From Out of the Blue

by Nadia Nichols

“This compass is pretty old.” He opened it and held it in the palm of his hand so the boy could see the magnetic needle trembling within its glass-and-nickel housing. “It belonged to my father. Your grandfather. He got it when he joined the Army, and after the war he took a job cruising timber for a lumber mill in Maine. He carried this compass with him every day of his life. Wouldn’t go into the woods without it. One day, it’ll be yours.” He saw a shadow in the doorway and glanced up, surprised to see Kate standing there, watching them. He closed the compass up and slipped it into his pocket. “We’re almost ready.”

  Her gaze was inscrutable. Was she still mad? Depressed? Exhausted? Hard to say.

  “We should stop at Yudy’s and get a few more groceries before heading up,” he suggested. “It’s a five-hour trip from the park entrance to Wonder Lake. We’ll be getting to the camping area around nine or so, but there’ll be plenty of daylight left. All we need to load is the tent and the canoe and we’re good to go.”

  Kate nodded.

  “The canoe’s not fancy. It’s an old aluminum clunker the dog musher left behind, but it doesn’t leak and it came with two paddles and a couple life jackets. He used to canoe in the river right here. You can get down to the Tanana pretty easy, but coming back up’s a real struggle in high water.”

  She nodded again.

  “The tent’s an old canvas job,” Mitch continued, feeling borderline foolish for trying to bridge the gap between them with too many words. “Has a few holes in it but I patched the worst of them, and there are a couple of air mattresses. They didn’t leak the last time I used them.”

  “I’m sure they’ll be fine,” she said.

  Good. At least she could still talk.

  “I have a camp kit with all the pans and utensils we’ll need. It’s in a big bearproof metal foot locker that’ll hold most of our groceries, and a stove and enough fuel to last three, four days.”

  Another nod.

  “Hayden said he’d help me set up the tent.”

  They were staring at each other across the room, Kate in the doorway with her arms crossed, he standing by the fireplace, yet it felt as if an entire ocean separated them, an ocean so vast and uncharted they’d never be able to find each other across it, not even with a GPS. He felt a growing sense of frustration and dropped his eyes to Hayden. “You ready?”

  “Ready,” Hayden said.

  “Then let’s roll.”

  It didn’t take long for Mitch to toss the tent, tarp and cook kit into the back of the truck and lash the canoe to the cab and bed. Thor jumped into the back as they started down the gravel road, grinning from ear to ear at the prospect of going on a camping adventure.

  He and Hayden were the only two who were.

  AT YUDY’S, the usual crowd was hanging out around the barrel stove and all conversation came to a screaming halt when Mitch stepped through the door. He held it open for Kate and Hayden, who were one step behind, and was unprepared for the scraping back of chairs as all the old-timers lurched to their feet.

  “Hello, Captain Jones,” one of them said gravely, pulling off his baseball cap.

  “We saw you on the morning news, while you were being interviewed at the hospital in Fairbanks,” Yudy explained, nodding to Kate. “It’s quite an honor to have you here, ma’am, and I want you to know, anything you need, anything at all, you just sing out. I carry just about everything here in the store and what I don’t have, I can sure enough get. You just name it.”

  “Thank you,” Kate said. “All we need are a few groceries.”

  “And we all of us want you to know we’re pulling for you, one hundred percent. Ain’t we, boys?”

  The old-timers rang out their agreement.

  “And we’re all getting tested as potential donors, just in case we can help you out.”

  Kate felt her heart squeeze as she looked among them, none under seventy years of age and some a lot older. Tough men who’d lived tough lives, all of them too old to be bone marrow donors but they didn’t know it and she wasn’t about to tell them. No one wants to be told they’re too old to help out. “I appreciate that very much,” she said with as big a smile as she could muster.

  “Mitch, you lucky son, you cheated the devil yesterday, crashing on that mountain and living to tell about it,” Yudy said.

  “It wasn’t a crash, it was a short landing,” Mitch corrected.

  “That right? They showed pictures of the plane on the news and it sure looked crashed to me. There ain’t no way in hell Wally’s going to put Humpty Dumpty back together again this time. I guess that’s the end of Wally’s Air Charter.”

