Jack Pine, page 9
She had seen an eagle on the island, which was only about a half-mile from shore. So she and the boy hopped into a lodge boat with a small outboard and motored over. She figured it’d be a fun adventure for Kurt and a research trip for her. The engine prop hit bottom and busted in the shallows by the island. They sat stranded when the sky grew ominous. The storm blew up swiftly with the first cracks shaking the ground. They hugged a tree until lightning split another pine nearby. Then they ran to the shore and lay down.
* * * *
Patricia shut the porch door, feeling the night wind caress her cheek and stared at the yellow cabins around the cove. The fish house spilled light on the gravel of the road and a bulb shone in the boathouse like a candle in a barn. She stared at the moon over the pines laying a blue path on the water. Something recoiled before her and she screamed.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know anyone was out here!”
“Sorry to scare you,” Reuger said standing up.
They stood close in the darkness. A boat puttered across the lake. She could feel him watching her. Patricia smiled past him, both of them hearing the video game coming from the lodge.
“My son has found a little bit of civilization.”
He turned and nodded.
“I think he’s enjoying himself here.”
“I do too.” She paused. “It was rocky at the start with…”
“Tough age,” he said quickly. “Sorry I cut you off.”
“No, no, that’s fine…to cut me off…because I just cut you off…I think,” she murmured.
They looked out together then turned in. She was annoyed that his man made her feel inadequate. Since her divorce, she had depended on no one but herself, but up here she felt unsure. It seemed each way she turned in the wilderness there was something to learn and this man seemed to be there.
“Well,” she said brightly. “I think I’ll go back to my cabin and take a shower.”
“I’ll walk you, then,” he said.
She held up her hand.
“No! I mean no that’s not necessary.”
The hat moved against the darkness.
“Do you have a lantern or flashlight?”
Patricia smiled quickly.
“No…but I’ll be fine.”
The dark hat moved in front of her again.
“Never walk without a light in the woods.”
She breathed heavily. Suddenly she wanted to poke a hole in this man’s stolid exterior. She had seen his eyes when he helped her with the groceries. He was very adept at covering himself but she had seen the flickering glances at her body, and she had surprised herself by returning his stare once. She liked his blue gray eyes that held a gleam of self-mockery in them. She liked the calmness he exuded that allowed her to find no purchase, no glaring error of personality so she could dismiss him easily. The few dates she had gone on ended with a cold handshake. The men broke up like brittle glass against her critical eye.
“A Northwood’s edict or another law in the Boundary Waters?”
“Common sense.” The hat moved again. “Better to have a light in the woods.”
Reuger turned and walked to the bottom of the stairs. The afterglow of the sky cut his figure into some Western she had seen long before.
“It’s a good night for a walk here.”
Patricia hesitated then came down the stairs. Her tennis shoes squeaked slightly and his boots clicked the oversized gravel where Jim had filled washouts. Patricia thought of her windblown hair and the makeup washed off hours ago and was thankful for the darkness.
“Give me your hand.”
“Oh,” she said smoothly. “You want to hold my hand already?”
“Nope,” he said, taking her hand. “It’s just dark.”
* * * *
A loon called on the lake as Reuger examined her books. Amelia Earhart, The Life of Eleanor Roosevelt, It Takes A Village, Virginia Woolf, Reader’s Digest, Tuesdays with Morrie, Food Your Miracle Cure, Chicken Soup For the Soul, When Bad Things Happen To Good People, Silent Spring. Empty suitcases were by the door, a vase of flowers over the sink, her son’s tennis shoes in the corner, lotion in a pump dispenser on the table. The old pot hissed and percolated coffee. Patricia emerged in a fresh pair of jeans and a loose red flannel shirt. The sun had burned her cheeks into a healthy red and raccooned her eyes. She passed him in soft tawny colored moccasins and he noticed the curve of her ankles and a perfume lingering like spring.
“Cream, or do real men drink it black?”
“Black.”
She brought over the cups and he felt awkward in the small cabin. His hat and his gun and his boots and radio seemed out of place. He felt too big for the space. He was six-foot-one, and he realized then how small she was. He guessed she was less than five-three.
“Sorry about the china cups. Kurt used the mugs for his milk. Baileys? Well, I’m going to have some.”
She had a braid in her hair like a young girl. Patricia poured the coffee then filled her cup to the brim with Irish Cream. She turned to the door then looked at the man leaning back against the enamel sink. She saw him look at the door and the silence lay between them. Why didn’t he say something? She sipped her coffee. He held the mug and the saucer and smiled. They heard the wind. They heard nothing.
“Let’s go look at the stars,” she blurted out.
“Sounds good,” he nodded.
They rolled up and down on the current unseen beneath the steel drums. Coffee warmed their hands under the glitter bowl of electric circuits, winking, dying, streaking the night like some child’s fantasy. They stared into the sky at the glitter arcing the horizon.
“It’s so beautiful,” she whispered.
