Absolute Zero (2002)

by Chuck Logan

  "Agreed. But maybe we should stay put till this front works on through," Broker said.

  "No pain, no gain," Milt said with a grin.

  "Right. And pneumonia is God's way of telling you to get out of the rain," Broker said.

  Milt was unmoved. Being a serious white-water kayaker, he refused to be impressed with the concerns of flat-water paddlers. He pointed to Broker's tent and said, "Heads up."

  Across camp, Sommer emerged from Broker's tent robed in his sleeping bag.

  "Check it out, we woke up on a wedding cake," Sommer said, blinking at the hushed foliage.

  Then he stooped, knelt, felt around for a flat place on the ground, found one, laid out the bag, sat down on it, and folded his legs in a casual lotus position. With the rest of the bag drawn around his shoulders he sat upright and draped his hands on his knees. Just like yesterday.

  Broker studied the lanky writer sitting Buddha-fashion against a background of snowy spruce. Sommer had this tattoo on his left wrist, like a colorful bracelet, until you got a good look at it, and then you realized that the color scheme and sequence were the exact reds, greens, and grays of the lethal coral snake.

  While Sommer did his morning meditation, Broker and Milt talked weather and drank their coffee. Then Sommer unfolded from his sitting position, bent forward, placed his forearms on the ground, clasped his hands, tucked in his shaggy head, and slowly hoisted himself up perfectly vertical into a headstand.

  "Does that every morning, too?" Broker asked.

  "Yeah, he's trying to stay mellow." Milt paused and rolled his eyes. "Until Jolene rings him up again."

  "We should be out of cell-phone range soon," Broker said.

  "Knock on wood," Milt said.

  Chapter Two

  "So, what do you think?" Broker jerked a thumb at the low clouds.

  "I think you're right, it's going to snow," Milt said.

  "I heard that," Sommer called out, as he lowered his feet to the ground, sat up, and looked around. "How soon?"

  "Can't tell. There's coffee by the fire," Broker said.

  Sommer poured a cup, squinted his hazel eyes, ran a hand through his thick blond hair, and lit a Camel straight. Barefoot, wearing just a T-shirt and Jockey shorts with the cell phone tucked into the waistband, he appeared immune to the cold. His size 13 feet ended in long toes and were attached to heavily muscled, slightly varicose legs. His chest seemed narrow because his sinewy arms were so long, and his neck was embedded in wedges of more wrinkled muscle that sloped up from his shoulders. In addition to the poison bracelet on his left wrist, he had five red teardrops tattooed on his right forearm. The tattoos had a crude jailhouse texture and Broker, who had some experience in evaluating jailhouse art, reflected that the raunchy designs might harmonize just fine with a woman named Jolene.

  When Sommer took his coffee back into the tent to get dressed, Broker wondered aloud: "Where's a writer get arms like that?"

  Milt raised an eyebrow. "Oh, he'll get around to telling you about how he grew up in the factories of Detroit."

  As Sommer disappeared into one tent, Dr. Allen Falken emerged

  from the other. He stretched and stood for a minute, methodically

  kneading moisturizing cream into his hands, taking extra care with

  each finger. When he finished, he inspected the overcast sky. "Well, super," said Allen. A general surgeon, and the youngest

  at forty, he was racquetball-smooth and wrinkle free. Broker cooked

  plain trail-fare and Allen proved to be a picky eater. And he fussed

  with his appearance; fresh from his sleeping bag, every strand of his

  thick sandy hair was in place like a styled wire hedge. He had wide

  blue eyes under a broad forehead, wide cheeks, a long narrow nose

  and tapering chin, strong hands and supple, well-tended fingers. "I doubt it's going to rain again," Allen said, eyeing the misty

  sky and forest. "Probably it'll snow," Broker said. "Good, easier to see the moose against a white background.

  What's for breakfast?" Allen asked as he rubbed his hands

  together to warm them. Three precise rubs, no wasted motion.

