The Sky Fisherman

by Craig Lesley

  For a few minutes I didn't hear anything but Jake wheeling in the bikes, then the door locking. Jake and Sniffy went into the back room.

  "The fire couldn't have started the way they claimed..."

  Sniffy was speaking and I moved across the office to hear better.

  "If a spark from a welding torch hit that sawdust under the big saws, no way a fire'd take off like that. The water that cools those saw blades keeps that dust wet."

  "The saws were shut down two days," Jake said. "It must have dried some."

  "Not that fast." Sniffy paused. "I'm telling you things have gotten fishy. I've been walking clock, keeping notes."

  "Don't go off the deep end," Jake said. "Maybe you're dreaming things up a little."

  Sniffy became more agitated and his voice rose. "Did you know the big diesel generator was out of commission, missing a piston? That's no dream."

  Jake grunted, seeming surprised. "So one of the sprinkler systems was completely shut down. How long?"

  "Three weeks. The millwrights fussed around but couldn't fix it. Put that back in action, we might have saved the mill."

  "Maybe you need to talk with someone else," Jake said.

  "Like the insurance people?" Sniffy laughed, and it was bitter. "I'm not a rat. But I got my notes saved for a rainy day."

  "All right then," Jake said. "The piston. You got anything else?"

  "Glue," he said.

  Jake didn't say anything.

  "See, I know exactly how many batches I cook. But when I checked the records and saw what they were billing the tribe to make up their plywood, it was cockeyed. I'd cook up fifteen pots. They'd get billed for twenty. And they were billed for extra plywood, too. Somebody was skimming sweet."

  "Glue and plywood must add up," Jake said.

  "You better believe it. We're a big operation, and it takes a lot of plywood to rebuild the reservation. You could retire fat."

  I heard the chair squeak as Sniffy moved. Opening the office door wide enough to squeeze through, I stepped into the shadows cast by the water skis.

  "See, I been storing records at the glue house, but I couldn't leave them after the fire. That's about the only place left, and I was afraid one of the investigators might stumble across them." He paused. "I don't know what the hell to do."

  Jake switched off the store lights, catching me unexpected. The office light shone through the open door. Hurrying back to my chair, I pretended to be mulling over the night deposit. When Jake stepped in to switch off the light, he seemed surprised, as if he'd forgotten I was back there at all. He studied the money, the empty jars, the checks on the desk. "How's it coming?"

  "Slow." I rubbed my eyes. "These numbers just keep swimming."

  "I didn't hear the adding machine." He looked around as if expecting someone else. "You're tired. Maybe I should finish. Go on home."

  Just then Sniffy poked his head in, mouth open in surprise. "Jesus, Jake. The damn kid's back here working? What the hell!"

  Jake rested his hand on Sniffy's shoulder, trying to calm him. "Mr. St. John is pretty upset, Culver. The fire and all. You understand?"

  "Sure," I said, nodding.

  Letting go of Sniffy's shoulder, he gripped mine. "Anything you heard tonight stays here. No matter what."

  Sniffy was sweating more than anyone I'd seen who wasn't working outside. His mouth kept opening and closing like a fish's.

  "That's a promise," I said.

  Jake spread his hands. "The boy's my sidekick, Sniffy. My own flesh and blood. He's good as gospel."

  "I got to take your word, don't I, Jake?"

  My uncle perched on the edge of the desk, leaning forward. "Let's hear it all, Sniffy. What else you got?"

  Sniffy seemed like he was going to collapse, and I scooted my chair under him. He sat and leaned back, closing his eyes. "Man oh man, what a pickle." His eyes opened. "Half the fire hoses were disconnected. Well, maybe not half, but a lot. I couldn't tell if it was plain sloppiness or someone doing it on purpose, but that first sprinkler system never had much chance either."

  "Can't tell much now," Jake said. "That plant's all burned down. Machinery's blackened, walls collapsed."

  Sniffy nodded. "This afternoon, soon as the ruin cooled some, one of the millwrights snuck out and put a truck piston in that diesel generator to make it look legit. Packed it solid with grease so the inspectors would miss it. I couldn't have told the difference myself if I didn't already know."

