The Winter People

by Bret Tallent

  ***

  The kitchen was warm and homey and the smell of bacon easily crowded out that of lemons that he'd noticed earlier. The room was well lit from overhead fluorescents and the glow made Nick feel very safe. The doorway opened on to a large room with a sink/cutting counter in the center. Above it, a plethora of copper bottomed pots and pans hung from the ceiling. Beyond this island was a gas range and a woman in faded jeans and red flannel shirt was bent over it.

  Her hair was long and red and Nick guessed that she was about five foot six. Though it was difficult to tell from the back, she seemed to have a nice figure too. Her attention appeared to be focused upon the pan of biscuits before her and she gave no indication that she even knew they were there. Nick looked at Mike and raised his eyebrows, then looked back at the woman he assumed was Mrs. Smith. Hayden still stood in front of them, roughly between them and her, so that they were afforded a fairly good view of the back of his head.

  Hayden motioned to the left with a jerk of his head, "Why don't you have a seat?", as he began to move around the island.

  Nick's gaze followed the cabinets to the left until they ended on the far wall. At the end of the room was a large wooden table with wooden benches below it for seats. Had it not been so fancy, Nick would have thought it was a picnic table. On it sat a metal sugar bowl, a pair of wooden salt and pepper shakers---just like the ones his folks had gotten in the Redwood Forest, Nick thought---and a creamer shaped like a cow. It looked strangely like any one of a dozen roadside dives he'd eaten in and it made him smile.

  Nick walked on over and sat down, with Mike close behind. They both glanced up towards Hayden and saw that he'd come up behind the woman at the stove. He was kissing her softly on the neck and gesturing with his hands in front of her. Nick looked down embarrassed but Mike continued to stare. There was something very familiar about what Hayden was doing with his hands. Something Mike should know, or had known. He concentrated on the motions in his mind and completely forgot about Hayden. He searched his memories, and finally his eyes opened wide with the expression that comes with enlightenment.

  "Guess who?" Mike mumbled under his breath, nodding.

  "What?"

  "Huh? Oh. Guess who?" he repeated to Nick. "He just asked her--its sign language--she's deaf.” he explained, motioning to the red haired woman.

  Mike dropped back into his recollections, trying to remember all that he could from the classes he'd taken several years ago. Nick looked back over at Hayden, surprised. Then turned away again embarrassed again, as the woman turned and kissed Hayden fully on the mouth. Hayden and the woman came upon Nick and Mike, who were paying particular attention to the veins in the wood of the table.

  The two of them looked up at Hayden as he stopped at the edge of the table. "I'd like you two to meet my wife, Barbara." he said, presenting her.

  Barbara stepped up and extended a hand to Mike. He accepted it and smiled. Upon releasing it he signed his name and a greeting and told her how pleased he was to meet her, at least that's what he hoped he'd said. There was honest pleasure and surprise on her face and she gestured back excitedly. Mike's eyes were following the frantic movement trying to recall what he'd learned.

  "You know sign!" she beamed, "The only other person around here that does is Hayden. This is so neat!"

  Mike replied, "I know little, long time, rusty."

  She nodded and had a very broad smile across her face. Barbara then turned to Nick and grabbed his hand as well. She noticed the look on his face and felt that he was slightly ashamed that he couldn't talk to her as well. In all the years that she'd been deaf, Barbara had learned to read people's faces quite well. She may not have been able to hear everything that was going on, but she could sure see it.

  She spoke aloud to Nick, "You must be Nick. Hayden mentioned you earlier. It's a pleasure to meet you."

  Nick was taken aback, "But how...l mean..." he fumbled. Then he noticed a twinkle in her dark green eyes and a smile slowly eased onto his face, "It's definitely a pleasure to meet you Mrs. Smith."

  "Please, call me Barbara. Mrs. Smith makes it sound like I should be out selling pies or fish sticks or something."

  "Barbara it is." Nick glanced at Hayden and noticed the shit-eating grin he was wearing. He was obviously very proud of her, and Nick could see why.

