The Winter People (12 page)

"Okay Babe. 
Try not to get into too much trouble today, and clean your room."  She
removed his cap and kissed him on the top of his head, then replaced the cap. 
Then Mardell bundled up, grabbed her purse, and headed for the door.  Gary
waved with the spoon then shoveled a glob of cereal into his mouth.  It was the
last conversation he would ever have with his mother.

***

The sun had
already risen but the heavy cloud cover and the blowing snow gave the
appearance of twilight.  Bud Boscoe had been getting up with the sun for nearly
all of his sixty years.  There was so much more that you could accomplish.  He
really couldn't understand how people could sleep until nine, ten, or even
eleven.  Half of their day was gone.  But this morning, Bud didn't want to get
up with the sun.

This morning, for
some reason, he was especially tired.  He didn't remember anything out of the
ordinary last night.  In fact, he would have sworn that he'd slept like a
baby.  But, he was still exhausted.  And he refused to admit that it was
because of his age.  Why he was more active today than most men half his age. 
Never the less, he was tired and inexplicably anxious.

Bud listened to
the wind tap dance around his window for a while.  Its cry was mournful.  He
pulled the blankets up over his head and concentrated, but he couldn't get back
to sleep.  Too many years of the same habit he guessed.  He heard no other
movement in the house, which didn't really surprise him.  After what seemed
like hours of lying around in bed he finally dragged himself out to meet the
day.

He was glad Ruth
hadn't seen it at any rate, Mr. Morning not wanting to rise and shine.  He'd
never live it down.  She and Bryan should be here today, he thought blithely. 
He'd really wanted them to come up with him.  He didn't like them making that
drive alone.  Although he trusted Bryan's driving, he still would have
preferred it if he were with them.

Bud stood before
the window of his bedroom in his long underwear and peered out into the gloom. 
A storm had hit sometime during the night, and it looked like a bad one.  He
turned and pulled his Levi's from the chair in the corner near the closet, and
put them on.  Then from the closet he retrieved a faded denim shirt and donned
it as well.  He tucked it into the Levi's and held it all together with a thick
brown leather belt.  Finally, he sat down in the chair and stretched his feet
into white cotton socks.  He rose and headed toward the door, casting a glance
back out the window.  He hoped that Ruth and Bryan wouldn't get caught in this.

His grey hair was
still askew from sleeping and he didn't bother to comb it.  It was thinning on
top and he didn't see much need.  He'd just cover it up with a hat anyway.  Bud
was an interesting looking man in his sixties.  He resembled the Cowardly Lion
from the Wizard of Oz.  His cheeks were saggy and he had tremendous bags under
his blue eyes.  He had a bit of a gut from years of beer but he was a very
active man, and had at one time been rather stout.  Barefooted, he stood right
at five foot ten but looked shorter because he was now a little stoop
shouldered.  He looked like a sweet old man but he could be a bear when he
needed to be.

Bud walked out
into the main room and its stillness hit him like a brick wall.  He moved on
out into the main room and looked up into the loft.  It was empty.  Though he
couldn't see the beds, he knew it was empty.  It felt that way.  He turned to
regard the coat rack at the right of the front door and it was empty save for
his coat and snow suit, and his niece's ski coat, there were only two pair of
snow boots there as well.

He shrugged it off
and began to gather wood from his wood box to build a fire.  Although the cabin
had electric heat, he still relied heavily upon his stove.  In a matter of
minutes he had a blaze toasting his front side.  The orange crackling flame
danced across the wood and tried to make a quick escape out the front of the
stove.  Bud replaced the metal screen and stepped back, allowing the fire's
warmth to circulate into the room.

The room did not
seem so dark now, the day not so gloomy or sullen.  He turned to the kitchen
area and hit the wall switch as he entered.  The fluorescent lights in the
ceiling flickered and hummed and finally took, lighting the kitchen in an unreal
glow against the darkness of the day.  He began about the business of preparing
breakfast.  He assumed that it would just be Sarah and him.

In the other
bedroom Sarah had stirred to the first sounds of Bud making the fire.  She'd
been awake for some time but had just laid there.  Her muscles ached.  She
certainly didn't think that she should be this sore from skiing, but she
obviously was.  There was something else though, something on the fringe of her
memory that would not come forth.  Not something that she was trying to recall
necessarily.  Just something that she thought she should remember.

