Dead of Winter

by Gerri Brightwell

  Don’t let yourself think, this isn’t who I am.

  Don’t let yourself think, he’s just a man like me.

  Don’t watch the panic in his eyes. Don’t let your hands go loose. Tighten your grip and repeat to yourself that if you let him go he’ll seize his chance to kill you. This is self-defense. This is legally defensible homicide. For God’s sake, don’t let that pressure on his neck slacken. He’ll feel it and jerk your hands away, and he’ll suck in one breath after another with the awful sound of something almost dead coming back to life.

  45

  AT LEAST FISHER’S faster. Lyle’s still heaving in lungfuls of air, he’s rolling onto his feet, but Fisher yanks the door wide and sends the shotgun wheeling out into the darkness.

  Then Lyle’s on his back and his good arm’s around Fisher’s throat. Fisher throws himself backward against the doorframe, and again, then spins around. Lyle can’t hold on. He falls against the table then clutches his injured arm to his chest. He spits, “You stupid shithead. Think that’s going to make any difference? You’re in way too deep.”

  Fisher’s breathing hard. “I’m not like you.”

  “Christ, no. You’re a fuck-up, a creep, a loser. Can’t even save yourself, let alone your own kid. Things go bad and who’s she take off with? Her step-daddy. Yeah, she must think the world of you.” He lets himself down on one of the chairs, stiff as an old man. He reaches out and slaps Grisby on what’s left of his cheek. It makes a flat sound. “Cannon fodder, that’s all he was. That’s all you are, Mikey. I don’t know why you bother getting up in the morning. I wouldn’t. If I was you, I’d shoot myself in the freaking head. But then, I’ve got the guts to do it.” He smiles. And when his smile broadens, he’s holding the hunting knife. “See, Mikey, got to keep your eye on the ball.”

  The blade gleams in the dim light. Fisher’s so tired all he can think of to do is step away, but Lyle’s on his feet. He has the knife held up like a candle and comes around the table with it. Fisher steps around it too, over Jim’s legs, past the bed where Grisby’s staring at nothing while Lyle stabs the air, saying, “Watch it, watch the blade, Mikey, it’s coming to get you.”

  The third time around the table, Fisher calls out, “Oh come on—for fuck’s sake, this is ridiculous.”

  “Ring around the rosie, Mikey, come on now.”

  Fisher’s behind the longer side of the table, but there’s little room here, with the counter so close, the bags of rice and beans slumped on the floor behind him. Then Lyle lunges and the blade slices the air in front of Fisher’s face, and in the second that Fisher leans back, off balance, Lyle comes scrambling around the table, fast, so fast he trips over Jim’s boot.

  If it hadn’t been for that stumble, it might have been all over. But that moment, it’s just enough. Fisher snatches a skillet off the shelf, an unwieldy thing wide as a basketball, and swings at the knife. He misses, and the skillet’s so damned heavy he staggers. He lifts it again and smashes it down on Lyle’s hand, and the knife goes windmilling out across the floor and vanishes beneath the bed.

  Lyle leans on the back of the chair and hunches over his hand. His mouth’s wide and each breath makes his head lift and fall, like someone floating on the edge of the sea.

  Footsteps. On the porch. Lyle keeps his good eye on Fisher, says, “Well, well, game over.” A fumbling at the doorhandle, and Lyle yells, “You forgot to knock, fuckhead.”

  Only, it’s not Al standing in the doorway. It’s Bree and she’s got a twitching, scared look about her, and a gun in her hand. Not the gun Al took with him. A smaller, lighter gun. But then, Fisher thinks, Lyle and Al didn’t check her pockets. After all, she’s just a girl.

  She says, “Keys, Dad.” Her eyes look like holes someone’s made by pushing their fingers into her head.

  “Bree,” Fisher says, “what happened? Where is he?”

  The gun’s got a wobble to it. Lyle must have noticed too because he steps forward. She lifts the gun. “I’ll shoot to kill.”

  “My, my, look at you. So step-daddy didn’t want to come in himself and face his old friends. How about that. He sends his step-kid instead. What a guy, huhn?” He pulls out the chair then sits with one elbow propped on the table and blows on his sore knuckles. “No guts, see. That’s been the trouble all along. Soon as things got serious, good ol’ Brian bailed. Not that he told us—no, he didn’t have the guts for that, either.”

