There is a wolf in me... fangs
pointed for tearing gashes... a red tongue for raw meat... and the hot lapping
of blood — I keep the wolf because the wilderness gave it to me and the
wilderness will not let it go.
from
WILDERNESS by Carl Sandburg
PROLOGUE
His mother saw him staring and
turned her eyes away.
He
could see she was afraid. Afraid of his hunger. Afraid of the wrath of the
silver-bearded Father.
The
night wind howled over the sod roof, moaned at the icy window. Three days had
passed, and still the old man had not returned. They feared, again, he would
come back with nothing. The traps had been covered in snow. They had no bait
left — they had eaten everything.
On
the table the sacred candle burned brightly. The candle could only be burned
when the Book was being read. This was a Law of the Father. The Law could not
be broken.
The
eight-year-old boy read the Book aloud:
"What
are human beings, that you make so much of them, that you set your mind on
them, visit them every morning, test them every moment?"
The
boy paused, gazed at the candle's dancing flame. The Father had said the words
of the Book would fill his empty belly. If he did not learn them, he would not
eat.
In
his mind he repeated the words he had read. What are human beings...
He
looked down at his mother. She sat on the caribou rug, on the dirt floor, in
the light of the flickering flame. Her dark skin glowed warmly, her hair hung
black as night.
How
could her belly grow so large when they had no food to eat?
The
Father had taken her from an Inupiat village, on an island in the Arctic sea.
She had long ago learned the language of the Book, but when the Father was out
on the hunt, she would speak to herself in a tongue the boy did not understand.
When he questioned her, she would point to the scar on her face, the scar from
the Father's knife.
The
boy was not allowed to know her words. The Book would tell him everything. The
Book was all he would need.
He
turned a page and read another passage.
"A
mortal, born of woman, few of days and full of trouble, comes up like a flower
and withers, flees like a shadow and does not last. Do you fix your eyes on
such a one? Do you bring me into judgment with you?"
He
paused again, gazed absently at the flame, his lips moving in silence. Still
the hunger gnawed.
He
looked again at his mother. She was stringing tiny blue snail shells on stiff
threads of sinew. The shells would adorn the sackcloth doll that rested on her
lap, a family heirloom whose ivory head had lost its amber eyes.
She
noticed the boy staring. Again she looked away.
His
hunger had turned on itself, clawing in his belly like a ravening wolf. He fed
the wolf the words of the Book.
"Why
is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who longs for
death but it does not come, and digs for it more than for hidden treasures, who
rejoice exceedingly and are glad when they find the grave?"
The
boy stopped reading. He closed the Book. His pulse pounded, his hands trembled.
The wolf would not be sated.
He
stared until his mother finally looked at him.
For
a long moment she peered into his eyes. Then she rose to her feet, holding her
swollen belly, and went to the window. Out in the cold night, wind-blown ghosts
of snow whirled over moonlit tundra.
Surely
he would not return tonight.
She
walked to the table, leaned over and blew out the candle. The sod house fell
into darkness.
The
boy waited anxiously.
His
mother's hands were always warm. Even in the cold she wore no gloves. She held
his face tenderly, then took his trembling hand and led him through the
darkness of the room.
Faint
gray moonlight fell across the bearskin bed. His mother lay on her side and
pulled him down to her, speaking the strange, forbidden words.
She
opened her dress, lifted out a pale, pendulous breast. His hands groped
hungrily. He pressed his wet mouth to the dark aureole, his strong teeth
seizing the nipple. The boy sucked ravenously. Soon, warm gorging milk flowed
forth, bathing his tongue, filling his mouth, seeping out over his chin. He
sucked the breast and lapped the milk, and held her body tight.
Minutes
swiftly passed, the boy's hunger unrelenting. At last he pulled away, panting,
his open mouth dripping spittle. Slowly, his languid eyes opened.
He
froze, gaping into the morbid light of the moon.
"What
is it, Job?" his mother asked. She turned to the icy window.
Outside,
in the darkness, the Father stood staring, his starving eyes glaring like a
wolf.
1.
Sunlight flared off the glistening snow,
blinding her path to the turn. For a flashing moment, fourteen-year-old Kris
Carlson couldn't see the flag. She cut too late, displacing snow instead of
arcing the curve, and for a few frightening seconds lost her balance, nearly
spilling over the icy curl. She recovered quickly into the flat, her new
stiffer skis gaining speed and stability for the run into the next turn. With
luck, she'd pick up the lost seconds in the final sprint. She'd have to. Six
points behind the fifteen-year-old downhill leader, Claudia Lund, she couldn't
afford another mistake.
