The Animals: A Novel (36 page)

He came down the road at full speed, following his own track with the storm blowing straight up in his face from the creek below, his eyes tight and squinting into the blast. When he came to the point where Rick’s footsteps veered off into the trees he pulled into the same track marks he had made on his way up the mountain and turned the machine off, stowing the keys in his jacket pocket and stepping off into the thigh-deep drift beside the road. The roadway suddenly dark and silent. He could see Rick’s tracks leading off into the black shadows of the forest and he followed them to the edge of the trees, each step jerking and stumbling against the surface, but there was no seeing past the first big pines. If Rick rose all at once, in that moment, from those dark trees, he did not know what he would do at all. Rick had a pistol—he had seen it—and Bill stood there in the snow at the edge of the forest holding the empty air in his hands. What a fool you are. Again and again. What a fool.

He climbed back onto the machine and returned the key to the ignition and pulled the cord again. The snowmobile rumbled to life and he clicked it into gear and continued down the mountain, the headlights blasting out before him like a flame, his eyes watching the side of the road where the unblemished surface of the snow descended, flat and clear and perfect. And then Rick’s footprints returned from the forest, the path intersecting with the tracks the sled had made on its ascent, and Bill pulled off to the side, not stopping but slowing for a long moment, watching the tracks as they led downhill, then opening the throttle again, watching for the path to swing away into the forest again, but the track went on and he followed it to where the road bent along the creek, to where that dark surface stretched off beside the road and where, in warmer months, he would sometimes see moose standing in the cool slow water, their mouths dripping with wet sedge and pond weed.

It seemed impossible that Rick would have made it even this far on foot in the storm and yet the tracks continued and he followed them, a grim, dark trough cut in the lit snow before him, all the while the wind blowing into his face, the sound of it a constant hiss against his jacket, eyes screwed down to slits and his bare hands in frozen agony. The snow everywhere like a veil that had fallen over him, over everything, sticking to his face, to the goggles, the headlights dimming under the accumulated pack of particulate ice that seemed to rise from the road and fall from the sky in equal measure.

The tracks led to the highway and then disappeared. What he saw before him was a ghost town. Not another human being visible and no lights on the highway but his own. He turned off the machine and clicked the headlamp off and then sat listening in the muffled silence. The buildings before him had become white boxes in the night. Across from him ran the road that led into the center of town, to the Northwoods and the general store and the empty lot where he had parked the truck.

He was shaking now, trembling everywhere from the cold and from the increasing understanding that he had lost Rick’s trail, that Rick was gone. His pants had soaked through where his flesh had warmed the ice enough to melt it, his face a solid mask of frozen mustache and beard and his breath hard and fast and steaming the black air.

Then a sound. The chugging of an engine’s ignition somewhere out there in the darkness. And a reflection of faint yellow light glowing briefly between the buildings and then just as quickly extinguished.

He could not yet see the car but he knew already that it was Rick’s, as if a scent on the air blew to him from everywhere at once. And then there it was: the tiny Honda, its tire chains flapping along in the snow, headlights dark. He watched where it turned out onto the highway, pulling south toward Sandpoint, the car seeming to linger for a moment before accelerating, slowly, into the blowing storm and then the headlights silhouetting the tiny box of the car against the cyclone of snow beyond it.

He pulled the snowmobile to life again and throttled out across the highway and when he reached his truck he leaped for it, digging his numb hands into his pants pockets, jerking the keys out and then dropping them and cursing and scrabbling in the frozen snow, his hands like claws, the keys seeming to jump everywhere of their own accord. But at last the door was unlocked and he started the truck and shifted and pulled out onto the road, the headlights illuminating a vast wall of swirling flakes that flew up at the windshield from a point ever above him and away, and when he reached the highway he extinguished those lights for a moment, spinning south down the invisible road in the direction Rick had gone, but he could see nothing without them and after few dozen yards he twisted them on once more, the blizzard tunneling down upon him and the truck seeming to rise into it forever.

