“You know he’ll never let it lie,” Gary was saying. The two of them in the Buck Blind sitting close over the last of their beers.
“I know he won’t,” Patrick said. He’d already looked toward the door twice, and now he did it a third time, watching for movement, expecting any minute for Driscoll to come through that door and force Patrick’s face to the table as he had twelve years before. “I’d be disappointed if Driscoll gave up that easily. All this time he’s had his nut out for us.”
“Wouldn’t you?” Gary asked.
“Those men had wives,” Patrick said. “They had children. It’s a hell of a legacy we left them.”
Gary shook his head and looked off at the bar, where Jack was starting to clean up. “It was an accident,” Gary said. “I was all nerves. I didn’t mean to shoot them.”
“I know you didn’t, but that doesn’t change the fact that it happened.”
“He’s telling things to your kid.”
“I know,” Patrick said.
“Well,” Gary said, drawing the word out long before going on again, “what are we going to do about that?”
“Christ, Gary,” Patrick whispered. “That isn’t on the table. He’s a fucking federal agent.”
“I’ve shot bigger animals with my hunting rifle,” Gary said. He was grinning and he looked away at Jack where he stood clearing glasses from a far table. The logger who had been playing the music was long since gone from the bar. When his eyes came back to Patrick, Gary said, “It’s just a joke. I’d never suggest something like that. I was just asking the question.”
“Good,” Patrick said. “I didn’t go away for twelve years just so I could go back in.”
“He’s telling stuff to your kid, doesn’t that get under your skin? Doesn’t that piss you off?”
“I know what he’s saying. I know all about it. I wouldn’t have left anything around to get Bobby in trouble and I wouldn’t do it now.”
“You should tell that to Driscoll,” Gary said.
“I’d say it to him and he’d go through Bobby’s place regardless.” Patrick laughed. “If there’s anyone I know after being gone for twelve years, it’s Driscoll. He came to see me every year. Like we had an anniversary.”
“He’s a real sweet guy,” Gary said.
The man had thought one thing about Patrick for twelve years and he’d been right. Patrick had stolen that drug money. Driscoll wasn’t going to give up just because Patrick said he didn’t do it.
“Fuck,” Patrick said. He finished the last of the beer and sat waiting for something from the universe, anything, some sign to tell him what he should do. Nothing came and he looked over his shoulder at the bartender and watched the son of their old friend Bill bring the glasses behind the bar, then go back to the table and wipe the wood laminate down with a towel. They were the only ones left in the Buck Blind. “I’ll call you from the road,” Patrick said to Gary.
“I can come with you.”
Patrick made a watery circle on the table with the bottom of his glass. “How would that look? Twelve years away and I haven’t screwed you over. You think I’ll do it now?”
“It’s a lot of money,” Gary said.
“That’s about the only thing that got me through,” Patrick said. “My life’s already gone, Gary. I wish I could say it to you another way, but that’s it. All I’ll ever be has already come and gone. And now all there is is the money. It’s the only thing I can look forward to. You’ve still got your life.”
“You’re going to run?”
“Do the smart thing, Gary. Wait it out. The money will be there for you when you retire, just like it’s been there these last years. Nothing is going to change. You’ve still got a life here. I don’t have anything like that and I don’t see Driscoll giving up on me any time soon.”
“You know that kid Jack over there?” Gary said, gesturing to the bartender. “He’s a good kid. You need me for anything you give the bar a call.”
“He is Bill’s son,” Patrick said.
“He is that.” Gary tipped the last of his beer back, then waved to Jack for the total.
Five minutes later they were standing outside the bar. No stars above in the sky and the moon visible only as a faint orb of white light behind the clouds. Rain coming. Down the street Patrick saw Driscoll’s Impala waiting for him in the shadows.
Gary turned and followed Patrick’s gaze. “You don’t think Driscoll will ever give up, do you?”
“I don’t think he has it in him,” Patrick said.
They said their good-byes and when Patrick was halfway home, he went into the woods.
The truth was that the life he’d led in Silver Lake was gone. It had disappeared the moment Patrick had tried to run twelve years before and Driscoll had been waiting for him, forcing his face down onto a restaurant table. Possibly the life Patrick had always wanted had disappeared even before, when he’d sat in the Seattle hospital listening to the machines pump life in and out of his wife. And it was sure enough gone as soon as he cut through the woods only hours before. Climbing the fence of the logging outfit and waiting inside the cab of the semi.
Patrick saw, too, that his son and Sheri had done good with what was left to them. He could see that just as plainly as he could see his own situation. The land Patrick had shared with his wife was no longer his. It never would be again, never needed to be, and Patrick expected that his presence there would always be a reminder of what had once existed. What had once been his life there and what he had lost.
With the set of keys he’d taken from the steel box at the end of the lot, Patrick started the logging truck. The sun now completely up over the mountains and a sheen of water from the night’s rain visible on the asphalt. No sight of a Silver Lake cruiser or Driscoll’s Impala for two or three hours. He shifted the gears until he had a feel for the big semi and then he moved out of the line, bringing the front of the truck around and aiming for the gate.
He came out onto the road dragging the chain link beneath him, the sparks visible in the mirrors as he made the turn toward the lake and ground the gears up through second and into third. He knew he could make good time before anyone showed up at the lot, and he hoped he could make the interstate before the first call came in about the broken-down fence and missing truck.
MORGAN QUARTERED THE rabbit, separating the skin first and then running the knife along the joints to break down the carcass. He boned out the legs and pounded the meat flat on the cutting board, leaving it lean and opaque as chicken thighs. When he was done he warmed a pan, letting the grease grow smoky with heat before laying the rabbit sections down against the metal. The oil spitting in the ancient cast-iron pan.
His grandson, Bobby Drake, sat behind him at the table, watching the window that looked toward the road and the slight rise a quarter mile away.
“You hungry?”
Drake turned and looked at the old man and then looked back to the window.
Morgan stood there at the stove listening to the snap of the grease in the pan. He salted the rabbit and turned it, listening again for the familiar sizzle. When he was satisfied he covered the pan, turning the propane down to let the meat cook.
They ate on the porch and watched the road. Morgan smoking a cigarette and letting the meal cool. Drake, with the plate in his lap, picking the meat apart with his fingers. The morning still cold around them and a slight haze beginning to rise off the dew-covered grass with the sun.