I had the weird thought that I’d never seen eyes quite that color. “Everybody needs one – a passion, I mean.” What a stupid comment, especially coming from me. Did I really think the game warden wanted to talk about life’s passions? He was a man’s man. An alpha type. Not the sort to consider life in the ethereal sense. I was only making myself look like more of a foreigner and an oddball.
Mart gazed down the lakeshore, where the church steeple and the buildings along the main drag of Moses Lake were barely visible above the treetops. “Guess everybody does.”
“So, I take it that yours isn’t acting.” It was meant to sound like a joke, but it came out sounding like a probe – one of those hypothetical-yet-pointed questions a psychologist might ask in a personality profile interview.
His lips pursed slightly, then parted into a grin, and he ducked his head so that the hat brim hid his eyes. “Gave it up twenty-five years ago, after doing Robin Hood in the eighth grade.”
“Robin Hood?” I felt a smile pulling at me. “So you do have a history in theater.” I did a little mental addition . . .
twenty-five years
ago, eighth grade. . . .
Mart was around my age.
The official emblems on his shirt rose and fell with a soft laugh. “There was a cute student teacher directing the school play that year. She charmed me into it. Not just me, come to think of it. Half of the football team showed up for auditions.”
“But you got the part?”
I couldn’t tell for sure with the hat in the way, but I could have sworn he was blushing.
He scooted a stray bit of rope out of the way with the toe of his boot. “Seemed like the thing to do at the time. Guess it never crossed my mind that the rest of the football boys might back out and leave me there twisting in the wind. You put on green tights and prance around the stage, you’re never gonna hear the end of it in the locker room. Amazing what a boy’ll get himself into when there’s a cute girl involved.”
I chuckled at the image of him in the Robin Hood suit, trying to impress the student teacher. He must have been about Dustin’s age then. Dustin was about to be a freshman in high school. Unfortunately, he hadn’t hit his growth spurt yet. He was small for his grade, still physically immature compared to the other boys. “To tell you the truth, I think that’s how Dustin ended up on the Scissortail – trying to impress someone.”
Mart glanced up. Perhaps he wondered if I was using the conversation to try to get Dustin off the hook. “Well, I could sure tell him it’s not worth it. That student teacher took off with the football coach and left me sitting outside the auditorium in my green tights.”
The image formed in my mind, and being the mother of a fourteen-year-old boy, I couldn’t help it, I sympathy-laughed. There was a whole side to Mart McClendon that I’d never even imagined. “Oh, that’s so . . . wrong. You poor thing.”
“I know,” he agreed, and I tried to imagine the vulnerable eighth-grade boy inside the man. It was difficult. Mart seemed like the type who’d never been vulnerable – the kind who’d been a star in every sport, a golden boy with the world by the tail and a big ego. “And that was after the whole dadgum team showed up to watch dress rehearsal. I was already a scrawny little runt, and then . . . well, you get stuck with a goofy family name like
Martin,
then put on green tights and prance around saying things like, ‘Forsooth,’ and ‘Hark, Maid Marian,’ you’re really setting yourself up for a beating. I pretty well figured it’d be better to jump a train out of state than go home and have my brothers triple-timing me about it.”
The image in my mind shifted, like a reflection in the water turning wavy after a rock ripples it. When the ripples stilled, the picture was different. Mart McClendon, scrawny kid, insecure, nervous. Like Dustin. “So, what happened? I’m assuming you and your broken heart didn’t hit the road in the eighth grade.”
He shook his head. “Nah, my mama figured it out. She showed up behind the auditorium, and we went for ice cream. Just the two of us.”
“Oh, good for your mom.”
“Yeah. She knew.” Mart’s gaze met mine and held it. “Don’t let your boy fool you when he acts like he doesn’t need his mama. He does.”
A lump rose in my throat, and emotion welled behind my eyes. Mart couldn’t have imagined how much I needed to hear that right now. “Thanks.” I swallowed hard, trying to get myself under control. An emotional moment with the game warden wasn’t anywhere in my plans for the day, and such a moment with me was undoubtedly not in Mart’s, either.
