by Theresa Weir
She ended up wrapping the gun in an old, soft T-shirt and hiding it in the back of a bottom drawer that she used for art supplies. Then she went back downstairs and took a shower. While her hair dried, she turned on the TV. Five minutes into one of the morning programs, the local news broke in.
“A report just in on the private plane that crashed yesterday in the Sawtooth Mountains. The identity of the injured man who walked ten miles to the nearest town to get help for his fellow passenger, is none other than reclusive chess champion Daniel French. As we reported earlier, the pilot was found dead. An interesting twist to the story is the identity of the other passenger, whom French says was alive when he left the plane to find help.”
The middle-aged announcer paused to listen to his earpiece. “Do we have that file photo? We do?” Back to the camera. “The other passenger is convicted felon Trevor Davis who made his escape from a maximum security prison two years ago while serving a fifteen-year sentence for embezzlement and fraud.”
She knew his name wasn't Dylan.
A sketch appeared on the screen, a drawing of a man with dark aviator sunglasses and a hooded sweatshirt. It could have been anybody.
“If you see this man, do not approach him. He may be armed and dangerous. Instead, contact the Idaho state police.”
Claire stared at the screen for quite a while before she realized the program had moved on to something new.
She had to get to a phone. She had to get to the police.
~0~
Claire was used to cold weather. And snow. And walking long distances. That was good, because the nearest neighbor was three miles across country, almost four if she stuck to the road. The Herman family. They were a spooky bunch, a father and three sons, none of whom practiced good dental hygiene. Claire had run into them a few times, enough to know that they were suspicious and scared of the strange woman who lived alone.
That would be her.
Claire dressed in several layers of clothing, filled her backpack, then headed in the direction of the Herman homestead, sticking to the road because of the snow.
She’d gone about a mile and a half when she spotted something near the side of the road. About fifty yards in front of her and to the right was a vehicle resting flush against a pine tree. And that snow-covered vehicle looked suspiciously like her Jeep.
Claire waded through the deep snow, sinking to her thighs when she hit the ditch that ran along the road.
With mittened hands, she dug the snow away from the Jeep until she was able to open the door. The cab was a dark cocoon. An empty cocoon except for Dylan's jacket. Correction— Trevor’s jacket. She circled the Jeep. The snow had already partially covered her tracks. Dylan's—Trevor’s— were long gone.
She made another circle, this one bigger than the last.
She almost stepped on him.
Like her grandmother would have said, If he'd been a snake he would have bit her.
Trevor was lying on his back, his eyes closed, head bare.
She peeled off one of her mittens and felt his face.
Ice cold.
She placed two fingers against his neck, the way she'd been taught in CPR class.
He groaned. Slowly, he opened his eyes.
He didn’t look good. Not good at all.
She found herself staring at his head, at the fresh cut on his forehead, an inch above the old one.
The voodoo doll.
No.
It couldn’t have been. She didn’t believe in such nonsense. If she did, she would never have done it. The pin-jabbing had merely been an outlet for her anger and frustration. She’d never meant to hurt him.
She visualized the doll, lying on the kitchen table where she’d left it, the black pin sticking in its little head.
She had to get back and remove the pin.
Trevor stared up at her with glassy eyes. His mouth moved as he struggled to form words, struggled to speak.
She leaned closer, straining to hear.
“Is this ... hell?”
A simple question. A direct question.
“No, ” she told him. “It's Idaho.”
He made a sound deep in his throat, something she thought may have been a laugh.
“I wanted to see snow," he said, snowflakes melting into the darkness of his eyes. She placed a mittened hand against his forehead, to shield his face.
“Nobody ever told me it’d be a fucking Siberia.”
He’d already mentioned his touchingly quaint affinity for the area.
“Hey, I know you,” he said, his eyes clearing slightly. “You're Max.”
“Max?”
“Maxfield, but I’ll call you Max. I prefer one syllable names, don't you?”
“Like Trevor?”
That didn't seem to sink in. His eyes were getting that vacant look again.
“We need to get you someplace warm,” she said. “The Jeep is only a few feet away.”
“It’s shot.”
“We might be able to get the heater going even if it can't he driven.”
He rolled his head in denial. “Radiator's busted.”
“Then you'll have to walk.”
Unfortunately her house was the nearest shelter by over a mile.
“Can’t walk.”
“You have to.”
He reached up, placing frozen fingers her cheek. “I feel like shit,” he explained.
“It's not that far.”
“My head hurts. I have a headache.” To further emphasize its severity, he added, "A shit big headache.”
He took his hand from her cheek, kind of waved it in the air until he found his own forehead. “Here. I hurt here.”
Had she done this to him?
He frowned, then looked around, as if unable to figure out how he’d gotten there, as if he'd already forgotten who she was.
She tried not to let him see her fear. She didn’t want to scare him. He would need every ounce of strength to get to shelter. “Your head will feel better as soon as you get inside. As soon as we get you someplace warm. My house isn’t far,” she lied. If he knew how far away it was, he would never even try. Let him think it was just around the next tree. “It’s just a short walk. ” She grabbed his arm, trying to pull him to his feet.
