The Wintermen, page 21
“Where’d you get that puppy?” Slaught asked.
Jeff told them about their run in with Mitch. He had them all laughing by the end of the story, but pointed out that Mitch Black’s attempt to makeover Delbert’s shithole into a lovenest was terrifying at the time, not just for Ricky, but for him too. Jeff nodded at Ricky, “We played it cool though, didn’t we bro?” and Ricky nodded, and then told them that he’d caught the keys in one hand, and that’s why he was riding her machine.
Jeff said he had something to show Slaught, reaching into his pocket and bringing out the rice-sized transmitter that Mitch had attached to Johnny’s sled. Jeff said when he’d seen her show up he figured she must have been tracking the sleds.
Johnny said, “Check ’em all.”
They didn’t find any others, Chumboy saying Johnny must feel pretty special. Slaught asked Jeff what they should do with it. “Definitely keep the little sucker for now. Got nothing to hide about being here right now and it worked once sending her on a wild goose chase.”
Then Jeff asked where to put the stash from Delbert’s hunt camp, pointing to the filthy canvas bag that looked like some old army rucksack.
“That your haul?” Johnny asked.
“The motherlode, direct to you from hillbilly heaven,” Jeff said, opening the bag then nodding over at Ricky. “His Uncle had acquired some seriously demented firepower.”
Chumboy whistled. “Whoa, what was Delbert thinking?”
“Whatever it was, he didn’t get a chance to put it into practice—the place was torched. Those Talos boys did a number on it.”
Chumboy rummaged through the bag. “We could start a war.”
“I think we already have, Chum,” Slaught said, then added, “Nice work on the guns. Why don’t you two wash up and get some food. Jordan can haul these out of here.”
Jordan was complaining about how much the bags weighed as Jeff and Ricky headed off. Jeff shouted back that he’d send Max over to help. Slaught tossed Jordan the gym bags crammed with the plastic guns. “Sort these out too, bin the real ones and stash them all some place outta sight. Don’t want some of those little ones going all Montana militia with these.”
Max and Jordan repacked the bags and then hauled the four out across the snow, Jordan pretty much dragging his, leaving a thick band of track behind him. He had to stop and brush the snow off in the doorway, then caught up with Max. “Hey, slow down man, these are heavy!” but Max said there was lots to do and they should get a move on. Jordan followed him down the short hallway to one of the storage closets and started emptying the bags onto the floor outside while Max unlocked the door and tried to make room on the big metal shelves. He kicked some empty bins over towards Jordan, saw him tossing the guns into piles so told him to watch it, they weren’t toys, and Jordan frowned, “Some of them are, right?” and Max said, “You can tell by the weight Jordan. Just be careful, okay? You have to be careful around guns.”
Jordan said Max sounded like somebody’s mother and that he was more than welcome to do it himself since the guns were giving him the heebs anyway.
Max ignored him, surveying the rows of shelves, said, “There’s too much shit in here, honestly, with all these friggin’ diapers and crap, there’s no room for anything.”
“We can’t leave them out here.”
Max sighed. “Well, let’s try and shove a least the real ones in here. I’ll haul out some stuff and then we’ll take the ones we can’t make room for to the maintenance room. There’s some shelf room there. At least it has a lock.” He tossed a black marker over to Jordan, said, “They like things labeled.”
In big black letters Jordan scrawled real and fake on the lids of the bins. Max pointed to the latter and said, “Put the Slaught specials in here, okay?” Jordan shrugged, began loading up the bins as Max hauled some gasoline cans around the corner to make more room. Then they grabbed two of the bins and headed for the maintenance room.
As they’d stashed them beside the toilet paper, Jordan was still complaining that they were too heavy and why did he always get the shit jobs. Max told him to quit whining and then felt bad after what Jordan had been through so he asked him if he was getting nervous.
“Nervous? No bro, I’m not nervous, I’m fucking terrified.”
Slaught said, “We got a slight hitch.”
