Running Wild

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

  Dad was so different when Mama was alive. He read us stories and made us his special maple-walnut pancakes. And he adored Mama. She humored him when he talked about living off the land.

  “My children are going to enjoy the comfort of central heating, thank you very much,” she’d say, kissing him. “I’m sorry you were born a couple of centuries too late to be a pioneer, Charles.”

  “It’s not too late,” he’d say.

  “Oh, yes, it is,” she assured him.

  Mama’s sister, my aunt Frances, flew out from New York shortly before Mama died. She told me that there were lots of ways to experience grief. I felt it like a paper bag over my head, making breathing and even seeing difficult. She said that made a lot of sense to her. Dad experienced his grief as rage. Aunt Frances said that made sense, too. But when that rage convinced him, just days after Mama died, to start making arrangements to move us to Alaska, she tried to intervene.

  I listened from the door as Aunt Frances, sitting at the kitchen table, argued with Dad.

  “I know Chloe would be appalled by your plans,” she said.

  “Chloe was perfectly cognizant of my plans.”

  “Chloe knew you liked to camp, Charles. She knew you had fantasies about living in the wild. But you know as well as I do that she opposed the idea. You can’t take these children to live without electricity, heat, stores, schools, other people. It’s…it’s like you’re becoming one of those whack-job survivalists.”

  Dad barked a harsh, cold laugh. “What does a New Yorker know about survival? What my kids need now is an honest, close-to-the-bone life.”

  “Charles, I understand your grief, your anger. Let’s just talk this through.”

  “No, I don’t think you do understand.”

  Aunt Frances sighed. “When Chloe was alive, you respected her wishes for her children. Why would you—”

  “My children,” Dad said.

  “Yours and hers,” Aunt Frances said quietly. Then she repeated it. “Yours and hers. She would want her children to go to school. She would want—”

  “I know what my wife would want. How dare you suggest otherwise.”

  “But—”

  Dad held up a hand to silence her. “Too late. I’ve bought the land. It’s done. We’re going. And it’s exactly what my family needs. You’re just the aunt. You don’t have any say.”

  “Oh, god,” Aunt Frances said, dropping her face into her hands. “I’ve handled this all wrong. Charles, I’m sorry.”

  “Handled this? It has nothing to do with you. Go back to New York and your own life. Leave us to ours.”

  Aunt Frances rose slowly from her chair at the kitchen table. She found me standing in the doorway and knelt down. She tried to not cry, but her voice choked up. “Sweetie, I’m so sorry about this fighting. You’ve lost your mother, and that should be enough to deal with.” She hugged me and said, “Take care of your brothers. Remember that I love you.” In a whisper, she added, “If you ever need anything, anything at all, call me.”

  To be honest, at that point, I sided with Dad. From what I could see, Aunt Frances just made him mad. And that definitely didn’t help me, Seth, and Keith. I wanted her to leave, too. So when I found her phone number scrawled on a scrap of paper on top of my dresser, I wadded it up and threw it away. Besides, Dad said there wouldn’t be phones where we were going.

  A month later, a helicopter dropped us off at our homestead. We put up our tent and that very first day Dad began felling trees for our log cabin.

  Now as I stare into the darkness, my eyes hot and scratchy from crying, I try to make it okay. After all, I can make soap, preserve meat, grow vegetables (some years, anyway), shoot a rifle, and build an emergency bivouac in the wilderness. Dad thinks these skills will save us.

  And yet every day we get rougher and sadder and angrier.

  What would Mama say if she could see Dad’s bottles, how skinny we are, Keith’s bruises?

  I creep out of bed and light a candle. I get the roll of maps down from the high cupboard. When Dad drinks whiskey, nothing seems to wake him, but I check every few seconds just to make sure. He’s snoring loudly.

  Keith whispers, “What are you doing?”

  “Quiet. Go back to sleep.”

  I study the maps, tracing the rivers with my finger. The journey to Fort Yukon in the rowboat is one long downstream float. The currents do most of the work. Sweet Creek flows into a bigger stream called Aurora Creek. That goes all the way to the Yukon River.

