“What happened?”
“Jamie wanted to be a farmer and moved back home to Iowa.”
“What about you?” Marian asked. “Why are you still here?”
“I tried to stop once, a couple of years ago. I worked at a vet clinic. I even tried to date again. Let’s just say things didn’t work out. Besides, this is all I really know how to do.”
* * *
• • •
The news of Deacon snuck up on Marian like a cold draft, and really, if she was honest with herself, she should have seen it coming. Jenness had told everyone to take the day off. The temperatures were too cold for the dogs to be in the field. Marian did laundry, worked up a sweat on a treadmill, hung out with a few of the orienteers. And sometime late in the day she connected with her parents over Skype. They couldn’t keep Deacon anymore. Her father had a bad knee; the dog had too much energy; the situation wasn’t fair to the dog. Her parents told her about Deacon’s new home, about the nice man who lived in the country. They said they were so sorry, and Marian knew they were. She should never have asked her parents to watch after him. They worked full-time jobs. And there was another truth, though Marian didn’t say it. What if she became a handler and was asked to stay on? What might have happened to Deacon then? But in that moment she didn’t want what was best; she wanted Deacon with her.
Marian smelled popcorn and snow and ventilator heat. She lay on the bed, staring at the water stains on the ceiling. God, she missed that dog, that lanky-legged, scraggly-brown-furred, little guy. And her mind filled with lovely memories, funny memories, and the romantic ideas she’d had of the two of them in this place, before she’d understood the job, before she’d known better.
There was a knock at the door. She said, “Come in.” And then there was Jeb, standing in the doorway. Everyone was going into Fort McMurray and wouldn’t it be good to get out, he said.
And so that was how it began, at a bar in Fort McMurray. Marian had eaten a cheeseburger and had drunk two beers on tap. But because she had been thinking about Deacon, it wasn’t until she started on her third beer that she realized Noah wasn’t there.
“Haven’t you heard?” Jeb said. “He’s packing up.”
“What do you mean he’s packing up?”
“He’s going back to North Carolina. He’s taking Chester with him.”
Liz, the handler with whom Jeb worked, had joined them at the bar. “It’s true,” she said. “He’s adopting Chester.”
And Marian was glad for Noah and Chester; she really was. Then Jeb asked Marian to dance, and he said it would be fun and that Marian looked sad and he didn’t want her to be sad anymore. That was when she told him about Deacon, and Liz put her arm around Marian’s shoulders and said how sorry she was and that Marian was in the right company to be feeling sad over a dog. Jeb grabbed Marian’s hand and said they were going to dance. He scooted out of his seat and pulled Marian onto the dance floor, and something from country’s top forty was playing and Jeb was smiling with this sweet boyish grin, and so Marian danced and tried not to think about Deacon or anything at all.
When the music changed, Marian continued to dance, and so did Jeb, and others had joined them on the floor also. They drank more beer and danced to more songs, and Marian felt the sweat chill on her skin as if the wind had blown up her spine, because the door kept opening to the outside as more and more locals poured in. And then one of the men asked Marian to dance, and so she joined the clean-shaven man on the floor, but the music changed to something slow and the man put his arm around Marian’s waist and pulled her close, and she was still breathing hard from all her dancing. The man wasn’t much taller than Marian. He tucked his chin into the crook of her neck, and she could feel his breath in her ear.
“You’re one of those tree huggers, aren’t you?” he said.
His hand slid down her back and over her jeans and he squeezed Marian hard. She tried to push him away, but he held on. She felt dizzy from the beer and the scotch that someone had given her. “Stop it!” she yelled. She pushed the man again. He loosened his grip and stumbled a couple of feet backward, and from over his shoulder Marian saw Tate approach the dance floor and move through the crowd of couples. He stepped between Marian and the man whose hands had been too close, and she might have heard the man laugh, but his laughter was moving farther away.
“Are you okay?” Tate said.
“I’m okay,” Marian said.
“Do you want to sit this one out?”
But Marian said she wanted to dance.
Tate took her hand and gently held it out to the side and held on to her waist with his other hand. And as he coaxed her body to move with his, she said, “I shouldn’t have had so much to drink.”
Then Tate said, “Go easy on yourself, will you?”
There was the sound of a steel guitar playing through the speakers and a slow tempo and sweet lyrics, and as the two of them danced, their bodies moved closer to each other, and even when Tate’s hand ever so slightly lifted the hem of Marian’s sweatshirt so that his fingers were only one layer away from her skin, she could no longer feel the chill blow up her spine. She laid her head against Tate’s chest and he wrapped his arms around her. His flannel reminded her of her sheets back home, of places warm and safe and familiar. And then Marian saw Jenness standing at the end of the bar, and though there were people around her, she was alone without a drink in her hand. And in those few seconds that Marian saw her, the two of them made eye contact. Marian wondered if something might be wrong because though Jenness was looking in Marian’s direction, she also seemed to be looking somewhere far away. But then the music and Tate and the dancing had turned Marian around so that she was looking in another direction, and by the time she could see the bar again, Jenness was no longer there.
