Biting the Moon

by Martha Grimes

  “These canned hunts,” Reuel began as he set down their drinks and then himself, “they used to be kept a dark secret, kind of like the Masons, tight as blood ties.”

  Mary said, “It was like they were tamed, the tiger and the panther.”

  “That’s because those cats practically are. People get these big cats when they’re cubs, raise ’em up, living in the same house. A lot of them are declawed that go to these so-called game ranches. This is big business we’re talking about. There’s over a thousand of these places in Texas alone. Some’s illegal and some isn’t. What’s ‘legal’ or what’s ‘endangered species’—that’s not something these people take too much to heart. Jack Kite pretty much has his hands full trying to get evidence Wine and the Quicks are taking animals across state lines. When I was with the government I could just go out and kick in his door and come up with some excuse to do it. But no more. I did not catch one of them smart-ass brothers that works for him transporting a mountain lion, but in Idaho cougars aren’t on the endangered list. It’s not illegal to shoot one of them or drive around with one. Ain’t nothing Jack Kite could do about it. You said Harry was there?”

  Andi nodded. “Acting like he owned everything, of course.”

  Reuel grunted. “Probably does own a lot of it.” Reuel struck a match with his thumbnail, took several pulls on his cigar to get it going. “He’s just too plausible, you know what I mean? Despite what’s been said about him—well . . .” Reuel stopped.

  “You mean what Jack Kite said?” asked Andi, never failing to fasten on the subject the other person was sorry he mentioned and wanted to slide over.

  Reuel popped another can of beer. “Couple of times he’s been up on sex offenses. Let’s just leave it at that.”

  “Let’s not,” said Andi.

  Reuel sighed. “There’s talk Harry likes little kids.”

  “He likes big kids too,” said Andi, seemingly unsurprised by the “talk.” Which was what she said. “Nothing he does surprises me.”

  Reuel acted as if he hadn’t heard her reference to big kids. “It was Bonnie brought the charge the one time. Claimed Harry’d been fooling around with one of the kids, I think it was Happy. That was a few years ago when Happy was Brill’s age. They don’t live far from Wine’s Outfitters—well, you seen where they live—and those kids are all over the place; there’s hardly any way to keep them in or keep track of them. I feel for Bonnie, I really do. Anyway, she brought the charge but it never did get as far as getting him indicted.”

  “Don’t people know what happened to his wife?”

  “Maybe, but then maybe not. Beth never got out much, like I said.” He was silent for a moment, thinking. Then he drank off his beer and rose. “I’m goin’ in to see to that pot of beans.”

  While he was gone, both of them sat with their heads back, looking up at the night sky. Such a crowd of stars—Mary wouldn’t have been surprised if some of them just cleared out and fell all over Idaho, dropping on the table, on Sinclair, on them. A shower of stars. Then she said, “I’m surprised you didn’t go on about Sergei.”

  Andi was moving her tongue inside her cheek as if feeling for a tooth that pained her. She said nothing.

  Then Mary heard a rustling and looked around. It was Sergei, coming the same way through the trees as he had before. He said hello to them, sat down on the bench, and pulled out one of his cigars, bigger this time, fussed with it for a moment, nicking off the tip, then lighting it. Andi watched him.

  Her silence surprised Mary. It also seemed to make Sergei a little uncomfortable. Mary thought that sometimes Andi’s mere presence was an accusation. Sergei looked from one to the other and scraped his straight black hair back from his forehead. Mary looked sadly upon his ruined face, which gave away nothing.

  “Serge!” Reuel came out of the trailer. “I’m cookin’ beans and some bratwurst. You can have supper with us if you want to.”

  Sergei held up his hand. “Thank you, but I have to meet a friend later.”

  “Okay, then I’ll get you a beer.” Reuel went back into the trailer.

  Andi still was quiet, so Mary said to him, “You work at the Double Q, don’t you?” When he nodded, she said, “They have those canned hunts there.” She couldn’t keep the accusation out of her tone.

  “Yes. You don’t think much of them, is that right?”

