Comments from 5 May

Anonymous said…True mirth and laughter is a tonic for the soul. Things are looking better than they have in a long while. Good times. 

I hope Einar continues to work his way out of the abyss. I’m afraid there could be more trouble of the federal kind somewhere down the road and he needs to be on top of his game to handle it.

If I were Einar I think I would plan to slink away from the cabin a good distance during the first big game season that comes along and get a couple shots in with the FN when the noise will not seem out of place; at least to get an idea of where it shoots. I hate the idea of going hunting, let alone into a battle for the life of my family, with a rifle I have never shot; gives me the willies just thinking about it. I’m sure Bud made sure it was reliable and accurate, before he brought it, but everyone is a little different, form counts, you have to zero your own rifle, or at least know where it’s shooting for you. 
Mike

Einar would absolutely be more comfortable with that rifle, and with his own current abilities, if he could put a few thousand rounds downrange.  The first big game season where a lot of people will be out and the shots might blend in will not be coming until the following fall, but he can certainly think about getting out then and doing a bit of sighting in, and maybe before, if the circumstances are right.

Thanks for reading!

5 May 2012

As the elk quarter thawed, Einar and Liz worked together to slice and hang a batch of jerky on a length of nettle cordage run from one side of the cabin to the other over the stove, an occasional drop of moisture escaping from the thawing meat to hiss and sizzle on the heated stones of the stove.  It was a good quiet, cozy sort of work with the stove going and little Will sleeping there in his sling on Liz’s stomach, and as they hung slice after slice of elk to begin drying, Einar’s mind wandered back to one of the first batches of jerky he had made during his time on the run, hung on a network of salvaged parachute lines in the rock crevice that was providing him some minimal shelter at the time, the project going along just fine until one day that wolverine had found his way in and eaten everything he could get ahold of, while he was out harvesting berries.

That one had nearly ended in disaster, as he’d really needed that meat, had been depending on it to fend off the starvation which had been so closely stalking him across the timbered miles of his flight that summer, and he’d had to go in and save what was left of the meat, climbing in through the top of the rock shelter, through the long, narrow chimney of rock and dropping down on that wolverine, finding himself, missing with his spear, in the fight of his life.  Still bore the scars from that one, upper portion of his right arm torn to shreds at the time and he rubbed it, remembering the old hurt.  Still ached sometimes, but then, so did a lot of things.  Still wore the critter’s claws around his neck, too, hadn’t once taken them off since, and had given one to little Will just after his birth, gently tying it about his little neck on a cord of soft buckskin, not yet earned, as his had been, but a promise of things to come.

It was a strange thing thinking back to that battle with the wolverine, desperate struggle to hold onto those half-dried bits of snared deer that he’d had in the shelter, and he was struck with the paradox of the thing, how he’d fought so hard then just to secure his next meal, and now here he was sitting in the middle of plenty, and could hardly bring himself to consume enough to keep body and soul together.  Couldn’t actually, when it came down to it, for he had for quite some time been living on his meager reserves, body consuming its own muscle and organs and marrow in an increasingly futile and failing effort to keep him alive, and when he looked at it objectively--hadn’t been allowing himself to recognize the signs, sometimes a man must simply keep pressing ahead without more than a passing nod at the things which might slow him down, lead him to despair if given too much weight; he had over the years become very good at that, but they’d been there, and the others had certainly seen them if he had not--he knew that process had been seriously winding down over the past weeks, slowing, almost out of fuel.  Even the stuff that was never meant to be burned, heart and liver and kidneys, and had he kept it up, the level of activity he’d been steadfastly been maintaining over the past weeks while permitting himself the intake of almost no energy at all, his heart would have soon stopped on him, for good.  Would, so far as he could tell, have had to; he could feel it.  Shook his head, busied idle hands once more with the jerky-slicing, hanging one strip but taking the next for himself, chewing slowly, strange, strange thing, this life.  The elk strip tasted good, and he had another.

