Understory Page 6

  Cameron took her wrist in his warm, slightly rough-skinned hands. She shivered, not really wanting to see the results of the frostbite. Her stupidity better not have cost her Kenny.

  FOURTEEN

  Cam turned his head away to hide his smirk at her outrage. Well, she could just tell him her own name if she hated Rosalind.

  He steeled himself to unwrap the gauze. She’d obviously used her fingers a little to wash and dress.

  Swollen, reddish skin. Blisters on the backs and a big one on her right palm and on all the fingertips of her right hand. From his crouch, he met her glower through the curtain of her hair. Dark blond and thick, the strands caressed the shoulders of his old gray sweatshirt and brushed his cheek.

  Mid-reach, Cam realized the gesture would not improve their relationship and dropped his hand to pick up a roll of clean gauze. He thanked whatever muse had prompted him to lay in a morbidly huge supply of the stuff. Probably thinking of the field dressings they’d gone through back in his service days.

  “The blisters shouldn’t be popped,” he told her. “They’ll drain eventually. Is the pain bad?”

  She indicated the aspirin bottle he’d brought near with a chin lift.

  “You need some?”

  Closed-eye face dip.

  Cam heaved a breath. “I’ve never been very good with charades. Is that a yes or a no?”

  Nod.

  “Okay, then. As I told you, I don’t have much experience with frostbite, just burns. I’m not sure if I should put anything on this, but my neighbor, guy by the name of Findley, doesn’t live too far. He grows herbs and stuff. I’m going to try to get there—hey, what’s that you’re trying to say?”

  She pulled back from him, eyes wide, and…was that a smile?

  “You know him?”

  She pushed the blanket away and shifted her knees.

  “Whoa, there. Wait a minute. Where do you think you’re going?” Cam held her elbow and pushed her knees back against the couch. “You want to get to him?”

  Recalcitrant nod.

  “Lady, this would be a lot easier if you’d simply talk to me.”

  At her pout and sigh of irritation, Cam felt his temper slipping. “I know you’re in trouble, running from someone. I don’t want to get caught in the middle of something that’s none of my business.”

  He read her firm look toward the door, raised brows and straight-lined lips in his direction with growing frustration. “I personally don’t care how many toes and fingers you have for the rest of your life…” Good, her flash of fear said he was getting to her. “But besides is the fact that it’s dangerous weather out there, especially in your condition. I don’t care how exasperated you are, Rosalind, believe me, it’s a hundred times worse for me…I mean, with the extreme cold and your inability to move very fast, not to mention the fact that I have hours and hours of digging snow before I can even think about leaving.”

  He followed her line of study to the spare snowshoes propped next to the door.

  “I could use them. You can’t.”

  Slight narrowing of her eyes.

  He sat back and sighed. “Guess I can read you better than I thought. Can I trust you alone for a few hours if I go find him? Yes? All right. Let me finish checking you over.”

  Cam laughed a little at her exaggerated puppy longing gaze on the coffee. “Rosalind, you are teaching this here college instructor a whole new level of expressionism. Maybe you’ll help me out with the book I’m working on.” He held the mug for her while she drank, cheeks diffused with peony.

  He chuckled again, low and under his breath. “Yeah, you guessed it,” he said when she pointed at the stack of paper on the floor near his chair. “One of the reasons I’m hiding out is that I’m writing a biography of my grandparents. Need peace and quiet to concentrate.”

  She kept her eyes pinned on the pages so he figured he’d keep jabbering in between sips. “I’ll help you eat later, too. So, my grandmother walked with Father Groppi on the protest marches. You know, Milwaukee? Civil Rights?”

  She glanced up at him, questions lighting the green ribbons of her irises. Again, he couldn’t keep from wondering about her story. He shrugged. “I guess maybe you don’t. That was before you—we—were born. Late nineteen sixties. My grandfather went missing not long after.”

  At her frown, he lightened up. “Sorry. I shouldn’t judge people like I do. You have heard of Father Groppi. Okay, then.” He kept talking, as much to himself as her, or the dogs who were his usual audience. “I have my grandmother’s diaries. She was an amazing woman. Bonnie. Bonnie LeFleur Taylor. She never learned to write well, until after she came to Milwaukee during World War II.”

