by Peter Geye
“Mayfair will see us in his chambers straightaway,” he told Trond as the two men shook hands. “Stable your horse, then meet us at the courthouse. I’ll bring your charge with me.”
Trond leaned toward the constable. “Go gently with the lass,” he said.
“We’ve business, Trond.”
“She’s scared, that’s all I mean to say.”
The constable looked at her climbing from the sleigh. “It’ll be Mayfair’s inquest, but I’ll vouch for her nerves.” He shook hands with Rolf and Jacque and motioned for the group to follow him.
Mayfair’s office was on the Lighthouse Road. Though only eight years old, the building was already growing shabby. The dirt road was funneling snowmelt down to the lake, and their boots sucked at the mud with each step.
Mayfair sat behind his desk. He wore a flannel shirt and wool scarf. When he stood to greet them, he had a viola in one hand and a polishing rag in the other. There was a spittoon next to his high-backed chair, and he spit a mouthful of tobacco juice into it. His pants, Thea now saw, had enormous pockets on the knees. The camp clerk in the wanigan had a greater air of respectability than the magistrate did. Except for the dozen calfskin-bound books on the shelf behind him, these chambers looked a lot like the company store.
There were five captain’s chairs arranged before his desk, and he motioned for them to sit down. He sat down himself, but not before adding to the spittoon.
The constable spoke first. “Your honor, these are the witnesses in the case of Arrowhead County versus the watch salesman Joshua Smith.” He consulted his notebook. “Jacque Chadel, the barn boss up on the Burnt Wood River Camp.” He motioned at Jacque, who doffed his cap but said nothing. “This here’s Thea Eide. And this here’s Rolf Johnson. He’ll be helping us translate the girl’s testimony.” The constable flipped the pages of his notebook as he stepped behind the witnesses.
“Your honor, the night before last one of the horses up on the Burnt Wood River Camp was led into the paddock for no apparent reason. We surmise it was to lure the wolves and cause a commotion. The horse had to be put down yesterday morn. During my investigation, it came to light that Joshua Smith molested the girl here. The suspect fled sometime the night before last.
“Jacque here will testify as to the horse crime. Your honor, Jacque Chadel.”
Mayfair had yet to say a word. He looked at Jacque, who looked back. There passed a moment of awkward silence.
“Well, boy?” Mayfair finally asked. “What about this horse?”
“The horse was shot,” Jacque said.
The magistrate looked at the constable and shook his head. “You’d think these fellas live in the woods might enjoy a little conversation. Not so.” He turned his attention to Jacque. “Would you mind elaborating? I’d like to hear the story of the horse from your perspective.”
So Jacque told him in plainspoken English. When he was finished with his one-minute testimony, he concluded with a question: “When will we get another horse? We’re going to need us one.”
The magistrate was finishing his transcription in a gilt-edged log. When he finished he looked sternly at Jacque. “Do I look like a horse salesman? Did you see a sign above my door that said horses for sale?”
Jacque only clenched his jaw.
“Your boss man’s in charge of new horses.” Again he turned to the constable. “Show this fella the door.” To Jacque he said, “I thank you for the fine storytelling.” He spit again, then pulled the wad of snoose from his cheek and dumped it into the spittoon.
The constable led Jacque to the door and shook his hand and thanked him properly. He told Jacque that the testimony of the girl might take longer and suggested that Jacque walk up to the Traveler’s Hotel and get himself a cup of coffee for the wait. He even offered him a nickel from his own pocket.
When the constable returned, Trond came with him. He wiped his muddy boots vigorously on a rug for such purpose and crossed over to the magistrate’s desk. “Curtis,” he said, offering his hand.
“Trond. How goes it?”
“Well,” he said, looking back at Rolf and Thea, “I can honestly say I’ve been better. I’m anxious to hear your thoughts on this mess. I saw Jacque on the way in.”
“He wants another horse,” Mayfair said.
