by Chuck Logan
Then Nancy disappeared and another slender blue figure took her place. Amy's hair looked out of place and her face was pale, like the Roto-Rooter had been through her entire circulation system. She had a plastic bracelet on her wrist and an IV in her arm, just like he did, except her IV bag was on a stand that rolled on casters beside her.
"We have to stop meeting in this place," Amy said.
Broker grinned.
"God, look at you. I'll bet you haven't smiled this much ever. Listen, I talked to Boris and he says your hands and feet—don't worry, you're going to be fine."
She paused, picked up a sippy cup with a flexible straw from the bedside table, and held it to his lips. Broker, cotton-mouthed, gratefully sucked the ginger ale. "Have to keep your fluids up," Amy said, then she put down the cup.
"One of the paramedics told Dave Iker you were babbling about ostriches, so Dave came to me and I explained about the farm. So Dave called down to Washington County and your friend, the sheriff, had a deputy go around to J.T.'s neighbors and find a guy who knew how to watch the place. The birds are all right."
Broker continued to grin.
Amy cocked her head. "Jolene told me it was the baby monitors."
As Amy talked, Broker tried to fit his mind around the story according to Hank. The whole thing about Allen giving the wrong meds. Garf and Stovall.
Broker tried to listen from behind his soft morphine window. Maybe this was what it was like for Hank. People talking at him.
"The St. Louis County prosecutor asked the questions with an alphabet board. Hank blinked back the answers." Amy clicked her teeth. "They were pretty short answers. How Jolene got Allen and Earl fighting each other. But there were these gaps . . ."
Broker couldn't stop grinning.
"Like, how did they control Jolene? Or was she playing along for time? I guess we'll never know because her lawyer cut an immunity deal for her to testify before the grand jury."
Amy held up her hand and rotated her palm. It didn't mean anything to Broker. Amy shook her head. "I forgot, you're drunk. My fingernails. She came by to check on me earlier this evening. She brought polish remover and new polish. She painted my fingernails red . . ."—her non-IV hand floated up—"and she put up my hair."
Broker grinning, long-glide. Hair?
"Jolene and I don't have a lot in common; she didn't exactly graduate from Women's Studies, did she? All I know is, she saved my life."
At some point, she went away and left him alone to ponder simple things; Jolene saved Amy and he saved Jolene. And nobody saved him, this time, except himself, and that's the way it should be.
In the morning the morphine tide went out and Broker was beached on dry pain. Pain brought the virtue of clarity. And the scent of lilies.
When he opened his eyes she was standing looking down at him. She seemed to have grown an inch and maybe it was her posture, like she'd laid down something heavy. Maybe it was him being flat on his back.
Milt Dane stood in the doorway; floated was more like it. He wore recent events strapped to his back like a jet pack, and he tended to zoom around a few inches off the floor. A layered legal situation was taking shape in which he represented Amy, Nancy Ward, and Jolene against Allen Falken's insurance underwriters.
Probably it was just the residual morphine, punching up the edges and textures, that made Jolene look like a page out of the kind of glossy magazine that he never read. He'd heard about Madison Avenue sneaking tiny, subliminal death heads into images of invincible beauty. But he didn't see any grinning skulls in her green eyes.
Milt must have brought some of her clothes because she wore perfect-fitting Levi's, a white T-shirt, and a short leather jacket. Her face glowed, baptized in glacier water and born again clean. They stared at each other for a long time and his eyes were full of questions. Her eyes brimmed, but not with answers for him.
"So what do you think?" she said.
Broker thought about it. "I think you were more implicated in what happened than Amy or myself could testify to." Her lawyer was present. Broker didn't really expect a reply. So he summed it up. "I'll never know if you did the right thing or just the smart thing."
Jolene smiled, and all Broker learned from her smile was that she was deep enough for mystery. She patted his cheek. "Hank used to say, 'I didn't make the world.' Well, I didn't make the world, either, but I'm sure as hell going to live in it the best way I can from here on out."
She bent forward and kissed his forehead. "Another thing, be patient. I think your wife's going to call. A smart woman doesn't leave a guy like you loose for long."
