The Hunter

“You too,” Cal says. “See you round.” He has no desire to be invited over to drink to Johnny’s return, under a roof he fixed himself, but he does have an ingrained dislike for rudeness.

Johnny nods to him, touches his temple to Mart, and heads off towards the road. He walks like a city boy, picking his way around anything that might dirty his shoes.

“Worthless little fecker,” Mart says. “The best part of that fella ran down his mammy’s leg. What did he want from you?”

“Check out the guy who’s hanging out with his kid, I guess,” Cal says. “Don’t blame him.”

Mart snorts. “If he gave a damn about that child, he wouldn’ta run off on her. That fella never did anything in his life unless he was after a few bob or a ride, and you’re not his type. If he dragged his lazy arse down here, he wanted something.”

“He didn’t ask for anything,” Cal says. “Yet, anyway. You going to his place tomorrow night, get in on his big idea?”

“I wouldn’t have one of Johnny Reddy’s ideas if it was wrapped in solid gold and delivered by Claudia Schiffer in the nip,” Mart says. “I only came down here to let him know not to be trying to get his hooks into you. If he wants to mooch, he can mooch offa someone else.”

“He can try all he wants,” Cal says. He doesn’t want any favors from Mart. “Did he hook up with Mrs. Dumbo?”

“He did his best. That lad’d get up on a cracked plate. Don’t you be letting him around your Lena.”

Cal lets that go. Mart finds his tobacco pouch, pulls out a skimpy rollie, and lights it. “I might go on up to his place tomorrow night,” he says reflectively, picking a shred of tobacco off his tongue. “Whatever he’s at, there’s some eejits around here that’d fall for it. I might as well have a good view of the action.”

“Bring your popcorn,” Cal says.

“I’ll bring a bottle of Jameson, is what I’ll bring. I wouldn’t trust him to have anything dacent in, and if I’ve to listen to that gobshite, I’d want to be well marinated.”

“I figure I’ll stick with ignoring him,” Cal says. “Save myself the booze money.”

Mart giggles. “Ah, now. Where’s the entertainment in that?”

“You and me got different ideas of entertainment,” Cal says.

Mart draws on his rollie. His face, creased against the sun, is suddenly grim. “I’m always in favor of paying heed to the sly fuckers,” he says. “Even when it’s an inconvenience. You never know when there might be something you can’t afford to miss.”

He nudges one of Cal’s tomatoes with the point of his crook. “Them tomatoes is coming along great,” he says. “If you have a few going spare, you know where to find me.” Then he whistles for Kojak and starts off back towards his own land. When he crosses Johnny Reddy’s trail, he spits on it.

—

Ignoring Johnny turns out to be harder than Cal expected. That evening, when Lena has sent Trey home and come over to his place, he can’t settle. Mostly his and Lena’s evenings are long, calm ones. They sit on his back porch drinking bourbon and listening to music and talking, or playing cards, or they lie on the grass and watch the expanse of stars turn dizzyingly above them. When the weather is being too Irish, they sit on his sofa and do most of the same things, with rain padding peacefully and endlessly on the roof, and the fire making the room smell of turf smoke. Cal is aware that this puts them firmly in boring-old-fart territory, but he has no problem with that. This is one of the many areas where he and Mart don’t see eye to eye: being boring is among Cal’s main goals. For most of his life, one or more elements always insisted on being interesting, to the point where dullness took on an unattainable end-of-the-rainbow glow. Ever since he finally got his hands on it, he’s savored every second.

Johnny Reddy is, just like Mart spotted from all the way over on his own land, a threat to the boringness. Cal knows there’s nothing he can do about the guy, who has more right to be in Ardnakelty than he has, but he wants to do it anyway, and quick, before Johnny starts in fucking things up. Lena is drinking her bourbon and ginger ale, comfortable in the back-porch rocking chair that Cal made for her birthday, but Cal can’t sit. He’s throwing a stick for Rip and Nellie, who are surprised by this departure from routine but not about to turn down the opportunity. Daisy, Rip’s mama, who doesn’t have a sociable nature, has ignored the stick and gone to sleep beside Lena’s chair. The fields have sunk into darkness, although the sky still has a flush of turquoise above the treeline in the west. The evening is still, with no breeze to take away the day’s leftover heat.

“You fed her dinner, right?” he asks for the second time.

“Enough to fill a grown man,” Lena says. “And if she needs more, I’d say Sheila might have the odd bitta food lying around the house. D’you reckon?”

“And she knows she can come back to your place if she needs to.”

“She does, yeah. And she can find her way in the dark. Or in a snowstorm, if one comes up.”