The Provider

by John Hunt

“I can’t believe we’ve been this dumb,” Bob added later. “Another couple of hours, and we’d have been locked in. We would’ve had to break the door down from the inside, and we’ve left some tools outside as well, they’ll be buried.”

  “At least we figured it out in time,” Dad replied. “When the storm’s blown over we should do some more work, safety lines outside, better walkways, extend the porch, a drip tray inside here, some more partitioning for privacy. Find a place for every tool, make sure everyone knows where they are.”

  “We’ve still got to be more careful,” Bob replied. “You only get the one chance out here. Reminds me of the cheechako who dug a really big cesspit for his outhouse. So deep that then he couldn’t get out. Forgot to take a ladder with him.”

  “What happened to him?” Mom asked.

  “Bear came along and had him for supper.”

  We settled down into rhythms. Much of the day was spent collecting compacted snow for water, melting it in the pot, aerating it for taste. Then there was getting wood, feeding the stove, fetching food from the ice store, preparing and cooking it. There was sweeping, cleaning, washing. But there was spare time, particularly in the evenings. The third evening of the storm was typical. Louise had insisted we resume lessons, with the parents’ support, and had given us projects to write up, books to read. Jessie was struggling with the principles of the local native Indian language, Athabascan. I’d just finished reading The History of Alaska and was helping Bess and Sue with their spelling. Bob was cleaning guns with Louise, showing her how to strip them down. Dad had been teaching Mom how to use the radio and was now bathing some scrapes that he’d got with a salt solution, to the accompaniment of an occasional “ouch!” Matthew was preparing supper, a venison stew with roots and mushrooms. The storm was, if anything, increasing. It was howling around the lodge, like banshees keening and then rising into shrieks that seemed alternately agony and laughter.

  Mom took her earphones off and looked up, her face grim. “What’s up?” asked Bob. He had to shout to make himself heard.

  “From what I hear, this storm’s taken people by surprise. No weather forecasts, and it’s early for the year. It’s huge, across most of Alaska. Not that people were much prepared anyway, but they weren’t ready for this.”

  “Anything we can do?” asked Matthew.

  “When we wake up tomorrow,” said Dad, “I think we’ll find that we’re cut off. Down on the coast people’ll still be able to get around, but I don’t think we’ll be able to get the truck or the jeeps moving. This could be it for the winter, folks.”

  Over supper, Mom said, “Now, I’d like us to be more cheerful for a moment. We’ve been incredibly fortunate compared to most. We’re all alive and well, and the very fact that we’re sitting here comfortably with this storm raging outside just makes me feel very grateful. We’ve made good friends,” (mutters of agreement around the table) “and I want to say thank you to everyone for bringing us here together. I believe God must be watching over us. Also, there’s one big thing we’ve forgotten.”

  “What’s that?” asked Dad. “Did we forget to tie something down outside?”

  “Donald, my dear,” replied Mom. “I love you, but there are times when you’re so wrapped up in work you don’t see the wood for the trees. It’s Bess’s birthday.”

  Exclamations all round.

  “Is it the seventeenth of October?” asked Bess. “I’d no idea.”

  “We’ve all been working too hard to keep track,” replied Mom. “Matthew, I’d like your birthday dates please, to put on the calendar. Now, Bess, we can’t do all the things we used to do, but I’ve made you this.” She handed over a box, with a ribbon bow.

  Bess opened it, took off some tissue paper. “Oh, they’re so beautiful, thank you,” she gasped, holding up a pair of moccasins for us all to see. They were brown, with red cord through eyeholes around the edge, lacing up at the front and embroidered with red and white flowers.

  “Louise showed me how to do it,” said Mom. “We used one of those deer hides. The flowers are yarrow.”

  Bob handled one. “These are good, better than anything you can buy in a shop. It’s what a lot of people in the Yukon do, make their own moccasins from hide – and mittens, hats, coats – they keep you warmer, don’t sweat, last longer, and you can repair them.”

  “It’s not difficult,” said Louise. “Easier than quilting. I’ll teach you how to do it if you like, Bess.”

