Comeback (Gun Pedersen Book 1) (7 page)

10

The hearing next day was held in the upper-level
dining hall of the Muskie Lounge, a plush green room
used on occasions when the persuasion of comfort
was needed. It held about 150 with all the folding
chairs in use, and at a quarter to twelve the room was
getting noisy with people talking at each other over complimentary drinks. A hush fell briefly as Gun
walked in. Some turned and looked at him, but it
wasn’t long before the pitch of the room was back to
normal.

Hedman was leaning against the wall at the front of
the room, a prespeech drink in hand. Three smil
ing men in pastel suits stood around him talking. Above their heads was a mammoth wall-mounted muskellunge, a treble-hooked Rapala in its angry
mouth.

“I bet he got that other land,” said a woman’s voice
behind Gun. The voice was middle-aged with a ciga
rette scrape. Gun didn’t turn around. “I bet he got it,
and has this whole damn thing in his pocket.”

“Got what other land?” said a male voice. “Who’d
sell out to him? Besides, long as Larson’s on the
county board, this thing’s just a dream.” Gun smiled
to himself. He hadn’t been the last to find out after all.

“What do you think, that Larson’s pure? Because he’s a land and water freak?

“W
hat if he is on the county board? It’s going to a
referendum. Popular vote, you know the concept.”

“I’m serious,” said Melissa. “Old man Hedman
bought Larson just like he bought these drinks.”

Gun turned his head just enough to suggest annoy
ance with the conversation.

“Shh,”
the man said.

Carol Long had arrived now and was moving grace
fully among the county’s overweight stratum of im
portance. Gun watched as she talked with Harold
Amudson, her slender figure holding up a silver
recorder the size of a cigarette pack. Harold Amudson
was a town gas merchant. Until falling into Hedman’s
camp, Harold’s idea of economic development had
been to add another line of Little Debbie bars to the snack rack in his Standard station. Now he sold deli
sandwiches and had a bright plastic roof over his gas pumps. Now he wore thin knit ties and bored anyone
near him with schemes for development projects.
There was a county board slot coming open in a year.
Eight months before anyone cared, Harold was run
ning for it.

“See you’re waiting for me!”

Gun knew the voice. Geoff Hedman, tall and smil
ing, stood just within the wide double-entry. He wore
a linen sport jacket, crisp Levi’s, and a Key West tan.
To his right, three ladies in bowling jackets ducked and whispered. “Looking fine,” he told them. The
women giggled.

Geoff walked through the center of the four lines of
tables and straight to his father, who was still under the fish. Gun saw Hedman Senior speak to Hedman Junior and Junior nod a reply. Then Geoff stepped away from Hedman’s group and walked toward the
men’s room.

Gun waited sixty seconds before following. Inside
the men’s room he could see Geoff’s tan Armadillos
tapping a worried waltz under the door of the stall.
Gun looked in the mirror, squinted once to define the
crow’s feet, washed his hands, and leaned against a
sink opposite Geoff s stall.

When Geoff swung open the stall door, Gun said, “I
want to know one thing from you.”

Geoff stood in front of the coughing toilet. “Mazy
isn’t here,” he said. “She’s at home, waiting for me.”

“That wasn’t the question.” Gun shut the distance between them in two strides and stood in the John
door, resting a heavy palm on each side. Geoff
couldn’t back up. “I want to know this. How did you
force my daughter to marry you?”

Geoff’s face looked straight ahead, eyes focusing on
the line of Gun’s T-shirt under his collar. “I didn’t
force her,” he said. His lips spread into a satisfied
smile. “We’re in love.”

Gun took his hands away from the metal stall and
put one on each of Geoff’s shoulders, gripping them as
if to squeeze ball from socket. “I want you to listen,”
he said, and with a quick downthrust he buckled
Geoff’s legs and put his tailbone hard on the plastic
toilet seat. He bent down to Geoff’s face. “I want you
to know that if my daughter is once touched in any
way, if she is not treated as if your life depends on her
safety, then I won’t just sit you down on a toilet. I’ll
cram you inside one. And pull the chain.”

Geoff didn’t answer. Gun slapped the stall closed on
his way out.

Every chair was filled when Gun stepped back into
the meeting room. He stood against the rear wall, his flanneled arms crossed on his chest, The heavy noise
of social anecdoting and backslapping had quieted
now to a low wash of talk, jabbed by coughs and quiet
laughs. The Reverend Samuel Barr was at the podium.

“Good friends,” said Barr. “Good friends.” His
voice was low and powerful, traveling through the
room at an almost subsonic level. People heard him,
or sensed him, and ended conversations. “Good
friends,” Barr repeated, “I thank you all for coming
today. The kind members of the county board have
asked me to open this hearing, and I’d like to do so
with a word of prayer.” Barr bowed his head, display
ing a bald circle at the crest of his scalp. Shanks of
thick hair surrounded it in a gray halo. “Our Lord,”
he said, his voice humming like a bass guitar string,
“we thank you for the opportunity of coming together today, and for the opportunity to speak out freely in a
country made great by freedom.”

In front of Gun a man in a red shirt gave his
neighbor an elbow. “For the opportunity to drink top-grade scotch on a Monday noon,” he whispered.

