The Wind Knot

by John Galligan

  So maybe that line killed Kock.

  “Who is this young woman?”

  Silence.

  “Okay, I’ll keep looking.”

  Dog’s eyes found bookshelves. The sadsack drunk was a reader, it seemed. Melville. Thackery. Jack London. And there was Hemingway’s In Our Time, the collection with the Big Two Hearted River stories. Dog touched the book, had begun to pull it from the shelf, when he was swamped by a sudden wave of his own despair, of his exhaustion with himself, his pain and his failure to relieve it. Sadsack drunk? Who? Running for his life. Why? Those Nick Adams stories had sent him out here—to this negation of personal progress. To shameful absurdity, meaningless danger, exhaustion and pain.

  The sensation was complete for a long moment, debilitating. Then Cook groaned beneath the table, bringing Dog back.

  Why did he go on? How?

  On the floor beneath the window he saw a business card. Bewildered with himself, Dog sidestepped toward it, holding the axe two-handed like a club. Exposed to the window in this position, he moved slowly. He let go of the axe with one hand to pick up the card. After he read it, he nudged the table again.

  “Hey. Cook. Can you hear me? Can I ask you something? So which fifteen states do you own restaurants in?”

  Cook moaned. The table shifted slightly and went still. Dog knocked on it with the butt of the axe. “Hello? Listen, you can come clean with me. I don’t think I care anymore. But I found your business card, and it says here you sell napkins, coasters, and plastic dinnerware.”

  Beneath the table the pistol went off.

  Dog jumped back, the axe raised.

  The pistol spun out from beneath the table and Dog snatched it.

  Cook’s blood wandered out across the floor.

  A second time the garbage lid crashed down. Dog bent and crawled to the window. The sheriff’s deputy had heard the shot. Her hair whipping across her face, she jogged toward Cook’s. She glanced away, upriver, and now Dog heard hounds baying. Somehow, they had come all this way already. They were on him. And the deputy—had she seen him?—wouldn’t she have to assume that he had just killed Cook?

  Shouldn’t he run?

  Why?

  He was running. He dropped the pistol, kicked it back beneath the table. He re-entered the wind head down. He stumbled through toppled firewood, cornered the house, kicked over a ruined old canoe. He ripped a wooden paddle from a tissue of spider silk.

  A half dozen reckless strides carried him to the high sand bank over the river. He punched number one on Tervo’s phone—again—until he got Esofea, heard her voice, and then he launched—getting off one word in midair before he hit the sand bank and tumbled and lost the phone into the Two Hearted.

  “Don’t—”

  21

  Sheriff Bruce Lodge had been trolling Oglivie’s hospital gown across the Reed and Green Bridge, drawing Donuts Rudvig and the Heimo Kock era ever closer to the end, when dispatch asked him to stand by for a phone call.

  This was a little over an hour ago. Lodge had pulled over, thinking, Phone call? Oh. Right. His onboard computer. The thing could teriyaki up a phone call, like a real phone except you touched a spot on the screen and then held nothing in your hand.

  “This is Luce County Sheriff Bruce Lodge.”

  About the last person he would have expected was a captain from the Arizona State Police. He felt weird making listening sounds at a computer screen. Ok. Sure. That so? Uh-huh. A gardener from Phoenix had told law enforcement down there that Danny Tervo was selling water brought down in a tanker from Lake Superior.

  Lodge said, “Wait a minute. What?”

  Tervo had taken two grand from this gardener, who now had second thoughts, based on a hunch about who Tervo’s other clients might be. And just a short time ago, someone answering Tervo’s phone had denied knowing anything about it. The gardener wanted to file a fraud charge.

  Lodge had checked his mirror. The gown was still back there. It was brown now and stuck with burrs. Lodge wondered if it retained enough scent to pull the dogs along. “Not sure I see the crime,” he said. “Unless the guy never gets his water.”

  “We’re not sure either,” the police captain said. “Just wanted to put you in the loop. We’re going to investigate.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Any clue up there if he can do that?”

  “Do what?”

  “Move water like that?”

  Lodge checked his mirror again and told himself to relax. Rudvig was coming. Only problem was if it rained too soon. “Not sure.”

  “One way or another, you folks are going to make a fortune off us poor suckers, that’s a bet. We’re in a world of hurt down here, Sheriff. Folks are stealing water, right and left.”

