The Slow Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

charges against you. I’ll post bail tomorrow.”
    “We can’t do anything now, Crow. Because it’s Sunday.” Raymond Butler wore a suit. “I’m fairly sure we can set a preliminary hearing tomorrow afternoon, then you can go home. Even if they find probable cause, you can go home.”
    Helen came back into the room to protest.
    “I’ll take care of this, Helen,” Butler told her. “Don’t worry.”
    Two policemen approached Crow with handcuffs, reading him his rights.
    “Don’t handcuff him,” said Helen. They did anyway. She followed them out to the car.
    “What’s this?” one of the detectives asked about the mud in the mudroom.
    “I went fishing the other day,” Carl said. “Helen refused to clean it up. Said I should do it myself.” He hugged Helen as though this was all a big joke between them. She whispered something to Carl, which he ignored.
    “Don’t worry,” he said to her. He got in the police car with Crow. “We’ll get this settled.”
    Raymond Butler drove his own car to the station. Helen turned and went to the sunroom. A shudder went down her back as she heard the police car pull away.
                      
    The road where Crow lived was in the best part of town. The Davenport sawmill had passed from grandfather to father, then to Carl, and the land surrounding it had become valuable. Anyone who lived on this land benefited from its prestige, their credit lines quickly approved.
    The road had been carved out through a thick forest, and the house overlooked the Tennessee River, with a view of the mountains. Part of the road remained unpaved, but homes crept in, parcels of land sold off one, two at a time. Helen had urged Carl to sell some land and start a trust fund for both sons.
    “I don’t want to stay here,” Crow had told his mother. “I don’t want to live in one place all my life.”
    “If you leave,” she warned, “you might not be able to live as well as you do now.”
    “Maybe I want to live a different way. Maybe Johnny will want to take over the mills.” His younger brother had always been more willing to please.
    “Fine for you to say now,” Helen countered. “You haven’t had to struggle yet.”
    “I’ve struggled,” said Crow, but under his breath.
    Crow dreamed of far-off places, tempted even by the posters that advertised the navy or marines. He wanted to fly planes. His friend Tom had a brother who was a navy pilot, so he took that as a reason to believe that his own dream could take shape.
    Until he was thirteen, Crow had built model airplanes, and he could identify even the most obscure fighter jets, such as the Grumman Wildcat, or bombers such as the B-47. As a child he liked to watch a plane until it was almost out of sight, until he became not the one watching, but the one flying. On his tenth birthday his father took him in a small plane piloted by a friend. Crow sat in the pilot’s seat for a short time and steered the plane left and right. He felt the thrill of taking charge of something so much larger than himself. And even though, after landing, Crow vomited on the tarmac, he could not wait to get back inside the plane, to take off and veer into a cloud.
    “If these boys want a good start, they can help me at the mill.” Carl could not stifle his desire to turn the business over to his sons. “Let them run it with me.” He hated the thought of a stranger taking it over.
    “Johnny might be interested,” Helen had told him. “But not Crow. You’re going to have to face that, Carl.”
    “I’m not sure Johnny’s capable, Helen.”
    “Stop. Just stop it, Carl.”
    “I’ve tried. You know I’ve tried.” Carl gave his wife an accusing look. He still thought of her as beautiful. Her skin was warm and when he touched her he felt the natural heat of her body. Her neck was white and smooth, and he thought of putting his hand on her shoulder, but didn’t.
    Carl was cheating on her. Helen could see it in his body—his