The Fort (Aric Davis)

be explained away easily: “The adults all went crazy.” Carl’s smile made everything OK, though, and, passing through the kitchen of the house, Scott opened the screen door and went back outside.
    “Scott, my man,” said Carl, finishing the beer and grabbing a fresh one from the cooler at his feet. “How’s it hanging?”
    Not sure how to respond, Scott finally settled on “I’m doing good. What are you making?”
    “Steak,” said Carl, between swigs of beer. “You and I are celebrating. I got some New Yorks from the butcher, and he says they are going to melt in our mouths. I took him at his word and bought the biggest two that he had. Sounds good, right?”
    “Yeah,” said Scott. “It sounds awesome. But what are we celebrating?” Carl finished the second beer in epic time, then cracked a third and took a deep swig. “Well,” said Carl, “between the two of us, I just got promoted at work. Which is pretty cool. Not quite beer-on-a-Tuesday cool or, hell, steak-on-a-night-that-your-mom-works cool, but still pretty cool.
    “And there’s an even cooler part. This wasn’t just a little old raise, this was the spot I’ve been gunning for, and you know what? No more waiting tables for my wife, guaranteed. No more truck leaking oil, either, at least once we get used to the larger checks. I am officially going to be managing a team of guys, instead of just running a machine. Nice, eh?”
    “Mom will really be able to stop working?”
    “Yep. I even considered stopping by her work and making her quit tonight, but I know Beth would have said no, and would have insisted on putting in her two weeks so she doesn’t screw anybody over. This is pretty good news for us, Scott. For all three of us.”
    “It’s amazing.”
    “Yep, but there’s something else amazing that I need too. Go run down to the basement and fetch up one of my jars of steak sauce. These are good cuts, so no A.1. tonight. We’ll use my morel sauce.”
    “Sweet,” said Scott. He’d had the morel sauce twice, and it was amazing. His stepdad went mushrooming for weeks in the spring, searching under fallen elms for the delicious and difficult-to-find wild fungus. Carl made the sauce once a year, and Scott was pretty sure his stepdad could bottle it for sale if he were able to find enough mushrooms to make it happen. That, of course, was never going to happen: morels commanded a hefty price at market, and the unpredictability of finding the things meant even the family supply was quite finite.
    The only thing more surprising than sharing steaks and the sauce with his stepfather, though, was access to the basement. “Do I need a key or something?” For as long as Scott could remember, the basement was do not enter, all Carl’s.
    “Nope,” said Carl. “Truth told, Scott, I haven’t locked it in years. I trust you, buddy. Maybe you trust me a bit too. Maybe this new job, and your mom quitting hers, will make you trust me even more. We’re a family, kid, a modern family. We don’t need blood to be one.” Carl paused, then said, “So go get a bottle of sauce, give the armory a look, no touching, and bring it back up.”
    “Yes, sir,” said Scott, and he meant it.

    The basement was cold. The summer was not hot in June of 1987, but being in a cooler environment was still very inviting. Scott figured it was below seventy degrees downstairs, maybe even cooler. Even better than just being cooler was that he’d never been down there without Carl, except to do laundry, and that was in a totally different room. At the bottom of the stairs, Scott walked past the washer and dryer to the door he had assumed was always locked, then turned the knob and walked inside.
    On one wall was a long table, atop which was a table clamp, along with the tools necessary for the manufacture of ammunition. Also on the table were a few boxes of rifle ammunition that had been assembled, along with a few tins of powder and boxes of unloaded cartridges. Next to the table was a drop-front desk that was closed, and—Scott was sure without even checking—locked. Above the desk were three sets of whitetail deer antlers, all mounted in the European style, with just plates of skull and horns on display.
    On the wall across from the desk and table were three gun racks, all of them festooned with various rifles and shotguns, including one rifle with an odd-looking stock that Scott had seen once before. It was an AR-7, manufactured by Charter Arms and