I was comfortably certain they wouldn’t follow me to pursue the debate. Not with Mary’s cooking and company in front of them. I might have pushed too hard when disparaging their policing prowess. Chief Strawn seemed like a smart guy, but so far I wasn’t making any friends out of his underlings. French was fine, but I figured he would defer to Rock’s poor example. I’d have to try harder. It was not a good idea to wear out my welcome too soon. Especially since, according to Mary, I was stranded indefinitely.
The icy air pawed and clawed at me. I kept my hands in my armpits. Flakes were no longer falling, having called a temporary ceasefire. There was a tangible sense of silence after a heavy snow. Even freezing my face off, I could appreciate the quiet. Silence may or may not be golden, but it sure is peaceful. A lot of people have an ingrained aversion to silence. They seem to feel some sort of moral imperative to fill it. I like it though. If I had to, I think I could go the rest of my life without saying another word.
I plodded along, my boots heavy. They were solid items, by far the most expensive things I wore. They held up well in the snow. But whereas they were waterproof, my jeans were not. Halfway up my shins the snow had stuck, melted, and refroze in lumpy patches. By the time I reached the motel office door, my pant legs were stiff with cold.
The motel was a two-story utilitarian structure. No attempt had been made to match the decor I had seen at my previous stops. There was no shine, no polish. Just an office sandwiched between the rows of rooms—ten on either side, split between top and bottom. Only two vehicles sat in the lot. A semitruck with no load lay lengthwise across several parking slots and was neighbored by a van with chains on its wheels.
So, there’s definitely a vacancy.
I wondered if this trucker had been the same to phone in my predicament, in which case I owed him. He had saved my life.
I stepped into the office, stomping my feet on the mat. It was only slightly warmer inside. No heater was running. I wondered how Spartan the accommodations themselves would be. Recessed lighting dimly illuminated the small space. A wooden shelf held brochures of the local attractions, which were few. A high counter held a ledger, and behind it hung a row of mail slots and a board with twenty hooks holding eighteen brass keys. A door behind the counter opened, and a big-boned black guy stepped out, pulling on an exceptionally well-worn sheepskin coat. He closed the door behind him. Maybe he kept the heat on only in his office to save money. He looked more cut out for cop work than either Rock or French. He had a shaved, glistening head and heavy-lidded eyes framed by wire-rimmed spectacles.
He raised a supermarket chicken-sized hand in greeting, straightening his glasses with the other.
“Hello,” he said.
“Howdy,” I said.
“Room?”
“Yes, please.”
“Twenty dollars.”
I produced a ten and two fives from my wad of cash. “Heck of a deal.”
He tipped his head back to look at me out of the bottom of
the lenses. “We don’t see many folks in the wintertime. Summer-time rate is sixty a night. We’re always full then. Have to turn people away.”
I nodded. I couldn’t think of anything to say.
He opened the leather-bound ledger and spun it around to face me. Licking his finger, he flipped through the pages until he came to the newest. He handed me a fountain pen. I liked his old-fashioned style, though it clashed with the austerity of the modern accommodations.
“Sign here.”
I signed there.
He took back the pen and wrote a number three on the line with my name.
He handed me a key. It read, Do not copy on the head. The key ring had a brass coin stamped with a 3. He said, “It’s in the middle.”
I thanked him, and we wished each other a good night. I went, again, out into the cold.
And not for the last time that night.
The room was definitely worth the whole twenty. And then some. There was a bed, a bathroom, and a door that locked—I locked it—plus a small writing desk with a small pad of paper and small lamp that lit when I flipped the wall switch. No tele-
vision.
I pulled the chair out from the desk and set it underneath the door handle, tilted back against the door. It probably wouldn’t stop a determined intruder, but it might slow him down.
I wasn’t paranoid, but someone had already gotten the drop on me once today by the car thief, and I was not hoping for a second helping, especially with him being snowed in too. He might panic and realize I was around and able to identify him. Except I couldn’t remember him—just his height and the vague features distorted by his injuries.
I undressed and turned on the shower as hot as it would go. Steam filled the bathroom, like a sauna. I waited on the tile until feeling returned to my extremities before turning the shower from scalding to just hot. Stepping into the rush of water, I felt instantly better. My headache had subsided.
After a long and thoughtful while, I turned off the shower and dried myself with decent towels, not the usual tissue-thin ones in most no-name inns. Maybe no TV sets meant better everything else.
Upon further investigation I saw just how far my money stretched. In a plastic cup was a toothbrush heat-sealed in cellophane. I’d trade a TV for a toothbrush anytime. I cleaned my teeth and looked over my wound in the mirror. It was not terrible. I wouldn’t be appearing in any fashion magazines anytime soon, but I was no Quasimodo.
