"When you're laying there on that floor and they're counting, for nine seconds, all you can think is how free you are. But then you know, you gotta get up, and you gotta fight some more, cause if you don't, they're gonna kill you."
Dalton West is lost. Not in a physical sense, much deeper than that. From the time he'd awakened on the side of the road in an old pickup truck six months back, until today, was all he could remember. Even the name he carries is borrowed from a sticker on the back of that truck.
A fading polaroid image of a young boy, with a big, antique teddy bear that he somehow knows is him, and a small, silver medallion on a string around his wrist, are the only clues he has to who he might be, and what happened to make him forget everything else. Everything except an urge that keeps telling him someone's life depends on him remembering.
When he meets Leeanne, a small town girl, with even bigger problems, he'll put his search on hold to make sure she gets more than nine seconds of freedom.
PART EIGHT
He led us back through the basement, which had neat rows of pallets, with stacks of paint cans, kitchen cabinets and Shop Vacs. In short, it was everything needed to stock the hardware store upstairs.
In one back corner, lined by a waste high metal rail, was a loading ramp. It led up about six feet to a flat staging area. At the back were two huge barn doors, hinged to open in.
On the staging area sat the answer to the only problem I had that morning, a shiny red panel truck. It looked like it had been new sometime shortly after this place was built. I hoped it ran. I walked up the ramp and ran my hand along its side. Beautiful truck. ‘Bedman Hardware’ it said, in gold script down the side.
“We’ll load everything in this. If you need more room to haul, we’ve got a box truck at the depot, but this should get us there this morning,” Fred said.
I had to hand it to him, he had quite an operation. Being the only hardware store for twenty miles, obviously was paying off.
Fred paused on the platform and looked back over the basement.
“Now, if we could just get this inventory to move as well as this old truck does,” he said.
He looked tired.
What the tools in Bedman’s basement lacked in “state of the art” newness, the gear we were loading made up for. Everything was the latest model. From the brands I was seeing, Fred did his research. I paused to admire a Hitachi cordless framing nailer. I’d been eying them for months.
Working without hoses and compressors made the work so much easier. But the $400 price tag had kept this tool at the bottom of my ‘Things I’ll buy when I have too damn much money to know what to do with’ list. Cool. This was going to be fun.
“Are you going to put that in the truck, or make love to it?” Leeanne asked.
She was watching me caress the nail gun.
I raised one eyebrow. “Do I only get one choice?” I said.
She laughed, and I added the nailer to the gear in the back of the panel van. I was beginning to like Leeanne. She’d be easy to work with.
By 10 a.m., the tools and material we needed were loaded and we were on our way. Fred tossed me the keys. Leeanne slid into the seat beside me, legs straddling the stick shift. Fred unlocked and opened the barn doors. I started the old panel truck, released the brake and eased it into gear.
From the platform, a ramp led up on the outside another four feet. The hardware store was built into a rise and ground level at the back of the building was nearly eight feet lower here. I stopped at the top of the ramp and waited for Fred. He pulled the doors closed and ran up the ramp. He hopped in beside Leeanne. He rolled down his window and slapped the top of the cab.
The old panel truck ran beautifully. Two minutes later, I was backing it into the driveway beside the big white house. I wondered what I was getting myself into. But, after mentally checking my calendar, I realized I had nothing better to do than hang out with a cute girl, and my new boss fixing old houses. Why not?
I shrugged into a tool belt with suspenders, loaded the hand tools I’d need into the pockets and started to work. I decided it was easiest for me to start removing the doors while Leeanne and Fred set up the tools I would need to reset the frames.
They were all out of square and several of the doors weren’t shutting all the way, including the outside back door. The front door closed, but was hanging limply from one hinge and had to be lifted into its hole. The work was simple, which left me free to work on my other problems, where to unload the truck, and finding Vern.
I removed the two exterior doors and handed them off to Leeanne and Fred. They took them to the garage and set them up on saw horses for sanding and priming. It was easiest to finish them while they were down.
As I tore into the door frames, I started thinking about emptying the truck. I needed somewhere remote. It had to be a dumpster. I had no intention of leaving my mess on someone’s land. And, with Hal roaming around, I needed to make sure I wasn’t being followed.
I decided the easiest thing to do was go to the next town over after dark and look for a good spot. I’d have to be careful, I didn’t want a repeat of last night. Small town cops had nothing better to do, literally, than harass someone like me.
Once the trim and jambs were out, I got a look at the bones of the house. The wall frames were in good shape, and I was able to reuse the old materials to rebuild the back door. By lunch time, the door was dry and ready to rehang.
We left the trim off, because the old plaster on every wall had to come out. It would get reinstalled once the new drywall was up, a task I was trying to convince Fred to hire a crew to handle.
“I can lift drywall,” he said.
“Sure, a sheet or two, but every day, all day for three weeks straight?” I said.
