The Tin Woodstove

The folder weighed no more than a kilo of flour, but Bianca held it pressed against her chest beneath her heavy parka as if it were a contraband gas cylinder.

She slipped out through the back door of the gym before the bell for long recess had even finished ringing. At a quarter past eleven, Cañadón Frío was a single mass of gray air suspended between the hills, with the hazard lights of the Council pickup trucks flashing down there at the highway junction like two orange embers that nobody bothered to put out.

Pascual was already waiting for her by his house gate, kicking a lump of frozen dirt with the toe of his rubber boots.

"You took half a lifetime," he said, without looking at her. "Antileo almost made me copy the hydrographic map from memory because you weren't there to hand me the eraser."

"Cárdenas gave me this."

Pascual glanced at the bundle beneath her coat. The black sealing wax peeked out just barely from the half-open zipper, opaque and cold.

"Ah," said Pascual. He scratched his ear with his shoulder. "How nice. I'm glad I'm not you."

"You're a darling, Pascual. Truly, invaluable emotional support."

The kitchen smelled of concentrated dampness and pine shavings.

The tin woodstove —a sheet-metal drum patched with soft wire at the base— growled every time the wind swept down the outer pipe, but the heat never quite managed to detach itself from the metal walls. Bianca opened the little door with the tip of an oxidized spoon and shoved in two chunks of coihue wood that were still dripping clear resin.

Bad idea.

A gust of dense, milky smoke hit her square in the face, making her cough until tears sprang to her eyes.

"The fire that gives off white smoke is the one that gives the least warmth and burns the eyes the most," recited Pascual from the table, unwrapping a greasy parcel of newspaper.

"Don't start with your aunt's proverbs, I'm begging you."

"It's not a proverb, it's cordillera physics. You threw in freshly felled wood, genius. It's going to go out before the kettle even warms up."

Bianca dropped the spoon onto the counter. She let out a huff, brushing a damp lock of hair from her forehead with the back of her hand.

Things I am not going to do today:

1. Cry over a rusted woodstove.

2. Think about why Lisandro Véliz wasn't able to hold her gaze in the hallway.

3. Look at the phone.

She pulled the dead phone from her pocket.

The screen crossed by the diagonal crack remained in darkness, as cold as the iron of the stove.

Against the dead glass, the words she hadn't managed to send before the battery died still echoed:

«Why did you put on the red wool if you swore you weren't going to sign anything with the old folks?»

She shoved the useless device aside onto the oilcloth with a bitter push.

No.

Pascual broke a fried pastry in half. It was cold, hard as a winter shoe sole, with a crust of sugar that crunched sadly beneath the teeth.

"Here," he said, offering her the larger half. "If you put it on top of the stove lid for two minutes, it'll pass. It almost looks like human food."

"I'm not hungry."

"Eat, Pezoa. You look like you're going to a wake and you haven't even opened that damn thing yet."

Bianca took the stiff dough. She rested it against the warm iron. The pastry began to hiss softly against the metal, giving off a thick vapor that at least somewhat covered the pungent reek of the green coihue.

"Lisandro is going to get the south margin post," said Pascual suddenly, chewing with his mouth half-open.

Bianca didn't move.

"Who told you?"

"Nobody has to tell me anything. Only the Loncopáns wear the red raw-wool ribbon when they close a winter pasture transfer. If he's wearing it on the right, it's because he accepted the pact. He marries the foreman's daughter or takes charge of the big gate at Cerro Ceniza. One or the other."

"The foreman's daughter is fourteen years old, Pascual, don't be an idiot."

"Well, the big gate, then. It's the same thing. It means that as of the solstice, he's the one in charge."

Bianca looked at the fried pastry. The grease bubbled slightly at a charred edge.

"I don't care what Véliz does with his life," she lied.

"You can tell. Especially by how you burned your breakfast."

She muttered a curse under her breath and pulled the dough away with her bare fingers. She burned the tip of her thumb, brought it to her mouth to suck out the heat, and finally looked down at the yellow cardboard folder resting on the floral oilcloth of the table.

The black sealing wax bore the deep mark of a broken claw: the stamp of the Council of Clans used only to seal the files of those who died in dishonor.

Her father, Héctor Daniel Pezoa, had never been a man of dishonor; or at least that was what Bianca had repeated to herself for seven whole winters just to be able to sleep while the house trembled in the wind.

"Are you going to open it or are we just going to stare at it until we freeze?" asked Pascual, brushing crumbs off his worn pullover.

"Cárdenas said they were coming to pick it up before noon."

"It's eleven-thirty."

"I know."

"And sleet is starting to come down outside."

"I know that too."

Bianca stretched her hand toward the wax. The seal was brittle from the room's chill, with tiny cracks running like dark veins across the cardboard. The paper crunched beneath her fingers.

If she broke that seal, there was no turning back with the Loncopáns.

If she didn't break it, Lisandro and his people would keep everything her father had left on the other side of the wire.

She hesitated.

A dry, heavy, viscous thud echoed against the outer sheet metal of the door.

It wasn't a knuckle.

It was the dull smack of an open hand flinging a glob of fresh frontier mud straight against the wood.