The Hunter

Twelve

Mart, whom Cal has been expecting, shows up in the morning, as Lena is leaving. He hangs back at the gate, being discreet as obtrusively as possible and grinning his head off, while Lena kisses Cal goodbye on the doorstep. When she starts up her car, Mart opens the gate for her and gives a big wave as she drives past. Lena lifts a hand without looking at him.

Cal, not wanting to be obliged to invite Mart in, heads down to the gate. “D’you see what I mean, now?” Mart says, sighing. “That one’s got no time for me. If I was the sensitive type, I’d be wounded right to the heart.”

“You were just aiming to see if you could fluster her,” Cal says. Rip and Kojak gallop off to inspect the perimeter together.

“I wouldn’t waste my time,” Mart says. “Lena Dunne’s not easy flustered.”

“You’d have to do a lot better’n that,” Cal agrees.

Mart watches the car disappear behind the hedges. He’s given no sign of noticing Cal’s various injuries, which this morning are pretty tender and hard to miss. “What would ye be talking about, the two of ye?” he inquires.

The question startles Cal. “Like what?”

“That’s what I’m asking you. One way or t’other, I’ve never had much opportunity for conversation with the women—apart from my mammy, and sure, I knew what she was going to say before she did. She was a fine woman, my mammy, but she’d no truck with variety; the same conversations she’d been having for seventy year were good enough for her. I don’t count that. What would a man be talking about with a woman?”

“Jeez, man,” Cal says. “I dunno.”

“I’m not asking you what sweet nothings you go whispering in her ear. I’m asking about conversation. What kinda chats you’d be having over a cuppa tea, like.”

“Stuff,” Cal says. “Like I’d talk about with anyone. What do you talk about with the guys in the pub?”

“Stuff,” Mart acknowledges. “Fair point there, bucko. Ah, well; if I get curious enough, I’ll have to hunt out a woman that’s willing to have a cuppa tea with the likes of me, and find out for myself.” He gazes meditatively after Lena’s car. “That’s what Bobby’s planning to do, if Johnny Reddy makes him a millionaire: get himself a woman. I don’t know does he think he can order one off Amazon, like a DVD, but that’s what he says.” He throws Cal a sharp glance. “What d’you reckon there, boyo? Is wee Johnny going to make millionaires of us all?”

“Who knows,” Cal says. Rip comes zooming back from his circuit with Kojak and butts up against Cal’s leg, looking for attention. Cal runs a hand over him. He’s picked up a nice coating of burrs somewhere along the way.

“Johnny musta been drunker than he looked, last night,” Mart informs Cal. “Didja see him yet today?”

“Nope,” Cal says.

“He was down at Noreen’s, lolling about taking up space, when I went in. D’you know what he done last night, on his way home? Walked straight off the path and went arse over tip halfway down the mountainside. You oughta see the state of him. Like he got bet up by every rock on the way down.”

So Johnny has weighed up his various risks and has no intention of skipping town, and he wants to make that clear. “He didn’t look that drunk to me,” Cal says. “Not when I left, anyway.”

“Isn’t that what I’m saying to you? I wasn’t counting the man’s pints, but he musta been lashing them into him, to go astray on a path he’s been walking half his life. What d’you reckon about that?”

“I don’t rate Johnny’s brainpower too high,” Cal says. “Drunk or sober. I’m not gonna get surprised by any dumb thing he does.”

“True enough,” Mart acknowledges. “I wouldn’t rate you a fool, though, Sunny Jim. Did you fall down the mountainside too, didja?”

“Nope,” Cal says. “Slipped in the shower. I musta been drunker than I thought, too.”

“The shower’s a terrible man,” Mart agrees obligingly. “My cousin up in Gorteen, he slipped in the shower and smacked his head. He’s got a mad squint on him ever since. It does be fierce hard work talking to him; you wouldn’t know which eye to look at.”

“Guess I got lucky,” Cal says. He squats down and starts picking burrs out of Rip’s coat.

“So far,” Mart points out. “I’d watch that shower if I was you. Once they get a taste of blood, there’s no holding them.”

“Yeah,” Cal says. “Maybe I’ll get one of those non-slip mat things.”

“Do that. You wouldn’t want matters getting outa control.” Mart squints meditatively up at the sky, apparently gauging the weather, which looks exactly the same as it has for the last two months. Cal is getting more and more resentful of the weather. He’s coming to the conclusion that at least half of what he loves about Ireland is the smell of it under rain. Without that smell, complex and melancholy and generous, he feels obscurely ripped off.

