Still River

by Harry Hunsicker

“Oh yeah, he’s a big collector. And a shooter too. ’Fact, that’s where Delmar’s meeting him tomorrow,”

  “Where?” Nolan said.

  “At a shoot. A tournament.”

  I felt the bandage on my leg to make sure it was secure. “What kind of shoot?”

  Olson laughed, as if he’d just thought of a joke. “It’s kind of hush-hush. It’s a pigeon shoot, at a place south of town.”

  I’d heard of them before, a shotgun tournament where the targets were living birds instead of clay targets. They were supposed to be big along the border. Not popular at all among your animal rights types.

  “Well, that should make for a fun and interesting day tomorrow.”

  Olson slowed down as a Maxima switched lanes abruptly. “Unless you’re a pigeon.”

  He dropped us off at Reiger Street, at the office. The windows lay dark, my suite mates long since departed for the tavern of the month. The only car there was Nolan’s Eldorado. The yellow didn’t appear nearly as neon in the early twilight. Olson flipped the Suburban’s lights off, and waited while we slipped in the back door. I carried one of his spare pieces, a .44 Magnum with a three-inch barrel. I prayed I wouldn’t have to use it during the time it took me to get to my other weapons. The muzzle blast and recoil of the thing would kill me as well as whatever I was shooting at. I wasn’t expecting trouble, but after the events of the day, I considered myself in a state of war. No threats in the office, so I called Olson on his cell phone and told him he could leave. My fridge was empty but Nolan rummaged around in the kitchen and came back with two Pabst Blue Ribbons. They belonged to Davis. I didn’t think he’d notice, nor did I care. We popped them open and drank. Then I called Delmar and told him what I wanted. He pondered it for a moment and said he would call back. Next I turned to my closet and opened the safe I keep there. It’s small and fits neatly into the narrow space.

  “You got an extra gun?” I said.

  “Not handy.”

  “You want to stick with a thirty-eight?”

  Nolan hiccupped. “Huh?”

  “Your gun? You want to go with the same kind? Or something bigger?”

  “That’s fine.” She frowned and tried to peer around my shoulder into the closet. “What’s with the extra firepower?”

  “I hang out with Delmar and Olson; they give out guns with their Christmas cards.” Weapons were almost a birthright in the state of Texas; rich or poor, urban or rural, people like their guns. They were a rite of passage for many young men, a symbol of maturity, when they received their first .22 rifle, usually sometime in the second or third grade. But don’t try to take them away. Never can tell when you might have to shoot a rabid armadillo or somebody climbing through the window of your seventeenth-story apartment in Houston.

  I pulled out a stainless Smith and a Browning, similar to the ones the police had confiscated. “Here you go. There’s some hollow-points on the shelf over there.” I pointed to the built-in bookcases across the room. While Nolan loaded her new weapon, and I worked the action on the Browning, the phone rang. It was Delmar. “Nine o’clock tomorrow. Your office. I scrounged you up an invitation. You owe me on this one.”

  “Thanks.” I shoved a loaded clip into the Browning and stuck it into the holster on my hip. “Put it on my account. Say, if I’m going to do this thing, I’ll need a shotgun. My riot gun with the extended magazine probably won’t fit in too well.”

  Delmar sighed dramatically. “I’ll see if I have anything lying around you can use.”

  I drained the last of my beer. “Oh, and I’ll need a car. Unless you want us to ride with you. My truck is fried and … well, I could use Nolan’s Caddy, but a well-to-do pigeon killer wouldn’t be caught dead in a canary yellow—”

  “You’re pushing it, Hank.”

  “See you at nine.” I hung up. It was a game he played, see how grouchy he could be. But Olson considered himself in my debt, and by extension so did Delmar.

  “You want me to take you home?” Nolan said.

  “Nope. To the hospital, gotta see Ernie.” My wounded leg throbbed and I made no move to stand.

  “Yeah, me too.” She tugged at her ponytail and sighed, suddenly looking as tired as I felt. “What’s gonna happen when he dies?”

  “I’ll be … sad?” I tried to keep my tone from being sarcastic.

  “No shit.” She sounded exasperated. “We all will. I meant about Miranda, will she be okay? I don’t really know her that well.”

