The Sky Fisherman (30 page)

Mom was still talking about the blazer, and I knew it had taken on a kind of exaggerated importance to her, suggesting the new improved life
she planned for us. "Okay, Mom, stop twisting my arm. I'll go with Franklin to buy the blazer or something else. Whatever works. But there's one condition—"

"You absolutely must wear wool slacks," she said. "You're not getting by with jeans or cotton pants. You'd be so ... mismatched."

I winced a little, remembering how my wool dress pants had itched back in the days she took me to church and I spent the minister's sermon time drawing airplanes in combat or studying the Zumwach boys, trying to determine which had the worst soup-bowl haircut. But that wasn't the condition. "I want to use some of my own money."

She stopped, and I first thought she was going to protest, but instead she put her arms around me and gave me a little hug. "What a lovely idea. Jake must be paying you pretty well, after all. I guess you can chip in just a little."

"Fifty-fifty, or else it's no deal." I knew my mother had been working hard. "Get something nice for yourself." I realized I could use Kalim's money and no one would be the wiser. I had half planned on using it to buy a new gun, but that didn't seem quite right, considering he'd been shot.

"I just hope Jake realizes how valuable you are."

"I'm the right-hand man," I said. "The glue. I hold everything together."

"You went awfully quiet back there for a minute," she said after we got home. "What were you thinking about? I hope it wasn't that obnoxious Price boy. You're not upset, are you, honey?"

"No, I'm not upset."

"Well then, a penny for your thoughts." She dug into her purse. "Here's a nickel. You were thinking something profound."

"Not really. I was thinking of the Zumwach boys and their crazy haircuts. Remember how they looked in church?"

Surprised, she laughed. "Whatever brought that up?"

"Your talking about wool pants got me to thinking about church and the gawky kids."

"Those poor boys. I know people do the best they can. And God knows we've been plenty strapped. But I've always managed to get you to the barber. Some people attempt those home haircuts, but I know my limitations. I imagine they put soup bowls on their heads." She clicked her tongue. "I wonder where those boys are now. I wouldn't be buried with haircuts like theirs."

***

But I had told a lie, because I wasn't thinking about the Zumwach boys all that time. As we passed the Alibi, the angle of light had changed and I could see inside the pickup. Jake and Sniffy were the other two occupants, a strange trio, especially the way they just seemed to be waiting outside the tavern, the truck sitting apart from the fringe of rigs driven by the patrons.

Maybe the third man wasn't Jake; his face was partially obscured. Sniffy I recognized for sure. He sat wedged between the other two and his look indicated he wasn't any too pleased. He seemed to have what Jake called a stiff iron supplement, a rod shoved up his ass. The three together struck me as odd because after Sniffy had spilled his guts that night in the store, he returned two days later to tell Jake he had been cockeyed about his suspicions at the mill. Fire and fatigue had worn him down, or so he claimed.

"I'm just sixteen months from retirement, Jake," he had said. "Who wants to see their old age go up in smoke?" He studied Jake, eager for sympathy.

"So I guess you're feeling better now?" Jake asked.

"One hundred percent. It's amazing what a couple nights' sleep can do."

"No bad dreams, huh? My sidekick's been having nightmares about Seaweed and Tyler."

Sniffy looked down at the floor. "Sorry to hear it."

After a minute Jake slapped his back. "Cheer up. I'm just sorry everyone else doesn't feel as good as you do. Lots of those mill fellas are looking at a pretty bleak future."

"They're young. Let's hope it's short term," Sniffy said. He tried to change the subject. "Say, I hope this unemployment doesn't hurt your business too much."

Jake smiled, a little too wide. "I'll do dandy. When times get tough, people buy guns. Fishing tackle drops off, but that's mostly tourist stuff anyway. Worried people buy guns.
Scared
people buy
lots
of guns."

Sniffy surveyed the rifles and pistols on display. "You're not kidding, are you?"

"I've seen it before," Jake said. "Out-of-work men start poaching deer and elk. Around here, they've got pride. No father's going to be standing in grocery lines paying with food stamps where some snot-nosed schoolmate can ask their sons and daughters about the funny money." Jake paused. "Takes a lot of meat to feed four or five growing kids. But you can do it poaching. Raise a few vegetables."

"So folks can get by," Sniffy said.