Probably she was right. Then she turned, and it was clear from her expression that she was busy and had places to go. When she left the room, Milt came over to Broker's bed and gently touched his undamaged shoulder.
"You're not such a bad guy for an ambulance chaser," Broker said, "but the next time you want to take a canoe trip, tell you what—don't call me."
Milt squeezed the shoulder. "Thanks," he said. His eyes drifted to the doorway where Jolene had disappeared. "Without you, we would have lost her."
Broker nodded and for a moment he absorbed the low-key, leaving-on-a-jet-plane vibrations Jolene and Milt put out. Then he asked, "Hank?"
Milt looked away, shook his head.
Broker nodded again. Then he inclined his head and his eyes toward the doorway. "Like I said, watch yourself when you get in among those rocks."
The exhausting ordeal with the letters had ended. He'd done his best and then his mind had just turned to sand. Whatever happened now, it would happen without Allen and Earl. And without him.
Jolene had taken her first steps and would just have to take her chances. Just like he'd have to take his chances with whatever came next.
He had come full circle. Milt and Jolene tucked him in and hov
ered for a moment over his bed. Then, slowly, they backed away and turned out the lights.
So he waited in the dark. Beside a trail he knew it would come down.
At first it was just a color—yellow—and then, as it moved closer, it assumed the shape of a man. He understood this was merely manifestation; the way he chose to experience it.
So he made himself tidy inside and remembered the first time he'd seen it coming, calm, like this. All the other times it grazed him with a lurid action beat: shock, fear, pain, adrenaline hemorrhaging, and the brimstone reek of cordite.
It had been on a late morning when the air was the color of steaming tea. This yellow blur floating against the ferrous-red dirt and all the green God ever made. It was hot that day. The sky was the blue heart of a Bunsen burner. They were sweaty and dirty and dressed, as usual, to kill. They were sprawled along the path, taking a break next to baked, fallow fields that were cracked and choked with weeds.
And Hank and his squad were kin to the weeds: poisonous, itchy, and bristling with stickers. They had all gotten so dirty they would never be clean again. And then they saw the yellow come floating, a man in saffron robes and bare feet.
Gook in the open.
Reflex rifles came up, the solitary figure filled a few peep sights.
Hey, man, check this dude out, someone yelled, the way he walks.
It's cool. Just one of those monks, walking.
The peeps moved off.
And he came on with his shaved head and his bare feet and his saffron robe swaying and his sturdy brown arms swinging. A man who moved like a clean, upright flame. His clear brown eyes focused right through and beyond them, like they were mud from somewhere else that had gotten out of control and had acquired guns and airline tickets to his country. And Hank had remembered absolutely recognizing how this guy knew exactly what he was doing. He was walking one hundred percent present in the moment and every one of them watching were wishing like hell they were someplace else.
Absolutely perfect goddamn walking.
Just look at the way he placed his foot in the dust, the way his heel came down and then his instep, a
nd the ball and then the toes. This guy could teach the world to walk.
They'd watched him come on, one step at a time, and by the time he passed them they were all up on their mud feet.
Eyes right.
Hank was a grown man the day he learned to walk. And he never forgot the presence of that moment and how it had a onepointed heft and carry to it; simple, like a country song about a hanging in the morning.
Tried to live his life that way.
Maybe he'd managed a few gestures that came close.
And now he just had to put one foot in front of the other.
So . . .
When you walk, walk.
And when you fight, fight.
And when you live, live.
And when you die . . .
Acknowledgments
This story happened because many people took the time to explain and show me what they do every day. Herbert Ward, M.D., chief cardiothoracic surgeon at the V.A. Medical Center, Minneapolis, and Lori Harris, CRNA, helped assemble the starter materials.
Dave Akerson, former St. Louis County deputy, and Pat Loe, a pilot at the U.S. Forest Service Seaplane Base in Ely, Minnesota, talked me through the ropes of wilderness rescue procedures.
John Camp, Craig Borck, and Chris Niskanen were good company on a long, wet, cold moose hunt in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.