“D’you know something,” Mart says, “I might haveta find myself that woman to talk to. The men do be awful predictable.”

“Sorry ’bout that,” Cal says. Rip is squirming and licking at him, making the removal process as difficult as possible, not because it bothers him but just for kicks.

“D’you know another thing about men that drives me mental altogether?” Mart says. “The way they’d hold a grudge. The women, now”—he settles his elbow on the gate, getting comfortable for some in-depth explaining—“if a woman has a grudge against someone, the whole townland knows. You’d know what the person done, and why they had no right, and what they oughta do to clear the air, and what’s on the cards if they don’t do it. You’d be hearing about it on the regular for as long as it takes, and if it’s not sorted in your lifetime, your childer’ll hear about it when you’re gone. But a man, sure: he’ll hold a grudge for ten or twenty or thirty year, and never say a word to anyone. Even the fella he’s got the grudge against mightn’t have a notion. What’s the point in that? What good does the grudge do you or anyone, if it never gets an airing?”

“Search me,” Cal says.

“And then,” Mart says, “when ’tis after bubbling away all that time, and no one any the wiser, one fine day something goes a wee bit wrong—the man sees his chance, maybe, or maybe he just has a bad day or a bit too much drink—and it all boils over. I know a lad beyond Croghan that was at his own daughter’s twenty-first, and he hit his brother-in-law a skelp to the head with a bottle, near kilt him. Outa nowhere, like. All they could get outa him was that the brother-in-law deserved it for something he’d said at that same daughter’s christening.” He shakes his head. “And him a lovely quiet lad that got on with everyone. That’s not the kind of unpredictability I like. Revenge can be awful disconcerting, Sunny Jim, when it comes outa the clear blue sky.”

Rip has got bored and started dancing and curvetting, trying to make Cal’s job difficult enough that he’ll give up and let Rip go back to Kojak. “Stay,” Cal says. Rip lets out a martyred sigh and flops down.

“There’s exceptions, now,” Mart allows. “Your young one’s a girl, but I’d say she’d hold her tongue about any grudges she might have stored up. And myself, I like to get the good outa them; I haven’t many, but I’ll tell all the details to anyone who’ll listen.”

“Hashtag, not all men,” Cal says, shoving Rip’s nose out of his way. He’s been in Ardnakelty long enough to understand that Mart isn’t just shooting the shit here. He’s trying to figure out whether Mart is telling him something, or asking him something, or both.

“Holy God, wouldja listen to that,” Mart says, delighted, poking Cal in the leg with his crook. “We’ve Mr. Social Media here, with the hashtags. Are you one of them influencers on the side, Sunny Jim? Are you on the TikTok shaking yourself to Rihanna? I’d watch that.”

“I’ll get right on it,” Cal says. “Soon as I can find a black leather dress that fits.”

Mart laughs. “Tell us, Sunny Jim,” he says, settling back onto his crook. “Where do you stand on the aul’ grudges? If you had a coupla them, would I know all the details, or would you be keeping them to yourself? I’d say you’re the strong silent type, are you?”

“I’m not from round here,” Cal says. “You gotta be local to have grudges.”

Mart cocks his head to one side, considering that. “Maybe,” he concedes. “You’d know better than I would; I’ve been local all my life. You’re telling me if someone done you wrong, or done wrong to someone you cared about, or just annoyed the holy bejaysus outa you, you’d turn the other cheek and forget the whole thing, just ’cause you’re a Yank? That’s very Christian of you altogether.”

“I just mind my own business,” Cal says. “And aim to get along with people.” Things are getting a little bit clearer. Mart, in his own way and in his own sweet time, is inquiring about revenge. He’s asking whether Cal, if he happened to have information that the gold was a load of hooey, would sit back and watch the guys sink their savings into it.

“You’re an example to us all,” Mart informs him piously. “I don’t know how many’d follow it, but. I’ll tell you one thing: there’ll be some grudges held if that gold doesn’t come through.”

“Yeah,” Cal says. “I bet there would.” He gets the warning.

“Specially if the lads go investing in that company of Paddy Englishman’s, on the strength of that bitta gold your young one found, and then the whole thing goes to shite.” Mart grins. “Bobby won’t be a happy man if he misses out on his internet woman.”