  Rosalind’s attention seemed to be focused on the papers.

  “It’s in the box of stuff in the kitchen. I’ll show you later.”

  Her eyes flickered back to him. Cam warmed up to the subject. “Uh, anyway, weird thing is I never knew why my Grandpa was out of the picture.”

  She cocked her head and raised her left brow.

  He held her cup for another gulp. Chuckling, he said, “Guess I still don’t, really. Grandma wrote about a neighbor of theirs, a store owner who was part Negro, part Chinese. He ran a tiny storefront, you know, back in the days before supermarkets and all. There used to be little neighborhood groceries every other block or so. Just tiny things with the essentials, not fifty kinds of cereal, like now.”

  She gestured with her mug, and he refilled both their cups, held hers while she drank. Her slow, serious half-smile gave him the jitters, so he continued talking. “Mr. Po was murdered. Grandma and Grandpa watched it.”

  At her frown, he said, “By cops.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “More?”

  She shook her head and seemed to plead with him for something else. The story, maybe?

  He got up and paced to the window, checked the damper on the stove. The oak he’d used this morning burned slow, hot. Are you missing the classroom, Professor? “Things were crazy during that generation. People and their passions.” He turned back to study her. “Still do. Anyway, Grandpa didn’t come home from work one day not long after. Grandma filed a missing persons report. Or tried to. When I saw that, I tried to get into their database on the Internet. From the library. Open records law and all. Except I ran into some weird roadblocks.”

  She turned pinched eyes and mouth to the table, sporting that blank, helpless expression he imagined on his own face when he hit another snag.

  “One of those things. Hey, I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

  When the cup of cooling brew was half empty, he quickly unbound her feet, grimacing at the swelling but pleased the blistering didn’t look as bad as her hands.

  “These look okay to me, but I’m not the expert. I was about to make some eggs and bacon. You hungry?”

  Her excitement was tempered by a frustrated frown at her mittened hands. “It’s not so easy having to rely on the kindness of strangers, is it? In another day or two, maybe, if you feel up to it, you can try using your hands.”

  She opened her mouth as if to respond but fell back against the couch, sighed, and gnawed the corner of her lip. There, he almost got her to say something.

  “It’ll take me at least that much time to dig out the garage and get Uncle Wally’s snow blower cranked up. You probably didn’t notice the driveway’s a quarter mile long.”

  * * *

  An hour later, Cam zipped up his coat as he prepared to assess the damages of the blizzard. Flakes were still mamboing down, whipped to snow devils by the wind. He’d never wanted a snowmobile before and only tolerated rides with a group of his former buddies at the college. But now he revisited his prejudice of the noisy machines. One might be handy in an emergency. He pushed open the door with some effort. A drift made a levee on the porch, which he needed to shovel away first.

  He looked back to the stranger on his couch, who shivered in the blast of winter, staring past him with enlarged mu
ddy green eyes he was becoming way too familiar with. Time for a dash of reality.

  “So, I’m going. Don’t know how long it will take me. I have some shoveling to do first. It’s dangerous enough with the forty-five below zero wind chill, but I don’t think I’ll have much trouble getting over to my neighbor’s place. I’ll bring my phone and if I find a spot with good reception, call the hospital.”

  She nodded, her focus obviously elsewhere.

  “Just one thing. How worried should I be about Kenny?”

  FIFTEEN

  The rustling stopped. Art breathed again when he caught a flash of silver. Mouse! Berta wasn’t any kind of housekeeper. Of course the place was filled with rodents…vermin. He let the mouse creep closer to him, wiggling its whiskers and little ears. When it reached his boot, he raised his foot and stomped.

  Maybe that one was a pet. It hadn’t shown the fear it should have.

  If the pet was loose, was the little brat here? Art turned in a slow, silent circle, studying the trailer as though he’d never been inside before. Each nook, potential hidey-hole…where would a boy hide so well the cops couldn’t find him?

  A flash of red flickered in the kitchen.

  Art rushed like a bull—to see that a hole in the little push-out window over the grubby sink let in a breeze which fluttered Berta’s red curtain.

