“So the four of you were under that tree.”
“That’s right. And she was so skinny in the big parka. I mean I should talk. Farney and Travers are both big men, football players, and she looked like a child next to them. She pushed back her hood so she could hear better and the impression was not dispelled. I mean she looked so young and she was wearing mittens and holding on to that photograph. It broke my heart. I mean. I am not a sentimental man.”
“Don’t be so sure of that,” Celine said.
“Well. How she was, it may have had something to do with what happened. Farney cleared his throat and proceeded with about as much alacrity as if someone were holding a gun to his head. He went through all the details, the boot here, the blood here, the tracks, the cameras, the drag mark, not looking at her, not able to, then he’d glance over fast and bite his lip and clear his throat some more.
“‘The conclusion—bla bla—is that he did not survive the initial attack. We have data on these sorts of attacks, bla bla bla. More than a very brief initial engagement, they are almost always fatal. Especially when equipment or clothing are separated from the, well, ah.’ He shut the fuck up. He was beet red. It wasn’t the cold. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. You could tell he wanted to put a hand on her but he didn’t. Her eyes were big and shiny. You knew she was using all her strength. Farney clears his throat and looks over at Travers and says, ‘Sheriff?’ I told you how it was. Imagine the scene. Do you think Travers or I was going to pipe up and say, ‘Well, gee, young lady, who just lost your last remaining parent, there are about ten fishy things with this whole fucked-up disappearance—’ Wasn’t going to happen. We caved. I admit it. Not my finest hour. She deserved to know the truth. I thought it then and I have thought it often since. A little time passes and it’s, well… sleeping dogs.” He turned and spat off the porch.
You let the sleeping dogs lie. Celine glanced at the beagle curled at the man’s feet, and the piece of marshmallow stuck to its black nose.
They drove in silence back down the forest track. When they hit the county road Pete said, “What was that about argyle socks?”
“Oh,” Celine said, “you honestly don’t know that one? Your alma mater and all.”
Pete shook his head.
“Well, the kid from Arkansas arrives at Harvard and is trying to get his bearings and sees an upperclassman striding across the Yard—wearing argyle socks and smoking a pipe. ‘Excuse me,’ says the kid very respectfully, ‘can you tell me where the library’s at?’ The upperclassman peers down and haughtily says, ‘Young man, at Harvard we do not end our sentences with a preposition.’ ‘Oh,’ says the boy, mortified. ‘Let me rephrase that: Where’s the library at, asshole?’”
Pete’s soft chuckle was the best part of the day so far. “I do remember it now,” Pete said. “I guess I just wanted to hear you tell it. Speaking of libraries, I think that should be our next stop.”
“You’re reading my mind again.” She licked clean two sticky fingertips. “We need to read a little history and find the National Geographics we are missing. Lamont was in South America a lot, and I have a hunch he was there at just the worst time.”
TWENTY-ONE
In Red Lodge they decided that they needed more than marshmallows to fuel a research session. Pete knew that if there had been cotton candy it would have rounded things out for Celine. Instead, they were enticed by fourteen Harleys parked along a hitch rail outside a log building called Billy’s Crab Shack. The crabs would be very far from their native habitat, but the bikes looked right at home. They were mostly black, three were fully chopped, and four had death skeletons painted on the tanks: two Grim Reapers were in flagrante delicto with buxom naked babes, one skeleton was shooting up, and the last held binocs and looked like he was bird-watching. They pulled in next to the bikes.
Celine was excited. Pete could tell because she unwrapped two sticks of Juicy Fruit. “Look, Pete,” she said between chews. “The Boy Scouts are in town.” As an artist steeped in the iconography of death who often used skulls and bones, she cast an aficionado’s critical eye over the airbrushed art shimmering on the Harleys. “Not anatomically correct,” she said.
“The skeletons or the girls?”
“I would say both. Do you think they really have crabs?”
“I hope not,” he said simply.
They got out. The clouds were scudding fast and the day was warming and for a moment they were in full sun. Celine stopped on the sidewalk and let the sun soak in for a minute and then they pushed through the batwing doors. It was not like in the movies where every head turned. The bikers were too engaged with the business at hand. Six were shoulder to shoulder at the long bar, which was probably built to accommodate fifteen normally sized humans, three were playing darts under a lobster pot hanging from the ceiling, two were at a pool table in back with two thin biker babes, and three were hoisting one of their leather-vested girls onto a small table where she began to dance to “Free Bird” on the jukebox. Every one had Sons of Silence colors on the back of his leather jacket. A thin-faced local with a gray ponytail was drawing draft beer behind the bar, and a pretty young girl served fish-and-chips in baskets to the dart players. She wore a blue checked short dress with frills at the sleeves, white sneakers, an apron, and she moved with the flitting, hesitant grace of a springbok in a lion pen.
Every head didn’t swivel, but every eye did glance at the posh elderly tourists who came through the front door; the eyes, registering neither threat nor opportunity, went back to the party. Celine made a head count in an instant and tallied it against the motorcycles out front. All males accounted for, no one in the bathroom. It was habit. She also saw that she and Pete made about as much of an impression as two flies. Well. But. She would have to ask one of the men what the skeleton was doing with the binoculars.
The place was an odd mix of family lunch spot and bar. The round tables were covered in red checkered vinyl tablecloths and bottles of hot sauce and ketchup, there were fishing nets and lobster buoys and boat hooks on the walls, and Foster’s Ale and Budweiser neon blinking in the window. Celine wrinkled her nose. It didn’t smell of stale beer like a frat basement, at least, but she thought several of the nice bikers could really use a bath.
The bartender waved them to one of the tables. Celine chose the one closest to the dart players. Thankfully the music was not so loud as to kill the possibility of conversation. Two bearded Sons holding beer mugs watched the third brother throw. One was saying to the other, “Yeah, I went to J.R.’s funeral in Denver. The chaplain stood up in front of two thousand One Percenters, I shit you not, said, ‘Every day I thank Gawd that today I haven’t killed anyone, or maimed anyone, or robbed anyone—and then I get out of bed!’”
Laughter. Celine gestured to the round patches of their colors—an eagle spread-winged over a Latin phrase in cursive.
“Donec Mors Non Separat, Pete. Pretty much the same as the wedding vow, Donec mors nos separaverit. Till death do us part. Something like Semper fi is less… marital, don’t you think?”