Dark Tiger (17 page)

When they got to the back entrance to the lodge, Robin turned to Calhoun. “Thank you.”

“I didn't do anything,” he said.

“You listened. You got me talking. I needed that. Now I feel better.” She put her hands on his shoulders, leaned toward him, and kissed him softly on his jaw. Then she wrapped her arms around his neck and hugged him hard against her.

He put his hands on her hips and gently pushed her away.

She looked into his eyes. “I'm sorry.”

“No, don't be,” he said. “That was nice.”

“You're probably married or something.”

He nodded. “Virtually,” he said.

She laughed softly. “That's—” She stopped and pulled quickly away from him.

“What's the matter?” he said.

Robin put her finger on his lips, then pointed her chin back down to the shadowed pathway where they'd just walked.

Calhoun saw the shape of a person coming in their direction.

Robin squeezed Calhoun's arm, opened the door, and slipped into the lodge.

Calhoun snapped his fingers at Ralph. He moved away from the door and stood in the shadow of a big pine tree. Ralph came over and sat on the ground beside him.

The shadowy person came walking up the path, but instead of heading for the rear entrance where Robin had just entered, he disappeared around the corner, heading for the front of the lodge.

In the darkness, Calhoun couldn't see who it was—but the shape and the way he moved reminded Calhoun of the shape of the person who'd been sneaking around on the float plane.

 

 

 

 

After breakfast the next morning, Calhoun and Ralph walked out to the garage behind the lodge. It was made of peeled spruce logs and was the size of a small airplane hangar. A dark green Range Rover with the Loon Lake Lodge triple-
L
logo painted on the door panel was parked in front, and the two Dunlap men, Marty and Robert, were leaning against the hood. They seemed to be deep in some serious discussion, and as Calhoun approached them, they looked up, shifted their positions, and ended their conversation.

Calhoun went up to them and shook each of their hands. “I appreciate this,” he said.

“One of the perks of the job,” said Marty. “This is your vehicle. You got a full tank of gas. You'll be back today, I hope.”

“I'm aiming to be back for dinner,” Calhoun said.

“Looking for a little recreation in St. Cece?” said Robert.

“Huh? Recreation?”

“You never been to St. Cecelia, Stoney?”

“Nope.”

Robert shrugged. “You'll see.”

“I got some business to take care of,” Calhoun said. “That's all. Not interested in recreation.”

Robert clapped him on the shoulder. “Well, I hope it all goes well.” He held out his hand. A key on a chain dangled from it. “Here you go. Drive safely.”

Calhoun took the key. “Thanks.”

“Just head out this driveway,” said Marty, pointing to the rutted dirt road that started beside the garage and twisted into the forest. “About half a mile, you'll come to the lumber company road. Go left. From there it's about thirty miles to St. Cece. It'll take you well over an hour. It's a pretty bad road. High crown, rocks and potholes. Drive slow and careful, and watch out for the lumber trucks. They go fast and won't slow down or pull over for you. You don't pull to the side, they'll run you over. Oh, and be alert going around the corners. You don't want to run into a moose.”

“I'll watch out for trucks and moose,” Calhoun said. “Thanks.” He opened the car door for Ralph, who hopped in and took his usual place on the passenger seat. Then he got in behind the wheel. He shut the door, started the engine, and rolled down the window. “Thanks again,” he said.

Marty held up a finger and came over to the open car window. He braced his forearms on the roof and leaned in. “I been meaning to ask you, Stoney,” he said. “You doing okay?”

“Sure.”

“Getting along with your fellow guides? Enjoying the food? Finding your way around?”

“It's all good,” said Calhoun.

“Sorry about what happened yesterday,” he said. “Elaine getting killed, Franklin being arrested, you getting interrogated by the sheriff.”

“It was a terrible thing.”

“I wouldn't want you to think we had murders happening here every day.”

Calhoun nodded.

“You probably got pretty friendly with Franklin Redbird,” said Marty.

“Sure. I fished with him for a day. You can get pretty friendly with a man that way.”