  Bess nodded enthusiastically. “I’d like that!”

  “I don’t think these boots of mine are going to last through next year,” I said. “The leather’s coming off here.” I pointed to the toe. “I’d like to learn how to make them as well.”

  “I’ll learn with you,” Jessie added.

  Matthew got up and went to the kitchen. “Here’s a little something I put together, Bess.” He brought out a cake, with a lit candle at the center. It’s a little unorthodox in the ingredients, but happy birthday from us.”

  We lit some more candles, held hands around the table and sang Happy Birthday, to the accompaniment of the wind.

  FORTY-ONE

  The storm had stopped. Blown itself out. It was hard to get your head around the fact that such ferocity, such malevolence, could appear out of nowhere, feel like it was there forever, and then just disappear. After several days cooped up in the lodge it was a relief to get out. We walked outside, and the world was different. A blinding whiteness, under a cloudless sky, spread all around. The brilliance of it seared the eyes. On the north side, the snow was piled up over the roof. Hummocks of snow showed where the outhouse was. The trees were stripped of leaves. The landscape all around was alien – the drifts had changed shape: new, soft, white curves rather than angular shapes and black rocks. Forests that covered the slopes were now bare and white, the trees sticking out of the snow like burnt skeletons.

  “Don’t be out for too long without goggles,” Bob said. “It can blind you.”

  Sue came bouncing out of the door, the pompom bobbing on her hat. “Snow, snow,” she screeched. “Let’s build a snowman.”

  A thwack of wet snow on my head, and Jessie was laughing. “I’ll get you for that,” I shouted indignantly, as I rolled up a snowball. She danced away, gathering up more. Sue threw one which just missed me, she squealed in delight, ran to a snowdrift to make more, and fell in up to her neck.

  “Help!” she yelped, spitting snow.

  We pulled her out, she looked uncertain as to whether to cry or laugh, but split into a peal of giggles. “Let’s do it again.”

  The polytunnels had collapsed. “Not to worry,” said Mom. “The seeds underneath should still be OK and the snow will insulate them. We can rescue them in the spring. Jim, Bess, could you do what you can to prop them up for the moment?”

  Around the fence, the snow was churned up with tracks. Bob and I spent some time looking them over.

  “Look at this, Jim, it’s odd,” he said. “Both dog and wolf prints here. Looks like the dogs were here first, and the wolves later.”

  I kneeled down to examine them, studying the differences.

  It was so quick – I felt, as much as saw Bob tense. In the thicket to our left came a low growling. Bob started to chamber his rifle, but before he could finish a big dog came hurtling out, at blinding speed, leaping for his throat. I reacted instinctively, getting my arm out in front. There was a stab of pain as its teeth clamped down on my arm like a vice. I heard myself scream as teeth bit into bone. The force of it knocked me over and we rolled around in the snow. I heard Bob shouting and the thunk, thunk, as he brought the rifle butt down on the dog’s head again and again and then the crack of the splintering skull.

  He pulled me up. “Inside the fence, fast,” he shouted, “there might be more of ’em.” We ran inside, my arm around Bob’s shoulder. The others, hearing the commotion, were running out of the lodge, Jessie loading her rifle.

  “Mary, quick,” Bob panted, breath steaming in the air
. “Jim’s hurt.”

  Inside, Mom cut my sleeve off. “Ow!” I couldn’t help yelling as she poured whisky over the wounds. The deep gashes in my arm ran from the elbow to the wrist. Mom worked efficiently, swabbing them out, sterilizing them, bandaging.

  “Here, Jim, I’m going to inject you with a vaccine.” She picked up a syringe from her bag, filling it from a container.

  “What’s that?” I asked, nervously.

  “It’s for rabies. It’s very rare in these parts, or used to be, but if you get it, you die. And I don’t want to take chances. Donald picked it up in Anchorage.”

  “You can get it from a dog bite?”

  “Or bats, foxes, anything, really. Hold your arm still now.”

  I couldn’t help but be impressed – despite the throbbing agony shooting up my arm, around my shoulders, into my head – which I felt was going to come off with the pain. I hadn’t seen her in action before on anything serious.

