The Crimson Sky

by Joel Rosenberg

  And if doing that made this look less like Ephie’s house, well, there was no harm in that, as long as he had another explanation.

  In doing all the construction, he had learned more about working with joists and microlams and Sheetrock and electrical cabling and phone wires than he had ever expected to, but Hosea was always available to help out, and Thorian Thorsen was usually available to help out, and when one of them didn’t know how to do something, or when there were four or more pairs of hands needed instead of two, there was always somebody available, if you had the time to wait.

  Ian had time.

  Besides, usually there were other neighbors to help out—he didn’t have to do a lot of waiting. If you worried more about making yourself useful and less about whether or not you were getting the better of the deal, it worked out okay, most of the time.

  Ian Silverstein, he thought to himself, you’re developing patience.

  You had to, to live in Hardwood. Probably true in any small town.

  And now, a counter stood where the wall that had held the shelves where Ephie Selmo’s collection of little metal bells, small glass sculptures, and other knickknacks had stood for something like half a century.

  Each item had been carefully cleaned, then wrapped in newspaper and put away, the boxes properly labeled and stashed in the attic. Ian wasn’t sure what Arnie needed, but whatever it was, he didn’t need constant reminders of his late wife. He carried enough of those inside him.

  Ian yawned. It was still too damn early. Another cup of coffee was not a good idea—he’d be drinking coffee all morning.

  And, besides, there was another way. Maybe. At least … there should be another way.

  No harm in giving it another try.

  He lifted the hem of his parka to get at his right-hand pocket, and he came out with a plain gold ring, too thick to be a wedding band but heavier than it looked.

  He slipped it first over his thumb, and then his ring finger; it fit both perfectly, although his thumb was visibly thicker. It didn’t seem to change size—at least he couldn’t see it do that. He should be used to that now, but maybe there were some other things that he should be used to, as well.

  He thought, I am awake. Which was true, although he was still sleepy. But the idea was not to be just awake, but wakeful, and he hadn’t slept well last night, and it was too damn early in the morning …

  No. Thinking that way wouldn’t solve anything.

  He yawned. “I am awake,” he said. “I am awake, and alert, fresh for the morning, all traces of sleepiness banished from my mind and body.”

  He willed it to be so …

  And yawned again.

  He grunted. It wasn’t working. But it was important that he be alert, and he would be. He leaned back against the doorpost as he closed his eyes painfully tight, until bright spots danced in the inner darkness.

  Ian took a deep breath, and let half of it out. He was awake, and he was alert, and he was fresh and ready for the morning, all sleep banished …

  … and the ring pulsed against his finger, painfully hard, like a boa constrictor’s embrace: once, twice, three times before it stopped.

  It felt warm. And he felt kind of silly. Why had he bothered to use the ring again? It wasn’t like he was sleepy or anything. It would have been wasteful if the ring’s virtue could be exhausted.

  And if my grandfather had had tits, the old Jewish saying went, he would have been my grandmother.

  “And that would have made my grandmother a lesbian.”

  That was Ian’s own addition.

  Ian slung his rucksack over one shoulder, and the oversized pool cue bag containing Giantkiller over the other, and he stepped outside, closing the door behind him, still enough of a city boy that he had to remind himself not only not to try to lock it but also that he couldn’t—in Hardwood, probably nobody knew where the key to their front door was.

  Across the street, there was a light on in Ingrid Orjasaeter’s living room, and the movement of a shadow against the drapes said that she was up and around. Which was good. Old Ingrid was a notoriously early riser, and Ian would have worried if he hadn’t seen any signs of life in her house. Not that it would be a problem to stick his head in the door and call out to her—it wasn’t like it would be locked or something.

  Lock your front door?

  Why would you do that?

  What would happen when a neighbor needed to get in? Your neighbors never needed to get in? What kind of person are you, a city type?

  The west wind picked up, driving a fine mist of hard snow up and into the air and his face.

