

Absentee

List

Absentee

List

# An Old Horse Mystery

Elskan Triumph

### Absentee List by Elskan Triumph

### Published by BeachChair Press

### www.middleschoolpoetry180.wordpress.com

### Copyright © 2018 Elskan Triumph

### All right reserved.

### Al places, persons, events are all works of fiction. Any resemblance to real people, places or events past or present are coincidental.

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:

CHAPTER 1

It began with a chainsaw.

Looking at the chimney, Bissonette had seen no smoke and wondered if Dan and his son were even home. It was cold and over three feet of snow had been dumped on Grace Haven. Ahead of him, his neighbor's house stood dark in the shadow of the dense forest that surrounded it. No lights from inside, the deep snow surrounding it and the outbuildings lay untouched by footprints or shovels. He had tramped up the driveway in his snowshoes, the deep snowpack muffling the sound, wanting to borrow a chainsaw.

'No, borrow back his own chainsaw,' he thought, correcting himself in an attempt to screw up his courage and avoid feeling guilty for something that he knew was his right. He spat on the ground.

Bissonette had lent his chainsaw to Dan in the fall when Dan's old Skihl had frozen up while in the middle of a job clearing some overhanging trees for a guy in Hyde Park. That has been six months ago. Now, with the trees downed from the storm littering his yard and blocking his driveway, Bissonette needed it back. Normally, a neighbor would have returned it within the week, cleaned and freshly oiled. Dan had not. Six months had passed, so he had to go and ask for what was his. Within his rights, Bissonette still hated to ask.

'Why couldn't he just return the damn thing on time,' he thought.

His fear of confrontation caused his ex-wife to call him acoward. She had been right.

Standing before Dan's house, Bissonette wondered if he should just go to the barn and rummage around for it.

'No one is home,' he thought. Best to avoid an argument.

He looked around.

Nothing had been shoveled, not a curtain was drawn, and when he knocked on the door there was no sign that anyone had been there since the storm. The door gave an empty thump. He knew Dan heated his home eight months a year with the wood that was neatly stacked against the back of the house; if someone was home, the stove would be burning. No smoke. The neighbor glanced at the chimney again before knocking again, harder this time.

Silence.

'Nobody home,' he thought. 'Now I don't have to ask.'

He smiled. Bissonette looked back from where he had come, and then over at the small barn. As he shifted his weight, turning towards the barn, the snow gave a low squeak as his snowshoe compacted it against the concrete stoop. Part of him was relieved, as he could grab the chainsaw without talking to Dan and feeling as though he, the owner, was asking a favor. Part of him, though, was annoyed with a smoldering resentment that his neighbor wasn't home; that he had made this hard slog through three-foot drifts for his own damn chainsaw.

'You're being an idiot,' he thought to himself. Dan, he knew, was a nice guy and he also knew that he, Bissonette, worked himself up over the smallest things. This was one reason his wife had left him. The jealous paranoia... He let little things smolder, but here he was trying to do it correctly. 'Dan has a reason,' he thought.

As he considered how he would get into the barn, a noise came from inside.

Something stirred.

Shuffling; socks on floor.

Then the door opened and in its frame stood the boy.

A light-haired boy in the midst of a growth spurt, he stood as if having just rolled out of bed. Eyes of blue, his feet and hands were larger than his current body; the ears also stuck out. Peter. Twelve years old, Bissonette had known him since he was born—knew the mother before she had died. To his knowledge, the boy was a good kid who sometimes let his impulses get himself into trouble. A bit of crazy, Dan had once said about his son, but not an unhealthy amount. Since as long as he could remember, the boy followed Dan around most weekends, working around the house or going into town. It used to make Bissonette jealous, especially after his wife moved out and took their only child with her. As the little Bissonette grew up, the feeling passed. He had not seen Dan and the boy together since the first snow, though. Last week Bissonette had seen Peter's name listed in the paper as making honor roll; he had meant to congratulate Dan, and then the storm hit and stopped everything.

"Hi," Bissonette said, his enthusiastic voice hoarse with a mix of uncleared phlegm that had risen from exertion in the cold.

"Hi," the boy replied, in a hoarse voice that had not spoken yet that morning. He wore gray wool socks, red sweatpants, and a white T-shirt that poked out sloppily from under a blue wool sweater at the collar and bottom. Over his shoulders was a gray-blue blanket whose edge touched the wooden floor.

"Dad home?" the man asked, his voice taking on its regular sound with use.

"No."

"You alone?"

"Yeah."

The boy made no move to let Bissonette in, not exactly blocking the doorway but not welcoming a conversation, either.

"Where is he?"

The boy said nothing. A shift occurred in conversation from that of friendly neighbors to one of child and adult. Like most adults with regard to children, the man had felt an obligation to sniff out deceit in the child. A feeling he could not name rose in the man—Bissonette felt the boy was hiding something.

From just outside the door the man felt the still cold of a house without heat. He peered into the darkness.

"Stove out?"

"Sometime in the night," the boy answered. He added, "I just woke up under three comforters, so I didn't notice. I was just going to start it again."

Tightening his face, Bissonette thought for a moment. He had a beard that was trimmed once a month, now half woven with white hairs, below eyes that had begun to sink into his fifty-year-old skull. Topped by an orange watchcap, his head looked a bit tiny stuck on top of Carhart duck-lined quilt coveralls that looked slightly too tight in the waist. While he thought, the boy stood motionless in the doorway. His eyes never left the man.

"You haven't gotten to the driveway, yet?"

The man had said it as a question, but meant it as a statement. Bissonette was used to answers—it was another personality traint that had pushed his wife to leave him ten years prior—and only got worse the more isolated he became, and the fewer relationships he had. The longer he stood on the porch in silence the more questions came to mind. He felt the desire to push the kid aside and burst through the door, but it wasn't his place to do it. You had to respect property. The man's father had beaten that lesson into him fifty years before.

The boy looked up and just shrugged.

That pushed a button inside of the man on the porch.

"Where is he?" He had not shouted, but the tone cut nonetheless. Bits of spittle came out.

"He didn't get home before the storm," the boy said quickly. His was a voice of panic—of fear and something to hide—as if getting all of the words in would prevent discovery and the fallout that followed. A quick end, he seemed to hope, to the entire scene. "He called to say he'd stay with friends. I figure he'll come with a plow and take care of the driveway later."

"He hasn't called?"

"Line's out," the boy blurted. Those ears looked like they stuck out even more as his face grew tense. The boy's tension only served to ramp Bissonette up.

"No cell?" he asked with a tone that put the boy on edge.

Silence at first. Finally, a, "No." Then the boy paused, thinking of what to say next. Of the thing that would explain it, and make it, if not all right, all go away.

"Dead—battery." He had said each of the two words as if they were in separate sentences. Dead. Battery. Each landed like a chunk of falling ice from the eve of the roof into the snow bank that covered the foundation. Each had gravity. Weight.. The man knew it to be true.

Bissonette looked around. From the barn, he followed the indent of the unplowed driveway down to the street. Turning back, he looked over the boy's shoulder and into the darkness of the house.

"He'll come," the boy said, calmer than before. The detail of the dead battery had eased the tension somewhat.

"Listen," the man began. Standing on the stoop, he found children exhausting and now only wanted his chainsaw. "A few limbs have fallen around my house and I need to take care of them if I want to get out of my driveway." Typically, a mention of the fallen limbs would have brought forth an offer of help, or a query as to what mechanical problem might be plaguing his own chainsaw. "I need my chainsaw back," he spat. "Your dad borrowed it last October," Bissonette added. "Can I have it back?"

The boy said nothing by way of an answer. He had picked up on the tone.

"I need my chainsaw."

The boy knew what he had to do.

Flinching, his mind then turned, eyes darting as he thought.

"No," he finally said. Then he spit out as if one word, nervously, "Hehasitwithhim."

To this, Bissonette laughed.

"I know." Bissonette's face turned to a friendly smile. He liked the boy—the three of them had shared chores at times, splitting woods and wrestling heavy things from trucks; tasks that passed easily with the help of others. They were not friends—Dan and Mr. Bissonette—but the two had a relationship like the neighbors in the Frost poem "Mending Wall."

'The kid is a good boy,' he thought.

"I know," he said again. "Dan borrowed mine a while ago. Before he got the new Husqvarna. He was going to sharpen mine before returning it, but fall turned to winter and I never got around to picking it up."

The boy eyed him. 'He's talking like I'm slow,' he thought, the feeling tipping him off that the man was planning something. 'Adults do this,' the boy thought. They do what they're going to do like you don't exist.

"So," Bissonette continued in a declarative tenor, "I'm going to go into the barn and just get it." This was the tone that had driven the people in his life away.

"I'll get it," the boy said, firmly.

"No, you don't need to..." the man replied dismissively. Bissonette tried to turn, but being strapped into snowshoes he didn't get far before the boy responded.

"I'd better," the boy said in a reassuring tone. "The barn's a mess."

Turning into the darkness of the house, he was gone. Mr. Bissonette could hear him struggling with snow pants and boots and gloves in a hurried way. Nylon rubbed with a swish. The boy swore a muted swear.

"I can just pop in..."

"No!"

Then a calmer voice came from the darkness. "No. I'm not supposed to let anyone in."

"I understand, it's just..."

Letting the voice leave him, the man resigned himself to waiting. Raised to respect the differences in the rules of a home, as a man Bissonette respected how people did things, even as he found them infuriating. 'The boy's just trying to do what he thinks his father wants,' he thought. The man sighed. 'Alone for three days, he is the man of the house.' Even with these thoughts, the weight of the passing hour pressed on him. 'Let's get to it,' he thought, not quite resigned to the boy's will.

After a bit more tussle coming from the darkness, the boy returned to the door not quite dressed.

"Can I bring it to your house?" the boy asked.

Bissonette looked at the sky. It was after lunch. From the look of the drifts and the small stature of the boy, he would not expect to see him until dark. If then. That would delay the plow. It would add another day of being snowbound.

Of not working, or being paid.

"I need it," the neighbor said. He wouldn't have said it if it were not true—to push the boy's sense of duty and his wanting to honor the loan by handing it back himself, a proxy for his father. The boy knew this and threw on a coat. As the blur passed, Bissonette noticed that the boy's snow pants were not tucked into his boots—he would surely wind up with a boot full of snow—and his jacket was not zipped. It was also too big, as was the blue ski hat that ate his head, ears and all. The boy scrambled past the man, and climbed onto the snow.

And sank.

He was lucky it only came to his waist—there was a lot more snow below him. Waiting on the porch, watching the boy's torso make its way to the barn, the unzipped jacket now trailing like a puffy nylon cape, Bissonette shook his head. 'This is all so unnecessary,' the man thought. He also knew it's what he would have done. Bissonette wore a brace on his knee because he'd rushed back to roofing too soon after ACL surgery, having promised to do a job before the snow flew in November. Your word is what defined you. Dan, the boy, and himself were cut of the same cloth—men of their word. He felt for the boy, and thought for a moment of his own son and wondered if he should have fought for more visits or even custody. 'He's okay,' he thought of his own. Then he felt a sadness as he realized what little impact he had on his own kid.

As the boy moved closer to the barn, he cursed under his breath. Snow fell into his boots; his sweater was wet with snow, but he didn't want to stop and zip the jacket because he thought the neighbor would see him as weak and try to help. Wearing gloves like a little kid would—navy blue nylon made to grow out of—he felt stupid and small as he tried to do this one thing. He stopped, conscious of having done so, and then moved forward again. Finally, the body met the barn followed by the door opening up. He fell in. Thankfully, the door swung inward, as the snow would never have yielded.

For a long minute, Bissonette waited. The air was cold and pure and silent.

Then he thought it made sense to meet the boy at the barn. When the boy came out with the saw, the man figured, he could take it and trudge straight through the thin line of trees that separated the two houses. Honor would still be met—the boy had gotten it himself. Otherwise, Bissonette thought, the boy would be forced to drag the chainsaw through the snow as he struggled his way back to the house. It was bad for the saw. The man followed the path made by the boy, his snowshoes packing down the snow the boy had disturbed.

Ten feet from the door, he heard a crash inside shattering the hushed air; a shelf of cans or nails or tools or all three had fallen onto the concrete floor. Bissonette lurched forward, into the doorway. On the floor were all kinds of metal debris, and in the middle stood the boy holding his chainsaw.

"Great," the man said

Glad that the saw was whole, his mind began thinking of what he was going to do when he got back home—of going inside for coffee first, or seeing if the saw started right off and cutting a few of the limbs that blocked his drive. It probably would need oil, and Bissonette began to worry that his can of gasoline might be stale. Quickly, he made a mental inventory of his own small engine supplies. An image of Pennzoil's small yellow bottle of two-cycle oil struck him, sitting at home on his workbench.

The boy looked down, worried and with a hint of shame. The completion of this transaction had not gone as he had imagined, and he was not yet old enough—not sophisticated enough, nor experienced—to make a joke, or recognize that no one really cared about what happened. The chainsaw was safe. Bissonette was there, waiting to take it. Wanting to cry, anger rose to push it aside. The house had been cold for days, and he had been sitting in a dark house alone, stranded by the snow. Tired from boredom, the neighbor brought unease bordering on fear.

And now this.

Snowshoes on, Bissonette didn't want to shuffle across the concrete floor and ruin his crampons. He looked at the boy, waiting for him to bring the chainsaw, his eyes silently calling him over. The boy looked at the man, unsure of what to do and clearly thinking about a whole host of things balanced in his mind.

The two were frozen in place.

Eyes adjusting to the darkness of the garage, it seemed to Bissonette that whatever had crashed, his saw was all right. 'No hurt, no foul,' the man thought. Reflecting on it, he realized no one said that anymore. At his own son's school they didn't tolerate a win-at-all-cost aggressiveness, which Bissonette thought was a good thing, he guessed. He had not had anything to do with the school in months—his son's mother took care of most of that—and his son didn't talk much about school, except to say that things were fine. That was when he saw his son; when the mother drove up from Starksboro. 'No hurt, no foul,' he thought, this time thinking of his son instead of the saw.

The man smiled, and the boy smiled back.

Tensions eased.

And then Bissonette noticed the truck.

Dan's truck.

In the bay of the garage sat Dan's truck. Since the mother had died, Dan had owned only one vehicle, an F150 truck. Mostly a plumber, Dan did a lot of this and that to fill out the week with work. His was a work truck, with dents and scrapes before rust began to take it over. He drove it everywhere; their homes were far enough from anywhere to make that necessary.

He wasn't out. Not stranded by the storm.

The man's eyes widened slightly with understanding.

Something was wrong.

He stood in the doorway; he had to make a decision. To get help.

Help for the boy.

For Dan.

He stood stupidly at the door to the garage, unsure of what to do first. Part of him wanted to talk to the boy—what happened?—but he was also afraid. 'Get away,' he thought. Get help. But get away. Going to turn, the snowshoes kept him in place. His brain and feet were not in sync, the snowshoes requiring thought. Snow was up to his knees. His own house seemed so far away, up in these quiet woods.

'Fences make good neighbors,' he thought.

And then the boy took a step towards him, chainsaw in hand.
CHAPTER 2

"What are you in for?"

A man just shy of fifty and a boy of twelve sat on a wooden bench in the main office of Grace Haven Elementary School. It was the man who asked, and it was the first time they had ever spoken to each other. They didn't know of the other much, except that one was a teacher and the other a student. Grace Haven was small—fewer than three hundred students walked the halls—so each knew the other by face, but the boy often kept his head down and the teacher concerned himself with his own students unless they were causing hallway mischief. From his reputation, the teacher was mean or awesome depending on who you asked, or if you first met him because of a project or getting in trouble. Less was known about the boy by the teacher; the kid was a seventh grader—his own grade level—but in the other class.

"I don't know," the boy replied, before looking down at the floor.

Horse, the name the students had put on the teacher years before, gave the boy his quiet solace and looked at the receptionist, Ms. Binnis. Busy with work, she ignored him.

Horse.

A story that had turned to myth and now legend, older than his current students, the nickname was started years ago by a sixth grade teacher who remarked that the eponymous character of the Oliver Andresen short story they were reading, "Old Horse", reminded her of Mr. Boch. She had pushed the point, even marking up a Venn diagram noting his long face and caustic wit. Also, she noted, one meaning of the German word boch was horse. These same sixth grade students, fearful of spending their seventh grade year with a man often described as "mad", repeated it as a kind of talisman. Years later, few students or adults could remember his real name without looking at the nameplate on the classroom door. Students simply called him Horse, occasionally Old Horse, and he answered. It stuck.

Sitting there in the office, the boy began to wonder why Horse was sitting there at all. 'He's an adult,' he thought. 'Why is he just sitting here?' He noticed the ceramic mug in his hand, and that what looked like coffee inside was not steaming. World's Best Teacher was printed on the side, but the boy was pretty sure it was Ms. Saxon's, his old fifth grade teacher, because of the chip on the far edge that he remembered from when he was her student.

Did he steal Ms. Saxon's mug?

Horse took a sip.

He was the topic of conversation at the boy's recess, again. Many of the kids debated at lunch who was the better teacher—Jones or Horse—when one class was doing something that seemed more interesting than the other. The interesting lesson was usually Horse's, but they also debated when their work was really hard—usually Horse's, too. Jones's work was easy, the boy knew. 'I made honor roll,' the boy thought. Not all of Horse's students could claim that in the first semester. Or second.

The boy looked down harder and thought and hoped Horse was not going to speak to him again.

"Peter, right?" Horse asked.

The boy looked up.

"Yes."

"Your dad cut a hole in my foundation a few years ago for a new heat sink."

Peter gave a weak smile, eyes not looking at the teacher.

"He's Dan, right?" Horse added.

The boy nodded.

"How's he doing?" When the boy didn't answer, Horse returned to his original question. "You must have an idea of why you'd be in the office on the first day back from a three-day snow day?"

Peter looked down harder, before his head popped back up again. He made a queer, unconscious grimace with his mouth. A tic, Horse noted to himself. Stress induced, he wondered.

"I think so."

Then the two again sat in silence.

Peter wore jeans and a navy blue hooded pullover sweatshirt. Both were worn, but clean. Grace Haven attracted a hardscrabble population. In his years of teaching, Horse noticed that clean clothes were a better predictor of a conscientious home than new ones. Anyone can buy clothes, he had once argued at a faculty meeting. No one likes laundry, but you do it if you care about your kid. Not everyone agreed with the analysis, but all took an inventory over the next week of who consistently had clean outfits and whose were new. Peter's blue indoor soccer shoes were a size too large, and the white laces too long. Horse thought about that, too.

In contrast, Horse had on a pair of worn khaki pants and an olive green sweater pulled over a red T-shirt. Because his lack of hips allowed the waistline of his pants to drop and inch, the bottom of each leg dropped, too. He also had a slight gut. "It's like putting a belt on an egg," he'd once said. As a result of the drop, the back of his cuffs were frayed from being stepped on. At the top of his stomach the sweater had a hole about the size of a dime. A worn tweed jacket hid the holes in the sweater's underarms. Although both were dark, Peter noted that Horse's socks did not match, not so much in color, but texture. His left sock, the boy finally figured out, was inside out. That day he wore boat shoes, which Peter thought odd as snow was deep and they offered little protection, even in crossing the parking lot. What he didn't know was that Horse suffered from corns and needed a loose shoe with a large toe box just to be able to walk. "The ravages of age," he had told the clerk at Danforth Shoes. Horse's real concern was that the corn was a sign of an imminent diagnosis for diabetes.

"You wore the same pants before break," Peter observed.

"I have a closet full of khaki pants," Horse replied. Taking a sip of his lukewarm coffee, he said, "All khaki. It just looks like the same pair."

"You have three pairs. One with a blue pen stain that seeped through the front pocket (size of a nickel), one without cuffs, and this pair."

"That you've seen," Horse added.

Peter ignored this.

"This pair has mud stains on the back of the cuff. They had the same stains last week. I think you got it reffing the touch football game by the monkey bars, where the grass never seems to completely dry. You haven't washed them since."

Horse shifted his body to face the boy. He sat taller by a foot, so looked down at the top of his head. "So, you think I've been wearing the same pair for at least a week?"

"No." Peter looked up at him. "If you had worn them outside in the snow we got this weekend, the mud would have faded or washed out. I think you wore something else, like jeans. Or perhaps you never got dressed all break. But you didn't wear them. And you didn't clean them."

"I never got dressed," Horse admitted. He looked up to find Ms. Binnis looking at him.

"How'd you dig out?" Peter asked, suddenly more curious about an adult who didn't shovel out—that's what people do—than a stained cuff.

"I have a neighbor who likes to use his snowblower." Horse looked at his coffee, fiddled a bit, and then looked back at Peter. "He has a thing for machinery, but a short driveway. I give him a quart of maple syrup in the spring as a thank-you gesture."

"My dad and I sugared last year," Peter said, again changing the subject. "You sugar?"

"No. But I buy it in bulk from a guy in Wolcot and pour it in canning jars," Horse explained. "A quart of maple syrup is much cheaper than hiring someone to shovel me out every time it snows."

Peter thought about this, unsure if he should believe him. While the boy was silent, Horse looked him over. Gangly. In the midst of a growth spurt.

"You missed the hair on the back of your neck," Peter said.

Horse felt the back of his nearly fifty-year-old neck. There were long hairs. Those on his head and what was generously called a beard were nearly gone, but where he should have been clean shaven—on the back of his neck—the hair was over an inch long. Before he lost electricity in the storm, Horse had gotten his old Oster electric razor from under the sink and taken it to his head. He missed the neck. Just as he put down the Oster, the power went out. A day later, the power returned, he had forgotten to finish the job. Horse rubbed his chin before moving his hand over his head and, again, touched the long hairs.

"I guess I missed it."

"Do you do it yourself?"

"Most of the time." Horse absently looked again at Ms. Binnis, who was busy answering the phone. "Saves money. I used to go to the barber once in a while to get a shave, though."

"Why'd you stop?"

"Barbers don't do shaves anymore. Insurance costs. I guess insurance companies think an old man with shaky hands scraping a four-inch blade across a person's neck might be dangerous." Horse's voice trailed off.

Before either of them could break the silence again, Mr. Wells, the principal, stuck his head out of his office and called for Horse.

"Wish me luck," Horse said, disappearing behind a closing door.

"Nice kid," was the first thing Horse said, loudly, before the door was closed completely. "Bet he can't read."

"Peter?" Wells stated, thinking about who was in the seats of the main office. "Good kid," he said, but he hadn't quite put the name with the boy's history.

Then he looked around for a place to put down the files in his hands. The Grace Haven principal was the only person who might be referred to as Horse's friend, not that either of them would say it. He was also one of the few people who had been at the school longer than Horse, most of those years as his direct administrator. At six-two, Wells was an inch shorter than Horse but had more bulk: useful for keeping hot-headed parents from pushing too far. Not particularly loved, he was familiar and comfortably liked. 'We could do worse,' was the reaction of one school board member when his previous contract came up for renewal. Still, there was a lot of sympathy in the community for Wells, especially when he made decisions that were necessary, but that no one else wanted to make.

Wells himself measured his success by the students and where they wound up years after leaving Grace Haven. 'It's a foolish strategy,' Horse often told him. 'The kids you're most successful with leave. It's the failures that stay around and breed and carry their grudge into a second generation.' But Wells didn't often make the prudent choices about the short term, ultimately serving the children well. As he told Horse, 'I guess that makes us twins in questionable decision-making.' Neither would have it any other way.

He stood holding the files. Having spent the morning sorting his office with an eye on paring down his paper, Wells had used every flat surface to organize himself, including the four chairs that surrounded a small round table and his black leather couch. There were piles on the piles. Horse picked up those on the couch and tossed them onto the table, causing minor disarray.

Humph, Wells released.

"But he can't read?" Horse asked of Peter.

"What makes you say that?"

"He's too observant. Hypersensitivity?" Horse looked around for something to eat. Wells often had snacks. That year he had been promoting healthy local foods and a bowl of apples had sat prominently on a filing cabinet all fall, but Horse saw that it was empty. "I'm thinking he looks at a page of text and sees every letter at the same time, so he can't focus on a single word at a time."

"So you think he can't read because..." Wells began rearranging his files, only half listening to Horse. Often, when Horse dropped in with no reason, half of his attention was all Wells felt he could handle. Too much to do.

"He noticed the uncut hairs on the back of my neck."

"You're a natty shaver. Good diagnosis."

"... And that I haven't changed my pants in a week."

"Everyone notices that."

The office was twelve-by-sixteen with a window that looked out at the front of the school—where the busses dropped the kids off and picked them up each day—and a second window in an interior wall that looked into the main office, and let everyone see him. 'The fishbowl,' Horse called it. Wells lowered himself into his chair.

"I'll concede the pants."

"It's true," Wells admitted. "Peter struggles with reading."

Horse laid back in the worn couch and thought about the boy. The couch was low and deep and students and parents could not get out of it easily; like a fly stuck in a web they often found themselves forced to listen to Wells' rationalizations to whatever problem the parties faced. The sinking couch had brought solutions to contract negotiations and calmed parents upset about suspensions. In the end, everyone bargained their indignant anger for escape. In Wells' first year as principal, he had gone with Horse to Bucks' Furniture in Wolcott to find these very characteristics. The marks they had made on the wall struggling it into place had been painted over five times since, along with the rest of the office. One of the seat cushions was a dark brown, having been stolen by Horse five years prior and replaced, by Wells, with a usable pillow from a couch at the dump. For House, the couch's true value lay in that, positioned as it was, Horse could lie down andno one in the main part of the office could see him.

"PTSD? Abuse? Physical abuse at a young age?" Horse asked.

"No. His dad's great."

"Something caused that hypersensitivity." House looked out the window. From his perspective, now lying on the couch, he could see only sky. "And it's from before he was supposed to learn to read. Early childhood trauma."

"He was in a car crash at age five."

"Was he hurt?"

"No," Wells replied. "His father was pretty banged up. Mother died."

Horse thought for a moment.

"No. Too old. Something happened earlier. Toddler age. PTSD needs to happen while the brain's still forming."

Wells flipped through some files on his desk, thought twice about saying something, and decided on nothing.

"I'm sure Jones is cracking that nut," Horse said sarcastically, referring to the other seventh grade teacher. Peter's teacher.

Wells changed the subject to Horse.

"I'm still getting questions about your so-called teaching..." he said, rolling his eyes as he drew out the last word. Horse looked at him as if to say, 'that could be any number of lessons.' Clarifying, Wells continued, "Your field trip two weeks ago. The school board wants to know..."

"I explained that."

"To Aubuchon Hardware..."

"There is a lot to learn from modern business and industry."

"I didn't find you at Aubuchon's."

"It was all in the field trip form I filled out months prior."

"You signed my name. I never saw it."

"I did not sign your name. I scribbled something on the line, which, if you had bothered to read it..."

"If I could read it..."

"... read Sign This. You should have done so and come to me with your objections. Anyway, the trip was on the school calendar. You should read the calendar."

"When I found you, your students were building a garden shed behind your house."

"So?"

"So, it took a lot of soothing before Jenny Matthews' mother stopped screaming about her daughter's split thumbnail."

Horse made a dismissive face, rolling his eyes.

"Have you seen it?" Wells asked. "Black and blue. Swollen. There's puss."

"She needed to learn how to hammer. I think she knows that now."

"I'll tell the lawyer that."

"She's suing?"

Wells ignored this question; it went without saying. Parents were quick to call lawyers in a fit of indignant anger; just as quickly they were called off, usually when the first bill was hinted at. More than others, Horse seemed to provoke this response in parents. Rising from his chair, Wells crossed his arms and looked out the window at the empty bus lane. Snow. Beyond the parking lot, scraped to pavement and littered with rock salt, the entire field in front of the school was covered with snow. He could not see the road beyond. In the background lay only snow-covered trees and gray sky.

"We got dumped on," he said, exhaling.

"Are we still talking about the hardware store?" Horse asked.

"I have half of the parents wanting their child with you..." Wells said, a philosophical tenor in his voice.

"Great. Problem solved," the teacher said, looking at his watch. He knew students would be returning to his room, soon. Horse leaned forward, as if to get up.

"... and half of them threatening legal action if I place their child with you."

"That's a lot of litigation. I didn't know we had so many lawyers in the county."

"Oh, I hear from lawyers in Montpelier, Burlington, and even Massachusetts."

"That Nelson kid's cousin?"

"That Nelson kid... That Nelson kid you hectored years ago. That Nelson kid is now an adult with a kid in seventh grade."

"Obviously, he can carry a grudge."

"Obviously."

"What was that? Twenty years? He wasn't even my student."

Wells exhaled. "But you decided to teach him, anyway," he said.

"It was a teachable moment." He sat silently with a light smile on his face, and then leaned back. Wells ignored him. "It worked out. Nelson, Jr. is with Jones," Horse reasoned. "There are plenty of placement opportunities for these kids here at Grace."

"There are two teachers for this grade."

"Exactly. Half and half."

Raising his fifth cup of coffee since he had sat down that morning, Wells took in the aroma before bothering to respond. 'Why bother,' he thought. 'Horse will ignore me. He's always ignored me.'

"As your administrator I would like a bit more wiggle room in terms of placement."

"Not my problem."

As expected.

Wells headed to the door. Hand on knob, ready to hear the complaints of the part-time art teacher, he stopped at Horse's beckoning.

"Ten by fifteen feet."

"What?"

"My shed. Ten by fifteen feet." Horse said it as if the dimensions explained it, but knew that it begged for an explanation. He gaped at Wells with a strong hint of mockery.

"So?"

"I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately."

"So?"

"You don't recognize it? Thoreau. From Walden. I thought you were an English major?"

"Ah, the lesson." It was Wells' turn to be snide. "Of course. You weren't using child labor to build a garden shed. A garden shed, I should mention, whose supplies you bought with the money kids paid to go on the field trip. No, this wasn't exploitation. You were teaching them about American Transcendentalism."

"Exactly. Now you get it."

"Very Victorian. The children in the workhouses are learning a valuable trade. I think Blake wrote a poem about it."

"He wrote several."

"Great."

"I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life."

"I feel like I'm the bone."

"Why is that?" Horse asked rhetorically.

Wells said nothing, left and pulled the door behind him, leaving Horse laying on the couch

Horse yelled at the closed door, "By the way, Jenny Matthews speaks a lot more in class and seems to have more confidence. Not that anyone seems to care!"

Ten minutes later Horse emerged from Wells' office.

A county sheriff was speaking with Peter.

"So," Horse said, siding up to Ms. Binnis. "What's up?" He nodded towards Peter.

"Something that doesn't concern you," she replied, smiling.

"Still..."

Listening, Horse shuffled over to the faculty mailboxes, and then flipped through the flyers and forms that had come over the snow break.

"Where is your father?" the sheriff asked.

The obvious question.

Peter looked down at his feet.

No answer.

An aide entered the office carrying Peter's coat, hat, and gloves that she must have gotten from his locker.
CHAPTER 3

"You're Peter's teacher?" Mr. Bissonette asked again, shaking Horse's hand.

With a mitten clenched under his left armpit, Horse took his bare right hand back and let it hang. Mr. Bissonette's house was an old saltbox, painted a color Glidden had labled Red Geranium on the paint can with peeling white trim. Lumps of snow indicated bushes planted along the front, but Horse was sure their trunks and branches were shattered by snow. 'Probably last season, too,' he thought. 'Bissonette was a man who hadn't landscaped since his wife had left him. It had been her project.' It was all speculation. Horse was quick to judge, and usually right. Looking up, he noticed long icicles with wide bases that hung from the front edge of the roof, a sign of poor insulation.

"Yes," Horse lied. 'I said I was a teacher.'

"Mr. James?"

"Close enough."

"How can I help?"

The neighbor stood on the inside of the threshold wearing a green chamois shirt over a blue t-shirt and jeans, feet stuffed in wool socks. It was nearly two in the afternoon. Already he had drunk three beers, having spent the morning at the sherriff's officeanswering questions about the past two days and what he knew about Dan and Peter.

"Nothing?" they had asked.

He knew nothing.

Neighbors... he had said.

They borrowed each other's tools...

Peter was a good kid...

No... no idea where Dan is. The boy said nothing...

Peter had stayed with Bissonette over the weekend—the man insisted. Sunday was spent clearing trees and shoveling—he hadn't cleared the drive in time for the plow. Monday morning he had planned to take Peter to officials—he had finally freed his car Sunday night. Instead, Bissonette had to go alone. Leaving the sheriff's before lunch, no work available because of the snow, he picked up a six-pack on the way home, and was well into it when Horse knocked on the front door.

"Well, as you can imagine, we're worried about him," Horse said. His hand was getting cold. Purposely, he left it out hoping that this man would invite him inside so he could look around. Horse was curious.

Why he was curious, Horse did not know. 'It wasn't his student,' he thought. He never knew, but at a young age he had given himself over to the pull of mystery and whatever consequences came with it. After the officer had taken Peter away, Horse told Ms. Binnis that he felt ill and needed a sub. Before she could protest, he was writing vague sub plans, threatening students to behave or else, and walking out to his car with a leather satchel hastily filled with work to correct. Twenty minutes later, he stood on this depressing stoop with a cold right hand, listening to a dullard list a weekend of tasks ranging from shoveling snow to cleaning up after dinner.

"He took off this morning," Mr. Bissonette said. "I don't know what's up, but I had planned to take him to the sheriff's or state trooper barracks this morning. The next thing I know, he's off on the bus."

"So you called the school?"

"No..." Mr. Bissonette started to reply. He looked at Horse. "Are you bringing homework for him? Because he's not here."

"No." Shuffling slightly back, Horse put his heels at the edge of the top step of the porch.

Let me in.

"No... I'm surprised he's not back, yet," Horse said. He didn't mention that school didn't release students for another hour, curious if the man knew.

"Oh, the sheriff is finding him a placement."

"He won't stay here?"

Bissonette shifted his weight from foot to foot, in a guilty manner. The third beer was weighing heavily on him, but another was calling him from the fridge. Peter was what he didn't want to think about.

Or Dan.

"No," the man finally said.

"He was with you for two days, wasn't he?"

"Yeah. As I told the sheriff, when I realized that Dan—that's his father—was gone, I knew we had to tell someone. Except, we were trapped. I mean, I needed to get my old chainsaw just to get out of the driveway. Dan had borrowed it last fall, when his Skihl crapped out and he was working to clear a place for a goat shed..."

"A goat shed?"

"I guess it's just a shed that you'd keep goats in."

Silence fell upon them. Mr. Bissonette stood in the door, Horse on the porch.

"So he's not coming back?"

"Dan?"

"Well, Dan... but I was thinking of Peter."

"He barely stayed when he was here. The snow kept him. He kept looking over at the house." Mr. Bissonette shifted his feet. "I guess he just wanted to be home."

"Did you look around?"

"For Dan? Yeah."

The two looked towards Dan's.

"When the boy packed up, I looked around to see if he'd been around."

"Had he?"

"The place looked neat." Bissonette scratched his chin. "If it'd been me, I'd have a sink full of dishes." Then he chuckled. "Actually, I don't know if the dishes would get to the sink."

'I'll bet you live that way now,' Horse thought.

"So he bolted this morning?"

"Yeah. I spent yesterday cutting fallen trees and moving the snow. I was going to the sheriff's, but Peter shot out of here before I was even dressed. Caught the bus. When I had my coffee I went to the sheriff's, told my story, and they went to the school."

"Peter didn't say what happened to him?"

"No." Bissonette scratched his chin. "Didn't want to say a word."

"You don't know what happened to Dan?"

"No," he replied. "Peter said he was on a job overnight and got caught in the storm."

