Two days after the snowstorm I was out on the frozen waters of Lake Marie, breathing hard and sweating and enjoying every second of it. The day before I had driven into Manchester to a sporting goods stoic and had come out with a pair of cross-country skis. The air was crisp and still, and the sky was a blue so deep I half-expected to see brushstrokes. From the lake. I looked back at my home and liked what I saw. The while paint and plain construction made me smile for no particular reason. I heard not a single sound, except for the faint drone of a distant airplane. Before me someone had placed signs and orange ropes in the snow, covering an oval area at the center of the lake. Each sign said the same thing: DANGER! THIN ICE! I remembered the old-timers at Gretchen’s Kitchen telling a story about a hidden spring coming up through the lake bottom, or some damn thing, that made ice at the center of the lake thin, even in the coldest weather. I got cold and it was time to go home.
About halfway back to the house is where it happened.
At first it was a quiet sound, and I thought that it was another airplane. Then the noise got louder and louder, and separated, becoming distinct. Snowmobiles, several of them. I turned and they came speeding out of the woods, tossing up great rooster tails of snow and ice. They were headed straight for me. I turned away and kept up a steady pace, trying to ignore the growing loudness of the approaching engines. An itchy feeling crawled up my spine to the base of my head, and the noise exploded in pitch as they raced by me.
Even over the loudness of the engines I could make out the yells as the snowmobiles roared by, hurling snow in my direction. There were two people to each machine and they didn’t look human. Each was dressed in a bulky jump suit, heavy boots, and a padded helmet. They raced by and, sure enough, circled around and came back at me. This time I flinched. This time, too, a couple of empty beer cans were thrown my way.
By the third pass, I was getting closer to my house. I thought it was almost over when one of the snowmobiles broke free from the pack and raced across about fifty feet in front of me. The driver turned so that the machine was blocking me and sat there, racing the throttle. Then he pulled off his helmet, showing an angry face and thick mustache, and I recognized him as the man on the powerboat a few months earlier. He handed his helmet to his passenger, stepped off the snowmobile, and unzipped his jump suit. It took only a moment as he marked the snow in a long, steaming stream, and there was laughter from the others as he got back on the machine and sped away. I skied over the soiled snow and took my time climbing up the snow-covered shore. I entered my home, carrying my skis and poles like weapons over my shoulder.
That night, and every night afterward, they came back, breaking the winter stillness with the throbbing sounds of engines, laughter, drunken shouts, and music from portable stereos. Each morning I cleared away their debris and scuffed fresh snow over the stains. In the quiet of my house, I found myself constantly on edge, listening, waiting for the noise to suddenly return and break up the day. Phone calls to the police department and town hall confirmed what I already knew: Except for maybe littering, no ordinances or laws were being broken.
On one particularly loud night, I broke a promise to myself and went to the tiny, damp cellar to unlock the green metal case holding a pistol-shaped device. I went back upstairs to the enclosed porch, and with the lights off, I switched on the night-vision scope and looked at the scene below me. Six snowmobiles were parked in a circle on the snow-covered ice, and in the center, a fire had been made. Figures stumbled around in the snow, talking and laughing. Stereos had been set up on the seats of two of the snowmobiles, and the loud music with its bass thump-thump-thump echoed across the flat ice. Lake Marie is one of the largest bodies of water in this part of the country, but the camp was set up right below my windows.
I watched for a while as they partied. Two of the black-suited figures started wrestling in the snow. More shouts and laughter, and then the fight broke up and someone turned the stereos even louder. Thump-thump-thump.
I switched off the nightscope, returned it to its case in the cellar, and went to bed. Even with foam rubber plugs in my ears, the bass noise reverberated inside my skull. I put the pillow across my face and tried to ignore the sure knowledge that this would continue all winter, the noise and the littering and the aggravation, and when the spring came, they would turn in their snowmobiles for boats, and they’d be back, all summer long.
Thump-thump-thump.
At the next session with Ron, we talked about the weather until he pierced me with his gaze and said, “Tell me what’s wrong.”
I went through half a dozen rehearsals of what to tell him, and then skated to the edge of the truth and said, “I’m having a hard time adjusting, that’s all.”
“Adjusting to what?”
“To my home,” I said, my hands clasped before me. “I never thought I would say this, but I’m really beginning to get settled, for the first time in my life. You ever been in the military, Ron?”
“No, but I know—”
I held up my hand. “Yes, I know what you’re going to say. You’ve worked as a consultant, but you’ve never been one of us, Ron. Never. You can’t know what it’s like, constantly being ordered to uproot yourself and go halfway across the world to a new place with a different language, customs, and weather, all within a week. You never settle in, never really get into a place you call home.”
He swiveled a bit in his black leather chair. “But that’s different now?”
“It sure is,” I said.
There was a pause as we looked at each other, and Ron said, “But something is going on.”
“Something is.”
“Tell me.”
And then I knew I wouldn’t. A fire wall had already been set up between Ron and the details of what was going on back at my home. If I let him know what was really happening, I knew that he would make a report, and within the week I’d be ordered to go somewhere else. If I’d been younger and not so dependent on a monthly check, I would have put up a fight.
But now, no more fighting. I looked past Ron and said. “An adjustment problem, I guess.”
“Adjusting to civilian life?”
“More than that,” I said. “Adjusting to Nansen. It’s a great little town, but... I feel like an outsider.”
“That’s to be expected.”
“Sure, but I still don’t like it. I know it will take some time, but... well, I get the odd looks, the quiet little comments, the cold shoulders.”
Ron seemed to choose his words carefully. “Is that proving to be a serious problem?”
Not even a moment of hesitation as I lied: “No, not at all.”
“And what do you plan on doing?”
An innocent shrug. “Not much. Just try to fit in, try to be a good neighbor.”
“That’s all?”
I nodded firmly. “That’s all.”
It took a bit of research, but eventually I managed to put a name to the face of the mustached man who had pissed on my territory. Jerry Tompkins. Floor supervisor for a computer firm outside Manchester, married with three kids, an avid boater, snowmobiler, hunter, and all-around guy. His family had been in Nansen for generations, and his dad was one of the three selectmen who ran the town. Using a couple of old skills, I tracked him down one dark afternoon and pulled my truck next to his in the snowy parking lot of a tavern on the outskirts of Nansen. The tavern was called Peter’s Pub and its windows were barred and blacked out.