I expected Niki to look hurt, but she didn’t. Instead, she looked melancholy. She dropped her eyes and nodded her understanding. “Will you come back from . . . where you need to go?” she asked.
I picked at the label of my empty beer bottle and said, “If I can.”
CHAPTER 16
Up North
The second hole in the ice goes slightly faster, as my technique has improved. I begin to count the turns of the auger, switching hands every twenty rotations. I also keep a cadence in my head, counting to a waltz rhythm like I’d seen dance teachers do in movies: one, two, three; two, two, three . . . The counting keeps me moving at a steady pace and, more important, it fills my head with noise, which helps to block out the voice of the man as he continues to try to get under my skin.
Despite my improved technique, the auger shaves its way down at a snail’s pace, and soon other thoughts—memories—find their way in. I think about a morning when Jenni and I were lying in bed, listening to rain fall against the bedroom window in an easy patter, like fingertips tapping against leather. We had just made love and neither of us had a reason to get out of bed, so we didn’t. That had been a month or two before she died—before he killed her. And as I think of that morning, I wonder if that was the day that we conceived our child.
We had wanted a baby for so long. Early in our marriage, it seemed a game. Behind every flirtation pranced the lure of having sex with a woman whom I loved more than anything else in the world. But those flirtations also carried the possibility of starting a family—the prize at the bottom of the Cracker Jack box.
After she made up her mind—that day she seduced me in the guest room—we became serious, tackling the endeavor with books and research, even indulging in a few old wives’ tales. From there came the doctor visits and the minefield of conversations that we would eventually learn to avoid, simple conversations about things like parks or toys or the room that was to become a nursery. Those conversations now touched bruises that never seemed to heal. Officially we were still trying; neither of us had given up. Yet there were times when I could see in her eyes a loneliness that I knew I would never be able to end on my own.
I’m just beyond the halfway point on the second hole when I stop to catch my breath. It is then that I hear a ruffling sound behind me. At first I ignore it and start pulling slush from the hole. When I hear the ruffling sound again, it seems a little bit quieter, more distant. I turn and look at the man. He has managed to push his body about thirty feet away from my circle. His feet are still tied together, but he is able to bend his knees, dig his heels in and push his torso through the snow. I’m not sure how far he expects to get; it has to be a quarter mile to the nearest shore—and then what?
When he sees me looking at him, the man stops his effort and says, “Fuck you.”
I walk over and reach for the rope tied around his calves. When I do, he rears back and punches his bound heels at me. It is a futile attack, and I swat his legs to the side. I take off my gloves, grab the tail of the rope and start to drag him back to the circle. As I do, he screams like a wounded animal. I assume that the act of dragging him puts new pressure on his broken arm, because he’s twisting to lift that elbow off the ground. When I drop his legs onto the ice, he bares his teeth like a dog and yells, “God damn you!” It’s the first time he’s unleashed the rage that I know he has under the surface.
“No,” I say politely. “God damn you.”
I walk back to get my gloves and when I turn around, he’s pushing himself through the snow again. He’s found a new game, a stall tactic to slow down my progress.
I walk to his feet again and reach for the rope, but I’m careless. I get too close and I’m bent over. He rears back and shoves both his heels into the side of my head. I stumble back as a jolt of pain shoots through my skull. For a moment I can’t hear out of my right ear.
“God dammit!” I shout through gritted teeth.
He’s trying to squirm his way over to kick me again. I spy the ax handle at the edge of the nest, go pick it up, and step toward the man. His legs are cocked and ready. I swing the ax handle at his knee, but at the last second I alter the trajectory. If I hit his knee, I’ll break it and that injury will be the focus of his attention. That won’t do. Instead, I hit the side on his calf and he yelps and turns over onto his side. He’s in pain, but that pain will pass.
He curses me in great detail, as I ponder on how to stop him from pushing away again. I could tie his ankles to his thighs or ball him up like a roped calf, but then he’d be too crooked to fit through the hole. I need to lock his knees straight somehow. I look at the ax handle in my hand. I don’t need it as a weapon anymore. An idea forms in my mind.
The man is writhing in pain as I bend down and grab his good arm, turning him the rest of the way onto his stomach. When I do this, he shrieks and bucks. His face is buried in snow, which muffles his ranting a bit. I pull the fillet knife out of my boot and cut a slit in the hip of his expensive snow pants. Then I quickly slide the ax handle down the leg before he can think to bend his knee. The handle hits up against the man’s boot.
I keep my body on his legs to hold them down as he kicks and twists. I pull his belt from my coat pocket and wrap it around his thigh twice, buckling it to hold the wood in place, creating a splint against his knee that locks his leg straight. He won’t be able to push away now, and more important, he won’t be able to bend his knees to stop me from sliding him through the hole in the ice when the time comes.
When I’m done, I turn him back over, his face full of snow and anger.
“I’m going to kill you!” he screams. “You think you’re coming out of this alive?”
Now we’re getting somewhere. I stay on my knees, next to him, and brush some of the snow off his face, giving him a moment to ponder his impotency. The muscles in his face harden, but he controls the outburst that seethes just below the surface.
“You think you’re tough?” he says. “You’re not tough. You don’t know tough. Untie me and I’ll kick your ass, even with a broken arm. You could never beat me in a fair fight, and you know it.”
“A fair fight? Like the one we had over there?” I nod in the direction of the Canadian shore.
“Why are you doing this?” he asks, his voice now shaking with emotion. He’s switching his tack. “There’s no point to your cruelty. At least tell me what it is that you think I did.”
“You know what you did.”
“No. You’re wrong. I’ve done nothing to you. I’m innocent. You have the wrong—”
I can’t help myself. I slap him in the side of the head as hard as I can. “Don’t you dare tell me you’re innocent! Don’t you fucking dare!”