Chasing a Blond Moon(11)

She smiled. “Well, I don’t think Walter is looking to get the shit kicked out of him as a sign of affection, though with you men it’s often hard to tell,” she said.

“What’s that mean?”

“It means that men get bent out of shape over the oddest things.”

Service began to grind his teeth and stopped talking.

“What exactly does Betty want?” she asked after a suitable pause to let him calm down.

“She found an old guy last night. He’s more than a hundred miles from home.”

“So are we,” she said, grinning.

“It’s not a joke. He’s blind and got one leg. Everybody calls him Trapper Jet, but his name is Ollie Toogood. He was a pilot in Korea, shot down, a prisoner for two years. He came back to the U.P. after the VA cut him loose and he’s been here ever since. My old man used to take me to visit him. He makes his living off a small pension and trapping. Been up on Mitigwaki Creek since the late 1950s.”

“Violet?” Nantz asked.

“He feeds bears year-round and rumor is that he lets people come in and pop the bigger ones for a fee.”

“You’ve investigated?”

“It’s only rumor about the fee, but it’s a fact that he feeds bears. I’ve seen as many as a dozen around his shack at one time. I think every bear biologist in the state has been to see him at one time or another. Great chance to study the animals, and in the shape Jet’s in, it doesn’t hurt to have people out there from time to time. He’s never applied for a bear permit.”

“So we’re rushing to his rescue.”

“His and Betty’s. The two of them are likely to tangle before too long. If Blanck hadn’t been in such a yank to talk, we’d almost be there.”

“Relax. An extra hour won’t make a difference.”

“I know, but since Joe died last year, I’ve been feeling like there’s more I could have done to look after him.” Joe Flap was a longtime DNR pilot who had lost his FAA license but continued to fly. During his career he had been in so many accidents that his nickname was Pranger. Last fall his luck had run out and so had his gas, and he had died in a crash near Escanaba. Service had found him and called for help, but his old friend hadn’t made it. He had felt remorse ever since.

“We all die,” Nantz said. “You can’t save everybody, Grady.”

“I can try,” Service said.

“Not everybody wants to be saved.”

“Horseshit,” he said.

Nantz laughed. “Whenever you get into a discussion you don’t want to have, you always say ‘horseshit.’”

“Horseshit,” he repeated. She rubbed his arm, leaned over, and kissed him on the shoulder.

“When you get old and frail, I’ll save you,” she said.

“Horseshit,” he said.

“Really,” she said, “it only seems like there’s suddenly so many things to think about, but Jesus, Grady, you live in perpetual chaos. What’s different about this—that it’s not job-related? That you have a son to think about and now maybe you are thinking about this old guy, too?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, I guess that makes me part of the trinity of burden.”

“You’re not a burden.”

“No, but we have responsibility for each other, so that puts me over on that side of the scale.”

“Goddammit, don’t twist everything around,” he snapped.

“I don’t have to twist anything. I just let you spit them out and spin until they choke you.”

Another period of silence ensued.

“You want to save the old man,” she said, “and I wouldn’t want to interfere with noble ambitions.”

“Because they’re so rare?”

“I’ll take the fifth on that,” she said with a coquettish smile. “Seriously, what would he be doing so far north?”

He looked over at her. Even after their fourteen months together, he still found himself watching her. Her long neck had a bit of a curve, which she didn’t like, and her lips, according to her, were too thin. Sometimes she was merciless in self-appraisals, withholding credit where it was obviously due. Like her blue eyes that had a range of intensity equal to an industrial laser (too big, they bulge like a bug). She constantly fretted about her hair (too fine and did it seem to him that it might be thinning? It had happened to her mother), her legs (all thigh, calves too damned thin), her fingernails (why couldn’t she stop chewing them?), her feet (like a damn duck’s). The list was endless and he had learned to simply listen, understanding that she was venting feelings, not looking for his ham-handed attempts at making her feel better.