Hunter's Moon (13 page)

CJ didn’t know how palatable that was, and suspected that being dragged through a court proceeding—even one that would cost him a great deal—might be preferable. For now, though, he tried to put such thoughts out of his head, happy to be amid the jumble of people who occupied his immediate circle.

“CJ, how about some darts?” someone called over the music. Without looking to see who it was, CJ slid from his seat and ambled over to the dart board, where a jolly-looking bearded fellow stood. The man extended three darts toward CJ.

“Thank you, Santa,” CJ said as he took them, which brought a hearty round of laughter from everyone within earshot. CJ stepped up to the line, took a moment to steady the hand holding the dart, and let fly with a double twenty.

“I’m done,” he said, turning as if he was about to hand the darts back to his opponent. In short order, though, he followed his first shot with two more, his next sinking the final twenty he needed, which raised expectations for his third attempt—which only made it more disappointing when the dart struck the board, clung there briefly before it tumbled to the floor amid a collective groan from the bystanders.

Santa laughed, gave CJ a clap on the shoulder that nearly put it out of its socket, and proceeded to close out the twenty, nineteen, and eighteen in three throws.

“I’m about to get my backside handed to me, aren’t I?” CJ asked as the bearded man returned to his barstool.

“You know it, writer man,” his opponent said.

The game was over soon afterward, and despite the sound thumping, CJ smiled more in those few minutes than he had in a long while. Magnanimous in defeat, CJ bought a drink for his conqueror and set off for the nearest unoccupied stool.

As luck would have it, he found one next to an attractive young woman. He claimed the seat, offered her as charming a smile as he was able. Then, just as he was about to strike up a conversation with her, he caught sight of someone stepping through the door.

“Hello, Pop,” CJ said, once George had made it across the room.

George gave him a once-over and shook his head. But the sight of his son in such a state didn’t stop him from raising a hand to Rick.

“The usual, George?”

“Thanks, Rick,” George answered, and he didn’t talk again until Rick slid a bourbon across the counter. George dropped a ten, picked up the drink, and turned to his son. “You should go back to your hotel.”

“I’m having far too good a time to do that,” CJ said, but a worried frown instantly replaced his grin. He was trying to remember when he’d last let Thor out. Recalling that it had been during the transit from the VFW to here, he felt a little better. “You aren’t worried I’m going to steal all your friends, are you, Pop?”

He laughed then—and the laughter grew as he saw the effect it had on his father. He remembered how George used to hate it when CJ called him
Pop
. George didn’t say anything while his son composed himself. Instead he sipped his bourbon and took in the whole of the room.

When the laughter finally faded, CJ decided to offer his father an olive branch of sorts. But just as he was about to speak, his phone rang. In truth, it might have been ringing for a while, but with the laughter, as well as the ambient noise of the place, he hadn’t heard it. He checked the number, and after an apologetic shrug toward his father, he got up and headed for the door, putting the phone to his ear.

“I can barely hear you,” he shouted into the phone. “I’m in . . . What? Wait a minute, okay?”

The air on the sidewalk had a bite to it yet it felt good. CJ hadn’t realized how hot it was inside the bar.

“Hi, Janet,” he said, a little too loudly.

“CJ, where are you?”

He paused and looked around, taking in his surroundings as if seeing them for the first time. “I’m standing on a sidewalk outside of a very loud bar. It’s cold, and it smells funny.” CJ realized the odd smell could have been him, but he decided to let that go.

Even in silence, Janet could communicate exasperation, and CJ found himself swaying a bit as he awaited her response.

“Where are you, really?” she asked. “You haven’t been back to your apartment in days.”

“Are you staking the place out?”

“I called the police, CJ.”

That was unexpected. It served to sharpen his senses—a little.

“For what? Breaking into my own house?”

The door to Ronny’s opened to deposit someone who appeared to be in worse shape than CJ, and the music that poured out into the street washed away Janet’s words. CJ stuck a finger in his unoccupied ear and moved farther down the sidewalk.

“I didn’t hear that,” he said.

“I froze the bank account. The only money you have now is in your wallet.”

Janet released a heavy sigh through the phone. CJ could imagine her running her fingers through the hair that would have spilled down in front of her eye.

The thought elicited a pang from somewhere deep in his chest. But instead of telling her that he still loved her, which might have been true, he said, “My grandfather died.”

That brought a lingering silence from Janet’s side—enough so that CJ wondered if the connection had been lost. After a time, though, she said, “I’m sorry, CJ.”

“So am I,” he answered, intending the words to cover a good deal more than Sal’s death.

“So that means you’re in New York.”

“I have to go. Goodbye, Janet.”

After he ended the call, it seemed much colder outside than it had felt just a few minutes earlier, but he didn’t have any desire to go back inside Ronny’s, if for no other reason than he didn’t feel up to talking with his father anymore. His hotel was only five or six blocks away, which was good because he was in no shape to drive. Leaving the Honda where it was, he zipped up his jacket and started for the hotel.

It had, in fact, been twelve blocks to the hotel, and more than once CJ had wondered if he’d missed it. By the time he stumbled through the door, he’d been unprepared for his dog’s anxious greeting. He’d kept it together long enough to let the dog tend to its outdoor business, and afterward he filled his food and water bowls and collapsed onto the bed. Once, half awakening in the night, he found Thor stretched out next to him, which was something he would never have gotten away with back in Tennessee. Janet would have been horrified. CJ had drifted back to sleep wearing a smile.

