Wildwood

by Elinor Florence

  I squatted in the snow and tried to grip both springs with my hands, but my fingers weren’t strong enough to pry them open. I tried lying on my back and lifting my trapped foot into the air. I rolled from one side to the other, but I could find no position that gave me enough purchase to open the trap.

  I had worked at it for about a quarter of an hour when I began to feel quite frightened. By this time I had been thrashing until the snow was flattened around me in a circle. George would not be back for several hours. The temperature was dropping as the shadows lengthened, and I knew I was in very real danger.

  I was gripped with fear, not so much that I would die, but that George would come home to an empty house and search the area only to find my lifeless corpse. I redoubled my efforts to no avail. At the same time, my movements were becoming slower and I knew the cold was taking its toll. At last I gave up and began to weep with exhaustion.

  I was lying near a large clump of wolf willows. The trunks were too narrow to be of any use, but a vague notion came into my lethargic brain: perhaps I could dig down to their base and find some resistance there. I crawled to the bush like a wounded animal, dragging the trap and chain behind me. It was anchored deep under the snow, but the chain was just long enough to reach.

  Digging furiously with my hands, scooping out the snow and throwing it behind me, I uncovered a small root mass. Setting my right foot into the hole, I had a firm surface and was finally able to loosen the jaws of the trap.

  With what relief did I tear my poor foot free at last! It was dreadfully scraped and bruised, but I was able to limp back to the house. I collapsed beside the fire and did not stir until the feeling began to creep back into my limbs and my sluggish mind began to function.

  Never again will there be a trap set on this property. I would rather starve than make an animal go through the torture that I experienced today as I lay there helplessly and waited for death.

  I slammed the diary shut with an audible bang and jumped to my feet. I knew exactly how it felt to be caught in a trap. I was caught in a trap right now. The only difference was that I knew how to free myself.

  This time, reading about my great-aunt’s adventures didn’t inspire me. No, they made me feel worse. She was a real pioneer, a woman who could rise to any occasion, withstand any amount of adversity, a woman like Eileen McKay, and Olga Penner, and Joy Henderson, and all the other women who lived in this godforsaken place.

  Well, I wasn’t one of them. The Bannister gumption must have been watered out of the bloodline by the time it came down to me. I hadn’t saved my daughter. I hadn’t even been able to save myself. Instead, I had nearly killed both of us with my own stupidity.

  I paced back and forth, from the rocking chair to the window. Every time I thought about my folly in driving through a snowstorm with my little daughter in the truck, I groaned aloud. I should turn myself in to the authorities for child abuse. Instead of saving my child’s life, I had passed out in the snow and left a five-year-old child to save my life.

  I had been blinded by the prospect of money. In a foolhardy attempt to save Bridget from a life of misery, I had almost ended it. What difference did it make whether she could speak, or to whom? We were alive, and that’s all that mattered.

  I was ready to do the sensible thing at last, the thing that Franklin Jones had urged me to do. He came from pioneer stock himself, so he understood how hard this would be. I should have listened to him. It was time to give up the struggle and go back to Arizona.

  I glanced at the calendar on the wall and did a brief calculation. It was the second of April. We still had 126 days to go. That was one hundred and twenty-six days too many. I couldn’t stand to spend one more day in this frozen Alcatraz. I wanted to pull our suitcases out of the closet this minute and start packing.

  I imagined April in Arizona. Sky and dry. But even while I pictured the desert, other images intruded — the stifling heat, the blanket of smog, the endless stream of traffic. There must be something about the place that I missed, but at the moment I couldn’t remember anything. My former life seemed so far away, as if I were looking through the wrong end of the binoculars.

  My thoughts turned to Colin McKay. I wondered what he would think when he heard I was taking my fancy boots back to Arizona. He would probably laugh scornfully when he found we couldn’t stick it out. I could picture him laughing right now.

  I gave my head a shake, literally. We were leaving. End of story. The money wasn’t important any longer. Nothing was more important than our lives. I wrapped a blanket around me, went upstairs into The Cold Part where Bridget couldn’t hear me, and wept with great, wrenching sobs.