  More rustling and squeaks came from a drawer by the sink. Art kicked the cheap plywood door hiding the pipes. It cracked, resulting in more squeals and scampering. Berta was running a regular dump.

  He shook his head and stomped out the door, slamming it and cracking the plastic. Boy woulda froze to death had he stayed here.

  On the glacier that made up Berta’s front yard, Art watched Mahoney, now geared up in a little dingy yellow tractor, pushing futilely at the three-foot drifts formed by the clipper winds funneling between the trailers. Art rubbed his hands and pulled up the hood of his parka. No power till tomorrow?

  The county plow roared past out on the main road on the other side of the beat-up redwood fence. City limit was within sight but still a few hundred yards away. Thick woods bounded this side of the trailer court. Taking in too deep of a breath hurt his lungs. Art turned back to the partially cleared drive, a straight shot to the manager’s house. He’d left the car at the entrance and waded through eight lanes of fresh powder. He kicked at a snow boulder. In two days, he had to be back at work. He could take care of this and everything would be good by Monday morning. Yeah. He’d claim he couldn’t get to the bank today with their computers down. Even Limm couldn’t expect too much with the power outage and the blizzard. Should he drive to their headquarters? Try to explain?

  Another blast of Alberta Clipper rocked him, sent him almost to his knees. He kicked a snow boulder and set off. Three units over, Mahoney said. He pulled his hood tighter over his cheek. What was that noise?

  He went still as a siren wailed closer. Red lights flashed on the highway. A police cruiser swerved into the front entrance, narrowly missing his car. Art slipped into the narrow alley between Berta’s and the next trailer. And let out another string of Spanish words he hoped meant evil things a person could do to someone who got in his way. The cruiser stopped at a place down the row.

  Deegan popped out, slicked his hair and twisted on his hat. Art hung back, watching. That leprechaun Mahoney musta known this was going down, that’s why he’d been frantically plowing snow. But when had he found out? Before or after opening Berta’s?

  Art thought about all the things he could do, or better yet, get some of his friends to do, to the so-and-so. Starting with making a bonfire of the red house at the entrance to Buenaview Mobile Home Court. Not such a buena view, then, pardner? Come to think of it, two of the guys on his block at the pen had girlfriends in some sort of witchy cult. They did things on the winter solstice—things whispered about that gave him the creeps. He’d find out more.

  The cop was going door to door. If things went wonky, Art would head into the woods. But first, he had to see.

  SIXTEEN

  Kenny Masters had a good view of the action near Thomas’s house. It wasn’t so cold in the tree fort, high up in the oak. He sat on the side of the tree trunk so the wind blew around him, not on him. His boots and coat and the blanket his special aunt made for him helped a lot too. Still, he shouldn’t stay outside too long. Mrs. Ramirez made him put on an old coat Thomas used to wear. He couldn’t zip it up, but that was okay. Leaving his nice coat here the other day to trick Uncle Art was genius. Thomas had all kinds of books about detectives that had lots of stuff in there he could use to hide out. That is, if Thomas didn’t tell his mom. This trick worked. He knew because his coat was gone from the fort, and it hadn’t blown off, either.

  Good thing he heard Uncle Art panting like a bear in their trailer earlier so he could get out of his room, where he’d been playing with Tiny, trying to keep his little pet mouse warm. His aunt would take care of Tiny, wouldn’t she?

  Kenny watched the policeman knock on doors then go into Thomas’s. Kenny went there last night after a whole day with no school and trying to take care of her and told them Mom was sick. Mrs. Ramirez got help and said Kenny should stay with her. Thomas was going to his dad’s today, and Kenny was supposed to go along, but he didn’t want to be away from Mom. Thomas’s dad was a neat guy. They usually went to ride the bumper cars at Kidz World. Kenny wished he had a dad who would do that with him.

  Mrs. Ramirez looked at their trailer when the cop left. Nobody here would tell the cops about Mom. They never did anything ’cept arrest the wrong people anyway. Like the time Billy Stark’s mom attacked Robert Fitzgerald. They’d arrested Robert! He had a black eye and everything, when it was just his stupid dog that kept knocking over her garbage. If she didn’t throw out so much food, the dog wouldn’t want to eat it.

