Jack Pine, page 13
“I see him!”
His mouth opened slowly and Reuger saw the bandage on his elbow and scrapes and mosquito bites. It was the tattoos of being a boy he remembered from long ago when he was a different man in a different life. They were little soldiers, these boys, he thought, and they went unthinkingly along.
“Man, is he big, Reuger!” He held the binoculars down. “You think he sees us?”
“He’s watching us,” Reuger nodded. “They always go to the highest tree and usually it’s one without any branches so they can see for miles.”
Kurt lifted the binoculars again.
“Wow! He’s huge!”
Reuger checked their lines and watched the portable depth finder. They were shallowing for walleye and he thought Kurt might like the play of some rock bass closer to the island. He felt the old role descend on him. He was thinking in a way he hadn’t pulled out for fifteen years.
“There he goes, Reuger!”
He turned and saw the eagle plunge down flapping wing bellows then ride the current and arc toward Canada. The eagle flapped twice and glided into darkness. Kurt held the binoculars down and shook his head, his eyes shining.
“That was really cool! I didn’t know there were still eagles around.”
“Oh, ya,” Reuger murmured, checking his line. “They were endangered for a while but they’ve come back.”
Kurt looked down.
“Sorry about dropping the fishing rod.”
“Not a problem.”
Reuger saw a fire gleaming the tree line. He leaned over to the boy.
“See those campers, Kurt?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re canoeist headed up into the Boundary Waters there,” Reuger gestured across the northern forest. “They’ll follow the same portage trails Indians have used for thousands of years.”
Kurt frowned, squinting at the man in the big green hat. “What’s a portage trail?”
“Paths running between the lakes no wider than a man.” Reuger pointed north. “You can go all the way up to Canada by connecting lakes.”
“Think we can do that sometime?”
Reuger glanced at him then down at his line.
“I’m sure we can sometime.… Why don’t you pull in your line there, Kurt, and we’ll motor back to the reef.”
He started the motor and turned them into the wind blowing from the island. Reuger saw fishermen in the distance likes monks bent over a poetic pursuit. He cut the motor where water slapped underwater boulders and sprayed the boat. Gulls preened oily feathers on boulders in the lantern light of dusk.
“Throw your line in toward the island, Kurt. You still have a leech?”
“Yeah.”
“Now, I’ll bet there’s a ten-pound walleye in there.”
Their lines dolloped the water, then they rolled in the gentle swing of current. Water drained from the outboard like a leaking gutter. Kurt looked at the man with one boot on the edge of the boat.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“You think I could hold your gun?”
Reuger turned to the boy with big brown eyes.
“I don’t know about that.”
“I mean I wouldn’t fire it or anything.” He gestured to the Colt. “I’ve just never touched a gun before, a real one, I mean.”
“Just felt a bite there.”
Kurt turned back around and jerked on his line.
“I’m ready!”
Reuger let his line back down to the bottom. “What would your mother say?”
“She wouldn’t care! I mean we wouldn’t have to say anything to her about it.”
He felt the Colt against his thigh and the old emotions. He had compartmentalized his thinking long ago and there were areas he did not venture into. His old life did not exist, but it bothered him now to have these errant emotions creeping around like water leaking into a ship.
“All right.” He reeled his line. “Set down your rod.”
Kurt put the fishing pole down with both hands flat on the bench. Reuger stowed his rod in the front of the boat and turned.
“Now, this will be our secret here…you ever handled a firearm before? All right, then.”
Reuger drew the weapon and pulled open the cylinder wheel and ejected six brass shells into his palm. He pulled back the hammer and glanced into the barrel then clicked the cylinder wheel closed.
“These are the bullets,” he said lining the brass cartridges on the weathered bench. “Do not touch these.”
“I won’t.” Kurt crossed his chest solemnly. “I swear.”
Reuger held the lead-colored pistol in his hand.
