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

imagined Becky, out there tiptoeing in the woods, watching him.

A wild grind of engines slipped through an eddy of breeze. Faint yells. Snowmobiles threw spindles of light at the far end of the lake.

Jackpine savages drinking beer in the cold at Chris’s Iron Range wake.

Back inside, he had the operator connect him with the St. Helen’s CD ward. A nurse informed him that patients could only receive calls between noon and one P.M. He left Bud a cryptic message. Had the nurse read it back.

“Papers served. The serfs are restless. Things are heating up.”

They could come back with scoped deer guns. More serious the second time. He pushed fat bullets into the lever-action rifle. No more birdshot.

As he brewed a pot of coffee, the FM tuner jumped loud and clear and a ghost signal danced in on the ions from Reserve, Wisconsin.

The fireplace shadows shook with a

HUNTER’S MOON / 185

spooky treble of high keening voices and the tachycardia of Ojibway drums.

Harry built up the fire, selected a thick Civil War history from the bookshelf, and lined up his arsenal by his chair. With the tom-toms for company, he settled in to wait.

31

The next morning it was like a basement out. Tree trunks jutted, holding up a cotton ceiling of fog. The damp air reeked of chemicals and charcoal ruin and a black sugar of soot lay on the snow. Harry was in the driveway, sighting in the heavy .45-70 rifle when Don Karson drove up in a Kermit-green Subaru station wagon.

So they sent the preacher. Soft approach. Harry arched his back to ease the crook in his neck from sleeping in the chair.

Karson, the serious intercessor doing God’s work on this shitty overcast day, picked his way through the Battle of the Snowmobiles in a tweed sports coat with leather elbow patches and a tightly knotted red wool tie.

Harry adjusted the rear notched rifle sight with the blade of his Buck knife. “Shoots little to the left,” he said by way of greeting.

“Last thing you should be doing today is playing with guns,” said Karson in a level voice.

“Who’s playing?” Harry snapped the heavy rifle to his shoulder and fired offhand at the target he’d tacked to the side of a stump 80

yards away. He worked the lever, snapped it up, fired again, and repeated the process. The echo of the shots elongated and slapped back against the ridge. Then he yanked the lever, threw the bolt open, and slung the rifle over his shoulder.

“What?” he asked blankly to Karson’s face.

“I thought we could talk.”

Harry pointed to the ebony junk that had been his car. “The Friends of Jesse visited me last night. Anybody in your 186 / CHUCK LOGAN

congregation like to throw Molotov cocktails from speeding snowmobiles?”

“You pissed off some people yesterday. Probably the VFW crowd had a little too much to drink.”

“Probably Jay Cox,” said Harry.

“You call Emery?”

“Jerry Hakala was out with the fire department.” Harry turned and walked down to the stump. Karson followed. Harry knelt and inspected his last three shots. Two of them were low, an inch off the two-inch bull’s-eye he’d drawn in black Magic Marker. The third was dead center.

“Trouble with me,” said Harry, “is I’m real good, but erratic. Always envied people who were steady. You strike me as a steady sort of man, padre.”

“Someone should teach you respect for the dead, Griffin.” Karson drew himself up and Lutheran steel glinted in his blue eyes.

“Lot of shoulds. Let’s just say I don’t confuse the living with the dead.”

“That was sacrilegious, what you did yesterday.”

“I guess that depends on your religion.”

Karson studied him. “And what kind of religion raised you?”

“Born again buddhism, small b,” said Harry.

“I take it you don’t believe Jesus Christ died for your sins.”

“A lot of Vietnamese died for my sins, padre, yours, too.”

“You desecrated that boy.”

“Whoa…I respect the process of dying,” said Harry, “when it happens, but I don’t confuse that with burying the gum wrapper in a hole in the ground. I think the Tibetans are more honest and practical. After they have their ceremony they take the body to the edge of town and toss it out for the animals to eat. Sometimes the young monks cut off the choice portions of meat for the critters prowling around.” Harry looked Karson directly in the eye. “They sit among the bodies and meditate on the impermanence of life.”

Karson made a face. “I keep seeing that woman, losing her son, getting divorce papers slapped in her hand at his funeral, HUNTER’S MOON / 187

and then having the body roll out of the coffin…the suit slipped around when they put him back in and there were these big staples holding his chest…”

“Get off it, Karson. She didn’t lose her son like you lose a pair of socks. He tried to kill somebody.” Harry tapped Karson on the chest right in the middle of his red tie. “And Jesse Deucette would steal a hot stove.”

He motioned for Karson to follow him into the lodge. They walked across shards of glass, through soggy embers, and up the jury-rigged steps Harry had hammered together to get up onto the mud porch.

Harry brought two cups of coffee to the table in the den and shoved the shotgun, the .45, and a cleaning kit aside to make room.

“You expecting a war?” asked Karson.

“I’m not going to be run off, you can tell them that.”

“Don’t you think there’s been enough macho bullshit?” Karson sat down and loosened his tie. He reached in his coat pocket and took out a pack of Winstons. They lit up.

Harry sighed and looked around. “Bud must have had some wedding. Chris with a needle stuck in his arm, Becky with her tits popping out.”

“The kids didn’t attend.”

“Anybody interview them before the fact? You know, discuss the seriousness of the marriage vows with them? Didn’t it register that Bud has been falling-down drunk?”

“Hard to tell with Bud. He has…excellent social skills. Everybody up here drinks to some extent.” The