  Mary frowned. She felt she couldn’t understand him. How could the man who’d talked about that wildlife reserve in Siberia and the Siberian tigers take a part in what the Quicks were doing? Maybe he could explain it. And also explain what possible thrill there could be for anyone who thought himself a hunter shooting a caged animal? She asked him this first.

  Sergei considered, then said, “These people are not hunters; most of them have never been on a proper hunt in their lives. None of them have ever been on safari.”

  Just then Reuel came out with the beer, set one before Sergei, and sat down in one of the white chairs. He looked at Andi but did not interrupt.

  “For them I think it’s almost a joke, no, not a joke, a film. They’re not looking for thrills, for what you call an adrenaline rush. What they pay for and what they get is a trophy. That’s what they want. To mount and hang up on the wall. To show their friends.” He returned his cigar to his mouth, exhaled blue smoke, looked at Mary through it.

  “But they don’t have anything to brag on, they can’t say they’ve been in the jungle and killed animals there.”

  “But that’s not necessary. The trophy is it. The trophy is all. Of course, there are other, perhaps lesser reasons: a hatred of the wild, I think, the untamed. They fear it. They must control what goes on around them. Other than that”—Sergei shrugged—“God knows.”

  Reuel asked, “How come you’re so quiet, girl?”

  Andi, her face blank as the moon, didn’t answer. She might have been hypnotized, the way she stared at Sergei. Reuel just shrugged and tipped his beer back.

  Mary leaned toward Sergei, said, “But I just don’t see how you can do it, can take part in these so-called hunts after what you told us about working at that wildlife reserve, Laslo—?”

  “Lazovski.”

  “Lazovski. Going there to paint the animals, Siberian tigers and all.” Mary shook her head. “I don’t see how you can work for the Quicks.”

  Sergei looked thoughtfully at the glowing end of his cigar, as if it might offer up some answer. Then he said, “Perhaps I think I can make the end of their lives less terrifying. You see, they do not want to leave their cages at the end. And the handlers try to frighten them out by beating on the cage with sticks, metal pipes, clubs. But I can get the animals out without doing that. I hate that awful racket. I would be terrified myself. If I’m there perhaps it is better.”

  Mary sat back, shocked, more mystified than ever. What a strange attempt to justify himself. “Well, it might be a little better for that panther if you are there, but it would be a whole lot better for him if the panther weren’t.”

  He blinked slowly. “There was a panther today, yes. How did you know?”

  Mary was so disappointed in him that whether he knew they were at the ranch made no difference. “I saw it. It’s not important.”

  Sergei watched her for a while, then said, “You think I should inform the Fish and Game people—like Jack Kite—about the Quicks’ operation? But it’s legal. Jack Kite could do nothing.”

  “But it isn’t legal if they’re taking animals across state lines. And you know that’s what they do. Harry Wine and his people—you’ve probably seen them do it.”

  Sergei shook his head. “Actually, no. I haven’t seen that; I didn’t know this.”

  Mary turned away in disgust. What difference did it make if he was telling the truth or not?

  But Andi decided to take him literally. In a voice cold enough to raise gooseflesh, she said, “Now you know.”

  • • •

  When it started to rain, they’d left the trailer park and gone b
ack to the motel.

  Andi was sitting by the steamed-over window, tracing through the moisture with her finger. Mary was lying on top of her bed, arms under her head. Mary assumed (probably wrongly) they had come back to sleep. She thought: If someone had told her a month ago that she’d see a man walk into a tiger’s cage and shoot it point-blank, she would have thought the other person mad or dreaming or dreaming-mad. She looked across at Andi, wondering what she was thinking. “Are you going to stay? Like Reuel suggested?”

  Andi looked at her in surprise. “No. Of course not.”

  Relieved, Mary shrugged in seeming indifference. “I thought maybe.”

  “No,” Andi said again, and turned back to the rainy window.

  “What’re you thinking about?”

  “Sergei.”

  Mary was surprised she wasn’t thinking about Harry Wine.

  “What?”