  Her skin was light and looked velvety soft, with rosy patches on her cheeks. Her dark eyebrows rose in graceful arcs on her forehead and together with her creamy complexion, made her eyes stand out like emeralds. Nick decided that they were her most striking feature, honest and direct. The soft round lines of her face did nothing to detract from them. In truth, all of her features together seemed to be there for the sole purpose of offsetting those eyes. Nick found himself drawn to them and staring compulsively. After a moment he turned away, embarrassed yet again.

  "Well I'd better get this food on, you all look hungry enough to start chewin' on my table." giving them all a wink.

  She turned and moved to the cabinets to the right of the sink as the three men followed her progress with their eyes. With her back to them she smiled, smugly. As she stretched to reach some plates on an upper shelf, Hayden sat down next to Mike and across from Nick. Nick looked at Hayden.

  "I hope I didn't just put my foot in my mouth?"

  "Not at all Nick, and believe me, she'd have let you known if you had." he said affectionately.

  "How is it that she can talk? Like nothing's wrong, I mean." After he'd said it he realized that he was definitely chewing on sneakers now, but it was too late.

  Hayden looked uncomfortable and he brought his eyebrows together in a motion that wrinkled the skin between his eyes, just above the nose. He sat there for a moment or two considering his next words, then spoke softly.

  "She's post-linguistically deaf," he paused, considered a moment then added, "She lost her hearing when she was nineteen." The big man bowed his head and picked at one thumbnail with the other, gave a deep sigh then quickly turned to regard his wife.

  When Hayden turned away, Nick caught the glimmer of tears welling up in the man's eyes. Nick glanced over at Mike and saw him studying Hayden as well. Obviously he'd seen it too. Hayden felt guilty somehow for his wife's deafness, or at the very least, responsible for it. Nick couldn't imagine feeling that kind of guilt for someone, and then living with them every day. A constant reminder of what you had done, or what you thought you had done. Nor could Nick imagine that this gentle and compassionate man could harm anyone in such a way. But Hayden felt that he had.

  CHAPTER 10

  Roscoe and Ouray balanced themselves precariously on the makeshift litter that Johnny was towing behind the snowmobile. It also carried several bundles, Indian blankets and deerskins wrapped around things that Johnny needed. The largest bundle at the far end was Faywah, his body a nondescript blob beneath the wrappings. Occasionally the dogs would glance back at the heap, then turn away quickly or lower their head.

  Johnny moved slowly across the treacherous terrain with stout determination, headed for the place his mind had shown him. The wind was a rancorous escort, derisive and petulant. In it Johnny could hear the cries of the others. He could feel their hunger too, it was all about him. It slapped at him with the icy air and took tasty little nips at his soul. But Johnny forged ahead, doggedly.

  Behind Johnny, lost in the din of the machine and the wind, Ouray whimpered. But Johnny had heard him anyway. The shrill cries of the others were a warning to the dog and they gripped him with fear. Johnny knew that as well. His senses seemed more acute today than they ever had. He could see and feel things without really trying, without really wanting to. Johnny was thankful in some respects, because of what he had to do. But he also saw it as a curse.

  It is not always good to see too much of your own future, or the future of ones that you care about. As hard as he tried to block it all out, the visions hammered down his walls of resistance and gained access anyway. The visions forced themselves upon him and ma
de him see all that they had to offer, all that there was. Cruelly, it was a dissociated mire that Johnny had to sift through, imagery and symbolism that was left to him to interpret.

  In the last few hours he had seen a myriad of little skits. Every time he closed his eyes the pictures would be there. Some of them were incongruent images and were easily forgotten, while others were as real as the dream he'd had of Buddy Simpson, and none the less terrifying. The majority of them were of people he knew, and didn't know, yet somehow knew lived in town. All of them had been rendered as Buddy had, torn limb from limb. Johnny was powerless to help any of them, forced to watch them disintegrate into the wind as he had watched Buddy. And only now did he make the connection that he hadn't dreamed about Buddy. He had seen the old man's fate as surely as he had seen the towns, Roscoe's and Ouray's, and his own.

