Deep Winter

by Samuel W. Gailey

  The drink stayed in Taggart’s hand.

  “The bottle is a tough son of a bitch. Known many a man that found themselves in the bottom of one. It can grab you by the throat, squeeze like hell, and not let go. Quitting is hard, but it can be done, son,” Lester offered—no judgment in his voice.

  Taggart lowered the cup to his lap. “Maybe. Tried that once and failed, though.”

  “Not many get it right the first time. Can always try it again.”

  “I wish it was that easy.”

  “Not a single part of me believes that it’s easy, son. I feel blessed that I don’t have that kind of thing hanging over my head.”

  Taggart nodded and sighed out loud. “I’ve been a public servant for almost twenty-five years. Right out of high school,” he said. “Growing up, I never wanted to get into law. I wanted to go to college. Do something with my brain. Always fancied myself being an architect. Loved buildings and design.” He glanced over at the sheriff to see if the man was smirking at his story—he wasn’t.

  “But I come from a family of cops. Father, older brothers, uncles, cousins. Everybody. A bunch of blue bloods. The old man didn’t want to spring for college, and I didn’t have it in me to follow my heart, so I did what everybody expected of me. Guess I always take the easy way out.”

  “Being a cop ain’t easy. I can vouch for that.”

  Taggart watched as one of the ambulances pulled away from the trailer and headed for the city.

  “Started as a beat cop in Philly. Let me tell you, that’s one tough town. The scum you arrest assume you’re a racist pig or a fascist, and the people you vowed to protect don’t give a shit about you until something happens to them. Then they just blame you for not being there to stop it.” He stared down into his drink. “And the pay’s not worth squat. You know that.”

  Lester nodded.

  “And I got stuck. Didn’t have what it took to make detective. My super hated me because he hated my old man. Guess I turned out to be a chip off the old block. Had an incident in Philly, so I joined the state troopers’ office. Thought that would be a better way to go.”

  He really wanted to drink his vodka.

  “Same mess, different uniform?” Lester asked, half smiling.

  Taggart looked at him for a second, then back to his drink.

  “My wife wanted more out of life than to be married to a cop. Sometimes I think she prays that I get taken down in the line of duty. She gets a payout and off the hook with one bullet.”

  Lester nodded. “The badge is a bit sexier before the vows.”

  “Got that right. Everything seemed to go sideways on me after I got married.”

  “I’d say that marriage is a tougher job than law enforcement. The good with the bad. Wouldn’t trade a day of it, though.”

  “I want out.” Taggart’s words just hung there. He closed his eyes and clenched his jaw. “I did the right thing back there.” It was more of a question than a statement. He opened his eyes and glanced over at the sheriff.

  Lester reached into his breast pocket and pulled out the pack of Salems. He offered one to Taggart, and they both lit up.

  “Son, you saw a situation and reacted. A man you didn’t know had a rifle aimed point-blank at me. I knew Johnny Knolls. If you hadn’t shown up, I’d be one more body getting zipped up in a black bag out there.” Lester took off his hat and rubbed his head. “Let me ask you: If you had to do it over again, would you pull that trigger?”

  Taggart thought about this for a moment. He tried digging deep inside himself. He wasn’t ever very comfortable sharing with the AA crowd, but the sheriff had him dead to rights.

  “If you can’t trust your gut, you got nothing,” Lester said, and handed Taggart back his hat. “So?”

  Taggart took the hat and put it on. “I’d do it again.”

  Lester nodded. “Then I owe you my life.”

  “Thank you, Sheriff.”

  “Got one last question for you, then. What do you plan on doing with that drink in your hand?” Lester motioned to the cup gripped in Taggart’s fist.

  Taggart glanced down at the cup. “‘One day at a time’ is what they say.”

  “Sounds about right. Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Lester offered.

  Taggart smiled at the comment. He cracked open the door and tossed out his drink.

  “I ain’t done needing your help, Officer Taggart. I got a deputy with a hair trigger, and the two Knolls brothers are more than likely gonna want to take matters into their own hands. We need to find the Bedford boy before there’s more blood spilled.”

