• Chapter 11 •

Any idea what it might be worth?” Pete asks.

“How do you put a price on something like that?” Mac says. He takes the stone duck back from Pete. “I’ve never seen anything like it. My father never found anything like it in the dirty thirties, when the land blew down to hardpan. He gathered up pails full of arrowheads, but nothing like this.”

“Put it on eBay,” Sid says. “Everything’s got a price. All it takes is to find a buyer.”

“I’m not selling anything,” Mac says. “But if I keep losing at pea pool, I might just as well put this table on eBay.”

For years, every Monday morning in Mac’s basement, they have played pea pool. When the pool hall closed, Mac bought one of the tables. It took four men to carry each slate to the truck, and they slid them down planks through Mac’s basement window. The rumpus room takes up most of the basement, and the pool table takes up most of the rumpus room. Since Peggy died, the room’s gone a bit stale…dank, like a hunter’s cabin up in the forest that’s been closed up all year but for a month in the fall. Mac’s trophy mule-deer rack is mounted up on the wall, and his arrowhead collection is displayed in picture frames. Should he get a special case made up for the duck? Before he does anything, he should let Darlene give the room a good housecleaning.

Not much has changed in their game of pea pool, except instead of nickels and dimes it’s a dollar a kill, a dollar from everybody for the eight ball and five dollars when you sink your own.

“I think Sid has the five pea,” Abner says.

“Hey?” Pete says, shifting his aim from the fourteen ball to the five.

“Play your own game, Abner. How would you know what pea I have?”

Pete shoots the five ball into the corner pocket, drawing his cue ball back for a clear shot at the eight.

“I’m dead,” Sid says. “And next time, Abner, keep your mouth shut.”

“Then keep your pea in your pocket instead of taking it out to look at every time it’s your shot.”

“Hey, Mac,” Pete says as he chalks his cue. “You weren’t by yourself when you found that duck, hey? What’s going on with you and her? Hey? Hey?”

“Hurry up and shoot,” Nick says.

“But maybe something else is going on. Her mother snooping around at the café the other day? Just what are they doing here? What are they looking for?”

“The old lady gave you the once-over a few times,” Nick says. “Maybe she wants your body.”

Pete aims at the side pocket. “Whack!” The eight ball drops. “That will be a dollar from each of you,” he says, and then he sinks the one ball, the number on his pea. “And another five dollars each.”

“Jeepers! Just my luck,” Jeepers says. “It was my turn to shoot next, and my nine was right by the hole!”

“I wonder if they do know something?” Sid asks. “Have they said anything to you, Mac?”

“It’s nothing to do with that. The young one teaches at the college in Bad Hills, and she lives here because the rent’s cheap.”

“Are they treaty Indians?” Nick asks. “From Three Crows?”

“The guy from Three Crows who bought my land is the artist’s brother,” Abner says.

“Anyway,” Pete says to Mac, “don’t get in too deep, and I’d watch out for that old lady.”