Hardrock Stiff

by Thomas Zigal

  “You’re looking rested,” she said as he walked up the hill toward her.

  “Is Lorenzo in the mine?”

  “Been there since daybreak. The man isn’t human.”

  “Anybody helping him?”

  “He prefers to work alone.” She offered Kurt the cup. “Like some breakfast?”

  “No, thanks, I’m stuffed. Meg made waffles.”

  “Well, now, isn’t that special,” Muffin said, resting back against the cruiser door. “Sunday morning waffles. The very definition of domestic bliss.”

  They had discussed Meg’s return only in the most superficial manner, but Kurt suspected that Muffin resented the abrupt reappearance of Lennon’s mother and now felt left out of the picture. During the two years of Meg’s absence Muffin had stepped in as the perfect doting aunt, babysitting the child, buying him clothes and toys, caring for him when he was sick. She was a constant in his life, female and nurturing. Now Meg’s presence had loosened the bonds of affection between the child and the young overworked officer who had no other passions but her job and a needy six-year-old. Kurt could plainly see that she missed the boy.

  “What do you have on the shooting?” he asked.

  She emptied the last inch of coffee onto the ground and tossed the cup in the cruiser’s open window. “We ran a quick check on the health facilities from here to Glenwood and there weren’t any gunshot wounds reported yesterday,” she said, “but we’ll stay on it. I sent two deputies to Carbondale to question the bartender at the Black Diamond. He had a sudden case of amnesia and couldn’t remember names. He claims he didn’t know the dirt-bikers who hassled you and Tyler.”

  “He’s lying. They’re regulars.”

  “If we want to shake him down we’ll have to get Garfield County involved, but Dan the Man will probably bottom-shelf anything for us until you go down there and talk to him about that Dumpster.”

  “I’ll give him a call.” He looked up at the mine adit, listening for signs of Lorenzo at work. “Let’s go see how our guy is doing.”

  Muffin ventured into the lighted shaft while Kurt remained outside. He had no desire to enter another mine anytime soon.

  In a short while the two cops issued from the tunnel, Lorenzo removing his respirator and rubber gloves, laughing a huge friendly laugh, happy to see Kurt.

  “Looking good, Lorenzo,” he grinned, giving the man a power shake and a back-clapping bear hug.

  “Nothing to it, big fella.”

  Lorenzo Banks was a tall, slender African American, his hair and mustache graying now after twenty years with the Denver police. He had served in the same demolitions unit in Vietnam with Kurt’s brother and had helped spread Bert’s ashes on the mountain not a hundred yards from this mine. Kurt hadn’t seen him since the funeral five years ago.

  “How you been getting along?” Lorenzo asked with a wide smile. “I read about that mess last summer. Man, you kicked some ass.”

  “I hope I never have to go through that again. How are things in Denver?”

  “Like everywhere else. Going down the shitter one spoonful at a time.”

  He unzipped his police coveralls and reached inside to remove a pack of Camels from his shirt pocket, offering them around, with no takers. He seemed relieved to have this break and led Kurt and Muffin over to the spreading shade of a Douglas fir, where he’d stashed a gym bag full of diet Cokes and breakfast sweets.

  “I know you want to make a case for homicide here, Kurt,” Lorenzo said, sitting down against the tree trunk, his knees spread, the cigarette smoldering from a dangling hand. “But my guess at this time is I’ll have to call it inconclusive. I can’t find any clear evidence of a bomb device. If somebody did the old man, they kept it simple. A rigged stick set in one of the shot holes.”

  The cheapest method of blasting ore, he explained, and the one preferred by old hardrock miners like Ned, was to drill shot holes in a circular pattern around the target area, like the numbers on a clock, and fill the holes with sticks of dynamite wired to a blaster back at the mine’s entrance.

  “I don’t know. Maybe they used a tiny heat or motion sensor, so when the man checked his charge, the stick went off. One goes off, they all do. If that’s what went down, it’s damn near impossible to trace.”

  Muffin pitched a wood chip at a marmot peeking out from behind a pile of split logs. “Sounds too easy,” she said.

