by Tabitha King
The fire in the woodstove was at its nadir, having kept the kitchen pipes from freezing during the night. Walter could feel the cold linoleum right through his doubled socks, which served him as slippers. Fritzie had crept under the stove as the warmth diminished. She dragged herself out and rolled over for a good morning scratch.
When Walter opened the back door to let her out, he found the snow had drifted against the door waist-high, so he had to lift Fritzie up and push her out. She yelped and disappeared in a cloud of snow. Walter closed the door and went in to pull on another pair of socks and his packs, a wool shirt and an ancient cardigan out at the elbows, and his heavy coat. Fritzie barked at the door to be let in. Bringing snow in a cascade, she fell into the house when he opened the door for her. This time it took some effort to close the door again against the weight of the snow.
After he fed Fritzie, he turned on the radio and listened to the weather report from Mount Washington in New Hampshire, which overlooked the whole region. Standing up next to the stove, he ate a piece of toast, and washed it down with a cup of strong tea. According to the report, the storm was abating, having deposited three to four feet throughout the region, on top of an eight-inch crust. The winds had peaked at fifty miles an hour and were diminishing. Clearing was expected by nightfall. Electrical outages were common, as wind and snow had felled trees and torn down lines. Roads were being cleared slowly because of the considerable accumulation, and extreme caution was advised. Unnecessary driving was discouraged. The schools were on vacation, of course, which meant on the one hand the lumbering buses would be off the roads, but on the other, that there would be kids out playing. Then he put on two pairs of gloves, equally holey, but with the holes mostly in different places, so together they made almost one whole pair, jammed a wool cap with thick earflaps down over his head, and wrapped a muffler around his throat and the lower half of his face.
“Off to the wars,” he said to Fritzie, and got his shovel from the shed.
It took him an hour to shovel his way to his Jeep. His snowshoes were in the back end. The plowblade was already on, which was a saving of time and effort. In fact, he was inclined to leave it on despite the extra gas to cart it around, and the way it made the Jeep sludgy to handle. The fact was, he didn’t like taking it off or putting it on without help anymore. He needed some excuse to go into Reuben Styles’ garage, which wasn’t easy, as he changed his own oil and did most of the other maintenance on the Jeep, but when he could think of something, some adjustment, sometimes making something up, which was always plausible because it was well known that machines sometimes had mysterious complaints that went away on their own, just as people did, or were accidentally fixed in frigging around with them, but without the mechanic knowing exactly what he had done, well then, Walter would say, “Reuben, whyn’t you give me a hand with this frigging blade.” And Reuben, genially, would, since it was only courtesy to help a neighbor of whatever age, to move such a heavy object. Then Walter would allow the blade ought to be left on or off, depending on how the weather looked.
Walter plowed his yard, and then his own long dirt driveway to the road. The road had been plowed, and the road crew had sealed the driveway with a huge bank in passing, but he didn’t hold it against ‘em. They couldn’t stop to clear everybody’s driveway, and besides, they knew he had his own rig.
Once on the road, he headed for the causeway. The most direct routes from his farm to North Bay were one-lane town roads that he knew from long experience would be slower than crossing Pondicherry Causeway and taking Route 5 north through the village of Nodd’s Ridge, then turning lakeward again on the Dexter Road. It meant a long, sweaty slide down Little Partridge Hill, the Jeep lunging against the brake, and slipping all over the road, to get to the bottom, but that was the worst of the roundabout route.
He saw the first blinking red light at the bottom of the hill, from the other side of the causeway. Soon he could make out the town’s yellow plow. It was sitting empty next to an abandoned car on the other side. He pulled up and got out.
Frankie Styles and Bo Linscott stood in the lee of the wind behind the plow, hunched up inside their macs and smoking cigarettes, held awkwardly in thick insulated gloves.
Frankie waved laconically at the sight of Walter.
“Son of a whore,” Bo said.
Walter nodded. “The radio said it’s lettin’ up.”
Bo and Frankie laughed.
“Christ a mighty, better,” Bo said.
