A Perfect Snow

by Nora Martin

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  For my sons. Brothers. Friends.

  Chapter One

  Sky

  In cold night emptiness, the metal and plastic of the car burned fast like a dry field. The heat blew over me until I glowed and grew with it. I thought the fumes in the gas tank might make the car explode. Around the burning metal mound the snow melted, making a black lake that reflected the fire skyward.

  I pretended the car did not just belong to some Jew lawyer like the sign on the wall said—Cohen, Goldberg and Brown—but belonged to all the people I hated in this town. The smoke became them, drifting out of my life forever. I felt strong for the first time in months. With that one little match I had taken control.

  Everything really started the day my younger brother, David, got jumped in the hall by that rich pig Jason Johnson. He was a guy who owned so many clothes, he just threw them away when they got dirty. The guy smelled like new cotton and he liked putting it in people’s faces.

  I was coming down the hall when I saw Johnson slug David, calling him a dumb redneck. My brother groaned as the air whooshed out of him and he slumped back against the lockers. I saw his face go pale. David’s big, but he’s actually a wimp when it comes to fighting. The strange thing is, I know he asks for it. He’s the kind of wormy guy who calls other kids names under his breath and does annoying little things that make people mad. He does it to me too. It’s like an addiction with him; he can’t stop himself even when he ends up getting the crap beat out of him. But still, he’s my brother.

  When he noticed me I saw him mouth my name, “Ben,” in a silent plea for help. I was on that rich guy before he could suck breath. I was glad to see blood running out of his nose, messing up that fancy shirt.

  Almost as soon as I swung, the principal, Hard-Ass Harrison, hauled us to the office. Johnson, David and I got a day of in-school suspension. Of course the rich kid said David and I started it. I kept quiet; who would believe me, anyway? I’d heard that Johnson’s dad paid for the school’s new track, which explains a lot. Those rich guys can get away with about anything.

  Driving home, I couldn’t settle down until we got to the place I liked best: the spot right after the dip when the road curves up again. Here it looks as if the world comes to an end at the top of the hill, with nothing on the other side.

  I accelerated hard, letting frustration push my foot: fifty, sixty miles an hour. The speed soaked into me. I hoped, as I always did, that the truck would keep going, up and up, even after the pavement dropped back to earth. Somewhere inside I believed the truck could soar above the snow-frozen fields toward the distant Tobacco Root Mountains. Then this ugly town, the school and the kids who looked down on our family would stay below and all I would see, feel and smell would be sky.

  But of course, when the truck came over the crest of the hill, the tires stayed firmly on the road. I noticed David gripping the edge of his notebook, looking shook up.

  “Ben, you won’t tell Dad, will you?” he asked.

  “No way,” I said. What could he do, anyway? He knew as well as I did that David asked for it. “And don’t mention our detention with the RETCH either.”

  David actually smiled for a second. “What’s a RETCH?”

  “A RETCH,” I told him, “is a kid who’s rich enough to cheat. Like Jason Johnson, who doesn’t get in trouble as long as his old man has the checkbook handy.” I knew Jason had been given the same punishment as we had but I wouldn’t have been surprised if David and I were the only ones to show up in the detention room the next day.

  David went back to his sullen stare. Slowing the truck down to thirty-five for the icy corner, I reached out and tugged at the collar of his jacket. “Relax,” I said.

  “Sure,” he said. “I just got my guts smashed at school and now I’m speeding to my death with a worn-out Chevy pickup for a coffin.”

  “Oh, come on, David, ’fess up. What did you do to Johnson? Did you knock his books on the floor, or call him dumb-ass?”

  “I didn’t do anything,” David argued.

  But he always said that. I slowed the truck some more. In the distance, beyond a row of cottonwood trees, the twenty metal rectangular boxes of the trailer park where we lived came into sight.

  David was still gripping the notebook. “What is it with you, anyway? You drive this truck like it’s a race to hell.”

  I glanced at him. “I’m sick of being some kind of crap pile that people like Jason Johnson go out of their way to step over, holding their noses while they do it. It’s been that way ever since we came to this armpit town. Lonn and the guys at the shop are the only people who’ve been okay to us.”

  In late August, just a week after we came to Lodgette, Dad met Lonn down at the café. Then Lonn invited him and us to join his Wednesday night meeting.

  “In the four months we’ve been here, none of those guys, especially not Chuck and Travis, has ever been interested in me,” David returned.

  A couple of years older than us, Chuck and Travis were like Lonn’s apprentices or something. They had taken to me from the first time David and I went to the meeting with Dad. But I knew why they ignored David.

  “Don’t act so eager to please them,” I said. “It’s like you’d turn yourself purple if they said to.”

  David stared at me. “Look who’s talking, Mr. Big Man. It’s not like they let you in on everything.”

  “They will.”

  “Maybe, but nobody else in Lodgette ever said boo to you,” David said.

  “I don’t see you hanging out with guys from the football team that you quit,” I snapped back at him.

  “I’ve made some friends,” David said.

  “Oh, right. The cow kids fresh from the manure factory, they’re as tough as gophers. Stick their heads out of the ground just long enough for people like Johnson to get a shot at them.”

