The Painter: A Novel

  “All done. They were very careful. Didn’t toss the place.”

  I said, “Am I under arrest?”

  “No.”

  “Can I go fishing then? Up where I fought with Dell?”

  “Sure. But I wouldn’t recommend it. Five of the hunters stayed on. Said they’d paid for nine days of hunting, they were going to hunt nine days. Dell’s brother is flying in from Tucson this afternoon. Grew up here too, knows the country better than his brother. I’d rather not have any more fights.”

  I took the mostly unsmoked cheroot I’d just had time to light when they showed up, took it from behind my ear, lit it, inhaled. For a second the three of us stood in the shade and looked at the mountain, the sage hills beneath it flushing pale green with last night’s downpour.

  “How about New Mexico?” I said.

  His head came up sharply.

  “You planning on going there?”

  “I have a commission in Santa Fe. A portrait.”

  He chewed that over. Let out a breath.

  “I can’t keep you from going anywhere. But do me a favor: call me and tell me where you are. I’ve got your cell too. Better if we can get this whole business cleared up and I can keep you posted.”

  “Right,” I said.

  He handed us both a card. Turned to Sofia who was expressionless.

  “Would you come down to the office and make a statement? Say tomorrow morning?”

  She turned her face up square on to his.

  “No,” she said.

  He recoiled, as if struck and trying not to show it.

  “No?”

  “Unh unh. He was with me all night and that’s all I’ve got to say. We fucked twice. Once pretty fast, slept. Spooned. You know?”

  He blinked at her.

  “Then we both woke up and fucked once really slow and long. I had two orgasms. I mean two more. That hasn’t happened in a while. Then we were exhausted, wrung out, just drugged kind of, the way the sweat, the musk of sex, the fatigue it just takes you out. All tangled up in each other’s arms. Then we woke up because some assholes were knocking on the door. That’s my statement.”

  She handed back his card and walked back into the house.

  III

  That evening I tried a new fishing spot, the one I’d heard about for years, the stretch where the Gunnison emerges from its gorge. I was agitated and I wanted to fish and I had to buy new gear anyway, a whole new set, thanks to Sport. And down there, right at the confluence of the North Fork and the main river, there’s an outfitter’s base with a full fly shop. It’s called Pleasure Park which sounds like an adult theme-o-rama. I drove through Hotchkiss, just a row of false fronted shops and a cowboy bar lining the county highway, crossed a deeply shaded creek, climbed a couple of switchbacks up onto the prettiest mesa, a high bench of orchards and green fields overlooking the West Elks and away south the hazy and high snow peaks of the San Juans. Say what you want about Santa Fe and Taos and the clean light, they didn’t have this. Kind of washed the dirt off me, just seeing it. I don’t know if truth is beauty or not but I have always put my stock in beauty every time, the real thing, the one that comes with cold rain and hard stories, and I had never seen a place like this.

  And then the road dropped down to the railroad tracks thump thump and it was all desert out ahead, a hundred miles of rolling saltbush westward, and I took the turnoff on my left, south, and wound down to the river.

  It was a real hole, a burst of lime-green old cottonwoods with high rock walls sheltering a run of dark smooth water. The water reflected the tall reeds and cattails, the willows and box elders along the banks. On the other side of a big gravel parking lot was a low building with blue river rafts stacked on trailers.

  I parked and pushed open the glass door. A bell on the door tinkled. It was dim and cool inside. Polished wood bar with high stools, fishing shop behind. They had their priorities. A Discovery Channel fishing show was on the two TVs, a handsome guide directing the casts of a pretty celebrity into a wide blue river. The sound was up and I got from the guide’s accent and the helicopter on the gravel bar that this was New Zealand. I thought that was funny: this was Gold Medal water, fishermen came from all over the country to fish here, and they had New Zealand on the TV. Behind the bar a guide with a gray waxed handlebar mustache, and a cap stuck with flies, dunked two tumblers in rinse water and gave them two shakes and placed them in a row of others. His eyes were on one of the TVs while he did it. He finally turned to me.

