Norwegian by Night

The high registers of sound are only a memory.

What can he even hear? Can he hear a leaf crackling under the heels of an enemy? A weapon being cocked? A bird taking flight, signalling that he is not alone?

He is no hunter now. He is a dreamer. A dying specimen. A useless man.

‘I’m dressed like a bush.’

‘Yes, you are, Donny. Wasn’t that the idea?’

‘Who am I fooling? Is it just myself?’

‘Are you sure you were a sniper? Not a file clerk, like you told Mabel?’

‘How would I know how to make the suit?’

‘You’re very smart, Sheldon. Maybe you figured it out.’

‘It’s more than that. There’s muscle memory here. I know how to step. I know how to look. These are memories that are a part of me. And it’s about more than that. It’s not just what I remember. It’s what I don’t remember.’

‘How so?’

‘I don’t remember filing anything.’

‘Either way, Sheldon, here you are. And what are you going to do about it? That’s the only persistent question in life.’

‘I’m going to find the rifles.’

‘Well, if that’s what’s going to happen, you should get on with it.’

The land dips into a long, shallow valley before rising up to the house. The earth is cooler here. It is moist beneath the leaves. It is easier to step on and find sure footing. The light is still strong, and the Nordic sun is high, casting only short shadows. He recognises the shallow valley as an alluvial rift created by a glacier or river aeons ago. It is helpful to know because it means the valley continues in two directions, and he can use that knowledge of the land to his benefit. It means the sauna will not be where floodwaters gather. It is not here or on the other side of the mews. It will be on higher ground. Drier ground. It will be up and behind the house.

I’ll take it wide and away.

A younger man might have taken an approach closer to the house, which he now approaches from the left and hundreds of metres into the wood. A younger man might have worried about Rhea with such intensity that he would have armed himself only with the short knife and used it as a weapon. But Sheldon is not a younger man. He cannot overpower anyone. From a seated position he can barely push the knife through the wall of the cotton canvas bag.

When we look into a forest to find the source of a sound, we look at the spaces in between. Between the trees where the light shines through. Between the branches to glimpse the blue sky, or the grey and silver linings of the heavens. Our eyes look for light, and search for something to carry us from the darkness of the wilderness.

And so Sheldon moves among the shadows. He clings to the base of trees. He lies flat for moments at a time where the ground is uneven, and he becomes the floor of the forest. He uses his knees and elbows to steady himself, because there is not enough strength in his chest any longer to keep his frail body above the earth for very long.

How much time has passed?

It’s been about an hour. Forty minutes for the Ghillie suit, and only twenty minutes on the move. Is that possible? It feels like much longer.

He would grow cold here if it were not so hot under the tarp. He should be wearing gloves. They always told him that. Leather is best. Drivers of race cars and horseback riders wear gloves to absorb the sweat and keep a grip on the reins. Metal workers and woodsmiths wear them. Gardeners and mountain climbers use them.

Such gentle hands, Mabel had once whispered to him.

Not any more. Now they are calloused and scarred. They are bloody and alone. They seldom even have each other for company anymore. They have grown indifferent to one another. There isn’t so much to clap for any longer.

Most of the men in his squad took to snipping off the index finger of their gloves and then sliding it back on unattached. It was possible to lose it this way and end up with one cold finger — which happened, but only rarely. Being gloved was important, and all the men knew it. It was the best way to keep their hands supple and warm. The raiders protected their hands the way that surgeons protect theirs. The way that violinists and pianists will not remove hot food from the oven.

They would remove the leather finger only at the last moment before the kill.

Sheldon looks back over the ground he’s covered. He is impressed with himself. The clothing does have a way of making the man. A soldier stands taller in his uniform. A doctor acts more authoritative in his white smock. The sniper creeps lower. Is sneakier. Gets closer.

The red house moves like the sun across the horizon. He has tracked it across this forested sky, and it is now coming to rest at his extreme right. It is larger than he expected. He has always imagined it as a single-room shack of coarse pinewood with a steep roof. A sort of outhouse or dog shed on a swept tundra that never thaws in the summer. A little photo on the refrigerator on his way to the iced coffee.

In actuality, it is rather larger than that. Sheldon reckons the house is a one-storey, with two bedrooms and an attic. Maybe one hundred and ten square metres. It is raised off the ground slightly, so there is a crawl space beneath the house. It is probably designed that way to keep it dry from the snow and run-off.

There are two steps leading up directly to the closed door. He is much too far away to see footprints, but there is no need to check. Lucifer’s tracks came back to the truck from the woods, but Mr Apple and Logger Boy left the scene only once.

There is nowhere else they could have gone. They are inside.

With the bike overturned, Sheldon can only hope that Rhea and Lars are there, too.

A little farther now and… is that it? He scans the spot with his binoculars. The edge is straight. Clearly man-made. It is a structure of some kind, about one hundred metres from the house. Sheldon creeps over huckleberry shrub and fallen birch. He avoids a dead badger, and is grateful there are no crows there to be startled and give away his location.

Yes, there it is. That is the sauna he has imagined. A single room with a roof — large enough to seat half- a-dozen people and dry the firewood. A spoon inside to douse the rocks with cold water and build up steam. Where fair bodies simmer into a blistering rouge like a harlot’s cheeks after a firm roll.

Sheldon comes at the sauna from the back side, allowing it to eclipse the main house. He stands now for the first time, and feels the pain shoot up his back.

The door is on the far side facing the house, but there is a small window in the back that he can see inside if he stands fully erect.

It is dark inside, but not pitch black. There is also a round window on the door itself that lets in enough light to scout the contents of the room. There is a bench that runs around all sides except on the door itself, and on the left wall there is a second, higher bench. The seats are worn, and even though there is no fire he can smell the wood. It reminds him of being young and full of spunk. The feeling comes as an unwanted diversion. He tries immediately to repress it, but the memories that come from smells are the hardest to send away.

Is this the kind of place a man would store a weapon? Surely it is not. Ammunition is not likely to ignite at the reasonably low temperatures at which humans bake — otherwise the Middle East wouldn’t be armed. But it can warp delicate woods, and force metal to expand just enough to throw off the precision of a fine instrument.

So where is it?

Sheldon stands and looks through the window some more, but the idea doesn’t come to him.

‘How’s it going?’

‘Bill?’

‘Yeah.’

‘I can’t find the guns.’

‘Where have you looked?’

‘Well, I’ve looked through this window here.’

‘Sounds thorough. Might as well pack it in.’

‘All right, sunshine, what’s your bright idea?’