  “Are you leaving?” Keith guesses, his voice raspy with panic.

  “I can’t sleep. I’m just looking.”

  “Willa?” Seth isn’t even trying to whisper.

  Dad’s snoring continues without a hitch.

  “Please, boys. Go to sleep.”

  I roll the maps back up and return them to the cupboard. I blow out the candle and slip into bed.

  “Willa?” Seth says again.

  Bare feet pad across the cabin floorboards. My hand catches in long shaggy hair. It’s Keith crouching next to my cot. His whisper is barely audible as he asks again, “Are you leaving?”

  I try to pull him into a hug, but he wiggles away.

  “Answer my question,” he says.

  “I would never leave you.”

  A few huffs of breath come out of his nose, the way they do when he’s trying to not cry. “Promise.”

  “I promise. Cross my heart.”

  SIX

  LATELY, IF ANYONE else is up, I change my clothes inside my sleeping bag. Dad turns his back when I do this. But it’s still awkward.

  This morning, it’s worse than awkward. Because after I’ve changed out of the long underwear I sleep in and into jeans, I see some blood in the crotch of the long underwear. I wad them up and slip down to the creek to rinse them. But a few minutes later, in the outhouse, I find more blood.

  “Dad?” I say, bursting back in the cabin door. “Can I talk to you?”

  “What now?”

  I glance at my brothers. “Outside maybe?”

  “You can see I’m busy packing, Willa.”

  I watch as he shoves things into his pack. He adds a bottle of whiskey, but a second later, returns it to the high cupboard.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Where do you think? Hunting.”

  “I’m coming,” Keith says. “More manpower for carrying the meat back.”

  “No,” Dad says, his voice rough with frustration. “I’m going farther afield this time, a couple of drainages to the north. I can travel faster alone. And making a one-man bivouac is a lot easier. I’ll be gone two days, maybe three.”

  I fetch the first-aid kit, clunk it down loudly on the table, and take out a gauze patch, waiting for him to ask me what’s wrong. But he doesn’t even notice. I put the gauze patch and another fresh pair of underpants in my parka pocket.

  “Good plan,” I say loudly, hoping to get his attention.

  He hefts his pack and, with a wave over his head, leaves the cabin. By the time I run out onto the porch, he’s already hiking upstream. I start to call out to him. But I know he won’t listen. He hasn’t been listening for weeks.

  I watch Dad disappear into the forest. Below, the icy silver stream trickles along. Above, the hard, dawn-white sky lightens. A cawing raven takes flight from a spruce tree. The realization comes in a flash.

  This is our chance. The boys and I have to leave on our own. Right now.

  I run to the cache and climb the ladder. I stuff some dried venison, rose hips leather, a bag of peanuts, and the last two small pumpkins into a nylon bag. I also take a big container of oatmeal. Dad always says packing light is the smartest, fastest way to travel. A big load slows you down.

  I stop in the outhouse and quickly change my underwear again, this time putting the gauze patch
in the crotch of the fresh pair.

  Returning to the cabin, I find Seth singing a song the Slone-Taylors taught us as he sorts a pile of leaves into colors on the kitchen table.

  “Where’s Keith?”

  Seth shrugs.

  I notice that a chair has been pulled to the spot on the floor below the high cupboard. I climb up and see that two rifles are missing. I know Dad took only one.

  “Why is Keith so difficult?” I cry out.

  “He’s not difficult,” Seth says.

  I guess the twins will defend each other their entire lives. Sometimes it just isn’t helpful.

  “I need to know where your brother has gone.”

  Seth pushes a hand through his sorted leaves, messing up the color-coordinated piles, and begins arranging them by size.

  “Listen to me.” I wait for Seth to look up. “We’re leaving. We’re going to Fort Yukon.”

  Seth’s eyes go big. “When?”

  “This morning. Right now.”

  “We don’t have a cabin there.”