A look of worry crossed his face. 'To be honest,' he thought, 'I'm glad he's not staying here.' Bissonette knew he was a good kid—an honest kid—but something about him was not typical for his age. 'Too independent?' he thought. But he was not one of those crazy kids, raised by wolves, as they said, who knocked about eating junk with ill manners, wearing T-shirts under winter coats or winter hats in the summer, and needing a face cloth. 'No, Peter was all right,' he thought. He could not put words to it, but Peter did not need him. In his experience, teenage attempts at independence still required an adult to answer a lot of questions, and clean up whatever inevitably gets broken. The idea of a twelve-year-old not needing an adult to take care of him gave Bissonette the creeps. Over the weekend, Peter had been a ghost, taking care of his own business so deftly that he had noticed him gone in the morning. While nursing his first beer an hour before, he had thought about all of this. Something was not right. If he doesn't need an adult...

"But Peter knows something," he said to Horse, a bit guilty of fearing the worst of the boy.

In the creeping darkness of the afternoon, Horse opened the barn door.

The power was still out. What little illumination there was came from an emergency crank flashlight Horse had in his cannibalized road emergency kit. Sweeping the beam, he found the house key hanging from an old dog collar, which was itself snapped around a post in the middle of the small barn. Unclipping it, he put it in his outer coat pocket. Sweeping the light around again, he saw only a cluttered barn.

No body.

"What were you expecting?" he muttered to himself.

Still, he knew that most problems had obvious solutions, except to the person most intimately involved. It would not have surprised him if the father had been lying on the far side of his truck, frozen after a heart attack. 'Occam's Razor,' he thought. The most obvious explanation is often the correct one. Each year he taught his students Poe's "Purloin Letter" just as the class ramped up for science fair. The answer is often right in front of you. With this in mind, he crouched down and swept the light under the car and to the far wall.

Nothing.

Inching over to Dan's truck, he shined the light in the cabin, illuminating a few layers of work clothes, neatly folded and sitting on the passenger seat, and some tools behind the seat. There was the Husqvarna, sitting on the floor in front of the passenger seat, next to a large discarded Nissan stainless steel thermos. In the cup holder was a worn plastic Green Mountain Coffee thermal mug.

'I could use a saw,' he thought. Waste of a good saw. Then he wondered if there was going to be an estate sale. This was followed by the realization that he was probably contaminating a crime scene, a thought he quickly dismissed. After a quick visual scan, he left the barn. Hayden Carruth's poem "Regarding Chainsaws" about an old McCulloch that wouldn't start popped into his brain and he headed towards the house.

The first chainsaw I owned was years ago,

an old yellow McCulloch that wouldn't start.

The snow was deep.

Wearing Sorel boots, large enough to not punish the soft corn on his smallest left toe, Horse retraced the path Bissonette and Peter had made back to the house. Horse assumed the key was for the front door, but reconsidered half way there. The back door was closer, but also felt like the more familiar route for anyone who lived there. Outside of the village people rarely used their own front doors. Closer to the driveway, the back door also lent itself to mudrooms and less formal parts of the house. As he lived on the outskirts of a village, still linked to the center by sidewalks, it was habit that brought him to the front. He needed to think like a kid. He released a sigh but carried forward. To his relief, the key did fit and he opened it into relative darkness.

A bit after three o'clock, the low sun didn't make it much through the dense woods that surrounded the house. Stomping off the snow at the threshold, Horse cranked his flashlight again. The zipping sound echoed in the cold, dark rooms. Untying his double knots, he removed the boots and stepped into the foyer.

It was bitter. Stepping further into the house, Horse expected some relief from cold, but realized this was conditioning—the houses he usually entered were occupied, and thus heated. "Mind over matter," he muttered, but felt no warmer.

Shining his light up the stairs in front of him, his breath floated in the beam. A post and beam kit house with an open floor plan, he could make out an open room to the right and left of the stairs. Swinging the light around, he caught the cold woodstove in the back wall of the main room. Pulling off his right mitten, he cranked the flashlight again for a few minutes more of light. Whirling filled the rooms and the light brightened. He counted off one hundred turns and then stopped.

Photos of Peter and the missing Dan fell under the circle of light. Peter's big blue eyes contrasted with the yellow jersey worn in third grade town soccer; Dan with a buck; Peter—about ten years old—on Dan's lap on their couch, all smiles, in a black-and-white photo. At least half of the pictures on the wall had one, the other or both in them. There were a few photos on the wall of a baby—another with a toddler—being held by a woman that had features much like Peter's.

His mom, Horse thought. She looked worn. Tired. A thin body, even when bundled up in sweaters while they played in a pile of leaves. It was still clear that the child in her arms was a source of pleasure. The child was laughing. In another, a three-year-old was dressed as a pirate. The costume was homemade. 'A soul,' Horse thought. Her soul.

"What happened to the mother?" he said under his breath.

It's cold. Horse was about to put his hand back in the mitten, but the light dimmed and he had to crank it again. Again, he counted to one hundred, and then he went into the kitchen. Pulling out a drawer, he found a green plastic flashlight with batteries. It worked, and he pocketed his own.

Opening cabinets, he found a lot of pasta; boxes of macaroni and cheese and cans of ravioli. There are several boxes of cereal. Tuna fish. Cookies. All of them were store brands, indicating that the buyer was frugal. In the refrigerator Horse found a surprising number of apples—at least two bushels. Checking the small composting bucket on the counter, he found three apple cores inside, all of which seemed to have been put there in the past week or so. Back in the refrigerator, he also found a big block of Cabot cheddar, string cheese, and a gallon of milk, partially gone.

Their stores, he thinks, are pretty well balanced.

What's missing?

Thinking through his own, unhealthy adult diet, it came to him: coffee.

Horse thought of the two mugs in Dan's truck. He swung the beam onto the counter, and it fell onto a Mr. Coffee twelve-cup coffee maker. There were no used grounds in the brew basket. Looking in the compost bucket again, he found no used grounds there, either. Returning to the cabinets, he found two Nissan stainless steel thermoses, a half used box of non-bleached No. 4 coffee filters, and a Braun grinder. A white ceramic container sat next to it, the word kaffii inscribed on it. At the bottom were a bit over two cups of beans. Horse noted how dry they were, even though the container was air tight.

Suddenly, he was overcome with a desire for a cup.

'Must be the aroma of the beans,' he thought.

In another cabinet sat an entire shelf of coffee mugs. No tea. He checked the refrigerator again and found no cream. In the freezer were wrapped family packs of chicken and two tubs of ice cream, one with the seal broken. Opening the dishwasher he found ten bowls, twelve glasses that had milk film on them, two pots with the thin film left behind after boiling pasta, a colander, and a host of spoons and forks.

No knives.

He found no peanut butter, or regular butter, either.

Allergy?

Drawing an index card from his pants' pocket, Horse made a note to check with the nurse for any allergies Peter might have—and to find out about his mom.

The rest of the house was less interesting. It was very neat; not just picked up, but well cleaned. Checking the bathroom, Horse noted that he could find no dried urine on the bowl or floor that was common in a house with boys. 'Someone had cleaned,' On his knees, he aimed the flashlight where the bolts hold the toilet to the floor, a spot often missed by hasty cleaners: nothing but white. Upstairs, he found both Dan's bed and Peter's were made. Clothes were put away. The hamper had less than a week's worth of laundry, although Horse noted that it all belonged to the boy. Even Peter's shoes were lined up.

'Bissonnette had said the father was at an overnight job,' he thought. It might explain the clothes. Of course, they had only Peter's word that the father was coming back. Or had been only gone a few days.

Returning downstairs, he examined the closets and found stairs leading down to the basement. Attached to the wall he found a large red fire extinguisher mounted next to a heavy duty Maglite. It was a heavy model that took four large D batteries and could be used as a club. He pulled it out of its wall clip and turned it on. After noting that the extinguisher was fully charged—everything was in order, he thought—he took a look in the basement. With the powerful beam he didn't need to leave the bottom step.

Nothing.

Finally, he went back to the living room. There were three guns in the gun cabinet, all hunting rifles and clean. Horse did not want to touch them, as he was convinced that the police would soon be combing the house for clues and the guns would be the first thing they'd check. Something had happened to Dan, he was sure. 'Time to go,' he thought, returning the large flashlight to its clip.

His hand was freezing—even with his mitten on, it had remained cold—but he needed to go to the bathroom. Under his left armpit he pinched the cheap plastic flashlight from the kitchen, while taking the right mitten off with the left hand. With little range of movement—he was afraid of dropping the light—the mitten fell instead. It headed for the toilet bowl. Horse swatted at the mitten, his free right hand knocking it to the wall beyond the pedestal sink. Body turned, light directed towards the sink, he saw it.

There is only one toothbrush.
CHAPTER 4

On Monday night, shortly after Horse left, the state police followed up on Bissonette's report of Dan's disappearance by checking the house. Since there was no indication that his life was in danger it was decided to hold off on calling in the community for a thorough search of the property. No one was quite sure what to believe, and no one wanted to believe what they were all thinking—that Peter did something to him. Instead, the authorities spent Tuesday morning following up leads with his employer and checking the usual databases.

Peter wouldn't say a word about any of it.

By Tuesday afternoon the authorities had grown more uneasy about him, but with no evidence he was given the benefit of the doubt. His reticence was written off as shock. The boy was in a temporary foster placement. On Wednesday the temporary foster parent, a sixty-year-old woman named Grace and who lived in Starksboro, reported how independent the boy was—he brushed his teeth without being told, and made his bed—which eased the minds of the police a bit. "I'll take ten of 'em," Grace told the caseworker. If the child could take care of himself, the thinking went, the father might have simply taken an overnight trip, trusting the boy with daily routines.Dan would return any moment. At the moment the state police were ready to spring a trap supply route of heroin flowing east from Burlington through Lamoille County, so the kid seemed safe enough to put on the back burner.

Dan was a self-employed plumber, although he often subcontracted through Laporte Contracting. Tom Laporte, the namesake owner, thought Dan might have taken an out-of-state job, as the unusually harsh winter had slowed down work in northern Vermont. "There's work down in Glens Falls, and over in New Hampshire," he told the police. "With a son who can take care of himself, and a storm making travel near impossible, the father might have stayed to finish the job."

All of this was conveyed to Wells, who mentioned it to Horse as the latter snuck a cup of coffee from the former's coffee thermos.

"Dan had a Nissan, too," Horse said, nodding to the silver thermos. "Same size, even."

"How do you know this bit of family trivia?"

"Oh, you know how teachers know everything..." Screwing the lid on tight, he turned the thermos over and noted the size: thirty-four ounces.

"Gossip?"

"Usually."

Wells doubted the town gossip was about the size of Dan's coffee thermos, so he told his friend more about the foster home. Peter wasn't at school. "An emergency placement being unavailable in town, he was placed with the old woman in Starksboro.It was decided that he would stay in this temporary home until the weekend. Hopefully, they'd have it all sorted out by Saturday." Because of the distance—nearly eighty miles—they wouldn't see the boy until then. Peter would spend the rest of the week in a cramped home with a nice, old woman.

"I'm sure that'll be cheery," Horse said at the end.

"It's the best that can be done, under the circumstances."

Horse looked at Wells, "Why don't you take him?"

"Me?" Wells replied, but with a tired inflection. They had talked about this before. Responsible for over three hundred students, his office was an open door of interventions, new ones coming with each gust of wind. It was overwhelming. Even with his team of social service providers, special educators, and connections with agencies and the police, every bus unloaded at least ten kids who needed more than he got. Experience told him that kids were resilient, and that heroic measures often did as much harm as good.

Still, he felt the pull.

"No," he finally said. "I don't want to cross that line. Principal-parent. No."

Taking the thermos from Horse, Wells struggled to unscrew the cap—Horse had strong hands and enjoyed over tightening everything. He could hear a near-empty sloshing of liquid inside. There was only half a cup left. He frowned at Horse, deflated. Coffee was keeping him going this week. Every week.

"You should get your own coffee and stop taking mine," he said.

Horse didn't look sorry.

"Well, maybe Peter will have an estate sale. I'll buy a coffee maker, grinder, and a few Nissan urns there."

"How about you take Peter in yourself as his foster parent and then you can simply have it as your inheritance?"

Horse did not reply to this, which only added to the things Wells worried about.

At the end of the day, Horse sat at his desk correcting when a girl in her late teens shyly entered. Dark hair and a big round face, she was considered pretty by boys her age even if she needed to have her teeth straightened. Wearing a blue rag wool sweater and jeans, it was the green flats on her feet that seemed out of place; too much summer for a slushy day. Every road and parking lot in the county was black and gray with it, and her shoes suffered dark discolorations from being wet. Road salt had left stains.

"Hello," she said in a little voice.

Looking up from his pile of student work Horse greeted her. "Oh. Hello."

"I don't know if you remember me..."

"Amanda. Amanda Tomlinson. Sat in that seat," he said, pointing to the third desk on the left-hand side."And wore too much mascara. Like a raccoon." Squinting his eyes at her face, he said, "That seems to be better, now."

Her hands fluttered around her face, instinctively. "Yes," she replied. "Yes, that was me. I just thought I'd visit."

But Horse didn't move from his spot.

She didn't move, either.

Students didn't just visit Horse. By nature, middle school teachers are the forgotten influencers. Few people claim that their middle school teacher changed their lives. Without fail, it was always the elementary or high school teacher who rated fond memories. In survey after survey people responded with, "Ms. Smith taught me a love of reading in fourth grade" or "Mr. Brown really fostered my interest in biology." People waxed nostalgically right in front of Horse, at the few parties he had bothered to attend. Middle school teachers cleaned up the mess left by grade school and laid down the foundation skills used by the high school. They bored kids into memorizing where Nigeria was on a map and the nine—now eight—planets of the solar system. Few appreciated it at the time, and even fewer when these bits of cultural knowledge and foundation skills were recalled with ease years later. It is is the lot of middle school teacher. A few ninth graders with nowhere else to go might drop by the school and amble into Horse's room—but once students get their driver's license even that stops.

This was especially true for Amanda Tomlinson.

She had been his project. By the time she had left for eighth grade all involved were ready for the teacher-student relationship to be done with. On her first day of high school, Horse knew that she and her father would assume a new start. Most ninth graders did, but Amanda and her father had a better reason than most to do so.

'If she was here,' Horse thought, 'she was in trouble.'

'She isn't the first,' he followed.

Trouble or not, no one bothered to visit Horse. They knew they weren't wanted.

"Do you remember what I told my students on the first and last day of the year?" he asked.

Amanda smiled. Then she repeated what he had told them.

"That you were the best teacher we would ever have."

Her voice had changed into one that was repeating a lesson so well ingrained that she could mutter it in her sleep. When she finished, she smiled.

"Yes," he said, urging her to continue.

"That you were always right."

"True."

"That, if we were going to get you presents for the holidays, that you liked coffee, black licorice, and certificates to the bookstore. Not books. Not mugs. Maybe homemade treats."

"Maybe," he emphasized.

Horse leaned back in his chair, but did not smile. He had no interest in speaking to Amanda Tomlinson. Old students are one of the things he hated about his job—about living in a small community. Parents are a close second. Both seem to think he wants to talk to them; to be their friend. In grocery stores parents ask him about his own family, while students continuously try to give him high-fives in the hallway. While he often gave a response, its clipped nature meant few tried again.

"But there was one other thing," he prodded.

"That, when were in high school, we would get an urge to come and visit and that we should resist the urge and stay away."

"You always had a good memory," he said, smiling for the first time. But he wasn't done with her. "Do you remember why I said that?"

"Because it would seem like a good idea at the time," she mimicked. "But once we were together neither of us would have anything to say because the student-teacher dynamic is based on a one-way flow of information, while conversation is two-way. Regardless of our growth, we would still not have enough to say to make it interesting for either of us. The dynamics were wrong. We would always feel like teacher-student. Awkwardness would win out. It was best if we stayed away."

"Exactly."

Horse leaned forward and put down his correcting pen.

"Except that I didn't say it would be best, but to simply stay away. What I did not say was that students are also boring, and that you all leave at the perfect point; one hundred and eighty days after meeting you."

"I'm pregnant."

She tightened her lips into a line; slightly afraid, but also a bit pleased at having, what she thought, was original news.

Horse thought she was an idiot.

Once, an education professor at a conference he had been forced to attend made the participants write out their educational philosophy. He had objected to the task for a variety of reasons—he usually did—but did as he was told. On the paper Horse had written, For students to feel their own worth, and not fill the void by having children. For the next hour, they did pair-shares throughout the room. By lunch, he was a complete pariah among strangers. Now, sitting in front of his former student, his face didn't show it, but he thought it.

'You're an idiot.'

"That's an interesting try," he said. "But it's nothing new. Some don't wait for high school."

Amanda screwed up her courage. "You also used to tell us that you were here to help. And you were. Other teachers say it, but you were there."

"No," he replied. "That's an illusion."

"Oh," she said. "I know it was you who slipped those gift cards into Danny Totter's bag because he couldn't afford gifts, and his family couldn't afford gifts."

"That was Santa," he said, dismissively. "It said so on the card."

"I'm pregnant," she repeated.

"When I said I was here to help, I meant with reading and writing," he said. Horse looked for an exit. Amanda was blocking the doorway, or he would have found a reason to excuse himself; important photocopying or something. He knew where this discussion was going, and had no interest in playing it out. "And one thing I told you about writing was never repeat yourself. You just did."

"Well, it's still true." As she said it, she stood on the tips of her toes and then dropped down, as a little girl might. Behind her back she grasped her hands together. She added, because she didn't know what else to add, "I'm pregnant."

"I'm not the father."

"I know." She looked at the ground, nervous. "I need to know what to do."

"It sounds like you know what to do," he said archly, eyes directly on her

"I don't." She looked around the room. "And I can't talk to anyone else."

"Talk to your father? He was a nice guy."

"He is a nice guy. But not about this." Her voice dropped when she said the last bit.

"You already know what to do."

"No I don't."

"You know." In his voice it was clear Horse was getting irritated with this teen drama playing out. "You want someone to sanction it."

'To absolve you,' he thought.

"You know what your father thinks. You probably know what the sperm donor would say. You know what your friends would say."

"My friends don't know."

"I didn't say they did. But you know what they'd say or you would have told them. That's why you haven't told them; one thinks have it, another says abort. Who is the father?"

"No one." She hugged herself tight as if physically keeping the secret close to her.

"That's a neat trick." If he was going to be forced to have this conversation, he wanted it all on the table. "Who is the father?"

"No one you would know."

"Is he still in the picture?"

"Yes. But this is my decision."

"Your decision, so you came to me." His lips got thin as he thought, eyes narrowing. A niggling of compassion made its way through his everyday irritation. "What does your father think?"

"He doesn't know."

"What does he think?"

She said nothing; then began to cry.

"Clearly, he disagrees with whatever decision you've come to. So you want me..."

"No." Amanda pulled herself together. She put her weight against the wall next to the door. "I just want information."

"Fine." It was a definitive statement, void of emotion but full of efficiency. He wanted an out—her out. Horse wanted her to leave as soon as possible.

"Really?" she asked, surprised.

"Sure. Here are your legal options. Ready?"

"Let me get a pen."

Amanda rifled through her purse for a pen. It was a tiny blue purse, meant for mints and tampons and she kept digging even after no pen could possibly be hiding inside. Horse handed her a piece of paper and his correcting pen. She sat at the third desk in the row, near the door, which was now too small for her late-teen body.

Horse remained seated.

"First option. Get an abortion. Go to the clinic in Williston. Make an appointment first, but after your initial visit you'll have to go back for the actual procedure. It costs about a thousand, but they have a sliding scale and you pay what you can. Have someone drive you or stay in a motel that night; the drugs will make you unable to drive. Be prepared for protesters; they usually have a screaming gauntlet going, but if you're lucky only a few people will be exercising their First Amendment rights."

"Don't I need my father's permission?" she asked, surprised.

"For an abortion? No." He was annoyed at her ignorance. 'How,' he thought, 'could you have sex without knowing every option in every scenario?' What are they teaching at the high school, for God's sake! Then he thought, ever the romantic, Horse. "It's your constitutional right," he said. "Maybe duty!" he added, sarcastically.

"Okay."

She wrote this down, as if taking notes for a class. Horse waited impatiently for her to finish. He couldn't even continue correcting as she had his pen.

"Next, you can opt for adoption," he continued. "Same place. Also, a church, your doctor, or a hospital. They all have information. That means you're in this for nine months, or seven in your case..."

He looked at the stomach crammed behind the desk.

"Eight," she said.

"Ah," he smiled and slowly, his eyes going from her belly to her eyes. "It's early. You could also find one of those ads that you see for infertile couples looking to adopt. They'll pay the bills."

"I don't know," she said. Pursed lips, she looked over her notes, her eyes tight in concentration in an attempt to settle her confusion. Only three options so far, but the tendrils of steps and consequences each presented swirled around in her imagination.

"Dad'll see," he added. A warning. "So will the father."

"See what?"

"Your belly," he said with a compassionate smile. He knew she hadn't thought of it until now.

"I just..." Her face indicated she hadn't.

"You could also keep the kid. I mean, he is the fruit of your love."

"I don't know..."

"I know," he cut her off. Horse had a long history with Amanda Tomlinson, and before she reached legal adulthood... this. It was a time for tenderness, he knew. Or, something that more typically looked like tenderness. "It's tough. Again, the same people who can tell you about adoption can hook you up for being a mom."

"My dad..." she began.

"Yes, yes. It keeps coming back to him." Horse waved off her concerns. His history with him was nearly as long as his history with Amanda. "Perhaps you should talk to him. I'm sure he loves you. I don't know if he'll love this."

"No."

"But right now it's about you, and if you have a child it's about the child."

"Do you think it's a baby? Now..."

Flipping a white board marker in his hand, Horse grew agitated. He thought about the copying he had to do, the reading and correcting that waited to be done and then this idiot child came in deep in a hole wanting an easy way out. There is no easy way once you get pregnant. He said this several times a year to students—nearly as many times parents said it wasn't his business to preach about sex and pregnancy. Abstinence supporters all—one hundred percent effective—but the board's objections weren't about morality. No, the school board had made that clear. It was about his assumption that the students would fail to be responsible. Did he believe kids would fail?

"Some," he had said. "Look at the data."

They told him to stop it, but he hadn't. Now, here stood Amanda Tomlinson one month in and in a panic as to what to do. She was looking for a life ring. In her car were her backpack and winter coat and boots, but she had dressed with nice shoes and a decent outfit because this was important. 'I am filled with rage,' he thinks.

Idiot!

"I don't have kids," he said, not bothering to hide his irritation. "You know why?"

"Why?" she asked, anger showing in her voice, knowing his answer wouldn't help her. None of this had helped, only brought it all back to her.

"Because they don't know anything. I don't mind that they don't know anything, but then you have to do everything for them."

"Then why did you become a teacher?"

"Because by the end of the year they know what I care about, and don't need me. Anyway, I'm a facilitator. If you think about everything we did, all I did was help you see what you knew."

"That's true." For six months she had been angry in Horse's class, but the last three she had felt like this—wondering what Horse's enigmas and koans and puzzles had to do with her. She got up and stood by the desk, not knowing what to do with her hands.

"So, you know what to do. Now you have the information. Make a decision. Talk to your father. Or not. Thanks for the visit. Let's go back to some awkward conversation about how you're doing before you go off and lead your life."

Amanda nearly ran into the state trooper as she left.

"I was wondering when you'd come," Horse said fatefully, looking at the uniform in the doorway. Then he laughed at his own joke, but didn't get out of his chair to greet the man. "I'm only surprised it's so soon."

"Can I ask you a few questions?" the trooper asked calmly.

He was trim and over six feet tall. Standing in the door, clad in the standard dull green uniform, he did not fill it, but did not shrink in it, either. Entering, he held his campaign hat with both hands. Had he worn it, the door's lintel would have knocked it off, but he habitually took it off when entering a building. It was part of the training.

"Of course, I'm always happy to help our men in green."

"Am I going to get an honest answer?" the trooper asked. He was joking, but without a trace of humor. It wasn't only the tone of authority a state trooper might usually take; this trooper had once been a student of Horse's. That was years ago, and he doubted the old teacher would remember him. But he was an adult now, a man of authority and power. The trooper knew that Horse needed a stern warning shot for the interview to have any value.

"Of course."

This answer did not inspire confidence, nor was it supposed to. Horse looked down at the correcting that wasn't getting done, and then glanced at the clock. In his refridgerator sat two cold beers. But his curiosity was piqued; the trooper might have information about Peter.

"Not a lie by omission," the trooper said. "Or a clever answer that is technically the truth but, later, it turns out you're just jerking me around?"

Horse's eyes narrowed, and then a smirk crossed his face.

"I'm not a leprechaun or genie for an old story," he replied, "only a good citizen."

"One of those good citizens that refuses to answer just to prove you have the right."

"If I lie, arrest me."

"Just the same," the trooper warned. He had not moved completely into the room, yet. In order to establish the roles, he barred the door with his body, as if to say, you can only leave through me. It was empty posturing. Being in his old room, standing before his old teacher, something subtle flinched. Part of him was that twelve-year-old boy.

Only a small part, but Horse saw it.

"I know you."

Horse leaned forward and squinted, mostly for effect. He wore glasses, which did not fully fix his vision problems, but he knew the boy.

"Daniel Danielson," the trooper said, cutting short Horse's memory search. "I was your student."

Looking him up and down, Horse said, "That must have been quite a while ago."

"I was thinking about it on the drive over. Eighteen years."

"I can't remember..."

"My son is in first grade here," the man added.

To Horse, younger pupils meant little. It was his habit to not learn anything about the students until they were sitting in the seats in front of him. Tabula rasa, he claimed. Clean slate. Mostly, he couldn't be bothered.

"I'll look for him," he lied.

The trooper stepped forward and pulled out a seat; the same one Amanda had just left.

"Were you at the Johnson house last night?" he asked.

"Dan's?" Horse replied in a familiar tone.

"Yes. Daniel Johnson and Peter Johnson's home," the trooper confirmed.

"Yes."

"May I ask why?"

"I went to the neighbor to see if the boy was okay. The kid, Peter, looked pretty shaken up sitting in the office."

"Is he your student?"

"No," Horse responded. "But I think you already know that."

Trooper Danielson ignored this.

"So, you spoke with Mr. Bissonette?"

"It wasn't much of a conversation."

"Why did you go to the house?"

"Did I go to the house?"

"We know a lot," the trooper replied.

His tone was one of a friendly warning. Their relationship had not changed; Horse, the teacher, sat judging little Daniel as he sat in his little seat. That he was a trooper, had legal authority, and carried a gun did not matter. The worst part was that Daniel knew that Horse was doing nothing but being Horse. Still, he had to say the lines.

"Right now, I could take you in for questioning. Charge you for trespassing and knowingly contaminating a crime scene."

They rang hollow as they left his throat.

"That seems excessive."

"Isn't excessive how you get results?"

Horse looked at him again, hard. But said nothing.

Finally, Daniel. It clicked, who this child is.

Daniel Danielson.

Horse added a qualifier—the only thing he remembered about the boy, whose face he could half recall, in the eyes and the meaty brow.

"The pyromaniac," he said.

This time, it was Trooper Danielson who said nothing.

"Your science fair was interesting," Horse said.

He recalled the experiment and chuckled.

"Do you still have the scar?"

There was a moment. For anyone other than these two, they would not have known what had passed: an understanding.

"Yes."

"Still play with matches?"

"Not since that day."

Neither betrayed an emotion.

Satisfied, Horse answered fully. "I was in the Johnson home. And I went to the Bissonette house to see if Peter was okay. But I went to the Johnson home out of curiosity."

"What did you expect to see?"

"I don't know. A corpse?"

"Did you?"

"No. I didn't really expect to, either."

"So, what did you find?"

"Dan's been gone a while."

"How do you figure?"

"One toothbrush. But look at the food; it's all something a twelve-year-old would buy."

"I would have bought candy," the trooper replied.

"You weren't a responsible twelve-year-old."

"What do you mean?"

"He bought a new toothbrush. In health class we teach the kids to change their toothbrush every three months, but we basically rely on parents to do it."

"That would indicate that Dan's around to do it."

"Except, Dan's toothbrush is gone."

"Or Dan took it with him when he packed for the job."

"I checked. There's a travel toiletry bag in the bathroom closet. Inside were two cases for toothbrushes."

"He got a new case," Danielson countered.

"Or he pocketed it into his Carharts."

"Or...."

"Or Peter changed his toothbrush at the three month interval, and when he did it he tossed Dan's as well..."

"... because he knows he's not coming back."

"And the food is somewhat nutritious. No candy. But it shows the uncreative binge nature of a twelve-year-old. Why buy one box of Pop Tarts when you can buy a case? I'm guessing every meal is the same."

Horse looked out the window, wondering to himself who his next visitor would be. The stack of correcting had less importance than it did ten minutes before. 'A good pint might hit the spot,' he thought. Better a poured pint with a friend than a cold bottle alone. In his mind, he pictured a calendar; Wells did not have any meetings he could think of. 'A pint it is.'

"Anything else?" the trooper asked.

"The boy didn't do it."

"I didn't say he did."

But I thought it.

That Horse vouches for the boy carried a lot of weight with Danielson, which sent his mind further towards other possibilities.

"But that's the thinking. Why else would he stay quiet? No?"

"Why else would he stay quiet?" Danielson said, curious what theories Horse might come up with.

"If he killed his father, he'd have gotten rid of the photos. Patricide is the act of an angry kid, even if it's a crime of passion. The family room was filled with photos of him and his dad. An angry kid would have destroyed them. Or he'd be in denial and not want to face them."

"Perhaps it was an accident."

"Maybe."

For the moment, they had said all either wanted to say. The trooper looked around the classroom. 'Same projects,' he thought, looking at a poster showing the three brances of government.Only the president's picture in the executive branch had changed. On the bookshelves were a host of new titles and colorful covers, but he noted that Horse had kept the old classics front-and-center.

"Trial by Fire," Horse said, breaking the silence.

"What?" the trooper asked, startled. Then he smiled. "Yes, that was the name of my science fair project."

"It was a good one," Horse admitted. "You took it all the way to state."

"And lost," the trooper reminded him.

"And got a silver medal and a $50 prize."

"And a nice scar."

"You never seemed that bright until then," Horse said, rising from his chair. He stretched—too much time sitting and listening. Walking around his own desk, he now stood above the sitting boy. Dressed in his uniform, Danielson had a presence that was missing eighteen years ago. "Silver was quite an accomplishment; you had zero academic skills. And you don't play with matches anymore."

"No," he said, looking down at where the scar lay, under his uniform.

"Do you still have the medal?"

The trooper did. In fact, he had built a case for such things. On the wall in a room off of his living room hung his diploma from UVM and the certificate making him a Vermont State Trooper. Under it was his hand built case. The case held the real prizes. His wife had several, from high school debate team to a solid finish in the Vermont City Marathon. There was a project his son made in kindergarten—a type of useless unbalanced clay pot the boy was especially proud of. Under glass, they were all valued and shown with pride. Visitors often commented how nice it was that the whole family displayed its accomplishments. In the corner, not asking for attention, was a silver medal on a blue ribbon. When Daniel looked at the case, that was what he saw first.

His wife didn't know—he's never told her—that the case itself was part of the prize. She met him in college, after he had decided to go into law enforcement. To her, he had always been straight, with a short haircut and solid features. But, earlier, he had burned a few things. It was something that went further than most kids' experiments with fire. His science fair had been centered around fire; an excuse to fool around.

It had all gone wrong.

'Horse must have known it would, ' Danielson had always thought. After the incident, no one had said a word—not Horse, or his father, and especially not him. No words were needed. Thinking about it later, he had felt shame, even as he knew that kid was far gone.

The screaming chickens cured him.

There were eight, and three lived. For their lives, Daniel had gotten burns on his arms and back as he ran into the blaze he himself had set and grabbed them in an inefficient wildness only a panicked twelve-year-old could manage. His father hit him, which he'd never done before—not even a spanking. Looking at the burns on his son and the smoldering coop and scarred survivors and burned dead, his father walked up to him and hit him across the face. For that moment, and the few that followed, the screech of the chickens abated.

Then, his father had cried.

When the fire was finally out, Daniel took some of the salvageable lumber and the glass from the window that had somehow survived and made a case. At the time, he didn't know what he would build; when it was done he thought he might donate it to the school.

Penance.

Atonement.

An apology to his dad... everyone. And then he had won the science fair—won a silver medal—and he knew what to put in it. Inside, he put his new life, rebuilt from the ashes of his old one.

"Yes," he said to Horse. "I still have the medal."
CHAPTER 5

It was cold and dark and snow fell in the beams of the halogen lights atop thin aluminum poles that stood guard around the driveway perimeter. They illuminated a group of about twenty middle-aged men, most wearing insulated sienna coveralls and holding coffee cups in worn, bear hands, all waiting for direction. Someone laughed, and other voices rose above the moan of the generator that powered the lights; the power had not yet been restored at Dan's house.

Around the mouth of the driveway were several trucks with Laporte Contracting logos painted on the side. They poured out and down the side of the road. Laporte used a simple logo—Laporte Contracting—in simple four-inch-high white Helvetica type neatly painted on the door of every vehicle, each of which was painted a royal blue. Mixed in were a few other trucks belonging to contractors—Grace Haven Electrical, Bronson Masonry, and a couple of roofers. There were a few unmarked, but they were clearly subcontractors; Horse noted the tools of a sheetrocker in one. Another dozen cars in varying stages of rust and decay were also scattered about. Standing at the top of the drive, waiting, Horse saw that several of the men had a familiarity that goes with years of working on the same jobsite; contractors and subcontractors and workers moving from job to job, place to place, but their connection to each other moved with them. One of Laporte's men had brought enough coffee for the entire crew—he had parked a truck near the house, outfitted with a large, beaten, brown, ten-gallon plastic dispenser that sat on the tailgate. Laporte Contracting was stenciled on the side, barely visible under a host of scratches.. Most of those standing around held steaming paper cups in their hands, although a few had royal blue travel mugs.

Beside the coffee truck were two state trooper vehicles and yet another Laporte Contracting truck, this one with a plow on the front. Horse concluded the police were not yet looking at this as a murder investigation as the plow would have destroyed possible evidence—a pile of snow had been dumped where Peter, Mr. Bissonette, and Horse had trampled between the door and the barn.

"Still, if foul play is not being considered, why isn't the search being pursued with a bit more urgency," Horse thought.

"You aren't Peter's teacher?" the man next to Horse asked.

"No," Horse replied. He looked at the man—one of Laporte's men, he figured from the conversation he had overheard earlier about digging a foundation in the frost—and then wondered if he had once had one of his kids.

"Too bad," the man said. "That kid needs someone to kick him in the ass."

Horse said nothing.

"You don't remember me."

"Did I have your kid?"

"You had me!" the man shouted, adding a short laugh.

Horse looked at him. 'He's smiling,' he thought. That's a good sign.

"How old are you?"

"Thirty."

Horse did the math in his head. He felt old and rubbed his beard, feeling the gray hairs through his gloves.

"Eighteen years ago," Horse muttered.

"About," the man said. "I have a daughter in sixth grade."

'Which means you got someone knocked up six years after you left my classroom.' Horse thought about what the mother must be like.Shifting his feet, which had become numb, Horse didn't know where to put his eyes. He hated conversations like this. If it continued, he'd find himself scolding this man for choices Horse thought unwise. It happened too often, Wells said. It isn't why I'm here,' Horse thought.

Looking down, he saw that the man had a travel mug with a big handle on the side. 'Why do they put handles on travel mugs,' he thought to himself. Every year, parents gave him various travel mugs. Those with handles never fit the cup holder in his car, and got tossed. Useless. Looking around, he noticed that the three people with similar travel mugs held the base and ignored the handle.

"What are you thinking?" his former student asked him.

