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“Okay, so you grab the handlebar like this,” Danny was shouting over the wind, as Richard watched him closely. The seventeen-year-old’s hands closed over the bar tightly and he pushed it up to demonstrate. “Once the key is in the position, you pull the cord out and push the handlebar up. You follow?”
“I think so,” Richard said. “Seems easy enough.”
“It’s more than easy. This is a really light-footed sled. You should be able to glide over ungroomed snow without any problem. Just watch out for trees or bushes or anything that’s covered that you can’t see.”
“That could send me flying, I guess,” Richard said.
“Well, maybe not flying, but it could get you stuck.” Danny turned his red-cheeked face to him. “That’s what happened to me on the way in here, when I got stuck. I was fine all the way to the station from my house because I stayed on the roads. The minute I came over the station’s yard I didn’t know there was a hedge underneath me, and I ran smack into it. If you stay to the roads, you should be okay, because all that’s under you is six or seven feet of snow.”
“That should be easy then,” Richard said, his breath freezing in front of his face.
Danny shook his head. “You haven’t seen it out there, chief. Sometimes you can’t tell where the road starts and yards begin. And not everyone got their cars off the street in time. There are lots of cars buried under drifts of snow. You don’t want to run into one of them.”
“No,” Richard said. “I sure don’t.”
“How far you got to take this?” Danny asked.
“Up to the Blue Boy Inn.”
The teenager grinned. “That haunted house? What’s going on up there now?”
“That’s what I aim to find out.” Richard put his gloved hand out and Danny grabbed it. “I can’t thank you enough for bringing this over, Danny. If I cause any damage to it, the department will pay for a new snowmobile for you.”
“It’s cool, man,” Danny said, getting up off the seat and gesturing to Richard to take his place. “If you crack this one up, I’ve got my eye on a more advanced model.”
“I think the department may be buying a few of those,” Richard said, straddling the snowmobile and grabbing the handlebars. “If we’re going to have more snowstorms like this, we need to have them in store.”
“Oh, we’re going to have a lot more of these kind of storms. Lots of extreme weather ahead of us. The climate’s changing, chief. Hope you’re not a denier.”
Richard smiled at him. “Nope, no denier here, Danny. I’ve learned that we deny reality at our own peril.”
He checked that his gun was safely secured at his side, and then he revved the motor as Danny had showed him.
Behind him, Adam was shouting over the noise. “As soon as I can round up some more machines, we’ll be up to join you, chief!”
Richard gave his deputy a thumbs-up with his right hand. Then he pulled on his goggles, tightened his scarf around his neck, gripped the handlebars, said a little prayer, and took off across the snow.