Cold (7 page)

“He come inside?”

Tooley shook his head.
 
“Just caught a glimpse of h-him, climbing in the passenger d-door of the cab.”

“What else do you remember?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on, Tooley, what else?”

“Nothing.
 
‘Cept the rig was an eighteen-wheeler.
 
Took a right here at the crossroads.”

“West.”

“Yeah, that one w-went west.”

•

On County Road 810 Del didn't get out of second gear, but his four-wheel drive kept him moving down the middle of the snowbound road.
 
He called in to Monty at the station.

“Well?”

“The walkaway's name is Norman Haas, H-A-A-S.
 
Twenty-five.
 
In for you name it. Aggravated assault, battery, and if that wasn’t enough he shot someone.
 
Nobody’s seen him in two days.
 
I'll bet he’s buried under three feet of new snow.”

“Or he’s in a rig heading west,” Del said.
 
“Are the roads still open that way?”

“So far only the stretch of 28 between Marquette and Munising is closed.
 
That sucker always goes first, being right along the lake; I don’t know why they don’t just shut it down in winter.
 
Want me to call the state police?
 
If it’s Haas, he could be headed for Sault Ste. Marie and they could pick him up when he crosses the border.
 
But the Soo’s east.
 
Did you say he was headed west?”

“In this weather maybe he couldn’t be choosy about the ride.
 
Who’d he beat up?”

“His fiancé,” Monty said.

“Who’d he shoot?”

“Doesn’t say.
 
The other guy, probably.”

“Where?”

“North Eicher.
 
Didn’t their hockey team win the state championship once?”

“About twenty-five years ago,” Del said.
 
“When I was in high school, they were the team to beat.”
 
Like many towns in the Upper Peninsula, North Eicher started as a logging camp with a railroad running through it.
 
When logging became mechanized—when it no longer employed hundreds of men in each camp—the town nearly disappeared.
 
Chances were there weren’t more than a thousand residents now.
 
Yellow Dog Township was smaller, but it was a handful of miles outside Marquette, the biggest town in the U. P.
 
North Eicher wasn’t near anything.
 
“I think I remember reading about this Norman Haas and his fiancé,” Del said.
 
“It wasn’t long before their wedding and I don’t think it was the other guy.
 
Shot some other guy, who disappeared before the trial.”
 
Del began to hang the mike up, and then punched the button again.
 
“Go ahead and call the state police.
 
But they won’t do anything in this weather.”

“I betcha they’re sitting in their warm offices, playing with their radios too!”

“Bet you’re right.”

“You coming in?
 
Bring something big and round to eat, with pepperoni on it.”

“I'll see what’s still open.
 
If anything, this stuff’s getting heavier.”

Three

The trucker’s name was Eldon Waters and he wouldn’t shut up.
 
Norman figured it must get lonely in this cab day in, day out.
 
Everything was a question with Eldon, like he knew deep down nobody really listened.

“I live in Michigamme—been there?”

“No, just passing through.”

“But know where I spend most of my time when I’m off the road?”

Norman said nothing, and when Eldon looked over at him he shook his head.
 
“I got a camp up in the Huron Mountains.
 
You never saw better country.
 
Lots of moose and bear, and more deer than you can believe.
 
But know what the best part is?”

Norman looked out the side window at the snow.
 
The rig was doing about thirty-five and he could feel the trailer sliding back there, tugging on the cab.

“Guess?”

“Haven’t a clue, Eldon.”

“You like a sauna?”

“You mean the thing you sit in and sweat?”
 
He turned and studied Eldon.
 
Queers in the joint said strange things, to get your attention.
 
Eldon must have weighed close to three hundred pounds, and Norman couldn't imagine him sitting naked on a bench in some hot little room.

“Yeah, that heat!
 
It comes from wetting down these very hot rocks, you know?
 
And you sweat it all out of your pores, and you feel great after, eh?”

“What’re you asking me about a
sauna
for?”
 
Eldon turned his large head toward Norman, his small dark eyes confused.
 
His whole body shook as the cab bucked over a frost heave under the snow-packed road.
 
“You a cocksucker, Eldon?”

“Hey,
what—”

“You’re such a fat shit you couldn’t get your hands on a woman if you tried?
 
Christ, she’d never find your prick in all that.”

“Jesus H, didn't I give you a lift in this storm?
 
What you doin’ talkin’ that way?”

“Boys, Eldon.
 
You like boys?”

“Boys, my ass, I’m gonna stop and throw you out right here and let you walk twenty miles to the next town.”

“Yeah, that’s it, isn’t it?” Norman said.
 
“You like boys that are lean, got some muscle on ‘em.
 
Hard little dicks to suck on in your sweatbox camp.”

As Eldon began to let up on the gas his right arm came off the steering wheel and reached across the cab toward Norman.
 
“Instead, how ‘bout I shove my dick up your—”

The cab lurched to the right as the rig began to jackknife.
 
Eldon got both hands back on the big steering wheel, but the cab was sliding diagonally toward the snowbank on the other side of the road.
 
The rig bucked, causing the cab to lift off the ground, then it hit the snowbank, and Norman raised his arms.
 
First he hit the windshield, then the trailer slammed into the rear corner of the cab on the driver’s side, causing sparks to fly out from under the dashboard.

•

Norman wasn’t sure how much time had passed.
 
There was the smell of burnt rubber.
 
His left forearm hurt and his face was wet.
 