  "You can't blame them for covering their ass," Jake said. "The insurance guys will try to welch every way possible. 'You were fully insured but not covered' is how they like to put it." He paused. "The question is how things got so broke down and why they weren't fixed sooner. Summer delays?"

  Sniffy didn't say anything.

  "What do you think. Italian lightning? Somebody torched it?"

  "The plant was obsolete compared to the new places in the South and Canada. Way overinsured. And the Indians are going to control more of their timber, put the squeeze on."

  "A match solves a lot of problems," Jake said so quiet I could hardly hear him. "But can you prove anything?"

  Sniffy shook his head. "Slow down the payoff. That's about it."

  Jake studied the cars dragging the gut outside the window. A Studebaker Starliner and a Corvette pulled into the parking lot, and kids started teasing each other through their open windows. A blond girl's face appeared blue in the blinking light of the neon fish. Sniffy shook his head. "I'm not going crazy, am I? Getting paranoid." He held out his hands. "See the shakes. Hell, I was in the war. Bombardier. After flying over Germany, we'd come back to England all shot up. Those Red Cross women would give us a shot of brandy. My hand was like a rock."

  Jake took a bottle of Wild Turkey and a glass from out of the bottom desk drawer. I didn't know he kept one there and made a note. "You got big troubles," he said.

  Sniffy took the glass in both hands and drank. "Thanks, Jake." He studied his hands. "Maybe another one would help."

  Jake poured and Sniffy drank another. "Buy you one?" Sniffy asked.

  "Why not? I feel like a priest." Jake poured himself a drink. "Might as well drink like one."

  "You understand I can't prove anything."

  Jake sipped his drink.

  Sniffy's eyes darted around the room until they fixed on one of the donation jars for Tyler's family. He blinked. "If somebody torched that mill and those guys got killed falling through the skylight, is that murder?"

  Jake rubbed his jaw. "It's something pretty damn bad, but not murder."

  "That's how I figure." His eyes shifted to the floor. "You understand, I'm just trying out ideas."

  "Two friends talking," Jake said. "Lots of guys tested out theories here today."

  Sniffy's eyes settled on the painting of Kalim and the basketball team, then widened in recognition. "Man oh man. That Indian kid—he knew too much about the plant."

  Jake had started to take another drink, but stopped. "What kid?"

  Pointing at the picture, Sniffy said, "Him. You and the boy found him downriver."

  "What did he know?"

  "He and a couple rowdy white guys hung around. The white guys did hauling and cleaning. They were real wiseasses. Sometimes, when Kalim showed up, they went off and drank beer. Those three were always up to no good. Stealing loads of studs, stacks of plywood, anything they could get in their pickup. Hell, they even used my truck once when I was mixing glue. I'd been in there four hours and came out to find the engine warm, the gas tank down. Bastards had run to Central and sold a load of something. After that I kept the keys in my pocket.

  "When I called them on it, the two white guys laughed and took off, but not Kalim. He'd been looking at a notebook I'd left on the dash. His two buddies probably couldn't read, but he could. 'What's this?' he asked, waving the notebook in my face. 'All these figures about glue and plywood.'

  "I tried calming him down, but he was half drunk and totally pissed. 'Somebody's always
ripping us off,' he yelled. 'I'm going to see my old uncle Sylvester.'"

  "I wonder if he did," Jake said, and I got to thinking about our meeting Sylvester on the river. Maybe he knew then something was going on.

  "You could hear him yelling about Indians being cheated all over the plant," Sniffy said. "Other things, too. His two buddies had been painting up some old equipment, switching serial numbers. They planned on selling that junk to the tribe, even though it was obsolete." Sniffy tapped his forehead with the glass. "See, the way I figure, if the plywood mill got more timber leases, they'd keep ripping off the tribe one way. If the tribe built its own mill and got overcharged for obsolete equipment, they'd screw them another. Double payday."

  "And you think Kalim figured all that out?"

