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Maro:
No. No crime. The Bend is usually very quiet.
Sordello:
Before you go on, there’s one other thing. After the birds, you mentioned the tourists were gone. You only saw locals. Where do you think they all went?
Maro:
Home, I guess? I’m not sure what you mean.
Sordello:
Did you see them leave?
Maro:
I wasn’t really watching, but that’s what typically happens on Sundays. All the weekenders head home. We’re a tourist town.
[Silence]
17
Norman Heaton
THE SECOND WEEK OFevery November, Norman Heaton loaded up his pickup with supplies, and he and Henry Wilburt would four-wheel up to their blind on the far side of Mount Washington. They’d stay up there at least a week or so, until they both bagged at least one buck worth bragging about, then they’d bring them over to North Hollow Meat & Pork to have them butchered. Norman would stomach venison, but he never found it to be a substitute for a good ol’ porterhouse. He didn’t hunt for the meat; he hunted for the chase. He rarely shot a buck from the blind. Instead, he’d climb down and get up close—sometimes moving so slow it would take him an hour to move fifty feet—close enough to throw his knife and go for the neck or belly, then follow as the animal stumbled around in the woods and eventually slowed, and he’d finish it off. He’d often lose them in the brush and have to rely on his tracking skills to pick up the trail again—drop of blood here, snapped twig there, rustle of leaves. That was real hunting. A good buck could hide in plain sight if it had to, go so still and quiet you could be ten feet away and notknow it was there. Eisa would have done well to ask a buck for a few pointers before running out of that kitchen, because she wasn’t very good at hiding her tracks.
Norman stood in the archway between the kitchen and living room and watched her fall, twice, trying to cross the space. First she tripped on the corner of the hideous burgundy area rug he’d wanted to toss out way back when the first Bush was in the White House, then she caught the coffee table with her toe. That one sent her face-first into the hardwood, and when she managed to get back up on those peg legs of hers, something had opened up in her nose and blood was coming out like a tap. He stopped whistling long enough to point at his own nose and say, “You got a little something …”
At the sound of his voice, she swiveled her head back in his direction with enough force to send a trail of blood across the room. It slapped against the wall and the brick of the fireplace, leaving a thin line like the start of Pollock painting.
“Norman … why are you—”
