Dead of Winter

by Gerri Brightwell

“I wasn’t dumb enough to come here on my own.”

  “Oh, right,” Manny says, “I can see your buddy standing there right next to you. Sure thing.”

  “Outside,” he says. “Told him to go get help if there was any trouble.” Even to Fisher, this sounds lame beyond belief.

  But Manny’s head tilts slightly to one side, like he’s listening to something beyond the log walls of the cabin. “Open the door,” he says, “go on now.”

  Fisher backs toward the entrance. He feels behind him with one hand until he finds the doorhandle.

  “Easy,” Manny hisses. “Now get those hands back in the air and kick the door open.”

  Only as the door swings wide and the cold hits his face does Fisher understand—he’s on display for whoever’s supposed to be waiting for him in his car. Except, there isn’t anyone, and the old guy’s going to figure that out any second now because the car’s just sitting there churning away, and there’s no face staring out from behind the window. This is it, Fisher thinks, and before he can tell himself not to, he’s thrown himself across the porch and down the steps, and a helluva blast shatters the air. He’s barely at the car, is swinging the door open, when the dog’s on him. Its teeth sink into his sleeve. He shoves the dog hard against the side of the car and tips himself in across the seat. The dog’s on him again and he kicks it, kicks it in the face then wrenches the door shut.

  The second shot hits the edge of the hood. Fisher jams the car into reverse, and there’s the dog, its teeth snapping uselessly against the glass, and Fisher floors it as a third shot crashes through the air.

  23

  OFF FISHER GOES, off up Airport Road. His head’s still singing from the blast of the gun. He can’t loosen his hands and they grip the wheel so hard they hurt. Plus he’s cold. Beneath his armpits his T-shirt’s not just damp but wet, and in his crotch his boxers stick uncomfortably. Christ, he thinks, did he piss himself after all? But that can’t be right because he still feels like he needs to take a piss. In fact, he needs to take a piss real bad.

  He’s hearing himself think over and over, That fucker tried to kill me. His eyes are everywhere: in the rearview mirror, in the wing-mirror, up ahead where, over the rucked-up bare metal where Manny’s bullet went through the corner of the hood, he can see vehicles waiting to pull out onto the main drag. Only when he spots a trooper’s car easing along behind him does he flip on the turn signal and switch into the right-hand lane behind some small white import barely doing thirty-five, and follow it as though every muscle in his body weren’t taut with the urge to race ahead.

  One thing’s for sure: Grisby made it to the gunstore that morning. Manny must have bought Brian’s guns from him, and Grisby was as happy as a fucking clam and took off home with a wad of cash in his pocket. How long was it before those two guys showed up? Long enough for Manny to have called someone and set them after Grisby. That would have been easy enough—Son, I need to see your ID before I can buy these here guns from you and Grisby would have been just dumb enough, and just greedy enough, to fall for it. By the time he got home, Brian’s militia buddies were onto him. He didn’t stand a chance.

  But how would Manny have known to call them? Fisher brakes late, comes close to rear-ending the small white import. Brian loved those guns. He collected them. He wasn’t the kind of guy to buy his guns at the supermarket and load them into his cart with his groceries. No, he’d have gone to a gun dealer. One whose store sign was a grizzly holding a rifle. Same as on the magnet on the filing cabinet in his office.

  Shit. Manny must have sold Brian the guns. No wonder he knew who they belonged to. Maybe he sold guns to Brian’s militia buddies too, the sort of weapons a straight-up dealer wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole, and when Grisby showed up with Brian’s guns, Manny’d have known exactly who to call to find out what the hell was going on.

  The trooper hasn’t pulled ahead. He’s gliding along beside Fisher, cool as can be, even gives him a glance now. Fisher’s tongue has turned dry, his throat raw when he swallows. “Go on, get out of here,” he mutters thickly. Then the dazzle of red and blue lights starts up, and a siren whips through the air, and Fisher would have floored it but for the small white import a few yards ahead of him. Then, like a miracle, the trooper hurtles up the road, through an orange light, and on toward the airport.

