Out of the Wilderness

by Deb Vanasse

  She glanced up, but Pete answered for her. “Shannon doesn’t eat meat.”

  “Oh,” Josh said. “Sorry.”

  “Nothing to be sorry about,” Shannon replied curtly. She set down the magazine. “Do you have anything to read around here besides hunting and trapping magazines?”

  Josh pulled at a piece of the jerky. The smoky flavor spread across his tongue. “No Better Homes and Gardens, if that’s what you mean.”

  Shannon shot him a look. The door let in a blast of cold air as her father stepped inside. “Might be above zero out there, but the wind’s picking up. Cold enough for me,” he said. He stomped his feet and brushed a layer of fresh snow from his jacket.

  “Maybe it’s a blizzard!” Pete exclaimed.

  “Don’t get too excited about that idea,” his father warned. “Looks like the truck’s doing fine, but I don’t know how much snow it could get through and still stay on that trail. Who plows around here, anyhow?” he asked Josh.

  “State comes through, believe it or not. But we’re low priority, after the highway. Usually have to wait a couple of days after every snowstorm.”

  “How much snow do you folks get?”

  Josh shrugged. “Depends. Last year it was around six feet. The year before that, we heard it was ten.”

  “Ten feet of snow. Wow! You could build some great forts,” Pete said.

  “Sure could,” Josh said with a smile. “We don’t do much playing in it, though, except on that big bad snow machine.”

  “Dad, Josh said he’d take me for a ride on the snow machine when his dad gets back,” Pete said.

  “He said he might take you for a ride. We’ve got to get over to our own cabin—I mean Uncle Harry’s—before long,” Shannon said.

  That all depends on Nathan, Josh thought. He wondered how his dad was doing. It wouldn’t be easy, convincing Nathan he’d have to swallow his pride and move back in with them. And Josh didn’t look forward to that prospect any more than he imagined Nathan did. He wished he’d been able to talk to his father before he’d left. He would have suggested they offer to leave this cabin and turn it over to Nathan. Even though they’d all built it together, it had been his brother’s idea to live out here in the first place.

  Then he and his father could move to Wasilla, which would be close enough to Nathan. They could live a normal life there, and his father could come out once in a while to check on Nathan if he had to. It was a great plan. Even his father would have to admit that it was in Nathan’s best interests.

  But he hadn’t thought it through earlier, and now his father was dealing with Nathan on his own. Josh looked restlessly out the window.

  Ptarmigan hunting was out of the question as long as his father had the snow machine. Besides, daylight was waning. Pete and his dad sat on the sofa, joining Shannon, who continued paging through magazines despite the fact that they weren’t to her liking. With a sigh, Josh pulled out his algebra.

  This new lesson on quadratic equations was even more confusing than the polynomials he had tackled with minimal success in the previous assignment. He scribbled equation after equation, erasing with more vigor each time the letters and numbers refused to find their right positions on the page.

  In the middle of his frustration, Josh sensed a presence behind him. He looked over his shoulder to see Shannon standing there.

  “I can help you with those if you like,” she said softly.

  “I just about have it.” Josh almost growled the words.

  Shannon ignored the tone of his voice and pulled up a chair alongside him, so close that Josh could smell the faint, clean scent of soap. His mind left the math problems and scrambled to remember when he had last bothered with a sponge bath.

  “My teacher showed me an easy way to do these,” she continued. “Here. Let me show you.” She reached for the pencil.

  Instinctively he pulled the pencil toward himself, as if he were a child with a piece of candy that he wasn’t about to share. The odd look on her face made him think twice and, reluctantly, he handed over the pencil.

  She copied the equation on a clean section of his paper. “Now, look,” she said. “The a plus b goes here, on top.”

  “OK, I get it,” Josh said quickly.

  Shannon looked up with a smile. “Wait a minute. I’m not done yet.” She scribbled more a’s and b’s across the page.

  “See how much easier that is?” she asked. Her eyes met Josh’s, and he looked quickly back at the paper.

  “Yeah, but I think I’d better do it the way they show it in the book,” he said.

