Hearts in Alaska

by David Horne

"You're Sterling Decker, aren't you?" Carter finally whispered.

  Sterling backed away, seeming to shrink inside himself. His eyes darted to the side, and his hands twisted together in nervous aggravation. As the weeds slipped from his grasp and onto the table, he hunched over, and tried to gather them back up.

  Carter could see that his hands were shaking though, so he put his over them to make them stop. Then he swept up the weeds in his other hand. "It's okay," he assured the small, shaking man. "I know why you came out here. I understand. I won't tell anyone."

  For a moment, Sterling only looked down at their hands. Then he mumbled, "I'll make you that poultice, and some tea." Then he took the weeds and slipped into the still room without ever looking up.

  Carter sighed and worked his way back to the bench. He hadn't seen Larry since the earlier scare, but he could hear the little mink rummaging around underneath him. He didn't sound very happy to have a stranger in his house, either. Carter plopped down, and instantly regretted it as his leg bent at an odd angle, and he yelled out in pain. He hissed and reached down to rub it, but quickly took his hand away. He had a vague recollection of seeing the wound before but had forgotten just how bad it was. A long, angry looking gash went across his shin, and had been sewn up, apparently by hand. It looked a little swollen, but he imagined that was normal, considering.

  He wiped the sweat from his brow, and then tried to look inconspicuous when Sterling returned with a pot and a glass of steaming tea. He had to keep from laughing at himself, wondering why he should suddenly care about impressing the man. Sterling had already seen him in every compromising situation known to man. Something about knowing who this man was; that he was a great artist he'd recently come to admire, changed everything.

  "Thanks," he said as Sterling thrust the cup in his direction. The hot cup felt nice in his cold hands, and he blew on the dark liquid before taking a sip. It was bitter and pungent, and he couldn't help but grimace. "I'm sorry about before," he muttered, and tried another sip. He wasn't sure he'd be able to drink it all without being sick. "Do you have any sugar?" he asked.

  "It doesn't help," Sterling answered, and glanced up at him with the hint of a smile. He quickly looked back down again and went about packing the poultice onto Carter's wound. "I'm not sure about the healing properties of this stuff, but it should at least help ease the pain." He stood up, and started to walk away, but a hand took his arm.

  "I didn't mean anything—" Carter started to explain.

  "I know," Sterling quickly cut in. He turned toward the kitchen again, but hesitated. Slowly, he turned back, and flicked his eyes up toward his guest. "You know my work?" he asked, shyly.

  Carter grinned. "Know it? I love it; it's magnificent!"

  Sterling blushed and grinned too. "Thanks. I don't know if it's that great, but thanks." With that, he rushed back to the kitchen to clean up and hide out.

  Carter watched him go, shaking his head. "Trust me, it's magnificent," he muttered to himself. He wondered if Sterling had any idea how many people thought so. Wynona's businesses were plastered with originals and reprints of his work and, from what she'd told him, he was something of a local legend.

  Chapter Four

  The next morning, Carter woke feeling stiff and weak, but a little better. He sat up to see Larry, sitting on the table, and nibbling on what looked like a giant bug of some kind. He turned his head as he heard Sterling climbing down from the loft above.

  "Away with you, you silly thing!" Sterling shouted, and shooed at Larry, but his voice sounded good-natured. He held his shirt in his hand, giving Carter a good view of his pale chest.

  Carter found his eyes drawn to the line of hair leading below his belt and cleared his throat as Sterling pulled the shirt over his head.

  "Feeling better?" he asked as he poked his head through the neck of the shirt, and then tried to straighten out his unruly hair.

  "When did you cut your hair?" Carter asked in disbelief. The sight of it had him holding back barely contained giggles.

  "Last night," Sterling answered casually. "After you went to bed. It'll be warming up soon and it was getting...annoying." He swept away the remnants of Larry's breakfast, and then noticed a frown on Carter's face. "What is it?"

  "Um, do you have, you know, a real bathroom around here somewhere?" he asked with a grimace.

  "You've been using that, haven't you?" Sterling answered, nodding towards a makeshift chamber pot he kept handy for the really cold, blizzarding days and nights.

