In a spontaneous display of consensus body language, Broker, Allen, and Milt rose, tiptoed away, and formed an awkward huddle a discreet distance from Hank.
“Earl is the old boyfriend,” Allen explained.
“She wrote him a big check, so Hank cut her off, closed the joint checking account,” Milt said.
“Put all his money in a trust she can’t touch, to teach her a lesson,” Allen said.
“Don’t call me again when I’m hunting,” Sommer growled. He grimaced and held the phone away from his ear, up toward the overcast sky. “I don’t need this shit,” he hissed. Then, in a sudden fit he threw the phone like a shortstop firing to first base, and the black plastic rectangle skittered off a spruce branch, bounced, then rolled over next to Broker’s boot.
A youthful voice rattled distinctly from the phone, “I’m just trying to be responsible, goddammit; and responsible people pay their debts.”
Broker picked up the phone and held it at arm’s length.
The voice continued. “You have all these bills piled up on your desk going back two months. The power company called. They’re going to turn off the lights. Hank? Hank?”
Gingerly, Broker handed it back to Sommer who was now furious and clearly not tracking her conversation. “Not with my money. Not to that pimp!” he shouted into the phone.
“Earl was never a pimp,” the voice said. “And it’s our money because we’re married.”
Milt shook his head. “I told him he should have made her sign a pre-nup.”
Allen worried his lower lip between his teeth and tried to explain, “This is one beautiful woman on the outside but as to the inside Milt and I disagree.”
“Bonnie fucking Parker is what I think,” Milt said.
“And I think she cleans up well, like Eliza Doolittle, a lotus growing in a field of shit and Hank had the good sense to pluck her,” Allen said thoughtfully.
“We’ll see who plucks who.” Milt glanced at Broker and shrugged. “Allen and I have this bet going. It’s a classic nature-nurture debate; she was a stripper and a drunk who hung out with some rough people. Hank met her in an AA group in a church basement. I don’t think she can change, Allen thinks she can. Obviously so does Hank.”
“Fuck this,” Hank exploded. He wound up and threw the phone again, except this time he lobbed it over their heads in a long arc that ended in a splash twenty yards out in the lake.
“And that settles that,” Milt said.
Broker watched the circular ripples radiate out from the spot where the phone disappeared. He cleared his throat. “Sure can get quiet up here,” he said, deadpan.
After that, they set off in separate directions to practice male solidarity through denial, and to break camp. While Broker did the dishes, Milt and Allen efficiently collapsed the tents, stowed them, and organized the cumbersome Duluth packs next to the canoes. Sommer hung back and brooded with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.
After he finished the dishes Broker packed them and scanned the low clouds as he laced up his boots. Snow didn’t bother him. But he felt a draft comb through the pine needles, like someone had eased open the door of a walk-in meat freezer. And in the chill he sensed the charged air marshaling and packing tighter.
They stamped out the campfire and stowed the last of their gear. Sommer clambered gingerly over the mound of packs and took his seat in the bow of Broker’s canoe. Milt naturally took the stern position in the other boat. A little after 8:00 A.M., they pushed off from the campsite and entered a maze of narrow channels that threaded toward Lake Fraser.
Paddling side by side, Broker and Milt kibitzed about canoes. Milt had wanted one of the fast, lighter Kevlar models that were currently popular. Broker preferred the old-fashioned aluminum Grummans. The popular Wenonahs, he argued, were great for racing in a straight line on flat water, but he distrusted the square cut of the bow and worried it would dig into a breaking wave, not ride up it.
They’d compromised on fiberglass Bells-a broader craft with more lift in the line of the bow and more stability for heavy loads and bad weather.
Then Milt and Allen pulled ahead and when they were out of easy earshot, Sommer turned in the bow seat and shook his head. He seemed to have been holding his breath since the phone incident. Now he exhaled and grumbled. “Sometimes I feel like a cliche, marrying a younger woman. Thinking I could help her change.”
Broker studied the older man for two long paddle strokes. As the cold water swished and the canoe rocked he watched Sommer’s expression slip. Suddenly he saw into the dilemma of a physically rugged man who was grappling with aging and was losing the strength he’d always taken for granted.
Broker spoke in a low, soft voice no one on the trip had yet heard: “I married a younger woman and I thought she’d change after she had a baby but she didn’t.”
And that pretty much dried up the conversation for a while.
Up ahead Milt and Allen put down their paddles, unzipped their gun cases, and loaded their rifles, which they then carefully positioned against the thwarts. Then they picked up their paddles and pulled farther ahead.
Sommer chuckled. “Look at them go. They want to be first.”
“First, huh?”
“For the next big thing-which in this case is some poor, lily-pad-chewing moose.” Sommer chuckled, raised his voice, and hailed the other canoe. “Who gets the first shot? Who will be the Alpha Wolf and hang the antlers?”
“Pipe down,” Allen yelled back, “you’ll scare everything away.”
“Oh, that’s good,” Sommer exclaimed. “What do you think? Some moose is going to get wheeled down to the shore all prepped and anesthetized on a table for you to carve up?”
Milt and Allen pulled about fifty yards ahead and no one spoke. The white trees enforced quiet, like a hospital ward. There was only the splash of the paddles, puffs of their breath, the occasional knock of wood on the gunwales.
Then Sommer shrugged and wondered out loud, “What do moose do in this weather, anyway?”
Broker said, “Got me.”
“Hey, c’mon, you’re the guide,” Sommer said.
“I’m the cook, I set up camp. I’m not a hunting guide. It’s illegal to guide or assist in the state lottery hunt up here if you’ve already got a moose,” Broker said.
“That’s what I mean, you’ve shot a moose, right?” Sommer said.
“It was a long time ago,” Broker said.
“So how was it?” Sommer asked.
“Shooting a moose is like shooting a garage door.”
Sommer jerked around and laughed. “That’s good, I’m going to steal that.”
“So you steal stuff, huh?” Broker asked.
“You bet. All writers are thieves.”
“I always heard there are two kinds of thieves: the ones too lazy to work and the ones who think they’re too smart to get caught. Which kind are you?”
Sommer laughed. “The smart, lazy kind. Actually I’m more like a ball of wax; you know, everything sticks.”
“And that’s why you want to shoot a moose, to pick up some details?” Broker asked.
“Nah,” Sommer raised his paddle and pointed at the canoe up ahead. “I want to see them shoot a moose. Especially Allen.”
Broker fixed on the blue back of Allen’s parka and asked, “How’s that?”
“I admit I wouldn’t mind seeing a surgeon field-dress a moose,” Sommer said.
“I hear you,” Broker said, suppressing a smile. Then they stopped talking and looked to the paddles, their arms rising and falling in a crisp morning cadence, working out the kinks, easing into the day. Despite the overcast sky they were happy to be free of the rain and they warmed with the work.