I could hear the others horsing around back at the keg, but I ignored them for the moment, concentrating on the fading line of daylight along the top of the hills across the Narrows.
“Pretty, huh?”
It was Sloane. He stood with a mug of beer, looking out over the water. “I used to come up here when I was a kid and just look at it. Weren’t many houses or anything up here men.”
Somehow I couldn’t picture Sloane as a kid.
“I made up my mind then that someday I was gonna live up here,” he went on. “Took me a long time, but I made it.”
“Was it worth it?” I couldn’t resist asking him. I didn’t like him much right then.
“Every lousy, scratching, money-grubbing, fuckin’ minute of it,” he said with a strange intensity. “Sometimes I sit up here lookin’ out at it, and I just break out laughing at all the shit I had to crawl through to get here.”
“We all do funny things,” I said. Now he had me confused.
“I’d have never made it without Claudia,” he said. “She’s really something, isn’t she?”
“She’s a real lady,” I said.
“She was hoppin’ tables in a beer bar when I met her,” he said. “She had it even then. I can meet guys and swing deals and all, but she’s the one who puts it all together and makes it go. She’s one in a million, Dan.”
“I can tell that,” I said. How the hell do you figure a guy like Sloane?
“Hey, you bastards,” Jack called to us, “this is a party, not a private little conflab. Come on back here.”
“Just showin’ off my scenery,” Cal said. The two of us went back to the keg.
Sloane went over and pawed around under one of the shrubs. “As soon as you guys get all squared away,” he said, “I’ve got a little goodie here for you.” He pulled out a half-gallon jug of clear liquid.
“Oh, shit!” Jack said. “Auburn tanglefoot. Goddamn Sloane and his pop-skull moonshine.”
“Guaranteed to have been aged at least two hours.” Sloane giggled.
“I thought the government men had busted up all those stills years ago,” Mike said.
“No way,” Jack said. “Auburn’d blow away if it wasn’t anchored down by all those pot stills.”
McKlearey got up and took the jug from Sloane. He opened it and sniffed suspiciously. “You sure this stuff is all right?”
“Pure, one-hundred-per-cent rotgut,” Sloane said.
“I mean, they don’t spike it with wood alcohol, do they?” There was a note of worry in Lou’s voice. “Sometimes they do that. Makes a guy go blind. His eyes fall out.”
“What’s the sense of poisoning your customers?” Sloane asked. “You ain’t gonna get much repeat business that way.”
“I’ve heard that they do it sometimes, is all,” McKlearey said. “They spike it with wood alcohol, or they use an old car radiator instead of that copper coil — then the booze gets tainted with all that gunk off the solder. Either way it makes a guy go blind. Fuckin’ eyes fall right out.”
“Bounce around on the floor like marbles, huh, Lou?” Jack said. “I can see it now. McKlearey’s eyes bouncin’ off across the patio with him chasin’ ’em.” He laughed harshly. He knew about Lou and Margaret, all right. There was no question about that now.
“I don’t think I want any,” McKlearey said, handing the jug back to Sloane.
“Old Lou’s worried about his baby-blue eyeballs,” Jack said, rubbing it in.
“I just don’t want any. OK, Alders?”
“Well, I’m gonna have some,” Mike said, reaching for the jug. “I cut my teeth on Auburn moonshine. My eyes might get a little loose now and then, but they sure as hell don’t fall out.” He rolled the jug back over his arm professionally and took a long belt.
“Now, there’s an old moonshine drinker,” Jack said. “Notice the way he handles that jug.”
We passed the jug around, and each of us tried to emulate Mike’s technique. Frankly, the stuff wasn’t much good — I’ve gotten a better taste siphoning gas. But we all smacked our lips appreciatively, said some silly-ass thing like “damn good whiskey,” and had a quick beer to flush out the taste.
McKlearey still refused to touch the stuff. He went back to his lawn chair, scowling.
“Hey, man,” Jack said, “I think my eyes are gettin’ loose.” He pressed his fingers to his eyelids.