  “I’ll look into it,” Lodge promised. Once he figured out how to “hang up,” teriyaki style, he touched numbers on the screen and had dispatch hook him up with the Michigan DNR. He got a nice young fellow named Greg Bright. “Do me a favor?” the sheriff asked.

  Now Lodge at last had reached the bridge he favored for Coho. This was 412 over the Little Two Hearted, just west of Culhane Lake. He parked the cruiser. He cupped his hands around his eyes and peered over the rail. Bingo. There went a fat silver hen, gliding upstream.

  The sheriff reeled up Oglivie’s gown and unhooked it. He tied the gown around the bridge rail. He changed his mind. He untied the gown, made a little sack out of it—filled that with sand and stones and tossed it into the river. It all stopped here, one way or the other. First the dogs, milling for the lost scent. Then Kock’s boy Donuts Rudvig tramping down underneath this bridge, maybe with others, their eyes adjusting too late. Lodge would pick out Rudvig. Donuts could make one final threat if he wanted to. Raise his weapon if he thought that was a good idea. See where it got him.

  Lodge made a quick trip home to Widgeon Creek. He changed out of his uniform—this was civilian work—and swapped the cruiser for his old blue Ford pickup with the tackle rep stickers all over the black topper. Mepps. Rapala. Firm Worm. Rooster Tail. Mister Twister. There was a lot of Bruce Lodge represented in those stickers, he observed, a lot of show and not much do.

  Well, then.

  He returned the Luce County Sheriff’s shotgun to the cruiser’s trunk and loaded his own beloved twelve-gauge. He pulled Goldie’s sack of Friskies out of the cupboard, cut it wide open, left it on the kitchen floor. That would tide her over.

  The sheriff was back at the Little Two Hearted inside of thirty minutes. Now he parked his pickup crossways, blocking the road. The posse’s ORVs would have to stop here no matter what.

  His Daredevil spoon was worn to a dull, pockmarked silver. It looked more real than it ever had. Lodge retied it with a clinch knot. Getting down off the bridge and next to the river—rod in one hand, shotgun in the other—this was not a graceful thing. The big man went to his rump twice and stayed there the third time, scooting down a steep scree of riprap until he confronted a thicket of tag alder butchered by a beaver into short, sharp spears. Now he had to get up, watch himself, kick and stumble his way through, provoking a cloud of mosquitoes that had escaped the first frost.

  But there was Sheriff “Bruce the Moose” Lodge eventually. Beneath a bridge again, flushing swallows from their nests and breathing in that cool, earthy air. But this no longer seemed like a stolen moment. These seemed like the sensations of a new beginning. Charlotte was dead now. Heimo Kock was dead now. A certain amount of criminal dignity had gone with him, the sheriff guessed. And Luce County had itself one hell of a good new young deputy. It was high time for things to be different.

  He set the shotgun down. The dogs would appear first. Then Donuts would come down. He would be armed and he would make his lethal threat, never expecting Lodge to shoot first. Anyone of the rest of those shitbirds could have a go, too. The sheriff—the ex-sheriff—the retired sheriff—he would shoot until they stopped him.

  But in the meantime, he had maybe a couple hours. One cast, two casts,
three casts, four, five, six—a dozen—Coho squirting past—in the meantime—teriyaki!—hot damn!—he had a fish on.

  The roads in Luce County turned to dirt and Buddha Mike had to slow down. Billy Rowntree, crashing hard, took a nap, woke up, took a nap again, woke up and stared blearily out the window until a small animal hesitated at the dusty edge and then darted in front of the Hummer. Buddha Mike swerved but he hit it.

  “Damn,” said Rowntree, perking up, “pop goes the weasel.”

  “I didn’t mean to.”

  Rowntree gestured at the dusty windshield. “What is this shit, Buddha Mike? You got lost.”

  Quiet, too damn calm, he drove a minute more, steering between wheel ruts and potholes. “Was I going someplace I didn’t know about?”

  The postcard had fallen to the floor. Rowntree put it back where Buddha Mike could see it: a huge blue lake.

  “You supposed to find somebody, ask them where Tervo is at. Who you found so far?”

  “Nobody here, man. What can I do?”

  “Take some turns, fool. Get busy.”

