Ice Country (8 page)

Two brown-skinned men man a lonely wooden
watchtower that rises above the trees at the very edge of ice
country. I can’t take my eyes off them as they hop over a railing
and descend a planked ladder, wearing almost nothing. They must be
colder than a baby who’s lost its blanket!

But then I feel it. A sort of tingling that
starts in my toes and stretches up my legs and through my torso.
Eventually it reaches my fingers and even the tip of my nose,
leaving everything feeling…warm. Nay, more than that. More than
warm. Hot. Like I’ve just stepped into our fireplace back at home,
letting the flames surround me. Sweat beads on my face and drips
off my nose and chin.

I look around to see if anyone else is
feeling the same sensation.

While I’ve been staring at the Heaters,
everyone else’s been stripping. Bearskin coats and gloves and hats
are flying all over the place, discarded haphazardly. Buff’s got
his pants half off too, leaving the bottom half of his muscled legs
looking exceedingly white and hairy in his black undergarments. The
others are taking their pants off, too, but underneath they’re
wearing some kind of short pants, looser than undergarments, and
much less embarrassing. Without any other choice, I follow Buff’s
lead and strip down to my skivvies, relishing the feel of the
warm—not just
not cold
, but
warm!
like it’s full of
hot stew or warm tea—air. Although I feel out of place amongst the
other more appropriately clad Icers, once the Heaters approach I
feel better. They’ve got next to nothing on—just a thin cloth
covers their torsos, giving them an almost savage look. Their hair
and eyes are dark, and their bodies lean and tight and firm, like
their skin’s been twice-stretched over their bones and muscles.
They carry long spears and have wooden bows looped on their backs
with leather straps.

Heaters. What a day. Maybe I should lose at
cards more often.

One of them speaks, using language that’s the
same as ours, but sounds so different coming from his mouth, like
every word’s rounder and longer. “I don’t recognize these two
baggards,” he says, motioning to Buff and me.

“They’re new. Today,” Abe says.

The Heater nods, says, “Got a full load of
searin’ tugmeat and at least ten bags o’ ’zard niblets. The king’s
favorite.”

“That it?” Abe asks.

“Yeah,” the other Heater says. He’s taller
than the first, but every bit as strong-looking. “Might be a coupla
more months ’fore we have any special cargo.”

I look at Abe, wait for him to question what
the brown guy means by
special cargo
, but he just shrugs.
“Roan’s paid up that long anyway,” he says. “He’ll get his herbs
either way.”

Herbs?
What are these guys talking
about? Tugmeat and ’zards I understand. Fire country delicacies. No
big deal. The king probably gets them delivered all the time. But
the other stuff—huh?