  “Nonsense. You try the next one. But do it my way.”

  Josh really didn’t get her way. She’d gone over it too fast, a blur of scribbling on the page. And he didn’t like the insistence in her voice.

  He was saved from responding by the sound of the snow machine approaching the cabin. All four of them looked up expectantly, watching the door as Josh’s father pushed it open.

  He stood for a moment, stomping the snow from his boots, shaking it from his hat. Little icicles dripped from his beard, and his cheeks were red from the wind.

  “Got a storm brewing out there,” he said. Josh recognized the too-cheerful sound of his father’s voice. All was not well.

  6

  It took a while for Josh’s father to get around to explaining the details of his talk with Nathan. It was over several cups of coffee, while the smell of baking bear roast filled the cabin, that he worked his way to the point.

  Josh decided that Frank Donaldson had the patience of a saint. His father seemed intent on giving some—not all—of the details of his separation from Nathan and their eventual reunion in Anchorage, as if this background would help to justify Nathan’s erratic behavior. Josh wished he’d just get to the heart of the matter. It was embarrassing, listening to his father recount the sorry chain of events that had brought them to Nathan and to Willow Creek.

  “I can’t excuse the fact that I wasn’t a father to him when he needed one, while he was growing up,” his father explained. “His mother and I were so young, and at that age, I couldn’t imagine being tied to a wife and child. I went east and she went west with the baby, and I lost touch with them for many years.”

  Josh’s father looked down at the floor, rubbing his boot in a small circle as if to rub out the knot in the wood beneath. “I’m not proud to say that my second marriage didn’t work out so well, either. That’s when Josh and I went on the road, and I took up looking for Nathan. Felt like I needed to set things right, I guess.”

  Josh squirmed in his seat, pretending to work through another algebra problem. Shannon, distracted by his father’s story, was at least leaving him alone. But what she was hearing was no less embarrassing than her seeing that he just couldn’t get quadratic equations. Would she be wondering about Josh’s mother, about how she so easily let go of her only son so she could start a new life? Josh hated when people asked about his mother.

  A silence fell over the cabin. Even Pete, intently drawing monster trucks on the notebook paper Josh had given him, had nothing to say. The roast sizzled and popped in the oven. The gray light from the windows, filtered through the curtain of falling snow, was fading. Before long the lanterns would need to be lit.

  “And you did find Nathan,” Frank prodded gently.

  “Took a long time. It’s a mighty big country to go looking for a person. Caught up with his mother in Billings, Montana, but by that time Nathan had already struck out on his own. Smart boy, she told me, always reading, but he had no patience with school. Left home with the clothes on his back and a hundred dollars in his pocket, headed north to Alaska. Only seventeen years old. Said he wanted to prove himself in the wilderness.”

  Josh remembered Billings. It was a nice town, and the school was almost brand new. Best of all, the kids didn’t ask many questions. He could have been happy there for a long time, but it took only a month for his father to track down Nathan’s mother, who worked days as a ca
shier in a local discount store and nights tending bar. As soon as his father had heard that Nathan had struck out on his own, they took off again, traveling north.

  Shannon’s voice interrupted his memories. “How’d he make it all the way up here with just a hundred dollars?” she asked Josh’s father. Josh thought he detected a hint of admiration in her voice.

  “Hitchhiked,” he answered. “And worked along the way. Nathan’s not afraid to work for a living.” His father had a way of making everything Nathan did or said sound special, even if it was something as simple as washing dishes in a restaurant to get money to eat, which is what he was doing when they found him in Anchorage.

  “That’s how Nathan is,” his father continued. “Proud. Independent. He won’t back down from his convictions.”

  Frank evidently saw the opportunity to bring Josh’s father to the point. “Is staying in Uncle Harry’s cabin one of his convictions, then? He won’t back down?”

  Josh’s father cleared his throat. “No, not exactly. He understands that you certainly have a greater right to be there than he does. But he’d like to believe that Harry wouldn’t mind him staying there between-times, when you folks are off doing whatever you do in Anchorage.”

