Backwater

by Joan Bauer

  “They haven’t yet,” she said softly.

  “Is there any way to call for help?”

  Jo shook her head. “Lord, I’m sorry, Ivy.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  I pushed off the gnawing fear that we were going to die.

  Felt a wave of sickening panic.

  Law school teaches you not to panic, Dad used to say. Never allow panic in your mind. Steel yourself, do whatever you must do to remain calm. Panic causes men to do foolish things. Circumstances usually point to the next appropriate action.

  Where did that come from?

  The legal version of “Use fear, don’t let it use you.”

  I took a deep breath of courage, faced my situation square.

  Jo was in serious shape.

  There was no way to call for help.

  I looked madly around the broken cabin.

  The Franklin stove was still pumping heat. I threw more logs inside.

  “It’s going to be okay, Aunt Jo.”

  She shook her head. “Cut it open,” she directed weakly.

  “What?”

  She pointed to her injured leg. “Need to look,” she said.

  “You mean cut your long underwear?”

  She nodded. I took my pocket knife, gently sliced through the material from her hip down to her knee. I shone the flashlight on her leg and stepped back at what I saw. Her hip to her knee was swollen an angry purple. Her thigh was bent where it should have been straight. Little bumps were on the skin. It looked bad.

  “Tell me,” she insisted.

  I told her.

  “I might be bleeding internally,” she said. “Leg’s probably broken.”

  I scanned the bookcase, looking for the first aid book. Where was it? Shelf after shelf. I saw it in the far corner finally next to an old Bible. I ran to it, looked up internal bleeding. I stared at the words on the page.

  Purplish swelling.

  Internal hemorrhaging.

  Get the victim to a hospital immediately. Can be fatal.

  The flames in the Franklin stove spat and sputtered with heat.

  “I’m moving you closer to the heat, Jo.”

  “Can’t move.”

  “I know, but you need to stay warm.”

  “You, too …”

  “I will.” I tugged at the rope of the sled and pulled Jo gently forward. Malachi jumped in front of the sled, looked at me, but I looked away.

  “Okay,” I said. “That’s better. We’ve got firewood for a month. We’ve got food. We’ve got a hole in the roof the size of a Chevy Suburban.”

  “We’ve got each other,” Jo tried bravely, then sank back and closed her eyes.

  “No sleeping!” I shouted. “We’ve got to keep talking. If you fall asleep …” I didn’t say you’ll die.

  “Your father …” Jo began, “know what he said when you were born?”

  “I … no …”

  “Said you were the toughest kid he’d ever seen.”

  “My father said that?”

  “Told everyone …”

  “He did?”

  “Said,” Jo said with great effort, “you could chew nails you were so tough. Called you Nails.”

  “Really?”

  Nails Breedlove. I scrunched closer to the fire, watched it beginning to melt the snow in the room.

  I layered on every piece of clothing I could find to keep me and Jo warm. The fire was helping, but the gaping hole in the roof wasn’t. The falling snow was melting in the cabin, making the floor terribly wet.

  Malachi began to whine.

  “No whiners,” I snarled.

  Malachi whined, looked up.

  “Don’t,” I said, and felt Jo’s forehead. “You’re very hot, Aunt Jo.”

  “In there.” Jo pointed to the cupboard. I climbed over the mess, found Tylenol, filled a cup with water from a bucket, brought it to Jo, who gulped three pills down. The fire was almost out. I headed for the door to get more logs.

  Another wolf whine, scratching paws.

  A creak in the roof.

  I looked up.

  The huge tree lying on the cabin seemed to be slipping through. It creaked, cut through more roof.

  “No!” I leaped to action, opened the door, pulled Jo and the sled out into the cold and across the porch, with her crying in pain.

  Malachi escaped within inches as the giant tree inched its way down, crashing through the roof, the walls, and took the last of the cabin with it.

