The Simple Wild

by K. A. Tucker

  I swat at a fly buzzing around my head. “How long before we catch something and can leave?”

  “Never, if you guys keep talking. You’re scaring all the fish away.” Jonah is stretched out in the chair beside me, his boots resting on the edge of the boat, his rod off the opposite side. He looks like a damn model in that pose, with his USAF hat pulled low and his sunglasses masking his eyes. Hour two was all about me stealing frequent glances at him and fantasizing about what we’d do tonight, until Mabel asked me why my skin was so flushed and I had to shut those thoughts down.

  “I’m good with never,” I mutter. “When are we leaving? I have to pee.”

  My dad chuckles.

  Jonah sighs heavily, as if annoyed, but when he tips his head back to see me, he’s wearing a smirk that’s equally obnoxious and sexy.

  This sucks, I mouth.

  Say that again, he responds, his devilish eyes shifting to my lips, and I can read the dirty thoughts percolating there.

  My cheeks heat. Stop it.

  “Are you complaining about your tour guide’s choice for today, Barbie?” he says out loud, grinning.

  Any more protests I may have had melt instantly. “No. Today is perfect,” I say with full sincerity and a warm smile. Because even if it’s an overcast day and I want to toss this fishing rod into the lake and fly home, I know that I’m going to think back to this tin-can boat and Mabel’s false alarms and the eerie quiet of this remote lake in the middle of the middle of nowhere, Alaska, and I’m going to remember it fondly.

  Just like the last three days have been perfect. Because my dad has gotten to do what he loves—fly—and I’ve been there, sitting right behind him the entire time, watching his deeply contented smile for every second of every moment of it.

  We’ve cruised through the Alaskan skies for hours each morning, over wide plains and icy glaciers, into deep valleys, circling around to get glimpses of brown bears roaming the wild.

  And every evening, the five of us have gathered at my dad’s like some cobbled-together family for a meal and evening that no one asks for but everyone seems to need, gravitating to that lifeless living room, filling it with life.

  And every night, when my dad goes to bed, I duck out to Jonah’s, making sure to sneak back in before my dad rises for the next day.

  With a small, knowing smile, Jonah reaches across and gives my thigh a squeeze before turning his attention back to his rod. A peaceful, comfortable silence settles over the four of us as we all get lost in our private thoughts.

  It’s interrupted again just moments later. “I’m hungry,” Mabel announces.

  “Oh for fuck’s sake, I am never going fishing with you two children ever again,” Jonah mutters as my dad bursts out laughing, not bothering to scold Jonah for his language around a twelve-year-old. There’s no point trying to censor that guy.

  “Did you pack any snacks?” I reach across to smooth a hand over his shoulder, an excuse to touch him. “Maybe some of that beef jerky from Ethel?”

  “Beef jerky?” Mabel frowns with confusion. “Nobody dries beef in the villages. There aren’t any cows!”

  I catch my dad’s cringe and my stomach clenches as it dawns on me.

  “What the hell did you feed me, Jonah?”

  “Your mother had them strung up around the outside, up there.” My dad draws a line in the air, along the top of the screens, before letting his eyes drift to the porch ceiling. “But I think I like this better.”

  “It’s nice after dark.”

  “I’ll have to stay up and see it, one of these nights.” He butts his cigarette out in a can and pulls the outside porch door shut. “Who knew a morning of fishing would wipe me out like that?”

  A lump forms in my throat as I study him quietly. It’s been five days since he got out of the hospital. His complexion is still sallow. He’s been ducking away for naps in the afternoons and wincing with his coughing fits, which are becoming more frequent, not less. And the past two nights, I noticed that his dinner plate has had less on it than Mabel’s.

  “Maybe we stay home tomorrow. All this flying can’t help with you recovering from last weekend.”

  He waves my caution off. “Nah. I’m good. A night’s sleep and I’ll be ready to go.”

  I want to believe him. “Jonah said something about going to a bear park tomorrow.”

  “He must be thinking about Katmai. I haven’t been there in years.” Dad scratches his chin with interest. “Hope he called Frank.”