The
next turn, even tighter than the last, glittered with surface ice, sheered to a
sheen. Kris leaned deep into the arc, adjusting her radius in the middle of the
turn with a subtle twist of her ankles. Her shoulder banged the flagpole as she
cleared the twist, hopping into a quick series of steep moguls, her knees
bobbing like a set of springs.
Final
turn. She knew this one, she'd skied it in her mind a hundred times. She heard
her father's voice: "Load the tail, skid the shovel." There was a
fine line between going all out and not making any mistakes. It was a line
she'd have to cross. She banked full speed into the long turn, loading up her
tail, building critical power for the final sprint.
Kris
shot out of the turn at record speed. The crowd roared — she had it locked.
Soaring into the final run, she hugged her knees and schussed for the finish.
A
grin grew across her face. Her dad would be at the bottom. He was always there,
waiting for her.
She
wanted nothing more than to make him smile.
* * *
The old moose trickled a bright red
trail of blood in the snow. Hunks of flesh had been torn from its body, its
matted fur glistened with sweat. It lumbered into the narrow ravine, tottering,
weaving, out of breath, stopping at last at the frozen bank of the surging
Sawtooth River.
Ice
floes churned and heaved in the current with a roar like muffled thunder. The
moose drew a kind of power from the sound, the vibrations rising up through the
animal's trembling limbs. The surge of strength suffused its body, steeling the
beast for battle. The regal moose raised its crown and turned to face the
wolves.
Loping
lightly over the shelf ice at the shore, the five silver, silken hunters
quickly circled their prey. They snarled, salivating, growling guttural and
wild. The moose whirled, stumbling, its labored breath trailing dragon clouds
of fog. They had circled before, and the bull had escaped. Now they were
closing in for the kill.
The
dark-eyed lead wolf lunged, tearing a gash in the great beast's rump. Another
seized its leg, its razor fangs cutting deep. The moose groaned and scooped its
towering head, impaling the animal in its tangled rack. The wolf yelped,
staggered back. The moose charged, stomping, its pounding hooves crushing the
cowering wolf's ribs.
The
pack backed off. The wolf was dead. The moose trotted off up the frozen shore.
Snow
fell softly in the windless ravine. Ahead, high above the rumbling Sawtooth, a
black wooden bridge spanned the gorge. The moose clambered up the craggy slope
as the wolves resumed their hunt.
* * *
Kris was traveling with her father
and her seven-year-old brother, Paul, in her father's red Chevy pick-up, coming
down through the mountains from Garrison Pass. Her new skis rattled in the bed
of the truck. Kris had kept on her lilac snowsuit, zippered to the neck; her
black hair hung straight to her shoulders, her bright blue eyes were smiling.
She had won the Women's Junior Downhill race, first place in the girls'
twelve-to-fifteen year age bracket, setting a personal best on the half-mile
course down the north slope of Dome Mountain. The ski resort, on the edge of
the Alaska Range, fifty miles from their home in Healy, always held the first
downhill races of the Spring season. Kris was already looking forward to the
next. She had her eye on the Alaska Alpine Championships.
"Dad?
Do you think Mom will come to the Winterhaven trials?"
Her
father studied the oncoming road through the falling veil of snow. "She
won't want to miss it, Sweety. Not after we show her what you won today."
Paul
sat between them, twisting the trophy in his small hands, trying to unscrew the
tiny gold skier from the mount.
"Pauly!"
cried Kris, pulling the trophy away from him.
"It's
a boy, it's not a girl," he said.
Kris
examined the figure. "You can't tell," she said.
"I
can tell," said Paul.
Kris
ruffled his hair with her hand. He grabbed her wrist, pretended to bite it,
growling. Kris tickled him.
"No
no no!" he shouted, squealing with laughter.
Kris
turned back to the road, a smile on her face. A black bridge appeared through
the falling snow.
2.
"The 'woo' bridge!" Kris
exclaimed.
"'Woo'
bridge!" echoed Pauly.
The
truck rolled onto the bridge, and a resonant "woo" sound rose up from
the tires. All three passengers grinned, staring into the white wall of snow as
the deep bellow of the bridge filled their ears.
Then
the blood drained from their faces.