“This is a Colt .44 caliber pistol, a six shooter. You ever see any Westerns, Kurt?”
“Yeah.”
“Well this is the gun that won the West. All right,” he hefted the gun into his other hand. “You always keep the firearm facing out of the boat.”
“All right.”
Reuger opened his small hands then the laid the pistol in.
“It’s heavy now, so you better use two hands.”
Kurt cradled the pistol like a baby.
“Wow! A gun,” he whispered.
Kurt stared down at the piece of metal gleaming slightly from oil on the barrel. The cold metal was rougher in his white hands.
“It’s not at all like you think.”
“What’d you think?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “In movies and television it’s different. But this is like a machine or something.”
Reuger watched the boy and felt strangely old. He put Kurt’s hand on the stock and clasped the other around it.
“Curl your finger into the trigger guard there,” he said. “There.”
Kurt had both hands on the gun, holding it out like a statue.
“Whoa!” He grinned pointing toward the shore, his brow descending. “Hasta la vista, baby!”
“All right.” Reuger took the gun and cracked the cylinder open. “Gun lesson over.”
“Hey, can I put a bullet in?”
Reuger handed a shell to Kurt and held the gun.
“Line it up and push it all the way until it seats.”
Kurt pushed the brass round into the cylinder jacket.
“Wow, I loaded a gun!”
Reuger finished putting the bullets in and clicked the cylinder wheel closed.
“Can I put it in your holster?”
“Better let me do that, partner.”
“Man, that was cool! Wait until I tell the guys…”
“Our secret. Remember?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot,” he nodded. “I mean I won’t tell them for a couple years.”
Reuger handed him his rod and picked up his own.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
You ever find any dead guys or anything really weird?”
“Comes with the job.” Reuger cast with sound suspended before the plop. “Watch the tension on your line there.”
Kurt reeled his line in slowly with his fist circling air. Reuger sat and saw planets burning cold in the dusk.
“Can you tell me about some of it? You know, the dead guys.”
“Well, let’s see here.” Reuger pursed his lips, feeling the line. “Had to go up and cut a man down from a tree on Basswood Lake once.”
“He hung himself?”
“Oh, ya,” he nodded. “Three days before somebody called it in.”
“What’d you do?” Kurt shrugged. “I mean what did he look like, you know, when you got there?”
“Didn’t look good. It was August and decomposition had set in already, so when I got to him he was falling apart.”
“Oh, yuck!” Kurt screwed up his mouth and shivered. “Gross! How’d you get him down, you know, from the tree?”
“Body bag.” Reuger held his hand out from the rod. “Put it under him and cut him down.”
“Did it stink?”
“Sure it did.”
“Didn’t it make you sick?”
“Nope, but the Forest Service guys puked in the weeds when he broke open.”
“Ugh!” Kurt shook his head. “How can—Hey! I got one, Reuger!”
Kurt’s reel sang out line like some mindless intelligence. Reuger reached over and adjusted his drag and the line slowed.
“I got a fish!”
“Reel him in there steady there.”
Kurt jumped up with his fist cranking fast.
“You’re tiring him out now, Kurt, keep it up,” he said reaching for the net. “Doing a great job now. All right, bring him in. Don’t want to let him go deep again.”
“He’s a big one, Reuger,” Kurt shouted like a man bringing in a shark with arms bunched close to his chest.
“Careful, you don’t want to fall out of the boat there.”
Kurt fell down reeling and they saw the white belly darting the green water.
“Looks like a walleye.”
“OK, OK,” He shouted. “Get the net ready!”
“You just keep reeling him in there.”
Reuger sunk the net hoping the fish wouldn’t shoot the boat and snap the line.
“Keep bringing him in, Kurt. You’re doing a good job.”
“Get the fricking net ready!”
“Don’t worry.” Reuger leaned close to the water and threw his hat off. “Keep reeling, but don’t lift him up, let me net him in the water.”
