There didn’t seem to be much else to say, and CJ was within seconds of leaving when, in an instant that he couldn’t have stopped even had he known it was coming, he said, “Why did you kill Eddie?”
What struck CJ next was the depth of the quiet that settled over the room, over the entire house—as if the aged frame had stopped groaning long enough to hear the answer. The only thing that failed to abide by the hush was the grandfather clock, whose ticking seemed overly loud by comparison.
It took him a while to realize that the thing he was feeling in his chest was fear—fear of having asked the question, of having this thing that he’d carried for more than twenty years suddenly out there. Except that there was also something exhilarating in the asking.
However, even if he was experiencing a gamut of emotions, the moment had passed Graham by, except to have left him looking older, tired. At first, CJ didn’t think he was going to answer the question. Graham got up and poured himself another drink—more than the two fingers CJ had given him. Then, with his back to his brother, he said, “Why are you trying to dig up ghosts?”
“Because it’s not every day a kid sees his older brother murder someone.”
That seemed to deflate Graham. He leaned against the table that held the liquor, the bottles jostling from his weight. He didn’t say anything, and CJ knew that if he waited a hundred years in this room, his brother would hold the thing so tightly to his chest that CJ would never get to see it.
He got up from the chair and left the room without another word, only his steps didn’t take him to the front door. Instead he found himself fumbling at the lock on the door to the garage. When the light came on he descended the steps and pulled the tarp off of the 853, tossing it to the floor.
The blue car—polished a thousand times by a hand that loved it yet never used it—shone beneath the garage lighting. CJ stood on the passenger side, his hand on the convertible top. He stood there for a long time, and if Graham knew he was in there, he left him alone. When he was ready, he picked the tarp off the floor and covered the car, then left the way he’d come.
A single beam of moonlight has found its way past CJ’s drawn shades, emptying its light somewhere near the foot of his bed. CJ is awake and so tightly wound that he can’t fall asleep. The sights and sounds of the last several hours have been too much for a boy to handle, and he is only now coming to grips with the enormity of the events of the day.
Somewhere in the rooms outside of his own are the other members of his family, each dealing with things in their own ways: his mother with tears, his uncle Edward with a story from his Korean War days, his grandmother with the endless baking, and his father with grim silence.
He feels caught up in the totality of the thing, yet as an incidental object—one easily discarded by a wave on a convenient shore. Graham is the focal point, the one in need of comfort, the one whose story is told again and again until it even sounds right in CJ’s ears. He’s not sure at which point he realized that the accounting of events given by his brother does not match what CJ holds in his head—only that the realization came upon him like a creeping cold.
He wanted to say something, to pull an adult aside and tell them what he’d heard, what he’d seen. Instead he’d eaten the cake, taken the hugs, listened to the talk, and avoided looking at his brother. All of it left him feeling ill, as if the cake had been bad.
There is an owl somewhere beyond his window, and for once CJ understands its plaintive call. He understands too how there is something expectant in it—how the sound doesn’t just hang there or dissipate without a purpose.
When his door creaks open, he isn’t surprised because his heart has been gaining speed for the last hour. Even so, he finds his breath caught in his throat, especially when he sees the shirtless, sweaty form enter his room.
Graham leads with the knife, and the moonlight glints off the surface of the thing, and only Graham’s face can pull CJ’s eyes from it. His brother’s eyes are wild. A single rivulet of sweat runs down his cheek. It occurs to CJ to scream, but he discovers that he cannot find breath enough.
His brother is at his side in three steps and then the larger boy is on top of CJ, his full weight resting on CJ’s chest, and he lowers his face until it is inches from CJ’s. CJ doesn’t know which is worse— the feeling of oxygen pushed from his body or having to look into his brother’s eyes.
Graham leans even closer. CJ can smell him—the sweat and dirt of the day that he hasn’t yet washed off. And this person who is his brother seems like a stranger—someone else besides the boy he’s grown up with, yet also a fully formed version of something he is in the process of becoming.
