He crawled back to the pile of kindling, striking a match under the thickest part of the pine needles, watching them catch and crackle and spread all too fast, the twigs themselves barely catching.
But they did, and their slight flames spread to the finger-thick chunks of wood, and in a moment he had the start of a fire. Would the chimney work? He watched as a trail of smoke drifted up, gathering in the dome at the top, spreading. The smoke was sweet from the dried streaks of pine resin on the surface of the wood, and it took too long to build up so he could see if it was drifting toward the chimney. He added more twigs, more bits of wood to the fire, tensing as he set down two larger bits of wood, and in a moment they were burning as well, and he knew that the fire was going to be all right—he was just going to take a while before he had enough solid wood on it that he wouldn’t need to keep feeding it all the time.
But sweet or not, the smoke was making him cough a little, and Sarah was coughing as well, and he saw now that the dome of the burrow was higher than the entrance to the chimney so that the smoke gathered there before it drifted away. He was so lightheaded from fatigue and hunger that he had to think for what seemed too long before he knew what to do, taking a piece of wood and scooping a channel from the top of the dome to the chimney, and the smoke was drifting freely out now, the burrow clearing. It was only as he put a few more bits of wood on the fire that he thought of the extra advantage of using the tree. If Kess’s men were out looking for him, they would not be able to spot the smoke very well, hidden by the branches of the tree.
He couldn’t let himself think about it.
“How are you feeling?” he asked Sarah.
“Fine.” But she didn’t look well at all. She was warming her hands close over the fire, her face pale, shivering, and he imagined how her earlier sickness plus the strain of the last few days must have weakened her.
“You’ll feel better when you eat.”
He crawled over to her saddlebags, taking out the can of peas, grateful that they had it, wishing now that they had saved one of the cans of soup as well. He punched two holes in the top with his knife while she held it, and the lid punctured easily enough but the frozen liquid underneath held back the knife and he needed to set the can close to the fire, waiting for the liquid inside to melt enough that he could finish with the lid and get it off.
He set the part of the horse’s leg that he had broken off near the fire, close enough that it would start to thaw, far enough that the hide wouldn’t burn. In a while the liquid inside the can of peas was half melted, and he got the lid off, sprinkling some salt in with the liquid. He kept turning the horse’s leg, testing it with his fingers to see how much it had thawed. Then the peas were bubbling, steam rising, the sweet smell of them filling the burrow. Taking the can a little farther from the fire so they could cool, he whittled two flat spoons from some pieces of wood. Dipping the spoons into the can, balancing the peas on them, they blew gently at the peas, brought their mouths down and started chewing them. The spoons didn’t do much good. They were even a nuisance, but they gave him and Sarah something to fool with while they waited for the liquid in the can to cool enough for them to drink it, and anyway he didn’t want to eat too fast.
“Make these peas last a while,” he told Sarah. “Not because we want to save our food, though that’s a good idea, but we haven’t eaten in so long that we’ll bring these up if we don’t chew them properly. Chew them until they’re just a liquid in your mouth. Swallow a few and wait a while.”
He checked the hide on the horse’s leg again. It had softened enough for him to cut it with his knife. Making a slit all the way down from where the knee had been to just above the hoof, he pried at the flaps of hide, separating them from the flesh, what there was of it. Then he came to a place where the hide was still frozen and he set it near the fire again.
“I think the juice from the peas is cool enough that we can drink some. You first.”
He watched as she took a sip and rinsed it around in her mouth and finally swallowed it.
“That’s right. Take your time. We’ve got all the time in the world.”
Then the leg was thawed enough that he could pry the hide off. He spread it out on the snow by the fire.
“Have another drink from the can,” he told her.
Then he took one himself.
7
The meal lasted well into the night. He felt the juice from the peas warm his stomach. The cave itself was warming pleasantly, his chill leaving him, and he opened his coat, brushing the snow away from in there, loosening his boots, reaching up his pant cuffs to get the snow out from there as well. He ate a few peas. He put more wood on the fire, got the two empty cans from the soup they had eaten at the mine, filled them with snow, and set them near the fire. Then he ate a few more peas and drank more juice. He slit strips of flesh, muscle really, off the horse’s leg as it thawed, setting them near the fire. Then drinking some of the melted snow, giving some to Sarah, swallowing some salt, he stretched out on the saddle blankets near the fire. Sarah’s head was down near his feet so that they shared the fire evenly. He warmed the sleeping bag and opened it, wrapping it around and above them. In time he slept.
When he woke, Sarah was asleep as well, and the fire was out. It took him a while to get it going again, waking Sarah to give her the last of the juice from the peas, forcing her to take more salt. She slept almost immediately. The entrance was dark from the night out there, and he started to doze, but he kept himself awake long enough to cut a few more strips from the horse leg, and he woke periodically after that, worried about the fire.
The day was warm, another cloudless sky, the sun so stark it melted the surface of the snow. He was afraid that the top of the drift might soften enough to tumble the roof, but there wasn’t anything he could do about that, and he took advantage of the weather to work toward another tree and gather more wood.