The way a word or
name will be on the tip of your tongue, and you know what it is but you just
can't quite grasp it.  Only this was a thought on the edge of her mind, but she
just couldn't quite hold on to it.  It was really strange.  She decided to let
it lie.  That's what she did when trying to remember and it usually came to
her.  So would this, she suspected, if it was anything at all.

Sarah pulled
herself out of bed, donned her robe, and staggered into the bathroom.  After a
hot shower and some clean clothes she would be ready to hit the world.  With
her hair up in a towel and an overly large black and turquoise sweater hanging
off her torso, covering most of the black Danskins she wore beneath, she headed
out into the main room.  It was far warmer out here than in the back and she
reveled in it.  She took in a deep breath of the fragrant air and exhaled a
sigh.

"Good morning
Uncle Bud!  What're you fixing?  Need any help?" her voice its usually
bubbly self.  Whatever anxiety she had been feeling earlier was quickly
dissipating.

"Oh!"
startled by her, "Morning.  I'm making some eggs and sausage.  You could
work on the toast and plates if you want?"  His voice was soft but
strong.  He didn't look at her, his back was to her and he was busy with the
eggs.  She walked past him to the refrigerator and looked into the skillet as
she passed, breathing deeply the aroma of the cooking food.

"That doesn't
look like nearly enough for all of us," she said surprised.

"It's just
you and me kid.  I don't know where the others are."  He cast her a glance
then returned to his chore.  Sarah looked puzzled, then concerned.

"Last night
when we came in, Marty and Taylor had fallen behind.  Nick thought they
probably got stuck again and went back to look for them."  She didn't say
any more.  Not quite sure how worried she should be.  Bud looked at her
thoughtfully, this concerned him as well.

He handed her the
spatula and walked over to the phone across the room.  He picked it up but
there was no signal, it was dead.  "The damn phone's out.  It must be the
storm."  He paused for a moment, thinking, "Let's wolf down this
breakfast and take the snowmobiles over to the Ranger Station, it's only about
three miles cross country."

Sarah looked down
at the eggs.  She wasn't very hungry all of the sudden.  She was worried. 
"Do you think something has happened to them?" her tone was low, her
voice soft and almost quivering.

"They
probably just got stuck in the storm and spent the night at the station.  I've
seen it happen a lot up here."  He tried to be positive but he was
concerned too and a hell of a lot more than he was letting on.

***

Johnny arrived
home at half past six.  The storm had made the roads worse than he had
anticipated and driving them was treacherous.  As he turned left onto Silver
Street he noticed the Sheriff's Suburban parked out front of City Hall but only
gave it a casual thought.  He continued down Silver, past where the pavement
ended and the gravel started.  Although it was impossible to tell in this
weather, that was only about a block from Route 14.

He followed the
road down to the river and turned north along it for another mile or so.  His
house was at the end of the road and in fact, was the only one since the turn
at the river.  The dark foreboding sky pulled tiny embers that glowed brightly
for an instant then died, out of the chimney and swept them away.  Faywah was
up and already had a fire going.  Johnny knew inside that he would have a hot
breakfast waiting for him as well.  He smiled at that.  Johnny loved Faywah. 
His grandfather was the only family that he had left.  Well, him and his two
dogs.

Johnny realized
then how hungry he was.  He licked his lips and could actually feel his taste
buds squirt.  He thought of what treats Faywah might have prepared.  Corn bread
and molasses, strips of venison done up like bacon, and maybe a couple of
eggs.  As if in appreciation of Johnny's imagination, his stomach growled. 
Johnny licked his lips again.

He parked the
truck near the front door of the squat pre-fab house with aluminum siding and
gathered up his things.  It was a simple two bedroom house, pretty much square,
with one main room, a separate kitchen, and a single bathroom.  But, it served
him and Faywah fine.  Johnny'd bought the house new when he was discharged from
the marines in '96 and moved his grandfather there to live with him.

It stood in a
stand of balsam pine with a few spruce strewn about.  The front of the place
was a compilation of sage, oak brush, and saurvus.  Now it was all just clumps
beneath the snow.  Across the river and further up the lower slope of Sand
Mountain, were thousands of aspen trees.  In the fall it was the most beautiful
place in the world.  But in the winter, when the leaves had fallen, it looked
like a burial ground.  The creek ran about one hundred feet to the west and if
you followed a small deer trail to the southwest from his front door, you would
end up right behind City Hall.