“Bobby’s a good guy,” Cal says. “There’s plenty of women that’d be glad to run into someone like him.”

“None a them live round here, though. Now there’s an example,” Mart adds, struck by a thought and pointing his crook at Cal to emphasize it. “Everyone knew Bobby had his eye on Lena, till you came along and swept her off her feet—not that she woulda had him anyhow, but sure, he doesn’t know that. Bobby doesn’t act like he’s holding any grudge against you, but you wouldn’t know, would you?”

Cal has made up his mind. It sets that dark terror pumping through him, but he doesn’t see that he has much choice. “I don’t give a shit who holds what against Johnny,” he says, straightening up from Rip. “But I don’t want to see the kid getting any blowback.”

Mart cocks an eye at him. “Theresa that was in the pub last night, waving around bits of gold she’s after digging up? That kid?”

“Yeah. That kid.”

“Sure, if there’s any gold found at all, she’ll be grand. Johnny’ll get a bitta—what did you call it, now?—blowback, if there’s not enough for the lads to break even. But your Theresa never made anyone any offers or any promises. The place won’t hold her daddy’s shite against her.” He flicks Cal a glance. “Unless she’s after doing something foolish herself, like. If that yoke she brought into the pub doesn’t hold up, let’s say. If there was no more gold found at all, or if Johnny was to take the lads’ cash and run for the hills. That wouldn’t be great news.”

Cal doesn’t say anything. After a minute Mart nods and goes back to examining the sky, sucking meditatively on his teeth. “If I was in your shoes, Sunny Jim,” he says, “and I’m only delighted I’m not, but if. The first thing I’d do is explain to Johnny Reddy that him and his business associate need to saddle up their horses and get outa town.” His eyes pass briefly, with no change of expression, over Cal’s bruised face. “If the message didn’t get through, then I’d drop a word in the ear of someone that might have a bit more firepower. And then I’d have a wee chat with that child. Set her straight on a few things. Tell her to keep the head down till this is all sorted. And for Jaysus’ sake not to do anything else foolish.”

“And she wouldn’t get any shit from anyone.”

“Ah, God, no. No harm, no foul. Like I said, Johnny’s not her fault.” Mart smiles at Cal. “As far as we’re concerned, boyo, she’s your young one, regardless of who made her. Once you’re in good standing, so is she.”

Cal says, “According to Mrs. Duggan, there’s never been any rumors about gold around here. Not till Johnny Reddy brought them in.”

That takes Mart by surprise. His eyebrows shoot up, he stares at Cal, and then after a moment he starts to laugh. “Dymphna Duggan,” he says. “Jesus, Mary, and all the saints in the calendar, I shoulda known she’d have something to contribute. I’m kicking myself, so I am, for not thinking of her before you did. I couldn’ta talked to her myself, mind you, she hates the bones of me, but I shoulda got someone to do it—not that it woulda done any good, most likely: she’d get more entertainment outa watching the action than outa anything them big lumps coulda offered her. For the love a God, bucko, tell me, before I die of curiosity: how’d you get it outa her? Dymphna never in her life handed over that caliber of intel outa the goodness of her heart; she’d want some high-quality material in exchange. What’d you give her?”

“Trade secret,” Cal says. He thinks of Lena waiting for him on his back porch, the taut hum of tension coming off her. He’s always known, and accepted without difficulty, that Lena has spaces she keeps private from everyone including him. The thought of her laying those bare to Mrs. Duggan makes him wish he had been a lot more thorough with Johnny.

Mart eyes him, assessing. “D’you know, now,” he says, “I wouldn’ta thought you’da had anything she’d fancy. She’s an awful fussy feeder, is aul’ Dymphna. There’s one or two things that I know you’d know better than to offer her, and apart from those, I can’t see what you could have that’d tickle her taste buds.”

“That’s just ’cause you think I’m predictable,” Cal says. “Doesn’t mean everyone else feels the same way.”

“Lena Dunne, now,” Mart continues thoughtfully, taking no notice of that. “Your Lena. She’s a woman of mystery, or as near as we’d get around here. I’d say she could get Dymphna Duggan’s mouth watering, all right, if she wanted to bad enough.”

Cal rolls up his handful of Rip’s burrs and shoves them into the hedge. “Go on,” he says, giving Rip’s flank a slap. “Git.” Rip streaks off to find Kojak.