  Broker was forming the impression that Allen never stopped fol

  lowing instructions. "Oatmeal, Tang, toast and jam," Broker said, getting up and

  returning to the campfire. He threw his cigar stub into the coals

  and, as he prepared the porridge, speculated that they wouldn't be

  out here unless it was a once-in-a-lifetime hunting trip. They had

  won a state lottery that allowed them to take a moose in the Bound

  ary Waters in the "greatest wilderness, big-game hunt east of the

  Mississippi."

  From their banter Broker had learned that they had climbed

  Mount Rainier, mountain-biked through Moab, and rafted white

  water rapids in Chile. Now they intended to paddle twenty-five

  miles into rough country and tote out a bull moose to add to their

  trophy repertoire.

  Their destination was a burned-over area on Lake Fraser, a two

  hour paddle to the north, where tender green shoots had thrived in

  the ash and were prime moose-browse. So far, they'd been out for

  two days in the rain with no sign of anything bigger than a fox.

  When they'd eaten and were finishing their coffee, Broker went

  on record with the prudent option: "I think we should hunker down

  in camp until this weather blows over." "Quit, huh?" Sommer snorted.

  "Get dry," Broker said. "We're wet and chilled. Milt's getting sick. We should fort up with a good fire."

  Sommer scrunched his mobile face in a Gallic shrug, "C'est la fuckin' vie. It's not like we're in Nepal. We're just a few miles from Ely."

  Milt seconded Sommer with a curt nod. Allen scoffed, "Ditto. It's Indian summer, right?"

  Broker laughed and tossed the dregs of his coffee on the fire. "Okay, sure; let's hit it," he said and thought how Northern Minnesota killed a few zealots like these guys every season. But then, that was part of the lure of this trip. They wanted to push the edge a little.

  Dzzztttttttting.

  The electric whine from Sommer's cell phone ended the discussion. Broker, Allen, and Milt grimaced with a there-goes-theneighborhood expression.

  "Goddamn shit," Sommer said.

  Dzzztttttttting.

  "Motherfucker." Sommer furrowed his scruffy brow and flipped open the phone. "What?"

  A tiny, forceful female voice delivered a speech inside the slender plastic phone. Sommer stepped on her remarks in a dogged voice: "This is not the time to discuss the subject of trust." Pause. "Oh, for sure. We tried that and the first thing you did was drain the account." Pause. "Okay, your half of the account." Pause. "It's how you did it. Giving money to Earl behind my back."

  In a spontaneous display of consensus body language, Broker, Allen, and Milt rose, tiptoed away, and formed an awkward huddle a discreet distance from Hank.

  "Earl is the old boyfriend," Allen explained.

  "She wrote him a big check, so Hank cut her off, closed the joint checking account," Milt said.

  "Put all his money in a trust she can't touch, to teach her a lesson," Allen said.

  "Don't call me again when I'm hunting," Sommer growled. He grimaced and held the phone away from his ear, up toward the overcast sky. "I don't need this shit," he hissed. Then, in a sudden fit he threw the phone like a shortstop firing to first base, and the black

  plastic rectangle skittered off a spruce branch, bounced, then rolled over next to Broker's boot.

  A youthful voice rattled distinctly from the phone, "I'm just trying to be responsible, goddammit; and responsible people pay their

  debts." Broker picked up the phone and held it at arm's length. The voice continued. "You have all these bills piled up on your desk going back two months. The power company called. They're
going to turn off the lights. Hank? Hank?"

  Gingerly, Broker handed it back to Sommer who was now furious and clearly not tracking her conversation. "Not with my money. Not to that pimp!" he shouted into the phone.

  "Earl was never a pimp," the voice said. "And it's our money because we're married."

  Milt shook his head. "I told him he should have made her sign a pre-nup."

  Allen worried his lower lip between his teeth and tried to explain, "This is one beautiful woman on the outside but as to the inside Milt and I disagree."

  "Bonnie fucking Parker is what I think," Milt said.

