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Wax paper, potato chip bags, and the occasional coiled mound of dog shit suggested that the Wilder Tower had hosted visitors earlier in the day; but by the time he crossed the train tracks and walked up the gray sidewalks, it was deserted. He wandered past it, sticking to the main paths, since—at least for the moment—he wasn’t doing anything wrong. The park wasn’t yet closed, and Pete wasn’t yet digging on federally protected land. No sense in sneaking until it was absolutely necessary.
Through the thick fields of thigh-high grass he walked, sticking to the concrete and seeing absolutely no one. When he reached the main road, two cars crawled by, one in each direction.
When both cars had passed out of sight, he crossed the street and approached the Dyer cabin. He tossed a furtive glance in all four directions and, seeing not a soul, ducked back into the trees.
The monuments were far enough back that they’d be nearly invisible from the road and very difficult to see from the cabin. The sky was dimming into dark, but he had another half hour of light left at least, and the flashlight to hold him over after that.
He felt safe there beneath the canopy—but not quite safe enough to use the metal detector’s headphones.
With a swift twist of the dial, the detector came to life.
Another swift twist brought the volume down to an acceptable level, and a series of bleeps, pings, and pops whined forth from the black box on the handle.
Although Pete had thought about experimenting with the detector, learning how to use it and how to judge the noises, he hadn’t gotten around to it. For one thing, Rudy had been home; and for another, he didn’t know how much battery life was left in the old nine-volt and he didn’t want to waste it. For thing number three, he’d completely forgotten.
A crash course would have to suffice.
Weeeoooooo, weeeeoooo. Pop.
He swung the flat, round head slowly back and forth, waving it a few inches over the turf. The head hovered like a UFO, grazing the grass tips. It breezed to and fro, left to right. The machine talked as it swayed.
Pop pop pop. Vvzzzzz. Weeeoooo.
Weeeoooo.
Pete began having fun with it. He pretended it was music. Made some steps, keeping time.
After a few minutes, he homed in on something solid. That’s how it felt, anyway, and since his first trip with the detector was an experiment and a crash course all in one, he decided that further investigation was in order.
Lacking anything else to mark his target, he dropped the metal detector with the round end flat on the promising spot and returned to his bag. From inside he withdrew a small garden shovel, and then went back to the possible lucky spot. With one foot on the shovel’s metal edge, he pushed the blade into the ground—just an inch or two. He didn’t want to disturb anything important, and he didn’t know how far down the important stuff might lie. Small shovelfuls, then. An inch or two deep. A gentle toe-push forward.
But it was getting hard to see.
Pete left his little hole and went back to the bag, where he pulled out the flashlight and turned it on. Night hadn’t fallen hard yet, but the trees hanging over him cast a shadow, and the first fuzzings of a gray-white fog were beginning to pool near the ground.
With the help of the light, by the time it was perfectly dark Pete had unearthed two bottle caps, a dozen earthworms, and one shapeless, nubby lump that might have been an old piece of lead shot. Then again, it might have been anything.
Pete thought he should quit while he was ahead. He could always come back. He had plenty of time. The outing had not been altogether useless; he knew what to expect, now. He knew what to listen for. Next time, he could really get started.
Both of the bottle caps and the odd lump of lead went into his front pocket, but the worms he left where he found them—turning the earth back over them and patting it with the back of the shovel.
He straightened up and stuffed the shovel and detector back into his duffel bag, fiddling with the light as he heaved the pack onto his shoulders.
“Hmm,” he grunted.
More than darkness filled up the spaces between the trees. Suddenly and slowly, the dense stew of fog had arrived full force, swallowing the forest, the fields, and everything else. The light wasn’t going to be a whole lot of help.
But Pete knew what they said about how you don’t drive with headlights bright when it’s foggy. He aimed the beam towards the ground. That was enough to see his feet, and a patch all around them. It wasn’t particularly scary, being engulfed in the pale, humid air. If anything, he found it reassuring.
Given how little he could see, the odds of being spotted and stopped were next to nothing.
Not by any park ranger or cops, anyway.
His brain choked on that thought for a moment, and he almost ran headlong into a tree. At the last second he sidestepped it, and shook his head back and forth hard. Against his better judgment, he lifted the light and pointed it around him at chest level. Nothing but blank whiteness reflected back.
Through the thick screen Pete spied a couple more tree trunks all around him in every direction. He was only a few yards from the Dyer’s cabin. He ought to walk free of the trees any second.
But the next dash of stumbling steps only brought Pete into more trunks, and more fog, and more twiggy grass.
