Deep Winter (5 page)

Danny couldn't feel anything. His arms and legs seemed disconnected from the rest of his body. It was like he was still floating in the water.

“I said get up.” Something kicked him in the ribs. Pain shot
through him, and his eyes flickered open. The nearly full moon and a thousand stars hung above him.

Then he noticed Sokowski and Carl standing over him. They didn't say anything else. They started to kick him hard in the face and stomach with dirty Converse sneakers. Again and again. He remembered hearing Mindy screaming at them to stop before the moon swept down and took him away.

•   •   •

M
rs. Bennett said that people were mean sometimes because they didn't like folks that were different from them. She told Danny that he was special and different and that was okay. Danny sure liked Mrs. Bennett a lot—she was kinda the grandma he didn't have—and carved her a bluebird figurine once. She said that bluebirds were independent and didn't take nothing from nobody. Danny wished he was a bluebird sometimes.

The sound of heavy tires chomping and chewing their way through the snow-topped road interrupted the countryside's perfect quiet. Danny wanted to rest for a minute, so he decided to take a break from all the walking and moved off to the side of the road, glancing over his shoulder at an approaching pickup truck on oversize tires. The sides of the truck were eaten up with rust from years of traveling on top of salt- and cinder-covered roads, and the front fender was popped in and dented in a few places.

The truck slowed, and a teenager unrolled the passenger window. Danny recognized the boy from town but forgot his name.

“Duh-duh-duh-duh-Danny the retard does a little dance every time he does the Hershey squirts in his pants!” The driver of the pickup howled with laughter like it was the funniest thing he had ever heard. Egged on by his buddy's cackling, the boy in the
passenger seat shoved his middle finger up his nose. “Duh-duh-duh-duh-Danny!” More laughter as the truck crested the hill and slipped away.

Danny wanted to turn and go back home, but he had come this far. Besides, he always came out here on his birthday to be with his mama and papa.

•   •   •

M
cGee Pond proved to be a popular spot in the wintertime. About the size of a football field, it was frozen solid with a thick layer of ice that had a few logs stuck in place until the spring thaw. On the far opposite side of the pond, a dozen teenagers glided on skates across its smooth surface, pushing and shoving each other and carrying on. Boys taunting girls and the girls giggling and screaming as if they didn't like it. Closer to the shore near Danny, three children were learning to skate with their parents. The two boys were older—eight and ten, maybe—and appeared more adventurous than their sister. The little girl wore a pink jacket and wobbled along the ice with her hands out, ready for a fall. After two near misses, her luck was up—arms spun like mini-windmills and legs went out from under her, and she landed hard on her bottom. Tears promptly followed.

As her parents tended to their daughter with soft, soothing voices that encouraged her improvement, the two boys continued their roughhousing unwatched. They raced each other, teasing with name-calling and hard shoving.

Danny sat on the bank of the pond watching the boys play. He was careful not to sit too close to the ice. His heart raced even though he had been sitting in the same spot for quite a while now. He wouldn't venture out onto the ice anymore. Was too scared.

The two boys skated faster and faster, narrowly avoiding sharp chunks of wood that poked out through the ice, and coasted toward the center of the pond. Puffs of shaved ice kicked out from their skate blades in white little clouds. They threw some elbows at each other, trying to knock the other down. Danny watched them closely, rubbing at his furrowed brow and feeling funny in his belly. He liked it better when the pond was empty so that he could be by himself—watching kids out on the ice just made him too nervous. The two boys raced toward a large round spot in the center of the ice that glistened with a thin layer of water.

Danny pressed his eyes closed—wanting to shut everything out—hoping that when he opened them again, the boys would be skating back toward shore. He could hear them laughing and whooping, not a care in the world. He didn't want to open his eyes yet, but did anyway. And just as he feared, the young boys weren't skating back toward their parents, but instead heading right for the shimmering spot on the ice.

“No.” Danny stood, eyes staring toward the soft ice. “It's not safe out there . . .” His hands rolled into fists at his sides, and he looked over to the parents, who held their daughter's hands between them and skated slowly alongside her.

“Tell them to stop.” Danny's voice was urgent but not loud enough to get their attention. He gazed back toward the boys, and they got closer and closer to the center of the ice.

The two boys abruptly slowed in their tracks as their blades sank and bogged down in the slushy ice. One of them fell forward and slid face-first into the mush.

“TELL THEM BOYS TO COME BACK!” Danny suddenly shrieked, his voice shrill and full of panic. He waved his arms and screamed again. He sounded like a big, scared, squawking bird that was trying to protect its nest from a circling hawk. The parents
finally looked over at him, and he pointed frantically toward the center of the ice. The parents stared at him for a second, taken aback by the large mountain of a man, wearing a red knit hat, screaming and flapping his arms.