That was my rough estimate of how long it might take us to get it all installed. It would go much faster with experienced hands.
Fred cringed. But, I could see he was starting to come around.
“We’ll see,” he said.
At noon exactly, a black Lexus pulled up to the curb out front. I was putting the finishing touches on the front door frame. It was Ben, and he came with lunch.
The four of us sat in the grass, under one of the huge shade trees. Fall was almost here, and the dying Oklahoma summer was putting in a few last punches. It was hot.
“So, Dalton, tell me about this teddy bear quest,” Ben said. He handed out homemade ham sandwiches from an igloo ice chest.
Leeanne laughed, and shoulder punched me. “Yeah, Dalton, what about your teddy bear quest? Wait, is this serious?” she asked.
Leeanne looked at me, my ears turned red.
“Oh my gosh, it is! What does that even mean, teddy bear quest?” She asked. She laughed some more.
“Well, it’s pretty simple really,” I said.
I was lying. It was anything but simple, but I didn’t need them thinking it was a big deal.
“I have a picture of me with my childhood teddy bear,” I said.
The song from my dream played through my head.
“And, I lost the bear. But, it had a lot of sentimental value to me, so, I’m trying to find it,” I said.
Leeanne got quiet. Her eyes narrowed. She was rethinking her opinion of me, whatever it was.
“That’s so cool,” she said. “Almost no one does quests anymore, am I right? I mean, like King Arthur stuff, you know? But, here you are, like some modern-day Lancelot, rolling around in a red Chevy truck, doing quests and stuff,” she said.
She laughed again.
“There’s a picture,” Fred said. “Let’s see it. You’re so cute now, I’m sure you had to be an adorable kid.”
I tossed the polaroid on the grass and buried my face in a chip bag. This was the most embarrassed I could remember being, well, ever. I tilted the bag back, dumping potato chip crumbs into my mouth. I took my time.
“Aww, you were cute,” Leeanne said.
“That’s a pretty distinctive bear,” Ben said.
“Yeah, I’m hoping it can help me locate my mom,” I said.
It was a half-truth.
“How long have you been looking?” Fred asked.
The simplest way to hide the truth, was to reveal as much of it as you could. The best lies contained the most truth. So, I told him.
“I’ve been travelling about six months. I got a lead on the bear and decided to take some time off and go find it,” I said.
“Well, Vern should be able to help you,” Ben said.
“So, I’ve heard,” I said.
Fred looked down at his sandwich, avoiding my eyes.
“What, Fred, you don’t think that’s a good idea?” I asked.
“I didn’t say anything,” Fred said.
“No, but you didn’t not say anything either honey,” Ben said. “Tell him, he’s going to find out anyway.”
“I hate to even say this, but fair warning, Vern is a creep,” Fred said.
He held a hand over his face, embarrassed by what he’d just said.
“That’s putting it mildly,” Ben said.
“Well, if you have a better way to say it, you tell him,” Fred said.
He was angry. His eyes flashed as he glared at his husband.
Ben pursed his lips. “I didn’t mean it that way,” he said.
Fred stormed off into the house.
“What’s going on?” Leeanne asked.
Ben sighed. “Well, I went to lunch with Vern a long, long time ago, once. Now, he makes it sound like we were engaged, or something.”
“You mean like, on a date?” Leeanne asked. “But I thought you two were like grade school sweethearts or something?”
“That’s just it, it wasn’t a date. In fact, I was just meeting Vern to pick up an antique clock I bought Fred for Christmas. We met in a café out of town, so we wouldn’t ruin the surprise. But, Fred flipped out. I thought he was over it. I guess not,” Ben said.
“For the record, he’s right, Vern is weird. Especially about teddy bears,” Ben said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Ben grinned. “If I have to explain it, it will take all the fun out of it for you,” he said.
We picked up our picnic mess and headed back into the house. Fred was making himself busy with a large flat-bottomed shovel and broom. He looked embarrassed. I said nothing.
“Knock, knock,” said a voice.
It came from the front room. It sounded familiar. Then I thought I smelled cookies. Doris.
Ben ushered her into the room where I was working. She held a tray of lemon bars out inviting me to take one. I took two. I didn’t know a lot of what I liked, but I’d found out quick, I liked lemon bars.
“Let me introduce you to our new contractor. This, is Dalton West,” he said.
Doris smiled. This lady poured it on thick. She may have been the most aggressively friendly person I’d ever met. Which automatically made me not trust her.
“Dalton, this is our investment partner, Mayor Skinner,” Ben said.
“Yes, we’ve met,” the mayor said.
“Right, briefly this morning, downtown,” I said.
I hoped she wouldn’t mention the circumstances. She was the Mayor, I should have guessed.
“So, where’s this new wonder girl, Leeanne, I keep hearing so much about?” the mayor asked.
But, Leeanne had disappeared. She’d been standing right next to me one minute, then the mayor had entered, and she was gone.
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