Samuel Barr continued. Gun saw a look of pious
importance on the minister’s narrow features. “We
thank you also, Lord, for the chance to improve the lot
you’ve given us. It’s become easy for many of us who
live here in this beauteous land of lakes and pines”—
here Barr paused, as if thinking of specific names— “to forget that life is more than landscape. Life is the
chance to work and earn, to give our children bread,
to develop those resources we have at hand.”

The prayer rumbled forth unhindered. Slowly the minister raised his bowed head, lifting his eyelids as if
to spy on his somber audience. “We thank thee, Lord,
for providing us with a means to a better life, that we might serve you more completely,” he said.

Barr and
Gun stood at opposite ends of the room, heads up,
eyes wide, staring at each other over 150 sleepers. “We
thank thee for allowing us this chance to restore our
human dignity,” Barr prayed.

“Dear God,” Gun said quietly.

“And we ask that you would lead us now, help us to
do what is right,” Barr said. “Help us to help our
selves.”

The man in the red shirt gave a single bronchial
cough. Barr lowered his head and closed his eyes.
“This is our earnest prayer, oh Lord, Amen.”

“Amen,” said several voices at the front tables.

“And now,” said Barr, “I’d like to bring up Elder
Hedman. People have been saying Elder’s got a big
surprise to spring. That true, Elder?”

Hedman uncoiled himself from his chair and
moved jointlessly to the podium. Gun could see Geoff now, recovered from his rest-room trial, blushing near
the door.

“Pastor,” said Hedman, stooping as he reached the
podium, “you have the
holiest
voice I’ve ever heard.” A few people laughed. Gun rolled up slightly on his toes, leaning into the room toward Hedman. Geoff, to
Gun’s left, had his hands rammed deep in his pants
pockets.

“It was a bigger surprise to me than it will be to
you,” said Hedman. “My boy Geoff ran out on me
over the weekend and came back with a ring on his
finger.” Hedman unstooped his shoulders and
stretched his thin lips in a grin. “The kid went out and
eloped, and him a staid thirty years old.” He shook his
head as if in fond exasperation. “And the best part of
it is, he went and found a woman you’ll all agree
comes from good, strong stock: Mazy Pedersen.”

A hundred fifty faces turned to the back of the
room. Hedman ran a slick tongue over his parted lips.
Gun’s eyes stayed on him. Hedman squinted and

smiled narrowly, like a man spotting a bagful of
money across a crowded hall. “Gun!” he said. “Gun Pedersen.
Damn!
Who’d ever thought we’d be rela
tives by marriage. Guess we never knew how bad our
kids had it for each other.”

“Guess not,” Gun answered.

“Damn right!” Hedman said, celebratory. “And Gun, my friend, since our kids have gone and made
everything a lot easier, maybe you’d like to announce
the second part of the surprise.”

“Floor’s all yours,” said Gun.

“Pleasure,” said Hedman. “Ladies and gentlemen,
I’m happy to tell you the way has been cleared to build
Loon Country Attractions on a suitable site—not that
eastside swamp. Provided the referendum goes
through, and with the gracious permission of Geoff and Mazy Hedman, the biggest development in the
northern half of the state will go up on the old
Pedersen property west of town. Four hundred acres
of prime lakefront. Room for the mall, room for hotel
accommodations. Time-share condos. Theaters. Res
taurants. Jobs. Loon Country Attractions will attract
millions of customers a year.” Hedman stopped. He
ran his long fingers through his limp silver hair. He smiled with his upper teeth at Gun. “Mr. Pedersen,”
he said. “Why don’t you come up and bless the
marriage of our children.”

Gun said nothing. He turned his head and caught
Geoff looking at him. Geoff was immediately snagged
with a fit of coughs.

“Later, then,” said Hedman. “We’ll have a private
toast. In the meantime, this is a
public
hearing—a
piece of democracy. Does anyone have something to
say? Floor’s open.” Hedman stretched his long arms
into a plea for someone else to talk. No one did, and
he seemed about to give up and start another speech
when Carol Long spoke.

“What about Larson? Let’s hear what Larson
thinks.” Several voices affirmed the idea, and
Hedman smiled at them.

“Of course,” he said, and signaled Tig Larson to the podium. Larson was slow getting up and squeezed
between the rows like a baby whale in a tight channel.
He seemed to be breathing hard. “In the past, of
course,” Hedman said, “I’ve known Tig as an elo
quent and worthy adversary. You all know his record
as a conservationist. But now, fortunately for Stony, he’s recognized that not all progress leads to Hell.
Commissioner?”

Larson, large and moist in a light summer suit, gained the podium and rested there on his arms.
Hedman stepped back and waited for him to speak.
Gun saw Carol, sitting at a table on the room’s left
edge, printing precisely with a pen. Larson blew out
his cheeks.

“I think there has to be a time when you look at certain realities,” he said. “And I think this is such a
time. I know it’s important to keep our land and
waters healthy. I know our lakes are under strain from
farmland drainage and acid rain
...”
Gun tried to
pin down Larson’s eyes with his own, but Larson was watching his hands. “Still, we need the jobs. We need
the tourism dollars. Mr. Hedman has promised me
he’ll guard against the destruction of the existing lakefront,” Larson said. Hedman clasped his hands behind his back, nodding his acknowledgment. “I
believe him,” Larson said. “I’m asking you to vote yes
on the Loon Country referendum.”