“I bet you see more out there than treetops.”
“What?” Luke said and spun to the porch. The screen door bounced against his back.
“I see you at the window. Searching.”
“I wasn’t spying,” Luke said.
“That ain’t what I meant, and you know it,” Manglevine said and then made a sweeping gesture with his long arm as if pinning the left corner of the horizon to the right. Luke backed deeper into the house, turning only when his feet found the carpet of the den.
“Tell your momma not to bother fixing me anything,” Manglevine said through the empty doorway.
Luke returned the tea to the kitchen, where his mother was peeling the skin off the roasted peppers. “He has cuts on his hands,” Luke said. “Little open sores.” The house had darkened with the coming night. “Who is he again?”
“Bart played basketball with your daddy back in high school,” his mother said, wiping her nose. “But then he and some others started this thing across the county. A commune. They make all their own food, have their own church.”
“How many of them live there?” Luke leaned across the table to study Manglevine’s back through the screen. Fang rolled over to offer the stranger his belly. Manglevine puffed at his cigaret, the wind carrying the ends of his hair gently eastward with the smoke.
“I don’t know. Three men, four women. Seven, last I heard.”
“You mean they live in one house together?”
“Don’t ask me,” his mother said. “They say it’s some kind of family.”
“He said he didn’t want any food or tea.” Luke started making his way back to the porch.
“Leave him be, then,” she said.
Luke stopped. “What’s a matter with him?”
“That’s for your daddy to sort out.”
It was dark when Luke watched his father pull in, a generator strapped to the bed of the truck. Manglevine stood and draped the red towel over the back of the porch swing. Luke sped out the kitchen door to greet his father. Fang, soon on his heels, finally broke away from the stony stranger.
Luke’s father let down the tailgate and undid the moving straps. Manglevine put on his boots. Luke and his father lifted the generator from the truck.
“Lemuel,” Manglevine said.
“Bart.” Luke’s father shook Manglevine’s hand. “What brings you by?”
Manglevine nodded in return but then flicked his forehead Luke’s way. His father clipped Luke’s shoulder. “Take it around back,” he said, and Luke lifted the generator by the hitch. The gravel popped against the tires. Manglevine whispered something to his father that Luke couldn’t make out. Luke listened as his father told him not to forget the diesel in the shed.
Luke lifted the hitch and yanked it forward. Halfway through the yard, he repositioned his hands on the hitch and glanced over at the two men. Manglevine was maybe a foot taller, but Luke’s father was twice as stout. Manglevine extended one of his lanky arms to pat his father on the shoulder.
Luke came in through the kitchen to catch his mother peeking around the dining-room sash. “What are they talking about?”
“How should I know?”
Luke stood behind his mother, looking over her shoulder. A slanted image of the kitchen reflected in the windowpane, and his eyes adjusted to catch his father heading back to the house. Manglevine remained by the passenger door of the truck. He opened the door slowly until the dome light came on, then he closed it.
His father kicked the water off his boots and entered the side door to the kitchen. “Living out there must’ve put the zap on his brain,” he said. “He starts talking one way then crisscrosses to something else. I can’t get a bead on him.”
“What’s he want?” Luke’s mother asked. Luke’s father went to the sink to splash the sweat from his face. He wiped the headband of his hat with his handkerchief and put it back on.
“He says he wants a witness.”
“What for?”
“Won’t say.”
“Where?”
“Back at the old Carson place. Apparently there’s been some sort of rift.”
Their whispers flitted in the darkened kitchen like feathered things. Luke dug his hands in his pockets and did what he could to be quiet and listen. Every few seconds, the dome light of the truck would blink on from the gravel drive. Fang sat in the grass, corkscrewing his head at the light.
“What’d Jim say when you called?” his mother said.
“Like I figured. They’re up to their necks with fallout from the storm, and it would be a favor if I used my emergency deputy status and check this one out.” His father sprayed his hands again. “This ain’t nothing I can’t handle.”
“Alone?”
“I was planning to take Luke with me.”
His mother shook her head.
“I want to come,” Luke said, leaning forward so quickly he knocked over the salt.
“Bart said the bridge is flooded, and that we’re going to need an extra pair of hands to spot us on the line as we cross. Otherwise we’re going to have to circle the ridge on foot.”
“A witness?” his mother said.
“I’m bringing my pistol and cuffs. If you want I’ll connect the generator before I go.”
She shooed him and brought her hands to her hips. “I think I can handle a generator. It’s Luke.”
“Momma,” Luke said, rising, “I’m fifteen. That dotty fella can barely stand. He won’t mess with the both of us.”
“We’ll be fine,” his father said and went for his slicker. “Bart always proved meek enough. I don’t even think I ever heard him raise his voice.”
“But it’s been ten years.”
“A person can’t change that much.”
She turned her palms face up and shook her head again. “There’s a reason you quit the law. I don’t see why you’ve got to start back up now.” As she spoke, the dome light flashed again, casting Manglevine’s marionette shadow over the dog and wet yard. She pointed. “He’s plainly not in his right mind.”
“I know,” his father said. “That’s why I’ve got to go.”
Luke’s father demanded Manglevine eat a bologna sandwich and drink some milk before they went. He downed his meal on the tailgate and they were off. The seats in the back were cramped, and Luke and his father were surprised when Manglevine insisted he sit there. At first, Manglevine’s knees dug into Luke’s back through the cushion, but then Manglevine removed his boots and swung his legs across the bucket seat. “I knew I shouldn’t have eaten,” he said as he slouched against the window. “I’m so tired.”
“Go ahead and rest up,” Luke’s father said. “You won’t miss a thing.”
Manglevine nodded off before they’d reached the highway. Twenty minutes later they were at the bridge that led to the commune, but the deluge had washed over the low pass, submerging it entirely. Luke’s father called Manglevine’s name again. He didn’t open his eyes. “He’s out cold,” he said. “Stay here. I’m going to check the water level.” Luke’s father pulled a bundled cord from the cubby in the truck bed, followed the path of the headlights to the water, and tossed in a weighted line. As his father plumbed the current, Luke studied the sleeping Manglevine in the backseat, the dome light still on from when they tried to rouse him. His beard wasn’t as thick as it had appeared. There were furrows on both cheeks where whiskers refused to grow, like he’d been scarred long ago by a garden fork.
Luke shuddered as his father popped the latch on the door. “Two feet over the bridgeway at least,” he said, spooling up the cord around his elbow. “We can’t risk a stall, but I can cross easy enough on foot.”