Hunter's Moon (24 page)

CJ nodded once, hoping the gesture conveyed his gratitude, and then turned back to the deer, which had put some distance between them. CJ rose to his feet slowly, his eyes never leaving the buck; then he set his feet under him and raised the gun to his cheek. Finding the buck in the sights, guesstimating it at seventy yards, leading it just a hair, he took in a slow breath. He released the safety. He let the breath out and squeezed off the shot.

The blast set the trees behind him into motion, birds of all kinds taking flight from the deafening sound. And it was also the thing that set Thor into motion. Leaping to his feet, the dog began barking at the noise, and at the thing below that had taken a single step after the shot before collapsing to the ground.

CJ lowered the gun, smelling powder, his ears ringing. He only half registered the size of his smile, but he knew it was one of the most genuine things he’d experienced in a long while. He studied the kill for several seconds, allowing himself to enjoy the moment before turning to Artie, who had stood and was now at CJ’s side.

“Nice shot,” the more experienced hunter said as he looked down on the immobile form of the buck. Then he winked at CJ. “I’m glad it’s you who shot it because you’re the one who will have to drag it back up this hill.”

CJ thought he could drag the deer all the way to Canada.

“Is there another way down there?” he asked.

“If you want to walk about a mile,” Artie said. “Otherwise, the only way is straight down.”

CJ went to the edge and peered down. It looked a lot steeper than it had earlier. With a shrug he started down, only later realizing that Artie wasn’t accompanying him. When he raised an eyebrow in the other man’s direction, Artie said, “I think my knees and I will be fine right here.”

CJ could respect that, but he was not about to allow his canine friend to get off as easily.

“Let’s go,” he said, and Thor proved more than willing. He bounded to the edge of the bluff, took a leap that CJ would have thought was ill-advised, even for a creature with four legs, and hopped down the steep slope, stopping a few paces past CJ. He turned and looked back up the hill at CJ, tongue hanging, and CJ thought a few choice words in the dog’s direction.

It took a while, but he made it down, wondering the whole time how Artie was able to do this, much less drag the kill back up. The question perplexed him enough that he asked it.

“I usually come in with an ATV,” Artie called down to him.

“Now you tell me,” CJ muttered to himself.

Thor reached the buck first, but—as had CJ when he’d tried to defer the shot to Artie—the dog seemed to intuit that this was CJ’s kill and so stopped a few paces off, letting his master close the distance.

The deer, which had taken the shot in the neck, was likely dead before it hit the ground. CJ knelt beside it, away from both the antlers and its sharp hooves, and placed a hand on its back, feeling the coarse hair beneath his bare fingers. Then he set the gun down and got to work.

While it had been many years since he’d field-dressed a deer, there were skills one retained even with their long neglect. When he was finished, his hands were red with blood. He cleaned them with water from his canteen and dried them using his coat. Slinging the gun behind his back, he grabbed hold of the deer by the antlers and began dragging it toward the hill.

As he was on his way back up, he chided himself for thinking it was difficult going down. Up above, Artie stood there smiling.

Chapter 18

CJ had always believed that hunting was a teaching experience, that there was much that could be learned about life by the hours spent in solitude, pitting one’s skills and patience against nature. Sometimes, though, the teaching moment could be something wholly unexpected, and that became clear after he and Artie returned to town with their prize. After dropping the deer off at the butcher’s, and as Artie returned home to rest the legs that had finally started to give out on him during the hike back to the cabin, something the older man had said back on the bluff came back to CJ :
“The only time it’s frustrating is when I know they
are
there
and they won’t step out.”

It crystallized things for CJ, and served to chastise him for sitting so long on the thing that was his supposed reason for remaining in Adelia in the first place. Even if all of the other considerations—his impending divorce, the warrant, and the coming lawsuit from the editor of the
Southern Review
—had not formed a cabal to keep him in Adelia, he was still supposed to be working on the article. And as Sister Jean Marie had intimated, it was spite that had served as the impetus for the article, and the same which would now carry him through to completion.