"I was wondering why your coffee mug has a handle." Horse nodded down at it. "You grab the base."

"Dunno," the man replied. "I've never thought about it." It was clear from his expression that he hadn't. Then he added, "Laporte gave them to us at Christmas." Horse noted that Laporte Contracting was printed on the side. He looked at the other men and noted that they, too, held Laporte Contracting mugs.

"Quite a holiday bonus," Horse muttered.

"Well, each had a hundred bucks inside." The man chuckled.

"What?"

"He gave them out at the Christmas gathering. We were told to stop work a little after lunch. In the back of one truck was a spread of food, and the other had two kegs of beer and bottles of alcohol. A few cases. Laporte stood on the back of a third truck—we were all gathered in the parking lot by his office. Laughing, he pulled out the mugs and told us we needed to use them; something about insurance.

"What made me laugh was that he hadn't told anyone about the money inside. So, the first guys poured drinks into their mugs and found bills floating in it. Laporte laughed hard because he knew it was going to happen."

The man chuckled again, this time to himself at the memory.

Horse moved away, but the story confirmed what he thought: everyone there knew each other from work. They were Laporte men. Here, Horse was an outsider. Not only did he not belong, but his own reputation preceded him. People wondered why he was there. A glance; a cup raised in an abutted point. With nothing to talk about while they waited for direction, Horse became more of a topic for conversation. The man who he once had as a student—he couldn't remember his name—was asked by another about it.

Soon after, one of the state troopers present called their attention. Horse's former student was not one of them, but, before leaving his classroom, had told Horse about the planned search of the woods. With a call, Danielson had gotten his name on the list of volunteers. When Peter still refused to give any information, Danielson said, the police decided to have a discrete search party check the local woods.

'This is discrete?' Horse wondered, listening as the bored laugher of the crowd grew.

"This is a simple search," the trooper said in a clear bark. "We're going to form a line and simply walk out into the woods and try and notice anything."

"Like what?" someone asked.

"Anything." The trooper paused a moment. "You guys are woodsman. You know what looks normal in a backyard. Look for anything that's not normal."

That was the extent of the instructions before the group was directed to the back yard to line up.

"Did the kid say anything?" the man next to Horse asked.

"Nothing that helps," was the response.

Scattered around were snowshoes. Horse held up his; aluminum, dented, and several technological advances old. 'Still, they work,' he thought. A few of the men, hunters, had their own modern snowshoes. Someone from Tubbs Snowshoes in Stowe had driven another fifteen pairs up for the search. Men sat in snow banks, wrestling with straps and making proper adjustments. The rest waited.

Standing after strapping in, Horse looked for a place to throw his near empty cup but only saw the snow bank. Thinking no one was watching, he tossed it there. Headlamp affixed to his forehead, he waited to turn it on. By the coffee had been a box full of headlamps, courtesy of Laporte Contracting. Most of the others wore these headlamps, but not Horse. He had brought his own.

Suited up, people tramped to the back of the house.

The tree line began about fifty feet from the back of the house. A small compost bin, made of knocked-together pallets, sat in the middle of the yard. 'A garden,' Horse thought. Under the snow. Troopers spread the men out with waving arms, giving them instructions to simply walk straight and keep their eyes on their path.

Report anything.

Seriousness overtook the thirty or so people.

"Let's go."

And they did. The line staggered as it stretched, and finally it began to move forward and into the woods. People tripped and sank and stomped themselves forward. The police knew that the fallen snow had ruined any delicate evidence, but were hoping for this lot to literally turn up a clue that would open the investigation.

Perhaps even Dan's body.

But Horse was not looking for Dan. He knew from his investigation of the house that Dan had been gone awhile, and if the son had any ideas of where to find him he would have copped to them by now. The troopers knew it, too, he was sure; this exercise was a dog-and-pony-show to satisfy someone demanding action. No, Horse was there to get more information, because he was curious. Walking towards the tree line, Horse thought through what he knew.

Twenty feet into the woods, the shadows of the trees mixed with the light of the halogen made every bump a body. Stumbling, he nearly ran into some blue maple sap tubing. For a moment Horse turned off his headlamp and saw that he'd strayed a bit from the others. Through the narrow gaps in the trees, he could see flashes of other headlamps.

"Hey, light!" a voice called from his right.

Turning it back on, Horse heard a light laugh as the beam shined on a pair of sienna clad shins moving towards him.

"I guess I should have brought my own light," the voice said, shuffling towards him.

Instinctively, Horse looked at where the voice was coming from and blinded the man. The man raised a big orange mitten to cover his eyes. Horse looked down at the ground between them to lead him over. The man wore a modern pair of well-worn snowshoes; someone who must go out regularly, Horse thought. Large—at least six feet tall but quite wide—his build was that of someone who not only had a physical job, but was beefy to begin with. Coming forward, he didn't so much as walk on the snow but bulldozed it down. From the brief glimpse of the light in his face, Horse figured he was in his forties, he had a round face, very ruddy cheeks, and large teeth.

'I'll bet he's a talker.' he thought, impatiently

"Laporte was passing them out with the coffee," Horse said.

"I know. I gave mine up and followed you. I thought something might be gained by stumbling about in the dark, looking at shadows, and relying on feelings."

"Was it?"

"I took out some sap lines back there."

"I don't think Dan's going to be using them this season."

"Is that what your gut tell you?"

"My brain."

"Pity." The man was beside him, now. Outside of his beam of light, Horse could make out the man's head moving, looking around in an expansive way. "With the large snowfall, I predict warm days soon. With the snow keeping things cool as it melts, it'll be perfect tapping weather."

"And for the bloating of the body to start," Horse replied.

The man said nothing.

"I didn't notice a sugar shack," Horse said, trying to change back to a more appropriate subject.

"No, he sells his sap to Laporte for sugaring," the man replied. "That's me."

The same mitten that had earlier covered his eyes from the light came out just as Horse looked at him again, flashing the beam of light in Laporte's face. The man squinted, but kept his right hand extended, waiting for a shake in return.

"Sorry," Horse said. He looked down at the hand and shook it. Orange, Horse noted that Laporte must be a hunter. Then he looked away, pointing the beam into the woods ahead.

"That's the problem with headlamps," Laporte laughed. "But I'm used to it."

"Is there a lot of spelunking in your line of work?"

"Crawlspaces. Eves. Wiring and plumbing. Yes."

"You've got a lot of guys to do that."

"Oh, you gotta keep your hand in it. I didn't go into contracting to sit in a truck. I like getting my hands dirty."

"I would have thought you'd at least have gotten your own flashlight. They are yours, after all."

"Guys come first," Laporte replied in a tone that suggested he had used this line several times a day, for decades.

"Peter told me he sugared with his dad," Horse said.

"Perhaps he taps a few trees."

How does Dan sugar it, Horse wondered. He thought back to his rummage through the house and barn, but couldn't remember any type of pan that would process a decent amount of sap into syrup.

Without a word, Horse began slowly walking away from Dan's house. The sound of Laporte's shuffling snowshoes followed. They walked twenty yards or so before Laporte broke the silence.

"Did I hear before that you're Peter's teacher?"

"No," Horse replied, almost under his breath. "He's in the other class."

"Pity." Laporte didn't offer that Peter needed someone to "kick him in the ass" though. Horse heard that a lot. Instead, the contractor said, "Some of my guys had kids with you. Some had kids with the other guy."

There was no hint about which kids were better off.

They walked about a hundred yards. Both Horse and Laporte were breathing hard, but neither wanted the other to know.

They both stopped.

"In a week, this'll all be gone," Laporte said, indicating the snow with a nod of his head.

"Hopefully, we'll get an answer before then.

"

"How far are we supposed to go?" Laporte asked.

'You know,' Horse thought.

Catching his breath, he took more of an inventory of the contractor. 'Two types of people wouldn't have taken their own flashlight into the woods: Incompetent or controlling.' From his brief interaction, Laporte was not ingratiating or self-deprecating, indicating a certain level of confidence. The operation was well planned. Did this, though, demonstrate an easy competence or a strong need to control the situation. Horse thought the latter. In his mind, Laporte knew how far they were supposed to go—he was a man who knew all of the details before he starts anything. To him, everything is a job, a contract. The generators and lights and coffee and men are what he brings to the table, and in exchange the state police are open with him; not dishonest or even "old boy", but friendly as people are in the rural reaches of northern Vermont. As an upstanding member of the community—sponsor of a Little League team, church member, and local patron—his being on the inside makes things run smoother.

And he liked being in the loop.

Even more, he liked being in charge.

Horse was sure all of this was at Laporte's insistence; the state police were just going along.

'How long do I have to dance around out in this snow in the dark,' Laporte thought to himself. He was there in the woods, freezing, to keep an eye on Horse. 'Why is he here?' Laporte wondered, seeing him sip coffee while talking to Travis. Pocketing a flashlight, Laporte had set himself off to discretely follow him into the woods and look for signs that he knew something about Dan.

"I don't know how far we're supposed to go," Horse said. Then, he bluffed him. "Let's keep going."

He felt Laporte hesitate.

'Someone likes to call the shots,' Horse thought. But knows to be polite with potential clients, which is anyone not on the payroll.

"I don't see other lights," Laporte said, finally.

"We've just spread out." Horse looked back. "We aren't lost. You can see the halogen through the trees."

"I just don't know if a hundred more yards is going to help."

"Still, this is a man's life."

"We're beyond the sap lines."

Horse let the silence work.

Three years ago, he did a series of social science experiments on his students involving silence. They had had problems with "sustained silent reading", a cornerstone of his literacy program and a basic skill if the kids were going to grow up to be lifelong readers. Both "sustained" and "silent" were an issue, and poor reading followed. First, Horse had challenged his students to do a pleasurable activity for an hour—table football with one of those triangle footballs made of folded notebook paper, played with a partner of their choice. After fifteen minutes three fights broke out. Then, he tried silence, but they kept talking about being silent, and even when sound stopped the pantomiming was impossible to break. He ended it after twenty minutes when he found two girls, sitting twelve inches apart, texting each other.

People have to talk, was his conclusion. Silence was very powerful, indeed.

"Let's go back," Laporte finally said.

"Did he work for you?" Horse asked.

"Dan? As an independent contractor." After a few steps, Laporte asked, "I thought you knew him?"

"Me? No."

"And Peter's not your student?"

"No."

"Why are you here?"

"Concerned member of the community," Horse lied.

"Oh."

The rest of the walk was in silence.

At the top of the drive, Horse unstrapped his snowshoes and banged them on the frozen gravel to get the ice off the crampons. He walked over to the truck that still had the dregs of coffee on the tail, and made his way to the cab. Headlamp still on, the beam searched the darkness; nothing but some accordion files of purchase orders that sat on the passenger seat. A phone sat in the charger.

Over half the men were back. They mumbled and mingled, all wondering when they could politely excuse themselves and get back to their lives—families, alcohol, television—before getting up again at five to be on the job site at seven. A few yawned.

There was no news, nor much enthusiasm for this task. They knew Dan, but this was clearly a pointless exercise.

The troopers werehere because Laporte was offering his men. But why does Laporte care?

Making his way down the drive towards his car, he shined his headlamp into each cab, looking... Nothing. Papers. Wrappers. Coffee cups. Tools. Discarded clothing.

All perfectly innocent, or incriminating.

Nothing he might discern with a headlamp shining through a window while passing.

I'll need to break in.

CHAPTER 6

Lights out.

Around the shade at the far side of Horse's classroom, light crept in, making it a thinly framed rectangle. At the board was a bright square of light, as an old overhead projector shot a poem onto a clean screen.

Part of the last stanza of Rudyard Kipling's "If" was on Horse's hip.

"...Throughout this poem Kipling is giving advice to his son. All of it perfectly sound and the type of tripe found in greetings cards and from parents when they aren't yelling at us or fearing for our future. He could be any parent. But we come to these two lines...

"The unforgiving minute

"Think about that phrase—Unforgiving.

"Kipling is talking about the idea that life is short and each minute is precious. You know, like if you were going to die tomorrow what would you do? Ho, hum. Like something your parents might say."

Horse looks into the darkness. Before he continues, he wants this idea of sink in.

"If you were going to die tomorrow, what would you do?" he repeats.

Someone raises their hand in the darkness.

"It was rhetorical," Horse tells the dark figure. "Kipling is not sentimental about this idea. That moment is unforgivable. Because you will never get it back. Ever. Never. Unlike the parent who tells you that anyone can grow up to be president, Kipling is saying now is the time or you are doomed. Doomed!

"With sixty seconds of distance run."

Again, he pauses.

"What does that mean? Your life is going to be about seventy-two years of sixty second increments. That's a lot. So Kipling—in this single line—makes two recommendations.

"First, pace yourself. This is a marathon, not a sprint. Distance. Well, that's what we normally think. Hey, I have tomorrow. Or next year.  But remember, each minute is unrelenting! You need to make it count.

"Second, the run. While not a sprint, it is not a walk, either. Or a sit. Or a lay on the couch while you have potato chip crumbs piling up under your chin. No.  Run. Now. Because that unrelenting minute will pound you down each and every minute until you die.

"Yes, I know you are only in seventh grade, but if you don't start making choices and living life now, you aren't going to do it when you're twenty-six."

'An overhead,' his colleague Jones thought every time he passed the room and saw Horse standing in the dark edges, teaching, flapping his arms around and talking about whatever. Old technology.

Ancient.

"Ancient teacher," he muttered as he walked back to his own classroom.

Jones himself had an interactive whiteboard, a synthesis of chalkboard and computer that allowed him to interact with the board and everything the electronic portal could bring to the student. A school board member had been keen on getting more technology into the school and Jones did not hesitate to craft a list of what he thought would help the school.

Wells had been less enthusiastic. Besides recommending a computer lab for each grade cluster, the principal had suggested a more measured approach. Every year, he argued, a few of the computers in the lab could be replaced with newer models, the older ones making their way to the classrooms. For other new technology he called on what he called "pioneer teachers" to use technology for a year before the board considered adopting it for widespread use.

Jones had thought it a bit meek.

"Not sexy enough for some," Wells had said, sharing a beer with Horse after a particularly odd school board meeting—a principal in the positive of turning away school board money.

Horse thought it all a regrettable trend.

"A distraction," he said when asked, which wasn't often.

In the end, Wells bought Jones off by declaring Jones a pioneer teacher for the middle school grades. As rooms acquired LCD projectors and interactive whiteboards, Horse collected the old technologyThis made him happy—as happy as Horse seemed to get—because he was a hoarder.

"Thrifty," he had said. "Good old New England thrift."

. In the back of the room were a cluster of old desktop computers, a milk crate of GPS devices, another of past generation digital cameras and a shoebox full of mobile phones that were still able to access the school's wifi. He had five overhead projectors, and Jones had once noticed an 8mm film projector and two filmstrip projectors in a cabinet.

"What are you going to do with five overhead projectors?" Jones had asked. But Horse had used them, with students tracing maps of Lake Champlain and the Green Mountains and in various physics experiments involving light and mirrors. As technology migrated to his room, so did the tapes, films, supplies, and support materials. Within a year of Jones becoming a pioneer, Horse had acquired a small media center. His students were pulling apart old video players and repurposing them. They watched old science tapes narrated by Jim Crum. In the main foyer was a kiosk built of old laptops; an electronic trophy case showing off to visitors the best of Grace Haven.

Entering the computer lab, Jones' own students were busily tapping away at computers, chatting electronically with the student two terminals down.

After school, Horse and Wells sat in the small student chairs in Horse's classroom and spoke with a parent, Ms. Moreston, about her underperforming son. The mother was near forty years in age, while her son was the younger one of two and it was clear from previous conversations that she was looking forward to this one being old enough to take care of himself. A tired face, her clothes were too nice for work in this part of Vermont. 'She's either a realtor or commutes to Chittenenden County,' Horse thought.

She looked at the white board.

"That is an interesting topic group." On the board was a list: Homicide, Patricide, Matricide, Regicide.

"I was impressed by omnicide," Horse said with a calm enthusiasm. "It's the total destruction of the human race."

"Isn't that a bit grim for seventh grade?"

"When should they start thinking about it?"

"This was part of a lesson on Latin suffixes," Wells put in. From her frown, he could see the wheels turning in Ms. Moreston's head. When they stopped, he knew, they weren't going to come up with anything positive.

"Oh," the mother said. "I just thought with the Johnsons..."

"Yes," Horse interrupted. "That, in fact, is how it came up. A kid asked about murder, and someone mentioned the word homicide, and if it was homicide if you killed your father..." Horse smiled, letting the lesson sink in. "Well, you can imagine how fast that can get out of control."

"So, you decided to feed it." It wasn't a question.

"Nothing distracts a child from something inappropriate than turning it into a vocabulary exercise."

"So, you came to omnicide?"

"Did your son mention murder when he got home?"

"No."

"Then I think I distracted him."

"He knows not to," she said, peering at Horse with narrowing eyes that said, I'm not stupid; I know something, so stop talking down to me. "I'm just concerned about the boy."

"Peter."

"It's a tragic situation. Perhaps I'm a little too close..."

"Do you read?" Tired of his lessons being questioned, Horse decided to change the subject.

Wells spoke up for the first time in minutes. "What Horse's concern is..."

"Of course you can read, but do you read? Do you pick up a book and read it? How often? That's my concern."

"Are we talking magazines, too?" Ms. Moreton asked.

"Magazines do not count." Horse leaned forward. "I would imagine that the pictures get in the way."

"He is not implying..." Wells began to explain.

"I am not implying that you are reading a narrative text."

She blinked.

Ms. Moreton just sat there and blinked and sat and said nothing. She had heard about Horse from the other mothers, and pushed for her child to be in his class. Her son was a bit of a lay-about, and, in her opinion, needed a swift kick that she was unwilling to give him. 'I'm weak,' she thought and knew to be true. After the divorce, after going back to work, after keeping the father at bay when he wanted to get the kids to spend more time in his small apartment in town—she just grew tired of saying "no". As her son hit the stage where rebellion began, she had to say "no" and now she was tired. Still, she was shocked.

"That's pretty blunt," she finally said.

Horse read all of this. From the moment she walked in the door, he read her inventory. In her face, he could see she was tired.

No wedding ring.

Two boys.

The suit leaned towards a long commute; she was not peppy enough to be a realtor.

Tired of corralling and nudging and demanding, but knowing her son was a bit of a putz and still needed it. Ms. Moreton expected him to do the work,.

"I'm to blame for his not being a strong reader?"

"That's not what we're saying," Wells replied.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," Horse followed.

"And what do I pay taxes for?"

This was a rhetorical question that came from not knowing what else to say. From her work, Ms. Moreton knew that schools were the last hope for many kids, and a leg up for those coming from average families. Even those few families who pushed too hard, their children benefited with a bit of relief from the high pressures they met at home by the daily methodical grind they found in school. Still, she wasn't going to be pushed without pushing back, first.

"You read in bed," he said. Now that he knew which way this conversation was going to go—no reason to fear for his job—he could be honest without hostility. His voice lost its edge. "Let's assume this is regular. Let's also assume your child is not in the room at the same time."

"By which..." Wells began.

Although Wells was sure that Ms. Moreton was not in a litigious mood, he had seen parents turn fast. Not only with Horse, but with sweet and nice first grade teachers who were mere does caught in a headlight. In the wrong mood, Horse could pick and pick and pick at a scab until it bled all over his own shirt; it was the best metaphor he had come up with, although Horse said it was just gross.

"You are a role model." Horse again cut off Wells. "You came today because you are concerned that your child does not read. Cannot read, really. His scores, well... he is functionally illiterate."

"We have been thinking of scheduling a few support classes..." Wells inserted

"Or, he could read. You see, the funny thing about reading is that the more you do it, the better you get at it. Or is that golf?"

"I think it's both," Ms. Moreton replied.

"And the way that your son knows that reading is valuable is that he sees someone he respects doing it." Horse looked her in the eye. "That would be you."

There was silence.

"Unless you don't value reading."

Again, silence.

Then Horse filled it with sarcasm: "I mean, really, who really reads in their jobs? I mean, beyond functional reading? I mean, really?"

'This is where you stop,' Wells thought. His stare at Horse was a loud one, making his point. Horse looked away. Wells said out loud, "Of course we know that you value reading..."

"If you don't read, fine," Horse said. "I don't judge you. I'm not mad. You are clearly successful. It works for you. I assume it will work for your son. But, if you don't value it at home, what do you want from us?  What do you want?" He knew what she wanted—Horse to say "no".

But no one said anything. There is nothing else to be said, even as Wells felt the need for a more formal resolution.

"What did you mean that your son knows not to mention this case at home?" Horse asked, finally.

"I don't bring work home with me, and I can't discuss my work with him for obvious reasons."

"What do you do?" Horse asked, genuinely interested.

"I work for DCF," she replied.

The Department of Children and Families. Family Services. Foster Care.

'Ms. Moreton, my new best friend,' Horse thought.

And Wells gets the resolution he was looking for.

"Are you busy?"

Ms. Moreton had just left, and Wells looked out the window to see her make her way across the cleared parking lot. Horse was bent over a pile of spiral bound notebooks, writing comments in red ink. 'He is the last teacher to use red ink,' Wells thought. Years ago a few studies had shown that students who received comments in red ink—even positive comments—took away only negative feelings. The staff at Grace Haven, and around the district, switched to green and purple and blue pens. All but Horse. 'I want them to feel bad about the crap work they did,' Horse had told him. Wells wasn't sure if he was joking or not. Every summer, when supplies are ordered, three boxes of Papermate medium point red stick pens are ordered for one teacher: Horse.

"Jeffery Boocher."

Wells snapped from his thoughts. "That was Ms. Moreton. And, I'm impressed how helpful you got the second half of our meeting."

"I'm here to help," Horse said, looking up from his desk with a smile.

"How is she helping you, then?"

"Can't a man speak to someone with the inside track on foster placement without it being misconstrued as opportunistic?"

"You suddenly have an interest in being a foster family?"

"I want to make sure Peter stays in contact with his school." Horse returned to the pile of spiral notebooks. "After all, when his father returns he'll be pretty far behind."

"I'm not sure..."

"But I'm thinking now of Jeffery Boocher." His voice snapped.

"Ah, Jeffery. What is it this time?"

"He's disorganized."

Wells moved from the window and began examining items he'd seen a hundred times before. In his mind, he tried to figure out where this conversation was going. On days such as this, Horse was exhausting. Correction, he thought: Horse was always exhausting. Picking up a shuttlecock from an old loom—how did this wind up here—he thought about a drink. Yes, this conversation might go better with a pint. But Horse was waiting for an answer.

As principal and friend, Wells was the sounding board.

He obliged.

"In second grade they called him Pigpen. In third it was The Tornado. His desk was a hazard area. He'd forget his..."

"Head... Yes, yes..." Horse made a wave with his hand. "I listened to his third and fourth grade teachers use the same expression. Wonderfully supportive, those teachers and their nicknames are. I'd be surprised if it's not stamped in his file. No. He's not like that."

"No?"

"No. There's something more. His disorganization is selective. I went to his soccer practice and he was Johnny on the Spot."

"Kids do that." Wells put down the shuttlecock and looked at a postcard that was tacked to the wall. "They care more about one thing than another. They tend to do what it takes to participate in that activity."

"Why soccer? Why not reading? Or math?"

"Reading or math... over soccer?" The principal looked away from the postcard for a moment. "Gee. Perhaps he's a seventh grade boy."

"No. That's not it. He was a second grade Pigpen and third grade Tornado. Have you seen his card collection?"

"No."

"Show and tell day..."

"You still do show and tell? The rest of the school stops that in second grade."

"Of course they do. The other teachers think it's about sharing, and by third grade no one cares what students think."

"And you do?" Wells walked over to Horse's desk.

"God, no." Horse smiled. "But, they bring in all sorts of hints about their life outside of class. It clears up a lot, and gives me things I can exploit later. You know... to help teach them."

"And I thought it might be to let kids show off a different side of their personality."

"Why would I care about that?"

"Anyway, Jeffery Boocher..."

"His card collection is organized. More important, he knows how it's organized. I talked with him about it for twenty minutes and watched him carefully and efficiently find each card and share the details of it to the class."

"I'm sure they were fascinated..." Wells himself looked bored. "Again, when a kid is interested in something..."

"Why cards? Why soccer?"

"I give up."

"So did teachers in grades K through six."

"Ah, a mystery."

"Yes. It holds the key to this kid."

Wells went to the window while Horse returned to correcting. He could hear the scratch of the pen.

"I didn't come here to speak with you about Jeffery Boocher..."

"Is this about the visit from the state trooper?"

"No, although we should talk about that, too." Wells drew a breath. "Amanda Tomlinson's dad came to speak to me..."

"I take it she got the abortion." His voice was matter-of-fact.

"Yes." Wells turned to face him. "On your advice, apparently."

"I'm not the father."

"That is the one fact everyone seems to agree on."

"I gave no advice."

"Apparently, Amanda told her dad that you recommended it."

"Poppycock."

"When we all have to sit down with lawyers, I'm going to leave out that you said 'Poppycock' to the allegations."

"How many lawyers are in this school district?"

"Too many, and they all have the superintendent's office on speed dial."

"She's not a student here."

"She was."

"So, I can't have a conversation with anyone who ever went to this school for the rest of their lives?"

"Or your employment here."

"So, during my twenty-some-odd years tenure I've taught..."

"Plenty of students, yes. And they always remain students."

"So, last night I was speaking with..." The name—Travis—suddenly popped into his head. "Travis. I taught him. Now, he has a girl in sixth grade. She might be mine next year. How do I talk to him—as a student or parent?"

"This is different."

"I don't want to speak with any of them. Does that matter to anyone?"

"No. But you did... speak to one." Wells leaned against the window sill, his body deflating with resignation. "And, she's a minor."

"She's sixteen."

"Seventeen."

"An adult."

"Not quite."

"She didn't break the law."

"No, she didn't, but she's not the one the lawyers want to speak about."

"I didn't perform the abortion."

"The lawyers don't want to speak to the doctors, either."

"So, I'm not the father, didn't get the abortion, and didn't perform the abortion..."

"You gave advice about the abortion."

"I gave information about where to get a safe, legal abortion. I also gave information about adoption and keeping the baby. I even told her to speak with her father."

"She's done that."

"Yes, but my advice was for the conversation to happen before she made a decision."

"The lawyers will want to know that."

"You keep saying lawyers; plural. Are there more than one?"

"Honestly, I don't know." Wells scratched his head.

"Great."

"She says you told her to do what she thought was best."

"I pointed out that she had already made a decision, and that she was looking for me to sanction it."

"Did you?"

"No," Horse said bluntly. "I laid out legal options. I told her she already knew what she was going to do. I wanted to emphasize she should do what was right for her."

Then Horse made a sound.

'Did he just snort?' Wells thought. He was clearly feeling indignant. Inside he laughed a bit; it was usually Wells who felt put out in their professional relationship. The principal stood for a moment, thinking how he wanted to continue.

"Well, you should have said nothing," he finally said.

"Ignorance is not our business," Horse said quietly.

"Neither is morality."

"I didn't advocate anything." The bluster returned to his voice.

"By discussing it you waded into a moral morass."

"So schools aren't supposed to talk about anything like this?"

"We teach reading, writing, math, and science."

"I pledge allegiance, to the flag..."

"That is not morality."

"Patriotism is not morality?" Horse did snort this time. "It's not math."

"It's not religion, either."

"One nation, under God..."

"A relic of tradition."

"That you lead on the announcements each morning."

"I'm touched that you listen."

"It's an expectation of teaching here, right?"

"Reciting the Pledge? This is the rule you decide to follow?"

"I follow all of the rules. I just push the edges."

"Well, you pushed this one."

'And there it was,' Wells thought. The balance in their relationship had returned, with Horse retaking the moral high ground while Wells was left to hold together the practical bits of educating students. There were feathers to smooth and he was going to have to do it.

"She is not my student," Horse began. "Nor a student of this school. I gave information, not advice. All of the options were legal options."

"Arguments that our lawyers will no doubt use."

The conversation was done. Both knew it. Horse got up and looked out at the parking lot. Ms. Moreton's car was gone. He thought about the conversation he had had with her, after Wells had left the earlier meeting. About her work.

The Johnson boy.

Beyond the visitors' spaces was the faculty lot. It was late, and the snow glowed with the last light the sun was willing to cough up, filtered through the clouds. A few halogen lights turned on with a light glow, not yet throwing light onto the three cars that remained in the lot—his, Wells', and the janitor's.

"I'm going to be sacrificed, aren't I?" he asked after several minutes.

"You have not endeared yourself to the board."

"What about half of the parents?"

"Mr. Tomlinson was one of those."

"But I've done nothing wrong."

Horse said this without conviction, even though both men knew it to be true. He was tired. Then, anger rose from Horse—a cold, calculated anger that Wells had seen his entire administrative career. In this mood, he knew, Horse would push the law to the letter, not understanding the concerns that were beneath it. 'My next week will be defining that line for both sides,' he thought. There was paperwork in his office that no one appreciated, but was required by the state and had nothing to do with the learning of reading or math but that keeps kids safe in a way that only the most vulnerable would understand. Ms. Binnis had left a new pot of coffee for him, but by now it was burnt. Those papers and reports kept him from home and two cold beers and a recording of a Red Sox game someone made for him of a good game played in July—he knew the score, but not how it played out. It made him sad that he had to be here—not here with a friend, but drawing that line for his sake as much as anyone's. To care as Horse did was to be alone. Being here is how I help, Wells thought.

"This is not about logic. This is about morality. This is about abortion. You can help all of the Jeffery Boochers you want. No one cares."

"Now you tell me." Horse rolled his eyes with mock understanding.

"I've been telling you. There are expectations that aren't in the contract."

"Teaching is the only profession where doing your job isn't good enough. But you can't write exceptionalism into a contract."

"Is this what this is? Exceptionalism?"

Horse did not reply.

"You can do it without making waves."

"Mediocrity. Do you remember Amanda Tomlinson when she arrived in my class?"

The principal thought back several years, when Amanda was young and wild. There are often a few students that every teacher is aware of—they see them in the early grades and brace themselves as they approach. As they terrorized middle school, the younger teachers laughed with war stories. Picturing Amanda sitting on his leather couch, Horse knew already what he was going to say.

"Yes. She was a mess," he admitted.

"She couldn't read. Every day she was in your office, before you gave her over to my class."

"You never sent her."

"I didn't need to. I'm one of those exceptional teachers you read about. They should make a movie about me."

"I don't know what kind of movie that would be. Horror? You used your closet as a kind of prison."

"A take-a-break room. It's a place where students can go and collect their thoughts until they are ready to return to academics and contributing appropriately to learning."

"I know what a take-a-break is."

"That's what they do with the first graders."

"They have a chair the kid goes off to. A chair."

He had heard about Horse's take-a-break room from another student. Usually, students were angry at having to sit in the principal's office, and often lied up a storm as to why they shouldn't be there. This student—what was his name, Wells tried to remember—begged to do his time there. The kid was afraid of Horse. No, of the room. After school, Wells went to see it for himself.

"I had a chair, just framed by walls."

"You covered the walls with mats and she wailed around there."

"Padding. Those walls are hard plaster. That was thoughtful of me, I think."

"And you took away the chair."

"She threw it."

"That's why I had the janitor take away the door... because I was afraid of the next step you might take."

But Wells had implicitly allowed Horse to use the room.

The girl was that bad.

Amanda was unique, and Horse was her last chance. They had both gambled their careers on helping her. Until now, they felt they had been right to do it.

"We'll leave that part out of the made-for-television movie," Horse muttered.

"I don't know how much of your style we could put in and still televise it."

"By November she was no longer causing trouble," Horse said. "By April she was reading near grade level."

"And Mr. Tomlinson was your greatest advocate..."

"Until his little girl got pregnant."

"That does tend to taint someone's perspective."

"So what changed?" Horse stood. He put his hands on his hips and shook his head back and forth, trying to contain his frustration. "He got used to success and wasn't ready for her to take a step back."

"It was not your place to have that conversation."

"If I had advised her to go to college," Horse said, "that would be okay. If I had advised her to get a job and work hard, that would be okay. What's the difference?"

"Counseling someone on having a child?"

"What, you don't think that's as important as choosing a good college?"

"Too important."

"Too important to disagree with the parent."

"You are NOT the parent."

"She was afraid to talk to her parent."

"That does not mean you step into the void."

"This is because a girl in trouble needed information."

"She needed advice. She needed someone to hold her hand. She came to you."

"And I did none of those things. I told her to go to her father. I gave her information about her legal choices. Had I said nothing, would that have been better? More humane?"

"You told her that she already knew what to do."

"She did."

"And you did not dissuade her."

"So I should have told her NOT to have the abortion? Isn't that a position?"

"You should have said nothing."

"That's where we are?"

"Stick to Jeffery Boocher and his disorganization."

"Maybe that's too much. Perhaps I'm persecuting him for thinking non-linearly."

"Say nothing," Wells said. He looked Horse straight in the eye and used a clear, firm voice. "Do nothing. Teach reading and writing and math and science."
CHAPTER 7

"Let's go over some basics," Horse said to Peter.

The two sat side by side on a bed in Horse's guest room, which had housed few guests since he moved into the house thirty years before. A small room painted a color described on the paint can as Arizona Sunset—he had only been able to describe it as a "dusty yellow"—the room was large enough for a single bed, a desk, and a straight-back chair. A few framed pages of Tintin comics hung on the walls. One wall was entirely a built-in bookcase, painted white, and filled with stacks of comic books. Opposite the door was a small window looking out at a bare tree and then the street. No closet.

In all honesty, it wasn't a room he liked going into. The room, like the house, had been the idea of someone long out of his life. She had painted the walls and put a bed in for the guests she thought might visit them. There were other plans that came later. After she was gone, so went the opportunities for visitors. Like several rooms in his modest house, it served as storage.

Now there was this boy.

It was Saturday. In less than five minutes Horse went through nearly fifty rules, most involving his personal stuff and how he liked things done—don't touch the large frying pan, which I bought for omelets and is specially seasoned—all of them clear. You are to be as little of a disruption to my life as possible, seemed to sum them all up.

"Okay," the boy said at the end.

"Are you going to remember them all?" Horse asked. He knows Peter will; the list was devised to test the extent of his ability to take in details and remember them.

"Yes."

"Are you going to follow them all?"

No answer.

'So, he's honest,' thought Horse

And cagey.

"Why am I here?" the boy asked.

"Is that a philosophical question?"

Horse leaned slightly forward, enough to put weight on the hands that rested on his knees. His back hunched, his eyes wandered down on the head of the boy. Everything was meant to invade the boy's personal space.

Peter looked up, not intimidated.

"No. Why did you take me in?"

Moving his gaze out the door and into the hall, the man replied, "You're going to be bounced around quite a bit while this thing with your dad plays itself out. I think it's important that you go to school; the same school you have been going to and, hopefully, will go to in the future."

"I see."

Peter did not believe him. They both knew it.

Horse got up.

Peter's lone bag sat on a rather dull quilt Horse had gotten from a grateful but talentless parent, in appreciation for helping her talentless daughter. It covered a mattress that lay on an iron frame, both salvaged from the Copley Hospital in Morrisville when it was renovated decades prior. The bed was springy, and every shift in weight created a slight, distracting movement. Both of them became agitated by it, but were not ready to move.

"Where's your Dad?" Horse asked, lightly, as if asking the boy his favorite baseball team.

"Is that why I'm here?"

"Did you kill him?"

"No." Peter looked at him, hard. "I'll go now if this is all you're going to talk about."

The man looked down at the boy and smiled.

"I just want to know if I need to sleep with a gun for protection against a twelve-year-old psychopath sleeping a few rooms away."

"You should," Peter said, "but it would have nothing to do with my dad."

"Okay, then." Horse said. "Then we have an understanding."

