Cold (43 page)

They were doing about forty and the Jeep’s traction was holding on the straightaways; Monty downshifted going into the corners and often managed a controlled drift in the snow.

Liesl tried to call Del’s cellular phone again, letting it ring about a dozen times.
 
When she turned her phone off, she said, “Is it my imagination or is the snow coming down harder now?”

“One thing I am an authority on is snow.
 
Don’t need the Weather Channel for that.
 
It’s not your imagination—this is approaching whiteout conditions.”
 
Monty picked up the mike and punched redial, but soon hung up.
 
“Waara’s probably drunk and stuck in a snowdrift.”

•

Norman reached the logging camp at first light.
 
The bleeding from his cheek had been slowed by constantly pressing compacted snow against the wound.
 
He entered the sawmill and, starting at the cage, walked the length of the building, moving slowly under and around fallen timbers.
 
Near the far end, the earth rose gently.
 
Snow sifted down from overhead, but it was the earthen ground he was interested in—he was standing on a slight mound about twelve feet in diameter.
 
Tools had been left behind and he took the pick in his hands.
   
He raised the pick above his head and then brought it down on the hard earth.
 
Chunks of dirt sprayed his face.
 
In prison he’d done a lot of roadwork; if there was one thing he’d mastered inside, it was breaking hard ground.
 
He fell into the rhythm of it, using his whole body to swing the pick down on the frozen earth.

•

Noel’s leg dropped off the coffee table and the knock of her boot on the floor caused her to open her eyes.
 
Directly above her was the armrest of the couch.
 
Her mouth ached and, placing her hand on her lips, she felt a sharp stinging pain in her gums.
 
She pulled her hand away and saw that her fingertips were bloody.
 
Tenderly she inserted one finger in her mouth.
 
Both front teeth had been pushed back and it was too painful to straighten them out.

She got up off the floor and went into the bathroom.
 
One candle was still burning on the sink and she gasped when she looked in the mirror.
 
Her bloody upper lip had collapsed inward, making her face seem remarkably old.
 
Just drawing air in through her mouth hurt.
 
Her handbag sat on the edge of the sink; she searched through it for the plastic vial.
 
There were two pills left.
 
She took both of them.
 
The vial was empty.
 
Maybe it was about time.
 
Maybe it was too late.
 
She sat on the rim of the bathtub for a while, her eyes closed.
 
Though she held perfectly still, she felt as though she was spinning slowly.

Finally, she managed to get up, place both hands on the sink and look in the mirror again.
 
The blood on her face had dried.
 
The pain in her mouth wasn’t gone but it was tolerable—that was the word her mother often used.
 
If a thing was
tolerable,
that was all you could ask for—it was part of her Dutch heritage, where frugality, decent behavior and cleanliness were expected.
 
When she was a girl her parents used to drive down to the small town of Holland in the Lower Peninsula for the annual spring tulip festival.
 
Her mother and grandparents always participated in one event that fascinated her:
 
hundreds of townspeople, dressed in traditional Dutch costumes, washed the main street, using straw mops and wooden buckets filled with soap and water.
 
She liked the clip-clop of their wooden shoes, which sounded like horses’ hooves; she remembered her mother explaining that cleanliness was next to Godliness.
 
Looking in the mirror, her face was not clean.

She picked the bucket up off the floor; it still contained melted ice water for the bath.
 
Soaking a washcloth, she leaned toward the mirror and began to daub at the dried blood caked around her mouth.
 
It was careful, tender work, in its own way more difficult than washing a paved street by hand.
 
Slowly, her lips were revealed and she saw again the damage Warren had done.
 
Her upper lip was deflated and it sagged in a way that placed a greater burden on her jaw.
 
She recognized this aging, defeated, wounded face.
 

“Mommy?”

Noel turned from the mirror.
 
Lorraine stood in the doorway, a blanket pulled around her shoulders.
 
“You’re awake.”

“Mommy!”
Lorraine screamed.
 
“Your
face!”

“Yes, it’s all right.”

“What happened?”
 
The child was crying but she came closer, timid but curious.

“Nothing.”
 
Then she said, “It was inevitable.”

“What’s that?”

Noel picked her up.
 
The child couldn’t take her eyes off Noel’s mouth.
 
“This, Lorraine.
 
This
is inevitable,” she said.
 
“But we’re going to get out of here—just the two of us.”

“We’re going
bye-bye?”

“As soon as we get your snowsuit on.”

Noel took Lorraine back in to the bedroom, dressed her and put her in the baby-sling; then she put on her overcoat, and started for the front door.
 
There was a creak of an old wood joint; startled, Noel turned and saw Del, still tied to the chair in the kitchen.
 
She went to him—fresh blood ran down out of his hair.

“Who did this?”

“Of the two Haas brothers,” he said slowly, “I would say Norman has the more natural swing.
 
Still, Warren’s no slouch.”
 
She got a towel from the sink and daubed at his wounded scalp.
 
“You’ve changed your mind?” he asked.
 
You’re going?”

“Yes.”

“Good.
 
One request?”

“The rope, sure.”
 
She began to untie the knot.
 
“I’m sorry I didn’t get it undone quicker before.
 
None of this would have happened.”

“I think we’d have to go back farther than that if we wanted to avoid a lot of this.”

She began unraveling the rope around his chest.
 
When he was free he flexed his hands as he stood up.
 
He was unsteady and he had to put one hand on the back of the chair.

“I’ve had it,” she said.
 
“I’ve just got to get
out
of here.
 
They’ve all just disappeared in the blizzard.
 
I can’t deal with it anymore.
 