“I want him to take the water safety course, by the way. I’ll have to figure out how to get him there, though. It’s too far for him to walk from Larkspur, all the way to the community center. Maybe I can get my parents to come out and drive him.”
You’ll never hear
the end of that,
a voice inside me was saying, but what choice did I have? The community center was almost halfway around the lake, in a little strip of historic buildings that had been part of the Mennonite village of Gnadenfeld, most of which ended up underwater when the lake was built. Even if I let Dustin ride his bike, it was still too far for him to travel, especially by himself, and in the summer heat. I couldn’t ask Megan to pack up the twins or take time off from the bank during her work days so she could drive out here to shuttle Dustin around.
Mart chewed the side of his lip, pushing off the seat back and standing up. “I’ll come by and get him. I’m out on the lake anyway. You give me his cell phone number, and I’ll call him about it.”
For a moment, all I could do was stare at him, stunned. Mart McClendon was
nothing
like I’d thought. He was actually . . . well . . . a nice guy. “Oh, well . . . well . . . all right. I . . . Thanks,” I stammered. Mart grabbed a clipboard with wavy wet-and-dried paper, handed it to me, then added a pen from his shirt pocket. I wrote down Dustin’s number and mine, as well. “I put my cell on here, too. In case you can’t get in touch with Dustin.” Dustin was going to have a fit when he found out I’d signed him up for the class
and
agreed to allow the game warden to transport him there. What if he decided to go completely oppositional and refuse?
Then again, maybe just the fact that the alternative was for us to drag Grandpa and Grandma into the situation would be enough to convince him. After the family breach with Karl’s father, Dustin had grown closer to my parents, but he still realized that their visits came with lectures and demands. Love, in our family, had always come with strings. It was a reward for perfect behavior. It wasn’t handed out for free.
I’d never wanted Dustin to learn that form of exchange, but here, he would.
“Thank you for trying to help him . . . us . . . out,” I added, embarrassment warming my neck and cheeks. I was used to being the one offering help, not the one needing it. It was so much easier to be the vice-chancellor’s wife, magnanimously handing out my time and talents – a ride to a doctor’s appointment here, a casserole for a funeral there, a sympathetic ear for a friend going through a family crisis. I was good at rescuing other people, at swooshing in and playing savior. I’d never once considered what it cost the people on the other end to accept my help, to admit they needed it.
“Sure. No problem,” Mart answered, like he didn’t want to make a big deal of it. “I’m on the lake anyway.” He’d already said that once. Maybe he felt the need to reassure me that it really wasn’t any trouble.
He swung a foot over the edge of the boat, then stood there with one boot on the seat and one on the dock. I realized he was waiting to help me out of the boat.
The conversation between us felt unfinished, and for reasons I couldn’t explain, I was disappointed that he’d stepped onto the dock. As I slipped my feet back into the muddy pumps that had rubbed a hatch pattern of blisters, Mart lifted a hand and yawned behind it. I remembered that, when I’d first come into the Waterbird, he’d looked like he was almost asleep on his feet. He was probably exhausted by now.
As I stood up, the wake from a passing watercraft caused me to stagger across the floor in three unsteady steps, leaving behind a slug trail of mud. Mart caught my arm, his grip warm and firm. “Easy there, Cap’n,” he said, a laugh in the words. “Better work on those sea legs, if you’re gonna live by the water.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.” I stepped from the boat, his grip half-steadying, half-lifting me onto the dock. He let go of me then and braced an elbow on his knee, his stride still bridging the gap between the boat and the dock in a pose not unlike Robin Hood surveying Sherwood Forest.
I pictured him in the school play, and a laugh tickled my throat. Mart squinted at me, as if he wondered what was going on in my head. No surprise there. Lately, I wondered what was going on in my head most of the time. My thoughts and emotions were all over the map, like they didn’t know where to be.