  "Yeah, but...I'm gonna need a little bit more..." Carter let the sentence hang there, his cheeks tinting with blush.

  "Oh," Sterling said, absently tracing a circle onto the table with his finger. He thought about Carter's broken leg, and how far it was to the outhouse before answering, "Oh," a little more dejectedly. "This isn't going to be easy. We'd better get a move on." Then he moved to his guest's side and helped him to his feet.

  As they walked through the front door, Carter mumbled, "This is what I was afraid of."

  "Yeah," Sterling admitted.

  The two of them struggled along for what seemed like hours to get the ten yards to Sterling's outhouse. Along the way, Carter tripped, and almost brought them both down. Sterling managed to hold him up, but it took everything he had. When they finally reached it, they both had to stop, and catch their breath before even using it.

  Sterling opened the door, and nervously said, "Are you going to need some help in?"

  Carter, still breathing hard, looked around, and shook his head. "I think it's just a matter of turning around and sitting. I can manage."

  Sterling nodded, grateful, and then shut the door behind him. He waited, anxious about the idea of knowing what was going on on the other side and rubbed at his shoulder. He'd almost wrenched it out when he'd kept Carter from falling, and it was sore and a little swollen.

  "Great," he mumbled. "Just what we need, two of us out of commission." He worked it out a little, and it felt better. He figured it would be all right as long as he didn't let it stiffen up.

  Before long, he heard shuffling in the outhouse, and when the door opened, he helped Carter out. The going back to the house was a little easier, despite Sterling's sore shoulder, but by the time he got his guest to the kitchen table, he looked sweaty and a bit nauseous.

  "Are you all right?" he asked. "Let me get you some water." He hurried to the sink and filled a glass. "I think we've both worked up an appetite for breakfast," he remarked, trying to make pleasant small talk. He wasn't sure it had worked though as he didn't get an answer. When he walked back to the table, Carter had his eyes shut, and his hand balled into a fist. "Here, drink this," he said, startling the man. "I'll heat you up a mug of that tea."

  "Thanks," Carter hissed. He took a sip of the water, but his stomach wasn't appreciative of it, so he set the glass back down. As he smelled the pungent tea warming on the stove, he said, "That stuff's really good, you know. It really does work."

  Sterling stepped out of his cubby hole of a kitchen, nodding. Then he set the cup of tea in front of Carter, and asked, "How about something quick and simple? Bread and butter, maybe?"

  "Real butter?" Carter asked, smiling through the pain and disgusting taste of the tea.

  "Uh-huh. One of my neighbors has cows."

  Carter raised an eyebrow and nodded. "I would normally prefer something...healthier-" He was cut off by a huff from Sterling, and chuckled. "Sounds wonderful, though."

  The two of them ate some bread and butter, warmed by the stove, as Carter finished off his tea. Before long, he was feeling better, and the breakfast was a nice one. He noticed that Sterling seemed to be over his nervousness of having someone know who he was and had a witty sense of humor and talkative nature. Eventually, he grew comfortable enough to bring out his camera, and show Sterling some shots. He'd gotten lucky that it hadn't been broken.

  As he pulled up a few pictures of the snow-covered tundra, Sterling leaned in and his eyes widened.

>   "Wow, you have a really good eye," Sterling praised.

  "Thanks, so do you."

  Sterling only blushed and waved it away. As the morning wore on, though, Carter's mood began to fall; enough that his new companion picked up on it.

  "You don't have to go again, do you?" he asked.

  Carter snorted and shook his head. "No, it's just...my friends and family back home haven't heard from me in four days. They must be worried by now."

  Sterling shook his head, both at the idea of someone worrying about him after just four days, and for the fact that there wasn't much he could do about it. "I'm sorry I didn't find your cell phone," he commented.

  "No, it's all right. It was probably ruined anyway."

  The two of them were silent for a moment, but then Sterling's face lit up with an idea. "My neighbor has a phone," he enthused. "The one with the cows. We could use ask to use it."

  "Really?" Carter said with a grin, but then added, "How far is it?"

  "Five miles."

  Carter's mouth fell open, and he shook his head, emphatically. "I don't think I could make it five hundred feet, especially in this terrain and snow."

