Ice Country

Well, he’s still out of work. And it’s notlike he’s just been sitting at home staring at the fire. He’s triedto find a job, but things are tight right now, and nothing’savailable. Nothing respectable anyway. Luckily I’m making enough tosupport us—barely. I think that’s what hurts him the most, feelinglike he’s relying on someone else, like he can’t stand on his owntwo feet.

I hate seeing him like this.

“You should get some sleep,” I say. Wes nods.“Are you go

My mother shifts in her sleep, murmurs, “Yourhair is all a mess, Joles, let me braid it for you.”

Wes’s shoulders shake as he cries.

I go to bed, crying on the inside.

Chapter Eleven

Today’s the day. Thespecial cargo delivery from fire country. Regardless of whetherNebo would answer our questions, we’ll find out soon enough whatwe’ll be collecting. As usual, it’ll be a night job, so Buff and Ihave got the whole day to kill.

Neither of us can take another day ofknocking doors and getting them slammed in our faces, so we decideto go sliding for fun. It feels like forever since we’ve felt thefreedom of the mountain without Abe and his gang surrounding us aspart of a job.

We tackle the west slopes, where the pinesthin out and leave a relatively unobstructed path of fresh powder.It’s not as cold as it was even yesterday, a clear sign that springis here to stay. The snow might melt off in a few months, if itdoes at all, but today it’s as thick as Looza’s stew—perfect forsliding.

We trudge to the top of a steep hill, pantingheavily by the time we reach the crest. Sitting next to each other,we grin like a couple of well-fed dogs as we strap our sliders toour feet. For a moment I feel like a child again, back when thingswere simpler, and my only responsibilities were having fun andgetting in trouble. Although I still seem to have the trouble partdown pat.

“Ready?” I say, as we push to our feet.

“Chill yah,” Buff says, still gri

“Go!” I yell, and we slip over the edge,letting gravity do all the work, practically sucking us down themountainside.

“Woohooo!” we cry, giddy as schoolboys.

The cold wind whips against my face, brightand fresh and alive, and I’m glad I didn’t wear a slider’s mask. Asmall patch of pines runs toward us, like they’ve got feet andthey’re the ones moving, not us. I cut hard to the right, carving acurving line in the snow, while Buff goes left.

We whip around the trees and then cometogether on the other side. I lean forward to gain speed, edging infront of Buff, and then angle across his path, switching sides. Thegame is on, cat and mouse we used to call it, and Buff passes me,swapping sides. Again and again we trade places, ripping acontinuous zigzag down the slope.

The hill begins to flatten out, to a perfectlanding area for this particular run, but I’m not ready to stop,not ready for the distraction from real life to end, so I lead Buffacross a swatch of ice that gives us enough momentum to get toanother slope, one that slices through the forest. It’s notintended for sliding, but I feel invincible, like I could slideright through a tree or boulder or anything else that tries to getin my way.

With a whoop, I lift the tip of my slide upand over the edge of the next hill. I’m forced tohalf-skid/half-turn hard to the right when a sharp gray boulderrises up directly in our path. Powdery snow sprays all around me asI hit a soft patch, cutting back to the left to avoid the edge ofthe trees on the right hand side.

The challenging natural course doesn’t getany easier from there. A couple of times I think I’m freezed whenthe slope narrows and trees and rocks close in on all sides andsometimes right in front of me, but I always barely manage tosqueeze through even the tiniest gaps. I can still hear the scrapeand whoomp of Buff’s slider behind me, so I know he’smanaged to follow in my wake so far.

Invincible. That’s what we are.Indestructible.

Such are my thoughts as I cross a trail thatleads away to the east, back toward the village. That’s whensomething grabs me from beneath the snow.

~~~

One second I’m invincible, a slider warrior,and the next I’m airborne, like some icin’ snowbird, except with abroken wing, unable to fly, flipping and spi

Crash!

My right shoulder hits first and it feelslike I’ve landed on sheer stone, except for the fact that it’swhite and my bones crunch through it—and I know for a fact that myshoulder isn’t hard enough to break through rock. So it must besnow. Well, more like a mixture of snow and ice, hard packed andwithout much give to it.

Then I tumble end over end, arse over heels,shoulders to tailbone to knees to bones and parts I don’t even knowthe names of. It hurts like I’m getting a beat down from Abe allover again.

Eventually though, the friction of my coatand slider against the snow pinches in enough to bring me to astop, leaving my head spi

Buff skids to a graceful stop beside me.“Whoa, man, you all right?” he says.

I go to nod, but my neck feels stiffer than awood plank. “Urrr,” I say, which obviously means yah.

“What happened?” he asks

Even if I knew, I wouldn’t be able to tellhim. “Hurts,” I manage. And then, “Urrr.”

“Anything broken?”

More like everything broken. But I’mjust being a baby. The wind’s knocked outta me and I got a fewbruises—nothing major. I’ve had worse. “Need…a second,” I say,whistling in breaths between puckered lips.

“What the chill?” Buff says, but this timehe’s not speaking to me. He’s looking back up the hill, back towardwhere I fell, where something—I swear to the Mountain Heart I’m notmaking this up—grabbed me. It was like it reached up frombeneath the snow and clamped down on the front of my slider.

“Urrr, what?” I say, trying to twist my soreneck to see where he’s looking.

“I think…” Buff trails off. I thinkwhat? I want to ask but it seems I’ve spent all my words. Heunclasps his slider and starts walking away, back up the hill. Igroan, meaning “wait”.

But he’s already off. Whatever’s up there, Iwant to see it too, want to know what caused my fall. Burning holesin the clouds with my eyes, I lean forward and rip off my slider,feeling sharp pain hitting me everywhere, in places I didn’t evenknow I had. I laugh because it hurts so badly and I wonder if I’mbecoming like Abe, laughing at pain.

“Holy shiverbones,” I hear Buff say as Icrawl on hands and knees to where he’s standing, looking atsomething stumpy and dark, like a section of tree trunk, blotchedagainst the snow. I could swear it wasn’t there a minute ago.

“What is it?” I rasp as I approach him onehand and knee at a time.

“Not what,” he says, not making anysense.

The thing comes into view and I gasp.

“Who,” Buff says.

It’s Nebo. Frozen harder than a snowman anddeader than a fallen tree.

~~~

“Nebo’s dead,” I say to Abe that night.

“What?” he says, brows curled. He lookssurprised. There’s something else in his expression too, but Ican’t place it, or maybe he’s just hiding it too well.

“We found him in the woods. Looked like hewas bludgeoned to death, his head all mashed up.”

Buff’s staring at his hands. We didn’t knowwhat to do, so we pulled him into the woods, dug a hole in thesnow, and stuck him in it. Neither of us really liked the idea, butif we’d brought him in, the lawkeepers would’ve hadquestions—questions we might not be able to answer. Like why wewere in the Blue District knocking on Nebo’s door not a dayearlier, just before he showed up dead.