Coming onto the yard, they saw more rotted timber piled onto the ashes of the bonfire. Splintered framing and chunks of desiccated plaster and lathe. Jim gauged the fire pit to be too close to the house, too close to that tinderbox veranda. If Corrigan wasn’t careful, he’d burn the place down. Which, on second thought, might not be such a terrible thing.
“There he is.” Travis pointed.
Corrigan came around the side of the house, dragging a splintered mess of cabinet through the raspberry bushes. He tossed the mess into the fire pit and waved, a warm smile beaming through the sweat of his brow. “Hello there, son. Ready to work?”
“Yes sir.”
Jim titled his head at the boy. Sir? Where did that come from?
“Thanks for coming.” Corrigan wiped his hand on his shirt before shaking Jim’s hand. Then to Travis. “Did you bring some gloves? Proper workboots?”
“Check.” Travis plucked the gloves from his back pocket and raised a foot. The steel toe of his boot shone through the worn out leather.
“Excellent.” He led Travis inside, a hand guiding the boy’s slender shoulder. “Come on then. I’ll show you where you can start smashing things.”
Jim followed them into the dark interior. More of the old plaster had been pulled down, revealing soot-stained beams and studs, the bones of the old house. Out to the kitchen where Corrigan handed the boy a crowbar and nodded at the 40’s era cabinetry.
“Hack away, Travis.” Corrigan opened one of the lower cupboards. A few dusty plates and an ancient spraycan of wasp-killer. “Anything that will burn, you can drag out to the firepit. Anything that won’t can be tossed into that trailer bin out back. And be sure to take a break if you get too hot. This old bastard kitchen gets right fucking toasty when the sun hits it.”
Jim winced at the language but Travis didn’t seem to notice. He attacked the old cabinetry with a glee for destruction inherent in all boys, making a godawful racket with the prybar.
“Atta boy.” Corrigan cheered him on and then flipped open an ice cooler on the floor. He scrounged up two tall cans of lager, handed one to his guest.
“I’m okay,” Jim begged off. It was barely noon.
“Too late.” Corrigan popped them both and shoved one at him. “I’m glad you came. I thought maybe you’d changed your mind about letting the boy work here.”
“I told him he could.” Jim shouted over the din. “Hate to go back on my word.”
“Take a walk with me.” Corrigan waved him toward the back door. “Something I want to show you.”
They walked into the punishing sun and Corrigan led the way to the chestnut trees shading the old stone fence. Boots trampled the growth underfoot, Jim spotting shoots of barley, potatoes and corn. Remnants of previous seasons, all fighting for sunlight.
“Look at all this stuff,” Corrigan scooped handfuls of buds, popping them free. “Planted ages ago and growing wild. What is this?”
“Barley. Feed corn.” Jim nodded further downfield. “All kinds of stuff over the years. What do you plan to do with all this acreage?”
“Don’t know yet. I’m no farmer, I’ll tell you that much.”
“I noticed you still got your sign up. You gonna take it down?”
“We’ll see how Kate makes out with her promise first.” Corrigan smeared a forearm over his brow. “Do you know her well? Is she trustworthy?”
“She says she’s gonna do something, she’ll do it.”
“That was a pretty good turnout we had for the tour, yeah?” He clinked his can against Jim’s. “Cheers.”
“I guess. I mean, if you’re goal was to piss off everyone in town.”
“Family history, Jim. I wanted to share it with everyone.”
Jim squared him with a look. “Bullshit. You wanted to shock everyone.”
“I admit I had fun. Did you see their faces?” Corrigan’s grin melted off as he cast his gaze over the field. “But it’s not just family history, you understand. It’s their history too.”
“Maybe, maybe not.” Jim gauged the man’s mood, looking for a moment to talk some reason into him. “How do you know that story of yours is true?”
“I told you. It’s an eye witness account.”
“By a little boy hiding under a bed. What if he was wrong?”
“He wasn’t wrong. My grandfather knew every one of the men who murdered his family. They all went to the same church, for Christ’s sakes.” He slugged on the can. “I know it’s ugly, Jim, but the truth often is.”
Jim leaned against the stone fence and said nothing. Corrigan looked up at the blue sky and pointed to birds circling the field, dark slices gliding around and around. “I keep seeing these birds up there, circling around the farm. What are they?”
“Turkey vultures. They’ll go round and round for hours looking for something dead. Or about to die.”
“The way they glide like that, without flapping a wing. They’re beautiful.”
“Not up close they’re not.” He watched Corrigan watching the vultures. “You know, the people here… these are good people. They haven’t done anything wrong. They don’t deserve to be called murderers.”
“You think I was too harsh?”
Jim caught a note of remorse in the man’s voice. “It was a long time ago. Things were different back then. People were different.”
“That’s bullshit, Jimmy. People are no better then their savage forefathers. They just think they are.”
“It was a hundred years ago. What does it matter now?”
Corrigan wiped the foam from his lips. “The dead have their claims on the living. Whether we see it or not, we’re beholden to them.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“It means every sin has to accounted for somewhere. Even by those who didn’t pull the trigger.”
“You know these people won’t just stand around while you sling mud at them.” Jim gave up trying to hide his frustration. “I mean, you’re not exactly making friends, are you?”
“You’re a friend. Aren’t you?”
Jim dialled it back. “Sure but… Jesus.”
“You think I should just let it be.”
“Maybe, just maybe the story you heard was wrong. No one was ever charged for those crimes. In a small town like this.” Jim shrugged. “Maybe it really was a mob of lunatics.”
“Come on, Jim. That’s the bullshit they troweled on to hide their mess.”
The man wasn’t going to budge and Jim was out of arguments so they stood in the chestnut shade and watched the vultures drift in lazy arcs.
“So what’d you want to show me?”
“Over here.” Corrigan crushed his can and pitched it onto Jim’s side of the fence and marched on. Jim looked at the litter in dismay and followed. Twenty paces in, Corrigan pointed south, where the land rolled gently down to the creek at the lower forty. “See down there at the bottom. The old fence.”
Jim froze. Corrigan’s finger wagged down to the berm of fieldstones piled up and the breech in the old perimeter. The spot he had ploughed through with the blade of his tractor.
Shit.
“This old fence borders our property, yeah? See the mess? Someone’s knocked it down. Looks like they dragged a plough through and started tilling.”
Corrigan rolled his eyes up to meet Jim’s. The man already knew the answer, that much was clear, and now he simply wanted to watch Jim sweat. He got his wish. Jim could feel it rivulet down the small of his back.
Time to come clean. “I did it.”
“You?” Corrigan’s surprise was soap-opera fake. It vanished and his tone dropped to a gravelcrunch. “Why?”
Jim stepped back, expecting a blow. “All this land has been neglected for so long. Gone to seed. I just—” He killed off his words. It was grovelling and it stung and he despised himself for it. “I needed the land.”