The last notes to the song played out. Tate led Marian from the dance floor and to a booth off to the side. He asked her if she wanted anything else to drink. She said she’d just have water. Tate ordered a ginger ale. Marian leaned her back against the wall and pulled her legs up onto the bench seat. And as she sat at the booth with her legs stretched out in front of her and her boots crossed at the ankles, and as sweat trickled down her hairline, she could feel Tate watching her.
“Something’s wrong,” Tate said.
He got up from his side of the booth, and when Marian realized he was going to sit down beside her, she straightened up and set her feet on the floor.
Tate folded his arms over the table and turned his head toward Marian. “What is it?”
With his face so close to hers, and their bodies touching, she told him about Deacon, and Tate leaned back against the booth and lifted his arm over her and wrapped it around her shoulder and pulled her closer to him. “Oh, Marian, I am so sorry.”
Marian’s eyes teared then as she thought about Deacon. “I shouldn’t be crying. It really is the best thing.”
“There’s nothing wrong with crying,” Tate said. “You just lost your best friend.”
7
February 2017
MARIAN
Oil sands, Alberta, Canada
The night Marian danced with Tate and sat beside him in the booth and told him about Deacon, he asked her if she had ever seen the northern lights before and she told him she never had. Tate paid for his ginger ale, and the two of them walked out of the bar. The moon was dark that night and the air cold and clear, perfect for aurora hunting, Tate told her.
As they headed north out of Fort McMurray, the air so cold that their headlights created halos of fog, Tate described the northern lights and their streams of color—white, red, purple, green—which Marian had only seen in pictures. “The first time I saw them I was on a polar bear study in Norway,” Tate said. “I was staying in a cabin near one of the nature reserves. I’d set my alarm to wake me up every hour. But it wasn’t my alarm that woke me up. I could see the lights
through my window. I threw on my parka and boots, afraid I’d miss the whole thing. I’ve seen them two other times since then, but there’s nothing like that first experience.”
Tate told Marian about his stay in Norway, about the Svalbard archipelago and the polar bear that had mauled a group of young people, killing one of them. “The boy was only seventeen,” Tate said. “The bear came into the camp where the kids were staying. They’d set up trip wires like they were supposed to do, but the trip wire failed.” Tate talked about how trip wires that detonated deterrent explosives were always set around the camp areas for protection against the bears. People were encouraged to keep guard dogs with them, as well, and have someone on watch at night.
“Weren’t you afraid?” Marian asked.
“I was more afraid for my dogs,” Tate said. “I had two of them with me at all times. One was this great big malamute. Another was a husky mix. And I stayed in cabins at night, not in tents like those kids.”
“How long were you there?”
“A couple of months.”
Marian was mesmerized. “Did you ever see a polar bear?”
“Lots of them. The first one I saw was stretched out on an ice floe like he was the most gentle thing in the world. That was the one study where we were allowed to carry a gun.”
Marian thought this was what she could live for, experiences like these. “What about the study?” she asked. “What did you find out?”
“Found out there weren’t as many bears as people thought. They’re starving for the same reason we’ve got more fires in California and farmers growing peaches the size of prunes. Glaciers are calving, ice is melting. With global warming, the great polar bear has nowhere left to go.”
“This matters to you, doesn’t it?”
Marian felt Tate look at her then. “We’re not so different, Marian, you and I. The way I see it, we’re cut from the same block of wood, like a giant sequoia. You ever see a sequoia before?” And Marian told him she hadn’t.
“Well, that’s how I see it,” Tate said. “We’re similar. You feel familiar to me.”
“You hardly know me,” Marian said.
“I know you,” Tate said. “I watch you. I see what matters to you. I see you with the dogs, the way you were with Chester. You and I are drawn to the same kinds of experiences. We care about the same things. There’s not a lot of women who’d be putting up with these subzero temperatures like you do.”
Then Tate said, “Jenness and I have been talking. We think you’d make a good handler. With Noah and Chester gone, you and I will be working Arkansas. You’ll be my orienteer for the next three or four weeks, to give you a chance to observe. That should give you time to unlearn some of the things you may have picked up from Noah. After that, we’ll start transitioning you into the position.”
And Marian felt triumphant and giddy and thanked Tate so much, and everything appeared strange and new and beautiful.
“Well, all right, then,” Tate said. He turned left onto a snow-packed road. And then over the dark horizon, Marian saw a flash of light and her body shot up erect and she leaned forward and placed her hands firmly on the dashboard. “Did you see that? Oh my God, did you see it?” Because just as quickly as the stream of flash had shot across the horizon, it had disappeared.
And Tate was laughing then. He told her that what she was seeing was a substorm. “Sometimes the lights will start and stop like that.”
Tate made another turn, and within minutes they were parked in front of an open expanse.
“It’s one of the boreal ponds,” Tate told her. “We can go out there if you want.”
Marian slid out of the truck behind Tate. He tried to hold her hand, and they both laughed because her mittens and his gloves were too thick to hold on to. And so they tromped through a couple of feet of crusty snow, frozen in layers from the wind, and she and Tate bumped into each other because they were walking so close together, and Marian might have fallen, but Tate grabbed her arm and held on to her until she was steady again.