Robin Hood,
I thought. Not just every grown man would tell that story about himself – especially the part about the crush on the student teacher. Back in high school, Karl had been a band nerd with glasses, the smart guy who always set the curve. I was four years younger than him, but he lived just down the block from my parents’ house in Dallas, so I’d known him most of my life. He hated the fact that I knew the nerdy high school part of him. In Houston, all anyone saw was the guy who’d grown his hair long in seminary school and joined a Christian rock band. When he’d come back to play for a youth weekend at our church, I’d barely recognized him. We’d kept in touch after that, and one thing led to another. The one time I mentioned his band-nerd days to table guests during a university dinner, he’d laughed it off uncomfortably, then reprimanded me in private, later. He’d said I was
undermining him
.
I found myself hesitating on the dock, contrasting that with Mart and his story. Why, I couldn’t say. “So, will you let me know what happens, when you go up to Len’s cabin in the morning? I really just . . . I keep thinking about seeing that little girl in the truck. I need to know she’s all right. That place up there . . . That house was awful.”
Mart pulled off his hat, set it on his knee, and scratched the thick, dark curls near his ear. I noticed he had a pretty decent welt where I’d snapped the branch back, sort of accidentally on purpose. It had been a spur-of-the-moment impulse that was way outside my usual behavior. “You know, that’s pretty typical in Chinquapin Peaks.” His look was reserved, as if he were wondering whether I really understood what I was getting myself into.
“I know.” I tried to keep the statement flat, to mask the swells of uncertainty inside me.
God doesn’t give us a desire without a means
, Aunt Lucy would have said. I had the desire for this job, and one way or another, I would find the means.
Mart nodded, dropping the hat back on his head, as in,
suit
yourself.
Even that seemed like a compliment, a silent endorsement of my ability to handle the challenges ahead. “I’m usually patrolling somewhere in the district.” Slipping a hand into his shirt pocket, he grabbed a business card, then extended it to me between two fingers. “If you have trouble, or you need to know more about a place you’re going, call me. For obvious reasons, I’ve met a lot of people up there. I get most of my tips from friends, neighbors, and family members of the guilty parties. You’d be surprised how quick they’ll rat each other out when they’re either in trouble themselves or mad at someone else.”
“Thanks.” I hadn’t really thought about what a game warden did all day, aside from keeping kids out of mischief on the lake. “I’ll remember that.” I reached for the card, and my fingers brushed Mart’s.
The Waterbird’s back door slammed overhead, and I jerked upright, pulling the card away. Tipping his head, he studied me, his lips a speculative twist. “That’ll be the news crew. Figures they’d still be waiting around the Waterbird. Anything that happens on Moses Lake, they’ve gotta know about it.”
I heard the domino-playing crowd talking as they came down the stairs. “You find something over there? Mart? You see any clues at Len’s place?”
Mart sighed and pretended he didn’t hear the questions. Remembering the conversation that had sent us on this spur-of-the-moment reconnaissance mission, I slipped my hand into the pocket of my bedraggled, mud-spattered jacket and pulled out the keys to my father’s car. “I think I’ll let you hold the press conference.” Even as I said it, I felt a little guilty. Mart would probably end up stuck here another hour, explaining where we’d been, but I needed to get home to Dustin.
“Not a chance.” With a wink and a grin, Mart unhooked the rope, kicked off the dock and slid into the driver’s seat. “Make sure you fill them in on all the details. They’ll need something to talk about at the coffee club tomorrow.” A moment later he was revving the motor, leaving me at the mercy of his public.
“Hey!” I called, but he just waved over his shoulder and kicked up the throttle. I imagined that I could hear laughter drifting behind him as he glided off, disappearing into a trail of glistening water that led to the setting sun.
I turned and started toward my car. The crew from the Waterbird headed me off at the pass, of course. They invited me in for coffee, so that I could fully share the details. I declined the invitation as politely as possible and gave them the short version. Clearly our mission to Len’s had been the talk of the neighborhood. Somehow, by having gone along, I had been elevated from stranger to one-ofthe-bunch. It felt good, in a way. The locals even wanted to know if I’d seen any bass jumping on the other side of the lake – as if I’d know a jumping bass from a goldfish in a bowl.