“GET YOUR BOYS! GET THEM NOW!”

The father glanced in the direction Danny pointed and saw his two sons. The older one was trying to pick up his younger brother, but he lost his balance and slammed down onto the ice as well.

“Tyler! Jason! Not so far out!” he shouted. But the boys couldn't hear their father. They were too busy grabbing and clawing at each other.

From the shore Danny watched as the older boy struggled to his feet, then abruptly sank up to his waist in the water once the ice gave way. He flailed wildly, desperately grabbing at the edge of the broken ice, but the ice kept breaking off in chunks. Water flung from his mittens in high arcs while the ice continued to crumble and break away as fast as he could grip it in his hands.

Danny saw the panic take hold of the mother's face, and a chilling scream ripped from her mouth. Even the teenagers at the other end of the pond stopped what they were doing and gawked at the scene unfolding. The mother pushed her husband forward, and they both raced toward their boys, slipping and sliding on their skates, leaving the little girl behind them unattended. The little girl reached her hands out toward her mother and father and started to cry, but her sobs went unheard.

The younger boy grasped at his brother, tugged on his arms, but couldn't get his feet planted, then quickly got sucked into the icy water as well. Both boys screamed now. Panicky yells that carried over the ice and filled the countryside.

The little girl began to inch her way toward her parents. Jerky and unbalanced. “Mama!” But her small voice was lost.

Danny watched the girl skate and wobble farther out on the ice—farther from shore and closer to danger. “Little girl, please. Stay where you are,” Danny called out to her but her goal was clear—to go after her mama and papa.

Danny moved to step onto the ice but stopped his boot from leaving the safety of shore. He tried, but he couldn't move any farther. The fear grabbed ahold of him like two large fists wrapping around his chest and holding him tight. The screams of the boys seemed to grow louder in Danny's ears. He thought he could hear the sound of cracking ice and the sucking noise of water flowing into their lungs. Even the clatter of their parents' skates cutting into the ice and the little girl's sobs filled Danny's head. He wanted it to stop. He wanted to be back in his room. He wanted to finish painting the robin for Mindy's birthday.

You need to get the little girl, Danny.

The voice spoke to him urgently.

“I'm afraid.”

No time for that. Get the little girl.

Danny nodded that he would listen and do what he was told. He pressed his eyes closed and inched forward onto the ice. All he could see was darkness, but he could feel his boot step onto the smooth, hard surface. He felt the rubber soles of his boots glide across the ice, inch by inch, foot by foot. The boys kept screaming from out on the center of the pond, and he stopped and stood for a moment, then opened his eyes. Both feet were planted on the ice, and he was okay. The ice didn't crack or break under him. It was solid. Strong enough to hold him. He saw the little girl gaining momentum toward her parents—getting closer to the soft spot. Danny blocked out all the noise and voices and began to walk-glide across the ice.

Faster now. You're almost there.

His stride easily tripled that of the little girl. It took only a few moments to catch up to her. He slid beside her, and she gazed up at him and stopped skating. Danny towered over her by a good three feet. Like a giant bear looking down on Goldilocks. He forced a smile for her and held his hand out toward hers.

“It's okay. Come with me. Your mama and papa will be right back.” His voice was low and gentle. Nothing but kindness.

The little girl hesitated and peered out toward her parents.

“I'm scared of the ice, too. Even a big person like me gets scared. Maybe if we stay together, we won't be afraid anymore.”

Tears rolled down her face that shook from cold and fear, but she nodded at Danny. Took his hand and squeezed it tight, and she wasn't about to let it go. Danny slid his boots across the ice and guided them to shore. They walked up the bank a few feet and turned and stared back at the center of the pond. The boys' father sprawled out on the ice, desperately reaching toward his sons. He grasped the younger one first. Pulled him out and slid him on his belly behind him. As the mother collected her younger son, the father reached and grabbed the older son's hand, minus a mitten now, and slowly eased him up and out of the ice-cold water.

Danny sat on the snowy bank, and the little girl stood beside him, pressing her small body onto his for comfort and warmth. She watched her brothers, now howling, one clutched in each parent's tight grasp. The little girl's knees rattled from the cold, and she continued to sob, small tears leaking down chapped red cheeks.

Danny held the little girl's hand tight and whispered softly over her whimpers, “
Shhh.
They're gonna be okay. Your brothers are safe. Nothing to be scared of anymore.”

