Authors: Richard Ford
But just at that moment, before I could bring up my nerve to speak to the Americans, Arthur came into the bar through the lobby door, and the two Americans seemed instantly to know who he was—as if they had a picture of him in their heads, and he looked exactly like they knew he would.
The red-cheeked, round-faced toupee man—the former policeman—immediately said something to the younger Crosley, and nodded and looked at Remlinger, who was talking noisily to a table full of Sports. Crosley turned and looked and seemed suddenly very serious. He nodded and turned back and put his hands around his beer bottle, and said something brief. Then the two of them sat facing each other in the coarse bar light, under the clashing-moose painting, and didn’t speak.
Remlinger had on the brown felt fedora he often wore, and one of his expensive Boston tweed suits that made him look strange in the bar. His reading glasses were hung around his neck. He was wearing a bright red tie, and his tweed trousers were pushed down in the tops of his leather boots. I didn’t know this at the time, but later I understood he was dressed like an English duke or a baron who’d been out walking his estate and come in for a whiskey. It was the kind of disguise to prevent the people he’d been expecting for fifteen years from recognizing him—even though he hadn’t changed his name, and anyone could know him who wanted to. Possibly he wasn’t even hiding, only distracting himself while he waited for this day to come.
Crosley watched Remlinger as he worked his way through the bar. Jepps didn’t turn to see, only sat and stared across at Crosley, as if he’d begun calculating something. As if he’d become a policeman again—friendly at first, then unfriendly. I wondered if they were carrying their pistols, since Charley said they owned them.
Remlinger saw me by the jukebox. “Well. There’s Mr. Dell now,” he said, and smiled and waved a hand indifferently. In a moment, he would come to the two Americans’ table. I wanted to be there to observe that. I wanted to know what would happen when the three of them met, with Arthur Remlinger knowing exactly who they were, but they not knowing he knew, and the Americans needing to decide if he was a murderer. Anybody would’ve wanted to see that. It possessed the possibility for danger—if they all three had their pistols and had decided this could go no further.
I saw Remlinger’s eye fall on the two men and stay on them a moment, after which he went back talking to the table of Sports from Toronto. One of these men put his hand beside his mouth to say something, as if he was telling a secret. Remlinger looked at me quickly, then leaned toward the man, who whispered something more that made them both laugh. Remlinger looked at me a third time as if they were discussing me—which I didn’t think they were. Then Remlinger turned toward the two Americans and moved in their direction.
The nervous one, Crosley, got immediately up on his feet, wiped a hand against his trouser side, smiled broadly, and extended that hand toward Remlinger, as if he was relieved for this moment to finally take place. I heard Arthur say his own name as he shook hands. I heard “Crosley” spoken. The older man, Jepps, got up and shook hands with Arthur and said his name and something else that caused them both to laugh. I heard Jepps say “British Columbia,” and “Michigan.” Then Arthur said “Michigan,” and they all laughed. Arthur was like an actor playing the part of the last person you’d suspect to detonate dynamite and be a murderer. In most ways I don’t believe things like this are true, but his entire life in Canada must’ve been a rehearsal for this moment. If he was successful—as he thought he should be, since he believed he’d suffered enough—then all would be fine and life would go on. If he wasn’t, and he was identified as a murderer and had to face even the thought of going back to Michigan, then no one knew what would happen, but we would find out.
I couldn’t hear what else the three of them said. The two Americans sat down. Arthur pulled a chair to their table and sawed at his trouser legs and sat straddling the chair in an unnatural way but did not take his hat off. I was sleepy from being up most of the day, and from feeling apprehensive about the Americans. But I stayed where I stood. Remlinger sat and talked animatedly to the two of them for fifteen minutes. He ordered them beers, which they didn’t drink. He looked toward and past me several times as he talked. The Americans smiled a lot about whatever they were saying. At some point Remlinger—in a manner that wasn’t like him—said, while laughing, “Oh, yes, yes, yes. Yeeees! You’re right there.” They all three nodded. Then Remlinger sat up straight and extended his arm and seemed to stretch his back and said, “We’ll get this all set for you men tomorrow.” Which I believed referred to goose shooting and nothing to do with recognizing him as a murderer. I felt the Americans may have individually arrived at the conclusion that he was not the man they were seeking. Or, if he was, that he’d become so unrecognizable he should be left out on the empty prairie at peace. (I’ve already said I was experiencing great confusion about what was happening, having had no experience like this in my life. I should not be faulted for not understanding what I saw.)
