Andrew and Art

by Emery C. Walters

  A moment later, the door slammed shut, and hands found me. The hands were human, and like ice, but I was happy to feel them. I would not open my eyes.

  “You’re okay? You’re not hurt? You’re not dead? Is it gone?” I babbled in one breath, then shuddered as I drew in another. I opened my eyes, and there stood Art, holding my arms, shaking like a leaf, leaning toward me, needing to hold and be held.

  Later, we lay there holding each other tightly, and Art cried. “I’m a loser. A dead bear, you scared out of your wits, and you probably hate me now, and all because I forgot to throw some bones and guts away. How could they have smelled bad as cold as it is out? What else did I do wrong? What will I do wrong next? Will you ever forgive me?”

  It didn’t seem necessary to answer any of these questions. He’d get over it, the same as I had gotten over my own limitations and mistakes. I’d been beating myself up when we first met and taken it out on him, like my wandering away and getting lost was somehow his fault. It took time to realize it was my fault, and more time after that to realize it was just part of being human. No one person can think of every single thing every single time. But he needed to hear it, and I could say it because I was able to say it to myself now, too.

  “I forgive you, even though there’s really nothing to forgive. It’s all right. It’s going to be okay.”

  Maybe. Maybe it was going to be okay. My mind was racing. Which way did the door open? Out. It opened outward. How far had the bear run, or did it drop where it was? How would the door have shut behind Art if…oh. I had to get up; I had to know if we were trapped here. Well, we could always go out a window, I supposed, not that there were many, or hack our way out with an axe. Right? I slid out of bed and walked to the door. Maybe I shouldn’t have tried to open. Maybe the bear (or something else even worse, by this time all the horror stories and urban legends I’d ever heard were pouring through my eyes like a movie reel), but I tried to push the door open, and it didn’t move. Not an inch. That must be one solid damn bear…oh. It’s still locked. I unlocked the door and tried again. Nope. Shit.

  Then I walked over to the window over the pump. Uhnnn, nope. Art wouldn’t make it, and I wasn’t sure if I was even skinny enough to make it. Okay, I’ll check the attic window. So we rappel down, so what, right? Besides, the way it was snowing, we wouldn’t have far to fall anyhow.

  Once up there, I saw the window was not only big enough, but actually had a latch, so presumably it even opened. I turned to go downstairs, but there was something in the way. It was white. I could see thorough it, but I didn’t want to walk through it, or her.

  “Oh, you’re not my son, but never mind. You need to leave here as soon as possible. I know the blizzard is coming, and it will only get worse. Yes, it’s starting to get bad now, but worse is to come. And you can’t stay here; death is coming. Death is near. The bear will keep it away just for a few days more, just long enough for you to get away.

  “Now: you must listen to me carefully. In an envelope taped to a rafter are directions to an old railroad track. It was barely used, but it runs straight and true. There’s elevation gain, but it’s slow and you can climb it. Yes, it’s snow-covered but smoothed by the way the wind blows. Halfway along it, there’s a long tunnel with a room to the side. I will meet you there…

  “Remember, go soon. Leave in the morning, at first light.”

  And she vanished. A cold wind blew through me, accompanied by a heavy dose of cold fear. I wanted so badly to pretend it hadn’t happened, but I told that part of my mind to shut up and start looking in the rafters. I found the envelope very quickly, dusted it off, and almost fell down the steps to the other room. Art was sitting up, looking almost normal.

  “I just had the weirdest dream about my mother and some railroad tunnel,” he said sleepily.

  * * * *

  “Well,” Art began over a hastily prepared meal of cooked and mixed together canned goods. “If we want to leave in the morning, we have a lot to do now. Including making some snowshoes.”

  I’d told him all about what happened, or seemed to happen, in the attic. He’d turned pale but then smiled warmly at me, even though his eyes were full of tears. We cleaned up and cleared the table.

  “Well need long sticks and duct tape for the snowshoes,” he said.