“Well,” Mart says, “how and ever it was, if Dymphna says the story’s a loada shite, then it’s a loada shite. I haveta admit, I’m feeling a wee bit smug now. I got a whiff of nonsense off that story right from the start. ’Tis nice to know the aul’ instincts are still in working order.”

“Johnny owes Rushborough money,” Cal says. “And he’s scared of the guy. That’s why he doesn’t want to skip town.”

“Is he, now,” Mart says. “That wee shitemonger never did have the sense God gave an ass. This’ll want a bitta thought put into it, Sunny Jim. If I go off half-cocked, there’ll be holy war, and sure no one wants that. I’ll get back to you. Till then, you just sit tight.”

He whistles for Kojak, who turns neatly in mid-run and comes flying across the field with Rip galloping in his wake, miles behind, ears flapping joyfully. Mart watches the sunlit long grass wave around them.

He says, “If ’tis any help, man, you’re after making the right call. That’ll stand to your Theresa. No one around here wants to give the child any hassle. All we want to know is that she’s in good hands and being brought up right. If she had a wee wobble, sure, that’s natural enough, with that eejit bouncing in outa the blue. She just needs setting back on the right track, and she’ll be grand. You have a word with her.”

“I’ll do that,” Cal says. The pulse of the terror has slowed some. Mart is, to the bone, a practical man. He has no qualms about doing damage when he considers it necessary, but he would see no point in wasting energy doing it for punishment or for revenge. If Cal can talk Trey into line, she’ll be safe. He has no idea when, or whether, he’ll have the chance.

“You and me together,” Mart says, flashing him a sudden wicked grin, “we’ll have it all sorted in no time. Teamwork makes the dream work, boyo.”

“Keep me posted,” Cal says.

“There was me in the pub the other night,” Mart says reflectively, “telling you to mind your business and stay outa Johnny’s, d’you remember? And now, for once in my life, I reckon someone did the right thing, taking no notice of me. ’Tis a funny aul’ world some days, Sunny Jim. It’d keep you on your toes, right enough.”

Cal watches him stump off up the road, absently whistling patches of some old tune. He wants to go inside and get to work on that chair, but he leans on the gate for a little while first. He feels the same way he did when Trey first told him Johnny had come home: like either the ground or his legs might not be solid enough to hold him. Cal is too old to like setting things in motion without having at least some idea of where they might go.

It’s been a long time since Lena went up the mountain. When she was a wild-blooded teenager hunting for ways to rove, she and her mates would go up there to do things they didn’t want to be caught at; and in the bad months after Sean died, she walked up there half the night sometimes, trying to exhaust herself enough to sleep. At both ages she knew it had dangers, and welcomed them, in different ways. It occurs to her that, apart from visiting Sheila after each of the babies came, she may never have been up this mountain in her right mind before.

The sun and the heat make the mountain feel more dangerous, not less; as if it’s emboldened, no longer keeping its risks hidden, instead flaunting them like dares. The heather on the bog rustles loudly at every twitch of breeze, making Lena turn fast for nothing; real trails and false ones look wickedly identical, twisting away among the trees; the drop-offs stand out starkly, revealed by the wilting undergrowth, too close to the path. Lena left the dogs behind because of the heat, but she’s regretting it slightly. The mountain today feels like a place where a bit of company wouldn’t be a bad thing.

She finds the Reddy place all right, though, and she’s picked her time well. It’s late morning; people are off about their own pursuits. Two messy-haired small kids whose names she can’t remember are clambering around a makeshift climbing frame cobbled together out of scrap wood and metal, but there’s no sign of Banjo, and when Lena asks the kids whether their dad or Trey is in, they shake their heads, hanging on to the climbing frame and staring unblinkingly.

Sure enough, Sheila answers the door, with a potato peeler in her hand and a wary look on her face. When she sees Lena, the wariness sharpens. It’s not personal; it’s an automatic response to anything that arrives without an explanation.

“I brought this,” Lena says, producing a jar of blackberry jam. Lena makes her own jam primarily because she likes it made her way, but she’s well alive to its other useful properties. “Your Trey had some at my place the other day and went mad for it, and I said I’d give her a jar, only I forgot. Did I catch you in the middle of something?”

Sheila looks down at the potato peeler. It takes her a second to remember the correct formula. “Ah, no,” she says. “You’re grand. Come on in and have a cuppa tea.”