The
colossal moose came charging out of the whiteness directly toward them. Kris's
father instinctively slammed the brakes and pulled the wheel. The truck
careened across the bridge, just missing the bloody, frothing bull, sliding
past it through a madhouse of leaping wolves. He hammered the brake, but the
ice had them. They continued to slide, smashing through the guardrail and out
over the gorge.
Kris
screamed, a high shrill scream of unblinking terror, as they dropped through
the air toward the river of ice.
The
truck pierced the tumbling floes with a bone-crunching jolt. Kris's head
bounced against the dash, her body flung wildly as the seatbelt grabbed. She
glimpsed her father's bloody, vacant face as the truck plunged headlong into
the frigid water. They plummeted swiftly, sinking in the current, the cab
raging with the inflowing torrent.
Paul
screamed and gurgled as the water engulfed him. Her father tossed about, limp
and unconscious. Kris tore at her seatbelt. The water rose quickly to her
chest, neck, chin, mouth —
She
was underwater, the truck tumbling in the current. The snowsuit miraculously
kept her from freezing. Feeling blindly, she found the buckle, unlatched her
seatbelt. Pauly clawed at her side. She opened her eyes to see him, and the
frozen water clamped her eyeballs with icy talons. She saw her brother
thrashing in the glacial murk. She reached for him, fought to undo his
seatbelt. Her eyes went gelid, seared with the cold. She undid the belt, then
turned, grabbed for the door handle. The door was jammed. She yanked on the
lever, it wouldn't budge. The window crank, too, was stuck. The door had been
crushed when they'd broken through the rail.
Kris's
lungs burned. Her vision darkened.
Out
of the dark came a glimmer of gold. She grabbed the trophy, slammed it against
her window. Once. Twice. The third time the window shattered. She scrambled out
quickly, shards of glass tearing her snowsuit, frozen fingers of water gripping
her. She reached back through the window for Paul.
He
was gone.
She
peered into the murk, her eyes stinging, the icy water clawing her corneas.
Groping wildly, she could not reach her brother.
Kris
was out of breath.
She
pushed away from the truck, pulled frantically for the surface, ramming hard
into a ceiling of ice. Unable to see, she groped along, feeling for a gap. Her
hands fell on the snaking roots of a tree trunk. She climbed the roots, an ice
floe pounding at her back. At last she emerged from the teeth of the river,
gasping, coughing, screaming for air. She crawled off the log onto the broad
snow surface of a massive floe.
Pitch-black
night had fallen in the middle of the day. Kris could not see — her eyeballs
had been frozen into rocks by the cold. With a violent shiver, she collapsed,
and the raging Sawtooth carried her away.
Two hours later, in the river town
of White Circle, Kris Carlson's body was hauled from the ice.
3.
They fear me. I have torn them in my
wrath.
They have
no hunger these men who hunt with dogs. They tear me from my mother's
womb and drag me through the snow. They gape at me with their mouths. They
strike me with their fists. They mass themselves against me. They seize me by
the neck and dash me to pieces. They cast me into the mire, and I become like
dust and ashes. My skin turns black and falls from me, and my bones burn with
heat.
Let them
hope for light but have none. They'll never see the eye of day, the eye of day
is shut. I know there is no light. I know freedom comes with blood. I know the
wolf. The wolf will not betray me.
I slash
open their kidneys and show no mercy. I pour out their gall on the ground. I
burst them again and again. I sew sackcloth upon my skin. I eat flesh like a
wolf. My strength is in the ice. My strength is in my loins. My strength is in
the muscles of my belly. I make my tail stiff like cedar; the sinews of my
thighs are knit together. My bones are tubes of bronze, my limbs like bars of
iron.
I am the
firstborn of Death.
These men
are full of fear. They will know my power. They will die, just like the rest.
All of
those who fear the wolf will perish by my hands.
I will eat
them. All of them.
* * *
In the clear, cold, aurorean night,
across the frozen tundra, three Inuit dog sleds glided over the snow. The
stampeding teams of Alaskan huskies pumped clouds of steam into the brisk night
air, while two Inuit mushers ran, rode, and pushed the sleds behind them.
In
the first sled, Shakshi, a large Yakuutek hunter with high Mongolian
cheekbones, leathery, wind-burned skin, and an icy black moustache, locked his
dark eyes on his wheel dog, Tiuna, whose silver tail hung low. Roluk, the huge
Siberian lead dog at the head of the team, threw a glance back at the
freeloader, yapping in complaint. Shakshi shouted a command, yanking his
tugline. The dogs came to a halt.