  "I'll go. I trek over there several times a year. I know my way like the back of my hand. Just, uh, write down the numbers, and tell me what you want to say." He was nervous about the idea of using a phone for the first time in ten years, but he wanted to do this for Carter. He was starting to really like the injured photographer and found himself wishing more and more that he liked him too.

  "Would you? That would be awesome. I'll just give you my mom's number. She can call everybody else for me." Sterling got him a piece of paper and a pencil, and he quickly wrote down the number and a quick message. "Try not to frighten her too much. She didn't like the idea of me coming up here alone as it is."

  Carter sat and watched as Sterling packed a hiking bag full of supplies, survival gear, and food. The short man hustled around like he'd taken a hundred impromptu trips through the wilderness before. His hair still stuck out at all angles, and Carter would have offered to trim it up for him if he hadn't seemed in such a hurry.

  "Look, there's no reason to put yourself in danger for me," he said, suddenly feeling guilty about this daunting task he'd asked the man to undertake.

  "What do you mean?" Sterling asked, practically breathless already.

  Carter chuckled and cocked his head to the side. "I mean, there's not that much of a rush. One way or the other, it's gonna take you half the day to get there."

  Sterling grinned too, and then he attached a special made pouch to the back of the hiking bag. "Are you worried about me?" he teased.

  Carter blushed. "Yeah, well, I might die here without you."

  Sterling snorted, and then called out, "Larry! Come on." He waited while the mink came scurrying out from under the bench, and then picked him up and put him in the pouch. "Don't worry. We'll be back by dinner. There's plenty of food in the still room and water in the tank. There's...some books and stuff too, if you get bored." With that, he turned and walked out the door, leaving Carter on his own.

  It was a relatively straightforward process: walk to his neighbor Ralph's house, use the phone, and come back. The weather was warming up, which wasn't always helpful, but at least he probably wouldn't freeze to death. He made his way into the forest, the undergrowth still sparse and covered in an inch or two of overnight snow. If he was lucky, he wouldn't run into any mud, which could be dangerously deep during the Alaskan spring thaw.

  Ralph's property was on the other side of the forest, where the trees thinned to a hundred-acre meadow. Sterling had spent the last nine years trading with the man, ever since the long-time resident had found him shivering and trying to build a fire after falling into the local stream. He was the opposite kind of homesteader, with a big log cabin, a herd of cattle, electricity, and plenty of money for things like tractors and indoor plumbing. He was a kind and giving man, though, as was his wife, Martha.

  As Sterling walked, he felt a stirring in his backpack, and stopped to let Larry out. He dug the mink's sharp, little claws out of the pouch, and then set him on the ground. As he bounded off, Sterling called out, "Don't go too far!" He waited as Larry stopped and turned back, and then continued on with a satisfied smile. He'd learned the hard way, that training a mink wasn't the easiest or safest thing in the world to do. Larry followed on a parallel path, stopping to sniff and play here and there, as Sterling trudged through the snow.

  He hadn't been to Ralph's house since before winter fell, so the path wasn't well maintained. He wasn't worried though, and before long, he could hear the stream that ran along the edge of the forest. Since he could hear it, he knew the ice had already broken for the season, and he'd have to be careful not to repeat the circumstances that had led to his and Ralph's first meeting.

  When they got to the stream, Larry simply hopped from ice chunk to ice chunk, and was across in a matter of seconds. From there, he ran into the tall grass without a thought.

  "Thanks," Sterling moaned. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine." He looked down at the stream, planning his move. It wasn't a large, raging river, only about twenty feet across, but it could still be very dangerous. The water was cold and sometimes swift flowing. Luckily, the thaw hadn't spread to the mountains yet. When it did, it would send torrents of flood waters raging down through the valley streams. For now, the stream was neither swift, nor deep, and Sterling found a path over some rocks. He carefully tiptoed over the slippery rocks, only having to get his feet a little wet, and let out a sigh of relief when he reached the bank on the other side.

  He'd traversed the river well enough, but almost tumbled back down into it scrambling up the slippery, grassy bank. "Shit," he hissed, after breaking his fall, and trying to wipe mud off his coat and pants. After another try, he managed to hoist himself up into the meadow, and immediately saw Larry, waiting for him with a mouse in his mouth.