  “I’d like to learn to do that,” Jessie said.

  “I’ll show you, Jessie,” Mom replied. “Jim should be fine, he’ll just have some nice scars to remind him of it. We’re going to have to be careful with this whisky though, until we can get more sterilizing solutions.”

  “Mom, what are we going to do when we run out of medicines?”

  Her shoulders drooped, and she suddenly looked older.

  “Jim, I don’t know. We’re just going to have to learn how to do without them, or how to make them. Now, that’s twice you’ve needed my help, could you be more careful please?”

  “Thanks for that, Jim,” Bob said later. “I owe you one. Again. You moved fast, instinctively, sometimes you have to do that, like when you shot that guy. Nourish it. Most people just freeze. Now, the critter looks like a mongrel, a cross between a husky and an Alsatian. It’s been starving, you can see its ribs here. My guess would be that the dog packs haven’t survived, but we need to be more careful now when we go out. Three at a minimum, always with rifles, and plenty of ammo.”

  “I don’t want to expose us to more danger than necessary, but I’m concerned about the supplies,” said Matthew uneasily. “We’re getting through them faster than I expected. I don’t know if it’s the exercise, or we forgot the kids are growing up fast, but I don’t think we’re going to get through to the spring.”

  “It’s the cold,” replied Bob. “You need more fat and protein to keep the energy levels up. A third, or a half more again. We need a moose. That would keep us through the winter. While this weather holds, we should go look for one.”

  “Is it safe?” Mom asked nervously. “Are you sure?”

  “Nothing’s ever safe,” Bob said flatly. “But animals aren’t the real problem, it’s the water that kills you. We need experience of moving around in the winter. The most dangerous times are when the rivers are freezing in the fall, and then thawing in the spring. That’s when you can’t trust the ice. It defrosts from the bottom up. It’s real skid stuff. You get open places where the river’s fast, then a thin layer of ice, then snow on top of that, you figure it’s safe, and fall through. Always got to tap it with a stick, check you get a dull sound. But they should be frozen enough now. Bears are out of the way, they’re hibernating. The main thing is not to get lost, not to panic, to watch the weather, to be prepared to bivouac outside if needs be. Never be overconfident.”

  For the first couple of days, Bob had us all learning how to use snowshoes and poles. “May come a time when we all have to walk out,” he said. “We all need to be able to do it.” We practiced going slow, fast, uphill and downhill. To begin with, we were all stepping on the frames and falling over, and sliding back when we were going up a slope, until we learned to step up at an angle. After a while, we got the hang of it, though hips and groins were aching and we still walked like ducks. My arm wasn’t much of a problem – it throbbed with the exercise, but Mom changed the dressing every day

  After that, we were going out every day, usually in threes. Rifles and packs on our backs, with rations, sleeping bags, essential tools. The snow was covered in tracks. “These little dashes, like feathers,” Bob would say, “those are ptarmigan feathers, the bird’s flapping its wings through the snow to take off.”

  Sometimes we’d disturb them and they would suddenly break out and take off frantically, their wings knocking the snow from bushes and trees as they flew off with their clackety clacking noise. Jessie brought one down with a quick shot, but though we floundered in the deep snow for ages, we couldn’t find where it had fallen through.

  “This is where we need a hunting dog,” Bob said. “We’ll have to tame one, find some puppies or something. Makes no sense, not having a dog.”

  The spruce trees were bowed over with snow so heavily that just a touch, a breath of air, would be enough for the whole burden to fall. Occasionally there would be a crack as a whole branch broke off with a thump as it cratered the ground. Apart from that, and the occasional raven cawing, and our heavy breathing, it was utterly quiet. The sunlight was a rich red, like it would be in the evening further south, because it never rose much, just circling around the low margin of the sky. The whole short day was a sunrise or sunset, with the purples, reds, yellows lighting up the snow and ice and the glaciers in a dazzling pastel of colors. When a breeze came up it would lift the ice crystals in clouds into the air, rainbows sparkling through them. “Snowbows,” Bob called them.