The next morning it was still cold outside as CJ walked back into town to claim his car. He’d dressed warmly and fortified himself with a cup of very hot, very bitter coffee from the hotel lobby. Despite unfamiliar smells and sounds pulling Thoreau’s attention in twenty different directions, the dog stayed with him. Occasionally he would see something tempting, like a group of children on the other side of the street, and he would look up at CJ and whimper, but he’d been trained well and remained fixed to his master’s side.

Only an hour had passed since CJ awoke, not much time to consider his options, but he had the benefit of having several choices stripped away before any serious debate could begin. If he ignored his semi-promise to Matt to write the article, he could leave for Tennessee today and thereby step into a great deal of unpleasantness as soon as he crossed into Williamson County. Awaiting him was a lawsuit, a soon-to-be ex-wife who had decided to play hardball, and perhaps even a warrant for his arrest, provided Janet hadn’t been bluffing about calling the police. And he knew Janet well enough to know that she seldom bluffed.

This left CJ with a truncated list of choices, especially if Janet had indeed been able to cut off his access to his own money. He marveled at that, since he’d been the one to open all of the accounts. He needed to call his lawyer and find out exactly what he was doing with all the money CJ paid him. He had maybe forty dollars in his wallet. He shook his head. He was in an unenviable position, especially if things with Janet and the book critic dragged on.

Not to mention that Matt would lament CJ’s inability to promote
The Buffalo Hunter
. His travels were documented on both his publisher’s and his personal website, and extraditions were too routine for his liking. He could do a reading in San Francisco on a Thursday and find himself in a Nashville jail on Saturday. But what if he chose not to support the book? He was established enough in the industry that it might sell well without his having to lift a finger. Of course, with the poor reviews the book had received, together with his wild behavior at his last reading, he’d be lucky if all remaining copies of
The Buffalo Hunter
weren’t relegated to bargain bins at every bookstore in the country—or worse, remaindered.

After serious contemplation, he’d come to an important decision and, fortunately, it was something he was good at. He’d decided to do nothing. And that essentially meant staying put—an exile to Adelia. The thought caused a shiver to run up his spine. Adelia was a place he’d avoided returning to for seventeen years. And when he made the decision to come for the funeral, it was to have been a quick in and out. The less time spent with the family, the better. And now here he was, effectively stuck.

One of the benefits, of course, was that he had a support mechanism of sorts. If worse came to worst, he could always stay with his mother. He tried to keep the shivers from recurring at that thought by reminding himself another alternative was to stay at the house on Lyndale, yet he’d do everything he could to avoid this option.

In truth, if anything had surprised him so far about this visit, it was that it hadn’t been nearly as bad as he’d imagined it would be. And he supposed that was because, having been separated from this place for so many years, those aspects that made him feel a particular way had become larger than they actually were. He now saw things as smaller, as less consequential. As if to punctuate the point, Thor stopped and began to sniff at something on the sidewalk that was invisible to CJ’s eye. He gave the dog a few seconds to satisfy his curiosity before urging him on.

As a teenager, he used to ride his bike to work, later driving the Mustang, from the family home on Beverly, parking the car behind Kaddy’s Hardware. Now he had a Honda, which seemed odd considering that he was worth a good deal more than he had been twenty years ago. What hadn’t changed, at least to his eye, was Kaddy’s. As he crossed Fifth he stopped and surveyed the store. Fronting the place was the same sign, with the word
Kaddy’s
painted on it in some odd font, and the same worn redbrick facade. CJ thought he even recognized the same graffiti at the corner, where one would have turned off of Main to follow Fifth.

As he was about to walk into Kaddy’s, he spotted something familiar in the distance, a straight shot down the sidewalk toward the town center. It took a few moments for his mind to find the appropriate image from his past—a sign announcing the upcoming Fall Festival. He shook his head, nursing a form of mild nostalgia, then stepped into his former place of employ.

“Are they putting up the Fall Festival signs earlier than they used to?” CJ asked, spotting Artie behind the counter.

Artie looked up from his book, and his expression moved to surprise and then to pleasure at seeing CJ.

“Nope. Same time every year. It probably all just runs together when you’re younger.” The older man came out from behind the counter and extended a hand to CJ. “It’s good to see you again, CJ.”

“You too, Mr. Kadziolka,” CJ said.

“Oh, I think you’re old enough to call me Artie.”

For some reason that amused CJ, but he withheld a chuckle. He let his eyes roam over the store, letting the years here come back to him. Without exception they were all happy memories, and that was including the labor involved in stacking countless bags of fertilizer in the summer heat.

“This place hasn’t changed a bit,” he said, belatedly realizing that his ex-boss might take that as an insult.

But Artie seldom took anything as an insult, and he had to accede that point to CJ. He probably hadn’t so much as moved a display since CJ left. It was quite possible that the only differences in the store not driven by the manufacturers of the merchandise that was sold were the newer cash register, and the strange-looking straw man staring back at CJ.

Gesturing to the scarecrow, he said, “Now there’s something you don’t see every day.”

“No,” Artie laughed, turning to look at Cadbury, his trusted confidant. “No, I suppose it isn’t.”

Artie had left his book facedown on the counter, and he saw CJ’s eyes track to it and a hint of a smile touch his lips.

“The only reason that’s weird,” CJ said, pointing to the book, “is because I used to stock shelves for you.”

“It’s only a little weird,” Artie said. “I remember you writing short stories on your breaks.”

“That’s right, I did.” Then, after a few moments in which neither he nor Artie said anything, CJ asked, “So what do you think? About the book, I mean.”

Artie didn’t answer right away. He looked first at the book, then at CJ, and when he finally did speak, his words were absent of anything but respect.

“It’s very good,” he said. “But it’s different.” In what appeared to be an unconscious reflex, he looked at the scarecrow, and whatever might have passed between them remained their own.