The Snow Falcon (29 page)

happy being who he is right here in this town, but he’s got a good heart, Susan.”

Susan nodded slowly. “I know that,” she said.

IT WAS LATE when they left, past one, and the night was freezing. Susan sat back in the corner of her seat on the drive home, leaning against the headrest. A country station was playing on the radio, and she hummed along to a tune she recognized.

“Thought you didn’t like this stuff,” Coop said.

“I’m making an exception tonight.” She smiled over at him. The wine, and brandy on top of that with coffee, had affected her. It was more than she’d drunk in a long time, and she felt good-humored, her mind drifting in a pleasant fuzz.

“This was nice, Coop,” she said. “Good food, good friends. I had a good time.”

“Yeah, me too.”

His expression remained serious, concentrating on the road. Susan wondered if he was still bothered about what had happened earlier. She reached out and brushed his arm.

“If you’re worrying about Jamie, then don’t,” she said. “It’s not you. It’s just that he’s interested in Michael’s falcon.”

Coop’s mouth tightened fractionally. “Yeah, I know.”

She didn’t think he sounded convinced. Maybe it would be better to just let it drop. The sound of tires on the road lulled her, the heat made her yawn.

“Are you okay about Jamie being over there?” Coop asked after a moment.

She dragged herself up from a dreamy, half-sleepy state. “What do you mean?”

“Somers did try to kill somebody once, you know that. The guy he shot was lucky to survive. He threatened his own wife and baby, too.”

“He was never charged with that,” Susan said. “The prosecution accepted that he never actually made any threat. Even the judge said he needed treatment; it was part of his sentence. It’s obvious he had some kind of breakdown.”

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“The jury still thought he knew what he was doing.” Coop looked over. “How’d you know all that, anyway?”

“I went to the library. I mean, with Jamie going over there, I wanted to see for myself what really happened, instead of listening to all the talk there’s been.”

Coop frowned, but he didn’t say anything.

They rode in silence until he turned off the road and pulled up outside her house. Susan wished again she hadn’t brought the subject up in the first place. For a second they sat uncomfortably, then impulsively she leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. She started to pull away, but then he turned toward her and held her arm and they stared into each other’s faces. She felt herself being drawn closer and didn’t resist, then he was kissing her mouth, his arm going around her shoulders.

At first she didn’t feel anything, just the sensation of his mouth against her own, then some kind of pleasant warm syrupy feeling was starting to happen somewhere in her middle, and she didn’t want to let go of it just yet. Coop’s male scent was in her senses, firing off little chemical receptors in her brain like little flashes of fireworks. She could feel the strength in his arms, the hardness of his body. Her hand inadvertently brushed the front of his pants and she felt his erection.

She opened her eyes, feeling cool air against her face, then pulled away.

“Coop … It’s late. I should go in.”

There was confusion in his expression, mingled with hurt and even a flash of anger she could see in the way the muscles at the corner of his mouth twitched, but he didn’t try to stop her. She felt like an idiot. Worse, she felt like a tease. But she garbled some excuse, said good night, and climbed out.

Inside, as she leaned against the door, she heard the sound of the engine fading, and quiet descended over the house. She took several long slow breaths, closed her eyes, then went to the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. Her head was swimming.

She went upstairs, and on the way to her room she stopped to look in on Jamie. He was asleep, lying on his stomach, his arms thrown out, his face turned toward her. She pulled the covers up and bent to kiss him, watching him for a moment while he slept. He breathed

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softly, with his mouth open a little, his long lashes lying against his cheek. His sketch pad lay on the chest beside his bed, and when she tilted it to catch the light from the landing, she could see he’d drawn more pictures of Cully. Turning over the pages, she saw sketches of herself standing on a porch rail, or flying toward a figure she supposed was Michael. She put the pad down, and stayed for a minute or two longer. On the outside, he seemed peaceful, untroubled. She remembered the sound of his laughter when he was just a baby, how he giggled when she tickled him, the first time he spoke her name. It seemed such a faraway echo, such a long time ago. She felt a swelling sensation that rose into her throat, and her eyes inexplicably began to smart. Turning away, she left his room, quietly closing the door behind her.

In her own room, she crawled into bed and turned out the light, but sleep wouldn’t come. She was in a kind of drowsy half-conscious state, cocooned in warmth and darkness. Alcohol was still swirling in her brain. She recalled Coop’s shoulders beneath her hands when they’d kissed. She felt bad about what had happened earlier, and in a moment of fantasy she imagined that she hadn’t broken away and gone inside. She thought of him lying with her in the dark, her hands running across his back. She caressed herself beneath the T-shirt she was wearing, cupping her breasts and squeezing her thighs together. The sensations in her body came unexpectedly. The warmth that spread up from her loins took her by surprise. With one hand she described circular motions across her belly, sliding down.

With her eyes closed, arousing herself, she imagined half-formed images dissolving and rearranging themselves in her mind. She thought of Coop as she’d seen him on the drive home, thoughtful, his face in shadow, and of kissing him. His image dissolved, and memories of making love with David suffused her mind. Tears escaped her eyes to run across her cheekbones to the pillow, leaving tracks of moisture that she could feel against her skin.

She banished David from her mind, imagining being made love to by an anonymous male body. She couldn’t see his face, nor did she feel compelled to, but the movements and pressure of her hands made her think of flesh molding against her own and she immersed herself in sensation.

Afterward her breathing became deep and regular; her fantasy dissolved,

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and when she finally fell asleep, she dreamed of things she wouldn’t remember in the light of day. Only a vague unsettling discontent would linger. She curled into a tight ball, hugging her knees to her chest.