  But somewhere deep inside, he knew that it wasn't too late for everyone. Yes, these were visions of things to come, but they might also be of things as they could be. That was the one great thing about the future; it was never definite until it was history. This thought gave Johnny a new hope and determination. He gunned the throttle and picked up his pace a bit, anxious to be done with his task. He had to get back to town and warn Hayden, convince him of the danger, help him to fight. If he could survive what lay ahead that was.

  Strangely, Johnny thought of an old story he had read once as a child, "The Monkey's Paw". There was one part in particular that kept finding its way out of his subconscious, and that was the knock at the door at the end of the story, the one they were afraid to answer. Johnny shivered at the image. Then, he wondered if he was shivering because he was about to answer the knock at his door.

  ***

  Sarah's heart skipped a beat and her breath caught in her throat. She gripped the handlebar tightly as her whole body tensed up, watching the scene unfold before her. It wasn't in slow motion like she always thought something like this would happen. It all happened in an instant and made no sound. In fact, the world around her had gone unnaturally silent. The only thing she heard was the pounding of her own heart, ringing in her ears. Then it was over, just like that. And the sound of the wind returned.

  The front of Bud's machine lurched into the air, teetered on one ski, and then fell over on its left side. The sled behind it also turned onto its side and Clayton just hung there, bound to the wood. Bud rolled away easily as it toppled and cursed his own stupidity. He had hit a steep ridge in the snow that he'd been unable to see.

  The truth was, he wasn't expecting it, and the road had been plowed up to this point. Although it had drifts forming, it had been pretty clear up to now. Bud sat up and eyed the ridge; it angled forward and to the left. This explained why his machine did what it did. He began to climb to his knees as he heard the whine from his niece's machine and turned to see her pull up slowly next to him. She started to rise up off her seat before she had even stopped and he waved her back down.

  Bud stood, brushed the snow from himself, and leaned over close to Sarah so that he could be heard above the wind. "I'm okay! I just caught a ridge and dumped it! As soon as I get it turned back over we can get moving again!” he explained. Sarah only nodded, not wishing to fight the wind.

  Bud took the few steps back to his Polaris and glanced back at Clayton. He just hung there limply, his head sagging to one side, his eyes far away.

  Just sit right back and you 'II hear the tale......

  Bud turned to the front of his machine and he caught a glimpse of something ahead of it, at the far end of the ridge. It was a vague shape and a color that he couldn't quite make out through the blowing patches of snow. He took several steps toward it along the small ridge line, straining to make out its countenance through the driven flurries. A few steps closer and it finally registered, it was a snow plow.

  Sarah stood on her machine, straddling the seat, following Bud with her eyes. She could make out the lump on the side of the road that he was looking at, but couldn't discern what it was. Apparently it was worth investigating because her uncle was continuing towards it. Soon, he was a hazy dark spot that faded in and out depending on how thick the blowing snow was. Then suddenly, he was gone altogether.

  Panic raised up in Sarah's throat, her heart raced and she had to swallow hard to keep both down. She flew off the snowmobile and took several steps toward him, then stopped abruptly. His dark form popped up from out of the white. He stumbled a little and fell to the side. Again he disappeared from Sarah's sight, only this time he did not return. Once again she was gripped with panic, and this time she couldn’t quell it. Sarah lurched for her uncle.

  ***

  Bud had never felt anything like it before. Pain, there was searing pain. It started in his chest and continued down his left arm. Every breath was a tremendous effort that only made him hurt more. Suddenly, everything around him grew dark and he had the sensation of falling. But he never did land, he just kept falling. He could remember only bits and pieces, incoherent things. It was so hard; everything was so hard to hold onto.

  A snow plow, he remembered a snow plow on its side. A behemoth half buried in the snow, a dinosaur in its death throws. Then broken windows, and stars. Stars on its cab frame, stars on the glass. Red stars, sharp against the yellow of the plow. Red stars splattered all about. There was also cold, incredible cold. He was colder than he had ever been in his entire life. He was cold and it was dark, dark, except for the stars. Then there were no stars and he felt nothing, nothing at all.

