“There ain’t no way to make this right,” Sugar Bear said to the dead guy. “I can’t alibi you. I can’t alibi me. I don’t like either one of us, you sonovabitch, but I’m sorry.”
The fisherman, standing silent nearby, told himself he would-be-damn. He knew Sugar Bear took stuff too serious, but never believed Sugar Bear took it this serious. The fisherman figured he’d better make some noise.
“I said it before.” The fisherman spoke casual as if they sat among folks at Beer and Bait. “This was gonna happen. The guy was a goner. If you blame yourself, it’s like blaming yourself for earthquakes.”
“I figured you might be out here tonight.” Sugar Bear did not turn around. He kept watching the Canal. “It’s one of them no-sleep deals, ain’t it?”
“The souls of fish,” the fisherman said. “On my conscience I got the souls of maybe a million fish. That includes some championship halibut.”
Sugar Bear slumped. Starlight and moonlight lay so in tense that shadows of trees ran blackly toward the water. Waves broke against the shingle. “I got a problem with you,” Sugar Bear told the fisherman. “I never know when you’re flipping b.s. and when you’re actually talking.”
“I got the same problem,” the fisherman admitted, “but I think right now I’m talking.” He stepped from shadows to stand beside Sugar Bear. “I ain’t never killed a fish, not even a dogfish or a shark, that wasn’t more important than that guy.”
“You can’t compare.”
“You can,” the fisherman insisted. “A shark does what sharks do, because sharks don’t know any better. They got no choice.” The fisherman put his hand on Sugar Bear’s shoulder. “Man, you’ve got to get past it. This is messing you up.”
“If it don’t rain real quick,” Sugar Bear said, “we’re going to lose the forest. I shouldn’t have built the shop in the middle of all them trees.”
“And you accuse me of b.s.”
“It’ll be a punishment, I reckon,” Sugar Bear told him. “I’m not exactly changing the subject.”
“Sure,” the fisherman said. “In order to punish you, the whole damn forest will burn. That’s getting pretty universal.” The fisherman stepped toward the shoreline, looked into the surf, looked farther along the shoreline. “You got a bigger problem,” he said quietly, “or else you got no problem at all. Bring that flashlight!” He walked across the shingle and into a small stand of trees. Sugar Bear followed.
The car had either been washed or dragged sideways. It sat in surf a good forty yards from the original dunk site. Under starlight strong as beacons, the car sat like a small, steel stain in churning water. Its hood stood buried beneath surf, but its rear end rose above water level. The rear end looked like a clamp had twisted against the fenders until the trunk lid popped open. The trunk lid stood above the surf like a small imitation of the police crane, like a shorebird fishing.
“Let’s hope that trunk is empty,” the fisherman said, “Because otherwise this job is running over time.” He worked his way through trees and small brush. The car trembled as surf crashed against its front end. Nothing, except the rear end, seemed bent or squashed.
“Flashlight,” the fisherman said. He took it from Sugar Bear. “Empty,” he said about the car’s trunk. He ran the beam of light up and down the shore. Nothing tumbled in the surf, not log or flotsam or corpse.
“I’ll be honest,” the fisherman admitted, “this is scaring the living crap out of me.”
“I think,” Sugar Bear said, “I’m going home and wait until this plays out. I almost wish the sonovabitch was there, or maybe I don’t.” He stood quiet for a moment, watching boiling water, watching whitecaps and stars and moon. “You’re a good friend,” he said to the fisherman. “Better than I’ve got coming, probably.”
“I keep feeling like somebody’s watching us,” the fisherman said. “Maybe that’s why this is scary.” He backed away, passed the flashlight to Sugar Bear, and made his way through brush and trees to the road. As he did, there was small movement among the trees where Annie still hid.
She crouched, not wanting to be seen, but wanting to help. As the two men stepped onto the road and parted company, Annie told herself everything was going to work out. Some part of her spell had meshed. The dead guy was gone.
She felt the wind move through trees, and felt, really felt, the starlight. Then she told herself not to get feeling too smart, because there was still plenty to worry about. Maybe she had done something dumb, because wind might cause the forest to burn. It seemed that work only caused more work, because now attention must be paid to knocking down wind and bringing rain. As she stepped onto the road, and headed for home, she shivered because of an unaccustomed feeling. She had the feeling that something or someone was watching.
Interlude: Jubal Jim Smells Something Dreadful
Night holds the mountains like darkness is welded to rock. Night clasps roots of trees and rhododendron and blackberry, and the bug-running litter beneath fallen leaves. Night defeats a brilliant moon where shadows fall. Owl-light, as it fades to darkest dark, signals a time for night creatures to scurry, glide, tramp, or scatter. It is time for hounds to run.
Jubal Jim Johnson, who, during the day could be taken for a goldbrick, oozes serpent-like from the porch of Beer and Bait. The Canal lies black as tunket behind him, and mountains stand bountiful and dark with smells. It’s a smorgasbord for the nose out there, at least if one is a hound.
In light from neon, Jubal Jim looks like a black-saddled, but otherwise white apparition fading into the forest. His ordinarily smiley face with its little brown eye patches, and the blue ticking on his brisket, can’t be seen. His eighty-pound body stretches long, lithe, muscular, and he can run twenty miles in a night.
Hound sense being what it is, Jubal Jim makes do with half-a-hunt, for he has no hunter following. Jubal Jim can run a fox to ground, make a raccoon wish he was in Topeka, and tussle a bear in a manner that leaves both parties bloody and unsatisfied. If he had a hunter, or had a pack to run with, Jubal Jim would be a fulfilled hound. As it is, he has vague longings.
Of sin he is innocent because he doesn’t know what it is; or gives a smidgen. In his doggish way he understands that men stand around pool tables and things go click. He understands that brown paper bags sometimes contain interesting things to eat. Dog-like, he knows some humans can be trusted, and some cannot, and he knows the bar smells of sweat and beer like he knows the back of his paw. In the field of crime Jubal Jim is innocent, although he once secretly peed behind the piano, possibly through a whim, or possibly because during winter months Bertha keeps the doors shut and forgets to let him out.
Of crimes of passion Jubal Jim has no knowledge. He obeys the laws of dogs when in the forest, and manages to sleep past the laws of men during daylight. In the forest he learns from doing things. It sounds like fun, for example, to tangle with an adolescent cougar, but the experience is such that you generally ignore the next one.
Of history, Jubal Jim is proud heir. His bloodline traces back to the time of the Phoenicians, or at least part of it does. His sire lived a vigorous life of twelve years, his dam lived thirteen. Jubal Jim, at age seven, already moves toward that passing show where, if there is a heaven, and if that heaven comes up to advance notices, all humans who are worthy will be allowed to rejoin their dogs.
Jubal Jim runs through a windy, moonstruck night in a place where humans have lived for twenty thousand years. He runs past an extinct Indian village covered by an ancient mudslide, from which, occasionally, appears a stone or ivory tool that Chantrell George scrounges and sells. Jubal Jim runs past sites of ancient massacres, slavetrading, bone breaking, and lodge fires where echoes of dance and chant are long since washed into the soil by millenniums of rain. And who is to say, in those prehistoric days, whether bone breaking did not amount to cultural amity?