Fire Point

by John Smolens

  “That’s about it.”

  “He must have said something at the bar, something that revealed his intentions.”

  “He had been drunk for a while,” Sean said. “I knew what was on his mind.”

  “What about the woman?”

  “What woman?”

  “The Indian that was in the bar.” Buzz seemed rather pleased with himself. “I talked to Hattie, who runs the place, and she said he had an Indian with him.”

  “When I arrived, she went outside.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You didn’t mention her when you talked to me and the staties.”

  “No, I didn’t,” Sean said. “My mother—I didn’t want to bring that up.”

  “I see.” Buzz folded his arms over his stomach. “So you had a hunch that your father was going over to Martin’s armed, you got this gun here, and went over to protect Martin and your old girlfriend.”

  “I had an idea,” Sean said. “I had no clear intentions.”

  “You think you might have to shoot your father?”

  Sean didn’t answer.

  “Take him down like a rabid dog?”

  “I told you, I just had an idea. I thought it would be better to be armed.”

  “Something’s missing here, Sean. You know it and I know it.” He dug his car keys out of his front pocket. “But the staties seem satisfied with it. They kept saying how it could have been worse. A situation like that, more people often get shot. A man decides to take himself out these days, he often takes everyone else in sight with him.” Buzz shook his head. “Didn’t used to be that way. That was someone who’s crazy. But now—now it can be your neighbor, or someone you worked with for more than twenty years.”

  “I guess,” Sean said. “In the land of the free, anybody can go postal.”

  Buzz walked down the driveway but stopped when he reached the garbage bags. “Funny you throwing this stuff out now.”

  “Something to do,” Sean said. “You think there’s clues in there, have a look.”

  Buzz pondered this long enough that Sean expected the chief to decide to load the bags into his cruiser. When he shifted his weight, Sean knew that he had decided to let it go.

  “You know where your father was staying?” He glanced toward the house. “With this Indian?”

  Sean just stared out at Buzz Gagnon.

  “Place called the Northern Lights. But they don’t know her name, either.”

  Sean looked down and saw a stiff paintbrush on the concrete floor, which must have fallen out of one of the bags. He picked it up and said, “So you haven’t talked to her?”

  “Can’t find her.”

  Sean ran a finger along the bristles, which were hard as the wood handle. “Think she’d help?”

  “Doubt it. They tend to come and go on you.”

  Gagnon walked down the driveway, passed Sean’s father’s van, his mother’s car, his pickup truck, and got in the cruiser, which was parked at the curb. Sean didn’t watch him leave, but went back into the garage, where it was cooler in the shade.

  “EVENTUALLY YOU HAVE to accept that there aren’t clear answers,” Hannah’s mother said. Suzanne had called and suggested they meet for breakfast at the Hiawatha Diner. The best way to get people to stop staring was to make yourself visible. She seemed relieved that Martin hadn’t come with Hannah. “We could take him back to the doctor’s, but they’ll only order more tests.”

  “What are you trying to say, Mother?”

  “I’m saying the doctors don’t really know what’s going on inside that boy’s head and they may never know.”

  “He’s doing better,” Hannah said. She leaned forward slightly as if to meet her mother’s skeptical gaze. “Sometimes he’s still quiet and solitary, and I know when he’s talking to himself he’s talking to Pearly. But actually since this thing happened he’s—I don’t know if better is even the right word, but he’s more himself. He’s still not like he was before, but he’s coping with it.”

  “You know, you don’t have any real obligation here.” Suzanne hesitated and ate some home fries. “It’s not like you’re married. It’s . . . it’s your life. He could go on like this for a long time. He may never be—”

  “I understand that,” Hannah said. “You think I don’t know what this means?”

  “I don’t think you know what the years can do to you.”

  “You’re talking about me. You’re talking about raising me, aren’t you?”

  “No, that’s—it’s different. You’re my daughter. I love you, you know that. It’s just that, that doing something like this on your own is going to take its toll.”

  “And if I don’t? Then what?” Her mother didn’t answer. “Then what happens to him? I’ll tell you one thing, if it had been me—say, in an accident—I know he wouldn’t walk away from me.”

  Her mother cut into one of her eggs over easy. Once they bled she never stopped. When she had sopped up the last of the yolk with her toast, she put her fork down. She’d come to some decision. “He’s a good boy, he really is. All right, listen to me. You should expect it to go on like this. He’s going to have his good days, and he’s going to have days where it’s difficult, for both of you.” Hannah was surprised that her mother was close to crying. The only other time she’d heard such resignation in her voice was when she explained in medical terms what happened during an abortion. “I don’t know what kind of a future that’s going to be for you.”

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Hannah said. “I was talking to Arnie Frick at the station yesterday. He’s going to start taking classes at Northern. Airplane maintenance. Maybe I could take some courses this fall. I could ride over with him.”

  “What would you study?”