  “She’s a survivor. She’ll do fine.” I wanted to say more but couldn’t think of anything. Miranda was a survivor; so was Ernie. Until the cancer. I felt a lump in my throat. We were both silent. I looked over and saw Nolan rub the corner of one eye. I said, “Were you and Ernie close?”

  She nodded. “My old man was not exactly father-of-the-year material. Uncle Ernie was there when I needed him. H-h-he was so good to me … .” Her voice trailed off. Neither of us spoke for a while.

  After a few minutes I stood up and said, “Let’s go to the hospital.”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  The Mercedes rode hard, the suspension stiffer than I was used to in my recently deceased pickup. Navy blue and four years old, it was the top of the line, loaded with all the options. It smelled like an ashtray at a VFW Hall. The wheelless can’t be picky about their wheels, though. The German auto belonged to Raul, a friend of Delmar and Olson’s. The car was his second or third, and he didn’t have need of it for the foreseeable future. It was better not to ask too many questions.

  Nolan and I were following Delmar down a two-lane blacktop in rural Navarro County, south and east of Dallas. I was tired and grumpy. Sleep proved elusive the night before, with Charlie Wesson and Ernie wrestling for control of my subconscious. Charlie, with the back of his head blown out, made me lurch awake and remember Ernie lying in the hospital bed, looking ten pounds thinner than he had on my last visit. He hadn’t said much during our time there, half hearted stabs at conversations punctuated by gravel-sounding wheezes as his lungs struggled to make it through one more day of pain. We sat, Nolan on one side of the bed and me on the other, and made small talk. He seemed to hear us but not be listening.

  When it had been time to leave, Miranda kissed us both with tears in her eyes. I declined Nolan’s offer of a ride home and walked instead, preferring the company of the street. It was midevening when I sauntered down Gaston. The concrete and asphalt held the heat of the day like boulders in the desert and soon the sweat dripped down my back. I walked past the bars and the vatos loitering about, past the dilapidated apartments with the soft-spoken families of Vietnamese refugees sitting outside in the humid evening, past the occasional hooker plying her trade, past everything that makes up my neighborhood, my home that is the colorful little slice of East Dallas. The air smelled of charcoal fires, car exhaust, and the faint traces of alcohol coming from the small knots of people passing the evening hours with a twelve-pack of discount-brand beer. The precise angles of the illuminated skyline, pristine and cold against the blankness of the night sky, provided a stark contrast to the warmth and humanity along the street.

  Along the way I stopped at a taqueria and ate two carne asada tacos, washing them down with more Tecates than I cared to admit. I left the last one half empty, and stumbled the rest of the way home, daring anybody to get in my way. The pedestrian traffic gave me wide berth, leery of the mumbling, drunken Anglo. Somehow I managed to feed the dog, and make it to bed, sleeping fully clothed on top of the covers, pistol next to me.

  I jolted myself out of last night and into this morning as I almost slammed into Delmar when he slowed for a curve. As it was, I managed to spill the last quarter inch of tepid coffee from the cup between my legs onto my lap. It left a nice, brown stain in the crotch of my starched khakis. Now I was going to be a well-dressed but soiled pigeon shooter in my lizard-skin boots, khakis, and black T-shirt. The footwear was already starting to pinch. I hate cowboy boots and only wear them for occasions such as this. I’m not
a cowboy, why pretend? I shifted in the leather seat and that made the bandaged flesh wound on my thigh itch. To take my mind off it, I dabbed at the tears in my eye from the pancake makeup Nolan provided to cover my bruise. Look out world, here I come—pissed off and crying.

  Nolan fidgeted in the passenger seat. “How much longer?”

  I threw the empty coffee cup in the backseat. “This is my first trip. I’ll let you know when we get there.” I looked at the crude map Delmar had scribbled earlier, in case we got separated on the way down. We shouldn’t be more than a few minutes away from the CenTex Paloma Club, the site of the tournament. Paloma means “pigeon” in Spanish.