Ronald E. Cranford, M.D., assistant chief, Department of Neurology, Hennepin County Medical Center, took me on rounds. Marsha Zimmerman, RN, also at Hennepin Country, explained general emergency room procedures.
Sheriff Jim Frank, Washington County, Minnesota, again patiently answered questions about law enforcement, and Washington County deputy Larry Zafft provided pointers about computer crime.
My neighbor, Don Schoff, walked me through his ostrich operation, Schoff Farms, in River Falls, Wisconsin, and reacquainted me with bringing in a hay crop over a long summer.
My cousin, Kenneth Merriman, M.D., A.B.O.S., A.A.O.S., at the Hastings Orthopedic Clinic, Hastings, Michigan, fielded med
ical questions as did Boris Beckert, M.D., of the Stillwater Medical Group, Stillwater, Minnesota, and Brian Engdahl, consulting psychologist at the V.A. Medical Center, Minneapolis.
Special thanks to Kevin J. Bjork, M.D., general surgeon at the Stillwater Medical Group, for taking me along on a surgeon's day in the OR; and to Jeff Reichel, CRNA, for tips on anesthesia and for troubleshooting a draft of the manuscript.
Bill Tilton continued as a rock of support and critical reader.
Literary snipers Kim Yeager and Jean Pieri ruthlessly flushed out and liquidated macho overwriting.
Larry Miller contributed the title on short notice.
Sloan Harris at ICM and Dan Conaway at HarperCollins made sure I got my exercise and taught me that a writer can pass through the eye of a needle.
About the Author
Chuck Logan is the author of The Big Law and The Price of Blood – both featuring Minnesota undercover cop Phil Broker – and Hunter's Moon. He lives in Stillwater, Minnesota, with his wife and daughter.
Survive Absolute Zero: The U.S. Army
Guide
One of the most difficult survival situations is a cold
weather scenario. Remember, cold weather is an adver
sary that can be as dangerous as an enemy soldier. Every
time you venture into the cold, you are pitting yourself
against the elements. With a little knowledge of the envi
ronment, proper plans, and appropriate equipment, you
can overcome the elements…. Cold is a far greater threat
to survival than it appears. It decreases your ability to
think and weakens your will to do anything except to get
warm. Cold is an insidious enemy; as it numbs the mind
and body, it subdues the will to survive.
Cold makes it very easy to forget your ultimate goal — to survive.
Remember, winter weather is highly variable. Prepare
yourself to adapt to blizzard conditions even during sunny
and clear weather.
COLD REGIONS AND LOCATIONS
Cold regions include arctic and subarctic areas and areas immediately adjoining them. You can classify about 48 percent of the northern hemisphere's total landmass as a cold region due to the influence and extent of air temperatures. Ocean currents affect cold weather and cause large areas normally included in the temperate zone to fall within the cold regions during winter periods. Elevation also has a marked effect on defining cold regions.
Within the cold weather regions, you may face two types of cold weather environments — wet or dry. Knowing in which environment your area of operations falls will affect planning and execution of a cold weather operation.
Wet Cold Weather Environments
Wet cold weather conditions exist when the average temperature in a 24-hour period is -10 degrees C or above. Characteristics of this condition are freezing during the colder night hours and thawing during the day. Even though the temperatures are warmer during this condition, the terrain is usually very sloppy due to slush and mud. You must concentrate on protecting yourself from the wet ground and from freezing rain or wet snow.
Dry Cold Weather Environments
Dry cold weather conditions exist when the average temperature in a 24-hour period remains below -10 degrees C. Even though the temperatures in this condition are much lower than normal, you do not have to contend with the freezing and thawing. In these conditions, you need more layers of inner clothing to protect you from temperatures as low as -60 degrees C. Extremely hazardous conditions exist when wind and low temperature combine.
WINDCHILL
Windchill increases the hazards in cold regions. Windchill is the effect of moving air on exposed flesh. For instance, with a 27.8-kph (15-knot) wind and a temperature of -10 degrees C, the equivalent windchill temperature is -23 degrees C.
