ICE pellets blasted the windows of the Cackleberry Club. Ticking and clicking like angry molecules, they crystallized on impact as the afternoon’s eerie whiteout morphed into a late-afternoon snowstorm that rolled like a freight train out of Canada, flash-freezing the entire Midwest like a package of Mrs. Paul’s fish sticks.
Inside the little café, it remained cozy and warm. Afternoon tea had just concluded, the scant number of customers rushing off to grocery stores to stock up on milk, eggs, bread, beer, and lottery tickets in preparation for the coming storm.
Suzanne Dietz, the entrepreneurial owner, part-time waitress, and majordomo of the Cackleberry Club, paced the pegged wooden floor, worried that Old Man Winter had pretty much canceled her meeting. Clutching a hand-knit cashmere shawl around her shoulders, she pushed a hank of silvered blond and bobbed hair from her face. Even though Suzanne favored slim-fitting jeans with white shirts tied at the waist, she possessed a cool elegance and a quiet confidence. When her husband, Walter, had passed away some ten months earlier, she’d taken stock of her situation, rolled the dice, and, without too much fanfare or too many sleepless nights, opened the Cackleberry Club. Now her heartwarming little café was the go-to joint for Kindred locals as well as travelers who cruised Highway 65 and were drawn in for breakfast, pies, or afternoon tea.
“The mercury is hovering at zero,” observed Toni, one of Suzanne’s two partners, “while our Suzanne hovers at the window.” Toni was string-bean skinny, favored cowgirl outfits, and piled her frizzled reddish-blond hair atop her head like a wanton show pony. Even though Toni dressed like a hottie patottie twenty-two-year-old, she was no spring chicken. Toni was slaloming toward the high side of forty just like her cohorts.
“You sure Ben’s even coming?” asked Petra. She was the third member of the troika, a big-boned Scandinavian who wore old-fashioned aprons over jeans and loose-fitting blouses and shoved her size-ten feet into comfy bright green Crocs. Her kindly face and bright brown eyes were perpetually welcoming as well as reassuring.
“He said he’d be here,” Suzanne replied. “Ben and I were supposed to nail down plans for Sunday’s Winter Blaze.” Ben was Ben Busacker, the new president of Kindred State Bank. Although Suzanne found him relatively easy to deal with, most of the residents in Kindred didn’t see it quite that way. Busacker was the company man for Mills City Banks, a large holding company that had recently swept in and taken over what had been their local bank. Busacker and Mills City Banks were said to be tougher than a Brazil nut, and had quickly earned a reputation for squeezing customers on payments, seizing properties, and being seriously parsimonious when it came to granting loans to small businesses.
The telltale, high-pitched whine of a snowmobile sounded from behind the Cackleberry Club.
“That must be Ben now,” Suzanne told Petra. “When he called earlier he said he was driving out on his new Ski-Doo. Going to test it out.”
“Funny to think of a banker riding a snowmobile,” said Toni. “Think he wears a three-piece suit and gold watch underneath his parka?”
They were gathered in the café, a homespun place with wooden tables, a marble soda fountain counter salvaged from an old drugstore, and shelves populated by colorful ceramic chickens and roosters. All manner of eggs were whipped up for breakfast here, hence the Cackleberry Club moniker. But they also served tasty, creative lunches and elegant afternoon teas. As elegant as one could get in a rehabbed Spur station, that is.
“I think Busacker’s trying hard to fit in,” said Petra, who always strove to find the good in people. “People in Kindred haven’t exactly welcomed him with open arms.”
“His wife, Claudia, is awfully stuck up,” said Toni. “She carries one of those fancy purses with Gs all over it.” She thought for a minute. “Or maybe it’s intertwined Cs.” She shrugged. “Whatever. Claudia walks around with her nose stuck in the air and if you say something to her, she acts like she smelled a cow pie or something.”
“You think anybody who doesn’t wear a cowboy shirt is stuck up,” said Petra.
“No, ma’am,” said Toni. “Ben and Claudia have acted uppity since the day they hit town. And now they’re trying to worm their way into civic clubs and things.” Toni grabbed a snickerdoodle cookie from a plate on the counter, popped it in her mouth, and chewed vigorously. “I just hope they don’t try to join our romance book club.”
“I don’t think they’re the bodice-buster type.” Suzanne smiled as the shrill of a second snowmobile filled the air.
