by John Smelcer
He knew better.
Like most Alaskans, he usually kept a large black, plastic garbage bag stuffed full of old blankets and gloves and hats in the trunk. But he had taken it out earlier in the week to make room for groceries. He had forgotten to put it back. Now the bag sat uselessly on the floor of his heated garage.
Bassili kicked away snow from around the tires and from behind the car, trying to clear a path to back up. He had no tools, no proper gear of any kind, but he had no choice. Fortunately, there was only a slight wind; otherwise the temperature might easily plummet to minus seventy or eighty degrees.
The hard work temporarily warmed him.
While their grandfather labored outside, the grandchildren sat in the back seat of the warm, idling car drawing and coloring with the new box of crayons their grandparents had bought them for the trip. The boy named Jimmy drew a picture of himself and his grandfather in their boat in the summer on a blue river surrounded by green hills with green trees and a high yellow sun smiling down at them. His sister, Nelly, almost two years younger at four, drew stick-like figures of the four of them all holding hands around a campfire roasting marshmallows. The figure representing her grandfather was enormous in comparison to the others. A happy giant. Her picture featured the same smiling, yellow sun as her brother’s drawing, except that her coloring fell outside the lines.
Nelly’s parents had named her after the black bear, which in their language is nel’ii, pronounced a lot like the English name. Almost no one had names the way they did in the old days. Nelly was special that way. Even her grandfather’s name was a remnant of the period when Russia owned the land, although Russians had never been this far into the interior, had never set foot on this blanketed valley. More than a hundred words had come from Russian into their language, mostly the names of goods that would have been traded for furs—goods like tea and tea kettles, cooking pots and pans, and western clothes.
Bassili stopped working for a moment, rubbed his hands together, trying to warm his fingers. His ears hurt. He hadn’t brought a hat, either. While he clasped his thin-gloved hands to his ears, he saw his wife looking at him through the frosted window. He motioned for her to roll down her window, just a crack.
“It’s pretty cold out here,” he said bending close, still cupping his ears.
“Want my gloves?” his wife asked, holding them up. They weren’t any better than those Bassili was wearing.
“No. I’m alright,” he replied. “Just a few more minutes.”
The couple had been married forty-two years and had only one child, a son. The grandchildren were his, from his second marriage. Bassili and his wife had lived in the region all their lives, and the old man knew this country well. He had hunted caribou in these mountains with his father and uncles during the fall ever since he was a boy. Every year, like clockwork, tens of thousands of the animals migrated through the valleys, crossing glacial rivers and mountains, following ancient routes stamped into the tundra by their ancestors. It was such an intricate history—this connection of hunter and hunted—that a clan was even named after the great herd: Udzisyu, pronounced you-jee-shoo, after the word for caribou.
Moreover, the old man knew that no one drove this dangerous road in winter. He hadn’t planned on taking it when he had set out in the morning. But when he passed the road, it looked clear enough, so he turned around and decided to take a little side trip. Neither had he planned to drive so far down the road. But the white hills and valleys were so beautiful and inviting that he kept driving further and further. Several times on the drive down the untracked road his wife had voiced her concern, saying that they should turn back, that they had gone far enough.
“Don’t worry,” he had told her. “The road is fine.”
And then, the unseen snowdrift snared the car.
Nelly tapped on her window, smiled, and waved at her grandfather, who smiled and returned a wave. While he went back to moving snow, the little girl went back to work on her picture, shading the cloudless sky a deep blue.
After a few minutes, Bassili jumped into the car, flung his gloves off and held his hands over the defroster vent.
“Damn, it’s cold out there!”
When his hands warmed, the old man pressed the clutch, shifted the gear into reverse, and tried to break free of the drift’s grip. Though he could hear the tires whine as they spun freely, the car didn’t move. He tried to rock the car, shifting quickly from first to reverse, but the high-centered car didn’t budge. His wife looked on in anticipation, the way someone with a bet on a game eagerly awaits the outcome of a last minute effort to win. When the car didn’t break free, her look of anticipation turned to worry.
“Try it again,” she said.
But after a nearly a dozen attempts, Bassili knew he’d have to try to pull snow out from beneath the car, not just from around it or from behind it. By now the sun was down and darkness was swallowing the white-pillowed hills. Stars twinkled in the darkening sky that Nelly had colored blue. The old man looked at the gas gauge. This time the needle was a little lower, leaning toward empty. He wondered how much longer the engine could idle before the little red light flashed. He put his gloves on again, zipped his too-thin jacket as far as it would go, and stepped outside.
The terrible cold bit at him through his jacket and gloves, tried to bite off the tips of his ears. He lay on his belly, using an arm to reach beneath the car and pull out armfuls of snow. But he could only reach under a little ways, and the impact of the car hitting the drift had compacted the snow into hardness. He dug on one side for about ten minutes, and then he did the same thing on the other side. While he labored on his belly, his legs and ears freezing, his family waited inside the warm car, the children busying themselves with coloring or playing games.