Then came the unpleasant part. I put my cold, sodden clothes back on. Then, pocketing the toothbrush, I switched off the light and moved the chair back to its original place. I left the door unlocked and walked back to the office. The lights were dim, but the door was still unlocked. It was only a couple of hours before midnight, and I hoped the nice man was fast asleep. I didn’t want to bother him again.
I slipped behind the counter, checking the key rack. Numbers 15 and 11 were gone. From the way the motel was laid out, I gathered those rooms were upstairs. Maybe their occupants were hoping for a better view of that big Montana sky when the snow cleared. Or maybe they just liked being high up. Heat rises, after all. I took number two and replaced it with my number three key. I didn’t think the car thief would come after me, but if he did, he might check the register and all the rooms. That was a good reason to go with the ground floor. It would be a lot easier to escape out of a window.
Once in my new suite I did the chair-against-the-door thing and showered again, for good measure. I cranked up the heater and laid all my clothes across it to dry. Then I set out the contents of my pockets on the writing desk.
There wasn’t much—just my room key, my passport, and a fold of bills, with the new addition of the toothbrush. Of course, there was a brand-new toothbrush in this room as well, but I didn’t want to defraud an innkeeper by taking two tooth-
brushes.
I was one hundred percent spent. I sank to my knees on the low-pile carpet and said a prayer, thanking God for keeping me and prospering me for one more day. My head had barely touched the pillow before I was in a deep, deep sleep.
I didn’t know what time it was when I woke up. I felt well-rested, so I must have slept for about the recommended amount. But I didn’t know when I had gone to bed either. I don’t wear a watch. The motel didn’t supply those brick-sized alarm clocks with the angry red numbers.
Not that I needed to know the time. I had nowhere to go, no pressing appointments.
I rolled out from under the covers and back to my knees, praying for a good day, which I entirely expected. My face no longer hurt. The bump on my head was still solid but manageable.
I showered again, just to warm up. I had neglected soap the night before. Usually motels begrudgingly issue a sliver of solidified dish detergent wrapped in waxy paper, which you use in one go, but I was rewarded for having to make do without an alarm clock and television with a big bar of lavender-scented soap. There were also miniature bottles of brand-name shampoo and conditioner, not the liquid dish detergent you find elsewhere.
I redressed, wishing I could keep my clothes as warm as they were from right off the heater. It is the little things that make you feel good, like cozy clothes and hot water. For the last two years I had been living in places where the only hot water was what you boiled on a stove or over a fire. Sometimes we didn’t have running water and had to shower in the rain.
My clothes were new and durable. New to me, that is. I had bought them secondhand because I figured they had already lasted long enough for someone else—Why not me?—and because buying brand-new clothes was among the greatest ways to waste money.
Fifty dollars for a T-shirt? No, thank you.
The walkway to the office was sheltered by a sloped roof, but a thin layer of snow had blown in sideways. I left footprints along the walk, which I hoped would soon be masked with more drifting.
I stepped inside. The guy was in his office with the door open. He was in a big recliner, reading. Seeing me, he set down his book and began to stand.
“Don’t bother getting up, sir. I’m not checking out.”
He sighed gratefully, easing back down, like maybe pain from an old injury was exacerbated by the cold. “Staying another night?”
“Yes, I believe I will.” I examined my cash roll, came up with four fives, and set them on the counter.
The guy nodded and resumed reading.
“Got the time?”
His eyes flicked up. There must have been a clock above the doorway inside the office.
“Quarter to nine.”
“Know a place to buy a coat?”
“Trapper’s, just on the other side of Main Street. Gas station is there too.” He pointed.
“Thanks.”
I knew Main Street to be the twelve o’clock spoke, so the other side of it would put the general store on the one o’clock. Outside was warmer than it had been at night. A couple of cars slewed by. I would hold off on the coat until after breakfast. A school bus full of little kids drove by, undeterred by the weather, all of its passengers looking like arctic explorers in big puffy coats and hats and mittens. I trudged through the snow, churning the fresh white into dirty slush. I saw not-quite-even rows of neat, cozy houses, with plenty of snow-filled space between them and smoke rising from chimneys. Christmas lights were strung all over. Folks were shoveling driveways. Just like in a postcard.
The gray-white of the sky merged perfectly with the gray-white ground, with the faint seam of mountains and evergreens running along the length of the horizon.
The coat could wait. I was hungry, like a bear out of hibernation.
Half a dozen cars lined the front of the Oak Table, like horses at a trough.
I was expecting a lot of hubbub and noise—the morning crowd, regulars chatting up the pretty redheaded waitress.
I was wrong. Being wrong seemed to be a bad habit for me lately.