He thought of the bear then, its great furred back covered with snow, and all the days and nights when Bill would sit on the stump by the zookeeper door, talking and feeding the animal marshmallows, one after the other. He thought of the wolf hiding in its shallow depression by the fence, growling in pain and confusion. And he thought of the dead birds. The frightened raccoons. His weakened and half-blind mountain lion. His dead bobcat and badger. And then he thought of Grace and of Jude, and of the engagement ring held, even now, in the drawer in his trailer. How the boy had giggled when Bill hugged him at bedtime. How Grace had forgiven him for everything he had done.

The snow a terrible blur around him. There were moments when he thought he had surely spun from the road and the truck was careening through some empty field in the darkness, but then the snowbanks would reappear on either side of him again and he knew that he was still in the roadway. Twice headlights approached and cars slid past him in the opposite direction. Both times his heart beat quickly for the moment of their passing and afterward his hand hunted under the seat for the gun case, finding its edge and drawing it up to the seat as the truck slid forward upon the frozen road, its motion akin to a sickness he could neither control nor predict. But neither pair of headlights were Rick’s tiny car and they passed him and returned to the darkness from which they had come.

And then, at last, the rear of the Honda emerged from the silent swirl of the blizzard. The car had spun off to the side of the road, its nose embedded in the snowbank. He slowed the truck to a stop. His view through the windshield was of snow and the wrecked car and nothing else and in the quiet hum of his idling truck he leaned forward, unzipped the gun case, and set the rifle across his lap.

Then the Honda’s door opened and Rick stepped out into the storm: a grim and haggard figure in a tattered flannel jacket. He held the pistol in his hand but did not raise his arm to fire, instead only stood by the car’s open door, facing the headlights impassively.

Bill pulled the handle and the truck’s door creaked as it swung open. Then he, too, slid outside, the rifle held in his grip.

What’s it gonna be? Rick called to him. Behind him, the pickup’s headlights illuminated a high berm of packed snow, an unbroken wall maybe eight feet in height and which ran the length of the highway as far as Bill could see.

You don’t know what you’ve done, Bill said.

Rick stood there for a long moment in silence, the pistol still held loose at his side. Then his face curled into a smile. I warned you it was gonna get serious, he said.

You don’t know what you’ve done, Bill said again.

They stood facing either then, neither moving, Nat holding the rifle across his body, one hand on the stock and the other on the barrel, Rick near the snowbank next to the wrecked Honda, the blizzard swirling down upon them as if they had become inanimate figures in some vast snow globe.

What you gonna do, Natty, Rick said. You gonna shoot me?

He could feel a hollowness inside his chest. And then a bloom of warmth flooding through that hollow space. For a moment he could see fish threading their way up a cold river comprised entirely of snow. Yeah, he said quietly, I’m gonna shoot you. Then, in one quick, fluid motion, he raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired.

Rick looked surprised for a brief moment, his face frozen in the flash of the shot, and then he was moving, the pistol raised and its bright flower exploding repeatedly and the sound of the fire whacking the side of the truck like hammer blows. Bill fell sideways into the cab, scrambling onto the seat and crashing his foot down upon the gas pedal as he levered the truck into gear. Around him came the roar of the engine and the seasick feeling of the tires spinning for a moment before the whole vehicle burst forward, his body rolling back, and then the low hard crunch of impact and his body slamming forward against the base of the steering wheel.

Then another shot. His heart was a wild creature running in his chest. Hands shaking and all the while his voice filling the cab, the passenger window exploding into glittering dust and his hand scrabbling in the pocket of the gun case. One cartridge fell to the floor of the truck but he managed to grasp another and to jerk the lever down and press the shell into the breech and then lever it into position to fire.

He breathed and breathed and breathed and then reached for the door handle and pulled it as his foot kicked and his body came out of the cab, the cold rushing into him like a river and his feet slipping everywhere on the frozen road. He pointed the rifle in the general direction of the snowbank and pulled the trigger, the rifle emitting its loud sharp crack in the muffled frozen air, the kick in his cold hands, the stock striking his shoulder hard enough to bring him staggering backward against the truck again. Frantic. His panting breath sharp and terrible. He looked everywhere around him but all he could see was the afterimage of the muzzle flash that rode against his eyes. He ejected the spent shell. Already his hand searched for another in the pocket of the case. What have you done now? What have you gotten yourself into now? And then thinking that he should have just let Rick drive away. But it was too late for that. It was too late for anything but what was.

