by Joanne Bell
A wind sweeps through the clearing and moans its way downriver.
It’s too dark to check out the cache. Tomorrow, I think, I’ll nail green poles beside the rotting ladder rungs.
I yank tent pegs from the ground outside and spread the tent out flat over the floorboards in the kitchen, along with my travel sleeping bag and pad. I boil tea water in my camp billycan and watch the shadows in the corners of the cabin. There are no voices whispering from long ago.
The debris may be gone, but the floorboards, counters, shelves and even the ceiling need scrubbing. Strings of ancient dust mixed with spider webs hang from corners and windowsills, ready to blow in my face when I clean. In places the moss chinking between the wall logs has shriveled and fallen out.
In the night a wind grazes past the corners of the cabin and rattles the stovepipe jutting to the sky. I can’t sleep. I think about reading, but it’s too cold to keep my hands out of the sleeping bag to hold the book. The log walls need to warm up before they’ll retain any heat. No new fairy tales come waltzing into my mind either.
What do true fairy tales need? A quest, of course, and willingly assumed danger. The landscape has to be right as well: forests and cottages in clearings and river glades, and enchanted castles covered with brambles and guarded by beasts. The main character should be brave. Beauty is optional, though it is often revered when found. There must be emotion: a quest without longing is boring. And “to quest” means “to look for.”
I lie on my back and listen to the wind. Finally I sit up with my back propped against the cupboard so I can peer out the window into the night. I let my mind roam, but still no characters ride in to take charge.
I hear the river carrying tinkling cakes of slush ice and the lull of wind traveling from the peaks…
Images of my childhood reel through my mind in color and sound like they’re happening before my eyes. When I was little I got excited about almost anything. Quests were all around me; it was just a matter of picking which to follow. Passion poured from every moment of my life.
In my mind, I’m tucked into the bottom bunk.
How strange that the real physical bunk is not only in my memory, where it’s lain all these years, but in this actual room with me, grubby with neglect against the far wall. A squirrel has scattered moss and dried mushrooms on the mattress. I can see the bunk shadowed in the moonlight that streams through the tarp I’ve tucked into the empty window frame beside it.
Becky was above me, head dangling down from the top bunk. She poked me with a wooden sword she’d carved with Mom from a length of kindling. “Get up,” she hissed. “We’re going out.”
I buried my face in the blankets and snored dramatically.
The sword tickled my cheek. I swatted at it, and it clattered to the floor. Instantly, Becky’s head disappeared onto her own pillow and I heard snores coming from her too.
“Go to sleep,” Dad shouted from their bedroom.
When I’d just slipped cozily back into my dreams, Becky landed with a thud on my mattress, having catapulted herself over the top bunk. I knew this without opening my eyes because it happened at least twice a night, no matter what I did. I’d tried ignoring her and kicking her. Once, when evicted from a happy dream, I even cried.
“Wolves,” she mouthed. “Follow me.” She handed me my own sword, waved hers in a circle over her head and thrust it bravely before her.
I was awake then. I wavered a moment between the warmth of my blankets and the waiting trial. Adventure won.
Luckily my pajamas were the toddler type with built-in feet. I followed her on tiptoe to the door, and we inched it shut behind us. Indeed, wolves were surrounding the clearing, eyes shining in the forest of moonlight. Becky clutched my hand firmly to ensure I didn’t get taken away.
“Good evening, wolves,” she pronounced. “You leave my little sister alone.”
We struck brave poses.
“Avast, ye wolves,” I told them. Pirates said it; that’s all I knew.
Becky held her sword to the sky with her free hand. I wriggled out of her grasp, dropped to one knee and held my sword as far in front of that knee as possible without keeling over.
Above our heads a star plunged. For a moment it looked like it would splash into the river, but of course its light blazed out long before. I was struck speechless with happiness: the wolves, the silver moonlit sky, our smooth-handled swords and the stars embedded in the dome above.