They moved to the center of the pond, a gentle wind playing in the trees behind them. Marian gazed up at the big black sky lit with stars. “What do we do now?” she asked.
“We wait,” Tate said. He stepped behind Marian and wrapped his arms around her. And as Marian looked at the sky and thought about how beautiful the cold made everything, Tate said, “It’s sad that you’re missing Deacon so much. I must tell you, though, I grieve for Arkansas and the other dogs already. Each one of them will stop working one day, just like Chester. They’ll get adopted out, go to good homes. But sometimes their leaving feels so in the present. In theory, grieving for them now will ease the pain when it happens. But I want you to know, the quality of how you treated Deacon is a form of grief. You’re in pain because of how much you cared for Deacon when you had him. Think of it that way. It should help.”
Then Tate turned Marian around so that she was facing him. “Mm, I like this position better,” he said. With his teeth, he gently tugged the edge of her scarf down to her chin. He held his lips so close to hers that she could feel the condensation of their breaths upon her skin, and when he kissed her, his lips were cold and his mouth warm, and they kissed until his lips became warm also. He smiled, and she smiled, their faces still close together. He nipped her scarf again with his teeth and pulled it back up so that it covered her nose, and he hugged her until they both began to shiver.
They decided to walk back to the truck because they were cold and it was getting late and Tate wanted to make sure the engine would start. And just as they approached the vehicle, a streak of white light appeared low in the sky. Marian squealed and Tate laughed. Then a soft glow appeared over the dark timber on the far side of the pond, as if the moon were rising, and as the glow rose higher, it turned into several wraithlike images of green, “like ghosts being let out of their graves,” Marian said.
Tate told her about an old Inuit myth. “They believe the aurora are the light torches used to guide the new arrivals, all those people who’ve died a violent death.”
“How do you know so much?” Marian’s voice was barely above a whisper.
Tate didn’t answer right away. Instead Marian listened to the wind and the cold branches somewhere behind them, and the frozen snow beneath their feet as their weight shifted. “I like you, Marian.” Tate’s voice was as soft as Marian’s had been.
While the lights continued to dance, Tate removed one of his gloves, reached inside his coat pocket, and took out his phone. Marian thought he was going to take pictures, and suddenly she couldn’t believe that she had left her phone in her room at the compound. But then Marian heard music, the clear sounds of an acoustic guitar and a soothing male voice. Tate returned the phone to his coat pocket while the music continued to play, and slid his hand back into his thick glove.
The lights were dancing, the music was playing, and Tate said he and Marian should dance, too. Marian wrapped her arms around Tate’s shoulders and tilted her head back to the sky, and the two of them rocked from side to side as the acoustic guitar and a banjo played and a male voice sang of stars and a stable and diamonds and coal.
After they could no longer feel their toes, they climbed into the truck and warmed their bodies and watched the lights until they faded, for another half hour or so. And on the way back, Marian leaned her head onto Tate’s shoulder and listened to the music that continued to play from his phone, and the static and occasional voices over the broadband radio. And she thought about solar winds and magnetic field lines and the earth’s upper atmosphere that created such a display of lights, like a visual orchestra.
* * *
• • •
When Marian got back to her room she couldn’t believe that it was nearly four o’clock in the morning. There was a note on her door: Text me when you get in. Couldn’t find you when I left. Want to make sure you’re okay. Also Jennes
s has been looking for you. Jeb
But it was so late. She’d text him after she got some sleep. She lay back on the twin mattress, a smile on her face. It was then that she checked her phone, which she’d left charging on her nightstand. There were a number of missed calls and a voice message. A couple of the calls were from Jeb, who had sent several texts as well, wanting to know where she was. The last missed call was from Tate, at 4:06 a.m. Marian thought about calling him back. Had she left something in the truck? But then she saw that the voice message was from him: “I want you to know I had a really nice time with you tonight. I’m just sending you some good thoughts. Sleep well, and I’ll see you in a few hours.”
8
PRESENT
July 31–August 1, 2017
MARIAN
The Den, Montana
The Den was located on over sixty acres of sprawling woods and a couple of fields west of Whitefish. All around The Den were thousands of acres of state and national forest land, dotted with a few private parcels. The compound included a heated barn with individual kennels for the dogs, a main house where Lyle stayed and which all the staff made use of, with a living room and television, an eat-in kitchen with two refrigerators, a laundry room, and Lyle’s office. The handlers who held full-time positions with the program stayed in individual huts, as did Trainer, a large, beefy man in his early fifties, who managed the property and the kennels. The huts were furnished with a twin bed, a desk, a small bureau, and a two-by-two-foot wood stove. Following the oil sands study, Marian had joined the staff as a full-time handler. Her hut was situated between two limber pine trees about fifty yards up the hill from the bathroom and shower house, and about thirty yards downhill from the hut where Tate had stayed. Marian had spent many nights in Tate’s hut, the two of them having become involved six weeks into the oil sands project. Their relationship had begun slowly, deliberately, like an orchestration, two lives unfolding together in that awesome landscape of frozen tundra. She’d believed they could weather anything, including the inevitable distance that would come between them once they left each other for different assignments.
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