by Beth Lewis
I tried picturing all those places on that map of BeeCee. That’s what we call our country now, just letters of its real name what most people have forgot or don’t care to remember. The map said that old name behind all the scribblings, all the new borders and territories my nana drawn on, but I could only read letters then, not whole words. All I know is that one day all the maps became useless and we had to make our own. The old’uns called that day the Fall or the Reformation. Nana said some down in the far south called it Rapture. Nana was a babe when it happened, said her momma called it the Big Damn Stupid. Set everything back to zero. I never asked why, never much cared. Life is life and you got to live it in the here-now not the back-then. And the here-now for little me was the Thick Woods, with night coming fast.
I had these little boots on, cute things stitched from marten pelt, soft and warm but no good for traveling. They tore up in a few hours. The thunderhead torn a swatch out a’ the knee of my denims and them trees had chewed up my vest so’s it was barely hanging on to me. Seven-year-old me walked till it got dark. Belly rumbling worse’n the storm. I started crying proper then, big fat tears, blubbering and wailing. I huddled myself inside a hollowed-out log as the darkness crept through the trees. Bugs and grubs crawled all over me. I shivered so hard it shook rotten wood dust into my hair.
Never been alone before. Always had Nana close by and afore her, though I barely remember them, my momma and dad. Nana said they’d gone north—far, far up the world to find their fortune and bring it home to me. That was a few years ago. They sent a letter ’bout a year after they went, brought to the Ridgeway general store by some kind traveler heading that way. I couldn’t read it, ’course, but I made Nana read it to me till I knew all them words like I know my own name. Words like “gold” and “sluice” and them what sounded foreign and exciting; “Halveston,” the “Great YK,” “Carmacks,” “Martinsville.” My momma and daddy’s names. I made Nana read them over and over. Made the world and them sound close and far all at one time, that letter did. I kept it ’neath my pillow, ink fading with readings and years. Put an ache in my chest thinking the thunderhead took it.
I sniffed hard, sucked up all my fears, and tried to sleep. Worst night of my life that was. No matter all them nights that came after. No matter all those cold, dark things that happened. That one night was the worst. It was the first time I realized that you’re all you’ve got in this world. One moment you can be in your home, fire in the grate, clothes on your back, your kin nattering beside you, the next moment you’re lost. Taken up by the thunderhead and dropped into nowhere. No point fixating on all those other things. My nana weren’t there, that letter weren’t there. My parents sure as shit weren’t there. I had me and I had that log and, though I would’ve loved some hot stew right then, I couldn’t much complain. I wriggled about, got somewhere close to comfort, and shut my eyes.
Something scratched at the side of the log. Claws running down bark. My eyes sprang open.
My heart damn near stopped. Night was full, I must a’ been sleeping. Moonlight cut through the branches. Sky’s always crystal after a storm, almost brighter’n day sometimes. But these woods were thick and old and I couldn’t see farther than the swaying fern tips an arm’s reach outside the log.
Fern twitched. Heart raced.
Scrabbling got louder. Came closer.
I stopped breathing, hoping it wouldn’t find me. I thought I saw bear claws, heard big grizzly sniffling. Forest was playing tricks. I burst out that log quicker than a rabbit down a hole and ran. Ran and ran and ran. Didn’t look back once. Not a clue how long I ran for, how far. Then I smelled smoke and saw a light.
“Nana,” I shouted. “Nana! I found you!”
The hut sat square in a small clearing. This weren’t Nana’s shack. This place was smaller. A pipe out the roof puffed smoke and the light spilling out the window showed the fire inside was burning hot. A wooden awning came off the front, propped up with two thick trunks and below it, close to the door, two A-frames stretching deer hide. Dozen or so metal traps clinked together, hung over a branch. Wire snares, broken and not, littered all over the ground and hanging from trees. Thin strips of red meat dried on racks. Sight a’ them made my belly grumble and filled up my mouth with water. Nana always told me not to steal from good folks, but I figured there were so many the trapper wouldn’t miss just one strip. ’Sides, I didn’t know if he was good folks and Nana never said nothing ’bout stealing from the bad’uns.
