The Lighthouse Road(72)

Smith shrank into himself. "Sir, then what am I doing here?"



"That's more like it." Mayfair removed his glasses. "You're here to give an accounting of what happened up on the Burnt Wood last March. You're being charged with despoiling Thea Eide. You're being charged with animal endangerment. Do you catch my drift, Joshua Smith?"



Smith nodded solemnly.



"I'd like you to tell what happened on the night of March the first of this year."



Smith sat up in the chair. He stole another glance at Thea, who hadn't moved since he'd entered the room. She couldn't move. "I can't say I remember much of what happened the night of March the first," Smith said.



Though he'd not intended to sound contrary or at odds with Mayfair, he did. Mayfair seized on him. " Allow me to refresh your memory. You tried to feed one of the horses to the wolves, then you feasted yourself on this helpless young lady. Does that course of events sound familiar?"



Smith ran his hands through his hair. "Sir, there's some truth in that. Some truth, I admit. But that ain't the all of it."



A broad and sarcastic smile came to Mayfair's face. "By golly," he said, "he's a slow learner. Mister Smith, why don't you tell me the all of it, then? Enlighten us."



"May I have a cup of water?" Smith said. "I'm parched something fierce."



"For the love of Christ, get the mutton chop some water." Mayfair threw his hands up, shook his head. While the constable went for a glass of water, Mayfair packed his pipe and lit it. When the constable returned he set the water before Smith, who scooped it up almost as it was set down. He guzzled the water like there was a fire to put out.



The magistrate took a pull on his pipe and through the smoke he squinted and said, "All right now, Smith, let's have your side of the story."



Smith wiped his lips with his sleeve and pulled himself up in his chair. "Well," he began, picking grime from his fingernails, his eyes intent on the task, "you all were here last winter?" He looked up, from the judge's face to Grimm's to Selmer's. When he got to Thea he looked down, then quickly back to the magistrate. "You all felt that cold?"



Mayfair waited silently, still chewing on the pipe stem. The constable went for another glass of water. He returned and set it before Smith and said, " Drink that. If it don't loosen your lips, we'll presume what we've heard to be true. You can add another twenty years to the sentence you'll be getting in Duluth. You'll never see another day of freedom so long as you live."



Smith drank the water.



"Listen to the constable," Mayfair said. "And be aware, my patience is about gone."



"My brother and I, we bought this outfit selling watches and pocket knives to the lumberjacks. Had a little supply office in Duluth and two horses and two sleighs. He took the Wisconsin and Michigan camps, I took the Minnesota camps. Me and that old mare with the suspect hooves. A goddamn sleigh and a map and that winter enough to freeze a man's reason right out of his head." He paused, ventured a look in the judge's direction. "That's what I mean, you all felt that cold. Colder than this world was ever meant to be." Again he paused, as though the mere remembrance of those nights was enough to freeze him up.



Thea was not listening to Selmer translate Smith's testimony. She understood everything he said through her lessening fear. He was pathetic, and she had the strength of her child swimming in her womb to bolster her. She sat up straighter.



"It's a long way from one of those camps to the next," Smith continued. "A long ways and a lot of dark. I'm just a man from Duluth looking for the next logging camp. Selling watches to men who spend all their time chopping down trees." He shook his head. "You know how far it is from Duluth to Gunflint? You know how much wilderness is between here and there? It's a long way to go just you and a horse. Well, you and a horse and all the sounds in the woods. The shadows. Caribou jumping out of the trailside woods. Ravens everywhere you go, day and night. Enough snow to suffocate you. And the cold. Christ almighty." Again he paused. "Why do they need watches? They're crazy about watches. How about a change of drawers? How about new boots? Watches?"



Mayfair interrupted, "With all due respect to your travails, Mister Smith, what bearing does any of this have on your actions?"



"It has everything to do with it. Maybe you sit in your warm office, you light up your pipe without frostbitten hands, you loosen your shirt collar to cool off, maybe you do all that and you forget about what's there —" he pointed out the window, up the hill, at the trees and the wilderness they held—"and what it all means. What it means."