by Harry Mazer
“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t stand.”
“Sure you can,” she said, forcing a cheerful tone into her voice. “Go on, try it. I can’t carry you. You have to do it. Get up, Tony, you have to walk.”
Steadying himself with the stick, he gingerly put his weight on his injured leg. “Good,” she said, “that’s very good!” But at the first twinge of pain he threw out his arms and sank down on the sled. “I can’t! I told you I can’t!”
Cindy looked up at the steep sides of the ravine. She had never felt so afraid and hopeless in her life. If he couldn’t stand, they couldn’t move. If they couldn’t move, they would freeze to death—that was the truth. A chill shook her. They had to move. They couldn’t stay like this. They had to find fire and shelter.
Some distance away, jutting out from the side of the ravine, Cindy found an outcropping of rocks that formed a narrow shelter. “There,” she said, pointing it out to Tony. “We’ll go there and build a fire.” He nodded, indifferent to everything but his own misery. She had to pull him on the sled while he sat there like a dead weight. She threw herself against the rope. The sled barely inched along. It was terribly hard work, but she finally made it across to the rocks.
When she recovered her strength, she scooped out a place between the rocks. Then she went to work on a fire, piling dead branches high and putting the gasoline-soaked rag underneath. “Pray,” she said as she struck the match. The fire flared up. She threw in more wood and soon had a roaring fire that heated up the shelter. Then she lay down next to Tony on the sled and pulled the blankets over them. She was tired, so terribly tired, too tired to think.
Later, she got up and gathered firewood and springy evergreens for bedding. They ate the last of their food, a can of tomatoes. Tomorrow there would be nothing.
Tony was propped with his legs toward the fire and his back against the rock. “My whole leg hurts,” he said. “It aches and aches. It doesn’t stop aching.”
It was hard for her not to feel resentful. She hurt, too. Her body throbbed, her head throbbed, she thought she had a fever. Every time she looked at those steep ravine walls, she got a sick feeling in her stomach.
Tony snapped off twigs and flipped them into the fire. He had stopped shivering, but he was still depressed. “We’ll never get out of here. We’re going to die here.”
“No, we won’t.” Her words were hollow. She didn’t believe them. She was as depressed as Tony. She didn’t want to hear anything anymore.
It was growing dark out. Her eyes felt rimmed with sand. She put the green bag around their legs, one blanket over that, and another over their shoulders. She dropped off to sleep at once.
Hours later, she awoke, confused and coughing, her jaw aching from being pressed into her shoulder. The fire was smoldering, the smoke streaming right into their shelter. Next to her, Tony was asleep half sitting up, and moaning from time to time. Cindy threw wood on the fire. Beyond the rim of the fire it was pitch dark, but almost at once she sensed something or someone out there. The hairs on the back of her neck bristled.
“Tony,” she whispered. He woke at once, listening and alert. He sensed it, too. There was something out there, something dark and menacing, watching them.
Cindy reached for a heavy stick. Then, on the shadowy edge of the fire, she saw a dog emerge from the darkness, and beyond him the long muzzle and glassy eyes of another dog, and then still another. Her first reaction was relief. They looked so friendly. The first dog was sitting on his haunches, his tongue out. There must have been half a dozen of them around the fire.
“Dogs,” she said, thinking they were pets who had wandered away from a nearby farm. “Tony, we must be near someplace. They can lead us to people. Here, boy,” she cried, getting to her knees.
Tony yanked her back. “Are you crazy? Those are wild dogs.”
She shrank back against the stones. Hearing Tony’s voice the dogs shifted their positions, moving slightly back beyond the light of the fire. But the leader, the one in front, remained where he was, yellow-eyed and unblinking.
“Don’t touch them,” Tony said. “They’re hungry and wild. They’re unpredictable.” He picked up a rock.
Cindy threw more wood on the fire, spreading the circle of light. The dogs backed away. Now she could see they weren’t family pets. Their coats were matted, long, and filthy. Wild dogs, with sharp, gleaming teeth, like wolves. She built the fire higher. When she looked again, they had left without a sound.
