Northern Lights

work the divorce?"
    "First, she didn't need a divorce. She and my father weren't married. He didn't believe in the legal boundaries of marriage, and blah blah. She married Old Man Hidel about a year after—a little less. If you're thinking Karl Hidel climbed up No Name and carved an ice ax in my father's chest, you can forget it. He was sixty-eight and fifty pounds overweight when Charlene hooked him."
    As an afterthought she picked up the salad bowl and ate. "Smoked like a chimney. He could barely climb the stairs much less a mountain."
    "Who would have climbed with your father?"
    "Jesus, Nate, anybody. Anybody who wanted the rush. You know those kids today? Give them a little time, and they'll talk about what happened up there as if it was one of the most exciting events of their lives. Climbers are crazier than bush pilots."
    When he said nothing, she let out a little breath, ate some more salad. "He was a good climber, had a solid rep there. Maybe he had taken a job guiding a group up on a winter climb. Or he hooked up with a couple of buddies and like-minded morons and decided to fart into the face of death."
    "He ever do anything stronger than pot?"
    "Maybe. Probably. Charlene would know." She rubbed her eyes. "Shit. I have to tell her."
    "Meg, were either one of them involved with anyone else while they were together?"
    "If that's a delicate way of asking if they screwed around, I don't know. Ask her."
    He was losing her. Her anger and impatience would make questioning impossible in another minute or two. "You said he gambled. Seriously?"
    "No. I don't know. Not that I've ever heard. He'd blow a paycheck if he had one. Or pile up some IOUs, because he didn't win very often. But nothing heavy. At least not locally. I never heard about him being into anything illegal other than recreational drugs. And there are plenty of people who'd be happy to tell me if he had been. Not because they didn't like him. People did. Just because people like to tell you that kind of thing."
    "Okay." He rubbed a hand on her thigh. "I'll ask some questions, and I'll make nice with whoever catches the case so they'll keep me updated."
    "Well. Let's get out of here." She rolled off the bed, leaving her halfeaten dinner. Her hands rapped a beat against her legs. "I know this place. The music's good. We can have a couple of drinks, then we'll come back and have some chandelier-swinging sex."
    Instead of commenting on her change of mood, he merely glanced up at the old and dingy ceiling light. "That doesn't look all that sturdy."
    It made her laugh. "We'll live dangerously."

 
     
     
    TEN
     
     
     
     
     
     
     
    WHEN HE WOKE, the dream was fading, leaving only a bitter, salty taste in his throat. As if he'd swallowed tears. He could hear Meg breathing beside him, soft and steady. Some part of him, struggling under the weight of despair, wanted to turn to her. For the comfort and oblivion of sex.
    She'd be warm, and she'd come to life around him.
    Instead, he turned away. And he knew, he knew it was indulgent; it was self-defeating to choose to embrace the misery. But he got out of bed alone in the dark, found his clothes. He dressed and left her sleeping.
    In the dream, he'd been climbing the mountain. He'd fought his way up ice and rock, thousands of feet above the world. In the airless sky, where every breath was agony. He had to go up, was compelled to claw his way up another inch, another foot, while below him was nothing but a swirling, white sea. If he fell he would drown in it, soundlessly.
    So he climbed until his fingers bled and left red smears on the icesheathed rock.
    Exhausted, exhilarated, he dragged himself onto a ledge. And saw the mouth of the cave. Light pulsed from it and lit hope in him as he crawled inside.
    It opened, it towered, like some mythical ice palace. Huge formations speared down from the roof, up from the floor to form pillars and archways of white and ghostly blue where ice glinted like a thousand diamonds. The walls, smooth and polished, gleamed like mirrors, tossing his reflection back at him a hundred times.
    He gained his feet, circling the splendor of it, dazzled by the sheen and the space and the sparkle.
    He could live here, alone. His own fortress of solitude. He could find his peace here, in the quiet and the beauty and the alone.
    Then he saw he was not alone.
    The body slumped against the gleaming wall, fused to it by years of relentless cold. The ax handle protruded from its chest, and