SUSUN HAD DECIDED TO CHECK IN ON MELINDA. She found Melinda and Mary both up and busy with the baby. Mary seemed very happy, whispering to Susun, ‘There’s some hot looking fellas here,” and then saying the new mama and baby seemed to be doing fine.
The young mother was cuddled up with her baby, said it was funny to be staying in a hotel, said her man Will would think it was funny too if he were there, said she couldn’t wait to get a message to him, telling him to come find her in Room 25 at the Fraser Hotel.
She was down a long hallway of rooms at the very end, a big window looking out on the street below. She’d told Susun maybe when she was feeling better the three of them could open up across the street, pointing to the solid looking storefront with a worn sign announcing it as a Gem Shop, snow drifted up over the bottom of the big windows. She said they could have something like a healing centre, and maybe she could start sewing diapers, things like that, said right now she was having to use pieces of old bed sheets for baby Grace and they weren’t working out too good. Maybe put a little potbelly stove in the store, could be cute, she said.
Susun checked Melinda’s stitches. They seemed to be healing up okay, but still looked a bit sore. Susun said she’d go see what she could find to help with the healing process, heading back downstairs to find Tiny.
He was in the kitchen, complaining to Chumboy that the last batch of flour was so stale it was probably from back in the day when Cobalt was a fucking boomtown. Susun said she hoped he had something a little fresher in the way of some healing herbs, did he have any comfrey kicking around? Tiny asked what she was talking about, comfrey, what the crap was that? She half smiled. It was good to hear Tiny, been years since she’d seen him. But it was also almost too normal all of a sudden, after things had been so messed up for so long.
Tiny said, “Don’t have nothing called comfrey here. You were always into that witchy stuff.”
She sighed, and seeing Slaught walking into the kitchen said, “You really got to start growing some medicinal plants here,” and Slaught said, “That right? Well feel free to get right to it. That’s how things get done here, you do it yourself.”
“It could help a lot of people, you have a lot of old folks, we could start growing some plants for teas and medicines, you’re going to run out of drug stores to rip-off soon enough, and then what are you going to do?”
He was about to answer but then paused, thinking about it, thought she was probably right, said, “Never really thought about that. I think Chum’s Auntie knows about that stuff, we could ask her.” She said anytime he was ready, just to let her know and she’d sit down and give him a list. He said he was sure she would, but he was a little more interested in how she was going to help out now.
She said not to worry, she was headed outside soon, going to get some cedar for tea.
“Outside for some cedar?” Slaught asked.
“If you’re going to be out here depending on the land, you might as well be using it properly.”
“Amen Susie,” Chumboy said, turning to Slaught. “Johnny, I think this lady is going to teach you a thing or two.”
Slaught could see her watching him, she had a habit of rubbing the back of her neck, and she was doing it now, maybe still tired, maybe still pretty shook up. He wondered if he was being too hard on her. “No doubt you’re going to try,” Slaught said to her, “but for now school’s out, got work to do.”
She said, “I think maybe you’re too angry to learn anything. Anger blocks your positive energy, shuts your mind down.”
“That right?”
“Yeah,” she said, “that’s right.”
He asked, “So what am I so angry about?”
She smiled, he realized he hadn’t seen her smile yet, and it was nice, standing close enough to her to see the lines around her eyes, and she said, “That I kicked your ass yesterday.”
He heard the guys beside him laugh, felt a little pissed off as soon as she said it, but she was looking at him and still smiling. It was a no win. He said, “You might be on to something there, think I might try to get my positive energy going as I work on those generators. Give my wounded a ego a chance to recover.”
“You do that Winterman,” she said, and he could feel her watching him go. Well, maybe he handled that okay after all.
Susun turned and looked over at the bunch of guys still sitting around one of the big tables. “Is that all you guys do, sit around, waiting for your revolution?”
“Revolution’s waiting on us Susie,” Chumboy said.
Larose asked if she needed anything. She said menstrual pads and diapers and he said, “Uh, well, I’ll see Johnny about that.”
She shrugged, said, “See whoever you like, but I could use some curtains too, something for some privacy.”
