Mack kicked off his shoes and hoisted his socked, size-fifteen feet onto the table.
“Now she’ll never know.”
David grabbed a beer and listened as Mack detailed Tina’s latest series of hints about buying a ring. David surprised them both by carrying their cans to the waste basket after they finished.
“What?” David demanded as he dropped them in. “If you had a sister with a handgun, you’d probably bury your cans in the back yard to avoid her wrath.”
“I do that anyway. Full ones, so I can send my friends on beer treasure hunts in the summer.”
David grinned.
“That’s not half bad. Think Nancy would go for that as an anniversary party game?”
Mack chuckled and leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.
“Absolutely. I’m sure Nancy would love nothing more than crawling around on her knees for warm beer. It will remind her of college.”
David guffawed. “My God, if she had a sense of humor, I’d suggest it.” David’s laughter trailed off, and he looked at Mack seriously. “You’re coming back, right? I don’t want my best friend to become a hermit in the Stoneroot Forest to avoid telling Tina you guys aren’t headed for the altar.”
“Ugh,” Mack groaned, and leaned back on the couch, banging his head against the cushions a few times. “How did I get here?”
David sat down.
“You didn’t. Your hard-on did. Unfortunately, he’s not very good at breaking up either.”
Mack looked down at his pants.
“Little bastard,” he muttered.
“Damn, now you’re insulting him too. I don’t blame ya, though. If I woke up next to Tina, I’d have half a mind to whack mine right off.”
Mack snorted and flipped him the finger.
David held up his hands.
“Don’t get me wrong. She’s a fox, but the rabid kind that most men can tell a mile off the fur ain’t worth the bite.”
Mack glared at him.
“How about some friendly advice, then?”
David’s mouth dropped open. “Mack, how long have I been single? That’d be like a prostitute giving advice to a priest.”
“Thanks,” Mack grumbled.
“Okay, you want my advice? Go home, enjoy one last ride, and when she heads out on the town, pack your bag, leave her a note and some cash to buy a new dress, and hit the road.”
“And then what? Ride off into the sunset? We live in the same damn town. I’ll see her at bowling league, I’ll run into her at Frank’s market. Shit, she buys her gas the same place as me.”
David shrugged.
“Join the senior league and bowl at 9 a.m. They’ll take pity on you when they hear your troubles.”
The Stoneroot Forest lay forty miles south of Grayling. Mack’s cabin was off a grassy two-track deep in the woods.
Misty reared up excitedly, putting both paws on the passenger window as the cabin slid into view.
“Calm down, girl,” he told her, scratching her red-brown head. Misty was a mixed breed with fox lineage. Some days she looked more fox than dog.
She followed him out the driver’s door, bounding into the trees with her tail wagging her entire backside. She raced around the cabin twice, nipping at Mack’s bag as he hauled it into the little two-story log cabin. He deposited his bag on the table and headed back out.
A few of the trees had shifted from green to gold. Twigs crunched underfoot as Mack and Misty lumbered through the forest.
The cabin roused nostalgic memories of hunting with his Uncle Byron, and less fond memories of watching his dad slam beers and shoot the cans off tree stumps.
Mack had honeymooned with Diane for a week at the cabin after their wedding. They slow-danced by the bonfire. ‘I Only Have Eyes for You’ by the Flamingos played on the record player next to the sitting-room window. They ate dinner by candlelight and took long walks in the woods, watching Misty run after squirrels and birds.
Those were the best days; Mack had realized later. The year before the wedding and the year after. Those were the best days.
But then life took its inevitable toll. Mack’s drinking shifted from casual to constant. Diane’s stubbornness grew cement legs. The hardship of finances, the endless work of the big farmhouse, losing two babies before Diane ever had a belly. Things they would have turned their noses up at in those first two years. A love like that doesn’t falter, doesn’t die beneath the weight of ordinary things. But oh, it does, it’s the ordinary things that kill us all.
Misty barked and pivoted, running south. Mack followed without complaint. He’d left his fishing pole in the truck. He didn’t much feel like fishing, preferring to walk and think and forget about the stillness of fishing, not to mention the backache of sitting on the little lopsided dock. With his luck, the damn thing would swallow the hook and he wouldn’t even get the satisfaction of throwing it back alive.
“Maybe we can find some worms, Misty Girl.”
He hadn’t bothered to stop at the bait shop. There were enough rubber worms in his tackle box if he really felt like fishing, and he didn’t - simple as that.
He kicked over logs and dug into the moist dirt, finding a centipede and popping it into the little metal cannister in the pack on his back.
Misty disappeared into a pile of brush and burst out a moment later, hackles raised, barking wildly.
“Just wait a minute,” he called, trotting over to her.
The last thing he needed was Misty stuck with a face full of porcupine quills.
He grabbed hold of her collar and held her back as she barked and lunged at the pile of brush.
Holding her steady, Mack walked closer, squinting through sticks and dried leaves where a bit of fabric appeared, nestled deep in the overgrowth.
He frowned and squatted low, tugging the fabric, but it was stuck good. Looked like it had been red before the weather bleached it a pale pink.
As he tugged, Misty snarled and jumped back and forth at the thing. When Mack looked at her, he saw a terror in her eyes that made him drop the fabric and stand back up.
He looked across the expanse of woods, thick boughs of golden leaves and the red-brown that had already fallen.
The skin on the back of his neck crawled, and he felt as if someone watched them.
Misty paused too, head cocked, ears perked, and then she lowered on her haunches and bared her teeth at whatever lay beneath the brush.
Mack found a long, sturdy stick. He whacked at the brush and kicked with his heavy boots. The shirt was half-buried. He reached down and brushed away wet leaves before sinking both hands into the dirt around the fabric. His finger struck something hard. As he dug deeper, throwing handfuls of dirt behind him, the shirt came into view, and a trickle of ice slid down Mack’s spine.
He peered at the skull of a human being, the bones of the spine disappearing into the pink fabric.
“Sweet mother of Jesus,” he muttered, standing and taking two long strides away from the body, hauling Misty with him.
Now that he’d exposed the thing, the corpse, Misty appeared reluctant to go near it.
The sensation of being watched returned, and Mack shuddered, trying to still his agitated dog. He squinted further into the forest, even tilted his head to look up into the trees, half expecting to see a madman perched there like a man-sized hawk. But the branches stood empty save for a few crows.
“Damn,” he muttered.
The cabin didn’t have a phone. He’d have to drive to the police department. A ten-mile trek into Kalkaska.
“Stay back, girl,” Mack ordered Misty as he returned to the body. He gazed into the shallow grave, hunching for a closer look. A small leather pouch rested in the dirt near the body.