  “I was just thinking: maybe it’s all he has left, I mean, maybe it’s the only way he can be around the animals—”

  Mary scoffed. “Oh, come on, Andi. It should be the very opposite: he shouldn’t be able to stand these so-called hunts. If you had a favorite dog or cat—let’s say Jules. If the only way you could be around him was to watch him get tortured, would you?” Mary thought the answer was obvious, yet Andi didn’t answer right away. “Well, for God’s sakes, what’s to think about?”

  “But what if somehow it would—diminish what Jules had to suffer?”

  “That’s crazy. So Jules would be looking at you wondering why you didn’t save him. That’s going to make him feel better?” She was angry because she felt she was taking on the position that was ordinarily Andi’s own and didn’t like it. It was too heavy, too weighty, one of those holes, those keepers that could suck her down, like Peggy and Floyd, drowning. “What do you believe? You always seemed to believe so much in what you’re doing.”

  Andi turned from the window and turned on Mary a look of aggrieved puzzlement. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  Mary fell back on the bed.

  “Are we leaving tomorrow?”

  Mary looked toward the window. “Yeah. I guess.”

  Andi sighed. “Then I’ll have to see Harry tonight.”

  Mary sat up. “What?” Had Andi never stopped thinking about Harry Wine? “You’re not going out there!”

  “You want to come with me?”

  “You’re not going, I’m not going, we’re not going!”

  41

  Reuel had driven them before on this road, and Mary hadn’t been paying a lot of attention. Right now, the dark didn’t help. Mary (who’d insisted on driving) said she wouldn’t recognize the turnoff from this highway to Wine’s.

  “I can remember,” said Andi. “There was a farm, and a little farther there was a scarecrow in a white hat near a white water tower.”

  Mary remembered none of this. How could she have overlooked, how forgotten a white-hatted scarecrow? It was one of those times when she wondered if the two of them had been moving through the same world.

  “There it is.” Andi pointed into the darkness.

  Mary could make out the ghostly, skeletal water tower and the blowing shape of the scarecrow. She could only see the scarecrow because of its white hat. Where on earth would anyone who lived around here have gone to be wearing that white top hat?

  “Maybe it’s the scarecrow that went,” said Andi. A moment later, she said, “Here!” Coming up was a near-invisible entrance to a dirt road. “Through those pines.”

  Mary slowed, turned. She did think she recognized the rutted road, the general look of ruination, and, a short bumpy ride farther, what was the Swann house.

  It looked as if every light had been turned on inside the misshapen pile of bricks and boards that was Bonnie’s. It could have lit a raft all the way down the Salmon. Every room was awash in gold and carmine lights that, from a distance, made it look as if the house was on fire. All the Swann kids must have been up. Mary doubted any rules for bedtime were enforced.

  Mary thought she saw a light separate from the windows’. “Is that a flashlight?” It appeared to be beckoning them to stop.

  It was Bonnie Swann, and she sounded anxious. When they stopped, she peered in the window, said, “You ain’t seen my boy Brill, have you?”

  “No.” They shook their heads. “Has he gone off?” asked Mary.

  “Yeah. I looked in the usual places.”

  Mary couldn’t imagine what was “usual” in this woodland. “Do you want us to help you look?”

  “Well, if you’re goin’ down this road, keep your eyes peeled, will ya? And tell him he’s gettin’ a whippin’.”

  “Okay.” Somehow Mary didn’t think that would give Brill much motivation to go back home.

  Mary switched off the headlights and had the car crawling along the road so they could watch out for Brill. They saw nothing, and Mary pulled into the big parking lot, empty of all but the van, Harry’s truck, and a car, and switched off the engine.

  They got out of the car and Andi tossed her backpack over one shoulder. She took it everywhere. Mary told her she was paranoid about people taking her backpack.

  “Wouldn’t you be?” Andi smiled.

  There were signs of a recent campfire, its remains carelessly left burning, only partly gray ashes. “I guess he’s here; that’s his truck and probably his car.”