I snuck up, quiet as a wolf on the hunt, listening all around for trouble. The racks were just under the awning and I had to pass by one of the windows. I told myself I was a shadow, invisible in the dark, and I could run so fast no fat old trapper could catch me. The smell of that meat was a drug. That metallic tang, that sting of salt and smoke. I thought I could smell juniper in it, maybe even some applewood. Sweet and salty and close enough to touch. I yanked a wide strip of that jerky and a high-pitched bell rang at the door. Smart trapper. Alarmed his dinner in case of bears and hungry girls.
Big boots stomped inside. I shoved the jerky in my mouth and ran. Couldn’t tell what meat it was, deer or moose or something else, but it tasted as good as it smelled. The hut door flung open. The trapper didn’t shout, but I looked back anyway. Hat on his head, just a black shape, but he had a shotgun. Wasn’t no law out in those parts and he had every right to shoot a thief on his land. I forced my tired legs to run.
Then I heard him coming after me.
I was a hare darting quick and low and quiet. He was a lumbering ox, crashing through.
My heart thundered. I didn’t want to die in that forest, shot for taking a mouthful of meat I didn’t even get to enjoy. Curse that thunderhead for dropping me here, I cried and bawled. Must a’ been screaming. That trapper followed me close. He never shouted for me to stop, same as you don’t shout for a buck to stop afore you pull the trigger.
He’s going to kill me, I thought. Shoot me to shreds.
A trailing scrap of fur on my boots caught on a branch, tripped me. Don’t know how I kept that jerky in my mouth, but I did, even as I fell ass-over-face into a dry creek bed. Landed face-first in the dirt and everything went quiet. No more ox crashing. No more footsteps.
I’d lost him. I’d got the better of that trapper. Got his jerky and got away. I sat up on my knees and ripped off a chunk of that meat, swallowed it whole.
Something made me look over my shoulder. That feeling you get in your bones when someone is watching you. A shadow stood over me.
Big and black and breathing. I didn’t even see the butt of the shotgun.
Woke up in the trapper’s hut with a sore head wrapped in a bandage. He sat on a chair by the door, staring at me with eyes like the devil. Shotgun rested against his leg, his hat on his knee. He must a’ fallen too, his face was all covered in streaks of black dirt.
“Where’d you come from?” he said. His voice had a breath of kindness to it.
Nana told me not to speak to strangers, and this man, living far out in the woods all by himself, was the strangest I’d met.
“Where you going to?” he said. Didn’t seem all that surprised I weren’t talking. “You got a momma and daddy? Where they at?”
I blinked then, shook my head. “Just my nana.”
He smiled, showed off a row of flat white teeth.
“Now we gettin’ somewhere,” he said. “Where you and your nana live? Dalston? Ridgeway?”
Something in my face must a’ gave me away.
“Ridgeway then,” he said. He rubbed his cheek but none of the mud came off. “You a long way from home, girl.”
He put his hand on the shotgun barrel and relaxed in his chair.
“You can just point me the right way,” I said, “and I’ll be gone afore you know it.”
“There are beasts in these woods would eat you up quicker’n you can scream. Couldn’t let you do that.”
I shuffled a bit on the bed, felt my cheeks get hot and red. I couldn’t
tell much about the trapper, other than he wore old denims like me and his shirt was ripped like mine. A coat made of fur and skins hung next to the door with a pair of snowshoes propped up under. His shirt, once white, had spots and smears of something dark brown on it, maybe dried blood from the animals. He stared at me long and hard and my belly started growling again.
“I ain’t got no real way of telling if you’re speaking true or false,” he said. “You could be a troublemaker on the run from the law. You could be a thief and stolen worse than a bite of jerky. You could be anyone.”
My nana would a’ said I was a troublemaker, but I weren’t telling him that.
“I’m headin’ down to Ridgeway in the morning to trade some pelts—two-day round-trip, mind.” He stopped, rubbed his face again, mud stayed put, and by then I weren’t sure if it was really mud.
“Your business is your own, girlie, but I’ll do some asking and see if I can find your nana. If I do and she wants you back, I’ll take you to her.”
