Cold (36 page)

“Things have been screwed up for a long time,” Norman said.
 
“This is all your doing too, you know.
 
There’s a history here, Warren, a very long history that we’re dealing with.”

“Yeah, well you’re the one who was in jail, and you’re the one who walked away.”

“You think I should have just stayed put.”

“At least you had a chance then.”
 
Warren’s right hand held the bottle by the neck, his greedy fingers slightly distorted and magnified through the curved glass.
 
“It’s about time, not history.
 
Do your time, start over.”

“If it was you inside,” Norman said, “I doubt that’s what you’d do.”

Warren took a pull from the bottle.
 
“Now you’ve screwed it up for
all
of us.”

“Somehow I get the feeling you were all doing a pretty good job without me.”

Warren lit a cigarette and shoved the pack across to his brother.
 
“What
are
you going to do now?”

Norman lit a cigarette and waited.
 
He wanted to take a drink of vodka, though it smelled awful, but he knew that it would be a mistake.
 
It had been years since he’d had anything to drink.
 
Now wasn’t the time to begin again.
 
If nothing else, the gunshot reminded him how important it was for him to stay focused, to stay in control.
 
The bullet had gone in the wall a few feet to the left of the front door, and the impact knocked chinking to the floor.
 
The shot was incredibly loud, echoing inside these aged timbers.

“Your best bet,” Warren said, exhaling smoke, “is to go on by yourself.”

“You’d like that.”

“Dragging a woman and a kid along?
 
Come
on!
 
You got as far as you did because you were on your own.
 
You’re stuck here because you picked up all this baggage.”

“Is that what you’d like?
 
To see me just go on alone?
 
Disappear out there as though I’d never been back?”
 
Warren flipped one hand, suggesting that the idea had merit.
 
“What’s done is done,” Norman said.
 
“If I walked out that door right now, it wouldn’t help things for you.
 
Noel isn’t coming back just because I’m gone again.”

“Maybe.”
 
Warren had the look on his face that was intended to suggest that he knew something that no one else knew.
 
Norman used to believe it, that his brother had secret knowledge.
 
But no longer.

 
“It’s about her father as much as her,” Norman said.
 
“I know that.”

“What do you know?”

“That you thought the way to him was through her.
 
Christ, Warren, you were already screwing her.
 
You would never have actually married Noel if it weren’t for her old man.”

“You’re sure?”

“I’m sure.”
 
Norman stood up and went to the kitchen door.
 
Looking out the window at the blowing snow, he said, “You married her because you wanted a piece of this—Pronovost’s land.”

“I admit it crossed my mind.
 
The guy owns a lot of these woods.
 
Think what it would be worth to the lumber companies.
 
Or developers.
 
Pronovost—the man doesn’t get it.
 
He just wants to keep it like it is, the forest fucking primeval.”
 
Warren waited until Norman turned from the door.
 
“And none of this ever crossed
your
mind?”
 
He raised the bottle to his mouth and drank.
 
“Yeah, right.”

“But there’s something else going on out here now.”

“There is,” Warren said.
 
“And it’s no good.”

“This new Asian guy.
 
It has to do with him, and with the bears.”

Warren put his bottle of vodka on the table.
 
For a moment he didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands.
 
He placed them on his knees and for once he looked like he was about to be straight with Norman.
 
“Yeah, this Woo-San, once he showed up Pronovost changed his tune.
 
He wasn’t satisfied to just let exec-types come up and hunt and fish his land.
 
And there wasn’t no room in things for his son-in-law.
 
So I got the shove.”
 
For once Warren seemed genuinely remorseful, defeated.

Norman was about to speak, when the light above the table flickered once and went out.
 
“What’s that?”

 
“I think we just lost our fucking power, bro.”

•

Liesl still couldn’t sleep and she laid on the bed listening to the wind.

It was the green truck.
 
It had always been the green truck.

She had been in line at the post office in Marquette, and Darcy’s mother Allison was there.
 
It was the Christmas after the accident and Liesl had not put up a tree in the house, nor stockings or any decorations.
 
Everyone in line had packages—presents—to be mailed to friends and relatives.
 
Liesl had a bunch of bills to mail, and one small package containing a present to her aunt in New Mexico.
 
Allison was two ahead in line, but once they started talking she let the old man between them go ahead of her.
 
The line was very slow; they all stood in the snowmelt from their winter boots.

Allison talked mostly about her divorce from Glenn.
 
He had taken a job in Minnesota, and she and Darcy were moving back out to the house in Yellow Dog, and they were going to start the business she’d been planning for years, a kennel.
 
Though the divorce settlement was meager, she had enough to have the barn converted and she figured if they got through the first year they’d at least break even.
 
She kept referring to
us
and
we,
meaning herself and Darcy.
 
Liesl understood her reluctance to mention her daughter by name, but it wasn’t necessary.

When Allison was first in line she said, “They never found that truck.”

