Three Against the Wilderness

by Eric Collier

  I took my lunch from the packsack, stared listlessly at the sandwiches and then pushed them aside. There was no appetite in me. The stump blazed cheerfully away but seemed to throw no heat. I lay as close to the flames as I could get without setting fire to my clothes, but still I shivered. And the longer I lay there, the weaker I seemed to get.

  Snow began falling again. From off in the northwest I could hear the tumult of wind rushing through the treetops. A blizzard of sorts was moving in from the northwest, and while it might blow itself out in an hour or less, its passing would probably leave another three or four inches of snow on the trail.

  A desire was in me to build myself a shelter of boughs and sit the blizzard out by the fire. Prudence, however, told me to do no such foolish thing, but instead to turn around at once and get back home while there was sufficient strength in my legs and willpower in my mind to get me there.

  “Be all right if I can just get back home,” I tried to comfort myself. “Guess I’m a bit sick right this very minute, but get back home and in bed and I’ll be all right come morning.”

  Realization that I was sick turned my thoughts to Veasy. He was trapping out of the cabin downcreek. He was alone down there, trapping out to the east and north, while I stayed home with Lillian and covered the country lying south and west of Meldrum Lake. It was a good arrangement, for it enabled us to cover pretty well the whole of our trapline with traps at a time when the fur was at its best. In the last two or three years Veasy was often alone at the cabin, running his traps, and we never worried or fretted about his being safe. He was strong, and he was healthy, and there was no Indian in the Chilcotin who knew how to take better care of himself in the woods. The woods would never harm Veasy, of that we were sure. But now, with my own legs failing me, I thought, “Hope the boy’s all right.”

  The blizzard hauled up to me a few minutes after I’d left the fire. My tracks of the morning were soon hidden, and it was only by sense of touch that I was able to keep the snowshoes on the pack of the trail beneath them. I could see nothing of the trail itself.

  I’d never known anything like this before. I was becoming weaker by the minute, and the temptation to quit, build another fire and sit by it and rest, and maybe sleep for a few minutes, was almost irresistible. But no, I couldn’t do any such thing as that. I had to keep moving slowly along, although now it was willpower and not strength that kept the snowshoes moving.

  The blizzard passed by and the air became still. Now I had to stop every hundred yards and rest a few moments. But I rested standing on the snowshoes; I was scared to take them off and sit down. If I did that I might never get the snowshoes to moving again. I had to keep going.

  Night closed in long before I reached home. Only instinct held my snowshoes to the trail. Instinct and a sort of stubborn determination that I wasn’t going to let the woods lick me. A landmark here and there that might have told me in what direction I was going now told me nothing.

  A building took outline from the darkness. I stopped, rubbing my eyes and staring at it. And stood there a few seconds before realizing that it was our own barn. I kicked out of the snowshoe harness, leaning the shoes against the logs. No need for the snowshoes now. I was home, or at least would be if I could just summon enough willpower to drag myself along the trail from barn to house.

  Lillian must have been seated at the sitting room window, staring out into the night and watching for me. Lillian always worried a bit when night shut down with Veasy or me long overdue out of the woods. So many things could go amiss.

  She heard me coming up the trail and was at the back door to meet me when at last I reached it. At once she saw that something was radically wrong.

  “Eric, you’re sick, what is it? What’s wrong?” she cried anxiously.

  “I feel sort of bad.” I staggered into the kitchen, flopped in a chair and muttered, “Nothing for you to fret over. I’ll be fine by morning.”

  Supper was on the table, but there was no hunger in me. I drank a cup of tea, shed my clothes and had misty recollection of Lillian helping me to bed and covering me with blankets. I lay there, still shivering despite the two hot water bottles that Lillian slipped under the blankets with me. Three weeks were to pass before I had strength enough to leave that bed again.