  Taggart shook his head. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “Officer Taggart, if you didn’t make a mistake out there earlier, don’t make one now.”

  Lester stepped out of the patrol car, still sucking on his cigarette. Through the frosted windshield, Taggart watched him talk to the detectives, then looked down at his lifeline. He shoved the flask back under the seat and stepped out of his car.

  Danny

  Virgin snow blanketed the forest floor in a thick layer of brilliant white frozen crystals. The wind blew softly, causing the ancient trees to sway and creak rhythmically in the bitter-cold air. The snow had stopped, replaced by a skyful of blue, and made the forest deceptively peaceful.

  Various breeds of birds—crows, bluebirds, and sparrows—were up with the sun, their chatter lively as they sprang from tree to tree, looking for bark beetles, gypsy moth larvae, hemlock woolly adelgids, or any other insects that made their home in the wood.

  Danny felt the cold all around him, every bit of him shivering. He thought for a moment he had left his bedroom window open. Lots of times he slept with the window cracked open, even in the dead of winter. He liked the feel of fresh air on his face to wake to in the morning.

  A stroke of sunlight tickled at his face, and he basked in its warmth for a few seconds. His eyes were still closed as he listened to the quick chirping song of birds. He took a deep breath and could feel a heaviness weighing on top of him. It felt comforting. Safe. He started to smile but was stopped short by a searing jolt of pain twisting in his jaw. He gasped, sending an even more painful shock wave through the rest of his body.

  His eyes shot open, and his body lurched upright. A few inches of powdery snow tumbled off his chest and collected in his lap. His eyes squinted from the blinding glare of white all around him. So intense that it poked at his brain, and it took him a few moments to fully open his eyes and get his bearings. He licked at his lips, cracked open and bleeding, and tried to swallow, but his tongue still felt like a mass of marshmallows in his mouth.

  Danny wasn’t sure where he was. Then shapes slowly formed, outlines of the forest coming into view. For a moment the sheer brightness made him wonder if he was in heaven, but the dull thud of pain in his head made him know different—he was still in the place he’d always been. Still Wyalusing. Still dumb and fat Danny Bedford.

  He tried to remember everything that had happened—Mindy bloody and dead; Sokowski promising to help, then kicking and hurting him; Carl talking of his kids and not wanting to go to jail—but all the thinking made his head feel fuzzy and funny, and he wanted it to go away. His fingers ran along his jaw. It was soft and swollen. Tender to the touch.

  Danny sat there in the pile of snow and let things come into slow focus around him. He peered over the edge of the platform and saw that he was high off the ground—higher than any building he’d ever been in. He leaned back against the old pine and rubbed at a funny feeling on his scalp. A layer of snow and ice had frozen on his head—it felt like he was wearing a bathing cap. He wondered if part of his brain was frozen, too, but he didn’t know if that was even possible.

  As all his senses came back to him, he could smell the fresh sap from the pine—sweet and bitter at the same time. He wiggled his toes in his boots, slow at first, then
got some feeling back. He didn’t want to lose his toes to frostbite. Uncle Brett had told him a story about a man he called a “dumb-ass.” Uncle Brett said the dumb-ass was from New Jersey and that he had no place hunting in these mountains. Danny remembered that the dumb-ass got lost and spent the night out in the woods, all alone, until hunters found him the next day. The dumb-ass hadn’t been wearing good boots and had gotten frostbite on his toes. Two of them turned black, and a doctor had to cut them off. Danny didn’t think Doc Pete was the doctor who did that, but he couldn’t remember. What he did know for sure was that he didn’t want to have any of his toes turn black and get cut off. He wasn’t sure how he would be able to walk without all his toes.

  His tongue clicked in his throat, stuck to the roof of his mouth like peanut butter, so Danny scooped up some snow and dropped it over his throbbing lips. He couldn’t chew it, so he let it melt instead. A few drops trickled down his throat, and his stomach grumbled angrily, wanting more than just water. Eggs and bacon sure sounded good right about now.

  Danny crawled to the edge of the deer stand and peered down again. His footprints were covered up by all the snow that had fallen during the night, and he couldn’t tell which direction he had come from.