  Josh felt his dream of living a normal life in Wasilla slipping away.

  A smile crossed Frank’s face. “Well, that’s a relief. I’ll talk it over with Harry when we get back, but my guess is Nathan’s right. You’ve been around Harry enough to know that he’s an easygoing, practical sort of guy. If, as you say, he likes Nathan, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Harry had always let it be known that he liked Nathan and his independent spirit. Josh’s hopes deflated at the thought.

  “So where will Nathan stay when we’re at Willow Creek?” Shannon asked.

  “Well, I must admit he was elusive on that point,” Josh’s father said. “Says he wants to live alone—he won’t come back here. Says he’s got a place in mind, but he needs to check it out first.”

  Josh’s father cleared his throat. “So he was hoping that maybe you folks, if you were planning to stay overnight, could hole up with us this once, just so he can be sure of his other arrangements.”

  “But what could those be?” Shannon persisted. “Are there other cabins out here?”

  Josh’s father shrugged, but Josh heard the worry in his reply. “Could be. Nathan’s done plenty of backwoods hiking. Maybe stumbled on an old mining shack that he’s kept to himself.”

  That would be typical of Nathan, Josh thought. He enjoyed withholding information, keeping secrets.

  “But if you—and Harry—are willing to go along with him on this, I’d be much obliged,” Josh’s father said. “Keeps him close by most of the time and keeps him independent, the way Nathan likes it.”

  The way Nathan likes it. That was the way things always had to be. Josh felt annoyed that Frank agreed so readily to the plan his father proposed, right down to his family staying the night in this cabin instead of in the one that was rightfully theirs. All of them would be inconvenienced for Nathan’s sake.

  Pete got up and stood as his father’s side. “Dad, where’s the bathroom?” he asked quietly.

  Frank grinned. “Probably right out back, just over the snowbank.”

  “Really?” Pete asked.

  “Really. An outhouse. Like I told you to expect at Uncle Harry’s, remember?”

  Shannon pushed back her chair. “I’ll walk you back there, Pete.”

  Pete gave her a disgusted look. “I can do it myself.”

  Shannon reached for her coat. “There’s a lot of snow. I’ll just make sure you find your way.”

  “Shannon. I’ll find it.”

  She hesitated. “Really, it’s right out back,” Josh said. “Can’t miss it.”

  Shannon relented, letting Pete go on his own, but she hovered at the window while he was out. Josh couldn’t imagine that much attention aimed in one boy’s direction. He wondered if their mother, the one who didn’t want to spend time at the cabin till it was properly finished, was the same way.

  Josh could tell by the roasted smell from the oven that their dinner was almost ready. He closed his algebra book with a slam and dug a bag of potatoes from the porch. For just about as long as he could remember, he’d been in charge of the cooking. Opening a can of soup was the extent of his father’s skill in the kitchen.

  He dipped a pitcher into their pail of creek water and poured it over the potatoes. One by one, he lifted them and scrubbed at the skins. Pete returned from the outhouse, and Shannon left her post by the window.

  “So much snow!” Pete announced. “Maybe we could make a snowman.”

  “I’ve got a better idea,” Josh said. “You come help me peel these potatoes, and I’ll take you for a ride on the snow machine after dinner.”

  “Great,” Pete agreed. He shed his coat and stood beside Josh.

  “He really isn’t used to handling knives,” Shannon warned.

  “That’s OK. Josh’ll show me how,” Pete said, grinning. He grabbed a knife from the counter.

  “Pete, put that down,” Shannon scolded. “It’s way too sharp for you.” She stepped toward him, reaching for the handle, and Pete’s grin faded. He dropped the knife with a clatter.

  “See what I mean?” Shannon said, picking up the offending utensil, holding it away from her body as if it might rear up and bite someone. “That could have sliced your foot when you dropped it.” She turned to Josh. “Where’s the sink?”

  Josh couldn’t suppress a grin. “There isn’t one.” Her cool reserve was cracking, he realized, as he watched her expression change from concern to irritation. Her doe eyes danced with anger. She thinks I’m mocking her, he guessed.

