by Don Reardon
He turned and looked down at her, sitting in the sled, with his pack resting on her legs, the rifle across her lap. “I’ll give you a hundred dollars if you don’t ask another question all day,” he said.
“What would I do with a hundred dollars?”
“That’s another question.”
“I’m just killing time.”
“You’re killing me. You might as well be one of them and kill me.”
“You don’t have to be mean.”
“Mean? Mean would have been to leave you.”
“That’s what I’m talking about. How many people would have chosen to help me? That wasn’t a question. Not many, that’s how many. I don’t think many people would have helped me. I don’t know why you are different, but you are, John. That’s why I don’t think you should feel guilty.”
“Why would it matter if I’m a gus-suck? Or black? Indian? Or Eskimo? And who said I feel guilty?” he asked.
“That doesn’t matter. Your skin colour. Not to me. And I’m not talking about feeling guilty for killing outcasts, John. I mean sorry for still being alive. If you’re like me, then you feel bad, too. Maybe that’s why I cry at night sometimes. I think that is why you have those dreams. The guilt is for getting to live. Isn’t it?”
John replied, “When I was a kid my grandpa told me that in the wilderness people died of shame and guilt. I’m not going to die out here of shame or guilt.”
“I wish I could pretend I didn’t feel bad, too,” she said.
“Pretend? What do you want me to say? Yes, it haunts me. Every breath I take hurts. Every time I blink and I’m still alive, I ask why. Why me? Why this place? Every sunrise seems unfair and wrong. And every night is purgatory revisited. Is that what you wanted me to say?” he asked. “Is it?”
The girl lowered her face to the rifle sitting in her lap. “Well?” he asked again. “Is that what you wanted to hear?”
“No,” she said softly. “That doesn’t sound like guilt at all.”
“No? What does it sound like, then?” he asked, a flash of anger warming his face.
She looked up at him. Her white eyes staring at him—through him. “Selfish,” she said, her voice sad, but full of defiance, “you sound selfish.”
He reeled around and began pulling, the cold surrounding him, pressing against his skin, chilling his muscles, slowing him, grinding him into the ice beneath his frozen feet.
25
The three of them headed north from the tall radar tower and turned east, skirting the houses at the edge of town. To the north the land flattened out into an unforgiving expanse of frosted tundra and lakes. The unabated wind blew the snow elsewhere, leaving them with hummocks and frozen clumps of moss to contend with. They weren’t leaving tracks, but they made almost no progress until they hit a slight ridge where wind had packed the snow hard.
The old woman had said little since they left the snow cave. He didn’t know if she was worried, or just mad at him. She protested his decision to explore what was left of the town, but since the tower and his mention of the light, he noticed her pace had quickened. She held the 20-gauge out in front of her as if a ptarmigan might fly up in front of them, or worse.
“Where we going to sleep tonight?” the girl asked.
The old woman pointed toward the darkening sky behind them. “We’re going to need somewhere protected,” she said. “Maybe it’s going to get real windy, and bad cold. Least the snow will cover our tracks.”
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“It’s still now. See those high, thin clouds over there? Wind is coming.” She stopped walking and turned to him. “What do you expect to find?” she asked.
He shrugged and looked out over the town. He hoped no one was watching the horizon because he wasn’t doing a very good job of keeping below the skyline.
“We can keep going straight across here,” she said. “The river comes back around and past town. We can shortcut. We’ll camp in the brush by the tall bluffs, and then we won’t have to go into that bum town.”
“Maybe you two should go. I’ll check out town, and then come find you.”
“No,” the girl said. “I don’t want you to leave us.”
He pulled the rope to the sled tight. “Look,” he said to them both, “I need to know what the deal with the light is, maybe see if I can find some snowshoes, skis, or a sled. Anything to make travel easier. If it’s bad in town, we’ll get out. We’ll head that way and meet at the bluffs. Okay? Maybe we can find something out about the kids here.”
“If it’s bad, next time you’ll listen to what I have to say,” the old woman said.
THE DOOR TO THE FIRST BLACKHAWK opened and a man in a Santa Claus suit shouted and waved to the villagers gathered at the edge of the mechanical blizzard settling around the two choppers. The door on the other aircraft slid open and two Anchorage-based news camera crews poured out, followed by unarmed National Guard troops carrying cases of Florida oranges, presents, and of all things, ice cream.
“I love it when Santa brings us fresh fruit,” Carl said with a smile.
“They do this every year?” Anna asked. She stood beside John, her arms folded around Nina, her new constant companion.
Carl nodded. “But I wish this year he was flying with reindeer. I could use some fresh meat.”
“Don’t say that in front of Nina!” Anna shouted over the chopper’s rotors.
“Think we’ll be able to get out caribou hunting?” John asked.
“Maybe if we get more snow,” Carl said. “Maybe if the herd comes on this side of the mountains this year.”
“What’s the deal with the news people?” Anna asked.
Carl scowled. “Showtime. Look at how we bring happiness to the cute little Natives.”
Anna elbowed Carl and said, “What turned you into Mr. Scrooge!”
“Anna,” John said, embarrassed at her jibe.
