He stepped up onto the porch and pressed himself against the wall where the shadows were deepest. “Trying to save a few loons and swans. Mind pointing that thing somewhere else?”
“Oh. Sorry.” I put the safety back on and laid the gun on the floor beside my chair.
“We got a tip that somebody down on this part of the island’s been getting away with shooting loons for a few years now. Just stands on his porch and bangs away. If he bags one, it’s just a few steps out and back in again before we can get a fix on where the gunshot came from. I decided that this year, by damn, I was gonna bag him.”
“You’re talking about Mahlon Davis, aren’t you?”
“Well, that’s the way our suspicions have been running. Don’t suppose you’ve seen him at it?”
“No-o, but—”
“But what, ma’am?”
“I was just remembering that both yesterday and today, I did hear gunshots when I first woke up. Didn’t think anything about it, though.”
“Not many people do, down here,” he said bitterly. “It’s the sound of springtime—spring peepers, migrating loons, shotgun blasts.”
“Were you really going to spend the night under this porch?”
“I didn’t know anybody was staying here, although I should have realized, the way your phone’s been going crazy the last hour. I thought it belonged to somebody upstate that only comes down weekends. Stalking some of these boogers is like stalking wild turkeys. Except they’re smarter and edgier than any turkey and they can spot a game warden a mile off. Only chance you have is to get in a place they can’t see you and then grab ‘em while the bird’s still warm in their hands.”
“Spoken like a man who enjoys his job,” I laughed.
“We might not go in it for the sport,” he said, “but most of us do like to hunt. And this surely is a hunt.”
“Yeah, I used to hear tell of a revenuer like that. He’d lay out in the woods for a week at the time to catch somebody.”
“It’s not too bad. I’ve got a sleeping bag under there.”
“Where’s your car?”
“Parked up at the Shell Point ranger station. One of my buddies dropped me off up the road about ten minutes before you pulled in. Only thing I could think to do was dive under there before you saw me. I thought you’d go on to bed and I could just sneak out. How’d you spot me?”
“You were a little too liberal with your Off,” I told him.
All this time, we’d been speaking in low tones. The wind was stiffening now and I was getting cold and suddenly quite tired.
I stood and pulled the windbreaker close around me. “Well, have fun. If I don’t get to bed I won’t be able to keep my eyes open in court tomorrow.”
“Say, Judge?” Chapin’s voice was diffident, but I knew that wheedling tone. God knows I’d heard it often enough from my brothers and nephews.
“No,” I said.
“But we’re both officers of the court, on the same side, aren’t we?”
“Up to a point,” I said. “If they were shooting loons for the hell of it, I’d say sure you could spend the night inside on the couch, but these people eat what they shoot and—”
“Most robbers spend what they steal,” he said reasonably.
I sighed. “They’re going to hate me.”
“They won’t even know it was you,” he promised. “I’ll slip out the back door. They won’t know where I came from.”
“You better not snore and I get first dibs on the bathroom,” I told him.
He pulled his sleeping bag out from under the porch, shook it good, and we went inside, still not turning on any lights.
8
Our life is like a stormy sea
Swept by the gales of sin and grief,
While on the windward and the lee
Hang heavy clouds of unbelief;
But o’er the deep a call we hear,
Like harbor bell’s inviting voice;
It tells the lost that hope is near,
And bids the trembling soul rejoice.
“This way, this way, O heart oppress’d,
So long by storm and tempest driv’n;
This way, this way, lo, here is rest,”
Rings out the Harbor Bell of heaven.
—John H. Yates
When I awoke the next morning, it wasn’t the sound of shotguns blasting across the water that floated through my window, but those very loud bantam gamecocks that Mickey Mantle keeps caged among the bushes at the edge of Mahlon’s lot.
I’m sure he fights them somewhere on the island, but it was no concern of my mine. The clock said it was only six-ten, so I pulled the quilt over my head and tried to ignore their strident crows.
Less easy to ignore an hour later was the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee that worked its way under my closed door and down under the quilt till I was roused to pull a sweatshirt over my gown and go follow it out to the kitchen. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a phantom aroma for by the time I got there, the pot was empty, a cup was draining in the dish rack on the sink, and there was a note on the table:
6:45
Thanks for the loan of your couch. All quiet this a.m., so I’ll try to sneak out without ruining your reputation.
Kidd Chapin
There were enough trees and bushes between the back door and the mobile home fifty feet away. With Clarence and his son away all week, Chapin had a pretty good chance of succeeding unless someone happened to be looking right at the door the minute he opened it. Once outside and through the bushes, there was enough foot traffic back and forth between the road and the water, that no one would know if he were coming or going.
Reputation intact for one day more. My brothers would be pleased.
I showered while a fresh pot of coffee brewed, then slipped on jeans and sneakers and walked down to the water with that first hot cup cradled in my hands. The air was chilly and the wind was still off the water and stronger than last night, but the sun was burning off a light haze and it was going to be a beautiful day.
A door banged and I looked back to see young Guthrie standing there with books under his arm, his blond thatch brushed, dressed for school. He hesitated a moment, as if uncertain whether or not to acknowledge my presence. It was the first time I’d seen him since Sunday, but I greeted him casually and he joined me at the water’s edge with some of his usual self-assurance.
“You laying out today?” he asked.
I smiled. “Wish I could.”
“Me, too. I hate school.”
“Yeah, I did, too.”
He glanced over at me quickly before his eyes darted away again. “How’d you get to be a judge then?”
“I didn’t say I hated learning. I said I hated school. Especially days like this. They made me want to be outdoors, not shut up inside.”
“Yeah,” he said, gazing wistfully out at the banks.
I found myself covertly examining his face and as much of his neck as was visible beneath the long-sleeved shirt, but I saw no fresh bruises. Just because Mahlon might use corporal punishment didn’t make him a child abuser. My own daddy’d switched every one of us at one time or another for doing things not much worse than taking a boat without permission; but we never questioned his love for us. Unfortunately, there was no way to ask Guthrie if he felt loved and secure.
“Sometimes I have to say a courtroom feels like being back in school,” I told him.
As if my words had given him the opening he’d needed, he said, “Want to thank you.”
“For what?”
“My daddy told me he saw you yesterday and you let him off.”