“Get the net ready!”
“Keep reeling. All right, hold on there…. Hold on.”
Reuger slipped the net deep under the swirling white and lifted the walleye. The slick skinned creature flexed in the netting. Kurt breathed hard with the rod over his head.
“ALL RIGHT!”
She’s good size,” Reuger nodded. “Maybe two pounds.”
Kurt stared at the fish slapping the bottom of the boat.
Really, think so? Two pounds. Is that huge? I mean for a fish?”
“Be some good eating for you and your mother.”
“Oh, we have to eat it?” He looked up, light fading. “I mean, shouldn’t I stuff it or something for our den?”
“Well…” Reuger shut one eye and pulled the fish out of the net. The walleye flexed in his hand, mucus painted with twilight. “I tell you, she might be just a little small here for a taxidermist, but you’ll have a great dinner. Nothing better than fresh walleye.”
“Oh.” He stared down at the fish. “Seems kind of a waste to just eat it.”
“We can throw it back. Catch and release is practiced widely in the Boundary Waters.”
“Oh no!” He held his hand up. “I got to show it to my mom!”
“All right then, let’s get the hook out,” he nodded, unlatching the green tackle box.
Reuger fingered the hook from the lip while Kurt watched closely.
“Caught him on the first bite here. Ever put a fish on a stringer?”
“No.” He shook his head. “My dad never even took me fishing before.”
Reuger held the walleye and pulled out a green stringer with the rusted needle eye hooking the end.
“All right, you slip the needle through the gill and out the mouth,” he explained threading the fish onto the stringer. “Then you just put him over the side here.”
Kurt leaned out and watched the fish splash around and slap the side of the boat. They had drifted out from the land now with the North Star gleaming toward Canada and the lake burning a gentle pink. Kurt turned around.
“That was a good fish, huh, Reuger?”
“No doubt,” he murmured, hooking a leech.
“You say that a lot up here.”
The big hat stayed bent over the tackle box.
“Think so?”
“You say that a lot, too!”
“Ya, Reuger, come in.”
He hefted the radio by his right ear with the shade brim over his eyes, the last twilight gold on his mustache.
“Go ahead.”
“Ya, Reuger. Jim Carpenter called from Pine Lodge. You have someone waiting for you there…Tommy Tobin.”
“10-4, on my way.”
Reuger clipped the radio and turned to the motor.
“You have to go?”
“Yep,” he nodded. “Better reel in your line there.”
Reuger stowed the rods and tackle box and opened the cooler.
“Another cookie before I stow the cooler?”
“No, thanks.”
“After I finish up at the lodge, I’ll show you how to clean that fish,” he said, reaching back and jerking on the pull-start of the motor. “You can tell your mother I’ll be stopping by.”
Kurt stared at him flatly.
“Think so?”
25
THE MOON WAS over Canada. The air was a chilly sixty-five. He watched fishermen motoring into the bay. The lodge looked like Christmas, all twinkly and bright against the dark frontier of forest. He held up the binoculars and saw the Indian sitting in the lodge at a table with his hands clasped in front of him. He set the binoculars on the cross seat of the seventeen-foot motorboat. It was still as death. One big mirror of stars and moon. He moved the radio scanning the frequencies. He might as well be on the force. He listened in to every stupid fucking thing Reuger had to say.
He hefted the Remington 30.06 with the high-powered telescopic site. He put the sling under his arm to steady the rifle. His hands were steady as a surgeon. The world through a small hole. There the sonofabitch was. The magnified circle moved around in black space then he saw the Indian much closer.
He was wearing a green army fatigue coat. He had on a cap. He could go with a shot through the forehead but that would be showing off. Better to be sure and make it look a little sloppy. He lowered the site to his chest. He breathed in slowly. You found the pause between breathing and the pump of blood. It was there if you listened. It was when the body was still for a moment. He breathed out again and squeezed his finger around the trigger.