“So do I. But that’s a conversation for a different time, with a different man. About this Smith.”
“Yes, about this Smith.”
The constable repeated for the magistrate the story he’d told earlier that morning, the story of Thea and her strange testimony culled from Deuteronomy. He admitted that they’d not actually heard her say Smith had assaulted her. He concluded by adding, “I trust your interrogation might get it out of her.”
Before the magistrate could commence his questioning, Trond quickly added, “She’s scared, Curtis, if you’d bear that in mind. And she don’t speak our language. But she’s a good lass.”
Mayfair nodded, then offered his first question. “Did you see the watch salesman Smith on the night before last?”
Rolf translated.
“Yes,” she said.
“Where did you see him?”
“In the mess hall.”
The magistrate was chronicling her responses in his log. “Why was he in the mess hall?”
At this Thea looked down. “For me. He came for me.”
Rolf translated slowly.
Mayfair stopped writing, looked up at her. “What did he do when he got there?”
When Rolf was finished translating Thea put her face in her hands and started to cry.
Mayfair took a deep breath. “My wife and I, we go to church every Sunday.” He waited for Rolf to finish translating. “The constable tells me you’re an ardent believer yourself. Is that true?”
Thea could not imagine what he meant to ask. “Beg your pardon?” she said.
“Am I wrong that you came to your meeting with the constable here with the good book last night?”
Thea paged through her old testament and offered the judge the same scripture she had offered the constable twelve hours before.
Mayfair listened patiently and when she was finished, he took another deep breath. An uneasy silence came over the room. Finally the magistrate said, “Have you known this girl to be a liar, Trond?”
“I don’t know the girl well, but no, I haven’t known her to lie. And cookee would have her a saint. She does the work of three.”
“Does anyone here object to the statement regarding this girl’s integrity?” He went from face to face and watched them shake their heads no.
“Trond, what do you make of Smith’s character?”
“I don’t have much of an opinion. He’s a souse. He was easy pickings at our stud game the other night. He had nice wares in his haversacks. I can’t say much beyond that.”
“What about you, old man?” the judge asked Rolf. “Do you have any opinion about Smith, accusations notwithstanding?”
“I don’t know him from Adam.”
Curtis dutifully copied their responses. Now he addressed Thea again. “Is there any reason I should doubt your story?”
Rolf translated. Thea shook her head and looked into her hands on her lap.
Now Mayfair took the viola from the table and held it as though it were a banjo, plucking a few folksy chords. “Good Lord almighty,” he said. “That means there’s a certified felon running free. I can’t see any reason not to put a warrant out on him. I’ll offer a reward.” Again he sighed. “And I suppose I ought to let them know over at the newspaper. They might want a statement from you, Trond. You mind having lunch in town today?”
By the time they finished lunch at the Traveler’s Hotel, the first broadside advertising the reward for Smith’s capture hung in the window of the Gunflint Ax & Beacon. Trond stood at the window, his hands folded behind his back, bent slightly at the waist, reading the sign aloud:
Attention
Citizens:
the arrowhead coun
ty constable, along with
curtis mayfair, magistrate of Gunflint, Minn., offer a
$100 reward
for the capture of the watch salesman
JOSHUA SMITH
for crimes against horses and for assaulting
a young woman at the Burnt Wood River Lumber Camp.
He fled the Burnt Wood River Camp on a one-horse
sleigh in middle-night on March the third.
Convey any information on his whereabouts to
the Gunflint, Minn. Courthouse and the attention
of magistrate Curtis Mayfair.
When he finished reading Trond commented on the swiftness of the court. It was warm enough in the midafternoon sun to remove his coat, which Trond did and then stood with his face raised toward the sun. “Now, if only they’ll be as swift replacing the horse.” The thaw meant he’d have only another three or four weeks to get the rest of the lumber down from the parcel. Three weeks, most likely. With temperatures like this, the ice road would be gone in three weeks. It would not be enough time to finish the cut.
