by Lucy Inglis
She nodded. Keeping hold of one of her hands, he led her through the trees. The light began to fail after a little longer. Hope’s heart sank at the idea of night. The darkness was closing in around the undergrowth in charcoal smudges. Perhaps her eyes weren’t working properly. Her feet and ankles were sore from her wet socks and boots.
‘It’s not far now,’ Cal said, just as Hope stumbled and fell to her knees, knocking her left one badly and scratching her right leg. Instantly his hands were under her arms, lifting her up and holding her tight. ‘I promise. Just a little further.’
She nodded, too numb with cold and misery to say anything. It could have been five minutes or an hour later when the trees began to thin, and suddenly they were beside a huge lake ringed by mountains. The whitecaps sparkled in the evening sun. Cal led her down to the lake’s edge and sat her down on a rock.
‘Stay there. I just need to fetch a few things.’
Hope didn’t respond. She was almost comatose with cold and shock. Cal skirted around the water’s edge, looking here and there for things, returning, placing them in neat piles and then disappearing again. Buddy never left him. Usually Hope could see Cal’s pale shirt in the undergrowth, or Buddy outlined against one of the massive pines, but when she couldn’t see them, panic seeped through the shock and she started to shake again. After a little while, he had a good pile of dry wood, what looked like a pile of moss and fungus, and a lot of dried grass and twigs. He dropped to his knees.
On a small rock the size of a fist, he made a pile of the dry fungus and a little of the moss. Pulling a stone from one pocket, and his clasp knife from another, he struck sparks from the rock with the knife. Hope noticed his hands were still shaking.
‘Damned flint was the hardest thing to find in this light,’ he muttered.
The sparks flew over and over again, but the breeze was carrying them. Hope shook herself, got up and came to kneel by him, cupping her hands around the moss.
A few more tries and the moss caught. Hope cupped it carefully, protecting it from the wind, as Cal added shred after shred of grass, waiting until they had a small pile burning before adding the thinnest twigs and brush. Even Buddy had drawn close and was staring, trying to understand why the flames were the centre of such attention. Cal chanced adding the first of the larger sticks. It took almost straight away and he breathed a sigh of relief.
‘Once it’s really going, it’ll be fine.’ The breeze was helping now, rather than killing it, and soon the fire was crackling merrily. Hope was still bone cold. She sat back on the rock. Cal came to sit next to her, shoving his boots off. ‘Yours too,’ he said. ‘They need to come off. And the sweater. Better get as much dry as we can.’
Hope obeyed, handing over her things without a word. Although the cardigan had still been damp, exposing her chilled arms to the air made her shudder. On the other side of the fire were more rocks, sticking straight up from the bank, forming a shelter of some kind.
‘Here. It’s out of the wind.’
Hope picked her way carefully over the stony ground and sat, her back to the rock, knees pulled up.
‘Buddy, come.’ Cal ordered the dog to lie on Hope’s cold feet like a furry blanket, and then hugged her against his side, a long arm around her. She looked at the fire and their wet things spread in front of it. The gun was in easy reach of his left hand.
‘Hope we don’t need that,’ she said.
‘So do I. Only two rounds in it,’ he muttered.
Night had fallen around them. Periodically Cal got up to feed the fire. Once, he disappeared into the undergrowth and Hope heard him take a pee. They were both stiffening up, cold and wrenched from the accident. The fire cracked and, all around, the forest shifted and stirred. Then, from somewhere far off, there came an eerie howl, drifting across the water before fading out. Hope sat bolt upright. So did Buddy. From the other side of the lake, their side, the howl was answered. Then again, and again, until it seemed they were surrounded by the noise. Hope put her hands over her ears with a pained cry, desperate to block out the sound.
‘Hope? Hope, listen to me.’ Kneeling in front of her, Cal tried to lift her chin, putting his arms around her head when she shied away. ‘They won’t come near the fire. Really they won’t. Listen to them, it’s beautiful.’
