So that's what Bleeker was up to the night of the blizzard. Forrest's widow was supposed to come with, but by then she'd already met a new guy and her kids were sick and, you know, "How about you take his ashes and do it yourself? I've had five months to mourn him, and it's time to move on."
Fine.
The lake was seventy miles northeast. The weather sucked, but Bleeker needed this. Needed to get away from the heat at home, still living with the wife he'd already asked for a divorce. He'd only told her about Cindy Holm and the baby not even a month ago. Cindy had kind of forced his hand. But if that's what it took, then there you go. He was ready to make a break and start over again.
He hooked up Forrest's ice-fishing shack, now his, to the back of his 1996 Buick Roadmaster. What a car. It could tow an elephant. He'd only put eighty-four thousand miles on it in fourteen years. Looked as clean as the day he'd bought it.
It was a bastard to fight the wind and whiteout for an hour until it slacked off closer to the lake. Then he drove on across the ice, past clumps of other shacks and big SUVs or 4X4s. A temporary city on the ice, every year, clearing off before the Spring melt as if it was never there. Bleeker drove on, ignoring the cracking noises beneath the car-it would hold, not a problem. He and Forrest had a secret spot. Or maybe it wasn't a secret. Maybe it was because they never caught much there and everyone else knew it. But catching fish wasn't the point. Boozing it up while watching a hole in the ice, talking about anything other than the stuff that mattered-that's why they did it.