Mom and Dad were mumbling in the cabin. I heard footsteps, the rifle being lifted from its pegs and the door opening behind us. Mom chucked blankets around our shoulders and Dad knelt on one leg with the rifle lifted at his right shoulder.
“Over their heads,” said Mom.
Dad jerked the barrel up and shot into the air. Then he reached out his hand and touched Mom’s hand. His fingers curled around hers. She took her spare hand and held it against his cheek. “Thanks,” said Mom. “I like wolves. They’re not so different from us.”
Wolves wheeled back into the shadows. They milled about for a minute or two, then loped off, hunting for a less guarded meal.
Sled dogs tucked their heads deeper under their tails, curled in straw beds in their snow-buried houses.
When my family went inside, I stayed out awhile, wrapped in blankets and peace. I’d never been alone in the night before.I pretended the stars and the wolves were my friends. I pretended I’d lost my family and I was going to live with the pack. I wavered back and forth between a dead family and one that was simply lost. Never did I consider being lost myself. Maybe they were sick. Yes, that was it. My family was sick, and I was just joining the pack for a while so I could bring them back some meat.Fresh meat should heal them, I thought.
The sky was big, I realized, and our cabin and clearing were very small. Why could I only see a little way into the forest, but when I looked up I could see for light-years through the sky?I got sleepy trying to figure out what a light-year was. I thought it was the amount of light needed to light up a year of my life, but if that was true, I didn’t understand how light-years could measure distance. And if I asked anyone, they’d tell me, but they’d smile like I was cute. I hated being cute. I stood at attention, sword rigid at my side and saluted the stars.
Then I crawled back into my bunk and curled into a ball beneath the blankets…
I don’t feel better here. Why did I ever imagine that I would? If I live to be one hundred, I’ll never come back, never even look at a picture of this place. If Mom or Becky mentions the bush, I’ll pick up my juggling balls and try a new trick. Left to right and right to left. I’ll hum under my breath.
Eventually I fall asleep again, sparks popping up the stovepipe and into the night. When I wake, my breath is steaming. Brooks is curled into my side. The cold empty cabin strums with silence. I shrug off the sleeping bag twisted around my body and stand, throwing on my sweater and tuque while I hop on sock feet to keep warm. Both stoves are frosty to the touch. I dash outside for kindling, which I’ve forgotten to bring inside.
Snow has fallen in the night, but the snow clouds have sailed on and the morning is clear and deep blue. Wind is playing through the tops of spruce boughs like distant surf. There are no tracks anywhere. I jump across the clearing, snap off some lichen and slide back to the door.
Brooks hasn’t budged. I haul him up, arms around his stomach, until he heaves himself to his feet. “Out that door, Brooks. Time to pee.”
When done, Brooks stands head down at the door and waits without whining until I let him in. He sinks back onto his bed and, I swear, he moans. His wound may be closing up but there’s infection inside, maybe spreading poison through his whole body. Without an antibiotic, I can’t do a thing.
All morning while the tin stove glows cherry red, I heat tubs of water and wash as many surfaces as I can. Steam fills the cabin with a smell like moldy socks, but I don’t care. I use old childhood clothes for rags and throw them in a heap out the door to burn in a blaze outside late
r. If I had a radio, like Mom begged me to take, I’d call in a chopper this morning. “I’m fine myself,” I’d say. “No problems with me. But my dog needs to see a vet.”
I need a voice, any voice that’s not my own and not in the past. I find a roll of window plastic and tack pieces over the window holes. Mountains aren’t peaceful like I always thought. They’re only big, and they go on forever here: it’s wild from one side of the continent to the other and then comes the ocean. And the landscape will go on, changing only over the centuries of geological time, long after everyone I love is dead.
“Don’t die, Brooks,” I beg, kneeling at his side. His ribs are visible, stomach collapsing. The silence after his final breath will last forever. Brooks’s tail sweeps the floor, but he doesn’t get up. He’s tired, I think. He’s moving on. Brooks doesn’t care anymore. All he wants is my companionship and to stay warm.