The world jumped as another fishing boat headed into the bay. He cursed as the swells from the boat’s wake slapped his boat around. All he could do was wait.
26
WIND RUSTLED THE pines like a lost lover and a half-moon pearled the lodge roof. Reuger walked along the lodge road. The woodshed door was open as he passed a breeze of motor oil and woodchips and gasoline. He continued toward the lodge and saw Jim Carpenter behind a pickup with rifles in the back window.
“Your man is inside at the card table there,” he said, glancing toward the lodge.
“How long has Ben been here?”
Jim turned to the lodge.
“Oh, come in about twenty minutes after Tommy showed up outside my office door and scared hell out of me.”
“Al Hanes with him?”
“Oh, ya,” he closed one eye, “they’re tanking up at the bar there.”
“They talk with Tommy?”
Jim frowned and shook his head.
“Not since I been here, but I had to get gas and bait for some people.”
“Appreciate it, Jim,” he said walking the porch steps cliffing light then pulling back the screen door.
Tommy sat with his hat low under a wagon wheel of bulbs like some old Western. He cradled a coffee mug. The room was in darkness except for the round table and the man. Reuger passed the bar and returned Ben Johnson’s cold glare. He sat at the kitchen table.
“Had my doubts about you, Tommy.”
He shrugged sleepily.
“Had to check my traps.”
Tommy kept his fingers on the mug, his thick lips and hooked nose heavier under the overhead light. Cold had penetrated Reuger’s flannel shirt and vest and the sleepy warmth of the lodge drowsed him. He left his hat on the table.
“Need anymore coffee?”
“Nope. Keeps me up if I drink too much.”
Reuger poured himself a cup and sat back down, sipping the burnt coffee, pulling a yellow pad from the middle of the table.
“Diane’s grocery list. A lot of toilet paper to run a lodge.”
Tommy’s lip curled then retreated. Reuger sipped his coffee. They heard the screen door slam and footsteps go into the bar. He set the mug down and stared at the big man.
“You know Tommy, it doesn’t look good here. I have a couple of dead loggers, and I have you.” He stood up again. “I’m going to make a fresh pot here. You sure you don’t want some?”
“Ya, OK.”
Reuger emptied the carousel, filled it from a Hills Bros. can, then poured the water and flipped the switch.
“We’ll have fresh coffee in a minute here.”
He sat and leaned back, then tapped the edge of the kitchen table.
“So,” Reuger leaned forward, “you say Jorde asked you about Foster.” He stood again. “Tommy, you want one of these cookies here?”
He craned his neck around to the two cookie jars.
“Ya, what kind?”
Reuger opened the jar by the coffee.
“Mmmm, let’s see here, peanut butter and chocolate chip.”
“Ya, peanut butter.”
He handed him the cookie and they chewed in silence.
“So,” Reuger swallowed, “it’s going to be your word against Jorde’s here.” He motioned with the cookie. “Say you went to that slasher earlier that morning and left,” he brushed the crumbs from his hands, “but then, I have Foster with a bullet in his head.” Tommy nodded slowly still chewing. Reuger clasped his hands like a priest, shadow smudged under his eyes.
“Something else you want to tell me here?”
Tommy’s eyes moved with the whites showing like a slide projector running out of film.
“Nope.”
“Coffee’s ready.” He stood and poured the coffee into two mugs. “How do you like yours there, Tommy?”
He squinted. “Cream and sugar. Only fill it up three quarters there. I like it to be sort of milky, you know.”
“Coming right up.”
Reuger fixed the two mugs and sat. They drank their coffee and left crumbs on the table from the cookies. Red and green lights floated into the bay outside the window. They heard the distant clatter of an outboard motor.
“Ya, good coffee,” Tommy nodded slowly with crumbs on his chin. “I like Hills Bros. over Maxwell House, you know.”
Reuger frowned. “Folgers isn’t bad.”