Eventually she nodded, taking a deep breath, breathing in his reassuring warmth. ‘OK,’ she said, as another burst of echoing howls rang out around them. It was another hour or so before the wolves became quiet. Hope finally dozed against Cal, and after what seemed like a lifetime, dawn began to creep over the ridge at the eastern end of the lake, striping the shifting surface of the water with red and gold.
The fire was still flickering. Cal got up slowly and went around checking all their things. He handed Hope her socks and boots. The boots were damp, but nothing compared to the blistering wetness of the day before. She pulled on the socks for warmth and put the boots back by the fire for the last few minutes.
‘There should be water around here and I don’t want you to get dehydrated. I’ll be back in a minute, OK?’
‘Can’t we drink the lake water?’
‘I prefer it running. Back soon.’ He went off along the lake’s edge.
Hope sat, watching the sun rise. She pulled the diary from her pocket and checked it. It had survived the crash without any damage and didn’t feel damp. To pass the time, she opened it and turned to where she’d left off.
Soon, Cal was back with Buddy, kicking out the fire. ‘I found water.’
His arrival made her jump, startling her out of the diary. She got up. ‘Cal?’
‘What?’
‘I . . . this diary . . .’
‘What about it?’
‘The stagecoach has just crashed into a gulch, which is filling with meltwater. The bridge gave way beneath it.’
She held it open on the page of the crash description. He read the passage and then returned it to her, silent, walking off back the way he’d come. Hope followed him to a small tributary and drank, feeling gritty and clammy, and splashed water on her face. Still in silence, they made their way back along the edge of the lake.
‘What do you think?’ she asked finally.
He stopped to look at the landscape, and avoided an answer. ‘I think . . . that at the moment we need to get on the other side of these trees, higher up, so that I can see the ridgeline. Pops used to tell me to look for the crag above the cabin. It’s distinctive. If we find that, we’ll find the cabin. Are you up to a climb through the forest?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
He didn’t answer, but led her along an animal track of some kind, through the undergrowth that was sometimes as high as her shoulders. After an hour or so, they came to a small clearing, where a stream had formed a pond. It was full of bright green plants with spear-shaped leaves.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘breakfast.’
He reached into the mud beneath the water. Sleeve pushed above his elbow, he rummaged around, pulling out a small piece of plant that looked like a cross between a potato and a cocktail sausage. He dumped it, muddy, on the bank while he fetched more. When he had a pile, he rinsed them off in the pond water, then held one out to Hope.
‘What is it?’
‘Duck potatoes.’ He bit into another with a snap, crunching it like a radish.
Hope laughed. ‘I’m good, thanks.’
‘They’re starchy and they’ll give you energy.’ He kept on holding it out. Taking it, Hope studied it for a while before taking a cautious bite from the edge. It tasted like raw potato, which wasn’t great, but it wasn’t bad either.
‘Want more? There’s plenty,’ he said when they’d finished them.
Hope shook her head and scratched Buddy’s ears. ‘What’s he going to eat?’
Cal rolled his eyes. ‘Anything, given half the chance – I’m not worried about him.’ He looked through the forest again. ‘Push on?’
She steeled herself, and got to her feet.
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Two hours later, they broke the cover of the forest and found themselves on a scrubby hillside full of shale and patches of grass and flowers. After a dramatic rise, a mountain ridge towered above them, crags and peaks forming a black and grey, horizontally striped range. Cal led them west, rifle slung over his shoulder, studying the range all the time. After a few minutes, he pointed. ‘See, there? The square one with the black cap? That’s where we’re heading.’
Hope’s heart sank. ‘Got it,’ she said as brightly as she could manage.
They set out.
‘We’ll find some water and take a rest. Then, if I’m right, we’ll be able to cut in a littleways and hit something called the Loop Trail. That’ll take us within a few hundred metres of the cabin. And the walking will be easier. Maybe we’ll even run into some hikers or a ranger, though it’s a little early in the season.’
‘How far have we walked, do you think?’
‘Seven miles perhaps?’