  Uncle Brett had tried to teach him north, south, east, and west by looking up at the sun, but it was too hard for Danny to remember. Something about where moss grows or using the shadow of the sun on a stick or tree, but that didn’t make any sense to him if there were no numbers to tell the time. Uncle Brett had gotten mad at Danny and slapped him hard on the back of the head.

  How many times I got to tell you? Sun sets in the west, shithead.

  Danny had nodded like he would remember next time, but he never did.

  Now Danny gripped the edge of the platform and lowered his boots to the top rung of the ladder. He held on to each plank of wood real tight and worked his way down the side of the tree, slow and easy. Ice was frozen on the planks, and Danny didn’t want to slip and knock his face against the tree. It took a few minutes to climb down—he was a lot slower than a squirrel running down a tree. When he reached the bottom, he leaned against the old pine and his breath rattled in his chest.

  He looked around him at the woods. It all looked the same. Nothing but trees as far as the eye could see. Part of him wanted to climb back up into the deer stand and wait. Wait for someone to come and help him. Tell him what to do. Tell him that everything was gonna be okay.

  But Danny knew that wasn’t going to happen. Folks like the sheriff and Doc Pete thought he was the one who’d hurt Mindy, and they would want to put him in jail and lock him up forever. Even if he told the truth, that Mindy was already dead when he got there, everybody thought that he was dumb, and who would believe someone who was so dumb? Plus, deputies were supposed to protect people, not hurt them, so no one would believe that Deputy Sokowski had done anything bad.

  Jail scared Danny. It was a place full of bad people who hurt other people. He sure didn’t want to go there. Danny forgot all about the notion of jail when he saw something flicker in the woods up ahead of him. Maybe it was the voice in his head. Maybe it was back to help him.

  A shape moved behind the trees. It was moving real peculiar. Jerking up and down like the Easter Bunny. But whatever it might be, it was much bigger than a rabbit. Besides, Uncle Brett said that there was no such thing as the Easter Bunny.

  The shape kept moving right toward him. Danny pressed up against the tree and stayed right where he was. Maybe it was the sheriff or the deputy. He figured that they would be out looking for him by now. The shape stopped every now and again before continuing on. It jerked up and down and came closer. It moved behind a clump of large pines and disappeared for a second. When it stepped out, Danny could finally see what it was.

  It was a white-tailed doe. Danny didn’t see any antlers, so he knew it wasn’t a buck. The deer had its snout up in the air and was searching for either food or signs of danger. It would stop, twitch its ears a few times, and then move on.

  When it got closer, Danny could see why it was hopping like a bunny—the doe had only three legs. Danny kept real still and watched the deer as it hobbled along. After it got to where Danny could see its eyes, he saw the reason why it only had three legs. A hunter’s arrow was stuck in the flesh around its shoulder, over the left front leg. Or where its left front leg used to be. The shaft of the arrow was splintered off and stuck out a few inches. The doe had lost most of its fur around the arrow, and the skin was dark green and oozing pus and blood.

  Danny had never seen anything like it before. He figured that the poor deer’s leg must have fallen off somehow, and now it was forced to hop around on just three.

  The doe stuck its snout in the snow and searched for some leaves or berries to eat. She was pretty skinny, ribs sticking out like a washboard under her brown fur. She limped up not ten feet from Danny and the tree. Then the wind turned, and the doe finally caught Danny’s scent. She froze and looked right at him. Uncle Brett said that deer were color-blind and couldn’t see people if they stood real still. But the doe could smell him.

  Danny stood motionless and observed every move the doe made—ears twitching, tail snapping. The deer’s black eyes watched him closely right back. She snorted at him, trying to spook him.

  Danny steadied his breath and licked at his lips. “I ain’t gonna hurt you,” he whispered softly. His swollen tongue made it sound thick and slurred. Ah ain’ gon’ hurr ya.

  The doe’s ears pressed back against her skull, then twitched a few more times. She fidgeted uneasily as Danny reached out toward her. He held his palms out and spoke softly again. “I ain’t gonna hurt you.”

