J. Powers - Morte D'Urban

“And then maybe he can tell you,” Mr Swanson said to Father Urban.

“Sounds good to me,” Billy said.

Mr Swanson, now confidently addressing Billy, said, “And then he can tell the others here when he comes back.”

“Let’s get going,” Billy said.

They paused twice on the way for refreshments, and reached Henn’s Haven at sundown. Billy stepped out, with his rod and reel already stripped for action. He introduced Father Urban to Mr Henn who had come out to greet them, and then hurried off toward the dock to try his luck in Bloodsucker Lake. Paul, who knew his way around, drove down a sandy road to their cottages. That left Father Urban alone with Mr Henn, who apparently either hadn’t been told that one of Billy’s party would be a priest or hadn’t expected to see one wearing gray flannel slacks, a white turtleneck sweater, and a crew cap. (You never knew what people were thinking — only that you lost or gained ground fast the moment it was known you were a priest.) Chester, as Billy had called Mr Henn, was in his late fifties and wore an old felt hat. Stuck in the band were three badges: “Keep Minnesota Green”; “Minnesota Centennial 1857–1957”; and “Prevent Fires.” Chester had a complaining face and a contented voice. He said he’d run out of the names of game fish native to the region and didn’t care to start in on the pan fish, and so he’d taken a doctor friend’s advice and named his three new cottages Jolly, Good, and Fun.

“And I suppose I’m stuck with Good,” said Father Urban.

“They’re all the same,” Chester replied. “And if there’s anything wrong, I want to know it. If there’s nothing wrong, tell your friends.”

They walked down to the lake together. Billy was standing at the end of the dock, casting a plug out into the water. He wasn’t having any luck, but this didn’t appear to bother him. “I just want ’em to know I’m here,” he said.

“Doc Strong, he got a nice one off there last month,” Chester said. They watched Billy reel in nothing once more. “It’s been a lot better in Snowflake this year,” Chester said, and led Father Urban up to the main lodge, which was constructed of logs painted dark green, with fresh white chinking. “We’ll go out to Snowflake in the morning,” Chester said. “And maybe to Strong. That’s a lake I named after Doc Strong, who you may have heard me mention.”

“Yes.”

“Doc helped me when times was hard — like Mr Cosgrove during the war when we got hit by gas rationing. For Mr Cosgrove’s sake, I wish we hadn’t run out of no-name lakes.”

“Say, this is nice,” Father Urban said. There was a screened-in porch running clear across the front of the lodge, from which there was a wonderful view of the lake.

“We think so,” Chester said.

Inside, the lounge, dining room, kitchen, and lavatories, and on the second floor, Chester said, were living quarters for himself and the missis. The logs were natural-varnished on the inside. The whole place was very well kept up. The stuffed birds and fur-bearing animals on the walls wore cellophane slip-covers. That was overdoing it, Father Urban felt.

“Like a cup of coffee?” Chester asked him. “Or we have soft drinks. Near beer, if you want something a little stronger. Mr Cosgrove, I guess you know, he brings his own.”

“Nothing right now, thanks.”

Father Urban knew from signs he’d seen along the way that the proprietors of Henn’s Haven were Dad and Mother Henn, and from Billy he knew that Chester’s first wife had died and that he had married again. But Father Urban hadn’t been prepared to see such a young woman as the second Mrs Henn, and he didn’t know how to take it when Chester introduced her — she couldn’t have been more than twenty-five — as “Mother.”

“Hello,” she said, and after that she just smiled. She was dark, perhaps part Indian, and so attractive that Father Urban was relieved when she left them for the kitchen. Her scent remained, however. Father Urban moved away from it.

“My first wife was an older woman,” Chester said.

“I see.”

“For business reasons, we go on using the old name. It’s a natural, and in this game all you’ve got is your name, built up over the years.”

Father Urban nodded. There wasn’t much wrong with that. After all, it would only be a matter of time before Mother looked the part. As for Dad—“You have children, Mr Henn?”

“Well, no. Neither my first or my second wife — yet. Guess we just have to keep hoping.”

“That’s right,” said Father Urban, and, in a firm tone, swept on, “Say, if you don’t mind, I’d like to see where I live, before it gets dark.”

“Honey!” Chester called, and his wife returned.

For Father Urban, it had been a rather tiring day, and after Honey, or Mother, had shown him to his cottage (which was Good), he stretched out on his bed — but not for long, for Billy and Paul dropped in. Billy said he was in Jolly. At his suggestion, they all went over to the lodge for a sandwich and a drink, Paul carrying a piece of Billy’s luggage into the kitchen of the lodge. Billy and Father Urban entered the lounge. Billy chose a table near the dead fireplace and shoved it nearer. “Come on,” he yelled. “Turn on the heat.”

Chester came out of the kitchen. “I didn’t know if you’d be over or not,” he said. He knelt and set off the logs already arranged in the fireplace.

“This is more like it,” Billy said when the logs had blazed up and Paul came in with their drinks. “Hey, where’s the piano?”

“You didn’t see this, did you?” Chester said, going over to a jukebox and turning on its fiery front. “We didn’t have this when you were here in the spring.”

“Where’s the piano?” Billy asked again.

“I had a chance to sell it, Mr Cosgrove.”

“Why, I loved that old piano,” Billy said to Father Urban.

“We found out that was where all the moths was coming from,” Chester said.

“You must be slipping, Chester,” Billy said. “That was the only piano I could ever really play.”

“When we found out where all the moths was coming from, I said, ‘Honey, we better get rid of this old piano,’” Chester said.

“Those moths were coming from you,” Billy said.

To nobody in particular Chester said, “I have to get along with people.”

“ Where’s the piano?” Billy asked.

“A fella stopped by that makes a business of buying up these old pianos,” Chester told him. “He wasn’t from around here.”

“I was afraid of that,” Billy said. “Well, let’s get on the phone and see if we can buy one.”

Father Urban looked at the cuckoo clock over the fireplace. “Hadn’t we better wait until tomorrow?”

But by the time Father Urban had finished his club-steak sandwich, Paul, on the telephone, had reached the owner of a music store in the nearest town of any size, forty miles away. (“And most of it over gravel roads,” Chester said. Father Urban couldn’t see why Chester was so sad, if Billy was going to pay for the piano.)

“He don’t deal in secondhand jobs,” Paul shouted, from the phone. “He says he’ll be real glad to sell us a new one.”

“Ask him if he’ll be real glad to deliver one tonight,” Billy said.

Paul reported back. “He says are we kiddin’?”

“Tell him no,” Billy said. “You better talk to him, Chester. Tell him who you are and how the hell to get here.”

Father Urban finished his drink and declined another. He waited a moment, and then excused himself, saying he was tired. Billy didn’t take this very well. He acted as though Father Urban should be willing, and more than willing, to wait up for the piano.