Badger Games (25 page)

Boz looked around. He was lying on a pallet of sorts on the ground, a kind of rough mattress stuffed with something not very soft, corn shucks maybe. Nearby was a table, on which there was an indescribable jumble of pans, plates, newspaper, books, a radio, and a table lamp made out of an old Jim Beam bottle, the liter size, with a scorched shade. There were a couple of wooden kitchen chairs arranged about the table, and on one of them sat an old man.

“Who are you?” Boz said. He was rapidly regaining his native wariness. He felt weak, anxious, a little sick to his stomach, and he had a fierce headache. Worse, he realized now, he had a terrific pain in his right side. He felt it pull and stab at him, and then he remembered. His hand went to the wound. It was bandaged—not hospital neat, but pretty well done.

“Who?” he said again. He wasn't sure if the old man had responded the first time. He might have, but Boz's head was so abuzz that he could have missed it.

“Kibosh,” the old man said, pronouncing it kye-bosh. “My maw called me Lester, but I been Kibosh forever, it seems like.” A large, gray-brown-black cat came prowling by, disdainfully avoiding Boz, and rubbed up against the old man's high laced-up boots. He nudged her away. “That there's Mary,” he said to Boz.

“Mary,” Boz said. He understood none of this.

“Gotta have a cat, ye live in a mine,” the old man said. His voice was raspy, as if he didn't use it much. “Rats,” he said, nodding his head authoritatively. “But no rats when Mary's about.”

A little bit of last night was creeping back into Boz's conscious mind. A mine. He'd driven up here in a truck. Where did he get a truck?

“Man, I need a drink,” he said.

“Yes, ye do,” the old man said. “Not a whole lot, but ye need about a shot or two.” With that he reached behind him without looking, felt about on the shelf of some crude cabinetry he had cobbled together, and came away with a fifth of County Fair bourbon, about half full. He splashed some in a small, dirty jelly glass that was covered with pictures of children playing at ancient games like hoops. He got up from his chair and carried the glass to Boz.

Boz accepted it with trembling hands and gulped the warming liquid down. He blinked. “More,” he said, holding out the glass. He loved the way the whiskey burned down his gullet.

“I don't think so, not just yet,” the old man said, shaking his head. He sat down in his creaking chair again. “Let that one take hold, first. I'll give ye another in a minute. I s'pose ye'd like some water. Eh?” He dipped water out of a nearby bucket, filling a large metal cup, and handed that over. Boz drank it down eagerly. It was the best-tasting water he'd ever drunk.

“More,” he said.

“Naw, jest wait,” the old man said, sitting down and crossing his legs. He picked up an old cherrywood pipe and began to stuff it with tobacco from a can that said
Union Leader.
“Ye smoke?” he asked.

“No,” Boz said. “I never did. Bad for you.”

“Wal, a smoke in the morning can be right nice,” the old man observed. “Evenin', too. When yer hungover it's real good. But there ye go … yer a man without comforts. What do ye expect? Yer head hurts.” He nodded as Boz groaned. “Ye got vices, but no comforts. I tell ye what, I got some asp'rin.”

This time he got up to peer at his shelves and rummage. He soon found a little bottle and rattled it. “Here we go!” He pried the
lid off with some difficulty, cursing safety lids, and shook out three white pills. “Naw, better make it four,” he said, and shook out another. He recapped the bottle, put it away, and brought another dipper of water to fill Boz's tin cup and put the aspirin in his trembling hand. “Toss them down,” he said.

Boz did as directed, finished the water, and he felt that he could get up. He did, but he was shaky enough to have to prop himself against the wall, which he now saw was composed of rather dusty and dirt-encrusted cinder blocks.

“Whew,” he said. He flexed his knees. He dusted off his hands and ran them through his thick hair. He stood up. His head was too near the ceiling. He could stand erect, but he wanted to hunch. “Man! I guess I tied one on last night!”

The old man laughed, a dry, raspy cackle. “I guess ye did. Ye're lucky ye got here in one piece.”

“Where's the truck?” Boz said. He started toward a door, some twenty feet away, with a pane of dirty glass next to it that let light through.

The old man came forward and opened the heavy door. It was made of steel, mounted in a heavy wooden frame. The wall was stuffed with fiberglass insulation that hung out in ragged hanks.