  “We’re cow kids too,” he said. “Remember the stares we got when we first came to school? Besides, you may wear a football uniform, but it doesn’t mean you’re part of the team. I wasn’t going to be a bench warmer like you.”

  I felt bad for giving him a hard time. And he was right. If we were still in Prairie Springs, he would have made the varsity team, not just the junior varsity team. And he would have played in every game. But here in Lodgette he didn’t have a chance.

  A mile down the hill I pulled into the parking space left between the litter of oil barrels and car parts.

  Our trailer sat on concrete blocks. Rust stains ran down the sides, as if over the years the trailer had bled and no one cared enough to bandage it.

  “I don’t think the landlord is ever going to clean this up,” David said as we cut our way through the gray snow to the trailer.

  As we passed by old Mrs. Kenny’s trailer, I saw she was hauling out a large plastic turkey to put on her flat roof. As she started for the ladder I ran over to her.

  “Jeez, Ben, what are you doing?” David called to me.

  Mrs. Kenny waved to me as I approached. “Hello, Ben.”

  “Time for Thanksgiving already?” I teased as I took the turkey and climbed the ladder. I put it next to the tires that kept the metal roof from flapping in the wind. I anchored the worn plastic statue and jumped down. “There you are, Mrs
. Kenny.”

  “You’re a good neighbor, Ben,” she said.

  As I stepped through the rim of ice around our door, I saw Dad sitting in the old recliner in front of the TV. His ragged cowboy boots were tossed on the rug by the chair.

  Suspended in a cloud of heat, Mom stood in the kitchen making dinner. I went for the refrigerator and grabbed the orange juice. “What’s cooking?” I asked her.

  “Meatloaf. Why are you so late tonight, Ben?”

  I shrugged. “Couldn’t get the Chevy started again. We had to jump it. I think it needs a new battery.” I watched to see Dad’s reaction.

  He turned around and looked at me. His face was easy. Maybe things went good for him today, I thought.

  “You’ve been saying that for a month, Ben.” There was a note of teasing in his voice. “I keep hoping you’ll stop at Lonn’s garage. Have him show you a thing or two. There’s nothing he likes better than to have you young guys at the shop with him.”

  “I’ll do it,” David offered. Dad ignored him. David couldn’t please Dad as easy as I could. For a long time I had figured that it was because I was older and learned to do things before David did, but finally I realized it was because of the same old thing that always got David into trouble. He could never just be David. He was either too eager to please or pissed off and sulking.

  Picking the football up off the floor, I perched on the arm of the sofa and started passing the ball hand to hand. “How’d job hunting go today?”

  “Not so much as a bite,” Dad said. “This town has no use for an old cowhand like me. Investment brokers and art dealers are the only guys that can get a job now. The Jew boys running everything make sure of that.”

  “Something will come along,” I said.

  “You still think there’s a Santa Claus or a tooth fairy, don’t you?” David said.

  I threw the football at him. “Get a handle on it, David.” I didn’t want him to ruin Dad’s mood.

  David caught the ball, but he lost his balance and slammed against the kitchen wall, making the whole trailer shake. He went on, “It’s just like you were saying about school, Ben. If you’re not one of these guys with money, you don’t have a chance.”

  I knew David was exactly right but I just didn’t think we should discourage Dad right at that moment. “When calving season starts, there’ll be need for an extra hand,” I insisted.

  “I’ll only work on a real ranch. I don’t want to work with California college kids, or people that don’t speak English. Those people are just playing at being ranch hands,” Dad said. “Like I told the new owners at the Triple T.”

  The Triple T was the ranch where we’d spent five years, back when I was between eight and thirteen. It was the best. There was a nice house for us to live in, green hills all around and good hunting right on the place. But actually we’d been at four ranches that I could remember and several more when I was real little. In every place it didn’t take too long for Dad to find something he thought was wrong. Then he started complaining. He’d keep at it until he got fed up and quit or the owners would ask him to leave. Finally, this last time he couldn’t find another ranch to go to. So we ended up here.

  “You’d have a better chance if you were a Mexi wetback,” I joked. “Then they’d jump to hire you. Maybe you should fake being a wetback, Dad. Dye your hair black and shuffle into the job saying, ‘Sí, señor, twelve kids, give job.’” Dad and David finally laughed.

  “I did meet up with Lonn down at the Kitchen Café this morning,” Dad said. “He invited me to join him and another guy for coffee.”

  “What guy?” I asked.

  “Someone new. He’s never been to the meeting, but he just bought the Quick Mart up by the highway.” Dad’s eyes were starting to glitter as they did when he was excited about something. “Lonn said, right to the guy, that I needed a job.”

  “It’s sure not like when you were boss on the ranches,” I said. “Then it was you that passed out the jobs.” As soon as I said it I was sorry. Dad’s face scrunched up in angry lines. Damn, I swore to myself.

  “Anyway,” Dad said, “this new guy said he’d come to the meeting tonight. You boys make a good show for him.”

  “Sure thing,” David said. “Let’s play up to this guy. Maybe he can get work for all of us.”

