by Joe Beernink
Every extra ounce weighed heavy on his heart.
Jake slowed his rhythm with the paddle as he set out the next morning. His arms and back ached from the exertions of the previous day. It took a while for his muscles to loosen up and even longer for the pain to subside.
To the east, beyond a ridge, thin clouds danced as a breeze swept in from Hudson Bay. Cool air from the north usually met warm air from the south where the prairies ended and made even odds that the day would have some rain. On this day, the dice rolled in Jake’s favor and he reveled in the warm sun.
The lake flew by in less than two hours. Jake crossed a small bay, and let the canoe drift just beyond the grasp of the current pulling water down the next river as he worked out his position with his compass. Reckoning wasn’t as good as GPS, but in his hands, it was close.
The river that flowed out of this lake turned northward, drained northeast into Hudson Bay through the Knife River—four hundred kilometers from where he needed to be. To the south, a chain of lakes and small rivers would eventually dump him into the Churchill River, his next goal.
To get to the Churchill, though, he first had to endure twenty kilometers of pine forest, swamp, and smaller lakes.
Heading south, Jake traced the path he and his grandfather had worked out the previous winter. The next lake lay a short distance ahead, on the other side of a steep-faced ridge. The topographical map showed a navigable path to the west that wasn’t too much longer. Jake backtracked the canoe to a small creek, paddling upstream until the flow reduced to a trickle of water over jagged rock.
His boots, still damp from the previous day’s fight with the bog, felt heavy and stiff. He tightened the straps on his pack and started up the streambed with the canoe balanced precariously on his shoulders.
A few times on the climb he wondered if it wouldn’t be faster just to leave the canoe and hike the whole way, but he knew better. In good weather, a paddler in a canoe could make two or three times the distance of a hiker on flat land. A paddler could go around kilometers of tangled underbrush. A hiker would be forced to ford rivers and circumnavigate large lakes. A paddler used them for additional speed. No hiker could keep up to the pace of a canoe in the hands of an experienced paddler on a downriver run. Saving a day or two on the rivers could mean the difference between starvation and salvation.
The streambed disappeared into a cluster of bushes and vines. A thin line of blue sky hovered over the top of the ridge. Prickly bushes carpeted the remaining climb. He set the canoe down and, with machete in hand, began hacking his way up the hill. By the time he arrived at the top, sweat soaked his shirt.
The top of the ridgeline provided a grand view of the lake he had just paddled, and a view of the next valley and next lake. The shallow lake grew tight with grass, reeds, and lily pads, leaving only a narrow channel of open water glistening as it wound its way through the cattails. After that, another ridge, much like this one, blocked his view. Beyond that, more ridges, and more small lakes. Amos had called the area the Land of a Million Aches. Every step would be painful.
Once through that, however, he would return to an area of larger lakes, fewer portages, more navigable rivers moving in the correct direction, and a greater chance of discovering humanity. If the trip had consisted of a hundred and fifty kilometers of downriver runs, Jake could have completed it in a week of hard paddling. But paddling one klick, then portaging one or two or more, was a much, much slower way to go—a much more difficult way to go. These portages—and these climbs in particular—had prevented the elderly Amos and the ill Emily from making the trip with Jake’s father.
The climb up the ridge was easier the second time. He gave himself a break at the top by setting the canoe on a log. Then he grabbed his pack so as not to chance losing it and used the machete to slice a path clear down the back side of the hill. It took half an hour to reach the water. Then he went back up to the ridge to retrieve the canoe. It took fifteen minutes to drag the canoe down the cleared path to the water. An hour later, he arrived at the southernmost point on the next lake and began chopping his way up the next ridge. By midmorning, he stopped taking inventory of what hurt and began searching for something that didn’t.
He ate lunch stretched out on a rock halfway up another ridge while the canoe rested on a tree branch just below him. Shiny red abrasions marked the spots on his hands where the handle of the machete had rubbed the skin raw. The beginnings of a blister arched the webbing between his thumb and index finger. His hands had long ago developed thick calluses where they came into contact with the paddle or the ax during the time at the cabin, but the machete was a different tool, abrading different parts of his hands. He gently rubbed them together, willing the skin not to blister.
