Short Money

by Pete Hautman

  “He’s really got a tiger out there?” Crow asked.

  “Wouldn’ surprise me he had a tyrannosaurus.”

  “So who lives out there now?”

  “Just the three of ’em—George, Ricky, and Amanda. And George’s kid. George’s wife took off on him a few years back, but the kid still lives with George. A course, the daughter, Hillary, she married your old boss Orlan. I ain’t telling you nothing you don’t know. They still live in that big yellow house up on Front Street.”

  “What kind of a guy is George?”

  Berdette grunted. “You never met him? He’s a big guy, sort of goofy looking. But don’t be surprised if you like him.”

  “Y’wanna fight?”

  Crow turned his head and looked at Harley Pike, who had climbed off his stool and was standing a few feet away, bowed legs spread, fists clenched white, eyes red and half closed.

  “You think yer tough?” Harley demanded.

  Crow, keeping his face carefully neutral, said, “No, Harley, I’m not tough.”

  Harley stood his ground, feet anchored to the floor, the top half of his body swaying as if he were standing in a small boat on a choppy lake.

  “You wanna fight?” he said again, advancing a step, projecting an aroma of alcohol and dental decay.

  Crow shook his head, breathing shallowly. “No, thanks, Harley. No fight left in me today.”

  “Cuz I’ll fightcha, goddammit. Punch yer lights out.” He lowered his brow and glared.

  Crow nodded. “I know. You want a beer, Harley?”

  Harley’s expression softened. “You buyin’?” he asked suspiciously.

  “Sure. You want to get the man a beer, Berdette?”

  Berdette was already pouring.

  Crow waited for Harley to get settled with his replenished glass, then slid off his stool and laid three dollars on the bar. “Thanks, Berdette.”

  “I didn’t tell you anything you didn’t already know. You gonna tell me what’s going on?”

  “I would if I could, Berdette, but the truth is, I’m as much in the dark as old Harley there. I just haven’t got a clue.”

  George Murphy didn’t think his little pair of deuces was going to cut it. Orlan was probably sitting on jacks or better. Murphy sighed and considered calling the bet anyway. For one dollar, he could afford to see what his brother-in-law had that was worth a double raise. And so what if he lost? If Orlan was willing to put up with Hillary, the least George could do in return would be to drop a few bucks at the card table.

  Still, he hated to lose. Especially to a guy like Orlan. Even a dollar. Even fifty cents.

  Another strategy occurred to him. He could raise another dollar, maybe bluff his way into a pot. Better yet, he could raise it up two dollars. The limit was supposed to be one, but what the hell? It would give Orlan something to think about. George fished in his pile of change, counting out quarters. He heard the door that led into the house open and close. A shadow fell across his arm. George turned his head and looked into his son’s face.

  “Dad?”

  George felt a pang in his chest, an oleo of irritation, tenderness, disgust, and love. The boy looked so soft and vulnerable. He smelled like chicken soup. His nose ran and his eyes watered. George looked around the lodge, a room sixty feet long and thirty feet wide. The single ridge beam, thirty inches in circumference, had come from a white pine that he and Ricky had taken down to make room for the lodge. A fire crackled in the fireplace at one end, a potbellied wood stove stood near the entrance. At the far end of the room, his Bengal tiger lay in an orange-black-and-white pile, watching the cardplayers through slitted eyes. The five picture windows looked out over the river valley, a spectacular panorama to which he had long since grown accustomed. This was his favorite room, the hub of Talking Lake Ranch. During the fall, when the urge to hunt was strong, there would be five or six hunting parties on any given day, Mandy would be bustling around the lodge making sandwiches and drinks, George and Ricky would be taking one group after another out to hunt. During peak season he’d have outside guides bringing in clients, and sometimes he’d have to hire a few of the locals to help out.

  He didn’t have much time for the kid when he was busy like that. Maybe that was why the boy had done what he’d done. Maybe it was his own fault.

