Chapter 4

Half an hour later, after they'd finished dessert, Josh headed up the road in his pickup, while Tiffany started to walk back with Bullet and the pups. It was a nice evening, and she said she'd take the long way around. He found Mark and Jackie sitting out on their lawn again. "I heard you had a busy afternoon," he said as he got out of the truck.

"Yeah, didn't get a lot of work done," Mark agreed. "I take it Mike told you?"

"Just the basics," Josh said. "Kirsten said they hadn't broken it to Henry yet, and so we couldn't talk about it much."

"All these years," Mark said. "I never thought I'd see it happen. Henry was one of the good kids, and it's always bugged me. Did Mike tell you about the schedule?"

"He said it might not come off till next spring."

"It might have to be sooner," Mark admitted. "We don't want to screw up and lose the chance. We may go as soon as the rains break, without Rod and without Binky, but we've got a lot better chance of finding something if they're with us. But, if we wait too long we'll be getting back into the rains again. There's a chance this could come down over the winter, and, well, if we're gone for the Winter Festival and the races, we're gone."

"Any idea how long it's going to take?"

"No idea," Mark said. "It's a crapshoot. If he's dead, and that's ninety-nine point nine nine nine percent likely, we think we know within a square mile or so where his body ought to be. But a square mile of that jungle is a hell of a big area. There's a couple little villages nearby, and we think that someone there probably knows what happened. That's why we're willing to wait to see about taking Binky."

"Well, I don't know what to say, besides good luck," Josh said.

"We'll just have to wait and see," Mark said. "By the way, during one of the periods when Gil was heating up the phones, I got Binky off to the side for a few minutes."

"Yeah?"

"Well, let's just say that it's not too promising, right now. She reeled off half a dozen places, but they're way the hell and gone out in the woods, and hunting land has taken off like a skyrocket. The only things that fit your bill in fairly close are higher than hell, and, I'd suspect, more than you want to pay."

"Damn," Josh said. "I didn't see much that looked like it would fit when I went through the Record-Herald this morning."

"Did you talk to Dad about it?" Jackie wanted to know.

"Yeah," Josh said. "He wasn't opposed. In fact, he thought my finding a place was a pretty good idea."

"I think so, too," she agreed.

"Look," Mark said. "I know about your deal with Tiffany, where she works on summer training, and you work on winter training, not that it's any big secret. Given a choice, you'd like to be real close to here, wouldn't you?"

"Within a mile or so, I guess," Josh said. "I really hadn't thought that part of it out too far. But, I haven't seen any for sale signs right around here."

"There is one thing that Binky told me about," Mark said. "It'd be a lot of work, but might be what you're looking for."

"What's that?"

"There's a two and a half acre lot that adjoins our place here, on the east," Mark said. "I was a little surprised to find out that it was on sale. I thought about buying it a few years ago, but decided that there wasn't any point in it. It's listed for $4000, and that's a pretty good price. She said it'd been on the market a while, so you might get it if you offered three."

"That's that place with the little old barn, right? Just the other side of the field with the training trails, across the road from Mike, and up a little way?"

"Yeah."

"You're saying build a house, then, right? Mark, I don't have the time for it this summer. Besides, I wouldn't know where to start."

"The more I think about it," Mark said, "The more I think it's a pretty good idea, but I've had more time to think about it than you have."

Josh shook his head, but said, "So what are you thinking?"

"When Jackie and I got this place, it was way beyond living in," Mark said. "It'd been abandoned for years, the windows were out of it, the whole kit and kaboodle. We thought about building a new place, but with this being fieldstone, it was structurally sound, even though it needed a lot of work. We decided that it was worth trying to put some money into it to save it. So, we bought this little old mobile home -- it was really more like a big travel trailer -- parked it here, and lived in it for a couple years while we were working on the place."

"It was more like three years," Jackie said. "Of course, we spent most of our first year together in a tent, or on a shantyboat, and it seemed like it had all the space in the world."

"This sounds like it might have possibilities," Josh admitted.

"It's got more than possibilities," Mark said. "Look, there was a house there when we came here. Not a big house, but this guy from down in Camden, Lyle Borton, bought it and wanted to use it as a summer place. Well, back then, it just had a hand pump and an outhouse, and he didn't think too much about going outside in the mosquitos to take a dump, so he put in a well, a septic tank, and a leach bed. Lyle was there, oh, two or three summers, and then he died. I don't know everything about what happened, but I guess there was some kind of squabble in his family over who got what. Anyway, it sat there empty for two or three years, and then, one morning in the early spring, wetter than hell, we got up, and discovered it had burned to the ground. Officially, it was electrical, or some damn thing, but I always figured it was either for the insurance, or else someone wanted to spite someone. Frankly, I thought it had gone up for tax sale; maybe someone paid a few bucks on it as an investment. Might even be Binky, herself."