  "And I think she cleans up well, like Eliza Doolittle, a lotus growing in a field of shit and Hank had the good sense to pluck her," Allen said thoughtfully.

  "We'll see who plucks who." Milt glanced at Broker and shrugged. "Allen and I have this bet going. It's a classic naturenurture debate; she was a stripper and a drunk who hung out with some rough people. Hank met her in an AA group in a church basement. I don't think she can change, Allen thinks she can. Obviously so does Hank."

  "Fuck this," Hank exploded. He wound up and threw the phone again, except this time he lobbed it over their heads in a long arc that ended in a splash twenty yards out in the lake.

  "And that settles that," Milt said.

  Broker watched the circular ripples radiate out from the spot where the phone disappeared. He cleared his throat. "Sure can get quiet up here," he said, deadpan.

  After that, they set off in separate directions to practice male solidarity through denial, and to break camp. While Broker did the

  dishes, Milt and Allen efficiently collapsed the tents, stowed them, and organized the cumbersome Duluth packs next to the canoes. Sommer hung back and brooded with a cup of coffee and a cigarette.

  After he finished the dishes Broker packed them and scanned the low clouds as he laced up his boots. Snow didn't bother him. But he felt a draft comb through the pine needles, like someone had eased open the door of a walk-in meat freezer. And in the chill he sensed the charged air marshaling and packing tighter.

  They stamped out the campfire and stowed the last of their gear. Sommer clambered gingerly over the mound of packs and took his seat in the bow of Broker's canoe. Milt naturally took the stern position in the other boat. A little after 8:00 A.M., they pushed off from the campsite and entered a maze of narrow channels that threaded toward Lake Fraser.

  Paddling side by side, Broker and Milt kibitzed about canoes. Milt had wanted one of the fast, lighter Kevlar models that were currently popular. Broker preferred the old-fashioned aluminum Grummans. The popular Wenonahs, he argued, were great for racing in a straight line on flat water, but he distrusted the square cut of the bow and worried it would dig into a breaking wave, not ride up it.

  They'd compromised on fiberglass Bells—a broader craft with more lift in the line of the bow and more stability for heavy loads and bad weather.

  Then Milt and Allen pulled ahead and when they were out of easy earshot, Sommer turned in the bow seat and shook his head. He seemed to have been holding his breath since the phone incident. Now he exhaled and grumbled. "Sometimes I feel like a cliché, marrying a younger woman. Thinking I could help her change."

  Broker studied the older man for two long paddle strokes. As the cold water swished and the canoe rocked he watched Sommer's expression slip. Suddenly he saw into the dilemma of a physically rugged man who was grappling with aging and was losing the strength he'd always taken for granted.

  Broker spoke in a low, soft voice no one on the trip had yet heard: "I married a younger woman and I thought she'd change after she had a baby but she didn't."

  And that pretty much dried up the conversation for a while.

  Up ahead Milt and Allen put down their paddles, unzipped their

  gun cases, and loaded their rifles, which they then carefully posi

  tioned against the thwarts. Then they picked up their paddles and

  pulled farther ahead.

  Sommer chuckled. "Look at them go. They want to be first." "First, huh?" "For the next big thing—which in this case is some poor, lily

  pad-chewing moose." Sommer chuckled, raised his voice, and

  hailed the other canoe. "Who gets the first shot? Who will be the

  Alpha Wolf and hang the antlers?" "Pipe down," Allen yelled back, "you'll scare everything away." "Oh, that's good," Sommer exclaimed. "What do you think?

  Some moose is going to get wheeled down to the shore all prepped

  and anesthetized on a table for you to carve up?"

  Milt and Allen pulled about fifty yards ahead and no one spoke.

  The white trees enforced quiet, like a hospital ward. There was only

  the splash of the paddles, puffs of their breath, the occasional knock

  of wood on the gunwales.

  Then Sommer shrugged and wondered out loud, "What do

  moose do in this weather, anyway?"