They’d just finished filling up the machines, Larose cursing, saying they were getting low on fuel, and then adding, “A hitch? Yeah? Is this a new hitch or just one of the fucking hundred facing us right now?”
Chumboy laughed. “Ever testy bastard, you.”
Larose didn’t answer, just said again, “What’s the hitch?”
“Tiny says we are seriously running out of grub. Big time. Said we were into, and I quote, emergency rationing. There’s no time for a proper scavenge trip. I got that moose waiting about two miles north of here but one of us is going to have to bring it in soon. It’s a helluva job.”
“There’s got to be someone besides us to go?” Larose worried about going to Thibeault Hill a man short. They were pushing their luck already.
“Got no other experienced guys. Couple of the older guys got the know-how for the moose but not the gumption, not for hauling out that sucker. Can’t ask Shaun, think we need to keep that young lad focused and not leave him on his own. God knows what he’d end up doing. Max and Susun are going to be holding down the fort. Then someone’s going have to stay back with Tiny to butcher the thing once we get it back. Maybe Jordan? Just too big a job.”
Chumboy raised his eyebrows. “Big job indeed. We gonna volunteer or get drafted?”
“We gotta decide together.”
“How?”
“Not sure,” Slaught said.
Chumboy said, “Draw straws.”
Slaught looked at Chum. “You think that’s the best way?”
“It’s the only way.”
Slaught didn’t look convinced so Chumboy added, “It’s fair and it’s blind. Otherwise one of us is going to feel like shit for backing out of the job, right? This way, its completely random and none of us has to make the decision.”
“Alright. Fine with you Larose?”
Larose nodded, “Sure, why not. Everything else around here is pretty fucked up and random, why not this too?”
Chum handed Larose three toothpicks from his pocket and Larose broke two off to different lengths. He buried them in his fist and tucked them all down so they were even. “Short straw stays. Ready gentlemen?”
Chum took one, then Slaught.
“Showtime,” Chumboy said.
Slaught opened his fist, then Chumboy. Chum’s was longer. Larose showed his. His wasn’t broken. Chumboy whistled. “Not an outcome I would have anticipated. Guess you hold down the fort Kemosabe.”
“Maybe just as well,” Larose said, “case something we didn’t count on happens.”
Slaught shrugged, looking maybe surprised himself that he wasn’t going to the hill. “Now that’d be a shock wouldn’t it?”
“Action!”
When Jeff yelled for them to start, the dozen or so folks lined up in the workbay squared their shoulders and stared forward into the camera. Jeff had said they had to be unflinching, that was the word he had used, and so even though the balaclavas were itchy and hot, nobody flinched. They stood behind Johnny, watching the back of his head as he delivered his lines. Afterwards, Mrs. Merrill had said to Mr. McLaren that she thought Johnny had done a pretty good job.
“It was the way he ended his speech, after we’d all taken off our balaclavas and dropped those silly guns to the floor and said our names, when he said, ‘So, this is who we are and where we live. We’re not hiding anything. Now that we’ve shown you what we’re like, that these guns Talos says we have aren’t even real, now we’re going to show you the real face of Talos, and what real guns can do,’ I liked that.”
They had tried the shot first with the kids up front but the three boys, maybe around seven or eight, couldn’t stand still, and Jeff said the fidgeting was distracting. Susun suggested getting the kids to stand in the background against the wall, but the kids begged to be in the shot, saying they wouldn’t move a muscle but Jeff said they weren’t in a position to promise the impossible and stuck them against the back wall, then looking through his camera said, “Hey, they look good back there, love that Bob Marley t-shirt Sheldon.”
It took about two hours to get everything right, then Jeff and Jordan went off to put the thing together. Slaught asked them if they were sure it was going to work.
Jeff said, “Well, if we don’t run out of batteries for the camera, maybe,” and Jordan added,” Just don’t expect Fellini.”
“I was hoping more for James Cameron,” Chumboy said, but Jordan just snorted and said, “Please.”