  “Not exactly,” Mitch said. “We’ll get another plane with the insurance money.”

  “Hopefully one that’ll stay in the air,” Yudy said, his remark eliciting a few guffaws from the group around the stove. “What can I get you for groceries?”

  “We’re heading up to Denali to camp out at Wonder Lake,” Mitch said, with a glance in Hayden’s direction. “I think we’d better start with a couple of bags of marshmallows, some chocolate bars and a box of graham crackers.”

  IN SPITE OF her determination not to miss a moment of the journey to Denali, Kate fell asleep on the drive up the George Parks Highway to the park entrance. It was Hayden who woke her. “Mumma, we’re here,” he piped up when Mitch turned onto the gravel road.

  She had no idea how long she’d been sleeping, only that she was stiff, sore, thirsty and glad when Mitch pulled into the park headquarters and announced a break. “We have another five hours of travel time ahead of us,” he said. “Let’s stretch our legs and eat.”

  They had the place pretty much to themselves, and after a brief tour of the visitors’ center and the restrooms, they sat outside, sharing the sandwiches Yudy had made them. Fresh crusty French bread and deli cold cuts, complete with crunchy dills and big bottles of lemony iced tea. Delicious. Both Kate and Hayden finished their sandwiches. Mitch ate two. Afterward, only Hayden was inspired to move. Kate could have lain back in the grass and fallen asleep in the next breath, but napping wouldn’t get them to Wonder Lake. “Five more hours?” she murmured as the warmth of the sun turned her muscles to butter.

  Mitch was propped on his elbows, hat brim pulled low to shield his eyes from the strong afternoon light, watching Hayden and Thor play tug-of-war with a stick. “It’s a real pretty drive, but we don’t have to do it all in one fell swoop today, if you’d rather camp someplace in between. It’s four o’clock now. The Savage River checkpoint’s another twenty miles in. That’s where Rick hangs out. He’s the ranger I’m counting on to let us through the gate. Most folks have to park there and take the bus in.”

  “What if he’s not there?”

  “I’ll bribe whoever is.”

  Kate cocked her head to catch his eye. “With what? You couldn’t even pay for the groceries.”

  “Easy,” he cautioned. “A man has his ego.”

  “If little else.”

  Mitch flopped down flat on the grass with a real moan of pain. “Have mercy.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out how you’d feed this kid, buy him clothes, educate him.”

  He moved his head slightly to stare at her from beneath his hat brim. “Oh, that’s right. I forgot to tell you about the gold mine that’s located directly under my cabin. Whenever I feel the need for money I just dig a couple buckets of gravel and pan out the bigger nuggets.”

  “Mitch, I’m serious. If I don’t get a donor—”

  “You will,” he interrupted, pushing back onto his elbows while stifling another moan brought on by the movement. “Hayden, you about ready to get back on the road?”

  Forty minutes later they were at the Savage River checkpoint, and Ranger Rick himself greeted Mitch with a broad grin and an enthusiastic handshake. He was young and handsome in his park uniform. “You kidding? ’Course you can drive through,” he said after the introductions were made along with the request, then he leaned in the open window and caught K
ate’s eye. “This guy saved my hide last summer, in fire season. He flew into this little squint of a pond nobody else dared land in and somehow managed to fly four of us rangers back out without clipping more than three trees.”

  “Two,” Mitch corrected.

  “He’s just naturally heroic,” Kate said.

  “Glad you didn’t crash and burn along with your plane yesterday, dude. I followed that pretty close on the radio. You had us worried.” He glanced at Thor. “Don’t let your dog run loose or he’s apt to get eaten by a grizzly.”

  “That’s not a dog, Rick, that’s Thor. He’s a wolf.”

  Rick grinned. “I thought he looked kind of wolfish. In that case, he’ll have lots of company. The Kantishna pack was spotted near the Toklat two days ago. You might get lucky and see them along the way. That weather we got yesterday dumped a foot of snow on the road up near Stony Hill, but the crews’ve been plowing since sunup. You shouldn’t have any trouble getting to the lake. The road’s in real good shape otherwise.” He looked at Kate. “Nice meeting you, Captain Jones. Hope you have a good campout. You both look like you could use a little R & R.”