He cooked a strip of horsemeat each for them, spitting them on the end of a stick, holding them over the fire, watching them curl and drip grease and darken, their smell a little like lamb or rabbit—he couldn’t decide which—sweet on the one hand, on the other somewhat wild. They spent the morning on the one strip each, first sucking the juices out, softening the meat with their teeth, mulching it, biting off little bits and chewing them into liquid and swallowing them.
By midday they had diarrhea. Not because the meat was bad (he was sure it wasn’t) or because they weren’t used to the idea of eating horsemeat (by then they were both ready to eat anything), but simply because they had not eaten solid food in so long that their system was rejecting it, their excrement flecked with bits of undigested peas. Once he didn’t think he was going to make it to the tree that they had selected for a latrine, and he must have had more than enough salt in him by now because his intestinal tract was loose and burning, sometimes nothing but pale mucus-clouded water coming out, the salt acting as a purgative.
They sat weakly by the entrance to the burrow, holding themselves. He didn’t want to, but he had to keep him and Sarah eating, not much, just a little to help build their strength, and as soon as he could manage it, he crawled back into the burrow, cooking two more strips, then changing his mind and letting Sarah cook her own, testing it for her to make sure it was done, nibbling at his own. By evening the spasms had passed, and they drank melted snow, a little at a time, to replace the liquid they had lost. Night brought freezing cold, and they slept huddled close to the fire. Morning, the melted surface of the snow had turned to ice, slippery but solid, and he found that by crawling he could easily get to nearby trees for wood.
8
They were just experimenting with a thick green-needled bough for a sled when they heard the helicopter. He had gotten the idea from the slippery surface of the snow, and after they had cooked more meat and eaten it, he had taken a stout piece of wood and chopped steps through the ice into the snow all the way up one angle of the hollow, stopping at a pine tree near the top. They hung on
one of the branches until they cracked it,. After twisting it off, they sat on the matted part of the bough, Sarah behind him, her arms around his waist while he pointed the branch end toward the bottom. Lifting it so he could steer, he released his footing and glided fast down in among the trees, the cold air rushing at his face, the pine trees blurring past, reaching the bottom and part way up the opposite slope before they stopped and slid back.
They sat there laughing, and after the diarrhea he didn’t want them to use much strength, but Sarah pleaded for him to do it just once more, so they climbed the steps to the top again, and halfway down, distinct above the rush of the wind and the scratching of the needles on the ice, he heard it. He wrenched the branch to one side, sliding sideways toward a pine tree. Spilling off, he scrambled to grab Sarah and drag her under low hanging branches, but she had heard it as well, and she didn’t need any guiding.
They lay on their stomachs under there, peering through the needles toward the direction of the helicopter. He couldn’t see it. It might be to their right as much as their left, above as well as below. There might be two of them, any moment swooping down over the hollow, spotting the pattern of their tracks.
No, there was only one. He saw it now. Down at the bottom of the valley, sweeping across from left to right, a small glistening speck that turned back to the left now, the chugging of its motor coming several seconds after it went whirling out of sight. Then it was back again, moving to the right again, out of sight then and in a moment working back. It was obvious what they were doing. They assumed that he had done what in fact he had almost done, which was to follow the line of least resistance and head down into the valley, following the direction of the watershed down there. They had waited this long so that in case he had survived the storm he would have had plenty of time to dig himself out and leave obvious signs in the snow. They had waited to give him confidence that they were no longer after him, so he could make mistakes.
Which he had, although the tracks around the burrow weren’t a mistake, they were a necessity, but they amounted to the same, and as soon as the helicopter had crisscrossed far enough up this slope, the hunters in there could not help but see the tracks he had made in the snow to get firewood from the trees. The hunters might not be certain at first. They would assume the possibility that a few larger animals like deer and elk had stayed in the high ground and somehow survived, leaving tracks, but they would certainly check this hollow, and he didn’t see what chance his revolver would stand against a rifle. He watched as the helicopter crisscrossed higher up the slope. It was closer now, larger. He could dimly make out its tail propeller and its bubbled dome. The periods when he saw it were less now as his angle of vision reduced the higher it came. Each time he saw it again, it was closer, more distinct, the sun glinting off its whirling blades, the noise coming to him in a roar. He could make out the bulk of two men in the bubble, and he was thinking, there must be something I can do, I can’t just lie here waiting, there must be something I can do.
But there wasn’t. He had no way to camouflage the deep sets of tracks, not with the snow frozen the way it was, and even if the snow had been soft, he would only have made more tracks covering up the first ones. He looked down at the horse’s flank showing clearly through the snow where he had dug for it. There was no way they could miss that, and while he might be able to chip some frozen snow and cover it, he didn’t have the time, the helicopter crisscrossing less than a hundred yards from them now, the roar no longer several seconds behind the helicopter but right onto it. He drew his gun, feeling Sarah tense beside him. He looked toward the helicopter, testing his aim, calculating how close the helicopter would need to come before he would have a possibility of hitting anyone in the bubble. He didn’t want to do it. He didn’t want to give his position away or let on they were still alive. But he didn’t see what choice he had. The helicopter could not fail to see his tracks, and his only option was surprise.
