LEFT OF SINISTER

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Once he was back on the porch Candy went inside ahead of him and standing back with a mighty grip on the door knob held it open for his brother. "Good grief man what are you doing out here again?" he asked as Earl stomped in using his hands to push away the water that had accumulated on his head.

"Did you see the trunk up again–I thought we had settled on your eyes playing tricks on you?" his younger brother said now impatience in his voice with a mixture of concern as well. "It's damn near freezing now. I turned up the thermostat, but I think we need to light a fire in the fireplace." he said now.

"I went out there to look inside the car and the trunk again to see if I laid that paperwork beneath its carpet or somewhere in the car and I had just overlooked it." Earl said putting a hand on his back needing to feel the presence of the envelope back there hoping against hope Candy wouldn't perceive him being in possession of it and demanding look at it to see what "RYAN'S FINDS" meant.

Earl took the side of the door in his left hand and encouraged his brother on back further into the house steadying the door that the wind was forcing toward the wall of the narrow entrance way.

Candy turned about and proceeded from the foyer and when he did Earl took hold of the door knob of the door in his right hand and putting some weight on the door while using both hands pushed it closed. He turned the deadbolt and was satisfied the door was secure. Turning about then he moved into the house and saw his brother enter into the den and make his way through the shadows in there cast by the lamps on the northern, southern and near western wall as well.

Once at the television he rolled it some distance away to his left and then moved on to the fireplace. He pulled aside the segmented screen before it and piled several logs of firewood into the space. When he was done stacking the wood he then bent further into the dark space of the fireplace and manipulated the handle that allowed the release of excess soot gathered within it and to tumble down from the flue. He now grabbed up a can of lighter fluid that sat beside the wood bin and liberally sprayed it onto the wood he had in there. He now sat the can onto the mantel shelf above and finding up there some large kitchen matches struck one alight and flicked it onto the wood.

The flames from the logs roared to life and soon enough a raging fire was at work within the brickwork. He turned around now and urged his brother over. Once Earl joined him there he turned about facing the fireplace once more.  He held his hands out toward the flame and rubbed them together like a man in the wilderness intent to get warm by the fire he'd started, or like a hobo close to a barrel fire at a hobo camp.

"Shit that feels good." he said. Earl joined him in the routine though not nearly as interested in getting warm as he was in reading the paperwork ensconced inside the envelope still secreted on his body. He could feel the dampness of it and the moist T-shirt behind the wet corduroy shirt jacket he had on. The flames dancing there cast long shadows on their faces giving them a frightening quality as they stood in that light.

Candy now looked at the clock that sat mounted above on the mantel. "Damn its almost eleven. Did you ever get Maggie on the phone?" he asked. Earl shook his head. "Nah just as you predicted I couldn't get a signal. I hope she isn't worried." he fretted.

And now Candy patted his back, patted the envelope he was hiding. "Oh shit she knows what a responsible fellow you are. I'm sure she realized that you decided to stay rather than drive back in this torrent. And I'm also sure Steve told her how difficult it is to keep a signal way out here–he's been by here a couple of times and is well aware of it. Just relax and maybe in a bit you'll be able to get one–the damn towers out this way are pretty fickle sometimes." he said not once remarking on the sound of the paper as he had pressed his hand against the corduroy of the red shirt that now was seemingly even redder in the bright glow of the flames whose warmth Earl began to feel against his body.