A Cold White Fear

by R. J. Harlick

  Was it Will? But it was too soon. My watch said Jid would be just arriving at the police station, unless he’d lucked out and met someone on a Ski-Doo. But the police chief would be travelling by snowmobile, and he wouldn’t be alone. These people were walking, and it sounded like only two of them.

  Since I’d been surprised once already by one set of unsavoury strangers, I didn’t want to meet up with more. I moved further into the safety of the trees.

  When they were nearer, I heard a male voice growl, “Shut your mouth, boy.”

  “You’re hurting me.”

  It was Jid. What was going on?

  While I could make out the swishing of movement through snow, the trees obscured my view of the road. I shuffled closer and saw a single light beam streaked with white coming towards me. About several car lengths away, it seemed to be following the track left by Professor and Larry. But I couldn’t see who was holding the light, only a dark, amorphous shape.

  I needed to get closer. I scrambled as silently as I could over the snowbank onto the road. I stayed hidden behind an overhanging bough and watched the relentless forward march of the beam. It seemed higher off the ground than it would be if Jid were wearing it.

  Who was he with?

  The black shape separated into two figures, one short and slim, the other considerably taller and wider. They seemed linked, with the taller person in front of the smaller one. As they came closer, I realized the man was pulling the boy behind him through the deep snow. He was also wearing Jid’s headlamp and snowshoes, which were the source of the tinkling sound.

  This was too much of a coincidence. This man had to be connected to the two in my house. No one else would be crazy enough to be walking along my road in this weather.

  I didn’t know whether to retreat back into the woods and continue my trek to the police station or try to rescue Jid myself.

  The resounding thud of a slap and a cry from the boy made up my mind.

  I waited until they were past me. The man, oblivious to everything but the way ahead, kept the headlamp fully fixed on the snow in front of him.

  Unfortunately, Shoni was starting to stir. Maybe she’d recognized Jid’s voice. So far she was being quiet, but at any moment she could start to whimper. I would have to act before she announced my presence.

  It looked as if the man had a firm hold on the boy with one hand, while in the other he carried an object impossible to identify in the darkness. I supposed I could try to pull the boy away from the man and run like hell. But running in snowshoes was a nonstarter.

  The only other option I could think of was to create a distraction and hope the man would leave my buddy alone while he went to investigate. But what kind of a distraction? As if reading my mind, a branch suddenly snapped in the forest across the road from me. It knocked against a tree before landing with a thunk on the ground. The man barely stopped in midstride. So much for distracting him with deadfall.

  It would have to be something unnatural, not a forest sound. A noise, like the metallic clinking that had caught my attention? Or a human voice? Mine. Or what about a whimpering dog?

  After they passed, I scrambled back over the snowbank and into the forest. I followed them, careful to stay concealed by the trees. The man’s pace was so slow that I caught up and passed unnoticed, though Jid’s head seemed to turn in my direction.

  I searched for likely places to hang Eric’s backpack and found the broken stub of a branch on a hardwood close enough to the road to entice him to check it out. On another tree, a piece of deadfall caught in a lower branch appeared strong enough to knock the guy out. Amateur hour, I know. But I was desperate. If I didn’t rescue my buddy now, there was no way I would be able to once this man joined up with his comrades.

  I slipped the loop of the pack over the broken end of the short stubby branch, poked, and prodded poor Shoni until she whimpered. It soon grew to a yelp. I hid behind the trunk and waited, branch in hand. I was beginning to lose hope when I heard the man’s panting as he broke through the snow. I raised the branch, ready to strike.

  When I heard, “What the fuck?” I came from behind the tree and slammed the branch as hard as I could onto his head.

  Except I missed.

  “Fuck!” was followed by a gunshot and then another.

  FIFTEEN

  “Who the fuck you?” the man yelled. Blinded by his headlamp, I lay with my heart pounding where I’d fallen the second his gun fired. I didn’t think I’d been hit.

  “Get that thing out of my eyes. I can’t see!” I shouted back.