The silence in the room is absolute when Graham says, “If you tell a single soul, I’ll kill you.” For emphasis he holds the knife to CJ’s cheek. The younger boy hears a whimper, realizes it is himself, and he silences it when he feels the knife point push into his skin.
In a few seconds Graham is gone, and only then does CJ release the sobs that have been building since Graham pulled the trigger; only he keeps them quiet, the sole sound that of the bed rocking with the heaving of his shoulders.
Chapter 17
CJ felt unworthy of the honor that had been bestowed upon him, but that didn’t keep him from enjoying one of the more perfect evenings it was his pleasure to have experienced. Night had fully descended, and Artie stoked the fire that kept the growing chill away for a while longer. In truth, CJ wouldn’t have minded the cold snuggling in a little closer, reaching down his jacket and running icy fingers along his spine. A light chill always made crawling beneath the blankets a little nicer, a bit more rewarding.
Thor lay next to CJ’s chair, exhausted with his fill of chasing rabbits and squirrels, and eating half a bag of marshmallows that CJ had made the mistake of leaving out on the porch while he and Artie were inside. Beyond the crackling fire, the only sounds were the dog’s snoring and a lone owl that CJ guessed was to his southeast, maybe twenty or thirty yards away.
When he was finished with the fire, which he’d determined required another log, Artie leaned back in the camp chair and pulled the pipe from his mouth.
“Is five thirty alright for you?” he asked—the first words either of them had spoken in thirty minutes. “I’m too old to do that 4:00 a.m. stuff anymore.”
“Five thirty’s just fine,” CJ said.
At the sound of his master’s voice, Thor raised his head a fraction, but it wasn’t a few seconds more before sleep had retaken him.
“I figure we’ll head south toward the Onochooie. There’s a bluff about a quarter mile from the water. With any luck we’ll get one early.”
“Not too early,” CJ said, his words slow in coming. “Get one too early and there’s no time to recover from the hike in.”
Artie chuckled. “You make a good point.” He tapped the pipe once in his palm and then put it back in his mouth.
The honor to which CJ felt unequal was a historic happening in the town of Adelia. Artie had closed Kaddy’s on a business day. Right now, there was a sign on the door that, when morning light came, was likely to draw a crowd, if only to gaze in wonder at the two words Gone Hunting. It had been written with black marker on a piece of cardboard, and there was nothing in the handwriting that signified the writer was sorry for the inconvenience. To the contrary, the large, hastily scribed block letters conveyed the idea that if you minded the store’s proprietor taking a Monday off to hunt, then you could just take your business elsewhere.
CJ, who had not been in town long enough to grasp the full significance of the event until he’d asked Artie where the Closed sign was, only to learn that there wasn’t one, was grateful beyond words at the gesture.
It had been Artie’s idea, and less of an idea than an order. When CJ came back from the house on Lyndale, Artie had intuited his need for some kind of diversion, which meant closing the hardware store. He’d simply told CJ they were going hunting and then he’d gone home to gather his gear,
and soon he and CJ had set off.
The well-kept cabin behind where CJ sat had been Artie’s for thirty years. When he bought it he’d assured his wife that it would be a place for frequent getaways—a place for romance. In the following three decades, Artie’s better half had graced the cabin a total of seven times and had, even on those occasions, placed second behind whatever guns Artie had brought with him. She didn’t much begrudge the time he spent here alone, which wasn’t as frequently as she teased him, as she’d never taken to the outdoors. She was never able to gain a satisfactory level of comfort at the cabin.
At the moment, CJ thought it was the most perfect spot on the face of the earth. It was only a forty-five-minute drive from Adelia, but it might as well have been a few hundred miles due to the solitude aided by the tall trees, the gorges, and elevated land that made up the Adirondack terrain. After they’d first arrived here, and after they’d stowed their things in the cabin, Artie had taken him on a short hike through the surrounding woods, and CJ had been taken back to his youth, to times spent all over this land at the foot of the mountains.
The walk had been short only because of Artie’s arthritis. CJ still wondered how Artie would make it more than a quarter mile tomorrow, but he was willing to put his trust in the older man’s ability to determine his own limits.