Remember, even when there is no wind, you will create the equivalent wind by skiing, running, being towed on skis behind a vehicle, working around aircraft that produce wind blasts.
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF COLD
WEATHER SURVIVAL
It is more difficult for you to satisfy your basic water, food, and shelter needs in a cold environment than in a warm environment. Even if you have the basic requirements, you must also have adequate protective clothing and the will to survive. The will to survive is as important as the basic needs. There have been incidents when trained and well-equipped individuals have not survived cold weather situations because they lacked
the will to live. Conversely, this will has sustained individuals less well-trained and equipped.
There are many different items of cold weather equipment and clothing issued by the U.S. Army today. Specialized units may have access to newer, lightweight gear such as polypropylene underwear, GORE-TEX outerwear and boots, and other special equipment. The older gear will keep you warm as long as you apply a few cold weather principles. If the newer types of clothing are available, use them. If not, then your clothing should be entirely wool, with the possible exception of a windbreaker.
You must not only have enough clothing to protect you from the cold, you must also know how to maximize the warmth you get from it. For example, always keep your head covered. You can lose 40 to 45 percent of body heat from an unprotected head and even more from the unprotected neck, wrist, and ankles. These areas of the body are good radiators of heat and have very little insulating fat. The brain is very susceptible to cold and can stand the least amount of cooling. Because there is much blood circulation in the head, most of which is on the surface, you can lose heat quickly if you do not cover your head.
There are four basic principles to follow to keep warm. An easy way to remember these basic principles is to use the word COLD—
C - Keep clothing clean.
O - Avoid overheating.
L - Wear clothes loose and in layers.
D - Keep
clothing dry.
C - Keep clothing clean. This principle is always important for sanitation and comfort. In winter, it is also important from the standpoint of warmth. Clothes matted with dirt and grease lose much of their insulation value. Heat can escape more easily from the body through the clothing's crushed or filled up air pockets. O - Avoid overheating. When you get too hot, you sweat and your clothing absorbs the moisture. This affects your warmth in two ways: dampness decreases the insulation quality of clothing, and as sweat evaporates, your body cools. Adjust your clothing so that you do not sweat. Do this by partially opening your parka or jacket, by removing an inner layer of clothing, by removing heavy outer mittens, or by throwing back your parka hood or changing to lighter headgear. The head and hands act as efficient heat dissipaters when overheated. L Wear your clothing loose and in layers. Wearing tight clothing and footgear restricts blood circulation and invites cold injury. It also decreases the volume of air trapped between the layers, reducing its insulating value. Several layers of lightweight clothing are better than one equally thick layer of clothing, because the layers have dead-air space between them. The dead-air space provides extra insulation. Also, layers of clothing allow you to take off or add clothing layers to prevent excessive sweating or to increase warmth. D - Keep clothing dry. In cold temperatures, your inner layers of clothing can become wet from sweat and your outer layer, if not water repellent, can become wet from snow and frost melted by body heat. Wear water repellent outer clothing, if available. It will shed most of the water collected from melting snow and frost. Before entering a heated shelter, brush off the snow and frost. Despite the precautions you take, there will be times when you cannot keep from getting wet. At such times, drying your clothing may become a major problem. On the march, hang your damp mittens and socks on your rucksack. Sometimes in freezing temperatures, the wind and sun will dry this clothing. You can also place damp socks or mittens, unfolded, near your body so that your body heat can dry them. In a campsite, hang damp clothing inside the shelter near the top, using drying lines or improvised racks. You may even be able to dry each item by holding it before an open fire. Dry leather items slowly. If no other means are available for drying your boots, put them between your sleeping bag shell and liner. Your body heat will help to dry the leather. A heavy, down-lined sleeping bag is a valuable piece of survival gear in cold weather. Ensure the down remains dry. If wet, it loses a lot of its insulation value. If you do not have a sleeping bag, you can make one out of parachute cloth or similar material and natural dry material, such as leaves, pine needles, or moss. Place the dry material between two layers of the material.