  “You make this Lonn sound like some kind of superman,” Mom said over the sound of running water. “He’s just a mechanic. I wonder about all his claims to being a preacher. I’d like to know where he trained to be a minister.”

  “Maybe if you came along to one of the Sunday family services, Donna, you’d find out,” Dad told her, raising his voice to match hers. “Lonn is more than a preacher. He is a real leader. You should see him in action.”

  “No, thanks,” Mom answered. “I’ll stick with what I am comfortable with. And I think you should too.” Mom still went to the Catholic church with our aunt Jana.

  Dad ignored Mom and reached out his hand to pat my shoulder. “You’ve always been top boys. I know you’ll come along and help me out tonight.”

  “Frank,” Mom said from the kitchen, “don’t make them go listen to that stuff. They’re almost grown-up. Let them make their own choices.” She paused for a moment. “Supper’s ready. Come eat.”

  Mom spooned scoops of mashed potatoes into a serving bowl. The bowl looked small in my mom’s large hand. She was tall, a couple inches taller than Dad. She could ride a horse as well as anyone. And even though she had always taken care of the cooking and house stuff, there had been nothing she liked better than working outdoors. That seemed to have changed since we moved. She hardly did anything outside the trailer, except her part-time job cleaning rooms at the motel in town. She had grown quiet, as if her spirit was shriveled up. Maybe it was because every time she tried to make a suggestion Dad seemed to get upset. They are both giving up, I thought.

  David looked envious as Dad put his arm around me. In his overeager voice he told Dad, “I’ll say hi to the new guy.”

  The hot brown smell of hamburger gravy rose in the steam and clung to the vinyl walls. It trickled down in small watery rivulets that, overnight, would freeze.

  Dad pressed the mute button on the TV remote. “This is the first break I’ve gotten since coming here, except for meeting Lonn.” He wiped his hands on his jeans as he came to the table. “I’d think you’d be happy about it, Donna.”

  At sixteen and seventeen David and I were much taller than our dad. Dad was five foot eight and thin like a weathered fence post. Below the short white sleeves of his T-shirt, curving tendons stood out along his arms like gnarled wood. His hair and skin were hardened from working outside.

  “It just isn’t fair that outsiders are coming into Montana and getting work over people like you,” I said. I was thinking of the Triple T. When the new owners took over they wanted to turn it into a fancy vacation ranch and hire people who didn’t know the first thing about cattle but looked good sitting on a horse.

  “I’ve got a feeling things are going to change tonight,” Dad said.

  Chapter Two

  Sand

  At seven o’clock I stood with David and Dad at Lonn’s auto repair shop along with two dozen other men. The shop was messy with an oil and gas smell that felt comfortable to me.

  Around us men unfolded metal chairs. About the only other young guys at the meeting were Chuck and Travis.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Campbell,” Chuck replied. “I see you’re still dragging your brother along.”

  “He wanted to come,” I said. But David stood by himself, not talking to anyone. Even our dad had fallen in with his usual group.

  I wanted to keep the conversation with Chuck and Travis going. “I hear there’s someone new tonight.”

  Travis confirmed it. “Lonn keeps them coming.”

  “It’s time to start,” I heard Lonn say.

  I was hoping that Chuck and Travis would ask me to sit with them. But Chuck said, “Talk to
you later.” He and Travis took seats on either side of Lonn himself. They looked like bodyguards.

  I went over and sat by David. As the others got settled I had trouble sitting still. I always felt weird when Lonn had us pray at the beginning. But it didn’t last too long. I looked around the cavernous building. The walls and roof were made of brown sheet metal held together by heavy steel beams. Flags were hanging from the walls: American flags, Montana state flags and some homemade flags with a bleeding cross sewn on them.

  As soon as the prayer ended, Lonn started asking questions about what had happened to various people during the week.

  “Jack, tell us what you did about your daughter,” Lonn said. “Did you tell her she couldn’t see that boy again?”

  Jack shook his head in frustration. “I told her she was grounded from seeing him. But she don’t listen to me.”

  “God didn’t intend for the races to mix, making everyone into mud people,” Lonn said. “And since that boy’s mother is from Nam, he is impure.”

  “If you could talk to her,” Jack said. “Tell her.”

  “Be firm. As Guardians of the Identity, we must remain strong in our beliefs. We are here to take a stance.” Lonn was already turning his attention to my dad. “How did job hunting go for you this week, Frank?”

  I thought this was a strange thing to ask, since Dad had just seen Lonn that morning.

  Dad shook his head. “No luck.”

  “Did you try all of my suggestions?” Lonn’s voice was warm.

  “Not yet,” Dad answered. “But I will.”

  Lonn nodded to Dad.

  He really did sound encouraged, I thought. With one sentence, Lonn could get Dad looking for work, while three days of Mom’s pleading wouldn’t move him out of his chair.

  “We want to welcome a newcomer, Rob Ballard, to Guardians of the Identity,” Lonn continued.

  “Thanks,” Rob said. He looked self-conscious.

  “Rob has been to meetings like ours in Idaho. He brings the greetings of the like-minded,” Lonn said. “Recently he sold his business there and now he hopes to make a new start in our community.”