Off Season (10 page)

Nash needed to be told that if he kept making enemies the way he seemed intent on doing, somebody might really get hurt. The next time Joey might use a lead pipe or a knife, or Mimi might use a real gun, or maybe somebody would get so mad that they'd beat or murder an innocent third party—a lover or spouse or friend or child. Anger is often misdirected.

As things turned out, nobody got killed until just before Christmas.

The hurricane went out to sea after brushing Bermuda. Nash Cortez, his prediction of a big blow on the Vineyard having been absolutely wrong, crawled out of his hospital bed before I had a chance to talk to him, and went bow and arrow hunting with considerable fanfare, making sure that everyone, especially Mimi Bettencourt and her crew, knew all about his plans. This may have been a mistake, because Mimi's gang arrived on the hunting grounds just before dawn on the first day of the season, as I was driving past on my way to West Tisbury to see if I could talk Zee into having a coffee and doughnut breakfast with me at Alley's store.

Nash and his fellow bow and arrow hunters, no doubt dressed in camouflage, as such hunters are inclined to be, were already in the woods as I was driving by Carl Norton's fifty acres. Nash's pickup and a couple of other trucks were parked off the pavement, and Mimi and her animal rights followers were parking their cars right beside the trucks. Hers was a motley crew of women, children and men dressed in bright colors and wearing intent looks. I saw Heather Manwaring, but I didn't see her mother. I wasn't surprised, since Phyllis Manwaring wasn't the type to go wading through the woods before dawn. Her heart and pocketbook might be all with the animal rights people, but she was a bit too proper for such stuff as this.

I pulled over and stopped to watch the action.

Mimi's people unloaded their weapons: old pots and pans, tin whistles, one battered trumpet and a variety of other noisemakers. Mimi saw me and waved. “Come on, J.W.! Join the party!”

I got out and walked over. “Mimi, did you bring your gang here just because you know Nash Cortez is in these woods? There are a lot of other places where people are hunting, you know.”

She lifted her chin, and colored slightly. “We have other people in other places doing this same thing. There aren't enough of us to be everywhere, but we're trying to hit the most popular spots. Here, join in.” She thrust two old frying pans toward me.

“No thanks. You're going to make some people pretty mad, Mimi. And some of them have got bows and arrows.”

“Phah! A pox on their bows and arrows! Here. Take these pans.”

“No thanks. If I was out there trying to get my deer, I wouldn't be very happy if somebody like you came by and scared all the game away.”

“But you're not out there. You're here with the good guys.”

“Those hunters probably think that they're the good guys.”

“Ha! Well, if you don't want to whack pans together, come along with us anyway. Do you good to watch us save some poor animals from all those brave men hiding in the bushes. Might make a better man out of you.”

I had on my red down vest and my red baseball cap with the little helicopter on the front of it, so I figured I wouldn't be mistaken for a deer, but on the other hand, Zee would just about be waking up now, and the prospect of seeing her was a lot more appealing than walking with a bunch of pot bangers into a wood full of furious hunters.

“You'd better get started,” I said, nodding to the east. “The sun's almost up and it won't be long until
it's light enough for good shooting. Nash Cortez may get his deer before you bang a single pot. You wouldn't want that to happen.”

“That's for damn sure!” She raised her voice. “All right, everybody, you know what to do. Make a line. Stay in sight of the people on either side of you, and we'll walk through the woods making as much noise as we can. When we get to the far side, we'll meet in the field back there and turn west. Now, remember: don't be frightened if any hunter says anything or threatens you. You've got as much right in these woods as he does! Let's go!”

Pans banging, trumpet tooting, whistles cutting the cool morning air, her company started into the woods. They were soon out of sight, but the cacophony could still be heard when I finally pulled away, shaking my head.

Zee, sleepy-eyed and clutching her woolen robe together with one hand as she answered my knock, pointed out that Alley's wouldn't even be open for an hour, so I had best come in. Just what I had hoped she'd say. I placed a leer on my face, licked my lips and reached for her.