Impossible.
“Get up, Trevor. Please.”
“You talkin’ to me?”
“Yes.”
“Cal me Dylan.”
“Okay, Dylan. Get up. You have to get up.”
“Okay, okay. Quit your naggin' an' I will. Just quit your naggin’.”
It hurt to watch him.
Slowly, achingly, he rolled to his stomach. Then, inch-by-inch, he managed to get his knees under him. With her arms around his waist, she helped to pull him upright.
Once there, he stood swaying, arms outstretched, trying to get his balance.
When he regained some equilibrium, they began moving forward through the snow, in the direction of the Jeep and his jacket, and then hopefully home and a warm fire.
Chapter 7
Snow.
Everywhere.
Cold.
Dylan knew it was cold, but the temperature wasn’t bothering him anymore. That was good.
The woman—Claire—was trying to make him stand, shoving him up against the Jeep, trying to hold him, her words breathless, like she’d been running or working hard.
He frowned, trying to focus, trying to concentrate on what she was saying.
He blinked, forcing his eyes to stay open. Everything was blurry. Little by little, Claire came into focus.
Her nose was red. Her cheeks were red. Her mouth was red.
Talking.
She was talking, her voice coming to him from somewhere beyond the wasteland of his semi-oblivion.
Stand up.
Okay. For her, okay.
He locked his knees, or at least he thought he did. He couldn't feel them. He couldn't feel anything. Ever since he'd stepped into the mothball woman's
frozen world, he'd been numb.
Something was bothering him. Nagging at the back of his mind. He'd done something he felt guilty about.
Tied her up.
Pointed a gun at her.
“I—” He tried to talk, but his mouth, his lips felt weird as hell. Like he'd been Novocained.
“Sowwy.”
That's what he said. Sowwy. He almost laughed, it was that funny. Sorry. He'd meant to say sorry.
“What?”
“Didn't wanna ... ” hurt you. Didn't want to hurt you. But those were the rules. She'd been in the way. He'd simply taken control of the situation.
He heard her exclamation of alarm.
Was something wrong, he wondered, as his knees buckled and he slipped to the ground, to the snow.
Snow.
It was so ... cool. Not temperature cool, but cool. Like nothing he'd ever experienced.
He's seen pictures of snow, but in his mind, whenever he'd thought about actually touching it, he’d imagined the outdoor temperature to be a comfortable seventy-two degrees.
From the time he’d been a small child and could look out his bedroom window to see the snow-covered peaks of Kilimanjaro, he’d imagined snow feeling refreshing, like a cool dip on a sweltering day.
Nothing had prepared for the way it deadened him.
Nothing had prepared him for the way it welcomed him.
He let himself sink into it, let it cushion his fall. So seductive.
The perfection of the moment was rudely interrupted. “You have to get up. Otherwise you’ll die out here. Do you want to die? Do you?” the irritating voice demanded.
Did he want to die?
What kind of question was that? A tough one.
He rolled to his back. He opened his eyes.
Standing over him was an angel, her eyes glowing with religious fervor.
Did he want to die?
It took a while, but he was finally able to get his words lined up in a tidy row, finally able to get them to come out his mouth. “This a trick question?”
The angel frowned at him.
Irritation?
Puzzlement?
He seemed to evoke such emotions in people.
He'd never fit anywhere. That was his problem. The ol' square peg thing.
“How high can you fly with those wings?” he asked her. He really wanted to know. He'd always thought wings were supposed to be made of feathers, but hers were evergreen branches.
Weird.
But nice.
It reminded him of something. “I've got a funny st-story to tell you. One I think y-y-you'll really get a kick out of—”
She pulled at his arm.
Dead weight.
“Get up. Please get up.”
“I met this guy once. Can't remember his name. Now that I think about it, I never knew it. For the sake of the story, let's just call him Fred, okay? Fred wanted to get a tattoo that said ‘Hell's Angels.' But the tattoo guy hadn't made it past third grade so the tattoo ended up saying ‘Hell's Angles'. Isn't that funny? Just funny as hell?”
“I'm wetting my pants, it's so funny. Now come on. Get up.”
Next thing he knew, she was pulling him to his feet with her angel superpowers, until once more he was kind of standing, or rather slumping against the side of the Jeep. She stuck something on his head, some kind of soft cap. She jammed his arms into a coat, pulling it tight in front, zipping the zipper like he was some little kid.
He kinda liked that.
“You’re going to walk.”
It was a command.
She grabbed the front of his jacket with both hands, pulling him close, glaring at him with those Mediterranean eyes of hers. “Do you hear me?”
He smiled a smile that felt kind of goofy, even to himself. “I like you.”
She blinked, her expression making him think of an owl. He’d surprised her. Startled her, actually.
Then she seemed to come back around, turn into her old drill sergeant self again. “Do you understand?” she asked.
He nodded, not understanding at all, having no idea what he’d just agreed to. All he knew was that he liked her, his sweet Siberia. His Max. To the max. Maxed out. “You’re maxing me out...”
He laughed at that—a sound that once again triggered that alarmed and surprised and puzzled and worried expression on her face.