Larose told her in the spring they were thinking of taking over a few of the nearby houses, fixing them up again and moving some of the families into them. Like the suburbs, Chumboy offered. Tiny said he wasn’t moving to no goddam suburbs, was going to keep sleeping in his kitchen. Guarding his stash.
“So you don’t have any herbal teas in that stash of yours Tiny?”
“Herbal teas? You gotta be kidding.”
“I’ll ask my Auntie, she’ll have some of that brew around,” Chumboy said.
“Mr. Winterman mentioned your Auntie, she a healer?”
“My Auntie Verla, she knows it all, more than a healer, you want to talk industrial strength, she’s one industrial strength spiritual woman.”
“Well, I’d love to meet her if she’s around.”
“Every now and again she shows up. When she’s ready. But in the meantime Susie, why don’t you tell us how you and your female tribe ended up back at your bus stop, figure it wasn’t nostalgia brought you there.”
Susun said there wasn’t much to tell. Said she’d been down working in the Talos greenzone, said it was called that because of all the greenhouses they were running there. “During the evacuation, anyone with any kind of nursing training was kept back at the border to help out, a lot of really stressed out people were coming through, as you can imagine. Half of the people were saying they hadn’t wanted to leave, but there they were, bus after bus, medications left behind, people halfway through medical treatments, it was chaos. So I stayed, but by the time the evacuations had slowed down, there weren’t any places down in the City. I was just as glad, it sounded like a madhouse down there, so I took work at the greenhouse and stayed. They put us all up in motels, dorms, whatever they could find. It was crap, but everything was crappy, so what difference did it make?”
“Something made a difference or you’d still be there.”
“Well, yeah, I met Melinda. She was working at the greenhouse, so was Mary. I found out Mary had been apprenticing as a midwife when Melinda told us she was having a baby. Said she’d become separated from her man during the evacuations. They’d wanted to stay, told Talos they were fine, we’re going to give it a go with some other folks. Talos wasn’t having it. Talos orderd her guy Will to help with the evacuations and she had a choice of the greenzone or the City. She opted for the greenzone.”
She stopped, thinking something over, rubbing the back of her neck and frowning.
Chumboy asked her if she was okay, but she was just staring, like she was playing something over in her head. “Susie?”
“I just can’t believe I was so stupid, never thinking it was Talos who had ambushed our bus.”
“Some things are pretty hard to believe though, Susie.”
“It doesn’t make any sense though, why would some big corporation bother killing a bunch of old people. It’s crazy.”
Chumboy went over and took her by the arm, pulled out a chair, said, “Susie, think you better sit down, you don’t look so good.”
“I remember him, the guy on the bus, his body bent over the steering wheel, I wasn’t going to look when we got back in there the other day, but I couldn’t help it. Part of me wasn’t really even sure it had actually happened, that we’d been shut up in that bus like that. But then there he was, the driver, slumped over, just like the day they killed him.”
Chumboy said, “Probably thought the bunch of you were just dead weight, more of a strain on the resources.”
Susun nodded slowly, said, “We came back because Melinda was looking for Will, her boyfriend, Gracie’s dad. When Will left to help with the evacuations, Melinda told us they’d agreed that if something went wrong, if he had trouble getting back to the green-zone, that they’d head back to her family farm, meet up there. She was sure he was waiting there for her. She wanted to have her baby up here and was making plans to get out, been saving her money. She was getting pretty desperate. Mary and I figured she might try to leave on her own to find him. Seemed wrong to let her take that chance on her own, so we pooled our money, the three of us, and headed back up here. The trip sent her into early labour, so I went to the one place I knew there was a big wood boiler and probably some supplies left behind. And so that’s where you found us.”
“Pooled your money for what, you couldn’t exactly pick up a bus ticket home?”
“No, of course not, got a couple of sleds on the black market. You can find them, especially if you’re up in the border zone, you get to know people, hear things. I figure you guys are using black market gas, right?”
“We steal some, but yeah, mostly black market.”
She just nodded, looking tired of talking.
Chumboy asked, “Quite the risk, your mom and her fella, deciding to make a go of it farming now, with the snow. Did they have a plan?”