  “Maybe,” Lorenzo shrugged, taking a drag from his cigarette. “In my experience the real pro always finds the path of least resistance.” His brow wrinkled as he gazed at Kurt. “Your brother and me, we learned that in Nam.”

  Chapter twenty-two

  That afternoon Kurt and the two boys picked budding yellow roses from the bush beneath the kitchen window and took them to the hospital for Tyler. Kurt left the children with Nickelodeon magazines in the waiting room and wandered down a corridor to the soft-lit Intensive Care Unit where Deputy Bill Gillespie was posted outside a door.

  “How’s he doing?” Kurt asked.

  “Still unconscious.”

  Tyler’s parents were keeping a quiet bedside vigil. Kurt didn’t know them well, although he had patronized their trading post many times over the years, searching for the odd items he couldn’t find anywhere else, snow-shoes the shape of tennis rackets and earflap wool hats and army-surplus foldup tinware for camping. Mrs. Rutledge accepted the roses and her husband embraced Kurt in burly mountain-man arms, thanking him for pulling their son out of the mine. There was an intense sadness in the room, a premonition of death, and the three of them didn’t know what to say to each other so they stood in silence over the bandaged body. Tyler was as pale and gaunt as a wax figure. The tube down his throat forced oxygen into his lungs, sustaining his life. It was difficult to look at him in such a helpless state.

  Kurt could feel the couple’s collective grief like an invisible fist squeezing at his own heart. He stayed as long as he could, managing to hide the unexpected emotion that had surfaced in him, then said good-bye, giving his word that he would bring their son’s assailants to justice.

  He walked back to the waiting room and sat for several moments between the two boys, holding them close to his side while they flipped casually through their magazines, glancing up at his face from time to time, asking if he was okay, confused by Kurt’s brooding silence, his inability to speak. By slow measure he recovered, leading the children out of the hospital hand in hand, guiding their steps to the waiting Jeep, promising himself he would never let something like that happen to them.

  When they arrived at the Pfeil cabin, Randy came out and waved from the front porch, welcoming them like a grandmother eagerly awaiting her kin. “I know all about boys. I’ve got a big one in college,” she beamed, hugging Hunter and Lennon to her ample bosom as though she expected to greet them like this every Sunday for the rest of their lives. “Come on, gentlemen, let’s get busy. I’ll show you where the tackle’s stored.”

  She told Kurt that Kat was off in the woods taking rifle practice. “Head up the path and look for a bunker,” she said, pointing.

  “A bunker?”

  “Our latest addition to the homey atmosphere.”

  The new bunker had been dug in the forest floor beneath the pines, its roof and narrow enclosure reinforced with hundred-pound cement bags. Kurt could hear muffled .30-06 reports as he neared the structure, a paramilitary shooting gallery that bore Miles Cunningham’s distinctive influence. He shouted Kat’s name several times before the gunfire ceased. A moment passed and then the heavy iron door croaked open and her face peeked out through a dark wedge.

  “Whatever happened to that declaration of nonviolence?” Kurt asked.

  She stepped into the morning sunlight and removed the ear protectors, shaking out her hair. He could see the hunting rifle propped against the bags inside, a red-dot laser scope attached to the long barrel. “Howdy, Kurt,” she smiled, squinting, studying his face. She was wearing cutoffs and a T-shirt, her bare legs long and
tanned except for two belly-white scars on her left thigh and the crescent where a metal plate had been inserted into her knee. “I tried to see you at the hospital but they wouldn’t allow visitors.”

  “I got your note,” he said. “Thanks for coming.”

  Walking back toward the cabin he told her about Tyler’s condition and thanked her for cooperating with the Sheriff’s Department in their long interview.

  “That cop Muffin Brown doesn’t like me very much,” she said. “I think she was worried I would frag her patrol car.”

  He smiled. “Don’t be offended. Muffin treats me the same way.”

  They emerged from the woods to find Randy and the boys rummaging through an old tackle shed on the edge of the yard.

  “Did you get a good look at those three men in the Toyota?” he asked.

  “They were a long way off, Kurt. But as I told Miz Brown, I think one of them was wearing a uniform shirt.”

