McSweeney's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales - Michael Chabon [96]
But this was not the scurry of claws in the earth; the chink of metal against stone, the purposeful rhythm, the size of the thing in the night were those of a shovel. Suze’s first outlandish reaction was to wish she’d brought her cell phone out with her, followed instantly by anger, good and clean and scouring away the timidity.
The noise persisted for ten minutes or so. By the time it stopped, she had eased herself down from the porch and crept softly down the gravel drive, far enough to get a rough idea of the source of the digging, two hundred yards away, past the first curve. She knew the drive intimately, an easy stroll when she didn’t feel like risking her ankle on an unseen hole or her skin on a stand of poison oak; by now her feet knew the road’s hazards as well as they knew the cabin floor. But her mind could not make an image of what was happening out there.
When the digging sounds ceased, she stayed where she was, head down and concentrating. She couldn’t quite tell, but she didn’t think the sounds had stopped completely: nothing distinct, but the audial impression of footsteps, the sensation of clicks and taps, once a sawing noise that lasted for perhaps twenty seconds. This went on for a quarter of an hour; then the digging noise started up again, although the pace was quicker and it did not go on as long.
Then silence. This time the night settled into a more profound quiet, like a lake of darkness after the ripples passed, placid and undisturbed. A cricket buzzed; a horned owl called; Suze was alone again. She made her way back to the cabin, where she reluctantly— resentfully—checked to be sure all the doors and windows were locked before going to bed.
The next day was Wednesday, not one of Courtney’s days, but already Andy, Janna’s ninety-year-old odd job man (actually only seventy-three, but his complaints were those of a geriatric) was due in the afternoon. She ate her breakfast, listened to the morning news, dismantled the white warp threads from the loom, and began measuring the black linen on her warping mill, all the while waiting for the sun to brighten and reach the proper angle for illuminating the drive.
Finally, she could wait no longer. She went back to the lean-to where Janna kept her gardening tools, locating a trowel more by memory than by sight. She stuck its handle into the back pocket of her jeans, and set off up the drive.
Janna’s road was dirt, graded and graveled when the ruts became too deep, with concrete only on one brief steep stretch near the main road. As Suze approached the first curve, she found that she was deliberately scuffing her boots through the loose rock as if to warn intruders. She made herself stop, and pulled the trowel from her pocket, holding it in her hand like a weapon. Not that she expected to find anyone there—whoever had come by dead of night would hardly hang around to see what came along in broad daylight. Still, she wanted to get some idea of what had happened here before Andy the builder came—he was elderly, but he was a male, and his immediate instinct would be to take control. And although Suze might have got herself bogged down in a morass of cowardice and indecision, she did not wish to be taken control of, thank you very much.
At the curve, she stopped, letting her eyes give her what fuzzy information they could, which wasn’t much. So she closed them and went on, allowing her other senses to come into play. The soft patch of ground underfoot here was as usual, the odor of the oak trees, the faint underlay of wild mint, and the single eucalyptus someone had planted decades ago, fading as she walked on. Soft earth gave way to gravel again where the bulldozer’s blade