Bill Pronzini - Snowbound

“Snowmobiles?” Tribucci managed to conceal his surprise. “Why, yes, as a matter of fact we do-just one. It was given to us on consignment by a chain sporting goods outlet in the county seat.”

“Be okay if I looked at it?”

“Sure.” He led Kubion around to the rear of the store, where the machine sat in the center of a small display of skis, snowshoes, and ice skates. It resembled a two-seat scooter mounted on skis and wide roller treads-black chassis, white cowl, red and white trim. “It’s a Harley Davidson, fast and durable. Plenty of features: dual headlights, eighteen-inch molded track, shock-dampened steering, ski-mounted hydraulic shocks. Engine is twenty-three horsepower, good enough for cross-country slogging, and one of the quietest on the market.”

“How much gas will it hold?”

“It has a six-gallon tank.”

“Okay-what does it sell for?”

“A little better than fifteen hundred, plus tax. That’s a good price for the quality, considering what some of the bigger mobiles cost these days.”

Kubion frowned. “I didn’t know they ran anywhere near that much,” he said. “This the only one in the valley?”

Tribucci said dryly, “You mean, does anybody own an older model they might want to sell for a few hundred?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s what I mean.”

“I’m afraid not. The only other mobile in Hidden Valley is one my brother owns, and it’s a Harley similar to this one-last year’s model. He’d be willing to sell it, I think, but I doubt if he’d take less than a thousand.”

“Still pretty stiff,” Kubion said, and shook his head. Then, in a self-conscious way, he laughed. “You’re probably wondering why all the sudden interest in a snowmobile.”

“Well-yes,” Tribucci admitted. “With the valley being snowbound, it’s not exactly the time people think of winter sports.”

“Winter sports didn’t have anything to do with it; being snowbound is the reason. See, this friend of mine and me-we’re staying out at Mule Deer Lake, you probably know that-we’re expected back in San Francisco for Christmas. So we got to thinking last night that we could split the cost of a snowmobile and use it to get to one of the towns in the area, where we could rent a car. But we didn’t figure the things to be so expensive; we just can’t afford that kind of money for something we might not even use again.”

Tribucci said, “You could get to Coldville all right in a mobile, swinging east by northeast; it’s rough country, fifteen miles of it, but with a map and the mobile’s compass and fair weather it could be done safely enough. Still, you’d have to have quite a bit of knowledge of mountain country like this.”

“Couldn’t we walk out, too, the same way?”

“You could, but I wouldn’t advise trying it. That’s a hell of a trek on snowshoes-and if a storm hits, you’d freeze to death.”

“No shorter way to do it, like going over or around those pass cliffs and then picking up the county road into Soda Grove?”

Tribucci shook his head. “The upper approaches to both cliffs, where the trees thin out, are made up of snow-and ice-covered talus and walls and pinnacles of granite. To the west the terrain drops sharply and there are gullies and declivities filled with drifts of loose snow-you must have noticed coming in how deep and wide the canyon is on the other side of the pass. To the east, you’ve got a long series of smaller ridges and more deep snow pockets.”

Kubion said, “And I guess it would be dangerous to try scrambling over the slide itself?”

“Suicidal is the word. That mass may seem like a solid pack, but it isn’t. You couldn’t scale this end, and even if you could, your weight on all that imbalanced, down-slanted snow and rock would start a shifting and resettling that’d bury you in seconds. That’s why the clearing process is such a slow and methodical one.” Tribucci paused. “About the only practical way you could get out of Hidden Valley immediately is by helicopter, assuming the weather holds. But unless your leaving is a definite emergency, I wouldn’t count on it. The county only has one chopper, and there are priorities.”

“Then I guess we’re stuck good and proper, and we’ll just have to make the best of it. Sorry to take up your time.”

“Not at all.”

When Kubion had gone, Tribucci resumed stocking the tobacco shelves. It would have meant a not inconsiderable profit if he’d been able to sell the mobile, and with the baby due so soon, the money would have been more than welcome. But then, he hadn’t really expected to make the sale from the first-not under the present circumstances and having correctly assumed the reason for the dark man’s sudden interest.

City people, he thought, have the damnedest ideas…

Kubion spent another hour in the village-mainly at the foot of the east slope, beyond Alpine Street, where the telephone and power lines stretched downward into Hidden Valley-and then drove back to Mule Deer Lake. He parked the car in the cabin garage and went inside and directly up to his bedroom.

The dull ache in his temples and forehead was still with him, no better and no worse than it had been the previous day. Last night he had dreamed of spiders again, the same dream, the same ugly black spiders with their redly gaping mouths. But he hadn’t thought of these things at all; his mind had been focused for the past twenty-four hours on the theoretical score-attacking it with a vengeance, just as if it were the real thing.

He sat on the rumpled bed and took one of the thin brown marijuana cigarettes from the tin on the nightstand. Leaning back against the headboard, he lit the stick and sucked slowly on it, holding the mawkish smoke deep in his lungs. When the joint was ash against his fingers, he could feel the lift, he could feel his thoughts coming clear and sharp. Then he began putting it all together, everything he had learned from the valley and topographical maps and everything he had found out in the village today.

And he knew it could be done.

The knowledge excited him, stimulated him. It could be done, all right, it actually could be done with just three men. Still a few details to be worked out, still a few angles to consider, but he had the basics completely assembled. It hadn’t been much of a problem, not nearly as much a one as he’d first thought; the fact that the valley was snowbound was what made it all so simple.

Kubion lit a second stick of pot and smoked it, working out the details carefully. Time passed-and he had it all then. the entire operation from beginning to end. Nothing left unconsidered, no flaws in the progression. All of it neat, clear, workable.

Darkness settled outside and came into the room in slow, lengthening shadows; and with it came the letdown. The stimulation vanished; an empty flatness replaced it. He became aware of the dull throbbing in his head, and he could feel his nerves pulling taut again. He tried a third stick of grass, but this time it did nothing for him. The sudden downer was heavy and oppressive, and he knew the reason for it; sitting there on the bed, he knew exactly what was the matter.

He’d figured the score, and it could be done, and they couldn’t do it.

From the beginning it had been nothing more than a mental exercise, something to occupy his mind for a while. But he couldn’t forget it, now that he’d figured it; there would be nothing to do, nothing to focus on, and the pain in his head, and the spiders, the black red hungry spiders, and the blowoff that would surely come, the violence; he couldn’t forget the score even though it was useless thinking about it further. Frustration now, and the pain centering behind his eyes, pulsing, pulsing…

Rapping on his door. He jerked slightly, irritably, at the interruption and called out, “What the hell is it?”