Part 14 (1/2)

”What?”

”You come to pick up your son with a gun on your hip?”

”I'm carrying some cash from the restaurant. It's out in the car. I have a permit, Liddy.”

”I know you have a permit. Just don't do it again, Arthur. Ever.”

”Oh, for chrissake.”

”I mean it.”

She called up to Robert again. It was hard keeping the anger out of her voice but she tried.

This time he came downstairs. He was carrying a small box of his plastic guys and some copies of Cracked and Mad. His boots and jacket were on so he was ready. She was relieved. He didn't look quite so reluctant to be going along this time. Which meant she didn't have to feel so guilty.

”When will you be back?”

”I'll have him back by dinnertime.”

”Fine.”

She bent down to give him a kiss and a hug. Pretty soon, she thought, she wouldn't be bending anymore. She'd be standing on tiptoe the way he was growing.

”Bye, honey. Have a good time.”

”Bye, Mom.” He kissed her back. His lips were still wet and smooth. Like a baby's lips.

”Arthur?”

He turned to her.

”Lose the gun, please.”

He nodded and they left together out into the lightly falling snow.

Ellsworth, New Hamps.h.i.+re He'd come here often as a boy. The property was just off his parents' property. There was a hill leading down to a winding solitary stream where you could catch crayfish in summer and which, even now in the dead of winter, slashed its arterial way down the mountain like an open wound, defeating the freezing flesh of ice which attempted to close over it.

You pa.s.sed the stream, crawled up the banks, and you were in a field of tall brown gra.s.s and low scattered scrub. He'd hunted here many times-quail and the occasional rabbit. He wasn't supposed to. But Old Man Wingerter never got down this way very often back then and he was dead now, his property in dispute between his surviving daughters. n.o.body was going to give a d.a.m.n what he did here these days.

”Quiet now,” he said to the boy.

They both were breathing hard from the climb up over the banks and the boy was cold, he was s.h.i.+vering. But Arthur could see he was excited too. What kid wouldn't be? Out here with his dad and his dad's brand-new AK-47? Like Cowboys and Indians. Only better. Because the weapon was starkly, coldly real and even the quiet kids like Robert had some sense of its power. h.e.l.l, the kid had seen the Rambo movies, right?

But it took over an hour of moving slowly and carefully through the gra.s.s and brush before they saw anything. And by then it was clear that Robert was getting bored with the game. Kids these days had lousy attention spans, he thought. When he was a kid he could go all day with a pitiful little .22 in his hands. It had all the stopping power of a gnat. But he loved the .22 anyway. You had to have patience to hunt. Patience and desire.

It was obvious his kid had neither.

He heard Robert sigh behind him. Like Arthur was putting him through something.

The kid had no appreciation.

At least he was basically keeping quiet about it. Not tramping around s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up the hunt like a lot of kids might do. He was good for that much, anyway.

When the rabbit bolted out of the brush not four feet away from them, Arthur was ready, the weapon on full automatic, spraying the ground in a short tight arc that exploded through the bare dry brush, turning it to powder, and exploded the rabbit too-a wet furry brown-and-red mess lying in the snow.

One ear gone.

A leg almost shot away.

”Jesus! Jesus!” Robert was saying behind him.

The kid was astonished. The kid couldn't believe what he'd seen.

Arthur whooped and laughed and held the rabbit up for their inspection. Robert wouldn't think that hunting was boring now. No way. Not anymore.

”Did you see that? We d.a.m.n near stepped on him! Most times you've got to have yourself some dogs to get one of these guys. We got lucky!”

Jeez, G.o.d was all the kid was saying.

Shaking his head. Eyes wide like he'd seen a ghost.

And he realized then that it wasn't just astonishment that he was seeing on his son's face, though that was there too. It was also-inexplicably-horror.

Plymouth, New Hamps.h.i.+re By 6:45 she was beginning to get mad. Dinnertime was normally 6:00/6:30, and he knew that, and even though the sauteed chicken would do just fine on simmer she still had the rice to make once Robert got home and she still had to steam the vegetables, and the point was, anyway, that he deliver him back on time, not whenever he d.a.m.n well felt like it.

At just before seven she heard the car pull in, heard its door slam and then heard it pull right out again. That Arthur was leaving quickly was probably just as well. She'd been nearly ready to go out there and make the kind of scene that Robert probably didn't need.

He came in slamming the door behind him and ran for the stairs.

”Robert?”

She smelled it right away.

He'd soiled himself.

He never did this during the day.

”Robert?”

She put down the pan of vegetables and followed him. The bathroom door was closed. His coat lay on the floor. ”Robert? Are you all right?”

She heard him crying. To h.e.l.l with privacy, she thought. Even though she'd always been careful to provide it for him. She opened the door.

His soiled pants and underpants were lying on the floor. He was on the toilet.

No. Not quite on it.

He was braced above it, hands clutching either side of the seat holding him up just over it, as though.

She looked at him, tears running down his cheeks.