The Big Seven by Jim Harrison Read Free Book Online Page A

years with the state police he had always been known as a peacemaker. The significant thing to Sunderson was that the bullets always missed because prison was dreaded, the loss of freedom the most fearsome thing in life.
    Sunderson had decided to look for a cabin after a week when he had visited Mona in the hospital twice at her request, before she moved to drug rehab. This was nerve-racking to him but seemed not to bother her at all. She was looking much healthier than in France in her little white hospital nightie. She got out of bed for the toilet and purposely gave him a little flash of her bare ass which made him almost nauseous with desire. Diane remarked at a restaurant dinner that Mona would always use her sex as a weapon. Sunderson choked on his food and Diane laughed bitterly. It was time to get out of town.
    So Sunderson bought the cabin and felt strong and independent. On his second day there when it was finally warm enough to go he was cleaning up, taking down some stupid beer company decals and joke posters of immense fish, when he noticed a pickup at the end of his drive and a tall man in his thirties standing beside it. There was a rifle in the back window gun rack, technically illegal in Michigan but not much enforced.
    Sunderson walked out to greet the man, who was sullen and withdrawn, finally saying, “Wood, two cords, thirty bucks.” Sunderson asked him to unload the pickup near the front door but the man started to pitch the wood right where he was parked. Sunderson said nothing figuring the man might be deaf or retarded. Besides he was getting flabby after his injury and hauling the wood shouldn’t hurt his back. On the way back to the house he stopped when he thought he saw movement to the west of the far corner of the property. A hunter’s penchant is to look long. A deer or a human? He felt a shiver when he thought of the local tendency to shoot. Had he made another sloppy decision? He dropped the thought when he stared at the beauty of the cabin. He would play his cards close to the chest and mind his own business. He was here to fish and relax.
    Inside he called the previous owner for the lowdown. The man was voluble about fishing then cooled down a bit on the problematical neighbors. “I didn’t sell because they spooked me. My daughters are living in Montana. My wife wanted to move there to be close to the grandchildren. My great-grandfather built the cabin in the 1890s. Later on members of the Ames family bought several miles of land between the cabin and the village. The family were distant relatives of the Ames who invented and manufactured the shovel in nearly every household. There were many problems including grazing their cows on State Forest land. They split the land into three sections with more than six hundred acres per family. The families never stopped quarreling and their behavior became more cantankerous. There was an early unexplained death, a dog was shot for tailing cows, tearing the tail off. They were all NRA marksmen and took to shooting at each other, not to kill but landing the bullets close, sort of a coup-counting shooting. Got you! Anyway you’re better off avoiding them totally, don’t even talk to them.” Sunderson mentioned the wood. “That’s Ike. He’s been brain damaged and was shell shocked in the Gulf, his legs severely burned. He’s a harmless sneak but he’s got good wood.” Sunderson agreed, relieved that he had made the call. “The main worry is that the families will get totally out of control. They’re near it. Avoid them.”
    Sunderson was appalled but pleased to have made the call. He intended to also check it out with several policemen he had known in the area years ago. He could check the names with his old secretary in Marquette. Meanwhile he decided to drive into the village for a drink at the tavern he had seen there. In a nod to sobriety he hadn’t brought any liquor with him but now he felt his body needed a drink.
    The day was too