I scrub the floorboards first, then the shelves. The counter is worn smooth from years of Mom’s kneading bread, usually with one of us battering a lump by her side. I see a line of caribou trudging single file in each other’s tracks up the bowl of a mountain across the river. Snow melts, dripping from the roof, and the ground emerges again. I move Brooks’s bed into the sunshine and force him out so he feels the fresh air.
By afternoon the sun is shining and the river is ice-free. I throw the last of the wash water onto the slop pile and stare down the valley, swinging the empty bucket. Silence murmurs in my ears. Then, very slowly, sound washes back: a chattering squirrel clings to a tree trunk, a black-capped chickadee lands on a shivering branch with feathers plumped, a gray dipper bobs at the edge of the open current downriver, fishing for bugs.
Where exactly did I think Dad would be?
Brooks snores behind me; a great wave of contentment peaks from nowhere and crashes over my head. Right now, at this very moment, I still have Brooks and the mountains, and Mom and Becky, even though they’re not with me.
Astounded, I slide my eyes over the mountains we walked by to get here. Not once did I get lost or turn back.
I did it, I think. I got us here; I got us back home, all the way from planning to prying off the shutters to cleaning up the rooms. No matter what happens from here, I came home when I decided to do so.
It’s something, I guess. The feeling doesn’t last, of course, but I had that moment and I’ll remember it long after it’s gone.
Long after Brooks is gone.
13
The Grayling Corral
Fresh food could help Brooks heal faster. My eyes scan the river where the grayling run should be happening soon. Every year around this time, grayling migrate to the big rivers like the Peel, where water doesn’t freeze quite to the bottom. I should be able to feed Brooks and me without much work if I get on to it fast, before they’re all gone. I’ll catch a few grayling and then fix the cache ladder, I decide.
I force myself to wash Brooks’s wound before I go fishing. Examining it at close quarters makes me retch. Crouched over the slop bucket, I vomit until I have dry heaves and my eyes water. Then I splash cold water over my face, gargle with river water and get on with it.
I pour water from the hissing kettle and mix in some cold, then dab for a while at the pus with the last of the salty brew. I don’t know if it’s my imagination, but there seems to be more pus now, more dead tissue and blood cells around the cut.
I grab Dad’s rod from the spikes behind the door, kiss Brooks’s soft twitching ears and his nose, and pull on Dad’s hip waders.
Yuck!
I peel them off and tip them upside down fast onto the ground of the clearing. Years of accumulated mouse gatherings and poop slide out. I slip them back on anyway. Then I slide down the bank to catch us some fish.
I can almost smell them sizzling in the pan. Brooks will nuzzle against my legs and bay with hunger.
From the gravel bar, I can see the cache ladder leaning against a nearby spruce. The cache itself is still upright, tin on pole legs, a treehouse with a pole and plastic roof, sheltering gear up in the air from passing bears and other scavengers.
Tomorrow I’ll climb up and check for my fairy-tale collection. Maybe tonight if I get the rungs replaced in time. Even if the grayling take off soon, there should still be leftover dog food from our team.
It’ll be easier than looking for Dad.
I wade into the current and brace myself with legs apart at the same spot where I fished as a little girl. The water breaks around me.
Not a nibble even.
The grayling must already be gone.
My arm remembers swinging back, and then watching the curve of line dancing above the water. Again and again. I’m about to reel in for the day when I catch one, then a second. I wriggle the hooks from their mouths while the fish rock their slippery bodies, head to tail, against the icy stones.
A raven flaps over my head and lands on a rock close by. Down the valley a golden eagle circles above the river.
Kneeling, I smash the first fish’s head with a stick. I’m pinning the second fish’s shiny belly with my foot, stone poised over my shoulder, when I notice something. A dam built from stacked stones cuts across a dip in the gravel bar, creating a tub-sized pond. The edges are frozen, but a deep pool in the center remains ice-free.