“She just wanted to get out of there. Guess they were willing to take their chances.”
“And you, were you planning on going back?”
Susun shook her head, said she hadn’t even thought about what she was going to do, said she couldn’t think, not then and not now. Said she didn’t understand anything anymore.
“Look Susie, you’ve been through a lot, maybe it’s time for some more shut eye. Things will look better in the morning.”
“I just got up.”
There was that awful flat voice again, Chumboy could almost watch the energy draining out of her face and the hardness creeping in. He said, “If you need to sleep, you need to sleep. Probably making up for a month’s worth of sleep deprivation.”
She nodded, said maybe he was right, started out of the room moving slow, like it took effort to lift each foot. Chumboy, watching her go, said, “I’m worried about that girl Tiny.”
“Don’t be. Tough as nails, all the Latour women are.”
“I thought you said your mother was all sweetness and light.”
“She fucking had me didn’t she?”
“This sucks.”
Turner was bellyaching again, said they were wasting their time. Laskin was feeling generous, though, so he was ignoring him, just glad to be out on the trail. It was reminding him of the time he had been in Alaska back in the day, before everything went to shit and snow wasn’t exotic anymore. He’d been there racing dog teams for some lame-ass charity thing. What a rush though. And he scored some not so bad northern tush too.
“Turner, it’s just part of an overall strategy. You’re getting all messed up by the details, just do your job and trust in the big picture, okay?”
They’d headed out early that morning, driving up through the security corridor with their snowmachines and gear loaded on the back of the truck. It wasn’t the first time Laskin had made the trip up to the border, but it never failed to freak him out, bombing up the single highway edged by giant snow banks, no real traffic except for Talos vehicles, not like the old days when it could take you two hours just to get onto the main highway leaving the city. Even though the amalgamated City was now four times the size it had been before the crisis, it took no time at all to clear the final edge of it and be on the lonesome highway headed north. Miller had asked him if he thought the summers would ever come back and Laskin said who the fuck cared, he couldn’t even remember what summer was like. Miller said he loved summers and Laskin had said he guessed that was too fucking bad for Miller then.
Once at the border of the territories, they did a quick equipment check and then sent Solanski and the Talos boys up ahead towards Temiskaming to break trail. The rest of the team had left a couple hours later, Laskin saying they were lucky to have a hard cold day. They’d met the others up at an old hydro dam not far from the targeted area, crossing over the top of the dam to where Solanski had already set up camp in the shelter of the pumphouse. Turner had asked why they were camping outside when there was a whole fucking town sitting right there for the picking, and Solanski had said it had creeped him out when he went to a couple of houses and the doors were locked, like the people thought they would be coming back, said it wasn’t that much warmer inside the buildngs anyway.
Laskin was now in his tent, thinking about having Mitch in soon, maybe she’d be into warming him up some before they hunkered down for the night. Turner was still fussing with his tent, pouting and cursing way too much. Laskin figured it had been awhile since the big boy had been camping. The Talos guys, as usual, had checked their gear, got their tents up, and were now getting ready to turn in. They were like fucking robots if you asked him. He could see Miller and Solanski up at the fire, had it going good, maybe he’d go out for a while and warm up there. Bond with the boys, then see what kind of a mood Mitch was in.
He got bored pretty quick making small talk with Miller so he headed up the trail, finding Mitch in one of her ‘am I the only one doing any work around here’ moods. Bent over her machine, she didn’t even look at him when he gave her bottom a friendly tap.
“Do you mind, I’m working.”
He liked that, her being all official in front of the boys.
“Sorry ma’am.”
She straightened up to look at him. He was standing too close, so she pushed him back a bit. All she said was, “You should be.”
Laskin, trying again, “Nice handiwork,” nodding towards the machines, “pretty convincing looking.”
She looked at the machine too, all outfitted with the brand new decals, a big yellow circle with a happy face and “Park Warden” written in hunter green along the outside. “That’s us, keeping the trees and bees safe. I got Miller to stitch the badges onto our parkas and I switched all the gear so it’s standard issue.”