“I’ll help you find her quicker,” I said, scooting off the edge of the bed. I got dizzy then and fell down, landed hard on my hands and knees.
The trapper didn’t move to help me, just said, “You couldn’t walk more’n a mile in that state. You’re just a baby, no more than a few winters on you. You’re dead weight until you can carry a rifle.
“Go to sleep,” he said, and picked up his hat. “I’ll be gone when you wake up. Keep the fire lit and don’t touch nothing.”
He put his hat over his face and leant his head back against the door.
I climbed back onto the bed and pulled up the blanket. “You got a name?” I asked.
“I got a few,” he said without moving his hat.
Something in the way he said that put a seed of fear in me. I pulled the blanket up close to my chin and hunkered down. There was no chance of me sleeping that night. I didn’t take my eyes off him. He didn’t make a sound all night. Not a snore. Not a sniff. Didn’t move, didn’t even let go of the shotgun. Even my nana slept louder than that. He was like one of them statues carved out of stone. Nana took me down to Couver City to see them last summer. She said I needed culturing, whatever that meant. Couver was hit hard in the Damn Stupid, says Nana, and only a few of them statues are left in the ruins. Three-day ride up and down that was. After six days in the saddle, sitting awkward ’tween Nana and the horse’s neck, I told her I didn’t care for culturing.
I must’ve slept because one moment I was fixing my eyes on the trapper and the next it was dawn and the chair was empty. Shotgun and him were gone. Keep the fire lit, he’d said, and don’t touch nothing. I never been much good at following the say-so of grown-ups, not even now I’m grown-up myself.
First thing I did was get another strip of jerky from the rack outside. Then I stoked up the fire and roasted up that meat so it was crispy and charred at the edges, and I had me a fine breakfast. Then I went through the trapper’s things. Found a few coins no one uses no more, bowls carved out a’ cherrywood, a little wooden box locked up tight, and a knife sharp enough to skin a boar in three seconds flat. It had a long bone handle, probably deer or moose leg, and the blade was longer’n my forearm. Beautiful thing, I remember thinking, and I sliced up my jerky just to feel it in action. I told myself then that I would have a knife like this. Maybe I could get the trapper to make me one.
I got bored quick. Two-day trip to Ridgeway and back he said. Meant I was further from home than I’d ever been and I didn’t know north or south or up or down or which way would take me back to Nana. Shit, by then, that knife in my hands and no grown-up telling me what-for, I weren’t even sure I wanted to go back.
Trapper didn’t have much of anything and once I had a full belly, I didn’t have nothing to occupy me. I went outside, kicked dirt, climbed trees, watched the sun reach noon and start falling into dusk. I wondered if he’d reached Ridgeway yet. If he’d asked around about me. Strange that he didn’t ask for my name. Strange that he didn’t ask where ’bouts in Ridgeway I lived. Because, strictly, I didn’t live in Ridgeway. Nana’s shack was up the valley. Enough people in town knew about us that I thought he wouldn’t have no problem finding her.
I kept the fire hot and twirled that bone-handle knife in my little hands. Thinking of all the things I could do with it. How thin I could slice jerky, how neat and quick I could kill a rabbit. Night came fast with those thoughts swimming inside me and I fell asleep on the floor by the fire.
Woke up to spring dawn singing through the trees and spent that day much as I had the last—exploring the land, finding rabbit runs. I even reset one a’ the trapper’s squirrel poles what must a’ fallen in the thunderhead.
Sun was dipping and I was sucking on another piece of meat, knife in hand, when the trapper came back. He came in the door with a sack over his shoulder. He stared at me, jerky hanging out my mouth and blade in my hands and he didn’t say nothing. Something in his head ticked over and he stopped a beat, then dropped the sack with a sound like logs tumbling off a pile.
“Found your nana,” he said, and hung up his coat.
Felt a sting in me, like my fun was cut short and I’d be back to beatings and her schooling tomorrow. I set down the knife on the floor and I stared at that blade like I was giving up my favorite toy.
“You takin’ me back tomorrow?” I said. Part a’ me wanted to see my nana, but I knew soon as she saw me she’d have me hauling planks to fix the shack or learning letters at that whiteboard a’ hers.