Quietly they worked until the area above the stove was hung with four separate cords of drying jerky, a beautiful sight to both of them as it meant the more secure preservation of that portion of their food supply, ease of transport and of caching, and somehow they both found it a wonderful thing simply to be working on such a project together as they had not done for what seemed quite a long time, between the coming of the baby and all the rest of it.  Job done for the time the cleanup fell to Einar, as Will, lulled into extended sleep by Liz’s motions as she carried him in the sling, had woken rather hungry and demanding a meal, and as he cleaned he added bits and scraps of meat to the pot Liz had started as they worked, enhancing what was to become their supper stew for the night.  Out of the corner of her eye Liz watched as she fed the baby, glad to see him taking more than his usual theoretical interest in the meal, for he was stealing little tastes of the broth here and there, testing it, appearing very much to anticipate its completion, and that was something she had not seen him do for a very long time.  Perhaps not since they had last taken a grouse while out away from the cabin, and he had kept sneaking close to the fire and robbing the sizzling bird of bits of skin and meat when he’d thought she wasn’t watching.  Smiling at the memory, she realized how much she missed that light-hearted, mischievous side of him, hoped it might be starting to return, just a bit.  Not that she would let him know she was thinking any such thing.  He hardly needed any encouragement in his mischievousness.

Speaking of mischievous, Muninn had found his way into the tunnel and was putting up a most insistent rasping and flapping so that Einar practically made a dive at the tunnel door to let him in before he could disturb the almost-sleeping Will.

“What do you want, you big old vulture?  Smelled this stew cooking, didn’t you?  You finally getting more comfortable with coming in this place again, now that the company’s left?  Not really room in here for more than a few living critters, is there?  Unless some of them happen to be insects, and I haven’t seen too many of those around, since the snow fell.  No, I don’t blame you, retreating to that big old dead spruce for a few days.  Fella’s got to have room to breathe.”

The raven tilted his head, chortling in agreement before he flapped up to Einar’s shoulder, twisting a bit of his hair and settling in to watch the supper preparations but then something caught his eye, the bounty of food suspended over his head slowly drying in the warmth of the fire, and he watched, fascinated.  Einar knew that was going to be trouble.  A raven is an incredibly intelligent creature as well as being quite bold and forward when it comes to the attainment of food, and Muninn was certainly no exception.  The bird would probably have to go back outside until the jerky-drying was finished, but Einar was curious and let him be for the moment, just to see what would happen.  Not a full thirty seconds had passed before the raven finished contemplating the situation and sprung into action, flapping for the ceiling and creating a great ruckus when he became entangled in the nearest string of jerky, flapping and rasping and pulling the entire thing down around him in his struggle to free himself.  Within moments Will was awake and crying, Liz turning away to try not only to comfort him but to shield him from the large bird’s wildly beating wings, and Einar making a dive for the trapped creature, pinning his wings and quickly freeing him from his entanglement, laughing hysterically all the while.  Muninn did indeed make quite a sight, glad to be free but clearly incensed at the audacity of that cord for having got hold of him in the first place, strutting about the cabin and scolding as he worked to straighten his feathers.

Serves you right, you big thief, Einar wanted to say, but he was laughing too hard to speak, tears running down his cheeks and this only seemed further anger the bird until at last he hopped up to Einar and gave him a hard peck in the side of the head where he lay curled up on the floor with laughter.  Which, for some reason, only made Einar laugh harder until Liz feared he might pass out for lack of breath as the scene continued for some time, repeating itself, Einar laughing, the bird attacking, Einar laughing some more and making feeble attempts to fend him off until finally Liz stepped in and shooed Muninn over onto the bed, separating the two.  Breathless and exhausted--she was not entirely sure how much of the rather unaccustomed carrying-on had been laughter, and how much might have been tears, and she had no intention of asking--but appearing the better for it, Einar uncurled himself and got a bit shakily up into a crouch, wiping his face and grinning over at Liz.

