Дана Стейбнау - Spoils of the Dead

“I’m coming, Josh! I’m coming!” He tried to run faster but the sand gave way beneath his feet and it was like post-holing through deep snow. He rounded the outcropping of black rock, gasping, his chest heaving, his heart pounding so loudly in his ears he couldn’t hear anything else but it. “Josh! Josh! Josh—”

There was movement to his left from behind the outcropping and as he started to turn his head to see what it was there was another thud and a kind of explosion of white light followed by a feeling of falling down a deep, dark hole, down, down, down…

And then nothing.

Two

Monday, September 2, Labor Day

LIAM HAD NEVER SEEN SO MANY DO-gooders and no-goodniks in one place at one time. There were only thirty-five hundred people in the city proper and most of them appeared to be either parading or driving down Sourdough Street that afternoon. The marching half held signs and the driving half were harassing them by shifting and clutching at just the right moment during their pickup drive-bys to blanket the marchers with black clouds of exhaust.

Five women who had dyed their hair a matching bubble-gum pink, one hoped temporarily, crossed at the blinking red light where he was stopped. Behind them an older gentleman punched along on his walker like an AT-AT on Hoth, eyes with sclera aged to the yellow of egg yolks glaring at their backs. His white hair, what was left of it, was sprayed down in a combover whose fixity of purpose was being tested by the breeze caused by the passing traffic. He had a prominent, veined nose jutting from the middle of his face, completing his likeness to an old, bald eagle with acid reflux. At first glance Liam took him for a chronic drunk. Later, upon further acquaintance, he discovered that it was simple choler. Blue Jay Jefferson’s factory setting was pissed off.

The blue Forester on his right pulled out and the left-turning Ford F-150 across the intersection slammed on its brakes. No one knew how to cross at a blinking red light anymore. He was glad he was driving his own vehicle and wearing civilian clothes, otherwise he might have had to Do Something. He signaled, counted to three one one-thousand at a time, turned left in the best Gramps Champ fashion, and proceeded sedately down the hill. An actual stop light here, where he turned left again to cross the causeway that divided the man-made lake from the salt-water marsh, accelerated—barely—up another hill and turned left a third time to follow the road to an abrupt corner. There he turned into a parking lot before the road became a four-mile drive out along a spit of glacial silt that thrust out into Chungasqak Bay.

The parking lot fronted what had been a fire station, recently remodeled into a brewpub. Liam parked with care, as his Silverado was brand spanking new and he was protective of its navy blue paint, and got out. A flurry of wings caught the corner of his eye and he jerked around. Only a magpie. He tried not to feel relieved.

The pub was a tall building, with a row of two-story windows on the left displaying rows of shining stainless steel vessels connected by a complicated arrangement of hoses, pipes, and valves. A row of similar windows on the right overlooked the serving side of the brewpub, a wooden bar running the length of the room. Tables and chairs filled up the rest of the space and more windows across the back side of the building overlooked the edge of the bluff, the Spit, and the Bay.

Double doors painted fire engine red occupied the space between the windows. A large, hand-painted sign above read “Backdraft Brew Pub” with a faint hint of flames behind the font. The door opened outward. The man behind the bar said, “We’re not open for another hour, Andy, I told you—” He looked up. “Oh. Sorry, Liam. I thought you were someone else.”

“An early drinker?”

“We’ve got plenty of those who’d like to be. As you are about to discover.”

He held out his hand. “How are you, Jeff?”

“Shouldn’t I be asking you that? How are you settling in?”

Jeff Ninkasi looked to be in his early fifties, with black hair graying at the temples, eyes with an Asian fold that told of his mixed Anglo-Japanese heritage, and a belly that betrayed a love of his own beer. He had lines on his face that betrayed a predisposition for laughter, and the no-bullshit gaze of the professional bartender. You knew just by looking at him that he wasn’t about to let anyone drive drunk from his establishment, nor would he allow a woman who’d had a few too many to leave unaccompanied by a friend.

One of the good guys, Liam thought. But then he’d had a week to come to that conclusion, and had already decided that the Backdraft Brew Pub would be where he drank in public in his new posting. Lucky for him the brewmeister-slash-bartender had a full liquor license and already stocked a fine line in Scotch, including Glenmorangie. “How’s Marcy?”

Jeff looked up at the ceiling. “Still rearranging the furniture.” A thump punctuated his comment.

“I’ve got that table you said you wanted in the back of the pickup.”

Jeff looked sheepish. “Not sure she wants it now. She’s decided to embrace minimalism in a big way.”

Liam laughed. “Not a problem. Our house in Newenham was small and we left most of our furniture behind. Be a while before we get your house filled up.”

“Your house now.” Jeff produced a manila envelope from the space beneath the cash drawer of the cash register.

Liam opened it. Inside was the deed and the two-page mortgage agreement the two of them had worked out. “Looks good,” he said, and pulled a folded check from his shirt pocket. “First month’s payment.”

Jeff stuck it in his hip pocket without looking at it. “Thanks. Coffee?”

“Sure.”

“Plain drip or espresso?”

“Plain drip’s fine.” A steaming mug appeared beneath his nose and Jeff went back to drying and stacking glasses.

The coffee was good, hot and strong and tasting like coffee and only coffee. Nowadays too much of the brew tasted burned or, horrors, was flavored with chocolate raspberry or salted caramel. He shuddered.

Jeff noticed. “What? Do you need me to brew up a fresh pot?”

“No, it’s fine. Perfect.” Liam took another swig. “You don’t flavor your beer, do you?”

Jeff looked appalled. “Christ no.”

“Because I was loading up on supplies at Safeway yesterday and they had a grapefruit-flavored beer on sale.”

“Probably the only way they could get anyone to buy it.”

“I know, right? Lime in a Corona is one thing, but…” Reassured, Liam drank more coffee. “There was a parade as I was coming down Sourdough Street.”

Jeff rolled his eyes. “Yeah, get used to it, you’ll see at least one march every month at this point. And a corresponding parade in opposition.”

“What’s the difference?”

“The left marches with signs. The right parades with flags.”

“What are they demonstrating for?”

“Oh hell, take your pick. Today’s Labor Day, so probably unions. Traditional, okay, but tomorrow it might be the Tea Party, Antifa, Black Lives Matter, hashtag MeToo, save the sea otters or the whales or what the fuck ever. This is the wokest town in the state.” He brightened. “But marching is thirsty work evidently, because most of both sides show up here afterward.”

“Silver lining.”

“Yeah.” Jeff racked a tray of glasses and started on another.

The door opened. “Hey, Jeff.”

“Hey, Erik. We aren’t open yet.”

“I know, but I was hoping you could sell me a growler of Cockloft without sending the ABC board into convulsions.”

“That I can do. Wait one.”

A man about Liam’s age, tall and rangy with thick, wheat-blond hair and sea-blue eyes leaned against the bar. He nodded at Liam. “Hey. Erik Berglund.”