Winter Study

“I wasn’t with her when she died,” Adam said, and, for the first time, A

“God damn,” A

“Yeah.”

“I’ve got to take him back,” A

“I could kill you,” Adam said.

“Maybe.”

“Getting killed for the likes of Menechi

A

“I guess wasting time trying to kill him is crazy too,” Adam said. The thought or the laugh had gentled his voice, and he shook his head as he spoke.

“Maybe,” A

“No maybe about it.”

Slowly he raised his arms out to his sides, a man crucified on white. He cocked his head, smiled and stepped back into nothing.

31

A

“Don’t let go,” she managed in little more than a whisper.

A ripping sound sawed her eyes open. Her face was hanging over the cliff, her body spread-eagled on the edge. Her right arm, weirdly elongated, wrist showing between glove and sleeve, drew a straight line to Adam’s arm, drawn rigidly above his head. A

“I’m pulling you up,” she gasped. Breathing hurt where her collarbone had broken, but the pain in the dislocated shoulder made it seem like nothing and she snorted a laugh that turned to snot and mixed with the snow caked on her face.

“Damn you, A

Finally words floated up their conjoined arms: “Let me go.”

“I’m pulling you up,” A

“You haven’t the right. Let me go.” He didn’t sound afraid, only tired – so tired he could barely find the strength to speak.

A

“I can’t,” she admitted. “My glove caught in the duct tape.”

“You are a piece of work,” Adam said.

“Bob!” A

It was moving. Tiny increments of rock no bigger than sand pebbles were creeping past. Adam’s weight was dragging her over. Kicking hard, she tried to drive her toes into the snow to anchor herself. The duck-billed Sorels pummeled down to the basalt but found no purchase. The effort accelerated the slip.

“Uh, Adam?” she said.

The grating sound that had opened her eyes after her shoulder tore sounded again.

“Adam? I was wondering if you could grab onto anything. I’m sort of sliding up here.”

More grating. She slid another inch. Her nose was ripping across the basalt. Tears and snot and snow and fabric blinded her.

“You know, just anything. Maybe a branch or something?” she tried.

“Once you’ve saved me and I’ve saved you, you can always jump again.

“Bob!” The guy was a pervert and a rapist and stoned out of his mind, but he was strong as the proverbial ox. “Bob!”

She slid farther, the skin of her chin peeling off against the sharp rock. Her eyes cleared enough, she could see down her arm to where her wrist bent, the duct tape wound around like a manacle.

Wedging her free hand heel first into the snow beneath her chin, she pushed till the bones in her good shoulder cracked. Muscles wrenched at the collarbone, forcing the shattered ends farther apart, and she screamed. The slipping stopped.

“Adam? Let’s die later. Give me a hand here, okay?”

Grating. Metal, it sounded like, and A

“A

“I’m here,” she said. “Where the hell else would I be?”

“On a three count, you pull. Got that?”

A

“A

“I got it, for chrissake! Count already.”

Adam laughed.

“I’m glad you’re having fun,” she snarled.

“One… two… three.” There was a tearing sound as A

Not Adam. His ripped-up old parka. He had unzipped it and slid into the arms of his wife. Or the devil.

A

Life isn’t for everybody. Robin Williams had said that. Life wasn’t for Adam. When his wife had died, he had his hatred to sustain him. Had A

“Damn you,” she whispered sadly.

Bob.

Presumably he was still tripping at the foot of the tree. Rolling onto her side, good arm beneath her taking the weight, A

Finally the coughing wore itself out, and she took careful sips of oxygen. When she could bear to move again, she unwound her neck scarf and laid it over her knees. Catching up the cuff of her right sleeve with her left hand, she lifted it, as a mother cat lifts a kitten by its scruff, and laid it over the scarf. With her left hand and her teeth, she managed a rough sling, and the pain lessened slightly.

“What in hell did you think you were doing?” she muttered. “Let people die. World’s overpopulated as it is. Christ.”

This last comment was in reference to the snowmobile. In the flurry of shared confidences, bone breaking and premature death, she’d forgotten she’d tipped it over. Whole, healthy, she could have wrestled it back onto its skis. In her present condition, even finding a lever big enough to shift this part of the world was going to be a Herculean task.