Hunter's Moon Page 2

  It was a humbling position, and not one to which CJ was accustomed. He wanted nothing more than to make it stop. Consequently, he did the first thing that came to him. He lifted the closed book from the podium and started down the steps, heading down the center aisle and toward the voice. He could barely make out the people on either side of him as he passed the rows of seats. After he had walked by perhaps fifteen rows, it was as if a small spotlight came on, illuminating a single person. CJ recognized him as a writer for the Southern Review. The man had attended a number of CJ’s readings, and up to now had always been cordial. Now, though, he was deep into his evisceration of CJ’s novel.

  CJ didn’t even slow as he approached the man, and it was with a smooth but vicious swing that he brought the spine of the book into contact with the reviewer’s head.

  When Charles Jefferson Baxter rolled over in bed, he didn’t have to open his eyes to realize that it was going to be a bad day. For one thing, his head was pounding, and he knew this particular feeling well enough to understand the headache would stay with him until at least early afternoon, regardless of any medication he might take for it. And since he was supposed to meet his editor for lunch at noon, then afterward head over to the house to pick up the last of his things, he did not need to be hobbled by stabbing pain in his head.

  With a groan, he opened his eyes to look at the clock. It read 7:30, which was confirmed by the light that found its way past the curtains. He closed his eyes again, choosing not to move. He hadn’t gotten back to the apartment and, consequently, into bed until sometime after 3:00 a.m., and while he was not wholly unaccustomed to keeping those kinds of hours, it had been a while. It had also been a while since he’d lost that much at cards. That thought coaxed a new throbbing from his temple, eliciting another groan.

  He couldn’t put an exact dollar figure on his losses, but he guessed it was around five hundred. Not a huge sum, but with the money he would soon have to start paying Janet, he needed to begin keeping a closer eye on his finances. She wanted the house, of course, which was fine with him. And the Jaguar, which wasn’t quite as fine. His lawyer had encouraged him to save his energy for the important things—the most pressing of those being alimony. And Thoreau. Janet would absolutely not get to keep his dog.

  He rolled to a sitting position and sat with his head in his hands until a bout of vertigo eased. He didn’t need to get up yet, but he knew the headache would keep him from falling back to sleep. With that thought in mind, he got up and went to the bathroom where he found some ibuprofen in the medicine cabinet and took a good deal more than the recommended dose.

  As he stood at the sink, bracing himself on the counter, the dream that had followed him to wakefulness lingered. He supposed that was to be expected. After all, the events the dream had parodied had happened only two days ago. Of course, there had been a few differences. The audience hadn’t been neatly divided into two factions, there was no spotlight, and the room was nowhere near as packed. But the part about the book was pretty accurate, except that instead of taking the long walk down the steps and up the aisle to assault the man from the Southern Review, he’d simply wound up his pitching arm and let the book (a hefty hardcover) go from his place behind the podium. Even with CJ’s college baseball experience, no one was more surprised than he was when the book flew unerringly toward its target and struck the man in the forehead.

  It hadn’t been one of CJ’s prouder moments, but he had to admit to taking some pleasure in having laid the man out between the rows of seats. There’d even been a little blood, a small raw knot on his head.

  Neither CJ nor his attorney had heard from the man’s lawyer yet, but he knew it was only a matter of time. And depending on the amount the reviewer would try to collect, it might have even been worth it, considering the cathartic nature of the incident. Too, it might not be a bad thing for his readers to consider him temperamental. Weren’t most of the great ones?

  CJ ran cold water and wet his face, hoping this would beat back the pounding in his head. The headaches had been coming with more frequency, lasting longer, and reaching new pain thresholds with regularity. Matt had been after him for months to see a doctor, but CJ suspected his editor was only concerned that the recurring headaches would keep him from supporting the new book. He’d thought the headaches were just stress, and with everything going on, it seemed a reasonable hypothesis. They were getting worse rather than better, and that tracked right along with the fact that in the last week he’d assaulted a critic, been served divorce papers from his wife, and received his first ever lukewarm review in the New York Times. He thought it was a wonder he hadn’t had an aneurysm, all things considered. Still, CJ was beginning to question if following Matt’s advice would be the worst idea.

  As he stood in front of the sink, head tilted so he could see the hair clogging the drain, he felt a curious rumbling in his stomach that quickly turned to nausea. Before he could think to move to the toilet, he vomited into the sink. When he finished, he ran the water until the brownish mixture, with half-dissolved white ibuprofen tablets mixed in like Lucky Charms marshmallows, was gone. Then he rinsed his mouth to rid himself of the sour taste. When he was reasonably sure he wasn’t going to throw up again, he took another round of pills and went back to bed.

  He had almost drifted to sleep when the phone rang. After the third ring it clicked over to the answering machine, and CJ waited for his lawyer’s voice—the one that would tell him they’d been served. But it wasn’t Al. It was a voice he hadn’t heard in more than eight years.

  “CJ, it’s your father. Are you there?”