  “I was thinking nursing, starting winter term. If I can get in. I hear it’s tough.”

  Suzanne looked away. After a moment Hannah offered her paper napkin.

  WHEN THE PHONE rang now, Sean’s mother seldom answered it. Sometimes Sean let it ring, but this time he picked up in the kitchen.

  “I want to see you,” Mary Threefoot said.

  “Where?”

  “That bar, the Twelve Point.” She hung up.

  “Who was that?” his mother asked from the living room.

  “Some guy,” Sean said.

  “What?”

  “Turn the TV down. It’s a guy interested in buying the van.”

  His mother put the TV on mute. The silence was worse than the game shows. He stayed in the kitchen where he couldn’t see her.

  “We haven’t told anyone we wanted to sell it,” she said.

  This was true. They’d only discussed putting an ad in the newspaper. “Arnie must have mentioned it to the guy.” She didn’t answer, and there was the sound of ice cubes rattling in her glass. She didn’t know that he hadn’t spoken to Arnie since moving back into the house. “I’m going to take it down to show it to the guy.”

  He heard his mother get up off the couch and walk across the carpet until her shoes clicked on the linoleum floor in the kitchen. “When?” she asked.

  He took the van keys off the hook by the garage door. She reached the counter where she kept the bourbon. He watched her pour the drink. Her hands seemed to have aged in days. “I’m going now,” he said.

  “You be back soon?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, on the way back, stop by the liquor store for me. You need money?”

  “No.” He went out the garage door.

  He drove the van to Eben. Pulling in to the Twelve Point parking lot, he found Mary sitting in her car, a beat-up Chevrolet. He understood that she was reluctant to enter the bar by herself. They went inside and sat at the table by the window. There were only a few men in the place, and this time a heavy young woman with stringy blond hair was working the bar.

  Sean ordered shots and beer while Mary lit a cigarette.

  “The police were looking for
you,” he said.

  “They’re always looking for people like me.” She waited until the girl set their drinks on the table and returned to the bar. “How was the funeral?” Before he could answer, she said, “I hope you’re not disappointed that I didn’t attend.” Then she sort of laughed. “That would have been something, eh? I can see the headline in the paper: ‘Indian Massacred at Funeral.’ ”

  “Or,” Sean said, “‘Indian Massacred by Women’s Bridge Group.’ ”

  They both laughed enough that the men at the bar looked to see what was going on. Out of disgust, they turned back to their drinks. It was the first time Sean had laughed since this had all started.

  Mary put her hand on his knee under the table. “How you doing?”

  He tipped his head. “You?”

  She removed her hand and sat back. “I don’t know.”

  “You look tired.”

  “I am.” Mary drank her shot, then chased it with beer. “Mostly I’ve been thinking about things.”

  “What things?”

  “Can you guess?” she asked.

  “I’m not good at guessing.”

  “Try, Sean. Tell me what things you’ve been thinking about.”

  “Who says I’ve been thinking at all?”

  “I know you have. Tell me.” She smiled. “Honestly.”

  Out the window the sun was setting beyond the pine trees. It was a few days before Labor Day and the humid air made the sun deep red. It seemed to melt into the evergreens.

  “Honestly, I’ve been thinking about you,” he said. “About you lying there on that bed in the blue light from the TV. If I hadn’t left, if I had done what you said—nothing—and stayed, none of this would have happened. Well, at least not the way it happened.”

  She wouldn’t take her eyes off him. “What else?”

  “And I’ve been thinking about leaving,” he said.

  After a moment she put her cigarette out in the tin ashtray. “Me, too,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about leaving. Going over to Canada. In fact, that’s why I called you.”

  “To say good-bye.”

  “To say I have lots of family in Ontario.”

  “Where?”

  “From the Soo north to Wawa. And I see us both up there. That’s what I think about.” She exhaled slowly. “I’m leaving. Soon. Want to settle in before winter.”

  “I need some time.”

  “I know.”

  “How can I get in touch with you?”

  She picked up the matchbook that lay on top of her pack of cigarettes and placed it next to his glass of beer. It was from the Northern Lights. He flipped it open and saw a phone number written on the inside.

  “You think this is crazy?” she asked.

  “Yes. But so what?”

  Mary lit a cigarette and her eyes shone in the flame.

  He walks until his leg tires and the ground seems to beckon to him. He has favorite places. One is along a deer path that’s always strewn with fresh pellets. He follows the path up to a small knoll, where there are soft depressions in the grass. He lies down in the flattened tall grass and it doesn’t feel like he has any bones left. He curls up and dozes but never really sleeps. He can smell the lake. What he likes is how sometimes things will just come to him. He talks to Pearly often, tells him things like how he once read that there is enough water in Lake Superior to cover North America, Central America, and South America with a foot of water. When he gets up off the ground, he walks with haste and purpose in broad shafts of light streaming down through the trees. The lake wind is at his back, pushing him gently.