They stepped out into a morning that wasn't as bright as it seemed at first. There was a thin high overcast of seamless clouds. But there, spread out before them, was a grand panorama of mountains that were well forested, mostly in dark green pine mixed with golden patches of larch. Rolling fields of brown grassland swept down a mile or more to the highway, along which Boz could see a semi laboring up a grade toward the pass, beyond their view.

Boz breathed in the fresh air gratefully. Down the rough road he could see the black Dodge pickup, its grill bent and one headlight smashed, but otherwise in pretty good shape. It sat square in the middle of the narrow road. A number of other old vehicles were
pushed off into the sparse woods around the front of the mine, some of them missing important parts, like a rear axle, or an engine. One of them, an old Studebaker pickup truck, appeared to be operable. It was drawn into a kind of a drive, between two pine trees that had a tin-clad roof rigged from one to the other of them to shelter it.

Boz looked all around. Behind them the mountain rose up, covered with pines that soughed gently in the wind. A jay or a squirrel called, or it might have been a crow: he didn't know. There was not a man-made structure to be seen anywhere, just the distant highway.

“Where's the ranch?” Boz said. He remembered being so sleepy, battling to keep his eyes open, and then seeing a light way off to his right. He'd gotten off the highway, somehow, and found a road that seemed to lead in that direction, but what happened after that … he didn't know.

“Ain't no ranch,” the old man said, “just the Seven Dials.” He pointed up to a large wooden sign over the entrance to the mine. It was sunbleached so pale that one could barely read the name.

“I saw a light,” Boz protested.

The old man pointed to a tall post from which the bark had been roughly stripped. At its top was a light fixture, such as one saw in barnyards, with a large bulb in it. A wire ran down the post, wrapping about it and disappearing into the mine.

“I keep that burning all night,” he explained, “to keep the bears and badgers out of my smoker.” He pointed to an old refrigerator that stood next to the door. It had a heavy web strap about it to keep it closed. “Ye hungry? Ye must be.”

He went to the refrigerator, undid the buckle, and let the strap fall to the ground. He opened the door. A waft of smoke and the odor of meat drifted out. He reached in and came out with two lengths of dark, wrinkled sausage. He handed one to Boz and set the other on the top the refrigerator while he rehitched the strap
and tightened it, snapping the buckle closed. The sausage on the top of the refrigerator fell to the ground. He picked it up and brushed it off, then took a huge bite, as Boz had.

“Pretty damn good, ain't it?” the old man said.

“It sure is,” Boz said. It was delicious. Spicy, hard, chewy, but succulent. The grease ran down his chin and he wiped it away with a hand, then looked around for something to wipe his hand on. The old man was wiping his hand on his pants. Boz looked down at his own pants. They were pretty foul, with blood, dirt, and cat hair, but he didn't feel like wiping the grease on them. They were the only pants he had. He saw that his leather coat was all right, though the sleeve was torn. His shirt was torn, too, a mess, stiff with dried blood.

“Jesus, I'm a mess,” he said, holding his hand away from him.

The old man picked up a dirty rag from the ground and tossed it to him. It looked like it had been used to clean oil from a truck part. But after he snapped it a few times in the air, Boz was able to clean his hand with it. He gobbled down the last of the sausage and wiped his fingers again, then flapped the rag at his pants and coat. Every time he flapped the rag he felt a twinge in his side, but it didn't bother him much now.

“Thanks for bandaging me up,” he said to the old man.

“No problem. Looks like ye got into a jaw-t'jaw.”

Boz shook his head. “I don't remember too much about it. Couple of guys, I guess they didn't like the way I was dancing with one of 'em's old lady.” He laughed. “I don't even know how I got out of there.”

“Where was ye?” the old man asked.

Boz shook his head. “I don't know the place.”

“Unh-hunh,” the old man said. “Well, I see yer vee-hicle, it's got Silver Bow plates, I figger ye must be from Butte.”

“Naw, it's just a loaner,” Boz said. “My car had some problems. They lent me that till they get it fixed.”

“Ah,” the old man said, “then ye ain't from around here?”

“What is this, a quiz show?” Boz said sharply.

“Nope, nope. Ain't no bizniss a mine,” the old man said, finishing off his sausage. “Wal, it looks like a purty day.” He wiped his hands a final time on his blue jeans and stood there, gazing about with his hands on his hips. “I think I'll fetch my pipe. Ye 'bout ready for another whiskey poultice? I thought ye would be.”