Later, at Alley's, as we ate breakfast and shared the
Globe,
she agreed that the Celtics needed some new legs and a stronger bench if they were to make it far in the play-offs next spring. In New England, nobody ever doubts that the Celtics will make the play-offs; the only question is whether they'll win the championship. Zee also agreed that Nash Cortez was going to be furious with Mimi Bettencourt.

“No more than she's mad at him,” I said.

“I'm afraid that somebody's going to get hurt. There are probably a lot of angry people out there. On both sides of the issue.”

“Most of it is just talk.”

“It only takes one person who isn't just talking.”

True.

The next day the Dock Street Coffee Shop was abuzz with gossip about the pot bangers.

“I guess that old Nash just about had a heart attack when those do-gooders came crashing and banging through the woods. Claims he had a two-point buck lined up at thirty feet when everything went to hell. Buck ran and Nash never even got a shot.”

“You know Nash. He can tell a tale. Does he even know how to shoot a bow?”

“Doesn't make any difference. I hear that Mimi Bettencourt has lined up a bunch of her people just to stay with him for the rest of the bow and arrow season. If he goes into the woods, one of them will be right with him banging pans.”

“Ain't that illegal?”

“Nash says so. Says he's gonna sue.”

“Damned lawyers'll have everybody's money before this is over.”

“Just hope nobody loses his head and does something that can't be fixed.”

There were general murmurs of assent to this bit of wisdom. But I sensed a secret hope that things would not quiet down too quickly. Winter is a slow time on the Vineyard, and scandal is always a popular entertainment.

After he failed to get his deer with his bow and arrow in November, Nash Cortez reportedly consulted his lawyer. When asked about those consultations, he would raise an eyebrow, give a slow wink and, with an enigmatic smile, would say, “No comment.”

Mimi Bettencourt consulted in turn with Heather Manwaring, who turned out to be the animal rights group's lawyer, just in case Nash really had some plan. But Mimi was of the opinion that Nash's eyebrow,
wink and smile were pure theater. “That's what he does every time anybody asks him what he's got up his sleeve. That eyebrow, that wink, that sneaky smile and that ‘No comment.' it's just an act, part of a script he probably wrote himself. Damned fool!”

“Now, Mimi,” I said, “calm down.”

“I'll calm down when I'm good and ready, J. W. Jackson! More tea?”

I pushed my cup forward.

Nash went hunting with his shotgun in early December, but had no better luck getting his deer, even though he had figured out a way to escape the watchdogs Mimi had set upon him. On hunting days he no longer drove his own pickup, but simply walked through his own woods to one of several neighboring driveways, and caught rides with sympathetic fellow hunters. Mimi's hounds were too few to cover every escape route, and so Nash was free to hunt.

In vain.

Mimi was sardonic. “Why don't you try a cannon or an atom bomb next time?” she asked Nash when they happened to bump into each other at the A & P.

“it's not the getting that's important,” yelled Nash. “it's the principle of the thing! Can't you get that through your head?”

“You should get yourself a bowl of goldfish and shoot at them,” snapped Mimi. “You might be able to hit one of them, and even if you didn't you'd break the glass and the fish would die, and you could call in your gun-happy buddies and take pictures of your kill!”

“People have been hunting since the beginning of time, goddamn it! You and your milksop crowd are fighting nature itself! That gang of yours should just pack up and go to Boston or some place and leave us normal humans alone!”

“That'll be the day, you bloodthirsty bird shooter! I'd never leave you alone in the woods. You'd kill everything you saw!” Then she hooted, “If you could shoot straight, that is! I hear you buy your deer and geese and ducks off island and tie them to trees so you'll be sure to hit them! Sounds just like something you'd do, you big-mouthed buffoon!”

He turned red and stuck his face down into hers. “Why, you little twerp, someday some normal-sized person is going to step on you by mistake and when it happens the last thing you'll hear is me laughing! Har! Har!”

“I'll outlive you, you . . .!”

Then suddenly Vincent Manwaring was there. Large, florid, cold-eyed, he glared at Nash. “Cortez. I know you and your bullying ways. I'll not have you harassing my wife and her friends. You shut your mouth, sir!”

Nash's eyes flared. “Or what? You'll shut it for me? Try it, you overstuffed city slicker!”