Lena sits at the kitchen table, asking harmless questions about the kids, while Sheila moves the potatoes out of the way and puts the kettle on. Half their lives ago, she would have taken up a knife and cut the spuds while Sheila peeled. She wishes she could; it would make the talk flow more easily. But they’re not on those terms now.

She’s not sure when she last saw Sheila. Sheila rarely comes down to the village; mostly she sends Trey or Maeve to Noreen’s for what she needs. Lena assumed it was out of pride. Back in the day, Sheila was not just a beauty but a cheerful-natured one, making the most of every laugh and brushing away any worries on the grounds that it’d all turn out grand, and Ardnakelty is full of begrudgers who take optimism personally; Lena figured Sheila had no wish to let them pick smugly over the remains of all that. Now, looking at her, she reckons it might be just that Sheila hasn’t the energy to make the trip.

Sheila brings the tea to the table. The mugs have old-fashioned prints of bunnies among wildflowers, faded from washing. “ ’Tis almost too hot for tea,” she says.

“Cal makes it iced these days,” Lena says. “Not with milk, now; just made weak, with sugar and lemon, and kept in the fridge. I don’t mind the heat, but I have to admit I appreciate the iced tea.”

“I hate this heat,” Sheila says. “Everything’s dry as a bone, up here; the wind rattles it all night long. I can’t sleep for the noise.”

“Some people are after getting fans. I’d say that’d block out the noise, or some of it anyhow.”

Sheila shrugs. “Maybe.” She sips at her tea, steadily and mechanically, like it’s another job to be got through before the day can be over.

“Johnny’s looking well,” Lena says. “London suited him.”

“Johnny’s the same as he always was,” Sheila says flatly. “ ’Tis nothing to do with London. He’d be the same anywhere he went.”

Lena’s patience, which isn’t at its fullest this week to begin with, has been further whittled down by the walk up the mountain. She gives up on the small talk, which in any case appears to be getting her nowhere.

“Here’s what I wanted to say to you,” she says. “If you need a hand with anything, ask me.”

Sheila raises her eyes to look at her full on. She says, “What would I need a hand with?”

“I dunno,” Lena says. “You might want a place to stay for a bit, maybe.”

The corner of Sheila’s mouth lifts in something that could be amusement. “You. Taking in me and the four kids.”

“I’d find room.”

“You don’t want us.”

Lena isn’t going to lie to her. “I’d have you and welcome,” she says.

“Why would I go? He hasn’t hit me. And he won’t.”

“You might wanta be away from him.”

“This is my house. And he’s my man.”

“He is, yeah. So you might wanta show everyone he’s nothing to do with you.”

Sheila puts down her mug and looks at Lena. Lena looks back. She wasn’t sure, till now, whether Sheila knew what Johnny is at. Presumably Sheila was wondering the same about her, if she was wondering anything at all. Lena welcomes the new clarity of the situation, regardless of its unpredictability. One of the main things that annoys her about the townland has always been the endless rolling game of who-knows-that-I-know-that-she-knows-that-he-knows.

Sheila says, “Why would you have us?”

“I’ve got awful fond of your Trey.”

Sheila nods, accepting that. “At first I thought you meant for old times’ sake,” she says. “I wouldn’ta fell for that. You were never like that.”

“I wasn’t,” Lena agrees. “I mighta gone that way in my old age, but. I haven’t checked.”

Sheila shakes her head. “I’m grand where I am,” she says. “I wanta have my eye on him.”

“Fair enough,” Lena says. “I’ll take the kids if you want.”

“The little ones are all right here. I told Trey to go down to you till he leaves.”

“I’ll have her. No problem.”

“I know that. She wouldn’t go.”

“Tell her again. And I’ll ask her.”

Sheila nods. “ ’Tis great there’s people that see it in her,” she says, “that she’s worth helping. She oughta make the most of that. No one ever thought that about me.”

Lena considers this. “People thought you had what you wanted, maybe,” she says. “I thought that. There’s no point in trying to help someone outa what they want.”

Sheila shakes her head briefly. “They thought I had what I deserved. That’s different.”

“They’re awful fond of thinking that, around here,” Lena agrees. “I’d say there was plenty that thought the same about me when Sean died.”

“I liked Sean,” Sheila says. “You picked right.” Out in the yard, one of the kids yells, but she doesn’t look around. “There’s people that help me now, anyhow,” she says. “The last coupla years. Bringing me a loada turf for the winter. Mending my fence that was falling down.”

