Harry raised an eyebrow.
“I teach Judo,” Talme said simply.
“You had many kids pull weapons on you?”
“Once a boy took out a knife. But he was showing off and I talked him into putting it down.”
“So Chris wasn’t showing off?”
“No. Chris had a reason for carrying that gun.”
“What reason?”
“Why do you carry a gun, Griffin?”
Harry was silent for a moment. “For protection,” he said. “The other kids? They pick on him?”
Talme exhaled. “This is really more Don Karson’s province.”
“Why Karson?”
“School retains him to counsel students in certain situations. He’s got a master’s in psychology—”
“Talme, how far out in the woods are we? Do people up here say gay or do they say faggot?”
Talme took off his glasses, pulled out a handkerchief, and slowly cleaned them one lens at a time. “I guess they’d prefer not to talk about it at all. Which is the problem.”
“What happened?”
Talme cleared his throat. “There was an incident involving Chris and another student. The student handled it quite well, but it was overheard by other kids and—”
“Give me a date,” said Harry.
“Last June, end of the school year. Chris propositioned another boy. Here at school.” Talme grimaced. “The boy came to me for advice. We didn’t deal with it well. We thought we did at the time, but now, thinking back, we didn’t—”
“Run it down,” said Harry.
Talme spread his hands. “We didn’t bring in the parents.”
HUNTER’S MOON / 245
“When you say ‘we,’ who are you talking about?”
“I called Don in and we kept it between us. I would have gone to Emery but Don convinced me to let him deal with it. He has this notion that kids are entitled to their privacy same as adults.” Talme shook his head. “Nothing’s private in this town. Emery knew and he and Don had quite a scene. Now, after the shooting, Don’s real nervous. You know, what if there’s a grand jury and Emery uses it against him somehow.”
“There’s not going to be a grand jury. So why’s Karson antsy?
Minister? Pillar of the community?”
Talme exhaled. “Don used to have a big church in a fat suburb down in the Cities. There was a scandal. He’s up here doing pen-ance. We’re his hair shirt.”
“A scandal with boys in it?”
“A perception of impropriety among tight-assed members of his congregation. He smoked a joint—the kind you set on fire, not the kind you pee through—with some kids on a retreat. Emery dug it up and accused him right in church in front of God and everybody, as it were.”
“So Karson looked for something on Emery?”
Talme’s gaze deflected, explored the middle distance. “It goes back and forth. Don likes to play politics. There’s this…animosity between him and Emery. This clash of styles. Almost as if Don was gleeful that Chris was experimenting with sexual adventure. Like it was a repudiation of Emery’s moral standing. He won’t admit it. Hell, he’s not even aware of it. But I think, when he counseled Chris, he was trying to turn him against Emery. Whether they meant to or not, those two turned that boy into a battleground.”
“This have something to do with those groups you go to in Duluth?”
“Hell,” Talme rumbled. “I’m just curious. I even tried Tai Chi once.
Wasn’t built for it. But Don gets pretty deep into that men’s group stuff.”
“So he sees Emery as the old-fashioned, two-fisted macho man?”
“Wish it was that simple, Griffin.” Talme peered into his 246 / CHUCK LOGAN
coffee cup. “It’s about a certain kind of credentials that gives someone authority. Don’s an intellectual. He gets furious when I talk like this.
But kids sense it in people.”
“And?”
Talme shrugged. “Kids like Emery more than they like Don. I mean, Don’s good to talk to—”
“But Emery’s the one who takes you deer hunting.”
“Yeah. Karson is Wonder Bread shipped from Minneapolis.
Emery’s the real thing in this county.”
“Except now the real thing is drinking a lot.”
“Yup. And everybody’s walking soft, scared shitless of what he might do. First Jesse marries another man. Then Chris.”
“What about Bud Maston?”
Talme laughed. “He’s sort of like the Goodyear blimp. He flies over us little people on his million-dollar skyhook. We wave.”
Harry put a five on the table to cover the coffee. Out on the street, they shook hands.
“He was a real sensitive kid, Griffin. Wrote, drew, played trumpet.
I can see him stealing those guns, but I don’t buy the part about him selling dope. At least, not in the winter. Dope shows up with the summer crowd. Everybody’s hooked on the legal stuff up here.
Liquid variety.” He shook his head.
“Why’d he do it, Talme? Your best guess.”
“Don’s got this harebrained theory, you know—that Larry Emery’s behind it, pulling the strings. He likes that conspiracy stuff. But I think Oswald and Chris acted alone. Chris was stoned. You read about it more and more. A parent tries to discipline a kid, the kid comes back with deadly force. Guess fresh air and pine trees are no insurance. Some shitty world, huh?”
“Yeah, well, thanks for the time.” They shook hands.
Talme held Harry’s hand in a vice of tendon and bone and as Harry narrowed his eyes, he added, “Jesse might fuck around and maybe she’s up to a gold-digger game with your rich friend. But Emery’s the one who really loves her.”
Harry nodded. Talme lowered his voice although no one HUNTER’S MOON / 247
was remotely within hearing distance. “Don’t provoke him about Jesse. Not when he’s drinking.”
Talme left. Damn. He meant to ask him who Miss Loretta was.
He went into the drugstore and bought a carton of Pall Malls. When he emerged, snowflakes littered down on the clean white slum of Stanley, Minnesota. Across the street, a chubby man in a blaze-orange parka, wool trousers, and hunting boots twisted a chain of yule boughs around an ornate light pole in front of the bank.
Then the man hurried down the street and joined a crowd of hunters forming in front of the sheriff’s office. Jerry Hakala stood in the bed of a pickup, his breath striking