  Tomorrow I would drive into town, telephone Franklin Jones in his Edmonton office, and tell him we were leaving Wildwood forever.

  Days remaining: one.

  23

  April–May

  I awoke the next morning with a fever. Sweating and uncomfortable, I kicked at the layer of quilts then flung them to one side. This was all I needed, to get sick. Bridget and I had been remarkably healthy this winter. Ironically, we hadn’t even suffered from our usual colds. I fervently hoped she wouldn’t catch this from me. I turned my face away from her head on the other pillow. My bare arms and legs felt hot in the cold room.

  Suddenly I realized the room wasn’t cold at all.

  I sat up on the edge of the bed. I heard an unfamiliar sound, and strained my ears. It was the trickle of running water. I bolted to my feet, wondering what fresh hell was going to befall us now. Was the kitchen pump leaking? Was the slop pail overflowing? I held my breath and listened. The noise seemed to be coming from outside.

  I glanced at the clock. It was twenty past six and the crack between the drapes was white with light. I rose and pulled them aside, expecting to see the usual frozen desolation. Instead, the landscape looked blurry. There was a sheet of water rippling down the panes. Water!

  I ran to the back door in my bare feet and threw it open. A gust of fresh air blasted me in the face, swirling about my body. A breeze caressed me with small warm hands, lifting the hair from my neck and stroking my cheeks. This must be the famous chinook, that rare but welcome rush of mild Pacific air that Wynona had mentioned!

  Snatching a jacket from the hook beside the door, I slipped my feet into my heavy boots and walked into the yard. The heavy snowpack on the shingled roof was melting, turning into water that poured in sheets down the four sides of the roof and into the eaves. The eaves were overflowing, and the water was gushing through the downspouts, and the white snowdrifts below were shrinking before my very eyes.

  I ran back inside without taking off my boots, clumping through the kitchen and into the bedroom. “Bridget, wake up! It’s spring! Spring is here!”

  It was just that simple. Winter’s back broke with a tremendous, resounding crack, and warmth swept across the land. Within hours our driveway and even the gravel road beyond had turned into a sea of melting slush and gumbo. Our truck couldn’t leave the yard, and no vehicle could come to us. We were stranded once again.

  Since the school bus wasn’t running, Wynona arrived while we were still eating our porridge.

  “Come on, Bridget, let’s go outside!”

  Her voice reflected the excitement we were all feeling. We wolfed down our breakfast and left the dirty bowls in the sink.

  The snow was so sticky that it made wonderful firm snowballs, like the ones in the Hollywood movies. We threw them at the barn and the dog and each other. It was the thousandth variation of snow we had seen this winter. At lunchtime we came inside just long enough to gulp down some tomato soup and change into dry clothes.

  The girls rolled giant snowballs and stacked them into a snow lady, dressing her in an old shawl with a carrot for a nose and a broom in one hand. Then they built a snow cabin — not a fort, they had no interest in fighting — and furnished it with a snow table and two snow stools. Riley, too, felt spring in his bones. He jumped and ran like a puppy, barking at a flo
ck of sparrows high overhead.

  It was a wonderful day.

  That night we slept soundly, tired from the unusual fresh air and exercise. And the next day, we did the same thing all over again. And the next.

  Winter didn’t go quietly. Enormous sheets of snow and ice crashed from the roof to the ground. Huge dripping icicles like daggers fell with the sound of breaking glass. Our gentle creek turned into a torrent, tearing chunks of ice from its banks in its mad rush toward the river. “Mama, the Laughing Brook is laughing again!”

  Bridget ran everywhere, filled with energy after being cooped up all winter. Once she tripped and fell headlong on a patch of ice, scraping the skin off her chin. I expected her to cry, but she jumped to her feet and kept running, swiping a mittened hand across her bloody face.

  I checked the thermometer and was surprised to see it was only fifteen degrees Celsius, or fifty-nine Fahrenheit. That would be considered downright chilly in Arizona, but here it felt blessedly mild.