The
second and third sleds drew to a stop behind him. The musher of the second,
Anokuk, a broad-faced Yakuutek with a rifle over his shoulder, turned his
slitted eyes behind him. The third sled, with its full gangline of panting
dogs, was riderless.
Lashed
to the sled was a giant cage.
Shakshi
dismounted. He walked up the line of his dogs, slowly, menacingly. When he came
to Roluk he paused; like a priest giving benediction, he touched the lead dog's
head with the back of his hand. The dog barked sharply, once. The musher
continued slowly down the other side, past the swing dogs, the team dogs, the
heavy pullers in the middle of the line. He paused at last beside Tiuna,
staring down at her. The wheel dog whimpered, sullenly. She knew she had offended.
Shakshi leaned over and smacked her — a wallop on her rump. Tiuna snapped back
to life.
Shakshi
returned to his sled, eyeing his comrade. Anokuk nodded back toward the third
sled. A guttural groan like the sound of an animal emanated from the giant
cage.
The
two hunters approached warily, Anokuk un-slinging his rifle.
The
cage, tightly lashed to the sled, was made of thick, interwoven saplings.
Inside, barely visible in the feeble light of the moon, a massive form lay
bound in hides and chains.
The
creature stirred.
Shakshi
nodded to Anokuk. The narrow-eyed hunter raised his rifle barrel, aimed through
the bars, and fired.
The
shot rang out across the tundra. The dogs grew silent. Shakshi and Anokuk
glanced at one another — the groans had stopped.
The
hunters drew close to the bars, peered into the darkness of the cage. A blood
red tranquilizer dart had stuck through the pile of hides. The mammoth body lay
still as a corpse.
Shakshi
nodded to his comrade, and the two men returned to their sleds. The dogs jumped
to their feet, barking with freshened vigor. Tiuna, of all of them, looked most
ready to go. As he mounted the whalebone runners and reached for his tugline,
Shakshi noticed something on his sled. A hide had blown loose. Beneath it, the
lifeless eyes of a Yakuutek stared out at him. A chunk of the dead musher's
cheek was missing, gouged from his face. Shakshi touched the wound with his
gloved hand. Teeth marks scarred the torn flesh.
Shakshi
covered the head, lashing the hide securely to the sled. Then he gave the
command to his dogs and they bolted into the night.
4.
Fairbanks International Airport had
just come into view when the air traffic controller's voice came over the
headset. "Charlie Five-five, this is Fairbanks Tower, do you read me,
over?"
Josh
Marino recognized Dean Stanton's voice, gravelly and low like the grumbling of
a lion. "Roger, Fairbanks," Josh replied, "this is Charlie
Five-five, requesting landing, over." He pictured the cotton-haired old man
sitting in the tower, his crumpled brown-bag face and heavy-rimmed glasses, a
cigarette dangling from his lips as he growled into the mike.
"Charlie
Five-five, drop to twelve hundred and turn right zero-three-zero. You have
Runway Three."
"Roger,
Fairbanks," Josh answered. "When are you gonna quit smoking?" he
wanted to add, but didn't. The old man will probably die with a cig in his
mouth. "Descending to one thousand two hundred feet," Josh repeated.
"Turning right zero-three-zero for the straight-in to Number Three,
over."
The
twenty-four-year-old pilot flew his company's single-engine Cessna back and
forth from Anchorage to Fairbanks so often that hearing Dean Stanton's voice
was like hearing the subway driver call out your stop. "Charlie Five-five,
you're cleared for landing." Josh wore a khaki jacket, high leather boots,
and a belt-sheathed jackknife. His tousled black hair stuck out in feral
profusion from his red headband and his over-size earphones. He worked for a
small electronics company down in Anchorage, but still kept his one-room
apartment in Fairbanks, still considered the central Alaskan city his home. He
was working toward his Masters in electrical engineering, and flew back to take
classes at the University of Fairbanks on Saturday mornings twice a month. And
he taught some classes at a local school, too, though that was more a labor of
love than anything else.
Josh
adjusted the flaps, grabbed the control yoke in his left hand and eased the
throttles back with his right. The plane banked and angled down toward the
broad stretch of runway ahead. The snow had been cleared and the black asphalt
glistened. I could land this baby with my eyes closed, he thought, and for a
moment, he actually tried it. One second the runway was fast approaching, the
next second everything went dark. A shiver of fear shot through the pilot; his
eyes popped open despite himself.