  I pulled a roll of tape out of my camera bag. I also pulled out the camera, dying to take pictures of everything, the cabin, him, the bear on the porch, but I couldn’t afford to use up the batteries until we were sure we didn’t need the GPS any longer, and we definitely needed it to start with.

  Once again, I pored over all the maps, combining and recombining them, laying this one over that one, and then finally adding in what the ghost, or Art’s mother, or whatever, had told me, and the information about the unused railroad line in the envelope. That I would take with me. On the back of one of the maps, I drew my own. This and the GPS would be all we had.

  Then I helped Art fill the bags we would carry. He’d done a good job of making them so we could wear them on our backs. They were doubled up, so if one broke, the other part would hold, we hoped. Our loads would be heavy.

  “I’m cooking up another pot full of this stew or what was it, haggis, and we’ll freeze it overnight and pack it in here like gorp or K-rations. Frozen, it shouldn’t have any odor to attract animals.”

  Finally, we had done all we could and settled in for the night.

  “What about the chickens?” I asked belatedly. “We didn’t even eat any of them. Should we take some along in a sack? Sure, they’d die along the way, but…”

  “I can’t. I know it’s stupid, but I can’t kill or eat them. I just can’t.”

  “I love you, Art, you old softy.”

  “I love you, too. But I also love my chickens. If it came down to you or the chickens…”

  I swatted him and tried to wrestle him off the bed, and you can figure how that ended. We both knew that in the morning, we would leave the cabin and what shelter it offered. We would go out the attic window and be on our way. Just the two of us, our packs and maps, and a healthy respect for whatever we might find outside.

  We woke up just before sunrise, about seven, got ready, opened the bag of smuggled chicken feed. I think Art cried a little. Then we climbed into the attic and took a deep breath each. We had brought rope and used that to rappel out the window down to the snow drifted up against the wall. Art pulled the rope back down while I admired his many talents. Then we went around to the front of the building, and I almost shit my drawers.

  “Fuck it,” I whispered, hauling my camera out from under several layers of shirts where I was trying to keep it warm. I took four pictures of the vultures that were sitting on top of our dead bear, gouging through the fur, stuffed it back inside my shirt, and we backed away slowly, trying not to attract attention or fall on our asses.

  Our way led vaguely northwest, but not a straight shot like we had thought of making. We had agreed to follow the advice and the railroad track. It seemed as good a choice as any, and we were spooked enough to obey. I had to wonder what kind of evil a dead bear carcass could protect a cabin and its occupants from, however.

  And, yes, it was snowing, but the wind hadn’t built up yet. We thought that if the worst held off, then we had done the right thing to follow the apparition’s advice. One choice seemed as good or as bad as another anyhow. We kept going until we reached a stand of trees with a lot of windfall. It had been about three hours, and I desperately needed a bathroom break and a chance to catch my breath.

  “I’m going to make snowshoes,” Art said, beating his chest. “You build fire. Here.” He handed me a lighter. Okay, I guessed I could manage a fire. I had once been a cub scout, you know.

  Once I had my fire going, Art came back to sit by me with the sticks he had brought. I dug out the duct tape once again. We both dug in our packs until we found some of our rations—A Rations we called them—and threw them on the fire to warm.

  “Di
d you bring a pot?” I asked.

  “Nope, didn’t you? Never mind, find some rocks, and we’ll warm them up on those. Somehow. Weren’t you a boy scout?”

  “Sure,” I replied. “Up until we moved when I was nine.”

  I looked around at the beauty that we were trying to not let kill us. I hoped there weren’t any more bears around, somewhere back in the trees, sniffing the air as our food heated up. One of us had been smart enough to bring some plastic sheeting he had found; that would be me, so we were sitting on that and our tushes stayed dry, if not warm.

  The snow was falling steadily but at the stage where it was wonderful to watch, or maybe that’s because we were somewhat sheltered by the trees. The air smelled wonderful as well. I knew nothing about trees other than there was the kind that lost their leaves and then this kind, that did not, so we were surrounded by green. I remembered on the ride into this area, looking over the edge of the highway to the valleys far below, or so it seemed, which were filled with reds and yellows and oranges.

