Free The Big Seven by Jim Harrison Page A

Somehow the brothers continued to find new women to marry or shack up with. Eventually they all moved away and Simon Jr.’s burgeoning family spread out to occupy all three houses, but the pattern of violence had been established. Young Tom, Simon Jr.’s grandson and the eventual shooter of Lily, was the worst. He abused all of the girls, not just Lily, and thought of himself as king of the hill.
    Sunderson rechecked the source of the information, much of it from an odd long confessional and accompanying family tree–style notes in the police file and prison records Mona had hacked of the brother with the curious name Lemuel, Simon’s youngest son who had spent so much time in prison reading. Sunderson guessed that the twenty years or so away from the family might have done him some good but he was unsure.
    Sunderson, quite fatigued with the Ameses, went fishing for two hours late in the afternoon, confident of his beef stew dinner. By coincidence he ran into a man he learned was Lemuel downstream, expertly casting his fly into a large pool in the bend of the river. They talked for a while. Lemuel turned out to be well spoken, the opposite of what he usually found in ex-cons who are habitually aggrieved, sullen, hurt as if crime had been visited upon their innocence. Lemuel said that he hoped to become a crime novelist as that was his only level of expertise. Sunderson wasn’t sure about getting further involved with the Ameses but he figured what harm could a writer do after reading his pathetic family history. Lemuel said what Sunderson had been thinking, that there was “bad blood” in certain families. He owned a small English setter being the only Ames who hunted game birds and everything the dog knew was apparently in its good breeding. It was born with the ability to hunt. He applied this to the criminal impulse and said that Simon had unleashed a criminal family on the earth. The seed was bad. He was heartbroken over Lily who had been his favorite member of the family. They had even spoken about marriage though it would have been illegal as he was her uncle. Once he had saved Lily who was being raped by Tom out in the woods by hitting Tom over the head with a big stick. Tom got up and beat the shit out of him, knocking out several teeth, but Lemuel said it was worth it because Lily was in such pain from Tom’s big penis. He and Lily had been close ever since, until her recent death. He hated Tom and hoped to kill him when he got out of the hospital. Sunderson pointed out that if he got caught he’d be spending the rest of his life in prison where there was obviously no fishing. Lemuel thought this over in silence then generally agreed though he thought he should avenge the love of his life. Sunderson joked that he could easily spend a lot of time making Tom miserable, tipping over his wheelchair and that sort of thing, and then his vengeance would be slow and deliberate. Sunderson said he should try to fall in love with the sister Monica and Lemuel interrupted saying that Monica was a young “nympho” fucking everyone in town including relatives. This made Sunderson feel a tad less unique though he didn’t really mind. He was curious about the idea that Lemuel would write a crime novel about his family.
    When they finished fishing they had a pleasant beer at the cabin and Lemuel recognized the odor of Monica’s beef stew saying she was the only Ames who could cook, though one of the young cousins had promise. Everyone wanted to eat Monica’s food and the wives were jealous and nasty to her. He had advised Monica to wait another year until she was twenty to run away to Escanaba or Marquette or way over to Sault Ste. Marie. He would personally give her a ride in his old 1947 Dodge.
    Lemuel left but to Sunderson’s irritation was back in a half hour in his Dodge and presented Sunderson with a dozen pages of his crime novel then left quickly in embarrassment. Sunderson normally had a little nap after dinner