Then he realized that if by some chance he did manage to shoot them, that would be as obvious a sign as any that he was out here. When the helicopter didn’t come back, Kess would just send more men out here, another helicopter, and he didn’t see how he could convincingly hide the wreckage of the first one. So there wasn’t any point in shooting to keep them from finding him, only for defense. He waited as the helicopter crisscrossed closer, and then it was out of sight again. He kept waiting.
But it didn’t come back.
You’re nervous, he thought. That makes it seem longer for them to return.
But they didn’t. He could hear the helicopter clearly over there to his left, but it wasn’t getting any louder or softer, just hovering at the same pitch as if it were watching something. Then it was loud again as it came toward him, and he thought this is it, cocking his revolver as the helicopter came in sight, heading to his right.
But not across the slope, down in the direction it had come, down toward the bottom of the valley and the watershed, and he didn’t understand, and then he did as the darkness floated over them, shutting out the sun.
He crawled from under the pine boughs, realizing that he must have been registering the slight increase of wind all along, staring up behind him at the clouds. The lowest, blackest, thickest he had seen, taking up the entire sky from left to right, already one-third over the valley and rushing to complete it, their underbellies swirling, churning, the temperature dropping abruptly, wind rising, snow onto him even as he turned and grabbed Sarah and slid down the rest of the hollow to the burrow. The day suddenly became night, and in the little time they took to slide down toward the burrow, the storm was already so thick around them that they needed to grope to find the tunnel.
9
They crawled from the storm into the still, close, warm air of the burrow, fighting to catch their breath while the storm raged past the entrance, gusting snow in at them. He had to use the saddle to block the tunnel, anchoring a saddle blanket over and around it to close the remaining spaces. Then he felt secure.
“It’s only a storm,” he told Sarah.
But he wasn’t fooling anybody. He had never seen anything like it, not just dropping snow, but dumping it, unloading it, and if the wind was that bad at the start, what was it going to be like when it really had a chance to start blowing? It was shrieking out there, pushing at the saddle and the blanket, wailing to get in.
“Daddy, I’m scared.”
So am I, he thought. “It’s all right. Believe me, there’s nothing to be afraid of.”
He drew her to him and held her, staring at the blanket flapping sharply, at the saddle fidgeting under it as if the saddle were alive, listening to the constant high-pitched screaming of the wind.
Then the wind came to them muffled and the blanket stopped and the saddle, and he couldn’t keep from saying what had happened.
“The entrance is blocked. The storm’s filled it in.”
His words were flat, muffled in the burrow, and for a moment Sarah relaxed in his arms, grateful to be separated from the storm, suddenly tensing, turning to him as she realized.
“We won’t be able to breathe.”
“Sure we will. We’ve still got the airspace for the smoke. The branches up there will droop down and keep it from filling in.”
But it’s too small, he knew. No room for the cold air to come down and displace the warm. Already he could see that the fire was flickering, dimming, and they were either going to have air or heat, but not both, and he grabbed a piece of wood, crawling over to the tree at the back wall of the burrow, digging snow from the side of the tree opposite the chimney, crawling in under there, digging up, the snow falling on his face as he finally poked through. Or at least thought he did. The storm was so dark up there that he couldn’t see a change in light, but he felt a rush of wind on his face, and looking over at the fire saw it blaze a little brighter now, cold air coming down upon him. That was why they had been breathing so hard before, not from fright but from lack of oxygen.
H
e relaxed and crawled back to her.
“See. Everything’s going to be fine.”
Sure. Except if the storm dumped enough snow on the drift up there, the weight of it all might push the whole thing down. They’d never be able to fight their way out. They’d suffocate and die.
He couldn’t think about it, breathing already difficult again.
“We’ve just got to relax and let it pass.”
He was thinking of the layer of ice up there, wondering if it was strong enough to hold.
“It has to.” He suddenly realized that he was speaking out loud.
“What?” Sarah asked.
“Nothing. Let’s get something to eat.”
They had plenty of meat anyhow. The day before, when it had been warm and they had not yet developed diarrhea, he had broken off the other limbs from the horse, skinning them and cutting them into strips and putting them deep into the walls of the burrow before the meat had a chance to spoil. He had not been able to get at the bottom side of the horse, but the top side he had skinned as well and cut off meat, and Sarah had gathered wood, so that on those terms at least, they had nothing to worry about.
He thought he heard a cracking noise from the roof of the burrow, looked up at it, watching for stress lines, but there weren’t any, and rather than frighten Sarah, he gave her a strip of meat to cook, spitting one on the end of a stick himself, holding it over the fire. Their stomachs had adjusted well enough to food now that they didn’t need to eat as slowly, and in a while they were cooking again, wiping the grease off their mouths, the thick wild aftertaste of the meat clinging to the back of his tongue.