They did, though. They had to in order to survive, and so had Cooper. In the spring, when they’d found the tire marks on the shore of West Lake Sylvia, out in Wright County, Cooper was the only one in the family who would go downtown to identify David’s body. When she got to the morgue, they warned her. They told her they only needed confirmation. They told her they hadn’t taken off his seatbelt. They told her about the book found wedged between the dashboard and the windshield. Cooper knew him only by his thick brown hair. It looked so much like her own.
She stood up so suddenly her chair fell backward onto the cement floor with an ear-splitting crash. The sound seemed to come from miles away. The opiates and the alcohol had met in her bloodstream by this time, and were finally mingling. Cooper tried to make a fist with her right hand, and though she could feel some dried blood crack, she felt no pain. When she looked into the fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling, illuminated commas dove in and out of her line of vision. She may never paint again, but she would do this one thing. This was why she had come to this place, this frozen, dead place. And it was time. She picked up the vial of ashes and walked out of the studio, unaware that her parka was still hanging on the back of the door.
Cooper found the Dome silent, all the machines asleep while the Nailheads ate lunch, and as she walked down the entrance tunnel, she had to work to focus her eyes and steady her steps. She could see her breath, but felt warm. After what felt like days, she finally reached the bottom of the entrance tunnel, and looked out at the drifts surrounding the station. The cornices atop them loomed nearly twenty feet high. This was the moat of death, the deep, circular crevasse that formed around the Dome as winter progressed, but now it seemed bottomless. She glanced down and saw whales. Hallucinations, she thought, and congratulated herself for being able to tell. She blinked once and the whales obligingly disappeared. A hooded figure appeared at the top of the entrance tunnel, and then disappeared, too. Cooper’s body was pulsing but her limbs felt stiff. She heard her name coming at her from all directions.
Across the plateau, she could see the caution flags that marked the sinking old station now buried beneath thirty feet of snow, its bones slowly being masticated by the polar ice. A hooded figure appeared again, this time running. Cooper gasped, and a mouthful of thirty-below-zero air scalded her lungs until she thought she’d collapse from the pain. At the same time, though, she felt uncomfortably hot. The person was still running toward her, and it struck Cooper that for some reason he knew what she was about. Perhaps he was coming to stop her. She couldn’t let that happen.
She fell to her knees and began clawing at the snow with her left hand, holding the vial in the remaining fingers of her right.
Suddenly, her pursuer was next to her. He stopped and removed his parka. Before she could get a good look at him, the wind changed directions all at once. The snow was rising off the plateau, as if it were alive. A burst of wind knocked her off her knees, but she struggled to her feet. No, this wasn’t the right place, this polar vehicle superhighway. No, she knew the right place for this. Beyond the Pole marker and the flags of all nations, at the place where Scott spoke from beyond the grave. That’s where David belonged.
A high-pitched scream sounded in her ear. She could see boots just in front of her, and thought she could hear a voice. The boots moved away. Cooper dropped her chin to her chest and lay still once more.
Climb in the trench, kick out the roof, and go to sleep. Doesn’t get any easier.
It was as if all of her muscles relaxed at once, like a building settling onto its foundation in a single movement. Cooper found she was standing alone in a clearing. Before her, a forest, pines and oaks twining together, meeting the edge of the snow. She walked toward it cautiously. All was silent. But life wasn’t silent, Cooper knew—not even here, so this couldn’t be life. Then, all at once, another clearing, and the sun trembling atop the ice like a gazing ball. Cooper closed her eyes against it. When she looked up again, the sun was gone, and in its place, a sparrow.
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
U.S. TOTAL ARMY PERSONNEL COMMAND
ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA 22332-0400
ORDER NO: 41-5
The President of the United States has reposed special trust and confidence in the patriotism, valor, fidelity, and abilities of CARROLL F. BOZER. In view of these qualities and his demonstrated potential for increased responsibility, he is therefore promoted in the Army of the United States from Staff Sergeant General to Sergeant First Class. Promotion is effective 1 May 1991 with date of rank 1 May 1991. The authority for this promotion is Section 601, Title 10, United States Code.
Format 307
BY ORDER OF THE SECRETARY OF THE ARMY:
MICHAEL K. VEASEY
LIEUTENANT COLONEL, GS
CHIEF, PROMOTIONS BRANCH
DISTRIBUTION:
EACH PSC (1)
EACH MAJOR COMMAND (1)
SFC BOZER (1)
ASSISTANT TO THE CHAIRMAN (OJCS)
WASHINGTON, DC 20310
man without country
I see her standing at the end of the tunnel. I let her go that far. I know the impulse, and I respect it. You don’t survive here without putting your hands on it sometimes, but you have to know how to kill it before it kills you. This one doesn’t know how to do that. That’s why she got into this fix in the first place, why she came back from the Divide minus a fork.
She’s not wearing a parka, and she’s shaking like a hog on butchering day—but it’s like she don’t notice. She just keeps walking, and I see that I have to go after her. My radio crackles, and I consider calling Floyd, but Floyd’s got a big mouth, so I figure this one’s on me.
When I get there—and I run to get there—she’s standing by the moat, her body seizing with the cold. She’s looking into the ditch like she wants to jump in, and she’s shaking so hard she might end up at the bottom even if she don’t mean to. She sees me, and next thing I know she’s on her knees, and not in a good way—she’s digging, like she’s set to bury something. When she sees me coming with my parka, she gets to her feet and takes off. It takes me a minute to catch her, and when I do, she fights me. I’m careful—she’s ain’t got her bandage on, goddamn it, but I end up catching her and wrapping her in my parka. I have to throw her over my shoulder, but it’s done. We’re going back inside. Christ, the cold, though. It’s straight from hell.
Once we’re inside, I take the bandanna off my head, snap it square, and wrap it around her hand. It’s ugly because it’s a fresh cut, but the fingerless don’t scare me. In my line of work, they’re a dime a dozen.
“What were you doing out there alone?” I say, once I’ve got her hand wrapped.
She says, “I’m not alone.”
“Not anymore you ain’t,” I say, and when I put my arm around her shoulder, she sinks into it like it’s a warm bed.