“Well, guess that’s what happens when you let a raven too near the meat…”

“Is it?  I think you did that on purpose, didn’t you?  Just to see what would happen?”

“Which part?”  And he started laughing again, Liz joining him this time and Muninn, in something of a conciliatory gesture, hopping carefully over to perch on his shoulder.  Einar offered him a piece of the meat he’d worked so hard to obtain, went about salvaging and re-hanging the remainder.

Comments from 3 May

Kellie said…
ooooo...and they have a few spices they can use to add some flavor to that jerky they are fixin' to make! yum!
thanks!

Yes they sure do, and it will be nice to have some that’s got extra flavor for carrying and eating as they travel.  A good bit of it though they will probably just go ahead and dry plain, as it will be destined for the stewpot, rather than being eaten as-is.


I haven't got a chapter for tonight, but will post new ones over the weekend.

Thank you all for reading.

3 May 2012

Back outside, Einar spent a good bit of the day putting himself through his paces with the rifle, working until his arms were worn out and sitting perhaps a bit longer than Liz would have liked in the snow from time to time, but true to his word he did eat everything she put in front of him, and it seemed she had something new for him to try each time he went inside.  The meals she prepared were quite small that day, just little tastes of this and that which she hoped might give Einar the nutrients he urgently needed to keep him from slipping too much further in the wrong direction; she knew better than to try and load him down with too much right at first, lest he end up quite ill and with a legitimate reason to stop eating once again.  Not what she wanted.  As for what Einar wanted it remained something of a mystery as always, but she was glad to see him keeping to his word and making an effort to do a good bit more eating, regardless of his motivations.  Slipping Will into the snugness of his parka-pouch, she crept out through the tunnel to join him in the afternoon sunlight.

Einar was nowhere in sight, but Muninn glided down from his perch to greet her, chortling and tilting his head at the little bundle on her back and taking some exception when she shooed him away from landing on a shoulder.  Didn’t want him grabbing the little one with those claws, even through the parka, but of course had no way to explain this to the bird.

“Go land on Einar.  He’s not carrying anyone but himself.  Where is that goofy guy, anyway?  You see him anywhere, or do I have to start following tracks?  Take me to him, Muninn.  Come on, I know you can understand what I’m saying.  You’re not fooling me with those beady little black eyes of yours.  I know what kind of a clever, conniving brain you’ve got in there.”

Seeming to take no offense at being labeled clever and conniving--such terms are, of course, amongst the highest compliments which can be paid to a raven, and seldom does he care in what context the words may come-- Muninn took to the air, circling and then sailing off around the cabin and across the clearing, Liz close behind him as she studied the trail through the snow for any sign of fresh tracks, thinking she saw some but not entirely certain.  Muninn stopped when he reached the area where the majority of their meat was hung in its cache-trees, leaving Liz ready to scold him for misleading her and caring only about having a snack, until she saw Einar.  Crouched at the base of one of those tall spruces with head back and arms behind him for balance he was studying their food supply, a look somewhere between contentment and anguish on his face, and she could not read it.  He heard her coming, turned to face her.

“Sure did get a lot put away for the winter, didn’t we?”

“We did great, I think!   I can come out here anytime I want and choose between sheep, elk, bear or mountain goat, and we’ve even still got a few rabbits frozen up there in the heights of these trees, I’m pretty sure!  And enough bear fat and honey in the cabin to see us through the winter, along with dried greens, berries and all the good starchy roots we dug…yep, we’re living the good life up here.”

Einar nodded.  “Yeah.”  And if he meant to say more, he never did get around to it.  Liz sat down beside him, careful not to lean back against a tree in a way that would put any weight on the little one.

