Raft of Stars Andrew Graff (free biff chip and kipper ebooks txt) 📖

Cal sat up on his haunches and turned toward the noise. “Well,” he said, “I don’t have to talk to you anymore, do I?” He paused for effect. “No, I do not. I got Jacks now, and Jacks ain’t rude.” Cal turned back to the fire, the lack of fire, and sighed. Cold tuna sounded brutally unsatisfying. It didn’t seem right, lying out under the stars with a dog and a horse, eating a cold can of tuna.

Cal heard the coyotes again. Jacks’ head perked up. The coyotes yipped and yipped, noisy as blackbirds, their yips breaking into howls and ending in prolonged silence. Cal had heard that when coyotes rally and howl and then go suddenly quiet, that’s when they begin to hunt. He pictured them now, out in the brush and the moonlight, their noses to the ground, rooting out mice and rabbits. Cal thought of the boys. He was glad they had the raft. They would be safe if they just stayed on the river.

The sight of the Breadwin boy firing that revolver played again in Cal’s mind—the ferocity in his eyes when he touched that thing off, the surprise when the recoil knocked him back. Cal knew the boy didn’t fire at him. It was a warning shot, plain and simple. And Cal took the warning. The boys were scared and running, and Cal wasn’t going to push that fear to a more dangerous level. He thought it best to back off, to regroup, to follow them from a distance until he knew what to do. In hindsight, Cal cursed himself for chasing them into the river like that. He should have stood onshore, reassured them, told them it was okay, told them he knew they were the good guys in all of this. Cal now questioned whether it was Teddy’s grandson who had shot Jack Breadwin after all, even if that was what the note said. The Breadwin boy looked bold enough, but Teddy’s grandson just looked scared. Cal stared right into that boy’s eyes. Poor kid. Cal wanted so badly to scoop those boys up and get them into the warm cab of a pickup, get a meal in their bellies, some burgers and fries and Cokes. It was wrong for boys to be out in the wild like this, running like criminals. In this case it was clear they were the victims. There was no doubt in his mind that Jack Breadwin, lying in a morgue somewhere, deserved exactly what he got. Cal remembered something his old police chief once said about men who hurt children, how it’d be better for them to have millstones hung around their necks and be cast into the sea. Well, Jack Breadwin would know, wouldn’t he. Poor Jack, too.

Cal couldn’t tell anymore who deserved what. Some people in town said Jack wasn’t always so much of a bastard. They said that before his wife died in a wreck, leaving him alone with a crying nine-month-old and a floundering business, that Jack may have been a screw-up but he wasn’t mean. They said he liked duck hunting in that boat of his, that he knew the river and marshes better than anybody. They said he was a fun sort of drunk, played a lot of softball. And then his wife died in the fall, and winter came, and Jack never really came out of it.

Cal looked at the pathetic, tangled pile of tinder. Cursed it. He should have gotten involved in that Breadwin kid’s life. He knew what Jack was like. But he couldn’t get involved. Cops respond to the calls. Fill out the papers. That’s how it worked.

Cal rebuilt the tinder pile as neatly as he could.

“Well,” he said to Jacks, “to hell with this job.”

He smiled to think of the Breadwin boy shooting that revolver into the air. He was proud of him in an odd sort of way. What a little man. He’ll really be something when he’s grown. Both those boys will, out here building rafts, fending off sheriffs. Damn. Cal was glad the boys had each other. It’s good to run in a pack. In Houston, Cal had a few guys in the department he could gripe to, drink beer with, but in the end they were all in it alone. They were too grown up, too busy. Every guy had his own shift, his own family, his own bills to pay. Boyhood was better. Cal remembered what it was like. Riding bikes. Building jumps. Playing outside until the dark came and the grass got cold.

“Worthless,” Cal said.

Jacks rested his chin on his paws. The dog had grown bored. The horse whinnied.

“I wasn’t talking to you, horse,” said Cal.

Cal assembled the tinder a final time. This was it. All or nothing. It was beans or tuna, but either way it was time for supper and sleep. His plan was to get after the boys in the morning. The woods were too thick to move through with any speed at nighttime. And he didn’t want to spook the boys into moving any faster than they already were. He knew where they were. They were on the river. And even if they started off onshore again, Cal would see their raft moored to the bank. It was only a matter of time. And this time he’d have a plan in place to bring them peacefully in. He’d just talk to them, tell them they were good, drop his badge in the water, tell them—and himself—he wasn’t sheriff anymore.

Cal positioned the rod, positioned the steel, and forcefully struck a spray of sparks that made Jacks lift his head from his paws. When the sparks died out, the tinder and tepee lay scattered on the ground. Cal dropped the rod and steel next to the pile. He thought about trying it one more time, but then again, he could do this all night, knocking over tinder piles.

He was about to stand up when a voice filled the