  Sniffy finished his drink and put the glass down. "Big braggers, those two white guys. Real loudmouths. And Kalim saw my notes. Hell, if I can figure things out, they've got to be crooked as a corkscrew." He looked at the glass, but Jake didn't fill it again. "The kid blows up and threatens to spill his guts. Two days later, he's staring at fishes."

  "It's a hell of a story," Jake said. "Who were the white guys? Old ball players?"

  "I'm no squealer. Don't get me wrong." Sniffy held his mouth tight.

  "What do you plan to do?"

  He wiped the back of his hand across his sweaty forehead. "Here's what I'd like to do—leave this town and go someplace warm. Maybe Arizona to help the wife's arthritis. It's pitiful how she hobbles in the winter." He leaned forward, almost whispering. "I get these wild ideas like selling the notes. Why not? Someone might be interested."

  "Careful now," Jake said. "Don't catch your tit in the wringer."

  Sniffy stood. "That's what I'd like to do. But I'm no fink. Maybe things will go all right with this investigation—smooth as a saw blade through white pine. But if it hits some big knots, I don't want to get cut up by flying metal." He paused. "Keep some papers for me, Jake. That way, if anything happens, you can clear my name."

  Jake hesitated a minute, then stood and put his arm around Sniffy. "Whatever you say, buddy. But I think you're going off the deep end on this."

  Sniffy pulled away. "Two men are dead. Three if I'm right about the Indian kid. Deep end, hell. I can't even see the shore."

  After agreeing to bring the papers the next day, Sniffy drove away, the taillights of his pickup dimming. Jake relocked the door and leaned against the Pepsi machine. "You heard it here first."

  "What are we going to do?" I asked.

  Jake rapped the machine with his knuckles, then tapped the side of his head. "Too much glue. Too few brain cells."

  I was astonished. "You think he's making it up? Sounded pretty convincing to me."

  "Sure. He believes it himself. He sees something here, something different there, and tries to connect the dots. But maybe nobody else sees the pattern quite like he does."

  "What if he's right? You said yourself the sprinkler systems should have stopped the fire. Sniffy explained why they didn't."

  Jake seemed to be thinking it over. "If the fire investigators decide it's arson, then maybe his story will gain some credibility. Otherwise he's by himself in front of a grand jury, ticking away like a time bomb. Remember, this is the guy who sees flying saucers."

  "What about Kalim?"

  Jake spread his hands. "Maybe his buddies shot him. Or a jealous girlfriend. Once you start speculating about killing an Indian kid over glue and plywood, you'll split this town in half. It's damn hard enough already to keep the pieces together. Somebody's always squawking about getting ripped off."

  "We can tell Billyum. Maybe he can get the FBI or something."

  Jake pressed his hands against his eyes. "Haven't slept in two days. Can't think straight and neither can you."

  "I caught a few hours," I said, but when my uncle looked at me and I saw the raccoon circles under his bloodshot eyes, I didn't say any more.

  "No point running off half-cocked. Now grab that one night deposit and shove the rest of the stuff in the safe."

  When I came back, Jake was watching the kids in the parking lot. The blond girl climbed out of the Starliner, slamming the car door. She started flirting with the guy in the Corvette. After a few moments, he opened the car door and she climbed in.

  "When you're that young"—Jake nodded toward the car—"the only thing you worry about is getting her pants down and unrolling the rubber. Then you grow up and things get complicated."

  20

  "GATEWAY HAS A LOVELY LIBRARY. It's wonderful when a small town like this takes so much pride in education." My mother took a bite of her onion ring. "Hot!" She sipped her root beer. A thin line of foam clung to her upper lip, and after setting down the mug, she wiped her mouth with an orange and black napkin. "Remember that horrible library in Grass Valley? Those irregular hours? You could never tell when they were open or closed. I even kept a schedule in my purse, but they never stuck to it."

  "Well, Gateway has some real advantages, Mom." She was always trying to point them out.

  "Franklin's on the library committee," she said. "Their Northwest collection is even better than Central's."

  "How about that." I took an onion ring.

