Dead Meat (7 page)

“They’re good,” I answered. “Jealous as hell that I’m here and they’re not. Wanted to be remembered to you, both of ’em.”

“You still gettin’ rich swindling folks like my brother?”

“Still swindling them,” I said. “Still not rich enough, though.”

“A man’s never rich enough. Look at Woody, here. Government give him half the state of Maine, he’s still trying to squeeze big tips from the city sports.” A beer can materialized in his big paw, and he drank from it and then wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Damn,” he said, “I am glad to see you. Lots of things going on.”

“So I understand. Marge filled me in a little.”

He frowned. “That, and the Indians. Excuse me, Woody, but you know what I mean. You talk to Seelye Smith? Hell, we gonna lose this place, Brady?”

“You want to talk about it now?” I said. “That’s why I’m here.”

“You’re here for the fishin’, and don’t try to kid me. We can talk about it later. Let you get a couple drinks, dinner, into you first.”

“What about your Mr. Rolando?” I said.

He shook his head slowly. “I just don’t know. Nothing like this has ever happened up here before. Don’t make any sense at all. But he’s gone. Five days now. His brother’s coming up in a couple days. I dunno, Brady. If we don’t have something by then…”

“You’re worried about liability.”

“Hell, yes, I’m worried about liability. We get sued, Vern’ll have my ass on a platter.”

“From what Marge told me, I don’t see how you’re liable, Tiny. But we can talk about that, too. When do we eat around here, anyway?”

“That’s what I came out here for. Marge said to drag you in. Bud’s got baked lake trout and a roast. Nice smells in that kitchen.”

Woody and I stood up. “We’ll talk some more later,” said Tiny as we followed him inside. “We got troubles here.”

Tiny set a democratic table. Guides, guests, host, and hostess all ate together without regard for rank or status. I sat between Frank Schatz and the young man with the Adam’s apple, who told me he was an accountant named Fisher, up from Hartford on his honeymoon. His bride sat across from him and didn’t say a word during the entire meal. She kept her eyes on her plate except when Fisher spoke, at which time she lifted her gaze to him hopefully. He was, I gathered, an avid angler. He discoursed at length about the relative merits of boron and graphite in the manufacture of fly rods. He told me his strategies for fishing the spinner falls at the Henry’s Fork. I told him I had never been there, but it only spurred him on to more elaborately detailed treatises. I turned off my mental hearing aid when he switched topics to the advantages of custom-designed shooting heads for winter steelhead fishing in Oregon. His wife continued to listen raptly.

At the other end of the table the guides were speculating on the fate of the missing Mr. Rolando. “Bears got ’im, sure’n hell,” one said.

“I thought bears were timid,” said one of the party boys from Boston.

“This time of year, a big ol’ mother bear with her cubs’ll take a man’s head clean off with one swipe of that big paw of hers. Nothing meaner’n a mamma bear in June.”

“Catamount got ’im, you ask me,” chimed in another guide. “Folks say them big cats’re extinct, but I seen their tracks. They’ll jump outta trees, sink them old teeth into the back of a man’s neck. Your poor Mr. Rolando’s a goner, ’fraid.”

The sports from Boston chuckled at this, but I sensed a nervous edge to their laughter. A glance at Tiny told me that he wasn’t enjoying the conversation a single bit.

Lew Pike, who had guided me on one of my earlier trips to Raven Lake, said, “It ain’t the animals that got ’im. It’s the Injuns. Hell, everybody knows there’s only one thing Indians like better’n findin’ a white man alone in the woods, and that’s findin’ a white woman. Peel their skin clean off, they will, in neat little strips, one at a time. Them squaws is worst of all. When the Indians want to do some serious torturin’, they leave it to their squaws. Ain’t that right, Woody?”

Woody looked up from his plate. “That is so, Lew,” he said mildly. “Learned all about it from the white man.”

Between the bantering from that end of the table and the pontificating of young Mr. Fisher, there was no call for me to fabricate small talk. Which suited me fine. Bud Turner had performed his customary miracle—baked lake trout steaks with a sharp white sauce, roast beef with popovers and smooth brown gravy, baby baked potatoes, red kidney beans, fresh bread, and pitchers of cold milk and ice water.