I glance at Buff, whose cheek is raised. He’s
as confused as I am.

~~~

I come home in the dark with half a day’s pay
and a stiff back. Although the trip to the border was fun and
easy—what with the high-quality slider strapped to my feet—the
jaunt back to the top of the mountain was long and grueling,
especially because we were carrying huge packs of meat on our
backs, along with our sliders. Hightower took about twice as much
as everyone else though, so that helped quite a lot. Like Abe said,
he’s handy to have around.

We dropped it off to a guy with a cart, just
outside the palace walls. Abe told us good work and that the next
job wouldn’t be for three days, so we should rest up and meet him
back at the same place at dawn. And that was that. On account of
being so icin’ exhausted, Buff and I barely said a word to each
other as we walked back to the Brown District. Chill, I don’t even
think I’d be in the mood to fight anyone, even if such an
opportunity arose.

But still, I can’t complain. As far as I’m
concerned, I’ve got the best job in the world.

Pausing a moment in front of our door, I
stomp the snow off my boots and scrape the ice and muck off my
shiny new slider. When I push through the door and duck inside, I
feel a warm blast of heat from a healthy fire. Although it reminds
me of the heat of the sun down at the border, it’s not the same.
Nothing will ever be the same.

“Welcome back, Brother.” Wes is home already,
having worked the dayshift, a smile plastered on his face as if
he’s been like that all evening, just waiting for me. It’s a bigger
smile than a new job warrants…

“What?” I say, somewhat rudely.

Wes strides over, claps me on the back. I
flinch, suddenly feeling hot in my multi-layered getup. “Take a
look,” he says.

“Take a look at wha—”

He cuts me off with a hand in the air,
pointing.

I look at him strangely, then follow his
gesture over to where—

I gasp. This has to be a joke. For weeks and
weeks, months and months, when I came home from wherever I’d been,
Wes would usually be out working, and Mother, well, she’d be in the
same ice-powder-induced stupor, usually rocking on the floor,
babbling about how the things in the walls were creeping in on her,
or some such rot.

But not tonight.

Tonight she sits upright, in a chair. She’s
still gazing into the fire, as if it might have beautiful pictures
within the folds of its flames, but she’s not babbling. In fact,
the sound coming out of her mouth brings back memories of some of
the best times of my life, back when we were a family—me and Wes
and Joles and Mother and Father. None of us staying with neighbors.
None of us addicted to ice. None of us dead. A real family.

She’s humming.

It’s a tune she used to hum to us before
sleep, when our eyelids were so heavy I swore there were boulders
tied onto and hanging from them. Countless nights my last memory
was of her smiling face, just hum-hum-humming us to sleep.

I can feel the smile that lights up my face,
every bit as big as Wes’s, every bit as heartfelt. “What happened?”
I whisper, as if raising my voice might break the spell, melt her
back into the addict she became after my father died.

Wes shakes his head, claps me on the back
again. “I’m not sure exactly. I was fixing to head for the mines,
you know, shortly after you left. Joles had already scampered back
on down the street. Mother was talking, mumbling, what sounded like
her usual rubbish. But when I went to kiss her on the forehead, she
looked at me.”

“She looked
at
you?” My words are
unbelieving.

Wes raises his eyebrows. “I know what you’re
getting at, and I swear it’s true. She looked
at
me, not
through
me. Not like I wasn’t even there. We made eye
contact, and then her mumbles were reasonably coherent—weak
sounding, yah—but real words and phrases. Of this world.”

“What’d she say?” I can’t help but to sneak
another peek at her, my mother, who looks and sounds like a
different person, what with her sitting in a chair and humming an
old memory.

“She said she was sorry. She said she needed
help. She said she loved us.”

“And that was it?”

“Not exactly. She said if you—meaning
you
, Dazz—could do it, then she could too. I think you
getting a job inspired her.”

Now it’s my turn to raise my eyebrows. If
they only knew. If Mother only knew. How my gambling losses led to
a job that I’d swear was a gift from the Heart of the Mountain. If
she knew that, would she still have been inspired? Doesn’t matter.
Not one bit. What matters is she’s clean for the first time in a
long time. But there’s a long way to go.

“Any signs of the need?” I ask Wes, who’s
back to smiling. His lips curl opposite and he frowns. It’s almost
like he was avoiding the topic. The few times we’ve been able to
get Mother clean haven’t worked out so well. The need always comes
back, and with it the shakes and the sweats and the cursing and the
scratching. And then she gets her hands on some ice, almost
magically, and we’re right back where we started.

This is life after Father.

“Not yet,” Wes says. “I skipped work today to
watch her, but I can’t miss again.”

“I’ve got it covered for the next two days,”
I say.

“Don’t tell me,” Wes says, and I can see what
he thinks in his narrowed eyes.

“I still got a job,” I say, not getting angry
at Wes’s assumption. It was probably a fair one anyway.

Wes frowns. “Then how do you got it
covered?”

“We’ve got two days off,” I say, shrugging.
“It’s different than most jobs.”

“I’ll say,” Wes says. “But they’re paying
you?”

He wouldn’t believe me if I told him how
much. But they took half of it to repay my debts, so what’s left
over seems more reasonable. I show him the silver.

He whistles, high and loud. “That’s for a
day?”

I shrug again, give him half. “For food and
such,” I say.

He grins. “My brother, the working man.”

