Where the Summer Ends - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,49

under his breath. There was no arguing with Gradie in his present state, and by morning the old man might have forgotten the entire transaction. Selling out and leaving? Impossible. This yard was Gradie’s world, his life. Once he crawled up out of this binge, he’d get over the willies and not remember a thing from the past week.

“How about if I borrow your truck?”

“I’m taking it.”

“I won’t be ten minutes with it.” Mercer cringed to think of Gradie behind the wheel just now.

Eventually, he secured Gradie’s key to the aged Studebaker pickup in return for his promise to return immediately upon unloading the mantel. Together they worked the heavy mahogany piece onto the truck bed—Mercer fretting at each threatened scrape against the rusted metal.

“Care to come along to help unload?” Mercer invited. “I got a bottle at the house.”

Gradie refused the bait. “I got things to do before I go. You just get back here soon as you’re finished.”

Grinding dry gears, Mercer edged the pickup out of the kudzu-walled yard, and clattered away into the night.

The mantel was really too heavy for the two of them to move—Mercer could handle the weight easily enough, but the bulky piece needed two people. Linda struggled gamely with her end, but the mantel scraped and scuffed as they lowered it from the truck bed and hauled it into the house. By the time they had finished, they both were sticky and exhausted from the effort.

Mercer remembered his watch. “Christ, it’s two-thirty. I’ve got to get this heap back to Gradie.”

“Why don’t you wait till morning? He’s probably passed out cold by now.”

“I promised to get right back to him.”

Linda hesitated at the doorway “Wait a second. I’m coming.”

“Thought you’d had enough of Gradie’s place.”

“I don’t like waiting here alone this late.”

“Since when?” Mercer laughed, climbing into the pickup.

“I don’t like the way the kudzu crawls all up the back of the house. Something might be hiding...”

Gradie didn’t pop out of his burrow when they rattled into his yard. Linda had been right, Mercer reflected— the old man was sleeping it off. With a pang of guilt, he hoped his fifty bucks wouldn’t go toward extending this binge; Gradie had really looked bad tonight. Maybe he should look in on him tomorrow afternoon, get him to eat something.

“I’ll just lookin to see if he’s okay,” Mercer told her. “If he’s asleep, I’ll just leave the keys beside him.”

“Leave them in the ignition,” Linda argued. “Let’s just go.”

“Won’t take a minute.”

Linda swung down from the cab and scrambled after him. Fitful gushes of heat lightning spilled across the crowded yard—picking out the junk-laden stacks and shelves, crouched in fantastic distortions like a Dantesque vision of Hell. The darkness in between bursts was hot and oily, heavy with moisture, and the subdued rumble of thunder seemed like gargantuan breathing.

“Be lucky to make it back before this hits,” Mercer grumbled. The screen door was unlatched. Mercer pushed it open.

“Mr Gradie?” he called softly—not wishing to wake the old man, but remembering the shotgun. “Mr Gradie? It’s Jon.”

Within, the table lamps shed a dusty glow across the cluttered room. Without, the sporadic glare of heat lightning popped on and off like a defective neon sign. Mercer squinted into the pools of shadow between cabinets and shelves. Bellies of curved glass, shoulders of polished mahogany smouldered in the flickering light. From the walls, glass eyes glinted watchfully from the mounted deer’s heads and stuffed birds. “Mr Gradie?”

“Jon. Leave the keys and let’s go.”

“I’d better see if he’s all right.”

Mercer started toward the rear of the house, then paused a moment. One of the glass-fronted cabinets stood open; it had been closed when he was here before. Its door snagged out into the cramped aisle-space; Mercer made to close it as he edged past. It was the walnut cabinet that housed Gradie’s wartime memorabilia, and Mercer paused as he closed it because one exhibit was noticeably missing: that of the monkeylike skull that was whimsically labeled “Jap General’s Skull.”

“Mr Gradie?”

“Phew!” Linda crinkled her nose. “He’s got something scorching on the stove!”

Mercer turned into the kitchen. An overhead bulb glared down upon a squalid confusion of mismatched kitchen furnishings, stacks of chipped, unwashed dishes, empty cans and bottles, scattered remnants of desiccated meals. Mercer winced at the thought of having drunk from these same grimy glasses. The kitchen was deserted. On the stove an overheated saucepan boiled gouts of sour steam, but for the moment Mercer’s attention was on the