A Block of Broken Houses

The Raw Wash

The steady, ceaseless natter of the scurrying river made Wendell uneasy. It was difficult to hear much over its talk, especially when the three of them were so worried about being discovered, if only because being discovered was one step closer to discovering what they had come out here to find. Not that they had found anything, but they were close; they all felt it, and each of them had said so over the course of the last hour. Wendell was fairly certain that he, Blake, and Dan were the only people for miles, but having his sense of hearing taken away had turned that near certainty into a guess, and relying on guesses for their current business was apt to get someone hurt or killed.

If anyone happened to stumble upon them—someone out for a walk with their dog, say—they might ask questions, and if that person recognized them (it was a smaller town, so this was likely), they would ask questions. Questions would lead to complications, and they could ill afford any of those.

Digging in the muddy bank was not easy work, and when one factored in the roots and rocks to contend with it was incredibly draining. Wendell stood and stretched (he found that frequent, short breaks were better than longer, rare ones), and when he looked down river he first caught sight of Blake heading into the brush, toward camp, and then Dan, forty or fifty feet away from where he stood, also down river, swirling his red handkerchief around his head with one dirt-caked fist. To Wendell it looked as if he were itching to lasso something close by. Dan's eyes were large, and the whites of them looked like spotlights against his deeply tanned face. Dan was exchanging frantic glances between a departing Blake and Wendell. Finally, with his off hand—the one not busy with the handkerchief—Dan waved at Wendell, a get over here gesture. At this, Wendell climbed the slick slope of the bank, set his shovel against a tree (far from the river's reach), and started through the brush toward his excited associate.

As he walked, Wendell noticed Dan tuck his handkerchief into his back pocket and then bend to examine something beneath a large tree, what appeared to be a species of maple, its branches extending over their side of the river. Wendell quickened his pace, then thought better of it and slowed a little; no need to twist an ankle or, worse yet, spill the four or five feet down the bank and onto the rock-littered riverbed. His enthusiasm soon got the better of him, though, and he found himself settling into a very light jog, carefully watching where he set his feet.

He was winded when he reached the spot where Dan was crouched, and although he placed the blame on that morning's work, he could not argue that the extra weight around his waist had done him no favours.

"You find it?" Wendell asked, panting.

Instead of answering, Dan glared up at him with a stupid grin. His eyes were squinted against the few sparkles of filtered sunlight dancing on the running water's surface, and he poked repeatedly at the air toward the tree's base, as if he were pecking one handed at the keys of an imaginary typewriter.

Dan then turned and pulled at a bit of partly exposed plastic, filthy and wet, poking from the mud beneath a tangle of the tree's roots. When he couldn't quite seize it, Dan grabbed the handle of a stubbed but sharp garden trowel protruding from the bank to his left and attempted to weave it under the tree roots to find the best digging angle.

Wendell immediately scanned the area for their hatchet, found it, grabbed it, and began swinging it violently around the area where Dan was digging at the half-hidden object.

"Ease up, you idiot!" Dan hollered, pulling his hand away. The trowel caught on a criss-cross of roots and tumbled close to their buried prize, while Dan nearly toppled down the bank's edge before he snatched an exposed and rather thick tree root and saved himself the embarrassment.

After a moment, Dan realized that, although careless, Wendell's plan was a better one than his had been: cut the roots first, then dig. He gave Wendell a nod, and Wendell once again began chopping, if only a little more controlled.