Chapter Six

As it happened, they didn’t need to figure anything out.

Unlike the previous evening, when Mom’s impromptu “game and movie night” put the brakes on Gus and Meghan’s plans, this time Mom handed them the excuse they needed.

“Gus?” Mom called as Gus and Meghan stepped down from the bus.

Gus looked around but didn’t see her. As the bus pulled away, he noticed the barn doors were ajar. He and Meghan walked the short distance to the barn and peered inside.

Mom was in the back corner of the tractor bay, fiddling with the charger for the electric fence. Boxes and tools were stacked around her and on the tractor—apparently she had been searching for the fence charger before they arrived.

“Yeah Mom?” Gus answered.

Mom looked up. “Oh hi, Meghan!” she said, breaking into a big smile and scooching past boxes and the tractor to hug her. “What are you doing here?”

Meghan returned the hug tightly. “Gus and I have a history project. Deb is taking me home later.”

Mom released the embrace and took Meghan’s hands. “Well it’s really good to see you.”

Meghan was nearly overcome by how excited Mrs. Marsh was to see her. “You too,” she squeaked out.

The tractor made Gus uncomfortable. Even parked here in the barn, he had a hard time shaking the image of its wheels on top of Dad. Granted, he was about to go into the field to search for a “soul version” of this same tractor—but that was different, somehow.

Eager to get on with things, Gus broke into Meghan and Mom’s loving moment. “Did you need something?”

“Oh, yes,” Mom explained, sliding past the tractor and back to the fence charger. “I was out trimming along the fence and I bumped into the electric wire, but it didn’t shock me. I don’t think it’s working—but I didn’t want to grab it to find out!”

Gus started to say that it was probably working fine, then realized this was his opportunity. “There’s probably something grounding it. I’ll walk around it and see.”

“No, no, no,” Mom refused, “I’ll do it. You’ve got the history thing to do.”

Meghan picked up where Gus left off. “It’s fine, Mrs. Marsh. I’ll walk with him. I’ve been sitting for hours between school and the bus. We can work as we go.”

Mom shrugged, relenting. “As long as it’s no trouble!”

It was no trouble at all.

Mom stayed in the barn’s tractor bay to put the boxes and tools back where they had been before she started searching for the fence charger.

Gus and Meghan opened the gate to the pasture and set off around the fence. As soon as they were out of earshot of the barn, Gus plucked a long blade of grass.

“Mom never really dealt with the cows or the fence, so she wouldn’t know.“ Gus held the end of the blade of grass against the electric wire. “It’s not a steady charge. It pulses.”

Gus slid the grass across the wire, inching closer to his hand but avoiding touching it. After a moment, a light pulse of current tickled Gus’s hand through the grass. “Yep, it’s working fine.”

“But your mom doesn’t need to know that yet,” Meghan grinned.

Gus feigned horror. “You don’t mean we should lie to her?!”

Meghan laughed, but she was clearly a little uncomfortable. “Let’s not call it lying. Let’s… forget to mention it.”

The Marsh homestead was just shy of thirty acres, on top of the ridge and unusually flat for West Virginia. Its ups and downs were mostly gentle, easily managed on foot or tractor—usually, at least.

During the winter, their twenty head of cattle were free to graze both the pasture and meadow. Dad had always supplemented their diet with hay and grain—these were the best looking Herefords on Ridge Road. From spring through fall, the gate between the pasture and meadow was closed so the meadow could grow hay for cutting. That was the difference between a pasture and a meadow, according to Dad. A pasture was for grazing, a meadow for cutting.

This had been a great year for hay. The rainy spring meant lush growth, and a two-week dry spell at the end of June gave them more than enough time for the first cutting. July had a thunderstorm nearly every afternoon—not unheard of but unusually consistent—and another dry week in early August had allowed an early second cutting. Many years two cuttings were all they harvested, but even though it had been mostly dry since Dad died, there would almost certainly be enough growth for a third cutting sometime late September through mid-October.

Deb, Gus, and Mom had always helped out with the hay, but doing it without Dad was almost unthinkable. That third cut was great insurance against a long winter, though, so it would have to be done. The cattle loved the second-cut hay best—its thick mid-summer growth made it sweeter and more nutrient-rich than the first cut. The third cut was less predictable, varying with the temperature and amount of rain as summer wound down. There were differences between the cuttings, to be sure, but on a certain level, grass was grass. The cattle would eat it.