Inside everyone was silent. They were all at different tables but huddled in a loose group, looking at the television set. Mary and another waitress stood side by side, slightly behind the patrons, their attention also rapt. I skirted the please-wait-to-be-seated sign and made my way over to Mary.
Images on the screen showed what the news ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen was calling Snowpocalypse. The highway patrol had closed many of the main arteries, and downed trees and snow had left other routes impassable. Schools across the western part of the state were closing. Clearly Cluff hadn’t gotten the memo.
A lot of Christmas travels were interrupted, and collisions had resulted in serious injuries. At least another foot of new powder was expected in less than a week, and visibility would be reduced to close to zero on the roads. Massive power outages were projected. Citizens were advised to stay indoors and ration food and fuel because stores were expected to be running low on supplies for at least a few days.
I watched and listened out of respect for the room and because I always aim for empathy. But I was mildly surprised at the reverence. I was mostly out of the loop as far as current events go. Maybe a new trend of solemnity during the morning news was sweeping the nation. Or at least Cluff, Montana. Maybe everyone was expecting relatives from out of town who would be late or not coming at all. Maybe they were all thinking about filling up their tubs with water, gassing up generators, and replenishing their woodboxes.
But news is news. Sometimes it was good, sometimes it wasn’t. Storms happen all the time. And as troublesome as inclement weather can be, it rarely merits letting your hash browns get cold. I looked a question at Mary, and she leaned in close. I smelled coconut shampoo and maple syrup.
“This is a small town, obviously; people are worried about what the bad weather is going to do when it gets here.”
I pointed outside. “What do you call this?”
“This is nothing.”
My spot in the corner from the night before was taken, so I moved to sit at a different table. There was news about some overturned semitrucks. A spokesperson was droning on about no details at this time. Sitting down sideways on the bench, I caught Mary’s eye. She patted the air with her hand and held up her index finger.
Wait right there; I’ll be just a minute.
As I waited, a lot of questions about time and space and police procedure were incubating in my head. I felt a little guilty being glad for the weather that was worrying everyone, since it had waylaid the murderer too. My car’s tank had been full enough to have gotten him out of the state if it hadn’t been for the snow.
Mary was on her way to me when the door opened.
This time I looked. I had been facing the television, so my relative angle to the entryway was poor. I turned to the entrance, and as I did, I first caught a glimpse out the window and saw a Cluff Police Department SUV.
Not good.
Rock and French sauntered in, cool as cucumbers. They disregarded the sign to wait to be seated. But then again, so had I.
They were in uniform.
They saw me and smirked, brushing their hands on their guns like they were dusting the butts off.
For the past two years, as a missionary in Peru, I had had it pretty good.
Not too many people tried to mess with me, maybe because I am a lot bigger than most people there. But I am also white, and to many Peruvians, that is synonymous with money. Here and there we would get a few drunks who’d spit in our faces, but that was the worst of it for me. Until one day, some punk had approached my fellow missionary and me on a dark street at night and pulled a short-barreled revolver on us. He’d told us he had a weapon, which was superfluous because we saw it.
I had been all set to clamp a hand on the gun’s frame to stop the hammer from moving. I had rehearsed in my mind jerking the gun around and breaking the robber’s trigger finger in the process, which I had planned on following up with a straight right to his solar plexus and an elbow to the temple. But then that still, soft voice asked me rhetorically, What would Jesus do?, which I thought was exceptionally inconvenient.
So my companion and I had looked at one another and smiled, and I held up the softcover set of scriptures I carried everywhere and said, “We have a weapon too. It’s called the Book of Mormon. Ever heard of it?”
The guy with the gun must have figured we were downright crazy because he decided right then and there to drop the whole armed-robbery angle. Or maybe his shoulder angel got to him. We would see him around town from time to time after that, and he would nod and pass by.
But now I was facing the potential of two guns in the hands of two guys who didn’t like me. And I wasn’t armed with the word of God. I’d left my scriptures in the Buick. I didn’t expect the carjacker to have read very far in them or to have marked his favorite passages.
I was comfortable disarming someone who had a gun right up in my face or against my head, but Rock and French were out of reach. Besides, if I did that, I would have to go all the way and break some bones, and I was not yet prepared to burn my bridge with Strawn.
I had information for the chief, and he was keeping me out of jail. And it would do me no good at all to be on the run in a small town I didn’t know and couldn’t leave.
But just because I was unwilling to fight Strawn’s goons then and there didn’t mean I was unwilling to run.
Fight or flight. The oldest, most significant binary decision in the world, after right or wrong, of course, but that is more a pattern of belief and practice than a recurring choice.
They saw that they had my attention, unlike the night before. Their smiles spread, and they stepped farther into the dining room. Rock motioned for me to go to the back of the room. I did not want them behind me, so I responded with a gesture that said, No,
after you.