After they left, Slaught asked Chum what “Fellini” was?
“Some famous Italian director. I think Jordan was trying to impress us.”
“Doesn’t work if you don’t know what the fuck someone’s talking about.”
“I rarely know what he’s talking about. How’d he take the news about staying behind?”
Slaught said, “Fucking jubilant until he found out he had to help butcher a moose.”
“What’s the plan then?”
“I’ll go out get the moose. We can butcher it down in the bay. I got the boys setting up Harv’s tripod. You guys should head out in time to be at the hill before dawn. Block the road then get the hell over to the outpost and do the Fellini.”
As Slaught was saying it he thought it didn’t sound so bad. He’d woken up in the middle of the night, lying in his cot, listening to his own breathing, thinking how fucked up everything was. He’d thought about that day on the loading dock, looking around at the supplies and guns and deciding he didn’t want to be part of the bullshit anymore. He decided he wanted a place of his own, with rows of firewood in the yard, fixing up his cabin so it would be a good place to live. And now this, going to fucking war over a run down hotel with a mittful of guys and some very scared people that were just strangers a year or so ago.
Chumboy asked, “So if it gets too dangerous, folks that want can just sit tight and turn themselves in when the cavalry arrives, hope for the best?”
“Cavalry? Thought that was a good thing when the cavalry got there.”
“Not so good for us Indians.”
“Right,” said Slaught, “guess not. And what about the rest of us renegades?”
“Head north.”
“The rez? Yeah, maybe.”
Chumboy frowned. “You don’t sound too sure about that. Not planning on going down in flames are you?”
“No Chum, but it isn’t going to come to that. We’ll be having Christmas here.”
“You sure about that?”
“I promised.”
“That’s right, you did.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
LASKIN KILLED HIS ENGINE AND TOOK A QUICK LOOK over his shoulder, wondering where the fucking trucks were then realizing he didn’t really give a shit. From the top of the hill he looked back down what at used to be the main, cross-country highway, a deep four-laned chute that had been blasted out of the rockface lining either side. Laskin figured it had probably been a couple of years since any machine beside a snowmobile had tried to get up what the locals had called Thibeault Hill back in the day.
He’d told Talos that bringing along the trucks was a bad move, that nothing was left of the highway to even plough. But Police Services demanded the ‘safe removal of non-criminal civilians’ so Talos had agreed on paper to having the trucks written into the action plan. But Scott had been pretty clear that this wasn’t a rescue mission and to not worry too much about what Police Services wanted anyway. Now staring up at the sheen on the hill, he guessed it didn’t matter, those trucks weren’t going anywhere, not with that ice.
Below he could hear the revving of the trucks as they tried to find some traction. One of the snowploughs had already slid sideways down the hill and was face first in a high snow bank.
Christ Almighty.
He headed back down the hill.
A truck was sending the snow spitting outwards under its big tires, digging in deep before the back tires even reached the icy surface. Laskin barked at the driver to shut the fucking truck off.
Laskin grabbed his flashlight and shot the beam up the hill. The thing glistened like a goddam skating rink.
“Wow,” Miller said, “I didn’t know it had gotten that warm. Look at it. It’ll be near impossible to get those big ploughs up there.”
Laskin turned to him in irritation. He saw Turner and Miller watching him.
“I don’t need a fucking weather report.”
Miller asked, “Any other way of getting those ploughs up there?”
“No, there’s no other way up the hill or you wouldn’t be standing here with your thumb up your ass would you?”
One of the drivers approached them, shouted over the din, “Want me to contact Muspar? I could head over to the outpost.”
“I don’t think that would be too fucking helpful right now,” Laskin snapped, thinking of Muspar lying there in his own cooled blood, his body probably now thick and waxy, then saying, “You guys take one of the trucks that can still move over to the sand silos there,” pointing. “See ’em, down the highway there on the right? Start working on the hill and see if you can get anywhere.”
Then the drivers were complaining, one of them saying, “Well, how long do we have to sit out here? We aren’t exactly able to check into a motel or anything you know. It’s damn cold.”