“I don't think he killed anybody,” Marty said. “Robert, here, he's a little more cynical than I am.”

Robert, who'd been standing there listening, said, “It's not cynicism. It's just the facts. Anyway, what you and I think doesn't count. The sheriff thinks Franklin did it, and that's what counts.”

“He didn't do it,” said Calhoun.

“Really?” said Robert.

Calhoun nodded.

“You're pretty sure of that, are you?”

“Yep. Pretty sure.”

“So who did it, then?” said Marty.

Calhoun shrugged. “I got no idea.” He shifted into first gear. “If I don't get going, I'll miss dinner, and I don't want to miss dinner.”

Marty slapped the roof of the car and stepped away from the window. “Have a good day.”

Calhoun waved and started down the driveway. In the rearview mirror he saw Marty and Robert Dunlap, father and son, standing there outside the garage with their arms folded across their chests, watching him go.

The paper company road was originally cut through the forest so that their big flatbed trucks with the high wooden sides could transport pulp logs to the paper mills near the coast. It was apparent to Calhoun that the road hadn't been used by
the big trucks very much recently. Now the alders and poplars and hemlocks were crowding both sides, making it barely wide enough for the Range Rover to pass. Even sticking to the center of the road, here and there tree branches scraped against the sides of the vehicle. Weeds and saplings sprouted from the ruts, and rocks had pushed through the earth's crust. In the low places, spring seeps trickled across the road.

They'd been driving for about half an hour when they rounded a bend and came upon a mother ruffed grouse and her brood of seven chicks pecking gravel beside the road. Calhoun hit the brakes, and when Ralph spotted the grouse, his bird-dog genes kicked in, and he pushed his nose against the windshield and began to whine.

The mother grouse lifted her head and looked directly at the Range Rover, and through the open car window, Calhoun could see the glitter of her beady little eyes and hear her panicky little cries. Instantly the fuzzy little brown chicks scurried into the underbrush beside the road. There, Calhoun knew, they'd crouch motionless in the grass and dead leaves and be impossible to see, and they wouldn't budge no matter how close to them you stepped.

The mother bird staggered across the road in the opposite direction, dragging her wing, feigning vulnerability. It was a great act. Once she'd succeeded in enticing her enemy to follow her a safe distance away from her precious brood, she'd burst into sudden, noisy flight and disappear into the woods.

These were survival behaviors that had evolved over hundreds of generations of ruffed grouse. All creatures had repertoires of survival behaviors, and Calhoun never tired of observing them.

All creatures except humans, he thought.

Humans just killed each other.

 

______

 

They'd been driving for about an hour and a half, rarely going much over twenty miles per hour, when they came upon a square wooden building beside the road with a sign reading
CASINO
over the door. Half a dozen vehicles—one old yellow Volkswagen van and five or six pickup trucks—were parked in the dusty side lot.

A few hundred yards later they passed a used car lot. Then a garage with gas pumps out front and a side lot full of rusty broken-down vehicles. A cluster of trailers with satellite dishes in front. Then a potato field. Then a diner. Here and there a small ranch-style house. A lumberyard, rich with the sweet scent of pine sawdust. Another casino, a roadhouse with a sign reading
GIRLS
, a café. The road gradually flattened and widened, and then it became paved, and pretty soon Calhoun found himself in what he guessed was downtown St. Cecelia. The street was lined on both sides with commercial establishments—restaurants, bars, clothing stores, a hardware store, a florist, a real estate office, a bank, a food market, a stationery store, a pharmacy. There were two intersections, both regulated by blinking yellow traffic lights. A few people were strolling along the sidewalk. Parked cars lined both sides of the street. St. Cecelia appeared to be a thriving little community in the middle of the geographically biggest, and one of the least populated, counties in the United States.

Calhoun kept driving along the main drag, and pretty soon he came to a police station and a post office, then an elementary school, and then a Catholic church with a cemetery beside it. Past the cemetery, the road became dirt and again entered the woods.