And then Rick’s voice from somewhere near the Honda. This what you want? he called.

Bill yelled in response but it seemed as if what words he called simply blew backward over his head and were gone. Snow blowing into his face like tiny needles, eyes squinting into the wind. He leaned into the cab, his hand fishing for another cartridge in the pocket of the case, but he could not find one now. The darts. The small black box that held the tranquilizer. And then at last a cartridge and then another.

That the old ninety-nine? Rick called to him from outside. Three shots came in quick succession then, each of which blasted a new hole through the shattered windshield, glass raining down upon his back as he lay facedown on the seat, his eyes closed tight at the sound. You hear that? Rick’s voice came. I’ve got a nine-millimeter with a twelve-round clip. Who you think’s gonna win this fight?

He had managed to open the breech of the rifle and to load the two shells with trembling hands and to pull the breech closed again, the pin sliding the shell into position to fire, the rifle seeming to jump everywhere in his hands.

Natty, Natty, Natty, Rick said. You’re really in it now.

And then his own voice, a bellowing scream: I just wanted you to leave me the fuck alone. And then he came leaping out of the cab with the rifle held to his shoulder, firing and ejecting and firing again, each bright flash of light freezing Rick, halfway up the snowbank, and then at its lip, and then gone.

17

HE KNEW THAT IT WAS CLOSE TO EIGHT NOW BECAUSE HE
had been listening, for what seemed like a long while, to the various good-byes and see-you-tomorrows of the salesmen as they exited the building, the sounds of motion—footsteps and voices—decreasing until what remained was his own breath and heart and what sounded like a single remaining figure whistling tunelessly, the sound of it fading into and out of range like a distant television station. He hoped to god it was the sales manager and that his long wait in the darkness was coming to a close, the whistling rising and falling and then rising again and finally passing just beyond the door and down the hall toward the exit. The water heater next to him rippled with flame again and the soft growl of its ignition nearly made him gasp with surprise. From the floor came its faint orange glow. Then a moment of silence followed by a muffled and rhythmic beeping, after which the strip of light that had been illuminating the base of the door for as long as he had been secreted in the supply closet blinked out all at once. There was a loud metal bang . The alarm’s beeping continued for a few more seconds before it fell silent. Then nothing.

The phone panel opposite him had been flickering incessantly with green and red dashes and in the long two hours he had been hidden in that tiny space he had tried to find patterns amidst those constellations, imagining it a map, a game, a drawing of some kind, but failing to discover any meaning in the random blinking of the lights. Now the dashes had fallen to a single green row gapped by occasional empty spaces. He stood staring at it, listening for any movement beyond the closed door. Then he breathed once, twice, and finally reached for the handle, finding it in the new darkness, and slowly, so slowly, opening the door.

The hallway in shadow. At its nether end, the tight corridor opened into the broad glass-fronted showroom, the windows there reflecting a faint glow from the streetlamps that lit the main lot with its rows of sparkling new cars. He stood in that profound silence, watching, through the glass, as a great jumbo jet descended across the floor-to-ceiling windows, its engine roar muffled to a distant whispered hush. He stood listening for any sound from within but the showroom was empty and silent.

He knew they were on schedule and that Rick would arrive soon. The two of them had parked down the street for three consecutive nights, timing the final employee, the sales manager, as he drove out of the parking lot near eight o’clock each night. On the first night, a police cruiser had passed them slowly, its driver looking at them with care as it slid by, so when seven thirty came the second night, they were parked a quarter mile down the street, watching the black-and-white as it drifted by in the distance. They waited until nine o’clock but did not see another police car and apart from the few employee vehicles leaving the dealership between seven thirty and eight they did not see another car at all. What they had learned was that the movements ran like clockwork: police cruiser at seven thirty, sales manager at eight, and nothing but a ghost town after.