  Kenny fingered the syringe he kept in his pants pocket. He and Thomas snapped off the needle part. He hadn’t told Thomas where he’d gotten it and made Thomas take a blood oath not to tell. They’d poked their fingers on a sharp piece of glass, rubbed the blood together, and promised.

  Kenny told Mrs. Ramirez he had to feed his pet and came over to check on Tiny that morning. But he was shaking cold now. Mom was at the Grenthem’s ’cause Mrs. Grenthem used to be a nurse. Maybe he’d show her the syringe if Mom wasn’t awake yet. He peeked over the edge of the fort, looking for the first rung of the ladder, when he noticed something moving down at the bottom.

  SEVENTEEN

  Bingo. Cam grinned again under his scarf as he slip-strode over the fresh powder. The mysterious Kenny was someone scary after all. Rosalind acted like it was no big deal, but Cam could tell the name meant something. He pinned on his extra-season deer tag just in case, and slung his rifle over his back, bandolier-style, before heading out to Findley’s.

  A crust of melted ice over the top of the snow would have been much easier, but the snowshoes made slicker work of huffing through the woods than blundering through thigh-high drifts. At least the snow slowed, though the temp had not risen above zero. Eleven a.m. The sun would poke out, but not for long, according to Bob in the Morning on the static-y Eau Claire station. Cam hadn’t gone through the back forty to Findley’s place before but figured if he headed in the right direction, he’d hit something since their properties butted fence lines. Uncle Wally showed him the markers a long time ago. Said he and the other owners agreed not to fence so the deer roamed free. Of course, that was before Findley moved there eight years ago.

  If Rosalind was from around here, maybe Findley would know her.

  Cam panted to a stop by a gnarly oak. Sprayed white with snow on one side, it had a trunk half again as big around as he was. He braced himself against it to catch his breath and pulled the damp-froze scarf down past his chin. His breath condensed and made ice chunks in the knit, which rubbed his lips like the kiss of death.

  If Rosalind was afraid of Kenny, probably running from him, would it be prudent to tell anyone? Maybe there
was some way around it…patience…patience, like the poem said.

  I remembered the gradual patience

  That fell from that cloud like snow,

  Flake by flake, healing and hiding

  The scar that renewed our woe.

  Scars…would she have scars from the frostbite? He’d love to know her story. Maybe someday she’d trust him enough to tell it. Cam replaced the scarf and schussed off, using his poles to dig deep and push himself along. Shouldn’t be much farther.

  He squinted through the trees a few minutes later, stopped, and pulled down the scarf again. Definitely smoke. Must be getting close. Another several glides brought him in sight of a nice-sized cabin and outbuildings. A baying dog set off the alarm. Cam held up, waiting to see if it was loose.

  “Hush up!”

  Cam heard the command, relieved to find his neighbor home. “Hello! Findley! It’s Cam Taylor, from next door.”

  “Taylor?” A stick figure opened the back door of the cabin and peered in his direction with shielded eyes. “What’s up?”

  Cam headed closer. “I had a little trouble and hoped you could help.”

  Findley straightened up and beckoned. “Sure, man. C’mon in.”

  A beautiful part Malamute with icy eyes stared Cam into moving cautiously inside. It whined under its breath when Cam passed. Probably smelled Iago and Lear on him. Cam chucked a glove and reached to shake Findley’s hand.

  His neighbor hadn’t changed much since Cam had seen him a couple of months ago. Still painfully thin, a couple inches above Cam, long brown hair tied back and cheekbones cresting on an otherwise smooth face. Dressed in loose blue-checked flannel and oversized sweats, he looked perfectly comfortable in the shadowy exposed-log room.

  Cam shifted subtly as he unzipped his parka and pulled off his cap. A collection of mismatched rockers, some upholstered and some not, were grouped around an iron stove in the middle of the room. Cupped boards of the wood floor were bare, but the windows were swathed in a mix of blankets and quilts. An overhead hanging chandelier made of at least a dozen deer antlers cast weird patterns on the wall and floor. The shadows they threw reminded him vaguely, creepily, of an Aaron Douglas mural, dancers overlapping, moving, reaching for him, when a gust of air from the closing door set a rocker to creaking. A stairway leading up was tucked against the back corner of the room.