  Now the world was black and white, well, black and green, but I saw it as I would shoot it, not in color, but in black and white; grayscale. Ansel Adams style. I could feel my camera against my chest and wanted so much to haul it out and take shots ‘til the battery died, but I held off. In a blizzard, we’d need that so much, just to know what direction we were going, or if we travelled at night. Maybe bringing the food along frozen wasn’t such a good idea, as we had to take the time to thaw it and eat it, and even so, it might lower our body temperature if it weren’t hot enough.

  “Here, hold this, just like that,” Art said, handing me a bent branch.

  It was thin like a twig but quite long. I don’t know how to describe it, really, but I held it while Art carefully taped the two ends together and taped the middle into a wider loop. He left enough doubled together over the top to fit over our boots.

  “I’m making three sets while I have the materials. Just in case. As long as there’s some tape left over to do some quick mending, that’s good, too, but if we can’t keep the snowshoes, I mean if we’re running for our lives or something…”

  “But you have the guns,” I said, worry nagging me like a mosquito on steroids. “Um, Arthus, my man, Bear Hero, are their cougars around here, too?”

  He nodded without looking at me. “They like to hide in the trees and jump down on you when you walk beneath them,” he said, as if asking if I wanted the mustard or something. “We call them drop kitties.”

  Well, I hadn’t known that, and I was sorry I’d asked. Our food was hot enough, and we scarfed it up, starving already. “Eat it while we can,” I said, “For tomorrow, we may be eaten ourselves.”

  Art stuck his tongue out at me, and a snowflake fell on it. I started to gather enough up to make a snowball, but he saw me and we laughed. “Let’s go. We should practice with these on while it’s daylight and snowing lightly enough that we can actually see our feet.”

  The next four hours were some of the most frustrating of my life. I was using leg muscles I didn’t know I had. Six times I tripped over a snowshoe and either fell or hurt my ankle or had to retape something. Of course, it was getting colder and windier, and I didn’t dare take my camera out to shoot pictures, but the whole miserable mess was so fucking beautiful, I would almost rather die than not photographed it all. The mountains with their white hats, the fir and pine trees with their green boughs giving in their mantles of snow and sagging every lower. And Art’s strong back right ahead of me, constantly checking for the scent of an animal, or that I was still right behind him, or giving me an encouraging smile that usually held more pity than pleasure. And I constantly doubted that we doing the right thing, following the advice of a ghost, for God’s sake.

  The way hadn’t been too steep, either up or down, so far, but I could see ridges and hills ahead. Supposedly, we would find the railroad track over the first ridge, but it looked fearsome from here. We began to climb gradually, until I realized I was huffing and slowing us down. Gradually, we came out of the trees into a windswept bare ridgetop and looked ahead some range after range, but below us a faint shining line on the ground where a bit of sun hit the steel rail. It was enough to give me confidence. Too much, of course, because as I stepped out onto the top of the ridge, I lost my snow shoe and started sliding downhill on the other. Then I was sliding downhill on my ass, with no control at all. Thinking useless thoughts like I meant to do that and Whee, isn’t this fun, I reached the bottom in one piece.

  Above me, I heard “Bravo!” and “Look out below!” and Art came down crouching his butt almost to the ground, his knees to his chin, the snowshoes gliding him down like ice skates on a slanted rink. He ran into me, we both toppled over and lay there laughing, just because the railroad really was there, and we’d made it alive, and the wind was blocked by the ridges on either side of the railroad right of way.

  Art dug into his pack and brought out cans of soda that looked ready to burst, having started to freeze, and a bag of cookies he had found, somewhere. I had no idea; maybe he’d baked them himself, maybe he’d hidden a stash in the outhouse. I was starved, and we ate.

  Now I needed to pee.

  After that (you don’t want to know), Art said, “There’s plenty of daylight left. Let’s roll.”