He opened his eyes and touched his forehead with his right hand.
 
He expected to see blood on his fingers, but it was only sweat.
 
There was nothing but snow outside the windows, and somewhere from the engine came a hissing sound.

Eldon was slumped over the wheel.
 
The windshield in front of him was cracked, all the streaks fanning out from the point where his forehead must have hit the glass.
 
There was a lot of blood—on the side of his face, dripping from his nose, pooling around his boots.
 
He didn’t move, except for the faint, rhythmic swelling of his huge arching back.
 
Laying his head against the door window, Norman looked out at the snow, then closed his eyes again.

•

It was the sound of an engine that brought him up and out of it and he opened his eyes.
 
A brown van had pulled over by the snowbank on the other side of the road.
 
The snow was so heavy Norman couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman who got out.
 
Turning his head carefully, Norman saw that Eldon hadn’t moved but he was still breathing.

It was a man walking back toward the truck, a bearded man wearing a down vest and a Packers cap.
 
Behind him, the van’s engine was idling and white exhaust drifted out of the tailpipe.
 
He kept his hands in the pockets of his jeans and he seemed to favor one leg.
 
He reached up, opened Norman’s door and shouted against the wind,
“You all right?”

Norman nodded.
 
“I’m not sure about him though.”

The man was in his mid-forties and he had a full dark beard.
 
As he raised himself up on the cab step, Norman realized what it was about his walk:
 
he had something wrong with one leg—either he couldn’t bend his knee much or he was wearing a prosthesis.
 
“He doesn't look good at all,” he said.

“I can’t get him out,” Norman said.
 
“He’s too big.”

“His door’ll never open, the way it’s caved in.
 
Here, let me help you out—think you can stand?”

“I don’t know.”

Leaning into the cab, the man took hold of Norman’s shoulder, then helped him to turn until his legs were outside the door.
 
His breath was sweet, and there was the slightest click in his mouth.
 
Norman recognized the smell of Certs.

He helped Norman ease down to the snowy road.
 
“That’s right,” he said, “keep a hand on the door.
 
Now let me see how he’s doing.”
 
He took hold of the back of his left knee, lifted it until the leg bent enough for him to plant his foot on the floor of the cab; then, using his arms and his good leg, he swung his body up and on to the seat.
 
He leaned over and placed a hand on the back of Eldon’s neck.
 
“He’s breathing.”
 
He took the microphone off the CB radio and switched the unit on, but after adjusting a few knobs he shook his head.
 
“That
smell
—the wiring’s fried.
 
We got to get him out—this thing, it might catch fire and
blow!
 
He’s got to come out this side but, God, he’s
big!”
 
The man leaned over and tried to lift Eldon’s arms off the steering wheel.
 
But he was having difficulty, so he rolled down Eldon’s window.
 
“Go around to his door, maybe you can push, and I’ll pull, and we can get him out of here.”

“Sure.”
 
Norman walked around to the front of the truck and stopped.
 
He stood still, his back to the snow and wind, staring down at his boots.
 
It was like the moment, two days earlier, when he had been on the access road outside the prison.
 
Something told him he should just walk, walk and don’t look back, and in that moment he didn’t know if he could do it, and then suddenly he was walking.
 
It was like he was watching himself, disappearing into the snow.
 
He had been outside himself somehow.
 
And he realized that at the time he was walking away from the prison he kept saying to himself
It doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter, they could shoot me but it doesn’t matter, I just got to keep going, keep walking.
 
When he finally looked over his shoulder, he could no longer see the other prisoners.
 
There was nothing around him but the snow and the woods.

Now, Norman raised his head and stared through the cracked windshield above the hood of the truck.
 
The man had his arm around Eldon’s shoulders.
 
There was an earnest expression on his bearded face, as though getting Eldon out of the cab was a math problem, something abstract that had to be solved only because it was there, as a challenge.
 
Eldon’s face was covered with blood and his lips were loose, making him look stupid.
 
When Norman had first seen him coming out of the gas station, Eldon was eating a Mounds candy bar.
 
Norman had been standing next to an eighteen-wheeler at the diesel pump, where he was protected from the wind.
 
He figured he could go in the Stop & Go and just say to the guy behind the counter that he thought he saw something down the road—maybe an overturned snowmobile.
 
Just enough so someone would go look for the woman, and then he’d get out of there fast.
 
But Eldon smiled, a fleck of coconut and chocolate on a tooth, and said, “You look like a guy who could use a lift.”
 
He climbed up on his rig and opened the driver’s door.
 
There was something playful in his voice.
 
He had probably offered a lot of young guys rides, asked them a ton of questions.
 
“Better hurry,” he said, “‘cause I’m outta here before this blizzard closes all the roads down.”

“Which way you headed?” Norman asked.

 
“It matter to you?”

“It matters.”

“West—Duluth.”

Inside, you’re not offered much of a choice.
 
There was rarely that moment of hesitation before making a decision.
 
Now, standing in front of the jackknifed rig, Norman felt it again and he was keenly aware of the position of things.
 
He could hear the van idling behind him.
 
He could just walk to the van, get in and drive off.
 
With that bum leg, the bearded guy would never get down from the cab quick enough to stop him.
 
It was just like the moment he walked away from prison:
 
you don’t think about it, you just go.
 
You don’t look back, and suddenly there’s nothing around you but woods and snow.
 
But Norman simply stood there in front of the cab.
 
He couldn’t make up his mind.