Walter hemmed and hawed and hawked a glob of phlegm into the snow. “What you got here?”
Bo shrugged. “Some asshole left it here in the night. Christ knows where he is.”
“Like this when we come up on it,” Frankie said. “Right smack in the middle of the road. Musta stopped dead in the middle of a white out.”
Walter nodded. “Pretty bad last night.”
“Son of a whore,” Frankie said.
Bo nodded and flicked his cigarette into the snow. “Come on, Frankie,” he said. “We gotta move this shit heap outta the way and call it into the sheriff.”
Walter stumped over to the abandoned station wagon. He squinted at it. Then he turned around and waved at Bo, who was climbing back into the cab of the plow.
“Bo!” he bellowed, hoarse with excitement. “Pat Russell! This is Pat Russell’s wagon!”
Bo hung on the door of the cab. “What the hell is he doing out here this time a year?” Bo yelled back, and took off his cap to slick his hair straight back in puzzled disgust.
Frankie Styles hurried up to Walter. “Jesus, Walter,” he said, “you think he’s wandering around out here someplace?”
Walter shrugged. “Hope to Christ not,” he said.
Frankie looked at the butt of his cigarette mournfully and then pitched it out into the storm. He peeked at Walter from under long, boyish lashes. Frankie was all of nineteen, as blond and open-faced as his father had been at that age.
“Don’t tell dad I bin smoking, okay?” he asked Walter.
Walter grinned, showing all his bad teeth. “I ain’t no tattletale, Frankie. You know them coffin nails ain’t no good for you.”
Frankie squirmed. “Yeah.” He peeked at Walter again. “Don’t tell dad I bin swearing, okay?”
Walter patted him on the shoulder. “Frankie, don’t you tell your dad I told you, but he used to swear some when he was your age, too. Most young fellas do, on account of they think it makes ‘em sound like one of the men. Now your dad knows you was raised right and you got good sense. I wouldn’t worry about your dad so much, if I was you.”
Frankie nodded. “Yeah.”
“You want to worry about somebody,” Walter said, staring out at the lake, “you oughta worry about Pat Russell. If he’s out there in this Christer, he’s in trouble.”
Frankie followed Walter’s line of sight. “He must not have no sense at all,” he said.
Walter sighed. “He oughta have better sense than to walk away from a vehicle he coulda sheltered in and out into nine square miles of shit, that’s for sure. But I guess I don’t blame him. He prob’ly just wanted to get home.”
Jeannie poked wood into the stove and watched it kindle. She sank down in a chair in front of it, and hunched into the warmth. Behind her, Arden Nighswander shuffled into the kitchen and hawked and spat into the sink.
Nighswander peered out the window.
Jeannie poked the fire again, and loaded in another stick of wood. “Boys back?” she asked, flattening her voice to hide her nervousness.
Nighswander dragged a chair from the table and sat down next to her before he answered. “No, they ain’t.”
She sighed and closed the stove door and stood up. After she had filled a kettle and put it on she sat down again. “They ain’t never been out all night in weather like this,” she said.
Nighswander shook a cigarette from a crumpled pack impatiently. “Shit, Jeannie, they’re growed up. They’re probably tomcattin’.”
She s
tared at him incredulously. “In this storm?”
Nighswander shifted from one cheek to another and farted. He glared at Jeannie. “Goddamn it, they can take care a themselves.”
“You oughta call the sheriff,” Jeannie said. “What if they had an accident?”
Nighswander opened the stove door and threw the empty pack into the fire. He stared at the fire moodily. “I ain’t callin’ the goddamn sheriff,” he said. “Now shut up, and leave me alone.”
Jeannie turned away from him and looked out the window over the sink. She grasped the lip of the sink desperately. “There’s something wrong,” she said. “I can feel it.”
Nighswander looked at her. “You shut your trap, I said.”
Tears spilled from Jeannie’s glazed eyes as she stared out the window. “It’s all wrong,” she said.
Nighswander shoved his chair back from the stove. “Shut the fuck up!” he shouted at her.
She cringed.