The old man went back into the mine and reissued a moment later, the pipe in his mouth, carrying the whiskey bottle and two small glasses. The cat slipped out between his legs and disappeared into the brush. The old man set the bottle on a chunk of wood that served as a chopping block and went back to fetch a Mason jar of water. When he came back, Boz was chugging at the bottle.

“Hey, now! That's enough a that!” the old man exclaimed. He snatched the bottle from Boz, who docilely permitted it, smiling while Kibosh poured them both a reasonable dollop in the little jelly glasses. “That's fine stuff. Ye got to sip it. Pull up a stump.”

He sat down himself on a chunk of firewood and motioned Boz to one like it nearby. The two of them sat, warming in the morning sun that was just beginning to glow through the thin cloud cover. The old man lit up his pipe again. Then he sipped at his whiskey.

“Now, this is the goddamn life, ain't it?” he said, gesturing at the mountains.

Boz sipped at his whiskey, as bidden. He felt much, much better. “Yer damn right,” he said, unconsciously mimicking the old man, who didn't notice.

Boz sat and rested himself. His mind was working, now. He saw that he was in a pretty secure position, up here, for the time
being. Little by little, the events of the night began to resurface: the hassle with the bartender, the fight with the man, the mad dogs, the crazy hippie, then … by God, Franko! And then that fucking Joe Service. And the girl! Jesus, she was a handful, all by herself.

“What was in that sausage?” he asked.

“Why that's elk sausage. Ye want some more? I got aplenty.” He half-rose as if to get more.

“No, no, that's all right,” Boz said. He smiled affably. “It was the best damn sausage I ever ate. So, how come they call you Kibosh?”

“Oh, ye know, it's a long time gone. I don't hardly 'member.”

“Oh, come on, now,” Boz said. “You must remember how you got your name. They call you that from a kid?”

The old man made a wry face. He got up and poured a little more whiskey for each of them. When he was reseated, puffing his pipe, he said, “Wal, ye see, I was just a young feller, younger'n you. I killed a feller.”

Boz drew back in mock surprise. “Whoa! A killer! I wouldn't of took you for an outlaw. That why you live up here, by yourself?”

The old man saw he was joking and took it well. “Naw, they caught me all right. Fact is, I turned meself in. It was a fight, prob'ly like your'n. Over a girl, a course.” He sighed. “Neither one of us got her, the way it turned out. He was dead, natcherly, and I went to the pen for five years, over to Deer Lodge.” He gestured over his shoulder, beyond the mountain at their back.

“Five years, that all they give you for killing a man around here?”

“Well, hell, it was a fight,” the old man protested. “We was both working up in the woods, at a camp on the Little Blackfoot, and the sumbitch came back from Hel'na, drunk as a hoot owl, an' started in on me about … her. I give him some back, an' he come at me with a damn bowie knife an' I jes' snatched up a double-bit
axe was stuck in the log like that there”—he pointed to an axe a few feet away, buried in a chunk of pine—“and laid his goddamn fool head open.”

“Well, Jesus, that's a fair fight,” Boz protested. “Why'd you get any time?”

“Wal, the jedge said I hadn't orter kilt him, I coulda avoided it. Ye see, someone made off with that knife. Some of the fellers in the camp, who seen it, now said they wasn't sure they'd ever seen a knife. But ever'body agreed, he started it. Anyways, they give me five years. I served my time. I felt bad about killing him. But I served my time.”

Boz shook his head. “That's something,” he said. “But how'd you get the name?”

“Why I guess I give it to meself. I went on down there to Hel'na an' tol' the sherf, ‘Lisle, I done put the kibosh on Frog Davis.' An' folks took to callin' me Kibosh. Mostly, though, they call me Kibe, anymore.”

“That's a hell of a story,” Boz said. “I'm proud to meet ya, Kibe.” He half-stood and stretched his hand across to shake the old man's callused one. “You're a hell of man,” Boz said, reseating himself. “So how long you been up here?”

“'Bout forty, fifty year. I worked in all these mines.” He swept his arm around the scene. “There's hundreds of old mines out there, though ye wouldn't know it. Ye'd never find a dozen. I know 'em all. Hell, I could walk to Butte underground, I betcha. See, these mines, you wouldn't guess it, are a lot of 'em interconnected. They run for miles underground.”