~~~

Wes thinks five to six days should do the
trick. So I’ll watch her for the next two, then he’ll try to get
off work again for the third, and hopefully I’ll get another couple
of days off to cover the end of her needing period.

But I can’t wait that long to tell Jolie,
even if I’m getting her hopes up more than I should.

I’m too excited to even take the time to get
washed up before heading down the road. Neither do I eat anything
before I leave. Truth be told, I’m secretly hoping for more of
Looza’s famous stew. Talk about a perfect ending to a perfect day.
I never knew having a job could be like this; if I did, I’d have
gotten one as soon as I was done with school, when I was
fourteen.

I find myself whistling the same tune Mother
was humming as I stroll along, stepping in deep footprints made by
someone a lot bigger than me. Not a care in the world.

I almost pass the house, which I never do.
Because the lights are out, which they never are. Not this late
anyway.

I stop, look along the row of squat, stone
houses. Every last one’s got the orange glow of firelight coming
from them. But not Clint and Looza’s place. Are they out? Do they
ever go out? And if they did, wouldn’t they tell me? They know I
come by to visit every night, without fail, even if it’s only for a
minute before I traipse on down to Fro-Yo’s.

My heart’s beating faster and I don’t know
why. There’s no cause for concern just because the lights are out.
It is rather late—perhaps they turned in early. But still…

I peek in the window, see only darkness. And
then—

I’m blinded by the flash of something bright
and sharp in my eyes. A beam of light through the window. I cry
out, look away, blinking at the spots as if they’re something I can
crush between my eyelids.

Something’s not right, but I can’t see well
enough yet. I keep blinking, furiously, rubbing at my eyes with the
backs of my hands. When I open my eyes again I can still see the
ghost of the light flaring up before my vision each time I blink,
clouding it, but not enough that I can’t see at all.

As I grope for the door, there’s a scream,
high-pitched and small and almost animalistic, desperate, but it’s
cut off only halfway through.

Jolie.

My tainted vision is nothing. My aching
muscles and bones are nothing. A surge of energy rips through me
and I find the door, thrust it open, right away spotting the beam
of light dancing away from me with scuffles and scrapes and muffled
cries.

I’m a mountain lion and Jolie’s my cub. And
whoever’s got her will face my wrath. With reckless abandon I barge
through the house, trying to guide my feet by memory. Quick step to
the left, avoid the table. Quick step to the right, avoid the—

CRASH!
I bash into something soft,
toppling it over and getting my legs all knotted up, bringing me
down on top of it. There’s a muffled cry, but I’m already rolling
off, because I don’t need even a shred of moonlight to know that
it’s Looza, wide and soft and rough with ropes, tied up. Either
Clint’s the culprit, gone off-his-mind crazy, or he’s around here
somewhere, tied up too.

I move on, barely catching a glimpse of the
bouncing light as it exits out the back door, taking my sister with
it.

An odd numbness buzzes through my legs, but I
force them forward, charging for the door, meeting it just as it’s
slammed in my face. I don’t feel the impact—because it’s my sister
they’ve got—just bounce off, rock on my heels, push off, tear open
the door, leap out into the frozen night.

The light’s there, stopped, as if waiting for
me. I can’t see past it, because it’s like a shield, glowing round
and bright, blocking my vision as effectively as a stone wall. I’m
unsure for a second, because up until this point, the light’s been
running, so of course I had to try to catch it. But now that I’ve
caught up, my bear-in-an-ice-sculpture-museum routine may not be
the most effective method of getting Joles back.

Fists clenched at my sides, I take a step
forward. “Give her bac—”

Just like during the fight at the pub,
something wallops me in the back of the head. The light and Jolie’s
muffled cries and my perfect day…all go black.

A
bad dream. I know
that’s what it was as soon as I open my eyes. Almost like a trick,
it had good parts, like getting a job and my mother being clean and
Jolie being able to come home to live with us again, before turning
nightmarish with a bright light and a rock to the back of the
head.

I quiver, trying to separate dream from
reality. Why am I so cold?

Heavy swirls of gray and black shift
overhead, spitting bits of white. Some of it lands on my face and I
wipe it away.