Moon of the Crusted Snow

Nicole does laundry in a pot on the useless electric stove while her children play with toy blocks. Though she is no longer keeping track of time, she reckons it to be past the peak of winter. Signs of spring are beginning to appear. Nicole boils snow for drinking water and stores it in the basement.

Tyler arrives, asking for Evan. He bears bad news: Aileen has died.

Evan struggles not to break down as he and Tyler tow Aileen’s body to the morgue. Evan was very close with the elder. When they get to the morgue, they make the unpleasant discovery that there is no room for Aileen; they will have to move the bodies into a more efficient configuration. Twenty-two people have died, not counting Mark Phillips, whose body remains as a grim warning sign at the edge of town. They rearrange the bodies, trying not to think of the “daunting, traumatic” work of digging so many graves in the spring.

Evan and Tyler remember the location and cause of death of each person. As they move them, Evan has the horrifying realization that one body is missing. Suddenly, Scott’s words and his own nightmare fall into place: Evan surmises that Scott has stolen a body for food. He tells Tyler, “That’s what he meant in the food lineup when he said we were going to need him. I think he knows we have stories and stuff that say we can’t do that, so he has to start it” (197). Evan hopes Aileen’s spirit has moved on. He tells Tyler it is up to them to confront Scott.

Evan, Tyler, and Isaiah go to the duplexes to confront Scott. They keep their rifles shouldered; Evan knows Scott is the type to shoot first. They carefully venture around the back of the complex, where they can tell a fire is burning. They find Scott, Brad Connor, and Alex Richer standing around an oil drum firepit over which simmers a large black pot. They all feign a friendly attitude, until Scott curtly tells them to state what they came for.

Evan asks if Scott has been by the garage lately; Scott knows he means the morgue. Evan asks him what is in the pot, and Scott replies that it is an experiment. Scott tells Evan that he could survive all alone in the woods; it is the tribal community that needs him, not the other way around.

Cam suddenly arrives from inside the duplex. His coveralls are saturated in blood. Evan calls out to him. Cam looks at his bloody hands and begins sobbing. Evan directly accuses Scott of stealing a body; Tyler shouts that Scott is a cannibal.

Scott draws his gun, and before anyone can react, he fires three shots. Evan crumples. He turns his gun on Tyler and Isaiah, but before he can shoot, his head explodes. They turn to see Meghan Connor on the deck, holding a rifle. She holds the other men at gunpoint as Tyler rushes to help Evan. Isaiah steps forward to look in the pot.

Isaiah and Tyler pull a body on a sled to the edge of town. When they reach the incline, they tip the body over. Scott’s corpse slides down, coming to rest near Mark Phillips’s frozen corpse. It will wait there until the thaw, when “the crows and wolves would arrive for a taste of flesh” (206).

Two years later, Nicole surveys her stripped-down home. Most furniture and other possessions have long since been removed. She ignores any feelings of nostalgia. She resists the temptation to go back to the pile of keepsakes she stashed in the basement. She goes outside, where Dan, Patricia, her father, and Maiingan and Nangohns are waiting. Her mother, Theresa, hugs her; Nicole wipes a tear from her eye.

Unable to sustain themselves in an area so marked by tragedy, the community is dispersing. A “core of dedicated people” sought to reestablish their community elsewhere (212). She asks her kids if they are ready to go see their daddy, and the group departs. Nobody looks back.