The parents brought Tyler and Jason to the shore, hushed them
with comforting words, and stroked their wet heads. The father sat Tyler on the ground with his mother and jogged over to his daughter.

“It's okay, Melissa. Don't cry now.” He scooped her up in his arms and she buried her face in his shoulder with renewed cries of relief and fear.

The father looked down at Danny and held his daughter protectively to his chest, wet with water and chunks of ice.

“I didn't want her going out on the ice,” Danny said.

The father nodded but said nothing.

Danny gazed out at the pond and shook his head. “This pond is a bad place.”

“It's just a pond.”

“Kids shouldn't be playing out here.”

The father's face shifted and flashed with a sudden burst of anger. “I know who you are, and I sure the hell don't need you tellin' me my business.”

Danny looked up at the man, not sure why he would be so mad at him. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean nothing.”

The father turned away from Danny and rejoined his family. Over her father's shoulder, the little girl peered back at Danny and waved a small mittened hand. He didn't wave back. He just stared out at the pond.

It was a bad place.

S
okowski and Carl were already shit-faced when they got to Teddie's. They took turns passing a fifth of Wild Turkey and two fat joints during the thirty-minute drive. They talked about fucking and being wasted and then more about fucking. They discussed who they would fuck, who they wouldn't fuck, and who they had fucked. All the fuck talk had them laughing their asses off. When Sokowski pulled his truck in to the gravel driveway, he nearly back-ended another pickup truck—which happened to be a Toyota, so he didn't really give a shit. As they climbed out of the Chevy, they laughed about that, too.

“You're fucked up,” Carl cackled as he stated the obvious.

“Not nearly as much as I plan to be,” Sokowski said with a grin he couldn't wipe off his face.

There were over forty men and women drinking and smoking in front of the double-wide trailer. A group of men, most wearing
Harley-Davidson caps and black leather jackets, huddled around the keg on the front porch, taking turns pumping and pouring. The cold didn't seem to bother them a bit.

Sokowski strode up the gravel driveway like a strutting rooster in a henhouse—Carl a few steps behind him. Both of their heads pivoted as they pushed and shoved themselves up onto the crammed porch, gawking at the asses of female partygoers as they went. Sokowski gave a few of them a head tilt—a quick acknowledgment without having to bother saying anything.

A tall, rock-hard man wearing a thick camouflage hunting jacket and a matching camouflage ball cap sipped beer from a red cup and gave Sokowski a sour look. The hunter sported a carefully groomed goatee and had his hand cupped on the ass of an attractive blonde pressed up against his side. Her meticulously feathered hair was bleached to the roots, and she wore an acid-washed denim jacket and tight jeans that appeared to be painted on.

“Look who just stumbled out of the sticks. You busting up the party,
Deputy
?” the hunter mocked.

Sokowski elbowed his way next to the keg and helped himself to some cups. “Kiss my ass, Otis,” Sokowski replied coolly. He handed Carl a beer, then poured his own.

“Bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?” Otis grinned at one of his buddies.

Sokowski took in the crowd as if the man's chatter didn't register.

“Heard Mindy dumped your ass again,” Otis said over his beer. “Guess she's back on the market.”

Sokowski stepped up close to him. His face pressed just a few inches from Otis's. “If you were smart, which you ain't, you dumb fuck, you'd keep your nose out of my shit.”

Otis held his ground. “Christ. Your fucking beard stinks.”

“Least I'm not growing one of those fucking French goatees.”

A few chuckles from around the porch.

“What the fuck ya doing up here anyways?” Otis asked and lit up a cigarette.

Sokowski guzzled his beer, then poured another. He turned to one of the flannel-wearing rednecks. “Teddie inside?” The redneck nodded that he was and motioned toward the door with a jerk of his head.

Sokowski seemed to finally notice the blonde that Otis fondled. Gave her tits a good look and smiled at her. “You got a thing for small peckers, huh? When you're ready for a real man, give me a call.” Sokowski flashed Otis a toothy grin and Carl chuckled behind him as they stepped inside the trailer.

A .38 Special song blared on the stereo.
“You see it all around you, / Good lovin' gone bad . . .”

The party was in full swing. Most of the men sported unkempt beards. Greasy hair shoved under John Deere hats. The women looked like they lived hard lives. Bleached-blond hair pulled back from faces etched with smoker lines. Anyone who wasn't sucking on a Camel or a Marlboro Red was spitting chew into empty beer bottles. They all clutched an alcoholic beverage and drank quickly to get their buzz on. Cigarette smoke hung thick in the air. A group of men sat at the kitchen table playing quarters. Bullshit hunting stories were told. Dirty jokes exchanged. Gossip shared. And through the din of conversation, scattered laughter revealed nicotine-stained teeth and dull yellow tongues.

