Free The Snow Falcon by Stuart Harrison

start.”
    Michael could see the change in him, the tight line of the older man’s jaw, the hard, unrelenting light in his eyes. A wave of disappointment swept over him, and he wondered why he’d ever thought that it would be any different, that people would overlook his past. All the same, he found himself arguing his case.
    “And if I had told you, would you have listened to what I had to say? Would you have even agreed to see me?”
    “I think you ought to leave,” Wilson said.
    Michael uttered a short and bleak derisory laugh. “What happened to the way you liked my ideas? How about those values you were talking about earlier?”
    Wilson’s expression remained closed. “I’m sorry. It just isn’t possible.” He started toward the door.
    “Wait a minute,” Michael said. “You’re telling me you can’t give me a job because I’ve been in prison, is that it? I mean, I just want to get this clear, so that I know. Even though I served my sentence, even though I’ve paid my dues to society.”
    “It’s not just where you’ve been,” Wilson said. “It’s what you did. People around here know you, they read the papers. I couldn’t have somebody like you working here. Even if I thought it wouldn’t affect business, I couldn’t have you here. It just wouldn’t sit right with me.”
    “What about all that stuff about treating people right? ‘We’re good people,’ didn’t you say? Shouldn’t people get another chance?”
    “I think you ought to leave,” Wilson repeated, moving toward the phone. “I don’t want to have to call the police.”
    Michael felt suddenly deflated; his anger faded to a dull buzz. He should have known better. Wilson held open the door for him, saying
     
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    nothing. Michael met the old man’s eye and saw only distance and hostility there.
     
    “Take my advice,” Wilson said as Michael left. “Go somewhere else. Where people don’t know you.”
     
    There was no sympathy in his tone, no desire to offer wisdom for the sake of helping. He was just saying that the town didn’t want him around, and that if Michael had any sense, he would just move on. Michael didn’t reply. On his way past reception downstairs, he noted that the girl who’d smiled at him earlier was speaking on the phone. She looked up and met his eye, then looked quickly away. When he reached his car, he got behind the wheel and screwed his eyes against the pain throbbing in his temples, taking deep breaths, massaging his head with his knuckles until the pain faded to a dull ache.
     
    IN THE AFTERNOON, Michael left the house and walked down to the river, needing time to think and clear his mind. He crossed the river by an old footbridge that creaked and swayed above the dark water. The air was filled with the muted roar of water where the banks narrowed between two black rocks that glistened wetly in the weak sunlight. Beyond them the river dropped and surged in white rapids for a hundred feet or so before it widened again to continue its course. On the far bank he climbed through the woods, which down here were mostly hemlock scattered through with aspen and poplar. When he came out beyond the trees, where the snow was thick on the ground and the air was still and quiet, he found a place among the rocks where he could sit for a while.
    When Holly was born, he’d thought life was full of promise and had painted mental pictures of how his family would be. The one thing he wanted for her was that she should be happy, that her life would be free of the tensions he’d grown up with himself. He envisioned only an existence where nothing intruded to upset the balance.
    He’d married Louise when he was twenty-six; she was three years younger. He was already doing well, and they’d bought an apartment that they moved into the week after their honeymoon in Tobago. He’d written his dad a letter a month later to give him the news, and he sometimes wondered now what pain that must have