A Catskill Eagle by Robert B. Parker

make sense out of stuff I don’t understand.”
    “That called life, babe,” Hawk said.
    “Maybe she needs to be able to save herself and that may mean dealing with Russell.”
    “I been working on the assumption,” Hawk said, “that Russell is a dead man. I owe Russell some things.”
    “I know,” I said. “I been thinking about how we’d decide which one gets him. But maybe not.”
    “Ah’s jess a simple darkie, bawse. Killing the motherfucker seem like a good idea to me.”
    “But if it’s bad for Susan?”
    “Then we don’t,” Hawk said. “Ah ain’t that simple. We not here to fuck her up. I don’t need to kill Russell, I’d just like it.”
    “I’d like it too,” I said. “Maybe more than you.”
    “I would guess, maybe more than anybody,” Hawk said.
    “At the moment I think we shouldn’t unless we have to,” I said.
    In the light that spilled into the woods from the floodlit clearing I could see Hawk shrug. “Delayed gratification, babe,” he said.
    “Yeah,” I said.
    Lights went on and off inside the lodge but there was nothing in the pattern that told us anything. We couldn’t see enough through the windows to help. The outdoor guard shifts changed. Hawk and I put our hands into our pockets and sat and watched. We ate some granola bars and some trail mix. We dozed a little, but not much. The night went on. The lights inside the lodge went off, except for one downstairs. The outside floods stayed on. The outdoor shifts changed again. Toward morning it rained. I stood slowly in the downpour and shrugged my back and neck. I felt like a junk car.
    “Russell show up now,” Hawk said, “I think we overmatched.”
    “Have some trail mix,” I said.
    Hawk took a handful and chewed it without pleasure.
    “I look like fucking trail mix to you?” he said. “I look like a fucking granola bar? I eggs Benedict, and mimosa, I room service, man.”
    “The rain is nice,” I said.
    “Refreshing,” Hawk said.
    Along with the woodsmoke I could smell coffee, from the lodge.
    “If they start to fry bacon in there,” I said, “I’m going to cry.” We were both on our feet, stretching quietly, talking softly, trying to get warm and loose without disturbing the lodge patrol. It was raining steadily and still dark.
    “We plug that chimney,” I said, “and the smoke will back up into the house and drive people out.”
    “What if Susan in there?”
    “They would bring her out too,” I said. “They got no reason to want her dead. I assume Russell likes her.”
    “Means one of us got to get up on the roof,” Hawk said.
    “Yes.”
    We stood in the rain watching the house. There were no birds today, no squirrels. I was looking at the power and phone cable where it ran to the house.
    “We need to do some stuff,” I said. “We need to confuse and distract them. We need to cause a diversion.”
    “We good at causing diversions,” Hawk said.
    “Think we could shoot that power cable out?”
    “From here?” Hawk said. “Not with a handgun.”
    “We could get a rifle,” I said.
    Hawk smiled. “Yes, we can. I know where there’s four.”
    “Closest one is down there,” I said. “Maybe seventy-five yards.”
    Hawk said, “I’ll get the rifle. You circle around behind the house on the hill back of it. When I shoot out the power cables they’ll all come charging over here. You get on the roof and stuff something in the chimney.”
    “While they’re chasing you.”
    “While I shooting their ass with my new rifle,” Hawk said.
    “I like it,” I said. “Give me time to get around there. I’ll go for the roof when you start shooting.”
    “No hurry,” Hawk said. “I be getting my new rifle while you circling.”
    I moved off through the woods, staying crouched, moving slowly through the rain. Stepping carefully in the spongy wet leaf mold on the forest floor. The sound of the rain spattering down among the evergreens deadened the sound of my movement. I took a careful slow