Petra was suddenly annoyed, her eyes rolling skyward in disapproval. “I absolutely detest the sound of those infernal machines. They’re constantly rip-roaring across the countryside and popping up out of ditches when you least expect them. Scaring the crud out of you.” Wiping her hands on her blue plaid apron, she added, “Really stupid if you ask me. And dangerous.”
“Aw,” said Toni, “snowmobiles are fun.” She grabbed a striped scarf off a straight-back chair and wrapped it around her neck until she looked like a burrito. “Don’t tell me you never went ’biling.”
Petra gazed at Toni with a mixture of amusement and horror on her broad face. “Never have and don’t care to start now.”
“Where’s your sense of adventure, lady?” joked Toni.
“At home in my sock drawer?” said Petra.
“What we need to do,” Toni told her, “is bust you out of your rut. I’m gonna organize a moonlight trail ride and get—”
Vrrrrmmm! Crash! Whack!
Teacups suddenly rattled in the cupboard and the noise instantly grabbed everyone’s attention.
What the hale holy heck was that?” Petra yelped.
“Sounds like somebody plowed their car right into the back of our café,” said Toni. “Maybe skidded on the ice?” She dashed through the swinging door into the kitchen and peered anxiously out the back window. “Huh, I don’t see anything.” She pressed her cheek against cold glass. “Then again, it’s darn near a total whiteout.”
“That didn’t sound like a car,” said Suzanne, who’d followed her in. “Not nearly heavy enough.” More like a snowmobile, she wondered. Had Ben been hotdogging through her back woods and overshot the parking lot? Lots of amateur riders underestimated the horsepower on those machines.
“Something went smackeroo,” said Toni.
“I better go out and take a look,” said Suzanne. “Make sure Ben’s all right.” She grabbed her parka off a wooden peg and struggled into it. Then she pulled on boots and woolly mittens, too.
“Aren’t you the intrepid one,” said Petra, as she joined them. “You look like Admiral Byrd setting out to conquer the North Pole.”
“Or maybe Big Bird,” Toni giggled.
“Wish me luck either way,” said Suzanne, pulling open the back door.
“Ehh!” cried Petra, shrinking back as wind and pellets of snow whooshed in. “Cold!”
But Suzanne had already slipped out the back door, where snow swirled in mini cyclonic arcs, prickling her face like so many tiny frozen needles.
Doggone, she thought, pausing on the back steps, this is awful weather. Were they even gonna make it home tonight? Or would they have to camp out in the Knitting Nest?
Then Suzanne cast her eyes toward the back of her property. Even though she couldn’t make out all that much through the curtain of falling snow, the high-pitched snowmobile whine had grown louder. Definitely an engine revving wildly. Grasping the handrail, Suzanne clambered down two snowy steps, then stumped across her parking lot where her Ford Taurus was pretty much just a hump under more humps of drifted snow.
No other cars. Has to be a snowmobile. Has to be Ben’s.
She narrowed her eyes against the biting snow and was able to make out a yellow beacon of light some twenty yards back.
Yup, a stalled snowmobile, was Suzanne’s initial thought. Then she quickly changed her mind, deciding it had to be a crashed snowmobile. Of course, that was exactly what she’d heard. A snowmobile plowing headfirst into her rickety little back shed where she kept a serpentine coil of rubber hose, old-fashioned push lawn mower, and a bag of defunct, half-sprouted grass seed. Although now that winter was here it was probably in suspended animation.
She toddled toward the back woods, feeling like the Michelin man in her poufy down coat, her footsteps immediately puddling with snow as she made her way.
If the snowmobile crashed, then where is its owner? she wondered Hurt. Dazed? And what about the second snowmobile they were almost sure they’d heard? What happened to that machine, or that driver? Suzanne quickened her pace. She hated the thought that Ben, or anybody for that matter, might be lying on the ground hurt or badly injured. Especially in this raging storm.
The buzzing grew louder and even more annoying. Like an angry hornet batting against a screen door. Perhaps Petra was right. Maybe snowmobiles were infernal contraptions.
Suzanne grabbed a snow-laden spruce bow and pushed it aside, setting off a mini avalanche. And yes, indeed, there was a snowmobile, canted on its side, the red nose of the thing practically run up the side of her shed. A headlight shone brightly like a single yellow eye, while the engine continued to roar full throttle.
But where’s the rider? Where’s Ben?
She decided Ben must have pitched off in the crash. Which meant he was either hurt or deeply embarrassed.