  “Auntie, is that you?” Jid cried out.

  He crawled through the drifts toward me.

  “Get fuck away, kid.”

  “Leave him alone.” I struggled to get up but found myself floundering, unable to get purchase in the deep powder. “Jid, can you help me?”

  Shoni was in full yelping mode and scratching desperately at the pack’s zippers. I hoped they held. Poor thing. She was as scared as I was.

  Jid’s worried face appeared in the light. “You okay, Auntie?”

  “I’m fine. I just need a little help getting up. Can you find my ski poles? They’re buried somewhere close by.”

  He scuffed through the snow around me until he found them.

  “Get up, woman,” the man shouted.

  “I’m trying to.”

  Trying to get purchase was like punching a cloud. Whenever I placed any weight on my hands to hoist myself onto my feet, they sank deeper. The snowshoes didn’t help, so I removed them. Finally, putting my full weight on the poles, I managed to get myself upright, but no sooner was I on my feet than I heard the pack’s zipper give, and out tumbled Shoni.

  She sank like a stone into the white stuff. Both Jid and I scrambled to find her, banging our heads together in the process. Her yelps rose several decibels as she thrashed around. Jid was finally able to grab her and up she came into his arms, squirming in panic.

  “What fuck doing?” the man shouted.

  “Getting my dog.”

  “I no give fuck about dog.”

  While Jid struggled to calm the puppy down, I flicked on my headlamp and shone it straight into his eyes.

  “Who are you?” I asked with more bravado than I felt.

  “Turn off fuckin’ light.”

  “I’ll do it when you do.” Even with my eyes closed, his light was penetrating.

  For a second neither of us moved, then I shifted my beam away. After waiting several long seconds, I was about to shine it back on him when he finally turned his away.

  “You lady who live here?” He spoke with a thick accent, possibly Slavic.

  “Yup. What are you doing on my land?” Unable to see the man behind the headlamp, I had little sense of him other than from his voice. The harsh, demanding tone was telling me he was the kind of man who shot first and asked questions later.

  “Auntie, he’s got a gun,” Jid warned.

  “So I heard. So we won’t do anything to make him want to use it, will we?”

  “Nope, he made me come with him. I didn’t get to Will.”

  Worried he would say more, I asked, “How’s Shoni doing?”

  “Will, who he?” came the demand.

  “A friend. What are you doing with the boy?” I inserted my feet back into the snowshoes.

  “He yours?”

  I wanted to say yes, but was afraid the guy would use it to his advantage. “The son of a friend. Let him go. His mother will be getting worried.”

  “I not stupid. He tell his mother about me.”

  “I won’t, honest,” Jid replied.

  “I no trust you, not after you bite me and try to run away. It fuckin’ cold. We go to house.”

  As an added incentive he shone the light on his gun, a menacing black revolver of the kind I was used to seeing on TV and not pointed at me.

  “I need to get the puppy back in the pack.” I pulled it down from the branch.

  “I no care. Move.”
r />   “I can hold Shoni, Auntie. She’s gone to sleep,” Jid said.

  “Let me know when she gets too heavy, and I’ll take over.” I slung the pack onto my back.

  “You go first, woman, and then boy. No tricks or I shoot.” To emphasize the point, he waved his gun at both of us.

  I wasn’t particularly keen on returning to my house. I had no idea of the kind of reception I would receive from the tattooed man, but I doubted it would be friendly. However, with a handgun aimed at our backs, we had no choice but to walk back.

  As we moved away from the trees and into the openness of the road, I noticed that the intensity of the snow and wind had lessened, making it easier to see with the headlamp. Framed by the high banks of ploughed snow, the lane was a smooth plane except for the faint trench left by my other unwanted visitors. I followed it, hoping it would provide firmer traction for Jid.

  Half expecting to run into Professor and Larry, I kept my eye out for a dot of light coming toward us. I wasn’t certain which would be worse, meeting up with them on the road or back at my place.

