Hunter's Moon (37 page)

Over the years the event had developed a set of unofficial rules, one of which was that local farmers spent the few weeks leading up to it collecting the most ripe tomatoes, bringing them en masse for the kids to use as ammunition. From where he stood, CJ saw several bushels of tomatoes in a line across the road, with quite a few more in pickup trucks ready to replenish the young warriors.

“I can’t believe this still goes on,” CJ said to Dennis, who had just rejoined him.

“Last year a citizen c-committee tried to p-put a stop to it.”

“What happened?”

“Have you ever t-tried to remove tomato p-puree from a gas tank?”

It looked as if things were just about to start. CJ guessed there were two hundred kids, forming two opposing groups, each with at least two tomatoes in hand. When CJ looked past the kids, he saw another group of adults, and long lines of cars and trucks. What was interesting to see were the men and women from both towns who mingled near the invisible line that made up the Adelia border. CJ saw a handshake or two, heard easy conversation and laughter. As a kid, he hadn’t noticed any of that; he’d been too caught up in the prospect of produce warfare to entertain the thought that this was anything but serious business.

His father had encouraged that tunnel vision and always brought along a bushel of tomatoes perfect for the occasion. Glancing around the crowd, CJ didn’t see his father, or any other member of his family. He knew Graham’s kids were the right age, and since CJ’s past history precluded this event occurring without Baxter representation, he assumed he was simply missing them in the crowd.

“I gave it away,” Dennis said as he watched the preparations.

“What?” CJ asked.

“The m-money. I paid off my p-parents’ house, put some money into an account f-for their retirement, and g-gave the rest away.”

“You gave it away?”

Dennis nodded.

“All of it?”

Another nod.

“So who got it?”

“M-most of it went to p-people on the reservation who n-needed it. The orphanage g-got a lot.”

CJ chuckled and shook his head. “You big softie.” Then a thought struck him. “But how do you afford poker night?”

“I f-fix up houses with friends.”

That pulled a deeper laugh from CJ, and he might have said more had a squad car not appeared on the road past the Batesville crowd. As the car approached, the crowd parted to let it through. Blue lights flashing but without a siren, the county cop double-parked next to a farmer’s pickup. The deputy got out of the car. He took a moment to survey the scene, eyes scanning the kids who’d come to do battle, as well as the adults who’d come to cheer them on. Then he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out something that CJ couldn’t see clearly but that he recognized nonetheless. With no further preamble, the deputy put the whistle to his lips and blew a single, piercing tone into the night sky.

Before the sound had faded, the barrage began. The front lines of kids—who stood less than ten yards from their peers on the other side—took the brunt of the first volleys. CJ heard several strong shots right away. Juice-filled tomatoes exploding on impact, throwing their guts for several feet, splattering even the adults who’d chosen spots too close to the action. But that was part of the fun—all of the bystanders knowing that at least a few errant shots that landed amid the crowd were not misfires.

Kids scattered in all directions, throwing their missiles and then rushing back to the dwindling bushels to rearm. Most of the kids wore white, which was another tradition, and CJ already couldn’t see a clean one among them. Before it was all over, every inch of the ground would be covered with tomato goo, and for the next few days great flocks of birds would be seen converging on the scene, dodging cars to gorge.

Every year, there was a point in which the lines crossed, when the fight that had started with shots from afar turned into blurred lines and close-quarter action. It was the first time CJ got to observe that transition from the outside and he marveled at how organic the whole thing was, how the battle went from formations of disciplined soldiers to a full-scale melee within the span of a few seconds. CJ found himself laughing, enjoying the odd spectacle of townsfolk meeting in the dark so their children could attack each other with vegetables.

Then a tomato hit him in the chest.

CJ looked down at his shirt just in time to see the slick tomato carcass slide to the ground, and to register that some of it had gotten in his mouth.

“Hey,” he heard Dennis say, suggesting that he too had been a casualty.

When CJ looked up, he searched for his assailant, knowing the throw hadn’t come from the direction of the kids. He found his foe right away, mainly because she was looking straight at him—and laughing. Julie had another tomato in her hand, and standing next to her, Ben was also armed and ready for battle. Julie’s husband grinned at him. With a smile of his own, CJ bent and scooped up a tomato that had landed close by but that was still reasonably intact and he let it fly. Unfortunately the skills that had taken him to Vanderbilt were sufficiently rusty to send his throw wide left, where it struck an unsuspecting woman in the shoulder. Worse, it left him defenseless.

He locked eyes with Julie just before she pulled her arm back for a second throw, and the mischief in her expression made him laugh—until her second toss hit him in the teeth.

“He’s proven that he’s unpredictable,” Daniel said. “I mean, he stole your grandfather’s car.”

Graham leaned back in the leather chair Sal had occupied for so many years. “You don’t understand,” he said. “That car meant a lot to both CJ and Sal. It doesn’t surprise me that CJ had to take it out for a spin.”

“You call driving to Tennessee and beating on his wife’s door taking it out for a spin?” Daniel pressed.

The house was dark, except for the lights in the office. Graham sat behind the desk he’d claimed as his own, considering Daniel’s question. George sat in a straight-back chair near the door and he had yet to say a word.

“What are you trying to say, Daniel?” Graham asked. “So CJ can be a bit of a hothead. You might not have noticed, but that’s kind of a family trait.”

A hint of a smile touched George’s lips, but he stifled it with a draw from his cigar.

“Believe me, I’ve noticed,” Daniel said.

It was then that Graham noticed something about his college roommate and longtime friend: Daniel seemed older than he had when he’d first arrived in Adelia. True, the stress of a campaign could wear on even the best men, but Daniel had been his campaign manager for only a month.