Gus and Meghan followed the barbed-wire fence and the single electric wire that ran alongside it. That led them around the edge of the pasture, where the cattle had kept the grass short. It was an easy walk.

While they traced the fence from Ridge Road to Will Yepp’s property line, Gus picked up where he left off when the middle schooler interrupted them on the bus.

“Whoever was driving that car, they never turned the wheels, never let off the gas.”

Meghan was spellbound. “So that big tree in the woods—it’s the actual tree they hit?”

Gus nodded. “Must be. And I could tell when they went off the side of the road. The car started shaking. But it didn’t slow down.”

“Do you think they fell asleep?” Meghan asked.

In fact, that wasn’t what Gus thought, but he hadn’t really articulated it—even to himself—until now.

“I think they…” he started, and then felt a little nauseated. He had watched someone die—yes, someone from fifty years ago or more, but still. And even worse—

Meghan finished his thought. “You think they did it on purpose.”

Gus nodded again, and took a couple of deep breaths. The nausea abated.

They turned right when they reached the far corner of the field. They were in sight of the pond now, and began the gentle descent along the fence. They were still visible from the house and barn, so they needed to maintain the façade that they were checking the fence until they passed below the brow of the hill, just in case Mom finished in the barn and looked over toward where they were. They were also visible from Will Yepp’s place over the fence, though they didn’t see anyone over there.

“So,” Meghan ventured, “where exactly did….” She trailed off, unable to say the upsetting part out loud.

Gus pointed to the other side of the pond, back toward Ridge Road. “Down there. I only know where the tractor wound up after after Will Yepp”—he gestured toward Will’s place—“moved it.”

They walked the rest of the way down to the pond, out of sight of the barn and house.

“Where did you see the tractor on Monday?”

Gus led her around the pond to The Spot. “Here’s where I was standing, and there”—he pointed—“is where the tractor was.”

“Okay,” Meghan prodded. “What else do we know?”

Gus nodded. Recapping his progress to Meghan gave him the chance to review it himself. And describing it objectively made it easier to control his emotions.

“Dad died on a Sunday morning,” he began. “Early, around eight or so. Not sure of the exact time. I sleep in on Sundays.”

Gus paced southward along the fence separating the pasture from the meadow. He stopped at the fallen tree. “We had a windstorm that weekend, you remember?”

Meghan nodded. Gus went on.

“This tree blew down in the storm, and Dad was apparently trying to tow it somewhere to cut it up. I guess closer to the woodpile. He looped a chain around the tree, so he was definitely moving it somewhere.”

Gus paced again, measuring distances with his stride. He followed the angle of the fallen tree downhill toward the pond.

“The next day, the tractor was here.” Gus stopped on a mostly flat area about halfway between the meadow fence and the pond. “I know because I’m the one who moved it from here back to the barn.”

“Where was the chain?” Meghan asked.

“Gone by the time I was here,” Gus explained. “I guess they had to unhook it to, you know….” He couldn’t quite bring himself to say move the tractor off my dad.

“Probably the paramedics did it,” Gus went on. “Or Will. He got here first.”

“Okay. What else?” Meghan asked.

Gus would have shared more with her, but the truth was, this was all the further his investigation had gotten. Three weeks of pacing and pondering could be boiled down to here’s the tree, there’s the pond, this is where the tractor was, and Will lives over there.

“I’ve been over the ground a thousand times. That’s all I know.”

Meghan prodded him. “About the accident, yes. But you saw the tractor. How did you do that?”

“Honestly no idea.”

Meghan pressed on. “What did you do to make the car appear when we were on the bus?”

Gus’s frustration expressed itself as snark. “Well, somehow, I’ve gained the power to see souls. Or at least their vehicles. But I don’t know how I did that. That’s the point.”

Meghan hesitated, crinkling her nose. “Have you tried just concentrating really hard?”

Gus bristled. His first instinct was to snap back Of course I have!, but then he realized—“No, I guess I haven’t. I haven’t been out here since I saw the tractor Monday night, and even looking for the car in the woods earlier, it’s not like I was straining myself.”

Meghan shrugged. “So it’s worth a shot, right?”

Gus nodded.

He shook out his hands, jogged in place, rolled his neck and shoulders—prepping to concentrate the way a prizefighter shakes loose tension before a big bout.

