Tomorrow he would make some snares and catch a few Arctic hares or snowshoe rabbits. Maybe he could make a net and trap some birds. He would have meat and there were more lichens. East through the woods, there might be berries. He might even improve his shelter.
At seven in the morning, he heard the throbbing motors of a plane. The sky was heavily overcast but he rushed out, shouting loudly, uselessly. He heard it overhead, heard it pass on ... at least they were trying. Hope mounted, then died. He considered a dozen unreasonable doubts, worried over fifty objections. They might never return to this locality.
Yet he did not despair, for they would continue to search. He worked through the fourth day at his usual tasks, a man below medium height, inclined to be fat, but he hurt less ... in some strange way his body seemed to be stronger. To the west he found a vast stretch of tundra broken by only occasional outcropping of rock and by the stalks of some plant. Intrigued, he dug into the snow and frozen ground and got out the fattish sulfur-yellow roots.
They tasted sweet and starchy. He collected enough to fill his pockets.
No more planes came over ... by nightfall he was dead tired and glad for sleep. On the fifth morning, two snowshoe rabbits were in his snares ... on the sixth morning a third rabbit. He had no luck with the larger and more cautious Arctic hares. On that day, he ate nothing but food he had gathered himself, except for tea.
He had avoided the plane except to clean off the snow ... only once after his first leaving had he entered, but the motionless bodies of his former companions had filled him with gloom. Instead he collected debris from the crash, pounding sheets of aluminum into a crude stove and reflector.
On the seventh morning, his snares were empty and for the first time he failed to add to his supply of food. On the eighth day, they were again empty ... he struggled to the tundra for more of the yellow roots. Returning, he found a patch of black crowberries and, sitting there in the open, he ate all he could find.
Since that one time he had heard no planes . . . had the search been abandoned? Had it been a searching plane at all?
On the ninth morning, he found a small snowshoe rabbit in a snare and made a rich stew using lichen and the yellow roots. But still he heard no planes. He no longer listened for them nor looked for them. He went on about the business of survival ... he gathered lichen and roots, he checked his snares . . . the rabbits were more cautious now... he added to his supply of fuel.
Returning to the plane, he found his bag, forgotten until now. Back at his fire, defying the cold and the loneliness, he shaved. Almost at once he felt better. The smooth feel of his cheeks under his hand was better than the scraggy beard. He concealed the bag under the trunk of the tree.
His clearing had taken on a lived-in look. The snow was trodden down, there was a huge stack of fuel, the lazy smoke of the fire. There were the skins of the rabbits he had staked out. He added fuel to his fire, including a chunk of birch, and walked away.
Alone on the edge of the tundra, he looked across the flat white sea of snow . . . what lay beyond? Just a vast space, or perhaps a settlement? A trapper's cabin? He was slogging along over the snow, head down, when he smelled smoke. A lot of smoke ...
His head came up-then he broke into a clumsy run.
From the site of his shelter rose a bright column of flame!
Heart pounding, he lunged across the snow. Twice he fell, plunging headlong, facedown in the snow. He had been almost a mile away ... he stumbled into the clearing and stopped, blank with despair.
His shelter was gone. His blankets were gone. The other coat was gone. Only charred, useless masses remained.
More than half his fuel was gone and the rest still burned.
In a panic, he tore at the pile of fuel, pulling the pieces back, rubbing the fire away in the snow. A spark blowing into the dry, resinous stuff of the shelter must have set it off. A low wind whined among the bare boughs overhead, moaned in the evergreens, stirring the blackened ashes of his fire, rattling the dead fingers of the birch, whispering out over the tundra, a lonely reminder of the cold and the night to come.
Soon it would be dark ... it would be colder. Wind would come .. . his clothing would turn to ice now for he had perspired freely ... his strength was burned out from the running and the work ... he would die ... he would freeze.