“The green truck—no, they never found it.”

“It’s like it didn’t exist,” Allison said.
 
“There’s a reason for everything.”

“I know,” Liesl said.
 
“The accident was caused by bad weather and the green truck.”

“Yes,” Allison said vaguely.
 
“But there’s also a reason for not finding the truck.”

Liesl remembered being distracted by a small child who was behind them in line, a boy of no more than two who had been crying.
 
The post office was about to close, and everyone had been waiting a long time, most with their arms full of parcels, and she could see the tension in faces as the boy began to scream.

“I heard from Turnquist’s wife that they looked for months,” Allison said, shaking her head as she watched for a signal from the next available postal clerk.
 
“Located every green truck in the county, it seems.
 
Went to talk to Mitch Cole at Pomeroy’s Garden Shop, I hear.
 
Also spoke to someone who works for the new vet out in Skandia.
 
Nothing checked out.”
 
One of the clerks waved her on; she put a hand on Liesl’s wrist and said, “Come down to the house when we get settled in—should be by February.”
 
And she rushed forward to the counter.

The boy was screaming bloody murder, so at that point Liesl simply couldn’t stay a moment longer.
 
She considered going back to his mother and telling her to
do something,
but instead she stepped out of line, though she was next to be waited on at the counter.
 
She walked back toward the large mural of Pere Marquette, and down the stairs to the double doors that opened onto Washington Street.
 
It was not the first time, nor the last, when she suddenly could not remain wherever she was, when she simply had to leave, to go.

During the holidays Liesl immersed herself in her pottery and sculpting, and over the next few years she ventured from the house less and less.

Seventeen

With his eyes closed, the three voices seemed in suspension and Del heard things he thought he might miss if he could see them as they spoke.
 
They weren’t exactly arguing, but there was no agreement either.
 
Three voices, whispering so low that Del couldn’t understand the words, only the tone.
 
It was the tone of want.
 
Norman wanted something done and there was no changing his mind.
 
Warren wanted to ignore the issue.
 
Noel hardly spoke.
 
It was impossible to tell what she wanted.

Del wanted to stand.
 
He shifted on the couch and lowered his feet to the floor.
 
Pushing with both arms, he sat up, moving slowly so as not to jostle his head, which felt as though it might crack open like an egg.
 
When he was upright, the pain settled lower, down in his neck.
 
It occurred to him that pain was fluid and subject to the pull of gravity.
 
But then we are mostly made of water contained in sacks of flesh hung from our bones.
 
He gathered strength and got to his feet and walked unsteadily across the Great Room, which was now only lit by the logs burning in the fireplace.
 
Noel was standing between the two brothers outside the kitchen doorway, their enormous shadows cast upon the timber walls, and she seemed to have placed herself between them on purpose, as though she could spread her arms out and keep the two warring titans apart.

“For
get
it,” Warren said.
 
“I’m
not going out there.”

“It’ll take just a few minutes,” she said.
 
“You
helped Daddy run that new electric line in a couple years ago—Norman doesn’t even
know
where the box
is
out back.”

“Why don’t I draw you a map?” Warren said.
 
“Why don’t
you
go, Norman, and I’ll hold on to that gun till you get back?”

Norman shifted his weight impatiently.
 
If Del didn’t know otherwise, he would have guessed that he was the older brother.

“Come on, Warren,” Noel said.
 
“Just reset the switch and come back.”

“I’m not dressed for that shit out there.”
 
Warren’s leather coat appeared slick in the firelight.

All three of them turned to Del, their faces in the dim light appearing savage, even demonic.
 
He picked up his overcoat, which lay on a bench next to the doorway.
 
“Try this on.”
 

Warren hesitated, and then grabbed the coat and pulled it on.
 
“Jesus, this is one serious article of clothing.
 
Thing’s built for the Yukon or maybe the North Pole.
 
Bet it comes with its own
theme
song.”
 
He drained the last of the vodka and put the bottle on the kitchen counter.
 
“All
right—
I’ll be back in three minutes.
 
Let there be
light!”
 
He yanked open the door and lunged out into the wind and snow.

•

Norman slammed the door shut.
 
“You, Delbert,” he said.
 
“Sit at that table.”

The constable seemed about to speak, thought better of it and sat down.

“That’s right.
 
Just sit there where I can see you.”
 
Norman went around the table to the windows.
 
Noel came to his side.
 
“Where’s this electrical box?”

“Down along the back wall.”

Norman pressed his face to the glass.
 
Because of the snow and dark, Warren’s footprints were visible for only about ten yards.
 
He stood for several minutes, staring out the window.

“I don’t know what’s keeping him,” Noel said finally.
 
“You just throw the reset switch and the power comes back on.”

Norman looked out the window for perhaps another minute and then he turned to the constable, who stared back at him in the dim light.
 
“You’re not liking this, are you?”

“What’s there to like?” the constable said.