“When are we going home?” Nelly asked her grandmother, growing tired of drawing and coloring.
“Soon, Little Bear.”
“I’m hungry, Grandma,” complained the older brother. “When are we going someplace to eat?”
“Soon as you grandaddy get us out of the snow,” replied their grandmother in her imperfect English, without turning to look at her grandchildren.
“It’s hot in here,” said Jimmy, rolling down his window almost halfway.
The old woman looked out her side window. Nothing moved on the land. No tracks broke through the perfect blanket of snow. Nothing living hunkered in this long valley, not even ravens. Nothing could live in this stark desolation, now one of the coldest and darkest places on earth. She remembered the story the preacher had told of how God feared the darkness so much that he made light and the light was good and warming. Even in the stories of the People, Raven brought the sun, and the sun illuminated the darkness, and for the first time, the People were unafraid. Now, outside the warm car, the cold and darkness was deep and lasting.
The old woman spoke to herself softly so as not to be heard by the children.
“Who are you talking to, Grandma?” Nelly asked a minute later, hearing her grandmother’s mumbling.
The old woman stopped whispering, looked at her granddaughter through the rearview mirror.
“No one, dear. I was just praying. Color me a pretty picture.”
“It’s too dark. I can’t see.”
The old woman reached up and turned on the dome light.
“There,” she said. “Now make me a happy picture. You too, Jimmy.”
“I’m hungry,” the boy complained. He was always hungry.
“You always hungry, just like you daddy when he was your age. You must have two hollow legs,” said the grandmother, trying to make the children laugh. “Draw me a picture of something nice to eat.”
“I’ll make a picture of my birthday cake and a pizza,” said the cheerful boy. His sixth birthday party had been only a week earlier.
“And I’ll draw a picture of an ice-cream cone
with three scoops: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry,” said Nelly, enthusiastically turning to a blank page and digging out the necessary crayons from the box.
Suddenly the car door opened and Bassili stiffly sat down in the driver’s seat, closing the door afterward. He took off his wet gloves, turned the defroster fan knob to high, and plunged his freezing hands into the blasting heat.
While her husband warmed, his wife searched his face, looking for news of what he did not say.
“Did you get it?” she asked finally. “Can we get out?”
“I don’t know . . . maybe. Hard to say,” he said, turning his hands in the heat and occasionally rubbing them together. “We’ll find out in a minute.”
The old man looked down at the gauge. The needle almost touched the E. He wondered if there was enough gas to make it twenty miles. When he looked up again, his eyes caught his wife’s stare. In the instant, he knew that she understood their predicament as fully as he did. Now, every minute they sat in the warm, idling car would mean one more mile they might have to walk in the freezing darkness.
Their continued warmth came at a dangerous price.
When his hands were warmed, Bassili gently pulled the gear shifter into reverse, pushed slightly on the gas pedal, hoping the tires might not spin, might grab the road. Instead, the tires turned freely, grabbing only air or ice. He pushed harder on the gas, listened to the whining engine. The spinning wheels polished the ice even smoother. He shifted into first. The same thing. The car was as unmovable as winter itself.
Bassili grabbed his wife’s dry gloves from her lap.
“I’ll get out and push,” he said. “You come over here and drive. Try not to spin the wheels too fast.”
The old man stepped out and his wife slid over into the driver’s seat, careful of the shifter in between the seats. Bassili fought his way through the waist-deep snow to the front of the car, bent over, put both hands firmly against the bumper and pushed when his wife put the car into reverse. Despite his efforts, the car did not move. Undeterred, he put his shoulder against the hood near the tire well and pushed, straining with all the power in his thin legs. Nothing. The only signs of life in the pitch-black valley were the occasional high whines of the engine and the car’s white and red lights.
After a while—his ears and nose and fingers hurting unbearably—Bassili gave up and motioned for his wife to move back to the passenger seat as he entered the warm car. For several minutes he sat quietly, alternately breathing into the cup of his hands and rubbing his ears. The light beside the gas gauge was on, its red eye staring its accusation from the glowing dashboard.
Bassili’s wife reached over and tugged on the sleeve of his sweater. He turned to look at her, but the look on her face was so full of sadness and fear that he couldn’t bear it for long. He wanted to hold her, to tell her how much he loved her and their many years together, despite the hardships that come with any long marriage. But instead, the old man’s gaze fell back to the red light, leaving him unable to say or do anything for fear of frightening the grandchildren. His head hung down as much as from guilt and shame as it did from helplessness and despair, now as heavy and consuming as the cold night itself. Bassili blamed himself for their situation. He knew better than to have driven down this untraveled road. Only hunters on snowmobiles came back this far and even then only during warm spells.
“Grandpa, can we go home now?” asked Nelly, waking up from a nap and rubbing her eyes. “I don’t like it here.”
“I want to go home too,” said Jimmy. “I’m hungry. Can we go now?”
When no answer came from the front seat, both children voiced their desires again, thinking no one had heard them.
