Cold (30 page)

Noel watched Norman come around the coffee table and sit next to her.
 
“But Yates never testified at the trial,” she said.

Norman shook his head.
 
“You think I had something to do with that?
 
You think that Detroit lawyer, with his suits and those ties, was right—that I had taken care of Raymond Yates so that he couldn’t testify against me at the trial?”

“No, I don’t,” Noel said.
 
“During the trial I wasn’t sure, but not now.”

“Why not now?”

“Because several months ago I overheard Daddy say something to Woo-San.
 
He said, ‘He’s one with the bears now.’”
 
I think he was talking about Raymond Yates.
 
I said so in that letter to you, right?”

“You did, and that’s why I wanted to come up here.
 
For months I’ve been thinking about that—what’s it mean, ‘He’s one with the bears now’?”
 
Noel leaned against his shoulder and they watched the fire for a minute.
 
“When I went out there this afternoon,” Norman said, “I walked as far as the logging camp.
 
There’s something going on out there now.
 
What is it?”

“I don’t know,” she said.
 
“It has to do with Woo-San.
 
I’m not certain where he’s from.
 
At the motel he gets mail from Korea, Hong Kong, China, Japan, and a lot of calls from Vancouver and some from San Francisco.
 
I asked him once and he just said ‘Relatives.’
 
Woo-San and Daddy are planning something—I don’t know what.
 
You know that last fall Daddy hardly brought anyone out here—just a few small parties.
 
And he told them that there’d be no more hunting and fishing here next year.
 
That’s what seems strange.
 
He wants to keep this so private now, like a kind of preserve.
 
He and Woo-San have found a way to make it pay without the hunting parties.”

“If you don’t cut timber, if you don’t hunt, how do you make land like this pay?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“And Warren?
 
Where’s he at with all of this?”

“He and Daddy had some falling out.
 
Daddy does that—he gets close to people then cuts them off.
 
It had to do with me, but it also had to do with this too.
 
Warren came out here last fall and helped out with the hunting parties, but I could tell there was something odd between them.
 
Warren would never admit it, but I think he knows what Daddy and Woo-San are up to and I think it scares him.
 
This was right around when I had told Warren I wanted him to move out, so he was acting strange—more so than usual.
 
He’s gone back to dealing like he did before he really got involved with Daddy.
 
He goes down to Milwaukee every so often and comes back with stuff.”

“Which you get for free.”

“Norman, nothing’s for free.”
 
Noel turned toward the fire.
 
“He still comes around and sometimes he’s all right.
 
You have any idea how lonely it is, spending my days taking care of Lorraine?
 
I know you’ve been away and that prison’s awful, but it’s not so good out here, Norman.
 
That’s why I finally sent you that letter.”
 
She laid her head against the back of the couch and closed her eyes.

After a moment, she could feel his hand on her shoulder.
 
She didn’t feel exhausted now.
 
There was relief, a sense of energy.
 
She got up off the couch.
 
“I made a mistake, Norman.
 
I should never have gotten involved with your brother.”
 
Norman stared hard into the fire.
 
She moved over until she was standing directly in front of him.
 
The heat from the fire was warming the blanket and she was now almost too hot.

“No apologies,” he said.
 
“It doesn’t matter now.”

“No, it doesn’t.”
 
She let the blanket fall to the floor and knelt on the couch, her legs straddling him.
 
She leaned forward and gently wrapped her arms around his head.
 
“There’s my daughter and you—only you, Norman,” she whispered.
 
“Nothing else really matters.
 
It’s more than enough.”

fourteen

After a couple of miles, Del asked, “The lodge—how many entrances?”

“Just two.
 
The front door,” Warren said, “and the kitchen door on the left side.”

Del tilted his wristwatch so that he could read it in the light from the dashboard.
 
It was just after eleven o’clock.
 
“How close to the road is it?”

“A hundred some odd yards.
 
They’ll see your lights if they’re paying attention.”

Del shut off the headlights.
 
The moon was so bright that he could see the snowbound road easily.
 
“Any weapons, hunting rifles?”

“Could be.
 
There’s a gun cabinet—I don’t have a clue what’s left there over the winter.”
 
Warren folded his arms, his leather coat creaking.
 
“Listen, what’re you going to do?
 
Just walk the fuck in there?”

“No, you’re going to lead me.”

“Hey, this isn’t, you know, my
job.”

“You wanted to come along, remember?”

“You’re
the law.”

“What was it?
 
To help your brother?
 
To protect your ex-wife and your daughter?”

“Well, you know it’s about fifty-below out there in this wind and there’s hardly enough heat in this buggy now while she’s running.”
 
He exhaled.
 
“Look, I can see my breath.
 
Why don’t I stay here and keep the engine running?”

Del smiled.
 
“You’d like that.”

“Yeah, I would.”

“How far are we now?”

“Maybe half a mile,” Warren said.
 
“There’s one big bend in the road up ahead, then it falls off and runs toward the ridge above the river.”

“You know it pretty well.”

“I’m a quick fucking study,” Haas said.
 
