Safe from the Sea by Peter Geye

Author:Peter Geye
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Unbridled Books
Published: 2010-08-27T04:00:00+00:00

AT THE HARDWARE store a half-dozen men, all as old as Olaf, milled about a deer stand that, according to a handwritten sign, had just arrived in stock. Each of the men had a Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand and wore a plaid or blaze-orange hunting vest. Noah walked to the back of the store and rang the service bell on the counter. One of the men in the group excused himself and hustled back to help Noah.

“ ’Morning. What can I do for you?”

“I need a length of chain.”

“Any particulars?”

“Is there such a thing as three-quarter-inch . . . something? Polyurethane coated? I need twenty feet of it.”

“Let me show you what we’ve got,” he said, motioning with his long arm for Noah to follow.

A couple of aisles over several spools lined the shelf. “This what you have in mind?” the old man said. “It’s your standard high-test, shot peened, poly coated. What do you need it for anyway?” He put his nose up in the air and looked at Noah through the lenses of his reading glasses.

“I don’t know exactly. It’s not for me, but it looks like it’ll do.”

“If it doesn’t work, bring it right back and we’ll get you what does.” He hollered toward the back of the store, and a tall teenager with a baggy Gunflint football jersey hanging on him stepped from behind a door. “Cut me twenty feet of the three-quarter-inch poly, all right?”

“Sure thing, boss.” The kid hurried behind the counter for a chain cutter.

“He’s a good worker,” the old man said. “Hard to find up here.”

“Good help’s hard to find anywhere,” Noah said, meaning to sound conspiratorial.

“Of course, you’re a Torr. I’ve been trying to figure it out since you walked in. All you Torr fellas are twelve feet tall. But I must’ve known you when you were knee high to a grasshopper.” He cleared his throat. “Your grandpa bought everything he needed to build that place from my pop, one of our first big customers. He used to play poker with him right back there.” He gestured to an office behind the counter. “How’s your dad doing anyway? Haven’t seen him in a while.”

“He’s okay.”

“Tell the old codger Knut says hello. Tell him to come down and have coffee some morning.”

“I’ll do that.”

The kid brought the chain and set it on the counter. Knut put it in a paper bag and took eight dollars from Noah. “Remember,” he said, “if that doesn’t work for you, bring it back.”

“I appreciate it,” Noah said. “And I’ll tell the old man you say hello.” The bag seemed to weigh a hundred pounds.

At the Landing he filled the gas can and the truck before he went inside. The empty gravel parking lot and old-fashioned gas pumps finally made the place seem as remote as it was, and he imagined everything buried in snow. He pictured himself clamping his feet into a pair of cross-country skis and getting back to the cabin by way of fresh tracks in the spring corn.

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