Naked in the Winter Wind

by Dani Haviland

  “I hate to ask you to move again, but could you sit up?”

  Ian rocked and scooted back and forth, looking like the steely in play on a pinball machine, until he was finally upright. He raised one eyebrow as if to ask, “Now what?” I didn’t say a word, but laid out the coat that had covered us, setting it out like a feather mattress on our ‘bed frame,’ the cave floor.

  “Are you sure you want to be married to me?” I asked, hoping for words of encouragement. “I mean, we’ve only known each other for a short time, and I’ll understand if you want to change your mind…”

  I really was quite fond of him—and our kissing and words of betrothal had been very encouraging—but I was still insecure. On the other hand, now I wished I hadn’t said anything. Lying next to him was giving me wifely urges that only he could satisfy.

  “Aye, I’m sure I want ye fer my bride, but our weddin’ really isna bindin’ without the, um, joinin’.” Ian’s eyes lit up as he glanced at my bosom, and then darkened into a frown as he looked further up, at my forehead, remembering that I had told him I had a headache.

  I gulped down a breath of fortitude and declared as nonchalantly as I could, “Sure glad my headache’s gone. Are you feeling better, too?”

  “Aye, I’m feelin’ verra hale,” he declared, his sinewy chest puffed out in pride. “Must be that marriage agrees with me.”

  He laid the back of his hand across mine, gliding it over my wrist, up the curve of my arm, to my shoulder, the hairs on my goose pimples rising not from the cold, but from anticipation. I followed his lead, and stroked my hand up the back of his, mimicking his route, but proceeding further, up to his neck and slightly bearded jaw line, culminating the introductory gesture with a caress and a gentle kiss next to his swollen lip.

  Our soft and timid touches, warily exploring each other’s bodies, soon became more insistent, eager for more intimacy, our primal cravings overcoming our puritanical hesitancy. It was awkward for the first few moments, but lust won out, desire overcoming the physical limits of his injuries and his general weakness from lack of nutrition.

  An hour after our primitive wedding ceremony, we were man and wife, having ‘known’ each other in the Biblical way to make our marriage ‘legal.’

  He spent all of his physical reserves pleasuring me. Well, almost all—he did save a couple of calories of energy for himself there at the end.

  When he finished, his whole body crumpled into a controlled collapse on top of me. He was panting heavily, the musky, aromatic beads of his efforts dribbling down his chest and forehead onto me. “Oh, sorry,” he puffed as he wiped them away with the back of his wrist, and then carefully rolled off of me.

  All the tension and insecurities were gone from my body and mind. With great effort, I forced an eye open, pushing through the grin that encompassed my whole face, looking at him one more time before I melted into the coat mattress and oblivion. “Not cold now, are we?” I crooned.

  “Aye, ‘tis true enough, though if we dinna get covered soon, we’ll both die of the ague.”

  His words, breathlessly spoken, didn’t hide the smile in his voice. He pulled the silver shroud over both of us, and settled in next to me. I was totally relaxed and at peace, and glad that one of us could move. I wasn’t ready to die, and now, neither was he.

  *17 Living on Love

  Who says you can’t live on love? That’s what we did for the first five days. Well, sort of. We did have a wee bit of granola and those barely palatable dehydrated meals to nosh on, but I didn’t consider those real foods. They were, however, enough to maintain our basic metabolic functions. If we starved to death, at least we would die happy.

  We thoroughly explored each other’s bodies, discovering our rhythms and pushing our physical limits. I had been thoroughly embarrassed at first. I hadn’t known—must have been memory loss from the head bashing—that I was on my period when we made love for the first time. I was a bit disgusted at the mess, but it didn’t bother Ian. He shrugged, kissed me on the forehead, and proceeded to clean up the both of us. If it didn’t bother him, I wasn’t going to let it hold me back either.

  That first time was so intense; I still shudder when I remember all we did and how good I felt. Now, the second time, I’d rather forget about that episode. It hurt so badly, I had tears rolling down both cheeks. I screamed out as he entered me, and when he stopped and asked if he had hurt me, I lied and told him to go ahead, I was just excited. I knew it would get better, and it did. It was only that one time, though. If I didn’t know better, I’d swear I had just lost my virginity.

