Cold (23 page)

“And?”

“Oh, and I hung up.”
 

Del studied the owl and the bear again.
 
Pronovost was now so calm, where fifteen minutes ago he was having a fit at the motel.
 
When people got bad news, the kind that usually involved the police—accidents, deaths, missing persons—their behavior would often be erratic, ranging from hysterical to nearly comatose.
 
Pronovost, hunched over his workbench, now seemed to have taken shelter in the routine of his avocation.

“I think that maybe I’ve followed this as far as it can go for now,” Del said.

Pronovost placed a hand on the buck’s neck and smoothed down a tuft of fur.
 
“I see.”

“If I hear anything, if they show up at the border, I’ll let you know.”

“I’d appreciate it.”
 
Pronovost leaned closer to his work.

Del went out into the cold, got into his Land Cruiser and drove back through town.
 
He kept telling himself to keep driving, to get back to Yellow Dog before dark, before the cold really set in—cold like this caused machines to just lock up; get stuck fifteen miles away from a town and you could freeze to death.
 
On more than one occasion he had found stranded motorists frozen in the seats of their cars.
 
Their faces were blue-white and they looked less authentic than the animals in Pronovost’s workshop.
 
When he reached the motel he turned in and went into the office.

“I want a room,” he said to Woo-San.
 
“I want room twelve.”

“Room twelve?”

“You said it had already been cleaned.”

Woo-San bowed his head once.

“Okay, then I want it.”
 
Woo-San placed a registration card on the counter, which Del filled out.
 
“And I understand there’s a Chinese take-out place here.
 
They deliver?”
 
Woo-San bowed his head again.
 
“What do you recommend?”

“Recommend?”

“What’s good there?
 
You know them, what they cook?”
 
Woo-San seemed confused.
 
“Related?
 
They family?”

“Family?
 
Restaurant?
 
No.
 
But dumplings okay.
 
You try dumplings.”
 
As Del pushed the registration card across the counter, Woo-San grinned.
 
“Cash or charge?”

•

After his umpteenth cup of coffee, Warren was about to leave Jacque’s Diner, when he saw a Land Cruiser pull into the motel lot across the street.
 
Green Coat got out and went into the office.
 
On the door panel of the Land Cruiser was a small chipped and faded insignia, beneath which read:
 
Constable, Yellow Dog Township.

Warren turned toward the counter, where there were only two other customers now.
 
“Where the fuck is Yellow Dog Township?” he asked.

Guy Marchoud, who ran the gas station down the street, didn’t even look up from the sports section of the
Milwaukee Sentinal.
 
“Township?
 
I don’t know about any township, but there’s good fishing on that river.”
 
He tapped cigarette ash on the side of his plate and turned the page of the newspaper.
 
“Somewhere outside Marquette.”

Now Warren lit another cigarette as he gazed out the window toward the motel.
 
Green Coat, Sheriff of Yellow Dog Township, wasn’t one of Pronovost’s real estate deals.
 
And he wasn’t any hunting pal.
 
It had to do with Norman, with Noel and the kid.

Eleven

Liesl must have dozed on and off for several hours, but finally she found the strength to get up off the couch.
 
Walking was an effort.
 
It was like after the car accident that killed Harold and Gretchen:
 
she had to think through each small step while jolts of pain shot up her spine.
 
Still, she crossed the living room slowly, entered her studio, and carefully lowered herself on her work stool.
 
Some of the pressure was taken off her spine, though a deep ache resided in her left hip.

The studio, beneath the three long, slanting skylights, always felt different from the rest of the house.
 
It was the light, the ability to see.
 
Even now, in midwinter, a clear, pale light from overhead isolated everything:
 
shelves crowded with pieces, finished and unfinished.
 
There was a box of clay on the worktable; Liesl opened it and removed the block.
 
The red earthen color was always soothing to her eyes, and she stared at it for a long time.
 
Finally she placed both hands on the block.
 
The clay felt cool and its flat surfaces had that manufactured perfection that she was always reluctant to spoil.
 
As a child she’d felt the same reluctance whenever she’d open a new jar of peanut butter or unwrap a fresh stick of butter.
 
The smooth surface in a jar of Skippy fascinated her.
 
It was flawless in a way that seemed to defy her desire to break the surface with her butter knife.
 
Once, using her finger, she had poked two holes in the surface of the peanut butter, then drawn a straight line for a mouth:
 
a face.
 
She screwed the lid back on and returned the jar to the refrigerator.
 
Later her sister opened the jar and complained to their mother that Liesl had put her fingers in the peanut butter.
 
Liesl considered it her first sculpture.

Now she pressed her thumbs into the clay.
 
Eyes.

With a forefinger she drew a straight line beneath them.
 
Mouth.

Laying her hands in her lap, she stared at the block.
 
The expression was grim, yet it seemed to be holding forth against some relentless pain.
 
Not just an ache, but pain.
 

“Face,” she whispered.

•

The road had been climbing steadily and the hills were becoming steeper as they neared Lake Superior.
 
Norman remembered that there was always this sense of anticipation once he had passed the old logging camp, which was down between low hills to the east, only the swayback roof of the sawmill visible from the road.
 
From there it was only a few miles until Big Pine Lodge came into view.
 
He pulled the Trooper over and stopped next to the archway made of logs and decorated with chainsaw art:
 
serrated edges, jagged mouths, deep-V’s cut out of timbers, presenting a mosaic of northern images—Ojibwa, blackrobes, canoes, howling wolves, eagles and bears.
 