His mouth opened slowly and Reuger saw the bandage on his elbow and scrapes and mosquito bites. It was the tattoos of being a boy he remembered from long ago when he was a different man in a different life. They were little soldiers, these boys, he thought, and they went unthinkingly along.
“Man, is he big, Reuger!” He held the binoculars down. “You think he sees us?”
“He’s watching us,” Reuger nodded. “They always go to the highest tree and usually it’s one without any branches so they can see for miles.”
Kurt lifted the binoculars again.
“Wow! He’s huge!”
Reuger checked their lines and watched the portable depth finder. They were shallowing for walleye and he thought Kurt might like the play of some rock bass closer to the island. He felt the old role descend on him. He was thinking in a way he hadn’t pulled out for fifteen years.
“There he goes, Reuger!”
He turned and saw the eagle plunge down flapping wing bellows then ride the current and arc toward Canada. The eagle flapped twice and glided into darkness. Kurt held the binoculars down and shook his head, his eyes shining.
“That was really cool! I didn’t know there were still eagles around.”
“Oh, ya,” Reuger murmured, checking his line. “They were endangered for a while but they’ve come back.”
Kurt looked down.
“Sorry about dropping the fishing rod.”
“Not a problem.”
Reuger saw a fire gleaming the tree line. He leaned over to the boy.
“See those campers, Kurt?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re canoeist headed up into the Boundary Waters there,” Reuger gestured across the northern forest. “They’ll follow the same portage trails Indians have used for thousands of years.”
Kurt frowned, squinting at the man in the big green hat. “What’s a portage trail?”
“Paths running between the lakes no wider than a man.” Reuger pointed north. “You can go all the way up to Canada by connecting lakes.”
“Think we can do that sometime?”
Reuger glanced at him then down at his line.
“I’m sure we can sometime.… Why don’t you pull in your line there, Kurt, and we’ll motor back to the reef.”
He started the motor and turned them into the wind blowing from the island. Reuger saw fishermen in the distance likes monks bent over a poetic pursuit. He cut the motor where water slapped underwater boulders and sprayed the boat. Gulls preened oily feathers on boulders in the lantern light of dusk.
“Throw your line in toward the island, Kurt. You still have a leech?”
“Yeah.”
“Now, I’ll bet there’s a ten-pound walleye in there.”
Their lines dolloped the water, then they rolled in the gentle swing of current. Water drained from the outboard like a leaking gutter. Kurt looked at the man with one boot on the edge of the boat.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Shoot.”
“You think I could hold your gun?”
Reuger turned to the boy with big brown eyes.
“I don’t know about that.”
“I mean I wouldn’t fire it or anything.” He gestured to the Colt. “I’ve just never touched a gun before, a real one, I mean.”
“Just felt a bite there.”
Kurt turned back around and jerked on his line.
“I’m ready!”
Reuger let his line back down to the bottom. “What would your mother say?”
“She wouldn’t care! I mean we wouldn’t have to say anything to her about it.”
He felt the Colt against his thigh and the old emotions. He had compartmentalized his thinking long ago and there were areas he did not venture into. His old life did not exist, but it bothered him now to have these errant emotions creeping around like water leaking into a ship.
“All right.” He reeled his line. “Set down your rod.”
Kurt put the fishing pole down with both hands flat on the bench. Reuger stowed his rod in the front of the boat and turned.
“Now, this will be our secret here…you ever handled a firearm before? All right, then.”
Reuger drew the weapon and pulled open the cylinder wheel and ejected six brass shells into his palm. He pulled back the hammer and glanced into the barrel then clicked the cylinder wheel closed.
“These are the bullets,” he said lining the brass cartridges on the weathered bench. “Do not touch these.”
“I won’t.” Kurt crossed his chest solemnly. “I swear.”
Reuger held the lead-colored pistol in his hand.
“This is a Colt .44 caliber pistol, a six shooter. You ever see any Westerns, Kurt?”
