Chapter five
THERE WAS a man on the porch.
Nate blinked against the bright sunlight. The cool air caused his skin to break out in gooseflesh.
The man was wearing jeans and boots and a polo shirt under a light jacket. His dark hair was thinning away from his forehead, and he had wire-framed glasses that sat perched on the tip of his nose.
There was a badge hanging from his jacket.
“Nathaniel Cartwright?” he asked, his voice a little reedy.
“Yes?” He hoped this man didn’t die in front of him.
“Douglas County Public Works.” He held out his hand.
“Name’s Randy. Had an appointment this morning to get your water hooked up, right?”
Nate had no idea what he was talking about. Then he did.
“Right,” he said quickly.
“I wasn’t—I thought… You’re early. You weren’t supposed to be here until this afternoon.”
Randy shrugged.
“You’re the farthest out on my route today. Decided to start way out here and work back in. Don’t have a lot of people up here. At least, not this early. Don’t see some of these cabins start to fill up until June or so. Usually still snow on the ground. Mild winter, don’t you know.”
“I heard,” Nate said, skin buzzing just a little.
“Shouldn’t take much time, no it won’t. Valve’s supposed to be near the meter. Know where that’s at?”
He nodded.
“I can show you.”
He started to step out, shutting the door behind him.
“Whoa,” Randy said, holding up a hand.
Nate stopped.
“Little cold out here. Gotta jacket? Don’t want you to freeze.” He smiled.
“Give me just a second.”
“Oh sure,” Randy said.
“Gotta get a couple of things from the truck. Take your time.”
He stepped off the porch, whistling as the gravel crunched under his shoes.
Nate closed the door.
“Did you call for him to come here?” Alex growled.
Nate nodded.
“Yeah. It’s—made the appointment days ago. It’s—he’s supposed to be here.”
Art peeked at him over her sunglasses, secure in her place in Alex’s arms.
“I don’t like him.”
Alex looked down at her. “Why?”
Art glanced at Nate, then back to Alex and said a strange thing. Well. Another strange thing.
“Is he the Macho Man?”
Even Alex looked confused, eyebrows rising. It took only a moment for him to sigh.
“No. That’s not him.”
“Who?” Nate asked.
“The Macho Man,” Art said.
“Randy Savage.”
“I don’t—are you talking about the wrestler?”
She nodded solemnly.
“He hates Hulk Hogan. And I like Hulk Hogan.”
“Who the hell are you people?” Nate asked fervently.
“I’m Artemis D—”
“Darth Vader, yeah, I know. And he’s Alex Delgado.” Nate threw his hands up.
“That doesn’t explain—you know what? It doesn’t matter. I’m going outside with the water guy, and he’s going to turn on the water. And then I’m going to come back in and take a shower because I am still wearing the same goddamn underwear—”
“We used your dish soap in the lake,” Art said, patting Alex on the cheeks.
“Alex said it was the same, but the water was cold. You could have borrowed some of his underwear.”
Nate made a wounded noise.
“I’m not—that’s not the point. Jesus Christ, I don’t—I’m going outside!”
He put his hand on the doorknob and was about to jerk it open dramatically.
“Don’t forget your jacket,” Art said.
Nate almost screamed.
Instead, he turned and stomped to his duffel bag. He pulled it open and found a sweater with a zipper down the middle. It would do. He pulled it on, left arm and then the right, all the while glaring at the two people he’d known for less than a day who had already upended his life.
He stomped back to the door.
“If he says ooh yeah,” Art told him as he threw open the door.
“you need to watch out for his signature move. It’s called the Savage Elbow, and it will take you down.”
He slammed the door behind him, the wood rattling in its frame.
A head poked up near the white truck.
“All right?”
Nate forced a smile on his face. It came more easily than he expected.
“Yeah. Fine.”
“Good, good. We’ll get you all set up, and everything will be right as rain.”
Nate sighed. He doubted that very much.
“THERE SHE is,” Randy said, pointing at the meter on the side of the house. The sky was already a deep, wonderful blue, with only traces of clouds. It was cold, and Nate could see his breath with every exhalation. The lake was flat and almost still.