“You’ve been busy babe,” Grier said, now wanting her to warm up to him badly, seeing her there, all kind of pissed off, those long legs now straddling the machine as she slapped the decal on the far side of the hood.
She finished smoothing the decal on and turned back to face him, crossing her arms, smiling now, whispered, “You know the rules boss, no fraternizing when we’re on a job.” Smiling more, “It’s bad for the other boys’ morale.”
“But I don’t really give a shit about their morale.”
“It’s your job to care Grier.” And then showing him she was being playful, said, “We could take a quick recon. I’ve never done it in the snow.”
By the time Mitch and Grier got back, the sky was going from violet to dark blue and the three men were hunkered down around the fire. Grier figured the Talos boys were tucked in for the night. Seemed like Turner had been doing more bitching because the sound of his big voice died off quick when they walked up to the fire.
“Boys,” Grier said, pulling off his mitts and rubbing his hands by the fire.
“So? See anything out there? Tracks?” asked Solanski, the other two just staring into the fire.
“Snowmachine tracks everywhere, they definitely aren’t in stealth mode. Nothing too recent though, so we still have the element of surprise.”
“We gonna need it?” It was Turner asking, all big and leaning into the fire, face red from the heat. He added, “What’s with all this cat and mouse bullshit anyway, we’re just going to go in and blow the guy away, right?”
“You always need the element of surprise,” Laskin said, “plus we need a cover story, we’re in deep ops guys, we need to have a legit reason for being here, you never know what kind of questions are going to get asked and by who. So just stick to the script Turner, and stop thinking so much, it isn’t good for you.”
Mitch interrupted. “Okay boys, let’s shut it down, we got an early morning.”
The men got up, tending to the fire and tidying up the area, checking things over one last time. Laskin grabbed a lantern and headed towards his tent. He was bending through the flap of his tent when he heard her say, “Lights out muchachos. I’ll see you all at 5:00 a.m. sharp.”
He thought about her back in the snow, him pushing her up against a big birch tree, her saying the snowsuits weren’t going to work out for what he had in mind. He’d seen her expression, said, yeah, it’s awkward, but you could do me, that’d be nice. He was starting on his zipper, but she’d grabbed his hand, said “Don’t think so sweetie, but first chance we get, I think it’s my turn.” Man, was she keeping score? She better not be, he thought, she was lucky to even be in the game.
Susun woke up with a start, sitting right up in her bed, disoriented. She pried open her eyes, dried and gummy. The light coming through her small window was soft and grey, she figured it must be morning. Another entire day gone, she couldn’t believe how much she was sleeping. She thought immediately of Melinda, but then relaxed, Mary was around, she’d make sure the mom and baby were doing fine.
She dragged herself out of bed. The jeans lying at the end of her bed were stained, the bottoms coated with a rim of mud. She dressed anyway and headed downstairs.
Chumboy was just leaving the kitchen when she came in, said he was glad to see her, hoped she was feeling a bit better and that Tiny had made a great breakfast for a change. Tiny told him he was a bastard and that all of his breakfasts were great, then asked Susun if she wanted to start with a hot cuppa.
Susun said, “How about a shower instead? Is that possible?”
Chumboy said, “Sure thing, right at the very back of the building, we took some old boiler room or something, knocked out a wall or so, planning on putting in a multiple shower and laundry room at some point but for now we have to share the one, use it for more storage too. Anyway, we got a schedule for it but nobody follows it. Just don’t climb in with that bastard Larose, last girl who did that went blind.”
She managed a smile but it wasn’t convincing. “Yeah, just still feeling a little grungy from that place, know what I mean?”
“Sure, no worries girl, Tiny, toss your cuz a towel. Should find the other stuff you need already there.”
“Rights, thanks.”
She found the maintenance room easily enough—the lime green cardboard sign announcing ‘shower’ tacked to the door. She knocked, heard nothing and peeked in. Looked empty, a very large room with one of those big tubs, a workbench stacked with soap, toilet paper, and shampoo. Part of their booty she guessed. She locked the door behind her and checked out the shower, baffled at first by the set up but desperate enough to try anything. And it was narrow, must have been rigged up over the janitor’s washout area. She climbed in, wondering how a big guy like that Slaught could fit in here, thinking it might not be so bad to see him try. Then thinking she had better get her brain under control, the guy was a jerk.