  “She sure can fill a pair of waders, huh?” He took a tug from a sweating green beer bottle, put it back down on a cardboard coaster. The coaster was stamped with BELGIAN CREAM ALE and a picture of a cow. His eyes were blurry. Well. It was after five and it was hot out.

  “Your shop open?”

  “Sure. What can we do you? Need some flies?” He let himself out a low stall door on the shop side and came around. Stuck out his hand. “Ben.”

  “Jim.”

  “Jim Hemingway? You look like Hemingway, anybody ever tell you that? Really. The eyes, the beard.”

  “Thanks. You have rods?”

  “Sure.”

  Judging by his breath that wasn’t the first or second beer of the day. Well. He stepped back, gave me a quick once-over. Touched his stiff mustache. He seemed to perk up. A rod was a big sale. I wasn’t just some dude coming in to ask what was hitting and buy a dozen two dollar flies.

  “Leroy’s not here,” he said. “But I can sure sell you a rod. Follow me.”

  “Great. You have light waders?”

  He stopped. Turned around with some effort, reminded me of a boat moving in uncertain currents. “Waders, too?”

  “Yah. And boots and vest, flies, tippet, forceps, Gink, lead, strike indicators, leaders. Oh yeah, and a reel and backing and maybe let’s try some of that snakeskin fly line.”

  “Sharkskin? You mean Sharkskin? Scientific Anglers.” He swayed a little where he stood, and now he reminded me of a tree.

  “I guess that’s it. Yeah. Or maybe it makes too much noise. I’ve heard it makes a real zing as it goes out.”

  He studied me, his biggest catch of the week.

  “Maybe,” he said. “Yeah, some people say that.” He squinted his eyes at me and thought about it. “Can cast a lot longer though.”

  He said it like he was confessing something.

  “Distance,” he said and lifted one hand, palm up. “Noise.” Lifting the other, making a balance in the air. Stood there, balanced himself in the middle of this conundrum. He seemed to forget we were on our way to the rod section.

  “You all have time to wind the reel? Like to go fishing tonight if I can.”

  “Oh sure sure, we can do that. Take just a few minutes. Jake is back there. Jake can do it. He’s just a kid.”

  “They still name kids Jake?”

  He was walking ahead of me, walking like into a stiff wind, he put his chin back over his shoulder, barked, “Ha!”

  I tore through the store like a contestant in one of those shopping game shows. Pretty quick it was Ben who was following me, murmuring, “Sure, sure, Good choice, That’s a good one, Pretty much the best you got right there, Hemingway knows what the hell he’s doing, Nope this ain’t Hemingway’s first rodeo no it isn’t,” trying to keep up with me, carrying one of the shopping baskets he decided at one point to haul out of the back. I really really wanted to go fishing. The more time I spent in the dim store that smelled of beer, with the running commentary of the fishing show blatting in the background the more the pressure mounted inside my chest to blow the fuck out of there and get on the dark flowing river.

  I bought a Winston rod, a five weight. I’d always wanted one. I hefted a nine footer, gave it three false casts careful not to tangle with a steel beam above, and handed it to Ben who raised his eyebrows, said, “That right there is the best there is, no doubt about it.” Then he muttered, “I think Leroy has that at eight hundred dollars, lemme check. Ah, how were you thinking
of paying for all this Mr. Hemingway?”

  Trotting after me as I tore through the vests, fly boxes, flies, me thinking: I’m paying for it with a painting of a fish gobbling up houses and another of two little girls in polka dots and probably a chicken, how else?

  And then we got to the waders and sticky rubber soled boots and I had to stop the flow of picking and gathering which had really become like some harvest dance and sit and try them on, the boots. I pried off my sneakers and was pushing my big bony foot into the unlaced top when Ben spilled my gear into a pile on the floor and sat on the wood bench beside me with a bleary sigh and said, “This is just like Christmas. Should call you Santa Claus instead of Hemingway, ha. Wait, I should get that reel started so’s you don’t have to wait.”

  He got up again, fished the reel out of the pile and a box of expensive yellow fly line and disappeared into the back. Came out again a minute later and sat down, this time holding a new green bottle of sweating beer. It looked very good to me, could taste my own mouth watering. Good sign to get into the river pronto.