  In between the wild and passionate rides, he entertained me with his fascinating tales of growing up in Scotland, his journey to America, getting shanghaied to the Caribbean, and his life with the Indians. I didn’t have anything to contribute to our chats, but I was enthralled. His tales were stranger than fiction to me, and he enjoyed sharing his personal history.

  Then days six, seven, and eight came and went. We were without food, and Ian was getting morose. He would hardly speak. The stories had stopped, and my questions were answered with a shrug or maybe a mumble. I thought I knew what it was: he was the man of the family—the head of our little two-person clan—and he couldn’t provide food or even fetch water for us.

  His wounded body was healing, but his ego wasn’t doing so well. The good news that he was on the mend was lost in his frustration that it wasn’t happening as fast as he wanted. He never developed any infections—the germ killer worked—but his soles looked like crazy quilts, with odd-shaped red and pink patches in different stages of healing. He was able to take a few more steps each day, but he was still a tenderfoot.

  His ears were clear, there was no more swelling around his eyes, and as far as we could tell, his vision and hearing hadn’t been permanently affected. His fingers were still a mess, though. They were either fractured or he had those confounded soft tissue injuries that took longer to mend than broken bones. They pointed in the right direction, but the middle three digits on both hands were still swollen and tender.

  Whatever the problem was, he couldn’t grasp anything and had to use the outside edges of his palms to gather up whatever he needed to hold. I insisted on feeding him. Not only did I enjoy the intimacy of the act, but when he tried to do it, food went flipping all over the place. I didn’t want to waste what little food we did have. But I didn’t tell him that.

  Ӂ

  Rocky was still gone. Ian didn’t seem too concerned: he said it happened every year about this time. The she-wolves went into heat in the winter and, well, Rocky would come back when he was ready. He usually had a few bite marks around his ears, but also sported a cocky grin and triumphant gait. It would have been nice to have him here to fetch squirrels or rabbits for supper—we were down to rationing the last few cashews.

  I couldn’t hunt, but was happy to get out of the cave every day to fetch water. It was a necessary task, but also allowed me to escape the gloom of the cave and Ian’s obvious depression. I recognized the signs; all he wanted to do was sleep. He didn’t even respond to my snuggling and pawing anymore.

  I wanted to believe it was only cabin fever. Although technically it wasn’t a cabin, he couldn’t—or wouldn’t—go far from our residence. He’d leave a few times a day for his toilet, and then return to his morose attitude and slumber. We couldn’t go anywhere together because we had to take turns wearing the coat. So, he’d sleep all day and I’d fetch water, wood, or make tinder—debarking twigs and shaving wooden curls just to pass the time.

  I tried to talk him into wearing my spare sweatpants, but he preferred his old breechclout and leggings. He did agree to wear my spare shirt, though, a short-sleeved tee shirt. I was still puzzled about how come the clothes in my backpack were at least two sizes too big for me. I didn’t think oversize-clothes were the style, but the ones Ian had found me in were baggy, too. Well, whatever the reason, it was good because the shirt fit him better than it did me.

  I b
rought my Leatherman with me every time I went to sit and wait for the water pan to fill, the all purpose pot’s lip set at the declivity of the slow-seeping spring. It was a sluggish process—it seemed to take half a day—but it was all we had available. The worst part was that I felt so vulnerable, just sitting there. I didn’t want to admit to Ian, or even to myself, that I was worried about bandits. It wasn’t that I was paranoid, but I was definitely on high alert.

  Each day I ventured a little further away from home to scout out a faster flowing spring. With the increasingly cold, dry weather, we hadn’t had snow on the ground for an easy water source in ages. It was clear again today, which meant cold again tonight, and slim to no chance of fresh snowfall. “It has to warm up to snow,” I said aloud.

  I decided to do something about the water situation: I stopped, knelt, and said an earnest, heartfelt prayer for food and a better way to get water. Praying worked immediately. I didn’t find a cafeteria or a babbling brook right away, but I did get a wonderful sense of calm. I knew everything was going to be okay.