XVII.
(November 1920)
Hosea trembled as he walked, his heartbeat fluttering, his face cold beneath a sheen of sweat, the swirling lakeside wind rising up to cuff him whenever he turned toward the water. He usually made visits to the fish house an occasion to take his truck out for a drive, but Odd had borrowed the flatbed to haul the boat engine and not yet returned it. So that morning Hosea walked the Lighthouse Road and turned down an alleyway after the outfitters and found Odd’s secret path across the isthmus. Hosea had had another bender up at the Shivering Timber the night before, drunk off whiskey he’d supplied, sated by harlots he as much as owned. He knew his appetites were becoming insubordinate, knew he ought to check them but lacked any resolve to do so.
Sundays were Rebekah’s day to tend the store. It was open short hours — from ten, when the service was finished at the Lutheran church, until two — and though it was seldom busy, folks did stop in. Hosea used his Sundays to sleep off Saturday nights. He rarely woke before ten or eleven o’clock, when he’d fix a plate of scrambled eggs and buttered toast and drink a pot of coffee.
That morning, though, he woke early and went to the kitchen for a glass of water. He couldn’t say why, but as he stood over the sink, his hands trembling, he felt a kind of emptiness in the flat. It seemed colder and darker and in a way hollow on the third floor. He chalked it up at first to the great queasiness rolling around his gut, but as he drank another glass of water, and as the light of dawn began filling the room, he felt the emptiness stronger still. He finished the second glass of water and went to Rebekah’s bedroom door and knocked. When she did not answer, he pushed it open a crack. Her bed was empty, the room dark but clearly disheveled. The bureau and armoire were picked through, more than half of her dresses were missing, her jewelry box, her hats and beaver-skin coat. He hurried downstairs, checked the offices on the second floor and the shop on the first, and when he saw no trace of her hurried back upstairs to dress.
When he came out of the woods and into Odd’s yard he saw the skiff upturned on the western wall of the fish house, saw a teepee of a dozen or more cedar logs in front of the house, an odd-as-hell way to cure wood, an even odder place to do it, but he thought nothing more of it. His truck was parked at the end of the road. Smoke rose from the chimney.
He knocked on the door and stepped back, his hands joined behind his back to hide their shaking. When no answer came he knocked again and cupped his hands around his eyes and looked through the window beside the door. When after another minute there was still no answer, Hosea turned to face the lake. The sky was low, the wind from the north. The season shifting.
He was about to leave when Daniel Riverfish opened the door.
“Danny?” Hosea said. He leaned forward and peered into the fish house. He squinted, couldn’t see much. So he stepped back and cocked his head, looked queerly at Riverfish. “Is Odd here?”
“Nope.”
“Where is he?”
“Couldn’t say.”
Hosea looked over Danny’s shoulder again. “His boat’s not in there.” He turned his head over his shoulder and looked at the cove. “Where’s his boat?”
“He launched her this weekend.”
“Launched her?”
Danny nodded.
Hosea stood in confused silence for a moment before he said, “Can I come in for a minute, Danny?”
Danny stepped aside and followed Hosea into the fish house, closing the door behind them.
“Can we light a lantern?” Hosea said.
Without a word, Danny went to the bench and put match to mantle and adjusted the kerosene.
Hosea walked slowly around the empty space where the boat had been for the last six months. It still smelled of the homemade varnish, and the fumes were making Hosea’s lightheadedness worse.
“You look like hell, Mister Grimm.”
Hosea sat on the three-legged stool. He put his elbows on his knees and started wringing his hands. In a raspy voice, he said, “Why would he put his boat in the water now?”
Danny hopped up onto the counter and lit a cigarette.
Hosea looked across the room at him. “What are you doing here, Danny?”
“Odd asked me to watch the place for him.”
“Watch the place?”
“While he’s gone.” Danny would not look away. They stared at each other for a long moment.