  With Ranger Rick’s blessing, they passed through the gate and continued on. “Is Thor really a wolf?” Kate asked.

  “I think so,” Mitch said. “What do you think, Hayden? Is Thor a wolf?”

  “Yup,” Hayden said.

  AT 9:20 P.M. the sun was just sinking behind the mountains and Mitch had to wake both Hayden and Kate when he cut the truck’s ignition at the primitive camping area. Kate woke first, her eyes fluttering open, then widening as she sat up. “Wow,” she said.

  Wonder Lake spread out before them, a vast molten shimmer reflecting all the colors of sunset, as well as the rugged, majestic heights of a snow-clad McKinley, which topped an imposing horizon made up of the Alaska Range. For a moment they sat listening to the wind that hissed through a grove of stunted spruce near the truck, then Kate glanced down at Hayden. “Wake up,” she said softly, brushing the hair back from his forehead. “We’re here.” As he roused, she lifted her eyes to Mitch. “And you’re right. It’s beautiful.”

  “Looks like we have it pretty much to ourselves, too,” he said, opening his door and dropping to the ground. His entire body protested the hard jolt and he hung on to the door for a moment, catching his breath and bracing against all the residual pains from the day before. No doubt about it, he was getting old. “I’ll get the tent set up,” he said, straightening. “You and Hayden just take it easy.”

  “Are you kidding? That’s all I’ve done all day,” Kate replied, opening her own door and sliding out. She helped Hayden down and stood for a moment, absorbing the quiet beauty of their wilderness surroundings. “I’ll get supper started. Believe it or not, I’m hungry even after a whole day of doing absolutely nothing.”

  Mitch was, too. It took him longer to erect the tent than he anticipated because he kept stopping to help Kate unload the cooking gear from the back of the truck and then get it set up on the picnic table. He directed Hayden to start collecting small sticks around the campsite for a small fire in the fire pit to toast their marshmallows on after supper, scrounged a bottle of wine out of the groceries and opened it using the corkscrew on his jackknife. He poured some into a tin cup and handed it to Kate, then snagged a beer out of the cooler and twisted off the top. “To the sunset.”

  “To the sunset,” she echoed, touching the rim of her cup to the neck of his beer bottle.

  They watched for a few moments more before returning to their tasks, standing side by side in companionable silence while Hayden and Thor wrestled over a piece of kindling. By the time Mitch had the big canvas wall tent reasonably squared up and tied off, Kate was preparing a salad in a big blue plastic bowl at the weathered picnic table and Hayden had collected three small pieces of bleached driftwood, two of which Thor promptly chewed up. Mitch tossed their sleeping bags inside the tent and began inflating the air mattresses, taking frequent pauses to keep track of Hayden and Thor. By the time he was done he could smell something great cooking on the stove and his stomach was growling with anticipation.

  “You’re getting potluck tonight,” she informed him with a bemused smile when he bent over the pot to have a peek. “Vegetarian chili. It’s fast and easy, and we’ll have a salad with it and s’mores for dessert. Tomorrow you can wow me with one of your gastronomic tours de force.”

  “I’ll try, but I doubt I’ll come close to what you’re making right now. I don’t know when I’ve smelled anything that good. I better go hunt up some wood. Hayden doesn’t have enough yet to toast one marshmallow. How long until supper?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  “Call out when it’s ready.”

  He carried his beer down to the lake’s edge and stood for moment, the waves lapping against the gravel at his feet. He felt full of something he couldn’t even put a name to, as he looked out across the still beauty of the water and the soaring heights of the mountains and realized that he was closer to happiness right now, at this very moment, than he’d ever been in his life. Which didn’t make any sense at all, because the past few days had dealt out a series of traumatic events. Finding out he was a father, finding out Kate was battling cancer and then on top of all that, crashing the Stationair. He should be suffering an ulcer or a high-stress tension headache, but instead he was filled with a kind of peace and contentment like he’d never known.

