"Wayne," the first hunter called out, "you ain't gonna believe what kinda situation we just lucked into."
The second one smiled, his teeth tiny and pointed. His eyes scanned the table.
"Get your butt over here, Wayne, and try one of these here game birds. But stay away from the pancakes. They're nasty."
"Bo," Cheryl said, "would you please get Paul Fecher right this instant?" Cheryl said. "We've got the cast of Deliverance here, and the man's nowhere in sight."
Obviously she didn't see what it meant that the manager still hadn't emerged. When the waiter had spilled wine on Barlow, he'd popped out of the kitchen like a jack-in-the-box. He had to have heard this commotion; the fact that he wasn't here meant that something was very wrong.
"We don't need to shoot no deer," the goateed hunter said. "Never liked venison anyway."
Bo, relieved to get out of there, ran toward the kitchen.
"Hey!" the goateed guy shouted after him.
With a shrug, he turned to his comrade. "Wait'll he meets Verne."
The blond guy snickered.
Bodine rose slowly. "That's enough," he said.
I whispered, "Hank, don't."
The goateed giant looked up at Bodine, and said, "Sit down."
But Bodine didn't obey. He walked down the length of the table slowly, shaking his head: the big man in charge. He could have been running a staff meeting, that was how confidently he asserted his authority.
"Back to your seat, there, boss man."
As Bodine passed me I reached out and grabbed his knee. "Hank," I whispered, "don't mess with this guy."
Bodine slapped my hand away and kept going, a man on a mission.
Lummis muttered to Barlow, "Gotta be a hunting party that got lost in the woods."
"We're in a game preserve," Barlow replied, just as quietly. "Great Bear Preserve. Hunting's against the law."
"I don't think these guys care about the law," I said.
24
Bodine stood maybe six feet away from the black-haired guy, his feet planted wide apart, hands on his hips, obviously trying to intimidate him.
"All right, fella, fun's over," Bodine said. "Move on."
The goateed guy looked up from the food and snarled, mouth full, "Siddown."
"If you and your buddy aren't out of here in the next sixty seconds, we're going to call the police." Bodine glanced over at the rest of us. He was playing to the crowd. This was a man used to being obeyed, and there really was something about the sonorous authority of his voice that made most people want to do whatever he told them to do.
But the black-haired hunter just furrowed his heavy brow and gave Bodine a satanic smile. "The po-lice," he said, and he cackled. "That's a good one." Then he looked over at his comrade, potato mush on either side of his mouth. "You hear that, Wayne? He gonna call the po-lice."
The second intruder spoke for the first time. "Don't think so," he said in a strangely high voice. His eyes flitted back and forth. His arms dangled at his side, too short for his bulky torso.
Everyone had gone quiet, staring with frightened fascination, as if watching a horror movie. I said, "Hank, come on."
Without even looking at me, he extended his right arm and waggled his index finger dismissively in my direction, telling me without words, Stay out of this. None of your business.
From the kitchen came a cry. A man's voice.
I saw the realization dawn on people's faces.
Bodine moved just inches away from the goateed man. He was doing what he must have done hundreds of times: invading an adversary's personal space, intimidating him with his height, his stentorian voice, his commanding presence. It always worked, but right now it didn't seem to be working at all.
"Let me tell you something, friend," Bodine said. "You are making a serious mistake. Now, I'm going to do you a favor and pretend none of this happened. I'm giving you an opportunity to move on, and I suggest you take it. It's a no-brainer."
Suddenly the man pulled something shiny and metal from his vest: a stainless-steel revolver. The table erupted in panicked screams.
He took the weapon by the barrel, and slammed the grip against the side of Bodine's face. It made an audible crunch.
Bodine let out a terrible, agonized yelp, and collapsed to his knees.
Blood sluiced from his nose. It looked broken. One hand flew to his face; the other flailed in the air to ward off any further blows.
The reaction around the table was swift and panicked. Some seemed to want to come to Bodine's assistance but didn't dare. Some screamed.
Cheryl kept calling for the manager.
If he could have come, he would have.
"God's sake, somebody do something!" Lummis gasped.
I sat there, mind racing. The second hunter, the one with the blond crew cut, hadn't moved. He was speaking into a walkie-talkie.
The goateed man, muttering, "Call me a goddamned no-brainer," held the weapon high in the air. It was, I noticed, a hunter's handgun, a.44 Magnum Ruger Super Blackhawk six-shooter. Gray wood-look grips and a barrel over seven inches. A big, heavy object. I'd never used one: I didn't like to use handguns for hunting.
Then he slammed it against the other side of Bodine's face. Blood geysered in the air.
Bodine screamed again: a strange and awful sound of vulnerability.
He fluttered both of his hands in a futile attempt to shield his bloodied face. He cried hoarsely, "Please. Please. Don't." Blood gouted from his nose, seeping from his eyes, ran down his cheeks, spattering his shirt.
I wanted to do something, but what? Go after the guy with a steak knife? Two armed men: it seemed like an easy way to get killed. I couldn't believe this was happening; the suddenness, the unreality of it all, froze me as it must have done everyone else.
"Buck!"
A shout from the front door. The black-haired man paused, handgun in the air, and looked. A third man entered, dressed like the other two, in camouflage pants and vest. He was tall and lean, sharp-featured, a strong jaw, around forty. Scraggly dark blond hair that reached almost to his shoulders.
"That's enough, Buck," the new man said. He had a deep, adenoidal voice with the grit of fine sandpaper, and he spoke calmly, patiently. "No unnecessary violence. We talked about that."
The goateed one-Buck?-released his grip on Bodine, who slumped forward, spitting blood, weeping in ragged gulps.
Then the long-haired guy pulled a weapon from a battered leather belt holster. A matte black pistoclass="underline" Glock 9mm, I knew right away. He waved it back and forth at all of us, in a sweeping motion, from one end of the table to the other and back again.
"All right, boys and girls," he said. "I want all of you to line up on that side of the table, facing me. Hands on the table, where I can see 'em."
"Oh, sweet Jesus God," Hugo Lummis said, his voice shaking.
Cheryl said imperiously-or maybe it was bravely-"What do you want?"
"Let's go, kids. We can do this the hard way or the easy way, it's up to you. Your choice."
25
We gonna do this the hard way?"
Dad's shadow fell across the kitchen floor. He loomed in the doorway, enormous to a ten-year-old: red face, gut bulging under a white sleeveless T-shirt, can of Genesee beer in his hand. "Genny," he always called it, sounded like his mistress.
Mom standing at the kitchen counter, wearing her Food Fair smock, chopping onions for chili con carne. His favorite supper. A snowdrift of minced onion heaped on the cutting board. Her hand was shaking. The tears flowing down her cheeks, she'd said, were from the onions.
I didn't know how to answer that. Stared up at him with all the defiance I could muster. Mother's little protector.