In the Bleak Midwinter

“I know the Stoners. His dad has a thirty-five, forty acre dairy farm that barely supports the family. Ethan’s not a bad kid.” Russ signaled, turned down a narrow street, and drove past two dark, boarded-up warehouses. Another turn took them into the parking lots behind the buildings. The headlights picked out churned-up snow and tire tracks crisscrossing randomly. “He’s just like a hundred other kids in this area. They drink, they do drugs, they get into car wrecks and fights because they’ve got nothing to do with their lives.”

Russ swung the cruiser slowly out of the shadowy parking lot. The rear of the car slid in the snow, and he eased into the skid. “Nothing around here for average kids with high school diplomas and no money for college.” Back on Mill Street, the cruiser turned west again. Clare watched through the window as the commercial buildings gave way to shabby-genteel houses. Homemade signs hammered into snow-covered lawns gave mute testimony to the struggle to make ends meet: LITTLE LAMBS DAY CARE. DOLLHOUSES BUILT TO ORDER. PLOWING AND HAULING. DEER DRESSED OUT.

“Thirty years ago, that boy could have gone straight into one of the textile mills and made a good wage. Or gone to work for one of the big dairy farms in the area, saved up his money to buy land of his own. Or gone into the army.” Russ pinched the bridge of his nose beneath his glasses. “Voluntarily or not, it gave a guy a chance to learn a trade or get money for college.”

The houses were fewer and farther apart. They drove past the last streetlight into the darkness. “This is Route One-Thirty-Seven. We call it the Cossayaharie Road,” he said. The pines and alders crowded in along the road, and beyond the trees, the Adirondack piedmont closed the horizon around them. The dark bulk of the hills looked like breaching whales outlined in starlight, old and powerful.

The car cocooned them in warmth, made them fellow travelers into the wilderness. Clare unzipped her parka and stretched her legs. The glow from the dashboard picked out Russ’s large, blunt hands, securely controlling the steering wheel. “Thirty years ago, you could get married and buy a house and have a family once you got out of school. And you didn’t have to leave the area to do it. But nowadays, there’s nothing for Ethan Stoner to do when he graduates next spring except maybe flip burgers part time. So he drives his old beater too fast and gets into fights and goes down to Albany to party with his buddies who’ve already left for good.”

He turned the cruiser into a narrow lane overhung with snowy branches. The road was noticeably bumpier. They were silent, Russ peering forward to negotiate the barely plowed road, Clare considering Ethan Stoner. They came to a dead end in a clearing marked by a few tire tracks.

She stared into the snow and darkness. “Where are we?”

Russ opened the door. Cold air rushed around the unzipped edges of her parka. “This is the lot for Payson’s Park,” he said, reaching behind her seat for two long, heavy flashlights. “In the summertime, the town puts out picnic benches and grills, and somebody always ties a few tire swings to the big branches overhanging the kill. It’s real nice.”

She accepted a flashlight and got out. “There aren’t any cars here,” she pointed out. “Don’t tell me your young lovers are rolling in the snow somewhere. I know teenagers are hot-blooded, but . . .”

Russ walked through the beams from the headlight toward the edge of the clearing. “There’s a trail that runs along the river for several miles. When I was a kid, you went on foot or you didn’t go at all, but nowadays everybody’s got four-wheel drive. And here we are, tire tracks.”

He aimed the light into the woods and Clare could see where the trail ran past the open picnic area and over a rise. They tromped forward, following the tire tracks marring the otherwise untouched snow.

“Half a mile upstream there’s an abandoned railroad bridge that crosses over the kill. That’s another spot we like to keep an eye on, for drinking or doing drugs. There’s a sheer slate embankment from the old train bed to underneath the bridge. A lot of people would rather get there by driving the trail instead of risking the climb down.”

“I can’t help think there must be more comfortable places to have a drink,” she said. Her breath hung in the air, glowing in the reflected light of her flashlight.

“Oh, yeah,” he said, ducking to avoid a snow-heavy branch. “But Napoli’s Discount Liquors and the infamous Dew Drop Inn are less than a mile up the road, offering a last crack at booze before you cross the town line into Cossayaharie. Which is one of the last dry towns in New York State.”

“So the good people of Cossayaharie drink here in the park instead?”

“Don’t know if I’d say the good people, but—”

Clare slipped where the trail took a downward turn, and Russ caught her arm, steadying her. She added boots with serious treads to her growing list of things to buy.