  Fisher sinks back in his seat, saying, “For fuck’s sake, Christ Almighty.”

  Fisher stops. For one thing, he needs to take a piss. For another, all of a sudden his legs are shaking so hard he can’t keep his foot on the gas. He pulls over onto the forecourt of a tuxedo rental store and parks any old how. His legs are twitching like he’s just climbed all the way to the top of Henderson Dome and back. His neck’s so taut it hurts. As for the lump on his head, he’d swear it’s the size of a whole other head now, for all that when he runs his fingers over it, it doesn’t seem much bigger than before.

  Where should he go? He doesn’t know.

  What should he do? He doesn’t know.

  All he knows is that he needs to take a piss, but for now he just rests his forehead against the steering wheel and keeps his eyes closed. Bree, he thinks, where the hell are you? He can find her, can’t he? But how can he think? His head’s hurting inside and out: those smarting sinuses, the lump where the girl hit him, the blast of the shotgun still rattling inside his skull. Christ. He walked into Arctic Gun and Supply like a real dumbass, like nothing was going to happen if he started asking questions. How come he’s so stupid?

  Arctic Gun and Supply: so much for the cute grizzly on the logo. But the thought of that logo triggers something else. Jan and Brian’s office. The filing cabinet with its magnets. A metallic one in the shape of a key. And he remembers. A small gadget attached to Jan’s keyring. A chunky thing for letting a realtor into properties for showings. Brian must have had one too. So where is it now?

  Fisher lifts his head. He says, “You’re a clever girl, Bree, oh yes you are.” He tugs his phone from his pocket and yanks off his glove with his teeth. The battery’s low, but a quick search, that’s all it’ll take, surely. Problem is, even with the heat spinning out from the vents, it’s cold in here, and his fingers are stiff, and the goddamn screen’s so small, and he needs to piss real bad, so bad he can hardly think.

  He lifts his head. There, just up the road, salvation. He puts the car into gear and sends it careening over the snow.

  24

  IT’S YEARS SINCE Fisher’s been in the public library and the smell catches him off guard—the reek of old paper, of unwashed bodies and barely dispersed farts. It’s a place where the discarded and unloved end up, or at least the hopeful among them who don’t understand that life’s left them behind. Maybe he fits right in. His clothes are dank from sweat, and a flap of material’s hanging loose from his parka sleeve where the dog ripped it. When he gets to the bathrooms he even pisses a little on his longjohns, he’s been holding it for so long. Here, he’s just another loser.

  He has to reserve a computer to use it; for all that, out of the eight ranged along the wall, only a couple are occupied: at one, a saggy-faced woman in a green sweater whose thighs spill over the sides of her chair; at the other, a skinny guy in a baseball cap with a ravaged face who sits with his nose a few inches from the screen. Fisher tries to lower the seat of his chair, but the lever’s stuck and he’s perched ridiculously high, can’t even get his legs under the desk. The fat woman wheels herself over on her chair. She whispers loudly, “Give the lever a good tug, that one sticks.”

  Instead he gets to his feet and swaps the chair for the one at the next computer, and the fat woman glares at him. The librarian looks up from behind the counter and opens her mouth as if she means to say something, but Fisher looks away.

  He sits hunched, the bulk of him squeezed around the rectangle of the keyboard and his head hung low to stare at the screen. From close by comes a stifled belch. The fat wo
man.

  Into the small window of a search engine he starts typing “Armstrong Realty Alaska” but the keyboard’s grimy and the A sticks so that he has to pull it up with his fingertips each time he’s pressed it. Fuck that, he thinks, and glances over his shoulder. In a moment he’s rolled his chair to the next computer. He’s barely had time to open up the search engine when the fat woman’s hissing at him, “Number five. You reserved number five,” and the librarian’s head jerks up. Next thing he knows she’s coming at him. She leans in close and her silver bear-foot earrings catch the light. She whispers, “Do you wish to reserve a different computer?”