“Yeah.”
“Well this is the gun that won the West. All right,” he hefted the gun into his other hand. “You always keep the firearm facing out of the boat.”
“All right.”
Reuger opened his small hands then the laid the pistol in.
“It’s heavy now, so you better use two hands.”
Kurt cradled the pistol like a baby.
“Wow! A gun,” he whispered.
Kurt stared down at the piece of metal gleaming slightly from oil on the barrel. The cold metal was rougher in his white hands.
“It’s not at all like you think.”
“What’d you think?”
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “In movies and television it’s different. But this is like a machine or something.”
Reuger watched the boy and felt strangely old. He put Kurt’s hand on the stock and clasped the other around it.
“Curl your finger into the trigger guard there,” he said. “There.”
Kurt had both hands on the gun, holding it out like a statue.
“Whoa!” He grinned pointing toward the shore, his brow descending. “Hasta la vista, baby!”
“All right.” Reuger took the gun and cracked the cylinder open. “Gun lesson over.”
“Hey, can I put a bullet in?”
Reuger handed a shell to Kurt and held the gun.
“Line it up and push it all the way until it seats.”
Kurt pushed the brass round into the cylinder jacket.
“Wow, I loaded a gun!”
Reuger finished putting the bullets in and clicked the cylinder wheel closed.
“Can I put it in your holster?”
“Better let me do that, partner.”
“Man, that was cool! Wait until I tell the guys…”
“Our secret. Remember?”
“Oh yeah, I forgot,” he nodded. “I mean I won’t tell them for a couple years.”
Reuger handed him his rod and picked up his own.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Sure.”
You ever find any dead guys or anything really weird?”
“Comes with the job.” Reuger cast with sound suspended before the plop. “Watch the tension on your line there.”
Kurt reeled his line in slowly with his fist circling air. Reuger sat and saw planets burning cold in the dusk.
“Can you tell me about some of it? You know, the dead guys.”
“Well, let’s see here.” Reuger pursed his lips, feeling the line. “Had to go up and cut a man down from a tree on Basswood Lake once.”
“He hung himself?”
“Oh, ya,” he nodded. “Three days before somebody called it in.”
“What’d you do?” Kurt shrugged. “I mean what did he look like, you know, when you got there?”
“Didn’t look good. It was August and decomposition had set in already, so when I got to him he was falling apart.”
“Oh, yuck!” Kurt screwed up his mouth and shivered. “Gross! How’d you get him down, you know, from the tree?”
“Body bag.” Reuger held his hand out from the rod. “Put it under him and cut him down.”
“Did it stink?”
“Sure it did.”
“Didn’t it make you sick?”
“Nope, but the Forest Service guys puked in the weeds when he broke open.”
“Ugh!” Kurt shook his head. “How can—Hey! I got one, Reuger!”
Kurt’s reel sang out line like some mindless intelligence. Reuger reached over and adjusted his drag and the line slowed.
“I got a fish!”
“Reel him in there steady there.”
Kurt jumped up with his fist cranking fast.
“You’re tiring him out now, Kurt, keep it up,” he said reaching for the net. “Doing a great job now. All right, bring him in. Don’t want to let him go deep again.”
“He’s a big one, Reuger,” Kurt shouted like a man bringing in a shark with arms bunched close to his chest.
“Careful, you don’t want to fall out of the boat there.”
Kurt fell down reeling and they saw the white belly darting the green water.
“Looks like a walleye.”
“OK, OK,” He shouted. “Get the net ready!”
“You just keep reeling him in there.”
Reuger sunk the net hoping the fish wouldn’t shoot the boat and snap the line.
“Keep bringing him in, Kurt. You’re doing a good job.”
“Get the fricking net ready!”
“Don’t worry.” Reuger leaned close to the water and threw his hat off. “Keep reeling, but don’t lift him up, let me net him in the water.”