“What I’m trying to say,” Daniel went on, “is that you’ve already suffered all the setbacks you’re allowed. Your brother’s viral warrant announcement, your sister’s arrest, your mom’s arrest—any one of those could have been catastrophic. But together . . .” He leaned back in his chair, weariness evident on his face. “Frankly I’m amazed the press hasn’t crucified you.”

“How are the polls?” Graham asked.

“Polls don’t mean anything,” Daniel said.

Graham had to admit that it pleased him to see Daniel out of sorts, because he couldn’t recall a single instance during their shared history in which he’d witnessed it. Daniel’s calm presence, even amid the most trying circumstances, had always made Graham envious.

“Maybe the fact that the press is still in my corner after these setbacks, as you call them, means that we’re finally pulling some of that Kennedy luck.” Graham said it as a joke but knew he’d erred when he saw his father’s face cloud.

“Don’t be stupid, boy,” George said. He shifted his weight, the chair creaking beneath him. “You have a smart advisor here and he’s done a fine job keeping you clear of all this mess. If he’s got something to say, I suggest you listen.”

Graham had every intention of listening to Daniel, yet it irritated him to have his father berate him into doing so. Nevertheless, he held his tongue and turned his attention to his campaign manager.

“Alright, Daniel. You have the floor.”

Rather than answer, Daniel opened his briefcase and withdrew a few pieces of paper, which he threw on Graham’s desk.

“What’s this?”

“Something your brother’s working on,” Daniel said. Then, before Graham could ask the obvious question, he said, “Never mind how I got it. Just look at it. I took the liberty of highlighting the good parts.”

With a frown Graham picked the papers off the desk and began to look through them, his eyes moving to the yellow lines on the pages. It took him a minute or so to understand what he was reading, but when the realization came he looked at Daniel.

“How did he find out about this?” The words came out almost as a croak.

“I have no idea,” Daniel said. “What I do know is that if this gets out, your campaign is dead.”

“What is it?” George asked.

When Graham turned to his father, who sat in the dim light near the door, he found that Daniel wasn’t the only one who looked old. At this moment, George looked a lot like Sal.

“CJ’s written an article about the prisons, Dad. He’s got it all here. He even mentions Weidman.”

George didn’t say anything, though it seemed to Graham as if his father sank into himself.

“You didn’t do anything when I told you he was poking around in the library,” Daniel said. “Are you going to let this go too and ruin any chance you have of winning that senate seat?”

“Or worse, wind up in jail,” George said.

Graham didn’t know what to say. This thing he’d started with such confidence had begun to spiral out of control. And what made it worse was that, before he started down this path, he knew the thing with Eddie was out there—this thing from his past that would haunt everything he did. He knew his brother was out there. He hadn’t any delusions that this was about anything but Eddie Montgomery. CJ was writing this article as a way of making him pay for the knowledge Graham had forced him to carry since childhood.

“You have to make a decision, boy,” George said, once Graham’s silence had stretched into minutes.

And when Graham heard this latest in a long series of admonitions from his father, something inside him snapped, made him stand up and fix the old man with an icy stare.

“If you ever call me ‘boy’ again, it’ll be the last time you do.” When his father didn’t answer, Graham turned to his college friend. “What do you suggest we do?”

“Since it’s my money, I should probably have a seat at the table.” The man who entered the room walked in as if he owned it, and none of the other three men assembled seemed inclined to argue the point.

“Hello, Jake,” the elder Baxter said as Weidman took off his cowboy hat and lowered himself into the only remaining chair.

“George,” he said.

The elder Baxter appraised the newcomer for a moment and then said, “You know about this?”

“I knew he was poking around,” Weidman said. “I didn’t know he’d gotten as far as he has until Daniel brought it to my attention.”

George chewed on that for a time, then gave a slow nod.

“This comes out, it’s not just a senate seat we lose. We’re talking serious jail time.”

“I’m well aware of that, George. Well aware.” Weidman didn’t say anything else. He leaned back in the seat, wearing a grim smile.

The four of them let the silence linger, each pondering the crisis they shared.

“You’ve been playing cards with him,” George commented.

“Indeed I have been,” Weidman said, looking down at his boots. “Good cardplayer too.” He chuckled to himself and then looked up, making sure he had George’s eye. “Your son’s a good man, George. A good man.”

George absorbed that, seemed to toss it around in his mind for a while before saying, “I don’t suppose that makes much difference.”

The silence that settled over the room was absolute save for the sound coming from the grandfather clock, the most tangible reminder of the now-deceased Sal Baxter, who seemed once again to be presiding over family affairs.

“He’s not blood,” George said quietly, as if to himself. Then he looked up and caught Graham’s eye. “Not really.”

Graham locked eyes with his father, and George held the stare, unflinching. Graham didn’t move, didn’t so much as blink. The four men sat in the silence for a long while, well after George’s cigar had gone out.

Chapter 30

Artie called it real hunting, and CJ guessed that was as good a name for it as any. The plan had them driving to Meachem Lake, in the Northwestern Lakes region of the Adirondacks, where they would ditch the truck and aim for Black Mountain, then turn south toward High Peaks. Somewhere along the way, Artie hoped to bag his first buck of the season. Artie called the trip a reward of sorts, although he’d been vague as to the nature of the accomplishment that warranted the celebration, to the point that CJ hadn’t yet figured out who was being rewarded: Artie or him.

His boss, though, had talked of nothing else since the idea came to him, and at some point during the planning CJ had started to suspect that Artie was looking at this trip as his last. There was no hiding the fact that the man’s knees had deteriorated, even over the last few weeks. Their last hunting trip—one a good deal milder than the one they were now undertaking—had required almost a full week’s recovery. Artie was planning this as his last hurrah, before the pain restricted him to fishing.