  Fisher explains the keyboard problem. She insists that he come to the desk to change his reservation, and fusses with the sign-up sheet, and whiteout, and her pen, until he can scarcely bear it. Then he’s back at the computer, his fingers awkward because this keyboard’s big, not like his laptop, and the system’s slow, each new web page he pulls up appearing from the bottom like a glass being filled. He’s just thinking, fuck this, fucking fuck it, his arms tensed to push himself away, to rush back outside, when there it is, huge and bright, just a foot from his face: a list of Armstrong Realty properties. He scrolls through them and clicks on the photos of their interiors. Each time he sees one that’s empty, he thinks, bingo! Five of them, two in town and three in the wilderburbs around town, not far away but just far enough. Bree’s a smart kid: if she’s going to hide, she’s going to do it right.

  He sits back and lets out a sigh. Hell, he feels pleased with himself. This was easier than he imagined. He’s created a list like he’s some sort of prospective homeowner out to buy a place, and now he hits the print button and gets an error message.

  The fat woman at the end of the row belches again, then tries to cover the sound with a cough. When she moves her chair squeaks beneath her weight, and she moves often, turning to look at Fisher and he feels it each time, those eyes on him.

  He slumps back in his chair and rubs his face. Someone hisses at him. The fat woman. Her face is red above the flat green of her sweater, and she says, “You know what? You’re sighing. Over and over. How can a person concentrate?”

  He doesn’t say a word, just turns back to the screen. He hears, “That’s just plain rude.”

  He digs in a small basket where scrap paper’s been cut into squares and jots down the addresses. He doesn’t notice the librarian until she’s at his side again. “Sir?” she says. “If you disturb our other patrons I must ask you to leave.” Her face is pinched in annoyance.

  “Sighing is a disturbance? How about her belching?” and he nods toward the fat woman.

  The fat woman blinks a couple of times, then sits with her hands settled in her lap. “I can’t focus when one of the other patrons acts in a hostile manner.” She says it as though she’s learned it by rote.

  The librarian leans toward Fisher. Her teeth are a little gray, and a strand of hair catches on the corner of her glasses. “We have a zero-tolerance policy—” she starts, but he’s on his feet.

  “Zero-tolerance for sighing, I get it. Belching, that’s OK. Well, I guess that’s why you’re so busy in here.” He tucks the piece of paper into his pocket and heads for the exit.

  25

  HE STARTS ALL hyped-up at the idea of his own cleverness. First he tries the houses in the hills: one not far from home for Bree, perhaps too close, because he peers in the windows, even goes to the length of smashing a small window by the garage and letting himself in, but the place has the grim look of having been empty for months.

  The second place is farther out. He leaves his car at the bottom of the driveway, just in case, and runs in a crouch up to the door. No fresh tire tracks in the snow, no footprints. He circles around the place. Three doors: at the front, on the side, on the deck. He tries the deck door last, and to his surprise it gives. Inside, the house is cold and the air stale. He creeps through the deserted rooms. No signs of cooking, no signs of anyone having slept there. He checks the fridge, checks the closets, stands in the empty garage with his hands on his hips.

  The next couple of places are the same: their windows as soulless as the eyes of dead fish, their rooms big and empty, their driveways rutted with tire tracks even he can see are old.

  At the last house a window round the back’s already been smashed and left open. Inside, wrappers from burgers and a couple of plastic cups from fastfood joints lying on their sides, the small pools of drink inside them frozen solid, what with all that cold air coming in. Fisher feels hope bloom as he wanders through the place. Someone’s been here, not so long ago: dark hair in the washbasin, a mug left by the sink. He kicks at the wrappers and plastic cups on the carpet in the living room, but he’s smiling because Bree’s been here, he’s sure of it.

  When he pulls the door shut behind him, he glances up to see a neighbor at a house a good stone’s throw away watching from his deck. The guy’s brought his coffee outside, steam rising off it thick as smoke, and he makes a point of watching Fisher as he takes a sip, and takes another, as though it’s the most natural thing in the world to stand outside drinking coffee at fifty below.

  Fisher gives him the finger, though probably the guy’s too far away to notice. Fuck it. Bree’s not here now, he missed her because he was too slow working out where she could be. For a moment he thinks: she’ll be back. But no, she’s not that stupid. This is the sort of place where the neighbors keep watch.