I only care about Lorraine.
 
Come with me.”
 
For the first time he seemed to notice her mouth and she put her fingers over her lips.
 
“I look like my mother now.
 
I’m starting to catch up to you.”

Del took his wallet from his back pocket and removed a single key.
 
“Here’s the spare to my Land Cruiser down there.
 
Take it—you’ll have the best chance of making it out of here.”

“You’re not going to stay?
 
Just come with me.”

“It’s a tempting idea.”
 
He turned his head toward the window and rubbed the back of his neck.
 
“But Warren has my coat.”
 

“Your
coat?
 
You must really
love
that coat,” she said.
 
“I know—
wait.”
 
Noel went into the Great Room, to the closet by the front door.
 
She got the old coat down off the hanger and brought it into the kitchen.
 
“It’s bearskin,” she said, “and it smells, it’s so old.
 
But look, the buttons are made of carved wood.
 
This belonged to Yates—actually I think it was his father’s and they say he was the last real mountain man to live in the Hurons.
 
Daddy won it in a card game.”
 
She held the coat up so that Del could get his arms in.
 
As he turned and faced her, she said, “It’s a good fit.”
 
She put her arms up over his shoulders and pulled the hood up over his head.
 
“It’s a real good fit.”
 
She left her arms around his neck and buried her face in the thick dark fur.
 
“I don’t feel like you’re a stranger at all.
 
I feel like I’ve always known you.
 
Why is that?”

He put his arms around her and held her for a moment.
 
“Maybe it’s the coat.”

She looked up at him and smiled, though it hurt her mouth.
 
He kissed her forehead and let her go.
 
As she turned away, Lorraine said,
“Bye-bye!”
 
Noel went to the front door and opened it to the wind and snow.
 
She looked back quickly and Del raised one arm.
 
Lorraine said,
“Bye-bye, Papa Bear!”

Twenty-one

Once Norman got below the permafrost the pick sank into loose earth and he then used the shovel.
 
The pain in his cheek was constant.
 
When Bing had told him about Vlad the Impaler he said that physical pain was the greatest power in the world because people will do anything to avoid it.
 
Think of it, thousands of people on skewers—taking days to die, every moment complete agony.
 
Pain was a tool, a weapon.
 
If you could inflict pain, you could get what you want.
 
And if you could master pain, Bing believed, you’d never suffer defeat—you would be inviolate.
 
That was his word:
 
inviolate.
 
He’d do that often, come up with a word that nobody inside ever used—and that too was a kind of power.
 
It pissed other inmates off, but they usually left him alone.
 
After Bing had been cut open in the exercise yard, another inmate everyone called Pickleman said:
 
The man had a big mouth.

What Norman knew now is that no one is inviolate.
 
And maybe this was why the bear is sacred.
 
Something about the bear that’s inviolate.
 
The bear lives many lives, sleeping the long winter between each, to be reborn in the spring.
 
Look at a bear and it’s like looking at what we might have become:
 
our bodies, protected with dense fur, our eyes, curious yet suspicious.
 
Bears have very human eyes.
 
Norman had seen his first bear when he was eleven.
 
He was walking in the woods when he heard the sound of wood cracking and splintering off to his left.
 
Pushing through the brush he saw a bear ripping apart the trunk of a downed, rotted birch tree so he could get at the ant colony inside.
 
Looking up, the bear seemed unconcerned and at first Norman thought he hadn’t been seen crouching in the bushes.
 
Its eyes were light brown and Norman’s first thought was that there was a person hiding inside the bear.
 
He knew that didn’t make sense, that this was a wild animal.
 
The bear, which was not any taller than a man, lowered his big head and continued to search for ants.
 
Norman didn’t move, but he wasn’t frightened, which seemed odd.
 
He realized he was in the presence of something powerful but not necessarily harmful.
 
Everything he was seeing was remarkably clear.
 
The bear was pure strength; its paws had impressive dexterity.
 
Though there were long curled claws, the bear gripped the wood much like a person.
 
It dug into the trunk for several minutes before stopping again.
 
This time it looked at Norman with some kind of recognition.
 
But the bear seemed unconcerned.
 
A white curl of bark hung from its mouth, making it look slightly daft.
 
Suddenly, turning on all four thick legs, the bear walked off in the opposite direction, and for a moment the fur on its large rump, which was slick with mud, glistened just before the animal disappeared into the shade.

 
The rest of that summer Norman spent a lot of time alone in the woods looking for black bears and he soon realized how rare it was to actually see one.
 
He had no luck and instead decided to build a cave in the side of a hill.
 
For days he’d been digging the hole, using his hands and sticks, making it big enough for him to crawl inside and sit upright; and he’d built a door with branches and leaves to lay over the opening so that the cave was hidden.
 
He went there every day, bringing water, cookies, peanut butter sandwiches.
 
Once he was in his cave, he could pull the door over the opening and sit staring out through the leaves.
 
Even on the hottest afternoons it was cool inside the cave and the air smelled of earth.
 
The walls were full of tree roots, which seemed like motionless snakes, but he knew that they made the cave strong.
 
There were often flies buzzing around his head, but he learned to ignore them.
 
Staring out at the woods, Norman knew that no one could find him.
 
He was almost invisible; it was a strange feeling and he liked it though he wasn’t sure why.
 
At times he thought that this is what it’s like to be a bear.
 
When he would leave the cave and return home, his brother would always ask where he’d been—and Warren would study him carefully, knowing that something had happened to Norman.
 
Something that couldn’t be shared.
 
Something that Warren couldn’t take from him.
 
The cave seemed to make Norman inviolate.