The Snow Falcon Read Online Free PDF Page A

this year had been comparatively mild. He could remember when, as a boy, it had been forty below here in February and the snow five feet thick. He tore himself away, realizing that Carl was waiting for him to say something.
    “Good news?” Michael echoed.
    “Things’ll get better for you now, you’ll see,” Carl assured him. “You’ll be able to put all this behind you. Hell, I know it’s easy for me to say that when I haven’t been through everything you have, but you have to think positively about life. In a couple of years, you won’t even remember all this.”
    “I appreciate the sentiment,” Michael said, uncertain where this was heading.
    Carl put his arm around Michael’s shoulder. “Well, what did you expect? We’ve known each other for a long time. Times like this, old friends need to stick together. Soon as I heard you were getting released, I started putting this thing together.”
    Michael allowed himself to be guided back toward the desk, puzzled as to how his relationship with Carl had been promoted to that of old friends. As far as he could recall, they’d had little to do with each other in the time he’d lived in Little River, and since then the only correspondence between them had related to his father’s estate. Carl’s overfriendliness held the smooth oil of insincerity.
    “Anyway, I guess you’re keen to hear the details.” Carl sat down again at his desk and started looking through some papers.
    “Details?”
    “I think you’re going to like this, Michael. I didn’t say anything earlier, because I thought it would kind of be a nice surprise for you.” He handed over a sheet of paper for Michael to look at. “Now, I got
     
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    to tell you, the first offer this guy made was way too low. I told him that, I said you wouldn’t even be interested. I got him up to what I think you’ll agree is a fair deal.”
    Michael looked over the figures, still unsure what Carl was talking about.
    “So where will you go, anyway? Back East?”
    It took a minute for Michael to see the assumption Carl had made, and for a few moments they sat in silence, Carl’s brow beginning to furrow with unease, or puzzlement, or both. “I’m not selling,” Michael said eventually. The sheet of paper, he belatedly understood, was an offer on the house and store. This was Carl’s good news.
    “You’re not selling?” Carl blinked. “I don’t get it.”
    “I mean I’m staying here, Carl.”
    Carl took off his glasses and stared hard at the lenses while he polished them with a handkerchief he took from his pocket. His smile remained frozen on his face, but it looked forced, as if it were threatening to be swept away without his full consent. Eventually he looked up. “You mean you’re planning to live here? In Little River?”
    Michael heard the underlying tone. “You look like you don’t think it’s a good idea.”
    Carl started to shake his head and protest, but changed his mind. “The truth is, Michael, I should counsel you to think about this. I’m speaking as your friend here, not just your lawyer. This is a damn good offer,” he added.
    “It’s not the money.”
    Carl fiddled with a pen. He got up, looking uncomfortable about the whole situation, the expression on his face changing to one of irritation. If he’d had to guess, Michael would have said that Carl was wishing Michael’s dad had taken his business someplace else before he died—only there wasn’t anywhere else in town. He wondered if maybe Carl had put some kind of deal together that was going to make the lawyer some money, and now that he understood Michael wasn’t selling, he was pissed about it. Another possibility occurred to him, however, one he hadn’t anticipated and hoped wasn’t true.
    “The truth is,” Carl went on, choosing his words carefully, trying to sound reasonable, “I just assumed you wouldn’t want to stay around
     
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    here. I mean, it’s lucky you didn’t sell everything when your