  After a few short days winter laid down its arms and surrendered. Now the last patches of snow in the shadows of the windbreak disappeared and a green mist swept over the earth, turning it into a wild northern fairyland — as if a magician had waved his wand over the landscape, drawing loveliness out of the trees and the fields.

  The naked poplars dressed themselves in pale-green gowns, and sticky buds appeared on every twig. The breeze carried the scent of resin from the Green Forest, which was turning greener by the day.

  “Mama, even your hair smells like spring!” Bridget grasped handfuls of my hair and buried her face in it.

  We lost track of the days, drunk with the sights and sounds and smells of spring. Energy rose out of the earth and through the soles of our feet. We had been surrounded by death, and now we were embraced with bursting new life.

  Each morning we explored the yard to see what had happened overnight. It was Bridget who found the first soft, velvety purple crocuses with yellow throats, their vivid colour startling after the starkness of winter.

  When the roads finally dried up, the school bus started running again. Wynona was worried about missing so much school. She was trying to keep up with her class.

  Now that the roads were open again, my decision to leave — which had seemed so logical right after our brush with death — was more difficult. I postponed my trip to town for one more day, then another. It wouldn’t make any difference, I reasoned. We had plenty of food, and Bridget was having the time of her life playing outdoors.

  We woke early now, unwilling to miss even an hour of spring. On April 23, the sun rose at 6:01 a.m. It was my birthday. I was thirty-three years old. I had decided not to mention it to Bridget, not to mark it in any way. But as the grey light gave way to rosebud pink and then to gold, thousands of tiny throats serenaded me as the songbirds in the trees wished me happy birthday.

  All that day the heavens were dark with birds returning home to the northern lakes and woods. Honking geese flew past in high, straggling wedges. Their overlapping V shapes covered the blue sky with a black herringbone sweater, and their cries were like bugles leading troops into battle.

  These were followed by flocks of other birds that landed on the Laughing Brook and the beaver pond — ducks, pelicans, even swans. With the help of a book called the Peterson Field Guide to Western Birds, I was able to identify a few through my binoculars: wrens, tanagers, red-winged blackbirds, and yellow-breasted meadowlarks singing their fetching melody: “Yes, I am a pretty little bird!”

  “Look, Mama!” Bridget pointed to a robin’s nest tucked under the barn roof. Hanging from it was a curly dark tendril of her hair, or was it mine?

  That evening we arrived at the beaver dam in time to hear a slap and see a little dark head dive below the surface. We had finally caught sight of the elusive Paddy. Around us were the pointed stumps of freshly chewed trees. Pussy willows pointed to the sky with tiny furry fingers. We cut an armload for the kitchen table.

  Riley trotted along ahead of us. Our shadows from the setting sun fell on the grass, one long one and one short one. “Why does our red barn have a blue shadow?” Bridget asked thoughtfully. “Shouldn’t it have a red shadow?”

  I explained the principle behind shadows, and then remembered a Robert Louis Stevenson poem that my mother used to recite:

  I have a little shadow who goes in and out with me

  And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.

  He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;

  And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

  I pointed at our shadows. “Look, I can make my shadow jump up and down. Can you make yours jump, too?’’

  Bridget jumped around and waved her arms like a windmill, laughing at her own antics. Then she grew thoughtful. “Mama, I have another little shadow.”

  “You do? Where is it?”

  “She isn’t here right now. But she follows me around the house and the yard. I can only see her out of the corner of my eye. Sometimes I try to catch her with my magnifying glass, but she always hides behind me at the last minute.”

  While Bridget carefully unlatched the storm windows from the inside, I took them down and carried them one by one into the barn.

  We threw open the doors and windows to air out the winter staleness. As the fresh air rushed in, I realized that everything in the house smelled of woodsmoke. I washed our linens along with every stitch of washable clothing. I hung them on the clothesline, where they dried in the sun and smelled like the wind.