I ate it all with great appetite and kept my silence. Diagonally across from me, Polly sat beside Gib. They seemed to have their own conversation going. At the head of the long rectangular table Tiny reigned, trying, it seemed to me, to keep tabs on all the conversations at once. At the other end sat Marge, a bemused smile on her face. Once when I glanced her way, she caught my eye and winked wickedly.

After dinner I went into the kitchen. Polly and Bud Turner were working side by side at the big double sink, scraping off plates and loading up the dishwasher.

“Hey, Bud,” I called.

Turner turned around. “Hey, there, Mr. Coyne. How you doin’?”

The Raven Lake cook was a gaunt man a few years younger than me. He was losing his sandy hair rapidly. His beaky nose and hollowed cheeks looked more fitting on a prisoner of war than on a talented chef.

He dried his hands on a towel and stalked across the kitchen. He thrust his bony hand at me, and I shook it. “Good to see you,” I said. “Another culinary masterpiece tonight.”

“Aw, just a little somethin’ I threw together,” he said with a grin.

“You haven’t lost your touch. The lake trout was special.”

He chuckled. “They came out good, didn’t they?”

“What was the flavor of the sauce? I couldn’t identify it.”

“Herbs. Professional secret.”

“I’d love to have your recipe.”

“Sorry, Mr. Coyne. Maybe I’ll write a cookbook someday.”

“You gotta learn to write first,” said Polly over her shoulder. “Come on. Cut the yakking and get back to work. I’m not going to do this all by myself.”

Turner shrugged and grinned. “Boss’s daughter. Can’t goof off. Gotta go. See you around, huh? Maybe we’ll have a chance to wet a line together while you’re here.”

“I’d like that,” I said.

I wandered out onto the porch, found an empty Brumby, lit a cigarette, and stared out at the lake. A few minutes later Tiny eased himself into the chair beside me.

“So,” he said, “tell me what the Indians are up to.”

I summarized my conversation with Seelye Smith.

“The burial ground, eh? That’s the key, then.”

I shrugged. “Could be. That’s the threat. Sue on the basis of the burial ground if you won’t sell.”

“Well, I sure as hell ain’t sellin’.”

“It could turn out that selling would be smarter.”

Tiny turned to look at me. “This place is my life,” he said. “What in hell would I do anywheres else?”

I nodded. “Anyway, you’re in good hands. Seelye Smith comes highly recommended. I liked him. He’s smart and well connected. Nothing more you can do.”

“That makes me feel a little better,” he said doubtfully. “Now, if Mr. Rolando would just come strolling up the path with a big grin on his face, itchin’ to tell us his adventures, I’d feel great.”

“Maybe he will.”

“Doubt it.”

Tiny and I rocked for a while longer, staring out at the darkening lake and swatting an occasional mosquito. After a bit of that Tiny got up and wandered back inside.

I decided to smoke another cigarette before I followed him.

The Maine woods are filled with night sounds—the shrieks and calls of birds, the rustle of the breeze in pine boughs, the slapping of gentle waves against shore-bound rocks. Human sounds grate the attuned ear, and the hiss I heard, while not loud, caused me to tense my muscles. Because it was a secret sound, the whisper of connivers. I stopped rocking and squinted into the dusk. Two figures moved down the path away from me and toward the dock. They walked slowly. Their heads were cocked toward each other as they whispered.

As they approached the dock, they came into full silhouette against the light reflected on the surface of the lake. I identified one of the men as Gib and the other as Frank Schatz. Both men carried what looked like duffel bags.

I watched as Gib climbed up into his plane and Schatz handed the bags up to him. Then Gib came down again. He and Schatz then scurried quickly away from the plane and disappeared into the shadows of the trees.

It took all of three minutes, all very innocent, and I wondered why I had tensed as I watched them. They had done nothing more suspicious than stow some stuff into the airplane.

Had Kenneth Rolando not disappeared from this place, I knew I would not have given it a second thought. I was imagining plots and conspiracies. Probably, if the truth were known, I was
hoping
for a plot or a conspiracy, some spice for the humdrum life of a middle-aged attorney.

Nuts,
I told myself.
Act your age, Coyne.

My cigarette had burned down to the filter while I’d been staring at Gib and Schatz. I stomped on it and stood up. I peered into the darkness and tried to listen for more intrusive human sounds. There were none.