  There was a light on in one of the motel units. Otherwise, the night was black as a cave, the moon obscured by clouds. As quietly as they could (and Mary wondered at their secretiveness), they made their way along the concrete walkway to the room with the light on. Someone inside was talking. Though the voice was low, Mary knew it belonged to Harry Wine. She raised her hand to knock, but Andi pulled it away, pointing to the latch. The door wasn’t locked; indeed, it was open enough to see a bar of light through it.

  With her finger, very slowly, Andi pushed it open.

  42

  Mary was blinded by lights, bright as new money inside. She threw her forearm up to shade her eyes and saw the lights were the kind photographers use to set up around their cameras. Had it not been for what Jack Kite and Reuel had said, she would have supposed this was just one more stop in the fantasy nightmare. Harry Wine had his hands on Brill’s shoulders. Brill was naked as a jay, not a stitch on him, and engrossed in trying to take apart some small object, some puzzle or toy that he held in his hands. Nor was he distracted from this operation by the girls coming in.

  Oh, God, thought Mary.

  Harry saw them, rose quickly from his crouching position.

  Even as he was rising you could see he was composing some lie. “What’re you . . . how’d you get here?”

  “Drove,” said Andi, in the same cold voice she’d used with Sergei.

  He actually smiled. “Brill here’s just had a bath. I found him outside in a mudhole. God only knows what he thought he was doing. But Bonnie’s kids just run wild, you know? How about you girls? Want to join us?”

  It was the seamiest smile Mary had ever seen. A “dirty” smile, if there was such a thing, that corrupted his good looks, emptied his handsome face of what last traces of humanity it had. She couldn’t have smiled back if he’d held a knife to her throat. Mary knew her own face was taut and white; she’d felt the blood draining from it as soon as they’d stepped through the door and she made out what was before her.

  Brill looked at them with the same vacant stare he’d used at the landfill, smiled the same vacant smile.

  “I imagine you’ve already got my photo,” said Andi.

  Mary, who’d been holding herself completely still lest she scream or lash out, looked at Andi, baffled.

  Harry said nothing for a moment, and then, “What the hell are you talking about?” But the question sounded more alarmed than puzzled.

  “Mary knows all about it.”

  Harry, for the first time, looked at Mary and looked uncertain.

  Mary simply could not find her voice to confirm wha
t must have been an inspired guess on Andi’s part. She tried to say something, but it was locked in her throat.

  Andi said, “Bonnie’s worried about Brill; we can take him home.”

  The sexual climate having been dispelled by their intrusion, Harry seemed to lose all interest in the boy. He scraped Brill’s undershorts and shirt and pants from the bed. “Here, kid. Get dressed.” He tossed them.

  Brill stood there, looking sad. Was the game over? Mary told Brill to come across the room and stand by her. But when nothing more demanding of his attention occurred, he went back to turning the painted wooden block in his hands.

  “I said, get dressed!” snapped Harry. “He knows his way home.”

  This was something Mary would rather not have found out. When Brill had finished struggling into his clothes, she said, “I’ll take him outside.” But she had no intention of leaving herself. She took his hand and, when they were outside, she told him to go right home. He looked uncertain, walked off a little way. She was torn between going with him and going back in. Back in won.

  Harry was on the bed, leaning back, propped on one elbow. He was wearing black cords and a turtleneck sweater. He had lighted a cigarette, seemed perfectly at ease, smoking it.

  “Along the highway, Colorado, the—hell, I can’t remember just what road it was. You were walking away from an accident. I mean, when I nearly passed you, you were a quarter mile away.”

  Andi took a step back as if she’d struck something heavy. “What do you mean?”

  “Babe”—he laughed—“just what I said. You were hitching rides. At least you were walking along the highway. What did you think? You think I crawled in your bedroom window and stole you? There was a helluva pileup on the road. I could see the fire when I was coming the other way. A semi plowed into a school bus that was pulled over in one of those small picnic places by the side of the road. No survivors, the paper said later. And then after I finally passed it, I saw you walking along, like I said.”