  He shivered and then set out down the road. The snow squealed beneath his boots as he walked, and he gradually picked up his pace so that the high-pitched sounds kept pace with the dull thud of his heartbeat. Movement could keep you warm, or at least less cold, although too much movement could start you sweating, which could freeze you to the bone in a matter of minutes. The trick, which had taken him quite a while to learn, was to ratchet up your level of effort slowly and carefully. It was just like the gym; you didn’t go into a full workout without a good, solid warm-up before.

  Although here and now the punishment for overdoing it wasn’t so drastic. You could pull a muscle or hurt a tendon in the gym, and for Ian that would have meant going without tutoring fees for several hungry weeks; here, all that would happen in town at least was that you’d get painfully cold.

  It was bitter out, and it wasn’t going to get any warmer, not for several hours. What was that bit from that old Crosby, Stills, and Nash song? Something about it being the darkest time just before the dawn? Well, that wasn’t true, except maybe metaphorically—and the coldest time of day was usually just after dawn, during that hour or so before the air and ground had a chance to build up and hold whatever heat from the sun it could.

  And anybody who didn’t think there was a difference between five below, fifteen below, and thirty below probably had never set foot on squealing snow in all his life.

  He pulled back his sleeve, the cold air painful against his wrist, and glanced at his watch. It was 7:33, and shit, and he wasn’t even where the street ended in a ‘T’ and the shortcut path through the woods to the Thorsen house began.

  He picked up the pace.

  Thorian Thorsen’s big blue Bronco was sitting in the Thorsen driveway, the engine running at idle, sending up billows of smoke and clouds into the air. A long orange extension cord led from the grill into an outlet on the side of the house; a long thin rope just a few feet shorter than the cord was tied to both the car-side plug and a thick stainless steel O-ring bolted to the house.

  Running the car was profligate, by local standards. Of course, by local standards, when you accidentally cut your arm off with a piece of farm machinery you waited in the bathtub after calling 911, so that your blood wouldn’t unnecessarily stain the carpet.

  Still, the engine block heater alone would have let the car warm up quickly, once started, although the main purpose of it was to make sure the damn thing would start in the cold—it was for necessity, not comfort. But that was Thorsen’s way: go for the luxury of a heated car, and damn the expense.

  Torrie’s dad was certainly willing to suffer discomfort—Ian had been around for some of that, and knew about some more—but only if there was some real benefit to be gained from doing so. The notion of deliberately suffering to build character was foreign to him.

  Ian had no argument with that philosophy. Life was full enough of pain and heartache and just plain ordinary discomfort to build more than enough character; there was no reason to go looking for it. Hell, if the only pain Ian ever again had to suffer was from doing his stretches before he worked out, that would be fine with him.

  He chuckled. And this from somebody whose itchy feet were going to be taking him back through the Hidden Ways to Tir Na Nog sooner than later.

  Do as I say, people, not as I do, he thought, and laughed at himself. It wasn’t just that he wanted to se
e Marta again—although he certainly did—or Bóinn, or even her, although that was true, as well. And he wanted to see Arnie Selmo, for that matter. It would be good to look into Arnie’s lined face again, and see if Freya’s influence had lightened the dark cloud that seemed to have taken up permanent residence behind his tired eyes.

  But it wasn’t just the destination. It was, as Freya had suggested to him, the going.

  Home wasn’t just a place that you came back to; home was a place you had to leave every now and then, if only for the coming back.

  But when?

  There was no rush, and the fact that there was no rush warmed him in a way that the cold couldn’t even begin to touch.

  After all, he was home.

  Ian stashed his bag in the back of the Bronco—it was unlocked, of course; who would steal your car?—then walked up the path from the driveway (which was as free of snow as though it had been blasted with fire) and clumped up the wooden stairs to the porch, opening the storm door so that he could get at the heavy oak door.

  He knocked at the door, tentatively, with his gloved hands, to no response, then shrugged and pounded once on the oblong brass knocking plate in the doorpost.