“You’re right, Anna,” Carl said. “I shouldn’t get mad about those news people. It’s just how they only show our kids to the rest of the state when they’re getting handouts from Santa in a Blackhawk. I’ll quit being Scrooge.” Then he smiled, and added, “And then I’ll gladly take a case of oranges from Santa!”
They watched as the children gathered around the portly, white-bearded man in the Santa suit. The braver older kids pawed at his soft red jacket, the long pointy hat hanging down the side of his face, and his white gloves. The younger, shyer kids giggled behind their mittens and trailed behind him toward the gym for an early Christmas celebration. The news crews followed, with one petite reporter trying to walk and report, talking into the camera lens and struggling against the wind to keep her long brown hair from covering her face.
Anna laughed. “I think Mr. Scrooge here should be the village spokesperson,” she said.
“Me? No way,” Carl said. “I’m too shy.”
“Speaking of shy,” Anna said, patting her little sidekick on the head. “Go on, Nina! Go see what Santa has for you.” The little girl shook her head and buried her face in the side of Anna’s snow pants.
Anna nudged Nina toward the group of kids. The girl clung to her leg, and Anna made exaggerated clown-like steps toward Santa with the little one in tow.
HE SPOTTED A MAN in the distance, staggering across the tundra with no apparent direction or destination. As soon as he saw the dark figure, he pushed the girl to the snow, pulled off his mitten, and rested his right index finger on the icy metal of the rifle’s trigger. His eye focused on the round red bead of the sight at the end of the barrel. He held it half a foot above the approaching man’s head to compensate for the distance.
The person stopped, and for a moment John worried they had been spotted.
“One of them?” she asked, her voice barely audible in the wind.
“Can’t tell.”
“What’s he doing?”
“Stopped. Now he’s turning in circles.”
“Maybe he’s lost?”
&
nbsp; “Maybe.”
He squinted to see if he could see the man’s face. Something didn’t seem right with the man.
“What’s he wearing?”
“A black jacket. Leather. Basketball shoes. No hat. No gloves.”
“Is his jacket zipped?”
The man turned around again, toward them, and he could see the jacket was open. The man waved at the air in front of him as if dismissing someone and began to stagger toward the endless white of snow-covered tundra and lakes.
“He’s leaving.”
“Which direction?”
“West.”
“There’s nothing that way. Not for a long ways.”
“How did you know his jacket was unzipped?”
“He’s freezing to death. Too far gone. He thinks he’s getting warm.”
They waited until the man was just a black spot on the flat white horizon before John stood and helped the girl to her feet.
“Why didn’t you ask me to help him?” he asked.
“There’s nothing we could do for him,” she said. Her milky eyes seemed to scan the grey wall of clouds the man was headed toward. “When someone used to get lost on the tundra, if the searchers didn’t find the body they would say he became tenguituli, wild. If a raven finds the person and removes part of his liver he becomes light and can’t understand humans no more and becomes part of the wild nature. If you find a wild man you have to spit on him or take one finger and push him down into the ground to save him. That man’s not wild, not yet.”
26
The flashing light sat mounted on the top of a skinny metal radio tower, surrounded by three black wind turbines, at the north edge of town. The two-foot-wide windmill blades were beginning to whir as the wind picked up. The three of them waited on their stomachs, watching for any sign of life.
Behind the turbines sat the blackened wood skeleton of a large rectangular house, and beside the house a forty-foot-round metal fuel tank. The painted tank looked something like a giant Coca-Cola can that had been cut in half and turned into a workshop or house of some kind.
“You two wait here for me. Can you shoot this?”
The old woman nodded.
“I’ll trade you.”
The old woman took the rifle and handed him her shotgun and four shells that she pulled from her parka pocket.
“If anyone other than me comes this way, start shooting. I’ll signal if it’s okay to follow.”
As he got up, the old woman reached out and grabbed his hand. She didn’t say anything, just squeezed his glove, gave it a firm shake, and dropped it.
He stood up and scrambled toward the tank, trying to stay as low to the ground as he could, but at the same time realizing he was one large easy target against a flat white backdrop.
He reached the first turbine pole and pressed himself against it. The pole vibrated with the hum of the blades turning above him. The houses stretched in a row toward the east, and most of them looked to be in the same condition as most of the village houses he had seen. Burned out. Windows broken. Lifeless.
A heavy black cable ran down the tower with the flashing light and into a metal tube that spanned the distance from where he was standing to the tank. There was a chance that the turbines simply powered the light and nothing else, but there was also a chance that someone was inside the tank.
After a quick check to make sure the barrel of the shotgun was clear of snow, he started toward the round container, the shotgun held waist high. His steps were slow, and he watched for the slightest movement. If someone was inside, now they surely knew he was coming. The tank and the turbines wouldn’t have remained without some sort of struggle. He was sure of that.
He looked back quickly to check the old woman and the girl and was relieved that they were barely visible. Just two small, dark lumps two hundred yards out. As he turned back he caught sight of a bright red line cutting through the mist of ice and snow his boot had kicked up. A laser perimeter. He’d seen something similar on a television show about hunting man-eating tigers and the men who put themselves out as bait to hunt them. If people inside hadn’t known he was coming, they did now.