  He glanced back to where Kate was sorting through the cook kit for eating utensils and plates, and he watched her for a long moment, long enough to believe that she wouldn’t die. She couldn’t. She was too vibrant and beautiful and intelligent and alive. No way was she ever going to die. And then he watched the little boy who was trying to wrest a skinny stick of driftwood away from Thor and he felt a kick of pride that such a cute and well-behaved kid could be his.

  His and Kate’s.

  Their son.

  How humbling was that? He’d been telling Hayden the truth when he said he wasn’t mad at Kate anymore for not telling him he had a son. He wasn’t. Given the circumstances of their first meeting, her focus on her career and her stubborn, prideful self-reliance, he understood why she hadn’t.

  What he still didn’t understand was why she hadn’t read his letter, and he didn’t think he ever would.

  “Supper’s ready,” he heard Kate call, and he gathered an armload of driftwood on his way back to the campsite.

  AFTER SUPPER, Mitch cut willow switches to toast the marshmallows on. He went out into the twilight with his jackknife after lighting the little campfire and returned with three peeled sticks, handing one to each of them with a ceremonious air.

  “It isn’t a real campout if you don’t toast marshmallows and make smores,” he informed them.

  Kate took her willow branch and examined it critically.

  “This isn’t thick enough and it’s too smooth,” she pronounced. “When the marshmallow heats up, it’s going to slide right off.”

  He gave her a playfully offended stare. “Woman, you’re deluded. That’s a perfect toasting stick. Hayden? Watch and learn.”

  Kate had to squelch a smile as she watched Hayden and Mitch huddle close to the little campfire with their willow toasting sticks and the bag of marshmallows. Hayden was in his element, thriving in Mitch’s company, reveling in the outdoors, in having a wolf-dog to pal with and a man, his very own father, to take him under his wing.

  Soon, marshmallows were catching fire and slipping off the sticks and into the flames, but enough survived to sate the sweet tooths of all. Between the three of them, they put a good dent in the first bag.

  “I can’t believe it’s past midnight,” Kate said in a hushed voice as they watched the embers glow the same color as the sky had just before full dusk.

  “You must be pretty tired,” Mitch said.

  “Mmm. It’s a good kind of tired.”

  Hayden was so groggy he barely protested the bedtime ritual of washing up and brushi
ng his teeth and was asleep, with Thor sprawled next to him, before Kate could fold his blue jeans and shirt and tuck them into his duffel.

  She rejoined Mitch at the fire pit and had no sooner settled back into her place and picked up the tin cup of wine, nearly empty now, when she heard the mournful wail of a loon out on the lake. The beautiful, bittersweet sound echoed into the arctic twilight, amplifying all the feelings churning within her and vocalizing them aloud to the wilderness. She felt a surge of emotion and was glad that it was dark enough to hide the tears that suddenly flooded her eyes.

  “Thank you for bringing us here,” she said, when she could manage the words past the painful tightness in her throat.

  Mitch caught her gaze across the dying fire. “Hayden’s a good kid,” he said after a long while.

  “Yes, he is,” she murmured, wishing she could turn back time and steal just one more night with Mitch like the one they’d shared at the Mad Dog Saloon all those years ago. She was so tired, so drugged and dreamy with exhaustion, that the memories no longer triggered that impenetrable wall of self-defense. She no longer cared about being independent. She liked being with him, and the sound of his deep, reassuring voice. She liked feeling safe and secure and protected.

  “You did a good job with him,” he added after another long while of contemplating the bed of coals. The night was so quiet, so still, that she could hear his heart beating…or was it hers? They were going to share a tent together for several days. Sleep together, eat together and take care of Hayden together for the first time as parents…and maybe the last. She wondered why she had ever felt anger toward him, because right now she couldn’t feel anything but enormous gratitude and respect. He was like no other man she’d ever known, and she’d known a lot of men throughout her career. Worked with them, flown with them, commanded them and been commanded by them.

  But none had been like Mitchell McCray.

  Some had been as heroic, some had been as tough, some had been humorous, some opinionated, some arrogant and brash, some brilliant and some had been chauvinistic. Mitch was all those things, but he was something else, too. He was good-hearted.