by Chuck Logan
“A little.” She held up her hand so he could see the white residue of disinfectant etched into her knuckle. Then she stared at him.
So he debated whether to address the unsaid question hanging over her. Should he do it now, or wait? Whatever he said would be tempered by the fact that he’d knocked the kid’s dad down. “We’ll talk about the fight at dinner,” he decided. “Put on your stuff. We’ll go outside so we don’t wake her. Maybe you could put some wax on the skis.”
Kit brightened when he said that, walked to the patio door, and studied the thermometer fastened to the deck rail. “Twenty-two degrees. Purple wax.”
“Sounds about right,” Broker said.
As Kit worked with the skis in the garage, he took a white package of venison round steak from the freezer and set it on the counter to thaw. Then he checked the pantry and the refrigerator to make sure he had all the ingredients he’d need. Satisfied, he put on his coat and went outside.
As he pulled on his cap and gloves, he checked the overcast sky and the surrounding woods. Griffin bought this parcel of land with frontage on the west shore of Glacier Lake twenty years ago, when it was cheap and the lake was almost totally uninhabited. Broker had spent part of a summer helping him put the kitchen addition on the gutted house. Not much older then than Nina was now, not long out of his own war.
Broker returned to his maul and chopping block, knocked apart a few armloads of kindling, took it into the kitchen, and stacked it in the wood box next to the Franklin stove. When he came back out, he saw Kit come out of the garage, lean the skis against the side of the building, and use a cork to smooth out the long stripes of wax she’d applied. His were the long skinny Nordic racers. Hers were shorter, combos for both Nordic and skating.
Kit came back with the ski poles. Lined everything up, then turned to him and held up her hands, palms up, in a question. In addition to being quiet, the west end of Glacier was only a couple hundred yards from fifty winding kilometers of some of the best cross-country ski trails in the state.
“After lunch,” he said. She went inside, and he went back to his wood.
As the maul rose and fell and his woodpile grew, he went back over the morning. The tiff on the playground didn’t concern him that much, and his first impression was that the principal and that chubby kid’s mom were overreacting. Kids had to learn how to work out problems for themselves. Should think about that, though. How maybe his approach was too old-fashioned for the current social climate.
More to the point was the fact that he had to keep explaining to an eight-year-old that, as a family, they didn’t need to draw extra attention to themselves right now. Explain it in a way to make it stick.
After a fast grilled cheese sandwich, tomato soup, and a glass of milk, they changed into long underwear and wind pants and laced on their ski boots. During the three months they’d been on the lake, the quarter Norwegian in Kit’s blood had taken to the skinny skis with a single-minded intensity some people might find scary in a kid her age.
They’d hit the ski trail a lot. What Kit had this winter instead of friends.
Back outside, he watched her toe into her ski bindings, grab her long skating poles, and power off into the woods on the connecting route they’d blazed to the groomed trail. He stayed a few yards behind her in parallel tracks as she swept left and right in the athletic skating technique that he, the die-hard purist, rejected. She’d learned the rudiments last year, when she was living with her mom in Italy. And now her initial clumsiness had fallen away with the last of her baby fat.
Broker dug in his poles and pushed off. They met a family plodding in fat waxless skis and snowmobile suits. Passed them.
A moment later two athletic high school boys powered around them, wearing orange camo hunting parkas. Locals by their dress. Out taking advantage of the new snow.
The confrontation with Jimmy Klumpe still replayed in Broker’s muscles, a not unpleasant afterglow. Dumb to dwell on it. Put it behind you. He tried to lose himself in the rhythms of the kick and glide. The crisp air bit into his lungs, and the sweat froze on the tips of his hair as they swept through the silent forest.
Chapter Seven
Gator closed the door to his shop and stood for a few moments looking across the empty fields and into the woods beyond. The eighty acres was fifteen miles north of Glacier Falls, at the edge of the Washichu State Forest. He’d signed it over to Cassie when they both turned twenty-one, when he was in the Navy.
Spent three years at the Idaho National Engineering Lab by Idaho Falls. Nothing but razor-sharp black basalt fields, used nuclear fuel rods, unexploded ordnance, and a Navy facility that trained submariners on nuclear engines. Mechanic/machinist mate. Never did get to see the ocean.
