The staked Goat

room. She had finally given up on offering me coffee, so we just sat down, her on the couch, me in a chair.
    ”Martha, I’ll be leaving tonight.”
    ”I really appreciate everything you’ve done.” She ran her hand back through her hair. ”John, I don’t know what to say. I...”
    ”I’m going to Washington to speak to some people in the army. I’m expecting there will be some benefits coming to you.”
    ”Benefits ?”
    ”Yes,” I lied, or almost. ”As a result of Al’s service.”
    She squinted at me. ”Al let his GI insurance lapse.” She gave half a laugh. ”Al let lots of things lapse.”
    ”Well,” I said, ”you never know. He saw some combat, and well, that’s why I’m going to find out.” She looked skeptical. ”Wouldn’t the local Veterans Administration be able to answer that kind of question?”
    ”Maybe.”
    ”Then why go to Washington?”
    ”Best to start at the top.”
    She crossed her arms and tapped her foot. ”John, what is it?”
    ”What?”
    ”What you’re not telling me. What’s going on?”
    ”Nothing,” I said, smiling and raising my hand. ”Scout’s honor.”
    ”Does it have...” She swallowed hard and tears peeked over her bottom eyelids. ”Is it because of the way Al died?”
    I swallowed too. ”Partly. I really can’t tell you any more.”
    ”For my own protection?”
    I shook my head.
    ”I’ll bet,” she said. ”For God’s sake, John, are we in danger? Tell me!”
    ”Martha, I don’t believe you’re in any danger. If I did, I wouldn’t leave you and Al Junior alone. But there is something that I can’t identify or describe to you that’s wrong with Al’s death. Also, I just got word that some friends... an older couple I’d come to know in Boston, were killed in a fire this morning.”
    ”Oh, John,” Martha said, distracted, as are most decent people, from her own tragedy by news of another’s. ”I’m so sorry. Can I help or...?”
    ”No, no, it’s all being taken care of. It’s just that—” I broke a weak smile. ”It’s just that I’m not my usual Gaelic happy-go-lucky self.”
    She laughed and the tension was gone for a moment. ”John,” she said, ”please be careful. Nothing can bring Al back, and if I thought that you—”
    ”Not to worry,” I said. ”I’m just going to see a couple of bureaucrats, that’s all.”
     

Fourteen
     
     
     
    ” Y OU KNOW, AS LONG AS THE SNOW ISN’T FALLING, I think I like Pittsburgh best at this time of year.”
    The Pontiac bounced over a freeze-thaw pothole and Dale had to wrestle the car back into our lane. A limo with windows tinted black honked an arrogant, unnecessary warning as it blew by us on the left.
    ”Bastard,” said Dale with gusto. He turned to me. ”It did no good, but it had to be said.”
    ”Yeah.” I was running low on small talk. I had already thanked him for driving me to the airport, told him a little about Jesse and Emily, and avoided the subject of the still-AWOL Larry.
    ”I like it—winter, I mean—best because it’s the cleanest and the purest season. Pittsburgh used to have a terrible pollution problem. Air pollution, I mean. Fifteen years ago, you couldn’t wear something white outdoors unless you wanted the air to embroider a soot pattern on it. Then the town fathers with, I’m sure, some prodding from Washington, began cleaning things up. In the summer, of course, it’s hot and uncomfortable anywhere. But in the winter, with so little pollution and the cold, clear snap of the arctic and sunshine like we had today, well,” he said, winding down, ”it’s just my favorite time.”
    He made me think back.
    ”My wife and I used to go to the beach in the winter.”
    ”Caribbean?”
    ”Oh, yeah, sometimes. But I meant the beach in Massachusetts. North of Boston maybe forty miles is a town called Newburyport. East of the town is an island, a peninsula really, called Plum Island Reserve. The feds run it as a bird sanctuary, and it’s still pretty wild, in the picturesque sense. She’d pack a light lunch and a flask of brandy. We’d bundle up against the cold and walk like Eskimos along the shoreline. You don’t get much surf in New England generally, but in the winter, on a windy day, you’ll see three- or four-foot rollers slamming in on the rocks, scattering sea gulls and jerks like us who’d crept too close looking for tide treasures.”
    ”Sounds delightful,” said Dale sincerely, then uncertainly. ”Have you been divorced