The Distant Echo of a Bright Sunny Day

by Patrick O'Brien

  Heidi shrugged. “Okay.”

  She and the others left.

  Rick found Peewee at the back of the store, in front of the beer cooler.

  “What the fuck is goin’ on, man? What’s this shit, you can’t piss?”

  “I gotta have my mojo,” Peewee said with a grin. “Those fuckers don’t need to know about it.”

  He took a six-pack of Budweiser out of the cooler and walked to the front of the store.

  Rick came up behind him.

  “Hey, Peewee, is this for real? I mean, we talked about this. And you promised, man. Now you’re gonna get drunk and fuck me all up?”

  “Trust me, man, it’s just a little something to get me through the rough spots. I ain’t gonna overdo it. You got nothin’ to worry about.”

  Rick laid his hand on Peewee’s shoulder. “Peewee, you did okay with these people. You impressed them yesterday. There’s no reason to sweat it.”

  Peewee grabbed a handful of pepperoni sticks and set them on the six-pack. He took a twenty-dollar bill from his wallet and gave it to the clerk. The clerk rung up the items and handed back the change.

  “Do you want a bag?”

  “I’m fine,” Peewee said.

  He put the change in his pocket, picked up the six-pack and the pepperoni, and, together, the two men left the store.

  “I ain’t worried about that, Rick,” Peewee said as they crossed the parking lot. “I just wanna have a little backup here.”

  “You got two ounces of pot in your bag, man,” Rick tried to reason with him. “What more do you need?”

  Peewee stopped and looked at his partner. “First off, I ain’t gonna get drunk,” he said. “Secondly, I ain’t gonna fuck you up. And thirdly, this—along with a couple of joints—is gonna tide me over until all this shit is finished.”

  “You just got over a hangover from last night, Peewee. I thought you were gonna lay off for a while.”

  “That was just my headache talkin’, man. Besides, you can’t expect me to go dry just like that. I usually drink a six-pack on a daily basis, anyway, and that kind of consumption requires maintenance.”

  “That’s bullshit, Peewee. But I’m not asking you to go dry, just to hang onto yourself for a day or two. When this is all over, hell, I’ll finance a week-long drunk for ya. But now we gotta be cool. We gotta have our wits about us. We got all these people right where we want them, and we don’t want to make any mistakes. That means they gotta believe in us, both of us. What are they gonna think if they realize they got an alkie on their hands?”

  “Rick, I ain’t an alkie—I can handle it. Secondly, this is Peewee you’re talkin’ to…and Peewee’s never let you down yet. We went through some shit together, remember? And I was always there, Johnny-on-the-spot, whenever you needed me. And I’m here for ya now. Okay?”

  “All right, Peewee…just don’t let them see it. I don’t know about the others, but I think that writer dude’s got your number. It’s not gonna take much to reinforce his impression.”

  “Yeah…well…”

  Peewee slid the van’s side door open and removed the lid on an ice chest. He undid the individual cans of Budweiser and tucked each one down into the ice. He considered for a moment whether or not to add more ice.

  “I’m gonna get a fresh bag,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

  He went back to the store and came out moments later with a bag of crushed ice. He brought it to the van and, undoing the tie, filled the cooler to its brim.

  “Nice an’ cold,” he said.

  He looked at Rick.

  “Fuck that son-of-a-bitch. Fuck what he thinks. He’ll be lucky if I don’t get him in my cross-hairs and think he’s a cow.”

  “Just be cool, Peewee. We’re almost home free. That’s all I’m sayin.’”

  “No sweat. This is Peewee you’re talkin’ to.”

  41

  Punch’s cabin had a North Woods hunting-lodge profile that might have been lifted from the pages of an outdoor magazine. Built of logs and rough-cut timber, it perched on the side of a narrow mountain canyon through which flowed and tumbled a creek whose fortunes rose and fell with the amount of spring and summer snow-melt. A broad cedar deck, enclosed by a wooden railing, extended across the front of the cabin. Beyond the railing, the sunlit creek sparkled through a stand of Douglas fir that sloped down to a sun-bleached gravel-and-boulder-strewn beach on either side of the creek. A footpath, leading from the side of the cabin, cut diagonally through the trees and ended up at the creek, fifty yards below a spot where the Coriolis effect had undercut its bank and left a number of trees with the root wad exposed.

