by Jon Jackson
Mul asked how the town had gotten its name. Charlie said that he’d heard it was named after some Indian woman, sort of a wise woman, or maybe even the chief—who knew? These were farmer Indians, Potawatomie, maybe. They were pretty well off, not dependent on hunting so much, or the fur trade. They’d naturally been at odds with some other tribes, or bands, who were hunters and in need of food in the winter. These hunting Indians had attacked the village. The queen, or whatever she was, had escaped being murdered by leaping across the little creek that ran through the town, Fox Creek.
“The creek must of been bigger in them days,” Charlie said. “It wouldn’t be an Olympic leap, nowadays. Anyways, the later settlers must of heard the story and liked it. They named it after her instead of old man Luckenbach, which is why it wasn’t called—thank god—Luckenbach.”
“Who is Luckenbach?” Mulheisen asked.
“Oh, he was in the timber business,” Charlie said. “He made a lot of money logging off the country and then he got into the bank racket, and a bunch of other things.”
Mulheisen asked if there were any Luckenbachs still around.
“No,” Charlie said. “They went the way of the Indians. But there’s some Lucks. They’re half-ass Luckenbachs, just shortened the name.”
“I’m looking for a Luck,” Mul said. “M. P. Luck. You know him?”
Charlie’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I know Imp. Known him all my life, so far. You a friend of his?”
“Not really,” Mul said. “I just want to talk to him.”
“He lives out quite a ways. Not so easy to find the place. Does he know you’re comin’?”
Mul admitted that he didn’t. Was that a problem?
“Could be,” Charlie said. “Imp’s gotten to be a solitary cuss. Since his old lady died, a couple years back. You a cop? Or one of these patriot fellows?”
Mulheisen replied rather cautiously that he wasn’t a cop, but while he’d always thought of himself as a patriot, that wasn’t why he wanted to talk to Luck.
That seemed to be the right answer. Charlie observed, “Seems like Imp don’t care for unannounced visitors these days. He’s got some signs and stuff, warning folks not to trespass. You might better call him.”
This wasn’t good news. Mulheisen had hoped that he could just drop in. But he went to the pay phone and called the number in the book. There was no answer.
Charlie said that he was pretty sure Luck was around, although he was often in and out of the area, traveling. He might be hunting, or maybe just out in the yard. He gave complicated instructions on how to find the place. It involved driving several miles west, past various farms that would have signs indicating who lived there or had barns one could recognize.
“Go on out past the old Grange hall,” Charlie explained, “to where the blacktop ends. The cross road is gravel. Hang a left and go about a quarter mile—you’ll see Imp’s mailbox—take that two-track that runs back into the woods. There’s a locked gate down there a ways.” He cautioned Mulheisen about wandering around in the woods out there. Luck didn’t like strangers wandering around. He had a tendency to shoot.
“Has he ever shot anyone?” Mulheisen asked.
“Not that I know of, but he’s threatened to. He’s had some problems with the law. The law don’t go in there without they tell him they’re coming.”
Mulheisen said he’d be careful and took off. He had a cell phone, just in case, but he wasn’t confident about using it. He wasn’t that familiar with it. As he drove he was surprised by the number of new houses that had been built back in these hills. They were amazingly large houses—some of them with absurd pillars, in some kind of faux neo-Greek or antebellum mode—but all with huge lawns well mowed, long drives, fancy cars or SUVs parked in the drives. This was side by side with dilapidated farmhouses, some of them occupied, with numerous dogs in elaborate kennels, pickup trucks and abandoned farm machinery standing about, enormous stacks of firewood. There were also the more prosperous old farms that Charlie had mentioned, with big barns and signs advertising various enterprises like hay or grain, apples or maple syrup.
Mulheisen followed the directions scrupulously and soon came to the graveled county road. A short way along this he spotted the large mailbox with the name M. P. LUCK painted on it. Despite a prominent sign warning that this was a private road and NO TRESPASSING, he turned onto the narrow two-track that led back in the brush toward the woods. It was at least a half mile down this road to a gate that had some kind of electric or electronic lock. That was as far as he could drive. He was surrounded by thick sumac and a mixture of mature hardwoods and dense scrub pine.