Reuger stood on the floating dock and stared up into the sky. Sometimes he took his night vision goggles and looked at the stars. There were millions and it was then he felt he was looking at something akin to God.
“You don’t have the pollution or city lights up here,” he nodded.
“I just can’t believe it,” she murmured. “So…” Patricia glanced at him. “Were you raised in the woods by a band of Indians? Or do you just go around saving distressed women and children naturally?”
Reuger set the cup and saucer on the planks.
“Chippewa raised me.”
“Really?” Patricia stared across the lake to the moon frosted trees. “Are there Indians out there still?”
“Taking aim right now at the two people on the dock.” Reuger pointed across the lake. “Most of the Indians are on the reservations now. A few stragglers still out there.”
“So you weren’t raised by Indians then?”
“Nope.” He pointed across the lake. “But there’s a cave on the far side of the lake that has Indian paintings from a thousand years before. You can see a whole nation there if you’re quiet and let your mind take you.”
“You don’t sound like you were raised in the suburbs,” she murmured.
“My father was a logger.”
Patricia walked the dock with her back to him. She turned around and pawed the planks with her moccasin. Her movements again reminded him of a gymnast.
“Does your father still log?”
“He was killed in a logging accident when I was a boy.”
“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…”
“No problem,” he shrugged. “We moved down to the Twin Cities, then I came back.”
She couldn’t see his face under that hat.
“OK…so why did you come back?”
He looked out to the lake.
“I didn’t feel free.”
“Ah,” she nodded, feeling as if she had just found a map. “Thoreau then? The man who leaves civilization to live in the old way.”
He turned from the lake with his eyes glimmering.
“Something like that, counselor.”
Patricia looked down at her cup.
“Maybe…maybe I just have trouble with taking help from people, and you seem to be around just at the right time.”
“It’s my job,” he shrugged, gesturing to the lake. “You needed help carrying your groceries, and I drove by. You got stranded on the north end of the lake, and it’s my job to help folks who get in trouble.”
She looked up.
“Even environmental lawyers?”
“Most people don’t care what you do up here.” ‘
She nodded and looked at him sideways.
“Is that why you have a dead logger and burned-out logging equipment?”
He stared at her wearily.
“I can read.” Patricia gestured out to the trees. “It’s no secret that this is some of the last old timber of the Northwoods and the loggers want it and the environmentalist want to keep it. It’s going on all over the country. We’re expansionists and there’s no frontier any more, so that leaves everyone to fight it out over what’s left.”
“The paper had it wrong,” he said shaking his head. “It was a suicide. People want to make it more than it is, mostly people who want to sell papers.”
Patricia turned and could see his mustache and liquescent eyes. She turned and stared across the lake. A loon called out.
“That sound is so lonely.”
“Mating call.”
“Like I said,” she murmured.
Reuger glanced at her.
“Your son doesn’t see his father?”
“My ex-husband created a new life that doesn’t include Kurt.” She shook her head. “We met in law school, and we were going to change the world. He went to work for a corporation, and I defended people I knew were guilty.” Patricia glanced at Reuger. “I thought I knew him, but maybe it’s hard to really get to know anyone. It wasn’t even the affair that destroyed our marriage.” She paused. “Kurt’s been in some trouble…right before we left, the police had brought him home for shoplifting. I thought if we could get away, it might help.”
Reuger rested his hands on his gun belt. He thought of the first moment when he saw the boy in the forest. There was that hurt in those eyes even then. A deer caught in the headlights kind of hurt.
“Your son was driving the boat today?”
She nodded slowly.
“He must have hit a dead head then.”
He watched her lean down and put the cup on the dock. A boat crossed the lake and they listened to the whine. She was somewhere else, and he wondered if he had been too personal.
“It just seems like we can’t get a break anymore,” she murmured.
The silence returned, and Reuger felt hamstrung again. He couldn’t think of one commonplace thing to say. Nothing. He was so out of practice. His days consisted of talking to men much like himself, and he realized then how isolated he had been. She was staring moodily out at the lake. He cleared his throat.
“I’d be happy to take your boy fishing—”
She turned quickly and held up her hand.
“No. I’m not looking for a handout. I appreciate everything you’ve done, but I really can take care of my son.”
He nodded and looked at her and saw the stiffness had returned. She had loosened up and now they were back at the car with her groceries.
“I wasn’t saying…”
“Thank you, Deputy, all the same,” she said crisply.
Reuger watched her for a moment then turned to the lake.
“I’m just offering to take your son fishing.”
Patricia turned to him, her eyes snapping.
“Deputy, maybe you should…”
“Reuger…most people call me Reuger.”
She turned away and her coffee cup fell into the water. Patricia leaned down and stared at the black water.
“Shit.”
“It’s gone,” he nodded slowly. “Probably take a million years for that mug to decompose and ruin the ecosystem for all time.”
Patricia turned slowly, her eyes flashing light.
“You really are—”
“I’ve been told before,” he said, pulling the brim of his hat low. “Just tell your son day after tomorrow to be ready to catch walleye. I still think you can take care of your son.”