Neither she nor Tony slept much after that. Twice during the night they heard the dogs howling in the distance. Afterward, in the silence, they listened tensely, ears straining for the least sound.
Once Tony said, “I wonder what happens when you die.”
“We’re not going to die,” she said sharply. “We’re too young to die. We’re getting out of this place. We’ll find a way. We have to. It would be too stupid to die here because I stuck out my thumb, and you took a wrong turn.”
As soon as it was light, Cindy retied the bandages on Tony’s ankle.
“Jesus, damn it! Leave me alone! Quit!”
“It has to be tight,” she snapped. Tony looked terrible, his eyes dark, his lips cracked from the cold. Neither of them had slept much. They were both irritable. The sooner they got moving, the better. The dog tracks were thick at the edge of their shelter. It was stupid staying here. Moving, they had some hope.
There was no way to go but down through the ravine. Tony sat on the sled while Cindy pulled. Before she had pulled a dozen steps she knew she hated the sled. She tried pulling first with one hand and then with the other, and for a while she tugged backwards with both hands. Tony helped by pushing with his stick, but it was so rocky in the ravine that every few feet the sled stalled.
Each time it happened, Tony swore and complained bitterly about his ankle hurting. They had to stop often to rest. Cindy felt weak and sick. She wanted to cry. Her hands, even with her gloves, were swollen, stiff, and cracked from the cold, and torn raw from pulling the sled. Her lips felt thick and scabby, her head swollen and pounding. If only she could believe that they were truly coming out somewhere, but they seemed to be going deeper and deeper into this awful wilderness.
Several times she thought she saw the dogs. She couldn’t free herself from the fear that the dogs were stalking them, waiting for an opportunity to attack. Once she saw two dogs outlined on the edge of the ravine above them. Another time she was sure she saw the leader watching them from a big rock, but when they drew closer it turned out to be only a stump.
They struggled through the ravine for hours, a lifetime to Cindy. She was sweating, sore, exhausted. All her pulling and yanking seemed to be getting them almost nowhere. As time passed and absolutely nothing changed, she grew more and more depressed. Why were they going on this way? Why this pain? What had they done to deserve it? There was no answer. Fear drove her ahead. If they stopped now they might never find the strength again to move.
Above her, a frosted sun, white through the clouds, rose higher. She felt as if she’d been pulling on the rope forever. Tug and fall, and tug again. No beginning. No ending. Nothing but tug and fall, tug and fall, over and over.
And then, like a black snake sliding under the rocks and ice, a stream appeared. Tony said streams were meant to be followed. That was how he’d found the cabin. The stream filled them both with hope, gave Cindy the strength to pull again. Please, Stream, lead us somewhere … to a river … a house … to people … oh, please, please …
They followed the water as it twisted and turned beneath the ice and rocks, until it disappeared into a frozen swamp. Withered cattails, tufts of frozen grass, and a forest of swaying dead black trees. All was deathly still except for a woodpecker rat-rat-tatting somewhere high on a hollow trunk. Dismay and disappointment lumped sourly in Cindy’s throat. Which way now? They couldn’t go ahead. Left or right—it was all one. They didn’t know where they were, or where they were going.
Tony’s head wa
s sunk down on his chest. It was useless talking to him. Cindy circled the sled, swallowing down the panic, trying to think. There were tracks in the snow, the round dog pads she recognized now, and near them the sharp wedgelike deer tracks. Under an uprooted tree she found a hollow where the deer must have rested. Then, shockingly, a stain of bright blood in the snow.
She stood for a time, held there by the blood. She imagined the deer, its terrified flight from the ravenous wild dogs. Its blood was as real to her as her own blood. Sickened, she took up the sled rope again. “We’ve got to go on, we can’t stop here.” Tony waved his hand limply as if he didn’t care about anything anymore. She tried to drag the sled alone, but it was impossible, if he didn’t cooperate. “Tony, come on, push. We’re not staying here.”
