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

bright and clear for fishing until late in the afternoon. Meanwhile he’d spend his time getting the cabin in shape and heat up the pasty he had bought when leaving Marquette early that morning amid disturbing religious thoughts. Marion had been talking about the evolutionary nature of religion according to a social scientist that such items as the Ten Commandments and Seven Deadly Sins in the Judeo-Christian tradition had evolved to keep the human race in check, to ensure good behavior and prevent self-destruction. The Muslims had proscribed alcohol and pork which historically were a notorious cause of disease in hot climates. Politicians even learned from religions. For instance the Gin Tax in England was necessary because gin was too cheap and people were drinking too much to go to work. Raise the price and people drank less. Adultery is generally destructive in a society so forbid it. Anyone with a dull eye for the financial markets could see the horror of greed. Sunderson in a somewhat Marxian drift took the thinking into the economic arena: people must be good boys and girls for economic balance.
    The three Ames places were virtual triplets about a mile from one another: two-story fair-sized farmhouses the color of weathered wood from lack of paint, ramshackle outbuildings and decrepit porches, the edges of the weedy yards covered with rusty farm machinery and autos. Country people keep old cars believing they’ll use them for spare parts though in fact that is a remote possibility. On the second of the three farms the main beam of the barn had collapsed sinking the roof. It wouldn’t last long. He understood that five brothers inhabited the three houses along with their families. The youngest brother was childless, but the other four had something like nine kids, some of whom had kids of their own.
    The village wasn’t much: a small grocery that doubled as a post office, a rickety house, a couple of occupied trailers, a small closed elementary school. The tavern was a big well-built cement block building with burned timbers in the vacant lot from which Sunderson deduced that the previous tavern had burned. Such taverns are the social center of small communities with kids playing in the corner and told not to bother anyone, a small pool table, several pinball machines, and a jukebox. There were three pickups parked in front for those who needed a noon beer or two. Sunderson’s first irritating thought was he would have to ship food from home. As a detective he had been in dozens of such bars throughout the U.P. The info about the families came from a newspaper article he recalled that talked in terms of Hatfields and McCoys, though in this case it was Ames and Ames and a long history of mayhem over the years.
    In the tavern half the stools at the bar were taken. Sunderson sat down nearest the door, a reasonable precaution if the cabin’s previous owner wasn’t exaggerating. The floor was filthy and there was a heavy fetor of sweat and manure. In short, a farmer bar. A young man a few seats down stared at him. “You buy the Sims place?” The young man turned out to be a girl in Carhartt farm clothing.
    Sunderson merely nodded yes not wanting to start a conversation.
    “You going to keep it posted?” she persisted.
    “Haven’t made up my mind. I don’t like the signs.”
    All of the men nodded in agreement. He guessed they were Ameses.
    “A lot of deer on your south end,” she said.
    “I hunt over east near Michagamee,” he said, not wanting them to picture him as a competitor.
    “You can fish our water if we can hunt your land,” she said.
    “I’ll think that over,” Sunderson hastily finished his shot and beer and left with a nod.
    When he reached his car he felt he had done okay. Keep noncommittal he reminded himself. He had sensed a general hostility. If he had been in Alabama he would have run for it before getting shot, or so went the superstitions of those in the North about the Deep South. He