  He said, “You hear they killed a man up on the Sulphur last night?”

  I wedged in my foot.

  “I think someone mentioned it.”

  “Cold blood. With a rock is what I heard. Went to piss in the creek and someone crushed his head in.” Ben shuddered dramatically and took a long pull from the bottle.

  “Dellwood Siminoe. The outfitter. Hate to say this, but not a lot of folks will be crying.”

  “Don’t say.”

  “Nope. Even his daughter-in-law has a restraining order.” He shook his head. Pulled from the beer, gave a meditative twist to the end of the waxed mustache.

  “Anyways, they say they know who did it.”

  “Don’t say.” I shucked the boot, said, “These’ll work.” Stood, said, “Can’t think of anything I’m forgetting.”

  Ben was tugging at the leg of my khakis. He wanted to tell me something. I wanted to swat his hand away.

  “It was a fisherman,” he said real solemn. “A fly fisherman. Got in a big fight with Dell just Thursday right at the creek.”

  “Yeah, really?”

  “Yup. Big guy, I heard. Newcomer from New Mexico. Big guy with a white beard, a painter they say. Paints naked ladies. Now that’s a great job, don’t you think? That’s a job I’d like. Think I’ll try that one.”

  He grinned lopsided, took a long drink from the bottle, then his eyes seemed to settle and focus on the colored spatters on my pants. I could almost hear the gears clicking in the wash of beer inside his brain. He looked up at me. He blinked. His mouth opened just a little under the mustache. For a second I could see a little kid, the kid he had been, trying to make sense of all the things that overwhelmed his understanding.

  “You paying with a credit card?”

  “Yup.”

  “You got ID?”

  “Sure.”

  “Is it from New Mexico?”

  “Yup.”

  He was sitting on the bench and he looked up at me. This time he swallowed hard with no beer. He blinked. Then he shook his head.

  “Gimme a minute,” he said.

  “Take your time.”

  He drank from the beer, leaned forward, stared straight ahead. Put his hands on his knees. He was adjusting to the new information, taking his time. He was a fisherman.

  “Dell was scum,” he said finally.

  “Sounds like it.”

  He nodded to himself, glanced up at me again just once, said, “Well let’s ring you up. I bet you want to get the fuck out of here and go fishing.”

  I smiled.

  “I’ll check on the reel.”

  At the register he wouldn’t meet my eye. His hand trembled as he picked up the little matchbook of twist weights, the dropper bottle of silicone, ran the scanner over the bar codes. I looked past him and in back, hanging just back of the doorway to what must have been the shop, I saw a young man in a baseball cap watching us. Jake. Ben said, “Back in Hotchkiss they got a fly shop, too. If you need flies. Raymond’s.”

  “This one is pretty good,” I said.

  “Well.” He scanned a pair of forceps with handles speckled like a brookie. “Well,” he said again.

  “Like I might scare away the other customers?”

  He wouldn’t look at me.

  “I don’t see any other customers,” I said.

  “It gets real busy sometimes,” he snapped defensively, and started putting my gear into a flimsy plastic bag.

  IV

  The sun had gone over the canyon, the top of the red wall upstream was lit to a strip of fire. The hole gathered the cool dusk. I smelled tamarisk, sweet, heard the ripple of the current against grass banks, the descending slow notes of a canyon wren somewhere across the river.

  Behind me the clunk of two car doors closing, chafe of a starter, tires on gravel, all muffled by distance and the thick cottonwoods along the bank. Here, the wide run of slow water reflected the green banks, and all across it, silvering the dark surface, and silent, spread the faint rings of trout rising.

  I counted four other fishermen staggered in the mile above me, two on the far side, could see their blue raft nosed into the willows. Plenty of room to be alone with the evening.

  I stepped into the water, tested it, thigh deep here and black along the grassy undercut, waded out, soft sand bottom, waded until it firmed to gravel and got shallower, a covered bar. I wanted to cast back from here and fish the edge of the bank.