The moon had risen early, right on the heels of the setting sun, and it now shone full and bright overhead. CJ had tipped his head to look at it, and had touched the fringes of a light doze when Artie said, “It’s a hunter’s moon tonight. A good omen for tomorrow, I suspect.”
“Every moon is a hunter’s moon as long as he has a gun,” CJ said.
Artie chuckled, and CJ smelled the sweet aroma of pipe smoke float his way.
“The Indians called it the hunter’s moon because it rose early and let them continue to track the prey they’d been hunting even as the sun went down,” Artie explained.
CJ considered that while the moon returned his stare. After a while he said, “Pretty convenient if you’re a hungry Indian.”
Thor snorted in his sleep, which CJ took as the dog offering his opinion.
“I suppose it was,” Artie agreed. “I suppose it was.”
Artie was up first, shaking CJ awake. He was already dressed, and as CJ rolled to a sitting position on the edge of the bed, he smelled coffee and saw a stack of pancakes in the center of the table. He couldn’t believe he’d slept soundly enough to have not heard or smelled Artie’s breakfast preparations.
“What time is it?”
“Five,” Artie called over his shoulder, having returned to the stove and a sizzling pan of eggs. “If you’re quick, we can be out of here at five thirty like we wanted.”
CJ wasn’t sure what he wanted. It had been a long time since he’d hunted and the hour seemed ungodly. As he sat up on the bed, willing his legs to move, he was amazed at how youthful Artie appeared. In his jeans and flannel shirt, hunting boots, and a bowie knife affixed to his belt, he looked at least ten years younger. He reminded himself, though, that Artie was almost thirty years older than he, and that did much to force him out of bed.
Artie set a cup of coffee in front of CJ as he took a seat at the table.
“Thanks,” CJ said.
Artie returned to the stove and brought the skillet of eggs back to the table, setting it on a potholder, and then lowered himself into the other chair.
“Did you know that you snore?” he asked as he piled eggs onto CJ’s plate.
After a sip of coffee CJ said, “I’ve been told.”
The two men ate the rest of the meal in silence, and then as Artie cleaned up the dishes, CJ finished getting dressed. When he’d left Tennessee he hadn’t packed the necessary things to spend a day hunting, so they’d stopped at a sporting goods store on the drive in so CJ could at least pick up some thermal underwear and a decent pair of boots. Because they weren’t broken in yet, the boots felt a little tight as he slipped them on. He knew he’d have a few blisters by the time the day was over, but they would be happy blisters if he took a buck.
By the time he was ready, Artie had finished the dishes and had retrieved the two guns he’d brought along. Artie sat on a stool and unzipped the cases, leaning first one gun, then the other, against the wall. This was the first CJ had seen of them out of their cases, and he released a low whistle.
“Those are beauties,” he said.
That seemed to amuse Artie. He gave CJ a wink and then picked one of the guns up, offering it to his hunting companion.
It looked like a Remington hybrid—something custom, and it was obvious that it had been used more than a time or two. CJ turned it over in his hands, feeling the weight of it, the balance. As he studied it, his eyes caught something on the butt, and he turned it so he could take a closer look. And when it finally occurred to him what he was seeing, he looked up and grinned at Artie.
“You had it finished out,” he said.
Artie’s smile nearly matched his own. “It’s my favorite gun.” He reached for it and CJ gave it up. Artie gave him the other rifle, a Winchester, and probably a better gun than the one Artie would use.
When they set out, Thor seemed subdued, but CJ could almost feel the coiled energy in his well-muscled body. CJ had asked Artie if he should leave the dog at the cabin, but Artie said to bring him along, that the deer wouldn’t smell him, and that he was confident Thor would stay quiet and alert. Although CJ had his doubts, they were hunting on Artie’s dime—or at least around his cabin.
The hike was two miles up a hill that rose so gradually that CJ almost didn’t feel it doing so. It was only when he glanced backward, charting their progress through the trees, that he saw how much they’d ascended.
