He could not yet see the car but he knew already that it was Rick’s, as if a scent on the air blew to him from everywhere at once. And then there it was: the tiny Honda, its tire chains flapping along in the snow, headlights dark. He watched where it turned out onto the highway, pulling south toward Sandpoint, the car seeming to linger for a moment before accelerating, slowly, into the blowing storm and then the headlights silhouetting the tiny box of the car against the cyclone of snow beyond it.
He pulled the snowmobile to life again and throttled out across the highway and when he reached his truck he leaped for it, digging his numb hands into his pants pockets, jerking the keys out and then dropping them and cursing and scrabbling in the frozen snow, his hands like claws, the keys seeming to jump everywhere of their own accord. But at last the door was unlocked and he started the truck and shifted and pulled out onto the road, the headlights illuminating a vast wall of swirling flakes that flew up at the windshield from a point ever above him and away, and when he reached the highway he extinguished those lights for a moment, spinning south down the invisible road in the direction Rick had gone, but he could see nothing without them and after few dozen yards he twisted them on once more, the blizzard tunneling down upon him and the truck seeming to rise into it forever.
He thought of the bear then, its great furred back covered with snow, and all the days and nights when Bill would sit on the stump by the zookeeper door, talking and feeding the animal marshmallows, one after the other. He thought of the wolf hiding in its shallow depression by the fence, growling in pain and confusion. And he thought of the dead birds. The frightened raccoons. His weakened and half-blind mountain lion. His dead bobcat and badger. And then he thought of Grace and of Jude, and of the engagement ring held, even now, in the drawer in his trailer. How the boy had giggled when Bill hugged him at bedtime. How Grace had forgiven him for everything he had done.
The snow a terrible blur around him. There were moments when he thought he had surely spun from the road and the truck was careening through some empty field in the darkness, but then the snowbanks would reappear on either side of him again and he knew that he was still in the roadway. Twice headlights approached and cars slid past him in the opposite direction. Both times his heart beat quickly for the moment of their passing and afterward his hand hunted under the seat for the gun case, finding its edge and drawing it up to the seat as the truck slid forward upon the frozen road, its motion akin to a sickness he could neither control nor predict. But neither pair of headlights were Rick’s tiny car and they passed him and returned to the darkness from which they had come.
And then, at last, the rear of the Honda emerged from the silent swirl of the blizzard. The car had spun off to the side of the road, its nose embedded in the snowbank. He slowed the truck to a stop. His view through the windshield was of snow and the wrecked car and nothing else and in the quiet hum of his idling truck he leaned forward, unzipped the gun case, and set the rifle across his lap.
Then the Honda’s door opened and Rick stepped out into the storm: a grim and haggard figure in a tattered flannel jacket. He held the pistol in his hand but did not raise his arm to fire, instead only stood by the car’s open door, facing the headlights impassively.
Bill pulled the handle and the truck’s door creaked as it swung open. Then he, too, slid outside, the rifle held in his grip.
What’s it gonna be? Rick called to him. Behind him, the pickup’s headlights illuminated a high berm of packed snow, an unbroken wall maybe eight feet in height and which ran the length of the highway as far as Bill could see.
You don’t know what you’ve done, Bill said.
Rick stood there for a long moment in silence, the pistol still held loose at his side. Then his face curled into a smile. I warned you it was gonna get serious, he said.
You don’t know what you’ve done, Bill said again.
They stood facing either then, neither moving, Nat holding the rifle across his body, one hand on the stock and the other on the barrel, Rick near the snowbank next to the wrecked Honda, the blizzard swirling down upon them as if they had become inanimate figures in some vast snow globe.
What you gonna do, Natty, Rick said. You gonna shoot me?
He could feel a hollowness inside his chest. And then a bloom of warmth flooding through that hollow space. For a moment he could see fish threading their way up a cold river comprised entirely of snow. Yeah, he said quietly, I’m gonna shoot you. Then, in one quick, fluid motion, he raised the rifle to his shoulder and fired.
Rick looked surprised for a brief moment, his face frozen in the flash of the shot, and then he was moving, the pistol raised and its bright flower exploding repeatedly and the sound of the fire whacking the side of the truck like hammer blows. Bill fell sideways into the cab, scrambling onto the seat and crashing his foot down upon the gas pedal as he levered the truck into gear. Around him came the roar of the engine and the seasick feeling of the tires spinning for a moment before the whole vehicle burst forward, his body rolling back, and then the low hard crunch of impact and his body slamming forward against the base of the steering wheel.
Then another shot. His heart was a wild creature running in his chest. Hands shaking and all the while his voice filling the cab, the passenger window exploding into glittering dust and his hand scrabbling in the pocket of the gun case. One cartridge fell to the floor of the truck but he managed to grasp another and to jerk the lever down and press the shell into the breech and then lever it into position to fire.
He breathed and breathed and breathed and then reached for the door handle and pulled it as his foot kicked and his body came out of the cab, the cold rushing into him like a river and his feet slipping everywhere on the frozen road. He pointed the rifle in the general direction of the snowbank and pulled the trigger, the rifle emitting its loud sharp crack in the muffled frozen air, the kick in his cold hands, the stock striking his shoulder hard enough to bring him staggering backward against the truck again. Frantic. His panting breath sharp and terrible. He looked everywhere around him but all he could see was the afterimage of the muzzle flash that rode against his eyes. He ejected the spent shell. Already his hand searched for another in the pocket of the case. What have you done now? What have you gotten yourself into now? And then thinking that he should have just let Rick drive away. But it was too late for that. It was too late for anything but what was.
And then Rick’s voice from somewhere near the Honda. This what you want? he called.
Bill yelled in response but it seemed as if what words he called simply blew backward over his head and were gone. Snow blowing into his face like tiny needles, eyes squinting into the wind. He leaned into the cab, his hand fishing for another cartridge in the pocket of the case, but he could not find one now. The darts. The small black box that held the tranquilizer. And then at last a cartridge and then another.
That the old ninety-nine? Rick called to him from outside. Three shots came in quick succession then, each of which blasted a new hole through the shattered windshield, glass raining down upon his back as he lay facedown on the seat, his eyes closed tight at the sound. You hear that? Rick’s voice came. I’ve got a nine-millimeter with a twelve-round clip. Who you think’s gonna win this fight?
He had managed to open the breech of the rifle and to load the two shells with trembling hands and to pull the breech closed again, the pin sliding the shell into position to fire, the rifle seeming to jump everywhere in his hands.
Natty, Natty, Natty, Rick said. You’re really in it now.