Read Online Loon Lake by E. L. Doctorow - Free Book Online Page A

gangsters
thieves, extortionists and murderers of the lower class
and their women who might or might not be whores.
The old man welcomed them warmly
enjoying their responses to his camp
admiring the women in their tight dresses and red lips
relishing the having of them there so out of place
at Loon Lake.
The first morning of their visit
he led everyone down the hill
to give them rides in his biggest speedboat
a long mahogany Chris-Craft with a powerful inboard
that resonantly shook the water as she idled.
He handed them each a woolen poncho with a hood
and told them the ride was fast and cold
but still they were not prepared when under way
he opened up the throttle
and the boat reared in the water like Buck Jones’ horse.
The women shrieked and gripped the gangsters’ arms
and spray stinging like ice coated their faces
while the small flag at the stern snapped like a machine gun.
And one of the men lipping an unlit cigarette
felt it whipped away by the wind.
He turned and saw it sail over the wake
where a loon appeared from nowhere
beaked it before it hit the water
and rose back into the sky above the mountain.
    Annotate boat reared in the water like Buck Jones’ horse as follows: Buck Jones a cowboy movie star silents 1920s and talkies early 1930s. Others of this specie: Tom Mix, Tim McCoy, Big Boy Williams. Buck Jones’ horse palomino stallion named Silver. Others of this specie: Pal Feller Tony.
    The old man rode them around Loon Lake, its islands
through channels where beaver had built their lodges
and everything they saw the trees the mountains
the water and even the land they couldn’t see under the water
was what he owned. And then he brought them in throttling down
and the boat was awash in a rush of foam
like the outspread wings of a waterbird coming to rest.
Two other mahogany boats of different lengths
were berthed in the boathouse
and racks of canoes and guide boats upside down
and on walls paddles hanging from brackets
and fishing rods and snowshoes for some strange reason
and not a gangster there did not reflect
how this dark boathouse with its canals
and hollow-sounding deck floors
was bigger than the home his family lived in
when he was a kid, as big as the orphan’s home in fact.
But one gangster wanted to know about the lake
and its connecting lakes, the distance one could travel on them
as if he was planning a fast getaway.
    Just disappearing around the corner out of sight
was the boathouse attendant.
And everyone walked up the hill for drinks and lunch.
Drinks were at twelve-thirty and lunch at one-thirty
after which, returning to their rooms,
the guests found riding outfits laid across their beds
and boots in their right sizes all new.
At three they met each other at the stables
laughing at each other and being laughed at
and the stableman fitted them out with horses
and the sensation was particularly giddy when the horses
began to move without warning ignoring them up there in the saddle
threatening to launch with each bounce like a paddle ball.
And so each day the best gangster among them realized
there would be something to do they could not do well.
    The unchecked walking horses made for the woods
no one was in the lead, the old man was not there.
They were alone on these horses who took this wide trail
they seemed to know.
They were busy maintaining themselves on the tops of these horses
stepping with their plodding footfall through the soft earth
of the wide trail.
By and by proceeding gently downhill they came
to another shore of the lake, of Loon Lake,
and the trees were cut down here and the cold sun shone.
They found themselves before an airplane hangar
with a concrete ramp sloping into the water.
As the horses stood there the hangar doors slid open
there was a man pushing back each of the steel doors
although they saw only his arm and hand and shoetops.
And then from a gray cloud over the mountain
beyond the far end of the lake an airplane appeared
and made its descent in front of the