The Guardians
R aleigh stood in the morning sunlight under the big maple with a chainsaw in one hand and a heavy splitting maul in the other looking at his friend of 30 years. ’Course I got mix, he said.
Next to the lawn-more in the back.
Says mix on the side and don’t forget the bar and chain as well.
Lawn mower , Silas said.
It was an old joke between them.
Raleigh was big and round-shouldered and had brown eyes that went flat and unseeing when he was thinking about something else.
I’m a librarian trapped in a prizefighter’s body, he liked to say.
An out-of-shape prizefighter.
Silas came back with fuel mix and bar and chain oil and his maul.
He was 60 but moved with the precision of an athlete and checked the corners of every room he walked into as if he always expected something to happen.
Why the fuck are you always looking around? Raleigh demanded once at breakfast, but Sally shushed him.
She had a soft spot for Silas as if he were her wayward son.
Well, he looks like a sociopath, Raleigh said.
All the tools went into the back of the truck along with the old cutting chaps with the gash across the right leg where the Kevlar had saved his knee joint 20 years ago.
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