“Fine.” Tye scraped wedges of orange and lime into their condiment
dishes, then plucked a lemon from the mysterious garden under the bar. “Fine,
then. We’ll see what we can do for you.”
The front door opened, banged shut. The wolf man beside Pierce breathed a
sudden exclamation into his glass, then huddled around it, head bowed,
shoulders hunched. Brisk footsteps across the floorboards came to an abrupt
halt.
“Hi, Dad.”
“Amazing,” the man murmured, “how much weight those two innocent words can
carry.”
There was a swift, indrawn breath, held for a moment in which nobody, not even
the placid bartender, moved. Then came a gusty, exasperated sigh, and the
footsteps marched on, to Pierce’s ears sharp with pointed recrimination. He
risked a glance, saw a slight, straight-backed young woman, her dark hair in
an impeccable French braid, disappear through the swinging doors between
rooms.
The bartender cocked his glasses at the wolf man, who said glumly, “I was
supposed to take her mother to lunch. She was in town visiting friends. It was
all too much for me. Name’s Teague, by the way,” he added to Pierce. “Merle
Teague. That dark wind that just blew through is my beloved offspring Carrie.
”
Pierce frowned. “I know your name. I don’t know why.”
“Do I owe you money?”
Pierce shook his head puzzledly. The front door rattled and smacked open, in
the same moment that the double doors flew open, and Carrie Teague reappeared,
under Pierce’s fascinated gaze, a bit like a bird popping out of a cuckoo
clock.
“Ella says Hal’s at the dock,” she announced tersely, and waited in
strained, forbearing abeyance, for a response.
The two men who had just entered nodded to Tye and tacked away from the bar.
One was young, the other not so, both comely, with gold beards and hair neatly
trimmed, lean, lanky bodies that wore their jeans and work shirts with casual
elegance. Father and son, Pierce guessed, and felt a sharp, unexpected pang of
envy.
“We’ll help him,” the older said, and they followed Carrie back through the
swinging doors. Pierce found himself watching their empty flapping, waiting
for what would happen next. He turned quickly, picked up his glass again.
“Shouldn’t be long now,” Tye told him, whittling thin curls of lemon peel
off the pith. “Ella and Carrie will have those crabs boiled up in no time.
Ella makes the sweetest crab cakes you ever ate, and Carrie does a mixed
pepper aioli that’s just this side of heaven and that side of everlasting
fire.”
Pierce felt his stomach roil again and whine. “Can’t wait,” he breathed,
and Tye grinned. He put his knife down, made a few indiscernible passes under
the bar, and came up with a bowl of hot, salted popcorn.
More people came in while Pierce ate it. Some disappeared into the restaurant;
others lingered at the bar or carried their drinks to the couches and chairs.
Tye poured another beer for Pierce without asking; Pierce drank it without
caring. The road was untwisting behind him, the gray sky becoming less
desolate. Some kind of young minister or priest with a backward collar came
in; he and Merle started an amiable argument about what sounded like
cannibalism. Smells melted between the swinging doors, floated through the
room, disrupting conversations, making people forget what they were saying to
stare mutely, expectantly at the doors.
They opened finally. Pierce, hoping for supper at last, turned eagerly. It was
Carrie again, dodging swiftly through the crowd toward the bar.
Merle seemed to sense her; this time he looked toward her, waiting. The priest
watched silently as well. She said nothing to Merle, just handed him an old-
fashioned brass key that looked big enough to open a cemetery gate. Perhaps
feeling Pierce’s curious gaze on her, she gave him a brief, wide-eyed stare
back, revealing pale eyes like her father’s. A fairy tale impression of her
stern, graceful face—skin as white, lips as red as—clung to memory as she
whisked herself away.
Merle rose, too, nodding to Pierce. “Just another minute or two. You’re that
close.”
He followed his daughter; the man with the backward collar followed him.
Pierce turned to try for Tye’s beleaguered attention and found the cold,
foaming beer already in front of him.
After what seemed the slow march of time toward forever, both swinging doors
opened wide and stayed open, held by the gold-haired father and son, standing
like sentinels flanking the man who entered.