  “What kind of uniform?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe forest-green, like the one she was wearing when we spoke.”

  Pitkin County Sheriff’s Department? One of their own?

  “Did any of the men look wounded?”

  “Not that I noticed. But it happened so fast, and then you grabbed the binoculars.”

  Randy had dragged a snarl of fly rods into the yard and was untangling them with the boys’ help. “When was the last time this gear saw any action?” she asked.

  Kat struggled to remember. “Probably ten years ago,” she said, lost in a momentary reverie. “When Michael and I were here.”

  The memory of her dead husband shadowed her face. Kurt took her hand. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go lose some flies.”

  The fishing party followed a winding path through the spruce grove down to the creek. White water splashed around barricades of smooth river boulders, but in the shadows near the bank, the stream ran with less force and there were clear pools where Kat tested her fly. Kurt spent the better part of the next hour coaching the boys, demonstrating wrist technique, freeing line hung up in the branches. Lennon eventually grew heat-flushed and frustrated that the trout weren’t biting and abandoned his rig with grumpy impatience.

  He dug the Walkman out of his backpack and joined Randy on a flat benchlike rock ledge.

  “This may not be your sport, Sport,” she said, offering him the Gatorade bottle. “My kids didn’t much like to fish either.”

  “I like karate,” Lennon declared. “I just got my orange belt.”

  “All right, champ!” she said, chucking him under the chin.

  Kurt squatted down on his haunches. “How many kids do you have, Randy?”

  “Two was plenty,” she said. “My daughter is twenty-five, making a good living as a graphic designer in Portland. Doesn’t look like she’ll get married anytime soon. My son is a junior at Oregon State, majoring in grunge bands, far as I can tell. Lord knows what he’s going to do with his life.”

  Kurt smiled, knowing he would be uttering those same words soon enough. “Are you still married?”

  She shook her head slowly. He couldn’t interpret the expression behind her mirror shades and pulled-down cap bill. “My husband was a logger for Georgia-Pacific. A redwood jumped free of a weak choker and crushed him to death when the kids were little. I guess that’s maybe why I was drawn to Kat. I knew what she was going through.”

  Kurt moved over beside his son and used a shirtsleeve to wipe beads of sweat from the boy’s soft cheeks and nose. Lennon was absorbed in the headphones now, his heels tapping against the rock, oblivious to moody fish and creek-spray and the bristling afternoon sun. They watched Kat roam downstream to check on Hunter, a solid chunk of childbone casting from the shallow inlet with the determination of a fanatic middle-aged sportsman. Kat laid aside her own fly rod and stooped over him, locking her arm around his chest, guiding his chubby wrist and the action of the long arcing line. They practiced this routine together, thirty strokes, fifty. The trout weren’t biting today.

  “Well, campers,” Randy yawned, stretching her arms, “I hope y’all don’t mind hamburgers.”

  The light was beginning to soften now, a breeze stirring high in the trees, and Randy and Lennon walked back to the cabin to start the grill. Kat gathered her gear and came over to sit beside Kurt on the ledge.

  “Stubborn kid,” she said, watching Hunter whip the air with his line. “He’ll be out here till midnight with a Coleman lantern if we let him.”

  “I remember being like that,” Kurt said fondly. “Lennon’s different. He’s inherited his mother’s artistic temperament. I suspect I’ve got a painter or a poet on my hands.”

  “Lennon is adorable. What a beautiful boy!”

  “He got his mother’s looks as well.”

  She closed her eyes, entranced by the mist in her face, the wind blowing her hair. “I’m sorry it didn’t work out for you and Meg,” she said.

  “We’re trying to become friends again. Lennon needs some stability. The cop’s life has been tough on him.”

  He stole the moment to study her face, the long beautiful lashes and lovely mouth, wishing she would remain in that pose for the rest of the afternoon while he obsessed over her features one small detail at a time.

  “Have you thought about giving it up?”

  “I’m on official leave. I’ve got six weeks to make up my mind. I don’t know what I’ll decide. I haven’t had a real job in eleven years. That scares me.”