Jake rubbed his chin. "For a while. But you can't poach school clothes or shoes. Pretty soon the kids get kind of shabby. The wife starts looking haggard. She might get a job, wear a cute little outfit and serve the pushy tourists."

"They're still getting by, aren't they?" Sniffy had a worried look. "That's the main thing."

"Problem is, no one's happy with just getting by. Maybe the dad feels a little less manly, so he starts double-timing with some hard-eyed woman at the Alibi or Stardust. She's laughing at his jokes, not asking for too much money. One night when he staggers home, another woman's perfume clinging to him, the wife shoots him." Jake paused. "But that's not your worry, I guess."

"They might be planning to rebuild the plant, for Christ's sake. You got to look past these bad times," Sniffy said. "People can hang on."

Jake nodded at the paintings. "Kalim's not hanging on. Remember what you said about those fellas and Kalim? Think they came after him?"

Sniffy gripped the seat of his chair like he was about to be ejected from an airplane. "Jake, I'm telling you to back off, damn it. I was making mountains out of molehills. Now I've got things straight." Nodding at the painting, he added, "I was way off base about that Indian boy, too. Sorry."

"What about the notes you been keeping?" Jake asked.

"Just scribbles. They don't add up. For now, I'm holding on to them."

Sniffy seemed so confused and miserable that after a moment Jake stood behind him and rested his hands on Sniffy's shoulders. "I appreciate your coming by—clearing the air." His voice had softened.

Sniffy stood, holding out his right hand. "I've always considered you a friend, Jake." The hand trembled.

After a moment's hesitation, Jake took it. "Remember those Red Cross women and the brandy? You want some nerve juice?"

Sniffy shook his head. "The wife needs her medication. Got to get to the drugstore. If her arthritis gets worse we're moving to Arizona."

Jake walked Sniffy to the door. "Come by and talk, anytime. But listen, fella. Watch your back."

"I'm plenty jittery, Jake." His lip trembled and for a minute I thought Sniffy was going to cry.

We both watched him leave. "He sure changed his tune, didn't he?" I said. "He seems scared as hell."

Jake nodded. "Somebody gave him an attitude adjustment."

"I'll bet. They might have threatened his wife, too."

"Maybe he really was building mountains out of molehills," Jake said. "Who can tell?"

"Isn't there any way to check it out?"

"Not my job," Jake said. "I've got a hunch we're going to sell a lot of guns this fall. But first we've got to get through Labor Day, the last big fishing surge. I think you better get in the back room and start packaging up a mess of worms."

I
RECOGNIZED
this guy's type by the way he slammed the pickup door and headed for the store. A high school athlete starting to fade, a wiseass in a baseball cap, a boozer and brawler—in short, a small-town troublemaker. He had a slight limp that could have been an old injury or too much summer celebration. I'd seen him before somewhere but couldn't name the place. Thrusting his head in the doorway, he ordered, "Get me fifty pounds of ice, buddy. No, better make it a hundred. And hustle it."

"Cube ice or block?" I asked, determined not to hustle for this guy. I pretended to be busy with some steelhead tags.

"In this heat? Block. Cube melts too fast. Any dumb shit knows that." His voice got louder. "Jake around? Lazy bum's off fishing again, I suppose. Some job." He flexed his bicep. "Six years at the plant. Just charge that ice would you, buddy?"

I began going methodically through the credit list. "What's your name?"

"F. T. Meeks," he said. "A steady customer. But right now I'm in a hurry. Say, what do you think I want that ice for anyway?" He raised an eyebrow.

"To keep something cool," I said. No point in being too nice to this guy. I had found his file in the credit ledger with Jake's scrawled "No Credit" across the top. Two checks returned for insufficient funds were stapled to the file.

"To ... keep ... something ... cool." His mouth exaggerated each word. "Now I know why Jake hired you." He tapped his forehead. "Bright. Do you know how to make out a charge slip?"

"I do if you've got credit." Suddenly I realized where I had seen him. He was one of the half-naked drunk men at the fire. Mullins had tied Meeks's feet to his truck's spotlight. I tapped the file. "No credit, it says here."

He leaned over the counter, eyeing the checks. His hands were covered with what looked like dried blood. "That's my old man," he said after sucking in a breath. "Jake's got no credit beef with me."

