Once he was sure the bear was gone, Pete struggled to his feet again, his heart hammering. He had left that foolish farting woman back there alone, but really, how much protection would he have been able to provide if a bear decided to attack? The thing was, he had to get his rifle. Henry’s too, if he could carry it. For the next five minutes-until he got to the top of the hill-Pete thought about firepower first and beer second. By the time he began his cautious descent on the other side, however, he was back to beer. Put it in a bag and hang the bag over his shoulder. And no stopping to drink one on the way back. He’d have one when he was sitting in front of the campfire again. It would be a reward beer, and there was nothing better than a reward beer.
You’re an alcoholic. You know that, don’t you? Fucking alcoholic.
Yes, and what did that mean? That you couldn’t fuck up.
Couldn’t get caught leaving a semi-comatose woman alone in the woods, let’s say, while you went off in search of the suds. And once he got back to the shelter, he had to remember to toss his empties deep into the woods. Although Henry might know anyway. The way they always seemed to know stuff about each other when they were together. And mental link or no mental link, you had to get up pretty goddam early in the morning to put one over on Henry Devlin.
Yet Pete thought Henry would probably let him alone about the beer. Unless, that was, Pete decided the time had come to talk about it. To maybe ask Henry for help. Which Pete might do, in time. Certainly he didn’t like the way he felt about himself right now; leaving that woman alone back there said something about Peter Moore that wasn’t so nice. But Henry… there was something wrong with Henry, too, this November. Pete didn’t know if Beaver felt it, but he was pretty sure Jonesy did. Henry was kind of tucked up. He was maybe even-
From behind him there came a wet grunt. Pete screamed and whirled around. His knee locked up again, locked up savagely, but in his fright he barely noticed. It was the bear, the bear had circled back behind him, that bear or another one-
It wasn’t a bear. It was a moose, and it walked past Pete with no more than a glance as he fell into the road again, cursing low in his throat and holding his leg, looking up into the lightly falling snow and cursing himself for a fool. An alcoholic fool.
He had a frightening few moments when it seemed that this time the knee wasn’t going to let go-he’d torn something in it and here he would lie in the exodus of animals until Henry finally returned on the snowmobile, and Henry would say What the fuck are you doing here? Why did you leave her alone? As if I didn’t know.
But at last he was able to get up again. The best he could do was a gimpy sidesaddle hobble, but it was better than lying in the snow a couple of yards from a fresh pile of steaming moose shit. He could now see the overturned Scout, its wheels and undercarriage covered with fresh snow. He told himself that if his latest fall had happened on the other side of the hill, he would have gone back to the woman and the fire, but that now, with the Scout actually in sight, it was better to go on. That the guns were his main objective, the bottles of Bud just an extra added attraction. And almost believed it. As far as getting back… well, he would make it somehow. He’d gotten this far, hadn’t he?
Fifty yards or so from the Scout, he heard a rapidly approaching whup-whup-whup-the unmistakable sound of a helicopter. He looked skyward eagerly, preparing himself to stand upright long enough to wave-God, if anyone needed a little help from the sky, it was him-but the helicopter never quite broke through the low ceiling. For a moment he saw a dark shape running through the dreck almost directly above him, the bleary flash of its lights, as well-and then the sound of the copter was moving off to the east, in the direction the animals were running. He was dismayed to feel a nasty sense of relief lurking just below his disappointment: if the helicopter had landed, he never would’ve gotten to the beer, and he had come all this way, all this damn way.
3
Five minutes later he was down on his knees and climbing carefully into the overturned Scout. He quickly learned that his bad knee wouldn’t support him for long (it was swelled against his jeans now like a big painful loaf of bread), and more or less swam into the snow-coated interior. He didn’t like it; all the smells seemed too strong, all the dimensions too close. It was almost like crawling into a grave, one that smelled of Henry’s cologne.
The groceries were sprayed all over the back, but Pete barely gave the bread and cans and mustard and the package of red hot dogs (red dogs were about all Old Man Gosselin carried for meat) a glance. It was the beer he was interested in, and it looked like only one bottle had broken when the Scout turned turtle. Drunk’s luck. The smell was strong-of course the one he’d been drinking from had spilled as well-but beer was a smell he liked. Henry’s cologne, on the other hand… phew, Jesus. In a way it was as bad as the smell of the crazy lady’s gas. And he didn’t know why the smell of cologne should make him think of coffins and graves and funeral flowers, but it did.
“Why would you want to wear cologne in the woods anyway, old sport?” he asked, the words coming out in little puffs of white vapor. And the answer of course was that Henry hadn’t been-the smell wasn’t really here at all, just the smell of beer. For the first time in a long time Pete found himself thinking about the pretty real estate lady who had lost her keys outside the Bridgton Pharmacy, and how he had known she wasn’t going to meet him for dinner, didn’t want to be within ten miles of him. Was smelling nonexistent cologne like that? He didn’t know, only that he didn’t like the way the smell seemed all mixed up in his mind with the idea of death.
Forget it, numbnuts. You’re spooking yourself, that’s all. There’s a big difference between really seeing the line and just spooking yourself. Forget about it and get what you came for.
“Good fuckin idea,” Pete said.
The store-bags were plastic, not paper, the kind with handles; Old Man Gosselin had marched at least that far into the future. Pete snagged one, and as he did, felt a rip of pain on the pad of his right hand. Only one goddam broken bottle and so naturally he’d cut himself on it, and pretty deep, from the feel. Maybe this was his punishment for leaving the woman alone back there. If so, he’d take it like a man and count himself let off easy.
He gathered up eight bottles, started to work his way back out of the Scout, then thought again. Had he staggered all the way back here for a lousy eight beers? “I think not,” he muttered, and then got the other seven, taking time to scrounge them all in spite of how creepy the Scout was making him feel. At last he backed out, fighting the panicky idea that something small, but with big teeth, would soon spring at him, taking a great big chomp out of his balls. Pete’s Punishment, Part Two.
He didn’t exactly freak, but he wiggled back out faster than he’d wiggled in, and his knee locked up again just as he got entirely clear. He rolled over on his back, whimpering, looking up into the snow-the last of it, now coming down in great big flakes as lacy as a woman’s best underwear-and massaging the knee, telling it to come on, now, honey, come on now, sweetie, let go, you fucking bitch. And just as he was starting to think that this time it wouldn’t, it did. He hissed through his teeth, sat up, and looked at the bag “THANKS FOR SHOPPING AT OUR PLACE! printed on the side in red.
“Where else would I shop, you old bastard?” he asked. He decided to allow himself one beer after all before starting back to the woman. Hell, it would lighten the load.
Pete fished one out, twisted the cap, and poured the top half down his throat in four big gulps. It was cold and the snow he was sitting in was even colder, but he still felt better. That was the magic of beer. The magic of scotch, vodka, and gin as well, but when it came to alcohol, he was with Tom T. Hall: he liked beer.