Gus settled in and breathed deeply, facing The Spot and the pond beyond it.

He closed his eyes and fought to clear his mind. If he wanted to do this, he needed everything else out of the way. He first found himself fixating on the scent of the mud and manure around the pond, a smell he loved. With effort, he pushed it from his consciousness and focused on the red-tinged darkness behind his eyelids.

A few more breaths and he was ready. He opened his eyes slightly, enough to see The Spot but not so much that he could see the rest of the hillside. He didn’t want anything to distract him.

Slowly, he turned his mind to the white Satoh Bison. A small tractor, by tractor standards. But plenty big enough to kill anyone it rolled onto.

He could see it in his mind’s eye, and he sort of placed it on the backdrop of his squinted view of The Spot. This—an imagined tractor on a real background—was definitely not the same as what he saw before, but maybe it was a step in the right directon. He wasn’t sure.

At least, not until he heard The Voice.

The Voice was distant, and had spoken his name: “Gus!” Its distance lent it a faint, otherworldly echo. Someone from “the other side” was calling to him.

Gus strained harder. The Voice called again—“Gus!!”—more present now, closer. It was a man’s voice—could it be Dad’s? Gus didn’t know, but he was sure The Voice was from The Great Beyond.

On high alert, Gus opened his eyes fully and scanned the area, from the fence to the fallen tree to the pond to the flat place where the tractor had been, and back again. He saw nothing.

“Did you hear that??” Gus whispered.

“Yes, I—” Meghan started, but The Voice cut her off, calling again.

“Gus!!”

This time Gus was sure it was from the direction of the pond. He focused as hard as he could. He was wound up like a bobcat about to pounce.

“Gus.” This time it wasn’t The Voice. It was Meghan.

Gus couldn’t be distracted right now. “Shhhh.”

Meghan grabbed Gus’s shoulder. His bobcat-pounce uncoiled and he leapt straight up off the ground. He had been so focused on the area by the pond that he hadn’t heard her approaching.

“What the hell, Meghan?!”

Meghan turned Gus and pointed up the hill past the pond. “Your neighbor. It’s Will, right?”

Sure enough, there was Will, waving. “Hey Gus!”

The voice hadn’t been from beyond the grave. Only beyond the fence.

“Sorry,” Gus whispered to Meghan as he caught his breath and tried to get control of his racing heart.

“Mind if I join ya down there?” Will called down to them.

Not seeing a graceful way to refuse, Gus waved for him to come on. “Sure!”

Gus and Meghan watched Will hop over the fence. Well, they watched him try.

The cuff of the right pant leg of Will’s denim overalls caught on the top strand of barbed wire. Will writhed in the air, but with nothing to push off of, he couldn’t free his overalls from the barb. All he managed to do was yank himself parallel to the fence. He landed face down, flat as a board, directly on the single electric wire.

The wire tore free from several of the insulators that connected it to fence posts. Unfortunately for Will, the wire itself remained intact. His overalls insulated his body. His face was not so lucky.

“Sweet Jesus!” Will called out as the electric wire jolted his lips, nose, and left eyeball. He had fallen so fast and awkwardly that he hadn’t yet put his hands on the ground. No matter. Exhibiting superhuman neck strength, Will pushed off the ground with his head and hurled himself upright. Will could have been a circus acrobat—assuming the ringmaster started each show by searing Will’s eye with electricity.

Will was only briefly upright. He collapsed to the ground, clutching the left side of his face and curling into a ball.

Meghan and Gus exchanged a shocked glance, trapped somewhere between laughter and horror. Then, together, they ran toward Will to help him.

Gus took three steps before he was aware of the tractor.

Gus stopped cold. Meghan, two strides ahead and unaware that Gus stopped, kept running uphill toward where Will was writhing in agony.

Gus saw the pale trace of the Satoh Bison, right where he had seen it Monday night. This wasn’t like the car in the woods, though. The car had been clear, definitive, kinetic.

The tractor was stationary and almost transparent. Gus felt it was getting even more transparent as he watched.

Gus was vaguely aware of Will’s moaning and Meghan calling out, “Are you okay?”—presumably addressing Will. He didn’t want Will to see him staring at an invisible tractor, so with effort he began to pull himself away.

Gus worked his way up the hill. He looked back toward The Spot so many times that he was basically walking sideways.

By the time he reached Meghan and Will a few seconds later, the tractor had completely faded away.