THESE LAST THOUGHTS
comforted me when I climbed the stairs to my room under the eaves and locked the door and got in my cold bed with the red Leonard sign tinting the air. My shack in Partreau had had no locks, and I was happy to have them, with people roaming the halls at night. I thought everything would be fine now. Arthur had seemed relieved to meet the two Americans. He’d been hospitable, as if the Americans were not who they were, but were the goose hunters they pretended to be, and would leave for British Columbia once they’d had their morning of shooting Charley and I would provide. I understood why Charley had said Remlinger was “deceptive.” He’d deceived the Americans by not acknowledging who they were. But I’d already concluded being deceptive was necessary in the world. Even if everybody didn’t commit crimes, everybody committed deceptions. I’d been deceptive when I failed to alert the Americans I knew who they were. I’d hidden the money from the police. I’d committed a deception about my identity from the moment I crossed the border and sat in Mildred’s car and said nothing. The person I was now was not the person I would’ve been in Great Falls—even though my name was the same. It was unclear if I would ever be that previous boy again, but would just go on deceiving all my life, since I felt I would soon go to Winnipeg and start a whole different and better life there, with everything including the truth left behind.
As I drifted to sleep, I tried to picture a young, tall, blond, awkward Arthur Remlinger putting a bomb in a garbage can, in some place I imagined to look like Detroit. But I couldn’t make the thought stay in my mind, which was my way of detecting if something was important. (I couldn’t imagine, for instance, what a bomb looked like.) I tried to think of a conversation between the Americans and myself. I pictured us walking down the main street of Fort Royal, not in the cold, batting wind of October, but on a sunny, blue-sky day in late August—the way it was when I arrived. Jepps had his large hand on my shoulder. They both wanted to know was I related to Arthur Remlinger; was I an American; why was I all the way in Canada, and not in school where I belonged; where were my parents; what was this Remlinger about; was he married; did I know his background; did he own a pistol.
In my last wakeful minutes, I didn’t think I knew the answers to these questions—except for the pistol—and didn’t worry about them. And, as often happened to me, I was asleep but didn’t believe I was asleep for quite a while. Though late at night I suddenly “woke up” and heard cows in the abattoir pen, groaning and waiting for morning, and a truck growling and downshifting at the traffic light in front of the hotel. All things seemed as they should be. I went back to sleep for the few hours I still had.
T
HE NEXT DAY, FRIDAY, THE FOURTEENTH OF OCTOBER
, will never seem like anything but the most extra-ordinary day of my life—for the reason of how it ended. Much of it, however, happened the way other days happened in that period of time. All morning, I thought about the Americans out in the Overflow House, and later of them being in Fort Royal, wandering through the cold day during which it snowed, then rained, then snowed again. The wind slapped against the hanging traffic light and ice crusted the curbs and citizens stayed indoors if they could. I had no idea what the Americans would be doing, or what would take place. In the red-smudged light of early morning I completely gave up on my reverse-thinking—that they were not who they were, or that Remlinger was not who he was (a murderer), or that the Americans would give up their mission to identify him as the fugitive, and then act on that. I didn’t know whether, in one fifteen-minute encounter in a crowded smoky bar, they could make the determination they wanted (see if “murderer” was written on Remlinger’s face, or if it wasn’t); and then decide what they should do. I remembered Charley saying the Americans didn’t expect Remlinger to be who they were looking for. So, likely they didn’t specifically know
what
they should do if they believed he was guilty. They might’ve been trying to decide at that very moment. Charley had implied—at least I’d thought he had—they might decide to kill him and had brought pistols for that; or abduct him back to face a Michigan judge. But that didn’t seem to fit with their natures and the goodwill the three of them had shared in the bar. None of this made a clear picture, though I thought about it constantly during that day. The thought set a continuous whirring going in my stomach and up under my ribs, which let me know it was significant, and I should pay attention.