Then he said, “Your nana got caught out in the thunderhead, tree fell on her.”
“She dead?”
Trapper nodded once and kept his eyes on me.
Shame on me that my first thinking was: Hot-damn, I don’t got to go back to schooling. Shame on me twice that my second was: Serves her right for treating me rough. Then came the aching like my insides was full a’ river mud, thick and sucking me down, a deep place a’ sorrow I didn’t want no part of. I weren’t all that sure how to feel in them moments. Should I be crying? But I didn’t feel nothing like crying. Should I be whooping for joy? But I didn’t feel like doing that neither. I stared at that knife, chewing on that jerky, quietlike for an age. Trapper didn’t say nothing, he just watched me, waiting to see what I’d do, what kind a’ person I was.
He shifted his foot, floorboard creaked. My eyes was locked on that blade and my head and my heart came together and told me how to feel. I reached for the knife.
Soon as I touched that white bone handle I realized quick I chose right. I didn’t much want to go back to Nana’s shack; she never let me eat jerky and play with knives. Her ways were learning letters and sums, clean hands and clean clothes. Them ways weren’t mine and much as she’d tried to force it, they never were.
The trapper nodded at the meat ’tween my teeth.
“You like that?” he asked.
I nodded.
“You know how to use that knife?”
I weren’t quite sure what he meant, but I nodded again.
“You ever skinned a hare?”
I flinched then. I had, year or two ago, but when Nana caught me she whipped my back bloody. Second time she caught me she broke my arm.
“You ever skinned a hare, girl?” he asked again, something raw in his voice.
“Yes, sir, I have.”
“If you can skin a hare you can ’bout skin anything,” he said, and pointed to the sack. “Traded my furs for a pig. I already jointed it for easy carryin’. Take off the skin and fat, take off the meat, and cut it thin for smokin’. Got it?”
I nodded and stepped forward. The trapper lifted up the sack and poured out the chunks of pig. Pink skin and pale flesh, it would work fine with applewood; I could almost taste it already. Even though I was just seven, I always knew I was born to work a knife. Took me most of the night but I did it, and all while the trapper watched over me, sipping on a flask. He didn’t once tell me to be careful. Didn’t say much ’cept “other way,” when I got to separating th
e knuckle.
Come dawn we both laid the strips on racks and hung them up in the tiny smokehouse outside.
The trapper put a hand on my shoulder then and said, “You got a gift with a blade, girlie, I’ll teach you to use it right. Names don’t mean nothing in these woods, but I got to call you something.”
Then he looked at me, pulled at my scruffy hair.
“Rougher’n elk’s fur, this,” he said.
So he called me Elka, ’stead of Elk, on account of me being a girl. I stopped asking for his name after a few weeks and just called him Trapper in my head. He taught me to tie a snare, taught me to set a deadfall trap and shoot a squirrel from fifty yards. All I had to do was help him clean the kills, prep the traps, stretch and scrape the furs, and tend to the hut. I slept on the floor by the fire and him in his bed. Though, thinking about it, I don’t think he slept much. He hunted a lot at night, said the wolves come out at night but he never brought back a wolf pelt.
That was my life then and damn if it weren’t fun. I was a new person, I forgot my old name quick, and I was Elka from then on. I could make a bow and arrow from sticks and shoot me a marten. I forgot my sums and my letters. I forgot my nana and near forgot my folks, though them words in the letter never went out my head. All them skills Trapper taught me I remember to this day, but there are big ol’ patches a’ them years that are fuzzy and dark, whole months a’ winter what went in a blink. Much as I tried, I couldn’t fill up them gaps.
But hell, I was an idiot kid. Trapper was my family even though I didn’t know a sure thing about him, but I figured quick I didn’t know much more ’bout my parents and they was kin. Trapper was the kind a’ family you choose for yourself, the kind that gets closer’n blood. He was my daddy from then, I just needed to find myself a momma.
Three winters I spent with Trapper afore I found her. Ten years old and my skinny arms and back was strong with hard living. Trapper weren’t the friendly sort, but him and me quick found our rhythms. Shit, I think he even started to like me.