Blood in the Snow by Tom Henderson

Author:Tom Henderson [Henderson, Tom]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4299-8059-3
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2011-04-25T04:00:00+00:00

LIVING UP TO ITS NAME

Grant runs through the wind and the falling snow and the deep snow on the ground and it doesn’t matter all the booze and pills he’s taken and the lack of sleep, he’s running. And he keeps running. He’s not dressed correctly for this, like he would be back at Stony Creek. He doesn’t have lightweight synthetic fibers next to his skin, wicking his sweat to the next layer, to keep him dry and warm. He doesn’t have his running shoes. But he’s a runner, and he runs and he runs and he runs. For miles, it seems.

No matches, he thinks. How am I going to light a fire when I find the cabin? Fine, just another reason to get it over with. Another way to get it over with. Get there and freeze to death.

It’s maybe five miles or so to the cabin, north and then northwest along the bending shore that forms Sturgeon Bay. In the summer, you hike in on well-groomed trails. Winter, depending on how recently it’s snowed and whether or not there have been cross-country skiers and snowshoers out, walking in can be relatively easy. But it’s been snowing hard and not many people have been out and there’s no path for him to follow, no crust of snow to stand upon, and finally he stops running. And he starts a long looping walk interspersed with bursts of running.

Come to a place, it’s impossible really, all the lake-effect snow built up over the winter covers a relentless maze of dead and fallen saplings and broken tree limbs that have been rotting below the forest canopy for years. He climbs and trips and falls and slips and slides over unseen wood at weird angles.

He sees Lake Michigan to his left and heads there, makes it there eventually, frozen to the bone now, and makes much better time walking on the ice. Still has knee-deep snow bogging him down but no saplings and limbs to trip him up. He keeps thinking he sees someone far ahead of him, and when he looks back, someone behind him, too. Are they moving with him, or is it just trees at the edge of the forest? They seem to be moving with him.

He sees a sign to the right, heads off the ice and across snow-covered beach. He’s looking for a sign that says WAUGOSHANCE CABIN. The cabin is on the north side of the park, a few hundred yards inland, south of the wide stretch of sand and grass called Waugoshance Beach, and he thinks for a minute that’s what the sign says, but when he gets closer, it says BIRD NESTING AREA. KEEP OFF GRASS.

He keeps walking inland, across wide, rolling sand dunes, and now he’s back in deep woods and he’s tripping again, over the fallen trees and limbs. Now he’s down in a deep valley, snow blows in here and doesn’t blow out, and it builds up deeper and deeper all winter and he’s at the end of winter and not getting anywhere, like in a dream.

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