  Josh took the knife back and brought it to the dishpan, where he dipped it in the sudsy water they kept on hand, then rinsed it with a splash of steaming water from the kettle on the stove. He wiped the blade dry and returned to Pete’s side.

  “This knife’s probably too dull anyway,” Josh said. “You can use the peeler instead.”

  Pete’s grin returned, and they set to work, with Shannon hovering beside Pete, her eyes never leaving his fingers.

  “I can help if you like,” Shannon offered.

  Josh shrugged. “Sure. Dump that bag of cranberries into a saucepan. They should be thawed by now.”

  “They are,” Shannon said as she followed his directions. Josh set the potatoes to boil in water and dumped sugar in with the cranberries. He handed Shannon a wooden spoon.

  “Now stir,” he instructed. He pulled the roast from the oven of the wood stove and set it on the carving board.

  “It’s starting to boil,” Shannon said, peering into the saucepan.

  “Good. Keep stirring till it gets thick. Pete, you’d better watch her to make sure she’s doing it right.”

  Pete obediently left Josh’s side and stood by his sister. Shannon glared at Josh, but he pretended not to notice.

  “Sure is nice to have dinner prepared for us,” Frank said when they all sat at last around the table. Josh felt strangely lower than the others. He sat on the footstool pulled over from the easy chair, and his father sat tall, perched on a stepladder.

  Josh ladled the cranberries alongside a thick slice of meat. He had picked them one by one in September, on a clear, bright afternoon following the first frost. He scooped a bit of the sauce onto his fork and brought the tangy taste to his lips, letting it spread through his mouth like the memory of September sunshine.

  “I thought cranberry sauce only came out of cans,” Pete said as he scooped a generous portion onto his plate.

  “So who shot the bear?” Frank asked.

  “Josh did,” his father replied. “Got us out of a mighty sticky situation in the process.”

  “And what was that?” Frank asked between bites.

  Josh’s father swallowed. “Found it on a moose kill. We were trying to figure the best shot when it charged.” Josh wasn’t surprised that
his father left out the part about Nathan’s wild, irrational reaction, knocking the gun from his father’s hands, putting all of their lives at risk.

  Pete turned to Josh. “You killed a charging bear? I want to go hunting with you sometime.”

  Josh grinned. “Hunting season’s over, for big animals anyhow. Now I just go after ptarmigan and rabbit. We mostly trap in the winter, while the furs are good.”

  Pete licked a bit of cranberry sauce from his fingers. “Maybe I could go trapping with you, then.”

  “Sure,” Josh replied. “You could come along.” He noted Shannon’s glare of disapproval. “Sometime,” he added.

  The glare continued. “Pete,” she said in a low voice.

  “Aw, Shannon. My friend Bobby’s dad says the animals don’t suffer.”

  “Don’t suffer?” she said indignantly, her voice a low hiss. “Caught in the jaws of a trap and left to die, slowly and painfully? Of course they suffer.”

  Josh stabbed at a large piece of tender meat. “That’s not how it is. We only use traps and snares that, when set properly, kill quickly and efficiently.”

  Shannon’s eyes flashed defiantly. “Quickly and efficiently. Like a guillotine.” Her voice was louder now, and Josh saw Frank shoot a glance in their direction.

  He kept his voice calm. “That’s not the best of comparisons. Maybe a guillotine is quick and efficient, but it’s used to kill people, not animals. There’s a lot more room for debate there.”

  “Is there?” Her voice grew louder still.

  “For one thing, some of these animals are destined to die a much slower, more painful death at the hands of Mother Nature, through winter starvation and cold. And man is their natural predator.” Josh saw Pete nodding his head, as if in synchronization with his words.

  Silence set in across the table. Trying to change to a casual tone, as if they had been talking about the weather, Josh held the platter of meat in front of Shannon. “Care for some roast?”

  “No, thank you,” she said, her eyes flashing and her words pointed. “I don’t eat meat.”

  That knife would come in handy now, Josh thought, to cut the tension around the table. He set down the platter, embarrassed that he hadn’t remembered.