“Dad?” Willy echoed. “He was Dad then, wasn’t he? Or that’s what you wanted him to be. Your dad; your friend; the source of love you thought every family had but yours. Did Herb get all of that, and you got nothing, even with all the beating?”
Nate stayed silent.
“Come on,” Willy urged him. “Tell me you didn’t feel Herb got what you didn’t. Eileen, too, except she was a girl, so that was all right. Weren’t you pissed at Herb, Nate? Till he pushed you over the edge?”
Nate rubbed his forehead until it reddened. “I pushed him,” he mouthed.
“Into the saw blade or over the edge?”
“What’s the difference?”
“How did you push him over the edge?” Willy pressed.
“I accused him.”
“Of being gay…” Willy quickly self-corrected, “Of being a faggot?” he suggested. “A queer? What did you do, Nate?”
Nate surprised him then by looking up, befuddled. “I don’t remember.”
Willy sharpened his voice. “Cut the crap. What does that mean?”
“I mean what started it. We were working the job-what Bud had told us to do-and Herb said something. I don’t know what it was. All these years, I’ve tried to remember. I just blew up. Started yelling. I grabbed him.…” His voice trailed off.
“You threw him into the saw,” Willy suggested.
“Dad walked in right then,” Nate finished. “Herb was screaming. Blood was everywhere. Bud didn’t care about any of it. He just started beating on me.”
Willy frowned. “What about Herb?”
Nate shook his head. “He got himself off the saw, I guess. I didn’t see it. Maybe he didn’t. I was covering my head, trying to get away. Bud had a two-by-four. I finally blacked out.”
Willy kept to what Nate believed to be true. “But Herb was dead?”
Nate stared at him. “Of course he was dead. I killed him.”
“But you didn’t see him.”
“Bud put him in a coffin, for God’s sake.”
“But you didn’t see him,” Willy repeated.
Nate’s voice dropped as he said weakly, “The sheriff came.”
“And he didn’t see him, either.” Willy leaned in to ask, “Did the sheriff see you, with all your cuts and bruises from Bud?”
“No,” Nate admitted. “I was told to stay away.”
“What happened between Bud and the sheriff?”
“I heard they met in the mill. That’s where Bud put the coffin-a box, really. The sheriff drove up, talked with Bud awhile, and he drove off. That was it.”
“What about your mom?” Willy asked. “What was she doing through all this?”
“I don’t know. When I woke up, after the beating, he sent me to get fixed up by her. She did it, but never said a word, and a day later, he threw me out. I never saw her again.”
“Where was Eileen?”
“She came home right after the fight, but I don’t know where she was when the sheriff came. I saw her for a couple of minutes when I was leaving the next day. She didn’t have a clue. Nobody told her nuthin’. She just looked stunned.”
“You keep in touch, though. She told me,” Willy said.
“Yeah, sometimes.” Nate’s tone was wistful. “She had it rough, being alone all of a sudden, with Bud and Dreama ending up the way they did. Her whole world blew up when she wasn’t looking. I’m glad she found Phil.”
“Ranslow?”
“Yeah. He sounds all right for her.”
“When was the last time you and Eileen talked?” Willy asked, remembering what she’d answered.
“I don’t know,” Nate said. “A year, maybe? I’m too embarrassed to say much, so I leave it to her to find me.”
Willy stood up and paced the floor, an impulse that took him all of two steps. “How’d you end up here?”
“I got a job logging, after I left home,” Nate explained. “The Kingdom seemed like a good fit. One of the landowners let me build this place. In exchange, I keep an eye out. There’s nothing to see, though.”
“How long you been here?”
“Over twenty years.”
“How do you keep alive?” Willy pointed at the stocked cans and boxes.
“I trade stuff,” he said. “Animal furs. I still work the woodlot. It doesn’t take much.”
Willy turned to face him directly. “I have to tell you something, Nate.”
His host stayed seated but straightened slightly, triggered by Willy’s tone. “Okay.”
“The recent flooding eroded part of the cemetery where your brother was buried. Herb’s coffin was exposed. There was nobody in it. Just a bunch of rocks.”
Nate blinked. “What?”
“Herb’s coffin doesn’t have anybody in it, Nate,” Willy tried again. “Could be he’s still alive.”
“Herb?” Nate sounded as if he was barely awake.
“I probably shouldn’t tell you this,” Willy said, “but you already sentenced yourself to a twenty-year-plus prison term. Your dad may have lied about Herb dying. That’s why he wouldn’t open the box when the sheriff came. As far as I can tell, nobody ever saw Herb after the accident.”
Nate was slowly absorbing it all. “Why?” he managed to say.
Willy gave a shrug. “Who knows? Bud had poisoned you against your brother, although not in so many words. He couldn’t believe you took it to the point where you threw him into the saw, so now it was up to Bud to take revenge. He covered his own guilt by making you feel like you’d killed Herb.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” Nate said wonderingly.
“Humans usually don’t,” Willy answered. “For all I know, maybe the whole parenting thing just fell in on him, and he took this way to clean out the stable except for Eileen, who might’ve struck him differently because she’s a girl.”
He sat back down, still speaking. “Nate, I’m not a shrink. I have no clue what drove him to do what he did, or even what happened to Herb in the long run. For all I know, he died two weeks after. But I think Bud buried a box of rocks in part to put everything behind him, and then let it eat him up until it killed him, right after it had done the same to Dreama. From what I know of human nature, your whole family was fucked up beyond repair and did everything wrong to set things right. But like I said, nobody pays me for counseling.”
Nate didn’t react. He just sat where he was and stared at his guest as if he’d been beamed down into his chair from a flying saucer.
“You say you killed your brother,” Willy forged ahead. “I have zero proof of that-no body, no witnesses, no evidence, no crime scene. You guys had a fight, Herb got injured, your dad beat the snot out of you, and then-probably-he covered up by inventing a story, burying the rocks, and throwing his two sons out the door.”
At that, Nate’s expression seemed to awaken, but Willy cut him off before he could speak. “I know, I know, I can’t prove any of it. But Eileen stayed home, and she never saw Herb again, thinking he was in the box. You and I know he wasn’t, so where was he? Bud chucked you out ’cause of what you did. You say he wasn’t too thrilled with Herb-either because of his sexual orientation or just because your old man was as mean as cat shit-so maybe he threw him out, too.”
Willy abruptly stopped and fixed Nate with a look, making him squirm.
“What?” Nate finally said in a small voice.
“Who was your doctor when you were all living together?”
“We didn’t go to a doctor much.”
“Good for you,” Willy said impatiently. “If you’d been the one who got caught up in a saw blade, who would your father have taken you to? Especially if he’d wanted to avoid a hospital.”
“Dr. Racque, I guess.”
“Racque?” Willy repeated. “You’re kidding. He live north of Townshend, in Windham County?”
Nate shrugged. “I don’t know.”
“Thomas Racque? R-a-c-q-u-e?”
Nate scratched his temple. “I guess. It looked French.”
Willy nodded, pleased. He knew old Doc Racque. Long retired but still alive. He’d actually walked away from the profession after one disagreement too many with the medical bureaucracy, choosing to manage his woodlot and tend to his garden. Willy had dealt with him over twenty years ago on a case, also involving a trauma that should have been reported to the authorities. Thomas Racque was ill-inclined to play by the rules.