Must
be how my students feel, he thought, and wondered if he could teach them how to
land a light plane. This would be quite a feat even with their eyes wide open —
considering the fact that his students were blind.
* * *
Dean Stanton watched the Cessna 207
Skywagon roll to a stop on Runway Three, then removed his glasses, rubbed his
eyes, and crushed his cigarette out on the linoleum floor. Behind him stood
David Adashek, the Fairbanks Chief of Police, a large, rock-chested man,
bursting from his jacket and tie. Adashek was scratching his gray-haired head,
staring down with a grimace at the collection of smashed butts scattered around
Stanton's feet.
Stanton
noticed him looking. "Cleaning crew'll get 'em. Albert and Ace —
Spic'n'Span. They get 'em every night."
"Why
don't you just find yourself an ashtray, Dean?"
Stanton
lifted the headset off his ears, laid it around his neck. "FAA won't allow
ashtrays." He pointed to a sign next to the door. NO SMOKING.
Adashek's
eyebrows went up. He scanned the rest of the room. Three other controllers were
at work in the tower; all of them were smoking. The place had a heavier haze in
the air than the strip bar on Wolf Run Road. "I thought you boys had to
follow the letter of the law in here."
Stanton
lit up another one and blew out a lungful of smoke. "How long you been in
Alaska, Chief?"
Adashek
nodded wearily. The ‘80’s seemed like a lifetime ago. "Long enough to know
I shouldn’t ask," he said.
He
stepped up to the broad window, his eyes squinting into the arctic light. Josh
Marino's tiny white Cessna was taxiing off the field. Beyond him, far off on
the horizon, silver clouds were forming above the snowy peaks. Adashek stared
at the mountains, and for a long moment, didn't speak.
"It's
been two hours since they touched down," he said at last. "What do
you suppose is going on out there?"
Stanton
leaned back in his swivel chair, folded his hands behind his head.
"Knowing Jake, he's probably trying to make a deal on some furs."
"Knowing
the Yakuutek," said the Chief, "he better not be looking for any
bargains."
5.
The Yakuutek hunter pointed his
rifle at Jake O'Donnell's head. Jake's eyeballs were wrenched to his temple,
locked on the tip of the barrel. Not much more than a four-inch gap between the
cold steel and the red-haired pilot's brains. This made using the brains an
even more difficult task than usual.
"Say
something, Donny! He's gonna kill me, for Chrissake!"
"Say
what?" asked his copilot. Donny was facing the other Yakuutek, who was
holding a gun to Donny's chest. "I been talkin'. Nobody's
listenin'!"
"Tell
'em I ain't lyin' goddammit!
"He
'ain't lyin'! Goddammit."
The
hunter pressed the barrel of his gun into Jake's ear. Jake shuddered. Then,
slowly, he turned his head, looked up the barrel into the Inuit's eyes.
"I...
I told you. I 'ain't got the goddamn money!"
The
hunter didn't speak. He wiped his brown hand down his shaggy black moustache.
Was this fella angry or just trying to make up his mind?
"Believe
me, amigo. It's the truth, so help me God."
The
barrel didn't move. The Inuit's eyes stared deeply into Jake's. Jake struggled
to take in a breath. If the gun hadn't unnerved him, the man's stare certainly
did.
Jake
glanced at the big cage lying on the snow under the right wing of the Goony
Bird, his aging twin-engine DC-3. Inside the cage, the mountain of a creature
lay barely visible, asleep under its cocoon of chains and hides.
"Look,"
Jake said in a calmer voice, "you can keep the son-of-a-bitch. We'll send
somebody back with the money."
"Yeah,
that's right!" chimed in Donny. "Keep the fucker. We'll let the
Sheriff collect him himself."
The
two big hunters held steady.
Jake
shot a nervous glance at Donny. "I don't think they want to keep
him."
Donny
looked at the cage. "Can't say I can blame 'em. Fucker don't look too
friendly."
A
voice crackled from the empty cockpit.
"Hey,"
Jake said, suddenly lighting up. "I bet that's the Chief now!"
Dean
Stanton's voice continued sputtering from the radio. The hunters looked mildly
curious... or suspicious — it was hard for Jake to tell.
"That's
him, ain't it, Donny?"
"Yeah,
that's Adashek all right. I can tell by the voice."
"He's
the badge with your money," Jake said. "We can talk to him, he'll
tell you all about it." Jake began slowly backing toward the door to the
plane. The hunter followed him with the barrel of his gun.