Will struggled to his feet, still rubbing his stricken left eye. He jutted his chin toward Gus in greeting—which he likely intended as cool and tough, but in his pitiable state was sad and a little funny instead.

Will was mid-to-late twenties by Gus’s reckoning, maybe thirty. He had a gangly hayseed look—a straw hat and corn cob pipe would not seem out of place.

Will winked several times, scrunching his face to test that everything still worked. “Don’ worry. I’ll fix yer fence.”

The urge to glance back toward where he had seen the tractor overwhelmed Gus. He did—nothing was there.

When he looked back, Meghan caught his eye with a quizzical glance. Gus nodded ever so slightly and returned his attention to Will.

“It’s okay,” Gus reassured Will. “I know you’ll fix the fence. I’m just glad you’re not hurt.”

“Yeah, well I, uh,” Will began, and then trailed off into the longest awkward silence Gus had ever experienced.

Will said nothing. He just rubbed his eye some more.

Gus and Meghan, confused by his silence, said nothing either. Gus assumed he’d pick up where he left off eventually.

Ten seconds—feeling like ten minutes—passed. Gus glanced at The Spot. No tractor.

When Gus looked back, Will was also looking down toward The Spot.

“Uh…” Will said, leading into another few seconds of silence as he stared toward the pond.

Meghan couldn’t take it anymore. “Were you coming to tell us something?”

This finally shook Will out of his trance. “Are you Deb’s girl?”

“I usually go by Meghan, but you’ve got the gist.”

Gus—who had been stealing another glance down the hill—found Meghan’s response hilarious. But Will’s reaction was even funnier. Will was so confused by the sarcasm that he just nodded and grinned—well, half grinned. The left side of his face hadn’t quite caught up yet.

“Yeah, I…” Will started again, and just as Gus began to fear they were in for another pause, Will continued “…what was ya doin’ down there?”

Gus wasn’t sure he liked Will’s tone. He already knew that Will thought Gus was “too young for the gory stuff” about Dad’s death, and Gus felt that’s where this conversation might be going, too.

“Studying history,” Gus lied.

Will nodded, which made him wobble, momentarily dizzy. He shook his head to reorient himself. “What sorta history?”

“I’m sorry,” Meghan butted in. “Did you make that graceful leap over the fence to check up on our homework?”

From Will’s expression, it was clear he had no idea how to respond to such a direct interruption. It got him in line, though.

“Naw, sorry,” Will said. “I jus’ wanted ta bring ya this.”

From a oversized hip pocket in his overalls, Will produced a curled up baseball cap.

“’s yer dad’s.”

Will handed the cap to Gus. It was Dad’s Pittsburgh Pirates cap that he wore to work in—well, the latest in a decades-long series of sweaty, faded Pittsburgh Pirates caps.

Gus was about to ask why Will had it, but Will offered an explanation first. “It was on the ground after I, uh, ya know”—Will squirmed, avoiding saying that he moved the tractor off of Gus’s dad—“an’ I firgot I had it till I saw y’all down there.”

Will gestured in the general direction of The Spot. All three of them spent a moment looking toward the pond—the tractor did not return for Gus.

Something about the way Will told his story left Gus unsatisfied, but he chalked it up to Will’s hiding the gory details—not to mention, Will was still trying to reorient himself after his fall and electrical shock.

“Well,” Gus ventured, “thank you.”

“’s nothin’,” Will said. “Shoulda brung it back already. So, ya goin’ back down there? Lookin’ aroun’?”

Gus nodded. “Yup.”

Gus sensed that Will wanted to object—“too gory for ya”—but Will said nothing. Just nodded along, wink-squinted a couple more times with his left eye, then abruptly turned to go.

“Welp, see ya.”

Meghan, shocked by the suddenness of Will’s departure, managed to choke out “Bye” through a suppressed laugh.

Will took much more care stepping back over the fence than he had the first time. He was helped by the damage he had caused—the disconnected top strand of barbed wire hung much lower now.

“Jus’ gonna get m’tools ta fix it,” Will called as he jogged to his shed.

Gus and Meghan waited until they were back on the other side of the pond to share a laugh at Will’s expense.

Meghan rolled her eyes. “Charming as a bucket of eels, isn’t he?”

Gus plopped down on the fallen tree, examining Dad’s hat. “Of all people who could have been the first to the scene of Dad’s death, why did it have to be him?”