Randy put his toolbox on the ground near a small metal grate. He sank to his knees, then opened the toolbox, staring at the meter.
“So what brings you up here?”
Nate saw movement out of the corner of his eye. He looked up. A window, with the drapes drawn. It was in the second bedroom. At first nothing happened. And then the drapes moved again slightly, a finger pulling them back.
Nate glared.
The drapes closed again.
Randy turned back to look at him.
Nate said.
“Sorry. Um. What was the question?”
Randy chuckled.
“A little early for ya, is it?”
“Yeah. Something like that.”
“Early riser, I am. Always have been. Early to bed, early to rise, as my ma used to say. More things to see in the daytime, I suppose.”
“Uh. Yeah. Sure.” He looked up again in time to see the drapes shaking furiously. He didn’t know what the hell was going on until Art poked her head through the curtains, sunglasses askew, mouthing at him and pointing at her elbow, then down at the man. Savage elbow, she overenunciated.
Nate choked.
Randy looked at him again.
Nate scratched the back of his head to cover it up.
It wasn’t very convincing.
“You all right?”
Nate nodded.
“Yeah. I’m—it’s early. Like you said.”
Randy moved the grate. He pulled a long thin wrench from his toolbox.
“Hold that for me, will ya?” he said, handing Nate a flashlight.
“Keep it pointed down, if ya don’t mind.”
He did exactly that.
The beam was shaking.
He steadied it with his other hand.
Randy leaned down toward the opening.
“Like I was saying, what brings you up here?”
“Oh. Uh—just—it’s my cabin. I guess.”
“You guess? It either is or it isn’t.”
“Right. Yeah. It is. I… inherited it. Recently. From my parents.”
“They pass on?” Randy asked, grunting as he leaned lower to the ground.
“Yeah.”
“Real sorry to hear that. They’re with the Lord now, having earned their just reward.”
Nate didn’t do religion. He never had. He didn’t even know what he believed in. The idea of a supreme god and heaven and hell and judgment seemed almost like a fairy tale. But he learned early on you didn’t say such things out loud to the religious sort, so he said.
“Sure.” It was easier that way.
He looked up again.
Art’s face was pressed against the glass. When she saw him watching, she blew as hard as she could, lips spreading wide, eyes bulging.
Nate coughed explosively.
She looked furious as a big hand pulled her back, the drapes closing against the window.
He looked back down.
Randy was staring at him.
“Swallowed a bug,” Nate managed to say.
“Big fucker.”
Randy nodded, rubbing his jaw.
“Oh sure. They get huge ’round the lake. Usually in the summer, though. You’ll want to get some bug spray if you’re gonna be around that long.”
It felt like a question that he didn’t know the answer to. “Maybe.”
Randy was back in the ground.
“What do you do that you can stay out here, if you don’t mind me asking? You write books? You look like the type.”
Nate didn’t know if that was an insult or not.
“No. Not a writer. Well. Not books, anyway.”
“There’s other kinds?”
“Yeah. I was—I am a journalist.”
“A reporter?”
Nate bristled a little at that. Old pride coming through.
“A journalist.”
“For the news? You on camera? That sounds fancy.”
“Print.”
“Oh! Good on ya. I don’t read the paper. Don’t read much at all, if I’m being honest. Never had the patience for it. That’s what the TV’s for. Besides, too much bad in the world, ya know? I want to hear the good stories. Last summer, they had a squirrel up here that could water-ski, if you could believe that! Those are the types of stories I like to hear. Darnedest thing, too. Little son of a bitch behind a remote-controlled boat. The strangest thing. Too many bad things in the world already. Just watch squirrels on skis.”
“I wouldn’t—I don’t know anything about that.”
“Don’t do waterskiing squirrels?”
“No. I was… in DC. More… political. There were squirrels, but they didn’t ski.”
Randy pulled a face.
“Don’t know how you can stand that. All those bigwigs in Washington. What the hell do they know about the working man? I don’t trust a word out of ol’ Slick Willie’s mouth. Now Reagan. You want to talk about a good man? You talk about Ronald Reagan. He knew how to take care of business, yes, sir.”