They found a stream not long after, and sat to drink and rest. The sun was directly overhead and the day was warm. Hope lay on her back, looking up into the blue. Cal lay down next to her. They were quiet. High above them, a huge bird wheeled, emitting a screeching cry, like a ping of sonar bouncing through the mountains.
‘Bald eagle,’ Cal said.
‘This isn’t much like Hackney, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Hackney? Thought you lived in London.’
‘Hackney is in East London. It’s busy and dirty and it has great coffee, cafés and people. It has a lot of people. And bicycles. And parks. There are squirrels. Oh, and there’s Hackney Marshes. That’s more birds though. Small birds. Like the size of my hand.’ She held up her hand, palm up against the sky. ‘Not ones like flying doors.’
He laughed and jumped up, muscles loose again after the walking. ‘Let’s go. Maybe we can be there by late afternoon.’
They found the Loop Trail without too much trouble, and the walking was easier. Occasionally Hope flagged, before she roused herself to pick her feet up. Butterflies and bees dipped and hovered over the wild flowers and once something Cal identified as a weasel scampered across their path. Buddy shot after it but was easily beaten and returned, tongue hanging. The sun was dropping and a cooler breeze picking up, bringing down the air from the glacier, by the time Cal turned off the trail.
‘It’s up here, I’m sure it is,’ he said, almost to himself.
‘Have you been here often?’
‘Yeah, when I was young. Not after Pops and Gramma died. After that, it made my parents sad to be here. We talk about coming back a lot – we just never seem to get around to it.’
The mountainside wasn’t that steep, but steep enough for Hope to lose her breath. They entered a thick stand of trees, the undergrowth scraping Hope’s legs.
‘Ouch!’ she gasped.
Taking her hand, he pulled her on. ‘C’mon, I promise,’ he said, voice urgent. ‘We’re almost there.’
They emerged on the other side just as the sun hit the mountain.
There stood a ramshackle cabin. High above it was the crag. In front of it, like a vast green carpet, was a hillside meadow, strewn with wild flowers. Hope let go of Cal’s hand and flung her arms around his neck, forgetting her shyness as a tiny sob of exhaustion and relief rose in her throat. He lifted her off her feet for a second, holding her so tightly it betrayed his own relief. They broke apart and headed up to the cabin with stronger steps.
Closer to, it became clear that time had taken its toll on the little house. One of the two front windows had fallen in and some boards were missing from the porch, on which stood something that had once been a cross between a small bathtub and a washing tub, split and cracked. Cal climbed the two steps and tried the door. The iron knob squealed, but it turned and he pushed open the door with a creak. Hope followed and peered around him.
‘Wow.’
Cal pushed the door further, and walked in, dust motes swirling around them. ‘Yeah. Wow.’
Inside, there were odd signs of habitation – hikers had used the cabin at some stage. In one corner was a stove and next to it some kindling, a couple of logs and, even more precious, on top was a box of matches with one sticking out, ready to be struck. A badly torn blue windbreaker was draped over an old wooden chair and on the table was a small jar of instant coffee, half full.
By the door a row of hooks and pegs stood empty. The main hearth, designed to heat both rooms, was full of ashes that had been rained on many times down the chimney, the water running in inky lines down the stones to the floorboards. There was a shallow stone sink, a counter and, through in the bedroom, a rough pine cupboard and a chest. A very old bed with a rope-strung base had been dismantled and propped against the far wall. Hope went to check the chest. It was locked. But inside the cupboard were some old clothes. There was a heavy canvas smock, large.
‘That belonged to Pops, I think.’
Hope pulled out a plaid shirt, which was little more than rags clinging together with thread. There was also a thick knitted jersey.
‘May I wear this, please?’
‘You really don’t need to ask,’ he said, distracted by laying a fire in the stove.
Hope pulled it on, her hair springing tousled from the collar. The jersey came way past her hands and almost covered her shorts.
Cal was already putting a match to the kindling. ‘Let’s hope this thing isn’t coked all to hell and gone.’
It seemed it wasn’t, and was soon burning merrily, door open. Hope came to stand next to Cal, who was sitting on the wooden chair and watching the flames.