He stood up and a single step brought him into the doorway. Turning, he asked, "Is that all you have?" Horse looked at the lone bag, black and adorned with a Nike logo. The kid was wearing the same clothes he had worn on Wednesday.

"Yeah."

"School books?"

"No."

"We'll fix that."

Horse took a last look at him. "Come down when you're hungry."

"You have a lot of comic books," Peter said, coming into the kitchen while Horse made an omelet. Horse's back was to Peter, but the kid could hear the sound of a fork mixing eggs in a porcelain bowl. On the counter was a pile of eggshells. Peter estimated six eggs, and felt anxious as a bit of yoke dropped onto the tile top.

"It's for reluctant readers," the teacher explained.

"Like me?"

"I don't think you're reluctant." He continued to mix the eggs with his back to the boy. "I think you can't read because of your disability."

"What disability is that?"

Approaching Horse as he said it, the boy scooped up the shells and moved back to the other side of the kitchen. He stood there, a handful of shells, scanning.

"Compost?" Horse asked.

The boy nodded, which Horse could not see but he knew the kid was doing it.

"I put it in the cabinet behind you."

Peter looked down at the pile of broken eggshells. Yoke covered his hands; first cold fluid, and then a sticky hardening. Without putting them down he could not open the cabinet, but if he did put them down he knew he would dirty the counter.

Frozen, he stood still.

Horse turned around and mercifully opened the cabinet door, then took the top of the compost bucket off. As the boy unloaded the shells, Horse dropped the metal cover onto the tile countertop.

Clang.

Peter flinched.

'The boy has sensitive ears,' Horse thought, noticing his reaction as he turned and back to the omelet mix. Of course, all this had been a test—from the eggshells to the dropping of the cover.

His haphazard diagnosis techniques drove Wells mad. "You don't have a psychology degree," his boss had said to him years before. "No, but I read a lot of self-help and pop-psychology books." To Horse, Wells epitomized many of the worst traits in educators—bad scientists and bleeding hearts. The administrators, coordinators, and consultants had reams of data on each kid, but their conclusions often didn't match the data, and the solution didn't match either of those. In the end, the adults ran around ("blowing noses and putting on band-aids", Horse had said) in response to those the system was failing. To Wells, Horse's methods were bad science. Does it matter if I get the disorder wrong? Horse grunted over beers one evening. None of it was official, he reasoned. In response, Wells had said that if they couldn't match the right cure to the right disease he'd rather the school did no harm. Knowing there's a problem and doing nothing, that's the harm, was Horse's reply.

"Hypersensitivity." Horse was ready to make an omelet.

"What?"

"Your diagnosis." Taking the bowl, he poured a cup of batter in the already heated pan. Jerking his pan back and forth across the electric element on the stove, the glob of egg congealed with the heat, with each change in direction smooshing the bits together, puffing it all with air and fusing them into a whole, fluffy meal. "You see all of the letters on the page at once."

"How do you know this?" Standing by the table, Peter gave a sideways glance at the file on the table. "No one mentioned it before."

"Nobody tells kids anything," was Horse's reply. Then, he reminded Peter about his comment about the unshaven hairs on his neck.

"That's it?" Peter asked. "Aren't there tests to take?"

"You've taken them all." He flipped the omelet in the pan.

"Are you sure that's it. Hypersensitivity?"

"I am now. With a touch of OCD—obsessive compulsive disorder, I think."

The old man stopped moving the pan, letting it sit for a moment. Feeling that Peter was confused, Horse halted his poking at the pan, turned and looked him straight in the eye. "Before you got up I hid the compost bucket."

Peter turned and looked at the now closed cabinet.

"You can take the bucket out and put it over there." Horse pointed with his fork at a spot of counter next to the refrigerator. "I figured you would notice the eggshells. Being hypersensitive, you'd immediately want order in an otherwise orderly kitchen. That's a little OCD, too. Once in your hand, you'd be disgusted by the tactile nature of the eggshells. Unable to find a compost container, you'd be conflicted; new house so you don't want to be rude, but you have to get those shells out of your hand without making a second messy counter. Well, fear of being rude, really, because hypersensitivity is often a result of early childhood trauma."

"Like an unsafe home."

"Exactly." Pan in hand, Horse used his fork to push the omelet onto a plate. On that, he sprinked a bit of grated cheese.

"How did you know I'd want a compost bucket, and not just throw them into the garbage?"

"You had a compost bucket in Dan's kitchen. I also noticed the fresh compost bin in the backyard." Pan in one hand, he carried the plate to the table besides the file folder.

"When you poked the snow for Dan?" Peter added, more of a probing statement than a mere question. He looked down at the plate.

"Yes."

"If I'm hypersensitive, why didn't I notice there was no compost bucket?"

"You see everything, but without a need for it—without context—it has no meaning. You aren't photographic, or omniscient. Once you had a handful of eggs, your brain scanned everywhere for relief."

"Again, why didn't I use the garbage?"

"One, habit. Two, I hid that, too."

"That's what you base your diagnosis on?"

"I've been teaching longer than you've been alive."

"You think you're right, don't you?"

Horse smiled and looked down at the table. "Context," he said.

"I need a fork." As the words left his mouth, he realized what the old man had done. "A test?"

"Eat," he commanded.

Nearly two inches thick, a file lay next to the plate. Worn and well used, it had Peter's name at the top—Johnson, Peter—and seven photos of the boy stuck to the side. From the top sprouted the edges of papers. Peter looked at the photos—he was a year older in each one—and noted that each was from the school's Picture Day. He only noted how happy he was in each photo. Staring, he tried to think what the younger versions of him were thinking about.

Probably Dan.

"Why the photos?" Peter asked.

Horse had his back to the kid, bent over the stove making another omelet. "State law. If you get yourself kidnapped, we have a photo to identify the body when it turns up. The Picture Day photo companies give us those stickers for free, and in exchange we let them come in and profit off of emotional parents and grandparents who like near-lifelike images of the small children they can't stand in person."

"You aren't supposed to take that out of the office." Peter pulled a chair out from the table and sat down. Transfixed by the file, he forgot to get a fork.

"No?"

"There's a sign taped at the top of each file cabinet in the Record Room."

'Which is true,' Horse thinks.

In Ms. Binnis' neat handwriting, written with a black Vis-A-Vis marker on a white three-by-five index card, lined side out, was written Files Not to Leave Room Without Permission. That the Record Room is a closet slightly larger than the fire-safe filing cabinets—marked Record Room in Ms. Binnis' same neat handwriting, written on what Horse assumes is an index card from the same pack and taped to the door—makes removal a near certainty. Most take their needed files to the Administrative Conference Room down the hall, and let Ms. Binnis know. Ms. Binnis wasn't at her desk when Horse came for the file; of course, he knew that when he went. Had he told her he was taking it, she would have tipped off Wells, who would have stopped him from taking on Peter as a temporary foster parent.

Better to ask forgiveness than seek permission.

"When were you in the Record Room?" Horse asked.

"Last year Ms. Binnis was looking for some change for the vending machine, and I followed her."

"And you remember?"

"The sign. Yes."

"No, do you remember what you got at the vending machine."

"Yes. Yogurt."

"How many ounces was the container?"

"Eight."

"Do you eat yogurt a lot?"

"Not that brand."

"Yet you remember the ounces?" The omelet was done, and Horse had slid it from the pan to a plate. Turning his back to the stove, Horse said, "Read the file, if you want."

"Am I allowed to do that?"

"I'm sure it's in the Constitution or something. Anyway, your name is on it."

'Who else is it for?' Horse thought.

Peter got egg on a few pages, and grease from his fingers on even more. Each bite he stabbed the omelet, and it fell off the fork. Forced to pick pieces off the table, his fingertips got coated with grease. Ignoring the cloth napkin Horse had put out, he wiped them on his pant leg. Then, the boy picked up the fork again, holding it in an unimaginable thicket of fingers and repeated the process.

Horse watched, noticing that he could not hold or use a fork properly. 'Lack of small motor skills,' he thought. 'I suspect his handwriting is atrocious—all block letters an inch high, written as if in the dark and held between one's teeth. They should've knocked that out of him in first grade.'

"Why don't you use the napkin?" he finally asked.

"I don't want to get it dirty."

Logical reasoning.

Limited forethought. Greasy pants just means you have to wash the entire pair sooner, instead of wearing them a second day.

Survival mode.

"That's what it's for," Horse said.

"It's cloth. Too nice to use."

"So you use your pants?"

"I'm not supposed to drop my food."

"In theory, you don't drop your food, so you don't need a napkin. It stays clean. In reality, you drop your food. Using a napkin means you have to admit you have a problem."

No response.

"In theory, if we teach you to use a fork, the issue is solved," Horse said. "Or, to use a napkin."

"I don't mind."

"You don't do you laundry."

"I do," Peter replied.

This time, Horse had no immediate response.

Then, "You can do better."
CHAPTER 8

That night Horse went to the Johnson house to get... 'well, it doesn't really matter,' he thought. 'I'll make up something.'

The Festiva skidded as it slowly made its way up the driveway. Surprisingly, the old car was better in the snow than most of the all-wheel drive vehicles on the road; it floated on the snow and ice like a waterbug crossing a river, its diminutive R12 tires spinning the little car upward. At the top, Horse parked it by a snow bank one of Laporte's plows had created off to the side. Putting on his beaten snowshoes, he tramped around to the back of the house with a spade in his left hand and an old sheetrock bucket swinging from his right. Overcast, there was no moon or stars to guide him, but Horse was loathe to turn on his headlamp; he enjoyed the silent dark of the night.

Heading straight to the compost bin, Horse looked at the trampled snow from the search they had undertaken earlier. 'Nothing,' he thought. He began to dig into the snow covering the compost.

And then he found the muck. Cold. Hard.

Slowly, he pushed the feet of snow away, uncovering peels and cores.

And...

Paper.

Twenty years before, the county had embraced recycling and everyone began sorting their trash. With the paper waste went bills—electric, gas, credit card—each one with personal information, neatly sorted away from the crusted yogurt cup and used paper towel. For someone with ill intent, an errant recycling bin might yield a bounty of access to a person's financial life. Unfortunately, the sort of people who were most likely to take advantage of this spent their Saturdays at the landfill fulfilling the community service portion of their criminal sentences; every week trusting citizens had their light blue recycling bins removed from their trunks by petty felons. All of this was followed by the increasing use of technology in people's personal lives, where numbers meant access. None of this became a problem until crystal meth infested northern Vermont. Identify theft then became a concern.

Shredder sales at the local stores rose with news reports about people losing their savings and, worse, their good credit rating, because of sloppy recycling habits and the affinity of meth users for detail work—like rummaging through someone's old mail and piecing together an identity. Little of that happened locally, but Vermonters are a practical lot. Banks had shredding days, where office paper hoarders dumped a year's worth of old mail into industrial mobile shredders in the parking lot. People were careful with every piece of mail, and a lot of mental and physical energy was spent in what was supposed to be the age of the paperless office.

Some, though, simply let the earth do the work. As a teacher Horse was forever shredding documents with CONFIDENTIAL stamped in red at the top—IEPs, 504s, emails and the like. At every meeting, each participant was given a working draft that, at the meeting's end, needed to be properly disposed of. Over the year, he received hundreds of red stamped documents and they were dutifully put into a locked file drawer—for confidential reasons and away from curious student eyes. He rarely looked at them, but they were there by law. In June, the instructions were to shred what was not being passed to the next teacher. The school had bought a cheap shredder that jammed if more than three pages were pushed through at the same time. Considering every document was at least six pages, it made for a long day of frustration. Then, at the end of one meeting, he watched a special educator from another school simply tear her document by hand into strips. You can do that? Sure, he'd been told. Horse was doubtful, as he had little respect for the woman. That same day, though, he was reading about how to build an indoor compost bin using red worms. It required paper—the worms loved it. 'A poor man's shredder,' Horse had thought. Having his students build a worm box that week, eisenia foetida, commonly known as "red wigglers", were feasting on Sherman Delecroix's paperwork on Monday.

Later, he discovered he wasn't the only one who did this. Thinking back to his last visit to the Johnsons' house, he remembered that he had seen recycling bins for cans, glass, and plastic, but not paper.

Turning on his headlamp, he dug about.

Scoop.

Dropping the semi-frozen soggy bits into the bucket, he kept digging.

More paper.

In the end, he filled half the bucket before he called it a night.

In the back of his car, the pulp mix froze overnight.

Outside of the car, Peter and Horse were fighting.

"I'm twelve. The law says I can sit in the front."

"Back," Horse commanded. He raised an impatient thumb and jabbed it towards the rear of the car to emphasize the point. The boy opened the back door.

Peter's hypersensitivity included smell. In this case, compost. Looking in the back, he saw the bucket.

"What's that?" Peter asked, climbing into the back.

"A bucket of compost," Horse replied.

Peter didn't ask a follow up; Horse was both glad and a bit disappointed in him. Where's the curiosity, he wondered.

As students ambled into the classroom Horse had the papers thawing on a back table. Carefully, he peeled them apart and laid them on the table top.

"Whatchadoing, Mr. H.?" Bart asked. He was fat and looked stupid, but that hid an intelligent mind that saw deep into what he read and made incredible connections. Horse has told him that he needed to keep his mouth from hanging open, and to pick up his feet when he walked. "The difference between Yale or carrying heavy stuff for other people," Horse had described it. Unfortunately, Bart saw himself more as a loser than an Eli. That sentence running together—whatchadoing—only reminded Horse that he had three months to make the kid realize he could go further than stocking Ding-Dongs at the Maplefields down the street.

"A puzzle," Horse replied.

"Can I help?"

For the next hour the entire class sifted through the mush and reconstructed bills and manifests. The students asked questions, but Horse did not answer a one. When they went off to music at nine-thirty, Horse had a pretty good picture of Dan's life and financial commitments.

Dan's been gone since the fall, he thought, looking at the paper trail.

"Where have you been?" he muttered to himself.

An hour later the students came back with energy—the xylophones and tom-toms used in their music theory lesson had wound them up, as they always did—and they danced into the room and Joe Knox jumped up and touched the top of the door frame, landing on the back of Jenny P. who screamed and no one was doing what they are supposed to be doing, which was getting out their journals and answering the prompt Horse had forgotten to put on the board.

"Hey!"

It was a loud shout; a shout of last resort.

The children froze.

A few tried to slink towards doing the right thing, but by that point Horse wanted them to freeze and listen. His directions were brief:

"Break into groups of three."

And they did. Each he assigned a document. As directed, they moved theirs to a desk. Then, sharing dispensers, they began to tape them and create a whole document. "What if a piece is missing," someone asked, but his group has already solved the problem. Short bits of tape got stuck to desktops, near invisible. Bad fine motor coordination was on display with wrinkled pieces stuck oddly on the documents. Some people pulled pieces of tape that were too long, which folded back on themselves and were rendered useless. Mark wrapped the tape around his head, pulling the tip of his nose up, making him look like a pig, but the other two members of the group got the job done. After half an hour, Horse had nearly one hundred recreated documents.

"Who is Phil Plowman?" Joe Knox asked.

"I don't know," Horse answered, but noted the name and the paper Joe's group reassembled. "This is just scrap paper I turned up."

"It kind of smells," Lucy E. said.

"This is a logic puzzle and a test of both following directions and fine motor skills."

"How'd we do?" Joe asked.

Horse didn't reply.

Walking down the corridor to the kindergarten rooms, Horse felt the world getting smaller. Water fountains were only a foot off of the ground, and the open door to the bathroom revealed a toilet that scraped the floor. Chairs were tiny, pushed into tiny tables, and every sign was positioned level with Horse's waist; the eye level of a five-year-old.

He had hoped to talk to Ms. Bing about Peter. Actually, about his father.

And Phil Plowman.

"She's gone," the janitor said.

All of the kindergarten and first grade teachers were gone.

Horse thought about Ms. Bing—she had been teaching for thirty years, so her prep was quite small. She was good at what she did, and just kept doing it. And correcting... that's something for the upper grades. Kindergarten is about instant feedback; exhausting, but done at the moment.

"Maybe I should move down," he muttered, not for the first time. And then he thought about the shoe tying, snot wiping, and "accidents" on top of the most demanding and important job in education. "Perhaps I'm fine."

I'll be back.

"Going through my compost?" Peter asked as they got into the car to go home.

Horse said nothing.

"What do you think we do at lunch?" Peter asked. His tone was cutting; someone with thin trust just betrayed. "Three kids talked to me about the smelly documents, all torn up and with my dad's name on them, that they spent an hour putting back together."

The rest of the ride home was in silence.
CHAPTER 9

A dark room.

Lights out.

Horse has the projector on, a poem illuminated on the wall: the first stanza of Christopher Marlowe's "A Passionate Shepherd to His Love."

Come live with me and be my love,

And we will all the pleasure prove

That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,

Woods, or steepy mountain yields

They burn into the white board in front of a silent class.

"Three words: pleasure, prove and yields," he stated in a quiet voice, followed by a pause that penetrated the minds of these twenty-seven twelve-year-olds. "Actually, it would be more accurate to say a phrase and a word, as pleasure prove works together to produce the yield at the end of the stanza."

'Cause and effect,' he thinks. 'They don't see how one action causes another in a story. To them, things just happen.' Inside, he groans.

"Is there anyone who, at this point, is not snickering?"

This is where things have gone south before: a single mention of passion and three hours with Wells mitigating another complaint. It's Marlow! Most parents know already; send them to Jones. As he looks over the uneasy faces of the children before him, he sighs. 'Oh, well, if someone doesn't talk about the passion yielding they'll only find it somewhere else.'

Taking the file from the office the day before, he had noted that Peter had been unplanned. In response to questions about his birth, Dan had written plainly, We were not ready to raise children. His mother had been quite young—a teenager—while his father—Dan—was a sinewy pistol in his early twenties. Horse had added "pistol" from the other reports he had read; Trooper Danielson had told him a little about the domestic visits they had made when Peter was still in preschool. No charges filed, but bruises noted and, having asked others with longer tenure, they remembered her being afraid. Another of his former students worked at Copely Hospital. On her late Sunday shift she managed to pull her old files and told him, over the phone after Peter was asleep, about the broken hand the emergency room doctor had noted as "suspicious." Peter himself, she had said, had also been in for various falls, also noted as suspicious. Unofficially, Horse had seen the reports about the accident.

Peter's mother dead.

Father, Dan, seriously hurt.

Photos from the scene were graphic.

Trooper Danielson had said many wondered what happened, but nothing could be pursued. A series of foster homes—that was in the school files—before Dan returned from the hospital and took back his kid.

After the funeral, the files ended. Dan was a new man.

Or at least he was more discrete.

"The pagan gods," he said to the students. "The soul. Those things untamed by modern man. Passion begets passion. And the pleasure of these two lovers produces a passion—it yields a passion—that moves the very earth they sit looking out at."

Jones was correcting at a table when Horse wandered into his classroom.

Although the furniture was different, the basic structure of the room was the same, but in mirror image. From there, things diverged. Instead of a teacher's desk, Jones used a table. Around the edges of his classroom were more tables, with a circle of chairs dominating the center of the room. Where Horse had bookshelves, Jones had shelves that held projects, and cubbies where students had crammed their binders.

"I was looking at your classes' Twentieth Century American Heroes project that you posted in the hallway..." Horse paused for dramatic effect.

Jones looked up. He wore rectangular glasses and was clean shaven. On his feet were hiking boots and his torso was covered in a dark blue hand-knit sweater that covered a light blue colored oxford. Even as he leaned over his papers, his posture fought his back into an abbreviated slouch. In his soul was the dissatisfaction that came with compromise; he had never planned to be teaching in Grace Haven this long, but he saw no reason to leave. This, he knew, was different from choosing to be here, and at night he found himself restless but unable to act on it and sometimes he drank too much, alone.

"It's not like you to look at the works of others. I don't think I've seen you go to a single concert or school play."

"As much as I like twelve consecutive renditions of 'Greensleeves' on the cracking reed of a clarinet, I find it a good time to use up my sick days."

"I believe in honoring the work." Jones put down his pen.

"Let's not get carried away." Horse walked to the far wall and looked closely at a poster a student had made. It was an attempt to duplicate the cover of a popular young adult novel. As a copy, it wasn't very good. It evoked no emotion nor communicated anything about the story other than the book had a cover and the student had looked at it. He shook his head and wondered what grade the kid had received. "We are talking about beginner flute recitals and a rousing Beginner Band version of 'Take the 'A' Train' in four-four beat. Still, there are some interesting pieces in your students' presentations."

"I'm quite proud of them."

Horse turned and looked at Jones.

"About those projects... I was quite impressed with some of the subjects' obscurity. You should think that Twentieth Century American Heroes would have some obvious choices: Wright Brothers, FDR, Martin Luther King, Jr, Rosa Parks, Lindbergh... But..."

"Is this one of those times where you come in with pretend praise, but wind up trashing what my class is doing?"

'No,' Horse thinks. Jones is one to put a lot of stock in narratives and journals, which can be a treasure trove of psychological insight. His hope is that in looking at Peter's work he'll have some idea what had happened to Dan. Eyes scan the room, looking for file drawers. Jones looks at him. By now, he had thought Jones would be home, pouring a cheap scotch and sinking into thirty-something loneliness. He wasn't here to insult Jones at all.

Jones draws his attention with a cough.

"I'm proud of their choices," he said. "All important people. All people of note."

"Yes. I'm surprised they discovered Helen Cixous. Who, by the way, is French."

"Does it bother you that they are ethnic?"

"Ethnic? No. Although the idea of a French feminist being ethnic is an interesting use of the term. I guess it's accurate, but you must admit it's an unusual use..." Horse trails off. "No. That they all seem to strive to eclipse Martin Luther King, Jr., well... It seems a reach. I guess they get enough of that complexity—we know King because he changed everything, while Shulamith Firestone—they get that complexity in the younger grades."

"Do you have a problem with the reports?"

"No. Very interesting. A who's who of obscurity. I did want to give you a tip on Jason Pueblo's report on Nelson Mandela."

"What about it?"

"His subject is Nelson Mandela. Well, first of all, he's not an American. Apparently, that's not a concern with this American Hero project. Second, he would know Mandela was South African if he hadn't plagiarized the entire report."

"Is this what you came for?"

"Perhaps," Horse continues, "he misread American and African..."

"Let's not get all nationalistic. Nelson Mandela is an important figure."

"Agreed. He's just not American. Had it been Heroes of the World I might not have noticed, but..."

"Okay, I get it..."

"Of course, you can't learn the same lessons from Martin Luther King, Jr. Jail. Non-violent protest. Racial equality..." Horse looks out the window. "Oh, wait, Mandela didn't embrace non-violence, exactly. Still..."

"You mentioned plagiarism..."

"Jacob plagiarized his report from a book in the library."

"Ridiculous. No offense, but it's written in Jacob's style. And, to be honest, it's written at too basic a level to be plagiarized from our research sources."

"I know you use a high caliber of text in this class—or high caliber video, anyway—but he stole the work from a book in the library."

"I don't believe you."

"Fine." Horse walks to the door, then lingers. "Know that students in seventh grade go to the library and take out books written at a second grade level. Often, picture books. Then, they can plagiarize at a level the teacher believes they can write at."

Jones was silent.

"He plagiarized it," Horse continued. "The person you assigned him did not have a child's biography, so he picked someone that did. My guess is that he's not a very good student. When he turned in something, anything, and it was decent, you were so happy you rolled your eyes and accepted a South African biography for an American project. In fact, I bet if you look at his past work this year you could dewey decimal it exactly."

Inside of Jones grew an anger that comes from personal portrayal.

Horse stands in the doorway. "Empathy can blind. The girl who did Cixous at least tells us she's French. And compares her to Alice Paul and Firestone. She seems to know what Cixous is about."

Jones remained silent.

"Go to the library and look."

"I'll do that," Jones finally said.

"Okay. You might want to check out the report on Emma Goldman, too."

"Do we even have a book on Emma Goldman?"

"Yes." Horse leaned out of the room, feet still on the threshold, and looked down the hallway. He's feeling fidgety. "It's old. I had it ordered twenty years ago."

"When you still had idealism?"

Horse offered a dismissive chuckle.

"When a parent demanded Jewish heroes," he said.

Jones rose and the two stand awkwardly for a minute.

Horse turned to leave.

I'll come back later and get Peter's work; most days, I'm the last car in the parking lost.

But Wells entered the room. Under his arm are two large interoffice envelopes. "What luck. I've found you both together."

"Department meeting," Horse said.

"We," Jones followed, sarcastically, "were just going to go out for a beer. Together."

"I have your scores." By this he means the results of the state's standardized tests; the same results that will appear in the newspaper the following week. Wells waves the two envelopes, and then hands each teacher one. Jones opened his and began to draw the papers out. Carefully, he laid them on the table, covering the correcting he was doing before Horse came in. Horse held his envelope loosely in his hand, which itself hung loosely by his side.

"I think they're good," Wells offered up, seeing that Horse wanted to leave, which made him wonder what he was doing in Jones' classroom in the first place.

No one said anything. For Wells, good test scores were one of the few tangible guides he had that the daily craziness he oversaw actually helped kids. Never sweating a drop of a few points, or rise, it had long been his position that, after one-hundred-and-eighty-six-hour days, over nine years, students should be able to read and add a column of numbers. Scores made him happy. They justified his existence. When lawyers called and the school board dragged him out, he pulled out the sheets and sat and shuffled them. 'And for this to work, those scores better be damn high,' he thought. When he pulled any teacher into his office, this is what he would tell them. You better have the scores to justify your foolishness.

Horse heard it monthly.

"I'm not a big test person," Jones said, flipping through the pages, "but I think my kids have grown a lot this year."

"Mine can type." Horse rocked on his heels and toes.

"Yes." Wells stopped, thought about Horse's comment, and decided to ignore it. "I think, overall, the seventh grade is doing well," Wells says, ignoring Horse as Horse ignores the scores.

Jones flipped through a few more sheets, and then put them aside. "I'll look at them later."

Horse ventured a thought. "I'll make a prediction: Ms. Broche's kids will all be on level."

"Broche?" Jones looks up from his scores. "The kindergarten teacher?"

"Ms. Broche. Yes." Horse began tapping his envelope of test scores against the palm of the right hand. Leaning his body out of the door frame, he looked down the hallway. Then, he pulled his body back. "I predict that when you look at the data, all of the seventh graders that had Ms. Broche in kindergarten will have met the standard."

"More of that 'All I Need to Know' philosophy?"

"All I REALLY Need to Know." Horse stood up straight and looked straight at Jones. "And, yes. If you look at the scores, year after year Ms. Broche's kids meet the standard seven years later. No other teacher can claim that."

"Statistical coincidence?" Jones asked.

"Could be." Horse smiled. "I stack my class with her kids."

"You take who you can get," Wells corrected him.

"I'll check that out," Jones added, stuffing the papers into his bag as he got ready to leave. Seeing this, Horse decided to get out of his way. 'Be gone, so I can rifle through your stuff later.'

"I have to... do teacher things that don't require my talking with colleagues," he said, and then exited the room.

"He's a handful," Jones said, frustration in his voice. Any conversation with Horse made him ready to leave and not come back. His first instinct was to fight, but Horse even took the fun out of competition because he was always so... 'Because he wins,' Jones thought.

"A good teacher," Wells defended.

"Old school." Jones sat straight up. He had little interest in correcting, now. "I thought teachers like him were dead."

"Thankfully not."

Wells turned to leave, remembering that he wanted to check in with Horse on Peter. It was only at lunch that Wells discovered that Horse was his new foster parent, and this came to light when Peter got in trouble for throwing a football that wound up in the salad bar. When it came time to call a parent, Wells was informed it was Horse.

Informed by Peter.

"Is that why you're friends with him? Or is your friendship why he still has a job?"

Wells stopped and turned back.

"Did I ever tell you about our first year here?"

"You both taught together?" Jones laughed and fumbled his correcting pen between his fingers. "I thought Horse was assembled from the body parts of old retired teachers."

Wells ignored this.

"A student looked at him," Wells began, "and said, 'Who is this Jefferson guy, anyway?' It was a unit on the Constitution, and they'd been doing it for a month. Horse just looked at him. 'What do you mean?' he asked. The kid repeated the question. And he really meant it—it was clear that this kid had no idea who Thomas Jefferson was. The kid earnestly wanted to know why they were learning this material. Horse went blank. Then, he did what any teacher would do: he asked the class. 'Who can tell me who Thomas Jefferson is?' Nothing. Blank. Not a kid in the class knew who Jefferson was."

"So?"

"So, they didn't know what the Declaration of Independence was. Or the Bill of Rights. No idea. He rattled off every basic bit of American history he could think of. Balance of power? No. Horse left the room. He walked across the hall and came into my room. I still remember it. His face was white. He came in, sat in a chair at the back of the room, and just... sat."

"What did you do?" Leaning forward in his chair, Jones' elbows on his table, correcting pen leaking ink on his lower lip.

"I ignored him." Wells moved to the window. "I kept teaching 'To Build a Fire'. After about ten minutes he interrupted and asked the class if they knew. Blank. Nothing. Ignorance."

"What did you think?"

"I wasn't surprised."

"No?" Jones then said, surprised, "You're such the optimist."

"No." The older man in the tie smiled. "I'm an administrator. Even then, I knew I was more of an administrator than a teacher. I don't have the right balance to look a kid in the eye and still do what's best for them. I can hold teachers accountable for the sake of the students, but not the students themselves."

"So he became a curmudgeon?"

And then Jones laughed.

It was the laugh that grated on Wells, because it was a laugh that said that this was all a joke—the building, the millions in tax dollars spent, the hours and days put in, the work of the faculty and staff and janitors and lunch ladies, and the hopes and dreams of all of the parents and children and community—all of it was a big joke to Bob Jones. One big joke. Twenty years of administration taught him to tamp it down, because Jones was a fool.

Still, he worked for Wells. He was Wells' fool.

"Look at your test scores." Wells walked from the window and then stood across the table from Jones. The teacher was forced to look up. It was a stance of power, to remind the employee that some things mattered. "The seventh grade looks good because of Horse's scores."

It was a figurative slap in the face.

Jones felt it.

Wells meant it.

"There is more than scores to education," Jones finally spat back.

"Without reading and writing, there is nothing more. Look at your scores."

Jones had not really looked when the scores were handed to him a minute ago. Never looked. Had no intention of looking. Scores? What do they show? Wells can have his numbers.

"Like Broche teaching kindergarten?" Jones sneered, and looked away. The papers sat before him.

The Broche Effect, Wells had called it. When her mother was dying of cancer, Wells pitched in with home care so she'd stay at Grace Haven—she had been a recipient of his secret bonus fund, because she was so important to the school's mission. Even Horse had no idea the fund existed. Wells did have some secrets.

"Did you ever notice during placement which kids Horse asks for?" Wells took a few steps back from the table. "He just has an old class list of Ms. Broche. When you look at your scores, see how many kids who pass are not Ms. Broche's."

"One test," Jones said. "One day."

"Nelson Mandela as an American hero? What happened that day?"

Finally, Horse thought. They're gone.

He slips in.

Opening the filing cabinet, he pulls Peter's file of work for the year. It is abnormally thin. On a nearby table he lays the file's contents; a lot of work, until late October.

Then, little.

There are four months of work missing.

"Did you misplace your work," he wonders out loud, "or are you just plain lazy?"
CHAPTER 10

He was lazy and he lost what little he did complete.

That evening, Horse looked across the chessboard at Peter.

"You say you've never played this before you came to my house?" he asked.

On the board were eleven of Peter's white pieces, and only four of Horse's black.

"I never said that," Peter replied.

'Hmmmm,' the old man thinks.

It was Peter's move and Horse tried to think exactly what Peter did say in response to his question about having played chess. On the board, the boy picked up his rook and moved it slowly in the air as he thought through the moves. After about a minute, he placed it and let go of the piece.

Many players would have taken the rook with the bishop ready to pounce, but that was a trap. Knight takes bishop; black left with three pieces—a king, pawn, and knight. No, Horse would not fall for that.

"I love the knight," he said.

"You would," Peter replied.

Their eyes met.

In seven moves Horse conceded defeat.

In a little over a week the two had fallen into a comfortable routine.

After coming home from school, Horse made dinner while Peter watched a video. The house had only foreign videos. The teacher felt he was expanding the boy's consciousness, while the boy feasted on adult fare that would otherwise not be allowed. On this night he had watched Kirosawa's Hidden Fortress. After an hour, they ate and talked, but mainly sat in respectful silence.

There had been conversations about the comic books in Peter's room, and some of the movies. Horse gave up asking about the boy's interests after the third shrug. Following dinner the man forced the boy to read a bit. On their third day together he had thrown a copy of The Secret Garden at Peter—assigned it—and it was nearly read. Then they played chess for ice cream; winner got double scoops. Peter was diligent with a brush and floss before saying goodnight.

For Horse, there was an odd feeling in having a student stay in his house. After Peter put his light out, Horse would put his feet up on the couch and open a beer. Leaning back that night, he thought about the new dynamic. That's the word, he thinks. Student. He thinks about Peter as a curiosity—he had taken him in because there was something not quite right—but another feeling hovers just out of reach. It had been over a decade since anyone had lived in his house. 'Do I feel affection for him,' he wonders. No. It is, he decides, more like having a dog. Now, his day never ends.

Talk about bringing your work home with you.

Still, the reasons he took the boy are now muddled in his head. It wasn't kindness. Horse had too many students with shitty family lives pass through his class and he had never opened his house to them. A puzzle? Perhaps, but he was getting little from the boy. Still, he had no interest in seeing him gone.

Horse fell asleep before he contemplated the possibility of just being lonely.

Peter heard his snoring.

Thinking about the muffle, he figured the old man was in the living room. Every night Peter had found him asleep on the couch in the living room. The first night he was surprised, but now he expects it.

'What to do?' he wondered.

Mainly, he wondered how long can it last. Peter knew Horse had not taken him into his home out of kindness. Dan is missing, and Horse has been snooping around and asking questions. He had not asked Peter, yet. Still, word had gotten around that Horse was poking around his backyard with Laporte's men. Laporte... Peter thinks, but puts the thought away for later. Either Dan would be found—a prospect Peter feared because it will lead to a definite end—or he would not be found, in which case Horse will tire of Peter and cut him loose.

No security; adrift, again, regardless.

Because Dan won't be coming back.

Slowly, listening, the boy slid out of bed. Gliding down the stairs, he passed through the living room to the front hall where the coats were hung. Looking to the right and left, he put his hand in Horse's coat and pulled out his wallet. Inside he found a twenty dollar bill. Putting the wallet back in the pocket, Peter made his way back upstairs, first stopping at the refrigerator for some milk.

Back in the room, Peter pulled out an old copy of The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure that Horse had on the shelf. It fell open to a page stuffed with other large bills, mostly taken from Horse's wallet. As he put this new one with the others, he noticed it's not like the others: it's a photocopy of a twenty dollar bill on green paper.

He looked closely, and noticed that instead of Andrew Jackson, there was a picture of Horse.

Smiling.

And below that he read:Stealing Undercuts Trust. You Don't Want to Lose That.

Peter was smiling.

As quietly as he had ten minutes earlier, Peter slipped downstairs and again got out Horse's wallet. This time he returned all of the money before going to bed.

Both old man and boy slept soundly that night.

CHAPTER 11

The administrative conference room sat at the end of a forty-foot hallway buttressed at the other end by the door to the main office, the receptionist's desk, and an alcove where students had been sent or parents waited. Off the hallway were offices, three on each side for a total of six. One side had windows overlooking the front of the school. From his desk, if he wished to, the principal could see the busses arrive, and the parking lot beyond. Across the hall sat three offices without windows, two of which held part-time and temporary staff—psychologists and counselors, volunteers and temps that plugged data into the computers when that time of the year rolled around. The third windowless office was occupied by the accountant, who would have been a waste of a window as she rarely looked up from her desk. When budget cuts forced the part-time assistant principal to leave the accountant, Ms. Brecht, was offered an office with a window. "The glare against the computer screen would be irritating," she had said. And so she stayed put.