From the rock, he watched an eagle work its way upward into the sky on a hidden thermal. The rising warm air pushed it higher and higher with seemingly no effort from the raptor. Jake wished, as he had many times before, for a plane to spot him, to rescue him, and to take him home.
Despite his wishes and his prayers, the sky remained as empty as it had been for the past eleven months, except for that one regal bird. A few minutes later, the bird, too, disappeared from sight, leaving Jake once again alone with his thoughts.
CHAPTER 8
Izzy
(Winter)
Izzy spent two days cleaning the cabin and gathering firewood. It kept her mind off other things—mainly her stomach, which grumbled incessantly. Her energy dwindled every hour, until all she wanted to do was to curl up next to the stove and go to sleep. There was no stopping. The work had to be done, and Rick had high expectations. He hunted and set traps from dawn to dusk. But the sun disappeared with alarming quickness each day after its brief stint in the sky. Somehow Rick always found his way back to the cabin just as Izzy began to fear he was lost.
Despite his sometimes harsh demeanor, she did fear something would happen to him. He had the skills and the knowledge to survive—to keep them both alive. He also had the guns and the maps. He left her with only her knife, the chef’s knife she had picked up at their former home base while he had attempted to rescue Angie. Rick didn’t trust her with the spare hunting knife in his kit. With just that single, pitiful implement, she scraped rot from the floors, cut frozen moss from nearby trees to fit gaps in the walls, and chipped icicles from the lone cabin window to allow a measure of natural light into their dingy shack.
On the second night at the cabin, Rick brought home their first substantial food in six days: a rabbit caught with one of his traps, and a white fox shot with his .22.
“Lots of tracks out there, Isabelle. Lots of tracks,” Rick said as he gobbled down his meal. Izzy took her time, savoring each bite.
“What kind of tracks?”
“Lots of rabbit. More fox. Ptarmigan by the bunches. A wolverine, too. And a whole herd of deer.” He smiled, raised his eyebrows, and cocked his head.
“Deer?” Izzy’s head bounced up.
“A whole bunch of them. Looks like they might be hiding out in a hollow to the northwest. Found their tracks on my way back, but my hands were full and it was getting dark. You know what they say. A bird in the hand . . .”
Izzy nodded. Despite the food on her plate, she salivated at the thought of another deer. A full-sized buck would provide them with three meals a day for a month, and that hadn’t happened since . . . a lifetime ago.
“We get ourselves a deer or two, and we’ll be all set. We’ll be living high on the hog, you and me. I told you this place was perfect, didn’t I?”
“Uh-huh. If you get a big one . . . like the one I got last summer. That’ll last us a month at least. Maybe longer since there’s just the two of us now—” She nearly choked on her food. Forgive me, Angie! I didn’t mean it. She dropped her fork onto her metal plate with a clatter and covered her mouth. Rick’s head dipped slightly.
“It’s okay, darling. I know how much you miss her. I miss her, too.” He dabbed at the corner of his eye with his
fingertip. He shook his head and cleared his throat.
“We’ll get this place set up nice, Isabelle. Real nice. There’s some other cabins around here that might have stuff we can use. Laroque is just a few klicks—” He stopped, stuffed another piece of meat into his mouth, and continued as he chewed. “We’ve got a good place here. Me and you are going to be real happy here for a long time. If I can find a hand pump and some pipe somewhere, we can even have running water. Well, in the summer at least—too cold for that now.” “The summer? We’re not going back?”
“Go back to what? More gangs? No food? Looking over our shoulders all the time?” He stopped eating mid-bite. “I don’t want some bastard doing to you what they did to your sister.” He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “That wasn’t right, Isabelle. They spoiled her. She was so beautiful.” His voice cracked. He reached across the small table and put his hand on Izzy’s. “But don’t you worry, I’m not going to let anyone hurt you.” He rubbed her hand, and in the dim light of the oil lamp, his eyes misted.