Lena says nothing. She knows why the townland started giving Sheila help.

“I oughta spit in their faces,” Sheila says. “Only I can’t afford to.”

Lena says, “Are you wanting to spit in my face?”

Sheila shakes her head again. All her movements have a spare, contained quality, like she’s eking herself out to last the day. “You’re not doing it ’cause you think it’ll clear your debt,” she says. “You owe me nothing. And you’re not doing it for me, anyhow. You’re doing it for Trey.”

“Well then,” Lena says. “If you want to bring the kids down to mine, bring them.”

This time Sheila looks at her differently, with something almost like interest. “Everyone’d be asking you questions,” she says. “You always hated that. People poking their noses in.”

It’s the first time she’s spoken like Lena is someone who used to be her friend. “I’m older now,” Lena says. “They can ask all they like. It’ll do them good. Get the aul’ circulation going.”

“What would you tell them?”

“Whatever we fancy, sure. The English fella’s here hunting for Bobby’s aliens, maybe, and him and Johnny are after bringing one into the house, and you’re sick of cleaning alien shite off your floors.”

Sheila laughs. The laugh, clear and free and youthful, takes both of them by surprise. Sheila snaps her mouth closed and looks down into her mug like she’s done something ill-judged.

“Doireann Cunniffe’d fall for it,” Lena says. “As long as you kept a straight face.”

That pulls a faint smile out of Sheila. “I was awful for that,” she says. “You had the best poker face of any of us. I was always the one that’d start in giggling and give us away.”

“That was half the fun, sure. Talking our way outa trouble afterwards.”

One of the kids shrieks again. This time Sheila gives the window a brief glance. “If I told them what we usedta get up to,” she says, “they wouldn’t believe it, to look at me now. The children. They wouldn’t believe a word.”

The thought seems to chafe at her. “Sure, that’s the way it goes,” Lena says. “I’d say our parents got up to plenty that we wouldn’ta believed, either.”

Sheila shakes her head. “I’d like them to know,” she says. “To warn them, like. One minute you’re a bunch of mad wee messers, and then next thing you know…You tell Trey. She’ll believe you.”

“She’s fifteen,” Lena points out. “We’ll be lucky if she believes a word outa any adult, the next few years.”

“You tell her,” Sheila repeats. She picks at something stuck to her mug, which seems to irritate her. The shrieking outside has stopped. “I left him one time,” she says. “Middle of the night. He was asleep, drunk. I packed the kids into the car—the four of them, just, ’twas before Liam and Alanna—and I went. Mostly I remember how quiet it was: the rain on the windscreen, and not another soul on the roads. The kids went asleep. I drove for hours. In the end I turned around and came back. There was nowhere I could drive to that was far enough to be worth my while.”

Her fingers have stilled on the mug. “I felt like a prize feckin’ eejit,” she says. “He never knew, anyway. I was glad of that. He woulda made fun of me.”

“If you think of something I could do,” Lena says. “Say it to me.”

“Maybe,” Sheila says. “Thanks for the jam.” She gets up and starts clearing away the tea things.

Cal is doing the dishes after lunch when Trey and Banjo show up. The sound of the door banging open hits him with a surge of relief so disproportionate it almost knocks him off his feet. “Hey,” he says. “Long time no see.”

Trey gives his injured face one long, unreadable look, but then her eyes skid away. “I came yesterday morning,” she informs him. “You were out.”

The fact that she came at all has to be a good thing, but Cal can’t tell by her whether she was just there for carpentry purposes, or whether she wanted to talk. “Well,” he says, “I’m here now.”

“Yeah,” Trey says. She crouches to meet Rip’s welcome and rub his jowls.

She hasn’t brought anything. Mostly Cal doesn’t like it when Trey shows up with food—he doesn’t require an entrance fee—but today he would have welcomed a packet of cookies or a hunk of cheese or whatever. It would mean she was planning to stick around awhile.

“What’s with his paw?” he asks, indicating Banjo.

“Fell over him,” Trey says, that little bit too promptly. “That was days ago, but. He’s grand. He’s only looking for ham slices.”

“Well, we got those,” Cal says. He goes to the fridge and tosses Trey the packet. He doesn’t try asking about her lip, which looks pretty much healed. Apparently today everybody is politely not asking anybody anything. “You want something to eat?”

