“Here’s my problem,” Alan said. He walked his measuring tape over to the window. Laid diagonally across the rectangle, the tape read forty-four inches. “These windows are the only way I can get drywall up here and they’re only forty-four inches. I think if I take off all the trim, I might be able to bend the drywall enough to fit through, but then I still have to get the sheets up a ladder or maybe rent a bucket truck to lift them. I’ve got better access to the front window, but the back one isn’t as high. This project is steeped in issues.”
Bob looked at the window and ran his hand over the trim surrounding the frame. He wandered back to the stairs.
“What if you opened up a real door at the bottom of the stairs and just carried the sheets through the house?” Bob asked.
“Yeah,” Alan said, “that’s probably the only way to go. I just think that Liz will freak out if I bring it up. She’s awful touchy about making changes to the house. I figured that if I finished off this space and made it livable then she would soften about putting in a real door and real stairs.”
Bob nodded. He put his hand on the back of the rocking chair that sat in the center of the room. He looked down at the chair and seemed puzzled. Then a smile spread across his face. “Did you screw this rocking chair to the floor?” he asked, laughing.
“Yes. Yes I did,” Alan said. He jiggled the chair to show that it was locked in place. “The wind was making it rock at night and it woke up Joe.”
“Spooky,” Bob said. He grinned.
“It’s the time of year for it,” Alan said. “Plus it was always underfoot, so I figured I would just make it a permanent obstacle instead of moving it around all the time.”
Bob nodded. He walked over to the back window and looked out.
“Okay,” Bob said. “Why does it have to be drywall? What about bead board or tongue and groove paneling?”
Alan frowned. “I don’t know. Do you think that would look cheesy?”
“In an attic? I think with the sloped ceiling of an attic, you can get away with more. And it doesn’t have to be permanent. You can put something up, live with it for a couple of years, and then when you get around to re-thinking the stairway you can make a change then. Didn’t you say you eventually wanted to panel the inside of your camp? You can re-use the material for that down the road.”
Alan was nodding by the time Bob finished his proposal.
“That could work. It would certainly be a lot easier to get up here. That stuff is thin enough that I can bend it a little to fit through the window.”
“For sure,” Bob said. “Why don’t I help you finish up this insulation and then we’ll go shopping?”
“That would be great,” Alan said.
“And I’ve got a surprise for you, too,” Bob said.
“Oh yeah?”
“Yup,” Bob said. He smiled.
At the lumber yard, Alan found a suitable treatment for the attic walls, but it didn’t make sense to carry the sheets home in the big green truck. The salesman offered to deliver it for free, and that would save a lot of hassle. It was about noon as they drove back from town. The steep angle of the light was starting to make Alan claustrophobic, like the sky was too low or something. And it was still two months before the days would start to get longer and the sun would be higher in the sky at noon. Alan wondered if he would be able to stay sane in the darkness of winter.
“Turn left here,” Bob said. He had a paper bag propped between his feet on the floor of the truck. He’d brought the bag from his own SUV with no explanation.
“How come?” Alan asked after he put on his signal.
“The surprise.”
“Ah. I forgot,” Alan said.
Bob directed him down a dirt road overhung with bare tree branches. At the side of the road, the mailboxes were suspended at the end of long poles. That gave plenty of room for aggressive snow-plow trucks.
“This is it,” Bob said when he saw the number of the next mailbox.
“Where?”
“Right there,” Bob said. He pointed at a patch of dirt that descended away from the road at a steep angle.
“If you say so,” Alan said. He slowed and downshifted as they made a sharp turn around a rock wall. The driveway led back the way they’d come, parallel to the road, before it took another turn between the trees. The house they saw at the end looked like a museum of discarded building supplies. Every window was a different shape, Alan saw three types of siding, and the roof was half metal and half shingles. “What is this place?”
“You know that lumber yard we were just shopping at? The guy who started that business had a brother. The brother’s name was Clyde, but everyone called him Buster. This is Buster’s house.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Nope.”
“What are we doing here?”
“We’re going to see if he can tell us anything more about that body we saw, and maybe the nest of bones.”
“What makes you think he’ll be any more forthcoming this time?”
“I brought a bribe,” Bob said. He picked up the paper bag and pulled the bottle from within. “It’s very rare. It says so right on the label.”
Alan pulled the truck to a stop. “You think that will work?”
“I have it on good authority that Clyde would do almost anything for this particular brand of Irish whiskey.”
“Good authority from whom?”
“That guy at the dump. You know the really big guy? He told me,” Bob said. “Come on.”
Bob got out and started across the lawn. Alan hesitated, but Bob was already underway. Alan got out and headed after his friend. Bob held the bottle against his chest, label out, as he knocked on the door. Despite the yard sale impression of the house, Alan decided the house looked well put together, as soon as you got close enough to assess such things. The paint was fresh and the construction looked tight.
“Maybe he’s out hunting again?”
“Could be,” Bob said.
The door opened. A wave of warm air billowed out.
“Well now,” a deep voice said from the dim interior. “Looks like my best friend has come to visit.”
The old man’s hand came out from the dark and took the bottle from Bob’s hand.
“Who are these two scoundrels he’s brought along with him?” the voice asked.
“Buster? We met the other day in the woods?” Bob asked. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the orange bandanas. Alan had forgotten about them. “We didn’t see your truck, and we wanted to give these back.”
“Come on in,” Buster said.
Bob entered and waved Alan through the door. It took Alan’s eyes a few seconds to adjust to the interior. Buster had the shades down and heavy curtains bracketing the windows. He shut the door behind himself and felt the warm room’s embrace. It was a dry, baking heat coming from the wood stove against the wall. Buster had a stack of short pieces of wood against the wall. There was a teapot atop the little stove. In the center of the room, Buster had a chair flanked with two end-tables. On one, he had a stack of newspapers. On the other, a reading lamp gave off the only illumination.
“Have a seat,” Buster said. He motioned to the loveseat across from his chair.
The old man wore blue overalls today over a white shirt. His feet had only socks. Alan looked down and wondered if he should remove his own shoes. Bob didn’t—he just went to the loveseat and sat down—so Alan didn’t either.
Buster didn’t sit. He set the whiskey down on the coffee table and disappeared through doorway. He returned with three mugs on a little tray. He didn’t speak, but he grunted with each movement as he set the tray down on the table, opened the whiskey, and dropped a dollop of liquor in each mug. He held the tray out towards Alan and Bob.
Bob took a mug and nodded to Alan.