“What are you doing out here?  Trying to decide on dinner?  We could have elk steaks, or ground bear casserole with wild onions and spring beauty potatoes, or…”

He laughed softly.  “Nope, just taking inventory.  Almost looking like we may get to turn some of this into jerky before spring comes, since we took more than we may end up finishing during the freezing time.  Would hate to lose any of it to flies when the weather starts warming, and things thaw out.”

“That’s still a couple months away, don’t you think?’

“Ought to be, but it doesn’t hurt to think ahead.  And quickly as things look to be thawing in the valley, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we saw an early spring up here, too.”

“So you think we ought to be working to turn some of this into jerky, right now?”

“Sure wouldn’t hurt.  That way it’d be more mobile, too, if we had to take it anywhere, and could be safely cached without worrying about spoilage when things started warming up.  Would really like to get more of this cached.  It’s something that ended up getting neglected this past fall.  Something I neglected.  We’ve got things here and there, of course, but could do with a lot more.  Sorry for letting that go by the wayside.”

“You had a lot going on this past fall, as I remember…baby on the way, trying to get in enough meat for the winter, firewood gathering, among other things, and I think we did just fine with the caches we did put out there.  The jerky sounds like a good idea, though.  This meat is all but impossible to work with when it’s frozen as hard as it is…well, you’ve seen what it takes just to saw a piece loose to bring inside and cook…and I can’t really imagine taking off slices of jerky when it’s like that, at least not with the tools we have available to us!”

“No, that sure wouldn’t be easy.  Stuff almost turns into a structural material at these temperatures, could be used for building a house…edible house, hmm…”  and he was lost for a moment in daydream at the thought of it, walls of frozen meat just waiting to be sliced up and thrown in the cook pot, chairs and couch of giant, fresh-out of-the-oven bread loaves and wheels of cheese…well, he wasn’t sure exactly what their role might be, only that they must be included.  He laughed out loud, shook his head to clear it of the rather distracting images.  “Yeah, could be used to build a house.  Not at all easy to slice.  But if we bring it in piece by piece and let it begin thawing, slice it when it’s less than halfway thawed, now that’s some much easier work.  And we’ve got good knives now, ways to keep them sharp so the task ought to be a lot easier than it was the last time we put back any quantity of the stuff.  Figure we can just hang it on lines above the stove to dry, since it’s gonna be a good bit warmer in here than outside for a long while yet, and if we work a little bit on this most days, we ought to have the excess of meat dried and stashed away before it starts getting warm.  And then when we bring in fresh stuff from the trapline, well, we can eat at least some of it fresh, since we’ll have the older stuff taken care of.”

“Yes, that sounds like a good plan.  Should we get started right now?”

“Why not?  How about we start with some elk?  Elk jerky is pretty good eating all by itself, and makes awful nice stew, too…”

Together they lowered an elk quarter, already partially gone to evening stews but with more than half remaining, Einar slinging it over his shoulder for the walk back to the cabin--Liz, seeing him struggle under its weight, wanted to offer help but let him alone, knowing it was better that way--and Liz following along beside him, glad not only of the project, but of seeing Einar plan for the future as she had not seen him do for quite some time.

2 May 2012

Einar worked hard on that first pot of broth, and its consumption did indeed prove to be hard work.  He had, over those past few days, stopped feeling hungry in the least, the desire for food ceasing to manifest itself so that going without no longer required an act of will as it often did; apathy had worked just as well.  A dangerous place in which to be, at least for one in his situation, but he’d been too preoccupied with the documents to know or to care.  Now--still not particularly interested in food but determined to keep his word to Liz--he found eating difficult, the very act of swallowing at times a challenge with things sticking in his throat and doing their best to gag him so that he wasn’t able to get very far at all on the more substantial bits in Liz’s pot of broth.  It both saddened and somewhat frightened her to see him trying so, but with little success.  No matter.  The broth would help, would have to help, with its rich combination of boiled sheep bones, bits of dried bear blood, fat and honey, as well as a secret ingredient happily shared by herself and little Will, would give him some energy to get through the day, if nothing else--though he would probably still dispute the fact, the matter of his making it through to the end of the day still appeared to her somewhat in question, as it had appeared during most days, of late--and she could gradually add more substance to it as time went on, until he found himself better able to partake of a more regular meal.

