Hunter’s Dance Read Free

suffered by the likes of Marvin Wall. Marvin’s attempts to find friends among the white youngsters of St. Adele were unlikely to meet with anything but misery. He couldn’t tell the kid that. Anyway he was no doubt finding it out for himself.
    â€œWe’ll get you a ride back to your brother’s.” McIntire flipped the knife over in his hand. “This could have gotten you a whole lot worse than a sore nose, Marve.” He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and dealt him one more blow, this time a little below the belt. “It’s just as well that your brother’s gone home. He wouldn’t have been proud of you tonight.”
    Marvin stiffened and moved away. “Adam Wall never lets people push him around,” he said, “and that’s not the only knife in the world.”

II
    He was such a man as women create in their dreams.
    Mia Thorsen poured a bucketful of water into the enameled pot and swung it onto the wood range. Water slopped down its sides, sizzling as it hit the hot stove top and sending up a volcano of steam to add to the already sauna-like atmosphere. She opened the stovepipe damper, lifted one of the cast iron lids, and topped the glowing embers with a couple of chunks of birch. The bark caught immediately, spewing out a plume of black smoke in the seconds before she dropped the lid back into place. She picked up a can of coffee and snapped the key off its top.
    A sudden breeze swept a cool, inviting breath in through the open kitchen door. Mia hesitated for only a second, placed the key back on the unopened can and surrendered to the siren call, slipping out quickly before anyone could stop her.
    It was like a dive into the lake on a sultry summer afternoon. She lifted the braid at the back of her neck and savored the caress of chill fingers on her sticky skin.
    Here on the dark side of the hall was an oasis of clear air and blessed solitude. The audience that had collected for the fist fight had gone on to other pursuits. Only a handful of dark figures moved among the parked cars. High school age kids seeking the privacy of back seats, Mia supposed, and people like herself, looking for a few minutes’ respite from the noise, the heat, and the soup of odors: sweat, beer, ham, and tobacco—smoked and chewed.
    Mia stepped off the porch and wedged herself into a niche between its railing and an overgrown lilac. The music and voices faded into a background rumble that sounded like the roar of the lake on a windy day. She pressed her back against the white clapboards and contemplated the frosty luminescence of the quarter moon floating in a thin layer of cloud.
    She wouldn’t have much longer before some busybody would come looking for her. It would be a simple thing to walk off through the trees and cut across the field. In ten minutes, maybe less, she could be under the covers of her own bed. No one would be surprised or concerned at her disappearance; it wouldn’t be the first time she’d made an unannounced departure from one of St. Adele’s social events.
    She was in serious danger of giving way to the temptation, wondering if she could risk fetching her coat, when the crunch of footsteps on gravel sounded nearby, and an arrogant voice rang out, “Good evening,
Ma’am
. Arriving a little late,
Ma’am
?”
    A surprised gasp and a whoop of laughter followed, and a man appeared around the corner of the building, heading toward the cars. His compact build and a cockiness in his walk were so like her husband that Mia started forward. If Nick was leaving, it wouldn’t be without her! She stopped when he reached the glow of the yard light. It wasn’t Nick. This man was considerably younger, more of a boy. She felt a clutch deep in her chest when she saw the dark blotch caked over his ear and the thin black trickle snaking to his collar. One of those mixed up in the fight, then. The kid didn’t seem to be suffering