  I stood up and made sure I knew where I was. I could still see the dense, dark green, overgrown holly bush that marked the opening of our cave. I climbed on top of a boulder to look for some wet or mossy rocks—spring markers—or better yet, a stream or a creek.

  Then I heard it.

  It sounded like a strangled duck. I looked toward the noise and saw movement near an overgrown, shrubby area. I hopped down from the rock, grabbed my pot, and headed toward the sound. Duck soup sounded good to me.

  As I got closer, the noise didn’t sound duck-like at all. I knew that noise: it was an elk! I had no idea why I knew it was an elk, but I was positive it was.

  I licked my finger and stuck it up in the air to determine the wind direction. I wanted to be downwind as I approached any wildlife, especially one three times bigger than me!

  I got closer and saw why the animal was making so much noise: it was stuck. It had walked out on thin ice, fallen through and thrashed wildly, trying to get out, and was now totally trapped.

  Ice! Elk meat! That sounded better than duck soup to me. If there was ice, that meant there was water. If there was water, there might be fish, too. But, an elk! If I could manage to kill it and haul it back to camp, we’d have a winter’s worth of meat, plus a hide for warmth, and maybe moccasins for Ian.

  I backed up against a tree to gather my wits and review what I had available to accomplish this enormous feat.

  First, there was me. Ian couldn’t help, and I didn’t want to make him feel worse than he already did about being worthless for heavy tasks. I felt it best not to let him know what was going on. My excuse to him was going to be that I had to work fast, that I didn’t have time to go back to ask him for help. That really was the truth, so I rationalized that knowing ahead of time what I was going to say wasn’t lying.

  Second, I had my pan, the clothes and jacket on my back, and my Leatherman. But I needed a plan. I had to kill the beasty and then haul it uphill, all the way back to the cave where Ian could help me butcher it. It was time to ask for help again…back to my knees.

  “Lord, I thank You for the food and water You’ve delivered. Now, if You would, could You please give me Your knowledge of what to do next? In Jesus’s name, Amen.”

  I was half way to my feet when I realized what I needed to do. I needed to harness the elk and pull him—no, no antlers, so this must be a her—out of the partially frozen pond. Once out, I could use elk power, the animal’s own energy, to move the soon-to-be-foodstuffs to the cave.

  I didn’t have a harness, but I did have some rope with me. I had reclaimed Ian’s bindings and used the coarse rope for a belt, folding up the length twice—quadrupling it—and tying it together every six inches with bits of fray in order to keep it together in one continuous, but usable, length. I took off my gloves and belt, and pulled apart the series of square knots, flipping whiskers of sisal all over the place. I opened out the length, tied a slipknot in one end, and then put my gloves back on.

  I tiptoed to her. The elk, unnervingly quiet, didn’t fear me. Or maybe she was just too worn out to care. I threw the noose over her nodding head.

  “It’s okay, honey, it’ll all be over in a few minutes. Come on,” I said, urging the animal to step onto a pile of fallen branches I had set out to use as a ramp. I felt like a fool, calling encouragements to an animal I planned to be eating for the next two or three months.

  I got cooperation when I rubbed behind her soft, mousey-brown ears. She took what looked like a running start—it was actually a lunge—and then gave a horrendous wail as her front hooves hit solid ground. I tugged as hard as I could, pulling on the rope as if I, too, were trying to escape the watery trap, hoping she’d keep up her momentum, that her back legs would follow the front ones out of the icy bath.

  We made it. She was weak, wobbly, and just about to fall over sideways. I ran to her side and shoved her back into balance. Glancing down, I saw her problem. She had a broken front leg—no veterinarian degree needed for that diagnosis. I would have had to put her down to put her out of her misery, even if I hadn’t planned on making her our food source. There was no way I could drag a carcass that big up to the cave, though. I was going to have to coax her uphill—get her closer to home and the pantry.

  Rather than climb the rise, I wound up leading her on a route parallel from where we were. I’d still have to drag or haul sections of meat uphill, but I wouldn’t have to worry about wolves at our front door, sniffing out the remains. There was lots of wood left in my beaver-dam woodpile, too. I could probably fabricate a cache box with some of it, to contain and elevate the meat so scavengers, large or small, couldn’t get to it.