Mulheisen got out the phone and, with the aid of the instruction booklet he’d wisely remembered to bring along, he managed to dial the right number. It rang and rang. No answering machine and no one picked up the phone.
Mulheisen got: out of the car and walked along the fence that ran into the woods. The fence posts were steel, sunk in concrete with frequent bracing, the four strands of barbed wire very taut. No good place to get over. He returned to the car and sat there, eating one of his apples, which was so juicy that he had to dig out some paper toweling and wipe his sticky hands. He’d left Detroit that morning but it had been a long drive. It was getting late. He had seen school buses on the road on his way out from town. It had been a sunny day but now that the sun was going down it was cool. He tried the phone again. No answer. He decided to go back to Queensleap, find a motel, and try to contact Luck later.
There was no place to turn around. He began to back up the car, an awkward process, the road twisty and hemmed in by the brush. He looked for a little clearing, or at least a wide spot, but none offered. He was halfway back to the county road when a large, four-wheel-drive pickup truck with a massive steel brush guard came hustling up in his rear and stopped just in time. Mulheisen slammed on his brakes. The two men he could see in the cab of the pickup were bearded and wore dark baseball caps. They just sat in the vehicle and waited.
“Well, now what?” Mulheisen thought. He started to get out, but when he turned back to the wheel he realized that, unheard, another truck had come up from the other direction. It had stopped barely a couple of feet from his bumper. He was trapped, with heavy brush on either side, barely enough room to open a door. But he managed, squeezing out and deciding that the later arrival was more likely to be Luck, still sitting behind the wheel of the pickup in front of him.
It was a peculiar impasse, he thought. It appeared that the custom in these parts was to just sit in one’s vehicle and wait for the stranger to make a move. Like the other vehicle, the new arrival was one of those high-riding, monster pickups with four-wheel drive and a sturdy brush guard. It was a fairly new Dodge Ram, he noticed, a little smaller than a B-17 and covered with mud and dirt.
Mulheisen approached the truck. The window rolled down electrically and the driver peered down. He was a mild-looking fellow, clean-shaven, wearing photo-sensitive glasses that just retained a shadow of tint. He had steel-gray hair under a canvas waterproof field hat.
Mulheisen’s cop mind registered this as: handsome man, and conscious of it . . . strong, straight nose, firm mouth, prominent chin . . . late middle age but could pass for much younger . . . could be a businessman, more likely an executive in a large corporation rather than an entrepreneur.
“Having trouble reading?” the man said. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t frown either.
“Are you M. P. Luck?”
“I am, and you’re on my land. Who might you be?”
“The name is Mulheisen. I’m from Detroit. I came up here to see you.”
“Mulheisen?” The man’s calm gaze turned to a speculative frown. “Are you a cop?” he asked, not suspiciously so much as mildly curious.
“No,” Mulheisen said.
“Funny, you look like a cop,” Luck said. From his tone, he might have been teasing.
“Well, the truth is, I used to be. But I quit.”
“How
come?”
“Personal problems,” Mulheisen said. “My mother was . . . injured. She needed my help.”
Luck nodded, thoughtfully. “Was? She’s better now?”
Mulheisen nodded. “She’s much improved.”
“What happened to her?”
Mulheisen glanced around. It seemed inappropriate to be having this kind of conversation out here in the woods, in this odd situation. Perhaps it didn’t seem odd to country people, although he didn’t have the impression that Luck was any kind of bucolic character. “She got blown up,” he said.
“Blown up? Your mother was blown up? What the—? You mean she was in an explosion? Was she hurt bad?”
“Pretty bad,” Mulheisen said. “She’s pretty much recovered now, after six months. But she was dazed and confused . . . it was more like a walking coma. She didn’t say anything for quite a while.”
“But now she’s all right?”
“Pretty much,” Mulheisen said. “She doesn’t remember what happened, but she appears to be okay physically.”
“Well that’s good,” Luck said. “I’m glad to hear it. And you’re Mulheisen? Where did this happen?”
“The explosion? It was in a suburb, outside of Detroit, a little town called Wards Cove.”