“Please, folks,” said the manager, taking a chance by stepping between them. “You're disturbing my customers. Quiet down, please!”

“I'll quiet down when I feel like it!” bellowed Nash.

Mimi, on the other hand, nodded primly to the manager, shut her mouth into a firm line, put her chin in the air and pushed her carriage off down the aisle.

With her gone, Nash glowered at the manager, then at Manwaring, then snorted and pushed his carriage off in the opposite direction. Manwaring glared after him, and the crisis was past.

This scene was related to me by the chief of police as we stood, collars turned up against a cold south wind, outside of the bank at the four corners, where Main and Water streets cross. I had caught him
coming out of the bank as I was going in, and since he wanted a pipe more than warmth, and the town had recently decided to ban smoking in most buildings with public access, we were outside instead of inside.

Now he was stoked up and enjoying the homey comfort that only an old familiar pipe can give you. There is almost nothing more alluring than the smell of pipe smoke. I inhaled the fumes.

“Nash is stepping on a lot of toes,” I said, when the chief had finished his tale.

“That Joseph Percell fella is a case in point,” nodded the chief. “We don't get mafiosi strong arms down here very often, unless they're just riding along with their bosses on holiday. If Nash has got Providence up in arms, he really must be hurting somebody. Damned if I know who, though. Wish I did.”

“Well, he must have told you something.”

“Not much. Percell shows up, tells Nash to stop hassling the animal people or else, then flattens him. Just to show he means business, I'd guess. I imagine Nash might have gotten worked over some more if you hadn't been there.” He squinted at me. “This Percell used to be a cop, I hear. Boston P.D. You knew him?”

“Not really. He was kicked off the force about the time I was joining it. Too handy with those gloves. Too many complaints. The kind of cop that gives cops a bad name. Went to work in Providence. Muscle.”

“Got a good lawyer. The best that money can buy.”

“A lot of good lawyers work in Providence. What did Nash know about Percell?”

“Said he'd never seen him before and didn't know anybody in Providence. Said next time he sees Percell, he's gonna talk to him with a shotgun.”

“You've known Nash longer than I have. Has he always been like this? Big talk, and all?”

“No. Only since his wife died. Oh, he always liked a joke and a tall tale, but when Joan died it did something to him. Seemed like nothing meant anything to him anymore. He began to talk in these wild ways. He never actually does anything too crazy, but he says things as if he wants you to think he just might do something as wacky as his talk.” The chief blew a smoke ring. “Ten-cent psychology. You get it for nothing. A bargain.”

“So you don't think he'd actually take a shotgun to Joey Percell?”

“I wouldn't be surprised if somebody shoots Percell someday, but I don't know if it'll be Nash Cortez who does it. I've been in this business long enough to keep my mouth shut about who'll do what to who. You never know.”

“You never know, eh? Gosh, that's pretty smart. Can I quote you on that?”

“Absolutely not. I'm saving that for my memoirs.”

“The long-awaited
Wit and Wisdom of a Small-Town Police Chief?”

“That's the one. Then I'll be able to quit working and loaf like you do. Speaking of which, while you hold up this wall I must go forth to protect and serve.”

“What with the shootists and the animal rights people at each other's throats, you shouldn't be bored,” I said.

“Tell me about it. It's getting so wintertime on this island is almost as bad as summertime. Well, only black powder season left. If we can get through that, maybe we'll all last until spring.” He knocked out his pipe on the curb and walked up Main Street.

The primitive firearms deer season allows black
powder hunters to ply their craft for a couple of days in mid-December. Nash Cortez, I recalled, had looked over Manny Fonseca's Hawken rifle, so I imagined that he would be in the woods once more, just to make the animal righters mad, if for no other reason. What a guy.

On the second day of the black powder season I was in the shed behind my house ignoring both the hunters and the pot bangers who were contesting for supremacy in the woods. I was opening scallops and listening to my tape of Beverly Sills singing arias from
La Traviata.
Beverly was retired now, but her recorded voice could still make you weep for joy. It gave me pleasure to know that Beverly also lived on the Vineyard. Now, if I could get Pavarotti, Willie Nelson and Emmy Lou Harris to retire here, too, maybe we could all get together and have a band.