She hung up.
Dale stood in the kitchen holding the dead phone. Birdie was standing in the doorway in her nightgown and her moon boots, which she must have put on while he was talking, and she was holding her parka.
"No," said Dale.
"I can help."
"No, Bird. Not in this. You're going to Mrs. Pelto's."
"But I've got the best ears in Alger County," she said, and her chin was shaking, "and you might need them. If something's wrong with the truck. You said."
He got down on one knee and put both hands on her arms.
"I know you do," he said. "And I know you want to help. And the way you help tonight is by being someplace warm where I don't have to worry about you. That's the hardest job, Bird. That's the staying-behind job. I need you to do it."
She looked at him for a long moment. Then she nodded.
"Bring her back," she said.
He took Birdie next door through the snow, both of them bent double in the wind, and Mrs. Pelto opened the door in her bathrobe and took one look at his face and didn't ask anything, just pulled Birdie in by the collar. Then he went to the shop. He chained up the wrecker and threw in two shovels and a tow strap and the big Coleman lantern and a spare belt for a Volaré, which he had on the shelf, because he'd ordered two in October and given her one and kept the other without thinking about why. He got the county garage on the CB, and Leonard Saari said they'd pulled every plow off at seven and Dale was out of his ever-loving mind.
"Probably," said Dale, and went.
* * *