"Come
on," he said, leading him slowly back. "Right up here, we'll talk to
the man himself, I swear to God."
Donny
started moving with Jake, then stopped abruptly. His hunter had poked the
barrel of his gun into Donny's considerable belly. Donny raised his hands in
surrender. "Okay, okay... you're right, you're right. It's only the Chief
of Police, no big deal, just a whole big pile of money waiting for you, waiting
back there with your name on it and all you gotta do — " he suddenly
gasped as the man again jabbed his gut with the rifle. Donny coughed, put his
hand on the barrel, eased it gently back. "Okay, I'll shut up."
Jake
was backing up through the doorway into the plane, the hunter following him
with his gun. Stanton's voice was still crackling through static on the cockpit
radio. "Whiskey Four-O — ... do you... over."
The
hunter followed Jake through the cockpit door into the nose of the DC-3, his
gun held to him like metal to a magnet.
"Nice
and easy," Jake said, reaching for the radio mike. He slowly unhooked it
and adjusted the frequency. Then he thumbed the button and spoke to Dean
Stanton.
"Fairbanks
Tower this is Whiskey Four-O-Three, over."
Jake
watched the hunter's black eyes as the air traffic controller's voice came
through in reply. "Whiskey Four-O-Three this is Fairbanks Tower. We read
you loud and clear."
* * *
Dean Stanton handed his microphone
to Chief Adashek.
"Are
you all right, Jake? Did you find—"
Jake's
static-broken voice interrupted him. "Just fine, Chief, except for the .22
your friend here's been pointing in my face for the past half hour. Apparently
you and your Eskimo friends had a little miscommunication."
"I
don't understand," the Chief said.
"Well
neither do I!" Jake shouted. "Mr. Yackety-Yack here thought he was
supposed to collect his reward money upon delivery of the prisoner."
The
Chief glanced uncomfortably at Stanton. "It's not money he's looking for,
Jake."
"What?!"
"There's
a Yakuutek man in jail here for manslaughter. If we get the prisoner back here
alive, their man will go free. That's the arrangement we made with the
tribe."
"Manslaughter,
huh. Gee, that's great, that's really great. Tell me, Chief, who'd the guy kill
— a pilot?"
"If
you just explain to him—"
"Goddammit,
you explain it to him! He sure as hell ain't listening to me!"
Adashek
glanced at Stanton, who shrugged his shoulders. The Chief raised the mike
to his lips. "Shakshi, are you there? Can you hear me?"
Adashek
waited, but heard no reply. "Is he there, Jake?"
"Yeah,
he's here. He just don't talk much."
"Then
listen to me, Shakshi, please. It's very important that you do not cause any
further delay. We will release your friend when the prisoner arrives here
alive. That was the deal. I urge you, he is extremely dangerous and must—"
A
howl came over the radio, followed by a blast and a burst of static.
"Jake?
Do you copy?"
There
was no reply, just the steady crackle of static. The Chief looked frightened.
"Whiskey Four-O-Three, do you copy, over."
Stanton
took the mike back from him, played with the frequency. "Whiskey
Four-O-Three this is Fairbanks Tower, do you read me, over."
Nothing.
Adashek
and Stanton looked at one another.
6.
Jake's face had gone white. He
stared speechless at the radio. The hunter had slammed it with the butt of his
gun, knocking it loose from the console.
Jake
looked up at him. "That little yell o’ yours is the most you've said all
day."
The
Inuit, standing bent in the low doorway, wiped his long moustache again,
glaring at Jake.
Jake
looked past the hunter into the cargo hold. It was crammed full of bags,
crates, packages, and mail. "Look, Shocky, or whatever-your-name-is, I
don't know what happened out there to your friend, but you captured this
goddamn lunatic and now me and my partner gotta take him to the Chief. So why
don't we see if we can strike ourselves a little bargain here."
Jake
moved gently past him into the cargo hold. He pulled a large box out of a sack
and ripped it open. "It's coming on Christmas, Shocky. Why don't we
celebrate a couple weeks early?" Inside the large box was another box
wrapped with ribbons and gold paper. Jake tore it open and pulled out...
A
Dustbuster.
He
held it up for the hunter, turning it in his hands. "Whaddya think,
Shocky? Your wife, maybe? Tidy up the igloo real—"
The
Inuit swung his rifle, batting the Dustbuster, crashing it against the wall. He
anchored the gun on his shoulder and advanced toward Jake.
