The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time Read Free Page B

cell phone, blows the dust off the screen. The nurses and other soldiers go about their business. When the trio of young musicians walks by rapping some vaguely obscene lyric, Smitty follows and thumps the fife player on the ear.
    “Unngh,” the Minotaur says.
    “Here,” Biddle says, handing the Minotaur the phone once again. “These are my babies.”
    The Minotaur has been here before. The Minotaur has been here a long time.
    The Minotaur positions the phone just so. This time, he can clearly see Biddle sitting on a couch, a big goofy grin, three bug-eyed pug dogs clutched in his arms.
    Old Scald Village promises much. The price of admission is sometimes high.

CHAPTER FOUR
    THE MINOTAUR HEARS THE ANVIL RING three times. Smitty, in the Blacksmith’s Shoppe at the far end of the lopsided figure eight that defines Old Scald Village, is driving out the devil. The Minotaur stands at the Welcome Center door and listens for all three hammer strikes. With each, the redwing blackbirds lift off from the cattails circling the manmade pond; they flit, then settle. Flit, then settle. Flit. Settle. The Minotaur waits for the metallic hum to die away.
    Biddle is headed toward the Cooper’s Shack. He’s trying to get one of the nurses to look at something on his phone. The girl ignores him, flicks at a cricket climbing up between the faux bloodstains on her apron. He tries again.
    “Aren’t you married or something, Biddle?” she asks.
    “Something,” Biddle mumbles.
    He gives up and skulks over to the Minotaur. “You know she lives on the island of Lesbos, don’t you,” Biddle says to the Minotaur. It’s not really a question. “Her and that basket maker.”
    “Mmmnn,” the Minotaur says.
    “The dark-haired girl, the one with the nose ring and all the Band-Aids on her fingers.”
    “Mmmnn,” the Minotaur says. It’s a quiet day. He hears a semi Jake-braking on the steep turnpike descent. “Mmmnn.”
    “They caught ’em one time in the church, up in the choir loft. She had her—”
    “Mmmnn, no,” the Minotaur says. No. He’s not interested. Besides, he has vague memories of being there, on the island of Lesbos.
    “Suit yourself,” Biddle says. “See you tomorrow.”
    Three times the ball-peen hammer strikes the anvil’s face. Legend has it that Satan himself was duped by a clever blacksmith. That the smithy hammered the devil into a pair of shoes so tight and painful. Legend says so, or maybe it is rumor. What the Minotaur knows for sure is that when the anvil rings three times it means that the Old Scald Village blacksmith is deep in the heart of his shop, cranking the bellows, stoking the forge, its fiery eye pulsing. Smitty will be there for a while. The Minotaur can go about his own business unmolested.
    The Minotaur watches some of the other soldiers who aren’t working in the village shops that afternoon load gear into their cars at the far edge of the parking lot. It is Saturday, early in the dying season. The Minotaur doesn’t like to carry his rifle or side knife on the walk home. It’s hard enough to lug the horns through his days. The manager of the Gift Shoppe lets him tuck the weapons behind the mops and brooms in the closet near the cash register.
    “Hey, M,” she says when he triggers the electronic bell. “How’d it go out there today?”
    She always asks the same questions. She might be middle aged, whatever that means in human terms. She looks up from beneath the deep brim of a crisp white bonnet, and the big round rims of her glasses magnify the green eyes, and the kindness therein.
    “Did you die good?”
    “Mmmnn,” the Minotaur says.
    Her name is Widow Fisk. That’s what they all call her, anyway. That’s what the Minotaur knows her as. Middle aged, maybe. Content in the body she carries. The Old Scald Village Gift Shoppe is her domain. The Minotaur admires her commitment to the role. Always has. She rules, with beneficence, the cadres of elementary-school kids who, left