A square slot in the side of the tank opened and a rifle barrel slid out. He thought about running, but doubted there was any use. He lowered the shotgun and raised his right hand in a half-hearted wave.
“Don’t shoot. I’m not looking for trouble.”
“And I’m supposed to ignore the two riflemen you have waiting for me out there?”
The voice from inside the tank sounded high and raspy.
Before he answered, he turned back and looked out toward them.
“I’ve got an old woman and a girl travelling with me. The old woman does have a rifle, and she’ll use it, but like I said, we’re not looking for trouble.”
“A little late for trouble. What do you want?”
“Saw the light. Hoped you might be able to help us.”
“Damn light. I oughta shoot it out. Look, I don’t have any food to spare, if that’s what you want.”
“We don’t need food. Just a safe place to stay tonight. And listen, I need to know—is it all gone? I mean the rest of the States. What the hell happened?”
“You don’t need food?”
He shook his head. “We can make do with what we’ve got for now. Do you have news?”
“News? I’ll tell you what. You shell out the food for dinner tonight, and you can stay here. I’ll tell you what I know, but I don’t think I have to warn you. I’ll shoot you as soon as look at you any longer.”
John nodded.
“Bring those two around the front. There’s a metal cabinet there. Lock your weapons inside. You can keep the key. I’ll open the doors when you’ve locked them away.”
“Thank you.”
He turned and waved and the old woman and the girl slowly got to their feet. He started out to meet them and help pull the sleds. The wind picked up and the turbines whined, and as he walked toward his two travel companions, he realized the windmills were the first sounds of civilization he’d heard in what felt like a lifetime.
JOHN DUCKED DOWN to crawl into the plywood steam bath. He felt as if he were entering a child’s fort. The first small room, barely big enough for two men to undress while hunched over, was a dry room. There were two overturned buckets to sit on, two red towels Carrie had put inside for them, and another bucket of water with a hand-carved wooden ladle.
“First steam, eh,” Carl said. “We undress in here, then go inside. If it’s too hot, you come back out here to cool down. I’ll try not to steam you out, first time.”
He took a sip of water from the ladle and handed it to John. John held the wooden spoon to his lips and drank deeply. He realized he hadn’t tasted cold water in a while. The school’s well water tasted funny, so they had been adding a small amount of lime Gatorade mix to hide the iron. This water tasted clean and cool. Refreshing.
“Where’s the water from?”
“River,” Carl said as he pulled off his shirt and jeans. John followed suit, removing his coat and pulling off his shirt. He looked down at his pasty chest and felt a bit awkward. Carl stripped off his underwear, took another sip from the ladle, and pulled a knitted cap from a rusty nail on the wall.
“You might want to wear this to protect your head. Ears, too.”
“Is it cold in there?” John joked.
“This isn’t like one of your city-boy saunas. You’ll need it. Don’t want to burn your little white lobes.”
John took the blue knit cap and pulled it over his head and ears. Carl opened the plywood door and ducked inside. John followed and quickly closed the door. Inside, the temperature felt humid and tropical. Warm and relaxing. John could handle this. Suddenly it made sense why people chose this method to get clean. A person could just sweat a little, rinse off, and be refreshed.
They sat on bare plywood, in an area the size of a kitchen table. Sitting on his butt, with his legs pulled up, his head nearl
y touched the ceiling.
“We sit like this,” Carl said, tucking his head down and putting his legs beneath him. “I’ll just put a couple of scoops on at first. Put your head down so you don’t get burned.”
In front of them, the floor recessed, and in the space sat a large black and rusted barrel stove covered with smooth, fist-sized blue and grey river stones. In front of the stove a square tin held steaming-hot water. Carl grabbed the wooden handle in the water and pulled it out; a tin can was nailed to the end. He stirred the water and then poured a full can over the rocks.
With a hiss the water instantly turned to steam and a wall of heat slammed against John, nearly causing him to cry out in pain. Carl stirred the water in the can again and poured another cupful over the rocks, slower this time. The heat intensified and John tucked his head between his legs and pulled his arms and elbows in close. The heat burned against his flesh. He held his breath to keep from breathing the wet, fiery air.
“One more?” Carl asked.
John grunted out an “Okay.” This time he kept his head down, heard the hiss, and tensed his muscles to brace for the blast of burning heat. The air seared his skin and he felt as though he were inside a furnace.
“Hot enough?” Carl asked, joking.
“Yeah. Shit.”
“You can go out there and cool off.”
“Are you?”
“Not yet,” Carl said. “Feels too good.”
“Sure does,” John said, lying. His skin was on fire.
“One more. Then we’ll take a break and get water.”
John tensed for the hiss and groaned as the hot air burned against his shoulders, buttocks, and knees.
“Ak’a,” Carl said. “Kiircepaa. Hot, eh?”
The heat died down a little, and Carl waited for John to make a move. The heat was getting to his head, but he wanted to let Carl know he could take it. Or at least he could pretend to take it.
“You ready for water, or you want more?”