  Buddha Mike turned down a side road leading to the edge of an ugly swamp where they had to turn around. The Hummer caught on a bump of sand and hung there spinning.

  “Get behind the wheel,” Buddha Mike said.

  Rowntree put his hand in his jacket pocket, touched the pistol, watched him. Buddha Mike got out and looked, slapping mosquitoes off his round face. Rowntree twisted, following him as he climbed into the back seat. The back end of the Hummer sank down. “Pull forward,” he said.

  Rowntree looked around the dash. Pull forward? How?

  “Get behind the wheel. Put your foot on the brake. That’s the gas. The brake. Pull the shifter back. Yeah. Now hit the gas.”

  The Hummer jerked forward, spun a ways up the road, and stalled.

  Buddha Mike got out, came to the driver’s door. But Rowntree had already turned the key and heard the engine start. Easy. He laughed. Damn. He said, “Other side, bitch. Rowntree’s driving now.”

  It was real easy. He could even drive one-handed. He fished out Sinbad’s phone. “Hey,” he said after the tone at his mother’s number, “I had to drive up to Michigan. In a Hummer. Do some business. But call me back.”

  Buddha Mike was looking at him.

  “What?”

  “You’re going eighty, man.”

  “So?”

  “You see that? Coming? That’s a truck.”

  Sure enough here came this motherfucker high with shaggy logs and blaring his horn. Rowntree froze. Then he found the Hummer’s horn and pushed it hard. The next moment was all noise and hammering shadow, air sucked out of the Hummer, a sharp metallic snap, an instant of weightlessness. Then open road again, the Hummer’s side mirror spinning behind them and the truck disappearing in a whirlwind of dirt.

  Laughing, Rowntree looked over. “See, Nash gonna take the charge,” he said. “Don’t care how big you are.”

  It was like Buddha Mike had never stopped looking at him.

  “What?”

  “Steve Nash? Phoenix Suns? That who you mean?”

  “Damn right. You got something to say about that?” Buddha Mike shrugged. “I knew a dude like you once.”

  “Dude like what?”

  “Never mind, man.”

  “Dude like what, I said.”

  Buddha Mike looked away, silent. Rowntree felt his brain get hot. His mother wouldn’t answer him. He had called like, what, six times? It was like when he called her from Oracle. Two weeks later, maybe, she might call back. It was like the jersey, like everything, the whole reason he was in there in the first place. And then, a year later, she really orders it.

  “Little white dude,” Buddha Mike said finally. “Talked all ghetto cuz he was trying to sound tough. Like he was raised by wolves or some shit. Overcompensating on every front, man, seriously.”

  “Man, fuck you.”

  “Like the black man was gonna respect him someday.”

  “I got my respect, man.” Rowntree shook his jacket pocket.

  “Yeah,” said Buddha Mike. “That kind of shit. And everybody just played with that dude. Nobody said to him, this just ain’t working, brother. This just ain’t your game.”

  Rowntree said nothing, couldn’t, just put his hand down in the pocket and touched the pistol and drove on, his brain feeling like it itched and burned, just like that hot Arizona morning when he was thirteen and he walked out of his fat-mouthing stepfather Darrell Rowntree’s apartment with a small heavy pistol and shot the UPS driver who had returned to the apartment parking lot to sort through the boxes in the back of his truck. Rowntree had been waiting three weeks. But just like the driver had told him, not one of those boxes contained the Steve Nash ‘01 All-Star jersey his mother told him she had ordered five weeks ago. Then she tells the police that actually she had just meant to order it five weeks ago but she had forgotten. Next January that jersey shows up at Oracle. Merry Christmas.

  “Fuck you, man.”

  “Ok,” said Buddha Mike.

  Rowntree drove down dirt roads, turning randomly, going as fast as he could on straightaways, until they passed a lonely trailer with a roll-away adjustable hoop on the gravel driveway, a flat orange ball in high weeds. He figured out how to stop the Hummer. He lifted the pistol from his nice gray jacket, put it in Buddha Mike’s face.

  “Get on the court, Buddha Mike.”

  “I don’t play ball.”

  Rowntree adjusted, made a target out of one black ear, the little diamond stud in it. Buddha Mike closed his eyes. He held very still, breathed slowly. “That’s somebody’s driveway, man. They looking out the window.”