Patricia stood up and regarded him in the darkness. “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”
“Good.”
They stood silently together under the starlight. Patricia looked at him.
“Why do they call you Reuger?”
He gestured to his thigh.
“Type of gun I carry is a Colt .44.”
She pursed up her mouth.
“So why don’t they call you Colt .44?”
“I used to carry a Reuger that was a replica of the old peacemaker.”
Her eyes flicked down to his thigh then back up.
“Do you mind being named after a gun?”
Reuger smiled then laughed.
“Uh oh, the mountain man laughed.”
“People are named up here a lot of times for what they do. There’s a man named Refrigerator Dave and Barber Lewy and Trapper Bill.”
“Did you have a name before?”
“Matthew London.”
“I hear a lot about tree huggers up here, Matthew London.”
He shrugged.
“Just something the people call those who want to stop the logging.”
“They are still logging then?”
Reuger turned to the trees.
“Below the Boundary Waters, but this whole area including the Boundary Waters was logged out in the 1890s.” He gestured to the dark forest. “Trees you see are all new growth—mostly jack pine. The old growth, the Norway pine, is mostly gone except for the few trees the environmentalists and loggers fight over. These trees don’t hold a candle to what used to be here.” He pointed across the lake. “There’s a section up in the Boundary Waters called Old Pines. Loggers missed these trees for some reason, and there’s acres of three-hundred-year-old pines.”
“They would be valuable,” she murmured, staring at the shadow of the Northern forest.
“Priceless.” He turned and smiled wryly. “But I’m sure you know all about endangered resources.”
“I know some people don’t want to share the land. Natural resources are for everyone now, not just the people who want to rape the land.”
“Spoken like an environmental lawyer.”
“Or a tree hugger maybe?”
“Most city people are.”
“Are you?”
“I don’t take sides,” he replied, shaking his head. “My job is to keep the peace.”
“But you must have an opinion?”
“Paid not to.”
She couldn’t see his face under the brim of the hat again.
“You’re enigmatic, you know that, don’t you?”
He turned to her slowly.
“Think so?”
Patricia turned back to the sky and saw horizon light raying down cold and blue, and then flashing across the universe. Haze increased in volume brightness toward Canada until the light jumped like a cathode ray.
“What is that?”
Reuger took off his hat and stared at the sky.
“Northern lights.”
Sheets of cobalt blue refracted and flashed until the pines were backlit. Green, blue, and red energy willowing the sky and winking like some errant child with a switch.
“What makes it do that?”
“Some say its solar winds over the poles.” He paused. “The Indians say it’s the spirits of those who have passed on and call it the Spirit Dance.”
Patricia watched the swimming light.
“I like what the Indians say,” she whispered.
He tilted his head back and spoke in a husky tenor.
“God himself seems to be always doing his best here, working like a man in the glow of enthusiasm.”
“You’re religious?”
“John Muir. Naturalist.”
She was silent and slipped her arm through his and they watched the lights like a couple watching a parade.
“A tree hugger,” she murmured.
“One of the biggest,” he nodded.
17
CARTER PUSHED THE chain saw into the tree, spraying yellow wood dust into the air like wet confetti; a small wiry man of hardened muscle with a bristly black beard and peppered hair combed back with skin browned and rough from Northern cold and sun.
The saw puttered beside his leg while he surveyed the cut and the angle then glanced up to the top of the pine. Carter swung the saw back up and braced himself against the weight. He didn’t feel the weight of the saw the way he didn’t feel cold or heat or personal discomfort. He pulled the trigger then stopped and took the pack of cigarettes from his top pocket, lighting one in the corner of his mouth.
Carter hoisted the saw again with the stringy wood chattering out a fountain of sawdust and oil smoke. He smoked meditatively. The bank would only wait so long. He had fallen two months behind on his equipment and logging hadn’t been good. Prices were down and the quality of the wood kept getting worse. The tree huggers kept him from going after the good stuff. One Norway pine three-feet thick could fetch a hundred times more than a pile of two-foot-thick jack pine.
Carter let up on the saw, resetting himself, then pulling the trigger again with the vibration moving through his hands into his shoulders. Five minutes later, he pulled the saw back and let it putter down to the echo in the trees. He squinted up. Fifty feet, he guessed. He took a deep breath and saw mist in the tree line. He was down in a valley and he couldn’t tell whether the mist rose up from the swale or hovered in the far trees. A tree moved. He took the cigarette from his mouth. The man moved again and became part of the pines.
Carter turned back to the tree and revved the saw with the stub back in his mouth, concentrating on the cut with the wood dust flying up around him. Marcus had said he saw a man the other week. So there was a man in the woods. If he wanted to come in, then he would give him a saw or he could run the skidder. God knows when Marcus would get up or whether he would show at all. That was the hell of it when you worked for yourself. More times people didn’t show up. It wasn’t like the days when men went to work early and left at dusk and you missed a day then you might as well not bother showing up because someone took your place.