Now that he had a feel for the town, he turned around,
headed back the way he'd come, and stopped in front of the police station, which was a simple square wooden building painted green. Two black-and-whites were parked in the side lot.

He fished his cell phone out of his pocket and was happy to see that there was service here in St. Cecelia. He poked out the number for the shop in Portland.

After a couple of rings, a male voice said, “Kate's Bait, Tackle, and Woolly Buggers. This is Adrian. Can I help you?”

“You can help me by putting Kate on the line,” Calhoun said.

“Oh, hey, Stoney. How you doin'?”

“Good. You?”

“Tell the truth,” said Adrian, “I wouldn't mind if you decided not to come back. This is a good job. I like this job a lot.”

“Afraid you're gonna be shit out of luck, sonnyboy, because I'll be back. But I'm glad you like it. Now gimme Kate.”

“She's not here, Stoney.”

“Of course she is. It's Saturday morning. She's always there on Saturdays. Put her on.”

Adrian hesitated, then said, “I can't.”

Calhoun blew out a breath. “She tell you she didn't want to talk to me? Is that what's going on here?”

“I'm sorry, man.”

“Just tell her I got something I need to tell her. Tell her I got some news for her.”

“I do that,” Adrian said, “she'll fire me. She's pretty mad at you, I can tell you that much.”

“She say why?”

“No. She didn't say anything to me. Just ‘If that Stoney Calhoun man calls, I ain't here.' ”

“Well, listen to me,” said Calhoun. “You take that phone you're holding and you go find Kate and hand it to her right now. Don't tell her it's me. Just say it's a call for her.”

“Sorry, Stoney. I'm not going to do that.”

“Why the hell not?”

“Because she'll ask me who it is, which I'm always supposed to ask when I answer the phone, and when I tell her it's you, she'll just get mad at me, and she'll still refuse to talk to you.”

“Okay,” Calhoun said. “I guess you're right.” He was quiet for a minute. Then he said, “You have any idea at all why she's mad at me?”

“Me?” said Adrian. “Not me. Kate doesn't talk about things like that with me.”

Calhoun sighed. “Okay, then,” he said. “This is what I want you to do. Write this number down, not that she doesn't know it. Got a pencil?”

“I do.”

Calhoun recited his cell phone number. “You got that?”

“I got it.”

“Good. Now, you tell Kate that Stoney called, and you tell her that you were a good boy and told him she wasn't there. Then you give her that phone number, and you tell her that I'll only be in a place that has cell phone service for another few hours, and I'd deeply appreciate it if she'd give me a buzz. You got that?”

“I bet she already knows your cell phone number, Stoney.”

“Maybe she does,” Calhoun said. “Just do what I'm asking anyway, will you?”

“Sure. I'll do it.”

“And if she says she ain't gonna do it, you tell her that Stoney sounded like he had something important to tell her.”

“All right. Sure.”

“Remember who hired you.”

“I do,” said Adrian. “It was you.”

“I can fire you, too, you know.”

“I'll do exactly what you said, Stoney. You don't need to threaten me.”

“I wasn't serious, you know. About firing you.”

“I can't always tell with you,” said Adrian.

“Good,” said Calhoun.

After he disconnected from Adrian, he sat there trying to figure out why Kate was still mad at him. She'd been mad when he first told her he was going to be gone for a month and wouldn't tell her why, and he understood that, but then she came to his house, and she didn't seem so mad at all, and then for some reason she got mad all over again, and now she was refusing to talk to him, and he couldn't keep up with how her moods kept changing.

The easiest way to understand it, he guessed, was to not bother trying, to recognize the obvious fact that women were different from men, and to keep in mind that he, Stonewall Jackson Calhoun, did not understand them, and he just had to accept it. Women didn't think like men, they didn't have the same emotions as men, they didn't behave like men. They didn't love the way men did, either.

Calhoun loved women—or at least, he loved Kate Balaban—but he had no idea what made her tick. In fact, he was in awe of her. She was utterly unpredictable, and as far as he was concerned, that made her endlessly fascinating.