  “Is that the tour guide that you’ve done a lot of business with?”

  “Yeah. Okay, good.” He nods with satisfaction. “I haven’t seen him in person in years. It’ll be good to catch up.”

  Once last time, I add in my head, the feeling in my chest heavy.

  He begins shuffling toward the house.

  “’Night, Dad.” I curl my arms around myself for comfort as much as warmth.

  “’Night, kiddo.” He pauses at the door. “So, I take it you’ve forgiven Jonah?”

  I sigh. “I haven’t decided yet.”

  “At least you didn’t go hungry, up at that cabin.”

  “Muskrat, Dad. He let me eat muskrat.” A revelation that had me gagging over the side of the boat when I found out and gritting my teeth for the rest of the way home. Even now, I feel the sudden urge to scrub my tongue.

  “That’s Ethel’s specialty. She’s known for it. You liked it well enough, didn’t you?”

  I glare at him. “Muskrat.”

  He chuckles. “Fair enough. Well, Katmai is a good three hundred miles away, so we’ll have to get an early start. Do me a favor and, if you forgive him enough to go to his place tonight, can you wake me up when you sneak back in in the morning?”

  My jaw drops.

  “I may be sick, but I’m not blind, Calla.” He smiles. “It’s okay. I’m . . . happy you two have each other.”

  “You’re not going to warn me that we’re making a huge mistake?” I ask warily.

  “Do you think you are?”

  Yes.

  No.

  “I know it’s not forever. I know he’s going to stay here and I’m going to go home.” I feel like I have to say that out loud, to prove that I’m not some lovesick idiot, that I haven’t deluded myself into thinking this is something it’s not. And yet, I can’t imagine being anything else with Jonah than what we are while I’m here.

  Jonah is Alaska to me.

  My dad smiles softly. “I’ve got a lot of regrets, kiddo. But falling for your mother has never been one of them.” With that, he disappears inside.

  “This is good, Calla. Really good.” Agnes beams at me, and then turns back to Wild’s lobby, which we spent the last two hours transforming into a blue-and-green party room with balloons and streamers for Sharon and Max’s send-off this afternoon. “And we have a lot of food coming.”

  “I had legitimate cupcake nightmares,” I admit, eying the trays that sit on the folding tables to the far right, near the receptionist counter. It took Mabel and me all day yesterday to bake and decorate the twelve dozen of them. Exhausted, I fell asleep in Jonah’s bed last night while he was brushing his teeth. “How many people are coming, anyway?”

  “More than I invited, I think.” She laughs nervously. “Some of the villagers caught wind of it and are trying to make it down.”

  “It’ll be a nice send-off for them, at least.” I didn’t realize Max and Sharon were so popular. “Do you know where my dad is?”

  “In town, with the lawyers. He’s trying to get the bulk of the paperwork finalized with Aro.” Agnes sighs as she looks around. “Things are going to change around here pretty soon.”

  “But not today.”

  She smiles and reaches out to pat my bicep. “Not today.”

  “Okay, well, if there’s nothing else, I’m going
to run home and get cleaned up. I still have pastel green frosting in my hair, thanks to Jonah.” And a sticky coating of it all over my body, where he decided to smear it before licking it off, but I don’t think Agnes needs or wants to know those extra details.

  Her dark eyes roam my face and then take in the messy pile of hair atop my head. But in typical Agnes fashion, she merely smiles.

  “Moose meat . . . reindeer dogs . . . king salmon . . . herring eggs . . . bannock. That’s a flat bread. You might like that.” I trail closely behind Jonah as he identifies the various trays of food along the tables, courtesy of the eighty-odd people milling around Wild’s lobby, most from Bangor, but plenty who took the river down from the villages. The place is alive with a buzz of laughter and friendly conversation.

  Agnes was right, after all. A party is what we all needed.

  Jonah points to a dish of glistening yellow cubes, a thick, dark skin lining one side. “You won’t like that.”

  “What’s that?” I point to a bowl of what appears to be white cream and blueberries.

  “That’s called Eskimo ice cream.”

