Cole’s taking his sweet time getting ready. He’s dragging his feet.
Can’t really blame him, though. Who’d want to go out in this weather? Living here’s hard enough when there’s no snow, but in the worst of a storm you’re in the belly of the beast—that’s what Freeman says. I didn’t go by his place. He’s too old and his eyes aren’t that good. What he came here for, I can’t even guess. I let out a guffaw when he showed up two years ago with his van and his brand-new gear. Like one of those retirees who comes up to have himself a good time.
Living here, though, in a quiet corner like this, all alone—that’s not really something you hear about around these parts. And he’s the only Black man for miles. He sticks out just as much as Bess did when she settled here in a miniskirt and those white cowboy boots of hers. For his age he’s in better shape than those boozers Clifford or Cole ever would be, but still he didn’t look one bit like a guy here to get a taste of the wild. I figured he wouldn’t last the winter in his mittens and his beanie hat. He was always tight-lipped about what he’d done before coming here, apart from being drafted for Vietnam. Maybe that’s how he stuck through the first winter.
We didn’t help him then. Around here, we’ll help out our fellow men, but we’re not going out of our way for a stranger. I did lend him a hand the first time he had to change the drive belt on his snowmachine, though. He’d bought it off of Clifford, just as crooked as always. Some things it’s wisest not to buy used here. If someone’s getting rid of it, there’s a good reason why. It broke down so many times that Freeman had to go through every page of the manual that Clifford gave him. He’d never taken it out of its shrink-wrap. Makes me wonder if he knew how to read. Freeman took the whole machine apart, and after he’d put it back together, it worked even better than my own—not that that’s saying much. Anyone could see Clifford wasn’t all too happy. That crook thought he’d pulled a fast one on Freeman by selling him a dud, but the joke was on him.
And that was when I finally saw that, for an old man, Freeman was awfully resourceful. When he banged up his shoulder, he turned up at my door, wasn’t even moaning, just asked if I could take him to see a doctor because he couldn’t drive on his own. I wasn’t all that keen on driving a good fifty miles to the free clinic, but I took him anyway. He’d gotten through his first winter here; nature wasn’t going to get one over on him. Maybe, in a way, it’d made its peace with him.
I can’t say as much of Bess, or the kid. One day she said that it was a real laugh, the two of them around these parts. That was her way of saying what everyone was thinking: the two of them had no business being here. I don’t know if nature’s taken a liking to them or if it’s going to spit them out alive or dead. All I know is it’s my fault. I shouldn’t have brought them here. I know I promised the kid’s mother that I’d keep him with me, but I shouldn’t have. And now I’m out in a blizzard, looking for a kid and a girl in the middle of nowhere.