He stared around him . . . what to do? Where to begin again? Begin again? He was a fool to begin again. Begin again . . . ? He laughed hysterically. His little corner of civilization was gone. But what had it been? A pitiful shelter.
An almost irreplaceable pile of wood. Some junk that he had used to survive. Before the crash he probably would never have recognized it as a camp, he might have thought it trash collected by the wind. Before the crash he never would have recognized what had burned as being the difference between life and death. He never realized how little it took, never realized how simple the things were ... as long as they were the right things.
He had to do something....
With his knife he made rawhide strips of the rabbit skins. It was growing dark, the wind was increasing.
Another storm was coming. He must contrive something new . . . there was a patch of willows no more than two hundred feet away. He went there, scanned a thick clump a dozen feet around, and then going into the clump he broke off all the central trees, none of them in the center being over two inches in diameter, mostly less. Then he drew the tops of the outer ones down and tied them together with the rawhide strips. When he had several of them with their tops tied at the center, he went out and wove others among them, using some willows but mostly evergreens. As the dark closed in he was making a strong, hivelike shelter with a hole in the top for smoke to escape. A shelter strong because it was made of living trees.
Trampling down the snow, he dug a hole with his knife and built a small fire there. He carried boughs within and scattered them around, then made a bed near the fire.
Outside he threw more evergreens on the house, then gathered fuel. One of the deadfalls was close by, and working until long after dark, he carried as much of it to the door as he could, and several armsful inside.
Finally he made a door of woven boughs and pulled it across the entrance. Outside the snow was falling, the wind was blowing with hurricane force. Inside his wigwam of willow and evergreen, its framework rooted in the ground, he was secure.
His blankets were gone and his food was gone ... including the precious tea . . . but outside the snow fell and packed tighter and thicker about his shelter. Inside it grew warmer. A drop from overhead fell and hissed gently in the flames. Reclining on the boughs, he considered the situation again. This storm would end hope of rescue . . . everything would be shrouded in snow and he doubted if he would have the strength to uncover the plane . . . and for days he would not have the time. He must find food again, set snares, gather more fuel.
If he could only trap a caribou! Sitting up suddenly . . . there was that book about China . . . what had its name been? It had told how they trapped deer in the Altin Tagh...
A hole about eight to twelve inches in diameter and a couple of feet deep . . . less could do ... and a ring of sharp sticks, the sharp ends pointing toward the center. When the deer stepped into the hole, the sharp sticks would prevent it being withdrawn. Then he could rush in with his knife ... he grinned at himself. What preposterous thing would he think of next?
Awakening in the dark, icy cold of morning, he rebuilt his fire and this time the shelter grew quickly warm, testifying to the thick outer covering of snow. He squatted beside the fire, dreading the outer cold but dreading more the cold his leaving would let into his shelter.
He must have food, and unless the snow had buried the snares completely, he might have something. There had been a few more stalks of the yellow root not too far away on the tundra. The idea of the previous night returned. If he could kill a larger animal his food problem would be solved for days on end . . . and if trapped, he might kill it with a sharp stick or
his knife. Banking his fire carefully, he went out of the hut, closing the door and covering it with snow.
All was white and still, but with a strange difference.
Suddenly, almost with shock, he realized why. The sky was clear!
Now, if ever, a plane might come. But were they still searching? Had they given up? Then he remembered . . . the crashed plane was shrouded in snow and would be invisible from the sky!
He started toward it, then stopped. The chance of rescue was a wild gamble and he needed food. In this country, one's strength need wane only a little for the cold to kill. Weakness and exhaustion were fatal. Turning, he walked toward the snares. Two were buried and useless... the third had been tripped and the rabbit had escaped. He reset them and went through the woods to the tundra and found two stalks of the yellow-rooted plant. The roots were pitifully small.
Circling back, he stopped suddenly. In the snow before him were the tracks of a herd of caribou. The tracks were fresh and the herd must have passed within a few minutes!