  ***

  By the time that Sarah had reached her uncle, her chest and throat ached from the arctic air and she had fallen twice in the deep snow. This last time was when she inadvertently stepped off the roadway and dropped off into a good six feet of the stuff. Wading through it was tougher than trying to walk in a swimming pool, she thought dumbly. She grabbed onto the track of the turned plow to pull herself along and finally reached her uncle.

  As she climbed into the hole he'd made when he fell, she noticed that his chest wasn't moving. Although it was difficult to tell under all of the winter wear she reminded herself, she felt it was just a false hope. A lie to herself. A prayer. She pawed at his facemask with her gloved hands but couldn't remove it. In frustration she threw the gloves aside and felt the frigid air bite at her exposed flesh. But Sarah didn't care, all that mattered was Bud.

  Bud's facemask came away easily after Sarah released the Velcro at the back of his neck. She pulled it off him so that she could see his face and her expression went blank. Blood had gurgled up in his mouth and was even now bubbling out to one side. It was smeared around his lips and on the left side of his chin. Beneath his goggles his eyes were glassy and blank, staring at nothing. Sarah looked closely and saw no vapor escape either his nostrils or his mouth, he wasn't breathing.

  "No!” she screamed in disbelief. Then, the tears swelled up inside her and burst forth like a dam. They flowed from her and ran down her cheeks to dampen the foam of her goggles. "No.", she repeated under her breath in a broken-winded puff. Her chest racked with tremors as she started to cry. It was not a bellow or a wail, just deep.

  Sarah stared at him for a moment, cradling his head in her hands. She swallowed hard and sniffed a couple of times then removed her goggles and wiped her eyes with the back of one hand. The tears were warm on it and it caused her to look for her gloves. She found them slightly behind her and several feet away. Sarah retrieved the gloves, then her composure, somewhat. She sat there for a while, not quite sure what to do next.

  Finally, Sarah looked around herself in a vain effort to gain some answers, a course of action from her surroundings. As she sat there in the cold, Bud's dead weight pressing down on her lap, a sense of futility began to seep into her mind. She looked around dumbly once again and only then did she notice the splotches on the front of the plow. Dark red against the yellow, red splatters everywhere. Frozen splatters. Blood splatters.

  ***

  Nick suddenly became awash with emotions that weren'
t his own, futility, fear, panic, sorrow. All jumbled into a mass of confusion and indecision. They weren't thrust upon him like an overpowering sense of someone's thoughts. But, more like the edges of some distant dream dancing enticingly just out of reach. Then, just as suddenly, they were gone. Yet, he was left with the feeling that his sister needed him.

  In that brief moment he'd lost track entirely of his conversation with Barbara. He came back into it, lost. Fortunately, she was speaking and hadn't seemed to notice his brief trip into the Twilight Zone.

  "...so Hayden just showed up one day and gave me this ring. He didn't say anything, just handed it to Me.", Barbara's eyes were far away and her expression was one of fond memory. She was looking at Nick, talking to him, but he could easily have not even been there. Then she snapped out of it and continued.

  "He just always assumed we’d get married. There never was any question with him, and I guess I saw it the same way. So, no Nick, Hayden never did actually propose to me. I guess that sounds pretty weird?"

  "Not at all, I think it sounds special." Suddenly, Nick thought of Debbie again and he missed her more than he ever had. Then, back deep in his brain there was a buzz, a buzz that grew into words. Words that became so loud they pounded on his temples trying to get out. You'll never see Debbie again Nick. You're going to die and we're going to help you do it. And then we're going to VISIT your sister, Nick. But mixed in with these foreign words were other words as well, sentences in a voice that was strangely familiar.

  Nick's mind was being bombarded from inside and out in a continual drone of confusion. He didn't know what was happening and he raised his hands to his temples and massaged them. Strangers were speaking to him, in him.... Then Hayden took the ring a month later and pawned it to bail a buddy out of jail-----And when we've finished with her Nick, then we're going to see Mikey-----He did get it back for me of course, but it was-- Barbara--one of the strangest-- That's Barbara's voice--engagements I've ever heard of-- Barbara.