“Get the net ready!”
“Keep reeling. All right, hold on there…. Hold on.”
Reuger slipped the net deep under the swirling white and lifted the walleye. The slick skinned creature flexed in the netting. Kurt breathed hard with the rod over his head.
“ALL RIGHT!”
She’s good size,” Reuger nodded. “Maybe two pounds.”
Kurt stared at the fish slapping the bottom of the boat.
Really, think so? Two pounds. Is that huge? I mean for a fish?”
“Be some good eating for you and your mother.”
“Oh, we have to eat it?” He looked up, light fading. “I mean, shouldn’t I stuff it or something for our den?”
“Well…” Reuger shut one eye and pulled the fish out of the net. The walleye flexed in his hand, mucus painted with twilight. “I tell you, she might be just a little small here for a taxidermist, but you’ll have a great dinner. Nothing better than fresh walleye.”
“Oh.” He stared down at the fish. “Seems kind of a waste to just eat it.”
“We can throw it back. Catch and release is practiced widely in the Boundary Waters.”
“Oh no!” He held his hand up. “I got to show it to my mom!”
“All right then, let’s get the hook out,” he nodded, unlatching the green tackle box.
Reuger fingered the hook from the lip while Kurt watched closely.
“Caught him on the first bite here. Ever put a fish on a stringer?”
“No.” He shook his head. “My dad never even took me fishing before.”
Reuger held the walleye and pulled out a green stringer with the rusted needle eye hooking the end.
“All right, you slip the needle through the gill and out the mouth,” he explained threading the fish onto the stringer. “Then you just put him over the side here.”
Kurt leaned out and watched the fish splash around and slap the side of the boat. They had drifted out from the land now with the North Star gleaming toward Canada and the lake burning a gentle pink. Kurt turned around.
“That was a good fish, huh, Reuger?”
“No doubt,” he murmured, hooking a leech.
“You say that a lot up here.”
The big hat stayed bent over the tackle box.
“Think so?”
“You say that a lot, too!”
“Ya, Reuger, come in.”
He hefted the radio by his right ear with the shade brim over his eyes, the last twilight gold on his mustache.
“Go ahead.”
“Ya, Reuger. Jim Carpenter called from Pine Lodge. You have someone waiting for you there…Tommy Tobin.”
“10-4, on my way.”
Reuger clipped the radio and turned to the motor.
“You have to go?”
“Yep,” he nodded. “Better reel in your line there.”
Reuger stowed the rods and tackle box and opened the cooler.
“Another cookie before I stow the cooler?”
“No, thanks.”
“After I finish up at the lodge, I’ll show you how to clean that fish,” he said, reaching back and jerking on the pull-start of the motor. “You can tell your mother I’ll be stopping by.”
Kurt stared at him flatly.
“Think so?”
25
THE MOON WAS over Canada. The air was a chilly sixty-five. He watched fishermen motoring into the bay. The lodge looked like Christmas, all twinkly and bright against the dark frontier of forest. He held up the binoculars and saw the Indian sitting in the lodge at a table with his hands clasped in front of him. He set the binoculars on the cross seat of the seventeen-foot motorboat. It was still as death. One big mirror of stars and moon. He moved the radio scanning the frequencies. He might as well be on the force. He listened in to every stupid fucking thing Reuger had to say.
He hefted the Remington 30.06 with the high-powered telescopic site. He put the sling under his arm to steady the rifle. His hands were steady as a surgeon. The world through a small hole. There the sonofabitch was. The magnified circle moved around in black space then he saw the Indian much closer.
He was wearing a green army fatigue coat. He had on a cap. He could go with a shot through the forehead but that would be showing off. Better to be sure and make it look a little sloppy. He lowered the site to his chest. He breathed in slowly. You found the pause between breathing and the pump of blood. It was there if you listened. It was when the body was still for a moment. He breathed out again and squeezed his finger around the trigger.