Nighswander saw the tears on her cheeks and clenched his fists. If it didn’t hurt so much to move he would have punched her out for her trouble. Instead he slumped back onto his chair. “Them boys can take care a themselves,” he muttered. “They’ll take shelter in one of them summer places.” He looked up at her. “Call the goddamn sheriff and he’ll say they broke in. Can you get it through your thick head they’re a sight better off takin’ care of themselves than doing a stretch at Shawshank Prison?”
Jeannie covered her mouth and turned back to the window. The snow outside was like a blank wall. She could not see around it or over it.
The sheriff had been around before, with warrants. Arden and the boys had stood sullen, muttering swear words, while deputies had searched the house and barn and outbuildings. Each time the sheriff and his deputies had gone away empty-handed, but not before saying bluntly that sooner or later he would have the lot of them. She had believed they were victims of prejudice, because otherwise they were thieves and vandals and worse. There were all the girls Rand had had trouble with, that they all joked about. She had never been able to say to herself, Rand is a rapist. All the trouble Ricky had had in school, until he was old enough to quit, had been more than just growing pains, she had known that, but had not ever accepted he was what the school people said—immature, disturbed, paranoid, violent. Nighswander was so certain the boys were being persecuted. She had thought if she admitted that her Gordy was simple, that was enough truth to have to face. It was all true, all the bad things, she knew that now, and was afraid. And not because the boys might go to prison. Facing the truth, unavoidable now, she thought they ought to go to prison, even Gordy, who was not competent in any legal sense, not able to understand the consequences of his own acts, but because they were wild and dangerous, and wild and dangerous things ought to be locked up. She was not afraid they were dead of exposure; she believed Nighswander, knew as well as he did, they could take care of themselves. Besides, she had no sense they were dead, and was sure she would, if they were. But she was afraid of what she didn’t know. Where were they? What had they done to save themselves? What did the snow, that the wind blew in twisting veils and piled up into walls, hide? She did not think, when it was all over, that either she or Nighswander would want to know the truth.
The cold woke Travis. He rolled out of Sarah’s bed and wandered bleary-eyed to the bathroom to pee. The tiled floor was cold underfoot. The whole house was much too cold. He went back to Sarah’s room. Sitting on her bed, putting on his slippers over the feet of his pajamas, he noticed that E.T.’s heartlight was extinguished. Experimentally, he flicked the switch on Sarah’s bedside lamp. Nothing happened. Sarah’s clock-radio, which was old and had a dial face, was stopped at 12:13. That must be what time it was when the electricity went out, either twelve noon or twelve midnight. But it wasn’t midnight any longer. It wasn’t dark enough. It was sometime pretty early in the morning. Travis pulled on his kimono and stuck his hands in the pockets for the warmth. Silently he counted his G.I. Joes. Then he set off for his mother’s bedroom.
Because the lights were out, and the snow was still falling steadily outside, the house was creepily quiet, as well as a little dark, as if it were sleeping with a blanket pulled over its head. In the living room, two men slept on the floor, rolled up in old spare quilts. Travis squinted at them long enough to establish that they were Ricky and Gordy. The Poor was curled up on Gordy’s stomach. She did not wake when Travis passed by. The TV trays had been knocked over. Broken dishes and dishes turned turtle were scattered over the rug, and spilled food stained it. On the hearth, two of the dirty dishes held the guttered stubs of candles. Live coals blinked red-eyed from the heap of ash in the hearth. Travis would have put some wood on it, but the stack of wood Walter McKenzie had piled neatly next to the fireplace was gone, its place marked only by scabs of bark and splinters.
Travis went on down the hall into his mother and father’s bedroom. In the half-light he could see two forms sleeping in the bed. Creeping a little closer, he could make out his mother’s hand, lax on the counterpane. He slipped around to her side of the bed, and bent over her. Her swollen lips were parted. Her breath smelled like it had after she had her tooth out. Like something died in there, she had joked. Saliva tinged with dark that he knew must be blood crusted from the corner of her mouth across her cheek. Her hair was a dark tangle on the pillow. Travis placed his hand against her cheek.