There was a man with a gun above him holding the weirdest child Nate had ever seen while another man grunted into a hole in the ground at Nate’s feet discussing politics and belief in God.
He should have stayed in Washington.
At least he was used to that kind of crazy.
“And… there it is,” Randy said. He sat back up, eyeing the meter, watching it start to tick slowly.
“Looks like we’re up and running. I checked out the plans filed with the county. Looks like pipes were replaced here in ’87, so you should be good to go. Any issues, I got a friend that can help you out cheap. You just let me know. Sometimes these houses settle. Pipes shift. They can break, especially with the winter having passed. Pipes could have frozen.”
Nate frowned.
“I thought the winter was mild up here this year?”
Randy laughed.
“Oh yeah. You nailed that one on the head. Don’t know where my mind is sometimes.” He pushed himself to his feet and went to a spigot on the side of the house. Nate’s mom had had it installed for her flower beds. He turned it on. It spat and gurgled for a moment before clear water came out.
Randy turned it off and grinned at him.
“There ya—”
A loud thump came from the house, followed by a crash.
Randy turned to look back at the window.
“Someone with you in there?”
“Uh. No. Just—probably the pipes.”
Randy nodded slowly.
“The pipes. Right. Don’t know that I ever heard pipes like that before. But there’s a first time for everything.”
“Or it could be my dog,” Nate said quickly.
“He’s—big. And mean. And always getting into things. Probably just found what was left over from breakfast.”
Randy grinned at him.
“I love dogs. What’s his name?”
“Fido,” he blurted before wincing.
“Uh. Yeah. Fido.”
“What kind is he?”
“Oh, you know. He’s just a mangy mutt. All kinds, I guess.”
“Mean, you say?”
“The meanest. Doesn’t like strangers. Tends to bark at them for no reason at all, even when he’s the one in the wrong.”
Randy began to put his tools away.
“Funny. Didn’t hear him bark when I knocked on the door.”
“He was… hiding.”
Randy arched an eyebrow.
“Mean dog that hides? How strange.”
“You have no idea,” Nate said truthfully.
RANDY HAD him sign an invoice before shaking his hand and telling him to enjoy his day.
“You let me know about those pipes!” he called as started to climb into his truck.
“Remember, I got a guy. Will help you out real cheap. He owes me a favor or two.”
Nate waved in acknowledgment. He figured the pipes were the least of his problems.
Randy tipped his head and then started his truck. He backed out slowly before heading down the dirt road.
Nate breathed a sigh of relief.
He turned to head back into the house, only to see Alex standing on the porch, glowering down at him. Art stood in front of him, sunglasses sitting on the top of her head.
“You called Alex a mean dog,” she said.
“Even though you said Fido, you meant Alex. I know what subtlety is, even if Alex says I don’t.”
Nate looked toward the sky, begging silently for strength. It was hypocritical, but he knew no other way.
“It was the first thing I could think of, since apparently neither of you understand how to be quiet.”
“I knocked over a lamp on accident,” Art said.
“It broke. I am supposed to feel bad because it didn’t belong to me, but I thought it was ugly and was going to break it yesterday but I forgot. So I accidentally did it today.”
Nate just went with it. He had to.
“Of course you did.”
Alex stepped around her and down the stairs. His large feet were bare, little wisps of black hair on his big toes. Nate didn’t know why he noticed that. It shouldn’t have mattered.
He also carried his gun.
He didn’t come for Nate.
Instead, he went around the side of the house.
“He’s gotta check,” Art said.
“For what?”
“In case Macho Man Randy Savage was a spy.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but for the life of him, he didn’t know how to parse that sentence, so instead he shook his head and followed Alex.
He was on his knees in front of the water meter, gun on the grass at his side. He reached up and felt along the meter, hands going over the plastic covering and reaching around the back like he was looking for something.
When he didn’t find anything, he moved the grate covering the valve and bent down, reaching in all the way to his shoulder, eyes narrowed.
“You know,” Nate said.
“For someone who just yesterday was having a hard time moving because he’d been shot, you seem to be doing okay.”