  Now, except for Orlan and the three off-season duck hunters from Sioux Falls, the big room was empty—the other three tables held only a few old hunting magazines and the duck hunters’ cased shotguns. Mandy was nowhere in sight. He wished she hadn’t walked into Shawn’s room that day. He wished she hadn’t told Ricky, hadn’t got him all excited. He wished he could forget about it, put it out of his mind. Now that he had time, maybe he could get to know his kid a little better, take him out to shoot a deer or something. The kid was getting big, maybe big enough to handle the 30.06. He put a hand on Shawn’s shoulder and squeezed affectionately. Shawn winced and twisted away. George gaped at his son, embarrassed—he had hardly touched him.

  “Grandy said I got to talk to you,” Shawn said, rubbing his shoulder.

  Orlan Johnson, the belly of his two-tone uniform pressing against the edge of the card table, sipped a vodka tonic and drummed his fingers on the table, waiting for George to make his move. The other men, all nursing their Budweisers, watched, bored, waiting for the next deal. They had shot and paid for twenty-four mallards and eight woodies that morning. The hunting was over for the day, the fireplace was putting out the Btu’s, and everybody felt a little sleepy.

  “Not now, Shawn,” George said. “Your daddy’s about to clean these fellas’ clocks. You can pull up a chair and watch if you want.” He slid a handful of quarters toward the center of the table and watched Orlan’s lower lip slide out and down.

  “Thought it was a dollar limit,” Orlan complained.

  George raised his eyebrows. “Can’t handle my action, Orlan?” He heard Shawn dragging a chair from one of the other tables, felt him settle at his elbow.

  Orlan sighed and examined his cards intently. He snorted and threw them into the pot. “Christ, you’re lucky,” he said. “What did you have?”

  George grinned and threw his cards away, facedown. Let him wonder.

  The outside door opened, and Ricky stepped into the lodge. An invisible whirlwind of icy air filled the room. Ricky closed the door, and the cold air settled, pooling around their feet. George swept in the pile of change. Orlan Johnson shuffled, getting ready to deal the next hand. Ricky took off his cowboy hat, shook off a few flakes of snow.

  “Colder’n a Fargo whore out there,” he said. “Hey, Orlan. How you doin’?” He replaced his hat on his head, then nodded to the three duck hunters, whom he hadn’t met.

  “You want in?” Orlan asked, holding up the deck of cards.

  Ricky shook his head and turned to George. “I was just up on the north quarter, checking out the fences. Saw Number One crossing the creek just above the coulee.”

  George said, “No kidding? I haven’t caught sight of that monster since September. How’s the old boy looking?”

  “Not so good. He was walking sort of funny. I tried to follow him, but he took off on me, and I didn’t want to spook him any worse than he was. He’s sick.”

  George’s face fell. He had been growing Number One for fifteen years. He said, “How sick?”

  “He don’t look good at all. He’s kind of hunched up, like he’s got a problem in his gut. You think we should run a special on him?”

  George’s jaw pulsed. The cardplayers were all looking at him nervously. Screw them, he thought. Fifteen years he’d had Number One, an elk so big, so fast, and so smart it had survived three guided hunts over the past two years. George had been getting a couple hundred a day in guide fees just to give hunters a chance at Number One, plus another thirty thousand if they bagged him. So far, no one had even come close. Number One somehow knew when he was being hunted, got himself down in the bottoms, down in the bogs, where nobody could get a shot at him. You c
ould bugle all day and not get a rise out of him. So far, every hunter who had pursued the big bull had been forced to settle for a lesser trophy.

  And now he was sick; maybe dying. If somebody was going to bag him, they’d have to do it pretty damn quick. A shadow of mourning swept over him. He’d had that damn elk longer than he’d had his only son. George turned to look at Shawn, but the boy had disappeared.

  X

  Of all wild beasts, a boy is the most difficult to manage.

  —PLATO

  THE PRIVATE ROAD LEADING into Talking Lake Ranch wound a treacherous, rutted, sloping path through maple woods, a tangled gray-and-white winter landscape that gave the eye nothing distinct on which to focus. Bellweather’s Jaguar, surefooted on pavement, skittered uncertainly down the icy track. Half a mile in, Crow began to think that he had turned down the wrong road. He slowed to a crawl and looked for a place to turn around, but the woods rose steeply on his right and dropped into a shallow ravine on his left, and the road was barely as wide as his car. He stopped and shifted into reverse. The rear wheels spun and the back of the car slid sideways, nearly dropping off the edge of the elongated ice rink he was using for a road.

