Chapter 3
EVAN
Ilove spending time with Gramps, but the quiet calm of the cabin is the balm to my soul whenever I return from town. And I can’t wait to get there tonight, settle in, and make some chili.
With the snow coming down as heavily as it is, I’ll barely make it out of town in time.
Leticia Gates catches me in the general store, her bony hand on my arm as she asks after Gramps.
Every time I see her, I can hardly believe how old she’s gotten, her hair white now, her smile just as broad but with far more wrinkles around the corners.
Back when I was in high school, she was the secretary, sometimes the back-up librarian.
Now, she’s retired and spends most of her time hanging out in her granddaughter’s flower shop. Or being in the right place at the right time to delay me on my way back to my cabin.
I tell her that Gramps is doing fine, that I’m doing fine, and ask her if she’s going to make it home okay. She thanks me and says her grandson is coming to pick her up at any moment.
And outside, while loading up my truck, Carp finds me.
River Carpenter is the current mayor and head of the town council.
Tall, the kind of guy that might be called a hipster if he wasn’t so damn down-to-earth.
Tattoos up and down both of his arms, a pair of aviators under his maroon beanie, his thick, green wool coat instantly recognizable around here.
“Hey, man,” he says, first clapping me on the back, then reaching down to grab a bag of salt and haul it up into the back of the truck. “How are you?”
“Good. Don’t need help, Carp.”
“Course you don’t,” he says, hefting in the next item. “How’s your grandpa? Heard Beverly paid you a visit.”
“So that was a setup.”
Carp’s grin only grows. “Hell, man, can you blame us? Ever since Wilbur had that fall, the project’s been dragging. Nobody around here has the skills to do what you guys do.”
I bite my tongue to keep from giving in.
If I say yes now, I’m only going to suffer in the future.
Unless I can sneak into the site in the middle of the night and make progress alone, which is not a suggestion I’ll even make.
Carp will definitely have something to say about insurance and liability if I do.
“You’re right,” I say, closing the bed of my truck and turning to look at him. “I can’t blame you, but I’m still saying no. You have any other jobs that need doing, you let me know. But I’m not up for this one.”
Carp sighs and follows me around to the driver’s side of my truck, waving to me as I hop in. Before I pull away, he points at his temple, making a think about it motion.
I nod, even knowing I won’t be thinking about it, and start the long, careful drive up the side of the mountain.
I shouldn’t have stayed in town for as long as I did. The roads are already starting to get bad. Luckily, I know every turn and curve of this mountain road. I know the valleys and smooth parts, where the guard rails disappear and leave nothing but a steep, tree-filled decline below.
And when I finally get back up to the cabin, hours after I planned to return, I have to get my ass into gear to finish up everything that needs doing.
Blue is at the door to greet me, her tail wagging excitedly, but I have to turn around and head right back outside after I grab my face covering and gloves.
She’s a yellow lab, just a puppy when I found her in the woods last year, mostly wrapped up in a trash bag and struggling like hell to get out of the thing.
A fighter.
Someone had dumped her rather than taking her to the shelter when they decided they no longer wanted her. I filed a report with the town cop but didn’t bother asking around to see who she might belong to. As far as I was concerned, they didn’t deserve to get her back.
At first, she’d struggled to trust me, skulking around the cabin like I might turn on her at any moment. Eventually, after enough treats and pets, she started sleeping at the end of my bed. Now, I can’t get her to give me space.
I push back out into the freezing air, gearing up to finish my chores so I can get back inside to a hot shower, dinner, and my dog.
I already covered the solar panels earlier, for easier snow removal when the storm finally lets up, but I check on them anyway, then move on to my other tasks.
Filling the bucket of salt outside my front door, scattering it generously over the steps, porch, and around my truck.
Loading up the fridge with the goods from the general store.
Bringing up some jars from the basement. Restocking my supply of firewood.
It’s going to be a long couple of days with this storm, and I’m definitely not going to make it down to town until it’s done snowing and the sun comes back out.
After a shower, I rub a towel roughly over my hair, put on my cabin socks and slippers, and head into the kitchen. I pull out a parcel of the elk meat I didn’t send over to Gramps and start prepping a large pot for chili.
From the fridge, I pull out some butter from the local dairy. I’m running low and will have to ask if they want to trade for meat or firewood. I could always pay them, but sometimes the old farmer needs things done around his farm and prefers the trading system to having to hire someone to do it.
If I offer to fix up his old barn, it’s a lot different than him admitting his old bones just aren’t up to the task.
After melting the butter in the pot, I dice up an onion and some peppers, throwing them in. The smell of the food fills the cabin, and I settle into my groove. Chopping garlic, adding in the meat, opening jars of tomatoes from my garden this summer and throwing them in, too.
Then, I add Gramps’s chili seasoning mix from the large jar he gifts me each Christmas. After settling the lid on the pot and turning it to low, I start on the corn bread.
I’m so consumed by what I’m doing, letting my mind settle after the busy day and hard work, that I almost don’t catch the sound of a car coming up the road.
First, there’s something weird about the approach. I hear, faintly, the crunch of tires on the snow and the distant sound of a vehicle moving, but there’s no growling engine to go along with it.
From the floor, Blue perks up, her ears turning slightly toward the direction of the road, as though she’s confused about the strange noise too. We stand silently together, straining to hear.
Then, I turn back to the kitchen. It’s none of my business if someone has had the horrible idea to take a leisurely mountain drive this time of night, with the snow coming down like it is. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to distract myself and let my food get cold.
Blue turns, staring at me from her place on the floor.
“What?” I grouse, reaching for a bowl to serve up my chili. I’ll leave it cooking for the next couple of days, and each bowl will taste better than the last. “It’s not my problem, Blue.”
She lets out a low whine, and I roll my eyes at her, reaching for the cutting board and grabbing a scrap of bell pepper from the pile. When she catches it, swallowing it in one bite, it seems to assuage her curiosity.
I hum to myself, picking up the knife to cut my corn bread, when a flash of lights shines through the curtains, and I realize a car is pulling up to my cabin outside.
My dog stares at me for a second, and when there’s a brisk, no-nonsense knock on the door, Blue seems to cock one of her eyebrows like told you so.