Cassie had tried renting the place out. Didn’t have much luck. People didn’t like it up here in the big woods, said it was too spooky.
He’d moved in when he got out of prison two years ago. He liked it just fine. No people, and lots of machines that needed fixing. His parole officer had remarked how Gator had cleaned the place up considerably. People grudgingly admitted he was a local success story. No small accomplishment for a Bodine.
So he stood for a few minutes looking over his domain; uninhabited-now-for a ten-mile radius. The low clouds almost scraped the crowns of the pines, going off forever like the bottoms of a million gray egg cartons. He sniffed the crunchy air. March in Minnesota. It would snow again.
He cocked an ear, listening. Earlier today he’d heard the pack. Nothing now.
He approved of the way the snow carpeted the fields and frosted the evergreens. Was up to him, he’d have winter all year. Liked the way it imposed a kind of order; compressed the colors into manageable whites and grays. Covered up all the crud.
Made the big woods even more inaccessible. Kept people away. The wolves coming back helped, too.
Going in the farmhouse, like now, sometimes he missed his dogs. The two big shepherd pups he bought had been poisoned last year by some uptight citizen who didn’t like homeboy felons moving back into the neighborhood. He’d brought in some geese for lookouts but got rid of them because he couldn’t abide the green crap everywhere. Decided the isolation was security enough.
There were no animals on the farm now. The land was in the crop rotation. Just him and his tools and the quiet.
The farmhouse was pretty much the way it’d been; just a lot cleaner now. Same old furniture covered with blankets. He’d hung a few tractor posters on the wall. His ribbons from high school cross-country. A framed certificate that announced that Morgun Bodine had finished twelfth in the Bierkebinder Cross-Country Ski Marathon five years ago, in Hayward, Wisconsin. A souvenir German battle flag hung on the wall that his dad had brought back from Europe, when he was the best mechanic in four counties, before he went on the booze. A good sound system.
A 5,000-piece puzzle was half constructed on the kitchen table.
He heated some water and put on a Johnny Cash CD, the one recorded at Folsom Prison. When the water boiled, he made a cup of Folger’s instant coffee, lit a Camel, and got out his maps and refamiliarized himself with the ski trail loop that followed the east shore of the lake, where the old Hamre place was located.
He picked up the phone, checked down the list of numbers taped on the wall, and called Glacier Lodge. The clerk told him, yeah, they’d run the tractor on the ski trails this morning-what the hell, probably the last chance to ski this season.
Gator thanked the clerk, ended the call, and returned to his maps. One loop of the trail skirted the Griffins’ rental. He thought about it. Go in fast, scout the place, mess with the guy’s stuff. Get out. Just enough to keep Cassie happy so she didn’t bounce weird.
The other thing toyed with him. Cassie said he didn’t fit? Like a puzzle. Something to figure out.
Cassie had always expected him to attend to her dramas, large and small. Like he was on this open-ended retainer because she’d talked Jimmy into bankrolling the repair shop
. When he got out of the joint. Back when she had her nose in the air, when they were flush, all full of plans.
That was almost two years ago, and he’d owed them. Gator grinned and knuckled the bristle of spiky growth on his chin. Yeah, well, now-the way it worked out-they owed him. Big-time. And now he had the plans.
But he had to keep them in line, on task. Especially Cassie, who had boundary issues when she got herself all worked up and got wired and got to talking too much. So she wanted to see her brother teach the guy a lesson, country style. Like he had learned last year, the accepted way around here to send a message was to kill an animal. Okay, if that was the price of keeping her quiet.
Kid’s stuff. And messy. He put on a pair of old rubber gloves, went to the icebox, poked around, and found half a pound of hamburger starting to turn brown. Quickly he packed the meat into a squishy ball, eased it into a Ziploc bag, then stepped onto the mud porch and carefully lifted a liter of Prestone, took off the twist cap, and sloshed antifreeze into the plastic bag. Leaned it gingerly on a workbench against the vise. Let it stew. One green greasy meatball slurpy for Rover.
Gator made a face. So what if the guy doesn’t have a dog?