Izzy coughed. Rick’s hand jumped.
“You okay?”
“Just cold. A bit cold.”
“I’ll get some more wood. You stay put and finish your dinner.”
“Thanks, Rick,” she said as he stood.
“No problem, darling.”
He threw on his coat and disappeared out the door. She sat for a moment, staring at the thin blade of the knife next to her plate. The grease from the rabbit had dulled the steel to a reddish brown. Bits of charred meat clung to the metal. She wiped the knife slowly on the tip of her finger, and then licked the grease from that. She ate another bite. The carcass of the fox hung on a rack over the stove, the heat turning it into a slow-cooked jerky. Breakfast. Rick had skinned it while she fried the rabbit. The two skins hung on another rack away from the stove, drying slowly. She pictured what the pile would look like by the end of the winter: a mound of skins and furs big enough to fill the cabin. She envisioned a thick winter coat, and new fur-lined boots keeping her feet warm. She stood and ran her hand over the fox pelt, letting the individual hairs slide between her fingers.
“We get a few more of those and we can make a nice big bedspread,” Rick said when he returned, loaded with pieces of wood large enough to get them through the night. “No more getting up every hour to stoke the fire. A few of those and we’ll stay nice and toasty all night.” He pushed a big piece of wood into the stove, closed the lid, and tightened down the dampers.
Izzy ran her hand over the fur again, drifting off into her memories. She imagined herself back in her bedroom, before the flu. A pile of stuffed animals—remnants of a childhood now long gone—sat in a corner. She had often fallen asleep among them when she was little, protected by a lion named Simba and stuffed cat named Kiya. Every night, her father would pick her up and put her back into her bed, tucking the blankets tight around her. Sometimes she would wake and talk to him. Even when she slept through his visit, she always knew he had checked on her, and that made her feel safe.
“We’re going to have a nice home here, Isabelle, you and me. In a couple of months, all that back in town will seem like a bad dream. Lois and I used to bring Brian up here when he was younger. He always loved it. You will, too.” He stepped forward and put his hand on her shoulder.
“I’m sure I will.”
His hand lingered and then touched her hair. Claustrophobia tightened her throat. She ducked around him and returned to her seat. A little bit of rabbit remained on her plate. She picked at the lean meat.
“Save the bones, Isabelle. Put them in the soup pot for tomorrow. It won’t be much, but it’ll help until we get a deer.”
“Sure. Good idea.”
She fetched the pot from the counter, dropped the rabbit carcass into it, and added water from the melt pail. The rabbit floated for a moment and slowly sank. She thought again of her father.
Daddy, I miss you so much.
CHAPTER 9
Izzy
(Winter)
Rick killed a deer on the third day at the cabin, and they did eat well. Izzy reveled in the sight of the rack overflowing with drying jerky. Outside, strung up high in a tree, the rest of the deer had frozen solid while awaiting room on the rack. With a large kill, however, there came an unexpected problem: Rick stayed close to the cabin. And the closer he stayed, the smaller it became.
After helping her to patch some of the holes in the walls, he dragged a few large pieces of wood into the cabin, all of which were too long to fit into the stove.
“What are those for?” Izzy asked.
“We can’t have you sleeping on the floor all winter.” He pushed their little table to the side to give himself room to work.
“Oh. Okay.” She watched him for a moment as he laid out a rough frame with the larger pieces. Having a bed to keep her off the hard floor, and its pools of cold air, was a good thing. Except something tickled the back of her mind like an itch she couldn’t reach. She watched him as he trimmed back a few branches with a hatchet. He worked quickly, apparently following a plan.
“We’re going to need some hot water so I can bend some of these pieces, hon. How about you get some for me?” He looked up briefly to smile at her.
Izzy nodded, grabbed one of the buckets, zipped up her coat, and ducked out the door. The fresh air offered some relief, despite the cold temperature. The smell of drying meat inside overwhelmed her senses. The crisp air rinsed her lungs. A day ago, the smell of cooking meat would have driven her mad with hunger. Today, with a stomach so full that it bulged out from her rail-thin frame, the smell was almost sickening in its sweetness.
