by David Haynes
By the time he had opened his eyes again, Lisa was already pushing a piece of chocolate into her mouth. He smiled.
“You’re too clever for me,” he said. “Good?”
She closed her eyes and sighed. “God, I’ve missed this.”
“Wilkes only had three bars left.”
She opened her eyes again, fixing him with a stare.
“I cleared him out,” he added.
“You beautiful man,” she said. “You big, beautiful, hairy man.” She pulled the end of the wrapper over the bar and sat down beside him. “I’m going to eat all of this tonight. You know that, don’t you?”
He laughed. “Of course.”
She leaned forward and kissed him. Her lips tasted of chocolate and the kiss lingered long enough to tell him a couple of things. One, Lisa was happy about the candy. Two, she was really happy about it.
She grabbed his arm and pulled him upright. “I think I’ll take you to bed now, mister,” she said.
*
For dinner they ate bread that Lisa had baked on the stove-top and topped it with salted caribou meat. Juices from the meat seeped into the still-warm bread, making it taste heavenly. They ate this in bed, naked under the blankets and furs that were piled high. Flames from the fire flickered across the walls, filling the cabin with warmth.
Jonesy lay back, folding his arms behind his head. He expected Lisa to lie on his chest, as she usually did when she was ready to sleep, but she shuffled over to the other side of the bed.
“What you doing?” he asked. His body ached wonderfully after the day’s exertions. It had been a beautiful day in lots of ways.
“Just getting something,” she replied, rolling over.
He turned his head just in time to watch her push a chunk of chocolate into her mouth. Her cheek bulged with it.
“Didn’t save any for me, then?” he asked.
“You don’t like it.”
“Well, no I don’t but...”
“Oh shut up, you got something better than candy anyway.”
He couldn’t argue with that.
They lay still for a while, listening to the wood crackle and spit in the stove and the trees groaning against the wind.
“I need to go and feed Lad,” Jonesy said after a while.
“I’ll go,” Lisa put her head on his chest. “In a minute.”
He put an arm around her. “Where were you when we came back, anyway?”
“I went out to check the cache.”
“Problem with it?” he asked. Since they had bear-proofed it, there had been no more break-ins. There had never been an official designation of jobs between them, it had just happened naturally as they found their strengths. Hunting was a case in point. Jonesy had assumed the role in the early days, but it soon became clear that his eyesight wasn’t as good as he thought it was. The cache and the butchering of the meat had always been his responsibility though. He couldn’t remember the last time Lisa had gone up there.
“No, no problem. Just wanted to check, that’s all.”
“Check what?” he asked. “I told you what was up there and then we added the caribou yesterday.”
She shifted against him. “I just wanted to see it for myself.”
He thought about it for a moment. Last winter, their first here, had been a journey into hell, into the worst torture chamber in the whole of Hades. It wasn’t easily forgotten despite their best efforts.
“I’m not sure we can fit anything else in there,” he said. “It’s full, huh?”
“Kinda,” she replied. “You think there’s enough?”
He moved across the bed slightly so he could better see her expression. Was she kidding? With today’s supplies, they had enough to last them until March or even April.
She looked up at him, biting a bit of chapped skin on her upper lip. He could see she was serious.
“We’ve got more than enough.” He squeezed her against him. “We’ll be fine, I promise. And if we run out of anything, we’ve got two more Hershey bars to get through.” He wanted to distract her, take her away from her current train of thought.
She laughed but she wasn’t relaxed. “I mean, I wouldn’t want to live through that...”
“Sssh.” He brushed a strand of chestnut hair away from her cheek. They had been enjoying a lovely evening and now it seemed she was fixated on last winter. “We don’t need to think about that ever again. We’re different people now. It’s all different.”
“I know but...”
“Lisa, please. Just trust me.”
“I do,” she replied.
They were silent again but he could sense she was still thinking. He moved his arm from around her and eased his body away.
“I need to feed, Lad,” he said. “And I need a leak.”
He pulled his pants on and put on the rest of his clothes as he walked to the stairs. He turned and smiled at her before he went down. “You need to come too?”
She yawned and smiled back. “No, I’ll be okay till the morning.”
He pulled on his hat. “I’ll fix the indoor plumbing for next winter, how’s that sound?”
“You better,” she replied, rolling over again.
He walked downstairs and picked up Lisa’s Winchester.
“Jonesy?” Lisa called down. “How many spare batteries did Wilkes give you?”
“Batteries?” He was confused.
“For the satphone?”
He winced. He’d forgotten about that and she hadn’t asked. He was silent for a moment.
“Jonesy? You there?”
“He didn’t have it,” he said.
He heard the boards creak as she padded across to the top of the stairs.
“What do you mean?”
“The order got messed up. The delivery didn’t arrive.”
He heard her breath tremble as she inhaled.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “They’ve closed down the depot until next year. We won’t get one in time. I’m really...”
“Doesn’t matter,” she said, although her voice said something different. “We’ve got more than enough to last us.” She walked back to the bed. “More than enough,” she repeated.