  17

  I looked at the collapsed, smashed cabin, the smoldering Franklin stove that had been doused with mounds of snow from the roof. The huge pine lay flat across it like a giant who’d smashed a little house made of Lincoln Logs. Jo’s pained face looked away to the swirling mass of snow. Another tree had fallen right in front of the bird hospital, not doing any damage, but blocking the entrance.

  “Tell me what you want me to do!” I shouted.

  “I’m … thinking.”

  I stuck my face close to hers and screamed, “You tell me what to do, Aunt Jo, and I’ll do it. I’ll do it!”

  “The chapel,” she said thickly.

  I yanked the sled through the thick snow to the chapel door.

  * * *

  It was freezing in there, but at least we were protected. I found the wooden matches by the hanging lantern—took three tries to light one. The lamp beamed a shaft of light across Jo in the sled. The wooden cross cast a shadow on the far wall; the holly that had seemed so perfect yesterday now seemed like a funeral wreath. Jo was getting worse. Her voice was slurred, she was shivering, haggard.

  Get the victim to a hospital immediately. Can be fatal.

  “Keep warm,” Jo said painfully, beating her hands together.

  I kept moving. We were going to freeze in here.

  Jo looked at me weakly.

  “Maybe we’ll get rescued,” I offered.

  “They think we’re safe …”

  I felt a deep, sick feeling.

  I turned away, tears pouring from my eyes, half freezing as they rolled down my cheek. My brain was frozen, my feet were wet and cold. I looked back at Jo; her eyes were closing.

  “Move!” I shouted, slapping her hands together. “Fight!”

  “Can’t …”

  “You can!” my voice bellowed through the chapel. “You will fight this! Is that clear?”

  “Sound like Dan!”

  “Good! We could use him right now. Do you know what he always said to me? When you look something straight in the eyes, you can fight it.”

  Decide you’re going to make it.

  I batted my hands together, marched in a little circle like a prisoner in solitary.

  I went outside, clanged the chapel bell for help until I realized there was no one who would come.

  It was up to me.

  “When it clears, Aunt Jo, we’re going to the lake. You show me the quickest way across the ice to the ranger station.”

  * * *

  The storm stopped.

  I looked at the trees heavy with snow.

  Jo was gray, shivering.

  I had put on the snowshoes and was now pulling the sled through the tall trees, walking on top of the new powder, feeling close to dead. Malachi was running ahead. Shafts of sun broke through the trees.

  I was out of my mind to be trying this.

  “Follow him,” Jo said.

  This isn’t a Lassie movie.

  I followed the wolf anyway.

  He’d get a little far ahead and would sweep back around like a sheepdog.

  “Good boy,” Jo said.

  What about me?

  I kept pulling, blisters raw, hands frigid, snow and snot frozen on my face.

  I pulled the sled.

  “Stop,” Jo said. Her eyes were half closed. We looked out over the snow-covered frozen lake.

  I found a big, heavy branch, threw it hard on the ice.

  I stepped on the ice. It seemed solid. I jumped to make sure
.

  Malachi ran on the ice and headed across. “Follow him,” Jo said softly.

  Fear pounded in my throat.

  “Don’t think,” Jo said thickly. “Do it.”

  I couldn’t seem to move. Given the choice of where to die, I’d rather pick frozen land over frozen water.

  I don’t know where I’m going.

  I don’t know how to do this!

  My hands were freezing, my wet feet were going numb. I wasn’t supposed to get wet or tired, Mama said. I didn’t think I could walk at all, much less pull something.

  “God …” My head went down.

  Malachi came up to me, whining. I looked away. He was going to wait until I was half dead and then start chomping.

  I stepped onto the ice. My whole body was shaking. Malachi raced ahead and then doubled back to look at me.

  I pulled the sled across the snow, felt my snowshoes slip under me.

  I fell hard.

  I shook the image of Jo and me drowning in frigid water from my mind.

  I got up, brushed myself off, started again.

  My body screamed for rest.

  The temperature was dropping. I’d made it half-way across the frozen lake when I heard the sickening sound.