  Chapter 2

  Adelia, New York

  Graham was out of the truck before the engine’s rumble had dissipated, which didn’t say as much about his speed as it did about the recalcitrant nature of the truck. It suffered through a series of small trembles and the automotive equivalent of a coughing fit every time he pulled the key from the ignition. The old Ford F-150 had seen much better days, but he couldn’t bring himself to get rid of it. Too many fond memories had attached themselves to the vehicle—hunting trips up the Oneida, mud runs in the lowlands between Adelia and Manchester, and coolers filled with crappie sliding around in the bed, making satisfying thumps against the sides. In all likelihood, he would keep the truck until he slid behind the wheel one morning, eight inches of snow giving the emerald green body a second skin, and turned the key to ineffectual result.

  Of course, having the BMW siphoned away any sense of urgency from thoughts of purchasing a new truck. True, the X5 didn’t lend itself to the beating that driving around Franklin County would extend to it, but it would do in a pinch, and now that the road up to the house had been paved, the precision German engineering would remain as precise as its stringent manufacturing processes had built into it. But to this point he’d only used the BMW for the trips to Albany, when showing up in the truck would have made him look more provincial than was politically expedient. No, it was the Ford that was made for dusting around Adelia, where he didn’t have to play the politician.

  The engine settled into a steady tick as Graham tapped a cigarette from the pack, turning away from the wind until the paper caught and held the flame. It was a habit he had to quit. His senate campaign hinged on the whole family-values package, and Marlboros seldom made for good photo ops.

  Through the trees he could see Adelia waking. As he watched, drawing long and slow on the cigarette, a city services truck rolled up Main Street, stopping at the entrance to the roundabout that fronted the town hall, the courthouse, and the library. Although his vantage point made it difficult to determine with certainty, he was reasonably confident that the two men who exited the truck were Gabe and Doug. And his conviction that the cargo in the back of the truck was a Fall Festival sign was even stronger. He watched as the two men moved to the back and lowered the tailgate, and for a while longer as Gabe—he was sure of it now— climbed into the bed to wrestle with the sign.

  Below, li
ghts were coming on in windows throughout Ade- lia, and Graham guessed that what was happening in the house behind him would be done before more than half of them were lit. He also suspected that while the death of a Baxter had always carried historic significance, the appearance of the Festival signs would hold greater import for most Adelia residents. The thought elicited a snort, but not because that truth bothered him. Rather, it was because he understood. His family, while a major part of the town’s history, no longer carried the weight held by the myriad other customs and totems handed down over the last two hundred years. The principal selling point of these other things was that none of them found their gravity in something as fragile as flesh and blood, but in the malleability of the intangible.

  This town and its history, as well as all the trappings that went with it—unsophisticated though it all might be—was in Graham’s blood, and it had been an important element of his long campaign, even as it had also been a weight on it. Small-town folksiness only punched his ticket so far up the political track.

  He flicked the cigarette butt toward the tree line and shook his head. One thing at a time. He had to get to the senate first, and this small town was good for a great many votes from the similar small towns that comprised his strongest voting bloc.

  He saw the light come on at Kaddy’s, and knew that Artie must have seen the cars in the driveway—how it would look to the hardware store owner, and the rest of the people down there who would be waiting for word to come when it finally happened. As he turned to head toward the house, he thought to wonder if Artie was in the pool.

  The five steps up to the wood porch were solid beneath his shoes, the third step having lost its telltale creak after last weekend’ s repair work. With the end of the senate race less than two months away, his new campaign manager had poured time and money into making certain that the family home was ready for television. Graham had to admit the place looked better than he could remember ever having seen it. The louvered shutters were all hanging for the first time in two decades, the roof had been repaired, and the copper gutters added. Even the privet had been pulled up, replaced with boxwood. On some level it bothered him that the house’s return to something of its former glory was a result of mostly cosmetic work planned and executed by someone from out of state. The restoration—the upkeep, really—of the property was something that should have remained in the family, a duty discharged over succeeding generations.

  Edward was the first to greet him as he stepped inside, as the warmth from the massive fireplace in the living room hit him in the face. Graham had the impression that his uncle had been waiting in the foyer, watching his nephew through the small window cut into the cherrywood door. Almost before Graham could shut the door, Edward’s strong hand—the one not shredded by ordnance in Korea—was on his shoulder.

  “It’ll happen this morning,” Edward said. “Probably within the hour.”

  Graham nodded. “Is he awake?”

  Edward looked back down the hall as if he could see Sal’s room, the old man sucking oxygen through a hose, as he had been for more than a month. “He’s on a morphine drip. He won’t wake up again.”

  Edward led Graham down the short hall, past pictures hanging along both walls that marked the family line for the last 160 years, the older generations nearest the door, and the newest, Graham among them, trailing toward the great room. Even before he could walk, Graham had begun to learn the stories behind the photos, while carried along in the arms of his parents. There were more than two hundred pictures covering the walls, not just in this hall but throughout the house, many of them posed portraits of the great men and women who had carried the Baxter name, while others were scenes captured in their unfolding. Like all the Baxter children born in the house, Graham had been told again and again the stories behind the pictures—the reasons they inhabited the walls of the home, and the things occurring in each of the candid shots that made them suitable to join the photographic pantheon. He’d learned them because it had been expected, and now that he was older, he was glad for the force-feeding of his family history. There was something to be said about having a sufficient knowledge of one’s lineage to gauge one’s own contributions to it. Of course, Graham’s adult appreciation of the tutelage was dwarfed by the interest CJ had exhibited even as a child. Often, Graham would find his brother standing alone in the hall, looking up at the pictures. And it seemed to him that CJ was somewhere else entirely. In retrospect, it was no surprise to Graham that CJ had become a writer. He’d spent his childhood making up stories—even some to supplement the ones that had been handed down to them by their parents.