  She reached over and gave his hand an affectionate squeeze. “You can always come to work for me in Oregon,” she said. “Have you ever blown up a logging yarder?” She opened her eyes, smiled sardonically at him. “Just kidding, Kurt. You can relax.”

  He laughed, realizing that she considered Oregon her home now and would no doubt return after her recuperation.

  “You’re a smart, decent man, Kurt Muller,” she said. “The right thing will come along and you’ll know it.”

  Did she mean the right woman? he wondered. He looked at her and returned the smile. She leaned over and kissed him gently on the lips, her face lingering close to his, her eyes bright and inviting. He was both surprised and exhilarated. He caught his breath and kissed her again.

  “If I’d known you were this tasty,” she whispered, her voice husky, tantalizing, “I would’ve done this twenty years ago.”

  He glanced over to make sure Hunter was still facing the stream, preoccupied with his casting, and kissed her once more. They enjoyed each other’s lips for as long as they dared, and then he draped his arm around her shoulders and they sank back against the stone. There was a long, comforting silence between them. They watched the child loop his line high in the air, a figure eight suspended for the briefest moment, dying over the water. Kurt wanted everything to stay like this forever. Katrina Pfeil in his arms, the creek running strong, the sky as pure and milky blue as he’d ever seen it, a little boy learning to fish. It all felt too perfect. Somewhere near the border of his awareness a nebulous sorrow was intruding, taking solid shape, finding its dark legs.

  “Ned’s will names Nathan as the guardian,” he said, surprising himself with this sudden revelation, breaking their snug silence. He didn’t know why he was thinking about this now, in this exquisite, untroubled moment.

  “Hmh?” she said. She had gone drowsy in the shaft of sunlight falling on his warm chest.

  “Nathan Carr is Hunter’s designated guardian.”

  “Nathan Carr?” she said dreamily. “Now there’s a flash from the past. Is he still alive? I thought he was killed in a car wreck.”

  “We’re running him down by computer. Should know something tomorrow or Tuesday. No one is sure if he’s dead or alive.”

  She sat up, pushing the hair out of her eyes. “Nathan was a sweet kid. Our class visited him one time on a field trip to Denver, when he was in the hospital. I haven’t seen him since high school.”

  “I don’t know what was going on in Ned’s head when he made that decisio
n,” Kurt said, watching Hunter fiddle with the homemade fly on the end of his line. “The child is much better off with us.”

  Kat slid her hand underneath the hair on his shirt collar, massaged his neck. “I’m sorry, Kurt,” she said. “If there’s any way I can help…”

  He closed his eyes. “You’re helping already.”

  They held each other and kissed again, a long arousing embrace. When he opened his eyes, peering over Kat’s shoulder, he saw Lennon watching them from the trees.

  “I got bored and came back to fish some more,” his son said.

  “Great!” Kurt said, unfurling himself from Kat’s arms. “Let’s go show those rainbows who’s the boss.”

  Lennon was walking toward them, his rosy face as solemn as a marble statesman’s. “Is she your girlfriend?” he asked.

  Kurt didn’t know what to respond. Kat looked away, embarrassed. “She’s my good friend,” Kurt said. “We’re getting to know each other better.”

  Lennon stopped and stared at them. “Does kissing and all that mushy stuff help people get to know each other better?”

  Kurt stood up and raked at his son’s sweaty hair. “It doesn’t hurt,” he grinned, exchanging glances with Kat, her entire body fighting the urge to laugh.

  “Come on,” Kurt said. “Let’s find your rig.”

  “I can fish by myself,” Lennon said indignantly, his eyes searching for the fly rod he had left on the rocks. “You can go back to your kissing, Dad.”

  He pulled away from his father and headed down the creek bank.

  “I’ll get you started,” Kurt said, following after him.

  “No!” Lennon said, wheeling around in anger. He was clearly upset by what he had witnessed. “I can do it by myself.”

  Kurt knew that the boy had been holding on to the vain hope that his parents would reconcile. He watched his son shuffle across the talus, kicking at loose rocks, choosing an aimless, meandering journey toward the water.

  “Sorry about that, Kurt,” Kat said. “I should have been more considerate.”

  “It’s okay,” he smiled at her. “It’s time my son and I made some adjustments.”