  We passed a bunch of cows standing in the shade of a mesquite grove, then an old farmhouse. Decades of exposure to the raw elements had reduced the structure to little more than a wooden skeleton, grayed to the color of old concrete, roofless and held together by a layer of dirt. Farther on lay the remains of a similar house, the wood structure long since gone, leaving only a crumbling brick chimney pointing heavenward, a mute testimony to whoever had lived, loved, and dreamed there. The land was partially wooded; post oaks and scrub trees dotted the open pastures. More abandoned buildings swept by, interspersed with the occasional occupied structure denoted by the presence of a pickup or two.

  “I hate the country,” I said.

  Nolan had turned on the radio and was fiddling with the buttons. “Huh?”

  “The country, I hate it. Too much wide-open space. Not enough places to eat or get a drink. Too many cows.”

  “Uh-huh.” She found a station playing something twangy, about a guy named Earl and his cheating wife. “Whatever you say.” Her feet tapped in time to the music.

  We rounded another curve and saw Delmar pull across a cattle guard, onto a caliche road. Two men in hats and jeans guarded the entrance gate. He handed them something and they waved him through. At our turn, I gave the man a slip of green paper that Delmar had given me that morning, an invitation with today’s date printed on it.

  The man smiled and let us in. I followed Delmar’s cloud of dust down the road. The white gravel surface was long and winding, and we passed cows, live oak trees, mesquite trees, more cows, some horses, and a creek before we turned past a stand of cedars and hit a parking area. I parked between a Lexus sport-utility vehicle and a Range Rover that still bore the dealer tags. Delmar parked on the other side of the lot, next to a black, three-quarter-ton Suburban with a group of people clustered around the back end, all of them fussing with shotguns.

  I opened the door of the Mercedes and stepped out, into a fresh pile of cow manure. Nolan came around to see what I was cussing about.

  She pointed to my foot. “You stepped in cow shit.”

  I paused for a moment and calmed my breathing. “Yeah. I see that.” I grabbed a small branch and started scraping off the offensive material. “Why don’t you get the shotgun out of the trunk.” She muttered something under her breath and went to the back of the car. By the time she returned I had cleaned off most of the manure.

  In addition to the car and the invitation, Delmar had provided a shotgun for me to carry around. It was a Beretta double gun, luxury grade, and I was afraid to ask how much it cost. It had gold inlays on the receiver and two polished blue twelve-gauge barrels that were as long as a broom handle. They were thirty-two-inchers, Delmar had explained, the preferred length for pigeons as well as sporting clays. I figured if you didn’t want to shoot them, you could always uses the barrels as a swatter. I cracked open the shotgun and slung it over my shoulder, mimicking the other men who wandered about. Delmar was nowhere to be seen. Per our arrangement, we were on our own.

  The first two shotgun blasts startled us, making us both reach for our pistols at the same time. The sound came from the other side of the clubhouse. A few seconds later a gray-speckled pigeon flew overhead, circling before coming to roost in the larger of the two live oaks shading the parking lot.

  “Score one for the birds,” I said. “Let’s go inside, see if we can find the Big Man.”

  The clubhouse was built from wood and stone, and had originally been a home. It had since been added onto, long, low wings coming off either side, sheltered by the overhanging trees. We entered into a small reception area, which opened up to a glass-walled room that ran the length of the building. Oriental rugs covered the hardwood floors, and the walls that weren’t glass were wood-paneled and tastefully decorated with what appeared to be original oil paintings. Dead animals were the predominant artistic theme. Clusters of leather easy chairs dotted the room, all of them looking out onto two circular grassy areas, each delineated by an eighteen-inch-high wrought iron fence.

  The fenced area was manicured to a lush, verdant sheen, and except for the concrete walkway jutting into the middle, resembled nothing so much as a putting green. It didn’t take long to figure out that the walkway, striped with yardage markers, served as a handicap system. The better shooters stood farther back. The object of their attention was the lowly pigeonus commonus, which popped out unannounced from one of a half dozen boxes embedded in the ground at the far end of the ring. After a few more minutes we deciphered the rules of the game—kill the pigeon before it leaves the ring. The sport was brutal and left a sour taste in the back of my throat.

  I set the Beretta down in one of the wooden gun racks provided. Nobody had said anything to us, no challenges to our presence, and I felt stupid toting around the long-barreled weapon. The bar that sat against one of the back walls was doing a big business, considering the early hour. Nolan and I sidled to the far end where an urn of coffee simmered. We helped ourselves to a cup and then wandered the rest of the clubhouse.

