Dead Meat

by William G. Tapply

  At the door Woody turned to me. “Maybe you can teach Mr. Schatz somethin’. I sure ain’t been able to.”

  “He flew out with Gib a little while ago. It’ll be just you and me.”

  Woody frowned. “Mr. Schatz left? I thought he was gonna be here a week.”

  I shrugged. “Well, he’s gone.”

  “Damn funny time to go. Before breakfast. It sure’n hell ain’t like Gib to miss one of Bud’s breakfasts.”

  “You didn’t hear the plane? It woke me up.”

  “My little cabin’s way down the end, set back from the lake. I expect the others heard it.”

  “You don’t bunk with the other guides, do you?”

  Woody stepped away from the door. “It’s one of them traditions, I guess you’d call it. The Indians bunk separate. I’m the last Indian. So I got my own cabin. I like it that way.”

  “That’s pretty damn old-fashioned,” I observed.

  He frowned. “That’s one way to look at it. Let’s eat. I got a special place I want to try, now that it’s just gonna be you and me.”

  Woody and I took a broad-beamed twenty-foot canoe with a little four-horse motor up to the northern end of the lake. As Marge had predicted, the misty rain had stopped. A southerly breeze roughened the surface of the water.

  A fifteen-minute run took us to the mouth of Harley’s Creek. The rains of the past several days had swollen it enough so that a café-au-lait-colored tongue of current was pushing into the lake itself. Woody killed the motor and let our momentum drift us to the edge of the eddying water. “We’ll anchor here,” he said. “Salmon should be coming from all over the lake. Lookin’ for smelts. Good place. Been savin’ it for you.”

  Woody and I cast streamer flies into the currents. We let them sink for a few counts, then twitched them slowly back, and for more than an hour there was scarcely a minute when either Woody or I wasn’t tied to a salmon. They hit the flies hard and tried to run to the deep water with them. We played them against the drag of our reels. When the big fish stopped running, they would turn and begin to leap, great silver arcs over the gray face of the lake, heads shaking, tails walking on the surface of the water.

  Woody kept one fish, a fat four-pounder. He rapped it once on the back of its head with his wooden priest. “Our lunch,” he said.

  The rest of them we released gently by running our fingers down the leader to the spent fish where they lay finning beside the boat and carefully twisting the hooks from their jaws.

  We figured we caught around a dozen salmon between us during that time, although we didn’t count them. When we had cast without a strike for half an hour, Woody reeled in and said, “That’s it for now. They’ve headed back to deep water. They’ll be back. We can go up the creek and try for trout if you want.”

  “I want to save that,” I said. “I want to spend one day alone. Probably tomorrow. For my soul. Up in the creek is where I want to do it. I’ll bring my little rod and look for some beaver ponds.”

  Woody nodded. I knew he’d understand and wouldn’t take offense at my desire to fish for a day without him. “Beavers’ve been workin’ up that creek. Little ponds’ll be full of trout. Good idea.”

  We had lunch on the lakeshore. I gathered dry hardwood and dragged it to our campsite, where I hacked it into short chunks. Woody arranged the cooking fire. He stuck two forked sticks into the ground on either side of the depression he’d scooped out, where the coals would lie. Across the forked sticks he rested a lug pole, and from the lug pole he hung a wanigan stick. This had a nail in it on which the water pot for our coffee was suspended.

  Woody grilled the salmon over the coals and fried up some potatoes and onions in a black skillet. We ate from aluminum plates.

  It was, by objective standards, pretty bad. The salmon steaks could have been moister, and I would have liked a wedge of lemon to squeeze over them. The potatoes were undercooked. The onions were burned.

  But sitting there on the pine needles, sniffing the wood-smoke and sipping the harsh coffee and gazing across the water with my eyes lazily unfocused, I thought it was the best meal I had had since—well, since the last time Woody had cooked for me.

  “You haven’t lost your touch,” I told him.

  “Mr. Schatz thought we should pack sandwiches.” Woody grinned. “And bring a thermos of martinis. But, hell, he never helped gather wood, neither. He was all for shooting a pair of partridge we came upon. Said he was sick of salmon, if you can believe it. I mighta done it, too, if I had my pistol with me.”

  “You’d take a game bird out of season?”