  "Don't burn your mouth." She had another, nibbling on the batter. "School will be starting soon, and I just wanted you to have a good place to study. Some of our country's best minds have been formed in small libraries—Lincoln, Carnegie, Edison. You don't remember, of course, but when I first took you for your aptitude tests in Waterville, the woman who administered the test kept asking me how old you were. 'Five and a half,' I said. She could hardly believe it. 'Well,' she said, 'he's sharp as a tack. Off the scale. However you do it, make certain you get this boy to college.'" Mom gripped her mug of root beer. "And we will do it. You can study at the library."

  "The high school has a library," I pointed out. "Big one."

  She wrinkled her nose. "Usually the problem students are sent to the library for detention. I remember how these things work. How can you study efficiently when they're giggling, writing silly notes, shooting paper clips and spitwads?"

  "You must have been pretty familiar with detention to know so much about it. I never would have guessed."

  She pretended to be annoyed. "For your information, I worked after school to restack the shelves. Anyway, the school library's not open weekends." She pushed the plastic basket toward me. "Have some more. You're not worried about calories."

  Every Friday, Mom's payday, we walked the six blocks from our house to the A&W Root Beer Stand for root beer and a large basket of onion rings. She loved the frosted mugs that came right out of the deep freeze. As the frost melted, it slid into the root beer, almost the way melting ice slides down a window pane. "So good and so cold," she said. "I love the way my teeth ache."

  What she didn't like were the kids squirreling in and out of the parking lot, gunning their engines and fishtailing in the loose gravel. I imagined these were the ones she thought would wind up in detention, but most likely they were offspring of school board members, prosperous merchants, or rich farmers who received cars for their sixteenth birthdays or high school graduations. As sons and daughters of the community's elite, they held special privileges and were unlikely to wind up in detention. Instead, they were elected Sadie Hawkins, prom king and queen, cheerleaders. I suspected my mother knew as much, but she didn't acknowledge it.

  As for myself, I envied their advantages, but at the same time believed I was better than they were—smarter because I had to rely on my wits, tougher because I lacked their cushion. Even so, I was glad to have Jake now as a kind of safety net. Still, I longed for the ease of their lives. And more than anything, while I knew that a car was as out of reach for my mother as the moon, I admired the fancy ones like the Ford Thunderbirds and Chevrolet Corvettes. Not that I said much, but she saw me looking as they whizzed past.

  "Cars are so terribly expensive," she was likely to say. "Upkeep and insurance. Even that old c
lunker Riley had cost a mint. Besides, walking keeps you in shape."

  One time she stopped walking and studied her legs a moment. "Not bad. And my thighs haven't turned to waffles."

  "It'd be nice to have a car," I said.

  She put her arm around me. "You need to stay in shape for basketball. After college, when you settle down, you'll have plenty of time for a car. Just promise you'll come take me for a ride—very first thing."

  "Sure, Mom, but after college I'll be an old man."

  Now she finished her root beer. "Wonderful. I feel so refreshed. But the onion rings tasted a little like smoke."

  "Since that fire, everything tastes like smoke."

  She smiled. "Except my cooking, I hope." She shook her head. "I feel sorry for those poor men. Some have applied to Sunrise Biscuits for elevator work, but we just don't have any openings. If they were in Minneapolis or Omaha..." She reached in her purse to pay the check. "Do you think they'll rebuild that plant?"

  I shrugged. "Even if they do, things will never be the same. Jake says most likely they'll move it to the reservation. If the Indians build a plant and make plywood from their own timber, they'll get some big tax breaks."

  "After what we've done to the poor Indians, I should certainly hope so. It's been one big disgrace." She shook her head. "Well, I don't understand all I know about it. The papers keep talking about this plan and that buyout, this deal and that offer. All big numbers and gobbledygook. The average person can't tell. However, Franklin does agree with Jake. The Indians will get some tax breaks. But we'll see. The older I get, the less I believe what I read and hear."

  "It's pretty complicated, Mom." From time to time the back room crackled with talk of federal grants for the tribe, wheeling and dealing, political jostling. Speculation leaned to the Indians' controlling their own timber from the logging to finished product. This would require federal assistance, allowing them to build a plant on the reservation, managed by the tribe. Under these circumstances, a lot of townspeople stood to lose their jobs or seniority.