Jake
crawled backward in terror, stumbling over the mounds of baggage and boxes.
"Wait a minute!" he cried desperately. "I’m sure we can work
somethin' out!"
The
hunter aimed his gun.
Jake
grabbed a stuffed duffel bag and hugged it to his chest. "Donny! Help!
Somebody! Please!"
Shakshi
noticed something and relaxed his hold on the rifle.
"What...
what is it?" Jake stammered.
The
Inuit was staring at the top of the duffel bag.
Jake
looked at the opening. A small furry white tail was sticking out.
"What...this? This here?" Jake clawed open the bag. The Yakuutek's
face widened in amazement.
A
litter of half a dozen snow-white fur balls spilled out onto Jake O’Donnell's
lap. They couldn't have been more than a few weeks old.
The
Yakuutek stared at them, his mouth agape. This proud hunter from the Arctic
Circle had apparently never laid eyes on a cat.
Jake
held one out in his trembling hands. "You like the kitty, Shocky? She’s
one o’ Lily's litter. Lily is Frank Dieter’s cat. We were taking 'em back to
the pound in Fairbanks."
The
Yakuutek hunter set down his rifle. He took the tiny creature into his arms as
if some great miracle of the Earth Mother had been handed him, a precious gift
from the White Spirit of the North. A small smile crossed his face, a smile of
awe that Jake thought he'd probably not forget for a long, long time.
"You
all right in there, Jake?" he heard Donny shout.
"Yeah,"
he called back.
He
watched the Inuit cradling the kitten. "What do you say, Shocky. Wanna
trade the monster for the kitties?"
7.
The snowman had no head.
Three
children, bundled in parkas and scarves and boots and gloves, were on their
knees rolling a ball of snow across the white-blanketed schoolyard. They
stumbled over each other like puppies, the sound of their laughter echoing
sharply off the high brick wall of the schoolhouse.
Kris
could hear them from the parking lot. She was sitting in the car with her
mother, Linda Carlson, a 42-year old widow whose raven-black hair had already
begun to gray. Linda was talking to her, but Kris was no longer listening to
her words. Carried away by the echoing shrieks of the children, she had drifted
off to another time and place, far away in a distant corner of her memory,
where her tiny brother Paul was searching for a carrot he'd dropped in the
snow.
Gradually
she became aware of her mother speaking her name.
"You
see, honey, that's exactly what I'm talking about."
"What?"
said Kris irritably, turning from the window. She wore a stylish pair of
sunglasses that reminded Linda of pictures of her own mother from the 1950's.
"Now
don't get defensive. You weren't listening, that's all."
"I
was listening."
"You
were a million miles away."
"No,
I wasn't," Kris mumbled. In her mind she saw Paul gleefully holding up his
carrot.
"I'm
not going to argue," said her mother. "We've already decided about
this."
"You
decided about it."
"You
had your say. I listened. I determined that you're just giving up. I won't let
you do that."
"Mom,
I'm eighteen years old. I can make my own decisions. I always have to do it
your way."
"That's
not true. You didn't want a dog. Did I force you to get a dog?"
"I
don't like dogs," Kris said emphatically. "And they don't like
me."
"Honey...
the Burton's Shepherd didn't know you, that's all."
Kris
rubbed her hand nervously. "I don't want to depend on an animal like
that."
Linda
looked at her daughter. She reached out, took one of her hands tenderly in her
own. "It's okay to admit you're afraid of dogs. There's nothing wrong with
being afraid." She continued to hold her daughter's hand, gently caressing
it. "Don’t you think that might be what's happening here, too?"
Kris
pulled away. "Spare me the psychotherapy, Mom."
"You
loved the cross-country. What's so different about this?"
"What's
wrong is that this is what you want. You couldn't care less about what I
want. You're treating me like a child."
"Well,
maybe if you didn't act like such a..." She stopped herself. "Someday
you'll thank me, Krissy."
"Right,
Mom. So original."
Linda
sighed. She yanked on the door handle and climbed gruffly out of the car. Kris
heard her walk to the trunk. She's probably forgotten something, Kris thought.
She's always forgetting something. She didn't used to be like that...
"Kris,
where's your bag?" She was rifling through the messy trunk.
"I
put it out, Mom. Did you take it?"
"I
thought I told you—. Oh. Here it is."
Linda
slammed the trunk shut, walked around and opened Kris's door.
"Give
me your hand."
