Snow Bound Read online

  Once Tony said, “I wonder what happens when you die.”

  “We’re not going to die,” Cindy said sharply. “We’re too young to die. We’re getting out of this place. We’ll find a way. We have to. It would be too stupid to die here because I stuck out my thumb, and you took a wrong turn.”

  HARRY MAZER was born in New York and attended New York City schools before joining the Army Air Force in 1943. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Union College, Schenectady, and a master’s degree in education from Syracuse University. Mr. Mazer is the author of Guy Lenny, The Dollar Man, The Island Keeper, and The Last Mission. Harry Mazer and his wife, Norma Fox Mazer, live in Jamesville, New York.

  ALSO AVAILABLE IN LAUREL-LEAF BOOKS:

  WHO IS EDDIE LEONARD?, Harry Mazer

  THE ISLAND KEEPER, Harry Mazer

  THE LAST MISSION, Harry Mazer

  THE ISLAND, Gary Paulsen

  THE CROSSING, Gary Paulsen

  CANYONS, Gary Paulsen

  EVA, Peter Dickinson

  AK, Peter Dickinson

  THE CHOCOLATE WAR, Robert Cormier

  BEYOND THE CHOCOLATE WAR, Robert Cormier

  Published by

  Dell Laurel-Leaf

  an imprint of

  Random House Children’s Books

  a division of Random House, Inc.

  1540 Broadway

  New York, New York 10036

  Copyright © 1973 by Harry Mazer

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Delacorte Press, 1540 Broadway, New York, New York 10036.

  The trademark Laurel-Leaf Library® is registered in the U.S.

  Patent and Trademark Office.

  The trademark Dell® is registered in the U.S. Patent and

  Trademark Office.

  Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/teens

  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at www.randomhouse.com/teachers

  eISBN: 978-0-307-54689-0

  RL: 5.1

  Reprinted by arrangement with Delacorte Press

  v3.1_r1

  To Norma,

  without whom there would

  have been no book

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  “Without a doubt the most forbidding and unknown physiographic region in New York State is the great windswept plateau called Tug Hill. On a road map it is that

  strange blank area of roughly two hundred

  thousand acres approximately twenty miles

  southeast of Watertown and thirty miles

  northwest of Utica. An effort to locate a

  hamlet or even a dirt road in this enigmatic

  area can only be rewarded with

  frustration.…”

  PAUL WEINMAN

  (reprinted from NAHO, Fall, 1970 published by the New York

  State Museum and Science Service)

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  1 TONY

  2 CINDY

  3 THE HITCHHIKER

  4 CINDY TAKES THE WHEEL

  5 THIS AWFUL SNOW

  6 A NIGHT OF ICE

  7 SNOW BOUND

  8 FIRE!

  9 ISLAND IN THE SNOW

  10 WHERE WERE THE PEOPLE?

  11 THE HELICOPTER

  12 A HANDFUL OF CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

  13 THE DESERTED LANDS

  14 NIGHT CREATURES

  15 COLD BEANS FROM A CAN

  16 RED WINTER BIRD

  17 YELLOW SNOWMOBILES

  18 TOO YOUNG TO DIE

  19 TWO SOLDIERS

  20 YES, I KNOW IT’S A MIRACLE

  21 THE LETTER

  1

  TONY

  It was the middle of January and the snow was melting. All the way home from school, Tony Laporte, his fringed suede jacket open, packed snowballs, leaving a trail of white-splattered trees behind him. The mark of Tony Laporte.

  Everyone was talking about the unseasonably warm weather. “It won’t last,” his father said. The January thaw would be followed by a drop in temperature, a freeze. There would be a blizzard in February, his father predicted. Even so, that morning, before they’d gone to work, his father had turned down the thermostat, and his mother, already in her brown car coat, had opened the windows and pushed the storms out wide.

  Tony packed a huge snowball and looked around for a suitable target. The warm weather made him itch to do something different. The unchanging routine of school, play, home was driving him batty. For once in his life he wished something would happen. Something real and different. Like that guy stepping off a ladder onto the moon. Now that was something!