"Jake's not around," I said. "He expects me to go by the book. If you still want that ice, you've got to pay cash." Jake always said be firm with wiseasses and bullies.

"What the hell?" He backed down sooner than I expected and pulled a five-dollar bill from his wallet. "How many rabbits do you think I've got in the back of my pickup?"

"Half a dozen," I said, "and they're all looking for ice."

"Come and see." He took a couple hitch steps toward the door, then beckoned.

Outside in the glaring heat, I peered into the bed. "Holy shit!" A jumble of dead rabbits were piled three or four deep, and they were beginning to ripen in the heat. Flies landed on their unblinking papery eyes and sucked at the blood clots in the bullet wounds.

I didn't want to get too close. "You're not planning to eat them, are you? Make you sick as hell."

He grinned—goofy and wicked at the same time. "This dumb bastard from the city—used to be a buddy of mine. We met at a North-South Shrine game. He called last week to see what was going on since the mill closed. I told him I shot forty-six rabbits. Son of a bitch called me a liar, so this weekend I shot eighty-two. Cruised those alfalfa fields all night with a spotlight and pow, pow, pow." He pretended to sight along his arm.

"The fun thing is he's gone all weekend. When he gets back late Sunday night, these rabbits will be partying on his lawn. That'll teach the rat fuck."

"He'll listen next time, all right," I said. "A hundred pounds, right?" My nose tingled and I moved toward the icehouse. "Why don't you help me load the blocks?" I didn't want to go near those rabbits. "You got a mess of them."

He held up a bloodstained thumb.

"Listen. I'll drag the blocks out. You load them." I planned to keep my distance.

"Teamwork," he said.

Inside, the icehouse was shocking cold compared with the withering heat. Using the ice tongs, I dragged two fifty-pound blocks of ice toward the door, then brushed away the flecks of sawdust insulation with a cotton glove. Grabbing the pick, I asked, "How do you want it? Ten-pound chunks?"

"Close enough."

Scooping up the first block I set out, he tucked it beneath his arm and zigzagged toward the truck, stiff-arming an imaginary opponent. At the goal, he spiked the ice into the truck with a sickening
whack
as it rebounded off rabbits. "Two-minute drill," he called, hurrying back to repeat the process.

"Better slow down in this heat," I said.

"You never saw me play, huh? Fred 'the Freight Train' Meeks. Scored eleven touchdowns my senior year." Beads of sweat popped out of his forehead, a combination of beer and heat. "Full-ride scholarship to Western. Really rolling until I got blindsided at Wyoming. That cowboy got a fifteen-yard penalty and I got a blown knee." He picked up another block and scooted toward the truck.

The last chunk was small, maybe five pounds, and he cocked it behind his ear like a passing quarterback, then threw, a wobbling missile that seemed about to crack the side window. "Shit," he cried as the ice hit the pickup spotlight, bounced off, then skittered across the asphalt, tiny pieces breaking from the mam chunk. "Shit. Fuck. Never could pass. Look at that!"

I thought he meant the crooked spotlight in the pickup, but the sharp ice had cut his fingers. Drops of blood fell to the pavement.

"We've got some Band-Aids inside," I said. "Maybe you should come in and wash up."

He held up his hand. The blood was still coming. "Guess I better. No one's going to run off with those rabbits."

At the back-room sink, he pressed wet paper towels against the cut until it stopped bleeding.

"What a pisser." He gritted his teeth as I applied Merthiolate to the cut. "But Mercurochrome hurts worse."

"It might need a stitch," I said, applying a Band-Aid, "or one of those butterfly things. Pretty damn deep."

"I've had worse," he said. "But thanks." He stuffed some paper towels in his pocket and wiped his forehead with another. As he started to leave, he glanced up and saw Kalim's basketball painting. "Shit!" He stared at the painting.

"Did you know each other in school?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I'm older, but when that kid was hot, he could shoot the lights out. Fucking picture looks just like him."

"His aunt painted it," I said. "She's an old friend of Jake's."

"She caught him cold," he said. "I fucking can't believe it."

"Kind of gives me the spooks," I said. "My uncle and I found him. By then, you couldn't tell who he was."

He squinted at me, but didn't say anything for a moment. "You get around. Saw your picture in the paper a while back. Big hero at the fire. Hell, you've been all over this summer, haven't you?"