  “Pack up your sleeping bag. Get your parka, fleece hat, and mittens. Gather two tarps and also a box of matches. And plenty of rope. Pack the small pot and our tin cups, too. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Where are you going?” he says.

  “Don’t leave the cabin.”

  Keith won’t have gone upstream because that’s the way Dad went. He might have gone downstream. Either that or up the hill. I decide to head up the hill since that’s the more difficult route, and Keith never makes the easy choice. I find him striding through the stand of white-bark birch trees, the rifle at his side, looking for all the world like a grown man, except for his size.

  “Keith!” I shout at his back.

  He startles at my voice and turns fast, the rifle swinging so that it is pointed at me.

  “Your rifle.” I gesture at the muzzle and he lowers it. He knows to never, ever point the end of a rifle at a person, and his doing so now, accidentally, just shows how upset he is, too.

  I demand, “What are you doing?”

  “We need more meat.”

  “Dad is getting more.”

  “What if he doesn’t?”

  “We have a moose.”

  “We have part of a moose. That won’t be enough.”

  “It’ll be enough for Dad.”

  His eyes widen, just as Seth’s had done, as he takes my meaning.

  “We’re taking the rowboat to Fort Yukon. Now.”

  He huffs, in either disbelief or excitement, I can’t tell which.

  I turn and head down the hill. When I get near the bottom, I look over my shoulder. Keith is still standing on the hilltop, holding the rifle, his long hair blowing in the breeze. I can’t see the expression on his face, but I’m afraid it’s one of resistance.

  When I get back to the cabin, Seth is gone, though the things I asked him to gather are on the table. I must be out of my mind thinking I can get these two wild boys down to Fort Yukon on my own. As I stuff my sleeping bag into its sack, they come into the cabin together.

  Keith puts the rifle on the table and says, “I can handle Dad.”

  “Sure,” I say, knowing that contradicting Keith never works. “Up to now. But he’s getting worse.”

  “I’m not afraid of him,” Keith says. “I can take care of us.”

  The bruise on his jaw has begun to bloom into hues of blue and yellow. His straggly hair is damp with sweat.

  “It’s not just about that. I want friends.”

  “You have us,” Seth says.

  “I know. That’s why you have to come with me.”

  “Dad will just come get us in Fort Yukon,” Keith says. “He’ll be furious.”

  I’m glad he’s thinking about our obstacles. That means he’s considering the plan. “He’ll have to walk. It’ll take him a long time. By the time he gets there, we’ll be long gone.”

  “Where will we be?”

  “New York.”

  “How will we get there?”

  “I’ll call Aunt Frances, Mama’s sister.”

  They look at me like I’d said we’re going to Mars. We might as well be. Is Aunt Frances even alive? Will I be able to find her phone number? Is she still willing to help us? If she is, how will we get to New York?

  “Will we go to school?” Seth asks.

  Keith huffs. “Not a good idea. Seth will get beat up.”

  “What are you talking about? You don’t know anything about school.”

  “I do, too. We went to kindergarten.”

  “I want to stay here,” Seth says. “New York is a land of robots.”

  “People eat unhealthy food there,” Keith says.

  “The air is so polluted they all have cancer.”

  “You’re both just quoting Dad.”

  “I’m staying,” Keith says.

  I sit down on my cot, next to my pack, and make my voice soft but forceful, the way I remember Mama used to speak. “Seth, in our new life, you’ll get big pads of drawing paper, your own scissors, and a set of markers in a hundred different colors. We’ll get you piano lessons, too.”

  “Piano?” he says.

  Is it possible he doesn’t even remember what a piano is?

  “It helps you sing,” I say.

  He makes a soft sound of agreement.

  I turn to Keith. “Do you remember my bicycle? We can get you one.”

  “You’re trying to bribe us.”

  “No, I’m not. I’m telling you about a big beautiful world out there that you deserve to see. I can remember perfectly how it felt to ride my bike really fast. It’s the best feeling. Sometimes the kids in our neighborhood would race.”

  That last word gets Keith’s attention.

