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'Sorry,' he says. 'Where'd you learn that trick anyway?'

'The laces thing? Some Canuck pulled it on me during a tournament in Buffalo.'

'Nice.'

'But Jimmy, are you hearing me? You can't be stepping in like that, for me or anybody else. I saw that look on your face for a second there. A little scary.'

'Right. You can fight your own battles.'

'It's not me you need to worry about, Jimmy. Every day's a penance, right? Isn't that what you say?'

He looks toward the far end of the rink. 'Gotta get with Zelda now. Then maybe have one at the Loon.'

She watches him collect his sticks and stump away toward the Zamboni shed. What a player he once was, maybe the best Bitterfrost has ever seen. Devyn remembers watching him play for the IceKings, the biggest, fastest, smartest player on the ice. At heart, he's a good guy. But that was close tonight. It could have been worse. A lot worse.

CHAPTER THREE

Jimmy makes his nightly rounds. He has only one puddle of spat dip to wipe up, not bad for twenty-three players in two hockey dressing rooms. Plus the usual balled-up wads of tape scattered around the black rubber floors.

The Thursday night pickup session shut down early tonight, not because of Butch's antics but because a stripper was due at the rink at ten and the boys wanted to shower before they surprised their betrothed bachelor bud Jimmy can't recall his name with the young lady from Elk Rapids. Jimmy stayed busy in the Zamboni shed till the boys went spilling out to the limos waiting outside. They tried to get him to join 'Come on, Bakes, come on out for once' and he told them he might, but they knew that was a lie. He did notice Butch leaving without them, probably good for everyone.

He carries the plastic waste bucket back to the Zamboni shed and dumps the tape wads, empty beer cans, and a sparkly pink-and-purple garter into a waste bin. As on most nights, Jimmy Baker is the last person at the Calvin & Eleanor Payne Memorial Ice Arena, a place he's considered a home for most of his forty-four years. He especially likes this time of night, the 2,198 seats empty, the championship banners hanging in darkness, the only sounds the drone of the compressors and the occasional ticking of a fluorescent lamp.

The last he checked, hours ago, the temperature outside was six degrees. By now it must be zero or below, worse with that heartless wind slicing through every layer you wear. But that could also mean the Jako River will be frozen thick enough soon that he'll be able to get out for some early-morning skate runs before it's time to punch in at the rink. Sometimes the river is solid enough that he can make it all the way to the tiny town of Bliss. Skating the Jako makes him think of his father chugging along beside him in his racer skates with the ridiculously long blades, like machetes strapped to his feet. They're the last fond memories Jimmy has of his dad. Maybe the only ones.

He goes back out to the ice for a last look. He knows it's not exactly right, not as smooth as it could be, not as fast as it ought to be for the IceKings, the junior team that plays here to standing-room-only crowds. Jimmy's been telling management since the season started that Zelda his Zamboni needs new blades. But he and Zelda are still making do with the same seven-foot-long scythes of steel they had at the end of last season. Jimmy has sharpened them a few times, but they're worn and uneven and Zelda needs new.

He squats and slides his right palm across the ice surface, knowing he shouldn't be feeling so much debris. 'Blade's too damn dull,' he says, making a mental note to send his boss another email in the morning.

Walking back to the shed, he thinks it's been a good day, mostly. That morning, he brought pancakes and sausage from Big Henry's Café for the office staff. He went for a solo skate on the rink before Zelda's first spin of the day and had a pleasant phone chat with his older brother in Alpena. The encounter with Butch wasn't a highlight, but Jimmy is glad he escaped without inflicting damage. He knew, watching Devyn and Butch, that he ought to just stand back, calm down, it wasn't his battle, the Dulaneys and Paynes were always in each others' faces. But the next thing he knew, he was rushing over, trying to fix things, even though he knew it could get him into trouble, even if it was the right thing to do.

Devyn said she saw that look on his face. He knows how that feels inside, how fast it can get ugly. He usually just leaves the ice if he feels himself getting riled up about some idiot knocking people around. He wanted to tell Butch, Come on, man, she's a girl, but he knew that would really tick Devyn off, and he liked her way more than Butch.