He went back in the kitchen and dug in the utensil drawer next to the sink until he found the skinny ice pick. I know he’s got a vehicle.
He placed the pick in the narrow side pocket of his backpack. He thought for a moment. Probably have to do some creeping. He went to the shelf on the mud porch and selected a pair of old oversize felt boot liners. Then he selected his small bear-paw snow shoes. After he loaded the footwear in his pack, he nestled the meatball baggie in among the boot liners.
Okay.
Next he changed from his work clothes, pulled on long underwear and lightweight Gore-Tex winter camo. He yanked a ski mask over his head and down around his neck like a muff, so he could pull it up if he needed to hide his face. He put a bottle of water, an energy bar, and his smokes in a small backpack. After he laced on his ski boots, he checked the thermometer on the porch.
Twenty-two degrees. Blue Kleister.
Carefully, liking the routine, he waxed his Peltonen racers.
He put his cell phone in his chest pocket, then loaded his skis and gear in the back of his battered red ’92 Chevy truck and headed out. He slowed five minutes from the farm to check the intersection of County Z. The crossroad was all fresh undisturbed snow, no tire tracks. He continued on County 12 south through the deserted jack pine barrens, going slow, inspecting the deserted houses scattered along the road for signs of recent activity. Half an hour later, he arrived at the trail head at the north end of the lake.
Most mornings when there was good snow, he skied the north 20K. He unloaded his skis and stepped into his bindings, shouldered his pack, and poled through the woods to the trail. When he got there, he saw that the tractor from the lodge had been through, just like the clerk said. Fresh-groomed trails. He pushed off and fell into the powerful rhythm, heading south.
Twice he skied off the trail, letting other skiers pass. This time of year they’d be local people, and he didn’t want to be spotted out here. Allowing for the detours, it took just fifteen leisurely minutes to come to the yellow No Hunting sign that posted the back end of Griffin’s land. Could see the green cabin peeking through the trees, the lake beyond it. He saw they’d been skiing, probably last night just after it snowed. They had worked a connecting trail. He scouted in closer down the connecting trail and settled on a slight rise that overlooked the backyard. He got out of his skis, hid them in some thick spruce, strapped on the paws, and went to the knoll, where he made a place to sit against a tree. Then he tested the wind, which was gusting from the northeast, and figured he could get away with a smoke. So he lit a Camel and settled in to watch the house. First off, he spotted a snow-covered doghouse in back of the garage. Uh-huh. Okay. Keep an eye out for the dog. Then he saw a pile of kindling next to a chopping block. Oak, from the bark and grain. Must be three cords stacked up in the long shed along the garage. Then he remembered that Griffin trucked in oak, used it to heat sand and water to mix his mortar. On that winter job at the lodge.
Then he noticed two sets of skis and poles set out against the garage. One set shorter, for a kid. He finished his smoke and stuffed the butt deep out of sight into a crevice of pine bark, wiggled his toes in his boots, drank some water, ate half an energy bar. A dedicated bow hunter, he was stoic about the cold. He figured he had about half an hour of cooldown before the sweat he’d worked up on the trail started to freeze.
Another half hour passed. Still no sign of a dog. Then he heard voices and saw a man and a kid come out the back door in skiing duds. Where’s Mom? Now that he’d come this far, he was getting curious; just who were they? What was it like inside that house? How come nobody had seen the woman? What did Cassie mean? He didn’t fit.
Now they were putting on their skis.
Okay. He was up fast, made his way back to his own skis. So which way are they going to go? Assume they’re good citizens and will follow the arrows posted on the trail. Go the direction he’d come in. He lashed the bear paws to his pack, got back into his skis, and worked hard, backtracking up the trail. When he’d poled up the approach to the first big downhill, he paused and peered back through the trees. He’d been right. Eagle Scouts, following the rules. Coming this way. The kid wore green and was on the skating path, the guy was in red and stayed in the Nordic tracks.
He pulled up his ski mask and adjusted it. Okay. Time it so you meet them at max speed when you rocket back down the hill. Get a feel for this guy.