Broth gone at last and the more solid part of the meal set around for the moment--Liz had said it was alright for him to save it, not wanting him to choke to death on the stuff--Einar went back to his sorting and preparation of the traps, applying a bit of bear grease here and there and testing the action of each conibear, really struggling to set them and nearly having one close on his hand one time before he rigged a tool out of two sturdy sticks to help him pry the things open and set them.  He’d used such tools in the past--metal, not wood--to set the larger conibears but had always just done by hand the smaller ones such as those given him by Kilgore.  No more.  Not unless he wanted to lose a hand, or have one crushed and a bone or two broken, at least.  Which he was pretty sure he didn’t.  Might, after a day or two of eating everything Liz pushed at him, but that was another matter, and he would do his utmost never to let her know about it.  Wouldn’t want to be seen as insulting her cooking, which certainly deserved nothing but praise, as he remembered.  Couldn’t really tell, that day.  It all made him sick.  So, back to the traps, and to setting and testing them with his tool of lashed willow sticks, wearing heavy gloves and doing his best to avoid crushing a hand.  Hands were useful things, especially if one had any intention of using a rifle, which he certainly did.  Training with it, anyway.  The rifle--FN, at least; he could risk using the .22 with a bit of care, and intended to do so--far too noisy to actually fire under present circumstances, unless actually under attack and no longer attempting to conceal their position, but he had been making good progress exercising his arms with the thing, dry firing it and working on his strength and technique, and intended to continue that training on a daily basis.  Liz was watching as he set the traps, testing them one-by-one.

“You ever set a conibear?”

“I’ve never even seen one up close, except at my uncle’s house where he had them hanging in the shed.  Show me how.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to set little Snorri down if you want me to show you, because this takes two hands and I sure don’t want him getting mixed up in the middle of it!  He needs to be just a few years older before he’ll have the strength to set one of these things.”

“If I put him down right now he’s going to wake up and cry.  He’s not sleeping soundly enough yet for me to dare try and set him down.  Maybe for now you can just show me, and later I’ll give it a try.”

He showed her, taking one of the traps he had not yet tested and trying once again to compress the springs by hand, knowing she would be able to do it when her turn came and not really wanting her to know that he was unable, but it was no use.  Hands just didn’t have the strength, and the things kept sliding out on him.  Resorting to the tool he had made, two stout foot-long willow sticks lashed together in the center and carved a bit at the ends to allow them to catch the spring ends and give him some leverage as he closed the tool like scissors, he compressed one spring and then the other, showing her how to hook the safety catches over them to prevent their springing out as he worked, hooking the “dog” into its groove and setting the trigger.  Ready to go, and keeping his feet carefully clear of the front of the trap he stood on the side and demonstrated with a length of firewood what would happen when the trap was tripped.  Pretty instant death for whatever had stuck its head through the thing, that was what, and Liz jumped slightly at the force of the metallic impact.

“Best little game-getter around,” Einar told her.  "Heavy, but worth carrying a couple in your pack if you really expect to be out there for the long term, or in a cache, because you can set them in the evening, go to sleep and they’ll work for you to make sure you got something to eat in the morning.  Of course, snares’ll do the same thing, but these take less setup and are in some ways more sure, because they don’t rely on having a springy tree or some brush nearby as a lot of the kill snare setups do.  A real fine bit of gear, and just about perfect for taking beaver and muskrat.  Will work for land critters too though, every bit as well.  Just have to be careful if we do any non-water setups that Muninn doesn’t get curious and go poking around one of them, because if he hopped in under there and brushed the trigger, that’d be the end of him.  Blackbird pie.  Raven soup.  And I’m kinda fond of the critter…”

“Oh, no, we don’t want anything like that to happen!  I guess he’ll follow us trapping, but we’ll just have to be careful.”