“Nah. Had lunch.” Trey drops onto the floor and starts feeding Banjo scraps of ham.

“No thank you,” Cal says automatically, before he can stop himself.

Trey rolls her eyes, which comforts him a little bit. “No thank you.”

“Hallelujah,” Cal says, getting out the iced tea. His voice sounds fake to him. “We got there in the end. Have some of this. This weather, if you don’t keep drinking you’ll shrivel up.”

Trey rolls her eyes again, but she downs the iced tea and holds out her glass for more. “Please,” she adds, as an afterthought.

Cal gives her a refill and pours a glass for himself. He knows he needs to talk to her, but he allows himself a minute first, to just lean against the counter and look at her. The kid is outgrowing her jeans again; her ankles stick out. Last time it took Sheila months to notice and buy her new gear, while Trey refused to take Cal’s charity and Cal tried to come up with a way of raising the issue to Sheila without being some pervert who looked at teenagers’ legs. Back then he swore that next time he was just going to go into town and buy her some damn jeans, and if she didn’t like it she could feed them to Francie’s pigs.

“I saw my dad last night,” Trey says. “When he got in.”

“Oh yeah?” Cal says. He keeps his voice neutral, even though that little shitbird clearly saw no downside to telling the kid who had done the damage, putting her right in the middle.

“You bet him up pretty good.”

Two years ago she would have said “You bet the shite outa him,” or something. That “pretty good” is all Cal. “We went at it,” he says.

“How come?”

“We had a difference of opinion.”

Trey has her jaw set at the angle that means there’s business to be dealt with. “I’m not a fuckin’ baby.”

“I know that.”

“So how come you fought him?”

“OK,” Cal says. “I don’t like your dad’s game.”

“It’s not a game.”

“Kid. You know what I mean.”

“What d’you not like?”

Cal finds himself where Trey regularly seems to put him: helplessly and desperately out of his depth, right when it’s crucial not to fuck up. He has no idea what to say that won’t make things worse.

“I’m not gonna bitch about your daddy to you, kid,” he says. “That’s not my place. But the stuff he’s doing…” That’s not what I want for you, is what he means, except that he has no right to want anything for Trey at all. “People round here are gonna end up pretty pissed off.”

Trey shrugs. Rip is shouldering Banjo out of the way, looking for both shares of ham and attention. She disentangles them and uses one hand for each.

“When they do,” Cal says, “it’d be a real good idea if you weren’t smack in the middle of all this.”

That gets a swift flash of a glance from Trey. “They can go and shite. All of ’em. I’m not scared of them.”

“I know that,” Cal says. “That’s not what I mean.” What he means is simple enough—Things were good, that matters, don’t go and fuck it all up—but he can’t find a way to say it. It seems laden with too many things that a kid Trey’s age is incapable of knowing, even if he could explain them to her: the full weight and reach of choices, how unthinkingly and how permanently things can be forfeited. She’s much too young to have something the size of her future in her hands. He wants to ditch this whole damn topic of conversation and argue with her over whether she needs a haircut. He wants to tell her she’s grounded till she gets some sense.

“Then what?” Trey demands.

“He’s your daddy,” Cal says, picking his words with difficulty. “It’s natural for you to want to help him out. But things are gonna get messy.”

“Not if you say nothing.”

“You figure that’ll make a difference? Seriously?”

Trey gives him a look like if he was any dumber she’d have to water him. “You’re the only one that knows. How are the lads gonna find out, if you don’t talk?”

Cal feels his temper rising. “How the hell are they not gonna find out? There’s no fucking gold. I don’t care how dumb your dad thinks they are, sooner or later they’re gonna notice that. And then what?”

“My dad’ll come up with a story,” Trey says flatly. “That’s what he’s good at.”

Cal bites back several comments that need to stay unsaid. “Yeah, the guys won’t give a shit how good his story is. What they’ll want is their money. If you’re hoping they’ll cut your dad some slack if you’re involved, just ’cause you’ve got some respect around here—”

“Never thought that.”

“Good. ’Cause they won’t. All you’ll do is drop yourself in the shit right alongside him. You want that?”

“I told you. They can all go and shite.”

“Listen,” Cal says. He takes a breath and brings his voice down to normal, or as close as he can get it. He looks at the mutinous set of Trey’s shoulders and has a doomed sense that whatever he says is inevitably going to be the wrong thing. “All I’m saying is, sooner or later, this is gonna be over. When it is, your dad and Rushborough are gonna have to leave town.”