  His car door yawns as he yanks it open, then he folds himself in behind the wheel. He left the engine running but the car doesn’t feel warm, more like he’s carried the brutal cold in with him. He reaches out to crank up the heat, only it’s already on high. For a few moments he leans close to a vent, letting its warmth lick across his face, then he shoves the car into gear and takes off, the frozen tires jolting across the snow.

  26

  FISHER DOESN’T NOTICE the needle for gas has tipped over to empty until he’s already close to town. Empty. Like his soul, like his heart, like his life. He came so close to finding Bree. Hell, maybe she’d only just left. And now she’s either on the road south, or driving around town in Brian’s brown Highlander. He needs to spot her before the cops do. Or the militia. He tells himself it wasn’t them who hauled Grisby away. Christ, couldn’t it have been the guy Grisby was hiding from and a buddy? Trouble is, Fisher can’t make himself believe it. Who goes to that much trouble? And if it was the militia who took him—well, Grisby doesn’t have it in him to resist a little pressure. By now he could have told them everything. Brian dead in Bree’s bathroom, Bree’s frantic messages. Fuck it, if they weren’t looking for her already, they will be now.

  He needs to do something, some damn thing, anything for crap’s sake. Except he doesn’t know what.

  As soon as he gets back to town he pulls in for gas at a supermarket. The sun’s as high as it’s going to get, a thumb’s width above the horizon, and it’s turned the world gold and pink and lavender, like this is a gentle place when the time-and-temp display at the bank across the road says fifty-two below.

  He zips his parka up above his mouth and undoes his seatbelt. It’s no easy matter to pump gas in this kind of cold. The buttons on the payment pad are so small he ends up taking off his glove and stabbing at the frozen plastic through all its YES and NO questions, can hardly slide his card through the reader, his hand’s so numb. Who the hell comes up with these machines? Some fucker in California? Not some guy who’s ever had to stand outside in this kind of balls-numbing cold, that’s for sure.

  It doesn’t help that the nozzle won’t stay on and he can’t retreat inside his car. No, on this morning, this cursed morning, he has to stand holding the fucking nozzle at the fucking gas tank while the cold of the metal seeps through his glove and into his hand, chilling his blood and that chill swimming up his arm and flooding his body so that soon he’s shivering so hard it’s almost more than he can bear to stand here. Of course, it
doesn’t help that he’s lost his hat, because a hood’s just not the same. Air leaks in around your neck, it touches your ears, it slips over your scalp. And it doesn’t help either that his belly’s squirming and hollow. All he’s had this morning is a coffee and a bite of bearclaw. As for last night’s dinner, he threw that up in Bree’s bathroom. No wonder he feels emptied out.

  The nozzle clicks off. He has to wrestle it back into its holder because the hose has gone stiff from the cold, and it takes three tries to screw the gas cap back on. He revs the engine a few times and watches the needle creep up to full. He checks his phone. No messages. And damn it, he needs to charge it. It sits on his palm like an egg about to hatch. He wills it to ring, and for Bree to be on the other end saying, Dad? Come get me, I’m over at Walmart or Dad? Can you pick me up? I need to crash at your place. Instead it just sits there, the screen gleaming in the delicate light of this sub-arctic morning. Who can tell him where Bree is now? Jan, maybe. A big maybe. He calls her number, listens to it go to voicemail, says, “Hey Jan, call me if you hear from Bree. I’m worried sick here,” and hangs up quickly. He’s relieved, he realizes. He didn’t have to talk to her. Didn’t have to make out like he didn’t know her husband’s dead, shot by their daughter, and that their daughter broke into one of the properties they’re trying to sell because she’s shit-scared—

  He stops. Something about that’s not right. He pictures himself at that last house, climbing out of his car and walking round to the back through the snow. Just like he did with the other places. Except the back window was already smashed and left open. Why the hell was it smashed when Bree could have just let herself in?

  He tells himself maybe she didn’t take the realtor key after all. So she smashed the window instead. Only, he doesn’t believe it.