  Bree’s watching. How still her face is, her mouth uneven as an old piece of wire. Fisher wonders, has she shot Al? She must have, and the thought fizzes with the crazy luck of it, Bree making it back alive, but the fizz stings too. She’s shot two men. Part of her’s going to die, no matter that she had no other way out.

  Her eyes flick to what’s left of Grisby propped on the bed, to Lyle smiling at her, to Fisher. “You’re scum, the whole fucking lot of you. Just give me the keys, Dad.” Her voice scratches and jitters and she holds out her hand.

  “I don’t have them, sweet pea. They’re in the van.”

  Her face twitches, like he’s betrayed her. She turns the gun on him. “Empty your pockets.”

  “I told you, darling. I don’t have them. I’d give them to you. I’d give you anything, really I would.” His voice fades and even to him it sounds sad and lost.

  “Just look at that. And you were worried about her, Mikey. Not so worried about you, is she?” Lyle shakes his head. “What’s Brian planning? A run to the border? He’ll love fucking socialist Canada, oh yeah. But you can tell him he can never run far enough. There are thousands of us, and we’ll find him.”

  “Thousands.” She hurls the word out. “You morons. How many of you are there really? Nine? Ten? But oh yeah, you have big plans. Let’s take out a judge, let’s take over the airport, let’s take over the state. All you managed was to kill one cop. A rookie. And he wasn’t even on duty.”

  “Half the story, that’s what you’ve got. That step-daddy of yours hasn’t exactly told you what this is all about.” Lyle sits back, but it must pain him because he slumps forward again with his injured arm against his chest. “But then he wouldn’t, would he? Didn’t want his little step-kid to know he’d ratted out his friends. Who’d respect a guy like that?”

  Her lips are so pale Fisher can hardly see them. He wants to tell her—Watch out, he’s luring you in. Get out of here while you can. But part of him’s furious with her, too. After all he’s done for her, even this, coming out here to save her, risking his life, and she doesn’t understand any of it, not even that he’s not one of the militia, that he couldn’t be. Christ.

  Bree juts her head forward. “Know why he wanted out? You guys were so dumb. Had to make a big deal out of everything, trying to stir things up because you wanted the feds to come in so you could shoot it out with them. Brian was in it for the long haul.”

  Lyle’s face has stiffened. “Like hell. He’s working for the feds. Did you know that? Huhn? The jerk thought he was so fucking clever, showing people around the house for sale next to the Commander’s, and what d’you know but a guy buys it and moves in. Only the guy’s a cop. It’s a set-up, see? Next thing, this cop’s walking his dog in the woods every morning, and he lets it loose so he’s got an excuse to come snoop around when it runs off. Al didn’t like that. Thought the guy needed a bullet between the eyes, and that’s what he gave him. Bang!” He’s got his left hand up with the fingers out like a gun barrel. He pretends to sight down it with his good eye, then he laughs. “Bet Brian shit his pants to find the cop on his deck. Shit his pants so hard he ran all the way out here to hide.”

  Bree backs closer to the door. Lyle’s out of his chair and steps toward her. She tells him, “Don’t move!”

  “Or what? Going to shoot me?”

  Fisher comes around the table, steps over Jim’s legs. “Leave her.” He doesn’t look at Bree. He can’t. Instead he tells her quickly, “Go on,
get out of here. Keys are in the ignition,” but he keeps his eyes on Lyle, and Lyle’s so close he could touch him.

  Bree’s voice sounds emptied out. “Don’t even think about coming after me or I’ll shoot you dead.” Then she tugs the door open and ducks outside, a cringing movement, like she’s afraid.

  That’s when Lyle understands. She’s gone but he launches himself after her, hissing, “Bitch, you’re on your own.” For a moment the shape of him fills the doorway, and he must sense it too because he yells out, “Al? Al? You out there?” Only it’s too late. A shot cracks through the air, and he jerks and spins across the porch.