“Most of it’ll be for beaver, anyway, and those we set underwater.  He won’t be in any danger from them.”

“That’s good.  I’ll try setting one of those traps in a few minutes here, as soon as Will finishes relaxing so I can set him down.  I need to know how to do it, too.  It looks like you have to use those sticks to set it?”

“Really shouldn’t have to, with this size trap.  Just about essential with the bigger ones, and they make this tool that’s like scissors with depressions on the end instead of blades, and they make it real easy to get a bunch of leverage and compress those larger springs.  This size I used to do all the time by hand, but I tried it just now, and…well, let’s just say I need to do some more work with that rifle, strengthening my hands and arms.  Ha!  And maybe with the traps, too.  That could get exciting…  So I just real quick improvised something similar to that trap setting tool, and it works, more or less.  You can use it or not, based on what you need.  Just have to give it a try and see.  Everything looks to be in good shape though, so as soon as you’re ready, we can head down there and get started…”

“With what we talked about earlier, I hope you’ll see the wisdom of giving it a few more days, maybe.  Let this new food start to take effect and do you some good, and then we can go.”

The hike, he wanted to tell her, would do me more good than any amount of food has the ability to do right now, but he just kept quiet, nodding.  She wouldn’t agree, and might even be right, and as he was making an attempt to do things her way for a while, he would wait.  Lots he could do with that time.  Best get started.

Comments from 1 May

Philip said...
Chris, I am iffy on internet right now!!!
thanks for the ranks of Bud & Einar
it explain much of their interactions!
philip

Philip, hope you get a more solid internet connection, soon.

Glad that little piece of information cleared some things up for you.  : )

Nancy1340 said…
Finally!!! Now please don't have him backslide yet once again.
Thanks

Thanks for reading.  No telling what the future holds for Einar, but he is serious about his commitment to Liz and his family.

1 May 2012

Trapline all but forgotten, they sat together in front of the stove for the next few hours with the transcript of Einar’s debriefing, reading, Liz holding him, looking over his shoulder and Einar struggling to keep still as they went through page after page of the thing, beginning to end, Einar reading many of them for the second or even the third time but somehow finding it all so much more real and inescapable when done in the presence of another, Liz keeping the pace going by turning a page now and then when he’d clearly finished reading, but was losing his place in the world, drifting.  Einar had to fight hard to prevent himself from taking off through that tunnel and out into the snowy timber, barely managing it.  Felt more than once as though he couldn’t breathe, cabin walls closing in around him and becoming those walls of bamboo, Liz’s gentle embrace a thing of terror that left him wanting to fight with all his strength, free himself, her hands on his--a comforting gesture gone wrong, and she didn’t even realize it--burning and twisting as those coils of cord had done, cutting off the circulation, cutting into him with an excruciating hurt every bit as real as the day it had first happened.

Somehow through it all he managed to resist the urgings that kept insisting he struggle, run, lash out at the forces holding him in place, kept things at least somewhat in their proper context throughout the entire time, the presence of little Will there on the bed--he slept; his first time doing so at any great length when not in someone’s arms, and Liz was glad, for she would not have wanted him to be in the middle of that--serving to help keep him at least somewhat in the presence as Liz walked with him through the minutiae of his time in that camp, and after.  Liz, for her part, struggled also to keep her composure at times, eyes filling with tears for him at the magnitude of the things he had endured, at the matter-of-fact simplicity with which he--the young man in the interview--had recounted those horrors as if they were every day events.