When he walked into the library this time he noticed right away that the display that held his books had been dusted, and maybe moved a bit closer to the librarian’s desk, which put it in direct line of sight of anyone entering the library. It was evident that his presence earlier in the week had spurred Ms. Arlene to action, on the chance he might show up again. And now here he was, so her work wouldn’t be for naught. Right now, though, the desk was vacant, so she couldn’t experience that small pleasure.

He would remedy that straightaway because this time he wasn’t here to avail himself of books or periodicals but of a more valuable resource. Even years ago, when CJ was banned from the library, and Ms. Arlene’s fearsome reputation ensured he would never think of violating that prohibition, she had another equally well-deserved reputation as both a repository and sieve for every piece of juicy information whispered within Adelia’s borders. CJ suspected she would not have lost that trait even at her advanced age, even if the years she’d put on might have diminished the mental capacity necessary to make use of the information in her possession.

He put his notebook down at the same spot he’d occupied last time and set off in search of her. He started in the reference section and had worked his way through fiction and into the children’s section before he found her. She was pushing a cart filled with books, occasionally stopping, retrieving a book and reading the spine, then slipping it into a vacant spot on the shelf.

“Hello again, Ms. Arlene,” CJ said from behind her.

When she turned around, her face made the transformation from annoyed to pleased in record time.

“My goodness. If only you’d been this studious when you were young,” she remarked.

“Then I might have made something of myself?” CJ asked.

She laughed at that, which again made CJ cringe, but he was resolved to remain courteous. “Actually,” he said, “I’m researching a new book.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh my. How exciting.” She paused and then her eyes took on a conspiratorial twinkle. “What’s it about?”

“Now, Ms. Arlene, you know I can’t talk about it while I’m working on it.”

CJ thought there was something disconcerting about seeing an octogenarian pout. Yet he let her wear it for a few seconds before he said, “Well, if you promise not to tell anyone . . .”

“Not a soul,” she said.

He leaned in close and lowered his voice. “It’s about the life of a career prison guard in an Upstate New York prison.”

Ms. Arlene nodded. “So that’s why you’re here. You’re researching.”

“Exactly. What better place to research a book like this than in a county with a half dozen prisons.”

“I couldn’t understand why you’d taken a job at the hardware store, but now it all makes sense. It’s your cover.”

“That’s right.” CJ waited a moment before giving Ms. Arlene a troubled look. “There’s only one problem,” he said.

His look of concern was immediately mirrored by the elderly librarian. “Oh?”

“Yes. You see, I’ve heard something about the prisons that’s bothering me. And if I’m going to portray things accurately, I may have to change some of what I’ve written so far.”

He watched as that piece of intel worked its way through her mind, the track of its progress marked as clearly as if it were a dotted line on a Rand McNally map.

“Oh, you mean the privatization,” Ms. Arlene said.

“Exactly,” CJ answered, even as he parsed what she’d said. “Something like that happens and my main character doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him, right?”

Ms. Arlene considered this, and it seemed to CJ that the thought of his having to alter a book he had no intention of writing bothered her to the point of angst.

“That’s horrible,” she said.

“Well, it’s not the end of the world,” CJ said, having no desire to upset Ms. Arlene any more than necessary.

“Of course not,” the librarian agreed. “But I can see how that could affect the flow of your story.”

“So you can see the pickle I’m in.”

“I think so. You either sacrifice realism for the sake of your story, or you alter the story to remain true to the source material.”

CJ had a response prepared, confident he knew where the conversation was headed, but he was taken aback by his old foe’s adroit analysis of his fictional dilemma.

“In a nutshell, yes . . .” he said. He let the words trail off and assumed a thoughtful expression. “At this point, I’m thinking that recounting things as they actually are will make for a more powerful story.”

“I’ve always liked realism,” she said.

“And you know that’s not my strong suit.”

“I wouldn’t say that.”

“That’s very kind, but it’s true. So I need all the help I can get.”

Ms. Arlene went silent again. CJ could see her searching for a way to help him.