  Woody shrugged. A home-rolled cigarette hung off his lower lip. A long ash had grown onto the end of it. “It’s different up here. The city people down in Augusta make the laws, but they’re not our laws. Folks generally take what they need. No more. No less, neither. It ain’t killin’ for the fun of it. Hell, killin’ ain’t no fun, anyways. It ain’t waste. It’s what nature gives us, and we respect it. Local people, most of the guides, they’re like the Indians that way. They know how it’s supposed to be. It’s always been that way for us. You know that, Mr. Coyne. The Indians worship the animals and birds and fish that they eat. It’s all part of the big circle.”

  I nodded. “But it’s poaching.”

  Woody picked the cigarette off his lips and flicked off the ash. “That’s white man’s law. Indians don’t even have a word for it.”

  I sipped my coffee. Woody had brewed it by throwing a handful of grounds into a pot of boiling water, letting it bubble away for a long time, and then shoving the glowing end of a stick from the fire into the pot. This, Woody claimed, was an old Indian trick that sank the grounds to the bottom. In my experience either Woody did it wrong, or the trick was no good. There was nothing smooth or gentle about Woody’s coffee. Stray grounds tended to get caught in my teeth, for one thing. But it beat the hell out of the sanitized, mechanized stuff that came out of the Mr. Coffee machine back in my office.

  Woody was staring off at the sky. His profile looked as if it had been carved out of a granite mountain. “What happened to the other Indian guides?” I said to him. “Seems to me that there used to be several at Raven Lake.”

  He took a long time to answer. When he did, it was with a characteristic shrug. “Fred, he died. The others got old. Went back to the island. Young ones, hell, they don’t want to do guidin’ no more. They want to play guitars and drink scotch whiskey and knock up white girls. They’re happy to take their hundred and forty bucks a quarter from the government and live on the reservation.”

  “You mean Indian Island, the place on the Penobscot?”

  He grimaced. “Yup. You ever been there, Mr. Coyne?”

  I shook my head.

  “Good,” he said. “You don’t see my people at their best there. I hope you don’t take this wrong. But the Indians sold out to the white men. First we let them take our land. Then, when we tried to get it back, we let them buy us out cheap. We got some land back, a little money in trust, and a hundred forty dollars every three months. A goddamn insult. Nothin’s changed. Indians still poor, livin’ on the reservation, dyin’ young. Drunks, most of ’em. Me, I don’t take my money. And I don’t live with my people. I’m not proud of ’em. I’m proud of my race, Mr. Coyne, but I ain’t proud of some of the people in it.”

  “It can’t be that simple,” I said.

  “I ain’t been to college,” he said, taking out his pouch and rolling another cigarette. “But I know about what happens to people when they lose their pride. The Indians got lawyers and educated men working for them now, and maybe someday it’ll make a difference.” He paused to lap the edge of the cigarette paper and stick it down. Then he took a stick from the fire and lit up. “Anyways,” he continued, “by my way of thinkin’, a man’s got to lift his own self up, and every time the government does it, it prevents a man from doin’ it himself and makes it that much harder the next time.” He settled himself back on the ground and closed his eyes. “I
ain’t bitter. I’m doin’ what I like, and I’m beholden to nobody.”

  The campfire died down. Our coffee mugs were drained, our cigarette butts ground out. I lay back on the warm earth and closed my eyes against the sun that had broken through the clouds. I savored the lethargy I felt in my limbs and felt their weight against the thin cushion of pine needles where I lay. I allowed my mind to drift. I dozed.

  The sounds of Woody bustling about the campsite dragged me up from my sleep. He had taken the cooking utensils down to the edge of the water and was scouring them out with sand. I doused what was left of the fire and scooped sand over the dead coals. Then I lugged Woody’s big wicker basket down to the canoe and handed it to him.

  “Where’s the burial ground?” I said.

  “Up Harley’s Creek a ways,” Woody answered, cocking his head at me. “You gonna pay it a visit?”

  “I thought I might.”

  “Didn’t know you had an interest in Indian heritage.”

  I shrugged. “I’d like to see it.”

  Woody grinned. “Spooky place. White men around here steer clear of it. They think it’s haunted with the spirits of all the old Indians buried there.”