  Thrummmmm.

  The whole house vibrated with the deep bass note.

  Ian didn’t wait for an answer, he turned the knob and pushed the door open six inches or so.

  “Hello the house,” he said, his voice just above a low whisper.

  The knob slipped from his gloves as the door opened the rest of the way to reveal Doc Sherve, dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans that, together with his beard and the small knit cap covering the top of his head in a way that reminded Ian more of a yarmulke than anything else, somehow made him look more like an ancient lumberjack than a physician.

  A steaming mug of coffee was in his right hand, and he grinned as he beckoned Ian inside. “Don’t just stand there. It’s cold out, in case you haven’t noticed. Come on in and get warm.”

  This didn’t make much sense. Where was Doc’s car?

  Sherve brought the mug up toward his mouth, then his face wrinkled up and he shook his head and held the mug out to Ian, just as Ian finished stripping off his gloves and dropping them on the air vent next to the door.

  Hmmm … the ring was still on his finger; he slipped it off and put it back in his pocket. He could feel the warmth of it even through his thermals.

  Ian stomped his feet a couple of times to clear his boots of snow, then wiped them carefully on the snow runner as he followed Doc toward the kitchen, sipping at the coffee as he did. It tasted better than coffee usually did in Hardwood: it was weak but hot, and at this time of year hot was far more important than strong.

  Sit around outside on a cold day drinking strong coffee whenever you needed to warm up, and you would piss brown for the rest of the day and climb the walls with your fingernails all night.

  Thorian Thorsen and his wife, Karin, were sitting at the breakfast table, drinking coffee. From the remnants of egg and scraps of bacon and pancakes on his plate, it was obvious that Thorsen had just finished polishing off his usual huge breakfast, while Karin toyed with a piece of coffee cake.

  Thorsen was half-dressed for the cold, the ropy muscles of his chest bulging against the smooth tightness of his satin polypropylene undershirt. His light brown, almost blond, hair was damp and combed back against his head, and despite his genuine smile his expression looked vaguely threatening, and made Ian want to avoid looking at his wife.

  Ian was probably just projecting. It was probably the squareness of Thorsen’s jaw, combined with the bend in a nose that should have been straight, and it was certainly in part the long white scar that ran down the right side of his face, white stitchmarks like legs on a centipede announcing that the wound had been sewn together by somebody a lot less dexterous than Doc Sherve.

  “Good morning, Ian Silver Stone,” Thorsen said.

  “Morning, Thorian.” Ian didn’t correct him. He’d gotten used to it, in Tir Na Nog, and, what the fuck, eh? That’s what Silverstein meant, after all.

  Doc chuckled, as he always did. “That’s Ian. The nonstick surface.” That hadn’t been funny the first time, or the fifty-first.

  It still wasn’t. At this point, it was about as funny as Arnie’s joke about the pope and his chauffeur, which everybody in town seemed to have to tell him at least once, and which he had to smile through as though he had never heard it before.

  For this, at least, he didn’t have to smile. But if glares could raise boils, Doc’s face would have exploded with pus some decades before.

  “Good morning, Ian,” Karin said, looking up, but not quite meeting his eyes.

  He had avoided looking at her, afraid, as always, that he would gawk. She was quite literally old enough to be his mother, but Ian found nothing matronly about her. She smelled of some vaguely lemony perfume that should have been too young for her but wasn’t. God, she was lovely, even at this hour of the morning, dressed in a thick red terry cloth robe that set off the hint of black lace where it opened at the swell of her breasts.

  Her blond, almost golden, hair was tied back in a high ponytail that left the back of her neck bare and made his fingers itch.

  Not that he would ever try to scratch that itch. There probably were a few better ways to screw up his life in Hardwood than making a pass at Torrie’s mom, but he couldn’t think of any, not offhand, unless it was, say, pissing on the Sunday smorgasbord at the Dine-a-mite.