Outside, gusts drove the smoke from the chimney out over the water. She dug a path through the snow to the ice, where every scoop allowed her to take another step farther from the cabin.
They had butchered the deer until late into the night and collapsed into their sleeping bags. Izzy hadn’t forgotten about the previous evening—the memory of Rick’s hand on her clung to her thoughts like a spider web, wrapping around her and refusing to let her move on. She missed having Angie to talk to more than ever. Keeping herself busy around the cabin helped as a distraction, but Rick’s presence made it harder to focus on her work. Earlier, while she was slicing meat for jerky, he had “assisted” her by showing her a better way to hold the knife. The tip was useful, and the knife did work better when she followed his instructions, but during the minute he stood by her, his free hand had returned to that spot on her shoulder and guided her arm. The smell of him was so close and so tight that she had to fight her gag reflex.
When she returned to the cabin, she knew immediately what was wrong.
Rick had set the outline of the new frame right beside the existing cot, and the way he had put the pieces together didn’t seem like he had plans to move it. “Wouldn’t it be better to put that over in the other corner?” Izzy asked.
“We’ve got the fur racks and wood pile over there, Isabelle. And we’d have to burn a ton of wood all winter long to keep this whole place warm. We’ve only got the two bags, those ratty blankets, and that deer hide out there. When the cold really sets in, it’ll be better for us to be bunked together.”
“Together?”
“Much easier to keep warm that way, darlin’.” He shaved down a stick and fit it into a gap in the existing bed. Izzy searched for an objection that would make sense to him.
“I snore pretty loud. You may not want to hear that all night,” she said. That was true. Her sister had complained about it a dozen times.
“Ain’t bothered me so far, hon. Kinda cute, if you ask me. Lois used to say I snored like a chain saw, but I guess that was when I was a little heavier. Seem to have starved the snoring right out of me. I’m probably in better shape now than I was back in high school. Maybe not as fast as I was back then, but probably a lot wiser.”
He rammed another stick into the frame. It came together more quickly than Izzy could think of excuses. She stood th
ere, watching him for another minute. Her stomach rumbled and she felt slightly ill. Rick had warned her about overeating, but she had not listened. Now a cramp tore across her abdomen.
“I’m going to use the bathroom,” Izzy said.
“Fine. I should be done here soon. Then we can gather up some pine boughs to make a bit of a mattress so it’s nice and soft. A pine-bough bed can be just as comfortable as a feather bed if you know what you’re doin’.”
“Right,” she said as she left.
The outhouse squatted a dozen meters to the south. Even compared to the cabin, the outhouse was dark and cold and small. Cobwebs hung in the upper reaches. It hadn’t been moved from its pit in years. Rick said he would dig a new one as soon as the ground wasn’t frozen solid. He had checked before they used it the first time to make sure no animals called it home—they would have been dinner the first night. It had been empty, except for the smell. Sewer stink escaped from the wood with every creak of the boards. The pit, filled with dirt and debris and the frozen refuse of occupants now long gone, was barely deep enough for its purpose.
Even still, given a choice, she would have stayed out there all night rather than spend even one minute in a bed with Rick. It was bad enough to have had to sleep in the same tent with him since leaving Thompson. He was always sweaty despite the subzero temps, and his clothes smelled like old gym shoes. The idea of spending the night that much closer to him made her stomach roil even more. As she sat there and relieved her cramps, she tried to think of a way out. She could continue to sleep on the floor near the stove. Sure, it had been cold the first two nights, but with a little work, she could make it warmer. Her confidence in that plan faded as a gust of wind shook the loose boards of the outhouse. They barely had enough blankets to keep one person warm now, and it wasn’t even officially winter yet. She had lived in the North her whole life, and in the wild now for months, but even as rough as the summer had been, the cold of the earliest part of winter had still been a shock.