  “What do you think?”

  “It’s a graveyard. Nice spot for one.”

  “How do I find it?”

  “Pretty hard to miss. You paddle the length of the lake, then up Harley’s. You come to the place where the river divides, you beach your canoe and climb the bluff. Burial ground’s at the top. It’s a little hike up there. Not that far, but steep. Course, you can drive a truck within a hundred yards if you prefer.”

  “I’ll do it the Indian way,” I said. “Fish for trout along the way.”

  Woody nodded. “Figured you would. That’s why I told you how to find it. Figured you’d know how to respect the place.”

  We finished loading the canoe. Woody took his seat in the stern, and I shoved us off.

  “Want to try for some bass this afternoon, Mr. Coyne?” he said, turning us with his paddle so our bow pointed out into the lake.

  “Love it.”

  We motored across the lake, and Woody paddled along the rocky shoreline while I cast floating deerhair bass bugs to the spawning beds that were visible as big, round sand-colored platters on the shallow bottom. I had crimped down the barbs on the hooks so that we could release any fish we caught without injuring them. The big females, heavy with roe, came boiling up from their nests to attack the intruders I cast there, and I caught and released smallmouth bass until my arms grew weary. Then I took up the paddle, and Woody fished for a while.

  Around five o’clock Woody lifted his eyebrows to me, and I nodded. I’d had enough for one day. He cranked up the motor and pointed the canoe to the lodge.

  We were unloading when Polly came down. I handed her my rods. Her eyes didn’t quite meet mine, and it occurred to me that if Marge had figured out that I had overheard their little exchange last night, Polly probably had, too.

  “Mr. Rolando is here,” she said to me. “Daddy wants you to meet him.”

  “Sure,” I said. “Soon’s I get cleaned up.”

  “No. He means right away. They’ve been waiting for you to get in.”

  I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  We started up to the lodge. Polly said, “Can I say something?”

  “You don’t have to,” I said. “Forget it. I heard something last night I shouldn’t have heard. None of my business. You don’t have to say anything to me.”

  “I want to say one thing,” she said. “What I said about you. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “That was between you and your mother. Don’t worry about it.”

  She stopped and looked at me. “Mean it?”

  “Sure.” I held out my hand, and she took it.

  “Friends?”

  I nodded. “Hope so.”

  Six

  TINY WHEELER’S OFFICE WAS a little cubicle partitioned out of the back corner of the lounge. The door was closed, so I rapped on it.

  “Come on in,” yelled Tiny from inside.

  Tiny’s bulk was squeezed behind his desk. He seemed to fill the little room all by himself. His gold tooth glinted in a nervous grin.

  “This is Mr. Philip Rolando, Brady,” he said, gesturing to a man who was perched on a straight-backed chair. Rolando glared at me and didn’t bother to stand up. He looked out of place in his dress shirt with a necktie loosened at his throat.

  I held my hand to him. He rose halfway out of his chair. “Nice to meet you,” I said.

  “Sure,” he grunted.

  He was a stocky guy, with a thick neck and a military-style haircut. He had a jutting, aggressive jaw and heavy black brows from beneath which his flat gray eyes seemed to peer out at a hostile world.

  I took the one remaining chair, which placed me nearer to Philip Rolando than I thought he liked. I had the impression that he and Tiny had been sitting across from each other for some time, Tiny grinning and Rolando glowering, and neither of them speaking, like a husband and wife waiting in an anteroom for their divorce proceedings to begin.

  “Have a pleasant flight, Mr. Rolando?” I said in an unimaginative effort to smash the glacier.

  “Let’s cut the bullshit,” he said. He leveled his ray-gun eyes on Tiny. “Can we get started now?”

  Tiny nodded vigorously. “Sure. Now that Brady’s here.”

  “Good.” Rolando paused to select his words. When he spoke, his voice was as flat and colorless as his eyes. “The fact that you think you need a lawyer tells me what I wanted to know, anyway.”

  Tiny started to speak, but I interrupted him. “It doesn’t tell you anything. You’re not a prosecutor, this isn’t a court of law, and Tiny wants to cooperate with you. If your purpose is to level accusations here, then I suggest you climb right back into Gib’s Cessna and go home. If you want to talk about what happened to your brother, then there’s no need to be adversarial.”

