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fallen away with the last of her baby fat.

Broker dug in his poles and pushed off. They met a family plodding in fat waxless skis and snowmobile suits. Passed them.

A moment later two athletic high school boys powered around them, wearing orange camo hunting parkas. Locals by their dress. Out taking advantage of the new snow.

The confrontation with Jimmy Klumpe still replayed in Broker’s muscles, a not unpleasant afterglow. Dumb to dwell on it. Put it behind you. He tried to lose himself in the rhythms of the kick and glide. The crisp air bit into his lungs, and the sweat froze on the tips of his hair as they swept through the silent forest.

Chapter Seven

Gator closed the door to his shop and stood for a few moments looking across the empty fields and into the woods beyond. The eighty acres was fifteen miles north of Glacier Falls, at the edge of the Washichu State Forest. He’d signed it over to Cassie when they both turned twenty-one, when he was in the Navy.

Spent three years at the Idaho National Engineering Lab by Idaho Falls. Nothing but razor-sharp black basalt fields, used nuclear fuel rods, unexploded ordnance, and a Navy facility that trained submariners on nuclear engines. Mechanic/machinist mate. Never did get to see the ocean.

Cassie had tried renting the place out. Didn’t have much luck. People didn’t like it up here in the big woods, said it was too spooky.

He’d moved in when he got out of prison two years ago. He liked it just fine. No people, and lots of machines that needed fixing. His parole officer had remarked how Gator had cleaned the place up considerably. People grudgingly admitted he was a local success story. No small accomplishment for a Bodine.

So he stood for a few minutes looking over his domain; uninhabited-now-for a ten-mile radius. The low clouds almost scraped the crowns of the pines, going off forever like the bottoms of a million gray egg cartons. He sniffed the crunchy air. March in Minnesota. It would snow again.

He cocked an ear, listening. Earlier today he’d heard the pack. Nothing now.

He approved of the way the snow carpeted the fields and frosted the evergreens. Was up to him, he’d have winter all year. Liked the way it imposed a kind of order; compressed the colors into manageable whites and grays. Covered up all the crud.

Made the big woods even more inaccessible. Kept people away. The wolves coming back helped, too.

Going in the farmhouse, like now, sometimes he missed his dogs. The two big shepherd pups he bought had been poisoned last year by some uptight citizen who didn’t like homeboy felons moving back into the neighborhood. He’d brought in some geese for lookouts but got rid of them because he couldn’t abide the green crap everywhere. Decided the isolation was security enough.

There were no animals on the farm now. The land was in the crop rotation. Just him and his tools and the quiet.

The farmhouse was pretty much the way it’d been; just a lot cleaner now. Same old furniture covered with blankets. He’d hung a few tractor posters on the wall. His ribbons from high school cross-country. A framed certificate that announced that Morgun Bodine had finished twelfth in the Bierkebinder Cross-Country Ski Marathon five years ago, in Hayward, Wisconsin. A souvenir German battle flag hung on the wall that his dad had brought back from Europe, when he was the best mechanic in four counties, before he went on the booze. A good sound system.

A 5,000-piece puzzle was half constructed on the kitchen table.

He heated some water and put on a Johnny Cash CD, the one recorded at Folsom Prison. When the water boiled, he made a cup of Folger’s instant coffee, lit a Camel, and got out his maps and refamiliarized himself with the ski trail loop that followed the east shore of the lake, where the old Hamre place was located.

He picked up the phone, checked down the list of numbers taped on the wall, and called Glacier Lodge. The clerk told him, yeah, they’d run the tractor on the ski trails this morning-what the hell, probably the last chance to ski this season.

Gator thanked the clerk, ended the call, and returned to his maps. One loop of the trail skirted the Griffins’ rental. He thought about it. Go in fast, scout the place, mess with the guy’s stuff. Get out. Just enough to keep Cassie happy so she didn’t bounce weird.

The other thing toyed with him. Cassie said he didn’t fit? Like a puzzle. Something to figure out.

Cassie had always expected him to attend to her dramas, large and small. Like he was on this open-ended retainer because she’d talked Jimmy into bankrolling the repair shop. When he got out of the joint. Back when she had her nose in the air, when they were flush, all full of plans.

That was almost two years ago, and he’d owed them. Gator grinned and knuckled the bristle of spiky growth on his chin. Yeah, well, now-the way it worked out-they owed him. Big-time. And now he had the plans.

But he had to keep them in line, on task. Especially Cassie, who had boundary issues when she got herself all worked up and got wired and got to talking too much. So she wanted to see her brother teach the guy a lesson, country style. Like he had learned last year, the accepted way around here to send a message was to kill an animal. Okay, if that was the price of keeping her quiet.

Kid’s stuff. And messy. He put on a pair of old rubber gloves, went to the icebox, poked around, and found half a pound of hamburger starting to turn brown. Quickly he packed the meat into a squishy ball, eased it into a Ziploc bag, then stepped onto the mud porch and carefully lifted a liter of Prestone, took off the twist cap, and sloshed antifreeze into the plastic bag. Leaned it gingerly on a workbench against the vise. Let it stew. One green greasy meatball slurpy for Rover.

Gator made a face. So what if the guy doesn’t have a dog?

He went back in the kitchen and dug in the utensil drawer next to the sink until he found the skinny ice pick. I know he’s got a vehicle.

He placed the pick in the narrow side pocket of his backpack. He thought for a moment. Probably have to do some creeping. He went to the shelf on the mud porch and selected a pair of old oversize felt boot liners. Then he selected his small bear-paw snow shoes. After he loaded the footwear in his pack, he nestled the meatball baggie in among the boot liners.

Okay.

Next he changed from his work clothes, pulled on long underwear and lightweight Gore-Tex winter camo. He yanked a ski mask over his head and down around his neck like a muff, so he could pull it up if he needed to hide his face. He put a bottle of water, an energy bar, and his smokes in a small backpack. After he laced on his ski boots, he checked the thermometer on the porch.

Twenty-two degrees. Blue Kleister.

Carefully, liking the routine, he waxed his Peltonen racers.

He put his cell phone in his chest pocket, then loaded his skis and gear in the back of his battered red ’92 Chevy truck and headed out. He slowed five minutes from the farm to check the intersection of County Z. The crossroad was all fresh undisturbed snow, no tire tracks. He continued on County 12 south through the deserted jack pine barrens, going slow, inspecting the deserted houses scattered along the road for signs of recent activity. Half an hour later, he arrived at the trail head at the north end of the lake.

Most mornings when there was good snow, he skied the north 20K. He unloaded his skis and stepped into his bindings, shouldered his pack, and poled through the woods to the trail. When he got there, he saw that the tractor from the lodge had been through, just like the clerk said. Fresh-groomed trails. He pushed off and fell into the powerful rhythm, heading south.

Twice he skied off the trail, letting other skiers pass. This time of year they’d be local people, and he didn’t want to be spotted out here. Allowing for the detours, it took just fifteen leisurely minutes to come to the yellow No Hunting sign that posted the back end of Griffin’s land. Could see the green cabin peeking through the trees, the lake beyond it. He saw they’d been skiing, probably last night just after it snowed. They had worked a connecting trail. He scouted in closer down the connecting trail and settled on a slight rise that overlooked the backyard. He got out of his skis, hid them in some thick spruce, strapped on the paws, and went to the knoll, where he made a