Two dogs jumped up
excitedly on the door of the Parks vehicle, leaving muddied and smeared paw
prints atop the others that were weeks old.  One was a huge black pit bull
named Roscoe.  His ears were uncut but otherwise he looked like the ferocious
muscle bound breed that he was.  In truth, he was pretty much a pansy, Johnny
thought.  He was savage when it came to hunting or any other dogs, with the one
exception of Ouray, but was rather timid around people.

Ouray was the
other dog and Roscoe's companion since he was a pup.  Ouray was an old and wise
golden retriever.  The fur on his muzzle was beginning to turn white but he was
as energetic as ever.  Ouray was Johnny's first dog since the military and had
been named after the Chief of the Ute.  Johnny loved them both and it lightened
his heart to hear their barks above the doleful wind.

Johnny exited the
truck and they assaulted him, tails wagging wildly.  The front of his pants
instantly muddied and he was pushed back against the door of the truck with the
force of their felicity.  He bent down and patted them each in turn on the top
of their heads, an action that brought yips and yowls and a lick from a quick
tongue across his face.  Johnny's smile was wide and beaming.

He ordered them
down and proceeded to his front door.  Roscoe and Ouray, somewhat dejected,
sauntered behind him with their tails raking the air.  They stopped at the door
and sat down as Johnny entered.  They knew what was expected of them and what
they could get away with.  They sat there a moment longer then retreated to
their hole beneath the house, where they could fight off the cold and watch for
their master.

Johnny burst in
through the front door in excitement and anticipation and was immediately taken
aback.  The room was dark save for the fire and close to fifty candles
scattered about.  The heat inside was incredible and Johnny felt uncomfortably
warm.  He dropped the gear he was holding and removed his gloves and hat.  His
coat and boots fell by the wayside as well.  Tiny beads of sweat began to form
on his upper lip and forehead, and soon his entire face was damp.

In the center of
the room sitting cross-legged on an old deerskin, was Faywah.  The old man
ignored Johnny and continued with his chant, mumbles and grunts and inflections
of the old tongue.  Johnny recognized it, but not the chant.  Faywah's eyes
were closed and his lids fluttered as he spoke.  It was rhythmical, almost
singing.  Johnny stood there engrossed, swaying unconsciously to the melody.

Finally Faywah
looked up at Johnny with cold, hard eyes.  Johnny walked over and sat down
across from him, cross-legged as well.  Johnny could now see the deerskin they
were sitting on, it was the Ute Chronicle.  The old recorded history of the
Ute, by the Ute.  It was a simple piece of deerskin with a spiral of pictures
on it.

The spiral started
in the center of the skin and worked outward from the first incident, a thing
of importance that happened to the Ute that year and was represented by a
design or picture.  Below that picture was another of similar significance for
the opposite season that same year.  Thus, each year was represented by two
pictures, one for winter, and one for summer.  At the center of the spiral was
a crescent moon surrounded by streaking stars.  Johnny knew that this was the
big meteor shower of November 12, 1833.  This was the first year of the
Chronicle for the Ute.  And for them, it was
The Winter the Stars Fell.

Another picture
was of an eclipse thirty-six years later, and so on.  The spiral continued
outward and ended in the early 1900's.  For reasons that Johnny didn't
understand, the importance of the Chronicle was lost after that.  But his
grandfather still clung to the old piece of leather and would not give it up. 
Not even when the Bureau of Indian Affairs asked him to give it to the museum. 
It had been given to him by his grandfather and it held a strong sentiment with
the old man.

Johnny understood
all of this, but he couldn't understand why he would drag it out now.  After
all, Johnny had only seen the Chronicle three or four times in his lifetime. 
Suddenly, Faywah's voice was stronger and Johnny snapped out of his
contemplative daze to see the old Indian staring at him.  His long hair was a
silky white and deep grooves of age beset his face.  Around his forehead he
wore the beaded headband he had made as a child.  His dark eyes had faded with
time as well, though they were still hard.

His hair fell
loosely about his cheeks and shoulders, and its snow white color gave a deeper
definition of brown to his already dark skin.  He was a man who had seen much
weather and his face proved it.  It was once hard and proud, but was now
softened with age.  The pride was still very evident but the hardness was only
a shadow.