‘Joe.’
He turned and his furrowed face cracked a smile. ‘Mary. And with a beau in tow.’
‘Just a friend,’ said Mary, stooping to kiss him on the cheek.
‘If you say so.’ He eased himself to his feet, extending a crooked and calloused paw. ‘Joe Milne.’
‘Tom Hollis.’
‘What’s that?’ asked Mary.
Joe handed her the small ball. ‘You tell me.’
She turned it in her fingers. ‘I don’t know,’ she conceded, handing it on to Hollis. It was hard and textured.
‘Flo Barratt back in the woods there, she’s got her an army of cats, that old heifer, scores of the damn things runnin’ all over, pissin’ on the couch and all sorts. Some of ‘em’s gone missing of late. Now I know why.’ He paused. ‘It’s a fur ball out of that greathorned owl I keep for huntin’ crows.’
To have dropped it then and there would have been impolite. Thankfully, Joe took it off him.
‘Must have developed hisself a taste for kitty meat. Best dispose of the evidence while I figures what to do.’ He lobbed the fur ball out into the creek.
Hollis noted that it floated.
Joe suddenly clamped a hand on his shoulder. ‘There’s a clam pie needs eatin’ and some cold beers to wash it down with.’
‘Thank you, God,’ thought Hollis.
They went and dunked themselves in the creek before dinner to wash away the sweat and the grime, stepping gingerly through the rushes, the mud oozing between their toes. Hollis was forced to confess to Mary that he couldn’t really swim. He knew that at a push he could flail his way to the side of a swimming pool, because he’d been forced to do so once on a day-trip to Coney Island when his father had tossed him into the deep end of the marble pool in the Pavilion of Fun. But the atavistic impulse to survive which had driven him through the water that day had little in common with the pleasure others appeared to get from swimming.
He stood near the bank up to his chest in water while Mary stroked around leisurely in the dying rays of the sun, glancing over every so often to check that he hadn’t lost his footing and slipped beneath the surface. He was warmed by her concern, and surprised by the force of the urge that welled up inside him when she stepped from the water.
She slapped his hand away and told him to behave.
They ate dinner inside by the light of a kerosene lamp hanging from a beam. The clam pie was hot and the beer, as promised, cold—manna and nectar after a day’s hiking.
‘So, bub, you get to see the sights?’
‘I think we covered pretty much everything between East Hampton and here.’
Joe laughed. ‘It’s the one comfort now that my legs is goin’—Mary don’t get to drag me around with her.’
‘He’s lying,’ said Mary. ‘Everything I showed you, Joe showed me first.’
‘Have you lived here all your life?’ asked Hollis.
‘Since the war, the one with the South—1861. Born right over there in back of Hog Creek.’
‘Don’t tell me,’ said Hollis, ‘she’s related to you too.’
‘Goin’ back some, but they don’t like to talk of it, them Nor’fleets.’ Unseen to Mary, he winked at Hollis.
‘That’s not true,’ she said indignantly.
‘We’re Bonackers, you see, us Milnes—clam-diggers. We was poor as muck when we first come here to tend sheep for them Gardiners out on the island; three centuries on we still ain’t got enough real estate to put in a flower pot. There’s some things you can’t change, I guess. What mule ever had another mule for a ma or a pa?’
‘Excuse me?’ said Hollis.
‘You can’t breed mules from mules,’ said Mary. ‘And you can stop bellyaching, for one,’ she continued, turning back to Joe.
‘Why not?’ asked Hollis.
‘What?’ asked Mary irritably.
‘Why can’t you breed mules from mules? I mean, where do they come from?’
‘They’re horses crossed with donkeys. They’re sterile.’
‘Oh.’
‘I’m proud of my Bonacker blood,’ said Mary to Joe, defensively.
‘I know you is. And
It was the low point of the evening, watching Mary brought to heel, Joe retouching the rose-colored picture she had painted for Hollis over the course of the day. But he loved her all the more for the speed with which she recovered, abandoning her pout for lively banter designed to draw him into the conversation.
He was being presented to Joe—that much was clear—for the old man’s scrutiny, his seal of approval. Normally, he would have kicked against such a test, but he rose to the challenge without effort, assisted by the bottle of whiskey that landed on the table with a welcome thump once the plates were cleared. And when it came to explaining how he’d come to join the East Hampton Town Police Department, he almost believed his own lies.