  We opened all the interior doors in the house, and the warm air flowed into The Cold Part until it was no longer cold. I spent two days cleaning, wiping the wooden furniture with damp rags, brushing the dead bugs off windowsills, sweeping the floors, and beating the rugs over the clothesline. We started to use the outdoor toilet again, much to my relief. I would longer have to carry the toilet pail outside each morning.

  Although the upstairs was still cool, I couldn’t resist moving back into the bedroom with the view. We made up our brass bed with clean, fragrant sheets. I hung the drapes outside, then washed the windows until the glass was invisible.

  “Mama, what are you looking at?”

  I jumped when Bridget spoke right behind me. I was sitting on the window seat in the upstairs bedroom, gazing out at the spectacular view with my binoculars.

  “That woodpecker. Can you hear him?”

  A splendid woodpecker with a scarlet head was clinging to a tree trunk, making a rapid drumming sound.

  I wasn’t being entirely truthful. I had watched the woodpecker for a few minutes then trained my sights on Colin McKay. He was seated inside the red tractor cab, pulling the seeder behind him, turning over the black furrows. He had started at the edge of the field closest to the creek and was making concentric circles, moving away from me.

  Last year he had planted wheat. This year he was planting canola — “can” for Canada, and “ola” for oil. He had explained that this cousin of the mustard family, formerly called rape, produces black seeds that are crushed into edible oil, known for its health benefits. Next year he would plant oats, and the following year barley. The benefit of this four-year rotation was that it replenished the soil with legume crops and broke down the diseases that spread if the same crop was planted continuously.

  Colin’s face had darkened when he mentioned the greedy farmers who planted canola year after year, taking advantage of the high price. “Their idea of crop rotation is canola, then snow, then more canola. Eventually the soil will lose all its nutrients, and be good for nothing!”

  Watching Colin’s tractor turn the corner and head back toward me, I reflected that when he planted crops of lesser value, he was lowering his annual income. But then, he was probably taking the long view that improving soil quality would increase his yield in the years to come. Of course, his overhead was low since he was saving a small fortune on the rent. My hands gripped the binoculars so tightly that my knuckles turned whi
te.

  After lunch I walked down to the Laughing Brook, telling myself that I wanted to see if the wild roses were in bloom. It was a glorious spring day. The slightest breeze made a ripple of excitement run through the long grass, as if it were too much alive to stand still for a minute. I crossed the swiftly flowing water on the stepping stones. I could still hear the sound of the tractor, although it was farther away now.

  When I reached the edge of the field, the essence of moist earth filled the air. The newly cultivated soil below my feet was jet black. Familiar only with the sandy desert soil, I picked up a handful to examine it more closely. It had a different texture, too, chunky and heavy. I lifted it to my face and inhaled. The smell was so good it made my mouth water.

  I gazed at the smooth black furrows, free of stones and twigs, while I thought about how much work it had taken George and Mary Margaret to clear this land. However unreasonable, I resented anyone else touching it, working on it. Involuntarily I squeezed my fist shut, squeezing my own land in my own fingers.

  Why should I let Colin McKay have Wildwood? It was homesteaded by my family, not his. It belonged to me. It belonged to Bridget.

  Wynona arrived after school, her cheeks flushed with excitement. She pulled a binder out of her backpack and opened it to an essay she had written titled “Five Uses for Sweetgrass.” On the margin, the teacher had given her a B-plus and written: “Much improved, Wynona!”

  I asked her to read it aloud so I could listen without being distracted by the usual spelling mistakes. In a clear voice, she read:

  “Sweetgrass is a sacred plant. It is used for smudging. That is when you make a braid and then burn it and then wash your face and hands in the smoke and it cleans your body and soul. A braid has three strands and every strand has twenty-one long blades of sweetgrass. It is also used for making tea. The tea is good for sore throats and colds. Sweetgrass is also used for making baskets because it is so strong and it smells nice. When you pick sweetgrass, don’t pull it out by the roots. Just cut it off so it can stay alive. When you take some, leave an offering behind like tobacco to say thank you to the earth. That is because you must never take something from the earth without giving something back. The end.” She closed the binder.