He was following them when suddenly he heard the roar of a plane!
Wheeling around, he ran from under the trees and stared up at the sky ... it was there, big and silver and beautiful! It was low enough to see him. But it was also low enough to be quickly out of sight. He sprang into the air, shouting hoarsely. It disappeared off over the trees to the north. Rushing toward his shelter, he could only think that the crashed plane had been covered with snow. He went past the shelter and finally got to the plane. He had no more than reached it when he heard the ship returning.
It was coming too fast ... he could never make it.
Desperately, he began trying to uncover some part, the silver of a wing, to the sunlight. But the snow was heavy and he was too late, the plane soared off to the south and its sound died rapidly away.
Glumly, he started to turn back and then went to work and cleaned the snow from the one undamaged wing and the fuselage. It was a slow, heavy task and noon had come and gone before he completed it. He was physically exhausted and ravenously hungry.
A plane had come, crossed over the area and gone. He must, he told himself, appreciate the significance of that.
It meant his last chance for rescue was gone. They would not cover the same ground twice. As he prepared his meal, he considered that, using the two yellow roots and his prize ... an Arctic hare found in a snare set that very morning.
All right then. No rescue. If he was to survive until spring and then walk out, he must do it on his own. Dru Hill was surprised to find that he did not view the situation with alarm. He could survive ... he had proved that . . . and if he could trap a caribou, he would have a good supply of meat. He could trap two if he could trap one. He could dry or smoke the meat and so build supplies for spring. He could make a pair of snowshoes and, now that hope of rescue was abandoned, he could afford to go further afield for food, not needing to remain near the crashed ship.
He took a deep breath and thought of the miles of wilderness that surrounded him. He didn't have much but the woods could provide, they had shown him that. He no longer thought of this Arctic forest with fear. It was beautiful, the trees comforting, the vast expanse of tundra a wonder and a challenge. His hearing had become supernaturally acute, his sense of smell delicate. He could survive.
This was something he never could have imagined two weeks ago. A man needed lights, an automobile, the complex comforts of the modern world. He, in his chosen profession, had provided the electricity, the gasoline, and the plastics to provide those comforts.
He grinned to himself. Farther afield there might be better hunting grounds, berries, perhaps more game. He thought of something else ... of the change in himself.
Here he was, calmly and with confidence considering surviving the entire winter where a few days before he had doubted his ability to survive a few hours. But he was right. His doubts were gone, and justly so. This place was warm and could be made warmer. He could take some metal from the plane for heads for a spear and for arrows.
He could ... he heard voices.
He pushed aside the door and thrust his head out.
Three men, two of them in Canadian Air Force uniforms, and the third was Bud Robinson, were slogging down the path.
He stood there and they stared at him, and then Robinson said, "By the Lord Harry! It's Dru Hill!"
Robinson looked around curiously. "We never dreamed anyone would be alive, but when we flew over this morning, Gene thought he saw a black spot on the snow. Only it was not on the snow, but where the snow had melted off the trees over your fire, here."
"We flew clear back to the post," Gene explained, "but it kept nagging me. There shouldn't be anything black after all that snow falling, so we took a chance and came back. It's lucky for you that we did."
Hours later the plane dropped down onto the runway of an airfield surrounded by warehouses and industrial buildings. Nearby a pipeline ran toward the distant sea.
Dru Hill was hustled across the field and into a waiting ambulance. He insisted on sitting in front with the driver and at the hospital they gave him a clean bill of health, something he had not doubted.
They left him alone finally, the reporters, and doctors, company representatives, and police, in a brand-new motel room near the airfield. The walls and roof seemed strangely close. He paced the odd green carpeting far into the night. To Dru Hill the room smelled of cleansers and cigarettes and wallpaper glue. It was uncomfortably warm.
He opened the window, letting in the cold night air and a small shard or two of ice. Beyond the parking lot was a line of scraggly pines obscuring a set of trash bins and the highway. The sound of engines and tires on the asphalt filled his ears. The air outside smelled like gasoline. Gasoline and garbage.