  “Dairy?”

  “Nope. And you definitely won’t like it.”

  “She won’t know unless you let her try it, Tulukaruq,” a familiar voice behind us calls out.

  Jonah peers over his shoulder at the old woman with the pink headscarf, his surprise clear on his face. “Ethel! Down the river twice in two weeks.”

  “Not just me. Josephine, too.” She nods to a young woman of maybe twenty standing over by the water cooler, with a thick jet-black braid that reaches her butt. A plump baby of maybe eight months with a full head of dark hair sits in a sling across her chest, his wide eyes alert and curious as they take in the many faces.

  “Damn, he’s gotten big, hasn’t he?”

  As if Josephine heard Jonah, she turns and then gives a small, shy wave.

  “Give me a sec, would ya, Ethel?” Jonah says with a gentle pat on her shoulder, and I watch him wander over to them, his smile wide and genuine as they begin talking.

  “Tulukaruq has a lot of soft spots, but I think his biggest is for the young ones,” Ethel murmurs. She’s wearing the same New York Knicks sweatshirt that she had on the last time I met her. I wonder if she’s an avid basketball fan or if it’s just something warm for her to wear.

  “Why do you call him that?” It’s the same name she gave him that day in Meyer’s.

  “Because he’s a helper of our people, but he’s also a trickster. It means ‘raven.’ ”

  I chuckle. “Yeah, that’s . . . so perfect. ‘Tulukaruq.’ I might have to start calling him that.”

  Josephine slips her son from the sling and hands him into Jonah’s waiting arms.

  My heart unexpectedly swells at the sight of the exchange, of Jonah’s enormous hands gripping the baby’s entire torso as he holds him up in the air above him, bringing him down to let the boy paw at his beard. Jonah laughs and the boy laughs, and suddenly I’m able to picture Jonah as a father.

  Jonah will make a good father.

  And his family will live in Alaska with him. A truth that squashes my swelling heart back to reality.

  “The raven and his goose-wife.”

  I turn to meet Ethel’s sharp, wise eyes. “Sorry?”

  “The story. Jonah is the raven and you are his goose-wife.” She studies me for a long moment with a sad smile, and I get the distinct impression she has discerned everything there is to know about us.

  Is she saying Jonah and I should get married?

  “Excuse me, everyone! Can I just grab your attention for a minute.”

  My skin tingles as I turn toward the front desk, where Max balances on a chair, his hands in the air in a sign of surrender, waiting to collect the attention of the people in the room. “Sharon and I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you for coming out today to make this send-off extra special. But also, for making our time in Alaska something we’ll remember for the rest of our lives.” He’s smiling wide as he talks to the crowd, his voice mid-timbre. “I’ll admit, it was a bit of a shock when we first moved here. Can’t say I’m gonna miss the long, cold winters, though something good did come out of that.” He gestures to Sharon’s belly with a red-faced chuckle, and someone lets out a whistle. “And I’m definitely not gonna miss the whole honey bucket thing in some of the villages.” A round of chuckles erupts, and I make a mental note to find out what a honey bucket is. Something tells me it has nothing to do with honey. “But what we will no doubt miss are the people. How caring you are. How close you all are, how hard you work to keep your way of life. No matter where we go, we’ll never find the same thing. I’m sure of it.”

  My gaze drifts over the crowd, to see plenty of proud smiles and nods, and a few tears.

  “So, again, thank you, from the bottoms of our hearts.” Max’s hands press against his chest, over his heart, the sincerity pouring from him palpable. “And I promise, we’ll be sure to bring Thor back for a visit as soon as we can.”

  Sharon clears her voice and shoots Max a glare.

  “Okay, okay, so we haven’t agreed on the name yet.” He grins. “But if you guys all wanna do me a favor and start calling him that, I figure it’ll be harder for her to deny me when the time comes.”

  A round of laughter goes up and Sharon shakes her head, but she’s giggling now, too.

  “Just a couple more things. I want to say an extra special thanks.” He seeks out Jonah, who still has Josephine’s boy in his arms. “Damn, man, a baby sure looks good on you.”