In the conference room sat a long table where Wells and Horse often had lunch. The room was really another empty office that was never repurposed. When the business management aspects for the school were centralized nine years prior, an old grizzled man who coordinated busses and made sure the fuel oil arrived in time for the next cold snap at Grace Haven's retired, leaving the room empty. People started using it to have brief, confidential conversations. One summer, the furniture was hauled away and replaced by a round table and eight chairs, four of which fit comfortably around the table while the other four were crammed in the corners and against the far wall. The room was not built for more than four, anyway, but as families become more blended—and complicated—it had been made to serve up to nine adults. At some point the round table was replaced with the present, long rectangular one, making an uncomfortable fit for all eight chairs. Often, Wells found himself sitting at one end, offering participants a feeling that someone was in command. Since meetings seemed to run much smoother with the new table he began to have more of them there instead of his office. The walls have been bare for years, but a year prior someone had tacked on the door a sign reading Administrative Conference Room. Baring a crisis or meeting, the two had lunch a few times a week at the table, door closed.

"Jones isn't pleased with his scores," Wells told Horse.

"I don't blame him."

"Do you really believe in the Broche Effect?"

"I've been looking at names," Horse replied, ignoring the question. "If I had a kid, I think I'd name him Evan. Or Owen. I don't think I've had a bad Evan or Owen."

"Evan Parl lit a fire in the bathroom just last week."

"You should read his essay on fire safety, though. Very insightful."

"Didn't you have Evan Bennett? He murdered someone."

"He did it with class." Horse took a bite of his sandwich. "And he almost got away with it. Very clever."

"He was a sociopath."

"David, Max... Halleys do really well. And Emmas. Emilys. All great kids. Smart. Nice."

"Remember that year you had all of the Kates?" Wells smiled at the thought.

"Kate. Katherine. Kat. Catherine with a 'C' Katie. Katelyn..."

"How many did you have?"

Then, a scraping noise interrupted the memory. Metal on metal. A slight picking, followed by the light rattle of a door hitting the frame on a windy day, only the catch keeping it from being blown open. It was not the door of the Admin Conference Room, but close by. As Wells noticed with a curious face, Horse dove deeper into their conversation.

"Eighteen, I think." He spoke louder. "Kathleen. Katreena. Katreen. Caitlin. Kaitlin, with a 'K'. Katey."

"You said that one."

"Katie with an 'ie' and Katey with an 'ey'. And let's not forget the two Kevins and the Kenney."

"That was an odd year. Remember the year you had an entire class of blondes? 'The Blondes' you called them. It was like Village of the Damned."

"Unusual names with boys tend to work. Allistair. Addison. Tree. Ubikal. Unusual names with girls are a disaster. All of the mispellings. Jayne with a 'Y'. Remember her? J-A-Y-N-E. Just plain dumb, and loud about it; always a bad combination. You could break the Kates down into normal spelling and odd, and then do a blind matching. K-A-Y-T-E-E. That girl..."

"One more factor we can't control."

"Heather. Crystal. Matt. They never work out. Alex is a wildcard. Ryans, too. Chris tends to be an underachiever. Christophers are punks."

"I'm a Christopher."

Ignoring Wells he states, "We should just give them all numbers."

"Oh, then kids would just get labeled odd."

Click (light, distinctive).

Thump (loud, muffled in a carpet).

Wells rose from his seat, Horse mid-bite, to see what made such a noise. Looking into the hallway, Wells saw two young legs in jeans emanating from his office door; a door he had locked earlier. The body attached to the legs got up.

"Speaking of Katies, one just broke into my office."

"Oh?" Horse said, feigning surprise.

Opening the conference room door, Katie froze and looked at the ground.

"Hi, Mr. Wells," she said. Looking up, her smile was all mischief.

"Katie," he replied with edged courtesy. "Can I help you?"

"No?" she asked. Then, gaining more of her wits but still with nerves in her voice, she said, "I have to go."

And she left. Nothing more said.

Wells looked down at his doorknob and saw two pieces of metal hanging from the door's lock. He turned to Horse, who was still chewing.

"She picked my door's lock."

"Clever."

"Criminal."

"I think it's part of a project."

"Do I want to know?"

"Research and procedure essay. I think this is the research part. You know, to see if it works."

"She had to use my office?"

"No one else locks their door."

"You could have locked your classroom."

"Well, I kind of told her to try your door."

"I see."

"I'll send you the report after she's written it."
CHAPTER 12

After Peter's school work was done and he was sent to bed, Horse excused himself to go to the store.

"Call if you need something," he had said, shaking his cell phone before pocketing it into his coat.

"Like what?"

"A bear attack."

"The kid's a survivor," he had muttered, making his way to his car.

With satisfaction he felt the warmth that remained in the cab from his drive home. The old Festiva was a little box running on 12R tires, barely a two seater but with a nearly useless back seat. His students called it a toy. Oddly, it fit his tall frame and left an inch of headroom. "You won't need a can opener if you get into an accident," an EMT had once said, "because there'll be nothing left."

A short time later he parked outside Laporte's main office.

Nearly once a week he had passed it, but had never given it a thought. Contractors, landscapers, excavators, and foundation specialists were scattered throughout these state highways, each with a sign that looked like the other during the day as the trucks and equipment were elsewhere, working on a job site. What remained were metal buildings and large dirt patches, surrounded by weak crabgrass cut close to the ground in the summer, snow banks made of plowed storm in the winter. Many had a few derelict or underutilized pieces of heavy machinery—a lift, dump truck or backhoe that signaled what type of business they did. Laporte's was larger than most, but still blended into day, forest, and the Mansfield range behind it. At night, as Horse sat and looked at the building, everything had disappeared but the moon and the mountain.

Creak, went the door to his car. He had parked on a slight pull-off on the main road, which had seemed like a good idea at the time, but with each crunch of gravel it seemed a long trek. Things are louder in the dark. 'I'll have to get someone to do a science fair on that,' he thought. Successful deception, he knew, meant acting like you belonged—he should have driven right up to the front door.

The lights outside of Laporte's office had motion sensors; Horse hadn't thought of that. A small, flat prefab building that looked knocked together twenty years prior, it was about twenty-five by twenty-five-feet square, with a few small windows and mustard colored metal siding. Like most prefab housing built south of New England and trucked north, the roof was flat. From the lack of snow on top, someone must have gone on top and shoveled it more or less clean. Horse looked around. Standing about thirty feet away was a much larger metal hangar that Horse assumed held equipment. That building had a tin roof, angled, with several feet of snow sitting on the ground twenty feet below the roof's edge.

Horse took out Katie's lock picking tools and tried to recall the steps she had taught him earlier in the day. After lunch, the two had sat for an hour picking the locks to his classroom, the back entrance to the 3-4 wing, and the janitor's closet. By the end of the day, Katie smiled and told him he had it.

Just a bit... he thought, wiggling the tools as he crouched in front of the knob. There were three steps to the stoop, knocked together by 2 x 6 boards left unpainted, the door itself near the corner of the building. He had to balance on them while crouched low enough to see what he was doing. His back ached, as did his knees. So that he could feel the inside mechanism turn and tumble—and miss—he was forced to be without gloves. His fingers lost feeling. Laporte did not seem to have a sophisticated security system—a deadbolt and, perhaps, the knob—although he wasn't sure what triggers and alarms might await him inside. Quietly, he felt and listened.

Success.

The pin fell into place; Horse could feel the sweet spot and the tumblers turned, the door falling open. He peered into the darkness beyond the parking lot light. Holding a small LCD flashlight picked up at Morrisville Lumber a few hours before, he swept the room. Getting to his feet, he stepped in and closed the door behind him.

Holding the flashlight next to his right ear, Horse scanned with the beam as he turned his head slowly. The room was twelve feet wide and twice as long. He looked down it like one would a bowling alley. To the right, in the two feet between the door jam and the wall, were a few basic metal office chairs, lined up against the wall. A waiting area. In front of him stood the front of the secretary's desk jutting out from the wall, blocking anyone who might want to get further than a few feet into the office. Behind her on the wall to the left stood four filing cabinets, some of the drawers and sides covered with stickers of associations and local businesses. Horse noted three distinct Smugglers' Notch Resort stickers from three different advertising campaigns, and one for Burton snowboards. There were over a dozen stickers from tool manufacturers and contracting organizations. A few desks were pushed against the far walls, mismatched office chairs pushed into them. All of the furniture was second hand; not as an afterthought but bought by someone with a frugal eye and function in mind. All of it looked heavy, as if the buyer equated solid with quality. On the other wall was a door, which Horse figured led to another office. Laporte's, he assumed. The wall clearly divided the building in half, making more rooms to check later.

Satisfied that he was as safe as he was going to be, he turned on his trusty headlamp.. None of the file drawers were locked, allowing Horse to find nothing quickly. As he flipped through, the laptop on the secretary's desk warmed up, ready as Horse quietly slid the last file drawer closed. No security or password, but nary a mention of Dan. He found some old tax payments, but they were five years old: Dan had not worked for Laporte in all that time.

'Freelance,' Horse wondered. Under the table work? It wasn't unusual in the area to take cash payments, but a business like Laporte's tackled big jobs that only got compensated because of costs; anything off the books didn't get paid for. Unless Dan didn't work the big jobs.

What did you do?

In for a penny, Horse warmed up the copy machine in the corner. Sitting at the desk, he tried to print the paltry financial records they had on Dan and found the copier was also the printer. Finally, warmed up, it churned out a few pages. While it whirled loudly, he watched his breath in the light of the headlamp. Then he realized where he was, and what crimes he was committing; Horse turned off the lamp.

'Let's take a look back here,' he thought, opening the door to the back room. It was indeed Laporte's office.

But Laporte was still there.

Horse flicked on his headlamp.

"Hello," he said with a smile. The owner was in a metal bed from an old hunting camp. Under him was a mattress without a fitted sheet. Over him were two comforters that had seen better days, looking as if they, too, had come from an old hunting camp. Or dug up. There was no pillow.

Horse smiled back, the lamp on his head offering the only light in the room.

"Are you alone?" the old teacher asked.

"I should ask you that."

"I don't want to impose on anything..."

"Nah," Laporte said, "that was a few hours ago." He swung his feet off of the bed, knocking the comforters partly onto the floor. On his feet he had wool socks, but his legs were bare. "Can you turn off the light?" Laporte asked, covering his eyes from the beam.

Horse complied. Laporte clicked on a light that sat on a table under a window. Immediately, both men squinted and blinked.

"I didn't see a car," Horse said.

"So you thought you'd come in and have a look around?"

"Something like that."

They were still and in silence.

"She's gone," Laporte said, finally.

"A friend?"

He shrugged. "Kind of. She needed to get back to Barre. I lent her my truck."

"Hourly rates?" Then, to clarify between the two, Horse added, "The girl."

Laporte chuckled. "No, not that kind of friend. But she's someone's wife, and she couldn't spend the night."

"Not one of your workers' wives?"

"No," he smiled. "That opens up too many liabilities."

"Lawsuit?"

"Or sabotage. Or worse."

"Has that happened before?"

"Once. Sabotage. A few thousand in hydraulic hoses slashed."

"Did you sue?"

"What could I do? I didn't want my wife to know."

"Price of adultery?"

"That's why we have insurance, right? Vandalism. No harm, in the end. I think I might have made a profit, even. Which is why I'm not calling the police now."

Horse looked at him, the lampshade and low watt bulb keeping his legs illuminated and his face hard to read. Even under his loose gray Patriots T-shirt it was clear that the builder had plenty of muscle left from years in the field, cased in middle aged fat that came from driving from site to site and yelling into a telephone. Still, sitting on the edge of the mattress, Laporte looked like a man ready to pass the business on to his kids. He looked tired.

"I guess I'll thank you for that," Horse said.

"Of course, you're not leaving with those copies," Laporte added, puffing up a bit.

Now it was Horse's time to smile. He was only standing because Laporte had yet to lay him out.

"You heard that, huh?"

"Old men aren't very quiet."

'You were,' he thought.

"Can I ask you about Dan?"

"You can ask..."

"He hasn't shown up on your books in a while."

"No, I don't suppose he's been employed with me for quite a while."

"Yes..."

"Subcontractor."

Laporte then explained to Horse about the growth in the construction industry in northern Vermont, and how he had minimized his liabilities with the current tax laws.

In short, as larger concerns like Johnson State College and Smugglers' Notch Resort hired larger, out-of-state contractors for major construction projects, those out-of-state contractors in turn hired Laporte as a subcontractor. Those out of state concerns had a track record with large projects, and had banks and insurance companies willing to back up the contracts with cash. In having such a large volume of work coming in, the firms were able to get lower terms on loans and insurance, as well as supplies, thus lowering their initial bid. This led to more work, and a stronger track record. But more work than they could possibly do themselves. They called smaller, local contractors like Laporte to actually swing the hammers.

Laporte had his own, smaller version of this setup. Keeping a few workhands on—those he knew would be needed consistently throughout the year—he had trimmed his staff down to the bone. Each job also brought a small additional army of donkeys and hammer swingers; paid little, with no benefits and easily let go when the work dried up. All of those folks were on the books. He did hire a lot of subcontractors, though. Plumbers, electricians and the like worked a few jobs for Laporte, and rounded out their income with other jobs that came their way. Laporte got expertise, but didn't have to pay FICA or liability insurance on any of them. On the books were the names of the business, but not the men and (few) women who did the work.

All of the firms received a tidy profit—from the one-man electrical subcontractor to the multistate construction conglomerate—as did the banks, insurance companies, and suppliers. And the buildings went up.

"So, Dan was a subcontractor?"

Laporte just shrugged his shoulders as if to say, search me.

CHAPTER 13

Again, Horse uses an overhead projector, which has the lines from John Milton's "Areopagitica." It reads:

It was from out the rinde of one aerpple tasted,

that the knowledge of good and evil as two twins

cleaving together leapt forth into the World.

A white projection in an otherwise dark room.

"Good and evil are opposing forces. Milton is not saying that Eden was good, and then Satan introduced evil. No. Satan brought both into being, because, Milton would argue, you cannot know good without knowing evil. That is the point of the fall, Milton argues. Choice. Free will. Satan God, really gives mankind... okay, Sally, womankind, too... gives the world a choice. We are not animals who just do, but aware beings that now have to choose the right path. The devil has given man an amazing gift: the chance to choose goodness."

This is how Horse began the school day.

Then, he took attendance.

Looking out the window a bit later, Horse declared a lesson in memory and nostalgia.

"Remember when you were a child," he said to the class. Being seventh graders, they are unsure if they are still children or not. Before anyone can answer, he says to them, "You have begun to wonder if you are wearing the right clothes, listening to the correct music, and if your body is keeping up with others." He smiles. "Or, keeping up too much..."

Letting that sit a moment, he walks over to the window.

"This is a difficult time. At some point, soon, you will have to decide if you take cues from others or yourself.

"I want you to remember a time when you just thought about what you liked. When you had fun. Collected dolls. Watched cartoons. And played in the snow."

He looks out at the white landscape.

Soon, two farm kids were setting up an old two burner Coleman stove on the edge of the parking lot that overlooks a small, steep hill. Three others have filled a canning pot, burned black on the bottom, with water. Another carries the lid, following the pot to the stove. Horse has sent a non-threatening girl to the cafeteria to beg a few dozen hot cocoa packets and disposable hot cups. The rest raid the younger classrooms for sleds, asking their old teachers if they can borrow them for the afternoon.

At the top of the hill stands Horse, joined by Wells.

"They look like they're having fun," the principal says.

"Perhaps we don't see it enough."

"I'm sure there's a pedagogical reason for this lesson."

"Inducing memories and nostalgia for a lesson in history."

"Really?" Wells says. "I was joking."

The two watch as Horse's class makes its way up and down the hill. One kid trying to stand on the sled, surfing to the bottom; he makes it three feet before planting his face in the snow. Two get snow down their backs, leading to piercing squeals. A train forms. People go down without sleds. In the windows of the school, kids in other classes look out with longing. Wells stands by the Coleman and ladles out cups of hot cocoa to the tired, happy students.

"I'm going to hear about this," he says to Horse. "Someone is going to complain that classroom management was a bear because you were having fun outside."

"Tell them about the essay," Horse replies. "Before we leave, each of these kids is going to have to crank out a two-page essay recounting a sledding experience. Personal essay. Memoir."

"Really?" Even Wells is surprised.

"Geeze," a girl says, overhearing the conversation. She's wearing a hat she knit in the month leading up to the holiday break. "He's not kidding. Every fun thing we do is followed by an essay."

"I guess that's good," Wells tells her.

"It beats just doing another essay," another student adds. This one has no hat, and really red ears. He then takes a sip of hot cocoa.

The students gone for the day, Horse is bent over his desk, correcting a miserable series of spelling lessons that go on without end. They did not write an essay; he had told them to tell anyone who asked that an essay was imminent. Instead, he gave the originally scheduled spelling test.

"Mr. Horse?"

At the door stands a timid man small in stature. Wearing a tucked-in plaid shirt, khaki pants, and a sport jacket, he is leaning slightly into the room. Left hand gripping the door frame, he waits for permission to enter.

Looking up, Horse is surprised to see Amanda's father. "Mr. Tomlinson..."

Showing polite surprise, the man says, "You remember me!"

"From parent conferences and happier times." Horse puts his pen down and leans back in his chair. "Amanda was one of those success stories teachers remember."

"She has done well. How are things with you?"

Mr. Tomlinson enters the room and approaches the desk. Nearly every week, for nearly a year, he entered Horse's room for a meeting of some sort. Little had changed; he made his way towards a plastic chair in the front row.

"I just solved the interesting problem of a student who never did any homework during basketball season."

"It takes a lot of time to play a sport." He sat down.

"True, but you also have to maintain a passing grade to play. Typically, it's a motivator. Their grades drop during the off season."

"Typically..."

"But it wasn't the basketball. No. The mother is poor. She's also on public assistance. And she's agoraphobic."

"A fear of going out in public."

"Typically. So, she doesn't get around to cashing checks and paying bills on a regular basis. That leads to her power getting shut off. No power, no lights. No lights..."

"No homework."

"As winter kicked in, the kid was going to bed at five o'clock; when it got dark. Interestingly, he hates basketball, but it gets him out after five and he can shower. No power, no hot water."

"That's horrible."

But even as he says the words, it is clear his heart isn't into the problems of others. Mr. Tomlinson is here for a reason, which Horse knew when the father knocked on the doorjamb. The story paused, they both smile.

"People have to put up with a lot," the teacher says, breaking the silence.

"I hope Mr. Wells is taking care of things for her..."

"It's what he does."

The emotion in the room turns as they come to the matter at hand.

"I don't know if you should be here. I have heard there are lawyers who talk for us."

"You should have told me."

"She's not a student here. You're not a parent here anymore."

"She's a child. I'm her parent."

"A child that was pregnant."

"She's still a child."

"To her father..." Horse thought about the other man, Amanda's partner, the one who was now not going to be a father. "To, you, she'll always be a child, but to Amanda... She doesn't think of herself as a child anymore."

Tomlinson crumpled within his clothes.

"No. That seems to be the way of teenagers."

The old teacher's voice changed, now. Sympathetic. Soft. With barely a whisper he said, "She hasn't been a child for a while."

The father jumped to his feet in defense, screaming, desperate, "You had no right saying anything."

"Do you remember when Amanda came to my class?"

His voice was calm.

Before him was a desperate man, full of regrets, who wanted someone to listen.

To be heard.

Horse was hoping to escape without being punched.

"Yes." Calm. "It was the year after her mother died."

"After years of your wife battling cancer, I believe."

"Yes."

"She had stopped participating in class years before."

"Amanda had problems," the father conceded, resigned.

"At the time we were talking about an alternative placement. Amanda hit a girl. She took that girl by the scruff of the neck and slammed her face into the desktop." Open palm, Horse simulated shoving a head into his own desk, slamming the desktop to loud effect. "The girl raged. She fumed. No one wanted her."

A soft voice. "Yes, I remember." A voice of misery.

"She was out of control and couldn't read beyond a second grade level or do much math. Angry and stupid. That was the word."

"That was a long time ago."

"Where were you?"

"Excuse me?"

Until then, Horse had been taking Mr. Tomlinson down an expected path, allowing the father to vent while Horse patted his back and made understanding noises. Any other teacher would have done the same, and been glad when the parent left without filing a grievance with the administration.

No one was like Horse.

"Your daughter had just gone through a horrible ordeal of watching her mother die. She had no skills and couldn't control herself. Where were you?"

Most teachers didn't call parents bad at their jobs; they let parents do that to them. Yet, here was Horse... Tomlinson could not believe it. It was his fault? No, no...

"I helped her and supported her..." Tomlinson stammered.

"You were supposed to protect her."

"I did!" It came out louder than he had expected.

"She was falling apart."

"And I did my best."

"That was where her childhood went. It died with your wife."

Then, there was silence.

Tomlinson was struck... not knowing what to say. Unable... Unable to fathom how the conversation had gotten to this point. To be attacked...

"I don't think you can use cliches..." he sputtered at last.

"I'm not. Events like that change people."

"I did my best."

"Of course you did. And you did your best now."

Which just made Tomlinson angry.

"Then why did she get pregnant?!"

Stop agreeing with me, he wanted to shout. Goddamn it, stop making me angry with you and then agreeing with me!

Horse, calmly replied, "That's not your fault."

"Then whose fault is it?"

"Does it matter?"

"Of course you say that. You don't think I see what you're trying to do? You're to blame!"

"For what? For you wife dying of cancer? For your daughter growing up?"

In a low hiss the father spit out, "For getting involved!"

"Like I did in seventh grade?"

Now it was Horse's time to be angry. He had suffered Tomlinson's self-pity parade long enough—he felt sorry for the man—but it was time for the man to either throw a punch, slam a door, or break down and cry.

"No one wanted your daughter. Even Mr. Wells, who is a hopeless romantic when it comes to the power of public school, wanted to ship her off. I had twenty-seven kids that year, and your daughter needed to be locked in a closet to gain control, and still I took her because if they shipped her off she would have been lost."

"And I appreciate that," Tomlinson said, retreating. "I always will. That does not change..."

"I was Teacher Of The Year that year."

"I know. I nominated you."

"I also almost lost my job for that."

"I know. I went to the school board."

"And now..."

"This is different."

"Because you forget where she was?"

"Just because she was troubled in the past does not excuse..."

Horse ignored this. "Because she did not turn out as you wanted?"

"This is not my fault."

"No," Horse said bluntly. "It's your daughter's."

"It can't be the decision of a seventeen-year-old girl."

"The law says otherwise."

Again, Mr. Tomlinson's mind left him. He jumped from his chair, and Horse was sure that this time he would hit him. A parent had done so last year—jumped clear over his own desk—and clocked him.

"That's your answer?  The law says otherwise? I wouldn't let her get her teeth cleaned without my permission. I don't think she CAN get her teeth cleaned without my permission. But she can get an abortion? What kind of law is that?"

"Speak with your congressman."

"This isn't about the law; this is about my daughter and what's right."

"It's about her getting pregnant."

"It's about her childhood."

"It's about her being an adult. And you don't like it."

"No," the father said. He stood there, a foot before Horse's desk, fists tight, elbows locked. "No, I don't."

"So why am I to blame?"

"Because you taught her."

"I taught her to read and write."

Tomlinson's body relaxed a bit, but he did not sit. He seemed unsure of what to do, or where his thoughts were taking him. His mind reeled.

"You taught her to sit still. To listen. To think. To persevere. You gave her self- worth. She thrived in your class. And THEN she learned to read and write."

"But giving her options now... I'm overstepping?"

"No!" He was exasperated. "This is different."

"Because I did not follow the party line."

"There is a moral code that teachers need to follow."

Horse laughed.

"What do you think I do here all day? You don't know what I leave at the door. We start out every morning with the Pledge of Allegiance, and my own hypocrisy just grows from there."

"I don't think of you as a hypocrite."

"People should be glad I wear pants every morning." Again, Horse laughed. "Do you know what education is? It's the truth. We teach students truth, because then, when they grow up, they don't see the world as one big hypocritical mess that they have to figure out. We teach them to think for themselves."

"Is this your version of truth?" He stood there, not backing down. His mind clearing. He remembered why he came here. "My daughter is getting an abortion at seventeen."

"Fine. I'll let you into the dirty little secret of the education profession. Teaching isn't about truth at all. It's about reading and writing. It's about test scores. Do you know why I tamed your daughter?"

"No." He didn't want to know. He wanted righteous anger.

"Because I was stuck with her. I don't care who they put in here. I don't advocate. I don't complain. I deal. I take whoever, because this is a public school and we take whoever comes in the door and make what we can of the mess. That's the beauty of public education. That's the dream. The American Dream. The great equalizer. The envy of the world. That any crazy and idiot with a host of problems can come ambling in the door and we will teach them. We'll not only teach them, but actually get results. Or, that's the expectation. Get results, while we get spat on and jeered for having health care and a dental plan and actually joining a union and then having the budget cut out from under us. That's teaching.

"And do you know why I fixed your daughter all of those years ago? Because she was not going to read or write until she would stop howling. And her actions were stopping the other kids from learning. Not because they were a distraction, but because they gave them an excuse in my class not to work. The blame went on Amanda. So I stopped it. I fixed her. And, everyone learned."

The father stood, nostrils flaring, body tense. Horse knew that he didn't want to know, but the man had come into his classroom and dumped all of this guilt and blame onto his desk... He hadn't a choice; the father needed to see the truth if he ever wanted to move past this with his daughter.

"I didn't know you were so Machiavellian about teaching."

"What, did you think it was passion? Do you see a stupid apple pin on my lapel? This is my job. Reading. Writing. They learn and go on. I get a paycheck."

Horse anticipated the next question.

"I never seek students out. She came to me. Amanda, last week, was seeking my sanctioning her actions, which I did not do."

"In just giving her the information..."

"In giving her the information I took away her excuse. Now informed, she had to act. Even no action was a choice. She chose to terminate motherhood for now. I gave her a choice."

"You shouldn't have."

"She chose sex. You didn't. I didn't. She made a choice that did not work out well for her. My question is: why are you upset?"

The father stood and cried. It was a quiet weep with his back shuddering silently, a handful of tears before the nose began to run. Horse stood stupidly with a box of tissues held out a foot from Tomlinson's head.

"I feel like I failed," the father said at last.

"You did not fail. This is about Amanda."

But Horse didn't say if Amanda failed or not.

Then the two were in silence.

Eventually, Horse went back to his correcting, trying not to notice the man just standing at the foot of his desk.

It wasn't less than half an hour before Mr. Tomlinson had pulled himself enough together to walk from the room and into the hallway.

Across the hall, Jones was watching a video on his laptop that he's considering using in class the next day. Leaning back in his chair, headphones on, he didn't notice the upset form of Mr. Tomlinson quietly walk into his classroom and take the seat closest to the door. The teacher laughed, while the father could hear faint sounds coming from the earpieces.

As the clip ends, Jones looked up and ha a small jolt, realizing someone else is in the room.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"... I just need a minute. Can I sit here... for a minute?"

"Sure. Take all of the time you want," Jones replied, returning his eyes to the computer screen. He clicks on the keyboard, and Mr. Tomlinson hears noise from the headphones again.

"My girl..." he muttered to himself.

"Excuse me?" Jones removed an earpiece from one of his ears.

"Nothing. I'm just thinking..." Mr. Jones looked at Jones, his body becoming more erect. Still in the chair by the door, he leaned towards Jones's desk. "Do you believe in God? Or sin?"

"I believe in forgiveness."

"That is easy to say, but hard to do," the father replied.

"Not as hard as you might think."

"Says a man who hasn't been wronged."

"I became a teacher because I believe in learning from mistakes."

"And if the person doesn't think they've made a mistake?"

"You must have been talking with Horse." Jones laughed, and took off his headphones. Pushing the computer screen aside he said, "Parents needing a seat is a hazard of having the room next to his, especially during parent conference week. Sometimes I feel like a post-traumatic stress counselor."

"I'm sorry..."

"No..." He let out a chuckle. "I'm joking. More like a bartender. I've thought of offering shots."

"He did nothing wrong," the father conceded, looking at the floor.

"Then forgiveness is easy."

"It's my daughter..."

"And Horse told you the what's-what about her," Jones said, slowly shaking his head in feigned sympathy.

"Something like that. Except, he did nothing."

"That doesn't sound like him."

"No," the father conceded. "Our children. We have hopes. Then... Reality."

"Is that what Horse told you?" Jones asked, projecting his own battles with Horse onto this one.

"Reality. No. No, he's a mirror. Perhaps a magnifying glass."

"I think it's abusive," Jones said, bluntly.

"What?"

"All of this supposed truth. What does Horse know about reality? The real world? You can't look at a twelve-year-old and talk about reality." Jones then affects a sarcastic tone, "He tells it like it is. He's blunt. A straight shooter." Then, returning to his normal distain, he summed up. "He's a cynic."

"The truth..."

"...Will set you free? They're twelve. They need to dream."

"I don't think..."

"Don't let him tell you," Jones continued, now angry, "that your daughter is anything less than wonderful."

"He didn't."

"But... With Horse, there's always a but... If she only worked harder. If you would do something. Push. Harder."

"I don't see the problem with that."

"No?" Sympathy gone, Jones looked straight at Mr. Tomlinson and bluntly stated, "These kids get torn down enough. In seventh grade they need someone telling them they measure up."

"My daughter was pregnant."

Silence.

Jones does not move, but speaks first.

"Oh. I didn't..."

"She's seventeen. She was Horse's student before you came here."

"I see." Deflated.

"She got an abortion."

Now Jones asks, in a hushed voice, "Did Horse..."

"No." Tomlinson seems wake from his stupor, the old anger rising, but this time at Jones. "He... didn't do anything. He didn't do anything. That's the problem."

Jones stopped.

"I don't understand," he said.

"He did not do anything."

"Have you spoken to Mr. Wells about any of this?"

"Mr. Wells is well aware of the situation. He's an old friend of the family. In fact, he made sure Amanda got Horse after her mother passed away."

"I'm sorry to hear that..."

"Thank you." Again, Mr. Tomlinson's body deflated. "It was a long time ago. Amanda, my daughter, fell apart. She was wild before, but... Mr. Wells took charge. I couldn't and she got Horse and now she's looking at Columbia."

"It sounds like a good thing Mr. Wells did."

"Yes. He did a lot for us."

Then the two sat there, silent.

The white square of light coming from the overhead projector is devoid of words.

No poem.

Jones stands in front of his class, half in the light and half in the dark. In his hand is a brown paper sandwich bag .

".... So, the Dada poet Tristan Tzara would cut up words from the newspaper and throw them into a paper bag."

He holds the paper bag above his head.

"He would then pull words out one after another. That, he said, was the poem."

From the bag Jones proceeds in pulling some words. He writes them on the overhead.

CRIMINAL

FRAUD

PUBLIC

VIEWPOINT

LEAD.

"Meaning..." He leaves a dramatic pause. "Nonsense."

He looks into the darkness. The projector's light in his eyes, he cannot see them, but hears silence.

"Does it matter?" he asks.
CHAPTER 13

Horse had out the overhead projector again, the first stanza of Robert Herrick's "To the Virgins, make much of Time" on the wall.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying:

And this same flower that smiles to-day

To-morrow will be dying.

"This is a poem about youth, and time, and how you think." He points to a dark- haired girl sitting in the front row, her teeth too big and sticking out. "Sitting there in seventh grade, you think it is eternity—this lesson, this poem, is an eternity—until you can drive and not have to listen to your parents. Then, suddenly, you're old and standing in front of a bunch of seventh graders teaching a poem." A pause, a few students recognizing he's speaking of himself; those few release a nervous chuckle. Horse smiles. "Who would have thought it. Yuck. What happened? We talked about that."

The old man walks close to the projected poem.

"But focus on the second line: Old Time is still a-flying.  Old Time. This is a play about the fleeting nature of youth. Is Herrick saying that time itself belongs to the old? Or is 'Old' simply a title, like Old Mr. Horse. Old Time? Whatever."

Then, he walked past the overhead projector, through the students in rows, and to the back of the room.

"Jacob," he said like a jab. A boy in the third row turned his head to the back of the room. He could see only the darkness, as the contrast between the projection and the rest of the room was so great. "Can you tell me why a word might be capitalized?"

For a moment, the boy stutters. Then replies. "The start of a sentence?"

"Is this the start of a sentence?"

"No."

"So what else could it be?"

"A proper noun?" he replied, more question than anything else.

"Yes." Horse moves through the students and back to the front of the screen. "Something is happening. Perhaps Time is an entity, like Bob or Sally. The point is that Time capital 'T' is used in both the title and the poem, and it could be just that the crazy punctuation they used back in the seventeenth century is not the friend of the young. It is not of youth. It's something, though. At best it is a gadfly zipping about on some cosmic flying surfboard—that's what I picture when I read that line. At worst, Time is an unforgiving weather front that ages all rosebuds and youth that fall into its path. A killjoy.

"Gather ye rosebuds while-ye-may... And this same flower that smiles today... Tomorrow will be dying."

"Hello, Mr. Boch. I'm Dan, Peter's father."

Standing at the open door to his house, Horse noticed a light freezing rain in the darkness. The snow would have a thick crust in the morning. Peter was standing behind the old teacher. He had heard the voice coming from the cold and the darkness and drifted towards it.

Horse stood between the boy and the man.

The man claiming to be Dan could see him standing there.

Standing there afraid.

Wondering.

"Hi, Peter," he said, in a soft voice as if coaxing a cat from under a couch.

The boy said nothing.

Horse turned his body, slightly, without turning his feet. He glanced back. The child seemed unsure and Horse felt uneasy. This was not the reaction of the boy in the photos that were in the living room taken on a fishing trip.

Not love.

This was fear.

"Peter," Horse said, in a voice meant to both calm and command him to stay put.

Nothing.

No response.

'Yes,' Horse thought. Fear.

"Peter," Dan said, again.

"So..." Horse took a breath and then invited Dan in. Peter moved back a step so this man—Dan, his father—could pass by. His back was against the wall as this stranger passed. The teacher walked down the hallway and the man followed until both found themselves in the kitchen. Peter stood apart, outside in the family room looking in.

"Tea?"

"Please." His voice was soft, an affected politeness.

From the man's reaction Horse picked up that Dan never drank tea. Horse found from calming hundreds of upset and furious parents that most broke into three groups—tea, coffee, or nothing. Those who drank tea asked about your tea—the selection, or something to hint they wanted to know what the choices were. Often, they were full of compliments about one of the blends. Horse's own parents had used Red Rose ('Godawful,' Horse always thought, even as a boy) but they always asked guests if it was okay. Tea drinkers expected it; a common politeness. It was, Horse had decided, a social contract.

Dan did not ask. He was being polite is accepting the offer.

Filling the kettle and putting it on, Horse did not say a word. The three stood silent while the kettle warmed up.

"So, you've been gone." Horse said, filling the silence.

"Yes."

"And, you're back."

"I am. I'm here for Peter."

"I can imagine."

Then Horse said, "No."

Dan smirked the smirk of an asshole; someone used to having his way and if he didn't get his way the threats would start. Horse had a few parents like this every year, demanding better grades or for him to drop a suspension; the parent would come real close to him with nervous energy while speaking in a lower voice. The effect was like facing a coiled snake, but Horse always waved it off.

The smirk was usually the start.

Horse could tell Dan was holding back a smart comment.

"He's my son."

"I'm sure."