But then the wind blew and after a moment it carried away those smells, replacing them momentarily with the smell of the great Alaska beyond. Beyond the suburbs, the trailers, the gravel pits and oil wells. He remembered how, as the plane lifted itself from the snow, he had looked back. The trees at the edge of the forest were only a dark line. The place where he had built his hut, staked his furs, and piled the wood for his fire could no longer be seen.
But he knew it was there.
*
CORPSE ON THE CARPET
She was sitting just around the curve of the bar, a gorgeous package of a girl, all done up in a gray tailored suit. The hand that held the glass gave a blinding flash and when I could see again, I got a gander at an emerald-cut diamond that would have gone three carats in anybody's bargain basement. Yet when she turned toward me, I could see the pin she wore made the ring look cheap.
No babe with that much ice has any business dropping into a bar like the Casino. Not that I'm knocking it, for the Casino is a nice place where everybody knows everybody else and a lot of interesting people drop in. But those rocks were about three blocks too far south, if you get what I mean.
At the Biltmore, okay. At the Ambassador, all right. But once in a while some tough Joes drop in here. Guys that wouldn't be above lifting a girl's knickknacks. Even from a fence there was a winter in Florida in those rocks.
It was then I noticed the big guy further along the bar.
He had a neck that spread out from his ears and a wide, flat face. His hands were thick and powerful. And I could see he was keeping an eye on the babe with the ice, but without seeming to.
This was no pug, and no "wrassler." Once you've been in the trade, you can spot them a mile off. This guy was just big and powerful. In a brawl, he would be plenty mean and no average Joe had any business buying any chips when he was dealing.
"Babe," I said, to myself, "you're lined up at the wrong rail. You better get out of here-fast!"
She shows no signs of moving, so I am just about to move in-just to protect the ice, of course-when a slim, nice-looking lad beats me to it.
He's tall and good-looking, but strictly from the cradle, if you know what I mean. He's been wearing long pants for some
twenty-odd years, but he's been living at home or going to school and while he figures he's a smart lad, he doesn't know what cooks. When I take a gander at Blubber Puss, which is how I'm beginning to think about the big guy, I can see where this boy is due to start learning, the hard way.
Me? I'm Kip Morgan, nobody in particular. I came into this bar because it was handy and because there was an Irish bartender with whom I talked fights and football.
Like I say, I'm nobody in particular, but I've been around.
This nice lad who's moving in on the girl hasn't cut his teeth on the raw edges of life yet. The babe looks like the McCoy. She's got a shape to whistle at and a pair of eyes that would set Tiffany back on his heels. She's stiff with the boy at first, then she unbends. She won't let him buy her a drink, but she does talk to him. She's nervous, I can see that. She knows the big lug with the whale mouth is watching her.
All of a sudden, they get up and the boy helps her on with her coat, then slides into his own. They go out, and I am taking a swallow of bourbon when Blubber Puss slides off his stool and heads toward the door.
"Bud," I tell myself, "you're well out of this."
Then I figure, what the devil? That rabbit is no protection for a job like that, and Blubber Puss won't play pretty.
Also, I have always had confidence in what my left can do to thick lips.
They walk about a block and take a cab. There's another one standing by, and the big Joe slides into it. I am just about to figure I'm out of it when another cab slides up. I crawl in.
"Follow those cabs, chum," I say to the cabbie.
He takes a gander at me. "What do you think this is-a movie?"
"If it was, you wouldn't be here," I tell him. "Stick with them and I'll make it worth your while."
We've gone about ten blocks when something funny happens. The cab the Blubber is in pulls up and passes the other one, going on over the rise ahead of us. While I am still tailing the babe and her guy, and trying to figure that one, I see his cab coming back, and Blubber isn't in it.
with These Hands (Ss) (2002) Page 4
