The Hunter

“He wouldn’t take it, anyway,” Lena says. “It’s not the money Johnny’s after, or not only. He’s after a story where he got the money by being the big hero. Or the dashing bandit, at least.”

“And for that,” Cal says, “he’s got his big idea. Whatever it is.” Rip makes his way back up the garden, hauling the stick by one end, with Nellie dragging off the other. Cal detaches it from the pair of them, throws it, and watches them vanish into the dark again. The last of the light is ebbing out of the sky, and the stars are starting to show.

Lena is trying to decide whether to tell him the thought she had, the day before, as she watched Johnny saunter away. She’d like to have Cal’s views on it—not only because, having been a detective, he has a wider knowledge of trouble and its many forms, but also because of the way he considers things, without hurry or strain. Before he even says a word, that makes the thing seem more manageable, susceptible to being held still and examined at leisure.

His restlessness is stopping her. She has only a guess, based on nothing but a scruffy haircut and old memories. Unsettled as Cal is, it would be unfair to put that on him, just for her own convenience. Lena herself is wary and watchful, but she’s not unsettled. She isn’t by nature a peaceful woman; her calm is hard-won, and Johnny doesn’t have enough force in him to shake it. She’s not altogether convinced that he has enough force to bring any trouble bigger than a debt-collection notice in his wake, but Cal, knowing less of Johnny and more of trouble, might see it differently. Then, too, she knows the stakes here aren’t the same for Cal as they are for her.

She adds the tightness in Cal’s face, and the fact that she finds herself shielding him, to the list of reasons she despises Johnny Reddy. The man hasn’t been in town long enough to muddy the shine on those pretty shoes or that pretty smile, and already, without even aiming to, he’s making problems where there were none.

“Come on,” Cal says suddenly, turning to her and holding out a hand. Lena thinks he wants to go inside, but when she takes his hand and lets him pull her out of the rocking chair, he leads her down the porch steps, onto the grass.

“I figure I oughta mind my own beeswax for a while,” he says. “When was the last time we took a nighttime walk?”

Lena tucks her hand through his elbow and smiles. Rip and Nellie follow them, Rip taking big bounds over the long grass just for the fun of it, as they head for the road that twists away between the fields, faint and pale in the starlight. The night flowers have the rich, honeyed scent of some old cordial. Daisy opens one rolling eye to watch them on their way, and then goes back to sleep.

—

Even though Cal tries not to say it, Trey knows he doesn’t like her being out on the mountain in the dark. When she’s at his place for dinner, he keeps one eye on the sky and orders her home as soon as the west starts to glow gold. He worries about her falling into a ditch and injuring herself, or straying off the path and getting sucked down in a bog, or running into one of the scattering of people who live high on the mountain and who have the reputation of being half wild. None of these things worry Trey. She’s been on the mountain her whole life, which means her body knows it better than her mind does; the slightest unexpected shift in the consistency of the earth under her feet, or the slope of it, is enough to warn her if she’s going wrong. The mountainy men have known her since she was a baby, and sometimes give her a few quid to do their messages at Noreen’s shop, or to bring a few eggs or a bottle of poteen to a neighbor a mile or two up the road. She’s considering being one of them when she’s grown up.

She’s spent the last few hours on the mountainside, waiting to be fairly sure her dad will be either in bed or down the village at Seán Óg’s pub. Trey is good at waiting. She sits with her back against a drystone wall, in its shadow, rubbing Banjo’s ears. She has a pocket torch, but she likes both the invisibility and the feeling of power that she gets from not using it. It’s a bright enough night, anyway—the sky is crowded with stars, and there’s a big, close half-moon; Trey can see down the ragged slopes of heather and sedge to the fields, bleached by the moonlight and misshapen by the shadows of their walls and trees. Up here the air has a thin fitful breeze, but Lena lent her a hoodie, which is too big and smells of the same washing powder as Lena’s sheets. Now and then there’s a sharp, furtive rustle out on the bog or up among the trees, but those don’t bother Trey either. She stays still and watches for the hare or fox to show itself, but whatever creatures are out there, they smell Banjo and stay clear. A few times, before she had Banjo, she saw hares dancing.