Harvestman Lodge by Cameron Judd Page B

Cruller’s home, and followed the man’s battered pickup truck out to the rental site.
    “It’s the upper part you’d rent,” Cruller said, gesturing toward the two-level building. The lower portion featured huge plate glass windows, like an old-style auto showroom. The upper rental level, accessible by an exterior flight of stairs protected by an awning, had a smaller footprint than the bottom level it sat upon.
    “Been a lot of different businesses operate in that lower level,” Cruller said as they walked toward the stairs. “One fellow sold cars, another had a motorcycle dealership, then another man sold mountain bikes and hiking gear and such. There was a day care for kids in there for a short time, and a video store. Other things were there … a fabric store, then a temporary church, holy-roller variety, and a religious bookstore … and, well … uh, something not so religious. Dancing girls and all, back in the ‘70s. Your indecent variety. So this has been a busy place sometimes, and sat empty a few times.”
    “So the upstairs used to be … “
    “Office space. Then about three years ago my brother Tom and me bought this place and decided to turn the upstairs into an apartment and use the bottom for storage of some antique farm equipment we had. We’ve sold all that stuff since. A young married couple were in the apartment a while, then they bought that house over there on the corner and we lost them. We rented out to a couple of young ladies going to Bowington College, then a pair of old retired folks, them being the last in there before now. The man died, and his widow went to Arkansas to live with family. So now the place is empty and here I am, hoping you’ll want to rent it.”
    There was nothing fancy about the apartment, no ornate tile in kitchen or bath, no shining stainless steel appliances. Worn wood flooring with rugs, not carpet. Appliances a decade old, enamel chipped on stove and sink.
    Roomy, though. Plenty of windows to let in light, and a washing machine and dryer in an oversized closet off the kitchen. It reminded Eli of his first home in childhood, an apartment his parents had rented on the cheap on a shaded avenue in Strawberry Plains.
    “Want to talk it over?” Cruller asked.
    Within fifteen minutes, Cruller had a new renter and Eli Scudder a new place to live.
     
    WITH THE BURDEN OF FINDING a residence so quickly lifted, Eli was in the mood to do a bit of exploration. He filled the tank of the Rambler at a convenience market, bought a candy bar, then took off down a random street with no destination or plan other than to see whatever he could of the town and county he soon would profile in the upcoming magazine.
    He wound through a couple of typical neighborhoods full of post-war bungalows and 1960s ranch-style dwellings and split-levels. Swingsets and plastic kiddy pools and flower beds and doghouses in the backyards. On some lots, ornamental trees were whitewashed around their trunks up to a height of about four feet, a look that took Eli back to the humble streets of his childhood.
    Those memories prompted Eli to drive out into the countryside to see if anything would revive recollections of his childhood visits to Kincheloe County. Somewhere out there was the former home of his mother’s parents, now dead for years. He had no memory of the name of the road it stood beside. Nor did he remember any landmarks of that area except two: a sign made in the shape of a huge bottle cap and touting a regional soft drink, and a church with two side-by-side steeples on its rooftop. There was a story about those twin steeples, something his grandfather had told him. Forgotten now, along with so much else.
    If he could find the church, he might be able to explore its immediate area and find his grandparents’ old homeplace too. So Eli kept an eye out for a double steeple as he drove around, making turns onto new roads upon impulse, deliberately letting himself get lost. He saw plenty