The kettle began to lightly rattle; it was close enough to boiling to steep tea made for someone you wanted gone. Horse turned his back to Dan and put a tea bag into each of the two cups.

"You also left him. Social services gave him to me. Call them."

"I will."

Horse turned around.

"The fact is, I don't know who the hell you are."

"I understand." His voice was clipped.

"When they say he's yours and you're fit to raise him, he'll go."

The kettle was just about to whistle when Horse picked it off the stove.

"I see."

The tea poured, Horse turned and watched him. Dan looked at Horse, and then around the kitchen. The man's confidence seemed to falter. Peter stood in the background, but Dan didn't look for him.

No hug.

No question.

Dan was here to collect his son.

"You didn't say where you were."

The voice was demanding, surprising both Dan and the boy. Although not physically imposing, the old man straightened his back. Horse's eyes narrowed as he waited for Dan to answer.

"I got lost."

'He's a good bluffer,' Horse thought.

Dan was looking him straight in the eye, and his voice never waivered.

A liar.

Dan is used to lying. A lot.

"Lost?"

"In the snow. Before it. On a job."

He offered no other specifics. The three stood there until it was clear no more was forthcoming; Horse daring for more and Dan refusing to rise to the bait. Peter watched with wide eyes, absently picking the cuticle on his right thumb.

"You left a ten-year-old boy alone right before a snowstorm?"

"You're going to lecture me on how to raise my son?"

"I'm easy," Horse replied. "Wait for social services. They'll have more questions."
CHAPTER 14

Horse was at his desk correcting.

Now that Peter had been returned to his father, Horse had had more time to assign work and correct. The students had noticed an increase in both homework and comments, an unwelcome change as the snow melted and kids got squirrely. While he was bent over a horrible paper about Rosie the Riveter, Amanda meekly entered the room.

"Mr. Horse."

"As I told your father, I don't think you're supposed to be here." He didn't look up, but kept writing comments. "There are lawyers and they get angry when we don't allow them to generate fees."

"I guess I wanted to see how you were..."

"I have a student that refuses to take notes."

"I hated taking notes."

"Who likes taking notes?" He stopped writing. "But they help with the learning. Look at this kid." Horse motions to the paper in front of him. "He refuses to take notes. He tries to memorize whatever we do, and fails. The same with writing. It's like he's a steam engine puffing the boilers up before hitting the rails. But school moves too fast, and by the time he leaves the roundhouse the job no longer needs to be done."

"What are you going to do?"

"Fail him."

"You won't help him?"

"He's making a choice. My mentor, years ago, told me: If a kid doesn't have a choice to fail, they don't have a choice to succeed."

"So you hope he'll just make the right choice?"

"Well, he needs glasses, too. His mother won't buy him a new pair and the boy refuses to wear them even if she did buy them. So, he can't see the board and he can't see his reading book."

"That's crazy." Her response was perfunctory, as required by small talk etiquette.

Horse picked up on this and replied with an equally light remark. "What can anyone do?"

"Talk to him."

Horse screwed up his face and said, sarcastically, "That'll work."

"Make him wear the glasses."

"You can't make kids to anything." Horse fiddled with some papers, then went back to correcting and trying to ignore Amanda.

"I just want to apologize..."

"You have nothing to apologize for."

He did not look up.

"This has become so much more than I thought..."

"Is that what you told the child's father?" His face did not betray an attempt at humor.

"That's not fair."

"But it seems to be your pattern." This time he looked up. "That's okay; you're a child."

"Are you mocking me?"

"Are you a child or an adult?" Horse put down his pen, looked at her and leaned back in his chair. His voice had an edge. "That's really what all of this is about. It's not about abortion or sex, but if little Amanda is her daddy's little girl or a big adult who has the right to make adult decisions."

"That's not fair... I don't want to discuss this. Anyway, I just came here to say that I was sorry."

"You have nothing to apologize for."

"Still..."

"I wish you well, Amanda."

She hesitated at the door.

"I got into Columbia. Early admission."

"They don't have a mothers' dorm, do they?"

"No."

"But that's not an issue anymore, is it?"

"No." Amanda stood in the doorway, looking at her hands. In a smaller voice she said, "That's not why I did it."

Horse continued to lean back in his chair and just look at her. Finally, he said, "They have a great health center, so you can use preventive measures in the future."

After a moment she screamed at him, "You were supposed to stop me!"

"I was supposed to sanction your decision," he replied, calmly.

"I came to you..."

"To make the decision."

"Yes. To make the decision."

"And I didn't."

"No, you did not! I made it!"

"You made it."

"Yes! I made that decision!"

"It's tough, making decisions. They tend to have consequences."

That was it. The two stood their ground—Horse sitting, her in the doorway. Finally, she broke down. "I don't want it! I don't want it!" she screamed, to herself more than anyone.

While she broke down into tears, Horse looked beyond her, deep into thought. It was then he realized what he had missed the first night Dan had come for Peter.

"You didn't want it," Horse said to Dan.

Horse felt the need to do something. To force the moment to its crisis, as Prufrock struggles to do in the old teachers' favorite Eliot poem. 'His failure was inaction,' Horse thought as he approached the door.

It was late. Another night of misty freezing rain fell on the area.

The sun was down, although the sky was still alive to the west. Without the porch light, the front stoop seemed separate from the house. Some darkness made its way down the dark hallway and escaped through the front door, but very little. Horse was standing on the stoop of the Johnson house holding a single-use plastic grocery bag that had Grand Union stamped on the side, and from its condition had been used a few times since. Now crumpled and looking flimsier than ever, the bag had some clothes Horse was claiming were Peter's. In fact, they were taken from Grace Union's lost-and-found; it was an excuse to come over. In the darkness, none of it mattered.

"Didn't want what?" Dan asked.

Dan had no idea why Horse was there; the old teacher had not bothered to even offer his hastily contrived excuse, but instead confronted Dan with his theory. It was hard to see, black silhouette against the darkness of the trees. Only the snow offered a slight contrast, but little. The evening was overcast. He looked down at the rickety bag in Horse's hand.

"For me?"

Horse remembered his ruse.

"He left these," he grumbled, but did not offer them.

The bag dangled from his hand.

"Is that all?" Dan asked, wanting to close the door.

"You didn't want it," Horse said again.

"Want what?" Horse had Dan pegged as a hot head. He wasn't wrong. Standing in the doorway, the father gave off the energy that came from being rubbed the wrong way. Taking a breath, he closed his eyes and waited.

"Peter."

Horse stared directly at Dan, trying to read his response. With the father's eyes closed, he couldn't tell a thing.

But Dan was trying to surpress a headache that had grown through the day. Now, with Horse standing on his stoop, his internal and external worlds were crashing together in an explosive way. Certainly the old teacher could predict this, but in the darkness he was unsure; he did not he needed to continue to push.

"Of course I did." Dan opened his eyes and looked away.

Then he got angry.

"What right do you have..."

"None."

Dan wasn't in the mood to be agreed with.

He swung.

Connecting with Horse's jaw, the old teacher fell off the stoop and into the shoveled path, slamming his head back. Horse was unsure if it was a rock from the walk or just hard soil, as a layer of ice covered everything. He thought about this, eyes closed, and then heard a slight puff as the bag of clothes landed in the snow forty feet away. When he opened his eyes Dan was gone, the door shut. Only a single light was on in the house, and Horse wondered if Peter was home.

Lying there, he decided not to move for a while.

The light freezing rainfell against his face.

'Soon, the snow will be gone,' Horse thought. Then, we'll see.
CHAPTER 15

"What have I done now?" Horse asked Trooper Danielson.

Coming in with a cup of Green Mountain coffee, he looked at the trooper and let his body go limp for dramatic effect. You got me. No longer dragging Peter to school each morning, Horse's rhythm was off and he had forgotten (again) to set the coffee maker. On the way to school he stopped at a gas station and filled up his dirty aluminum travel mug with coffee. Unusually late, he was stuck in unusually stop-and-go pokey traffic—idiots, he thought—that made drinking and driving difficult. Arriving at his classroom door with an armload of paint cans, he had yet to take a sip.

Only to find Trooper Danielson was waiting for him.

"Can I ask you where you were last night?"

"Home." With a nod of his head towards his right shoulder, Horse motioned for Danielson to take the paint cans and coffee that filled his two hands. Hands free, he dug into his coat pocket for the classroom door keys. "Alone." He fumbled for the right key, then fished it right and left until a soft click filled the empty hallway. "I'm sure you get that a lot."

"Can I ask you what you were doing?" The trooper followed him in.

Horse swung the strap of his leather satchel over his head and dropped it into his desk chair with a whomp. Taking the coffee, he motioned for Danielson to drop the cans where he stood.

"I was drunk."

Gently, the trooper placed the paint cans on the floor. He looked Horse over; his was the body of someone who had drunk the night before: tired. To the young trooper, the man looked old. Not just older, but old.

And then he noticed the black eye.

"That's quite a bruise," he said, pointing.

"Yeah."

"Who did it?" Danielson paused. "If you don't mind my asking."

"Ran into a door."

"Does the door have a name?"

"No that I'd care to share."

"Was there any of this drinking involved?"

"No." Horse took a sip of coffee, taking in the smell more than anything. "I start in a chair and pass out in same chair."

Danielson said nothing to this. His mind flipped through what he knew of the man who had taught him years prior, and of the file on Peter Johnson that he had read that morning.

A hard luck case.

'Both,' he thought.

That file sat on the passenger seat of his cruiser, parked in the visitor's space out front. For whatever brave face Horse put on, he knew the boy moving out affected him.

"Someone broke into Laporte Contracting last night," the trooper said.

"As I said, I was drunk."

"People have committed breaking and entering while intoxicated."

"I don't multitask well."

Danielson nodded, believing him. He wondered if the old man had lost a step since his days in the classroom.

For his part, Horse look off his coat quickly.

He was late.

He felt late.

Rushed.

He glanced at the clock and gauged six minutes until the first student stumbled into the room from the bus.

"Not me." He hung up his coat on a hook in the corner. "Why would it be me?"

"Laporte said you had given him a late night visit a week ago."

"He also said he wouldn't report it."

Horse lifted his bag from his chair and dropped it on his desk with a thump.

"He didn't. Not exactly. With this break-in, his secretary called us. When she came in, the place was a mess and some of their property was missing. Without a police report the insurance folks won't do anything."

"See," Horse said, unlatching his bag, "it can't be me. I have enough stuff already."

"Laporte didn't think you would," Trooper Danielson said. "Still, he didn't seem too sure at first. And his words never really matched his sentiments."

Horse took a seat. Then, he took his first sip of coffee. With that, he relaxed.

"I don't know," Horse told the trooper. "I was home alone last night. Alone. With some whiskey."

Again, the trooper looked him up and down. He wanted to warn him about Laporte; that what he didn't let the police handle he might do himself. Laporte did not care about the rule of law or evidence or even the truth—he was a businessman in a tough business and the old man had given him enough to perhaps pay him a visit.

Instead, he said nothing.

Nothing about Laporte, because he knew Horse knew and didn't care.

"I don't doubt it," Danielson said, just as the first student walked in the door.

"Another parent requesting that you do not become their child's teacher."

A day had passed. Wells was sitting in Horse's chair while the old teacher wrestled with the keys jammed in the classroom door. Coffee in hand, the principal's feet were up on the teacher's desk.

"Who?" He asked but didn't really care.

"Peter Johnson."

"I don't even have him. He's Jones'."

Finally pulling the keys from the lock, Horse thrust the ring into his coat pocket and made his way to the desk. With his good hand he swiped at Wells' feet, and missed. Wells nodded to the thermos, set on the edge of the desk next to a clean mug.

"I know. That's what makes it so ironic. We've gotten to the point where parents don't want their kids in the same school with you."

Sitting in a student's plastic chair, Horse exhaled.

Wells looked at his tired face and noticed the shiner around his eye. Horse looked ahead into space, his body stiff. Deciding not to say anything, Wells leaned forward and passed the thermos to Horse. The old man methodically unscrewed the cap and poured a cup of coffee. Without replacing the cap, he passed it back to Wells.

The smell—Horse loved the smell of coffee. "Coffee has the power to make an awful day simply miserable," he had told Wells many times. Shamelessly, he told students it made the perfect gift for the holidays—and received quite a bit before break and graduation.

Horse held it now under his nose and breathed.

It was a horrible brew. One of their first times out, Wells let it be known that he had little sense of taste because of poor sinuses. Thrifty at best, cheap at worst, Wells bought coffee because of the price, name or label—you're the same with wine, Horse noted—and with little concern for taste or aroma. At some point in his young adult life Wells had acquired a coffee grinder, and, as a result, had always bought beans and insisted on grinding them. It was a quirk that Horse accepted, although the beans his friend bought were cheap, always dry and burnt.

"You can buy the beans," Wells told Horse in response to his complaints.

He never did.

This brew enlivened him.

"What did Johnson say, exactly?" Horse asked. He did not feel insulted, but was curious how his visit was relayed to Wells.

"He said that he was concerned that the time when Peter was a foster child with you would lead to confusion if you continued to teach him."

"Did he say what he wanted?"

Parents always want something.

"He wanted Peter transferred."

"To another teacher?"

"I guess," Wells thought, realizing it was a bit of a ridiculous request since he was already with another teacher.

"It sounds like the type of request a parent would make who didn't know anything about his kid."

"A lot of parents couldn't tell you their teacher's name."

"Maybe," Horse said, breathing in his coffee deep. "Or, something less likely."
CHAPTER 16

The lion is gone. No gatekeeper.

Ms. Binney takes a break.

Hunger.

When Wells looked up from the paperwork regarding nutritional information per student he found a quiet parent leaning against the doorjamb.

"Mr. Tomlinson..." he said, rising from his seat in welcome.

The father did not move.

"I spoke with Horse..."

"Oh," a nervous waver enters his voice. "We have lawyers..."

"Yes, yes..." Tomlinson dismissed Wells' concerns. "He told me that. I also spoke with the teacher in the next room..."

"Mr. Jones."

"I guess... I don't know. He helped me see a few things."

"Good."

"Do you remember Amanda's mother?"

"Sonja. Yes, I remember her." Looking around for somewhere to put his hands, Wells wound up with them on top of his paperwork, where they began.

"We used to be friends. All of us. You used to come over... Then..."

Tomlinson's smile turned to a straight line.

"I remember. I'm sorry I lost touch."

"No." Mr. Tomlinson waved his concerns off. "Sonja was your link to our family. College friends. I understand. And, with her gone..."

He looked at the carpet. Wells looked at his hands.

"I only mention it," Tomlinson said, "because I miss it."

"We all miss Sonja..."

"No. I miss that." The father's voice rose with conviction. "I miss my wife sitting in her chair, and having people over, and you..."

He welled up.

Unsure of what to do—get up, give him a hug... no wise words coming—Wells tightened his mouth into a line and waited.

Finally, "They were good times," he admitted.

"Yes. They were. But I felt it again with Horse. When he was dealing with Amanda, and we three met practically every day... It was the first time I felt that again. He fixed Amanda. And I have not had a casual friendship since she graduated from this school."

"It's hard..." Wells replied, trying to find the words to... He was unsure of what he was trying to do. Prevent a lawsuit? Comfort a friend? No words came.

"Speaking to Mr. Jones, I realized that casual relationships are based on accepting mistakes your friends make."

"I don't know if he made a mistake."

Prevent a lawsuit, Wells decided.

Tomlinson stared at the floor; then, straight at Wells. "I don't know either. I miss being able to forgive so easily and move on. Loss does that to you, I guess."

"Man, you were really working them old school today."

Standing in the doorway, this was Jones' attempt to reach out to Horse. It was meant to be an entry. In reality, Jones hated Horse because he reminded him of the difference between his own self-perception and the reality. Throughout his life, Jones had been able to justify his failures and mediocrity, but at thirty the excuses had run thin.

He was mediocre.

And just as he had accepted it—accepted the job at Grace Haven and settled into an unspectacular house and a boring Toyota Corolla—he was faced with Horse. At first, it was a friendly competition, with himself being the one who cared—Horse certainly didn't seem to. Kids seemed to like him. Over time, though, his room became the default location for mediocre students and dull personalities. His students were, without exception, lazy. Their work was serviceable. As Jones exhibited little spark or structure or demands, the students responded in kind.

A professor had once said to him: the students resemble the teacher.

It had become true.

With each passing year, he had tried new things. Desks in circles, alternative projects, and a grab bag of Waldorf-inspired lessons which yielded little but a lot of posters and a huge bill for yarn. There was the Harkness table, but twenty-five were too many seventh graders for a thoughtful discussion. He was unable to completely grasp alternative methods, nor did he have the will to push students in the more traditional ones. His teaching was acceptable.

For the first time in his life, mediocre was unacceptable. This, Jones knew.

"And he is too much of an ass to take the first step in changing it," Horse had once said to Wells.

Now, Horse looked up at Jones and smiled. "What, reading? I know that might not fit into your open-minded curriculum."

It was his attempt at being playful.

Jones responded with a friendly laugh.

"No. The keyboarding. I could hear you through the wall. A-S-D-F, A-S-D-F, A-S-D-F... J-K-L-;, J-K-L-;, J-K-L-;..."

"I call it typing."

"It's keyboarding. That's the term they use now."

"Typing. We use typewriters. It's an important skill."

"A skill that they already know. Well, keyboarding, anyway. They've been on keyboards since before they came to school. They know it like breathing."

"Each morning we do fifteen minutes of meditation to start the day, in part because they don't even know how to breathe correctly. They can peck on a screen, and somewhat on a keyboard. They cannot type."

"Teaching keyboarding—typing—at this stage of their career is a waste of time. It's like teaching cursive."

"If I controlled the third grade, they would learn that, too."

"It's worse. Your keyboarding lesson is redundant. Cursive is... obsolete."

"Yet, it teaches some important skills."

"Old school. Old skills."

Feigned smile filled with contempt, Horse replied, "That's why you're Teacher of the Year. You have a progressive curriculum."

"I'm proud of that award, but I can tell you don't think I deserve it."

"I subscribe to the Robert Fulghum 'All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten' philosophy. So, I'd give it to the kindergarten teachers. Maybe grade one. Maybe."

"You don't think we have anything to contribute?"

"Sure. But I spend most of my day teaching skills missed before they get to me. Hire some good kindergarten teachers and I can teach what I'm supposed to teach."

"And what is that, in your view?"

To this, Horse paused in thought.

And then changed the subject.

"Have you ever given personal advice to your students?"

"Sure. We talk all the time."

"That doesn't worry you?"

"No. I'm like their friend. I believe teaching is a relationship. We talk. That's what friends do."

"Who wants to be friends with a thirteen-year-old?"

"Why, aren't you friends with your students?"

"God, no. A friend is someone you borrow money from. You talk about sex, or sexual problems. I trust you don't have those conversations."

"No." Jones smiled, relaxing a bit. Even in the heat of pedagogical discussion he heard Horse's attempt at collegial banter. "You know, parents and the like. But do you even know what a friend is?"

"Maybe you're right. I do borrow money from kids."

At this, Jones felt genuine surprise, forgetting the banter he had just begun to enjoy.

"You do?"

And Horse was serious.

"I like to see who remembers I owe them something. Or who trusts me. Or who whips out the wad of bills."

"So you don't need the cash?"

Horse smiled, but not in a friendly way.

"You're an idiot. If you don't call them on their plagiarism, your students will think you're an idiot, too. Or a sucker."

"I'm a good teacher."

"Teacher of the Year!" Horse smiled a smile of irony. "You're popular."

"So?"

"There's a difference."

"Jealous?"

"No. But there's a difference."

"Or you use never having received the award as some sort of twisted proof that you aren't pandering to the whims of parents or current trends. Being impervious to popularity and being a good teacher are two different things."

"Can be," Horse replied.

"What?"

"They can be two different things. But, it's a point. An intelligent point. I give so little thought to awards that I might be stuck in a rut. Bravo. I'm quite surprised it came from you."

"Well, a broken clock is right twice a day."

"You said it, not me."

Horse didn't bother mentioning he'd won the award five years prior.

"Did he drop the lawsuit?" Horse asked.

The two sat in his office eating a late lunch. Mostly, Horse was eating from a supply of candy Wells had in a bowl to bribe kids in an emergency.

"I didn't ask."

"What'd he say?"

"Does it matter? It's not so easy. Lawyers. Superintendent. Parents. School board. He could kiss you at this point and you'll be lucky to keep your job."

"If he kisses me I'm sure that'll be a new lawsuit of some kind." Horse washed a chocolate-covered wafer candy down with coffee. "So, you just spoke about old times, then?"

"Something like that."

"What was his wife like?"

"Sonja?"

"You two went to college together, right?"

"You know..."

"That you dated..."

"Horse..."

"And you were having an affair."

"I don't..."

Horse cut him off. "I knew then."

Throughout Wells had been eating, and he continued to chew. Slowly.

"How?" he said, swallowing.

"You and I hung out together two nights a week. You went to the Tomlinsons' one night a week. And you dated another night a week. Add parent meetings and school boards..."

"So?"

"I never met your date."

"Do you blame me?"

"For not introducing me to the married woman you were having an affair with? No."

"Listen... It was not..."

"I don't care. I'm sure it was sweet. She was leaving him soon. Their tensions were affecting poor Amanda. Yes, yes..."

Putting down his sandwich, Wells tiredly begged in the soft way that friends can without a loss of ace. "Can we not talk about this."

"Did the father know?"

"No."

"I mean, now? I knew he didn't when Amanda was my student, but now?"

"No."

"Let's be honest." Horse picked up his coffee mug and raised it to his mouth, taking a slow drink. "We've never been honest about this. It's a little lie I've allowed you to keep because it's all so sad. You had an affair. She died. You did you best to help the orphan child."

"Something like that. Except she wasn't an orphan. Her father..."

"Yes, yes..." Horse waved his protests away. "But orphan sounds more pathetic."

"Yes, it does. It's not accurate, though."

Picking up his sandwich, Wells put it down again and looked out the window.

"And he still doesn't know?"

"No," Wells replied. "He doesn't know."

"Okay. That's all I wanted to confirm."

"Are we square?"

Smiling, Horse replied, "What do I care about an affair from nearly ten years ago?"
CHAPTER 17

Looking around his classroom, Horse noticed that five seats were empty.

"Has sugaring begun?" Horse asked Tillie, a big-boned blonde girl who seemed oblivious to most things happening around her. She wore clothes meant for a thinner girl, but Horse admired her stubborn willingness to feel comfortable in her body. "Dumb as a box of rocks," her father had told him. Horse liked her. She's my kind of student, he had told Wells during placement.

"I think so," she replied. "My father's been tramping around the woods for a week, pulling on lines. I dunno if he's collected any sap, yet."

'How many bottles of Jim Beam does he have hidden out there?' Horse thought.

The weather had turned warmer, and the four feet of snow covering everything began to take on a dense, rounded shape. Driving in, the streets were wet and still slick from the night chill, but drops were not evident in the windows of the classroom.

"Perhaps we need to take a field trip," the teacher said.

The class grew excited.

A few times Horse had surprised a student by showing up at their house. Of course, he had brought the other twenty-odd students in the class, and everyone knew the kid in question was playing hooky. These trips were now the stuff of legend—so much so that no one could remember it actually occurring. Still, some of his class had hoped this was one of those times.

But the old teacher had no intention of interfering with this Vermont lifeblood—sugaring must not be stopped. Sugaring was different than playing hooky. It was tradition that students missed certain days, including the first week of hunting season and the height of sugaring. Many of his families relied on the income sugaring brought, if only to pay the taxes on the land the trees sat on. Horse knew of at least twenty families that clung to ancestral woodlots. Those fifty-acre clusters of trees held the sum total of the family's wealth. The old man understood. For that week, only independent reading was assigned; in the community, everyone knew that he knew and approved. For his concern, Horse always got a nice quart of Grade A maple syrup from each of the families when the kids showed up the following week. "They are," he tells Wells every year, "great for re-gifting."

Seven years prior, Horse had had a student that missed the first week of every season: not only deer, moose, and turkey, but bow, black powder, and rifle season. When the boy's father pulled him at the start of fishing season, and then for a week of sugaring, Wells forced Horse to set up an alternative program for the boy, as the older brother, similarly pulled by the dad in order to indulge in the hunt, had found himself an adult unable to hold a job and had resorted to selling meth. "Great, more work," Horse had said. "Why not give everyone an alternative program?" But then he walked away before Wells replied, fearful he would take Horse's sarcasm as an initiative. The boy's plan was a success, even as Wells saw it as a stopgap at the time. Last year Horse's former student went to college down in Castleton and the grateful father sent him a full gallon of maple syrup, Grade B, Horse's favorite.

That day, Horse did want to check out a sugaring operation. A quick phone call to Laporte Construction confirmed that the woods behind Dan's house was in operation. He had not given his name, nor his intent to show up with a class of students.

"This is kind of a sudden trip," Wells said, hearing of it for the first time as twenty students slogged through the main corridor, past the main office, in their winter boots.

"I've been planning it for quite some time," Horse replied.

Wells held up the unsigned field trip form. "No signature?"

Horse shrugged, but Wells waived it off.

"I accept that."

"Great..."

"But, you forgot to fill in the location."

At this Horse smiled.

Wells knew where they were going.

"So, you're going to bring twenty seventh graders to the woods around Dan's house in hopes of finding the dead body of one of their classmate's dad?"

"It takes a village."

"No."

He had said it in a tone that was final. It was not a tone he had used often, but when he did Horse knew he was treading on thin ice. The old teacher paid attention. Moving his body so that his shoulders were square with Wells, he laid out his reasons.

"But they won't find a body."

"Then why go?"

"Honestly?"

"No." Wells did not want to know. He did, though, want the kids to be safe. "Don't tell me."

Then he added, "No body."

"If I thought..."

With a cheap Papermate pen that barely wrote, Wells signed the form and filled in the location.

"See that you don't," he said.

Laporte had an old guy poking around the lines, a local with sixty years of tapping experience and relatives that sent construction business the contractor's way. The forest was a web of blue plastic tubing, and looked to Horse less intimidating in the daylight.

"I'm Jerry," the man grunted at Horse. No handshake. "Tell the kids not to touch anything."

Instead, Horse instructed his students to look at everything.

"Tramp around," he told them.

A few parent chaperones—Horse had a list of parents panting to be involved in anything he did—stood around in the snow, unsure of what to do but looking cold. Instead of spending money for a bus, Horse had created a network of parents that could pile a few kids into their car or van for local destinations. They also acted as chaperones, which made both Wells and the parents feel better; Wells because someone was watching Horse, and the parents because of a perceived connection with their child. On that day, he was able to find Ms. Hall, owner of a ten-passenger van.

"Get out there," he told Ms. Hall. "Stomp some blood into your feet."

Most of the time, Horse ignored the parents or sent them on errands. Parents who stay after the drop-off wanted to be useful, he knew. They fetched coffee, at Horse's request, or he tethered them to his least trustworthy students. After a stressful few hours, Horse noted that they appreciate both his job and their own child more. Today, though, he wanted as much ground searched as possible.

"For what?" he thought. I doubt there's a body here.

"Hey," he called out to Jerry. "Where's Dan? I thought he'd be working the lines, as his house is right there."

"Other stuff to do," Jerry replied. It's unclear if Dan was on a worksite, or if Jerry simply had more important things to do than talk to Horse. He turned and headed into the woods. Horse could tell he was resisting all of his urges to yell at the students. None of them had touched a single blue line—in Vermont, you learn early that some things are simply off limits—but twenty hyperactive children otherwise unrestrained made Jerry nervous. Horse figured he has about twenty minutes of goodwill left.

Then Horse heard the crying. Vicky forgot to wear anything resembling winter footwear that day, but didn't tell Horse when he had asked. She knew that he would pull out a milk crate of old boots, mittens, and hats and expect her to wear them. Instead, she lied. Now she was in tears, her feet ice in the fake leather flats and thin cotton tights. Beyond a web of blue plastic tubing, she was up to her thigh in melting spring snow.

Always the caretaker, Horse began making his way under the tubes and towards his student.

Meanwhile, it was Ms. Hall, feet cold and exploring beyond where the students congregated in clusters of three and four while they checked the reception of their cell phones, who found the body.

"Look at that," was all Jerry had said as Horse led the children, a now hysterical Vicky and a shocked Ms. Hall back to the cars.
CHAPTER 18

Two hours later only Horse and Ms. Hall were left, along with half a dozen troopers and other police personnel, and Jerry. Parents had been called to pick up their kids, which they did without hesitation. Horse figured no one would pass up the chance to snoop on the crime scene; Horse found himself answering inane questions by parents so they could look over his shoulder for a glimpse of the body.

"They took the body away already," Horse had said to Ms. Matron in response to her question about potential food allergies in the classroom. The mother turned around without a word.

Ms. Hall's son went home with another classmate. Another parent came to ferry the few remaining students back to school.

Because no one could get hold of Dan—or as Horse began calling him to Wells, the man claiming to be Peter's dad—the police couldn't use his house as a base, so Horse and Ms. Hall were forced to stand on a shoveled but cold walkway. A trooper had offered his car to sit in, and Horse had declined. Ms. Hall had lasted two minutes before feeling claustrophobic in the back of the cruiser. In her own van, she felt alone. Now she stood with a green wool blanket wrapped around her body, next to Horse. One of the men had given them coffee from a thermos, but as they had no cream or sugar Horse drank both cups while Ms. Hall looked miserable. It wasn't the cold that bothered her, but not being able to leave.

Not being able to leave, with that body so close.

A team was examining it, but Horse was pretty sure it was Dan.

On the old teacher's feet were Sorels, which kept them warm, but he stomped them to wake them up. He had been wearing Sorels from when he had tried snowboarding before snowboarding had its own shoe. Before he ruined his right knee. That was five pairs ago, but he still wore the same model: the 1964 Premium Leather Boot. They were warm, and heavy, and when he walked in them he could feel a slight tug in his knee from the weight. That tug was a feeling that he took for granted, but never really forgot was there. He found it oddly comforting.

"Do you think we'll get to go soon?" Ms. Hall asked.

"Sure," Horse grunted.

"I have to get my kids."

With that information in hand, Horse trod through a path already made to the troopers milling around. Explaining the situation, one came back. After a few questions Ms. Hall was free to go.

"Are you going to be all right to drive?" the trooper asked.

Ms. Hall shrugged, unsure. But she left just the same, her giant van skidding down the icy road.

The trooper returned to his colleagues, but another came to talk to Horse.

"You've been busy," Trooper Danielson said. His face did not offer friendship or anger; it was all business. "All these years of not seeing you, and now..."

"Like a bad penny," Horse replied.

"Let's hope not."

After Horse had explained why his class were there, and how Ms. Hall found the body, the two stood in silence. Trooper Danielson was thinking, because he knew that nothing Horse did was as it seemed.

"Why this sugaring operation?" he asked.

"I was here a few weeks ago, looking for Dan's body," Horse said, voice gruff from the damp cold. "Well, before Dan showed up."

Horse wanted to look at the corpse, to see if it was indeed Dan—the man Horse thought of as Dan. If it was, then who was the man posing as Peter's father? Or was it someone else? They had, after all, searched the woods just a few weeks ago. Perhaps this was a new victim.

Was Peter in trouble?

It was something he had thought many times in the past two hours. Even as his students left, Horse stayed in the hope of intercepting Peter as he came home from school. He looked at his watch; a little before three. 'Peter's bus would be coming soon,' Horse thought.

Instead, Dan II drove up.

That was the shorthand name Horse used when talking to Wells.

Piling out of the late model Ford F150 that Horse had seen in the barn a few weeks prior, Dan—the man claiming to be Dan, Horse thought—slammed the driver's door and stormed up to the trooper, barking, "What the hell is going on here!" Horse watched spit fly from his mouth. As he had approached the trooper, Dan had glanced at Horse. A flash of recognition passed over him—what was this man doing at his house—but Dan ignored him to engage the trooper.

"What the hell is going on here?"

Trooper Danielson hadn't budged. "We have found..." the trooper began.

"Yes," Dan said curtly, "I know. Everyone knows. That's why I'm here."

"The body was found while a school group was observing the sugaring operation."

"What gave you," Dan said, turning to Horse, "the right to be here?"

Horse leaned against the state police car. His knee had begun to hurt, and as the afternoon wore on it hurt more. And Dan II was pissing him off.

"I got the okay from Laporte," he said. His tone was dismissive, indicating that Dan really had no right to be on his own property. Which was true.

Saying nothing, Dan stomped up his walk to the front door and let himself in. After a few minutes it was clear he was not coming out again, and Horse noticed black smoke coming from the chimney hooked up to the woodstove. A few of the personnel came from the area around the body. They opened the back of their van and withdrew halogen lights.

'It's going to be a long night,' Horse thought.

And it was.

At two a.m. Horse had corrected only seven papers, but had gone through the rest of his scotch. He was drinking diet Polar tonic water straight, sitting in the microfiber club chair recliner, tumbler in hand. Horse looked at the handmade clock that hung over his woodstove, a gift from a former student. Really noticing it for the first time in years, he was surprised it had survived his yearly clearings—every year, the old teacher went through and tossed all but the most useful gifts. There was little sentimentality in his house, only function and things he bought himself; his comic book collection, for example. The clock had somehow made it through—hung and kept. Four hours until he had to get up.

It was little comfort that the clock was often wrong.

'Like the kid who made it for me,' Horse thought with a yawn. It wasn't wrong enough.

Then, he drowned himself in more quinine.

On the back of Tracy Jenkins' paper he had diagramed his thoughts.

Laporte interested in keeping me away from Dan.

Dan had worked for Laporte, but official records showed that work was sporadic and none of it recent.

When Dan was missing, Laporte had thirty men, on the clock, help search for him.

A body was found behind Dan's house, which is also Laporte's sugaring spot.

Search party did not find body. Recent?

But one thing didn't add up: Dan was back.

"You're letting Laporte get you," Horse mumbled to himself.

What else did he know?

Peter.

He thought about the kid.

Facts, Horse demanded of himself.

There was no question that Peter suffered from some sort of childhood trauma. Photos of Peter and Dan placed around the living room filled Horse's thoughts.

The two smiling.

Fishing.

Son and father.

Horse shook his head, trying to shake a looming sadness that he'd been holding off all day.

'What was the trauma?' Horse wondered.

Below his observations, he drew a little house.

Dan's.

In the back he drew a dead stick figure. Then he filled in the wood pile, compost bin, and barn. In the end, he barely had enough information to fill a page.

Something in his gut.

Ripping the pack page off Jenkins' paper, Horse crumpled it up and tossed it in the cardboard box that served as his living room's recycling bin. He flipped the remaining page over and slapped a grade on it. In his grumpy mood he compensated with a grade higher than she had deserved.

Then he put the rest away, but didn't go to bed.
CHAPTER 19

"You need to cut the shit," the voice said in the darkness.

Horse had just entered his house. Standing in the foyer, keys in hand, he thought of turning around to run. But over his shoulder was slung his work-laden satchel, while his left arm held a heavy bag of groceries.

Bad idea.

Instead, he used his left foot to close the door behind him.

Fumbling with his keys, Horse placed his car key outward from his palm so the point stuck between the middle finger and the ring finger of his left hand. It was a classic self-defense stance he had been told to do in a dark parking lot. Well, honeslty, he had been in the hallway while a self-defense course was being taught at the school one afternoon eight years ago, so he wasn't sure if he was doing it right. Still, grocery bag in hand, it was all he could think to do at the moment.

He thought about the voice, keeping a tight fist around the rest of the keys of the ring.

'The voice is older,' Horse thought. I know that voice.

"Aren't you going to offer me a drink?" Laporte said from the living room. "That bag looks heavy. I'm guessing there's a six pack at the bottom."

'No need for the keys,' Horse thought.