  The place was full and I couldn’t begin to guess how many people were there, fifty or sixty or more. Excluding the handful of women present, all of them were white, middle-aged men. Lots of gold watches and soft bellies. The accents indicated wide geographic representation. Except for the incessant sound of guns firing from outside, we might as well have been in the card room at the country club.

  “What’s the predominant personality type here?” I took a sip of coffee.

  “Sadistic, maybe.” A shotgun fired twice so fast it sounded fully automatic. Another bird went down.

  “This is like a dogfight but the people are better dressed.”

  “You go to those often?” Nolan said.

  “All the time.” I kept my voice deadpan.

  “There’s a theory about the spectators at aggressive games. The mob psychology at work legitimizes the individual’s—”

  “And if I want to hear it, I’ll let you know.” I put the coffee cup down at the same time as Fagen Strathmore moved where we could see him. As the tallest person there he was hard to miss. He was standing at the far end of the second wing, talking to Delmar. Evidently they had just concluded their deal because they laughed and shook hands. Strathmore held a shotgun over one shoulder. He slapped Delmar on the back and then turned, pointing to another table.

  I caught a glimpse of the Big Man’s face. Even from across the room, his presence was palpable; the power in his eyes felt like a beam of raw energy, sweeping the entire place. He was in his midsixties, tall and still rail thin except for a tiny paunch that his navy double-breasted sport coat hid well. He wore a golf shirt underneath that and a pair of gabardine slacks that broke just so over the tops of his exotic skin boots. I couldn’t tell what they were made from, probably bald eagle, maybe albino tiger. The person Strathmore had pointed to at the next table, a short, pudgy dumpling of a man with a ten-inch cigar growing out of one side of his mouth, waddled over and handed Delmar an envelope. The man’s cowboy hat was as big around as a wagon wheel and he looked like Boss Hogg from The Dukes of Hazzard. Delmar examined the contents and smiled. He shook the man’s hand and walked out, ignoring us.

  Fagen and the pudgy man sat down and began to examine the shotgun. There were two empty seats at their table. I slid into one and Nolan took the other. Nolan looked
good: pretty and fresh in tight black Wrangler jeans and a western-styled beige silk blouse that showed just enough cleavage. I looked like the out-of-place burnout I was: a fifty-cent ham sandwich in a world of twenty-dollar steaks, an angry and cynical private eye who was old enough to know better but young enough to still enjoy pissing off people. In boots that pinched.

  Not surprisingly, Fagen Strathmore chose to ignore me and talk to Nolan. “How’re you doing, little lady?” He appeared confused as to why we had sat down at his table, but not alarmed. His voice was deep and masculine; the twang of the Texas Gulf Coast combined something from the south, all of which was filtered through what sounded like a mouthful of gravel. The accent did not match the clothes.

  “I’m fine,” Nolan said, her voice warm and inviting. “Nice fire stick you got there.” She pointed to the new gun resting on his lap.

  Boss Hogg frowned at her and then spoke before Strathmore could respond. “This here’s that ole boy from Orlando I was telling you about.” He waved his cigar toward the window where a man in a leather shooting vest stood midway down the concrete walkway, preparing to shoot. The boy from Orlando was about fifty and wore enough gold jewelry to start a rap band.

  Fagen said something I couldn’t catch. He pulled a hundred-dollar bill out of his pocket and slapped it down on the table. Boss Hogg said you’re on and put down a matching note.

  The boy from Orlando squared off and loaded his gun, facing the line of boxes at the other side of the ring. He shouldered the weapon and pointed it toward the middle of the line. We couldn’t hear because we were inside, but he must have called for the release of the target because a pigeon popped out of the box second from the right. Even a novice like myself recognized that he’d gotten an easy target: a fat, gray-black bird, hovering about ten feet above the ground, undecided as to where to fly. One quick blast put the target down in a cloud of feathers, a couple of feet from where it had started.

  The man reloaded while a Hispanic-looking kid dashed across the field and scooped up the carcass of the dead bird. He snatched it on the run and threw it into a garbage can outside the ring. Kind of like a ball boy at a tennis match. Only much different.