by Darrel Bird
She finally grew better as the days grew ever shorter until the first flakes of snow fell gently on the Alaskan wilderness.
“I feel much better today, let’s leave tomorrow Owen.”
“I’m afraid we can’t leave now; we'll never make it to the highway; we're stuck here another winter, and besides; you're just not healthy enough for the trip.”
“What will we do?”
“What we’ve been doing, we live a day at a time.”
“I’m so sorry I’ve been sick so long.”
“No need being sorry, you couldn’t help it, let’s just leave off the regret. We made it last winter. We'll make it this winter.”
“Owen, you go on and leave me then.”
“Do you for a minute think I would do that? You really don’t know me do you?”
Owen wondered if they actually could make it another winter, even if she lived, and only five bullet's left for the rifle. If he got a large animal with every shot, if he didn't break a bone, if he didn't get too sick to hunt. There were a thousand if's and he realized that he could drive himself crazy. If a man took care to do everything he could today, seeing to every detail he could, then there was a reasonable expectancy that tomorrow would turn out well.
Every minute of the ever shorter days were taken up in making cord from the moose hide, making fish traps for the lake, and snares for smaller animals.
If he could run the snares in the winter they would have a better chance of survival.
He had been able to snare small game in the short summer, but he knew he would have to take another bear for the fat, and the grease he could render from that. No way could he take a bear or a moose without the rifle, and every miss would decrease their chances of survival by fifty fold.