  Another round of laughter erupts, along with Jonah’s holler of, “Don’t rush me!”

  “But seriously, Jonah, I’ve learned more about flying from you in these past three years than I’ll learn the rest of my life. I still think you’re one crazy son-of-a-bitch, landing on that mountain ridge not once, not twice, but three times just to get those climbers off there, but man, do you know how to fly, and I hope I get the chance to work with you again one day.”

  “Just come back to Alaska and you’ve got it, buddy,” Jonah throws with a grin. “’Cuz you know I ain’t ever leaving.”

  Everyone laughs.

  Meanwhile my lungs constrict.

  Jonah is not ever leaving Alaska.

  I’ve been acutely aware of it since our first kiss, and trying to ignore it every time he rolls his body off mine, curls his arms around me, and we drift off into the quiet night. I’ve known and still I’ve gone to him, day after day, night after night, happy to take everything I can have while I can.

  Never expecting to feel this much for him.

  I haven’t even left yet and already it hurts.

  “Damn straight we’ll be back. Five years. Tops.” Max chuckles softly and then turns to search out my dad, who’s milling in a back corner, his hands clasped casually in front of him, smiling quietly. Max takes a deep breath. “Wren, I want to thank you for believing in me enough to hire me—”

  “Best thank Agnes, then. She’s the one who pulled your résumé out of the pile and called you up for the interview.”

  “I just liked his smile,” Agnes says with a shrug.

  Another round of laughter.

  “Well, you didn’t just give me a job, but you gave one to Sharon, too. Lord knows she would have gone crazy here if you didn’t, and I think you knew that. I mean, happy wife, happy life, right?”

  A chorus of agreement sounds from the married men in the room.

  “Whatever the reason, I owe you big-time for that, and for all the memories we’ve gained over these past three years with the Wild family. Sharon and I, we’ve been layin’ in bed at night, reminiscing. Like, just this past January, when we got slammed with that massive storm and then it was, like, minus twenty for five days straight? Everyone was going stir crazy, so what do these guys do but throw a freaking luau, wi
th Hawaiian music and food, and everything. Wren showed up wearing a grass skirt and coconuts. I swear, I’ve got the pictures!” Chuckles roll through the room. “And then there was that time last winter when we built that gigantic snow cave out back and lit it all up with candles. Wren hauled out the old grill and started grillin’ burgers. It was like a summer barbecue, except with your nose hairs stuck together.” Max sighs. “Man, we’ve had so many good times with you and everyone at Wild.” He holds a hand up. “I am still sorry about the wallpaper. I didn’t know how much those ducks meant to you, but if it helps at all, it was all Jonah’s idea and I was drunk as a skunk.”

  And thus, the mystery of the duck nipples, solved.

  My dad shakes his head, but he’s smiling.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is . . . thank you, for giving me a chance to fly up here for you, for letting us be a part of the Wild family, and all the laughs. And . . . uh . . .” He bows his head a minute, clears his throat, and when he looks up again, I see the sheen in his eyes. “I sure am gonna miss you,” he manages to say through a hoarse voice.

  Sharon’s hand goes to her mouth as she dips her head, trying to hide the tears that now roll down her cheeks. Other sniffles sound then. I dare to let my gaze wander, to see the awareness and sadness in everyone’s eyes, the tense jaws, the resigned smiles. We all know what Max really means.

  And suddenly this doesn’t feel so much like a farewell party for the happy couple leaving Alaska as much as a final goodbye for the quiet man who stands in the corner.

  His shoulders hunched inward.

  His face sallow and drawn.

  His tired eyes and stoic smile telling me what I’ve noticed but refused to accept.

  Suddenly the air in this lobby is too thick, the buzz too loud, the gazes too many.

  Slipping around the food tables, I wordlessly duck into the office and keep going, through the staff room, down a long, narrow hall. I push through the door and out into the warehouse. The garage-type doors are open, allowing in a cool breeze, damp from the mist. A few grounds crew look on curiously as they haul pallets of cargo across the floor, but no one says anything about me being in there.