Read Bad Little Falls for Free Online Page B

snow.

 
     
FEBRUARY 13
     
    They sent us home early on account of the snow. Erick says there’s a big blizzard coming. The Storm of the Century, he says.
    On the bus I kept thinking about the White Owl, wondering if she’d come to my window like she did the last time it snowed.
    The bus came around the corner and I saw Randle’s new car in front of the house and I got a sick feeling in my stomach like I ate too much peanut brittle.
    Ma’s van was there, too—but she don’t usually get home till after 2. That’s when her shift ends.
    Randle’s always got some new car. This one’s a black Grand Am.
    After the bus left, I wondered if Randle and Prester shot a coyote like they said they was going to. I wondered if they had it in the backseat.
    All I did was look in the window!
    Suddenly Randle came out the door, yelling F this and F that and telling me to get away from the car. His face was all weird and scary from his new tattoo.
    He HIT me!
    Right in the side of the head. I fell over and everything! My whole backpack spilled onto the ground. When I touched my head, there was BLOOD!
    Ma came out screaming. Don’t touch him! Leave him alone!
    She ain’t afraid of Randle. She gave him a shove, but he just pushed her into a snowbank. Then he called her the C word.
    If you touch my son again, I’m gonna kill you! Ma said. I never seen her so mad.
    F you, Jamie, Randle said. Come on, Prester.
    Uncle P didn’t even try to help us up or anything. He just did what Randle told him to do, same as always.
    Randle peeled rubber all the way up the road.
    Ma helped me pick up my stuff. I’ll never let him hurt you again, Lucas, she told me.
    I heard that one before.
    She knew what I was thinking. I mean it this time, she said.

 
     
    6
     
    It scarcely seemed possible, but my day went downhill from there.
    After Rivard dropped me at my trailer, I discovered that the baseboard heating had gone on the fritz. I checked the fuse box, but there were no spare fuses. That meant I would have to drive down to the hardware store in Machias before my pipes froze and burst. Either that or try heating the entire building with my propane stove.
    I was lacing up my wet boots again when I remembered a dusty metal box under the kitchen sink. Inside were all sorts of orphan screws and random washers, along with a handful of new electrical fuses. I had to wait half an hour for the trailer to warm up again before I dared leave.
    Out on the road, the visibility was already going to hell, and it wasn’t even midday.
    I’d decided to visit a gun shop—people in these parts tended to run them as home businesses—to ask the owner about “George Magoon,” but I found the door padlocked and the barred windows dark. Instead, I drove over to Snake Lake to check ice-fishing licenses. As cold as it was, I expected a few fishermen to be sitting in the warmth of their brazier-heated shacks, enjoying hot coffee or more adult beverages. But all I found out on the ice was another ghost town. Everyone but me had the good sense to hunker down inside and wait out the storm.
    On the drive home to Whitney, I passed a convoy of ancient school buses inching along in the snow. The local kids were being sent home for the day. I decided to take a hint and do the same. I finished the paperwork I owed the Warden Service and watched the snowflakes fall from the tepid comfort of my trailer.
    When I ventured out again for dinner, I found my personal vehicle—a 2005 Jeep Wrangler—hiding under a new white blanket. The storm had been gathering force all afternoon, and now with darkness descending, snow was both falling from the sky and being blown upward from the thickening drifts. I had outfitted my Jeep with new snow tires, but even with the studs digging into the snowpack, I was reluctant to push my luck. Creeping along at twenty-five miles per hour made me feel like a daredevil.
    After I crossed into Township Nineteen, it occurred to me that I should’ve brought a