17

MICHAEL ROSE BEFORE IT WAS LIGHT AND fetched Cully from the woodshed. By the time the sun was up, he had her weighed, hooded, and on her perch in the back of the Nissan and was finishing a breakfast of coffee and a roll. For days now she’d been flying free to his fist across the clearing during their morning and afternoon sessions, and never once had she wavered, never once had she shown an inclination to rise up and fly beyond the trees, though still, each time he called her, a nervous lump stuck in his throat. Now, however, it was time to advance her training another step, and for that he needed to take her into the mountains.

He drove up the track to the road and turned toward town, but before he’d traveled far, he turned off again and drove down through the trees to Susan’s house. As he stepped onto the porch to knock, he heard the dog barking inside, and then after a few minutes the door opened. Susan peered at him from sleep-filled eyes, running a hand back through her hair. When she saw it was him, she drew her robe more tightly around her.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to wake you,” he said.

“It’s okay. What time is it?”

“Early.” Behind her in the passage he saw Jamie appear, his coat on, ready to go out, and he guessed the boy had been about to head for his usual spot beside the big cottonwood on the edge of the clearing where he watched Cully’s training.

“I’m taking Cully to a place in the mountains, toward Falls Pass,”

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he told Susan. “I thought Jamie might want to come along, if it’s okay with you.”

She looked past him to the Nissan, where Cully was visible through the window, hooded and standing quietly on her perch. “I don’t know,” she said, coming awake. She half turned, expecting that Jamie would already have disappeared, but he was still there, standing back a little. “I mean, I guess it’s okay with me—it’s Saturday, so there’s no school—but Jamie’s kind of funny around people.” She knelt down beside Jamie. “Do you want to go with Mr. Somers?”

“Michael.”

She glanced back over her shoulder. “Michael.”

To her surprise, Jamie nodded. He stepped past her and went down the porch step and climbed into the passenger seat.

“He’ll be okay. I’ll bring him back in a few hours.”

Susan was still too surprised to manage much more than a vague nod. “Okay, thanks.”

She watched them go, waving tentatively, then went inside to worry.

HE TOOK THE road toward Falls Pass, above the valley, concentrating on the icy surface while they rose through the forest. In places they cut through narrow valleys where the trees rose steeply on either side, forming dark canyons where in the winter the sun never penetrated.

Jamie sat in the corner, pressed up against the door as if he were trying to keep as much distance between them as he could. Most of the time, his attention was fixed on Cully. Michael found the silence disconcerting and racked his brains for something to say. He asked Jamie a couple of questions about school, but it was hard to think of things that required only a nod or a shake of the head in response, and sensing Jamie’s reluctance he gave up after a while.

A memory came back to him of driving somewhere with his dad when he would have been around Jamie’s age. They were going to Williams Lake to pick up some stuff for the store, and he remembered the journey as being something like this, completed in virtual silence. He could picture his dad wearing a red checked jacket and a cap with the name of some tool supplier across the front. He had

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gray hair even then, almost silvery white, and the line of his jaw seemed to be dissolving into his neck in folds of skin. Whenever Michael thought of his dad, it was an image like this, as if he’d always been old.

Michael had been born when his parents were already in their early forties. They’d married in their thirties, but the family they’d planned had never happened, and a difficult birth meant his mother hadn’t been able to have more children. From things he’d heard, it was this that had changed her.

On the day he’d gone with his dad, they’d taken a detour to a pond that was frozen in winter. Michael remembered it had been his dad’s idea; he must have planned it ahead of time, because Michael’s skates were in the back of the truck. There were lots of people on the pond: kids around his own age, whole families out together. His dad didn’t skate because of an arthritic hip, and as Michael had gone around the ice, his dad had stood at the edge watching him and calling out as he went by. By the time Michael had finally come off the pond, the light was fading and there were only a few people left. His dad was still standing in the same spot, patiently waiting.

Michael remembered getting in the car feeling warm after all the exercise; his dad had been frozen, his arms stiff from standing so long in the cold. Michael remembered he’d had a good time on the ice, but he’d stayed longer than he’d really wanted to. He was glad that his dad was cold, full of this anger that he couldn’t express. It was just there, a deep mixture of instinctive emotion, most of it in turmoil. He’d been silent all the way home, and gradually his dad had given up trying to get him to talk, resignation and disappointment falling over him.

By the time they’d arrived back, it was dark, and Michael’s mother, having seen the lights of the truck, had opened the door to them, her expression deeply etched with worry, her eyes going from one to the other of them. Her voice was strange, kind of shaky, rising in volume.

“Where have you been?” she’d demanded, kneeling down, crushing Michael to her. He recalled the strong smell of the liniment she used to rub into her chest, the feathery feel of a dryish wisp of hair against his skin.

“We just went skating,” he’d said, pulling away from her.

Her eyes had a high bright light in them, which she flashed at his

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dad. “Why didn’t you tell me? I didn’t know where you were, I was all alone. What if I’d had an attack and fallen down?” Then she’d sniffed the air like a dog and stood up. “You’ve been drinking!” Michael remembered thinking it wasn’t true, his dad hadn’t taken a drink all day, but he hadn’t said anything.

It was one of the few times he could recall that he and his dad had done anything together. He saw now that on other occasions, when his dad had tried to get him to play ball in the yard or go fishing, he’d frozen him out. Thinking about it saddened him. His mother had done a good job of turning him against his dad. Her reaction after they’d been out skating, he saw now, was borne of fear; she’d been afraid all her efforts would be undone. He guessed that after that, his dad had given up.

AT THE TOP of Falls Pass Road they crested a rise, emerging from the treeline high above a valley. The road went on a little farther, then dropped down the other side of the rise toward a high pass in the mountains. Where they had emerged, the road dissected a broad snowfield, which rose in a gentle slope toward high rocky cliffs a mile away. Beyond, the mountains ranged in ever-rising white and blue-gray peaks. Michael pulled over.