Charley and I took out our groups of Sports to the wheat fields before dawn. I sat in the truck and counted the falling geese from the three decoy sets. Charley visited the pit rows and did his calling, although the low sky and snow and wind made the geese come low off the river and distinguish the decoys less sharply, and many were shot. Charley and I stood as always and cleaned dead geese in the Quonset. I noticed the Americans’ black Chrysler was not parked at the shack. Which indicated to me that they might’ve left and driven away.
Charley, however, told me that Remlinger had said we would take the Americans to the pits the next morning and should put them in good places. One of the Toronto groups had left, and there was room now. They’d brought their guns and shooting paraphernalia and wanted to go. I didn’t ask any details about the Americans: what Charley thought about them on the basis of taking them to the Overflow House; or what Remlinger might’ve revealed when he instructed Charley about the shooting. Charley was in a morose humor and made several strange remarks in answer to statements I made while we cleaned and gutted geese. One of his remarks was, “A lot of brave men have head wounds.” Another was, “It’s hard to go through life without killing someone.” As I’ve said, he was often in a bad humor for reasons he didn’t divulge, except to complain about his terrible childhood and his bowel problems. It was best not to provoke him, since I wanted to keep my own view and opinion of things, and his bad humor and odd pronouncements could overpower everything I thought. All I believed, from what little he said, was that if we took the Americans shooting the next morning—like they were any two Sports—shooting geese was not all that would happen. There would be other things, because the Americans were not just Sports. They were men with other intentions.
ONCE AGAIN
, I failed to see Arthur Remlinger during the middle of the day, which was noticeable under the circumstances. I saw the two Americans eating lunch alone in the dining room, where the other Sports were congregated talking about their morning’s shooting. I ran one errand to the drugstore to get a bottle of Merthiolate and another to the post office to purchase stamps for postcards to reach America. The two Americans engaged in an intense conversation and took no notice of me or anyone. It felt ridiculous that they would be passing the day talking, in full view, when so much was known about them—their intentions; that a man had been killed; that Remlinger was aware of them and was possibly in his rooms imagining what he would do about them; that they had pistols and were possibly expecting to use them. The prelude to very bad things can be ridiculous, the way Charley said, but can also be casual and unremarkable. Which is worth recognizing, since it indicates where many bad events originate: from just an inch away from the everyday.
The only thing I did to make myself visible to the Americans—because I still believed it would be an adventure to talk to them—was to ask the Sports at the next table (who I knew from the morning) if they had enjoyed themselves. I would never otherwise have asked that, but I hoped the two Americans would hear my American accent (which I assumed I had) and say something to me. However, neither of them looked around or stopped talking. I heard one of them—the intense, black-haired Crosley, who seemed to take things more seriously than the round, bald-headed Jepps—say: “Nothing’s foolproof. That’s just a fucking story.” I assumed they were talking about what they should do, and that it posed them a problem. But I didn’t know what those words really meant and didn’t want to seem to be eavesdropping—though I was. So I left them alone and went to take my nap.
I
BROUGHT YOU THIS GOOD BOOK.” FLORENCE WAS
standing in the shadowy hallway outside my room, at the opposite end from Remlinger’s rooms. I’d been taking my nap and was startled, and had answered her knock wearing just my underpants. I instantly believed she’d come from Remlinger’s apartment. “This one’s got some nice maps inside,” she said. “We talked about it. So . . .” She looked down at the heavy book, then put it in my hand and smiled.
A single bulb lit the hallway behind her. Only Charley Quarters ever came to my door—to wake me up early. I wouldn’t have opened it undressed in front of him. “You need to put some clothes on.” She turned to go, as if I was embarrassed.