‘You said this place was in your family?’
‘I think we did own it, once, but we gave up everything this side of the river when the national park was created a hundred years ago. Pops certainly felt he owned it. It’s all a bit lost in the mists of time, to be honest.’ He reached out and picked up the jar of coffee, twisting off the top and sniffing it. ‘That’s not even that old.’ He looked around, then got up and fetched a small pan from the side. ‘I’ll get some water from that stream out there and take a look around. You look for something to drink out of.’
He went out and Hope began to search for cups. There were some enamel ones in a cupboard. Right at the back were two very battered tin cups, one of them almost deformed. Hope pulled them all out and put them on the counter by the sink. As she took out one of the tin cups, it rattled. Shaking it out, a key fell on to the counter. She picked it up, and looked over her shoulder, through to the bedroom and the chest that stood there. She knelt and pushed the key into the lock. For a second it bit but refused to turn further. Then it gave.
Hope pushed up the lid and peeped inside. She almost cheered. Neatly folded inside was a large patchwork quilt, delicate and faded. Carefully she lifted it out. Beneath were blankets, all carefully interleaved with pieces of cedar wood and lavender bundles, so old all the fragrance was gone. At the bottom was a huge, finely tanned animal hide that looked alarmingly similar to Chuck’s. It was dotted with small holes and she wondered if perhaps moths had eaten it over the years. There was a satchel covered in beadwork and worn with use. Taking up the coverlet, she went out to the porch and took the diary from her pocket, stripping off her still-damp boots and socks, huddling up and sitting cross-legged, finally feeling warmer.
She opened the diary and began to read. A few minutes later she got to her feet, shouting, ‘Cal! Cal!’
He appeared, Buddy on his heels. ‘What? Are you OK?’
‘They’re here!’
‘Already? Someone must have found the rig wreck almost straightaway.’
‘No, Emily and the man who found her in the river bed after the crash. She’s just woken up and is describing where she is.’ Hope stepped down from the porch to him, reading as she went. ‘We were on the side of a mountain, grassy tufts rolling away from the front of the cabin down to a thick stand of trees. Beyond was a vast and sparkling lake . . .’ She looked up into his c
onfused gaze, then turned, pointing down the mountain. ‘It’s this cabin. This lake. It just must be.’ Glancing back at the cabin, she looked down at the diary. ‘It’s like they’re still here.’ A bird cried, far away over the water. They both looked towards the sound. When Hope spoke again, neither of them knew if a second or a minute had passed.
‘No, it’s as if we’ve just missed them.’
We made slow progress down from the mountain, and began to head east, along the edge of the lake. Just before nightfall, you decided to strike camp on the bank at the very eastern edge of the lake, from which we would trek down into the plains. The water was glowing gold as the sun disappeared over the mountain and our campfire took hold. I stretched my legs out and rubbed my chafed thighs together.
‘You OK?’
‘Yes,’ I said instantly, blushing in the darkness.
You watched me, suspicious.
We ate bread and honey you conjured from the pack. You fetched water from a tributary and we drank and cleaned our teeth with salt and a washcloth. I hid my face as I spat in the dirt, making you smile. I had noticed before that you had very fine teeth and that you cleaned them religiously. When I’d asked you about it, you’d launched into a surprisingly vocal, for you, rant about how people should look after their teeth more and a man with no teeth might as well just ‘give up and die’ because he ‘weren’t gonna be no good to nobody. Fact’. The salt had taken a little time to become accustomed to, but already I found it better than the gritty, astringent tooth-powder Mama had always given me.
Soon, it was completely dark. I started at every crack of the fire. An owl hooted too close and I almost jumped out of my skin. You packed things away and put things out, hanging the food up a tree, away from us.
‘Won’t stop the bears or the big cats, but at least they might not eat us too,’ you grinned.
I shuddered, hating that you even joked about it. I watched as you lay out what Mr Goldsmith had described as a ‘bedroll’, when I’d seen soldiers sleeping on them in Fort Shaw. You settled down, holding an edge of the blanket up.
