Hunter's Moon by Chuck Logan (english novels to read .TXT) 📕

Harry stepped up to Jesse.

She came forward ever so slightly, rising on her toes, as if he were going to ask her to dance, and Harry felt the strange premonition that their breath was linked.

Face to face with her, his voice shook. “I want to express my deepest sympathy for your great loss.” He extended his right hand.

Jesse, captive to ceremony, adjusted the flowers and cautiously reached to take the handshake.

He was not prepared for the moist rush of hope that crowded the wary realism and grief in her eyes. He almost balked. Then she smelled the whiskey on his breath and her outstretched hand arched, fingers pulled back, tendons prominent. Swiftly, Harry brought his left hand from his pocket and placed the papers in her hand.

She read them in a glance and a bitter smile yanked the strings of her face—the joke’s on me—and her eyes were struck with so much sadness that Harry felt a surge of emotion to hit her or hold her.

What have I done?

Jesse regained her poise in a rush of tears. She struck him across the face with the papers. “You!” she sobbed, swinging again. She hurled the flowers at him. They sailed past his shoulder. Harry looked back. The bouquet hit Emery in the face.

“Larry! Jay! Mike!” she demanded. “Do something!”

Cox let go of the coffin and leaped at Harry. Emery, tiger quick, threw an arm to restrain him. He stopped Cox. He also lost his hold on the coffin handle.

“Shit,” yelled Hakala as the weight of the coffin twisted in his grip.

The other three men bringing up the rear swayed as the long box tipped. A woman screamed and the coffin dropped with a dull thunk on the cold ground. A gasp issued

176 / CHUCK LOGAN

from the crowd of mourners and became a muffled growl when the latch popped and Chris Deucette’s cadaver flopped stiffly into the muddy snow and rolled over.

Karson darted forward, grabbed Harry by the arm, and walked him swiftly away. Harry was aware of Emery manhandling Cox.

Hissed words. The other pallbearers struggled with their unbalanced load, the body out on the ground, the clothing ripping in their hands as they tried to shove it back in.

Jesse shouted, berated, “Somebody make him pay. Aren’t there any men around here?”

No one moved. Emery held them in place, hands raised. Harry examined the fear in Karson’s expression, felt the minister’s hand tremble on his arm. “Who you scared of Karson?” he asked. “Which one?”

Jesse surged forward. Karson let go to ward her off. He comforted her in his arms. “Jesse, Jesse,” he soothed.

“Jesus Christ!” she sobbed. “Somebody pick him up and put him back in the damn box!” Emery knelt and gently did her bidding.

Harry walked swiftly back toward the road. Becky darted in front of him with her head cocked and a crooked smile. The Hakala boy hovered, hands out defensively, eyes warily watching the crowd.

Not Harry.

“You’re the only one with the guts to stand up to them,” said Becky. She turned suddenly and sprinted with the boy for the Wrangler. They jumped in and sped away.

Before Harry could figure out Becky’s odd behavior, Emery over-took him. Sober this morning, he moved with relentless grace. Absolute calm.

This is where I get arrested.

But Emery just looked at him. Harry, his heart pounding, stared back at the visage of beaten bronze, into the man’s deadly, patient, hunter’s eyes.

“You,” said Harry. Not Cox, not Jesse, but you.

“Get the hell outta here,” ordered Emery with the authority of Old Testament wrath.

HUNTER’S MOON / 177

30

They’d come after him now. Good. Get it out in the open.

He felt hollow. Famished.

He drove back into town, wheeled into the IGA parking lot, and went in among bright aisles and waxed floors and grabbed on impulse and dropped $200 on a grocery-shopping binge. He laughed at the headlines at the checkout: GHOST OF ELVIS FATHERED MY

TWO-HEADED SON.

Standing in the parking lot, he saw the dirge of headlights wind down the ridge and a clean thrill of fear squeegeed his stomach.

Let ’em come.

Turning up Highway 7, he passed the end of the cortege. Eyes straight ahead, he stepped on the gas.

When the bottom falls out: cook. The kitchen was the strong cradle of his childhood. He was, in fact, a better cook than Linda Margoles. He hauled the food inside. Started a fire. First you had to clean up. He scoured the stainless steel sink and washed down the butcher-block counter and bleached it with white vinegar.

Grandma had used vinegar for everything. Bowls throughout the house to capture odors.

Apple cider vinegar in the summer, mixed in ice water, dippers of it sweating on a hay wagon. Swizzle, they called it.

He turned on the radio and scanned the dial past polkas and country until he found some bluesy, ’60s ballads. The station drifted in and out.

He found a sharpening steel and honed a long kitchen knife and slapped down a slab of lean sirloin on the clean countertop. Casting aside the butcher paper, he saw his fingerprints smeared in red whorls against the white crackle. He mashed the paper in a ball and hurled it into the trash.

He cut the steak in narrow strips, marinated it in vinegar, Worcestershire, red cooking wine, and Tabasco. Doused it with pepper and paprika, then set it aside in the fridge. Exhaled, lit a cigarette. Laid out vegetables.

178 / CHUCK LOGAN

Jesse. Real suffering on her face.

But Emery was cool. So cool.

They all feared Emery.

Me, too.

He drove the heel of his hand down and splintered a head of garlic. Then he mashed each individual clove and peeled away the husk. The sticky power of the herb smudged his fingers.

Maybe he was a fuckup, but so were they. They were hiding something. Something about Chris. About themselves. Becky, hanging on the edge of the ceremony. Find her. Talk to her.

You’re the only one with the guts to stand up to them.

Papercuts of fear.