  By morning I was delirious, completely out of my head. My clothes were saturated with the sweat that had drenched my body in the night. A medicine chest of sorts was tucked away back on one of the cupboard shelves, yet seldom had there been need to rummage among its contents. The medicine chest contained some quinine capsules, cough syrups and bottles of liniment. But little of anything else. We never had allowed thought of serious sickness to plague our minds, never since coming to the creek to live. A common cold or minor headache had so far been about all in the way of sickness that Lillian had had to contend with. Now that possible serious illness had stalked onto the scene, the quinine capsules were the only medicine in the chest that seemed likely to do any good.

  Lillian managed to get some of the capsules down my throat, but sitting by the bedside during the long hours of night, covering me with the blankets again whenever I threshed around in the bed and tossed them aside, she knew that more than quinine was needed.

  Night gave way to dawn. Lillian stood aimlessly at the bedroom window, watching a cold sun clear the treetops and wondering what to do. Then suddenly she remembered that today was Wednesday.

  That realization fetched some relief to her tortured mind. It was Wednesday, and tonight Veasy would be back and she’d not be alone. Veasy’s traplines were so arranged that on Wednesday and Saturday he was back home for an overnight stay, so tonight he would be home, and tomorrow, if so it had to be, he could drive the sleigh out to Riske Creek for help. The village of Williams Lake, thirty miles to the east, now boasted a doctor, so if the worst came to the worst Veasy could go to Riske Creek and phone into Williams Lake for a doctor. And haul him into Meldrum Lake on the sleigh. No Jeep or car could buck the snow on Island Lake Flats.

  The thought of Veasy being home at nightfall buoyed Lillian up through the dragging day. At four in the afternoon she went to the barn and fed and watered the horses. A cow and a calf moose came trotting out of the woods as she forked hay down to the horses. Within seconds a half-dozen were milling around the barn. She forked hay to them too, scattering it out in the snow, and when all were eating made a dash back to the house. Lillian never had been able to forget the moment when Old Cantankerous collapsed lifeless almost at her feet. The incident had left her with a nervousness about any moose, cow or bull. But the moose paid no attention to her as she fled back to the house. They were far too busy squabbling with one another over the hay.

  Five o’clock, and the oil lamps lighted, the woodbox filled and buckets of fresh water carried from the water hole at the lake. I had been unconscious all day, now lying very still, now threshing about in the bedclothes as the sweat oozed from the pores of my skin.

  Six o’clock passed, but still no sign of Veasy. It had been pitch-dark for well over an hour. Now Lillian’s thoughts were wracked by added anxiety: why wasn’t Veasy home? Every few minutes she went outside, standing very still, listening. Veasy had a saddle horse with him at the cabin, and he’d be riding it home tonight. Yet why couldn’t she hear the crunch of hoofs against frozen snow when she went outside and listened? Then too, there was generally a whistle on Veasy’s lips when he neared the house. Why couldn’t she hear that whistle now, when she wanted so much to hear it? What had happened to prevent Veasy from coming home? A dozen or more things could have happened, but as quickly as thought of one entered her head she swiftly pushed it away again. Veasy would be home, soon; he just had to be home. Nothing would happen to Veasy.

  The hum of an airplane motor sounded from out of the night. Soon she could see its lights. The plane, maybe a Canadian Pacific Airways plane hauling passengers from Prince George to Vancouver, passed directly above the house. By now Lillian was accustomed to hearing pla
nes fly over the house. They more or less followed the course of the Fraser River north or south as the case might be. Once upon a time, when they first began flying that route, Lillian would pat down her hair, wipe her hands on her apron and go outside and look up at them, as if the pilot or passengers could look back down at her and note whether her hair was slick and neat, or her hands perfectly clean. But after the novelty of it all wore off, whenever the planes went by she kept on with her housework and paid them no attention.

  But now she rushed out into the night as soon as she heard the plane and stood there, staring at its winking lights, thinking, “There are people in it just like me. If I could only signal them. And maybe if they knew that Veasy wasn’t home—” Then, realizing the craziness of her thoughts, she stamped a foot in the snow, set her teeth and tried to dam back the tears that wanted to flood her eyes.