  I froze as I felt ice move beneath my feet.

  It was cracking.

  My body shook in great gales of tears.

  We were finished.

  18

  I stood as still as I could.

  Malachi barked incessantly.

  I was too afraid to silence him.

  I remembered reading a book about people dying on Mt. Everest. How the cold swept through them making them confused and weak, how their fingers went numb one by one and then couldn’t move.

  I didn’t move.

  Tried to muster strength, wisdom. Three generations of Breedlove women had been tough-fisted pioneers, managing alone in the wilderness.

  “Help!” I screamed, throwing back my head. “Help!”

  I knew there was no one to hear.

  My throat was parched and dry from no water, my head was stinging in pain from fear and cold.

  I screamed until I couldn’t scream anymore.

  I was going to die too young in the middle of a frozen mountain lake on New Year’s Day.

  “Save it,” Jo whispered, trying to look brave, but her bravado didn’t fool me. We were as stuck as any two human beings had ever been.

  Malachi sat up, cocked his head, listened.

  Another part of the ice cracked.

  Malachi looked to the shore, whined.

  A huge wind blew stinging ice crystals in my eyes. I couldn’t see.

  “Breedlove,” a voice shouted from far away, “what are you doing?”

  I jolted to attention, wiped my eyes clear, looked madly across the expanse of snow and trees.

  Mountain Mama was standing on the shore.

  She was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen, even though she was snow–encrusted and very irritated.

  “I’m trying to survive!” I shouted.

  “I’ve been looking everywhere for you! I told you I’d be back to pick you up!”

  “Gee, I’m sorry, when the cabin was crushed by a mammoth tree, there wasn’t much to keep us there!”

  I was beginning to sense the loss of feeling in my fingers and toes.

  “What’s your situation?” she demanded.

  I thought rescuers were supposed to be compassionate.

  “The ice is cracking!” I shouted.

  “Everywhere?”

  If it was cracking everywhere I wouldn’t be here. “Just some places, and Josephine’s leg is hurt bad!”

  Jo raised a brave hand.

  “Let’s think about our options!” Mama cried.

  I looked out at the snowy expanse of lake. “We have options?”

  “You’re alive, aren’t you?”

  “So far!”

  “Then you’ve got options!”

  Mountain Mama walked back and forth along the shore, thinking about my options.

  “How’s the ice behind you?”

  That was easy. “Cracked!”

  “How ’bout in front of you?”

  I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out. I was about to put my foot down when Malachi started barking crazily. I knew not to put my foot down there.

  Then, like lightning, Malachi leaped to the far left of where I was about to put my foot, and moved nimbly across the ice, which didn’t seem to crack.

  He seemed to look back at me to follow.

  Now another voice carried like an amplifier across the lake.

  “Ivy!”

  I looked up.

  Jack was waving wildly from the shore!

  My heart flipped.

  I couldn’t believe it!

  He started to put his foot on the ice.

  “Jack, no! It’s not hard enough! You’ll fall through!”

  My voice, I shuddered. It didn’t even sound like me.

  “I think the wolf knows where the ice is thin!” Jack shouted.

  Jack was truly wonderful, but he did get a D in Search and Rescue. I looked to Mountain Mama.

  “It’s possible!” she shouted.

  “He knows!” Jack hollered. “Wolves have great sensitivity! They’ve been known to lead people across dangerous ice!”

  I looked to Malachi, who jumped back to me without the ice cracking once.

  “Good boy,” I said to him, and actually patted his head.

  I shouted to Jack. “Won’t it be too heavy with the sled?”

  Jack yelled back that the sled spread the weight out over much more of the ice. “Get on your hands and knees to pull it, Ivy! That will spread your weight out, too!”

  Mountain Mama shouted that the whole thing was risky.

  Jo sighed with pain. “Don’t know … how much more I’ve got.”

  She began to shiver violently and her speech was slurred. She tried taking her jacket off. She was losing it.

  “Jo, you can’t! You’re hurt!”