I climbed the stairs to my room. After I got my things unpacked, I padded to the common bathroom at the end of the hall and took a leisurely hot bath, with a paperback edition of a John le Carré novel for company. By the time George Smiley had me thoroughly confused and the bath water had cooled down and I had toweled myself dry, it was after ten o’clock—late by Raven Lake standards.

I pulled on a sweatshirt and old corduroys, slipped into my moccasins, and wandered downstairs. The big room was empty of people. I went outside. From the porch I could hear a soft breeze soughing in the tops of the evergreens. A half moon had risen. I walked down to the water’s edge and out onto the dock. The water slapped softly against the pilings. I sat on the edge, dangling my feet. I lit a cigarette and listened for the loons.

The laughter of the loon never fails to stir something in me. It’s a long, eerie, hysterical wail, a primal shriek that reminds me of the sounds expected of professional mourners. It should properly be accompanied by the beating of breasts and the tearing of hair.

But it’s just loon talk. It’s the sound they make. I suppose it doesn’t convey particularly morbid emotions to them. A way of saying, “Howdy, there,” or, “Lookin’ like rain,” probably. Whatever it means, it always thrills me.

I sat there for about fifteen minutes before the loons finally rewarded me. There were two of them, far away up toward the northern end of the lake, and their cries came echoing across the water as they called and answered each other.

“I brought you something.”

I jerked around. “Jesus, Marge. You shouldn’t sneak up on a man like that.”

In the night light I saw that she was holding out a glass to me. I took it. “Thanks. Pull up a seat.”

She sat beside me, her shoulder touching mine. She had a glass of her own. “Let’s have a cigarette,” she said.

We smoked and drank in silence. Marge was a comfortable sort of woman. Even though I hadn’t seen her for three years, I felt that I knew her well. “You want to talk?” I said.

I felt her shiver. “No. Not really. I don’t mean to disturb your solitude.”

“You’re not. There’s room for you in it.”

“Thank you for that,” she said. She rested her head against my shoulder for a moment.

We sat in silence, sipping our drinks. I thought of telling Marge that I had seen Gib and Schatz skulking around on the dock, loading up the Cessna. As I thought it, I realized how silly it seemed. So I said nothing about it.

“So how’s the lawyerin’ business?” Marge said after a few minutes.

“It’s a living,” I said with a shrug.

“Come on.”

“You’re right. That wasn’t fair. It’s a damn good living, is what it is. I help people out, and they give me lots of money. I come and go as I please. I owe nobody money—or anything else. I’ve got it knocked.”

“But…?”

I lit another cigarette. I took a deep drag and let the smoke ooze out of my nostrils in the way that used to drive Gloria, my former wife, absolutely crazy.

“You look like a goddamn criminal when you squint your eyes and do that,” she’d scream at me. “You look like a rapist. You look like someone who’d mark people’s faces with knives. Cut it out.”

Married people always know how to drive each other crazy. The mark of a successful marriage, I guess, is the restraint each partner shows. I rather liked letting smoke ooze and dribble from my nostrils. My marriage failed after about a dozen years. It follows.

“But,” I said to Marge, “my kind of lawyering, however rewarding, however much good I can do for people, is about the most deadly boring occupation imaginable. I continue to do lawyering because a week of it buys me a week at a place like Raven Lake, and so far the quid has been worth the quo. But you know what?”

She smiled up at me. “What?”

“Hardly a day goes by that I don’t find myself wondering what I’m going to do when I grow up.”

She touched my arm, squeezed gently, and then drew her hand away. It was a wonderfully intimate gesture. It conveyed perfect understanding and empathy. I could have repaid that gesture in kind only by kissing her. I was briefly tempted.

After a few minutes, the loons wailed again, and it occurred to me that 130 years ago Thoreau might have sat near this place on an evening such as this one, listening to the ancestors of these same loons. I found the possibility of such continuity comforting.

“God, they’re spooky,” Marge murmured.

“Mmm,” I said. “It’s territorial, I expect. They’re saying, ‘This is our place.’”

“Well,” said Marge, “they’re right. We’re just visitors. They live here.”

She hitched herself closer to me so that our thighs touched. I resisted the impulse to put my arm around the shoulders of Tiny’s wife. Instead, I shifted, moving a few inches away from her.

Abruptly, she stood up. “Time to go in,” she said.

She held out a hand to me and helped me up. I stood there for a minute, close to her, looking down into her face. Then I nodded. “Yes. Let’s go in.”