For
a long moment, Kris didn't budge. Then she suddenly remembered something, the
reason she'd finally agreed to come here at all. She reached for her white
cane, took her mother's hand, and climbed carefully out of the car.
"Mom?"
she asked as her mother shut the door. "Do you see a Beetle in the
lot?"
Her
mother looked at her, puzzled. "A beetle?"
"Yeah,
you know, the car, the old Volkswagen Bug."
"Oh,
uh..." She scanned the parking lot. Next to the schoolyard, where the
children were jamming a stick nose into the snowman's eyeless head, she spotted
a rusty, mustard VW Bug.
"Yes,
over there, there's a yellow one in the corner."
Kris's
heart skipped a beat.
"Why?"
her mother asked. "Whose is it?"
"Oh...
nobody," said Kris. Her mother eyed her inquisitively as they headed into
the school.
8.
"I wish you'd sit down and
relax." Andrea Parks had been watching Linda pace the floor since she'd
come into her office.
"I'm
fine," said Linda.
"You
don't look fine. You look worried."
Linda
stopped walking and turned to her friend. Andrea, as always, looked cool,
casually elegant, and efficient. She wore a short white blazer, a fitted skirt,
and a pale blue silk scarf beneath her short blonde hair. Sitting, legs
crossed, on the edge of her desk, she looked like a woman in complete control
of her life.
Linda
had felt that way, once. She wanted to feel that way again.
"What?"
asked Andrea. "What is it?"
Linda
shook her head. After a moment she started to speak, but was interrupted by the
ring of the telephone.
Andrea
reached across her desk. "Director Parks. Oh, hi George." She raised
her finger and nodded to Linda, indicating the call would be short.
Linda
turned to the window that overlooked the training room. A fifty-foot-long
simulated ski slope dominated the enormous room. Slick white carpet covered the
slope, with a handrail along one edge and safety nets mounted under each side.
Two blind children, not more than ten years old, were clinging to the railing
halfway down the slope, their skis splayed out awkwardly beneath them.
At
the bottom, loudly coaxing them on, stood a compact, muscular African-American
woman with extremely short-cropped hair, wearing Spandex and bright red
high-top basketball shoes. Linda had seen the woman before at the school.
Andrea had said she was a veteran of Iraq. She was surrounded now by half a
dozen children of various ages, all in skis, flopping about like penguins while
waiting their turn on the hill. Linda could not find Kris among them, and
wondered if she was still in the waiting room.
The
Blind Learning Center was the only one of its kind in the entire state of
Alaska. The school was widely renowned for the range of its programs and the
quality of its well-trained staff. Many of the students' families had moved to
Fairbanks from other parts of the state so their children could regularly
attend.
Linda
and her daughter lived in the town of Healy, at the northeast corner of Denali
National Park. Fairbanks was only 70 miles away, an easy drive up Highway 3
along the frozen banks of the Nenana River. Linda had made the drive a thousand
times. She was a part-time social worker carrying a case load at a community
mental health clinic in the city. A year after Kris lost her sight in the
accident, she'd begun taking her along on the commute, leaving her for
cross-country lessons at the school while she went to work at her job in town.
It had been good for Kris, she'd thought. It had helped her to forget.
"Well,
at least you've stopped pacing."
Linda
turned.
Andrea
was hanging up the phone. "Won't you please sit down?" she said.
Linda
shrugged. She took a seat on a Wassily chair beneath a framed poster of a sand
beach rimmed with palm trees.
"I
want you to stop worrying," Andrea insisted. "Kris had a great time
cross-country skiing with us."
"She
did," said Andrea. "But lately she's been... I don't know — pulling
back again. She won't take even the slightest risk. It's like she's lost all
her self-confidence."
"You
know that's not the least bit unusual at this stage. It takes years—"
"It's
been four years since the accident, Andrea. She's stopped making any progress.
She sits around moping, feeling sorry for herself. I can't seem to do anything
right. I'm walking on eggshells."
Linda
stood again and walked to the window. She watched the kids on their skis,
tacking their way down the make-believe hill. "You didn't know her
before," she said thoughtfully. "She was so... exuberant. So full of
life. Just like her dad."
Andrea
left her desk and walked over to stand by her friend. They'd known each other
for three years now and the two women had grown close. "I'm sorry,
Linda," she said. "I know how you feel. But it takes time. You
know that better than anyone."
Copyright © 2012 by Michael Abbadon
All rights reserved.