He rested the bag on his hip, dropping his keys on the dresser by the door so that he could use both hands on the bag. He passed by the living room and went into the kitchen. Laporte was sitting in Horse's blue club chair recliner. 'Get out of my chair,' he thought to himself, teeth gritted. Like most of the house, it was cold. Laporte hasn't been here long, he thought, noting that the contractor had started the woodstove but it had yet to warm anything beyond the living room.

"What makes you think I'm a beer drinker?" Horse had called from the other room.

"Your recycling bin."

Horse looked down and noted the empty bottles at the bottom of the blue plastic bin. Laporte didn't know that the recycling had been sitting there for months. With so few friends, and even fewer visitors, the bottles did not pile up much. Most of the beer was from Wells'.

"I'm more of a scotch drinker," he said, coming back into the living room.

"I know that, too."

Laporte was stretched out as if he owned the place. His coat was off, and he had been reading an old copy of The New Yorker that Horse had saved from the town library's recycling bin.

"How?"

"I've poured one for myself."

He raised a glass.

Horse began to regret buying a bottle the day before.

"Pour me one, will you?" Laporte asked. "You're up. And get one for youself."Horse waved off the invitation to drink he own liquor and sat on his couch directly.

"Don't like to drink alone?"

Laporte shrugged, and the two looked at each other.

"I trust you don't mind that I let myself in."

"We seem to have an open door policy with each other."

Horse was clearly agitated, which Laporte both read and enjoyed. He lingered over his drink for a few moments before getting to the point.

"Our paths keep meeting."

"And you have a problem with that?"

The contractor, who was wearing a black-and-blue lined flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots, leaned forward a bit,. 'Johnson Woolen Mill,' Horse first assumed, but he was wrong. Laporte's wife bought his work shirts at Walmart because they were half the price of local. Sitting in his Chinese-made clothing, Laporte looked Horse straight in the eye.

"What were you doing in my woods?"

"Seeing where syrup comes from." Not missing a beat, he added, "I thought it was Dan's woods."

"We had an agreement." Leaning back, he took a sip of his drink.

"You and me or you and Dan?"

The contractor didn't bother to respond. Waiting for Horse to agree with the original statement, Laporte had plenty of time to take the room in, but his mind drifted to the kitchen. The refrigerator was decently stocked, mostly with healthy food. He had assumed Horse was a vegetarian from the meatless black bean patties in the freezer.

"I was surprised when I heard it was you that found the body."

"Were you really surprised?"

"A little. Perhaps not as much as I should have been."

"I spoke with your secretary."

"She said she spoke with Mr. Wells."

"I spoke for him, I guess."

Laporte nodded, thinking of other things. More important things.

"Listen," he began. "I don't know why you're interested in Dan."

'The boy,' Horse thought. I care about the boy. "I don't care about Dan," he said.

"Do you know who was in the snow?" Laporte asked.

"I suspect you do."

No response.

"With all of the holes I dig, why would I dump a body in the snow?"

'He's quick to jump to talking about body disposal,' Horse thought.

Looking across the room, Laporte looked bored.

"Look, I care about the kid," Horse admitted.

"Of course you do. I get it. He's a good kid." Laporte threw back the rest of his glass. "And he's fine. His dad is back. Drop it."

"Drop what?"

Laporte didn't dignify this with a response.

Putting down his glass on the side table, he pushed himself up using the arms of the chair. He was a heavy man, but clearly strong. Without a word, Laporte walked out the front door, closing it gently behind him.

Only then did Horse fix himself a drink, and look at the dirty glass Laporte had left behind.
CHAPTER 20

Great, Horse thought.

His tires were slashed; all four.

The slashes were on the sidewall: irreparable. He could see this, even in the winter darkness that passed for morning, as the cuts puckered like a black fish's lips. It was nearly five-thirty in the morning and Grace Haven would be dark for another hour or so, and the sun wouldn't penetrate the trees that lined his street for another hour after that. Horse had slept in his chair, which is to say he didn't sleep. His diet went from scotch and tonic, to tonic, to coffee. Now, he was eating only cold and stupid adversity. This was not petty vandalism; someone did this deliberately to him.

'Laporte,' Horse thought. He left the house and slashed my tires.

Of course he didn't know this. An evening of wresting with all of the things he didn't know about Dan and Peter—compared to what he felt—left him unsure of the most obvious conclusions. Horse was a man of answers—a teacher with solutions. He fixed kids. Kids like Amanda Tomlinson. This, now, was uncomfortable territory. Standing in his driveway, looking at his hobbled Festiva, he did nothing but drop his bag full of partially corrected papers, seventeen purple Uniball Vision pens, a copy of The Chocolate War, a cutting tool, and a bag of black licorice all into the snow bank that lined his driveway.

'Times like this you drop it, or become a fanatic.'

Looking around at the dark outlines, three feet of snow still on the ground, Horse calculated how much longer he would need snow tires. His Fiesta took R12s. Tiny in a world of All-Wheel Drive Subarus riding on R16s and larger SUVs. Snow tires were especially hard to get in a timely fashion, at this time of year, for this size. There were four all seasons in his garage, and he supposed he would have to risk that the roads don't get too slick before spring.

Be careful. Drive slow.

For an eternity he stood, coffee in hand, and stared at his garage door.

The heck with it.

Pulling out his phone he called Wells. Then he went in to make another pot of coffee.

By the time Wells had arrived the passenger side of the car was resting on cinder blocks, the wheels rolled off into the nearby snow bank. He would have to drag the rims and the all season tires to town. The late model Saab's headlights illuminated a man bent over the driver's side front wheel. Wearing his headlamp, Horse cranked on the flimsy jack that came with the car until the wheel was nearly off the ground. Rising up, he put one end of the tire iron on a lug nut and then stood on the other end. His entire weight against the nut, it did not budge. He jumped slightly.

Slipped.

On the ground, Horse sat cursing.

Opening his door, Wells asked, "Having a good day?" In his hand was a small white bag containing three Danishes and two glazed donuts.

"If you don't sleep, does yesterday count as today, too?"

"No."

"Then, I've had better."

Wells nodded at the tiny jack. "Where's your other jack?"

A mix of elements had conspired to force Horse into getting a rolling floor jack and carry a fifth tire with him. This was not his first slashing. The mix of his bluntness and a hard, bitter citizenry made October parent conferences a particularly bad time for tires. Often, Horse changed right over to snows. By June, parental tunes had changed. More than once he had been "taken care of" at Dave's in town, the owner being one of the former disgruntled parents who later saw the light when he daughter made advanced academic classes as a freshman at the high school. Still, on this morning it was cold comfort.; he'd never had to change all four.

"The jack froze up."

Wells looked at the front tire, frozen in place.

"You have to grease it occasionally. Wait for the sun."

"There's sun? You're a flatlander if you believe that."

"Born in Hardwick."

Picking himself off the ground, Horse grunted. Then the two went in to drink the fresh pot of coffee and eat pastries.

"Need a ride home?" Jones asked, smirking, as a greeting. "I'll bet narrowing down the suspects will be difficult. I mean, who hasn't felt the urge to slash your tires?"

"I trust you have an alibi," Horse replied.

"And a good knife."

Jones, Horse, and Wells were sitting at chairs in the school library reviewing the test scores from the state, as required by law. They had piles of files on tables and on their laps as they sat for their grade level review of student progress. Each student needed to be assessed and a plan put in place. Prior to this meeting they had sifted through electronic data spreadsheets, although it was Wells who had done most of that. Horse felt the numbers just told them what they already knew, but as an administrator Wells knew that not every teacher drew such logical conclusions from the obvious. Some, like Jones, took avoidance for creative boredom. Thus, he insisted on the meetings. As the official on record, he now flipped through a file before speaking.

"Next is Jacob Pueblo. What do we know?"

Not looking up from the magazine he was reading, Horse replied, "He's a plagiarist."

"Can we drop it?" Jones insisted. He'd been waiting for this very remark, knowing Jacob's file was slowly rising to the top. After Horse had left his room that day, Jones had looked into it and found it to be true: Jacob Pueblo was a plagiarist. Comparing the report to the book, it was a word-for-word translation. There was no way to spin it. "I agree."

And Jones thought it was his fault. He'd failed. And if it hadn't been for Horse he would never have known, and Jacob would have gone off to eighth grade and high school with another corner cut. But what to do? Jones had thought. Sitting in the little chairs of an elementary school library, Jones was at a loss. For a month he had worked with Jacob—trusted him—even as the kid came back with Nelson Mandela as his American hero. Jones worked with that. In the end, it was for naught. The kid had lied.

Lied.

As Jones sat in the library, a student's hand-drawn poster of Clifford the Big Red Dog looking down at him, he became angry. But he couldn't muster his anger at Jacob—the boy who lied—and so instead focused on Horse: the bearer of news, the messenger, the speaker of truth. 'Throw more hatred on the fire,' he thought.

And exhaled.

He knew it was pointless. Horse was right; Jacob had cheated. Horse was right; Nelson Mandela was not an American hero. The whole thing was stupid. Jones knew. But he would not admit it, even to himself. Instead, he waited for Jacob's file to make its way to the top.

'Then it would be done,' he thought.

But Horse was not done.

"And an expert on Nelson Mandela," he said.

Wells ignored him. "And, from his test scores, struggles with reading and writing."

"These numbers are just a snapshot," Jones said.

Both Wells and Horse looked up; one from the file, the other from a magazine. "He doesn't struggle with reading and writing?" Wells asked.

"And I'll guess math, too," Horse added.

"Stop!" Jones demanded.

"And ethics..." As his voice faded, Horse's eyes returned to his reading.

Ignoring him, Jones said to Wells, "Look, we can't make up for what's missing elsewhere."

Which pulled Horse from his magazine. "We have them six hours a day, one-hundred and eighty days a year. We can't teach them to read to the seventh grade level in that time?"

"Some kids aren't meant for college."

"I know of a few students," Wells replied, "who aren't meant for seventh grade."

This was his lifeline to Jones; a message to drop it now or be left to Horse's sanctimonious verbal wrath. Jones, he knew, was not a bad teacher. 'We all make mistakes,' he thought. These meetings—these painful meetings where, grade by grade, Wells dragged teachers to a table and confronted them with data that has nothing to do with personal connections but skills—were supposed to be the starting line where the best laid plans are created.

Instead, everyone fought the last battle over. Too late.

Jones's body was rigid and he stared at Horse. Wells knew that Horse understood the intent behind the principal's last comment. Back off.

Surprisingly, Horse got up and left the room.

After the door closed, Wells turned to Jones. "Do you know the key to good teaching?"

Sarcastically, he replied, "Please, tell me."

"Know your subject. Fuel up on coffee. Throw in a good fart joke."

"That's it?"

Jones rose from the table and headed towards the door.

"It works for Horse." Wells began gathering up the files. He had gotten through more than half of the students, which, all told, was pretty good in a single sitting. Pulling out his calendar he wondered when he would be able to schedule a meeting to cover the rest. Seventh grade was a critical year: one more year of babying and then they are thrown, ready or not, to the wilds of high school. Then Wells added, "Of course, he knows his subject quite well. And he tells a good fart joke."

But Jones was already gone.

"Are you going to drop it?" Wells asked.

"Drop what?"

His friend looked at Horse. The teacher looked small behind his desk, correcting the papers he hadn't gotten to the night before. After circling a few poorly executed transitions, he looked up.

"No," he said, and then returned to work.
CHAPTER 21

Police have been unable to identify the body...

So went the radio, as Horse listened to VPR in the passenger seat of Well's Saab. In the trunk were his four rims, now with all-season tires on them.

'Who is it, then?' he wondered.

"What do you know about Peter's mother?"

"Not much. Why?"

"I thought that since you were so friendly with people's mothers you might know something..."

Wells slammed on the brakes: another car nearly rear-ended them. Behind the wheel, he fumed.

The affair had been a low point in his life. When Amanda's mother, Sonya, had moved to northern Vermont it had been under duress. The father had gotten a good job in sales at Smuggler's Notch Ski Resort, forcing the family to relocate. Sonya came for them. Having grown up in Newport, she had left the state with purpose—the purpose being to get out of Vermont and away from her abusive family. Sonya had met Wells in college, and became casual friends in the way that people become friends in college—through happenstance and with little conviction. Both were Vermonters, and they sometimes shared long car rides back and forth. Still, they fell out of touch even before graduation and carried on with their lives. Missing northern Vermont, Wells wound up in Grace Haven, nearly a thirty-minute drive from his childhood home. Sonya fell in love with Tim and they settled just outside of Philadelphia.

Economic times fell hard on Tim's sales job, and he was out of work for several months when the Smuggs' position opened up. In a demonstration on how little he knew about his wife, he had assumed returning to Vermont would be a welcome change. It wasn't. A successful office manager in a steel fabrication plant, Sonya liked her life. Her role was clearly defined, had a lot of responsibilities, and she punched out every day at five. Having taken a break for the birth of Amanda, she was even more attached to her position when the leave ended. In fact, Tim's unemployment had shifted the responsibility of Amanda onto him, allowing her more time to focus on work. She was happy.

Then, suddenly, she was back in Vermont.

Turmoil has a way of masking a deeper discord in a relationship. Between the child and careers neither Sonya nor Tim realized they had grown apart. Different interests, they might have said if they would have thought about it. But neither thought about the other much, which was another problem.

When offered the job at Smuggs, Tim took it. He had assumed Sonya would follow. A manager of her skill and experience, he figured, could land a job at IBM or other facilities. On the night Tim told her of the offer, and his acceptance, Sonya sat at her dining room table and began to plan. Part of what made her a good manager was the ability, in the midst of a crisis, to take a breath, stop, and plan. Taking a discarded envelope from the recycling—that New England thrift part of her brain always on—she mapped out her desires.

In the end, Tim was the unknown factor. 'Do I love him,' she thought. She didn't know. One option was to let him go, but another factor was their child. She didn't want to be a single mother, nor did she want to give up Amanda. With scratches and lines and boxes and diamonds Sonya sketched out a flow chart that mapped out the costs and benefits of her various decisions. Despite loving her job and access to the city, she decided to keep her family.

She moved to Vermont.

IBM was flooding the employment market by laying off managers, while other manufacturing facilities closed. She had ideas for a new business making baseball bats from maple, but nothing beyond the planning stage. Now that she was an hour away, her mother expected her to visit regularly "to see my grandchild." There was little to do, and sales forced Tim to work odd hours. She liked sleeping in with him on those weekdays when he had to work late, and using the Smuggs' pool and spa through the family employee pass, but after a few months she got restless.

And the cold.

She had forgotten the cold. A decade in the mid-Atlantic states had softener her resolve, or changed her blood, or something... but now she was cold all of the time. The spring seemed damp to her, while fall found her starting up the woodstove long before the houses around her. 'I hate it,' she thought one evening, reading a magazine and waiting for Tim to come home. Their house was too rural to have cable, she missed choosing between fifteen different cafes for her morning coffee, and it was too cold.

Coming home from a torturous family visit in Newport, Sonya ran into Wells.

"Hi."

They made small talk and exchanged numbers. Bored, she called. They met. He was someone that thought about something other than snow and skiing and things Vermont. It wasn't love, she knew, just... not Tim. Not Vermont. Not really.

The affair had been brief. Six months. His house was warm, and the affair kept the early darkness at bay. After town meeting day, she broke it off. For a few years Sonya and Tim and Amanda muddled forward as a family. Some jobs came about, with Sonya managing an animal shelter and then a hospice. Tim got a better job at Jay Peak and they moved to a house in Grace Haven. Pulling another tossed envelope out of the recycling, she again began to plan her future.

A week later, she was diagnosed with cancer.

In less than a year, she was dead.

'Poor Amanda,' Wells had thought at the time. The educator in him thought of the child before his own heart, which had been toyed with. He had let it, even though he knew it was going nowhere. Now there was this child. Amanda had been moved a few times in her young life, lived with parents who struggled to love each other, a father with an erratic work schedule, and in the end watched her mother waste away.

Poor Amanda.

Ironically, this entire affair had seen Horse on his best behavior. He had said nothing. When Amanda was placed in his classroom, Horse fixed her. It had been hard, as Wells sat across from Tim on a weekly basis—sometimes daily—and chatted about Sonya. Tim would break down—as the husband he was allowed to mourn—and Wells would keep his brave face. Wells mourned a friend, but was afraid to show even that in fear that Tim and Amanda's image of Sonya would be soiled. Horse did nothing to rock that boat.

'So why was it coming up now?'

They sat a few minutes. Having pulled off the road, Wells now had turned off the engine. It made a clicking noise as the metal adjusted, and a cold air began to permeate the glass. The windows began to fog.

"I'm sorry," Horse said.

Turning on the engine, Wells turned the car around and headed back to the school.

That's where the files on Peter were.

Horse knew information about the mother was in there, too.

The files were spread across the long table in the administrative conference room. In the entire school, only the light in that room, Wells' office, and the hallway leading to the room were on. Gone for the day were Sally and Phil, the maintenance staff that grunted a friendly goodbye when Wells would leave for the night.

"There's not much here," Wells said.

"A car crash," Horse muttered.

"I remember it. Peter was in kindergarten when it happened."

Hmmm, Horse hummed. 'That's when the happy photographs began,' he thought. Change of heart? Father decides to make up for the loss of the mother?

All three of them were in the car. The mother was driving. Peter was okay, but the father was pretty banged up. There was a six-month recovery, he remembered. Peter only missed a few days of school, which had surprised Wells. Some family member took care of Peter until Dan was able to take over. That was why he remembered it; in such cases, the kid often left the school for a while. A family member had come and lived with them. Peter's transition was pretty smooth, all things considered.

"Did the crash cause any trauma?" Horse asked.

"No. He was squirrelly before." Squirrelly. Had he not been so absorbed in the file Horse would have commented on the word. For Wells, such archaic terms served as substitutes for rougher, colorful ones that were used with ease by everyone in the region but not allowed to educators. Gallows humor around the staff table had a way of slipping out in more public settings, so Wells had made himself careful on this. "If anything, the year following his mother's death was calming."

'If he was abused,' Horse thought, 'perhaps it was the mother.' With the source of the trauma gone, he might relax a bit and heal.

"How is Dan with the kid?" Horse asked.

"Fine." Wells looked at the papers spread across the table. "I don't see him much, so I can't really say. Usually we only know otherwise when it affects school."

The two continued to look at the files for another hour, but they didn't reveal much more. Horse knew he needed more information.

And he knew where to get it.

CHAPTER 22

Trooper Danielson let out a sigh designed to show impatience and disappointment.

It was something he'd picked up in his years in police work, a tic that would push others to get in line and help him. Science historian Thomas Kuhn wrote that one of the more important things undergraduates learn is to "wear the labcoat." It was something Horse had spoken about years prior, but that Danielson absorbed more than remembered. While college classes taught him about criminal justice, his professors and colleagues taught him to think and act like a law enforcement officer. At the academy his already neat, close shorn hair became more uniform. He stood straighter. Over time, the clothes he wore at home became less and less distinguishable from his work uniform. His apprenticeship was over: this sigh was second nature, designed to put Horse in a place of gratitude for what he was about to share.

"Look," Horse said, "if you can't share it..."

The trooper shrugged, but still held the file close.

"You're not going to make me feel indebted."

The two sat on opposite sides of a table in a spartan room in the troopers' station. Between them lay a file.

"The mother was driving. She had her seatbelt on. The father did not."

Horse noticed that throughout his sharing the trooper never said the name of anyone involved. Every reference was "the mother" or "the father." Either Danielson thought it made everything sound official, or it kept up the thin veil of keeping to confidentiality. In the end, Horse figured it allowed him to keep an emotional distance from the accident and whatever might be brewing now.

'And keep his distance from me,' he thought approvingly.

"And the child?" he said aloud.

"Belted in." Danielson flipped open the file as if to remind him of the details, but the trooper already knew them. He didn't have a photographic memory, but one that intuitively discerned important details and organized those in a way that allowed immediate access. After a pause he said, "The boy was fine. The father was banged up pretty bad, but lived. Six months of rehabilitation, during which the boy lived with a relative. The mother died. Paramedics found her dead at the scene."

"And the boy was how old..."

"Five," Danielson said, anticipating the question.

Horse looked at an upside-down photo of the crash scene. It sat atop the open file in front of Danielson; a car with a tree where the engine should have been. There was a lot of broken glass. And blood. As it was night, a strong flash was used. Combined with the halogen lights the police had set up, it was a picture of contrasts; bright shining trim and dark interiors.

"Cause?"

"Driver error."

"Which means no one really knows."

"Less than ten miles from home. Fatigue does not seem to be a factor."

"Alcohol?"

"The mother. No. Not a drink. No drugs. No cough medicine. Stone cold sober." Danielson touched the file, moving it an inch. A playful look crossed his face. "On the other hand, the father was dead drunk."

"Not quite dead."

"No. Not quite. He says he was asleep. Passed out, really."

"Any chance he crashed it, and then switched places with the mom?"

"No. They had to cut her out of it." Danielson flipped through the file to a photo, looked at it, but didn't show it to Horse. "He was a passenger. A very drunk passenger. It might have been his relaxed state that saved him."

"So, the mother is dead and the father is in a long recovery at the hospital."

"Correct."

"Who is the relative?"

At that point, Danielson pulled out a second file. It was thin. Opening it on top of the already opened crash file, it held only a few pieces of paper. One was a print out of a mug shot with fingerprints below it. There were also printouts of a computer file, and as they seemed never to have been handled Horse figured Danielson had printed them out for him. He looked at the tab of the folder and noted that it was blank; this was a file that only existed because Horse had asked Danielson for information, he knew. For all intents in purposes, it doesn't exist..

"Phil Plowman."

"He has a record," Horse said.

"Three years ago. Upstate New York, near Buffalo. He was picked up for meth. The original charge was distribution and sales, but it was knocked down to possession. He got out after two years for good behavior and for entering their rehab program. It was his first offense. And he came up clean for every drug test."

"Sounds like he was scared straight.

Danielson looked skeptical, but kept this thoughts to himself.

"Plowman."

"The mother's maiden name was Plowman," Danielson offered.

"Her brother?" Horse asked.

"Correct."

"So, the dead mother's brother took care of the son while the father was in the hospital recovering?"

"Correct."

Horse thought a moment. While he did so, Danielson moved the brother's file off the crash file so that they sat side by side. Open.

"Coffee?" Danielson asked.

"Yes," Horse replied, still deep in thought. "Thanks," he added as Danielson rose from the table.

For all of his training and officiousness, Danielson had left the files open on the table. When the door shut, Horse half-stood, leaned over the table and began to read upside-down.

"So, Ms. James, you are concerned that your son, Miles, is not receiving the grade he deserves..." Wells began.

"Miles is receiving the grade he deserves," Horse said before Ms. James could open her mouth. Wells had opened an opening large enough for a school bus to drive through, and Horse had no interest in allowing her to drive through it. It had felt to Horse as if the day would never end. When he went to bed at night he felt cold and lonely. Waking alone to a cold house, his condition sank in. That particular morning, every action reinforced this; from the coffee maker to the snow crunching under his boots, everything echoed a distinctive, remote sound. Students complained at every turn, including his decision to not assign homework that afternoon. He didn't care enough to argue, which brought more protest. Now sat Ms. James arguing the irrefutable fact that her son was lazy. 'Her problem, Horse thought, 'was that she was arguing the wrong point.'

"Your concern is that he's not receiving the grade you think he's capable of. And you're right."

"What he means is that with a little motivation..."

"He's lazy. I call him on it. Of course he's scared; he knows I'm right."

"I think what he means is that he could work harder."

"What I mean is that he's lazy. It's the same type of attitude where you think that receiving the grade he deserves and his not meeting his potential are the same thing. He is getting the grade he deserves. That grade shows that he is either lazy or stupid. I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and go with lazy."

Wondering if he should intervene, Wells sat. He knew he should do something, say something. Twice he had tried already, and Horse had cut him off. Horse was digging a hole. Today, the old man was feeling suicidal. Wells had seen it before, but today he had little desire to save him. Of course, Horse was right. Of course, Ms. James would complain and argue and a month from now the kid's grades would go up and both Horse and the mom would think they did it, no thanks to the other. Before him sat two angry people that seemed to care more than the kid did. 'Certainly more than I do,' Wells thought. Today, Wells wanted to go home and have a drink. He saw that Horse was ready to take a breath.

".... Now that I've met you, I think I'm right. Your statement that he's not getting the grade he deserves is lazy thinking. The sign of a lazy mind. I guess it's a family trait."

'Now I have to get involved," Wells thought.

"I'm sure he's not saying it as it sounds..."

"I'm saying he's learned bad habits, and when he breaks them his grades will improve."

The energy expended, the three sink into a more traditional parent-teacher meeting. Spreadsheets and gradebooks were taken out, and people nod at specifics said. The important things had already been stated. It was time to think. Before Ms. James left the room some amends had been made. No apologies, but through overwhelming data Horse had demonstrated that his assessment is not a personal dislike of young Miles, but as much of a fact as one gets in education. As she disappeared down the hallway, Wells closed the door behind her.

"That could have gone better."

"She'll go home and take it out on the kid. He'll work harder and he'll get the grade he deserves. It'll all work itself out."

"And I have to sit in front of the school board defending not firing you while it does. Ms. James is married to Mr. James, the new board member..."

"That is not my problem."

"Neither is Peter Johnson, but look at you now."

'There's no denying it,' Horse thought.

"Here's what I know," he said.

Pulling out a student chair, Wells sat down at a desk. With a pencil and paper pilfered from a student's stash he was prepared to take notes.

Horse begins. "First, that the kid had early childhood trauma before the accident."

"We know that because of the hypervigilantism," Wells confirmed.

"Yes. But who did it? Can we assume violence? Would that be domestic violence, or something else? And to whom?"

"Do you think Peter..."

"I don't know." Horse went to the window. "Second, Mom is driving and crashes the car. No alcohol. She's wearing a seatbelt. The husband is not. He got banged up pretty bad, but survived."

"So we don't know the cause of the crash." Along with the earlier unknowns, he writes this down.

"No, only the result. And that Dad's drunk."

"How'd he get into the car?"

"He's drunk, not asleep. Yet. We can assume that Mom is rational. She belts her child in tight, and then herself. By why not Dad?"

"She's afraid of him."

"Or, she's a libertarian. I think fear is more likely."

The two fall into silence.

"It could be," Wells said, "that Dad's a drunk. Because of that, she's been trained to let him be. Seat belt or no seat belt, she just leaves him to his own devices to avoid him in general."

"Where were they going?" Horse asked, mostly to himself. Wells writes it on his list of questions.

"Have you spoken to anyone about the kind of person Dan was before the crash?" Wells asked.

"No, but I know who to talk to."

CHAPTER 23

"You're back," Laporte said, not looking very surprised.

He stood by his truck as Horse approached from his little car, sporting the four all season tires. The parking lot was crammed with private vehicles—pick-up trucks mostly—ill parked in the dirt and gravel patch that surrounded the office. There is no room for most cars, but Horse had managed to find two trucks that have misjudged the distance between each other enough to slip in his Festiva. With barely enough room to squeeze through the space between his door and the frame, he turned and saw Laporte waiting for him.

Spring thaw had finally come. The walk across the parking lot was a muddy mess.

"I have a question," Horse replied.

"Of course you do." With workpants and jacket lined for bracing cold, and insulated boots, Laporte hardly noticed the wind that was whipping as the sun retreated beyond the trees. "I thought we were done with questions?"

"I thought that was just friendly advice," Horse replied.

Laporte smiled in a way that indicated it would be the last smile Horse saw from him.

"I'm trying to figure out the kid..." Horse began.

"Drop it." The command stopped Horse cold. The two stood squared off against each other, eyes locked. "I feel for the kid, but what's all of that going to do for him now? Just drop it."

'There's something to drop,' Horse thought.

"So Dan was doing something below board." It was a statement. Horse did not lower his gaze.

Laporte's face didn't show a thing.

Instead, he said, "There's a little corner cutting in any operation."

Encouraged, Horse asked, "Is this corner cutting or an extra source of income?"

Moving in slightly closer, Horse remembered that Laporte had a good two inches on him. The contractor was also a broad man. And he lifted heavy things every day, giving him muscles a classroom teacher would never have.

Horse took a step forward.

"As I said, there's a little corner cutting in any operation." Then Laporte looked away. "The thing about the building industry is it's a business of booms and busts. During the lean times, we can lay people off but we still have to pay the bank. All of these backhoes and diggers and lifts still need to be paid for. Loans. Insurance..."

"So you diversify."

Laporte looked back at Horse. Looked him in the eye.

Then smiled.

"Yeah," Laporte said. "Diversification. That's the key to survival, right? That's what Darwin said."

Horse added, "Survival of the fittest."

Laporte's face hardened and his eyes narrowed. Without a word, the look alone repeated one of Horse's words back at him: survival.

"I'm guessing Dan hasn't done anything too unseemly," Horse added. "But nothing that would be on the books."

"He's a plumber. Subcontractor."

"Sure," Horse said. "And he lets you sugar in his backyard. You seem to have a cozy relationship."

"Friendship goes a long way where money won't," Laporte answered. His voice slipped back into a salesman's, the bluntness gone. "If you take care of guys, they'll stick with you during lean times. When the machines are idle we've dug septics for the guys or helped with roofs. It's survival for them; get along, even when there's no work or cash. Day to day; that's the business. I've had guys apologize to me when I've laid them off."

"I'm sure Dan was pleased you poked around in the snow to find his body."

"And we found nothing," Laporte snapped. "That body wasn't there when we searched. You were there."

"I was with you."

"So were the state police." Laporte smiled and said, "Look. I've got a business here. I get through the lean times. I'll admit that to you. Asking the state police to help isn't smart. Asking thirty guys—even your own employees—to keep a secret never works. I'm sure a body—a body of someone they worked with—wouldn't be kept a secret for long. I'm smart enough to know this. I'm not clever enough to hide a body in plain sight. We're digging holes and dumping cement all the time."

Horse looked him up and down. "You're clearly that smart."

"Smart enough to know that snow melts." Laporte scratched his chin. Darkness was starting to take for real, and the halogen lights of the parking lot kicked in. "Here's my advice. You want to find someone without that type of forethought. Someone was either desperate who just stuck it out there, or didn't think about the thaw."

"Or didn't care."

"Maybe he just died out there." For a moment Laporte looked tired. "Who the hell is that guy, anyway? Some homeless guy? Maybe he's a Long Trail hiker who got lost?"

Looking over Laporte's shoulder at the office, Horse asked, "Did Dan help you get through the lean times?"

"I wouldn't send thirty men over, paid, if he wasn't important to me."

"Who is the frozen guy?" Horse asked.

Laporte looked around. "Do they still teach that in school anymore? Survival of the fittest? Darwin? Evolution?"

"We don't need to," Horse replied. "Up here, we live it."

"Well," Laporte said, turning his back. He began to walk towards the trailer, but called over his shoulder. "That's your answer."

"Scratch Laporte," Horse told Wells as a greeting.

As Wells took a seat, he wondered why he was there—as colleague or friend. As principal, he spent too much of his time watching Horse's back. 'He might be a good teacher,' Wells often thought, 'but not irreplaceable.'

As a friend...

The two found themselves at the Snow Shoe Lodge with a couple of locally brewed pints of Scottish ale in front of them. Remote enough that it was both a skiers' bar serving Jay Peak and also a hangout for locals, it had the ambience of a basement with the first floor accessibility. A dark hole, it was lit by strings of aged Christmas lights, several of the bulbs winked out. Double diamond and other mountain signs brought by lift operators and ski instructors in exchange for free pints were nailed to the wall, along with various beer promotional posters. Both Horse and Wells were glad no local band was blatting in the background; a photocopied flyer on the door had threatened as much. Only three others were in the room, two huddled in a dark corner not talking to each other. It was late for a Tuesday—ten o'clock—and Horse and Wells sat at the bar. Their bartender was restocking the back room and occasionally checked in to see "if everything was okay."

"You saw him and still have your teeth," Wells noted.

"I think he realized I wasn't going to be intimidated." Horse lifted his pint, but put it down without drinking. "So, he was honest enough to make me go away."

"Are you going away?"

"From Laporte?" This time Horse took a sip. The head was long gone, as he had been waiting for Wells for nearly an hour.

"Everything all right?" the bartender asked.

"I'm waiting for someone," he had replied. For most of the interval he had gotten a combination of queer and dismissive looks. "I don't care what Laporte does," he added after a time.

Wells did not mention that Laporte Contracting was scheduled to do the roofing on the school that summer, or that several Grace Union Community School parents were Laporte employees. It wasn't relevant—to Horse. Inside, Wells felt relief. He would have a contractor and a friend and not need to compromise a thing. Floating new construction bids would have delayed the job another year, causing all sorts of complications. Horse's answer wasn't a guarantee not to stir the pot, but it was as close as he gave.

"So what does this mean, now?" It was the principal's turn to take a sip.

"Identify the body," Horse said as the bartender passed.

She was in her forties, her hair had understated highlights and hung to her shoulders. A blue T-shirt peeked out of her gray sweater—which Horse guessed to be Woolrich—and she wore men's jeans. Eyes green; the green ink of an old tattoo peeked out of her collar. Watching her for an hour before Wells arrived, Horse noted that she didn't smile more or less than other bartenders he had known. Her conversation was minimal with chatter, which suited him fine.

Wrestling a case of Budweiser bottles through the narrow space between the bar and the back wall, she dropped it onto two other cases.

"Gret, here, was telling me that they stock Budweiser for the skiers from New Jersey who thought they'd like local stuff, but realized they're pretty limited so order Bud." The bartender—Gret—straightened her back and looked at Horse and then at Wells."I think that's just bias against tourists."

"What would I have against tourists?" Gret asked with a detached smile.

Then, she turned to grab another case of beer, this one Coors Light.

"It's an easy joke. The kind of thing a bartender might say night after night to make locals feel okay."

"You're not local."

"I don't think you want me to feel okay."

"Not anymore."

Horse turned to Wells. "What do you see on the walls?"

Wells looked and shrugged—it seemed like any other bar to him, with ski paraphernalia instead of the sports or college crap you might find elsewhere.

"Specials." Horse looked above the bar where a series of cheap posters exclaimed Bud Light Monday Special and Heineken Thursday. "Someone who spends hundreds of dollars to get all the way to the Canadian border is not going to skimp a few bucks. That's for the locals. The regulars. The people who pay in quarters."

Gret began to stock the cooler with the contents of the boxes she'd been throwing around. "That's a nice theory," she said, not bothering to look up. "And you might be right about the easy joke. But most of the tourists are good for one local beer, and then they return to the familiar." Horse watched as she grabbed three bottles with each hand. "But the locals like the familiar, too. And local is familiar. That's what they drink."

"What about us?" Wells looked down at his pint.

"In limbo." Putting the empty box aside, she opened the next and continued to fill the cooler in front of them. "Local in name only."

"He's a Hardwick boy," Horse said, mocking.

Gret said nothing about that, but instead added, "Cheap is cheap. People who buy specials have no loyalty because they can't afford it. That's what those signs are for." Then, she went into the back room before emerging again with another case of Corona. She dropped it onto two other cases and said, "Before, were you talking about the frozen guy in Grace Haven?" she asked.

"Probably." Horse ran the tip of his index finger on the edge of the glass. "Did they find another one?"

"No." She straightened her back and looked him in the eye. "But I know that one."

"How do you know? I didn't think they had a name."

"They released a sketch on the news, asking for help."

Looking up at the television, Horse noticed it was on one of the local stations. Mute. Most of the bars had their televisions tuned to ESPN. Then he noticed a second television, also tuned to the local station. Noticing his gaze she said, "I like the local channels. When it's slow, that's what we watch."

"You're the boss."

"Did you call?" Wells asked.

