Page 122 of Boston
“We love Silver Sage,” Cal said.
“Yeah, we all love it,” Cash said. “Now why is this gonna look bad?” He shot Boston a glare, and Boston focused on Cal, because he’d like to know why it would be bad as well.
“Like I said, the Wickers have had this place since it was founded in 1877,” Cal said. “That’s almost one-hundred-fifty years. And well, I’m sure there’s some items that you’ll find here that are that old.”
“They’re hoarders, the Wickers, especially Walt. And when he passed away, his wife had no idea what to do with everything, so she simply packed up the things that meant the most to her, and whatever clothes she could take with her, and she went to live with her daughter in Lake Tahoe.”
“She passed last summer, and the kids have been coming here for a year, taking anything that means anything to them and trying to clean up as much as they can.” He gestured behind Cash and Boston to the yard. “I told them if they didn’t clean up all the machinery in the yard, that no one would come look at this place. So they did that, but they didn’t touch any of the buildings or the houses.”
Boston swallowed, suddenly worried about picking up something that might make him sick or cause a rash.
“What equipment was in the yard?” Cash asked.
“Washing machine, bicycle, couple of cars,” Cal said, like everyone kept such things on their front lawns.
Boston and Cash exchanged a glance. “I don’t know about this,” Boston said.
“Open mind.” Cash lifted both arms and moved them forward as he drew energy back to him. “We’re going to have an open mind. We got a lot of men and young people in our family, and we can carry stuff out.”
“Yeah, but where are we going to put it?” Boston asked.
“We can get industrial dumpsters,” Cal said. “They deliver them to the property, and they come pick them up when they’re full.”
“There you go,” Cash said, grinning.
Boston rolled his eyes. “You know, I kind of liked you better when you were the broody bull rider.”
Cash laughed, and that caused Boston to smile. “We still want to see it,” he said to Cal.
He moved over to the door and typed in a code for the lock that had been installed there. Boston expected a disgusting smell to hit him the moment Cal opened the door, but it didn’t.
“You go first,” he said to Cash, and Cash bravely took the first step inside the house. Boston followed, expecting to be walking through towers of boxes and stuff the way he’d seen on TV, but he entered to a fairly normal foyer with a dining room that expanded to his right and the living room to the left. A staircase stood right in front of the door with a hallway leading past it, and when Cal moved out of the way, Boston could see a kitchen sink.
“This ain’t so bad,” Cash said.
“The family has worked really hard to move a lot of stuff,” Cal said. “This house is better than any other building on the property.”
“Maybe we should call Uncle Jem and tell him we’ll be there for dinner instead of lunch,” Boston said. He toed the carpet where it met the tile in the front entry, and he’d want to rip out every piece of flooring and replace it. After all, fifteen years of dirt and grime embedded into carpet…. He shuddered; it definitely had to go.
“Great big living room,” Cash said, and Boston moved into that room with him. A loveseat had been turned over on top of a couch, and at least a dozen boxes stood on and around the hearth, but Boston could also see the size of the room.
“Not bad,” he said. It merged with the kitchen, which flowed all along the back of the house, even underneath the staircase.
“Big pantry over here,” Cal said. Boxes had been stacked floor to ceiling in the kitchen and along all the counter space in that room as well. The pantry held them too, but he watched as Cal walked through it into the dining room.
“That’s kind of odd.” Boston didn’t even know what to do with a formal dining room.
“So all of this space is your main living area,” Cal said. “And then they put an addition on the side, and right on the other side of this wall.” He indicated the far wall of the dining room, but he couldn’t touch it, because the boxes here were stacked three deep. “Is your garage. And did you see that door back there just before we came out of the pantry?”
“Yeah,” Boston said.
“That leads into the garage. Go ahead and open it.”
Boston did, and sure enough, the two-car garage expanded in front of him. It held everything and anything imaginable on the planet, including rakes, old bicycles and toys, boxes, a canoe, an old ATV that Boston wondered if it ran, a ceiling fan, totes that looked like they had towels in them, and more. So. Much. More.
“So you come into the house right there,” Cal said. “You can take your groceries and stuff through to the kitchen, or just right into the pantry.”
“All right,” Boston said.