“I don’t care. Leave me alone,” he said. “Just leave me alone.”
“Then start pushing,” she ordered. “Those dogs are somewhere around here.” The way his head sagged down between his shoulders, she was afraid he’d never move. “Let’s go, Tony. Push!” He sat there as if he were deaf and dumb. It scared her. “Do you hear me? I said the dogs are here. They’re after a deer. They could be after us. Are you coming, or do I go alone?” Her feet were freezing in her boots. She could feel them aching right up to her hips. A dead tree creaked mournfully. She hated this place. “Are you coming?” she screamed. “Or do I go alone? I mean it!”
He raised his head and smiled cruelly. “Go on. Who’s keeping you? Go any way you want to. I don’t care. Don’t hang around me. I’m sick of you! If I didn’t pick you up, I wouldn’t be in this trouble. I was safe in the cabin and then I came back for you. You’re bad luck. Go away and leave me alone. I’ll get along by myself!”
It was too much for her. She was too tired, too cold, too aching, scared, and miserable to take any more of this. If he felt that way, then she didn’t care either. She grabbed her carry-all, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and walked blindly away.
She hated Tony. She hated him! He had ruined everything from the beginning, stupidly getting them lost, thinking only of himself, taking chances they couldn’t afford. The sled ride that had ended in disaster—that had been the stupidest thing of all!
Talking to herself, she plodded farther and farther on until Tony was out of sight. Now she was alone in the woods. She was glad. She was free of him. She could move. She had a chance to save herself. She stopped and looked back. Clouds again obscured the sky. A sharp wind sprang up. The air was raw against her skin. She hitched the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Snow had begun to fall. Grimly she plodded on. In a few minutes she’d be separated from him forever. Already she didn’t see or hear anything but the wind high in the trees. She listened to the terrible silence. Alone. She was alone, terribly alone. Without Tony, she felt doubly alone.
All along, in the back of her mind, she’d been aware of how stupid and ridiculous their fight was. They were both so tired, hurt, and exhausted that neither of them could think straight. This was the time they needed each other most. Together they had a small chance of being saved. Alone they were both lost.
She had turned and was retracing her steps when she heard Tony yell in the distance, a desperate inarticulate cry for help. Cindy dropped everything she was carrying and ran, floundering through the snow. As she broke through the trees she saw Tony on the ground kicking and backing away from a pack of snapping dogs. It was a vivid, horrible sight. Screaming, she ran forward as the lead dog, jaws bristling, rose in the air, froze for a moment like a black sail, and then came crashing down at Tony’s feet. “Tony,” she screamed. It was then she saw a small deer lying half dead in the snow, its eyes glazed in terror as the dogs ripped open its bloody flank, laying bare its violet flesh.
She grabbed Tony under the arms, smelling the heat of the dogs and the blood, and pulled him back, dragging him as far as she could away from the dog pack.
Behind a tree, they clung together, shivering. “Cindy, you all right?” he said.
“Yes, let’s get away from here.”
With one arm around Cindy’s neck and using a stick as a crutch, Tony struggled to his feet. Then they hobbled along with what strength they still had, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the dogs.
19
TWO SOLDIERS
Fleeing the wild dogs, they had lost everything.
They moved hypnotically, arms around each other, one step at a time. Tony didn’t think about being rescued. His whole world had been narrowed down to Cindy. Moving, his arm was always around her shoulder. When they stopped, he didn’t let her out of his sight.
They were, at last, past the swamp and the ravine, in hilly country. All afternoon they plodded slowly through the snow, yoked together like a pair of dumb beasts. They were so weak that when they fell in the snow they lay there, unmoving, until they found the strength to help each other up and hobble on again.
Late in the afternoon, on top of an incline, Cindy pitched forward and rolled down the hill like a snowball. At the bottom she lay motionless. It scared Tony. “Cindy!” He started hopping, stumbling, fell and rolled the rest of the way to her side. “Cindy, Cindy, you all right?”
She was laughing weakly, tears coming from her eyes. She was covered with snow. He thought she’d finally lost all strength, snapped. She was pointing “Look, Tony.”