  IT WAS THE LAST WEEK of September, the foliage was at its peak, but it felt like they could get the first snow of the year. Hannah was sweeping the hall floor, working her way down toward the open front door. Now that tenants had moved into the second floor of the house, there was always something to do, something to clean. There was a retired couple interested in the third-floor apartment and they were coming to look at it this evening. Hannah had been worried that people wouldn’t want to live on the top floor, but it didn’t seem to matter once things had been cleaned up and repainted. People just had to see the house to realize it had a lot of history, a history long and deep enough that one incident, no matter how terrible, could not change the character of the place.

  At the sound of an engine out in the street, she raised her head and watched Sean pull his truck up to the curb. He got out and walked into the front yard. It was the first time she’d seen him since his father’s funeral. He was letting his hair grow out—it was about an inch long and spiky in places. The way the gray sweater hung from his shoulders, it appeared that he’d lost some weight, too.

  “Wonder if I could talk to you,” he said.

  But something else had gone out of him. Seeing him didn’t strike her with the jolt of fear she’d expected—dreaded, even—when she saw him again. She left the dustpan, which was largely full of Gracie’s hairs, on the floor, then came out on the front steps and stood with the broom in her right hand. Her posture, she realized, probably appeared defensive, even militant. That was fine.

  Yet he moved closer, stopping on the front walk a few feet from the brick steps. “I came to say good-bye.” His voice was oddly formal and she understood that he was nervous.

  “Where’re you going?”

  “Canada.”

  Hannah’s mother said she had heard about Sean and the Indian woman his father had been going around with; Hannah thought it was just gossip, but now she realized it was true. “You’re not going alone,” she said.

  His shoulders appeared to lose some of their tension and he shoved his hands deeper into the front pockets of his jeans. “I suppose everybody’s heard about me and Mary,” he said. “My mother wasn’t happy about it, but you know, now that I’ve decided to go, I think she’s okay with it. I think all of this is harder for her with me around.”

  Hannah was tempted to say something about her own mother, but that would be a kind of trade-off. Across the street the maples were red and yellow, incredibly bright against the overcast sky. “What about work?” she asked.

  “Mary has a cousin who has a construction company. Says he’ll take me on.” His eyes scanned the front of the house. “It came out all right, this place. You got tenants now?”

  “We’ll be full up soon.”

  He nodded, looking for the next thing to say. “Saw Arnie last night.”

  “Did you?”

  “Yeah, I couldn’t leave that be, either. He says you’ve gone back to school, too. That sometimes you drive into Marquette with him.”

  “I’m going part-time for now.”

  “That’s good,” he said.

  “I hope to get through winter semester, then I’ll have to stop for a while.”

  Sean stared at her, but she wouldn’t go any further. She could see that she didn’t have to. “This time it’s for real,” he said. “Well, good luck with that.” Then he tried to see beyond her into the front hall. “Don’t suppose Martin’s around.”

  She knew Martin was out in the woods or down on the beach. “No. The doctor said walking was the best thing for his leg.”

  Sean appeared relieved. “Will you tell him I came by?”

  “I will.”

  Neither of them spoke for a while, and then Hannah realized that a few snowflakes had angled past her face.

  “Here it comes,” she said.

  Sean raised his eyes to the sky. He put one foot up on the bottom step, but didn’t try to come any closer. “I better be going.”

  He lowered his head and started to turn away, but then he extended his arm and took a light hold of her free hand. She didn’t move. He was about to let go, when she turned her hand and allowed his fingers to embrace hers.

  When he let go he didn’t look at her before walking back to his truck. The snow was coming in now, large wet flakes that tapped on the leaves that already covered the front yard. Hannah stepped back up on the threshold
where she was more protected from the damp wind. She watched the truck go around the bend and out of sight, knowing that the last thing he would see in his mirror was her standing in the doorway.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  JOHN SMOLENS is a professor of English at Northern Michigan University. He is an acclaimed short story writer and the author of several novels, including Cold. Visit his website at www.johnsmolens.com.

  OTHER BOOKS BY JOHN SMOLENS

  The Invisible World

  Cold

  My One and Only Bomb Shelter

  Angel’s Head

  Winter by Degrees

  Permission to use the poem “North,” from The Shape of the Journey, granted by Jim Harrison.

  Copyright © 2004 by John Smolens

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Published by Harmony Books, New York, New York.

  Member of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc.

  www.randomhouse.com

  HARMONY BOOKS is a registered trademark and the Harmony Books colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Smolens, John.

  Fire Point: a novel of suspense/ John Smolens.—1st edition.

  1. Dwellings—Conservation and restoration—Fiction. 2. Rejection Psychology—Fiction. 3. Lake Superior Region—Fiction. 4. Michigan—Fiction. 5. Revenge—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3569.M646F74 2004

  813'.54—dc22 2004002033

  eISBN: 978-1-4000-8194-3

  v3.0