“I heard about that. It was a city hall, or something?”
“That’s right,” Mulheisen said, nodding. Luck seemed genuinely interested, looking at him more keenly.
“Mulheisen,” Luck said, appearing to savor the name. “That’s German. I’m from German stock myself.”
“You are? Luck—,” Mulheisen started to say.
Luck interrupted him. “It doesn’t sound German. It was originally Luckenbach—loukenbock, they pronounce it in the old country. The brook at Lucken. That’s where my people are from.”
“Is that so?” Mulheisen said. “I’ve heard of Luckenwalde. In fact, I was there once. It’s near Berlin.”
“That’s right,” Luck said. “I’ve never been to Germany myself. What’s it like?”
“Luckenwalde? Oh, I don’t recall much about it. It’s kind of flat country, I think.” Mulheisen was just guessing. His memory of Luckenwalde was dim. Was it the village with the ancient stone church? He wasn’t sure. Was there a brook? He seemed to recall an old stone bridge, but he wasn’t positive and didn’t mention it to Luck.
Mulheisen glanced about him. Evening was upon them, the darkness seemingly welling up out of the woods. He could no longer see the two men in the other truck, who in any case had not gotten out or made any sign of impatience.
“And you,” Luck said, “you’re Ironmill. Am I right?”
“Hunh? Oh, yeah. Mulheisen. I guess that’s what it means.”
“Two Germans meet in a dark woods,” Luck said. “One German says, ‘Wie gehts.’ What does the other say?”
Mulheisen struggled to recall his nato-Deutsche, from thirty years back. “Uh, I guess he says, ‘Wohin das biergarten?’”
Luck laughed. “I don’t have any beer, and I’m not about to drive into Queen to get some, but let me speak to these boys and we can go on back to the house. You can tell me about your exploded mother. Oh, I’m sorry . . . I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Not at all,” Mulheisen said. He stepped away so that Luck could dismount from the cab. The man turned out to be about Mulheisen’s height, six feet or so. He was a trim fellow, from what Mulheisen could see, wearing a loose, heavy duck barn coat, twill trousers, and heavy-soled shoes, the brim of his canvas hat rakishly tilted. He had an athletic grace, an easy movement. The coat pocket was bulging, Mulheisen noted, and caused the coat to swing heavily. Luck was armed.
“I don’t like to ask this, Mul,” Luck said, when they stood between the two vehicles, “but are you packing?”
Mulheisen shook his head. “Packing? A gun? Nah, I had to turn it in when I left the force.” He held his arms out.
Luck smiled apologetically and waved his hand. “I’ll take your word. All right. I’ll just be a minute.” Luck made his way around Mulheisen’s car to the other truck. He talked quietly to the men. They turned on their headlights and began to back out the way they had come, but shortly they merely backed into the brush, with a loud crackle of breaking branches, then turned and drove on out.
Luck returned and said, “Just a couple of neighbors. I was on my way to get my mail. If you can wait here a minute, I’ll be back in a second.”
He hopped up into the cab and with a roar drove into the brush, breaking limbs and crushing sumac as he steered around Mulheisen’s car.
Mulheisen stood in the gathering darkness. The truck had disappeared. He could hear an owl hooting from the woods. He wondered if he should light up a cigar but decided not to. He went to stand by the car. Presently, Luck’s vehicle came roaring back and pulled around the Checker, back onto the two-track, and stopped. He rolled down his window and called to Mulheisen to follow him.
Once through the gate, which Luck stopped to lock closed behind them, Mulheisen followed the truck another quarter of a mile or so, the woods getting deeper, until suddenly they broke out into a broad clearing. The house was ahead. It was a low, single-story house with a shallow-pitched roof and large stone chimney. It had a broad porch along the front, over which the roof extended.
Luck parked his truck next to another vehicle, an older-model Buick sedan. He motioned Mulheisen to park to one side of the truck.
“Kind of lonely, back in these woods,” Mulheisen ventured as he got out. “Smells good though, those pines.” There were a couple of large white pines soaring up on either side of the house, easily eighty feet tall. There was a long stack of firewood to one side, with more stacked on the porch. Beyond the house a ways were two buildings, one of them an equipment shed, the other a small barn.
