9. Wolfe
wolfe
In the clear, cold light of morning, I reached for my phone.
The ping I’d heard had been set to signal texts from Young Tommy, who was not young, and Deputy Hartland, so I didn’t want to ignore them.
Blurry-eyed, I read the text that told me that though the roads were clear, the temperatures were below zero, and people were advised to stay at home and off the roads.
While I wasn’t exactly a rebel, I had plans that day.
Dropping off sketches and lanyard samples to Mabel, a trip to Billings, a visit to the clinic, maybe lunch, and then back to Hysham for more groceries.
An ordinary day, all things considered. Nothing a little cold weather should get in the way of.
Besides, the last thing I wanted to do was go without something to focus on.
In the bed next to me, curled like a cat, bedclothes around his shoulders, fair hair rumpled on the pillow, was Blue.
He’d come to my room the night before, his sobs high-pitched in the eerie silence that always followed a strong, forceful storm.
He’d slept the night at my side, the weight of another human being dipping the mattress, tracing an awareness across my skin all the way until dawn.
Perhaps I might have comforted him another way, taking him back to the couch, staying with him until he fell back asleep. I knew the meaning of restraint, but it had been beyond me to turn him away, not with his whisper cries, words said between gulps of air, the way his trembling shook the bed.
So I did what any man would do. I told myself it was what any man would do, letting him clutch at me, his slender arms around my neck as though I was the only buoy in an empty, endless, ice-clogged ocean.
I took him and settled him in the bed, easing his arms away so I could breathe, but not pushing him away.
Not objecting when he lined his body against mine, tucking himself close, as though we were being tossed in an icy windstorm, and my body was a shield against the elements.
It reminded me, that closeness, of sharing a cot in prison after a deal had been made.
A blowjob traded for cigarettes. Blowjobs traded for blowjobs.
A hand job for noodles and kisses for chocolate bars.
Or sometimes, on a rare night, the sharing was just for the closeness of another human body.
Nothing exchanged hands then. Only energy. Warmth.
Which, somehow, the next morning, brought litters of avoided glances, lines for mouths, extra aggression.
The desire to forget the vulnerability brought about by skin on skin, comfort in silence, the gentleness that came when someone, someone who’d probably murdered three people and melted their bodies in a vat of lye, adjusted the wool blanket around your shoulders.
This went beyond that. Blue wasn’t using me, but he was desperate.
To be saved from nightmares. Of the emptiness of not knowing who he was.
He’d said it was the silence that scared him, the nothingness.
The still air and dark blue skies glittered with stars.
Where the only thing you could do was look up and up and up and, unbalanced, fall backwards into the hard snow.
I knew, as I sat up, clutching the phone in my hand, that I would rather not have to sit in the cabin all day with those memories pressing in on me. Blue’s hands on my neck, his warm breath on my skin. His body, lithe and slender as it fit against me, curved into me.
I had been alone too long to be unaffected. My only solution was to keep busy. Act as if the sharing had been simply that and not, as it seemed, that those moments, stolen in darkness, had set off a series of sparks inside of me. Switches going on, breakers on the verge of failing.
“We have a busy day,” I said, like everything was normal. I pushed the bedclothes back, shivering in the chilly air as I slid around him on the bed. He could stay in bed as long as he liked. It might be easier if he did.
But as I made it to the floor without touching any part of him, he sat up, his fair hair wild around his head as though the fairies had been at it, tear stains on his cheeks, eyes so very blue.
Like he’d come from some otherwhere, and had found himself in my bed, with no recollection of how he’d got there.
I looked away, searching for my jeans. Thick wool socks. Planned my route along Bauer Road to Mabel’s house, as if I’d not gone that way a dozen times or more.
“Are we still going?” he asked, as if he somehow assumed that his tears the night before meant that he’d be subjected to some sort of discipline, or that he’d get left behind.
“We sure are,” I said, making my voice sound a little more bright than it usually did. “I’ll be glad of the company, so you better get up and get dressed.”
There went the five minutes where I’d been planning to set myself to rights, to shed the warmth and the contact, banning them to where they ought to go.
Into nothingness, into a place where I couldn’t think about them anymore.
To drink hot tea while standing at the sink, looking out the window across waves of white, to the ragged tree line of cottonwoods, bare in winter, just on this side of the Yellowstone River.
Blue washed up, then I washed up. We got dressed in silence; I in far sturdier clothing than Blue had. I would remedy that as soon as humanly possible. I was resigned to his company for the whole day and knew I didn’t mind it.
I thought about stopping at the Bean There in Hysham, as we didn’t have any milk for tea, or even bread for toast. The Bean There could make us hot drinks for the trip to Billings.