Artie’s knee seemed to hold up under the strain of the hike. The image CJ had earlier of him in the cabin that morning—the image of a younger man—proved stronger out here, as if taking on the hunter’s role granted him a measure of youthful energy.
It took a good half hour for them to reach the spot Artie had in mind. CJ knew they’d found it when they emerged from the tree line and looked down on an expanse of land no more than twenty feet below them. Artie was right; it was a perfect spot. He saw the natural path right away, a shallow gorge buffered on each side by tall grass.
The bluff, as Artie called it, was more a hill that ended somewhat abruptly, and as CJ looked down he saw it wasn’t a vertical drop but a slope with an angle around fifty-five degrees. If a bear was chasing him, he’d attempt to navigate it, but he’d much prefer finding a way around without imminent danger as a motivator.
While CJ admired the view, spotting the river through the bare trees ahead, Artie walked over to a large tree close to the drop-off and hunkered down in a spot that looked to have been made for him. And it probably had been, hollowed out by his backside during countless hours of immobile observance. CJ looked for a place to do the same, and found a likely candidate in a tree about eight feet from Artie. Thor, once he’d sniffed around a bit, seemed to understand the general principle, and he too found a spot among the brown leaves, positioning himself so he could look down over the land that spread out below.
The two men and the dog stayed that way until the woods around them began to return to normal, as the birds and small animals that had stopped at their arrival forgot about them and renewed their private conversations.
It was twenty minutes later when Artie spoke, keeping his voice soft, unable to carry down the slope.
“Sometimes I sit here for five minutes before a doe or a buck comes walking out of the trees just to the right there, steps out into the path, and starts walking toward the river. Almost always calm as can be.” He shifted a bit against the tree, but not enough that CJ heard the movement. “And there are other days when I sit here until the sun’s almost gone and I know that there hasn’t been a deer within miles of me.”
It wasn’t something that required a response, and so CJ offered none. Artie turned quiet, and CJ thought he w
as done, but a few minutes later, Artie whispered, “And you know what? I love it just as much when I get to sit here all day.”
CJ had been watching the tall grass on the far side of the path, alert for any movement that seemed out of sync with the wind, and while he was a firm believer that the act of hunting was its own reward, he couldn’t wholly agree with Artie’s sentiment.
“I can’t say I love it as much,” CJ whispered back. “No matter how perfect everything might be, there’s that small part of me that’s unfulfilled if I don’t go home with something.”
“That’s because you’re not old and don’t mind dragging it back to camp,” Artie said with a quiet laugh.
Another ten minutes passed before either of them said anything, and this time it was CJ who spoke, going back to Artie’s earlier words.
“Aren’t you frustrated when you sit here all day, knowing there’s nothing out there—no chance of something stepping out?”
When Artie didn’t answer right away, CJ looked over and saw the man watching the grass, his eyes sharp. Finally, he said, “The only time it’s frustrating is when I know they are there and they won’t step out.”
Thor sensed it before either of them saw it, and it was then that Thor proved he was a natural hunting dog because instead of snapping his head up, the dog raised it slowly so as not to frighten the prey.
“Two o’clock, ten yards in the grass,” Artie said, not moving a muscle.
The only parts of his body CJ moved were his eyes. It took him almost a full fifteen seconds to spot it, and he only did so when the entirety of the brown grass went one way with the wind except for a small section that went in the other direction. CJ almost lost it twice, so closely did its color match the surroundings, but it was getting closer to the shorter grass, to the natural path that would take it to the water.
It didn’t so much as step out of the covering as it just appeared there.
It was a thing of beauty, large and powerfully built. As it lifted its head to survey the land, CJ counted eleven points and couldn’t tell if one had broken off on the other side or if the asymmetry was natural. Even from the distance CJ was at, he thought he could see the flecks of moisture on the snout, hear grunting as the animal tested the air. At one point it shifted until it was looking directly toward the hunting party, but it couldn’t see CJ and Artie against the trees, and Thor, watching the massive buck with just the slightest tremor running down his back, stayed still as a statue. After a time, the buck turned and started toward the river.
Don Hoesel Page 17