  “Get on the court.”

  “I got no ankles, man. Leave me alone.”

  “Then, you gonna die now, Buddha Mike. I don’t take the kind of shit you just said. Not any more.”

  “The truth ain’t ever shit, man.”

  “Get out.”

  “I don’t do sports, man. Please.”

  Rowntree left the Hummer and walked around, leaned in the window and focused on the same little diamond in Buddha Mike’s other ear. “You doing sports now, bitch. Get out.”

  Buddha Mike put his palms together. It looked like he prayed. Then he walked slowly into the driveway and stood there. Someone watched from the trailer’s window—a bony white man in stubble and a hat. Rowntree put the pistol on the hood of the Hummer. He unbuttoned the coat and hung it on the side mirror. He dropped the keys into his pants pocket. Then he picked up the ball.

  The stubbled man had opened his door.

  “What ya think yer doin', eh? That’s my grandson’s ball.”

  Rowntree pounded the ball between his palms. He snapped off some crossover dribbles. Buddha Mike followed the ball with his eyes but didn’t move. “That’s all you got?” said Rowntree and went around him. He elevated, rubbed the ball in over the rim, and tore the feeble thing off on the way down. He kicked the ball at the old man in the trailer doorway.

  “See?” he said when they were back in the Hummer, Buddha Mike driving again so Rowntree could watch him. “You see that, bitch?”

  “I saw it, man.”

  “Good.”

  Buddha Mike drove on at about thirty-five with his mouth shut. Rowntree watched the identical trees go by. Goddamn this Michigan. Bad as the desert. Nothing nowhere. They hadn’t seen one building in an hour. Phoenix, you rolled in a yellow Hummer like this, you just pulled into an area and started asking where a man was at, you got the man. At least that’s how it was when Rowntree went away. Nowadays maybe you got shot, lost the Hummer.

  Rowntree checked the phone. No messages. He used the calculator. A tanker held about five thousand gallons. Trucker at Shell in Green Bay said that. Five thousand times four bucks a gallon was twenty thousand. Water was free. The shit was everywhere up here. Cost of diesel three bucks a gallon on the pump in Green Bay. Figure five miles per gallon on a tanker, the trucker said, from up here to Phoenix a
bout two thousand miles. That’s four hundred gallons of diesel one way. Twelve hundred bucks. Two thousand four hundred, round trip. Add costs up to three thousand, total expenses per round trip.

  Twenty thousand coming in, three thousand going out.

  They did money management at Oracle. That was a seventeen grand profit. Then he had it: enough money to buy a car, drive it from Miami. And it was water, man. What everybody needed.

  See?

  So find this Tervo bitch, right? Cancel his contract. Take the keys to his tanker.

  A loud flash in the sky got Rowntree’s attention back on the moment. A boom of thunder followed. Goddamn. Lightning and thunder. He had forgot. The Hummer rolled into an open area where the forest had burned. “Look at that, Buddha Mike. Stop.”

  Rowntree had been over a river before, but dry and empty. The Salt ran through Phoenix once but they built whore houses over it and then malls and highways until it all disappeared and now there were memorial markers. But look at this.

  It was a small river, quick and shallow and loud, brown as bong water but somehow clear at the same time. Cool air rose off it. Rowntree kicked a stick over the bridge. Before he crossed to the other rail, that stick was twirling away around a bend, as if he threw it down there.

  That’s when Rowntree got a glimpse of the big postcard lake.

  “Goddamn.”

  It was right there. Hell, he could hear it. Waves crashing. Gulls crying. This little river, trickling down through burnt trees, opened to a mind-blowing horizon, water touching sky. So much water Rowntree followed its pale blue body around the curve of the earth.

  “Mike,” he hollered, scrambling onto the roof of the Hummer. “Mike, you seeing this?”

  So much water it went around the curve of the earth in three directions, and at the same time, right here, water flowing under the bridge, steady, not giving out, and now another crack of lightning and ok, here we go, water falling out of the sky!

  The first drops were cold. They soaked him in seconds, and Rowntree felt good. Droplets streaked down inside the open spaces of the suit, tickling Rowntree and making him smile. Fat drops smashed his head. Bitter juice ran out of his headband, but in a few seconds more it ran clear and sweet.