  “How come I let you talk me into this?” he said to himself. He continued down the hill in first gear. Minutes later, he arrived at a gate made from wooden poles. A metal sign on the gate read TALKING LAKE RANCH—MEMBERS ONLY. The hasp was secured by a large, round padlock. The driveway, however, did not pass through the gate but rather made a jog around it. Apparently, getting out of a vehicle to open the gate was too much trouble—especially in the winter—so the Murphys and their visitors simply drove around it in their 4 x 4s. Crow followed the short detour, wincing as the low-slung Jag bottomed out twice on the ridged path.

  Two hundred yards past the gate, a long, sprawling complex of mismatched buildings emerged from the woods. The largest structure, a log building about the size of four triple garages placed end to end, began with a prominent stone chimney, topped by a ragged plume of wood smoke, and ended in a short covered walkway leading to a fawn-colored clapboard house, two story, matching patterned curtains in all the windows. The Murphy residence, he guessed. Beyond the house, a series of three identical low metal-sided barns filled a clearing in the woods.

  The entrance to the log building, a pair of oversize double doors, was marked by a carved wooden sign: THE LODGE.

  Three 4 x 4s and two snowmobiles clustered near the entrance. Crow looked for, but did not see, Ricky’s Hummer. Good. He parked the Jaguar alongside a black Toyota 4-Runner and shut down the engine.

  The silence inside the car pressed against his ears. Good ideas, he reflected, do not always travel well. He climbed out into the crisp winter air and pushed his ungloved hands deep down in his pockets. The muffled sound of dogs barking came from within, or behind, one of the metal-sided barns. The only other sound was the faint hiss and creak of wind on frozen gray branches.

  To his right, the driveway led to a sagging metal Butler building. Maybe the Hummer was in there. Crow banished the thought. Ricky would be here, or he would not. Up the hill from the garage he could see two cottages built back into the woods. Guest cottages, he suspected. He started back toward the lodge, paused, decided to look around a bit. He circled the house, following a trampled path that led between the house and the barns. His wing tips, absurd in this woodland setting, creaked on the packed snow. As he came in view of the kennel behind the barn, the dogs stopped barking and began to wag their tails, three hounds with their noses pressed up against the chain-link fence of their kennel, staring at him.

  Crow said, “Nice dogs.”

  At the sound of his voice, the barking resumed with renewed vigor. Crow shook his head. He should know better than to talk to animals.

  The land behind the lodge dropped away quickly. He could see the river through the trees; wide white shelves of snow-covered ice sandwiched a leaden ribbon of water. He wondered if he could throw a rock that far. The distance seemed to shift—as he watched, the river receded. A wet wind rolled up the bluff; Crow turned up the collar of his trench coat and buttoned the storm flap. Looking back at the lodge, he discovered a bank of five picture windows above him, running most of the length of the log building. It would be a great view from inside. He glanced back at the house, noticed something moving behind the glass. Someone—it looked like an old woman—was watching him from an upstairs window. Crow lifted a hand and smiled. The old woman backed away from the glass. He turned toward the river again, shivered, then retraced his steps, sending the kenneled dogs into a new level of frenzied barking.

  The old woman was waiting for him at the side door. She was not quite five feet tall, and pink scalp showed through her white hair. She stood in the open doorway wearing a housedress, little pink flowers on white cotton, her veiny, sinewy arms crossed, staring up at Crow with eyes the color of bitter chocolate, frowning in a way that made her mouth disappear in a whorl of wrinkles. A few seconds into an awkward silence, Crow realized that she was not going to speak.

  “Afternoon,” he said.

  The old woman nodded, confirming his statement.

  “Is George around?” he asked. He felt like a little boy asking if George could come out to play.

  “Who the devil are you,” the old woman asked, “making them dogs bark themselves silly?”

  “My name’s Crow.”

  “What kind of name is that? You a Indian?”

  Crow shook his head. “I’m looking for George Murphy. Are you Mrs. Murphy?”