  Broker said, "Got me." "Hey, c'mon, you're the guide," Sommer said. "I'm the cook, I set up camp. I'm not a hunting guide. It's illegal

  to guide or assist in the state lottery hunt up here if you've already

  got a moose," Broker said. "That's what I mean, you've shot a moose, right?" Sommer said. "It was a long time ago," Broker said. "So how was it?" Sommer asked. "Shooting a moose is like shooting a garage door."

  Sommer jerked around and laughed. "That's good, I'm going to

  steal that." "So you steal stuff, huh?" Broker asked. "You bet. All writers are thieves." "I always heard there are two kinds of thieves: the ones too lazy

  to work and the ones who think they're too smart to get caught.

  Which kind are you?"

  Sommer laughed. "The smart, lazy kind. Actually I'm more like

  a ball of wax; you know, everything sticks." "And that's why you want to shoot a moose, to pick up some

  details?" Broker asked.

  "Nah," Sommer raised his paddle and pointed at the canoe up

  ahead. "I want to see them shoot a moose. Especially Allen."

  Broker fixed on the blue back of Allen's parka and asked,

  "How's that?"

  "I admit I wouldn't mind seeing a surgeon field-dress a moose,"

  Sommer said.

  "I hear you," Broker said, suppressing a smile. Then they

  stopped talking and looked to the paddles, their arms rising and

  falling in a crisp morning cadence, working out the kinks, easing

  into the day. Despite the overcast sky they were happy to be free of

  the rain and they warmed with the work.

  "So what is it you write about, anyway?" Broker asked.

  "The Four Great American W's: Women, Whiskey, Work, and

  War. And of course, sex and death."

  Broker was smiling now. He asked, "How's your side feeling?"

  "I'm good," Sommer said, appearing to be more relaxed. Unlike

  Milt and Allen who looked around frequently to find the source of

  an invisible irritation, Sommer was momentarily at ease with the

  silence of the north.

  "So how old are you, anyway?" Broker asked.

  "I was born a week after the Battle of Midway."

  Broker rested his paddle. "June, 1942." He's fifty-seven, ten years older than me. Looking closer, Broker noticed the faint web

  bing at his throat and in his cheeks. He saw the dapple of dark pig

  ment on his bare wrist between the cuff of his parka and his glove. Ten years, he thought.

  "Not bad," Sommer said.

  "I read military history to go to sleep, like some people read

  mysteries," Broker said. He shook his head. "Up until now the only

  writers I've met were newspaper reporters. They don't sound much

  like you."

  Sommer acted indignant. "Hey, I'm a thief, not a fucking vam

  pire."

  Broker grinned at the remark and a few minutes later the fr
osted

  woods opened and they squirted from the last tight passage into a

  long, open stretch of lake.

  "Life vest," Broker reminded Sommer who had neglected to put

  his on. Sommer pulled on the vest and snapped it tight. Their pad

  dles dipped and swished in and out of the glassy, motionless water

  and, except for the chill air, the distant treelines could have been a blur of steam. They were well into the open water when a feather of breeze drifted down. Long, dark ripples began to gouge Lake Fraser as if an invisible giant was dragging his feet.

  "What the hell?" Sommer looked up as the feeble light drained from the sky and left the day in shadow. There was no warning.

  The air and water puckered as the wind set its cleats. The treetops bent, the forest dulled from white eye candy to dirty ash. The straight-line gale just smashed down through the clouds.

  "Get serious, people . . ." Broker rose in his seat and yelled to warn the other canoe. The blast tore the words from his mouth and threw them away.

  Chapter Three

  "Ahhouuu."

  Milt gave a dare-danger howl as he and Allen sculled in place

  until Broker and Sommer pulled abreast of them. Then Milt bran

  dished his paddle at the storm. This show of bravado rankled Bro

  ker who was gauging the power of the onrushing wind in the way

  the pines were cranking at the north end of the lake. "Cinch those vests tight," he shouted.