  “We’d all line up on our bikes in front of a line of chalk. We’d say, on your marks, get set, go! The first one to the end line would be the winner.”

  Keith looks away, trying to resist.

  “Aunt Frances is really nice. Her face is like Mama’s, only she has long, thick curly hair. She’s chubbier. And she wears makeup.”

  Keith nods hard once, just like Dad sometimes does, and starts stuffing his sleeping bag into his pack.

  “We can come back,” I say. “If we don’t like New York.”

  We divvy up the supplies on the table. I check to make sure they each have a headlamp and are wearing their rubber knee-high river boots with the thick felt lining, and not their hiking boots. We’ll be on the water the whole time and with any luck, we should get to Fort Yukon in three days.

  The boys cinch up their packs and run down to the rowboat. I look around, checking for anything else we might need. I take some more gauze patches from the first-aid kit, and consider taking the rifle, but I can picture Clarissa Slone-Taylor’s face so clearly, telling Dad how worried she is about the boys handling a gun. It’s been a long time since I’ve shot the rifle. We’ll be in Fort Yukon soon. People don’t need rifles in town, do they? I’m sure we won’t need one in New York. But we will need money. I climb up to the cupboard and find the money jar, take forty-five dollars, and push the cash deep into the front pocket of my jeans. I take a new notebook and a pencil, too. Last of all, I fetch Jane Eyre out from under my cot and shove the book into my pack.

  The boys are standing next to the rowboat tied up to the stake. Their packs sit on the ground by their feet. The gravity of what I’m about to do—take my ten-year-old brothers on an expedition in the Alaskan wilderness, on the brink of freeze-up—sinks like a rock in my belly. I step off the porch and turn to look: our cabin, our shelter, warmth, protection. Once we leave here, we have only trees and sky.

  “Throw in your packs,” I tell Keith and Seth. “Let’s go.”

  “The oars,” Seth says.

  “Yes, them, to
o.”

  “No,” Keith says. “They’re gone.”

  I stare at the rowboat for a long time trying to make this not be true. During the summer, Dad always leaves the oars in the boat, latched into the oarlocks, the blades resting on the bottom of the boat.

  “I guess he put them away for the winter,” I say.

  “Seth already checked the woodshed. They’re not there.”

  “He must have put them somewhere else.”

  We begin hunting for the oars. As each precious minute slides by, I get more upset. Oars don’t just disappear. Dad must have hidden them. The significance of this hits me: he’s anticipated the possibility of our trying to leave.

  There’s no point in continuing our search. Talk about looking for a needle in a haystack. Two wooden sticks in the Alaskan wilderness. He could have hidden them three miles away. Wherever they are, we’re not going to find them. When Dad does a job, he does it well.

  I look up at the big blue sky and want to caw like a raven. Oh, how I wish I had wings and could just take flight.

  “We can walk,” Keith says.

  “It’d take way too long. We wouldn’t have enough food.”

  “Let’s take the raft,” Seth says.

  “Yes!” Keith shouts, and hugs his brother.

  “I don’t know.” We’d made the raft by strapping logs together with heavy twine. We nailed planks, imperfect ones Dad had cast off while building the rowboat, on top of the logs. We haven’t had time for playing on the raft for a couple of summers and it’s stashed in some bushes out of sight. “The raft is fine for playing around on our little stream, but the Yukon is one of the most powerful rivers in the world.”

  “Are you kidding?” Keith says. “That raft is tight.”

  It’s a toy. And the boys never learned to swim because Sweet Creek is too shallow. Besides, after Dad discovers we’re gone, he’ll be able to follow us in the rowboat, which is much faster than the raft. Even with our two-day lead, he might catch us.

  I stare downstream. So close. So ready. I decide it’s worth the risk.

  SEVEN

  BY THE TIME we push off, Keith is manic with excitement. He takes the first turn with the steering pole, standing at the back of the raft and pushing the end of the long stick hard against the pebbled stream bottom. He faces downstream, his chin tipped up, as if looking into our future. The wind ruffles his long hair.