  "No thanks, I'm good," he sassed.

  He grabbed up Larry and made his way to Ralph and Martha's house. It was still a bit of a walk, considering how large their property was, but before long, he was knocking on the front door.

  "Sterling!" Martha exclaimed when she opened the door. "Ralph, it's Sterling. Goodness, what are you doing here this early in the year?" Martha was a stout woman, about the same size as he was, with pinned up gray hair and a strong arm. She pulled him into a hug, and then showed him into the kitchen.

  "You look like you were run over by a lawnmower, boy," Ralph said as he stepped into the room. The man was very tall, and easily three hundred pounds, with a long, grizzled beard and a fluff of salt and pepper hair on his head. He looked Sterling over, noticing the movement in his pack, and added, "Or you got into a fight with that weasel of yours."

  "He's a mink, Ralph," Sterling said, used to the banter.

  "Same thing. So, what brings you our house, already? You finally update that greenhouse, and have plants to trade already?"

  "No, no. Just about ready to plant, though. No, I need to borrow your phone."

  "Oh, well have at it," Ralph encouraged.

  "Thanks." Sterling slipped the piece of paper out of his pocket and picked up the receiver on their landline. Then he took a breath and dialed the number Carter had given him. Part of him hoped no one would pick up. He'd much rather leave a message. After three rings, though, he heard the voice of an older lady say hello.

  "Um, hi, Missus Robinson?"

  “Yes?”

  "Hi, my name's...Sterling Decker," he said, quietly. "I live here in Alaska. I'm calling about your son, Carter."

  “Oh good,” Mrs. Robinson said, the relief in her voice clear over the phone line. “I was beginning to worry. Is he all right?”

  "Yeah, he's fine. Well, he hurt his leg and is staying at my place until he's better. He wanted me to let you know he was okay, though.”

  "Could I speak with him?

  Sterling frowned, not having expected that. "Actually, he's not her
e. I don't have a phone at my cabin. I'm borrowing a neighbor's."

  Ralph and Martha had gone about their own business, trying not to spy, but gave each other covert looks of surprise at the conversation.

  “Oh, all right. Well, have him call me when he can. I'll let everyone know he's all right,” Carter's mother finally answered, sounding disappointed and a bit nervous. Thank you for calling.

  "Sure thing, Missus Robinson." With that, Sterling hung up the phone, feeling relieved. Then he turned to Ralph and Martha, who looked very much like they were trying not to look at him. "Thanks for letting me use your phone," he said.

  "Of course," Martha answered, but as he turned to go, she quickly added, "How about some hot chocolate before you go? You can tell us all about your visitor."

  "Martha," Ralph gasped.

  "No, it's all right," Sterling agreed. "I love hot chocolate." He waited as Martha whipped some up, and then sat down to tell them about finding Carter at the bottom of the ravine.

  "Lucky you were out checking those snares," Ralph commented as he finished his cup. "Probably would have died of hypothermia in that storm, or worse, been eaten by a bear."

  Martha slapped his arm. "So, a photographer? Maybe you can do some collaborations or something."

  Sterling's eyes flicked up and then back down to his cup. "I don't think so," he mumbled.

  "Oh, I know you don't do that sort of thing anymore, but it must be nice not to be over there in your cabin, all alone for once."

  Sterling was surprised to admit that it was nice. Almost too nice. He hated to think what would happen when Carter inevitably wanted to leave. He chugged the last of the hot chocolate and set the cup down on the table.

  "Well, thanks for the hot chocolate too. I'd better be getting back. He can't get around very well on that broken leg."

  "Of course," Ralph said, and walked him to the door. "Don't be a stranger. We'll have plenty to trade when you need it."

  With a wave, Sterling and Larry disappeared back out into the meadow. It seemed like a long trip for such a short conversation, but he felt good about being able to do it, both for himself and for Carter. It had been a long time since he'd left the modern world behind. He'd questioned the choice a few times, early on, but not for a very long time. Suddenly, he felt like the world wasn't the big, bad place he'd come to think it was.