Dead Silver

63

On a Thursday toward the end of May, with spring ripening into summer, Madbird and I finished remodeling the final cabin at the Split Rock Lodge. By the time we picked up our tools and gave the place a once-over with a Shop-Vac, it was three in the afternoon-perfect for starting a long weekend. We headed for the bar.

Pam Bryce brought us drinks on the house and set them in front of us, with her mouth turning down in a playfully sad little pout.

"I can't believe you guys aren't going to be around anymore," she said. "I've gotten so used to you, like…" she gestured in the air, bracelets tinkling, trying to find the right comparison.

"The junker cars?" I said. She laughed and swatted at my hand.

"Don't worry, we'll be dropping by," Madbird said. "We ain't that easy to get rid of."

There were a few regulars in the barroom, including our tool thief, Artie Thewlis. He gave us a cautious wave but kept his distance. Artie had made a big step up in the world-he and Elly May had become an item, maybe bonding over the trauma we'd caused them. He'd gained weight, put new tires on his truck, and now carried himself with an enhanced sense of authority, like a country squire who had come into his inheritance. I preferred him the way he'd been before, but he still wasn't too hard to take and he'd probably end up back there, anyway.

In general, things were pretty quiet around Split Rock these days. Darcy was gone, staying with her immediate family for a while in the reservation town of Browning. Madbird figured it wouldn't be long before she was in trouble again, but with any luck, it wouldn't be life-threatening.

When the Callister story had hit the news, including Seth Fraker's affair with Darcy, the congressman's political career took a predictable nosedive. He'd resigned his legislative seat, citing as a reason-I do not lie-that he wanted to spend more time with his family.

Whether or not he was actually guilty of foul play in the drowning of the St. Martin woman would probably never be known. I'd mentioned it to Gary Varna, and he answered sourly, "I hate like hell to say this, but it ain't my problem." I suspected that after a couple of years, when things settled down and memories dimmed, Fraker would make a quiet return.

Things were calm around my cabin, too. The black tomcat and I settled into life as usual. The vet was right about him getting used to his missing limb; at first he lurched around like a drunk, but pretty soon he was climbing trees and running fence rails, maybe just to prove he could.

And I finally had a name for him-Stumpleg, just like the gulch.

I hadn't seen any more signs of the bobcat. Probably with the warming weather he'd taken off into the mountains. But I didn't look too hard for him; my taste for wandering around my place had fallen off. As little time as Renee had spent there, it seemed I'd always see something that brought back one of those moments.

She was still in Seattle, living in her apartment and back at her job. At first we'd talked on the phone fairly often; she had asked if I'd come visit her and I'd said sure. But she never extended any actual invitation, and the intervals between calls had gotten longer. It had been a couple of weeks now.

She never mentioned her fiance, Ian, which made me guess that she was seeing him. Probably that sensible life she'd been skittish about looked a lot better now, after what she'd been through.

And I couldn't help wondering if there was another element, along the lines of Darcy with Madbird when he'd sparked her breakup with Seth Fraker-if Renee had to blame somebody, however irrationally, for the emotional shock of what she'd learned about her father. Although I had nothing to do with it, it wouldn't have happened except for me.

As near as I could tell, nothing had changed at her house-no work being done, no FOR SALE sign. But I'd stopped driving by there.

There was one more footnote to the whole business, the kind of irony that inclined me to believe there really were forces of fate at work behind the scenes, and that sometimes they had a sense of humor that was hard to appreciate.

The Dead Silver Mine appeared to be coming back. I'd started noticing news articles to the effect that the market in precious metals was strong enough to spark renewed interest, and industry lobbyists were garnering support for allowing the Dodd Company to proceed on the good-faith promise of safe operation and cleanup, rather than a cash bond. There was opposition, but no firebrand like Astrid to spearhead it.

To be perfectly truthful, I didn't give a pack rat's ass.