Incidents in the Life of Markus Paul by David Adams Richards

himself:
    “Dear, dear.”
    And looked at Markus and sighed.

    Isaac waited for Amos to make a report, some report about what he intended. But nothing happened. Old Amos came back from the ship and went in and ate his supper of fish cakes and pickled beets. Isaac went back to the house and again, just like the last time, Amos was feeding his face. He waited at the door because he’d been told by Amos that he would be the first to receive any new information. But old Amos simply ate his supper, with the radio turned on to the French country music station. “J’aime Cherie” was playing.
    Amos, with the five pictures he had taken but not yet examined, had no information that Isaac would want. For if he said, “It is nothing to worry our noodles about,” Isaac would not believe him. If he said, “It was an accident,” Isaac would not want to hear him. He knew Isaac wanted him to say: “It is a murder and I am taking action—I will block the road to his house until Savage is charged with murder, and we will take over the riparian rights to those pools! And build our lodge, and you will be in charge of it!”
    This Isaac now wanted because it was needed by those who surrounded him, and he needed to please them.
    But then Amos considered all of this slightly further and decided that Isaac did not want him to say he would take action either, for it would make Isaac less important if Amos mounted his own protest. In fact the one thing he could do to quash Isaac’s power at this moment was to usurp Isaac’s part in it. But he did not. He had to solve something first.
    “Roger is not a bad man,” he said.
    “Go tell that to Hector,” Isaac said.
    “Oh yes, well, dear me.”
    So Isaac stayed outside, and Amos laid the photos out on the table and strained to see what they said. He sat eating fish cakes as his grandson Markus watched him, as he picked up a photo, shook his head, tapped a photo with his finger, shook his head, then ate another fish cake. Now and again he would look over at his grandson, and Markus would edge forward in his chair, with his feet wrapped about the legs, hoping the old man would speak. So the old man said:
    “Markus.”
    “Yes?” Markus asked hurriedly. “What?”
    “Snare me a piece of bread, will you?”
    Isaac went away without Amos speaking further to him.
    This was the day of the first newspaper report by Max Doran. The article was not specific, but gave a needling sense that things had been botched from the start—and not only by the wharf, but by the band council. This was what Amos expected, and again he was troubled.
    “But you might be judging him all wrong,” Mrs. Francis said. “He probably wants to say nice things about Hector—won’t that be nice for the family if he does?”
    “Yes, he might want to say nice things,” Amos admitted, “but I wish we had all said nice things about Hector before.”
    The next morning, Amos went to Isaac’s house and, standing in the small foyer with his hat in hand, asked the man if he would like to go up to the ship.
    “Yes, I would like that,” Isaac said. He looked at his wife and nodded as if to say,
Now things will get done
.
    Amos nodded too, happy to please this fellow finally.
    So both got into Amos’s old truck and travelled up the highway. Amos had only first and third gear on the truck, so the engine was either lugging along or whining. And every once in a while he would look over at Isaac apologetically.
    “Roger probably hooked more than one load—trying to do Hector in—that’s how I think and that’s what many of our men are thinking too,” Isaac said when Amos looked at him again. “I mean, he could have jammed it opened with a rock or taken that supporting pin away. What do you think?”
    “The captain has treated me with the utmost respect,” Amos said, “and he is very concerned about all of this.”
    But as they drove down the old lane they saw something, little by little, emerge through the dark