Free Frozen Solid: A Novel by James Tabor Page A

guard by what you told me and did not respond appropriately. Since we hadn’t talked at all about anything relating to
    No, he thought. Sounds like a fuddled college kid. He deleted that attempt, got up, walked around. Looked out the front windows. It was midafternoon, the sun dipping behind the mountain’s western shoulder, white woods turning blue, wind spinning through the forest, twirling up snow devils in the old sheep pasture. Bowman looked out, watched shadows stretch, thought about climbing one of the frozen waterfalls. Tossed that idea away. Quit stalling, mister.
    He went to the bathroom, used the toilet, saw his reflection in the mirror while he washed his hands. Bowman liked living among old things. Some young Marylander might have gazed at himself in that mirror before heading off to Antietam. Bowman had bought it for the oval frame of hand-carved butternut and had never replaced the glass, though it was cracked and dulled with age. It was like looking at himself through fog—not such a bad thing, actually. Thirty-nine,not old, but not much youth left in that face. Had he ever looked young? Must have, once. The job ages you. Other people told you, so you knew that when you took it on. Like being a soldier. Or a cop in a big city. People thought the fighting ended when the bad actors swung, but it never really did end. Just smoldered underground, out of plain sight, waiting to flare again like roots that reignite forest fires.
    There were certain rules he never broke. Some had to do with killing. Always finishing what he started was another. One of his favorite books was
Personal Memoirs of U.S. Grant
, and one of his favorite passages described young Grant’s attempt to ride home, on a short leave, before deployment separated him from family and friends. At one point he had to take a green horse across a rain-swollen river. Mixing fast water and young mounts was a good way to produce dead riders, as Grant, possibly the finest horseman ever to pass through West Point, well knew. But he wrote, “One of my superstitions had always been when I started to go anywhere, or to do anything, not to turn back or stop until the thing intended was accomplished.”
    Bowman had never forgotten that sentence, thought it worth adding to his collection of personal commandments, and allowed it to guide actions large and small. An email was one of those small things that could have very large consequences, and he would not let this one go unfinished. Now, though, he felt the way he imagined Grant’s horse must have, knowing it had to go, wanting like hell not to.
    Walking back to the table, he felt, rather than heard, some disturbance.
Might
have been a very faint sound like a slap. He stood where he was for several seconds, then went to the kitchen and moved a switch that killed every light in the house. He stepped out onto the small back porch—the noise, or whatever it was, had come from that direction—leaving the door open. He stood there for a long time, listening, feeling the dark, and finally went back in.
    At the table again, he sat and stared at the screen and reeled in his mind when it started to wander. Finally, to break something loose, hesipped coffee that had grown cold sitting next to the computer, took a deep breath, and tried a jump-starting trick a writer friend had once showed him:
    Dear Hallie,
    What I really want to say here is
    Stopped. Waited for more. Waited longer. Rubbed his forehead. Leaned back, closed his eyes, grunted. Stood, cursed, and went to make dinner.
    He rose the next morning before sunrise, had coffee, and set out on snowshoes. Twenty minutes of easy cross-hill climbing brought him to the base of the biggest frozen waterfall. As far as he knew, he was the first to climb it, so he’d had the privilege of naming the fall: Revelation.
    It rose vertically for almost 150 feet. The exit on top was barred by a rounded, bulging cornice that required very careful climbing. Unusual to have the