“Listen, how many weapons do you have?
 
Maybe you could let me carry something?”

“Not on your life,” Del said.
 
“Even without that bottle of schnapps in you I wouldn’t trust you with a B-B gun.”

“Now it’s a trust issue?
 
This is Boy Scout shit.
 
I brought you up here, didn’t I?”
 
Del said nothing.
 
“You really know how to instill confidence in your troops.”

Del pulled over close to the snowbank on the right side of the road and stopped.
 
He shut off the engine and said, “Just stay close to me, keep your mouth shut and do what I say.”

“Or what?”

“Or I handcuff you to your seat there and you sit here in the cold.”

“Either way I’m going to
freeze
to death.
 
I don’t even have a fucking
hat.”

“Anybody ever tell you you’re an awful whiner?”
 
Del pulled the hood of his overcoat up over his head and tied it snug around his face with the drawstrings.
 
He then fastened the Velcro flap so that his face was protected up to his eyes.

Haas looked at Del and laughed.
 
“If it isn’t Admiral Fucking Peary.
 
I tell you, my ears are going to
freeze
and
drop off.”

Del opened the glove box and handed a wool headband to Warren.
 
“It’d be better if your lips went first.”
 

He got out of the Land Cruiser and waited for Warren, who had difficulty opening his door against the wind.
 
Looking toward the ridge, Del could barely see the lodge.
 
The snow rose up on the wind like smoke.
 
He started walking down the road, bent well forward so that the force of the wind struck the top of his head, which he kept turned away to the left.

“Jesus!”
Warren shouted.
 
“Fuck this!”

Del shoved him hard in the back.
 
“Shut up,” he said.
 
“You understand?”
 
He pushed him again, forcing him to walk ahead.

They came to a break in the snowbank by an arch constructed of timbers—animals carved with a chainsaw, because hunters often decorate their lodges, cabins and camps with images of the animals they seek to kill.
 
It’s a sign of warning for intruders, of respect for the animals.
 
Monty called it Northern Voodoo.
 
Next to the archway was an Isuzu Trooper that was nearly covered with blowing snow.

“You were right about their coming out here,” Del said.
 
“I hope you’re as good at reading your brother’s mind.”

“Don’t expect him to step outside and give up, Constable.”

They climbed over the hard rubble of the plowed bank and began to wade toward the ridge, following a line of weathered fence posts jutting out of the snow.
 
The lodge was constructed of logs and there was a broad porch spanning the long front wall.
 
Del guessed the place had been built sometime in the twenties or early thirties when such buildings could be assembled cheaply using labor from one of the logging camps out here.
 
The windows in the lodge were dark, and it was impossible to tell if there were blinds or curtains.

Warren turned and looked over his shoulder.

“Go on,” Del said.

He walked right behind Warren, stepping in his foot-holes.
 
The effort of climbing through the deep snow was causing sweat to run beneath his long johns.
 
He was fine except for the fingers on his right hand.
 
The cold made them feel brittle as glass.
 
He worked his fingers back into the palm of his glove so he could make a fist and try to generate some warmth.
 
He didn’t want to have to hold his gun in his left hand.

The climb up the ridge became steeper.
 
A brutal wind rounded the corners of the lodge, sculpting the snow into deep, graceful canyons.
 
Warren stopped and turned his head away from the wind.
 
His eyebrows were encrusted with snow and ice.
 
Even in the moonlight, Del could see that the skin on his cheeks was beginning to freeze.
 
His lips and chin were blue-white; they reminded Del of frozen corpses he’d found in vehicles stalled in a blizzard.

“I’m really cold.”

“Keep going.”

•

Norman had seen them from the window while he was getting dressed.
 
At first he thought they were animals, but when the swirling snow let up for a moment it was clear that they were bent forward, walking on two legs.
 
The second form had more bulk than the first.

Noel came out of the bathroom, pulling on her sweater.
 
“Who are they?”

“I haven’t noticed any lights on the road.”

“Maybe they broke down.
 
Maybe they were on snowmobiles—they get in accidents all the time.”
 
Norman tilted his head slightly.
 
“All I’m
saying
is they might not be after us.
 
They might be lost or in trouble.”

“That cabinet,” he said.
 
“There a key?”

“It’s on top.”

“Open it.”
 
She didn’t move.
 
“Open it, Noel.”

He leaned toward the window.
 
They were perhaps thirty yards from the lodge and making slow progress against the wind.
 
He went over to the cabinet.
 
There was enough light from the moon that Noel could fit the key into the lock.
 
When the door was opened, she stepped aside.

“Lorraine,” she whispered.
 
“What should I do with her?”

“Nothing.
 
She’s better off asleep.”

Noel went to the window nearest the front door and looked out through the curtains.

The cabinet was empty except for one crossbow, which Norman took out.
 
It was a Browning and there were three short arrows in its quiver.
 
He had only handled a crossbow a few times.
 
He remembered that a crossbow arrow was called a bolt or sometimes a quarrel.

“How’re they doing?” he said.