Extra Indians. Eric Gansworth

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      “Hang on, we’re here.” I pulled up to the registration office and filled out some paperwork. The place was totally deserted, not a single car or foot track in the snow, but they had left all the right stuff in a drop box on the door as promised and the cabin was easy to find. It was perfect, just what I was hoping it would be.

      I offered the girl the bathroom first, while I unpacked a little and made some entries into the logbook, and then I cleaned up, myself, when she was out of there and sitting by the fire I had started. We had made good time, and still had an hour before the first real wave, when we headed out to the fields. I gave her the spare coat I always keep in the cab’s storage. The occasional snowmobile whined off in the distance, but even that settled down by midnight, when the first streaks started appearing across the sky. We had nearly this whole area to ourselves.

      “Look! There!” I pointed, and her eyes followed my hand. “Make a wish.”

      “Wish,” she repeated, arching her neck back, nearly being swallowed by my bulky winter coat.

      “Don’t tell me or it won’t come true. Hell, I probably already know what your wish is, anyway, but I don’t think you’re gonna find that money.”

      “Wish . . . someone . . . hear . . . me.”

      “I’m near you,” I said, stepping up behind her, wrapping my arms around her tiny waist and resting my chin on her shoulder, my beard scratching against the shiny material. Even in that bulky coat, she felt like a bird.

      “Hear me . . . no . . . not . . . near you . . . hear . . . me.” She pulled away and ran a few yards from me.

      “I hear you,” I said. “I hear you.” Watching the meteors always killed my neck and this was the longest-lasting patch I had seen in years, lots of ways for my wishes to ride into reality.

      I lay down in the snow and watched them for a while until the wave eased up. The next big shower was scheduled to start in about four more hours, so I was going to go in, set the alarm clock, and catch some shut-eye. Just then, I remembered something and started doing those lying-down jumping jacks you can do. “Hey,” I yelled to her, “watch this.” The snow out there was a little stiff, not as bad as it had been in Bismarck, but also, not very dusty. No matter, it was for sure no challenge against my two hundred pounds.

      “This here is called a snow angel. See? Like an angel? The wings, the robe? We used to make them when we were kids, on those rare winter snows when we got more than an inch in West Texas.”

      “Angel,” she said and shook her head a little. I guessed they don’t have angels there, where she was from.

      “Uh, like a ghost, impression, imprint, something.” I got up and she looked at it.

      “Ghost. Hiroshima. On wall,” she said, studying the shape I had made in the snow after I had crawled up from it. I’d heard about that, some people just vaporized in the blast, leaving only negatives of themselves on the walls around them. I had always thought it was, you know, made up for drama’s sake.

      “Here, you make one,” I said, offering her the untouched snow to my right. She shook her head and began walking away. “Wait, come on, you go into the cabin. I’ll stay out here, in my rig. It’s fine, I do it all the time.” We went in and I checked the fire, made sure it would last the night. These new cabins all have the modern conveniences anyway, so the furnace would just kick on if the fire went out in the night. That bathroom even had a nice whirlpool in it I’d been hoping to use that night, but it would have to wait for the return trip.

      “There you go, fire’s all set. I got the alarm set in my rig, for the next round. You want me to wake you?” She thought for a minute and then nodded. I set the nightstand alarm for the same time I’d be setting mine in the rig.

      “What wish? Ghost friend?” she asked.

      “ Yeah, that would be good, wouldn’t it? Fred finally getting his speaking part, but only me getting to hear it?” I laughed. “No.”

      “What wish?”

      “I told you, if you tell someone, it won’t come true.”

      The rig’s cab held warmth pretty well, so it was still a reasonable temperature when I climbed back in, started her up, took my clothes off, and jumped into the sleeper. I wrapped myself in the warmth of Shirley’s Pendleton, the wool sliding up between my legs, giving me a rise even then, scratching against my belly as I buried my nose in the blanket and dreamt her smell was still with me, after all these years. That was the last thing I remembered until the alarm went off at a little after four, like I had planned. I bundled up in the same clothes I had taken off the night before, figuring I would change after I’d gotten myself a shower. I shut the rig off and stepped down into the dark. Usually I just leave it running, even if I have to hit a rest area john, but out here, it was so quiet, so removed from every part СКАЧАТЬ