  This last year Tony had sprung up out of his baby fat, gaining four inches, wide shoulders, body hair, and a chin full of pimples. The pimples worried him. He couldn’t help examining them, rubbing them, poking, squeezing. His sister Donna caught him in front of the mirror a couple of times and called him conceited. “That’s right,” he’d retorted. “Don’t you wish you had something as good to look at!”

  Tony paused at the edge of Bridge Street, still cradling the snowball. His house was the yellow two-family at the edge of the bridge that spanned a deep ravine through which ran the double tracks of the New York Central Railroad. The landlords, Mr. and Mrs. Bielic, lived downstairs, while Tony’s family lived upstairs.

  He didn’t feel like going into his house yet. It was the same old thing every day: school, home, change your clothes, eat, watch TV, go to bed. Then all over again the next day. Nothing happened in his life; and the way he felt just then, nothing ever would.

  He heaved the snowball at a long silver truck rolling slowly across the bridge. The driver raised a fist. Tony strode alongside the truck, grinning at the driver. The driver might have rolled down the window and really blasted him, but what Tony was imagining was the driver pulling over, opening the door on the passenger side, and offering him a ride. The driver would want company to Cleveland or Chicago. Tony could drive on the long, open stretches. Maybe they’d become partners and drive all over the country together.

  A horn blast brought him back to reality. He was standing on the edge of the road, daydreaming. Annoyed that he’d been caught, he climbed over the guardrail at the end of the bridge and went sliding down the wet slope. He and his friends had built a clubhouse last summer in a clump of crooked sumac trees on the side of the hill. They had used scrap lumber taken from a building site, odd two-by-fours, and scraps of plywood.

  He imagined he heard voices coming from the shack. A family trapped by the snow, waiting for the ski patrol … a mother and her kids. They’d been without food or heat, and when he appeared they could hardly speak for tears of happiness …

  Tony came on the dog by surprise—a large brown mutt with a black muzzle and ropy black tail, lying down near the entrance to their shack, gnawing into a bag of garbage. Sensing Tony, he raised his head, then rose to his feet, hair bristling, muzzle wrinkled.

  Tony slowly approached the dog. “Easy, boy …”

  The dog arched his back like a spring, his forehead crisscrossed with angry wrinkles. He snarled. Tony stood his ground. “Easy, boy. Easy.” He felt a slight bristling on his own skin, but no real fear. The dog snapped at his boots. Tony reached down and surprised the dog by whapping it across the muzzle. He was prepared to hit the dog again, but the creature gurgled back a growl and sat down submissively on his haunches.
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  “Good boy, good dog,” Tony said approvingly. The worried brown eyes looked deeply into his. The dog had sense, make no mistake of it. He’d run away from a circus, or … perhaps he’d been trained to nose out hidden bombs. Tony saw himself and the dog as a two-member team of bomb experts going briskly and confidently into situations that older men feared …

  Finding the dog was a good omen, Tony thought. Some impulse had brought him down here to the clubhouse to discover the dog. It had to mean something. Tony saw the dog as a courier, a messenger that he only had to follow to be led to an important rendezvous.

  “Okay, lead me someplace.”

  The dog watched him, his eyes on Tony’s face, waiting.

  “You’re hungry. Is that right, pooch? Food first, action later.” Tony straightened up. “Come on, I’ll get you something good to eat.” He looked back. The dog was following. “Come on, Arthur. That’s a good boy, Arthur.” He’d name him King Arthur, after the pop singer. The dog knew his name at once! It was all part of the strange but natural way he had come into Tony’s life. Almost as if the dog had been sent to be his.

  As Tony and Arthur started home, there was a chill in the air, and puddles of water were crusting with thin ice. Tony looked up at his own house, to the warmth behind the yellow windows on the second floor. His three sisters were probably at home.