He opened his mouth to say something else but closed it. Whatever he said would be worthless. He’d let her down again.
He slung the rifle over his shoulder and stepped into the snow. He looked up the track at the shadow of the cache. He was sure they had sufficient to last. Positive. He walked over to the shed. Lad was just stretching himself out of sleep, slapping his tongue over his teeth. He looked at his empty bowl.
They had enough food. They could feed an extra person all winter and still make it through. So why was he now doubting himself? The lack of a satphone changed nothing. At least not in his mind. He poured Lad’s food into the bowl and tried to stop a ten-legged doubt-monster from hell crawl up his back and press the button marked ‘fear’.
5
The snow fell in earnest over the next two weeks, covering their world in a thick, clean and blinding blanket. Even Lad was forced indoors, disturbing them during the middle of the night by whining and scratching at the door. It had to be cold for that to happen. Not once did they allow the fire to go out.
The hours of darkness lengthened, squeezing the sun out through the gaps in the trees and over the mountains where it disappeared, weak and exhausted after only five hours. A kind of morose lethargy settled upon them both and the temptation to follow the sun and creep into bed at five in the afternoon was almost as big as the grizzly they had seen in the forest. But they resisted. The importance of carrying on as normal was not to be underestimated. Even if normality had become a strained truce where neither party was willing to discuss the perceived lack of food. It would be a long winter of avoidance.
Exercise was important too. For all of them, including Lad. A lack of it made the dog anxious and prone to stare at them with doleful eyes; a look designed with one purpose. That purpose was guilt.
The dog had hauled wood, food, water and anything else that needed moving from one place to another almost every day prior to the onset of the real winter. Now he was largely redundant and divided his time between the shed and the cabin, sloping from one to the other. Depression was as big a risk to his health as any attack by a predator.
“You should take him to fetch water,” Lisa said. “Maybe go along the ridge a little way? You both need to get out of here for a while.”
Jonesy looked out of the window. Apart from fetching wood from the shed, visiting the cache and using the toilet, he hadn’t been out of the camp. He knew how the dog felt. The sky had been a dismal patchwork of gray shades but today there was a break and a small square of blue peeked through. Just the sight of it was uplifting.
“You’ll be okay?” He turned to look at her. Lisa was reading an ancient book about growing crops in Alaska. The book had come free with the cabin but was at least twice as old as the building. She had a notepad on her knee and was scribbling memos.
“You like arugula?” she asked. “What about parsnips?”
“Sure,” he shrugged. “Not at the same time though.”
She nodded. “I’ll be fine.”
He dressed quickly, readying his rifle and then sliding into his snowshoes. He checked the time. It was nearly noon. It had only been light for about an hour and in another four it would be dark.
“A couple of hours?” he said.
She pursed her lips and made a kissing sound. “I’ve got some big plans for the garden. You’ll be digging in the spring. A lot.”
He smiled and opened the door. “Back soon,” he said.
As soon as Jonesy pulled the harness off the hook, Lad howled, rushing from one side of the shed to the other. Jonesy secured the water drums to the sled and attached Lad. The dog could pull it on his own today.
“Let’s go!” he shouted and walked up the bank toward the plateau behind the sled. Once they reached the top he halted Lad, took off his snowshoes and stood on the platform at the rear of the sled. Lad pulled him as if he were as light as a leaf. Neither of them were used to mushing but Jonesy enjoyed it immensely. By the way Lad ran with his ears up and tongue hanging out, it was obvious he did too. They weren’t about to win the Iditarod but neither of them cared about that.
After only five minutes, they crossed the frozen spring. He would use the auger and hatchet to get through the ice and fill up the containers on the return trip. To his right the familiar giant rocks on the tundra had vanished, hidden beneath the snow. It was a massive expanse of absolutely nothing. To his left the Sitka grew straight, high into the blue sky. The bank sloped down into the Tanana valley where, in sections, the river was now a frozen highway. In others it remained a misleading trap. He pushed Lad on straight, past the trail they normally took down into the valley, farther along the ridge.
Snow had blown across the tundra, piling it high against the Sitka that strayed out of the forest, driving the trees back, bending them against the wind. It made the snow deeper and progress slower, but Jonesy knew that what Lad lost in speed he more than made up for in stamina. He could go all day like this.
They crossed another frozen spring before the track made a long, gentle climb up to the left. The track passed through a small copse of birch before breaking out into a clearing. It was a long time since he had come this far out, and even longer since he had done it without Lisa.
“Easy!” he called out. “Whoa!”
But Lad ignored him and continued pulling. “Enough, Lad. Stop!” he shouted.
Lad half-looked over his shoulder, carried on for a few more steps to show he was in charge and then stopped.
Jonesy slid into his showshoes and climbed off the platform. The view was stunning. The day wasn’t clear or bright enough to see Mount Denali, nor was it good enough to see all of the peaks of the Kuskokwim Mountains, but just seeing a quarter of what was out there was breathtaking.
He poured some water from his canteen into a bowl and let Lad take a drink.