  The cabin interior consisted of a living room with a picture window, an overhead sleeping loft, a kitchen area on one side of a passageway out the back, and a bathroom and pantry on the other side of the passageway. A breakfast bar, with four leather-topped stools separated the kitchen from the living room, and a wooden staircase gave access to the sleeping loft. A hand-woven, cerulean-blue Navajo rug with a yellow interlacing pattern covered the living room floor, and a floor-to-ceiling, massive stone fireplace dominated one end of the living room. A plush, all-leather couch sat on one side of the Navajo rug, facing the picture window; two easy chairs, both matching the couch, sat directly across from it, at angles to each other, with a reading lamp and a black oak coffee table in between.

  “Well, this is it, folks,” Punch said, with a sweep of his hand. “It ain’t much, but it’s what I call home. It’s my castle and my refuge. And, I suppose, it’s what I worked for all of my life.”

  “Ah, una casa bella!” said Carlos.

  “Yes, very nice,” both Ralph and Misty agreed.

  “I love what you’ve done with the breakfast bar…how it helps define the living area,” Tony chimed in. “And it just seems such an appropriate arrangement for the lifestyle, so convenient.”

  “Yeah, I expect they had that in mind when they built the place…”

  “It is really very impressive!” Heidi said. “And there’s something iconic about it…”

  “Oh?”

  “You know…it’s got that all-American look that we typically associate with mountain cabins.”

  “‘A fireside far from the cares that are with a four walls and a roof above…’” Mitch quoted from a poem.

  “That’d be Robert Service,” Punch said. “I know the gentleman well. I have a collection of his poetry.”

  “I memorized the whole thing once. But it’s been awhile…”

  “I used to read him, along with Jack London stories about the Yukon.”

  “Yeah, he was one of my favorites, too.”

  “He told some good tales…and he lived some of them, too.”

  “He certainly had a feel for it all. I wonder which side of the debate he’d be on right now. An environmentalist or one of the skeptics?”

  “I suspect the former.”

  “I suspect you’re right…”

  “Who’s Jack London?” Peewee asked, coming into the conversation from the back of the group. He had been standing with his hands in his pockets, gazing up the high, open ceiling and the loft overhang, and all the while, engrossed by the notion that someday this was exactly how he himself wanted to live: in comfortable yet masculine surroundings, alone and free and out in the middle of nowhere. For some reason, hearing the discussion, he felt prompted to ask the question.

  “He’s an author, Peewee,” Heidi said helpfully. “He wrote sea stories as well as stories about surviving in the wilderness against difficult odds. He was widely read and very popular in the early part of the twentieth century. Check him out sometime if you get a chance.”

  “I’ll do that. He sounds like my kind of writer.”

  “I’m surprised you haven’t read him already, Peewee,” Mitch said slyly. “Most people have by the time they’re in their twenties, if not earlier.”

  “I got a lot of catching up to do, I guess.”

  “Never too late to sta
rt.”

  Taking this little exchange in with a smile, Punch said, “Why don’t y’all step out on the deck and enjoy some of this late-fall sunshine? I’ll get a fire going, warm up some chili, and then after dinner, we can all congregate in here and talk.”

  “Would you like us to help with anything?” Jody offered.

  “I’ve always been able to get a can of chili open by myself. But what you can do, if you would, is one or two of ya can go out back and bring in a couple of armloads of firewood. But make sure it’s the dry stuff…some of it’s still pretty green.”

  Ralph, who wanted to be helpful, volunteered along with Carlos and Rick. Peewee said he wanted to walk down to the creek and that he’d be back later. While Punch retreated to the kitchen and donned a chef’s apron, everyone else went out on the deck.

  The late-afternoon sunshine had lengthened the west-to-east shadows. Overhead, the sky still shone with an azure brightness, but a November chill portended the possibility of snow. In the higher elevations, snow had fallen already: as the weather sharpened, turning crisp fall air into bone-chilling days and nights, the valleys, blanketed by deep snows, would soon share in the imminence of an unforgiving winter.