"I don't quite follow you," Josh said, shaking his head.

Mark smiled. "Binky may know the real estate listings like a computer, but there are some things she doesn't know. All that happened years before she came here. If she's the one that owns it, probably all she knows is that there's a tumbledown outhouse, a little barn in not much better shape, some old footers, and a small hole in the ground, if she even got back that far. The septic tank and leach bed are probably good; they don't age, anyway, and are good for years. That's five, maybe ten thousand bucks right there. The well is probably good, although the pump might not be. That could be a couple thousand bucks. There's an electric pole line that goes through the back yard, and a transformer already on the pole, so you'd only be out a few hundred bucks for electrical service. Phone, well, we can work something out; I'm the guy you'd want to see on that, anyway. Anyway, if she knew all that stuff were there, that lot would be listed at ten thousand, not four."

"You're saying, I could get an old beater of a mobile home, and be up and running for a few thousand dollars, and take my time about building a house?"

"See, I told you it was a good idea once you thought about it," Mark smiled. "Let's go take a look at it."

The three of them piled into Josh's pickup truck, and drove about a half a mile up the road toward the state road. Just past Mike and Kirsten's place, they stopped, at what Josh had always thought was an old, abandoned woods lane. Mark got out, and removed a couple of wires that stretched across the lane, then got back in the truck.

Josh drove up the lane. It was heavily grown up, and hard to see exactly where it went. "This used to be pretty good gravel," Mark said. "We'd have to cut the brush back, and mow it off to see what's there, but probably a little grading and a couple truckloads of crushed stone, and you'd have a pretty solid driveway."

They drove through the patch of woods, and over the top of a little hill. At the back side, there was an open area, where the barn and decayed outhouse sat. Mark's training field was dimly visible through the trees, a couple hundred yards to the west. Mike's house couldn't be seen at all; the little hill was in the way, but it was less than a quarter mile off. "There's plenty of room for a dog lot," Mark said. "The house used to sit right over there, near that dip in the ground. That was a root cellar, or something. If we hunt around, we should be able to find the footers. We're going to have to do some exploring to find where the sewage line cuts in, but I remember generally where it was from when Lyle put it in."

From there, they went over to check out the barn. It wasn't as bad as it had sounded from Mark's description. "Needs some work," Mark concluded. "It's sound enough, but needs to be tightened up a bit. It'd do for a garage, and to store straw and dog gear in. Probably you could get a couple wagonloads of straw up in the loft."

"You said she wants four thousand for this?" Josh asked.

"I don't know that it's Binky that owns it, for sure," Mark replied. "She has it listed for that. I kind of got the impression that she could be beat down. I'd throw an offer of three at her, and you might get her down five hundred bucks."

"I can pay cash, once I get to the bank," Josh said. "I'm sold."

"Look, it's going to cost some more," Mark said. "There's still going to be the cost of getting the electric in, fixing up the barn, firming up the driveway, putting in pads and service for a mobile home. And, you have to find one. Shouldn't be a problem; there are always cheap ones out there for sale. But, moving them isn't always cheap. You're probably going to have ten grand in this before it's over with, but, I'll tell you this: there's nothing else you can do that's going to be so cheap."

"Like I said, I'm sold," Josh said. "I don't have ten grand in the bank, but pretty close."

"At your age," Jackie counseled, "It'd probably be just as good an idea to take out a mortgage, even a small one, just to get some credit established. Put, say, half down, the balance over five years. I can talk to Frank Matson about it, if you'd like."

Josh glanced at his watch. It was after eight. "It's probably too late to call her at home," he said. "Look, tomorrow, can you call her up and set up an appointment for tomorrow evening?"

"Sure, no problem," Mark said. "Look, I'd better go with you. Binky can be a little, uh, overwhealming, when the subject comes to real estate. But, I think I can work with her. After all, I can cuss in Vietnamese, too."

"Thanks, Mark," Josh said. "I know I'm going to have to ask you for some help on this. You know all this stuff, and I don't. Besides, I'm going to be damn busy this summer."