It had taken nearly two hours to reach this place. When he hiked it with Lisa, even before Lad had been a member of their family, it took close to four. But it had been worth every step. He remembered how vivid the peaks looked against the clear blue sky. How their ridges and pyramidal peaks looked like the cut of diamonds. That had been before they made the offer on the cabin, basking in the warmth of the Alaskan summer, bitten to death by the bugs. He smiled and took a deep breath. The air stung his lungs, making him cough.
The blue sky had finally been swallowed up by the gray but that didn’t matter. It was so beautiful here, so peaceful. He looked out into the nothingness and tried to force his mind to empty into it…for the wind to take hold of all the unspoken conversations, the apologies and the tears and to blow them into space. He closed his eyes and just stood still for a while.
*
It was too much to expect the weather to hold off for long. A flurry of snow and a blast of icy wind jerked him out of his daydream. The sky had changed color, changing to a deeper gray, closer to black. He checked his watch. He’d been standing there for twenty minutes.
“Time to go,” he said to Lad.
He turned the sled, facing it back toward home, and had to jump back on to the platform even before he had finished unfastening his shoes. Lad was eager to be gone. Gone, or just moving again? The latter probably.
They made good progress, using the tracks they left earlier to keep the sled on a straight line and soon, too soon, they arrived back at their spring. Despite the cold, Jonesy felt his spirits drop slightly as he climbed off the platform and gathered the auger. It had been a good day, just him and Lad sliding along the ridge, working together to keep the sled from tumbling down into the forest. His skin stung with the cold and his thighs ached at the use of a new set of muscles. But the disappointment at being home again only made him feel guilty.
He pushed the auger against the ice and started to drill down. He didn’t expect the ice to be too thick but neither did he expect an easy ride. The auger made quick work of it though, and within six inches he was through. Water bubbled up to the surface and he used the hatchet to widen the hole enough to let him fill the containers. When he’d finished he let Lad lap at the running water.
As he tied the tools back to the sled, he stopped. There were tracks around the spring; not bear, not wolf. Human. Or at least what was left of them appeared human. A hiking boot perhaps?
He stepped across the spring and knelt. It was already starting to sparkle with glassy shards of ice. Fresh snow was rapidly filling the impressions but they were definitely footprints. He scanned the area, trying to see where they were heading and where they had originated from, but they petered out after a few steps, covered by an ever-increasing deluge.
The print in front of him was small, like Lisa’s. Had she come out looking for him, to get water? He winced. He’d been out too long and there was only a small amount of water left back at the cabin. She wouldn’t be too happy if she knew he’d been standing on the ridge just staring into space for twenty minutes.
He turned to Lad. “I won’t tell if you won’t,” he said.
Lad blinked against the snow and pawed the frozen ground. He wanted to be moving.
He looked at the footprint again. It had almost completely gone now. Nobody would know it had ever been there. She knew better than anyone not to go anywhere without her snowshoes on.
“Let’s go!” he shouted and jumped on the back of the sled again.
The last time he left her alone all day had been a couple of weeks ago when he went to Big Six for supplies. That had led to a few uneasy days of anxiety about food. There was even less reason for her to worry about water than there was food but if she was coming out here, under-equipped and vulnerable, then she was dwelling on something that needed forgetting.
He has absolutely no idea how to approach her about it. No idea at all.
*
As he dropped off the
trail down toward their cabin, he saw her coming out of the shed. She was cradling a pile of logs to her chest.
“Hey!” he shouted, waving and jumping off the platform.
She turned around, smiled and waited for them to slide into the camp. She looked excited.
“Had a good day?” she asked.
“The best,” he answered, looking down at her feet. She was wearing snowshoes. “How about you?”
“Same as you,” she answered and kissed him. “This is the farthest I’ve been all day!”
“You’ve not been out for a walk?”
She shook her head. “No, sir. Well, apart from a visit to the glorious and luxurious bathroom, of course.” She was almost jumping up and down. “I’ve made plans for extending the garden, what to plant, when to plant them...I want to get it right next year.”
“It was pretty good this year,” he said, unhitching Lad.
“I can make it work better,” she said. Her eyes were full of excited enthusiasm. She tugged his sleeve. “Come and see the plan I’ve made.”
He could mention her footprints up at the spring. He could ask her why she’d gone up there without wearing snowshoes when she knew he would be bringing water back. He could ask her, or he could let it go. She was excited about the garden. It was a refreshing change from the doldrums they had both been in for the past couple of weeks. He didn’t need to ask her about the spring at all.
“Okay, I’ll be right in, just give me a minute to put the sled away and tidy up.”
“I’ll make coffee.” She turned away. “Don’t be long.”
She slid across the deepening snow with ease. Maybe she had just gone up there for a walk to clear her head. Maybe, but survival was just about all either of them thought about now. It had to be that way. If she went up to the spring, it would only be to check the water supply. Why lie about it? He felt guilty again. He should have asked her to come with him, she would have enjoyed the view from the ridge. She might have let go of the fear for a while. He felt the joy of the day slide through his fingers like water.