way directly to the river. The three men had only just disembarked at the river’s edge intent on deploying the trapping snares when the first bullet whizzed just over one of the deputy’s heads.
The head of one of the deputies.
He hit the turf with no visible reluctance.
His companions merely gaped.
A split second later a second echoing shot lifted the Smokey the Bear lid from the warden’s head.
He promptly joined his companion on the ground.
The third, fourth, and fifth shots sufficed to empty the air from three of the four tires of the state-owned truck. The sixth shot ended its flight at points unknown, fortunately not in any body parts of the fully prone fish and game boys.
Because cell phones did not yet exist in significant abundance in those days, the three men were obliged to hoof it the half mile to the nearest farm house, once they had expended a suitable stretch of time hiding in a nearby ditch by way of satisfying themselves no further fire was likely. Our Sheriff gave them a lift back to St. Paul, promising sure enough to get to the bottom of the unfortunate hunting incident, you bet.
They never came back.
They did swear out a warrant for interference with an official fish and game investigation, and attempted murder to boot. Our local law enforcement saw to it the paperwork was neatly filed then promptly forgotten.
With the state boys thus put effectively out of commission so it was Arch and the men of the brethren or covenant or brotherhood -- or whatever the followers of Arch’s Grandfather Henry and Great Uncle Parrish were calling themselves these days -- gathered to hunt the big cat into extinction. Or die trying. Leaving Faith alone to tend to the women tending her. A. Jacks for his part still patiently stacking.
When, later that morning, Faith looked up -- cousins from the Frederickson branch of the family at her side like barnacles clinging to a trawler’s hull, nieces and nephews from the Mueller line holding up a wall on the room’s other side -- she saw a contingent from the Leese clan arriving en masse, bearing cookies and bundt cake and Great Uncle Parrish.
Parrish was, in those days, nearly blind. A hunched figure supported on both arms by attending women. Great shocks of white hair sprouting from his ample dome. Dressed in a striped shirt with pearl buttons and faded levis and ancient work boots. A riot of age spots adorning each thin arm and each hollow cheek. The old man once seated looked about the room, or at least cast his face about in the manner of one who can actually see.
“I see God’s hand in it,” he said, rubbing his knees absently while fixing his gaze on a distant vision.
Your classic thousand-yard stare.
The womenfolk at his proverbial knee murmured and clucked in agreement.
Someone may have said “amen.”
“It is our sin that brings this tragedy befalling us, for in sin are we born, and in sin shall we die if not saved,” the old man continued, still examining some item of extreme interest a mile or two in the distance.
Hattie Carlson, who remained a mere obedient Lutheran, and thus had not enlisted in the covenant or covey or brood -- or whatever the followers were calling themselves lately -- rose rather more noisily than strictly necessary and stumped from the room, muttering oaths and adumbrations not quite under her breath as she did.
Faith sighed heavily.
Sensing the mood cousin Rebecca, who was ever of a peace-making nature, chose to interject a subject-changing thought.
“Tell us about the Home Place,” she said eagerly.
At the mere mention the old man’s countenance visibly brightened. So too did the visages of the others.
“Yes … please do ..., tell us ….” they said, more or less in unison.
The old man proved happy to oblige.
“Well now,” he began. “Well now. On the Home Place the grasses grow green and deep ….”
Some moments later Faith walked slowly, unhurriedly, from the living room sofa on which Parrish regaled the clan with tales of the Home Place, and the cousins and friends and neighbors yet blathered of shopping and cooking and gossip, out the kitchen door and through the farmyard, grateful to get away for the moment, the spring morn’s steady west wind tossing her locks slightly. Sporting comfortable jeans, a white t-shirt of indistinct origin, and blue New Balance tennis shoes. A slender woman, say five-and-a-half feet or cubits or hands in length, her auburn tresses trailing to her shoulders, blue-green eyed and pleasantly complected. She slipped from the kitchen out the door and across the pasture to the randomly flung collection of molecules comprising the randomly strewn collection of timber where, after a time, she bent and began assisting in the orderly sorting and stacking of same.
A. Jacks looked up from his labors long enough to take note of Faith clutching some among the lighter of the pines.
He stopped.
Faith locked eyes with the man.
“So, you’re a carpenter now,” she said.
A. Jacks made no reply.
“I supposed that makes as much sense as anything else,” Faith muttered, bending to retrieve a perfectly serviceable two-by-four for neat placement on the rapidly growing pile of timber.
CHAPTER THREE
Arch at that hour slipped away from the hunters long enough to briefly confab with his old friend. Covertly, of course.
Arch spied him concealed in a thicket behind a ridge as the posse disbursed to trap a cat. Invoking his huntmaster’s privilege, Arch directed the men of his crew away from the ridge for the moment. While the company fly-specked the terrain in the other direction, Arch limped to the edge of the stand of wind-whipped pines where he found the familiar face waiting.
They dispensed with the obligatory handshake. Arch laid his gun on the ground and leaned against a tree. The waiting man idly puffed a fag while scanning the horizon. Looking more than a little contemplative, or maybe just bored. He wore a midnight blue sports coat and trousers and white shirt and jet black tie and black oxfords, and of course the distinctive shades hooding his eyes. His usual costume. Arch sported levis and checked shirt and seed corn cap and muddied work boots. His usual get up.
The man tossed the ciggie to the ground after a time and crushed it into the dirt with a practiced heel. He lowered his shades slightly while casting a knowing nod Arch’s way.
“Should we be worried?” he asked.
Arch shook his head.
“No. She just thinks I’m crazy,” he replied.
The midnight-blue suited man grunted and sighed. Or perhaps sighed and grunted.
“I know everybody’s got their knickers in a twist,” he said after a time. “And, sorry for your loss, by the way. Presumed loss. Though, parenthetically, many’s the boy raised by wolves, successfully. Some a damn site better off than your average conventionally reared kid, by the way. It’s just that we got bigger fish to fry, my friend.”
Arch nodded and sighed. Or perhaps sighed and nodded.
“I know. I know,” he said.
The man fell to his haunches while peeling a twig thoughtfully.
“See there yonder?” he said, pointing to a plateau atop a sandstone bluff across several a pasture and associated bleating sheep. “Mighty fine land, as your kind might put it. Plumb fine. Fric, frac and flambé.”
He chortled.
Arch merely listened, nodding slightly.
“It can be yours, my friend,” the man continued after a moment. “You do get that, right?”
Arch nodded.