“Happened? I drank too much scotch and ingested too many sleeping pills. An accident, I swear.”
“I don’t believe that. Nobody believes that, Emil.”
“What you or anybody else believes, Nathan, troubles me very little.”
“We’re people who care about you.”
“If that’s true then you’ll let the issue drop.”
“And if you accidentally ingest too many sleeping pills again?”
Brandt was silent for a long time and all I could hear was the sound of Jake laughing in the kitchen and Ariel’s fingers on the typewriter keys and in the distance the deep rising rumble of a train approaching on the tracks along the river. The train came and the house shook just a little with its passing and when it was gone Emil Brandt said, “I don’t have the courage to try again, Nathan.”
“But why, Emil? Why try at all?”
Brandt laughed bitterly. “You have such a rich life. How can you possibly understand?”
“You have your own riches, Emil. Your music for example. Isn’t that a great blessing?”
“In the balance it has come to have little weight.”
“And what is it that weighs so heavily on the other side of the scales?”
Brandt didn’t reply. Instead he said, “I’ve had enough chess for today. I want to rest now.”
“Emil, talk to me.”
“I said I’ve had enough.”
I heard Brandt rise and move toward the door.
Quickly I went to the kitchen and found Jake covered in flour and Lise rolling out dough on a large breadboard. From the living room came my father’s voice calling to us, “Boys, it’s time to go home.”
Jake gestured to Lise and she looked disappointed but she nodded that she understood and accepted. He brushed the flour from his clothing and joined me at the kitchen door.
Emil Brandt stood in the living room with his arms crossed over his chest, looking eager to be free from us all. Jake and I bid him good-bye and in return he offered only a terse nod. We walked to my father who stood holding the screen door open.
“I’ll pray for you, Emil,” he said.
“About as useful as throwing a penny down a wishing well, Nathan.”
We all trudged to the Packard where I said, “Dad, is it okay if Jake and I walk home?”
Jake shot me a questioning look but kept quiet.
“All right,” my father said in a distracted way. He was gazing back at the Brandt house and I’m sure he was thinking hard about the disturbing conversation he’d just had with his good friend. “Don’t dawdle,” he said and got into the car and drove away.
“Why are we walking?” Jake complained.
“Something on the river I’ve been wanting to look at. Come on.”
The day was hot already and humid and as we kicked through the weeds on our way down the slope toward the railroad tracks the grasshoppers flew up before us in a buzz of complaint. Jake complained too. “Where are we going, Frank?”
“You’ll see in a minute.”
“This better be good.”
We crossed the tracks and slipped through the cottonwoods and hit the river and started toward the Flats. When we came in sight of the stretch of sand covered with bulrushes Jake began to angle toward the riverbank. I kept walking straight ahead.
Jake said, “Where are you going?”
“I told you, you’ll see.”
Jake suddenly understood my destination and he shook his head feverishly. “Frank, we shouldn’t go there.”
I put my finger to my lips to signal silence and began as quietly as possible to thread my way through the bulrushes. Jake hesitated and started for the riverbank, paused again, and finally followed me. Near the clearing I went down on all fours and approached in the creep of an animal stalking and Jake did the same. The clearing was empty and the lean-to deserted. For a full minute I watched and waited while dragonflies shot through the heavy morning air around us. At last I stood.
Jake said, “We shouldn’t be doing this.”
“Quiet,” I said.
At the lean-to I knelt and crawled into the shade inside. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for and at first there seemed to be nothing to see. Then I spotted a slight mounding of the sand in one corner and began to dig and quickly uncovered a large tin can that stood a foot high and was maybe eight inches in diameter. It was covered with a white rag that was secured with a rubber band. I pulled the can from the sand and brought it into the sunlight where Jake stood looking on unhappily. I popped the rubber band free and drew off the rag and peered inside. In the can were many items. The first thing I pulled out was a rolled-up magazine. Playboy. I knew about this publication but I’d never seen a real issue. I spent a few minutes going through it with my mouth wide open and Jake leaning over my shoulder so he could see too. Finally I laid it aside and dug in the can again. There was a Mickey Mouse wristwatch with one of Mickey’s hands missing. There was a ceramic frog no larger than my thumb. There was a little Indian doll dressed in buckskin and a comb that was carved from ivory and decorated with scrimshaw and a military medal, a Purple Heart. Among these and the many other small items were the glasses that had once been Bobby Cole’s and the photograph that had belonged to the dead man. I didn’t understand the importance of most of these things but to Danny’s uncle they clearly held value. I wondered what interest Doyle had in the contents of the can.
“What is all that stuff?” Jake asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did he find those things, you think?”
“Or stole them, maybe. Get me some of those reeds,” I said nodding toward the bulrushes.
“What for?”
“Just get them.”
While Jake did as I’d asked I put everything back in the can, returning the Playboy with great reluctance, and lidded the tin with the rag and slipped the rubber band into place and set it all back in the hole in the corner of the lean-to and covered it with sand just as I’d found it. Jake brought me half a dozen reeds which I clumped together so their bushy ends formed the kind of broom I’d seen Doyle create many days earlier.
I said to Jake, “Follow our tracks back the way we came.”
He went and I went after him, trying to sweep from the sand any sign that we’d ever been there.
13
Jake and I did our Saturday yard work at my grandfather’s house and when we got home Danny O’Keefe called and asked if we wanted to come over to his house to play Risk. Danny was there and another kid named Lee Kelly who was okay but never brushed his teeth so his breath always smelled like sour cabbage. We played at the dining room table which was unusual. Usually we played in the basement. In Risk, Jake always conducted himself with conservative fervor, holing up in Australia and stacking an Everest of armies on Indonesia so that only the very foolish would attempt to take his continent. That would be me. I spread myself over Asia and then viciously tried to breach Jake’s stronghold. I didn’t succeed and the next turn he decimated me before retiring to his little Australian sanctuary. After that Danny and Lee attacked me from America and Africa and less than half an hour later I was out of the game and Jake got all my cards. I generally played a little fast and loose with my resources but I figured hell, a man’s reach should exceed his grasp, especially in a stupid board game.