  One evening there was the most spectacular Northern Lights display. The weaving curtains of green and blue shimmering up and down, rippling side to side across the entire sky. Streaks of red and yellow blinking on and off. It lit the valley around the lodge as the ice in the lake creaked and groaned under the deepening grip of winter, like giants in chains.

  “How can anyone not believe in the old gods?” asked Louise, as we stood on the porch, in the middle of the eternal war between ice and light.

  FORTY-TWO

  Though the going was slower than in the summer, in the snow, we could travel further. We crossed rivers which had been barriers to us before. One day Bob, Dad and myself, each with large packs and rifles, went back to the Begich Boggs visitor center. Jessie was guarding the lodge – Bob was uneasy about its safety without one good rifle there. The center had been burned to the ground and there was no sign of the overweight family.

  “Hell,” Bob said, shuffling through the embers, “there are some charred bones here, but I don’t know enough about this stuff…Donald, are these human?”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Dad replied, holding one up. “Could be a fibula? Shall we take some back to ask Mary? She’d know.”

  “I guess not. No point. They died or they moved on, or some of them did. That’s all we’re going to figure out, all we need to know.”

  Another time, we were over a ridge, trekking through a valley we hadn’t been in before, through large spruce, twenty, forty meters high. The massive branches dropped almost vertically.

  “These spruce are sheltered here, that’s why they’re growing so big,” Bob explained. “Up north they can be hundreds of years old but still just a few feet high.”

  “I can see tracks, Bob. A moose?”

  We snowshoed our way over. “It’s recent,” he said. “It’s a big bull moose, the print’s about nine inches long, same as my boot. You see how crisp it still is around the edges? It’s new, it hasn’t hardened yet. And it’s still fluffy in the middle. Can’t be more than a few hours old.”

  “Wow, look here,” he added later, as we followed the tracks. “That’s some antler. Shed recently – double-shoveled, looks like over forty points. Its pair will be around here somewhere. And see this?” He pointed to a spruce – “You can see where it’s stripped the bark, rubbing to get the antler off. They do the same in the summer, scraping to get the skin off the antlers when the bone hardens.”

  A bit further on we saw a pile of black stools, in nuggets. “Definitely recent,” Bob said. “Still warm. Feel it. It’s like this in the winter because they
’re browsing on wood, so it’s full of fiber.” He held it up for us to see. “In the spring, when they’re eating grass and green stuff, it’s more sloppy, like a cow’s turd.”

  An hour or so later, when the sun was dropping behind the mountains, Bob stopped again. “There it is,” he said. “Must be a thousand pounds.”

  I looked through my own binoculars. It was a mile away, browsing. It still had its other antler, making it look very lopsided. Occasionally it rubbed in an irritated fashion against a tree, trying to shake it off.

  “They love willow,” said Bob. “You can see where he’s pruned it right down. And you can see how awkward those antlers are around trees. If you’re ever in trouble with a moose, that’s the thing to do, get behind a tree. Keep it between you, and if you’re lucky it’ll give up after a while. Now – it’ll smell us if we get any closer from here. We’ll have to circle around, get downwind.”

  “Shouldn’t we get back?” asked Dad. “It’ll be dark in an hour or two.”

  “Weather’s dicey, but can’t miss this opportunity,” replied Bob, scratching ice off his stubble. “Might not get another one like it this time of year. And we won’t get back before dark anyhow. We’ll be fine camping out here.”

  We detoured around, shuffling through the snow. It was hard going, clambering over snow covered rocks with our heads down, trying not to make any noise, worried about getting caught in the crevices. Dad started to cough hoarsely, and retched.

  “Damn, sorry,” he whispered, “I’ll go back.”

  “Quietly,” Bob replied with a finger to his lips. An hour or so later, shuffling slowly along, then crawling through the snow on our bellies, and the two of us were getting close, about two hundred and fifty yards away. The moose raised its head, sniffing the air, and we froze. It moved on a few yards and carried on browsing, stripping the bark from the alders.

  “They hear real good,” Bob whispered. I don’t think we’ll get any closer, Jim. Your shot. Can you manage it from here?”