“I had more of those pines once,” Luck said. “One of the last stands of virgin white pine in these parts. I don’t know how it got missed by the timber company. I had to cut them down.”
“Why is that?”
“Field of fire, Mul. Before I cut them you could have walked right up to the house without me knowing you were there. If you were careful.”
Mulheisen nodded as if he understood. He drew in a deep, hearty breath. “I wonder if there’s a word for that pine smell?” he said. “Resiny? Maybe, ‘resinance’?”
‘"Resinance’? I like that,” Luck said. “Poetic, although one would inevitably have to explain that it wasn’t ‘resonance,’ like the sound.”
Mulheisen glanced at the AK-47 that Luck had taken from the rack on the rear window of the pickup. He was carrying the gun casually in one hand, a large bundle of mail under his other arm. When they went into the house he set the gun to one side, leaning against the wall. He hung his hat on a peg set in a rail alongside the door and set the mail on the kitchen counter.
It was a pleasant, ordinary-looking house. The kitchen to one side, with standard cupboards, a work counter with stools around it. A large archway led to the living room, furnished with couches and chairs. An enameled green woodstove sat on a brick hearth, vented into what had been an attractive fireplace made of faced fieldstone. It was putting out quite a bit of heat. Luck opened the door of the stove and poked at the logs within, then made some sort of adjustment to the draft device in the chimney pipe. He turned around to face Mulheisen.
“Take your coat?” he asked. He hung Mul’s jacket and his own coat side by side on pegs by the kitchen door, where other coats hung. He looked very rustic in his wool plaid shirt and red suspenders.
“Hungry, Mul? I made a stew before I set out to get the mail. Venison. Shot it myself, a young buck.”
When Mulheisen accepted, Luck promptly said, “Great! How about a little whiskey to celebrate the end of the day, while I get the dinner together? Better than beer, eh?” He rubbed his hands together briskly and poured them each a hefty shot of George Dickel Sour Mash from a bottle that stood on the counter.
Mulheisen happily sipped the whiskey a
nd stood about while his host tossed down his drink. The place looked like a hunting lodge, Mulheisen thought. Very masculine, but very orderly. No sign of a woman’s touch, no flowers, no polka dot curtains, just adjustable blinds. No doilies or place mats.
Luck set out the plain sturdy plates on the bare kitchen table. He hoisted a heavy iron pot off the range to set on a trivet on the table. Then he dished out very large portions of the steaming stew, full of chunks of meat and potatoes, a carrot or a rutabaga here and there, along with what looked like some parsnip and the odd mushroom. He got bread out of the bread box and sawed off large chunks on a bread board. “Baked it myself,” Luck said. “Good bread, if I say so.”
Mulheisen sat and was on the verge of digging in when Luck stopped him. “Just a minute, Mul, if you don’t mind.” He clasped his hands and bowed his head, eyes closed, to say grace. “Dear Lord, bless this simple meal which you have provided. We humbly thank thee for all your gifts and pray that you will guide us in everything we do. In Jesus’ name, amen.” He looked up and said, “All right! Let’s eat. Oops! Forgot the wine.”
He jumped up and darted into a nearby room, returning with a bottle, which was already open, and poured some out for both of them in plain, everyday wineglasses.
The stew was hot and good. The wine was Californian, quite appropriate, a dark and spicy red. “I like that Oregon pinot noir,” Luck said, “but I’d already opened this Napa cab. Hope you don’t mind.”
Mulheisen didn’t mind. It tasted fine. He ate hungrily. They didn’t speak much and were soon finished. “I usually have some pie, but I’m all out,” Luck said apologetically. “A neighbor lady makes great cherry pie. When you’re up in cherry country, that’s the specialty. But I’ve got some ice cream. No?”
Luck pushed back from the table. “I’ll clear those dishes up, just leave them for now. How about a little more of that Dickel with our coffee?”
Mulheisen was agreeable. Luck poured them each a generous amount in the glasses they’d used before. “Go on in and relax,” Luck said, waving a hand toward the living room, “while I get the coffee going. Smoke if you got ‘em,” he said grandly.