  Mrs. Murphy nodded, studying him. “Crow,” she said, pushing out a small, surprisingly pink lower lip. “You’re a friend of Ricky’s, aren’t you? I’ve heard him mention your name.”

  I bet you have, Crow thought. He tipped his head to the side and smiled, striving for neutrality. “I know Ricky.” He wished the dogs would stop barking. His toes were freezing, and his ears were going numb. Mrs. Murphy didn’t seem to be bothered by the cold.

  “Shaddup!” she bellowed, frightening both Crow and the dogs into silence. She returned her attention to Crow, looking at him as if he had suddenly materialized before her. “Is there something I can help you with?” she asked.

  Crow shook his head. “It’s a private matter.”

  Her eyes shifted to the sky. “Private? His daddy Sean was the most private man I ever knew. Never knew what he was thinking. Never let on nothing till the day he learned he was going to die. Oh, how he hated to die.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Crow, feeling uncomfortable. The old lady was batty.

  “Don’t be,” Mrs. Murphy commanded. “He’s been dead fifteen long years now, God rest his soul, though we mostly only miss him on holy days now. He was pure Irish, you know, and liquor was poison to him. Of course, you being a Indian, I’m not telling you anything you don’t know about liquor. Is there something I can do for you?”

  Crow was mostly Irish—no Native American ancestors that he knew of—but he understood that bit about liquor being poison. “I’d like to talk to George,” he said.

  “Ricky’s not here. He’s took off someplace in that truck of his.”

  “George. I’m looking for George.”

  “George? I thought you said you were looking for Ricky. You can go look for him in the lodge.” She stepped back and slammed the door.

  Crow walked around the house to the lodge, pulled open one of the double doors, and stepped inside, relaxing his shoulders and letting the warmth penetrate. The air held a rich animal smell.

  The lodge, he discovered, consisted of a single open room. Directly opposite the entrance were the picture windows he had seen from outside. The view of the river valley was even more impressive from inside, filling the entire bank of windows. He let his eyes rest briefly on the panorama, then turned his attention to the room itself. Several bulky club chairs and a long sofa upholstered in burgundy leather faced the windows, looking out over the trees across the river. A collection of mismatched wooden chairs were range
d at tables on and around a fifteen-by-thirty-foot Oriental rug that was centered on the polished wood floor. To his left, the wrinkled, determined-looking head of a rhinoceros jutted out into the room from above a huge fieldstone fireplace. On each side of the fireplace hung a collection of trophies, including an elk, three black bears, a cougar, a leopard, and a pair of boars. Below the rhino head, an octagonal green felt card table was surrounded by four men, intent on a hand of cards. Three of the men he did not recognize. The fourth man, the one dressed in a police uniform, was Orlan Johnson.

  Crow looked toward the other end of the room. At first, his mind refused to process the image. Then he remembered what Berdette Williams had told him. Yes, the Murphys did indeed have a tiger. The animal was reclined on its belly, examining him through unblinking eyes. The primate in Crow wanted very badly to climb the nearest tree. Fortunately, since no trees were available, the more evolved portions of his mind recognized the heavy chain leading from a collar around the tiger’s thick neck to a substantial-looking steel ring bolted to the wall. The floor was covered with straw—from the way it was scattered, it appeared that the tiger’s territory was strictly limited to a half circle about fifteen feet in diameter. A large jointed bone—the leg of some sizable creature—lay near the perimeter of the circle. The bone was scarred; shreds of meat and gristle still clung to the joint. The animal smell he had noticed upon entering sorted itself out in his mind: straw, tiger piss, and aging meat.

  “Is that who I think it is?”

  Crow turned and looked at the cardplayers. Orlan Johnson was grinning at him.

  “I’ll be got-damned. It is Joe Crow! What the hell are you doing here?”

  Crow crossed the room to stand a few feet from the table. He wished his heart would slow down. He could still feel the tiger tasting him with its feline mind. That, plus being in the same room with his old boss, a guy who had had him arrested, then forced him to resign, was playing hell with his glands. He forced himself to speak calmly.

  “How you doing, Orlan?”