"No." She turned and bent over the boxes. "I don't know his name," she said, her back to them. Horse eyed it. Working in a bar had given her muscles, he noted to himself. "Or much about him. He came here time and again."

"Did you know anything about him?" Horse asked.

"He was a plumber," she said. Putting the last of the bottles that would fit in the cooler, she closed its door and, still bent over, she looked up at Horse. "He'd come by after a job that sent him up this way. A lot of people here do their own work, so there are not a lot of real plumbers in the phone book. Not that people can't do it themselves. But you get a lot of cob jobs. When it's serious, they call someone who knows what they're doing."

"When did you see him last?"

She turned to Wells. "Oh, last fall." Then she returned to her job, ripping open another case. Bud Light, which she didn't do anything with. "He was working on an old inn up in Troy that was being renovated."

"It sounds like you remember a lot."

"Is it a bartender thing?" Wells asked.

"No. He felt sick. Said his head was spinning. He said he was using his torch a lot in small spaces; something he doesn't do much but he was trying to get the job done quick and make it in a single day. He needed to get back to his kid, I guess. Anyway, I remember because he puked all over the entrance." She looked at the one door. "I think he tried to make it outside."

"And failed?" Horse smirked.

"Three pints and a bucket of wings." The bartender laughed, followed by a frown when she remembered she was the one who had cleaned it up.

"At least he drove home sober," Wells added.

Then there was nothing else to say. After puttering with the final case—Coors Light, there was no room in the coolers—she returned to the back room. Horse looked at his half pint, while Wells tipped back his second.

"Are you going back to Laporte's?"

Wells placed his empty glass on his coaster.

"I just have one more question."

With that, Wells called to the back room an order of one for the road.

Jesus, Laporte thought as he looked out the window of his office and saw Horse crossing the parking lot.

It was late—after midnight—and Laporte was bent over his desk crunching numbers. The contractor rarely slept. Some people are successful businessmen because of their competent work. Others are able to work financial wizardry. Laporte liked to socialize. Everyone knew him. When wealthy second home owners, businessmen, or civic leaders talking about "knowing a guy" or "keeping the job local" they were thinking of him. His handshake was inviting. On the other end, he took care of the little guys. He had no trouble getting his employees to stay late or work a few hours off the clock; during tough times he'd float some hours their way, or extend benefits to cover a sick kid.

But more important than that, he knew everyone's name. Laporte knew their family members, and asked about them. What made him a successful businessman was that he knew which family members to ask about, and which to breeze over during small talk. And he did it all day. Constantly. So much so that, after everyone went home, that was when he did his own work. Now, after midnight, Horse was able to find him here, at the office.

Laporte grunted as he got up from his chair and went to the door.

"You knew the dead guy," Horse accused, meeting him on the stairs leading into the building. Laporte stood on the stoop, towering above the teacher.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Laporte growled. The man was tired and feeling irritable.

"Did you watch the news?"

"No."

The two stood still, sizing the other up.

"The body was a plumber," Horse said. "He had worked on the renovation of an inn up near Troy. Breathed some fumes."

Laporte's face showed no recognition, not because he didn't know anything but because it was hardened. Situations such as these were ones the contractor excelled at. Even in childhood Laporte had faced down teachers and his father as they accused him of things—cheating, stealing, and the usual boy mischief. These had been formidable personalities, especially for a young boy to take on. He never backed down. Some of those acts he was guilty of, but mostly he was protecting others. Loyalty was a value Laporte learned at an early age, and it had paid well as an adult. His instincts were not going to stop now.

Horse knows, he thought.

But his face gave nothing away.

"Now he's dead."

"I don't know any plumber," Laporte said.

"I thought Dan was your plumber?" An accusation more than a question.

"He's one."

"Did you do work on an inn in Troy?"

"Honestly," Laporte said, face loosening. "I don't remember." At that moment, he knew he was innocent. This had nothing to do with him. "Check with my secretary," he said.

But Horse knew that wouldn't turn up anything. He could read Laporte's face.

"Look," Laporte said. "I don't care about any of this. I care about my business, and what affects it. I'm not covering anything up. But, now, all of your questions are starting to get attention. That hurts business." Turning to go back inside, he said, "Either check with Sally or get lost."
CHAPTER 24

Dan peeked out the window to see who was at the front door. Saturday was a quiet day for him, with Peter cleaning his room after the two of them had had a late breakfast of pancakes. He drunk from his first cup of coffee and craned his neck to see what car might be parked on the road. There was no car in the driveway, but he doubted that anything without four- wheel drive could get up it without getting stuck.

Three feet of snow became two. Everything was mud.

'I'll need another load of gravel dumped,' he thought.

Fifteen years ago, when he had cleared the land for the house, the skidders and Laporte's heavy trucks had turned up the ground pretty well. Between them and logging, digging and pouring the foundation, and hauling in the materials, there was no question it would be years before the land would settle down. Although the house was on a small hill, the soil was soft and the water had turned everything to mud. Those first years, Dan had ordered at least five trucks of gravel. It had held for a while, but that had been a decade ago. Whether another load had been dumped in the meantime, he didn't know. He figured he was going to be parking his truck at the bottom of the driveway until mud season ended.

And Dan figured he'd have to go downstairs and answer the door, before Peter heard the ring and did it himself.

His stomach turned as he descended the stairs. He knew it wasn't the coffee, but a need for resolution. 'It doesn't help, though,' he thought, looking down at the black brew in his hand. Coffee and pancakes. 'At least there were no police lights,' he thought. That's something.

Walking down the hall to the front door, he thought about slipping on shoes but then decided it was unnecessary. 'Why bother?' Why ruin a nice morning by getting dressed for the day? Comfortable in worn sweatpants and a gray wool sweater, he had no interest in fighting what might come next—of suiting up for another day of battle. Fate was going to have to accept him dressed like this, in white socks. His and Peter's shoes were lined up by the back door, waiting. It had taken him a while to get used to the "no shoes in the house" rule, but Peter had insisted.

Everything was for Peter.

Resigned, he pulled on the knob.

For the last time, Horse stood on Dan's stoop. He had rung the doorbell once, but hesitated doing so again.

Give him time.

There were not so much signs of spring, but of the end of snow. The roads had been wet, and Dan's dirt and gravel driveway was soup. Horse hadn't even tried it, but instead parked on the road and walked up the middle of the driveway; it had been graded once and water ran into the ruts and side ditching. Around the house the snow looked like tired shaving cream. Drops of cold water fell from the edge of the roof, drilling a line of small holes across the ice on the stoop. This was the time of year when things melted, and froze, and melted again. Sheets of ice lay below puddles, making for treacherous walking and an excessive use of sand. As the Johnsons used the backdoor to get to the barn and the truck, no one had bothered much with the front. Only Horse and their neighbor had used it, both strangers.

He heard the sound of muffled feet tromping down the stairs and figured Dan was in socks. The steps were too heavy for Peter, and the hyper kid would have taken them two at a time, twice as fast. Horse braced himself for the confrontation.

'How to do it,' he had wondered on the drive over.

When he left Wells two nights ago, there were a lot of missing bits of information. Laporte did little to fill them in, but eliminated a few others ideas. Horse's main concern was not the mystery, but the boy.

Was he safe?

Waiting for the knob to turn, Horse tried to keep that—not the puzzle—foremost in his mind.

"It's you," Dan said, but hardly looked surprised.

Resignation, Horse thought. I could shoot him now with a crossbow and he'd look less surprised.

"Can I come in?" the teacher asked.

Dan moved aside without a word.

"Coffee?" he asked, and Horse nodded.

The two made their way to the kitchen. Pouring a cup, they exchanged perfunctory pleasantries about how the coffee would be taken, and then they sat at the table.

"This will be my last visit," Horse said.

"I thought your last visit was your last visit," replied Dan. It was said without much enthusiasm; more of a reflexive response.

"You are Dan's father." It wasn't a question, but a statement; a point from which the rest of Horse's discussion would be built on.

"Yes."

"So, who is the man in the snow?"

Dan said nothing to this, but it was clear that he knew.

"Let me fill in a few other things, to see if I can figure it out."

Dan nodded.

"First, you know who the guy in the snow is." Horse looked at Dan, but the father made no sign either way. "You had nothing to do with his death."

Eyes still fixed at a point far away, Dan's face relaxed a bit.

"You used to work for Laporte," Horse said. "I'm guessing it was something illegal..."

"Drugs," Dan blurted out.

"Drugs," Horse repeated.

"I've sold drugs since high school," Dan said. His voice was a bit monotone, as he was mentally elsewhere and lacking enthusiasm. "Mostly Ritalin. I got it for my ADHD, or what they thought was ADHD, and I sold it. And some pot. I'd buy it in a big quantity from some guys who graduated a few years earlier with the Ritalin money. Then I broke it into dime bags and sold it at school. Sometimes at the college." Dan laughed. "I got a job delivering pizza, but I'd make my money selling dime bags at the same time. The tips were gas money.

"When I got a job swinging a hammer for Laporte, I sold drugs from the site. Small amounts. Enough for a night. You know, like buying a six pack after work. We worked a number of crew from out of state, and their guys had too much downtime between shifts and no local source."

"So, you were it?"

"It was petty stuff," Dan said. "I did some speed, too. When it came my way."

"How often was that?"

"Drugs used to be no pressure around here." Dan took a sip and looked out the window. "No pressure. Maybe it was that hippie vibe left over; you know how it is around here. A generation of rednecks grew up with the idea that a little fun wasn't bad. Cops didn't care. I'd buy a pound here and there, and sometimes the guys would have a shipment of speed from Canada. Or not. It was like going to the grocery store."

"And then Laporte found out?"

"He took a cut, but mostly looked the other way. I guess he could have taken advantage of the situation, but he didn't."

"It sounds like the whole operation was getting pretty big. Certainly larger than a few pizzas."

"Supplies were easy. And with Laporte giving me access to more sites, moving it was easy, too. The money was good enough to pay his bills when things were lean, and I was set up to take the fall if the law got involved."

"Did it?"

"No," Dan said. Then he added, "... not then."

"How big was your dealing?" Horse asked.

"It paid for this house," Dan replied. "The other guys... They live in trailers or rent, but I was able to buy this bit of land and a house."

"So, this wasn't petty stuff..."

"It grew with Laporte. He got bigger contracts, and we worked on bigger projects with more companies. I shifted around from site to site. First, I'd get in and swing my hammer or whatever and make friends. Then, I'd be a source. A week later, I'd do the same at a new site. On Tuesdays I'd swing past the old sites with new supplies."

"Is that a euphemism?"

"Kind of." Dan took a sip of his coffee, which Horse was sure was cold by now. "After Laporte discovered my activities and cut himself in, I was allowed to call some of the shots. I was no longer a dumb kid selling pot, scratching a living on dime bags. Laporte and I, we were both businessmen. Smart. When a new site opened, I'd swing the hammer and carry stuff, do whatever got me into conversations where I'd be asked to share a beer after the shift. Then, I'd have Laporte make me one of the supply delivery guys. On the books, I'd drive one of Laporte's trucks to a site with whatever was needed. All of it was above board. Of course, I'd also have a week's worth of drugs."

"What did you sell?"

"Mostly recreational. Pot. It passed the time, and beer gets depressing after a while. It's really boring spending a week where you don't know anyone and there's nothing to do but work. Some guys needed a stimulant, and that varied."

"No meth or heroin?" Horse asked, surprised.

"People on meth or heroin don't last long on a job site. Getting it can be dodgy, and the clients aren't reliable. That's a recipe for someone saving themselves by ratting on you when the cops bust them. No one cared about pot. As I said, it was an after work drug. Like beer. People on speed are industrious; in our industry they take it to get overtime and send money back home. Everyone has a vested interest in keeping their job. I think Laporte accepted what I was doing because he knew it wouldn't affect his business like that other stuff might."

"He didn't want a swarm of DEA agents poking through his garage and office," Horse offered.

"Or going through the files."

Rising from his seat, Dan walked over to the window and looked at the snow melting on the woodpiles. Blue plastic lines still strung from tree to tree, collecting sap for Laporte. Someone had taken away the police tape and the taps were flowing again. He listened for Peter, wanting to spare him from what was coming. Fate. Payment. Above, he could hear the boy knocking around his room. Relaxing his shoulders, he moved to the counter and leaned against it, arms crossed.

"So, the dead body?"

"It wasn't Peter who did it," Dan replied, surprising Horse. His body straightened.

"I didn't think it was."

"Phil fell down the stairs," Dan said matter-of-factly. "He came home, complaining of dizziness... He told Peter he was surprised he was able to drive home. Anyway, when Peter got up the next day, Phil was at the bottom of the stairs. Peter told me it was all wrong. That was what he said, the body was all wrong. Snapped neck, I assume. I don't know. Autopsy will show it, I'm sure."

From his seat, Horse could see the bottom of the stairs. A simple layout, the stairs were a straight shot—fifteen, Horse figured—into a granite slab landing and wall at the bottom.

"Peter was alone," Horse said.

Dan nodded.

"All of these photos," Horse said, scanning the room. "They're all Phil. Phil Plowman."

Again, the father nodded.

Horse thought for a moment. Both were silent. Above, a little bit of rustling to remind them both of the boy.

"Phil is Peter's mother's brother," Horse said at last. "And when she died, and you were laid up in the hospital after the crash, Peter needed someone to look after him. Phil came."

"And by the time I got home," Dan said, "I'd been replaced."

He started crying, quietly.

It was more tears than anything. After a minute, he wiped his nose on the back of his wrist and pulled himself together.

"What happened after the car crash Your wife dead, Phil having replaced you as the man of the house," Horse asked when he thought Dan was ready.

"First of all, I had sobered out." Dan looked up, and then at Horse. "I wasn't sorted out, but I was off drugs for the time being."

"Except medication," Horse added.

"Yeah," Dan thought with a smile. "I guess I was. Anyway, I came home and Phil and Peter had this nice life. I'd just lost my wife. Peter had lost his mom. And this guy is there, being the guy I wanted to be and I flipped out on him." Horse noticed that with the story, Dan was working himself up. For the first time in the conversation, Dan was active, breaking out of his resigned stupor. "We had a fight. An ugly fight."

"So, what happened?"

"Simple. The two of us were shouting in the middle of the living room. Just yelling. And I hit Phil. Hard. It was all anger—I don't know if I was angry at him or me or my life or what but I balled it all up and threw it at the guy. Phil went down. The guy lost his sister. I forgot it was his sister, too. And there he was, for Peter. For his sister, I guess. And we were yelling and I hit him.

"In the middle of it all, Peter told me he liked Phil better. He just blurted it out. Go away, he'd shouted. I like him better. The kid was five. He didn't know what he was saying. Well, he did, but at the time I didn't give a shit. So I punched him in the face."

"Peter?" But Horse knew the answer.

Dan stood, rubbing his right fist with his left hand, a crazed smile on his face. But underneath, the old teacher could see the sadness.

Regret.

"Broke his nose," Dan finally said. "You can still see it. When he comes downstairs, take a look. It never set right."

"Did you take him to a hospital?"

"No. But," Dan was quick to add, "that was Phil's idea. We had broken nearly everything in the house, and Peter was wailing and bleeding all over everything until I finally stopped."

Dan looked at Horse. He needed for the teacher to understand.

"I was always in a rage. I'd been away for six months, and on the first night back I had punched my kid. Broken his nose."

Shaking his head at the memory, Dan cried again.

"That wasn't the first time," Horse said.

"My wife..." he began. "My wife. She's dead because of it. I used to beat the shit out of her. Rage. Break stuff. Those first few years..." Dan didn't bother to fill in the details. "Clients used to come over to our old place. We partied all night. People crashed."

"Not a place to raise a child."

"No," Dan agreed. "I knew that, but couldn't stop. I'd lash out whenever Cora said something about it. Finally, in a rational state and with a wad of cash, I agreed to this house. Cora made me promise none of my 'friends' would visit."

"It didn't work?"

"One night, she got me drunk—which wasn't hard—and then said we needed to get something at the Grand Union. She strapped Peter and herself in. Then, she rammed the car into a tree at sixty miles an hour."

"She tried to kill you?" Horse asked, surprised.

"Yes."

"It could have been an accident."

"No," Dan said. "I've thought about it. I thought about it while I was in the hospital, and I've thought about it more over the years. She never brought me to the Grand Union. It was her respite from my rages. No, she'd usually bundle up Peter and go out until she was sure I'd passed out or left. This time, though, she insisted."

"Still..."

"And she unlatched my seatbelt."

Dan looked a Horse, daring him to rationalize this.

"If I can walk, I latch my seatbelt. My mother beat that idea into me, so that I feel unsafe if I'm not belted in. I need to feel that pressure across my chest. I'm sure I did it."

"Your wife tried to kill you."

"I don't blame her."

Dan did not cry. Staring off into space, he did nothing.

"So, when you came back from the hospital, Cora's brother had it out with you."

"He blamed me for her death," Dan said. "And he was right to. I as good as killed her. I think he came, at first, to confront me about this. And he knew Peter was all that was left of his sister. That she loved Peter. And after six months, he had grown fond of Peter. Don't get me wrong, he was still angry about his sister, but he was mostly protective of his nephew when I came back from the hospital.

"After wiping up Peter's blood, Phil gave me his ultimatum. His main point was to look inside myself. If I loved Peter, he had a plan." Dan laughed, "We switched identities. He became Dan, I became Phil and was told to disappear. We looked enough alike to pull it off. "

"No one noticed?" Horse asked.

"No one cared. I had spoken to Laporte about a job for Phil—he was a licensed plumber—and Laporte fudged some paperwork to put my name on the path towards becoming a licensed plumber, too. Phil could do the job, but needed the legal paperwork as Dan. Me. That took care of his livelihood. He had a house, a car..."

"What did you get?"

"I got Phil's car and his bank account, which had enough money in it to start something elsewhere. I went to upstate New York." Dan scratched his chin. "To be honest, this was me hitting bottom. I wasn't ready to be responsible enough to take care of myself, but I knew I had to minimize what I did to my kid. So I took the deal."

"What if you hadn't?"

"To be honest, I think Phil would've killed me and never thought twice about it. I'd be buried in the backyard, under the compost."

"Is that why you took it?"

"No. I was so out of control with rage..." A look came over his face. Horse noticed that his fists grew tight and his facial muscles became focused. "If I hadn't had a kid, Phil would have been dead. He was on his back and I was ready to stop him when Peter chimed in."

"Without the kid, though..."

"No Phil. I know. Anyway, I did it for Peter." Dan chuckled. "A moment of clarity."

"And now Phil is dead."

"Peter was only five at the time, but his life until then was burned into his memory. When Phil had his accident, Peter didn't want to go back."

"So," Horse said, finishing Dan's thought, "he took care of the body himself."

"He put Phil's body in the freezer. The little guy then paid the bills and managed all of the money. When the thaw came, Peter had planned to bury him out back."

"Under the compost."

Dan nodded.

"How did you come into the picture?"

"Phil's been in jail for the past two years."

Dan gave a weak smile, and raised his right hand lazily to show that it was him in jail, under Phil's alias.

"Drugs. Dealing, knocked down to possession. A plea deal. I got out in January. I thought I needed to tell Phil, in case he ever wanted to get his old life back. I had called a few times, and Peter picked up. I hadn't wanted to get back into his life or complicate things, so I hung up. After a few weeks, something seemed wrong. Phil never answered. I came back."

"Peter must have liked that."

"He was with you."

"He wasn't happy."

"He wasn't home." Dan leaned back in his chair. "I got him to meet me after school. In town. We had pizza. I laid things out. He wanted a home. His home. I guess he wanted it to work."

"And has it?"

"We've adjusted. But, yes."

"You're not Phil."

"I'm his father."

The two men looked at each other, taking this in.

"And Phil's body..."

"When the power went out a few weeks ago with all of the snow, the freezer stopped working. I thought I could bury him in the snow. The thaw was coming."

"But you didn't know that it was Laporte who sugared, not Phil."

"Right. When I got up one morning and found Jerry tromping around out there, I was nervous. I was going to move him that night, and then your class showed up."

Horse thought about all of this.

"So, they can't identify him because..."

"The fingerprints on file for him are mine, because of my jail time."

"What if they find Phil has been fingerprinted, but as Dan?"

But Dan only shrugged.

"We don't have a lot," Dan said. "I can't bring Cora or Phil back. I guess you could argue they're dead because of me, indirectly. But I didn't do that. I didn't get behind the wheel of that car. Still, I'll own it. When I go to meetings I own it."

"You go to meetings now?"

"I started in prison. I'm working the steps. But that's them. The past. More directly, Peter's not right because of me, but he's a good kid. I feel like I've got a second chance here. A chance to make things up."

Dan looked into his cup of cold coffee. It was morning but he was exhausted, his body limp as it shuffled back to his seat by the table.

"I just want to do what's best for Peter," he said at last. "It isn't perfect, but I think this might be the only decent option."

Horse knew he had to think about that.
CHAPTER 25

That desk.

That huge, old, metal desk that moved from room to room until it became his, and now it is his and he is its. A generation of locals, depending on how long ago they had graduated Grace Haven, can imagine that old man, a less old man, and, a few, a younger man, sitting bent over a pile of papers, correcting. That battleship gray metal, never fashionable old desk that occasionally moved to different places in the room was iconic, if only because no one else wants it. Even Horse didn't want it. He had no emotional attachment to it, yet he is bound to it.

"Only a tool," he had told parents who asked.

"He'll be found bent over it, dead," other parents said, leaving their conferences.

Sitting at this desk, red pen out, correcting the horrendous results of his classes' latest grammar disaster, Horse looks up as Jones enters with some folders from Wells' office in hand. The other teacher stands by the door and waits.

"Jacob Pueblo," Jones calmly said. "Astigmatism. Letters look odd shaped and he refuses to wear his glasses. I looked it up."

"Yes, yes..."

Old Horse didn't look up; his mind was still on the grammar at hand.

Pen scribbling.

Less, not fewer.

Well, not bad.

At last, the grammar lost its hold after a few solid results. Back against the door frame, Jones stood until his presence finally outweighed the gravity of the assignment.

"It's why he can't read," the old teacher muttered. Putting the cap on his red pen, he laid it down on the stack and looked up. "He can't see the page."

"How do you know that?"

"He goes to the nurse for headaches after reading."

Horse leans back, giving his full attention.

"I thought he was avoiding."

"No. He would avoid before your boring lesson." Pause. Then a look comes over his face—Jones can't decide if its kindness or sadness—before he speaks. "No. His head hurts from trying to focus so much on those annoying little letters in the book."

"I'll check with the nurse..."

"The nurse is an idiot. They checked for vision last year and sent him off with a 20/30 diagnosis."

"You checked already?"

"Watch him on the baseball diamond," Horse bluntly suggested. "He's a great infielder, because he can see well enough at twenty feet and he's quick. A line drive or throw to second is predictable. In the outfield, picking up a small white object against a light blue sky one hundred feet away is impossible."

"But the nurse..."

"... doesn't check for astigmatism. And his family won't take him to the doctor unless he's bleeding out his eyes. Family values. So, with the nurse's okay, no one sees the problem."

"How do I get him to the right doctor?"

"That is not my problem. We're teachers, not social workers."

Uncapping his pen, Horse went back to his correcting.

Without looking up he said, "Not social workers. Get it? We are not social workers. That's a hint. Talk to the school social worker. They'll sort it out. Oh, and call it astigmatism—one word—not "a stigmatism"; you'll sound smarter. It's the official term."

Jones held out some files to Horse.

"You left your papers in Wells' office."

"Did anyone at that meeting care about those scores?"

"I thought you did? Wells did."

"Wells..." Horse waves his hand. "Education isn't about numbers."

"What is it about?"

"Me."

"Ha, ha."

"Seriously. I have a curriculum that doesn't bore me. My methods leave me with free time; no correcting once I leave this classroom and summers free. Teaching is a job. Your problem is that you aren't honest about that."

"I thought you were the selfless ideologue that stands by standards! That teaching is a calling."

"I believe in standards, but in the end I teach because I enjoy reading books, talking about them, and having summers off. I have an English degree and no skills; teaching called me to a paycheck. I stay because I like the books."

"Even teaching to seventh graders?"

"I can keep ahead of them easily."

"That's your reason?"

"And I can't get a job at the high school. College kids scare me. It's easier to push around a twelve-year-old."

"So, you're a bully."

"I do my job. Wells lets parents choose which teacher their child gets. No one is a victim."

"Still, the kids..."

"Are resilient."

He returns to the latest paper.

Jeffery Boocher.

Oh, Jeffery....

Standing in the doorway, Jones saw an old man toiling. 'Bent over a stack of papers, red pen flashing, it could be ten years in the past or ten years in the future,' he thinks. The papers and comments and mistakes will all be the same. A tinge of fear—a fear of the future—passing through him, followed by anger and sadness that comes in no particular order.

"Wells said Peter was home," reported the younger man.

"The father has returned," replied the older.

Still, Horse would not look up.

His pen continued to scratch.

"There's no parable for the prodigal father," Jones quipped. "He gets the kid."

Horse showed nothing, but he heard it in his heart.

"Do you miss him?" Jones asked.

Putting his pen down, the old teacher looked older to Jones.

"I think you made your first joke that made me laugh."

"That you miss him?"

Horse said nothing.

"You should leave..." Jones suggested. He did this in a kind way, sure that Horse was hurting. Sure that the old man missed the boy, even as the boy should be with the father. "If you want something more."

He looked down at another paper. To boldly go. He thinks, a split infinitive.

"What more is there?"

Horse opened his arms wide, stretching them out to include everything within the four walls of his classroom.

"We make decisions. They have consequences. I'm here."
CHAPTER 26

"I thought we were done."

Laporte was sitting behind his desk, working late. His sweatshirt was one he wore while changing the oil on his truck, and Timberlines stuck out from under the desk.

This is his life, Horse thought, looking at him. This business.

Pulling two coffee mugs—one black, the other white—from the book shelf next to him, the contractor poured out an inch of Five O'Clock brand scotch into each. The bottle had just been sitting, and Horse figured Laporte was a couple glasses gone already.

"We are done," the old teacher confirmed, taking the drink from him.

"Then, why the visit?" The contractor shifted his girth, putting more weight on his right elbow and the chair's armrest. He leaned back and smiled, curious.

Taking a drink, Horse said, "The good stuff."

"I save the good stuff for people I like."

"You shouldn't be so hard on yourself."

Standing six feet in front of the desk, Horse's eyes scanned the walls of the office, all safety posters and work site rosters. Ten o'clock at night, it was quiet except for a radio lightly playing behind Laporte's desk. A pile of papers that Horse couldn't read upside down sat on the desk. The contractor's computer was off, the teacher noted; it sat in a dark corner of the desk, and none of the small LED lights that would still glow while it sat in sleep mode were on. He heard no hum of a fan.

"I didn't poison it," Laporte said, nodding to Horse's mug.

Horse wasn't so sure, but he took another sip anyway.

"Awful."

"Do you always criticize the hospitality of others?"

"In fact, I do."

The contractor was tired, so he got right to it. "What do you want?"

"You killed Dan."

"Dan's at home with his son."

"You killed the man pretending to be Dan."

"No one killed him." Laporte looked down at his papers, then back up. "The coroner said he died from inhaling toxic fumes and a broken neck."

"On a job."

The contractor quickly responded, defensively. "Not one of my jobs."

"I'm sure you covered that track well enough."

Laporte didn't respond.

"I mean," Horse continued, "toxic fumes you'd find at a construction site. Broken neck. Dumped where you sugar...."

Horse took another sip.

It burned.

Looking down into his mug as if there was a bug in it he said, "Each sip gets worse."

"Are we done?" Laporte snapped.

"Why did you send him to that job?"

"I didn't send the guy anywhere."

"Then you sent business his way."

Laporte's face smiled in concession, as if granting a small wish.

"Why?"

The two men stared at each other.

It was late.

In the silence, Horse realized that no one knew where he was. Laporte was twice his size, and strong. When they had first met and shook hands, Horse had noticed how rough the contractor's hands had been: the hands of someone who works with concrete and wields tools. He had the body of someone who worked hard labor for a living. On the table by his desk was a pry bar. The teacher was surrounded by nothing but chairs.

'He could kill me,' Horse thought. No one would know.

"You blackmailed him."

If Laporte was going to make a move, it would be now, Horse thought.

The big man didn't budge.

"Why would I do that?" was all he asked, as if knowing the answer.

"Perhaps he knew about your meth labs."

Laporte smiled at this.

"The scene had changed since the original Dan took off."

"Scene?" The contractor snorted. "What year is this?"

"When it got lean a few years back," Horse continued, ignoring him, "you got into meth. At some point you needed a plumber, but when you floated the idea to the new Dan he made it clear he had no interest. That's when he stopped being on your payroll and subcontracted instead. Eventually, though, you either needed him or he stumbled into it. So, you blackmailed him."

"Do you have proof?"

"No."

"Then what does it matter?"

"I want to know."

"Why?"

"I'm curious."

Laporte thought about this.

"That's the problem with education," he said. "You get kids to ask questions, but the adults aren't ready to answer them."

"They often don't know the answers?" Horse asked.

"No." The contractor leaned forward, tired. "They want to know why there's injustice in the world. Philosophical questions. Really good questions. And, as an adult, I know the answer. But I also know the next question: why not change it? Of course, I know the answer to that, too. It costs too much. You have to give up a lot—more than money—to stop injustice. To tackle the big questions."

"Is that an answer?" Horse asked.

"It's the best you're going to get."

Horse took a step forward. He put the mug on the desk in front of Laporte. "Can I have a refill?"
CHAPTER 27

Horse and Wells were sitting in Horse's classroom; the teacher behind his desk, the administrator in a plastic chair made for the young adolescents who populate the room by day.

Wells was exhausted. "You left your data sheet behind."

"Philippa Holmes." Horse put his feet up on his desk. "Absence seizures. She just seems like a space cadet, but she's literally out of it for huge blocks of time. Not there. And not aware she's not there. So, she misses lessons. But she doesn't know it."

"Well, doctor, did you tell the parents."

"I'm not a doctor."

Slumped in the chair that was too small for him, Wells looked at his feet.

"You left the meeting."

"I left politely. Besides, you were tired."

"You spoke with Jones?"

"I'm always civil."

Thinking about the meeting earlier in the week, Wells looked up at Horse. "You left your files on purpose?"

"Why can't I just be absent minded?"

"Did you feed him the line about teaching being just a job?"

"Why do you have to be so reflective about everything?"

"Absence seizures?"

"Or female ADHD. Or she's just stupid."

"Do you believe that?"

"She may be, but the absence seizures sure don't help."

"And your other students we didn't get to."

"Lazy. Privileged. Lazy and privileged. They'll be fine."

"I trust that they will be."

"Our culture encourages those types of behavior. The kid I'm worried about is Salvatore, with his parents refusing to let him play games or eat meat."

"Well..."

"Have you seen the homemade bread he pulls out at lunch? I fear for his future."

"I'm sure you can solve that problem by June."

"I'm already giving him beef jerky."

"With that problem solved, I think I'm going to go home, open a beer, and watch a movie."

"Dead Poets Society or Goodbye, Mr. Chips?"

Horse takes from his desk a bottle of scotch and two coffee mugs. It is a nice single malt. He pours a drink for each and hands one to Wells.

"Loch Lomond," Wells notes.

"It's what Captain Haddock drinks."

"Of course." On the mug in Wells' hands is printed World's Greatest Administrator, which Horse had bought personally for him but had forgotten to give officially. "As long as it's related to literature, having it is okay."

"Exactly my thought." Horse smiled and downed an inch. "Of course, I don't know if I'd classify Tintin as literature."

"A classic."

"Racist."

"Don't argue with me." Wells' mind drifted to the evening. "I'm thinking Mr. Chips"

"I'm only coming over if you watch the Robert Donat version."

"I don't remember asking you over."

"You're watching the Peter O'Toole version, I take it."

"I don't know."

"By the way, I figured out the Jeffery Boocher organization issue."

"Oh? What is it? He's disorganized? Brilliant."

"No. He's not disorganized. I was right."

Wells smiled and took a sip from his mug. "What a surprise," he said, sarcastically.

"He does not have an organization problem. No. Just the opposite. He's so well organized he uses his organization issue to cheat. Each assignment he feigns having lost his work. The teacher corrects the others papers and passes them back. Mr. Boocher then takes someone else's paper from the recycling bin, copies the answers, and passes it in as his own."

"And you know this..."

"I threw incorrect work into the recycling bin. He didn't even read what he was copying."

"So, he's a master organizer and cheat, but lousy at the details of cheating."

"No. He can't read."

"What?"

"I spoke with his previous teachers, and his organization issues started when they started doing reading work. He's a nice kid, so everyone excused his disorganization enough and he moved on. No one thought he simply couldn't read."

"How did he get past our testing? We put a lot into those tests."

"Oh, a combination of being sick and looking at neighbors' tests."

Wells laughed. "Well, that's something, I guess."

"The real thing beats a movie about teaching."

"That almost sounds like sentimentality." Wells got up and poured himself another glass. "Do you know why I'm watching an education movie? Why, I'm watching Mr. Chips?"

"You like Robert Dunat?"

"True, but no." Wells walks away from Horse to the window. Looking out, he turns his back to the outside and sits on the table top. Horse leaves his own desk and sits in the chair Wells vacated, turning it towards his principal. "In every feel-good education movie, the first thing that happens is they gather all of the no-good-nics and dismiss them. Gone."

Wells takes a drink.

"In Lean on Me Morgan Freeman has the punks on stage before dismissing them. Then, the learning starts. In Stand and Deliver Hector Alanzo drives the losers out with hard work, leaving him with an AP Calculus class of like ten kids."

"No one leaves in Dead Poets Society."

"No."

"Or Mr. Chips."

"They die in the war, though."

"I guess the advantage of the private school movie is that kids like that aren't even let in. The weeding is before the opening credits."

"I'd rather not see it, is all I'm saying. Everyone thinks it's great when the kids are kicked out—we feel good, sitting in the audience, when the authority cleans house. People cheer. But it depresses me."

"Because you get the kids."

"No. Because I do this job because of those kids. To everyone else they're trash. We don't even have enough room in a Hollywood fantasy for those kids."

"That's what sports movies are for."

"Mighty Ducks."

"And you like these movies because no one gets kicked out."

"No. In Dead Poets Society someone dies, though."

"That's sick."

Wells ignored Horse.

"At the end of the movie... You know the end of Dead Poets Society. Robin Williams is fired, after touching these kids' lives. He's leaving, and the principle players show their solidarity with him by defying the headmaster and standing on their desks."

"Very touching," Horse snorted.

"Ah! But, only about a third of the kids stand in defiance and support. The rest sit with their heads down. He changes their lives—makes them "extraordinary"—and they just sit slumped over. That last shot is great, with a hulk of dark, bent over kids doomed for mediocrity."

"That's about right."

"If we could run school like that..."

"We wouldn't be doing our jobs."

"No."

Wells looked down at his empty mug, soberly.

"Thus the fantasy world of video," offered Horse.

"Exactly."

They sat in silence. Putting his weight on the empty mug, Wells stood..

"So, Mr. Chips?" Horse asked.

"You dismiss them—your students—as being unimportant."

He seems ready for a fight, Horse thinks. I've seen him like this, and the last time I bloodied the snow with his blood. I'll fight him. But neither were in the mood. The whiskey warmed them, and Horse's brow begins to sweat even as the room remains a cool sixty-five degrees.

"I don't dismiss anyone," Horse said at last. "You put them in my room. I teach them. I can't help if people are afraid, but I don't dismiss anyone."

"I'm not in the mood for semantics. Are you coming over?"

"Which version?"

"Does it matter?"

"Why the Donat version?"

"Does it matter?"

"No."

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