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Chapter One
Q
I
t was bitter cold
, the air electric with all that was yetto happen. The world stood stock still, our o’clock deadon. Nothing moved anywhere, not a body, not a bird; or asplit second there was only silence, there was only stillness. Figuresstood rozen in the rozen land, men, women, and children.I you had been there you would not have noticed. You wouldnot have noticed your own stillness in this thin slice o time. But,i you had been there and you had, in some unathomable way, re-corded the stillness, taken a negative o it as the glass plate receivesthe light, to be developed later, you would have known, when thethought, the recollection was nally developed, that this was themoment it began. The clock ticked. The hour struck. Everythingmoved again. The train was late.It was not snowing yet, but it would be soon, a blizzard, by thesmell o it. The land lay covered already in trampled snow. Theland here few away rom your eyes, gone into the black horizonwithout leaving one detail inside the eye. Stubble through the snow,sharp as razors. Crows picking at nothing. Black river, rigid oil.
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RobeRt GoolRick
Nothing says hell has to be re, thought Ralph Truitt, standingin his sober clothes on the platorm o the tiny train station in therozen middle o rozen nowhere. Hell could be like this. It couldbe darker every minute. It could be cold enough to sear the skinrom your bones.Standing in the center o the crowd, his solitude was enormous.He elt that in all the vast and rozen space in which he livedhis lie — every hand needy, every heart wanting something romhim — everybody had a reason to be and a place to land. Every-body but him. For him there was nothing. In all the cold and bitterworld, there was not a single place or him to sit down.Ralph Truitt checked his silver watch. Yes, the train was late. Theeyes around him were staring silently; they knew. He had countedon the train being on time today. To the minute, he had told them.He had ordered punctuality the way another man might order asteak cooked to his liking. Now he stood like a ool with everybodywatching. And he was a ool. He had ailed at even this small thing.It would come to nothing, this last small spark o hope.He was a man used to getting what he wanted. Since his rststaggering losses twenty years beore, his wie, his children, hisheart’s best hopes and his last lavish antasies, he had come tosee the implacability o his own expectations as the only deenseagainst the terrors he elt. It worked pretty well most o the time.He was relentless, and the people o the town respected that, earedit even. Now the train was late.Around him on the platorm the people o his town walked andwatched and waited, trying to look casual, as though their wait-ing had some purpose other than watching Ralph Truitt wait ora train that was late. They exchanged little jokes. They laughed.They spoke quietly, out o respect or what they knew to be Ralph
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