Frozen Assets

by Lee Schultz

  I stopped and took a deep breath, gave myself a mental pep talk. Okay, I’m going to have to do this myself. A couple of calming breaths later, my brain was functioning as it’s supposed to. I grabbed a couple of black trash bags, stuffed some blankets inside and tied the bags shut. I stoked the fire so the house would be warm on my return. I dashed outside to the garage and hooked up my wood-hauling sled to my snowmobile. I didn’t even bother to close the garage door, but headed back into the woods at top speed. I almost missed the place where I had left the man, but caught it before I had gone too far past it. I unhooked the sled and turned the machine around to face the way I had come. I dragged the sled into the woods until I found the still motionless form. I peeled away his wet outer clothes, wrapped him snugly in the blankets from the trash bags, wrapped the trash bags around him over the blankets, and strapped him to the sled. I slung the tow rope over my shoulder and put my weight into it. Gradually the sled started moving. If it suddenly broke free and moved easily, I’d fall on my face. This was a lot of work and by the time I had covered the twenty yards or so to the snow sled, I was gasping for air and sweating like a Florida summer tourist. It was with great relief that I cranked up the snowmobile after I had hooked up the sled and made sure my cargo wouldn’t fall off if I hit a bump.

  As a rule, I’m a conservative - read slow - driver whether it’s my truck or a snowmobile, but this time I tossed out my rule book and went, as my friend Dallas would say, "hell bent for Texas." I broke all the land speed records getting back to my home. I unhooked the sled and dragged it onto the deck, then into the house. I didn’t even wince at the marks it made on my pine floor.

  I unhooked Walters from the sled and rolled him onto the floor in front of the fire. I checked the phones, but both were still no good to me. I thought of thawing him out then driving him to the hospital, but I’d have to plow the road first and that might take a couple of hours. I couldn’t call the ambulance and have them meet me at the end of the road, because like an idiot I had forgotten to put my two-way radio in the charger, and the battery was dead. My cavalier attitude regarding such details was really coming back to bite me in the ass.

  In the end, I made a bed on the floor, stripped the FBI agent and myself, and rolled him onto one side. Then I saw the blood on the back of his head. I made a snap decision that warming him took precedence over examining the head wound, which wasn’t bleeding any more. I

  covered him with a blanket, instructed the dog to curl up next to his front, then lay down under the blanket and pasted myself against his back and rear. I almost screeched when I touched him, he was so cold.

  I didn’t fight the fatigue that was enveloping me, and as I drifted off, I figured when I woke I would either be next to a warm live man, or a warm dead one.

  12

  I came instantly awake when the refrigerator kicked on. It took me a few moments to orient myself, then the morning’s events rolled over me like a tsunami. I raised my head and looked over the shoulder of the man next to me - alive, or dead? His skin seemed pinker, not the waxy paleness of death. I raised up further and leaned over his shoulder. This necessitated my breasts resting on his upper arm, but at that point, it was irrelevant. His eyes were open and he turned his head to look at me. His pupils were slightly off, one slightly larger than the other. Oh-oh. Concussion or worse. He looked intently at me, and then the light dawned in his face. I guessed he had recognized me He tried to speak. I put a hand on his shoulder.

  "Your virtue is safe with me. This just looks like I’m taking advantage of an unconscious man."

  His lips twitched and one corner of his mouth turned up slightly. A good sign.

  "Here’s the deal. Since I know you’re alive, I’m going out to plow the driveway so an ambulance can get in to pick you up. So you just stay there, don’t move, and I’ll be back. Got it?"

  He started to nod, then winced and mumbled. "Hmhm." I took that as a yes.

  I took my cell phone with me and called 911 as I went out to fire up the pickup. Dispatch advised me that the main roads had been plowed for the most part, which was a relief. I don’t know what I would have done if they weren’t.

  It took about forty-five minutes to plow out to the road, and when I made the last push I saw the ambulance coming up the road. I waved at them, turned the pickup around, and headed in. We arrived at my turnaround at about the same time and I waved them into the front door.

