Shivering and stiff from the cold floor, Maura rose and placed another log on the hearth. The wood caught almost immediately, and flames soon crackled, throwing off delicious waves of heat. She looked in disgust at Arlo, who didn’t even stir. Useless, she thought. I can’t even count on them to keep a fire burning. What a mistake it had been to throw in her lot with these people. She was tired of Arlo’s wisecracks and Grace’s whining and Doug’s annoyingly unflagging optimism. And Elaine made her uneasy, though she didn’t know why. She remembered the way Elaine had stared when Doug had embraced Maura up on the road. I’m the interloper, the one who doesn’t belong with this happy quartet, she thought. And Elaine resents me.
The fire was now burning hot and bright.
Maura glanced at her watch and saw it was four AM. It was almost time for her shift to watch the fire anyway, so she might as well stay awake until dawn. As she stood up to stretch, a reflected glimmer caught her eye on the periphery of the firelight. Moving closer, she saw that droplets of water had beaded on the wooden floor. Then she noticed, off in the shadows, a light dusting of white. Someone had opened the door, letting in a gust of snow.
She crossed toward the door, where the snow had not yet melted, and stared down at the fine powder. Pressed into that powder was a single shoe print.
She turned and quickly scanned the room, counting the sleeping forms. Everyone present and accounted for.
The door was unlocked; no one had bothered to latch it last night, and why would they? Whom would they be trying to lock out?
She slid the bolt shut and went to look out the window. Although the room was warming up again, she was shaking under her blanket. Wind moaned in the chimney, and she heard snow hiss across the glass. She could see nothing outside, only blackness. But anyone out there would be able to see her, backlit by the glow of firelight.
She retreated from the window and sat on the rug, shivering. The snow near the door melted, taking with it the last remnants of the shoe print. Maybe the door blew open during the night, and one of them got up to shut it, leaving the print. Maybe someone stepped out to check the weather or pee in the snow. Wide awake now, she sat and watched as night slowly gave way to dawn, as the blackness outside lifted to gray.
Her companions did not stir.
When she rose to feed the fire again, she saw that they were down to their last few logs. There was plenty of wood outside in the shed, but it was probably damp. If she wanted it to dry out, someone would have to bring in an armload now. She looked at her sleeping companions and sighed. That someone would be me.
She pulled on her boots and gloves, wrapped her scarf around her face, and unlatched the front door. Bracing herself against the cold, she stepped outside, closing the door behind her. Wind swept the porch, its bite as sharp as needles. The swing creaked in protest. Glancing down, she saw no shoe prints, but the wind would have scoured anything away. A thermometer mounted on the wall read twelve degrees. It felt far colder.
The steps were buried in snow, and as she set her boot down on what she thought was the first step, her foot slid out and she fell. The impact shot straight up her spine and exploded in her skull. She sat for a moment, stunned and blinking in the dawn’s brightness. Sun beamed down from a blue sky and glared on a world turned blinding. Wind blasted a puff of powder into her face and she sneezed, which only made her head hurt worse.
She got up and brushed off her pants. Squinted at snow glistening on rooftops. Between the two rows of houses was a swath of virgin white, inviting her to be the first to tread that perfect, untouched surface. She ignored the impulse and instead tramped around the corner of the house, struggling through knee-high snow to reach the woodshed. She tried to pull a split log from the top of the pile, but it was frozen in place. Bracing one foot against the pile, she tugged harder. With a loud crack, the frozen bark suddenly gave way and she stumbled backward. Her boot caught on something buried beneath the snow, and she sprawled to the ground.
Two falls in one day. And the morning was still young.
Her head ached and her eyes felt scorched by the sunlight. She was hungry and queasy at the same time, the result of too much whiskey last night. The prospect of pork and beans for breakfast wasn’t making her feel any better. She struggled back to her feet and looked around for the log that she’d dropped. Kicking around in the snow, she bumped up against an obstruction. She dug in with gloved hands and felt a hard lump. Not the log, but something larger, something that was frozen to the ground. This was what she had caught her boot on.
She brushed away more snow and suddenly went still, staring down at what she’d uncovered. Repulsed, she backed away. Then turned and ran into the house.
9
THEY MUST HAVE LEFT HIM OUTSIDE, AND HE FROZE TO DEATH,” SAID Elaine.
They stood in a solemn circle around the dead dog, like five mourners at a grave, buffeted by a wind with a bite as sharp as glass. Doug had used a shovel to widen the hole, and the dog now lay fully uncovered, its fur glistening with snow. A German shepherd.
“Who would leave a dog out in this weather?” said Arlo. “It’s cruel.”
Maura knelt down and pressed her gloved hand against the dog’s flank. The body was frozen solid, the flesh hard as stone. “I don’t see any injuries. And he’s not a stray,” she said. “He looks well fed, and he’s wearing a collar.” On the steel tag was engraved the unlikely name of LUCKY. “He’s obviously someone’s pet.”
“He might have just wandered out of the house and his owners couldn’t find him in time,” said Doug.
Grace looked up with stricken eyes. “And then they just left him here, all alone?”
“Maybe they had to leave in a hurry.”
“How can anyone do that? We’d never do that to a dog.”
“We don’t know what really happened here, honey.”
“You’re going to bury him, aren’t you?”
“Grace, he’s just a dog.”
“You can’t leave him out here.”
Doug sighed. “Okay, I’ll take care of it, I promise. Why don’t you go inside and keep that fire going. I’ll take care of everything.”
They waited until Grace had retreated into the house. Then Elaine said, “You aren’t really going to bother burying this dog, are you? The ground’s frozen solid.”
“You saw how freaked out she is.”
“She’s not the only one,” said Arlo.
“I’ll just cover it back up with snow. It’s so deep, she won’t know the dog’s still here.”
“Let’s all go back in the house,” said Elaine. “I’m freezing.”
“I don’t understand this,” said Maura, still crouched over the dead animal. “Dogs aren’t stupid, especially not German shepherds. He’s well nourished and he has a thick winter coat.” She rose to her feet and surveyed the landscape, her eyes narrowed against the glare of reflected sunlight. “This is the north-facing wall. Why would he end up dying right here?”
“As opposed to where?” said Elaine.
“Maura raises a good point,” said Doug.
“I’m not getting it,” Elaine said, clearly annoyed that no one was following her back into the house.
“Dogs have common sense,” he said. “They know enough to seek shelter from the cold. He could have dug himself into the snow. Or crawled under the porch. He could have found any number of places where he’d be better protected against the wind, but he didn’t.” He looked down at the dog. “Instead he ended up here. Fully exposed to the wind, as if he just keeled over and died.”
They were silent as a gust whipped their clothes and whistled between buildings, whirling white glitter. Maura stared at deep drifts rippling the landscape like giant white waves, and she wondered: What other surprises lie buried beneath the snow?