The first surge of hot water hit her. She soaped herself up then stuck her face up into the water, just standing, eyes closed, trying not to think, feeling the water pour over her. The water was warm, almost hot. Pouring down over her shoulders, down her back, Christ, could anything feel so good?
“Hey, lady, you going to be in there all morning? You know it takes some time to get the next tub of water heated.”
The voice startled her. Shit, it was him. She wondered if she had fallen asleep on her feet, feeling out of it, like she’d lost all track of time. All track of herself.
“Lady, hey, I’m talking to you.” He knocked on the door again.
“Well, my name is Susun, okay?” She was shouting, not sure if he could hear her over the water.
“Okay, fine, Su-sun, get outta there, you’re draining the goddam lake.”
She reached up and shut off the hose. That had sure felt good. She hadn’t had a real shower in ages. And it had almost been a real shower, better than the lake, but not quite the Travelodge. She wondered if there still were Travelodges. It was freezing in the room now though, and she was immediately shivering.
“Give me a minute, okay? Believe it or not this is my first taste of civilization. I haven’t even been in here that long.”
“It’s been over thirty minutes.”
“I don’t think so.” There was no way it was more than five or ten minutes, at the most.
“I timed you. 36 minutes.”
She padded over to grab a towel, leaving wet marks on the floor. Over a half hour? Was that possible? She rubbed her head. It still hurt, ached all over. And she was so cold.
“You timed me?”
There was a silence, then he said, “Well, listen, I’ll be back later, since you need more time.”
“What else would you do, just stand out there?”
She didn’t listen for an answer, rushing to dry herself off as best she could. She was rushing, hopping on one foot as she tried to pull on her jeans. She stopped, staring down at the ragged bottoms of the jeans, muddied and stuck half way up her still damp legs. Then she crumpled down on the wet concrete floor and started to cry.
“How long has she been in there?”
There was a small group gathered outside the door. Slaught was leaning his forehead against the metal door. It was nice and cool. He checked his watch and said, “About forty minutes. After the shower.”
Larose asked Slaught, “Can you hear anything in there?”
Slaught looked over at Larose and just shook his head.
“So, are we worried yet?”
Chumboy said, “Nah, I once had a girlfriend shut herself up in the can for five hours.”
Larose asked, “Yeah?”
“Yeah. I mean I tried for the first while but, come on, it just gets silly.”
“So how’d you get her out?”
“I didn’t. After the five hours I just packed up my stuff and moved out. Could still be in there for all I know.”
“Thanks for that Chumboy,” said Slaught, moving away from the door and rubbing his forehead. Christ, his head was still hurting. And his goddam ribs were aching from the way she’d whaled on him. “But that’s not really an option right now. Maybe somebody should get one of the ladies to help us get her out. Maybe get Mary.”
Larose pressed his ear up against the door. “Can’t hear anything. Did you try calling to her?”
“Of course, feel free to try if you want.”
“We didn’t store any of our booze in there did we?” asked Chumboy, sounding panicked. That was the hardest thing to find, and the homemade stuff just did not cut it come Friday nights.
“No Chum, we didn’t. Nuthin’ in there but soap and asswipe,” offered Max coming down the hall, “and it’s asswipe I need for the toilets up front.”
Chumboy said, “I just put toilet paper up there, man, those kids, they go through the stuff like it was gummy worms.”
Slaught could feel the stiffness in his neck. What the fuck? Break down the door? He guessed so.
“Max, go get the gooseneck, we’re gonna bust in. I mean she could have fainted right?”
Max looked skeptical. “That’s what we’re going tell her, we thought she fainted?”
“Unless you have a better plan, then yeah, that’ll have to do.”
It took a good six attempts prying with the gooseneck and them taking turns booting the door to bust the latch on the inside. Slaught cursed Larose who had put the goddam thing on in the first place, asking him if he’d been expecting a fucking invasion. “Not doing a job if it isn’t done right. Don’t like it, ask somebody else next time,” he’d sniffed.