  I breathed a small prayer of thanks to the snow gods and anyone else who might be listening - he was still alive. Barely awake, but alive. While the medics hauled all their gear into the house - heart monitor, electronic blood pressure cuff, oxygen tank, IV bag - I unwrapped Walters and rolled him onto his back. He protested mildly, his eyelids fluttering as if the effort to open his eyes was more than he could muster. His skin color was good, he had "pinked up" nicely, and although he was still cool to the touch despite the blankets, dog and fire, he wasn’t shivering. A good sign.

  I started a pot of water warming on the stove, to warm the intravenous fluids, then I threw some more wood on the fire and gofer’d for the medics while one strapped a mask onto his face and started oxygen flow, and the paramedic found a vein in his right arm and started an IV. She tested the temperature of the fluid bag, pronounced it perfect, then started the fluid running into Walters’ body. I watched the lines tracing on the heart monitor. They meant nothing to me. I asked Fern, the paramedic about it, and she said his heart was beating a little too slow for her tastes, but it was otherwise doing what it was supposed to. His blood pressure, initially way too low, began to slowly rise as the fluids coursed through his body. He started breathing normally, and apparently was sucking in enough oxygen to get his brain going again, for he opened his eyes and looked at me. He raised a hand, pulled the mask away from his face, and mouthed "Thanks."

  It seemed like a lifetime, but it was actually only about thirteen minutes from the time they thundered through my front door to the time the ambulance headed down the road toward the highway.

  I was completely drained of physical and emotional energy. I get that way on really critical ambulance runs, too. Everything goes on high alert, I’m thinking in four directions at once, I temporarily forget all my aches and pains and move faster than I normally do and lift more than is probably good for me. Then I spend the next day recharging my batteries, so to speak. But I won’t give it up until I absolutely have to. The sense of satisfaction of having maybe saved a life is priceless. Even when we can’t do anything and the patient dies, I still feel like we’ve provided some solace to the survivors.

  Today I had won. I hoped. Because hypothermia is really strange. You can warm the person up - very slowly, because if you do it too fast, the body can’t keep up with the toxins released by dead and dying cells - he can be sitting up in bed talking, eating meals, seemingly the picture of health, and then drop dead the next day. If Walters was lucky, he would make it all the way back. If not, he could end up minus toes, fingers, maybe even feet or hands. I hadn’t bothered to thoroughly inspect him for injury, simply because there was damn-all I could do about it except exactly what I did.

  I Monday-morning-quarterbacked the whole thing, just as I do after a critical ambulance run, then after awhile gave it up as finished, done with, over - right or wrong it’s a done deal.

  I decided not to go into the hospital to see how the guy was doing. I figured the sheriff’s department would notify anybody who needed notifying. The medics had taken the bag of his clothing that I had given them, presumably with his identification in it. His car still sat in my driveway.

  I said screw it and poured myself a Guinness.

  13

  "What the bloody fuck were you doing sneaking around in the woods during a snowstorm!"

  I was addressing none other than Agent Walters, who was sitting across from me at a corner table in the Eatery. He had the grace to look slightly abashed.

  "I figured it was a good time to try a
nd get to the back of your property to see if I could learn anything."

  I rolled my eyes. "In a snowstorm."

  "Yeah, I figured everybody else would be settling in to sit out the storm, and I could do a fast in-and-out. I thought maybe if I went in from your property, I could always say I was just checking it out and golly gee whiz, I must have wandered into the other guy’s part of the woods." He shrugged. "Oh well, it was a good idea at the time."

  I had stopped at the Eatery for lunch, because I particularly liked their sandwiches. The Eatery is one of those Upper Peninsula cafes where the geezers meet for morning coffee and people go for a "home cooked" meal. In reality, the food is about the same as anywhere else, but the Eatery is next to the Jubilee grocery store, so it was convenient. I had just picked up a menu when someone slid into the seat across from me. "You mind?"

  I stared in surprise. "Agent Walters! They spring you already? I figured they’d keep you longer than two days." That’s when I let my mouth get the better of my common sense. But I recovered well. "You play the harp?"