  She still had trouble meeting his eyes. “Can I get you some breakfast?” she asked, as she always did.

  Ian shook his head. “No, thanks,” he answered, as he always did. Breakfast might well be the most important meal of the day, but Ian had always found that it went down better after he had been up and around for an hour or two. “I’ve got a few Poptarts in my bag.”

  “Poptarts.” Doc shook his head, disgusted. “Not exactly the breakfast of champions. Lousy nutrition.”

  “Hey, check the package. They’re not as bad as you think.”

  “Don’t confuse me with facts. I’m a doctor, and I know better than you.”

  There was no answering that.

  Ian sat down and sipped at the coffee. “So, what are you doing here at this absurd hour of the morning, Doc? I didn’t see your car.” The huge white Chevy Suburban that Doc used as a portable office—and, when necessary, an ambulance—would have been distinctive for the light bars on top, even if it didn’t have the word Ambulance backwards on the front, forward on the back, and five little deers with red x’s painted through them on the driver’s door.

  And if there had been a problem with Hosea, surely the car would be here, and Doc Sherve wouldn’t be sitting around drinking coffee with the Thorsens.

  Doc might as well have read his mind. “No, he’s fine. He is just sleeping in.”

  Ian heard the soft footsteps in the hall outside the kitchen.

  “That turns out not to be the case,” a low, slightly slurred voice said. “I am quite well, but I am not asleep.”

  Ian turned in his chair. Hosea Lincoln—well, that was what he was called here—stood in the kitchen doorway, wearing an ancient herringbone robe over yellow silk pajamas and slippers that looked to be as old as the robe. The robe was belted tightly; he seemed unhealthily skinny that way, much more so than in his usual outfit of plaid shirt and overalls, which at least gave the illusion of some bulk.

  His skin was the color of coffee au lait, but there was something exotic and strange-looking about his eyes, and the way he appeared to be freshly shaved, as always. If he had any trace of beard, Ian had never seen it.

  “Good morning, Hosea,” Ian said.

  “Ian Silverstein,” Hosea said, with a slight nod. “A good morning to you, as well.” He limped into the kitchen; his right hand, as usual, hung down by his side, the fingers curled into a loose and almost useless fist.

  Karin started to get up, presumably to pour him a cup of coffee, but desisted at a slight
gesture from his left hand. Hosea preferred doing for himself, when he could. Which was most of the time.

  “And since you’re not here to see to my medical needs, Doctor,” he said, as he poured steaming coffee into a mug covered with big red letters that read She Who Must Be Obeyed, “may I ask why this home has been graced by your most welcome company this morning?”

  Once, Ian would have found his phrasing awkward, but that was before he spoke Bersmal—and that was the exact construction he would have used in Bersmal—and before he had met Hosea or any of Torrie’s family.

  “My snowmobile’s out back,” Doc said. “I had another middle-of-the-night.” He grinned. “A birth, for once.” Doc liked delivering babies.

  Ian searched his memory. “Leslie Gisslequist, maybe?” It was a bit early, but…

  Doc’s grin widened. “Very good. A cute little girl, and a full seven pounds despite being two, almost three weeks, early—nominal delivery, everything you could ask for, except for Ottar’s stupid comments about the placenta.” He raised his palm. “Don’t ask, or I’ll tell you.”

  And the snowmobile? Ian tried to remember where the Gisslequist farm was. Somewhere to the northeast, diagonally outside of town. Somebody who knew what he was doing could probably get there by snowmobile, cutting across snowed-over fields, faster than a car could by the road, what with the roads covered in spots with black ice that forced a sane driver to approach any intersection at a crawl.

  Still, to hear Doc talk, you’d think that being woken in the middle of the night for some medical emergency was an unusual event, but Martha said it was a rare week that went by without him being called out at least twice, and it was one of the reasons that his talk about retirement was probably getting serious.

  Doc was in fine shape for a man his age, but he was a man his age, and he wouldn’t last forever.