“I know that.”

Cal can’t tell, from what he can see of her face, whether that’s true or not. “And I’m saying you need to think about what happens after that. If you stay out of your dad’s doings from now on, I can pretty much guarantee that you won’t get any flak from anyone. But if—”

That gets a flash of anger from Trey. “I don’t want you sticking your nose in. I can look after myself.”

“OK,” Cal says. “OK.” He takes another breath. He doesn’t know how to highlight the things Trey values in order to make his argument, because right now he has very little sense of what those are, apart from Banjo, and apparently neither does she. “Regardless of what I do, if you stay mixed up in this, things are gonna change after. This place thinks pretty highly of you, these days. You talk about wanting to go into carpentry when you’re done with school; the way you’ve been going, you could start up your own shop tomorrow, and have more business’n you could handle.”

He thinks he sees her lashes flicker, like that caught her. “If you keep on helping your dad,” he says, “all that’s gonna be out. People round here won’t treat you the way they do now. I know you don’t want to give a shit about them, but things aren’t the same as they were two years ago. You’ve got stuff to lose now.”

Trey doesn’t look up. “Like you said,” she says. “He’s my dad.”

“Right,” Cal says. He rubs a hand over his mouth, hard. He wonders whether she’s thinking that, when Johnny skips town, he’ll take her with him. “Yeah. But like you said, you’re not a baby. If you don’t want to be mixed up in his doings, you’ve got a right to make that call. Daddy or not.” He has a crazy impulse to offer her things, pizza, a fancy new lathe, a pony, whatever she wants, if she’ll just step away from the lit fuse and come home.

Trey says, “I wanta do it.”

There’s a small silence in the room. Sunlight and the lazy burr of haying machines come in through the windows. Rip has rolled over to have his belly rubbed.

“Just remember,” Cal says. “You can change your mind anytime.”

“How come you even care if those lads get fucked over?” Trey demands. “They’re nothing to you. And they done plenty on you, before.”

“I just want peace,” Cal says. All of a sudden he’s exhausted, down to his bones. “That’s all. We had that, up to a couple of weeks ago. It was good. I liked it.”

“You can have peace. Just get outa it. Leave the rest of them to it.”

That leaves Cal stymied again. He can’t tell Trey that he won’t walk out while she’s in; it would be unfair to put that on her. This barely even feels like a conversation, just a series of stone walls and briar patches.

“It’s not that simple,” he says.

Trey blows out an impatient puff of air.

“It’s not, kid. Say I pull out: what are the rest of them gonna think, when it all goes belly-up? They’re gonna think I knew and didn’t tell them. That’s not gonna be any kind of peace.”

She says, still not looking up from the dogs, “My dad said to tell you to back off and mind your own business.”

“Did he now,” Cal says.

“Yeah. He says you’ve got nothing, and if you go talking you’ll only land me in shite.”

“Huh,” Cal says. He wishes he had just dumped Johnny in a bog while he had one handy. “I guess that’s one way to look at it.”

Trey shoots him one brief glance he can’t read. She says, “I want you outa it as well.”

“You do,” Cal says. He feels like a stone just dropped into his stomach. “How come?”

“Just do. ’S not your business.”

“Right,” Cal says.

Trey watches him, rubbing Rip’s belly and waiting for more. When Cal has nothing else to offer, she says, “So will I say to my dad that you’ll leave it?”

“Anything I’ve got to say to Johnny, I said last night. And,” Cal says, even though he knows he should shut his mouth, “if I find something to add, I’ll tell him myself. I won’t use you as a goddamn go-between.”

For a minute he thinks Trey’s going to argue. Instead she says abruptly, standing up and spilling dogs everywhere, “Can we just do that chair?”

“Sure,” Cal says. Out of nowhere he feels, crazily, like tears might be stinging his eyes. “Let’s do that.”

They give the chair more care and delicacy than it really deserves, going back three times over the turning of the leg, sanding it finer and finer till a baby could suck on it. Mostly they work in silence. Summer air wanders in and out of the window, bringing the smells of silage and clover, picking up sawdust motes and twirling them idly in the wide bars of sunlight. When the sun moves off the window and the heat starts to mellow towards dinnertime, Trey dusts off her outgrown jeans and goes home.