something at the middle of the group, something that didn’t move, and I rested my chin on my chest to look at it. It was large and it looked heavy, but they seemed to prize it in some way, so I leaned down and brushed some of the snow away. When I finished brushing the majority of the snow off it, I stood back with the others and listened to a new song, one that sounded much closer, with words that I remembered. I could hear all of this song, the beginning, middle, and end. It was a very forceful melody, and it was coming from the thing in the path.
We listened to it for a while, all of us smiling, and then they began breaking away. But before each one of them began their swirling and swooping and snapping, they motioned for me to take the thing in the trail as a gift. I stepped back as they offered it to me. Two of them each took one of my hands and placed them on the object before us. It sang louder as I touched it, and I reached around and pulled it from the ground, as the remaining snow sloughed off. It was heavy and cumbersome to carry, but it seemed ungracious not to take it. Its song became strained as I loaded it onto my back.
The snow seemed to part as I moved forward in time with the bodies in the shadows to my left and right. There were small flashes in the darkness ahead, as if they were clearing a path for me, muted flashes of crimson and cobalt within the smothering white. My legs began to shake with the weight of the gift, but dropping it in the face of such hospitality would be unendurable, so I kept walking. Soon the flat gave way to a gentle downward slope, and the images tilted the world in my favor, allowing me longer strides and easier breathing through the cotton cloth that was now frozen to my face. I didn’t feel the cold anymore and noticed a jaunty quality accompanied my step as I matched it with the music of the small jingle bells and with the pace of the darting figures all around me.
The best part of the song emanated from the gift I carried. It caught all the complex rhythms and melodies of the group and conveyed it in a singular fashion so that it was easier to understand. Its voice was right behind my head, and its strength reverberated through me and into the ground with each step. But, after a while, the song changed and became more maudlin and extended. I shook the weight on my back to get it to switch back to the melody from before, but that didn’t work. It was harder to get my stride back with the new song since the patterns were not even and my steps wouldn’t match. I was beginning to wonder what was so great about the gift they had given me when I passed the spot where I had taken the little nap on the way up.
I was thinking about taking another one, but others had joined in with the song on my back, and the whole thing took on the feeling of a processional. I didn’t want to be the first to break step, so I just kept going. After a while, I became aware of a large shape up and off to my right. I remembered it as being something important, but I couldn’t remember why or what it was. There was a sharper drop off as I made my way around that shape, and I almost lost my footing as I skirted it. I had a vague recollection of it having hurt me in the past, but it seemed benign enough now. I stood at a flat spot and struggled to stay upright. I remembered that there was something waiting for me just a little ways ahead, so I started off once more, but the voices lingered in the shadows behind me. They had elected to stay in the forest, and I would have turned to look back at them, but it would have taken more energy than I had. I felt bad about not saying good-bye. The song on my back continued, although the quality of its tone had weakened. I had to get where I was going before the song on my back stopped. I wasn’t sure how I knew this, but I did.
I started forward again and, as I came across an area where the snow was shallower, I remembered a promise that had been made to me. It was something important, too. It was a promise about leaving. All the important promises are about leaving or not leaving. I thought about turning around to see what it was that I was leaving, but if you did that enough, you didn’t leave, and then what were all the promises about? I kept walking. I could barely hear the song on my back now, so I shook it to try and get it going. It stopped. I shook it some more, trying to get it going again, but it still wouldn’t start. I thought about dropping it since it didn’t work anymore, but they might be watching from the trees.
I guess they figured I needed some help, because the flashes were back, crimson and cobalt flares that lit up the snow in a rhythm of their own, but the spirits must have been getting tired too, because the lights seemed to have lost their individuality and were blinking in a monotonous and irritating fashion. The music was gone, the bells and the drums and the voices had drifted off with the wind. I listened, but there was only an ugly squawking. I shook the song on my back, but it remained obstinate. I figured it was probably the cold, that some part of it must have frozen. I would have to see if I could fix it once I got to where I was going. I tried to remember where it was I was going, but all I could think of was that it was warmer there. I was about ready to set the song down and take a rest, but the shadows were there again. Some of them stepped out from the snow clouds to my right, and I was just starting to see the ones to my left when I noticed that, unlike the others, they were coming straight at me. The only thing I could figure was that they wanted the song back.
Indian givers.
I stopped and stood up straight. I was a lot bigger than they were, now that we were on level ground. They stopped as well, but their arms reached out to the song; I whirled around a half step to let them know that they couldn’t have it. I tried to speak, but it was as if my vocal chords were frozen, so I just roared and took a few quick breaths to get ready for the fight.
The smallest one was directly ahead of me; it was the one that had backed off the least. I focused on that shadow and leaned in to smash it. It still didn’t move, but just stood there, hipshot and kind of crooked, like most of its weight was resting on one side with a hand on its hip. You had to be careful, because the little ones might be just as powerful as the big ones. It didn’t really matter how big they were, or how many of them there were though, I wasn’t giving up the song. The little one still didn’t move, and I was just getting ready to crush it when it spoke in a sharp and unpleasant yet strangely familiar voice. “Nice fuckin’ outfit.”
Later, when I rolled my head over and found Henry looking at me through barely open eyes, as the EMT van slowly made its way through the drifts that had accumulated throughout the evening and on into the night, I asked him if he thought it had been wise to be singing all that time with the internal injuries he’d sustained.
Groggily, all he said was, “What singing?”
13
“What do you mean, you released yourself on your own recognizance?”
“I rang the bell a bunch of times, but nobody came around.” I was trying to look reputable, but it was difficult with the clothes I was wearing.
“So you just left?” We stood there for a moment, looking at each other. “They’re on the phone, and they want to know where you are!”
Ruby had a point, and in hindsight it did seem a little irresponsible. I straightened some of my papers and tried to look busy. “Well, tell them I’m here.”
“You tell them. Explain to the doctor why it is he can’t find you anywhere in his hospital.”
I stared down at the blinking red light; I had to get a different color. It was still early, and the sky was getting a little bruised yellow to the east. The tail end of the storm was tapering off to the Powder River country, but the skies still stayed mostly gray. They said it was over, but I felt like it might be stalking me. I remained there for a while, not allowing the pain in my fingers and ear to get the best of me. I could hear Lucian chuckling to himself in the hallway. Changing of the guard. I had timed it poorly; if I had arrived earlier, I could have gotten things going and hit the road before Ruby had shown up for duty.
I woke up very early and couldn’t get back to sleep, so I lay there and thought about Henry. I rang the little bell for the night nurse and waited about five minutes. Then I rang it again and again. A half an hour went by, and I decided to go look for the Bear myself. The IVs were the biggest pain in the ass, but they came out pretty easily, and the tape covered the holes so that the bleeding stopped. I had dismissed the idea of dragging them along with me, as they would cut down on this particular mission’s stealthy quality. The nurse had hidden my personal belongings, but I found them in a locker near her station, which was, I had learned, the safest place to avoid her. There was a little cardboard sign on the desk that said, IN CASE OF EMERGENCY, CONTINUE TO THE CLINIC OR RING BELL. I’m cagey that way, so I didn’t ring the bell or go to the clinic.
There was a guy who might have been part Crow mopping the hallway when I came back to my room to change into my clothes. He had the sickly look that everybody adopts after working nights for a while; I had had that look before. “How you doin’?” He stared at my gown and the clothes I clutched to my chest but didn’t say