  Fisher stumbles after him. He’s bellowing, “Bree? Where are you?” Beside his head the wall splinters, and an instant later comes the sound of the shot. Al not dead. Al shooting at him. But there’s no stopping now. Where the hell’s Lyle? He doesn’t know. Fisher blunders toward the steps as another bullet shatters the cabin window just behind him. A grating sound—the cab’s side-door sliding open. A moment later comes the smack of a bullet hitting more glass, and a thin cry. Fisher throws himself across the snow. His feet slip, his whole self tilts forward until he slams into the cab.

  Inside, Bree’s face so stark she looks dead. But she’s staring back at him and he pushes her to the side and takes the driver’s seat. He twists the key in the ignition. From the cold engine comes a mournful moan. He works the gas, works it until the motor catches. Then he yanks on the stiff wheel and sends the cab bouncing and lurching in a crazy tight circle, knocking against the edge of the porch, scraping past Al’s pickup, the side-door open and his bags of supplies clanging and rolling over the floor.

  Jim’s truck’s half-blocking the driveway and there, leaning against it, caught in the glare of the cab’s headlights, stands Al. He has a gun raised, but his face is a slick mess of blood. Fisher stamps down on the gas pedal and sends the cab careening toward him. A scream of the engine as he guns it, a jolt of metal on metal, then the cab’s bouncing along toward the road. In the rearview mirror, there’s nothing but darkness.

  Bree lies on the floor all the way to Sumner. She must be cold—she doesn’t rouse herself to close the side-door until they’ve gone a good couple of miles and even then, two windows are shattered and the warmth from the vents is dragged away through them. It’s another few miles before she crawls over the groceries scattered every which way and unpacks one of the sleeping bags. When Fisher looks in the mirror, all he sees is the white square of its label in the darkness. A few times he calls out, “Bree? Sweet pea?” but she doesn’t say a thing.

  46

  THE MOTEL’S A miserable place. It’s so late the office is locked, and only a dim light shows through the window. But Fisher knocks, and knocks harder. Eventually the dimness shifts, then a light comes on. A woman opens the door a crack. Her hair’s in curlers and she holds the neck of her robe closed with one hand. When at last she lets them in, she lights a cigarette and shoves the register at Fisher like he’s more trouble than he’s worth.

  The room’s no better than he expected. Two narrow beds covered with beige nylon bedcovers. A gnarled blue carpet. A door smudged with scuff marks. A lock that rattles loosely when Fisher shakes it. He slides the chain across the door, for all the good it’ll do, and hauls over a wooden chair that he jams beneath the handle. Bree’s on one of the beds watching him, the sleeping bag draped around her like a shawl. One hand’s in her coat pocket, but the other’s still holding her gun.

  “Sweetie,” he says, “why don’t you give me that?”

  She gives a quick shake of the head.

  “You aren’t planning on shooting me, are you?” He says it as lightly as he can, then wishes he hadn’t said it at all because when she looks up her face is heavy with misery. “Sorry,” he says, but she’s already looked away.

  No wonder she doesn’t trust him. He’s an asshole. A dumbfuck.

  He unzips his parka and sits down on the bed farther from the window. “You should take this one,” he says. “It’ll be cold over there.”

  “Those guys are never going to find him,” she says. “He’s dead, you know.”

  Fisher’s hand’s at his chin and it rasps over his stubble. He says, “Brian?”

  Her eyes tighten with scorn. “Of course, Brian. Who d’you think this was all about? Who else but Major Jerkoff?”

  Fisher takes a breath and stares down at the carpet between his feet. It’s dotted with scorch marks from cigarettes, and worn flat where other people, hundreds of them, have sat exactly where he’s sitting. “I know,” he says at last. “A bullet through the head. Naked in your bathroom.”

  He looks up in time to see a flash of surprise cross her face.

  “You had to kill him, right? I can understand that, really I can.” He’s talking fast now, rushing the words out before he loses her. “I took care of everything—well, me and Grisby. Wrapped Brian in a tarp and dumped him in the river. We cleaned up so good you wouldn’t guess, really you wouldn’t. I even packed a bag for him, you know, to make it look like he’d left town.”

  Her eyes look small, puzzled. Her hand sinks under the weight of the gun and comes to rest on the bedspread.