  Before I unhooked the little pheasant tail from the keeper above the cork grip, before I pulled a few feet of line straight off the new reel with a well oiled zing—before I did anything I stood knee deep in the cold water and closed my eyes.

  In the silence of the evening I could hear the tiny blips and gulps of fish rising. One behind me, then one to my left, close. A chortle of current. The breeze was lazy upstream and carried somebody’s charcoal. Another fainter tick, this in air. Bats. I knew that when I opened my eyes I would see a bat flitting the dusk over the water. Rising fluttery, the antic turns like a leaf getting blown about. The leathery wings ticking. Bats and trout, everybody having dinner, everybody going after the same bugs. Nobody leaving any wake.

  Do you leave a wake?

  No. Maybe.

  Do you leave anything important? Worthwhile?

  A few paintings.

  Huh.

  I was a father.

  But now you’re not.

  I still am. I just. She would be here tonight. She would love it.

  You are a killer. Now the wake you are leaving is absence and pain.

  I stood stock still. I listened to that, the accusation, the way I had been listening to the bats and the fish.

  I don’t feel like a killer. I feel pretty good. Now I do. I didn’t like what Ben said at the end, but now I am just standing here listening.

  You are a killer twice over. First time you escaped by a few inches. Happenstance. You missed. But. You have the heart of a killer.

  I do?

  Answer that yourself.

  You are myself.

  Silence.

  I stood knee deep in the cold water, eyes closed, and listened to the end of day over the river. Then I opened my eyes and pulled the line and began making long casts upstream just off the bank. The new rod was light and alive in my hand, it was beautiful, and the line sang out fast and smooth with a whisper like scratching a guitar string. I didn’t mind the sound at all.

  V

  In cop shows they always talk about motive and murder weapon and hard evidence and eyewitnesses. I mean, to build a case beyond a reasonable doubt you need to assemble some facts. Facts that are beyond dispute. Like bits of a man’s brains on another man’s clothes. That’s the thing I worried about most. But. I kept telling myself no way. I didn’t puncture Dell’s skull, I cracked it. Didn’t beat it to a pulp. I hit him once, KO, and he fell into the creek and drowned. Crack.

  The other stuff seemed under cont
rol. Murder weapon? None. One rock in a million like any other in the bed of a stream, already probably gathering algae or the pupa shells of caddisflies. Motive, sure. It sounded like lots of people might have some motive. The mother of his grandkids for one. Hard evidence aside from brains? Sulphur Creek road dust on my truck, patches I hadn’t washed off? My tire treads along the creek, just downstream of the camp?

  I fished there almost every day. I had never needed to wash off the dust in the first place. That was an adrenaline move, something you do in the middle of the night when you’re so pumped and you don’t realize it and you do unnecessary and stupid things.

  Blood on the vest? What if Stinky said I wasn’t wearing the vest during the fight? Then Dell’s blood came at another time. What if the pattern of spots was deemed in no way consistent with a bloody nose? Stinky could fuck me.

  Alibi. I had one. Rock solid, right? What if she got mad at me? What if she turned on me the way she did on the big dumb hippy boyfriend? Maybe that was her MO. Or the other way, what if I left? I was never going to be hostage to an alibi. A spurned woman can do crazy things. What if. What if.

  But I didn’t hear from Sport. I figured I’d wait two weeks, not be in too much of a hurry, then drive down to Santa Fe and do Steve’s stupid commission. I figured they’d run the tests on the vest pretty fast since it was a hot case with a suspect at risk of flight, etc. And they had probably interviewed Stinky already, so. I figured if they had any kind of a case they wouldn’t fuck around, they’d nail me. I don’t know why, I felt confident. It’s not like they had to carefully construct a case. They would have only so much material with which to build a prosecution and I figured either they had it or they didn’t.

  Sofia went back to the orchard house she shared with Dugar and kicked him out. She told him his poems were moronic and it was time he went to California and became the sea mammal she always knew he could be. He objected with a string of b-buts she said sounded like a machine gun. When she asked about the orchard girl he’d been screwing for months, playing her, Sofia, like a fool, he got sheepish and shut up for a minute.