“You don’t have to take down that tree,” Aldi said, swaying next to us.

“You’re going to help us get Perley back,” Rudy said.

“Looks like I can’t do much,” Aldi said.

“You’ll do what you can,” Rudy said.

“Sure,” Aldi said. “But what I can do I’ll do for free.”

“Don’t talk like that,” Rudy said.

“I’m the one should fell it if anyone should,” Aldi said.

“You can’t do it. You’re too old and you’d immediately kill yourself,” Rudy said.

“It’s a suicide mission no matter who does it,” Aldi said.

“A trade’s a trade,” Rudy said. “We’ll do it. We’ll do it and you’ll sit out here and keep us company and work on the case.”

“In this fucking cold? You must be crazy,” Aldi said.

“Helen’s going to build you a fire,” Rudy said.

Rudy set his anchor line and clipped into his harness, while I found the woodpile out back. Aldi grumbled, but I brought him a canvas camp chair, warmer or at least softer than his metal one, and I bundled him into it, layering him up with the musty coats I found heaped behind the door. “At least bring me my briefcase,” he said, once I’d stoked the fire high and hot. I found it beneath the cot, stuffed the scattered papers back in, dropped it in his lap.

Rudy spent all morning up in the tree, pruning branches and lowering them down to me with the Port-a-Wrap. He didn’t even come down for bathroom breaks, but delighted in pissing from the heights, calling for Aldi and me to look out below, but what he really meant was look, and I didn’t.

We didn’t generally work in the winter. In the winter, Rudy would all but disappear and I’d try to get by on what we’d made over the spring, summer, and fall. I wasn’t used to working under so many clothes, two pairs of socks, heavy gloves, woolen long underwear, heavy coveralls, a wool hat under my hood, a hard hat on top of that. I could hardly move. I was cold and overheated at the same time. I dragged brush, used the 346 to cut it to firewood length, saved the skinny ends for the chipper. Aldi rustled his papers and asked for Natural Ice, which I brought him from the cab of Rudy’s truck. He watched me, his eyes watering against the woodsmoke. “Are you a man or a woman?” he asked.

“I guess that’s supposed to be a joke,” I said.

“I mean, if I didn’t already know,” he said.

“I’m working,” I said.