In short order he had the stanchions stacked haphazardly on the gravel and a mound of rubbish near the burning barrel. One after another the dogs trotted over to scent what Edgar had pulled out. Baboo and Essay marked the old car seat; when Tinder tried, it turned into a balancing problem, since he had only three good legs. Edgar made as if to stop them, then wondered what the point would be.
At noon he doled out scraps to the dogs and soaked Tinder’s foot again, rewrapping it with dry bandages from the clothesline. There was the sound of a car passing along the road. Out of habit, he glanced up to locate the dogs, but there was no real cause for concern. Baboo and Tinder were sleeping in the shade. Essay had selected a spot in the sun from which she could follow his progress. All of them were concealed behind the house. He briefly reconsidered starting down the railroad tracks, then rejected the idea again. Besides the difficulty of traveling with Tinder, and the hydrogen peroxide and other supplies that Henry would be bringing back that evening, Edgar had made a deal with Henry and he already felt more than a twinge of guilt over having burglarized the man. He didn’t want to renege. Cleaning out his shed seemed like a small repayment.
Edgar walked back to the shed, letting his mind wander as he worked. Each time he salvaged something interesting-a puckered, moldy globe or an apple-masher with a broken wooden handle-he turned it over in his hands, brushing away the dirt and dust and cobwebs. He wondered about whoever had built the place. How many summers had he clamped that contraption to his kitchen table and worked the now-cracked handle, squashing apple after apple, levering the burst pulp out of the cylinder, straining the juice through cheesecloth? Did the house smell like cider the next morning? Did hornets collect on the window screen as he worked?
He couldn’t have pinpointed when, exactly, he knew he wasn’t alone. He’d been working slowly, passing in and out of reverie, when his neck hairs began to prickle, as if a rivulet of sweat had been reduced there to salt by the wind, a sensation that at first meant nothing to him. The second time it happened, he glimpsed, from the corner of his eye, a figure standing in the depths of the shed, and he stumbled backward into the sunshine and stared into the the gray morass of shadow.
He looked at the dogs sprawled about the yard. He walked around the shed, keeping a good distance away from it. There were no windows to look through and all he could do was trace the runs of clapboard with their paint peeling off like thin, irregular patches of birch bark. When he’d come full circle he stood outside the doorway and shielded his eyes and peered inside. He could see the outline of the old wagon and the rubbish mounded over it, but that was all. He’d tipped his whacking stick into the corner just inside the door and he leaned in and snatched it and rapped the wooden doorframe. After a while he walked back inside and beat the pile of stanchions until a cloud of orange rust dust filled the shed. All else lay inert. He stood nodding to himself. When he turned, the dogs were lined up in the doorway looking at him.
Good idea, he signed. Down. Watch me.
After the dogs were settled, he went cautiously back to work. The next time he felt the prickle along the back of his neck, he forced himself to look at the dogs first. Only Baboo was still awake, lying panting and unalarmed in the sun. Edgar let his gaze drift toward the rear of the shed. The figure, seen from the corner of his eye, was there, yet when he turned to face it squarely, it was not.
He compiled an impression bit by bit: a slump-shouldered old fellow with a farmer’s thick arms and a broad belly. He wore blue jeans and a grease-stained T-shirt and a feed store cap rested high on his graying head of hair. When the man finally spoke, his voice was low, almost a whisper, and he pronounced words with an accent Edgar recognized from many hours spent listening to old farmers at the feed store who said “da” for “the” and “dere” for “there.”
It was the wife, the man said. Nothin’ could go to waste. Everything had to be saved.
Edgar, wary of what had happened the last time he’d looked, forced himself to concentrate on wrenching a pair of car wheels free.
She wanted to keep every God-darned thing in case we needed it for parts, the man said. I could of used this shed for better, I’ll tell you that. I ended up having to put all the real machinery over to the neighbor’s.
Edgar stacked the wheels one atop the other and knelt and began sorting through some smaller items to keep his eyes on his hands.
Take that coal furnace there.
Edgar ventured a glance toward a hulking metal form behind the wagon. He didn’t dare examine it too closely, for he could feel his gaze drawn toward the old farmer, but it certainly looked like it had once been a furnace. Until that moment he’d only noticed something round and metal and riveted.
We put that into the basement before we even laid the first floorboards. God, it was big! Took three of us all morning. Rained cats and dogs the whole time. That wasn’t so bad, though. Gettin’ it out was lots worse-had to bust it into pieces with a sledgehammer. “Make sure and save that,” she says. “You never know.”
From the corner of his eye Edgar saw the man shake his head.
I can’t tell you how many ton of coal I shoveled into that thing. Got so I was pretty fond of it. Called it Carl. Gotta go stoke Carl, I’d say, when it got cold. Or, Carl’s going to have a hell of a time tonight, when a blizzard come through.
How long did you live here? Edgar signed. But he let himself look, and once again there was no one there. He carried a steering wheel out to the yard and devoted himself to his work until his neck hairs stood again.
Thirty-seven years, the man said. About fifteen years in, nothing fit in the shed no more, so she let me haul some away. She wrung her hands the whole time. Ah, I shouldn’t be so hard on her. She was a sweet woman, and she loved our kids like crazy. After she died I found a shoebox full of wire twists from bread bags. Thousands of ’em! Probably ever one we ever brought into the house. What was she thinking we would use them for?
Edgar didn’t try to respond. He averted his eyes and selected an old crate filled with broken canning jars to carry to the discard pile. Then he pulled a wire cutter from his back pocket and began cutting a snarl of barbed wire and fence posts, bending lengths of wire straight and tossing them into a pile like the stems of iron roses.
When she died, the old farmer continued, I thought, now I can clean that shed. I come outside, opened the doors and thought, nope, can’t do it. Thirty-seven years of putting in, I can’t start taking out now. Would have been like burying her twice. So I sold it all and moved to town. When we had the auction, I told people they could have everything in the shed for twenty bucks if they emptied it out. Not one person took me up on it.
Then, despite Edgar’s best efforts, his glance slipped toward the man again and he was gone. Edgar worked and waited. The afternoon passed. Then Henry arrived home, bringing the dog food and other supplies Edgar had requested and several cans of paint and brushes. He’d brought something else, too: phonograph records, which he made a point of taking out of the car immediately so they wouldn’t melt in the hot sun.
The dogs sallied excitedly around the yard, letting out creaking yawns to calm themselves until Henry reemerged from the house. Edgar stayed Tinder, who keened quietly. The other two accosted Henry. The man hadn’t been around many dogs, that much was obvious. He stood watching, arms in the air like someone wading in a pool. When Baboo sat in front of him, rather than scratching behind the dog’s ear or stroking his ruff, to everyone’s surprise Henry gripped him by the muzzle and shook it like a hand. The gesture was well meant, and possibly Henry even thought the dog liked it, but Baboo lowered his head tolerantly and cast a sidelong glance Edgar’s way. Essay, having witnessed Baboo’s fate, danced skittishly away when her turn came. Finally Henry walked over and patted Tinder’s head open-handedly, as if tamping down a stubborn cowlick. He sized up the debris piles, which had grown impressively over the course of the day, and walked to the shed and looked in.