But first, as I pulled my gloves out of the pockets of my parka, I called Mabel, just to make sure she would be at home in about twenty minutes, and that maybe after I’d be headed to the Bean There.
“Surely I will, sweet Wolfe,” she said, in that bright voice of hers, so welcoming. “And I’m baking today, so I’ll have a treat for you.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said, because you gave Mable an inch and she would take up the whole road, smiling and kind and grandmotherly, and I just didn’t think I could handle that much affection today.
I’d built walls, and they needed to stay up.
Letting Mabel give me a hug would be like handing her a hand grenade, and she was a dead-eye shot with kindness.
“Certainly I don’t,” she said. “But I’m going to. Are you out of tea? Is that why you’re planning to go to the Bean There?”
I dipped my chin to my chest and tried to wiggle out from beneath the approaching kindness.
“They might be closed today, so are you?” When I didn’t answer, she said, “Wolfe?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said, giving in. “Well, we’re out of milk and sugar.”
“Well, I’ve got a thermos you can borrow,” she said, extra chirpy because she’d gotten the upper hand. “You like pecans, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Then I’ll see you when you get here.”
I made sure to grab the small grocery bag that had sketches and sample lanyards, zipped up my parka, and started to sweat.
“Two pairs of socks will make those fit better,” I said, watching Blue tug on his ratty hoodie, and then his pea coat. “Let me get you a pair.”
By the time we left the cabin, I was sweating in my parka, glad to be out in the blue-sky day, snow crunching beneath my feet, a very cool breeze sifting around my neck. Blue followed, stepping into my larger tracks, the top layer of snow making an icy crack-crack sound with each step.
I made sure Blue could get in the passenger side, then did a quick walk-around before getting in myself. The truck was old, but it started up right away. I sat there with my hands on the wheel, letting the engine warm up.
My phone pinged. I took it out and read a second text from the local law about staying home, if possible.
“What’s that?” asked Blue, wide-eyed and eager, as if we were bound for adventure and he wanted a look at the map.
“We’re supposed to stay home,” I said, showing him the text. “But we’re not going to.”
“So we’re rebels.”
“That we are.”
We weren’t the only rebels on the road disobeying a direct text from Young Tommy, but there weren’t that many of us either. I passed one truck on Bauer Road, and then, in town, I passed two trucks on Taylor Road going the other way.
The roads in town were plowed and gritted, but a tad slick, so I went slowly, grateful that I’d paid out the extra cash for tires with teeth.
When I parked in front of her small gray house, Mabel was waiting on her top step, wrapped up for a hike through the arctic.
In her arms, Mister Rocket had on a red puffy coat with little holes for his legs; his happy pants creating clouds around his head.
“Hello sweetness,” I said to him, scratching his neck. He allowed this, gave me a differential sniff to the back of my hand, and then wiggled to be let down. “Hello, Mabel.”
“Come in,” she said, squeezing my arm, letting me know she was glad I was there.
I had left the truck running so Blue wouldn’t get cold, and though she glanced at the truck, she didn’t seem to notice him, which was a good thing because he was a secret I was keeping until he was comfortable having it told.
Following Mabel inside, I wiped my boots on the mat just inside the door and inhaled the warm baking smells and the lemon oil, and the sense of care.
She unzipped Mister Rocket out of his coat, and I realized he’d only been put into it so I could admire him in it.
“That’s a cute coat,” I said, watching her fuss. “Where did you get it?”
“Special order from Malone Feed plus, I have help.” I shut my mouth after that last statement, not wanting to open the door about Blue. “How many will you need?”
“How many can you make?” she asked. “I especially like this one that looks like a candy cane.”
She got up and went over to the counter and set in front of me an antique-looking thermos in blue plaid. It was tall and looked heavy. She handed me a gallon plastic baggie full of cut squares of the densest pecan brownies I’d ever seen.
The timer on her stovetop went off, and I watched as she put on huge oven mitts and pulled out a metal pan. She tipped the pan so I could see the contents: a bubbling peach cobbler. She set this on the stove and smiled at me as she took off the oven mitts.
“Who’s that for?” I asked, a little jealous though I knew I shouldn’t be. Mabel knew I loved her brownies, and she’d made them especially for me.
“My friend Jack,” she said. She tipped her head as if pointing to where Jack was. “He’s at the feed and grain helping Morgan deal with the stock and back orders, and driving Morgan around.”
“Oh, I see,” I said. Mabel had all kinds of friends in town, though I’d never heard of one named Jack before this. “Well, I best be going if I want to get to Billings and back.”
“Drive safely,” she said, waiting until I’d zipped up my parka before kissing my cheek and loading my arms with the thermos and baggie of brownies. “Blizzards can be tricky, but you should have good weather today.”