  “How far away the house?” the man rasped between gasps.

  Good. Pushing snowshoes through the snow was taking its toll. Maybe he’d collapse from a heart attack.

  “About half a kilometre.”

  “The Injun say you an old lady.”

  “She was my great-aunt.”

  “You seen my buddies? They at the house?”

  “Why my house? There are better places to hide out.”

  “Injun’s idea. Say old lady live alone. No family. No friends.” He paused. “I think you were at house. So what you doing here? You run away?”

  Big mistake letting on I knew about his friends. “Larry’s the man’s name. Call him that. He’s hurt badly and will die without medical attention. I was going to get a doctor.”

  “I don’t believe you. You can phone.”

  “The phone’s not working. Let us go, so we can get the help Larry needs to survive.”

  He spat. “I don’t care if he die. He not important. No, you go after police. Now move.”

  “Are you guys bank robbers?” I figured I might as well find out who they were.

  He guffawed. “No, convicts. We escape from Joyceville.”

  “Joyceville?” I would’ve thought a maximum security prison like Millhaven would’ve been more appropriate.

  “They move me there for good behaviour.” He laughed even louder. “Now go, or I shoot boy.”

  SIXTEEN

  I went numb. Escaped prisoners had crossed my mind, but I’d rejected the idea, believing it too preposterous. Three Deer Point was too far away from the penitentiaries in Quebec and Ontario. Joyceville was located near Kingston, easily a five-hour drive away. So why in the world did they end up here?

  With the reassuring sound of Jid tramping behind me, I plodded up my drive to the house in silence, all exhaustion gone. I was too worried to talk. I was afraid of what this could mean for Jid and me. Other than saying a few words when he passed Shoni to me, he was quiet too.

  All hope of rescue had vanished. I knew deep down that my plea to Will had failed to get through. That left Eric. If everything were normal between us, I knew he wouldn’t hesitate to get Will to drive over to check up on me. But things weren’t normal.

  Why was I so damn stupid? Why couldn’t I have just pretended that it was fine by me having another woman call him? Instead I had to make a big deal of it, which had only made matters worse. Was my outburst enough to drive him into the arms of this other woman? I shuddered at the thought.

  Not wanting to consider for even a nanosecond life without Eric, I continued trudging forward. Apart from the incessant droning of the storm, the only sound was our captor’s laboured breathing. It would appear that exercise wasn’t part of his routine in prison. I hadn’t yet given up hope for a heart attack.

  But he was still moving, albeit slowly, when the timber structure of my home finally loomed into view. At one point, when we were closing in on the house, he ordered us to stop while he rested, though he pretended it was to fix one of the snowshoes. When we resumed, he demanded that we slow our pace to his and threatened to shoot if we didn’t.

  I had mixed feelings when I saw the faint glow filtering through the windows of my house. It would be a relief to get out of the storm and into its warmth. But Professor was going to be one very angry man.

  As if reading my mind, he flung open the door at the sound of us clambering up the back stairs. His bullet head backlit by the kitchen light made him appear even more menacing. Without a single word, he slugged me across the jaw. I fell into Jid and tumbled the two of us down the stairs and back into the snow.

  “Why fuck you do that, Viper?” shouted the man behind us.

  “Slobo, is that you? It’s about time you showed up,” Professor said. “Did you get rid of the car?”

  “Fuckin’ snow make plenty problems. Fuck, I hate this country. But the snow bury it good. No one find car until snow gone in summer.” He guffawed.

  I tested my jaw. I didn’t think it was broken, but it sure hurt. I helped Jid out of the snow, and then myself.

  “You okay, Auntie?” he whispered. “Where’s Shoni?”

  I’d forgotten about her. The two of us dug around in the snow, frantic to find her.

  “What you doing?” our captor shouted.

  “Looking for the puppy.”

  “She’s where she belongs.” Professor smiled smugly, holding Shoni in his arms while she licked his face. “A cute little thing. I might take her with me. It would serve you right for trying to escape.”

