"Henry," Aunt Lena said once, her voice unaccustomably sharp with warning, "quit filling those children's heads with tall tales."

Uncle Henry had straightened up, shifted the wad of chewing tobacco to his other cheek, and said, "Aren't tall tales, Mother. That cave's out there somewhere."

It had been all the promise the kids needed. Over the years, Uncle Henry's easternmost pasture-used just for grazing the bull when he had one-began to look like the hillsides around Slitter's Creek circa 1849 as Dale and Lawrence and friends poked into every dip and shallow and grassy overhang, certain that this time they would find the entrance. Dale had often dreamed about how that last shovelful would feel as they broke through-the dark cave opening before them, perhaps with a gas lamp still burning in there, the odor of bathtub gin wafting out on a current of air that had been stilled for thirty years.

Duane arrived about six o'clock-his father dropping him off on his way to the Black Tree-and he passed half an hour talking to the adults on the shaded lawn before heading back through the barnyard to the back pastures. No one noticed it, but he had dressed up for the occasion in his newest tan corduroy trousers and a red flannel shirt that his Uncle Art had given him for Christmas.

In the last pasture, he found a circle of dirty and tired boys huddled around a hole dug three feet into the hillside. The slope below them was littered with large rocks they had pried out.

"Hi." Duane sat on one of the larger rocks. "Think you found it this time?" The shadows were growing longer and this part of the hillside was in shade. The stream was little more than a trickle twenty feet below, just beyond the flattened area that Dale had always been sure was the "bootleggers' road."

Dale mopped his forehead and left a trail of mud. "We thought so. Look ... we found this old rotted wood in there behind that big rock."

Duane nodded. "An old log, huh?"

"No!" Lawrence said angrily. His t-shirt was a mess. "It's one of the log tilings over the cave entrance."

"Pilings," said Mike.

Duane nodded and nudged the log with his black sneaker. There were stubs of branches on it. "Hmm-hm."

"I told them they were full of shit," said Jim Harlen happily enough. He shifted so that his cast was more comfortable. It was obvious that his arm still hurt him, and there was a bandage wrapped around his head that reminded Duane of Crane's Red Badge of Courage. He tried to imagine Jim Harlen as Henry Fleming.

"You been digging too?" asked Duane.

Harlen snorted. "I never did. My job's to sell the booze when we find it."

"Think it'll still be good?" Duane's voice was innocent.

"Hey, it ages, doesn't it?" said Harlen. "Wine and that stuff's worth more money after a while, right?"

Mike O'Rourke grinned. "We're not sure gin's the same way. What do you think, Duane?"

Duane picked up a twig and drew designs in the mound of fresh dirt they'd excavated. The hole was deep enough that when Lawrence poked his head in, only his legs from the knees down stayed in the open air. Duane noticed that it wasn't really a tunnel, though-there seemed no chance of a cave-in-merely a gouge in the hillside. The most recent of many.

"My guess is that you'd make more money selling the old cars that're in there," he said, joining in the game. After all, what harm was there in imagining this well-stocked cavern just a few yards away through soft soil? Was it any more fanciful than the "research" he'd been doing for two weeks?

Only now Duane knew that there was nothing fanciful about his research. He touched his shirt pocket, then remembered that he'd left his notebook at home with the others in their hiding place.

"Yeah," said Dale, "or make a fortune just giving tours of the place. Uncle Henry says that we can fix it up with electric lights and keep it just the way it was."

"Neat," said Duane. "Oh, your mom said to tell you to come on up to the house to get cleaned up. They've got the steaks on the grill."

The boys hesitated, pulled between their fading fixation and growing hunger. Hunger won.

They walked back at Harlen's pace, shovels over their shoulders like rifles, talking and laughing. The dairy cattle ambling back to the barn looked at the group quizzically and gave them a wide berth. The six boys were still a hundred yards away from the last fence when they smelled the aroma of sizzling steak on the evening breeze.

They ate on the stone patio on the east side of the house as shadows swallowed the golden light on the lawn. Smoke rose from the barbecue pit Uncle Henry had built beyond the pump near the wooden fence. Despite Mike's protests that the corn and salad and rolls and dessert would be more than enough dinner, Aunt Lena had pan-fried two catfish for him, breading them until they were extra crispy. Along with the fish and steak, the boys received two huge baskets of onion rings to go along with the vegetables that had been picked from the garden an hour earlier. The milk was ice cold and creamy, separated and stored in Uncle Henry's dairy barn that day.

They ate as the heat of the day dissipated. A breeze had come up to give relief from the humidity and rustle the branches above the lawn. The endless cornfields on the west side of the road and to the north seemed to sigh in some silken language.

The kids sat somewhat apart, perched on stone steps and flower planters-Aunt Lena had landscaped three acres of yard with flowers at all strategic spots-while the grown-ups sat in their circle, plates on their laps and on the broad arms of their wooden chairs. Uncle Henry had brought out a keg of his homemade beer and the mugs had been pre-cooled in the freezer in the garage.

The voices were a medley so common to Dale's ear that he could not imagine a time when all or some of them would not be there as background: Kev's rising chuckle and excited tones, Harlen's drawled sarcasms that sent them sprawling with laughter, Mike's soft asides, Lawrence speaking high and shrill, as if he had to speak quickly to be heard at all, and Duane's rare comments. The grown-ups' tones were equally familiar: Uncle Henry's rasp as he told about the 1928 Pierce Arrow hood ornament that he'd found in the back pasture just last month-a sure sign that some gangster had driven back to the Bootleggers' Cave and come to a bad end; Aunt Lena's husky laugh-simply the most sensual and unique human sound Dale had ever heard; his mother's and father's voices, familiar as the breeze that touched the trees, his dad now more relaxed than usual and telling humorous stories of life on the road; Harlen's mom's somehow adolescent giggle, rushing, excited, as if she had already had too much to drink or, like Lawrence, felt that she had to hurry to be heard.

Their knives made pale red patterns on the paper plates. Everyone went back for seconds, most for thirds. The huge bowl of salad dwindled; the foil-wrapped ears of corn on the barbecue were snatched up; Uncle Henry laughed and bantered even as he put more steaks on the grill and stood there beaming at everyone in his Come 'N' Get It apron, long fork in hand.

After dinner, the boys took their desserts of homemade rhubarb pie and chocolate cake-none chose just one-up to the deck.

Uncle Henry and Aunt Lena had added on to their house over the years, never completing the remodeling, merely moving on to the next project: Dale remembered a four-room white frame house when he had come down from Chicago for his grandmother's funeral when he was six. Now the house itself was brick, with four bedrooms on the first level and a finished basement. Uncle Henry had added the garage the first year the Stewarts had moved to Elm Haven; Dale remembered playing in the framed skeleton of it as Uncle Henry raised cinderblocks to the right height. Now the garage was huge-holding three cars and another vehicle-built on the south side of the low hill the house was on so that one walked from the garage directly into the basement workroom, while above it, connected to the large guest room and larger master bedroom, was the deck.