The few adults who had been wandering in the moonlight are now drawn to the fire. The cheers grow louder as the shouted toasts of Happy times! multiply, and bottles rise more frequently to lips.
“Dad, hold Noor.” Zahra jumps the fire. Jessica jumps, and Emma and Joshua. Tyrell and Steveston jump. Brittany jumps again. Even Fire darts in quickly and jumps but does not call Happy times! and as quickly races away into moonlight.
Those gathered around the fire, including the arrivals from the fields, have backed away to make room for the jumpers. But Frost backs away farther. He has given Noor back to Zahra. He does not jump and does not manage to wish Happy times!
The children keep jumping until they grow silly and weak-kneed and are told to stop before they fall into the fire. With the adults who had come in with them they drift away like ghosts into the moonlight and snow.
Except for the diminishing footsteps of the children it is silent. People move in close to the fire once more. The end burns off the board. The flames shrink, leaving mostly glowing embers, into which every person stares blankly, as if the foretaste of happy times has faded with the flames. No one pushes the board forward.
Now there is a voice, faint but very clear, from the direction of the burbs. People lift their faces, as they did when Steveston appeared with the board. The voice is singing.
I’ll have a blue Christmas…
Frost produces a frown of mild disgust. He sighs and utters the first words he has spoken in hours. “It’s Brandon.”
…without you.
The voice is small but every syllable is as clear and penetrating as the moonlight. Zahra and Tyrell and Steveston and Emma appear to listen intently. Perhaps they have not heard these words before. Frost just shakes his head. Then, suddenly, he looks terribly forlorn.
I’ll be so blue just thinkin’…
Frost sags, as if a weight has been placed on his shoulders.
…about you.
The singer leaves long gaps between phrases, and is louder and closer each time he resumes.
…blue snowflakes start fallin’…
No one around the fire looks very happy. Tyrell and Steveston and Brittany weave on their feet. Joshua burps. Tyrell spits into the embers.
…blue memories start callin’.
Zahra is staring forlornly across the fire at the glint of moonlight on a tear that has pooled on the rim of her father’s right eye.
Brandon comes around the corner of the domicile. Like the other men, he has a bottle in his right hand. His wild, dark hair hangs over his shoulders. He walks with a purposeful stagger toward the fire, wearing a self-satisfied expression, as if he has a surprise that he might deign to share with the others. In his left hand he is carrying a thin flat box about six inches wide. He stops, spreads his arms, and sings, deafeningly, perfectly on pitch, with vibrato,
You’ll be doin’ all right, with your Christmas of white…
He takes a drink. Then, focusing only on the dying fire, ignoring his audience, he determinedly proceeds. At the fire Brandon hands his bottle to Steveston, because he needs both hands to open the box above the embers. A quantity of small ornate figures tumble from the box. Immediately, small flames lick around the figures.
Brandon sings, but quietly now, distracted by the sight of his offering catching fire,
But I’ll have a blue, blue…
One of the objects has bounced away from the embers. Steveston manages to hold both his own bottle and Brandon’s in one hand. He bends and picks the object up, turning it in the light of the increasing flames. He says “This is a beautiful thing. We shouldn’t burn these. What are they, Frost?”
Frost says hoarsely “They’re chess pieces. It’s a game we used to have.”
Steveston cries, angered “Jesus Christ, Brandon, you’ve burned up a game! You’re burnin’ up a beautiful game! We could’ve played it! We could’ve used it!”
Brandon does not seem to hear Steveston. He snaps the box in half over a knee and drops the halves. Steveston stoops as if to rescue the pieces of the box or perhaps the burning figures, but his hands are full. He scrapes at one part of the box with a foot, but he loses his balance and stumbles sideways into Zahra, who almost drops the baby.
“Happy times!” shouts Brandon. Then he extends a hand and says “Give me my hooch.”
The halves of the pale oak and teak chess board are now burning brightly. Steveston stares down at the flames, which light his brown beard and his bicoloured eyes and his furious and drunken and grief-stricken face. He gives Brandon a short, hard look and then takes his own bottle into his right hand along with the chess piece, and with his left pours the few ounces remaining in Brandon’s bottle onto the fire. The hooch hisses but causes the fire to flare up for a few seconds.
“You dumped my hooch! God damn you! Frost, he dumped my hooch!”
But Frost has turned his back on the gathering and is walking away toward his bridge, into the soothing expanse of the moonlight and the snow. Behind him he hears Tyrell’s taunting voice. “Yeah, that’s just like you, Steveston. Ruin everybody’s fun. Ruin everybody’s Christmas. What the hell do you know about games? You wouldn’t know a game if it bit you on the ass.”
Frost stops, turns, sees Steveston hurl his bottle at Tyrell, hitting him in the face. The chess piece also flies from Steveston’s hand, but into the flames. Tyrell staggers backward. Steveston charges toward him. Zahra manages to grab his poncho with one hand and divert him for a moment, but again she almost drops the child, and has to let go. Emma and Joshua are trying desperately to restrain Tyrell, who is snarling, and whose nose is leaking a stream of blood that reflects the firelight. Brittany rushes around the fire and wraps her arms around Steveston from behind, causing him to fall forward with her on his back.
Brandon slumps to the ground and sits there sobbing. He slaps handfuls of mud against his face and chest. He whines “Frost, Frost, he dumped my hooch.”
Frost starts back.
Tyrell stops snarling and cursing and thrashing, dabs at his blood, examines his fingers, turns from the fire and stands there squeezing his nose. Zahra manages to squat while holding the baby. She pats Steveston on a shoulder. She goes “Shh, shh.” Steveston just lies there with Brittany on his back, her arms trapped underneath him.
Frost is halfway back to the fire. Zahra stops making her soothing sounds. Brandon gives up his weeping and falls slowly onto his side. Frost stops, waits. He hears only Brandon’s snoring and the distant sounds of the children. He turns and walks away again.
But he stops once more. He has heard a new sound, heavy footsteps breaking the snow’s crust, coming closer. Someone is running slowly, heavily, unevenly. Drunkenly. He hears an urgent girl’s voice, farther away. “Daddy!” Because of the moon and the snow Frost is able to see who is approaching with such vigour. He darts forward. But is too late.
“Happy times!” hollers Daniel Charlie, waving his hooch, hurtling toward the fire. Then he trips over the extended legs of Brittany and crashes in a spray of embers and ash chest-first down onto the flames. Daniel Charlie bellows in terror. The others, even Tyrell, squeezing his nose, cry out and rush to help Daniel Charlie. Only Brandon, who merely twitches and stops snoring for a few seconds, does not offer assistance.
Daniel Charlie himself does most of the work, scrambling away, helped by Joshua, at whose feet he had fallen, and then by Frost. Many hands beat at Daniel Charlie’s poncho, where a half-dozen embers have snagged and are smouldering. Emma bats away a burning shard of the chess board that has caught by a slivery edge in the wool.