“We’ll leave soon enough, Little Ones,” said the old woman. “Grandma doesn’t like it here either.”
A minute later the engine stopped running. Several times, Bassili tried to start it again, but the engine only sputtered. Once it ran for a few seconds before dying, the tank as bone dry as hope. The four sat in the car for what seemed like an hour. In that time the battery died, after which they sat in darkness, the night peering through the windows—wolf-like—its wondrous hunger aching to consume the living warmth within. The whole world was darkness. By then, the temperature in the car was only a little warmer than the outside. The windows were thick with ice from their breathing.
“I’m really cold grandpa,” Nelly complained frequently. “Can you start the car and turn up the heater?”
“My feet are freezing. I’m hungry. Can we go now?” pleaded Jimmy almost as often.
Both children were wearing only tennis shoes. Nelly’s were pink with white hearts and purple laces. Neither was wearing gloves or a hat.
After sitting quietly for a long time, the wife leaned close to her husband and whispered in his ear.
“Aren’t we even going to try?” she asked, a tear running down her freezing cheek.
Bassili turned around and looked at the children. Both had pulled their arms inside their jackets to try to keep warm.
“Can grandpa have a piece of paper and a crayon,” he asked Nelly, his breath a flock of reeling white birds.
The little girl struggled to push one arm out of a sleeve. She handed her grandfather the picture of the happy stick-figure family and a dark blue crayon, and then she quickly pulled her arm back inside the warm jacket and shuddered.
Bassili looked at the picture for a long time before he turned it over to the blank side. Several times he started to write something, but each time he stopped, turned the paper over again, and stared at the smiling giant with the word “Grandpa” written beneath it. Finally, he turned the paper over and wrote four names, the time and date, and two words.
Heading North.
The Pond
George Joseph plunged through the ice when he reached for the exhausted dog, which tried frantically to climb onto the man’s head to keep from drowning, the front paws scratching the man’s face and scalp. George grabbed hold of the dog and held him close to his chest, keeping the animal’s head above water. At first the dog struggled but then relaxed.
“It’s alright boy,” said the man, feeling the dog’s deep trembling. “I’ve got you.”
The man and his dog had been on their daily walk along the shoulder of the road when the dog ran down the hill toward a frozen pond after a rabbit.
“Heel boy! Heel! C’mere!” he had shouted, whistling and clapping his hands.
But halfway across, the heedless dog had crashed through the thin ice. No matter how many times the dog tried to pull himself out, the edge broke away.
George had run down the hill, found a long branch under a tree, and with it had shuffled over the ice toward the dog. The ice moaned when he crept close to the middle, so George got down on his hands and knees and crawled as far as he dared go, holding out the branch, encouraging the dog to bite hold of it so he could pull him out.
“Grab on, Boy! Come on!” he shouted.
But the frightened dog didn’t understand. Every minute, he became weaker and weaker, until even the dog understood that his feeble attempts to climb out became futile. He was so tired and his muscles so cold that he could barely keep his head above the surface.
But George wouldn’t give up.
He had bought the dog as a puppy for his daughter’s sixth birthday. Tabitha carried the squirming little puppy all day long, hugging and kissing it. She named him Sam. The girl and dog were inseparable. He followed her everywhere, escorting her each morning to the end of the driveway to catch the school bus, carrying her sack lunch in his mouth. He was always waiting at the same place when the bus returned in the afternoon. At night, he always slept curled up at the foot of her bed.
By the time Sam was three years old, he out-weighed the girl by a good ten to twenty pounds.
One summer day, Tabby was riding her bicycle along the edge of t
he road with the dog trotting in a field beside her smelling everything, when a blue van came speeding over a blind hill, swerving across the center line into the oncoming lane and then back again, the tires kicking up rocks and dust when they hit the gravel shoulder.
The police report said Tabby died instantly from the impact. It also said she was thrown thirty-seven feet and that when the police arrived on the scene the two men, Thomas Two Fists and Victor Crow were sitting in the truck with the doors closed, while the dog stood over the wreckage of the girl, protecting her, licking her face, whimpering and whining and occasionally nudging her with his black nose.
The police had contacted George and his wife from the address on the dog’s tag.
Two Fists, who was driving, was sentenced to five years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. It should have been a lot longer, but although police could smell alcohol on his breath, they couldn’t get the breathalyzer to work properly. As a result, the inconsistent blood-alcohol level readings were thrown out. Thomas was released after serving only three years.
George had heard that Two Fists was back in town and that he had beat up his wife for seeing other men while he was in prison. But she was too afraid to report the abuse, so she just moved away one night—just packed a little bag and left with some man she had met at the diner where she worked as a waitress.
She left like a take-out order.
The first year after Tabby’s death, George and his wife shuffled from room to room as if haunting one of those old boarded-up houses with white sheets draped over all the furniture, dust settling on the silence. They were two ghosts occupying the same empty space, each unable to see the other. And like a ghost, one day the apparition that had been his wife simply vanished.