  He looked at me, puzzled. "The harp? Why would I play the - oh."

  "Because you got so close to the angels they could’ve tickled you with their feathers. You very nearly became," I paused for effect, "an FBIcicle."

  He grimaced at the pun and rubbed the back of his head. He turned his head so I could see the patch where the doctor had shaved away the hair and sewed his scalp back together.

  I made an "ouch" face.. "That looks like it hurt like hell."

  "Yeah, I’ve still got a headache from where somebody whacked me on the head. Got a hairline skull fracture. "

  "Is this where I make a wiseass remark about thick skulls?"

  "Go ahead, if it’ll make you feel better." He raised his eyebrows.

  I shook my head. "So, did you make it out with all your fingers and toes?"

  He raised his hands and splayed his fingers. "All intact and operating. But I guess they’ll still ache for a long time." He put his hands on the table and looked at me directly. "I just wanted to thank you."

  I tried to wave off what was coming, but he put up a hand to stop me.

  "Just shut up and listen for a minute, okay? This probably isn’t any easier for me than it is for you. You saved my life. If you hadn’t found me, you would have found my bones in the spring, assuming some animal hadn’t dragged me off somewhere. I thought I could be cute and cut some corners while my partner was out of town, and I nearly paid dearly for my arrogance. I don’t know what made you go where you did, but all I can say is, thanks."

  I slapped down the urge to downplay the whole thing. One thing I have learned to do is to accept offerings graciously. "I’m just glad I didn’t look out the window and decide it was a good day to cocoon."

  He cocked his head quizzically. "Cocoon?"

  "You know, like hibernate, curl up by the fire with a good book, wait until the roads are plowed, stuff like that. That’s what I usually do when the power’s out or there’s a huge snow fall. The only reason I even ventured out is seeing your SUV in the driveway. Actually, I was pissed, I thought you were spying on me."

  "Who says I wasn’t?" The gleam in his eye told me he was, as the Brits, say, winding me up.

  I looked away from him. "I don’t like the idea that I’m a suspect in a crime. I’ve done a lot of stuff in my life that I wish I hadn’t, but I’ve never purposely committed a crime, much less murdered someone. Not, she hastened to add," I said, deadpan, "that I’m not capable of killing someone who needs to be put out of my misery."

  "Hmmm," he said, "there are a lot of people this world would be better off without -"

  "Total wastes of air."

  " - but who’s going to make the list?"

  I laughed. "Yeah. Once the losers were gone, they’d start moving up the chain. Who’ll assassinate the assassins and all that."

  The waitperson’s appearance interrupted the thread, and we ordered lunch. It occured to me that I might not want to be seen lunching with a guy who thought I might be a murderer. Oh well. The waitress brought my iced tea, and I tore open a pink package of sweetener and dumped half of it into the glass. Walters had coffee, black. He blew on it, then sipped.

  "So," he said, leaning back after replacing the mug, "now you’re responsible for me."

  I knew exactly what he meant. It’s an idea originating with, I think, the ancient Chinese, that if you save a man’s life, you’re responsible for him. "Nuh-uh. I’m not Chinese, and neither are you."

  He raised his eyebrows in surprise that I got the reference.

  "Don’t look at me that way," I said, "just because I choose to live like a backwoods hick doesn’t mean I can’t read. I’ll pick up on just about anything you want to toss at me. I’m a regular database of stuff I’ll never use, things I’ve remembered from books I’ve read."

  He put up both hands, palms out. "Okay, okay, I wasn’t insulting your intelligence. It’s just that I don’t meet too many people who read a lot. I guess it’s easier to watch television or listen to the radio, so you can do something else at the same time. Kinda hard to read and do other things."

  I didn’t tell him I quite frequently knit and read at the same time.

  "I was Attention Deficit Hyperactive before they had invented it, and my mother discovered that she could put me in a corner with a pile of books and I’d stay out of her hair all day except to occasionally ask her to help me with a word. This was when I was about four. By the time I got to grade school, I was reading college- and adult-level books. I was my teachers’ favorite show and tell because I could spell anything they threw at me, define most of what was on the word lists, and rarely stumbled when I read. In fact, in third grade, I got pulled into the first grade classes to run the slow kids’ reading circles."