She opened her eyes. They were blank, unseeing, blind. Then they focused. She came into them, she recognized him. Her body tensed. She reached for him, touched his face and hair.
The man on the other side was still, breathing evenly. It made Travis uneasy to see him there where before only his father had ever been. But it was not something he wanted to know about. He knew perfectly well this man and the other two had forced their way into the house. They were enemies, robbers, bad guys. He knew his mother had done nothing since the three men had come that was not meant to protect him. He hated them and feared them, not least because they reminded him he was a defenseless little kid, who could not stop them from hurting his mother while she desperately tried to stop them from hurting him. That was enough to know.
Quickly and quietly she took him under the blankets and hugged him, just as she would have if his father had been sleeping next to her instead of the man the others called Rand. It was comforting to feel the warm thick wool of her nightdress, the one she kept in this house for wintertime, when they came to snowshoe or ski cross-country or just to be out in the country for a weekend. He knew she was wearing socks; it was just something his mother always did when she went to bed in the winter. At the other house in town, she even had a pair of pajamas with feet on them, like his, except hers had red and white stripes all over, that Sarah had given her one Christmas. Sarah and his father went barefoot to bed; it was only Travis and his mother whose feet got cold at night.
Liv wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and grimaced. It was very quiet in the house. The wind outside sounded as if it were lessening, though it would still be cutting. The house was dark, but it was not the dark of midnight anymore. Without looking at a watch or a battery-powered clock, she could only guess, but she thought if it was not day, it was nearly so. She held a finger against her lips.
“Shhh.”
Hand in hand, she and Travis slid out of bed and crept around it. They had reached the bedroom door when there was stirring in the bed behind them. She froze and Travis bumped against her.
“Where you going?” Rand demanded, his voice slurred with sleep.
She had trouble talking. “Bat’room,” she said. Nothing seemed to work.
He sat up and yawned. The quilt fell away from his body. His chest was all furry, like Travis’ father’s, and there was dark fur in his armpits, too. His eyes were red-rimmed, as if he had stayed up all night.
“Hi, boy,” Rand said. “What are you doin’ up?”
“It’s cold,” Travis answered. “The fire’s almost out.”
Rand sn
iffed and cleared his throat and nodded. “It is cold. Colder than a witch’s tit. You got a cigarette tucked away somewheres?”
Liv shook her head.
He threw aside the covers and pulled his right hand out from under the pillow long enough for them both to see the gun, then used the gun to hook his long johns from the floor. “Go to the bathroom. I’ll see about the fire.”
Liv nudged Travis toward her bathroom. Rand dropped his long johns around his ankles and grabbed Travis one-handed. Travis stared at the gun hanging casually from Rand’s fingers.
“The boy’ll come with me.” Rand looked down at Travis. “I bet you already peed, didn’t you?”
Travis nodded yes. Liv let go of him.
“Boy can help me with the wood,” Rand said.
Rand hauled on his clothes and led Travis from the room. Liv snatched her clothing from the floor and hurried into the bathroom. Her jaw hurt when she moved it; the inside of her mouth, her tongue, her lips, were all enormous with swelling, as if they had been packed with sand. She grabbed a couple of pills from her socks and swallowed them dry. She did not intend to leave Travis in Rand’s company for any longer than it took her to get dressed.
She was too hurried to more than glimpse herself from the corner of her eye. She did not want to know how she looked, because she would then remember it. She promised herself she was going to forget everything about the last twenty-four hours, utterly and completely, as soon as she could.
She found Travis at the open back door, receiving the wood that Rand passed him from the stack on the back porch. He was piling it neatly in the hallway. Sawdust and scraps of bark clung to the pile of his pajamas. His hands were already red from the cold. But he smiled at her, and that bucked her up. Something could be done about the cold. She picked up some kindling and hurried into the living room. Ricky stirred and opened his eyes. Gordy still lay open-mouthed on his back, breath whistling past a web of saliva in his mouth. She knelt at the hearth and arranged newspaper and kindling over the coals. The back door closed, and Rand stomped in, Travis at his heels, both carrying wood by the armful.