Hunter's Moon, Chuck Logan [i am reading a book TXT] 📗

and he’d suspected that she’d like to lock him into her briefcase with the other contracts and fine print. Now she resented their breakup. “How’s it going?” he asked.

“Let’s see. I haven’t cut myself and I’m not having my period, so why am I attracting a shark?”

“I need some information.”

“Sure.” Clipped, precise, like the severe makeup she had started wearing.

“Bring me up to speed on divorce law. Like if someone has a lot of bread and he gets married and suddenly he changes his mind.

How much of a bite is he looking at in court?”

“Short-term marriage doesn’t generate a lot of marital property.

Only the income after the marriage counts.”

“Hmmm…”

“Does this fatcat have a will?”

“Must.”

“Something to think about. He drops over dead intestate and no divorce has been finalized, in the absence of other heirs, the surviving spouse could elect against the whole estate. Somebody we know getting divorced?”

“Bud Maston got married.”

“No shit. Keep me posted.”

“Thanks, Linda.”

Later that evening, after a solitary supper, Harry pulled his 10 / CHUCK LOGAN

cold-weather gear from the back of the closet and stuffed it in his duffel bag. He hefted the rifle case to get a sense of its weight and set it beside the bag.

Then he took a cup of tea to his drawing table where he kept a mirror on the wall as a drawing aid to study expressions. Next to the mirror hung a caricature in which he’d captured himself in fast, nervy line—lean, intense, hooked—plodding with a gorilla on his back who gleefully puffed a cigarette.

Harry lit up, blew smoke at the nagging sketch, and turned his eyes to the framed photograph on the other side of the mirror. As Lyndon Johnson’s young dummy, he stood in sweat-bleached tiger stripes and a parachute harness, arm in arm with Randall. Dorothy, then a correspondent, had taken the picture on a funky red dirt landing strip outside of Quang Tri City.

In the photo Detroit Harry bared his crooked front teeth in a fierce grin. Minnesota Harry at forty-two, his muscles still flat as interlock-ing slats, sent back an orthodontically corrected smile.

He consulted the mirror and wagered with his reflection that he could handle whatever Bud sent his way. His hazel eyes had mellowed—had left tough and were hitchhiking toward wise—but they could still sting with the disciplined snap of sweat hitting a varnished gym floor. His mobile features worked through a repertoire of expressions. Concerned. Quizzical. Stern.

He preferred it quiet but Bud, drinking, would throw slippery grounders.

So he whistled a few bars of “Sukiyaki,” some hardball that evoked the beer halls of Fort Benning. Then he turned off the lights and went to bed.

Right after he closed his eyes the first snowflakes began to fall.

HUNTER’S MOON / 11

4

The radio announcer crooned his signature chestnut about the early onset of “Macho Winter.” The weak, he promised, would be quickly sorted out. Then his voice turned serious:

“A winter storm warning is in effect for northern Minnesota. Two feet of snow and winds of seventy miles per hour are expected by ten P.M. tonight north of a line from Fargo to Duluth. On the Canadian prairie, the storm has been upgraded to a blizzard…”

Harry glanced at Bud. “Maybe we should pull over.”

Bud stared straight ahead and mumbled, “It’s a gift for our reunion.”

“…and wind chills of twenty below are reported in the Arrowhead.

The Minnesota Highway Patrol has issued a warning to motorists to avoid travel in the storm area. This is a life-threatening weather condition, folks, so shake out those winter driving skills and be careful out there.”

Bud Maston turned off the radio and put both hands on the wheel.

Mum, elbows locked, he leaned into the storm. The snow started as spitballs and escalated into a Minnesota war whoop; now it looked like a million .50 calibers were blasting fat, white tracers at the windshield.

Bud carried Chrysler’s biggest engine in a souped-up Cherokee Sport, a deep diamondback tread on his tires and four-wheel drive, and he’d crammed what looked like the entire inventory of a United Store into the cargo hatch. He had coffee, sandwiches, donuts, and a supply of candy bars that he had been eating methodically since they’d headed north out of St. Paul.

He had everything except an explanation.

When Harry used to talk the AA party line, they called it Twelfth Step work; sticking your nose into a brother drunk’s derailed life.

With a guy like Bud, who was a success at everything except living, you had to play it very tough and forget the love. Then there was the turnabout personal angle; ten years ago, Bud had been Harry’s AA sponsor.

12 / CHUCK LOGAN

He’d shown up at Harry’s apartment with a heavy shopping bag and a heavier hangover. “See if these fit,” he’d said with lowered eyes.

Now Harry smelled like a new car. Bud had outfitted him in enough layers of polypro, pile, and Gore-Tex to climb K2. The generosity had erected a barrier. Harry wiggled his toes in his new Gore-Tex boots and resolved to wait until Bud came to him and an awkward silence stretched into hours as they churned north on Interstate 35 East.

Abandoned cars began to litter the snowdrifted highway and emergency vehicles and tow trucks gathered in covens of blue flashing lights. The infrequent low beams of southbound travelers winked bravely as they crept past. By the time they reached the outskirts of Duluth, the road had disappeared as they blindly followed a pair of red taillights across the hilly tundra.

Duluth bustled with siege energy. Busy yellow snowplows worked the downtown cobbled streets and heaped up an igloo village of snow banks. North of town, they pulled into a truck stop to gas up.

Semitrailers, waiting out the storm, crowded the apron.

“Where you headed?” asked the station attendant when he stamped Bud’s plastic.

“Stanley,” said Bud.

“I’d wait,” said the guy, staring. “They pulled the plows off North 61. Be dark in another hour.”

Bud shook his head. “People expecting us.” Their eyes drifted to the TV mounted on a wall