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Sheriff Peck pulled the papers from his pocket and shook them at the old man. “This isn’t a courtesy visit, Joe. They know you and Stella drove him to the train station; the dang camera’s got you hugging your goodbyes. They know Stella paid his ticket to Chicago on her charge card. And they know she’s been calling her brother up in Winnipeg for the first time in years.”
“If you think he’s up there, then go and get him.”
“Damn it, Joe, they tried that. He’s nowhere to be found.”
The sheriff crouched so they were eye-to-eye.
“Listen closely to me now. I’ve got a warrant here for your arrest. You and Stella both. I’ll do my best to make this go away, but you have to tell me where he is. This is his problem, Joe, not yours.”
“Stella? They’re bringing Stella into this?”
“Yes, sir. Aiding and abetting AWOL. They’re trying to make examples out of some folks before this gets out of hand.”
“Examples?”
Our heads jerked around to the sound of Stella’s voice. She stood at the mouth of the lean-to holding two plastic cups. While Joe wore grubby overhauls and sweatshirt, his wife of forty years was impeccable in a flower-patterned dress, her silver hair styled from a weekly trip to the hairdresser, her one extravagance.
“I don’t believe we’ve ever been called examples, have we Joe?” She smiled politely and handed us the lemonade, then helped her husband to his feet. From what I could tell, she treated his drunkenness largely by ignoring it. Stella was a deeply religious woman, the organist and co-treasurer at First Baptist, and I had never known her to cuss or drink or utter a bad word about anyone. Joe, conversely, hadn’t sat in a pew since he was a teenager. He was fond of saying that what he had seen on the battlefield had killed any belief in a god.
We chit-chatted as we drank—the pastor had broken his wrist; yet another new superstore had come to Gaylord; Stella’s older brother had found the Lord up there in Winnipeg, can you imagine that, nearly seventy years old?—until finally the sheriff set his glass on the ground, cleared his throat and shot a glance my way. It was a decisive moment: How far would this honorable woman go to protect her son?
“Stella, we need to get Johnny back to the base. I know he had a tough time over there, but the reality is he’s a deserter. He needs to own up to his obligations.”
There was a pleasant smile on Stella’s face, as always, but she didn’t speak. Instead she began to hum, an instantly familiar tune, as if her faith held the answer.
Sheriff Peck raised his voice to be heard. “I have to believe a mother knows the location of her only child. You tell us that, ma’am, and we will go and we will get him. And we will take care of him the best we can, I promise you that.”
She responded with the smile, and the humming. Amazing Grace. It was beautiful, full and throaty, the intonation of a true believer.
“Otherwise, ma’am, you’re apt to spend some time behind bars.”
Stella stopped and held her hands together as if to be cuffed. “Well, then,” she said, “let’s go for a ride, shall we?” The sheriff looked down at her and sighed. Shaking his head, he stepped out into the sunshine, as if to find sanity there, and at that moment there was a sound in the bush, and another, not far from our location, thirty yards perhaps, something moving fast and awkward—a heavy-footed gait that was neither dog nor deer.
*
I took the boys hunting for the last time when they were sophomores, not ten miles from the spot Johnny Kubiak fled through the swamp. I had left my binoculars in the truck, and Johnny and my son, Alex, were talking in the blind when I came up behind them. Johnny had always been an edgy kid—embarrassed by his father’s drunken ways but at the same time full of the old man’s insolence—but never before I had I heard this nonsense.
“It’s survival training.”
“Survival from what?”
“Invaders, man. Terrorists.”
“Jesus, Johnny.”
“Listen, dog, it’s a weekend in the woods shooting M-16s and eating venison stew. Man up, for god’s sake.”
The boys were laughing as I entered the blind. I told them to quiet down as I took a seat, holding Johnny’s eyes with a look that said, I heard. But Johnny didn’t shrink from my silent challenge as most fifteen-year-olds would have. Instead he stared right back, his thin lips curved into a smart-assed little challenge of his own.
I would essentially kick Johnny out of my son’s life that day. After a fruitless hunt, I drove him home, Alex snoring lightly on the seat between us. As Johnny reached for the door, I said, “Stay away from my boy. He doesn’t need that crap in his life.” He paused in mid-motion and then continued on, never looking back, never uttering a word. I watched him all the way into the trailer, where his father stood swaying in the doorway, wagging a finger at an unseen nemesis.
*
The sheriff made the first major mistake of his young career, pulling his weapon and bolting through the woods. “No,” I said, but his mind was set. “Stay here,” he shouted back. “And watch them.” The sheriff was extremely fit, a former star receiver who ran 5Ks, and I pictured him catching Johnny and the bad things that would ensue. Keying the mike on my shoulder, I called for dispatch but got no response. Out of range.
“Damn it to hell,” I growled. “Is he armed?” Stella folded her hands and looked away, jaw set. “Johnny,” I said. “Is. He. Armed?” Old Joe made a face that said he didn’t know. A lie.
“In the car,” I said. “Now.”
I shepherded them toward the cruiser, Joe complaining about his civil rights. I pushed him along, feeling his spine protruding through the sweatshirt, and suddenly he went to his hands and knees and vomited into the ferns. “Expect yourself a lawsuit,” he said, face gone slack. “Yes siree, Mr. Undersheriff.” I hauled him up by a trembling arm and responded that taking legal action was his prerogative, but for the time being I would not risk citizens’ safety with a dangerous subject on the loose.
“My Johnny is not …” Stella Kubiak could not finish the sentence, which told me what I needed to know.
“What that place did to him,” she said.