  Later when his father pulled into the driveway, Tony was out front waiting to show him the dog. At the sight of Mr. Laporte, the dog started to bark, snarling and backing away. “It’s okay, Arthur. It’s okay,” Tony soothed. “That’s my father. He’s okay—a friend.” He scratched the dog under the ear, and the animal sat down.

  “Thanks for the endorsement,” Fred Laporte said. He was only half a head taller than his son, but stockier, with a round red face and thinning hair. He wore green work pants and a quilted green jacket, unzipped. “What have you got there, a man-eating tiger?”

  “His name is King Arthur. I’m going to keep him.” Tony talked fast, pointing out all the dog’s fine points, his warm brown eyes, his keen sense of smell, the way he responded to directions. “He’s really special. We’re lucky to have him, Pop!”

  “Not so fast,” his father said, toeing a scrap of soggy paper from the lawn. “You’re not talking me into this the way you did guitar lessons—”

  “It’s not the same,” Tony interrupted. “I didn’t care about music that much. It was Mom’s idea, not mine.”

  “I wish you’d thought of it before I put out all that money. Who does this dog belong to? He must belong to somebody.”

  “That’s the point,” Tony replied, opening the fingers of his left hand. “No collar, no leash. The dog was hungry. He was looking for someone, and there I was.”

  “You’ll change your mind in five minutes. What about taking care of him? You don’t do anything around this place without your arm being twisted. And besides, your mother is afraid of dogs.”

  “She’ll let me keep him,” Tony said confidently. He knew his parents through and through. They might say no at first to something he wanted; they might say no if they were mad or tired, but they came around. They always had, and they always would. His parents had often said that they both worked because they wanted their kids to have a better life than they’d had. His father made good money at Turbine and also pulled down extra money as union steward. His mother was a skilled machine operator at Tex-Lite. They’d been the first family on Bridge Street with a color TV set, a Zenith console in a coffee-colored early American cabinet. His father drove a late-model Ford wagon, and his mother had a little Plymouth of her own.

  “A family like ours needs a dog,” Tony went on.

  “Have you forgotten Christmas? It isn’t even a month yet,” his father said, reminding him of the Ted Williams baseball glove, the suede fringed jacket he was wearing, plus the little Sony TV of his own. “You got plenty of stuff, so don’t tell me about a dog. When I was you age I was out of school and working in a fruit market to help out my family.”

  “Do you want me to go to work?” Tony had heard about how hard his parents had worked and how easy he and his sisters had it more times than he cared to remember. “I’ll quit school tomorrow and find a job.”

  “What am I working my back off for?” his father said. “So you can grow up to be a dummy like your parents? You stay in school and learn to use your brain instead of your back.”

  “I want this dog,” Tony said.

  “We’ll talk about it.”

  “You can talk all you want,” Tony said, “but I’m keeping King Arthur.”

  His father reached out and grabbed Tony in his heavy arms. “You’re as tough as the old man, aren’t you?” he said proudly. “Nobody tells you anything, right?” His father turned him around and gave him a friendly tap on the butt. “But don’t forget who the really tough guy in this family is.”

  “No! I don’t care if his name is Nelson Rockefeller. I don’t want a dog in this house. Dog hairs, dog dirt, dog do. Between you and your sisters I have enough dogs underfoot right now.”

  Bev Laporte had just come home from work herself. She had kicked off her boots, but was still wearing her tan slacks and short suede jacket as she made supper, running from the sink to the stove to the refrigerator, and yelling at Tony’s three sisters, Evie, Donna, and Flo, for leaving the kitchen a mess.

  “Why doesn’t he help?” said Flo, his older sister, pointing a finger at Tony. “Just because he’s a boy! He makes a bigger mess than anyone.”

  “What do I have girls for, to give me arguments?” Mrs. Laporte said. “Get off your fanny and get busy on the salad. Get that dog out from under my feet, Tony. If he rubs against my leg once more I’m going to scream. Did your father say you could keep him?”

  “Dad’s impressed with this dog. He says he’s a fine dog. Only he wants him to be bigger and stronger. You got anything to eat? That’s why he’s nervous.” Tony was tying a piece of string around the dog’s neck and winding it loosely around the doorknob. “He wants something good to eat, Mom. What do you have good?”