Meghan looked Gus in the eye. “You saw the tractor, didn’t you?”

Gus nodded.

“You were concentrating hard, like I said,” Meghan quasi-bragged.

“Not when I saw it, I wasn’t.”

Meghan was incredulous. “Whatever! You jogged in place. You shook out your hands. You were concentrating so hard it turned into a training montage. And with the car in the woods—you were glued to the bus window.”

“Before I saw it, yeah,” Gus explained, “but how do you think I got the license plate?”

“Part of the license plate.”

Gus found her impression of the bus driver a bit annoying. “Yes, but the point is I was not looking when I realized the car was there in the woods.”

“Oh,” Meghan teased, “so you were looking but you weren’t looking.”

They watched Will come back out of his shed with a hammer and some staples to repair the barbed wire, a sledge to snug up the fence posts, and a few insulators in case any broke when the electric wire popped loose.

Gus looked at Meghan thoughtfully. “I know you were kidding, but I think that’s it.”

“What is?”

“Looking without looking.”

Up the hill, Will straightened a post and tapped it with the sledge.

Meghan was skeptical. “I don’t even know what that means.”

Gus laughed. “I don’t know what any of this means, but like, if I’m trying directly to see the tractor or the car, I can’t. No matter how hard I concentrate. Nothing. But if I’m looking for something else—or something related—or if I’m distracted—?”

Meghan picked up the thread. “Okay, I get that. Looking without looking. Kind of meditating or something—concentrating on experiencing instead of trying to make stuff happen.”

“I guess so.” Gus didn’t know what that meant, either, but it seemed in the ballpark.

“Mom used to do yoga and meditating stuff.” Meghan rarely talked about her mom—Gus wasn’t sure he’d ever heard her do it. And that’s all she said for now too, just enough to explain how she knew about meditation.

Will seemed satisfied the posts were secure. He hammered a staple to repair the barbed wire.

Meghan lowered her voice. “What do you think Will came over here for?”

Gus waved Dad’s hat. “This. Remember?”

Will pulled another staple out of his pocket and reattached the barbed wire to another post.

Meghan didn’t believe that for a second. “He kept it for a month when you’re the next house up the road?”

Gus shrugged. “I guess he saw me and it made him think of it.”

“Oh, I think he saw you all right.”

Gus didn’t understand. “Well what do you think he was doing here?”

It was Meghan’s turn to shrug. “Not a clue. But he was every bit as interested in this area down here as we are.”

“Probably PTSD,” Gus suggested.

But Meghan didn’t look convinced. “At least you got the hat back.”

Gus and Meghan glanced back up at Will. He had finished with the staples and pulled an insulator out of his pocket to reconnect the electric wire.

Meghan’s attention snapped back to Gus. “Ask Mrs. Miller if that’s how you do it.”

“Do what?”

“Looking without looking.”

Gus considered, then nodded. “That’s a good idea. Maybe then she’ll see I am ready to learn more about souls.”

“Sweet Jesus!!” Will screamed, and both Gus and Meghan jumped.

“He didn’t—“ Meghan started.

Gus interrupted. “He did.”

Meghan could hardly believe it. “He grabbed it with his bare hand? After it just shocked his eyeball?”

Will waved to them and called out, “Jus’ testin’ the wire! Works good!”

It took most of Gus’s willpower not to laugh. He called back to Will, “Sounds good, man. Thanks!”

As Will lugged his tools back to his shed, Gus looked back to Meghan. She was studying The Spot intently.

Gus didn’t know Meghan that well, but their friendship had grown more over the last two days than most friendships would grow over two years. Meghan might be his brother’s soulmate, but she was Gus’s “soul”-mate (the wordplay made Gus grin when it occurred to him). There was an undeniable bond between two people who were “soul-searching” together.

Perhaps it was that bond, or perhaps Gus had begun developing a sixth sense similar to Mrs. Miller’s—or perhaps it was nothing at all! But whatever it was or wasn’t, Gus read contradictions on Meghan’s face that he had never seen before. Not on anyone.

Meghan’s face was determined, but wistful. Deeply present, but lost in thought. In the moment, yet in the past.

Meghan noticed Gus watching her. She met his eyes and smiled. The contradictions melted away.

Soul-mates.

Gus knew what soul he was searching for. He wondered if Meghan had one on her mind, too.