  Malachi moved toward Jo, nuzzled her face, which seemed to quiet her down.

  “We could get a helicopter to fly in, lower a rope, and lift you out,” Mountain Mama shouted.

  “How long would that take?”

  “A few hours.”

  Jo’s face suddenly turned gray. It was as though she had moved to a dangerous, deadly peril.

  My fingers and toes were numb, the cold wracking my body was overwhelming. If I didn’t move, I was going to freeze.

  Jo’s eyelids began to close like death. “No, Jo! Stay awake. She’s going to die!” I screamed. Jo barely moved when I said it.

  I turned to Malachi, who was standing solidly on the ice. “How much do you weigh, huh? Eighty pounds? More?”

  I weighed one hundred and fifteen.

  “You think there’s room for all of us on this ice?”

  Malachi cocked his head, listening.

  I took off the snow shoes. “You show me the way.”

  Malachi looked at me, tilted his head.

  “Go ahead,” I said, and took the rope in my hands.

  Malachi made a broad sweep around the sled. The ice didn’t crack once where he was going.

  Mountain Mama was yelling something, but I couldn’t hear, and it didn’t matter anymore. I felt the ice underneath the snow, every inch of it around me. I wrapped the rope around my shoulder, got on my hands and knees, and inched slowly across the path Malachi had set.

  My heart beat in my ears; my face was pained from the wind and cold.

  No tears now.

  Malachi waited for me.

  “Get me across.”

  The wolf gently moved in an arc toward the shore. I crawled after him like an injured infant, pulling the sled slowly.

  “Good boy,” I said, clinging to the rope. “Good boy.”

  I slipped on my knee, felt a piece of ice give way.

  “No!” My hand just missed the crack. I was bent th
ere, frozen perfectly still, the only motion was the beating of my heart, which I was sure would cause the ice to give way.

  “Oh, God. Help me.”

  Jo had grown deathly still. I crawled faster as Malachi led the way to the left, then to the middle. We were losing ground again, but I didn’t have much choice except to follow. We headed to Jack in a huge circle as Jo’s unmoving figure slumped in the sled.

  “Jo! Hold on!”

  “Almost there!” Jack shouted.

  Malachi looked at me.

  “You’re a world-class wolf,” I told him. “Get me there.”

  Malachi moved gingerly across the middle-ice section. My knee stuck on a crag. My breath came heavy.

  I didn’t have the strength to go further.

  “You’re almost there!” Mountain Mama said it like she did when I took the ledge. “You’re almost there!”

  And it wasn’t strength of character that got me up, it was fear.

  “Okay now,” Mama said. “Here comes the last of it!”

  I followed the wolf, who was moving closer to Jack and Mountain Mama. The ice underneath felt stronger, but I was losing strength. Malachi howled at me and it was so clear a call to courage that I stood up and pulled on the rope and pulled the sled forward. Jack was stepping across the ice now and telling me to throw the rope to him, he’d yank Jo in.

  I took the rope and with everything left in me, pulled harder and harder following the wolf. I fell down and started crying.

  I froze in terror.

  Jack walked quickly, stepping lightly on the ice.

  He made it to me.

  “It’s solid here,” he said, helped me up, and he pulled with all his Search-and-Rescue strength, which had been there all along, and got Jo to shore.

  I half ran across the ice to Jack and Mountain Mama, who were rubbing Jo’s hands and her cheeks, looking inside her closed eyelids, and asking her if she could hear them. Drool was frozen on her face. She didn’t move.

  Jack took off his pack and threw it to Mountain Mama.

  “Can you run?” he asked me, and grabbed the sled rope and pulled it behind him down the path.

  I couldn’t do anything, but I did.

  The wilderness teaches you to do things you never thought you could do.

  We ran through the snowy forest, up and down trails as Jack pulled Jo for what seemed like forever, all the way to the ranger station.

  I dropped to my knees in the snow as rangers circled us, hands lifted Jo out of the sled, and took her inside by the fire.