  Then the plane lights went out and its engines purred into silence. And Lillian was alone again, pacing the snow, indifferent to the cold that needled her face and ears, crying aloud, “Veasy, why don’t you come!”

  Seven. Eight. Nine. How slowly the hours crawled by. Lillian picked up a book but quickly laid it down again. She threaded a needle and tried to busy herself with some knitting. But that made no sense either. Tonight nothing made any sense.

  A half-dozen times she ran to the door and out into the night when she thought she heard sound of a horse approaching the house. But it was only the moose that she heard. Having eaten their hay, they were now browsing willows a stone’s throw away from the house.

  A few minutes after ten she again heard the crunch of hoofs against snow. This time she was certain that it was no moose approaching the house. Moose didn’t make that much noise even when they were trotting. She stepped away from the door a few paces, straining her eyes into the night, and calling, “Veasy, is that you at last?”

  A horse took on form and colour from out of the night. The horse was a blocky roan, and as soon as she saw it Lillian recognized it as Veasy’s. For a quick second relief and joy rushed through her. Then her legs trembled, a cry forced from her lips. The horse was without saddle, bridle or rider. Only a halter was on its head, the lead rope looped around the animal’s neck.

  “If anything goes amiss out here in the woods when you’re on horseback, jerk the saddle and bridle off your horse and turn him loose. He’ll come home and let us know you’re in trouble.”

  If Lillian had heard those words once, she’d heard them a hundred times. They were instructions I’d given Veasy when maybe rightly he wasn’t quite old enough to be out in the woods on horseback alone. And when he grew older and began running lengthy traplines of his own, they became more of an order. “Turn the horse loose and he’ll trail home.” And somewhere Veasy had recently done just that, and now the horse was home, letting Lillian know there’d been trouble.

  She stood in the snow by the horse’s head, her mind a turmoil. All was very still about her. The moose had wandered away from the willows and were now probably bedded in the thickets, unseen and unheard. The air was crisp with the sting of a near-zero temperature. The tremulous cry of some faraway coyote suddenly split the night, melancholy and mournful. Then the cry trailed off and all was silent again save for the measured breathing of the horse.

  A flood of questions swamped Lillian’s head. Where had the horse been turned loose and how long ago? And why had it been turned loose? Once free to travel at will, the animal certainly wouldn’t dawdle in the woods or on any trail. Instead it would start off at a fast walk in the direction of Meldrum Lake and the other horses it knew so well that were now in the barn. She ran a hand down its shoulder, then along its back. There was no frosted sweat on the hair as there probably would have been had the saddle been taken off in the woods. That seemed to indicate that the animal had been taken out of a barn and turned loose.

  “He’s down at the cabin,” Lillian persuaded herself. “Unable to ride home himself but still able to turn his horse loose to let us know he’s in trouble.”

  It would be eight or nine hours before another dawn broke, and Lillian could not abide the thought of waiting upon the daylight. She had to get down to the cabin now, at once. That decision acted as a stimulant of sorts.

  Going back into the house, she stoked the heater stove with wood and closed its dampers. Then she scribbled a note and put it on a chair by my bed in case I came to my senses before she got back. She put on her warmest winter clothes, pulled a parka over her head, turned down the wick in the coal-oil lamp, set it on the kitchen table, lighted the barn lantern and led Veasy’s saddle horse away.

  Gipsy and Ben, the work team, stood side by side in the double stall of the barn. Lillian took their harness from its peg, threw it on the team and hitched them up to the sleigh. Then jumping up on the seat, she brought the whiplash down on their rumps, and the horses moved off through the night at a fast trot.

  The road to the cabin hugged beaver marshes most of the way. The lantern on the seat beside her dimly showed the blazes on the trees ahead, which denoted the course of the track. As her eyes became tuned to the darkness she discerned fresh tracks in the snow ahead of her. These, she knew, had been made by Veasy’s saddle horse. Now she became certain that she’d find him at the cabin.