A row of fence posts, protruding through the snow, ran toward the tree line at the top of a ridge.
 
“I had forgotten,” he said.
 
“This is another time, long ago, and you’re the only people out here.”
 

“A few year-rounders still live up on the bay,” Noel said as she turned around and began to undo the straps that held Lorraine in her car seat.
 
“Otherwise they probably wouldn’t even bother plowing this road.”

They pulled on their gloves and hats and got out of the Trooper.
 
Noel carried the child on her back in a baby-sling and Norman took the rucksack, which was full of the baby’s things—clothes, a blanket, a plastic bottle for juices.
 
They climbed over the snowbank and followed the fence posts toward the ridge.
 
The snow was up to their knees and deeper in some places.
 
Noel walked downwind of Norman and she talked to Lorraine, telling her that they’d be inside soon.
 
The girl held tightly to her shoulders and she kept her face turned away from the wind.

When they reached the trees they could see the lodge, a long, log cabin with a high-pitched roof.
 
Below the lodge a narrow river wound through marshlands, snow covered in most places, though at one bend the ice had given way, revealing black water.
 
On the far side of the river stood a wall of birch and pines, their branches heavy with snow.
 
The ridge commanded a view of steep forested hills in every direction, except several miles to the east where the broad blue plane of Lake Superior seemed to rise up to meet the sky.

Once on the porch they were protected from the wind.
 
Noel got out her keys and sorted through them—she had several for the motel and they were similar to the lodge key.
 
After trying a couple in the lock, she opened the door and they went inside to a large room with massive timber beams overhead—it was always referred to as the Great Room.
 
The air was musty; though they could see their breath, it was warmer than outside.
 
All the furniture was made out of wood, rough-hewn logs mostly; some chairs were constructed of fine saplings that had been bent and twisted to create backs and arms and legs.

Noel put Lorraine down on the couch and said, “The three bears used to live here.”

“No shit.”
 
Norman placed his hand on the log wall.
 
Each timber was at least a foot in diameter, and the chinking between was hard, rough, pale gray.
 
“Then the three bears moved back into the woods—reluctantly.”

They got to work.
 
The pipes were shut off for the season, so there was no running water.
 
But there was electricity once Noel went out back to the new fuse box and switched on the power.
 
She then began to stack logs in the large stone fireplace in the Great Room and in the wood-burning stove in the kitchen.

Norman took a pair of snowshoes off the wall and put them on; he found a shovel and went back down to the road and dug a space in the snowbank for the Trooper.
 
Then he climbed back up the ridge, but rather than going inside the lodge he headed down toward the river.
 
The new snow was clean and light and it didn’t stick to the snowshoes.
 
As he neared the stream, he heard something to his left, upwind.
 
Standing still, he turned his face into the blowing snow, but the gust was so strong he had to shield his face with his forearm.
 
Once the snow began to settle, he could see them walking out from the darkness of the trees:
 
a line of deer.
 
He counted up to nine and then stopped; they still kept emerging from the woods, walking in file across the snow, descending toward the far side of the river.
 
There was a buck with a large rack, and several does, which kept close behind.
 
One small deer struggled through the snow, its mottled fur ruffled by the wind.
 
He remembered what Liesl had said about the deer, how sometimes they got so cold they could no longer move, though they were still alive, and how they often died a slow, painful death.
 
Norman wondered about her, how long it would take for her to die in the snow.
 
He didn’t regret any of it except her.
 
He should have dug down in the snow, found her rifle and shot her.
 
He should have at least given her that.

When the deer reentered the woods, Norman began walking to his left along the riverbank.
 
He came to the footbridge that was covered with untrammeled new snow.
 
As he crossed he gripped the two heavy suspension cables, knocking off long thin sections of snow, and the whole bridge jounced and creaked with each step.
 
On the far side there was the shed, covered with tarpaper.
 
He followed one of the deer paths into the woods
.
 
He had walked this same deer path when he and Warren had gone out to find Raymond Yates, who had called up to the lodge on his cellular phone, saying that he needed help bringing in a black bear.
 
They followed the deer path until they heard Raymond’s dogs up a hill.
 
Raymond stood over his kill, his rifle slung over his shoulder.
 
Mud clung to his camouflage and twigs stuck out of his full gray beard.
 
It was early September and the bear had put on weight for the winter hibernation; Raymond figured she was at least three hundred pounds.
 
She had killed one dog and maimed two others so that Raymond had to put them down.
 
He was angry and, when they got back to the lodge grounds, he wanted more money from Pronovost.
 
They argued down here by one of the cabins below the falls.
 
Pronovost refused to pay extra because of the dogs and Raymond finally got in his truck and took off down the logging road toward his cabin, firing his gun into the air.

When Norman came to the falls it was silent except for a trickle that seeped out of the frozen wall of water.
 
In summer the rush of water could be heard a great distance through the woods, depending on the wind.
 
The cabin, which had been beyond the pool below the falls, was gone.
 
Norman remembered how they all had to nearly shout over the falls, and how when Raymond drove off, the dogs barking in the back of his truck could hardly be heard.
 
Only the gunshots rang out over the constant rush of water.
 
Looking downhill across the pool, Norman could see the rectangle under the snow—the stone foundation of the cabin.
 
It had burned to the ground that night.
 
From the lodge up on the ridge, they could see the smoke rising above the forest.