The school bus came to the mouth of the court at seven-forty, sat a minute with its flashers going, and backed out.
Grant’s garage door stayed closed.
I put on Jim’s barn coat. I put on his choppers, the leather mittens with the wool liners. I called Gus.
Four in the Morning
“I was wondering when you’d call,” Gus said. He didn’t ask why. “I’m guessing nobody plowed you.”
“Nobody plowed us.”
He couldn’t get a flatbed down an unplowed road. He didn’t have to. He was at the mouth of Juniper Court at four o’clock Saturday morning with the green and white Ford on the back and Jim’s yellow blade chained down beside it. I’d walked out to meet him through snow over my knees.
We unloaded it on the county road. He held the light and I bent down in the snow and pinned the blade on, the way Jim had made me do three times in a row that last winter until I could do it in the dark. Gus watched me with his hands in his pockets and didn’t try to help.