At first he couldn’t believe his eyes. Picnic tables stacked on end in a long row like a thick fence, and beyond them the green pipe frames of empty swing sets. He rubbed his eyes. It didn’t go away. They were in a picnic area with snow-covered stone fireplaces, and in the middle of the cleared area a small, shuttered brown building. The picnic ground was closed for the winter, but there had to be a road. Even if it was unplowed, they had a direction now, a way to follow.
They were so tired and so excited that they drifted around aimlessly until Tony began poking through the garbage cans for scraps. They were ravenous. One garbage can after another was empty and scoured clean. Cindy was quickly discouraged. “One more can,” Tony said. “Maybe hunters were here after they closed the picnic grounds.” Almost as he spoke he came up with a brown paper bag and in it half a loaf of frozen bread. He divided it carefully.
Gnawing on the bread, they talked about what they would do next. Tony wanted to push on, but he wasn’t serious. His ankle pained him, and they were both so exhausted and languid that they could only stagger around together and laugh into each other’s shoulders. They had to rest. They had to get warm. They couldn’t go on today.
Together they broke into the brown-shingled building, a men’s bath and shower room. A gray concrete floor, three shower stalls, three toilet stalls to the right, three sinks under three small square mirrors to the left. In a mirror Tony saw Cindy, and next to her a wild looking person with dark, gaunt cheeks and hollow black eyes under a tangle of wild, filthy hair.
“That’s me,” he muttered in astonishment.
“Your own beautiful self,” she said.
Tony talked about dragging a picnic table into the men’s room to sleep on. They didn’t have the strength to do that, either. They were only able to start a fire in the middle of the floor, using rolls of toilet paper and a clump of last fall’s dried leaves that had blown into a corner. They slept near the fire on the cold concrete floor, wrapped together. Tony slept heavily at first, then the pain in his ankle brought him awake. Cindy didn’t move. Had she stopped breathing? He listened till he heard the steady, regular rhythm of her breath. The shadows of the fire flickered on the ceiling, and he thought of his family.
Then he remembered the snow, the woods they’d come through that day, the dogs, and the blood of the deer. He couldn’t have survived without Cindy. They’d lived ten days in the snow, stayed alive by their own efforts and ingenuity. Now he was tired, terribly tired, but filled with hope again and eager for the morning.
It was snowing again as Lillian Littlejohn, who lived on Old French Road, watched her two children get on the Red
field Central School bus. The bus moved off slowly. Clara Watacky, who was driving, was more cautious than some. Mrs. Littlejohn stood at the window until the bus disappeared around the turn in the road. She was alone now, as she was every day after the children and Neil went off.
There was always this moment when everything stopped, the silence coming down around her shoulders like a mantle. She had work to do, the laundry machines to start, a letter to write to her sister in Syracuse, a cake she’d promised to bake for a church bake sale, and so on. But she enjoyed this moment, the silence and peace. She and Neil had moved to Old French Road two years before, taking over a farmhouse that needed a lot of do-it-yourself work. They liked the space and quiet, and being so close to the state lands. They lived in the very last house on Old French Road, two miles before the entrance to the Roaring Brook State Park. It was a good life, particularly when Neil and the children were home with her.
Mrs. Littlejohn couldn’t help worrying about the children when they were away from her. She remembered the pictures she’d seen in the Watertown Times of the children who had been missing for nearly two weeks and still hadn’t been found. They were unrelated, one a girl and the other a boy. They didn’t come from the same place, but they had disappeared on the same day in roughly the same country, leading to conjecture that their fate was somehow linked. Almost two weeks, Mrs. Littlejohn thought. It must be awful for their parents.
It was still snowing later in the day and the plow hadn’t come through. It gave Mrs. Littlejohn some anxious moments. If the snowfall seemed as if it would be unusually heavy, the school would send the children home early on the bus. Winter in this north country wasn’t easy. Twice this winter the neighbors down at the four corners had to bring the children home on their snowmobiles.