“You can’t tell what a person’s like inside from the face they wear in public. You ought to know that.”
“I’d still like to’ve seen the place,” Ramage said.
“Why, for heaven’s sake?”
“Satisfy my curiosity.”
“You’d’ve been playing right into his hand.”
“Still…I can’t help being curious, can I?”
He stayed curious all that day, and the next, and the next after that. About the fake Miwok burial ground, and about Peete, too. How could the old buzzard afford to pay for all the upkeep on that farm of his, and give away good rich soil, when he had no help and no livestock except for a few chickens? Crops like alfalfa, fruit from that small orchard? Maybe he ought to drive back out there, alone this time, and have a look at the “cemetery” and see what else he could find out.
On Friday afternoon, Ramage decided that that was just what he was going to do.
The snotty young fella named Coolidge said: “I don’t believe it.”
“Gospel truth.”
“Graveyard dirt from some old Indian cemetery?”
“Every inch of it.
“And you truck it in here and hoard it so you can give it away free. You think I was born yesterday, pop?”
“Prove it to you, if you want.”
“How you going to do that?”
“Burial ground’s not far from here,” Peete said. “Other side of that hill yonder.”
“And you want me to go see it with you.”
“Up to you. Only take a few minutes.”
Coolidge thought about it. Then he grinned crookedly and said: “All right, for free d-u-r-t, why not? What have I got to lose?”
“That’s right,” Peete said. He tightened his grip on Buck’s chain, tossed his new lucky piece into the air with his other hand. Sunlight struck golden glints from the doubloon before he caught it with a quick downward swipe. “What have you got to lose?”
He Said…She Said
Cal Hartley heaved the last of the five-gallon water jugs into the back of his van and slammed the rear doors. Then he coiled the hose onto its holder on the spigot. As he got into the driver’s seat, he glanced across the parking lot at the White Iron Chamber of Commerce building; only two cars were there, both belonging to employees, and no one had seen him filling up, or else they’d have come outside by now, wanting to know where their so-called voluntary donation was. Three bucks well saved.
At the stop sign at the main highway, Cal hesitated. East toward home? West toward town, where he’d earlier run some errands? West. He didn’t feel like going home yet. Home was not where the heart was these days.
The Walleye Tavern was dark and cool on this bright, hot August afternoon. Abel Arneson, the owner and sole occupant, stood behind the bar under one of the large stuffed pike that adorned the pine walls, staring up at a Twins game on the TV mounted at the room’s far end. When he saw Cal enter, he reached for a remote and turned the sound down.
“What brings you to town, Professor?” he asked. “Professor” because Cal was a former faculty member of the University of Minnesota, recently moved north from Minneapolis to the outskirts of this small town near the Boundary Waters National Canoe Area.
“Water run. Hardware store. Calls on the cell phone. It doesn’t work outside of town.” Cal slid onto a stool. In spite of him and Abel being native Minnesotans, their patterns of speech could not have been more different. Cal sounded pure, flat middle America, while Abel spoke with the rounded, vaguely Scandinavian accent of the Iron Range.
Abel, a big man with thinning white hair and thick horn-rimmed glasses, set a bottle of Leinenkugel in front of Cal. “Not so easy, living without running water, huh?”
“Not so bad. The lake makes a good bathtub, and we’ve got a chemical toilet. All we need the fresh water for is brushing our teeth, cooking, washing dishes.”
“And from the hardware store?”
Cal smiled wryly. “Heavy-duty extension cords. I think I told you the power company allowed us to hook into the pole up on the road till we finish with our renovations. Seems like we need more cords every day.”
Abel shook his head, looked at his watch, and poured himself a shot of vodka. “I don’t envy you, trying to bring back that old, run-down lodge. Thirty-five years abandoned by old lady Mott, just sitting there rotting. Some folks around here say it’s cursed.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that. But I don’t believe in curses.”
“No?”
“Definitely not. A place is only what you make it. You saw the main building when you came out. It’s livable and will be a fine home eventually. We think we can save three of the cabins for when our kids and…someday…grandkids come to visit. The rest we’re demolishing.”
“By yourselves? Didn’t any of those contractors I referred you to get back with estimates?”
“The roofer, and he’s done already. The others we only need for the septic system, plumbing, and electrical. They’ll be in touch.”
“Your wife…Maggie, is it?”
“Right.”
“She doesn’t seem the type for hard labor. Wasn’t she some kind of artist in the Twin Cities?”
“Interior designer.”
“How does she feel being dragged off to the end of the road here?”
Cal felt his throat tighten up. He took a sip of beer before he said: “She feels just fine. It was her idea, in fact. She found the property.”
“Good for her.” Abel looked up at the TV, reached for the remote, and turned the volume up slightly.
Good for her. Yeah, right. You won’t say that when I tell you she’s trying to kill me.
Maggie was painting the floor of the one-room cabin with red enamel when Howie, her black Lab, ran in and stepped on the wet surface.
“Howie!” she yelled, and the dog-perverse creature-began to wag his tail and knocked over the paint can. Maggie stood up, shooed him out the door, and wiped her damp brow with the back of her hand. It must have been ninety-five degrees, and the humidity was trying to match the temperature.
She regarded the mess on the floor, then turned away and went outside. The red paint had seemed a good idea two days ago-it would conceal the poor quality of the wood and the indelible stains from years of a leaking roof, plus lend a cheerful note to a cabin that was perpetually dark because of the overhanging white pines-but now she decided she didn’t really like it. Better brown, or even gray, covered in colorful rag rugs from the White Iron Trading Post.
She stood in the shade of the trees and looked down the gradual slope to what had once been the main building of Sunrise Lodge. A long two-story log structure with many-paned windows and a sagging porch, it sat in a clearing halfway between this cabin and the shore of Lost Wolf Lake. Over the thirty-five years that the property had sat abandoned, pines and scrub vegetation had grown up, so only a sliver of blue water was visible from the porch’s once-excellent vantage point. In time, the trees would be cleared, but first the lodge and three salvageable cabins must be made habitable. Each structure already had a new roof, but that was it. So much to be done before the long winter set in, both by Cal and herself and local skilled laborers, none of whom seemed prone to speedily working up estimates.
Maggie shook her head and trudged downhill, giving the evil eye to Howie, who was rooting around in a thicket of wild raspberries. She mounted the steps of the lodge, avoiding loose boards, and fetched a beer from the small refrigerator beneath a window in the front room, which she and Cal had claimed as their living quarters. Then she went back outside and followed a rutted track down to the lakeshore, stepping gingerly to avoid the poison ivy that grew in abundance there. A rotted wooden dock tilted over the water; she navigated it as she had the lodge steps and sat down at its end.