  Mitch walked to the end of the deck and, folding his hands together, leaned on the railing. From below, muffled by the expanse of trees between it and the cabin, the creek flowed with a faint ripple that, in the silence of the afternoon, seemed not quite beyond the range of hearing. Listening closely, Mitch could barely make out the plash of water rippling over and around small rocks and boulders and through the interstices of gravel deposits along the shore. For a moment, entranced by his surroundings, he felt untroubled by the prospect of what lay ahead.

  “Penny for your thoughts, Mitch.”

  He turned; Jody had come up alongside.

  “It’s nice to be out here,” he said. “It’s too bad it has to end.”

  “End?”

  “Well, you know…tomorrow night we finish what we came for and then go back to Portland. I myself would just as soon make this a hiking or a fishing trip.”

  Standing sidewise to Mitch, with one elbow on the railing, Jody cocked her head confidentially.

  “You’re not really comfortable with this, are you, Mitch?”

  Mitch gave her a look that indicated the answer should be obvious.

  “I wasn’t comfortable with it from the beginning,” he said. “All along, I’ve had reservations.”

  “But you’ve stuck with it, haven’t you? There has to be a reason for that, Mitch. Deep down, you must believe in what we’re doing, even if you think otherwise.”

  “Deep down, you believe in this, Jody, but I’m not sure I do.”

  “You believe in saving the environment, don’t you?”

  “Of course…I’m just not sure this is the right way.”

  “Look at the outlandish things Greenpeace has done, Mitch,” she persisted. “Nobody can accuse them of going about it in a conventional way, but they’ve managed to bring attention to the issue. They’ve raised awareness, despite ridicule and censor. Their methods may be reprehensible, but they get results.”

  “But they haven’t killed any cows yet, have they?”

  He considered it a touché moment, replete with enough irony to convey something of his real feelings. But she passed right over the response with the impassive serenity of one whose fervor makes a contrary view a personal challenge. In Mitch’s estimation, though he had never said as much, she regarded his reluctance as something to be dealt with more in the spirit of a competition for its own sake, not as something she regarded as truly misguided.

  He continued to listen, but only with the diplomatic tolerance of one who’s given up listening.

  “I know it sounds trite, Mitch,” she said, “but sometimes the end outweighs the means. More than justifies it. And acts of civil disobedience take place all the time that illustrate the principle. I mean, where would we be today, as a nation, except for people who went out and broke the law during the Civil Rights era? They were arrested and jailed—were made to pay a price—and all because of a principle…”

  “Is that what we’re talking about here, a principle?”

  “Of course it is, Mitch. We’re not doing this for the fun of it. Everyone here believes that he or she is engaged in a righteous act. This is something that is absolutely necessary for the survival of the planet…”

  Heidi walked up. “What are you two up to here?”

  “She’s trying to hit on me. Maybe you can help restrain her.”

  “Mitch is being difficult.”

  “She won’t take no for an answer.”

  “He doesn’t really think he should be here…he’d rather be hiking or fishing. I’m trying to convince him of the error of his thinking.”

  “You don’t want to be here, Mitch?”

  “I didn’t put it quite that way—don’t misinterpret me, Jody. I just said that, basically, I’m still reconciling myself to something I’m not entirely sure of. But, have no fear, I’ve come all this way and I’m not going to back out at the last minute. I’ll be as ready as anyone tomorrow. And to prove it, I’ll even pay for everyone’s breakfast.”

  “You don’t have to do that, Mitch. We trust you.”

  “See, Jody, I’ve got friends in high places. So go easy on me…”

  Those who had helped with the firewood came out on the deck to join everyone else.

  “We’ve been working for our meal,” Carlos said in mock reproach, “while the rest of you been standing around here. What gives, anyway?”

  Rick, reaching into his shirt pocket, walked to one end of the deck and lit a cigarette with his Zippo lighter.

  “Softies, they’re all a bunch of softies,” he said, dropping the lighter back in his shirt pocket and taking a heavy drag on the cigarette.

