Smith Henderson - Fourth of July Creek

Pearl introduces the missus, the kids. Missus is rubber-gloved to the elbows stirring a pot of preserves over a campfire. Grins wanly, waves. A quiet, serious woman. Gorgeous kids, knees as ruddy as red apples. They sit arrayed around Pearl in the pickup bed like a kinder court. The baby boy in Pearl’s lap and little Paula and Ben right close, and Ruth and Esther sitting beside him and the oldest boy, Jacob, standing on the ground between where his father’s legs dangle off the tailgate. It was like Pearl drew some strength from the brood, the way they climbed on him, the way he goosed them.

Joe Stacks , Pearl says. That’s an interesting name. Asks is it a nickname.

Pinkerton says No, no it isn’t. Asks does Pearl want to see his driver’s license.

Pearl says not unless you’re in need of someone to cut it up for you. Smiles.

Pinkerton’s bosses want informants. The Truppe Schweigen did the synagogue job in Portland, blew the front wall and doors into kibble, killed three. Pinkerton is to run down every last lead, even though he knows Ruffin and Pearl aren’t involved with anything. Ruffin’s a dipshit, and Pearl, he’s got all those kids. It’s just obvious that he loves his family too much to get into that kind of trouble. But the ATF wants somebody inside, inside of something, anything. It’s a pissing contest anyway, the Department of Treasury vying with the FBI. The ATF wants somebody up fucking in there. Yesterfuckingday.

So six weeks later, after several informal visits in truck stops, Stacks, Ruffin, and Pearl meet in Ruffin’s truck in Sandpoint, Idaho. It’s cold and windy on the city beach, the gusts off Lake Pend Oreille buffeting Ruffin’s pickup. Ruffin’s shit-talking as usual. He’s gonna knock over the First Interstate branch in Boise. He’s gonna pick off the marshals when they come for him. Then he’s gonna find a nigger church and toss a Molotov cocktail into it.

Pearl is quiet.

Stacks mentions he’s got some friends in Seattle who could use some sawed-offs for a job or two. Double-barrel, preferably.

Ruffin asks what job.

Pearl asks how much.

Stacks tells Pearl he can pay $150 for single-barrel, $200 per double.

Pearl says can you go three.

Stacks says he isn’t sure. Pinkerton can go three, but he doesn’t want to seem too eager.

I have to have three , Pearl says, sad as hell, like he’s having to ask Stacks for a set of kidneys. Pinkerton thinks maybe there’s something wrong with one of the kids. The guy doesn’t say a word for forty minutes of Ruffin’s shit-talking and then out of nowhere, How much, I have to get three .

The guy is just busted-ass broke, Pinkerton realizes. He asks Pearl to give him a few days. He’ll call.

I don’t have a phone , Pearl says. Call Ruffin. I need three and I gotta move quick if we’re gonna do it.

Pinkerton makes it happen.

The biggest regret of his career.

Pearl and Stacks start to meet up without Ruffin, because the deals run a lot shorter without him. Cash, shotguns, I’ll meet you in two weeks for more. Seven transactions total.

Once, Pearl muses how strange it is that he could get in trouble, how he could do time for sitting under a pine tree with a hacksaw and a couple of bird guns. Some kind of world , he says. This is the same occasion where he announces that he needs $350. He has to be careful, buying up all these guns. He has to drive farther and farther, gas money and everything cutting into his profits. Gas and money , he mutters. Shekels and oil the world over. And Ruffin has been bitching. Thought he should’ve been cut in on the deal, so now he and Pearl are on the outs.

Ruffin says you’re a fed , Pearl tells him. You a fed, Stacks?

Pearl looks sad. It’s like he already knows. For a minute there, Pinkerton thinks Pearl’s going to do something stupid. Pinkerton can feel the pistol in its holster against his calf, wonders can he get it out before Pearl does something stupid.

You’d be burned by now if I was , Stacks says, wedging a laugh into the air. I bet you’re the fed, you crafty fucker.

It’s always hard to tell exactly what Pearl is thinking behind that beard of his. Is he as world-weary as he looks. Is he ready to die already. Without his kids around, the guy’s like a lump of oatmeal, like something on the bottom of your shoe. He’s saying again he needs the $350. He just needs the money, the damn money.

The thing is, the ATF is done throwing money at Pearl. Pearl is over. Pinkerton’s supposed to be setting up other buys, moving up the chain. But there isn’t a chain to move up. There’s just this sad guy in the sticks who will go all the way to Miles City for a shotgun to chop. $350, and it’ll be worth it. The sum total of his prospects is what the ATF pays him to break federal law.

Stacks sighs, says he’s been meaning to talk to Pearl about this, that his partners are flush with shotguns. But does Pearl know where to get anything with a little more bang for the buck. Does Pearl have a line on anything like that.

Don’t do it, Pearl , Pinkerton is thinking. Begging. Don’t do it.

No, he doesn’t have a line on anything like that. Lump of oatmeal. Shit on your shoe.

Weeks of no word. Pearl didn’t set up another meet and Ruffin’s not talking to Pearl and pretty soon Ruffin isn’t even talking to Stacks. His bosses decide Pinkerton’s been made. They’re going to relocate him to California. He did fine work, it’s just time to bag it.

He’s mucked out the cabin and packed everything (sleeping bag, pistols, cast-iron cookware) when Ruffin comes barreling up the road in his truck. Asks where Stacks is headed. Pinkerton thinks fast, says the owner of the cabin’s selling the place from under him. Fuckin asshole , Ruffin says. But you’re in luck , Ruffin says. I just leased some property, have a trailer already up on it and everything.

Whereabouts? Stacks asks.

Jeremiah Pearl’s is where. Sweet little spot.

It’s a nice Airstream trailer, on the other side of the meadow from the Pearls’ house, abutting a stand of buckskin tamarack. Wild mushrooms and carpets of moss and bumblebees turning figure eights in the slashes of sun in the woods, as if they too are stupefied by the beauty of the place. It’s a slice of heaven, Pinkerton can see right away.

Ruffin racks out a couple nights with Stacks, and Pearl sloshes through the mucky meadow every evening, and they even drink a little beer together. Pearl looking over his shoulder up toward the house.

He says the old lady has the spyglasses on him. Hand to God, she’s the brains behind the whole operation.

There’s maybe a little rift there. Money worries and the stresses inherent to their worldview.

Ruffin says Pearl’s allowed a beer every once in a while. Especially now he’s got a job harrowing a large farm out near Three Forks and the money from the timber lease. Working puts food on the table, he can have a little beer now and again.

So Pearl is off on his harrowing gig in Three Forks. Pinkerton is whittling his time in the trailer, wondering what the hell to do with himself. How exactly to proceed. Watching the kids and the old lady. It’s like the kids have been told let him alone, taking the long way around the trailer when they go by with baskets, when they come back with baskets of huckleberries and mushrooms, with fish. He kind of wishes they wouldn’t. They’re nice enough folks, just trying to get by. But the woman is not neighborly. He sees her watching him from the house, but she doesn’t wave.

One night, he takes a walk. Full moon or nearly so. It’s warm and clear and he hikes up the hill and takes in the view from the cliff overlooking the place. He’s sitting on the edge and when he gets up to leave sets a few rocks tumbling over, cracking the quiet. When he climbs down, he’s nearly blinded by a powerful jacklight.