His sweet Siberia. It made it sound as if he’d known her quite a while. He liked that, too.
He walked.
For her, he walked.
He couldn’t feel his legs. He couldn’t feel his feet. He couldn’t feel his face. But there was suddenly this warm place in his chest, this little tiny glow. An ember. A promise.
Do you want to die?
Yesterday, his answer would have been that he really didn't give a shit. Today, today his response was slightly more positive.
Today he didn't know.
~0~
Claire had never worked so hard in her life. Trevor, or Dylan, or whatever the hell his name was, was down more than he was up. Sometimes he would walk with one arm draped across her shoulder, his weight often pressing her to her knees. When that happened, she would brace her legs under her and straighten, bringing him with her.
Sometimes she had to throw his weight off her in order to get up. She didn’t like doing that, because then she had to go through getting him upright all over again. Sometimes she couldn't get him upright so she would grab him under his armpits and, walking backward, she would drag him across the snow. It was backbreaking, and she could only tug in short bursts. It must not have been much fun for either, because after a time, he would roll to his hands and knees and crawl until he felt ready to try to stand once more.
She bullied him, and cheered him on, and shouted until her throat hurt, not knowing if her words sank in or not. There were a couple of times when she thought about leaving him, when she considered going the rest of the way by herself. Once home, she could rig up something, some kind of board that could be pulled across the snow, but she worried that she might not be able to find him again, or that he might wander away while she was gone. Or she might come back and find him dead and frozen. So she kept on cheering and pulling, bullying and tugging.
~0~
Dylan had heard about astral projection, but he'd never participated in the phenomenon. Now he could finally say he had. What else could explain the fact that he had no recollection of getting from the Jeep to Max's joint? Suddenly there was her log cabin, rising out of the snow like some kind of heaven, some kind of celestial palace.
Ten feet from her door, he dropped to his knees at the altar.
“Don't stop now,” she said, grabbing at his collar, tugging, trying to pull to him to his feet.
“Gotta do something. Something important.”
It wasn't easy, but he managed to roll to his back so he was lying face up. Snowflakes fell into his open eyes.
Then he flapped his wings, and flapped his legs, making an angel for the angel.
Chapter 8
Dylan collapsed just inside the door, seeming quite content to stay there.
The first thing Claire did was run to the thermostat and turn up the heat. She normally kept it set at a cool forty-five degrees for the sake of her wallet, but her uninvited guest was going to need more than that.
The second thing she did was dash to the kitchen table, grab the voodoo doll, and pull out the pin that was deeply imbedded in its soft little head. She stuffed the voodoo doll into the top drawer of the antique desk, then hurried back to the man who was lying semiconscious on the floor.
She slapped lightly on the cheek. “Dylan.”
No response.
She slapped him again, harder time.
“Dylan!” Louder this time.
His eyes came open and his hand shot up, fingers wrapping tightly around her wrist. '"Nobody hits me.”
“I m sorry.
His eyes closed. His grip relaxed.
“Don't go t
o sleep!”
“Huh?” he asked groggily, his eyes rolling back in his head. “Shit big headache. Gotta shit big headache.”
“I know! I know! Don't go to sleep! Sit up. You've got to sit up. There. That's the way.”
He sat up, but then he just kept going, his head moving forward until his chin rested on his chest. It was a struggle, but she finally managed to get him out of his jacket. Just what she was afraid of. His shirt was damp. She quickly unbuttoned it, tearing some of the buttons off in the struggle with dead weight and clinging fabric. She tugged at one arm, then the other.
Shivers started moving through him, one after the other. That was good. Shivering was the body's way of trying to get warm. If he weren't shivering at all, that would be bad.
Now what?
Why hadn't she gotten dry clothes first? If she left him by himself, he would fall over. She ended up lowering him to the floor, his bare back against the inside of his jacket. It looked as if he tried to open his eyes, but gave up.
She got to her feet and ran to the bedroom, jerking open drawers and throwing out clothes until she found an oversized sweatshirt and a pair of flannel pajama pants she'd gotten for Anton.
He'd never worn them. Maybe that had been their whole problem. She’d wanted Anton to be flannel when he was really silk.
She ran back to the living room.
Dylan was right where she'd left him, his face pale, dirty, and blood-caked.
She pulled him upright again. Then, with his back braced against her knees, she tugged the gray sweatshirt over his head, coaxing him, cheering him on as she followed with the arms, finally pulling it down to his stomach.
His pants were wet, too.
She had him lie back down—no argument about that. She unbuttoned and unzipped his pants, then, trying not to think too much about what she was doing, she pulled them over his hips, peeling them down his legs.
His boots. She'd forgotten about his boots.
She quickly unlaced them, tugging them off one at a time, dropping them with a thud. She finished peeling off his pants, leaving him wearing the sweatshirt, striped boxer shorts, and gray socks. The socks joined the rest of the clothes. In the back of her mind, she noticed that he had nice feet. A lot of guys had gross feet. Well, to be fair, a lot of women had gross feet. In fact, she wasn't terribly proud of her own size eights.