So when the door finally flew open at the count of three, Larose was still sulking and Slaught was wondering about checking all the latches in case another ‘situation’ developed, so it took a few seconds for them to realize the room was empty. Not a trace of her.
“Goddam me, that is the second time that woman has messed with my head.”
Chumboy looked over at Larose, eyebrows raised. “Me, I think that sounds like love in Johnny’s voice.”
Slaught was staring up at the open vent on the wall. “No, its madness Chumboy, fucking madness.”
Larose said, “I can’t believe she did this, is it even possible to get anywhere through those vents? Are they even big enough?”
Chumboy peered up into the vent, said, “Worked for those guys getting out of Alcatraz. Also, this is a serious mother of a building, vents are nice and roomy, plus it is a short, straight run from inside to the hallway by the doors.”
“You guys take a look around here, I’ll check the kitchen,” Slaught said, “maybe she pulled a Houdini then went to see Tiny. Chum, her room and the new mom’s. Larose, could you fix the goddam door? And it’s a fucking shower, not a fort.”
They met up in the kitchen, Slaught was already there, asking Tiny if knew what a pain in the ass his cousin was. Tiny said his mom has always talked well of Susun’s family and weren’t all women a pain in the ass anyway.
“Is there a chance of getting any tea in here?” asked Chumboy, coming in with news that she was not in her room, but her few belongings still were.
Slaught was wondering if maybe they should have been more careful with her. She could cause a lot of trouble if she wanted to. He asked, “Anything in her room to help explain this bullshit?”
“Death by herbal tinctures is what awaits us gentlemen,” Chumboy scooping two big loads of sugar into his cup.
“Any ideas of where she might be?”
“Melinda said maybe she just needed a ‘time out’ to get her head together. Said she held it together all through the shit that went down, maybe she just unraveled a bit.”
Slaught thought about that. “Climbing into a vent? I don’t know, most people just go for a walk. Maybe we could send Sylvester up into the vent to see if he can tell where she went?”
“Think he’s too heavy,” Chumboy said.
“Can’t do that—the mother would kill us.”
“But what if she does something crazy? Like sets a fire in there?”
“Why would she do something like that? She’s just upset,” Tiny snapped, slopping coffee on the table as he refilled their cups.
Slaught thought the coffee smelled good. Raising his cup he said, “Not your usual crap Tiny.”
“That bastard Laurent brought some of the real stuff in the other day. So, yeah thanks, guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“You do that Tiny, and while you’re at it, why don’t you give some thought to what your nutjob cousin might be up to?”
Tiny was looking at Slaught now a bit differently, noticing the tone of his voice. “Hey Johnny, I don’t think it means anything, you know, I think she’s just flipped out. Think of what she’s been through. She just did what she had to do, know what I mean, she’s kind of like that.”
“Kinda like what exactly?”
“Well you know, headstrong. Always has been, you know, come to think of it, I think she ran a way a few times when we were kids, I remember once we had to go down and look along the Blanche River there, her mom thought she might have thrown herself in or something. We all had to go, all of us kids, me, Jimmy, Louie, my Dad’s uncle’s son Cliff, yeah that’s right, even my Grandpa came down to help look. We looked till it was too dark to see. Christ, I remember the bugs were bad that night.”
“So?” prompted Chumboy.
“So? She showed up the next afternoon. Had six walleye, nice sized ones too. Had a good fish fry that night.”
“It always come back to food with you Tiny.”
“Chumboy, it always comes back to food or women, and food is just easier.”
Slaught was thinking that Tiny was right about that. He could still see her, face just stony, eyes almost black, putting that boot into him, and then winding up and doing it again. She’d been pissed, that was for sure.
Chumboy said, “You know guys, she could get herself into trouble.”
Chumboy was wondering why they didn’t hear her moving in the vents. She must have popped down somewhere pretty close by, could even be stuck. Maybe they should go figure out where that vent came out. “Hey Johnny, I know you’re still smarting over her getting the drop on you, but she may not be thinking too clearly. Could head off…”
“How? Walk out of here, there’s nowhere to go guys. I say maybe we ignore her, forget about it, she’ll get tired of pouting up in the vent right around suppertime when that pig is hitting the plates.”