  The doe’s ears went back up, and she limped toward him a foot or so.

  Danny still had his hands out in front of him. “I don’t know where to go.”

  The doe gave him a final sniff and began to limp past him and move deeper into the woods. She looked back at him one last time before hobbling on—almost like she was waiting for him. Danny watched her for a second and then began to follow after the doe.

  Carl

  Carl looked over at Sokowski in the driver’s seat of the truck. He hated the motherfucker. He knew that Sokowski thought he was stupid. Always treated him like some kind of moron or something, ever since high school. But over the years whatever Sokowski wanted him to do, Carl would end up doing it. Carl didn’t know why exactly. Maybe it was because he was tired of being a wallflower. Or maybe it was because he was short and fat and didn’t really fit in, and Sokowski let him into his circle of friends. That’s all Carl really ever wanted, he guessed. To fit in, no matter the cost or humiliation.

  He’d jumped his dirt bike over Sokowski’s Chevy truck in the tenth grade. They had built a makeshift ramp out of flimsy plywood and milk crates. Sokowski had invited over a bunch of the FFA guys—wearing their blue corduroy Future Farmers of America jackets that they never seemed to take off, even in the summertime when it was eighty degrees out. They bought a half keg with Carl’s money, and got good and drunk so that they could watch Carl make an ass out of himself. Carl got good and drunk himself and played right along. On his first and last jump, his back tire clipped the hood of Sokowski’s truck and flipped him up and over the handlebars. Carl broke three ribs, fractured his left wrist, and tore most of the skin off his legs, stomach, and face. To make matters worse, he had been wearing only tighty whities, because Sokowski thought that would be even funnier to watch. As Carl sat in a pool of his own blood, Sokowski and the other burnouts laughed their asses off.

  Carl always soaked up the attention that his stunts brought him. He did stupid shit at the drop of a hat, because it was the only way that the other guys would give him the time of day.

  And he did a bunch of stupid shit. Usually at the expense of others. Mainly girls. Girls were easy targets. They fell for almost anything and couldn’t kick Carl’s ass. The meanest
joke he ever played on a girl still bothered him to this day. Years of guilt ate him up inside. Sokowski had put him up to banging the fattest, ugliest chick in their class. Susan Ross. Carl’s cruel joke earned her the name “Sexy Sue.”

  Sue was an outcast who never spoke to the other kids, ate by herself in the cafeteria, and didn’t participate in any gym classes because she didn’t want to change her clothes in the girls’ locker room. She was the unfortunate wallflower that Carl used to be and was both fat and poor to boot. Because of that she had a big red target on her back.

  The senior class was having a party down at the river toward the end of the school year, and kids like the band freaks and bookworms knew better than to go to that kind of party—it would be nothing but trouble for them. But Sue fell victim to false hope. At Sokowski’s prompting, Carl invited her to the party to have a few beers and hang out. Sue was exactly like Carl—she just wanted to fit in.

  Sue showed up that night wearing the same tight-fitting clothes she always wore, clothes that showed all her rolls of fat in all the wrong places. Long, greasy hair hung over her eyes, and she smelled like her father’s barn, where she worked every day before and after school. With Sokowski and the other guys looking on, Carl fed her cup after cup of punch spiked with Everclear. She wasn’t used to drinking and got buzzed pretty quickly. Carl gave her attention that she never received before. Asked her questions and made her laugh a few times. Sue never had anyone hit on her before.

  It didn’t take long to get her in the back of Carl’s truck. She told him that she had never been with a boy before, and Carl just nodded at the confession. Carl had her clothes off quickly and took her from behind. He didn’t want to see her face. He couldn’t bear having her look him in the eyes while he performed his act. She was on all fours, and Sue’s fat cheeks pressed into the vinyl seats as Carl grunted and thrust into her. The sound of sweaty skin slapping sweaty skin could be heard over the perky lyrics of Brian Hyland’s “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” blasting from the car stereo. At the time Carl found it funny that he was having sex to this song. He knew that Sokowski and the guys would find it hilarious as well.