  “Don’t you give him anything without asking my permission first,” his mother said. “This isn’t a dog refugee camp.”

  Tony went to the refrigerator and took out yesterday’s meat loaf. He was scraping off the tomato sauce when his mother saw what he was doing.

  “My meat loaf!” she exclaimed. “Put that back. I didn’t give you permission. You kids will drive me crazy. That’s for your father’s sandwiches tomorrow.”

  “There’s salami and capicolla in the frige,” Tony said, continuing to work on the meat loaf. “The dog’s got to eat.” As if understanding him, the dog started to bark. “He loves meat loaf. Don’t you, King Arthur?”

  “His name ought to be Meat Loaf,” Donna said, turning from the sink, where she was sloshing dishes around in soapy water.

  “Oh, Meat Loaf—that’s too much.” Florence, who had been pulling apart lettuce, sat down, unable to control her laughter. “Meat Loaf! Why not Bananas, or Grapes and Nuts. Call him Nuts, Tony. Here, Nuts. Peanuts, Cashew Nuts, Walnuts. That’s a good name for him, Tony. Walnuts.”

  Then in unison the three girls started calling the dog different names. “Banana … Walnuts … Meat Loaf … Fruit Salad …”Donna wasn’t doing the dishes, Flo wasn’t making the salad, Evie wasn’t setting the table. Nothing was being done. Mrs. Laporte grabbed the meat loaf from Tony’s hands, put it back in the refrigerator, and slammed the door.

  “Get that dog out of here before I explode,” she yelled. “All day those machines pounding in my head, and then to come home to this!”

  Fred Laporte was off right after supper to help Bill Taylor lay some drain tile through his cellar in exchange for the help Bill had given him with a washing machine the month before. Tony’s mother collapsed into a chair. “I’ve got to get my wind before I start changing the bed linen,” she said to no one in particular. She was sitting in the living room watching a TV comedy and half liste
ning to Tony tell her what a good watchdog Arthur was going to be.

  “Mom, you know the way you always worry about robbers and murderers creeping up the railroad tracks in the ravine and getting into the house. Well, no more. Not with King Arthur—”

  “Look at that woman,” Bev said, pointing to Lucille Ball, who was dancing on the TV screen. “Do you know she’s older than me? Lots older! Look at the way she jumps around. How does she do it? I wish I had her energy.” She patted the pillow next to her. “Sit down here, Tony honey. I’ll comb your hair.”

  “No.” It annoyed Tony that he couldn’t get a definite answer from either of his parents. He went out into the hall where King Arthur was tied up. The dog stretched and wagged his tail. Tony knelt down and put his arms around him. “You old hairy, lazy bone-bag, don’t worry. You big ugly dog. I’m the only one you have to listen to, and I say you stay!”

  For a few more days the weather stayed unseasonably warm, and Tony was able to keep the dog in the clubhouse. No problem. Morning and night he brought Arthur his food and water. He had all his friends over to see him and announced that Arthur was going to be their official club mascot.

  When Danny Belco called Arthur a large brown turd, a fight broke out between him and Tony. Arthur impressed everyone by nipping at Danny’s ankles and tearing his jeans.

  “He’s a natural protector,” Guy Lenny said.

  “A one-man dog,” Tony said proudly.

  Then on Monday the weather turned cold again. Thick, heavy clouds were rising in the west. The wind began to blow and an icy rain fell. Mr. Laporte came home to announce that the temperature was dropping rapidly. There would be snow in the morning. Winter was back—this time to stay.

  After supper, Tony went out and brought Arthur up from the clubhouse. He put him in the cellar next to the furnace, where he’d be warm. Tony brought food in a dish, a bowl of water, and a short shaggy rug that his mother would never miss. “Now you’ve got a cozy place again,” he told the dog as he fixed the rug and the food next to the furnace. Tony said nothing to his parents about Arthur being in the cellar. He didn’t feel it was necessary.