Sokowski shouted over the music to Carl, “I'll catch you later! Duty calls!” Carl nodded but was more interested in scoping out the
party. As Sokowski shoved his way through the crowd, Carl sat down and joined in the game of quarters at the kitchen table.

Sokowski rubbed up intentionally against a stacked redhead, copping a quick feel, and gave her a lecherous grin. “Hey, sweet thing.” Sokowski's Wild Turkey breath folded over the redhead, and she rolled her eyes and turned her back to him and continued talking to her friends. Undeterred, he kept pushing and rubbing his way against anyone with breasts as he crossed the living room. He passed by a gun rack mounted onto the wall that proudly displayed three hunting rifles. The victims of the rifles hung around the living-room walls as well, now stuffed and mounted trophy kills. Three buck heads, a black-bear head, and a pheasant repositioned in midflight looked alert with blue marble eyes.

Sokowski pressed on, moving down the narrow trailer hallway toward the back bedroom. The door was closed, but he didn't bother knocking. Just swung the door open and stepped inside the darkened room lit only by a purple mood light that hung from the ceiling.

Two men and two women sat on the water bed, passing around a small mirror lined with cocaine. One of the men, tall and thin with a sharp, hawklike nose, snorted a line and rubbed some of the fine powder on his upper gum. He smiled up at Sokowski, revealing a mouth missing a good number of its teeth.

“Yo, bitch. Where the fuck you been? Want a line?”

“What the fuck do you think, Teddie?” Sokowski took the mirror and snorted two fat lines. Sucked them deep and pinched his nose. Then tilted his head back and savored the drip.

“Fuck yeah.”

“Good shit, right? Ol' Teddie's a great fucking host.” He clapped a hand on Sokowski's back. “What's new in Wyalusing, Mikey?”

“Nothing. Same shit, different day.”

“Yeah. Same shit here. You still fucking that waitress?”

Sokowski shrugged. “Only when I'm desperate.”

“I hear that, man. I hear that. You gonna stick around and party a little? I got plenty of blow,” Teddie said after doing another line.

“I guess. Maybe. Bunch of skanky bitches out there, though. You get 'em at the dog pound or what?”

Teddie laughed and cupped his hands over his eyes like he was wearing glasses. “Just gotta put on the beer goggles, then, bitch.” The two women and the other man laughed at the sight. Sokowski barely cracked a smile and drank his beer.

“Shit, Mike. You're wound up so tight I bet your asshole could slice a diamond right clean in half.” The others laughed at this, too, before going back to cutting more lines and passing them around the room.

Teddie put his arm around Sokowski, stinking of beer and tooth rot. “So what do you got for
me,
Deputy?”

Sokowski snorted another line and handed him back the empty mirror. Reached into his deputy jacket and pulled out a thick plastic bag of marijuana. “Some good shit, is what.”

“Well, we'll just have to see about that.” Teddie eagerly opened the plastic bag and rolled a joint, spilling some of the weed onto the carpet but not really caring. He fired it up, took a hit, and held in the smoke. When he finally blew the cloud of smoke out, he was seized by a coughing attack. His eyes watered as he bent over, coughing hard. He farted twice, then exploded into hysterics.

“My compliments to the chef.” The others joined in with snorts of laughter.

Sokowski finally smiled. Took a hit, then passed the joint around.
Out in the living room, Lynyrd Skynyrd's “Sweet Home Alabama” thumped from some speakers.

Teddie grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel's from his dresser and held it out to the others. “What do you say we get good and fucked up?”

•   •   •

S
okowski felt himself sinking deeper into the couch. The cushions were soft and seemed to be sucking him into the green corduroy material. The music played louder, and the trailer was even more packed with people who were drunk, stoned, or coked up—or all three. Sokowski was seeing double of everybody and everything, and it took real effort to keep his head held straight. It snapped back and forth like a broken puppet head. Beside him a couple groped at each other, oblivious to the party around them. Wet tongues flitted in and out like drunken snakes. The man had his hand up the woman's shirt, squeezing her tits, and her hand was working at his crotch through his jeans.

Sokowski lifted his beer cup to his lips. Half of it sloshed into his mouth, and the other half streamed down through his scraggly beard and onto his jacket. He saw two blurry images of Carl at the quarters table knocking over a bottle of beer, then laughing like a hyena. A fat woman sat on Carl's lap and had her arm wrapped around his shoulders. She drank beer and laughed along drunkenly while Carl's hand was snug between the fat woman's blue-jeaned thighs and worked its way higher.