Laskin told them to shut the fuck up while he figured it out. He wasn’t a goddam babysitter, and now with Mitch fucking off on him, he wasn’t in the mood for anything but getting Slaught into a body bag. Just as well the trucks were stuck; he hadn’t really planned on bringing them along anyway. Best to keep them busy down here, giving him a chance to get up to that shithole and take care of unfinished business. Now with Muspar out of the way, Laskin wasn’t feeling too committed to honouring the terms of that agreement. He figured Talos wasn’t either.
“You sit here until we get back. How hard is that to understand?”
“You mean we’re going on?” asked Miller.
“That’s right, Miller. Now let’s move out. I want this done. These bozos can catch up once they get moving.”
“But what if they don’t get moving. How are we going to get everyone out of there?” Miller asked. “We can’t bring them out on our snowmachines, and there weren’t that many sleds up there by my count, only a dozen or so. And there’s kids too, Mr. Laskin. I don’t see how it’s feasible.”
“Think Talos ever thought it was feasible? They know there’s no road up here. So open your fucking eyes, okay?”
Laskin just walked off, barking at them to get a move on, they were heading out. Miller caught up to him. “So, sir, really, what is the plan?”
“Are you completely fucked up, Miller?”
“No sir, I don’t believe so.”
Laskin was shaking his head. “We don’t bring them out. Problem solved.”
Miller was just staring at him now so Laskin said, “They want to stay so fucking bad, fine, there’s enough assholes in the City already.”
“There’re probably enough machines to get some of the women and children out sir.”
“Don’t give me that women and children shit, Miller. There aren’t enough sleds, end of story. You don’t have the stomach for it? Go help those sorry bastards back there sand the highway. Maybe one day you’ll get your trucks up there for your big rescue.”
“Have you briefed the team on this?”
Laskin looked at Miller’s face. These cops were something else. All yes sir, no sir, except when it counted. He’d be so fucking glad to be done with these jerkoffs and back on his own. From now on man, that was the way it would be, go it alone or don’t bother. “Yes, I briefed Talos. That good enough for you and your mother?”
Miller hesitated, then asked, “Do we have clearance for changing the operation from Police Services, sir?”
Laskin had already been walking away but he came back fast at Miller, grabbing him by his parka. “You question my command again and I’ll leave you behind too, understand? Now do your job before I write you up, you fucking wuss.”
“Well, can you see anything?”
Chumboy and Larose were hunkered down in a rock cut half way down Thibeault Hill. From where they crouched off to the side, they had a view of the lower part of the hill as well as the scatterings of buildings along the other side of what used to be the main highway.
“Looking at them right now,” Chumboy said. He had the night vision goggles they’d taken from Laskin’s team.
“No way.”
“Yes sir, just the way Ricky said. You just don’t want to believe it.”
“How many?”
“Again, the Rickyman was right on the money, seven sleds, four trucks.”
Larose took the night-vision goggles from Chumboy and asked, “This going to work?” and then said, “Hey, these are cool.”
“Nice toy, eh?”
Larose said that Chumboy sure liked that gadget shit.
“What if I do? Anishinaabe brothers are allowed a little high tech you know.”
“Yeah, well, what does your low tech knowledge tell you about that red streak spreading across the sky there?” Larose asked.
Chumboy figuring he was talking mostly for the sake of talking. Larose pointed to the horizon, “See, look at that, it’s going to be a red sky in the morning, man. That’s not good, right?”
Across the sky, thick charcoal clouds were emerging from the night, sliced by a single thin streak of dark red. Chumboy told Larose it looked liked the scar that ran across his mother’s belly. She’d given birth to him by c-section, had said otherwise it would have been like trying to drive a Ford pick-up through a doghouse.
“That doesn’t tell me much about the red sky, Chum.”
“You a sailor?”
“What?”
“It goes, red sky in morning, sailors take warning. Are you a sailor?”