Reaching the end at last they sat silent for a time, Liz not knowing what to say--what can a person say?--and Einar staring at the wall, empty and nearly too exhausted to breathe but quiet, somehow at peace.  Or maybe he was just worn out.  Didn’t have enough energy to wonder which.  For a good while they sat thus together, Liz not wanting to disturb him but Will was beginning to stir and Einar stirred also, took the child on his lap, straightened the pile of loose papers that had accumulated between his feet, carefully tapped them on the floor until they were neat and square and handed the stack to Liz.  “Burn them for me.”  His voice rough, not terribly certain.

Liz held the documents for a moment, tempted, balancing their slight weight in her hands and wanting to toss them into the hungry flames before anyone could have second thoughts, but she shook her head, gave them back.  “You need to do it yourself.  I’ll open the stove for you…”

As she had suspected, he could not do it.  Not yet.  Quickly stuffed the transcript back into its envelope and up into the rafters before sitting down again with Will, this time making no attempt to conceal from her their location, and she was glad.  She could see the extent of his weariness as he carefully lowered himself back to the ground, dizzy, cradling Will in one arm and using the other to prevent himself collapsing into a chaotic heap on the floor as soon as he began bending his knees, and she hoped she had done the right thing in putting him through the ordeal of the past hours, but really believed it had been the only thing to do.  Time had become a terribly pressing thing over the past days with the deterioration of his physical condition, and she had known that as absorbed as he’d been in thinking about that interview, there would likely have been no reaching him on such mundane matters as preventing his imminent death by starvation and such, until he’d fully immersed himself in the contents of that document, and come out the other side.  Which, watching him smile down at Will, she thought he did appear to have done.  Much as she wanted to back off then and let him rest and enjoy some time with his son, Liz knew her task was not finished.  Must not waste the opportunity, lest things work their way right back to where they had been, before.

“Hey, I know I’ve said this before, but now…well, maybe now you’re finally ready to hear me.”  He was listening; she could see it.  “It’s just that while your mind’s been busy with all those jungle memories, lost in your lostness, as you put it earlier, you’ve pushed your body so far that it really is barely hanging on right now, not far at all from giving out on you, and it would be a real shame if you left us soon, for that reason.  It sounds like that really isn’t what you want, and it’s certainly not what I want but I need you to realize just how close you are to having that happen.  I’ve pointed it out before, and so have Bud and Susan, but I don’t think you’ve really heard any of us.  I don’t think you’ve been able to see it.  But the signs are all there, and surely you can see them now, if you look at things objectively…  You know that if you want to turn things around you’re going to have to start eating again, and not stop after a day or two, so your body can start repairing itself…will you do that?”

“I’ll do it.”

“Ok.  I need you to let me fix your meals every day just for a while then, and you’ll need to eat everything I give you, no matter how difficult that may be.”

“Oh, you don’t need to…”

“I do need to, believe me.  Just for a little while, until you’ve got back into the habit of eating a little more regularly.  I know you’re going to feel awful at times and your legs may swell up like before and you’ll probably want to quit more than once, and for more than one reason, but I’ll help you with that, too, as best as I can, and you’ll get through all of it.  We will.”

“I’ll do it.  Only trouble is that the not eating, and all that goes with it…gonna sound strange, but it’s been the only thing keeping me going at times, and I’m not real sure what I’m going to do without it.”

“You’re going to help me raise our son, that’s what!  And run the trapline, and bring home dozens of beaver and muskrat before the snow melts out!  I know what you’re saying though, as much as I’m able to understand it, and I do understand that none of this is going to be easy, but you’re good at doing the things that aren’t easy.  Real good at it.  Better than anybody I know.  You will find ways, when it gets difficult.”

A nod from Einar--yeah, I’ll find ways, alright--and he directed his attention back to little Will, who was wide awake now and listening to the conversation as if he understood every word of it, watching Einar’s face with those huge grey eyes of his and an expression that would have been quite unreadable, even had Einar been better at interpreting such things.  It was for the best, perhaps.  The little one would soon enough be able to tell him just what he was thinking, and Einar, determined if possible to be around for that day, accepted the pot of broth Liz was offering him; might as well try and get started with this.