“I don’t think she’s going to be joining us for supper boys, sad to say,” announced Larose as he rounded the back corner of the kitchen.
“Why’s that?” Slaught was already up on his feet. Thinking the worst. Maybe she’d fallen, suffocated, Christ, they hadn’t had a death yet, he wasn’t sure how’d they handle it. Have a funeral?
“Looks like the little witch took off by sled. Took the vent just over to the next room, kicked out the cover, it was just sitting in there anyway, then down the hall, outside and off she went. I give her about at least a twenty minute head start by now.”
Slaught grabbed his coat from the back of the chair. “I’m going to grab my gear. Chumboy, get your skates on, if we take my sled and Tiny’s we might be able to catch her. She can’t know too much about the lay of the land here, there is nothing but trouble waiting for that girl. Larose, mind making sure my tank is filled up, it’s close to empty after yesterday.”
“Don’t worry about it, Johnny,” Larose said with a wink, “I’m sure she filled it up nice and full before she rode out on it. You can borrow mine. Oh, and grab a coat, she took your parka too.”
“Hey Larose, you ready yet?”
Slaught was wanting to get going, couldn’t understand why it was taking Larose so long to get it together. Chumboy was still drinking his coffee, not too wound up either.
“You know Johnny, you gotta learn to relax.”
“That so?” Slaught was feeling anything but relaxed. The girl had taken off on his snowmachine. That, he figured, was a goddam haywire thing to do. Climbed into the vent? He couldn’t even picture it, trying, but it ended up looking like some sort of action movie, instead of a limp-haired, scrawny broad shimmying along ten feet of vent soaking wet. Christ almighty, she could freeze out there. And him leaning on the door, telling her to hurry up. Jesus.
“Yes, that’s so,” answered Chumboy. “You’re going to have blood pressure issues.”
“Why don’t you stop dishing out the medical advice and get your ass in gear.”
Chumboy looked at Slaught over the rim of his mug.
“Not feeling the love Johnny. Not feeling the love.”
Larose said the sled was ready. Then he told Chumboy to drive careful and not let Johnny wreck his machine. “Just because he’s all pissed off doesn’t mean he can abuse this baby. I don’t see much point in chasing this crazy broad all over hell’s half acre anyway. I think his judgement’s off,” Larose said, patting the hood of the machine as he moved out of the way for Slaught, adding, “Remember Chum, he’s wrecked machines before.”
Slaught sliding on his helmet, “Can we just get going?” but Chumboy looked over at Larose, nodded, “I’ll keep an eye on him.”
“Fuck youse both,” Slaught said.
“Hey, wait up, buddy, the love doctor’s coming,” yelled Chumboy, seeing Slaught finally revving up and moving out of the bay. Chumboy looked into his cup, still a few good mouthfuls, Johnny could wait. He got on his machine, still holding his mug, pulled out onto the street then stopped. Above Slaught’s disappearing sled the sky was all slate coloured, clouds folded up way to the north, bruised and cold looking.
Larose followed Chumboy out, said, “Quit sight-seeing and get going, you’ll never catch up.”
“Buddy, he’s riding your sled, I could start tomorrow morning and catch up. A wise man gets the lay of the land before he goes rushing into things.”
“So what are the skies telling you, wise one?”
Chumboy expression changed, frowning now. “Storm’s coming.”
“It doesn’t look that bad to me,” Larose peering up into the sky, trying to see what Chumboy saw. He’d told Chumboy once that it always pissed him off, that they’d both be looking at the same place but Chumboy would always be seeing things first, the moose tracks or the goddam geese way off in the distance. Larose swore the guy had a different kind of eyes. Chumboy told him they were Indian eyes. Now Chumboy was taking off his helmet. Larose said, “Hey buddy, it doesn’t look that bad, you gotta go with Johnny.”
He pointed, said “The storm’s coming to us,” and Larose could see two sleds coming around the corner at the top of the road, tearing down the main street towards the workbay. It was Slaught bringing up the rear. On the front machine was the girl. And she had somebody with her on the sled.