Sokowski returned his gaze to the couple beside him and watched them suck on each other's face for a second. They were heating up and lost in their inebriated passion—clothes might be coming off pretty quick. Sokowski mumbled something to them,
but it came out a thick-tongued, garbled mess. He tried to stand, but his balance was way off. Too fucked up. His beer cup slipped from his hand and spilled onto the floor, and he flopped back onto the couch. The couple squinted over at him and laughed.

“You're messed up, dude,” the man offered, half wasted himself.

“Fuck shit,” Sokowski slurred in response.

“I want what you're drinking,” the man said, laughing, and his girl giggled along with him.

Sokowski's mouth hung open, and he laughed because they were laughing. Then his eyes locked on a nice ass, head level to him, moving past. He squinted up at Otis's blond girlfriend making her way toward the bathroom. Sokowski belched and mumbled something else as she passed in front of him. He leaned forward, snatched her by the wrist, and pulled her down onto his lap.

“Hey, sweet thing.” But it came out sounding like
Hey, thweet thang.
The blonde tried to pull away, but Sokowski held her tight. He pressed his face close to hers, rubbing his beard into her neck. “Give up on that faggot boyfriend of yours?”

“Let me go, asshole.”

But Sokowski had other ideas. “Don't be that way, baby. Just want to party with you.”

The blonde squirmed some more. “The fuck off me.”

“Easy, now. How about we go and do some blow?”

She stopped resisting, eyes suddenly interested. “You got coke?”

Sokowski grinned and nodded. “Fuck yeah. All you got to do is suck my fat one.”

The blonde finally yanked her wrist free from his grip and stood up. “You're a fucking scumbag.”

Sokowski pushed himself forward and stood on unsteady feet. “And you're a stupid fucking whore.” He pressed his hand right into
the middle of her face and shoved hard—she stumbled through the crowd, knocking loose beers and cigarettes—slamming her against the trailer wall. “How do you like that, bitch?”

Sokowski staggered forward and reached down toward her when a fist collided with the side of his jaw. The punch was delivered hard. Sokowski's head snapped back. He lost his balance and fell onto the make-out couple on the couch. He wiped a trickle of blood from a crack in his lip and squinted up.

Otis stood over him, hard bloodshot eyes glaring at him.

“You just made a big fuckin' mistake,” Sokowski slurred.

“Bring it on, you piece of shit.”

Sokowski pushed himself off the couple, knocking their beers to the floor in the process, but he didn't give a damn. His momentum drove his two hundred pounds forward fast and out of control. He took a slow, clumsy swing at Otis, but Otis dodged it easily and slammed him against the wall. The wood paneling cracked and splintered, and Sokowski slipped down the wall and slumped to the floor in a heap. He felt all eyes on him—the party grew hushed to watch the night's newest entertainment.

“Why don't you get your drunk ass the fuck out of here?” Otis hissed. The blonde had her hand on his shoulder and huddled safely behind her man.

“Fine.” Sokowski pushed himself up the wall and struggled to keep his balance. He closed one eye to stop the double vision.

“That's what I thought. You're nothing but talk.”

Sokowski's one open eye stopped on the gun rack beside him. He didn't give it a second thought. He reached over and grabbed the .30-06 and in the same motion swung the butt of the gun and cracked it against the side of Otis's head. The sound of wood against skull popped through the air. Otis's camouflage cap flew off,
and he dropped to the floor, clutching at a growing welt on his greasy head.

Screams from the women filled the small space. Someone bumped into the stereo, and the needle scratched off the vinyl and left the trailer in silence. All the partygoers, wide-eyed and not wanting to get caught in the crossfire, backed away from the fight and headed for the door.

Sokowski gripped the rifle and pressed the tip of the cold steel barrel to Otis's temple. “You got anything else to say, motherfucker?” Spittle flew from his lips and clung to thick whiskers.

Otis covered his head with his hands, stared down at the floor, mumbled, “No.”

“I can't hear you, bitch.” Sokowski clicked off the rifle's safety.

As most of the partiers pushed and shoved their way out the front door, Carl sat at the kitchen table, big eyes barely blinking, watching his friend with a growing sense of dread. The fat woman on his lap had long deserted him. Carl's mouth hung open, and he shook his head back and forth slowly. He started to stand, then dropped down into the chair again.

Sokowski pressed the rifle barrel harder into the soft flesh of Otis's temple and smiled at the man's trembling body. He could see and smell the man's fear and liked the power it gave him.