  The team slowed to a walk. She laid the whips across their backs and again they broke into a trot. Again the whip fell and they started to gallop. Ordinarily, and in cold blood, Lillian could never have driven any horses as she drove the team that night in her wild dash for the cabin. The snow was deep, and there was many an up and down to the road. Sweat lathered the horses, and their flanks heaved and fell. But steeling her heart to all else but the desperate need of reaching the cabin as quickly as possible, Lillian had no pity on the horses. She laid the whip down on their backs in harsh demand for every ounce of speed and endurance that was in them.

  A fine snow was falling when she came to the cabin. She jumped from the seat, hitched the lines to a stump and ran inside. It was icy cold there in the cabin, and on one of its bunks lay Veasy, fully dressed. His flushed face and vacant eyes told of the fever that was in him.

  Shaking his shoulder, Lillian said softly, “Veasy, it’s Mother. I’ve come to take you home.” At the sound of her voice his eyes opened, and he stared blankly at the lantern. Trying desperately hard to steady her voice, Lillian asked, “Can you manage to walk as far as the door? Ben and Gipsy are outside with the sleigh.”

  “Door?” he murmured. “Sleigh?” Then his eyes found hers and he smiled wanly. “Gee, Mom, I’m sick.”

  With Lillian’s hand steadying him, he managed to get off the bunk and reach the door. After a minute of rest, leaning against the jamb, he moved outside to the sleigh and tumbled into the box. Lillian returned to the cabin, gathered an armful of blankets and bundled him up in them. Then she hoisted up into the seat, put the whip to the horses and started out on the longest five miles of her life.

  As the horses broke into a trot, she suddenly swayed in the seat, almost dropping the lines. Regaining her grip on them and holding both in her right hand, she clutched the side of the box with her left, in order to support herself on the seat. She’d not had a moment of sleep last night, not a moment of rest all day. On the way to the cabin the horses had almost taken the bit between their teeth when galloping down a very sheer pitch in the road. It had required every single ounce of her one hundred and fifteen-pound weight to retain her hold on the lines and stop the horses from running away and perhaps smashing sleigh and box to splinters. Now a sharp and deadly reaction set in. She felt tired, weak and a little dizzy. She took a firmer grip on the lines, a still firmer one on the side of the seat. Her lips pressed tightly together. Her eyes, which had momentarily closed, forced open again. “You can’t get sick yourself,” she told herself. “You just simply can’t!” She “whoa’d” the horses to a stop and sat huddled in the seat, repeating over and over again, “You can’t get sick yourself.” The cold began seeping into her body but st
ill she sat there, until the weakness and dizziness began to leave her. Then, releasing her grip on the seat, she whipped the horses into a gallop.

  She reckoned that almost two hours had gone since she turned down the lamp at home and went to harness the team. Now that Veasy was in the sleigh box with her, weak and sick but there just the same, her every worry was about me, alone and delirious at the house.

  Within an hour, and by following the road, she would be back. But if she took a chance out on the ice of the beaver ponds she could make several shortcuts and knock minutes off the journey. In winter, as soon as we were sure that the ice was safe for travel, we would shortcut over it wherever there was a large enough loop in the road to warrant a shortcut. But unless we were reasonably certain that the ice was safe enough to support a team of horses, we shied away from it.

  In the early winter of 1947, heavy snows fell on the ice before it had an opportunity to attain much thickness. The weight of snow had settled what ice there was, and beneath the snow many an air hole had opened up, unseen, but there just the same. In time the water being forced up from the holes would spread all over the ice and eventually freeze solid again. When that happened, the lakes and beaver dams were safe enough for any kind of travel. But as long as they were in the process of flooding, the ice was treacherous, strong as a paved roadbed here, but thin as a sheet of glass there. But now every minute was so precious, so vital. That thought was the deciding factor: she turned the team away from the track, out onto the ice.

  Three inches of flood water lay beneath the snow. The horses balked for a second or so when they realized they were now on ice. But Lillian urged them on, and snorting, they splashed through the flood water.