  Edward’s arm fell away as Graham sidestepped the antique credenza with the missing wheel that had occupied the same spot in the hallway since he was a boy, the hobbled back leg propped up by a 1957 Farmer’s Almanac.

  Moving into the great room, he saw a quorum in assembly, which lent a certain sobriety to the moment considering the earliness of the hour. Almost the full complement of Baxters. All three of Sal’s boys, as the father had always called them, and most of the local grandchildren, among which Graham was numbered, and some of the older great-grandchildren. Sal had long outlived his own eight siblings, five having gone to the grave through natural means, one lost in the Ardennes, one in the War in the Pacific, and one through a misstep that had sent him through a vaulted ceiling from an attic.

  Holding court in a room that only impressed Graham with its size when filled to capacity, as it was this morning, sat Graham’s father.

  George, the second of Sal’s children, sitting by the fireplace in a hardback chair, the toe of his work boot tapping a rhythm against the brick run, had long usurped the birthright that belonged to Sal Jr., who was perfectly content to have abdicated that entitlement. The two men were talking as Graham and Uncle Edward entered. The older man stood on the opposite side of the fireplace, and he had a poker in his hand with which he absently worried the half-spent logs in the firebox. Graham’s father greeted him with a look and a brief nod before continuing his quiet conversation with Sal Jr.

  On the couch beneath the bay window directly across from the entrance where Graham stood, Edward’s son Ben sat with his wife, Julie. The only non-blood relation regularly included in these sorts of family events, Julie looked like she belonged more than did her husband, who appeared uncomfortable—a mantle he’d assumed by virtue of what was perceived as an inability to engage in higher thought. Family matters always seemed to be happening just beyond the edges of his understanding. Ill-equipped to handle the responsibilities that came with the station, George had once said. Graham hadn’t been so sure at the time that there was any lingering station granted by the name, but he hadn’t challenged his father.

  Sal Jr.’s son, Richard, stood by the entrance to the kitchen, a dirty hunting boot supporting his weight against the doorjamb. He was talking with Edward’s other son, Andrew, and Graham suspected they were already dividing up his grandfather’s estate, despite their being far down on the list of those who had a claim on anything in the home. Regardless of his age, George would put each of them on the ground should they so much as finger one of his father’s many guns. The real vulture—the only one Graham worried about—was Maryann. He located her on the chaise lounge near the piano, finding her eyes already on him. His beloved sister—a career gray-collar criminal who specialized in the managerial fleecing of retail from the inside. That was another thing that could get him into trouble as the campaign raced toward its conclusion, as his opponent began to look with growing panic into the private family nooks; he’d have to take Maryann aside soon and explain that to her, let her know the way things would have to be from now on. Perhaps she sensed what he was thinking, or maybe she just didn’t appreciate the way he looked at her, because she raised her hand to brush the hair from where it had fallen in front of her right eye and deftly gave him the finger. For his eyes only.

  On any other day he might have responded, either in kind or in some es
calatory fashion, but his grandfather was dying in the back room. Considering the circumstances, it seemed inappropriate to allow his sister to bait him. With a dismissive headshake, he crossed to his father’s side.

  “How is he?” he asked, nodding toward the back room.

  Arms crossed, George regarded his son with a look that indicated he thought Graham might be a simpleton. Then he huffed and pushed the chair back until it teetered to a stop against the mantel. “How do you think he is? He’s dying.”

  “You’re right,” Graham said. “Dumb question.”

  He took his uncle Sal’s offered hand and gave it a squeeze.

  “Who’s back there with him?” he thought to ask, noting that all the principals appeared to be out here.

  “Just the nurse,” George said.

  “Giving him a sponge bath,” Sal Jr. added. He gave the fire another poke, prodding a piece of wood until it birthed a new flame, and then looked up at Graham. “He’ll pass anytime now, and she thinks he needs a sponge bath.”

  No one said anything, as if granting the activity in the back room the absurdity it surely deserved.

  “They can still sense what’s going on around them, you know,” Ben offered from his spot on the couch. “They say that people in comas can hear and feel things, even if they can’t move.”

  None of the three other Baxter men said anything, but Sal Jr. looked over and offered a small smile. None of them cared enough to point out that the elder Sal wasn’t actually in a coma, but in an opiate-induced state that had placed him far beyond the reach of even the most determined of his senses. Ben’s wife placed a hand on her husband’s thigh and gave it a gentle pat, and with a sheepish smile Ben leaned back into the couch.

  “I’ve already called your brother,” George said.

  Graham nodded, but the doorbell rang before he could say anything.