TYLER
“Gentlemen, we gather here today to vanquish an enemy.”
Dusty paces in front of Becca’s bedroom door, slapping what looks like a giant butterfly net across his palm.
Jake looks like he’s about to go birth a calf and also ride in a rodeo with a long-sleeved Western shirt and work gloves that go almost to his shoulders. He is fully playing into Dusty’s bullshit, nodding and grunting along as each point is made.
Jake also called his and Becca’s friend Caleb in to participate in this shitshow. He’s holding a squirrel trap and looks slightly bored.
“The enemy has attacked one of our own, going so far as to touch my sleeping sister’s face—”
“Wait, it touched her face?” Caleb asks.
“Yes, that’s why you have to wear the mask, Caleb,” Jake insists, shaking what appears to be a game-worn hockey goalie mask at him.
“You’re not wearing it!” Caleb argues at Jake.
“I have my hat,” Jake shoots back.
Caleb screws up his face. “That’s not—you know what? Whatever. Shouldn’t Becca see a doctor if the thing touched her face?”
“You try getting my wife to do something she’s supposed to do,” I say, putting my hands up. My cheeks go red immediately after, because this marks my first time calling Becca my wife to the guys.
I have a wife, and I made a little “my wife is stubborn” joke. Look at me go.
Dusty rolls on, a preacher at his anti-raccoon pulpit. “There may be more of them than us—”
“How many?” Caleb asks.
“Like a hundred,” Jake says.
“It’s probably less than a dozen,” I correct.
“You’re really killing the mood, Tyler. Focus,” Dusty demands. “We gotta be pumped up to get these motherfuckers. Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes!”
My head sags back on my shoulders. “Don’t shoot them at all. Becca’s festival is outside. We don’t want gunshots ruining it. We’re just rounding them up and taking them . . . somewhere.”
“Ain’t gonna be my farm,” Jake muses. “Darcy’ll never sleep again if these things touch our house.”
“Actually, that’s a good point,” Caleb says. “Where are we taking them after we get them in the cages?”
Dusty and I eye each other, considering the answer. We start to nod before we both say, “The lumberyard.”
We hated the Denton boys in school and their family owns the lumberyard.
When Becca made that desperate phone call for me to come get her, she was at the Dentons’ house.
I’m fine keeping this rivalry going. Dusty and I don’t do nearly as much mischief as we used to. What’s a few raccoons between enemies?
“Okay. Gloves on, fellas. We slip in one by one so none get out. Do your best. Look out for each other. No man left behind,” Dusty says.
I roll my eyes and mutter under my breath as I remove the chair from under the doorknob. “Going in.”
“Copy. Godspeed. Love you, brother,” Dusty says until he’s muffled by the closed door.
Things have seriously devolved since last night.
A mama and several babies have joined the party.
Some clothes from Becca’s closet have been formed into nests in various spots in the room.
The cigarette stash is being guarded by an especially ferocious-looking raccoon with a broken leg.
It hisses at me as I settle against the wall.
“I need backup!” I shout.
Dustin bursts into the room. “Got you, brother!” His shriek sounds higher than what his sister is capable of. “What’s wrong with that one?”
I take a deep breath and open my trap’s door, slowly approaching it. “Here, kitty.”
Jake’s face pokes in the door. “There’s cats too?”
“No, just get in here,” Dusty hisses.
Jake and Caleb push inside as I close in on Ol’ Broken Leg.
“You like cigarettes?” I try. “Tons of smokes right in here.”
Broken Leg lunges at me and I flatten myself against the wall.
But something else is happening. The raccoons are gathering around Jake, one of them even putting its paws on his jeans leg.
“Gross!” Caleb shouts.
“Aw, they’re kinda cute, guys,” Jake says. “Hey, little buddy.”
He starts to crouch and the rest of us bark “no!” It does nothing to stop him, nor the raccoons. They press in closer to Jake, starting to climb on him in earnest. “Ok, whoa—”
“They’re not horses,” Caleb says.
“Well, do something!” Jake insists, then notices where a few of them are pawing. “Oh, shit, my peanut butter crackers and mints.”
“You came in here with food?” I demand.
“They’re animal bribes. I always keep them,” he shrugs.
“Hang on, that should work,” Caleb says. “Sprinkle some of that stuff in the traps and we can just wait.”
“I don’t know that it’s gonna last that long,” Jake says. “If I stand up, they’re coming with me. Just pluck them off me.”
The three of us laugh as one starts to paw at Jake’s pocket furiously, chattering at its friends.
“This is really disgusting,” I moan.
“Can we just have you walk through the house with them following you out the door?” Dusty tries.
“Or jump out the window into a truck bed and we drive you away,” Caleb offers.
“Becca will kill us all and wear our skins as a winter coat if we do that during her fall fest.”
Dusty purses his lips. “Mm. True.”
“I need y’all to man up and pluck them off me and give them a piece of cracker,” Jake says through a strained smile while cupping one of the babies to his chest and stroking its head with the back of his gloved finger. “And hurry up, their nails are pokey.”
“You have to wear the mask or they’ll know it’s us.” Dusty dangles a ski mask in front of my face.
“We’re in your truck. They’re going to know anyway.”
He huffs, bunches up the mask, and throws it at me. “Just put it on!”
He’s been nice enough to help me get the raccoons out of Becca’s room.
The least I can do is put up with his antics.
Caleb and Jake dipped already, and I don’t blame them.
If I wasn’t already on the Dentons’ shit list, I wouldn’t want to start now.
Dusty and I don’t have much to lose in that department.
“So we’ll just open all the cages? Do we wait for them to run out?”
“Shouldn’t have to wait long,” he says, looking in his rearview mirror to the source of all the rustling noises. “They seem ready to go. Let’s do this. Three, two, one?”
I pull the ski mask over my head and pound his fist. “Three, two, one, go.”
We jump out of the truck and reach into the bed of the truck, piling the animal traps under our arms. We line them up where a field of sweetgrass backs up to the lumberyard. One by one, we open the hatch on each cage to release the raccoons.
And they don’t move.
Dusty cusses and I scratch the back of my neck. “Well. That’s not what I expected to happen.”
“Where’s Jake when you need him?” Dusty asks.
“He probably kept that baby one,” I muse.
“Nah, Darcy would divorce him.”
My throat tightens when I think of what I caught them doing not that long ago. “I don’t see that happening anytime soon. Okay, but y’all gotta get.”
I toe under one of the cages and gently lift to see if the raccoon will run out. It just stares at me like I’m disturbing its lovely time. “Buddy, I’m trying to be nice. Please go. It’s nice here. Maybe. I think.”
A light flashes our way, and we don’t hesitate. Dusty and I are in the truck and headed back the way we came seconds later, leaving our raccoon friends behind with open cages.
After we catch our breath, I ask, “They’ll be okay, right?”
“Yeah. Yeah. They’re fine.” Dusty keeps checking his mirrors. “I just hope we are too.”