  He looked me intently. "How old did you say you were again?" then grinned.

  I threw the wadded up sweetener package at him. "Just because you’re a baby doesn’t mean you can make fun of your elders."

  "Okay, Grandma, you win."

  "Call me Grandma again and you die."

  This juvenile exchange was terminated when the waitperson arrived with lunch. We ate silently for a few minutes. Several people greeted me as they passed by on their way to their tables, casting curious glances at Walters. I figured by the end of the day the rumor mill would be grinding like crazy. Oh well. Always happy to give people something to entertain themselves with.

  Walters finished his sandwich at the same time I did, and in unison, we leaned back and sighed. Then we burst into laughter at the synchronicity. "Great minds think alike and all that, eh?" I said.

  "Don’t be so sure." he said cryptically. Before I could respond, he waved our waitperson over and ordered a piece of the "homade" - honest, that’s how the menu spells it - blackberry pie. He looked questioningly at me.

  I considered for about three seconds then said "What the hell, you only live once. Yeah, a slice for me, too." I figured I had already burned off the equivalent number of calories during what I had dubbed "The FBIcicle Caper."

  He attacked his pie the way I go after chocolate, showing no mercy.

  "Jeez," I said, "doesn’t anybody ever make you a pie? You look like a man who’s been starving for months."

  He looked me in the eye as he licked a dab of blackberry sauce from his upper lip. "I eat out a lot. I know a good piece of pie when I’m introduced to one."

  Our waitperson politely asked if everything was okay, did we want anything else, and then put the bill on the table. I started to ask her to split it out, but Walters waved her off. "This one’s on me. I’ll charge it to the investigation."

  "You can do that?"

  He smiled wickedly. "I can do a lot of things."

  I let that one go.

  14

  On Sundays, I like to go out into the woods and commune with nature, as it were. In nice weather, Holy Wah and I meander through the woods, looki
ng for wild berries and mushrooms in season, or the various plants good for herbal remedies I like to use. In winter, I don either snowshoes or skis, and we schuss (what a great word! It sounds just like the sound the skis make sliding in the snow) along the trails that I am lengthening, one wood-burning year at a time. When I make firewood (in the U.P. we don’t "cut" firewood, we "make" wood) I use the whole tree, cutting and stacking the pieces right there. At some time in the future, I move the wood to my woodshed, where I use an axe and a hydraulic splitter, then stack the chunks in a tidy pile, with each tier at a ninety-degree angle from the one below, for better air circulation and stability of the stack.

  Every couple of years I have a friend bring his bulldozer out and push up the stumps left behind, which I then cut up for firewood or run through the chipper and use the chips for the paths through the woods. I figure at this rate, it will take me about twenty years to completely circumnavigate my property. And I fully intend to still be making my own wood in twenty years. That’s one reason this area has such a high percentage of old folks who still live alone in their homes - by the time you make the wood, stoke the fire, and haul out the ashes, you’re either dead, or in excellent physical shape.

  So this particular Sunday, two days after Agent Walters almost became an FBIcicle, Holy Wah and I were blissfully following a trail which intersected with the snowmobile trail. As long as I didn’t get flattened by a snowsled, the trail was good skiing. We’d been out about half an hour when HW growled, soft and low. I stopped and listened. Sometimes the silence in the winter woods is deafening in its total absence of sound. Hearing nothing, I looked in the direction HW was looking, and saw nothing. At first. Then something moved slightly and my eyes focused on the man standing about 100 feet from me, barely visible in the trees. He was wearing a white snowsuit, white face mask, and white boots. His eyes were the only part not covered. Had he not moved, I would never have seen him. My stomach clenched when I saw the long dark thing he carried at his side - a long gun of some sort, too large to be a run-of-the-mill hunting rifle. There was no shine to it - it was only visible because it contrasted with the snow. Even knowing he was there, it was hard to believe he wasn’t just another tree in the woods.