“So I imagine you’ll be talking with Mr. Weidman, then?” she asked.

CJ nodded, committing the name to memory. “I’m meeting with him sometime next week.”

At that, Ms. Arlene smiled.

“Then you’ll get it from the horse’s mouth himself,” she said. A second later, though, her brow furrowed. “Wait a minute. Isn’t this all supposed to be some big secret?”

“For the average person, maybe. But Mr. Wallburn—”

“Weidman.”

“Yes, Weidman. He’s a patron of the arts and wants to make sure that my book does the topic justice, which is why he’s agreed to meet with me.”

“How nice of him. I know how busy he must be preparing to run the whole prison system.”

“I’m grateful for the time he’s giving me,” CJ said. “And for your help, Ms. Arlene.”

The librarian beamed, put a hand to her chest and said, “I don’t think I did much of anything.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. You helped me see how important it is to keep my representation of Adelia accurate.”

“I did?”

“You did.”

If it was possible for an already maximized smile to grow even wider, Ms. Arlene succeeded. “I’m glad I could help, then,” she said, although it seemed she still might be doubting the importance of her role in CJ’s next literary endeavor. Even so, it was not enough to keep her from accepting his gratitude.

“I’d do anything to protect Adelia’s image,” she said.

CJ thanked Ms. Arlene again and began to extricate himself from the conversation, which took more effort than he would have liked now that the two of them shared the schemer’s understanding. Eventually, he won his freedom, again by using his fictional book as a lever.

It was as he was walking away, however, that one of the last things Ms. Arlene had said began to call for more of his attention. It wasn’t until he’d reached the library’s front door that he understood what was troubling him. Over the intervening decades between Eddie’s murder and CJ’s return to Adelia, he’d never doubted what had happened in the woods that fateful day. If witnessing the shot itself hadn’t given him that confidence, then Graham’s threatening visit to his room that evening had served the purpose.

And to his way of thinking, the fact that he was so sure about it, and yet had held the crime tight to his chest all these years, made him share some measure of guilt with Graham.

He spun around and found Ms. Arlene, barely moved from the place he’d left her. “Ms. Arlene, I’d like to view some microfiche.”

It perplexed him when this pronouncement made her laugh again.

“Oh, my dear boy,” she said after composing herself. “We haven’t had microfiche in a decade. It’s all computers now.”

“Of course it is,” CJ said.

In a few minutes, Ms. Arlene had CJ set up in front of a computer, where she walked him through the basics of navigating the system.

“I think I’ve got the hang of it,” he said. “Thanks, Ms. Arlene.”

She hovered at his side for a little longer as if unsure that he was the proper judge of his new skills. Finally, she took a step back, but instead of leaving she hovered just behind him, perhaps to satisfy her curiosity regarding the subject of his research.

As CJ was in no mood for company, and since he wasn’t much interested in sharing the subject matter of his research with her, he didn’t do a thing. He just sat in the chair, facing the computer, his hands on his lap as if in meditation, the blinking cursor on the screen his point of focus. He sat there for a full minute before he sensed the sound of shuffling behind him, the discomfort growing as it must have occurred to Ms. Arlene what he was doing. Still, it took another full minute before she left, and CJ suspected she’d taken her goodwill with her. Even though his patience with the woman was exhausted, he wondered if that had been a wise choice; who knew when he might need more information about a topic that had started out as a skeleton but was now growing flesh? What kept him from feeling too badly was that what he was researching had nothing to do with the prisons.

In truth, he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. He moved through the directory until he found the folder for the
Adelia
Herald
. He’d start here, then move on to the Albany
Times Union
if he had to.

His biggest problem was the fickle nature of memory. After so many years he could no longer trust his recollection of events— not of the murder itself but of what had happened afterward, what everyone around him had done in the aftermath. So he had to return to the day, and the only way he could do that, since he couldn’t rely on those who were there, was through newspaper accounts of the shooting. Even then, he wasn’t sure what he expected to accomplish, even if he was successful in locating a recounting of the tragedy.