  “You called, remember? You wanted me to come get you. So I did come, only it was much later. Me and Grisby. No one home so we let ourselves in.” He mashes his hands together until they hurt. “Didn’t find Brian until we were about to leave.”

  She’s tipped over on herself. “I called and you didn’t pick up.”

  “No, I didn’t,” he says, “and I should have. If I’d known it was you—”

  She’s shaking her head, but her head’s down close to her knees and her short hair brushes against her jeans. Her voice is so low he barely catches what she says. “I was so afraid.”

  “I’d have dropped everything.”

  “And then when you showed up with those guys, I thought . . .” but she doesn’t say it. Instead she swallows and lifts her head. She’s let go of the gun. Her hand flinches away from it, and her eyes look old. “You must’ve seen what they did to that cop.”

  He shakes his head.

  “I didn’t know. I came downstairs because Brian was yelling. He was on the phone in the living room, yelling like he was out of his mind. I thought Mom had called and he was yelling at her, stuff like, You’ve gone too far, I want out. Fuck. I thought she’d finally told him she was seeing someone else.”

  “But it wasn’t your mom.”

  “He didn’t notice me. He was saying, I’m going to fucking kill you for this over and over, and then I shouted, She can’t stand you any more. Let her go. He turned round. He must’ve thought Mom had taken me with her to Anchorage, like he’d told her to. Only, she hadn’t. She was off seeing her guy down there. Of course she found a reason to dump me at home. Said I deserved it. I can’t even remember why.”

  “She was going to leave Brian?”

  “I guess, sooner or later.” She closes her eyes for a moment. “When he saw me. His face. I thought he was going to kill me. He screamed, Get out of here and that’s when I saw him out on the deck. The light was on outside so you couldn’t miss him. Only, they hadn’t just shot him, they’d stapled his tongue to his chin and cut off his ears.” She wrenches her head to the side and Fisher realizes, this is the way she wrenched her head away from the sight of that dead cop.

  “Brian closed the curtains, like I was going to forget what I’d seen, and he kept yelling, Get out of here.” She opens her eyes again. “That’s when I ran upstairs and called you. I could hear Brian in the living room. He put on some Zep so loud the walls were vibrating. He was yelling but not at anyone, just crazy stuff. He must’ve come upstairs, but I didn’t hear him. I turned on the TV and watched a couple of shows, and the whole time, there’s that dead guy on our deck.” She takes a breath and it lifts her shoulders. “I didn’t see the door open. Then there he was. Naked. His e
yes all weird-looking and he couldn’t speak right, kept slurring everything. He had a gun, and he held it to my head. I pulled away. I tried to lock myself in the bathroom, only he came after me.”

  Fisher sits beside her. He strokes the side of her face where the skin’s so soft it’s like touching air.

  “He called Mom a bitch and a whore, kept going on, said I was no better. He shoved that gun against my crotch. He was so stoned he couldn’t stand up without holding onto me or the wall. Christ. I shoved him and he fell. He dropped the gun and I grabbed it. All I wanted was for him to leave me alone. That’s all.” Her lips twitch, her eyelids too. “He said, Shoot me. Go on. He kept shouting it, kept on.” Her hands go up to her head. Fisher has to lean close to hear her. “Know what I think now? He wanted it over with, only he didn’t have the guts to kill himself, not even stoned out of his skull. And I think I knew that, right then. But, Christ, he scared me. Spit around his mouth and his eyes crazy big. So I—I—”

  “Ssshhh.” He tries to hold her but she’s all angles, all bones, her face hidden behind her arms. “It’s over now, sweet pea,” he says, though he knows it’s not true, that it’ll never be true.

  “It keeps going round in my head. Like he’s inside it now.”

  When at last she lets herself sink against him, her breath’s hot on his neck. Soon she’s asleep. He slips her gun into his pocket. He eases himself out from under her to turn off the lights. He stands at the window and peers into the frozen night. No sign of Al. No sign of Lyle. Maybe they’re dead. Maybe they’ve crawled to the pickup and are going to troll through Sumner until they spot the cab. He’s parked it a couple of doors down, but really, how much is that going to help? Out here, who could save him and Bree?