Or drunk? That possibility rambled through Suzanne’s brain for an instant. But, no, if she recalled correctly, Ben wasn’t much of a drinker. He wasn’t part of the good-old-boy scene that congregated Friday and Saturday nights in Schmitt’s Bar in downtown Kindred to hoist a brewski or help themselves to a snort or two of Jameson. Or three or four.
“Got to find him,” Suzanne said out loud. She walked another few steps into the woods. “Ben!” she shrilled, trying to make herself heard. “Are you out here?”
But even if Ben was lying in a snowdrift with his arm broken, she wasn’t going to hear him call out. Not with that machine wailing away like a crazed banshee.
Suzanne doubled back to the snowmobile. How do you turn this stupid thing off? she wondered. Where’s the throttle or button or starter gewgaw or whatever it’s got?
She fiddled around, hit a black rubber switch, and, just like that, the noise died. From more than 175 nasty decibels to a silence so still she could suddenly hear wind whispering through the pines.
Straightening up, Suzanne was suddenly aware of how fast the storm had rolled in, how violent the blizzard had become.
I need to find Ben, then batten down the hatches. And pray the roads aren’t drifted over. And that the plows are out.
Suzanne walked out ten feet to where a cornfield lay buried under ten inches of snow that stretched like an undulating canvas for almost eighty acres. Her cornfield, really. Leased to a rail-thin farmer named Reed Ducovny who grew tall stalks of Jubilee and Golden Cross Bantam that commanded premium prices. In growing season, that was. The other season here in the Midwest.
Gazing out across the field, silent and white and swirling, Suzanne couldn’t spot any sort of trail.
Wait a minute. A trail. All I have to do is follow the snowmobile trail.
The notion struck her as being incredibly simplistic.
Then why hadn’t she thought of it sooner? The answer came easy. Because that nasty machine had been buzzing like a killer gnat inside her brain.
Back at the machine, Suzanne peered at the rounded depression in the snow. The snowmobile had come from the west, obviously wending its way through the small woods that stood at the back of the Cackleberry Club. She stepped into the trail, sinking down to the tops of her boots. Then ducking around a stand of birch, she plunged down the trail, wending her way past buckthorn and poplars. Fifteen feet, twenty feet, dodging trees, until she suddenly caught sight of a dark shape lying motionless in the snow.
Dear Lord.
That had to be Ben, slumped in the snow. Not moving, not even twitching.
Her first thought was that he must have hit his head to be lying so still. After all, the snow was so deep it would have been merely cushiony if he’d just dumped over sideways.
Hurrying toward the lump, she called out, “Ben, are you okay?”
But she knew he wasn’t okay. He needed an ambulance, a doctor, a nurse, anything. Pronto.
Suzanne faltered, almost falling forward, as the toe of her boot stubbed against something. She caught herself, took another half step, then reached out and put her hands firmly on Ben’s shoulders. She decided the best course of action would be to roll him onto his back. That was the safest position for a back or neck injury. Then she’d dash back, grab a blanket, and get an ambulance out here.
“Okay now,” she said, keeping her voice calm and even, just in case he could hear her. “I’m going to ease you over . . .” Suzanne knelt down in the snow, slipped her arms around the shoulders of his shiny blue-and-yellow snowmobile suit, and gave a gentle push.
Ben rolled over fairly easily. Except for one weird thing. Only his torso and legs seemed to roll.
Huh?
Suzanne scrabbled backward in the snow as new flakes continued to rush down from the sky. She was staring. Gaping. Trying to figure out, what was wrong with this picture? And suddenly realized there was just a mangled bloody stump where Ben’s head should have been.
“Uhhh!” she cried out, frantically backpedaling away from him.
“He’s . . . he’s . . .” she babbled. “Is that what I stumbled . . . ?” But her mind refused to go there. Her reluctant darting eyes took in Ben’s limp body, but her mind chose to retreat to a safer place for now. Suzanne clambered to her feet so rapidly her knees popped, and then she leaned against a birch tree and vomited softly. Thought about Ben. Headless. Vomited again.
It was only when, limp and sick, she sank to her knees, hot tears streaming down her face and quickly turning cold on her skin, that Suzanne saw Ben’s head lying in the snow. His eyes were squeezed shut; a red knit stocking cap still covered his dark hair.
Like Lot’s wife struck by the angels of deliverance and turned to stone, she froze and stared straight ahead. And that was when Suzanne caught the faint glint of wire stretched tautly between a tree and a wooden stake