  The elk finally fell down and refused to move. I took off my coat, offered an improvised prayer of thanks, and then performed the coup de grace. I stabbed the blade of my Leatherman tool into her neck, hitting the carotid artery on the first try, and then yanked down to open the wound and increase the blood flow, moving away quickly so I didn’t get a blood shower.

  She looked at me—not with fear or anger—but with thanksgiving. Her struggle was over, and she was ceding her spent body to me. “Thank you,” I said to my unnamed elk. “And thank You, Lord, for all You have given us.”

  The heat of excitement was over, and now the cold and dampness were penetrating—and constraining—my hands and chest. I was panting from my efforts and had to keep reminding myself to breathe through my nose. Unfortunately, I had already sucked in too much cold air through my mouth and now my lungs burned. I wiped my chill-stiffened palms and fingers on wisps of dried grass and clumsily stuck my marginally responsive arms into my coat.

  I caught a second wind and ran uphill to the cave, jaws clenched against the frigid air, full of adrenaline fire, and eager to tell Ian what had happened. I stumbled through the bushy entrance, almost falling down as I blurted out, “I got an elk! It was just there and I had to act fast. I managed to kill it, but do you think you can help me with the rest, butcher it, I mean?”

  I babbled on, saying I needed to know how to field dress an elk because I knew nothing about it, that I doubted it was a skill I had ever had.

  Ian was a blur of movement. I guessed what he had needed was to be an asset—he needed to be needed. He slipped his feet into the front of my neon green Crocs and shuffled down the hill, sniffing the air, quickly beelining to the sacrificial site, my directions unneeded.

  He had brought the folding saw with him, and I still had the Leatherman, the only two cutting tools available to us. I handed mine to him and stepped out of his way—I didn’t know what to do. He made a few stabs and slashes, yanked down and over in a couple of spots, and then stopped. I didn’t watch the butchering process because, even though I knew this was a necessary part of our survival, I was still squeamish. That, and I had begun to like her. I’m glad I never called her anything beyond ‘honey’— that would have really personalized her.

  “I said, did ye ken
this was a female?” Ian asked, apparently not for the first time. I nodded, still stunned. “Weel, she was pregnant with twins. That means we’ll have some mighty tender meat and verra soft pelts. Can ye help me here?”

  I was an air-breathing robot, only performing the simple tasks he asked of me. Ian, if he even noticed, didn’t comment. He was busy and obviously happy about it. He appeared to be working at double speed. Each stroke of his arm, every cut or shifting of the carcass, had a purpose. There was no conversation, only a quick request for assistance once in a while.

  We didn’t have much time before it got dark. The air was still and that was good. I knew that before long, wolves, and maybe coyotes or panthers, would catch the smell of the fresh kill and come in for their share.

  “I need to get water,” I said. I hadn’t spoken for what seemed like hours, and my voice started out as a squeak. “I forgot to tell you, we have a lake or creek or something, just over there,” I pointed. “I’ll be right back.”

  I grabbed the pot and hiked to where I had found the she-elk. The site where she had fallen in, and I had dragged her out, was still open. I eased the edge of the pot into the water and let it fill. I was suddenly aware of how cold the pot was. I must have left my gloves back at the field-dressing site. I pulled my coat sleeve down over my hand to insulate it from the cold handle.

  For some reason, I turned the wrong way when I stood up and had to turn all the way around to head in the right direction. That’s when I saw him. He was as big as Rocky, his upper lip lifted in a silent snarl, all his teeth showing. I must have smelled like a meat market. I froze.

  I sent up a quick prayer, “Help!” and then stood up straight. I curled my upper lip and snarled right back. “Don’t even think about it, dude. You go get your own dinner,” I said menacingly. Then I flipped my head up, chin pointed at him as if to say, “Scoot, go away.”

  The wolf stuck his nose up, sniffed, growled quickly, and then turned away, running back into the woods in the opposite direction from where Ian was. I chuckled, nervous yet relieved. Apparently he had caught a she-wolf scent. The stronger drive won out. The need to breed beat out the need to feed in the instincts of many, if not all, animals, two-legged or four. At least, that seemed to be the case here.