Alex didn’t respond.
“Granted, the wound looked old, but still. Old man yesterday, bright and spry today. Was it the coffee? Which, by the way, you’re welcome for. Thanks for unloading the truck and then helping yourself.”
Not a word.
“It was probably the bacon,” Art said, suddenly appearing beside him as if out of nowhere. He hadn’t heard her coming.
“Bacon makes everything better.”
“Right,” Nate said slowly.
“Because you’ve never had bacon before. Or met a waitress.”
“She was so nice,” Art said.
“She brought me juice when I asked. And ice cream. And meatloaf. And carrots. And mashed potatoes.”
“That’s—”
“And butter for my bread that wasn’t toast.”
He waited.
She smiled up at him.
“You’re a reporter,” Alex grunted as he sat back up, as if conversational whiplash was a thing they did.
“Excuse you. I’m a journalist—”
“You should have said something.”
“Oh. Riiiight. Because you’ve shared so much with me already. How could I be so goddamn rude and not tell you about my career path, man who broke into my house? You have my most sincere apologies. Please consider forgiving me.”
“He will,” Art said.
“He’s starting to like you, even though he normally doesn’t like anyone besides me. You can tell by the way he hasn’t pointed the gun at you in over ten minutes.”
Nate felt himself flushing. He didn’t know why. He didn’t give a fuck if this man liked him in the slightest. He still wasn’t convinced that some crime wasn’t happening here, and if it involved the girl, he would do everything he could to get her away from Alex. What Alex thought about him shouldn’t matter.
It shouldn’t.
“No wonder you ask so many questions,” Alex muttered, wiping his hand off on his leg.
“Reporters don’t know when to mind their own goddamn business. Always sticking their noses where they don’t—”
“I came up here to do exactly that,” Nate snapped. Normally he didn’t give two shits what others thought about what he did. Or rather, had done. The work was important, and he wasn’t in it for the popularity. But even he could admit to himself that Alex’s dismissal stung the tiniest bit.
“Mind my own goddamn business. But in case you couldn’t tell, someone had broken into my cabin and made themselves at home. Which is illegal.”
Alex pulled himself to his full height.
Nate wasn’t intimidated. Well, he was, but he’d faced assholes before. This was just another one.
He was a little relieved the gun stayed on the ground.
“Fine,” Alex said, a scowl on his face.
“There’s plenty of other cabins around here. We’ll find another one.”
“But those don’t have water,” Art said. They both looked down at her.
“This one does. And the lake is cold and I like my bed and I’ve only read fifteen of the books, which means there are three hundred and sixty-two left to go.” She nodded, the sunglasses sliding off the top of her head and down on her face.
“Besides, Nate will be sad if we leave. He likes us.”
“I don’t like either of you at all,” Nate said.
“You made us bacon.”
“That doesn’t mean I like you.”
“It certainly seemed that way,” she said.
“If you give someone something that good, it has to mean something. You can’t just give a gift without having feelings behind it.”
“It was just breakfast.”
Alex crouched down before her.
“It’ll be okay,” he said, not looking at Nate.
“We’ll find another place. And I know the water is cold, but if we move fast, it’ll be over soon and we can get warm again. And there might even be more books. Different kinds. It’ll be okay. I promise.”
It was the most Nate had heard him speak.
He wondered if he was being manipulated.
He felt like he was being manipulated.
Art looked up at him, pulling her glasses off slowly. Her eyes were wide, like she was a goddamn anime princess.
Definitely manipulated. But he thought it was just by her. Alex didn’t seem like the type. He was fists and guns and violence. He didn’t understand subtlety.
But Artemis Darth Vader?
She was all about manipulation.
And it was working.
“Tomorrow,” Nate said through gritted teeth.
“You guys can leave tomorrow. At least let her have a hot shower. You too. But goddammit, I get to go first because this is still my fucking cabin. You hear me? I get the first shower, and I am going to stay in it as long as I want, so you don’t get to bitch at me for that.”
Art looked smug.
Alex scowled.
Nate almost smashed his face in.
Instead, he turned and headed back around the house.
He thought he heard a little girl laughing.