The world jumped as another fishing boat headed into the bay. He cursed as the swells from the boat’s wake slapped his boat around. All he could do was wait.
26
WIND RUSTLED THE pines like a lost lover and a half-moon pearled the lodge roof. Reuger walked along the lodge road. The woodshed door was open as he passed a breeze of motor oil and woodchips and gasoline. He continued toward the lodge and saw Jim Carpenter behind a pickup with rifles in the back window.
“Your man is inside at the card table there,” he said, glancing toward the lodge.
“How long has Ben been here?”
Jim turned to the lodge.
“Oh, come in about twenty minutes after Tommy showed up outside my office door and scared hell out of me.”
“Al Hanes with him?”
“Oh, ya,” he closed one eye, “they’re tanking up at the bar there.”
“They talk with Tommy?”
Jim frowned and shook his head.
“Not since I been here, but I had to get gas and bait for some people.”
“Appreciate it, Jim,” he said walking the porch steps cliffing light then pulling back the screen door.
Tommy sat with his hat low under a wagon wheel of bulbs like some old Western. He cradled a coffee mug. The room was in darkness except for the round table and the man. Reuger passed the bar and returned Ben Johnson’s cold glare. He sat at the kitchen table.
“Had my doubts about you, Tommy.”
He shrugged sleepily.
“Had to check my traps.”
Tommy kept his fingers on the mug, his thick lips and hooked nose heavier under the overhead light. Cold had penetrated Reuger’s flannel shirt and vest and the sleepy warmth of the lodge drowsed him. He left his hat on the table.
“Need anymore coffee?”
“Nope. Keeps me up if I drink too much.”
Reuger poured himself a cup and sat back down, sipping the burnt coffee, pulling a yellow pad from the middle of the table.
“Diane’s grocery list. A lot of toilet paper to run a lodge.”
Tommy’s lip curled then retreated. Reuger sipped his coffee. They heard the screen door slam and footsteps go into the bar. He set the mug down and stared at the big man.
“You know Tommy, it doesn’t look good here. I have a couple of dead loggers, and I have you.” He stood up again. “I’m going to make a fresh pot here. You sure you don’t want some?”
“Ya, OK.”
Reuger emptied the carousel, filled it from a Hills Bros. can, then poured the water and flipped the switch.
“We’ll have fresh coffee in a minute here.”
He sat and leaned back, then tapped the edge of the kitchen table.
“So,” Reuger leaned forward, “you say Jorde asked you about Foster.” He stood again. “Tommy, you want one of these cookies here?”
He craned his neck around to the two cookie jars.
“Ya, what kind?”
Reuger opened the jar by the coffee.
“Mmmm, let’s see here, peanut butter and chocolate chip.”
“Ya, peanut butter.”
He handed him the cookie and they chewed in silence.
“So,” Reuger swallowed, “it’s going to be your word against Jorde’s here.” He motioned with the cookie. “Say you went to that slasher earlier that morning and left,” he brushed the crumbs from his hands, “but then, I have Foster with a bullet in his head.” Tommy nodded slowly still chewing. Reuger clasped his hands like a priest, shadow smudged under his eyes.
“Something else you want to tell me here?”
Tommy’s eyes moved with the whites showing like a slide projector running out of film.
“Nope.”
“Coffee’s ready.” He stood and poured the coffee into two mugs. “How do you like yours there, Tommy?”
He squinted. “Cream and sugar. Only fill it up three quarters there. I like it to be sort of milky, you know.”
“Coming right up.”
Reuger fixed the two mugs and sat. They drank their coffee and left crumbs on the table from the cookies. Red and green lights floated into the bay outside the window. They heard the distant clatter of an outboard motor.
“Ya, good coffee,” Tommy nodded slowly with crumbs on his chin. “I like Hills Bros. over Maxwell House, you know.”
Reuger frowned. “Folgers isn’t bad.”