Hosea shook his head. “You’re a straight-faced son of a gun, Danny.”
Danny answered by taking a long drag off his cigarette. He held the smoke deep in his lungs until Hosea began to speak again, then blew it all out in a steady stream.
“I see,” Hosea said. He turned his hands palms up. The lie that was his life and that had been lived for so long had come back to get him. The truth was no longer a thing to even imagine.
Hosea stood, looked again at Danny. “Rebekah is gone, too,” he said, his voice little more than a whisper now.
Danny didn’t respond.
Again Hosea shook his head. He looked around the fish house as though he’d never seen it before. “It’s been nearly twenty-five years now that I’ve taken care of her. I raised Odd. Even you can’t deny it. It’s because of me he’s got this fish house and the farm up on the Burnt Wood.” He stood up straight. “He was an orphan. Orphan. I gave him a home.” He looked again around the fish house. Tears welled in his eyes, a thing he’d not felt since he couldn’t remember when. He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. “Christ almighty,” he whispered. “How did I miss it?” This he asked himself, but the wonder of it turned him to Danny, and he repeated the question. “How did I miss it?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mister Grimm.”
“Did they leave together?”
“All I know is Odd wanted to get his boat in the water. He wanted to put a few miles on the engine. He told me he was going down to Port Arthur. To see about a job for the winter. He asked me to watch the fish house for him. I haven’t seen Rebekah for weeks, maybe months, but I watched Odd motor out of the cove alone on his boat just this morning.”
Hosea listened intently, but he knew a lie when he heard one and what he’d just heard was a steaming pile of moose guts.
“I guess you and Odd are thick as thieves, aren’t you? I could probably get a straighter answer out of a winding river than out of you.”
“I thought you knew every damn thing, Mister Grimm.”
“Is that what you thought?”
Hosea looked a last time around the fish house and headed for the door. At the threshold he stopped. The consequences of all he’d discovered since he’d woken would take days to parse, but the one thing he knew as he walked out to his truck and started it up was that more than anything else he felt abandoned. However peculiar their coming together had been, however twisted and convoluted, he thought of Rebekah and Odd honestly and lovingly as his children. And
now they were gone, without the courtesy of a single word, and he was left to wonder at the world without them. All he saw were the unborn days ahead, their emptiness, and his place among the countless hours. In the instant of that realization, it was as though he aged all the hours yet allotted to him. He put the truck into gear and drove slowly away from the fish house.
Despite his sadness and the sting of abandonment, Hosea was geared for deception. Before he was back at the apothecary he had already shaped another ruse: an imaginary sister, deathly ill in Chicago, in need of Rebekah’s ministrations. By the time he parked the truck he’d already started believing she existed.
When the first customer came in at ten Hosea was scrubbed and dressed properly and sitting behind his counter, reading a day-old newspaper while his pipe smoldered in an ashtray at his elbow.
Winter arrived with its vengeance and with it Hosea took ill. He spent the week before Christmas nursing himself in his apartment, the apothecary closed for the first time in its twenty-five-year history. When he reopened the day after Christmas, the flood of customers could hardly believe the change in Hosea. He had aged, to be sure, but he also had about him the aspect of a man pulled from the ashes of a great fire. And it was this — ruin more than age — that caused the townsfolk their greatest concern.
XVIII.
(April 1896)
In the hills above the waterline the snow in the shadows and meadows’ edges had held deep into the spring. There had been no midwinter thaw to ease the April snowmelt now, so the Burnt Wood came down the hills and spilled over its banks and when it reached the lake it surged against the rollers and boulders as though all the vengeance of the long winter past had been reincarnated in the river’s mad rush.
The jacks had driven the last load of white pine down the ice road three weeks earlier, and a week after that the camp had been boarded up. Only the barn boss and bull cook remained, and would until the fall. They’d tend the horses and repair the buildings and spend as much time drunk during the warm months as they’d spent sober during the cold.