I was wearing a T-shirt, underpants and rubber boots. A ripped T-shirt of Dad’s hung on Becky like a tomato-colored sack. Mom’s spaghetti strainer was wired to a pole. Becky was wading in the pond, her shirt tucked into a pair of Dad’s hip waders, corralling our captive grayling from where they huddled together, noses into the current. She towed them triumphantly in the strainer around the pond and then released them in a heap. They bolted, fins flickering, and hovered motionless against the dam.
“RUN!” she ordered. “The water’s leaking out.”
Panicked, I plugged holes with stones until the sun slipped behind the mountains across the river.
“HURRY!” Becky shouted at intervals when I slowed. “They’ll die.”
My knees were bleeding. My knuckles were bruised. I was entirely soaked and hungry and desperately worried about Scales, Eddy, Berries, Currants and Easy.
Becky clambered out of the water. She shook each leg in turn until the water poured out the top of the hip waders.Then she kicked them off. Her legs looked like no legs I’d ever seen before, the color of pickled beets set on fire.
“They leak something fierce,” she remarked. “Makes them heavy as rocks. Good thing I’m tough.”
I was still trudging along the gravel bank with stones clutched to my heart. I, unfortunately, was not so tough.I wanted to cry with exhaustion but my sister would have been ashamed.
“Time to quit,” she called cheerfully. “I smell supper.”
“What about our fish? The water’s still leaking out.”
“Sure is,” said my sister, staring at her now bare toes. “But it’s also leaking in.”
I let the last rock drop into place and surveyed our handiwork. Five tame fish wrestled from the wild currents of the river.We should be proud, I thought, of giving those fish a safe home.“Becky,” I pronounced, “I’m never going to eat our fish.”
And we never did. But before the river froze, Dad lent us a bucket and we scooped them all together like one happy family, kissed their slimy noses and upended the bucket so the fish could swim gently out without being dumped.
“Swim, little fish,” I whispered.
Becky called an encouraging good-bye to each in turn. “On Scales! On Eddy! On Berries, on Currants, on Easy!”
When we climbed the bank to the clearing, I turned one last time and saluted the vanished fish. “Be brave, little fish,” I told them. “Swim fast and swim far. And one day swim home.”
I carry the flopping second fish over to the pond and slip it in. Fresh fish for Brooks in a day or two if I can’t catch more, I tell myself.
“Good night, Flicker,” I call back, climbing the bank. “I’ll catch you some friends tomorrow.”
I shove my tent back in my pack, sweep off the boards of my old bed, stick a mattress on it and curl up. I have a lot to do tomorrow: fishing, the cache, washing shelves and cupboards, soaking Brooks’s wound, maybe…Salt! I should have fixed the cache and checked up there already. Trouble is, of course, that I’m not ready to look at all our gear, soaked with memories.
In the morning, heavy gray snow clouds have bunched down the river valley. I need to check out trails for clues now, before the snow stays. But Brooks needs fresh food.
Nah, I think, peering from my doorway and sipping a hot mug of tea. The first snow usually melts. And even if it doesn’t, there won’t be enough snow to cover anything.
Brooks barely reacts when I bend down to stroke his head. His tail sweeps feebly against the floorboards.
I catch two more grayling, a mug of coffee balanced on the gravel beside me. I walk over to the pond with one I name Friend. Even the air here is more alive. I breathe in great breaths with the fish flapping in my arms.
The pond is freezing from the outside in. No way can they live in there any longer. I scoop up both fish and release them back in the river. The pond may be solid ice by morning. It’s too late in life to start killing off pets, I think. The rule, though ridiculous, is not to eat anything we’ve named.
Sighing, I gut the lone unnamed fish on the gravel bar and boil it up at the cabin for Brooks.
It’s time.
While the soup cools, I saw lengths of ladder rungs from a young spruce, lay the ladder flat on the ground and nail the new rungs into place right on top of the old ones.
After slurping warm fish broth with some enthusiasm, Brooks seems spry enough to limp after me all the way to the foot of the cache, where I heave the ladder back into position and climb.
One misstep and I could crash to the ground with no one to help me. With each step I make sure my hands firmly grip the sides of the ladder. I’ve climbed this ladder countless times, but Dad’s hands were always just below mine.