  Rolando’s mouth moved. I figured it was his version of a smile. “Good for you,” he said. “You just earned your money.”

  I saw Tiny begin to lean forward. I gave him a little shake of my head. I had actually seen him lose his temper only once, and that was when one of his guests had come back from a day on the lake with three limits of salmon lying dead in the bottom of the canoe. Tiny broke the guide’s jaw and knocked several shattered teeth spewing in all directions with one blow of his big fist. It took two other large men in addition to myself to keep him away from the greedy fisherman. Except for that single incident, I knew Tiny Wheeler to be a placid, agreeable man with moderate tolerance for the shortcomings of others.

  On the other hand, the guides told wondrous tales of the strength he could muster when aroused, and I knew he would not tolerate an insult to one of his friends.

  Tiny sighed and eased himself back into his chair.

  Rolando leaned forward and placed both hands flat on the edge of Tiny’s desk. “All right,” he said. “Okay. So tell me. What happened to Ken?”

  Tiny lifted his bulky shoulders and let them fall. “He just disappeared, Mr. Rolando. I don’t know what happened to him.”

  “No trace of him, then?”

  “Nothing. We looked. The sheriff was here.”

  Rolando sighed and shook his head slowly. I read resignation in the gesture, but it fell short of sorrow. “Start at the beginning, will you? Tell me everything from the time he got here.” He glanced at me. “I’m not accusing anybody. Not yet, anyway.”

  I shrugged and nodded to Tiny.

  Tiny frowned and gazed up at the ceiling. “Well, he came in with Gib about three Sunday afternoon. He was supposed to stay a week. He had no fishing gear with him, which is kinda unusual. Most of our guests bring their own gear. We have plenty, of course, but still… Anyhow, I put him in cabin six. That’s a small one—it’s where you’ll be, if that’s okay. We’ve left your brother’s stuff right there. Keep thinkin’ he’s gonna show up. I asked him if he di
dn’t want to get out on the lake for a few hours that afternoon. Hell, the salmon had been bitin’ like snakes all week. Figured he’d have some nice fishin’. Told him I’d take him out myself. But he said no, he was tired, he wanted to grab a nap before dinner, which was okay by me. Funny thing was, he never did take that nap. I lugged his duffel down to his cabin, showed him where the outhouse was, and came back up here. Little while later I see him walkin’ around. Not, like you might expect, sauntering, enjoying the air, lookin’ at the lake, understand. More like he was searchin’ for something. Went down to the dock, then around the cabins. Then he came up here. Asked if he could look at the register. Hell, it ain’t private or anything. I figured he just wanted to see all the famous people who’ve come here over the years.”

  Tiny grinned and jerked his thumb at a mass of framed photographs hanging on the wall behind him, all of which showed Tiny posing with a string of salmon or a dead bear or whitetail deer hung from the pole in front of the lodge and shaking hands with men whose faces were vaguely familiar. They were invariably inscribed, “To my good friend Tiny.”

  “We’ve had senators, movie stars, couple big-league ballplayers stay with us. They all had good sportin’,” added Tiny.

  “For Christ’s sake,” said Rolando.

  “Yeah, okay. Anyway, he spent a hell of a long time lookin’ at our register. I didn’t want to be nosy, see, so I stayed out of his way. But we were settin’ up for happy hour, so I was around. I think he was actually takin’ notes. It looked to me like he was writin’ stuff down into a little notebook. Stuff from the register. Maybe not, but it looked that way to me.”

  “Why would he be interested in the register?” I addressed the question to Rolando.

  He glowered at me. “How the hell should I know?”

  “Maybe he was just interested in the famous people’s autographs,” said Tiny. “Like I told you, we’ve had—”

  “Okay, okay,” interrupted Rolando. “So what happened next?”

  “I’m just tryin’ to tell you everything I remember. So after he finished with the register I guess he went back to his cabin. I’m not sure. Maybe he had his nap then. He didn’t show up for happy hour. He was the only one who didn’t. Hell, everybody comes for happy hour, even kids, when they’re here, and the teetotalers. It’s the time when everybody swaps lies about how good the fishin’ was and guides tell their favorite stories. I told your brother about happy hour. Everybody else was here.”