  “Yeah, we’re the bane of Western civilization. What we all need to do is go back to the good ol’ days, when you had to carry a bucket of water up from the creek. I been thinking about giving up my apartment and moving back to the land…raising my own turnips and broccoli. What about you, Rick? You up for something like that?” Mitch said.

  “Okay by me, as long as I can grow my own beer.”

  The others laughed.

  “They don’t grow beer, do they?” Tony wondered.

  “Sure they do. Haven’t you heard of beer fruit? Where do you think beer comes from, anyway?”

  “It comes from a vegetable, not from fruit.”

  “Actually, you can get it from fruit, from the fermentation of fruit,” Ralph said. “I remember once, as an undergraduate, a couple of classmates and I left raisins to sit in a bucket of water and yeast for several days, and guess what?”

  “You all got drunk?”

  “I think I passed out before I actually got to that stage.”

  Laughter.

  “You’re a man with a dark side, then, is that it, Ralph? What else should we know about you?”

  “You folks hungry yet?” Punch opened the door and stuck his head out. “Cause if you are, I got a pot of the best canned chili you’re ever gonna eat. And if it ain’t hot enough for ya, we can spice it up with chili powder and Tabasco sauce.”

  “I think we’re all pretty hungry,” Heidi said.

  The others agreed.

  “Do you want us to eat out here?”

  “If you don’t mind. Then afterwards, I’ll build a fire. Be nice an’ cozy. Give y’all a nice memory.”

  42

  After excusing himself, Rick stepped out the back door of the cabin and into the darkness. He lit a cigarette, stood there long enough to inhale one or two healthy drags, then crossed over to the driveway and walked up to the road.

  The van was parked on the other side. The cargo door was open, and Peewee sat at the small table in the camper section. A ceiling light lit up the interior, casting a soft glow reminiscent of a small cabin cruiser in the middle of a lake at night, with its cabin lit by a single bulb
. Peewee had an open can of beer in front of him, and he held a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a lit cigarette in the other.

  Rick crossed over.

  “What the fuck is wrong, anyway, Peewee? Nobody’s seen you for the last two hours, and everybody’s wondering what happened to you.”

  Peewee turned his head and looked at Rick. His eyes glittered unnaturally, and he seemed to greet the question with a sneer. “Just workin’ on my mojo, Rick. Keepin’ up there. Stayin’ with the program.”

  “Yeah? Well, part of the program calls for a little role-playing, buddy. What about that?”

  “I’m playing a role just by being here, man. I don’t have to overdo it.”

  “I wouldn’t say you’ve overdone it, Peewee, by any stretch. How come you don’t come in for a while, anyway? You don’t want these people to think you’re weird, but you’re making it hard for them not to.”

  “Fuck what they think.”

  “Hey, man, I’m askin’ ya here. This is your friend talking to you. I need you to help me, Peewee. Just come in, shoot the shit a little, say you weren’t feeling too well or whatever. But just put in an appearance. It looks too odd, otherwise.”

  “Maybe I should do a little tap dance, too?”

  “Fuck you, Peewee. What the hell is this, anyway?”

  Peewee took a final drag on his cigarette and flicked it out into the darkness. He seemed to regard the proposition with a mixture of amusement and cynicism. “I’ll tell you what it is,” he said. “You really wanna know?”

  “That was the reason for the question, Peewee.”

  Peewee seemed to smile at a secret that only he knew about. “Well, consider, my brother, our situation,” he said, lighting another cigarette and letting the smoke fantail out in a long stream. “You really believe them feds aren’t gonna fuck you, Rick? I mean, think about it…Who’s the only one who’s gonna know they set it all up? Who’s the only one who’s gonna know it was a trap from the very git-go? I mean, them two dudes in the parking lot—they don’t give a rat’s ass about you. When this is all over, they’re gonna get credit for snagging a band of so-called domestic terrorists, and you’re the only one who’s gonna know it was all a big crock. You think about that. Your little buddy Peewee may be fucked up by the standards of a lot of righteous motherfuckers, but he ain’t brain-dead.”