“Fuck you, Alders,” Lou said.
“Yeah,” Jack said. “They’re definitely gettin’ loose — oops! There goes one now.” He squinted one eye shut and started pawing around on the flagstones. “Come back here, you little bastard!”
“Aw, go fuck yourself, Alders!” Lou snapped. “You’re so goddamn fuckin’ funny!”
“Oh, Mother,” Jack cried, “help me find my fuckin’ eyeball.” He was grinding Lou for all he was worth.
Lou was starting to get pretty hot, and I figured another crack or two from my brother ought to do it. I knew I should say something to cool it down, but I figured that Jack knew what he was doing. If he wanted a piece of McKlearey, that was his business.
“Hey, you guys,” Mike said, inspecting Sloane’s substantial outside fireplace, “let’s build a fire.” It was a smooth way to handle the situation.
“Why?” Sloane demanded. “You cold or something, for Chrissake?”
“No, but a fire’s kinda nice, isn’t it? I mean, what the hell?”
“Shit, I don’t care,” Cal said. “Come on. There’s a woodpile over behind the garage.”
The four of us left McKlearey sulking in his lawn chair and trooped on over to the woodpile.
It took us a while to get the fire going. We wound up going through the usual business of squatting down and blowing on it to make it catch. Finally, it took hold, and we stood around looking at it with a beery sense of having really done something worthwhile.
Then we all hauled up lawn chairs and moved the keg over handy. Even Lou pulled himself in to join the group. By then it was getting pretty dark.
Sloane had a stereo in his living room, and outside speakers as well. He was piping out a sort of standard, light music, so it was pleasant. I discovered that a shot of that rotten homemade whiskey in a glass of beer made a pretty acceptable drink, and I sat with the others drinking and telling lies.
I guess it was Jack who raised the whole damned thing. He was talking about some broad he’d laid while he was on his way down to Willapa Bay to hunt geese.
“… anyhow,” he was saying, “I went on down to Willapa — got there about four thirty or five — and put out my dekes. Colder’n a bastard, and me still about half blind with alcohol. About five thirty the geese came in — only by then my drunk had worn off, and my head felt like a goddamn balloon. Man, you want to see an act of raw courage? Just watch some poor bastard with a screamin’ hangover touch off a 12 gauge with three-inch magnum shells at a high-flyin’ goose. Man, I still hurt when I think about it.”
“Get any geese?” I asked.
“Filled out before seven,” he said. “Even filled on mallards before I started back — a real carnage. I picked up my dekes, chucked all the birds in the trunk, and headed on back up the pike. I hauled off the road in Chehalis again and went into the same bar to get well. Damned if she wasn’t right there on the first stool again.”
And that started the hunting stories. Have you ever noticed how when a bunch of guys are sitting around, the stories kind of run in cycles? First the drinking stories —”Boy did we get plastered” — then the war stories —”Funny thing happened when I was in the Army” — and then the hunting stories, or the dog stories, or the snake stories. It’s almost like a ritual, but very relaxed. Nobody’s trying to outdo anybody else. It’s just sort of easy and enjoyable. Even McKlearey and Jack called a truce on the eyeball business.
I guess maybe the fire had something to do with it. You get a bunch of guys around an open fire at night, and nine times out of ten they’ll get around to talking about hunting sooner or later. It’s almost inevitable. It’s funny some anthropologist hasn’t noticed it and made a big thing out of it.
We all sifted back through our themories, lifting out the things we’d done or stories we’d heard from others. We hunted pheasant and quail, ducks and geese, rabbits and squirrels, deer and bear, elk and mountain lions. We talked guns and ammunition, equipment, camping techniques — all of it. A kind of excitement — an urge, if you want to call it that — began to build up. The faint, barely remembered smells of the woods and of gun-oil came back with a sharpness that was almost real. Unconsciously, we all pulled our chairs in closer to the fire, tightening the circle. It was a warm night, so it wasn’t that we needed the heat of the fire.