  And roll we did, well, walk, although without the snowshoes, and I tripped and fell enough to claim I had rolled part of the way.

  He set a tough pace, and I determined I would keep up, no matter what. As the sun disappeared over the ridge, we just kept marching until straight ahead was only darkness. I thought night had come, but Art nudged me.

  “It’s the tunnel. We’ve done it, we’re here.”

  We had made torches to use, and we had some almost dead flashlights, but enough to see our way in. The other end of the tunnel was not in sight. We walked for maybe twenty minutes and finally spotted a door on the right side.

  “Here we go,” said Art. “I know Mom said she’d meet us here, but if she died, or even if she hasn’t, how would she be here and what in Hell would she look like?”

  We pushed open the wooden door. It stuck and creaked, but we opened it enough to slip through and our flashlight lit up a lantern. It was full, and Art lit it with a match. Then we saw candles and lit them, too. The sides of the room sparkled as if they were made of mica, or gold, with the light dancing back at us from a thousand points.

  Farther back were a couple bales of hay, all knocked about and flattened as if someone had slept there. There was a long wooden shelf, an old pack like a miner would have carried, and over in the far corner, a pile of bones. Even though it was warm inside, I shivered.

  We loosened our coats, set down our packs, took off layers of clothes and boots, and were still plenty warm, except in one spot to the side of the door, toward the bones. That one spot must have had a terrible draft, for it was ice cold, cold down to the marrow of my bones. I couldn’t stand there at all, but Art was just standing there, looking away from himself, looking at the bones. He had his head tilted to one side and looked like he was listening intently. Then I noticed tears running down his face, and I went to him, reached out to take his arm, and pulled him away from the cold place.

  “She said she loved me and always will. She said she met another woman on her way to the light. The woman’s name was Margaret, and so was my mom’s. They had been close in another lifetime, sisters maybe. There was something Margaret wanted me to do, us to do; and that was to take the small possibles bag that lies in yon corner, as she put it, behind the bed. I’m guessing that would be the hay. Let’s go look.” He turned to face me, the candlelight flickering and making his expression change from awe to misery to confusion. Together, we walked over to the corner and dug around in the hay.

  Art came up with a small bag, like something you’d see at a Renaissance Faire. It would slide on your belt and just hang there. It was made of some leather and looked very old.

  Art brought it to the shelf and open
ed the hasp. Reaching inside, he brought out another small bag made of thin, flowered material like might have been on a flour bag back in the old days. “Mom said her friend lived in that cabin we stayed in, and that the bag had been taken from her. She didn’t want it taken back to the cabin because bad men would come there and burn it down, but we could have it because we are Mom’s kin. Isn’t that the weirdest thing you ever heard?”

  “Except for seeing her and being sent here, you mean,” I put in.

  “Look, these are gems. Rubies? Garnets, I bet they’re garnets, since that’s what the miners here were after. Is it okay if I wear this, under my parka, next to my skin? I feel so close to my mother, just holding this.”

  Of course, I said yes, hugged him, and kissed him, and we set about fixing something to eat. The rest of the night was quiet, uneventful, and we slept well. I have no idea what woke me or what time it was. I did find my watch was still working, as it should have been, and checked the time. It was only five. There were two hours ‘til daylight, so I thought I’d go back to sleep or something…

  Then there came that cold draft from the corner, and the urge to leave was overwhelming.

  “Art, we need to go,” I whispered, then louder, shaking him. “Something tells me we need to leave. Do you feel it, too?”

  He shook himself awake and sat up. Still drowsy, he said, “Mom? Yes, I’m up. We’ll go right away. Thank you, and I love you.”

  “This place is weird,” I said, stating the obvious, but we didn’t even eat.

  We packed up all our things, took a last look around, and blew out the candles. We entered the tunnel and carefully shut the door behind us. When, for some reason, Art checked the door, it would not open again. Art had thought to bring the lantern, and we let it guide us down the black tunnel. We only saw the other end after we had turned around a curve, and although it was still dark out, there was moonlight shining on the snow, which was quite heavy.