  Pretending to ignore his threat, I bent over to release the straps on my snowshoes. My aching jaw was telling me I would have little say in my puppy’s future.

  “You gonna let us in? I fucking cold,” Slobo said, attempting to kick the snowshoes off his feet.

  “It would help if you undid them,” I said.

  “Stupid shoes. Only crazy people wear them.” He glared at me before bending down to release the straps.

  “They got you through the snow, didn’t they?”

  He ignored me as he continued to struggle with them.

  Professor stared down at us from the top of the stairs. I sensed a standoff developing. But after a few minutes, he turned around and walked back inside the house with the puppy perfectly happy in his arms.

  With Slobo prodding us from behind, Jid and I stumbled up the steps. Snarling “Move!” he pushed us through the door, past the Christmas tree, and into the kitchen.

  Waves of heat from the woodstove washed over me. Though this wasn’t where I had expected to be, the warmth still felt wonderful. I hadn’t realized how cold I had become. At least Professor had kept the fire going.

  There were no signs of impending departure. He must’ve thought I would get lost and end up freezing to death. Otherwise, if he thought there had been a chance that I would make it to the police, the two of them would have left. But perhaps Larry was the deciding factor. I doubted the injured man would have made it very far.

  “Who’s the kid?” the tattooed man asked.

  “Don’t know. Find him on road.”

  Road? He should’ve been miles away on the reserve.

  “Fuck, he got sharp teeth.” Slobo held up his hand to reveal red teeth marks on the back of it.

  In the glow of the oil lamp, Jid’s smile covered almost as much of his face as the splotch of redness spreading across his cheek.

  “You okay?” I mouthed.

  He nodded and beamed more broadly.

  The man yelled, “Boy, no smile or I hit you again.”

  The smile vanished, but not the glint in his eyes.

  “Don’t you dare!” The words shot out before I could stop them.

  “Or you’ll what?” Slobo patted the gun tucked into the waistband of his jeans.

  I shoved Jid behind me.

  “Calm down, everybody,” Professor interjected. “Slobo, why did you bring t
he kid here? We don’t need more people knowing our whereabouts.”

  “You know I no like name Slobo. Call me Slobodan or Tiger.”

  The new arrival wasn’t as tall as the tattooed man and was considerably broader, with a hint of a beer belly pulling at his wet ski jacket. Given the way he smoothed back his thick mane of dirty blond hair after removing his hood, I’d say he prided himself on his chiselled looks. Doubtless a lot of women would find his notched chin and commanding jawline attractive. Not this one.

  “Ah yes. A Serbian mother’s diminutive for her little boy,” Professor replied.

  If I’d expected an angry retort, it didn’t come, other than a firming of his lips. Instead the new arrival said, “The boy saw me hiding car. I worry he tell his mother. He make good hostage, ne?”

  “That makes two,” Professor said, pointing to me. “If it comes to that. Any sign of the police?”

  I supposed about the only good thing you could say about being a bargaining chip was they would want to keep us alive.

  “Ne. Nobody on road in this shit. But good for us, ne? ”

  He ran his pale blue eyes over the kitchen, letting them linger on the line of copper pots hanging over the cookstove. They might not be as gleaming as they were in Aunt Aggie’s day, but they couldn’t hide their value in the soft glow of the oil lamp. “Nice house.”

  “Remember what we agreed,” Professor said. “We leave it the way we found it. So don’t even think of taking anything.”

  Slobodan shrugged by way of an answer, not bothering to hide his smirk. “Where the Injun? He okay?”

  “You are being disrespectful. If we are to work together, we need to respect each other. Larry is doing as well as expected.” Professor nodded in my direction. “She fixed him up.”

  The Serbian grunted, removed his wet jacket, and tossed it over the back of one of the fuchsia kitchen chairs before dropping down onto it. He pulled out a cellphone and flipped it open. “Fuck, no service.” He shook the phone, as if that would help. “Nothing. You, woman, why not working?”