Chapter Eight
Ten minutes into the trail Broker caught a blur of movement up ahead through the trees, shooting over the top of the first big hill. A skier coming down the tracks in a downhill tuck, poles back, hands braced on his bent knees. Some daredevil cowboy. Really pushing it.
“Watch yourself, Kit. That guy up there. He’s coming pretty fast,” Broker called out. Kit slowed her stride, reacting to the alarm in Broker’s voice. She swung her head, her eyes flashing, uncertain.
“Don’t look at me, Look at him!” Broker yelled at her.
She glowered at the anger in his voice, wasting seconds she needed to react. And all he could do was watch. He was helpless because the guy was coming so fast, and he was hard to see in gray-and-white hunting camo and a black face mask. Onrushing like a puzzle piece catapulted out of the winter pattern of the forest. Jesus. Too fast.
“Kit, goddammit! Get off the trail!” Broker shouted.
“You don’t have to yell,” she shouted back.
Time and distance. Broker did the quick gut math and realized he could not reach her, thirty yards ahead of him, before the oncoming skier…
“GET OFF THE TRAIL!” he shouted again, waving his poles.
The guy came out of his tuck nearing the bottom of the hill and executed a snappy sidestep, and now he was ripping down the skating path, straight at Kit.
Kit was stepping to the right as fast as she could, but the guy was on top of her.
“Watch it, asshole!” Broker shouted as he struggled on the skis to gain the distance. Wasn’t going to happen. He did his best to step out into the skating path, instinctively gripping one of his poles with both hands like a pugil stick and menacing it forward in an attempt to warn the guy away.
The guy came straight ahead, streaked past with a swish and clatter as one of his poles banged on Kit’s poles. Not even seeing them, it seemed, his hooded eyes fixed ahead on the trail. Kit was flung in his wake and fell sideways into the parallel tracks ahead of Broker. In seconds he was bending over her. She sat up, removed her glove, and put her fingers to her cheek.
A thin red stripe started next to her nose and went across her cheek almost to her ear. Gingerly she touched it, and her finger came away with a tiny dot of blood.
“He must have raked you with his pole as he went by,” Broker said, helping her to her feet and inspecting her face. “Just a scratch.”
>
With an exaggerated indignant expression and in a very dramatic voice, Kit protested, “You didn’t have to yell at me.”
“Hey, he almost squashed you flat.”
“Did not. He missed.”
Broker stared, perplexed at the touchy coiled springs of mood sprouting out of her. “I’m sorry for yelling, but I was scared for you,” he said.
She thought about it and said, “I was scared, too. Just a little.” She furrowing her brow and stated, “He was going the wrong way, Dad,”
“I know, honey. Some people are like that. And they just don’t see kids. You all right?”
“No problem,” she said deadpan, delivering the line with a nonchalance she’d overheard hanging out with Nina’s Army crowd in Italy. Seeing him a make a face at her language, she grinned. Perhaps encouraged by the encounter with the speed demon, she said, “Let’s go. Race you down the first hill.”
Broker looked off through the silent trees in the direction of the asshole skier. The guy had vanished. The small crisis passed. “You’re on,” he said.
Kit took the lead, and he made a production of staying just behind her, goading her faster, as they herringboned up the incline. He watched her breath surge in tight white bursts next to her green cap as she half ran the hill. Broker was reminded of something he’d learned long ago; how the Vietnamese wrote their prayers on slips of paper and burned them. Because the ghosts of their ancestors could only read smoke.
They reached the top, and a minute later the trail forked; beginners to the left, advanced to the right. Without hesitation Kit dug in her poles and plunged toward the steep downhill they’d nicknamed Suicide One. Broker double-poled to catch up, tucked into the slope, and heard Kit’s exhilarated squeal echo in the trees. Her breath streamed over her shoulder, and in that exuberant white cloud Broker, giddy with the rush downhill, read a happy answer to a long prayer.
The journey that had brought them here was terrible, but finally the long separation had ended and they were together, living under one roof. Then Kit came down too fast on the steep bend at the bottom of the run and misjudged shifting into her step turn. Her left ski wobbled out of control, and she lurched in front of Broker, who was on her too fast. He tried an impossible hockey stop. No way. They tumbled together into a snowbank in a tangle of poles, skis, and laughter.