Peter Heller - The Painter

Willy looked at him with undisguised distaste.

“Gentlemen.”

Sport turned his body to watch the mop-up, the clouds of steam. Three spectators in a line. “Any ideas, Mr. Kesler?” he said.

“You know, Craig, the Mr . really bothers me. My barn just burned down so I guess I shouldn’t sweat the small stuff, but I do.”

“Willy.”

“Nope. No ideas. No guesses. I know .”

Sport took out his flip notebook.

“Grant Siminoe called this afternoon, said he wanted his horse. When I told him it wasn’t his horse anymore he threatened me.”

“Can you recall the exact conversation?”

“Sure.”

Willy told him. When he finished he said, “Jim got a call just after me. It was a little less polite.”

Sport took it all down, the approximate times. When I told him that the caller said I’d be dead he stopped writing. He said, Just a sec. He walked over to the sheriff and the fire chief, pulled the sheriff aside, talked to him for a minute, came back. Asked about suspicious activity before the fire, headlights, etc. Nothing. The sheriff walked up. He scanned our faces.

“You lose any horses, Willy?”

“No. Almost lost Jim, though.”

Sheriff worked his jaw. “Got a dip?”

Willy hooked a finger into his breast pocket, took out the round tin.

“Thanks. Swore to Lee I wouldn’t buy another can. Turned me into a beggar. Christ.”

He pinched about a quarter of the can and stuffed it in his jaw.

“Cluster fuck,” he said.

“Well, yeah.”

The sheriff spat. A black stream that splatted over the dirt like wet cow shit.

“You all are giving me a headache. Willy?”

“Sheriff?”

“Grant’s at the camp. I went up there as soon as I heard the fire call come in. Him and five hunters swear on their wives’ coochies he was there all day.”

“And?”

“And you and I know he’s done this before. He didn’t go ahead and drop his driver’s license next to a gas can. We won’t find a thing.” Spat again.

“I want this to stop,” he said. “Now. I don’t want any more bodies.”

He turned his head and looked straight at me. His eyes were black and dark blue in the flashing lights and they were empty of kindness. “You fish the Forks today?”

I think I must’ve shaken my head to clear it.

“No?” he said.

I nodded.

“How was it?”

I stared at him.

“Good,” I said. “It was good. Pretty.”

“Windy though, huh? And hot. Catch anything?”

“Pretty big brown.”

“On what?”

Now I felt like I was in a dream, a weird dream.

“Bead head prince on the bottom. That’s what he hit. Had a royal coachman on top.”

The sheriff nodded, spat.

“Hit it on the swing did he?”

I must have been looking at him like he was speaking a foreign language. Hearing the words but trying hard to understand the meaning, the intent.

He pretended not to notice. He said, “I fished down there this morning early. Used a streamer just because I felt like it. Didn’t catch shit. Couple of little rainbows. I blamed it on the moon.” He smiled without mirth. “Always good to have a big fat moon to blame it on. You gonna do any creek fishing in the next few weeks?”

“Sure. If—”

“If you’re not in jail? We’re trying our hardest. Tell you the truth, the quality of witnesses isn’t what they used to be.” He glanced at Willy.

He spat a clean jet onto the gravel. “If you’re fishing the mountain creeks I’d get one of these.” He patted his neon orange cap. “Don’t want some asshole from Alabama thinking you’re a muley.”

I didn’t know what to say so I said, “Thanks.”

“I’m posting a deputy at your house tonight for your protection. Another will come tomorrow. And I’m taking the horse.”

Willy started as if someone had touched him with a lit match. “Mark—”

“Until we get this sorted out that horse is going into the witness protection program. She’ll be well cared for.”

“Marly’s—?”

“No not Marly’s for chrissakes. You know about Marly. So does Grant. Don’t concern yourself. Why don’t you go get her. Keep her back in the corral if you want. Just a few minutes. I just called Eckly, he’s on his way with a trailer.”

“She needs a vet’s attention. He clubbed her, nearly killed her.”

“She’ll get it, you have my word.”

“I don’t want a deputy,” I said.

“I can’t post one on your property without your permission.”

“Then don’t,” I said.

He studied me. “Okay.” He nodded to all three of us, lumbered back to his car. Leaned against it and began talking on a phone.

Willy called in his big gelding and hopped on him and hazed the other horses back into the corral. When Eckly arrived, Willy led the little roan slowly from the corral and she was unsure and trembling, and she shied when she neared the barn and there was a sudden hiss of steam. She was frightened by the sliding snake of a hose getting rolled in, but she never balked as he led her. He walked her right up the ramp of the sheriff department trailer, talking to her low and gentle the whole time.

I lay on top of the quilt naked and I cried. For the horse. Who was being moved to another strange place, into the tenuous care of more strangers. For myself, who couldn’t seem to stop spreading trouble wherever I went. How the violence seemed to follow me, and it was wildly undiscerning and it hurt the things around me: horses, friends, neighbors. I cried. Jesus, Jim, Irmina was right, you need to get calm, make some peace around you, not mayhem. For everyone’s sake. How did you get like this?

The three quarter moon rose over the shoulder of the mountain. At some point I heard the diesel pumper trucks roar, the air brakes, the fading growl as they went back down the road. At some point I stopped feeling sorry for myself, for everyone. The horse was in much better hands than she was a few days ago. Willy’s barn burned, but not all of it, he hadn’t lost any animals, and he told me before I left not to lose any sleep over that—he was heavily insured. He said the tack room was getting way too small anyway and that he had insured the building for so damn much he was sure they would think he burned it down himself. I got up and went to one of the poetry shelves set into the wall at the end of the bed. I flicked on a light switch there that lit only the books. Picked out a thick volume of Derek Walcott’s collected poetry and scanned the titles. The Schooner Flight caught my eye.

It’s an old style sea tale. Reminded me of the Ancient Mariner and Moby-Dick and “The Secret Sharer,” all those poems and stories I’d read in school. It lulled me. I thought: Maybe that’s what I need to do, go back to the coast, go past it, get washed by salt fog. Or. I had no idea what I needed to do. I reminded myself that I never had.

The next morning I loaded the new paintings and my dovetail jointed paint boxes and my new fishing gear and drove to Santa Fe.

On my way through town I stopped in at Bob’s to fill up. He came out of the station slowly, snapping his jacket at the waist and hunching his shoulders like a man going out to do a chore he didn’t much like. He unspun the gas cap and hit the lever on the pump without asking me how much, and as he cleaned the windshield he didn’t look at me. I leaned out the window and opened my mouth to ask him how his cows were doing, then shut it. I’d never asked him that before. Fuck. I got it. He stopped at forty zero zero, no need for change, no extra conversation, and cradled the pump handle with the same remoteness. I held out two crumpled twenties. I felt nauseous. He took the bills, turned away. Stopped. He took a deep breath, turned back.