Comments from 16 July

Mike said...

Thanks FOTH:

I have never made nettle cordage. I think I will have a go at it this year. I would think that our west coast stuff would be sufficiently similar to be usable.

Einar needs some stew. Liz has been keeping herself and will in good condition, where a brisk breeze is stimulating. While Einar, on the other hand, is so close to the edge it knocked him flat. Yep a little honey, a lot of fat, and a few shards of sheep is what the ol’ boy needs. Then sleep until he wakes and do it again.
Mike

A stew would probably be pretty helpful about now. He’s still a little worn out from his climb….or something.

I don’t know how the nettle you have on the West coast might differ from our Rocky Mountain version, but do know that just about any kind will work for cordage. They all have strong fibers in their stems. I’ll be curious to hear how your experiments turn out!

Philip said... 

Mike, I agree about that ~rest~ thing.... our bodies natural ability is to restore our body during sleep.

That starts, At Birth!!!!

Einar needs to nap more!, Like when I asked my friend John....finding he was A Whole Year older than me, I asked... "So John, how many naps a day does an old man like you take"?

This huge RVN Marine looked at me and said, "just ONE, it starts after Breakfast...." not a bit of a smile cracked his lips.... a real dry humor guy John is....

I admire a man like that.... me, I start laughing before I get to the punchline, I like my Jokes so well....

philip

Well, at least your jokes are funny...nobody ever laughs at mine!  

Rest…?  Einar barely sleeps at night, so he’s not too likely to start doing so in the daytime. Unless he’s going to become nocturnal. He’s done that before. Worked pretty well for him, but I don’t know if Liz would care too much for it…

16 July 2012

With the coming of high winds that afternoon, the cold spell which had gripped the basin and valley so tightly for the past several days ended abruptly, the very active fire with which Liz had been attempting to drive back some of the chill from entering the cabin suddenly making things feel close, stuffy, and she cracked the front door to allow in some fresh air and what remained of the afternoon’s sunshine.  Will was awake again, fascinated by the light and she sat with him on her lap in the sunshine, head on her knees, balancing him and allowing him to explore the unaccustomed brightness with his eyes.  Though the air remained chill despite the afternoon’s sudden warming she took him out of the blankets for a few minutes, allowing the sunlight to soak into his skin; Vitamin D, she knew, was passed along in the milk which sustained the little one, but it wouldn’t hurt him to have a supplemental supply of his own when the opportunity presented itself.

Einar had been watching the two of them, head slightly bowed and eyes half closed as he struggled to stay awake and complete the length of cordage he had earlier begun, section of nettle stem gently pounded with a round-edged rock, fibers separated, soaked and twisted to make the strong twine they would later use for everything from snares to the cords by which they suspended portions of their food supply from high branches of the surrounding spruces in an effort to protect them from scavengers.  In their life up there in the high basin, neither of them were ever without a good-sized coil of the stuff carried on their person, and they found more uses for it than one might imagine.  Cordage-making was a project whose ongoing effort never went to waste, the resulting material being an expendable item which had daily application in their life.  Had there been a high country general store stocked with all the necessities of living a stark and remote life devoid of any contact with outside civilization, cordage would certainly have been a best seller.

 Making the stuff wasn’t an easy thing to manage with frost-nipped fingers, though, and lacking some of the dexterity that he might otherwise have expected to find at his disposal, Einar had to keep stopping to re-position things and improve his grip on the twisting, twining bundles of fibers.  That, and take the occasional deep breath and quick gulp of water in an attempt to dispel a bit of the pain of handling the rough material with the damaged tips of his fingers.  Frustrating work, but he’d kept at it, and already he’d managed to create some ten or fifteen feet of the stuff; a good start.  Wasn’t working anymore, though, draft from the open door reaching him and setting him to shivering so hard he could barely control the motions of his hands, let alone grip that half finished cord with the precision necessary to complete it.  Liz had so far not noticed his dilemma, and he did not wish for her to do so.  She’d want to remedy the situation, fix him some hot broth, close the door and build up the fire or hurry him to a warmer place such as the bed…and he was quite content to remain exactly where he was, struggling to control the increasingly convulsive trembling of his rather wayward body and make his hands useful once more.  

 Wasn’t working, not at all, the usual concentration with which he would attempt to remedy such a situation seeming to have no effect whatsoever on the increasing grip with which the chill of the air held him, and when finally he laid aside his work and attempted to pull the bear hide down from the bed to cover himself, he found even this simple task beyond his reach.  Simply didn’t have the strength to do it, to grab the thing and make it move, and the discovery frustrated him so that, under normal circumstances, at least, he would surely have taken himself outside for an hour or two of sitting in the snow, strengthening and testing and in his own way making up for the lack of ability he had discovered in himself.  But, he could not even do that.  He’d promised Liz.  No more freezing the feet, no risky and unnecessary wanders in the snow until they’d had a chance to do whatever healing they were inclined to do, and the danger of losing toes had passed.  But, this was necessary.  Was the only way he knew to get himself through things such as the seemingly inexorable weakness which now stalked him, creeping into limbs and rendering him all but useless for the time being, only way he knew to fight it and salvage something of himself, of the fortitude, stamina and raw, elemental determination which had always seen him through, rescuing his soul if not his physical body by the grim act of forcing himself to endure, for a time at least, more than the present circumstances were throwing at him.  Had always worked for him, though sometimes with quite a price, and now that he’d given Liz his word that he would try no such thing until after the feet had begun improving…he was finding himself a bit lost.  

Which left him little to do other than try again with the cordage, but as he had already established that he wouldn’t be getting too much further on that particular project until something changed, further efforts in that direction seemed somewhat pointless.  He made them anyway, similar results, more frustration and now he was beginning to have a hard time staying awake, too, body wanting very badly to curl in on itself in an effort to conserve warmth and energy, and drop off to sleep.  This he knew he must fight, feeling as though his body was losing the ability to compensate as it had always been able to do, systems one by one betraying him until, should the trend continue, he might well find himself before long unable to do so much as lift his head, let alone take any effective action to reverse the situation or to help Liz with their daily tasks.  Wasn’t just sleepy, needing rest after his ordeal in the valley; he was falling apart.  Could feel it.  Something was different, and the difference scared him.  Almost.  Wouldn’t have done, had he been alone—that time, he knew, must come for everyone sometime or other, and he did not fear death…might have wished it to come some other place or in some other way, him with his boots on and fighting, and not, if he had any say in it while he lay helpless in the cabin— but he wasn’t alone and the thought of leaving his family to fend for themselves, and doing it soon… 

He knew the solution.  Temporary one, at least, and he rose, struggling to get his legs to cooperate and nearly ending up right where he had started when they proved a good deal less willing than he had anticipated.  No strength.  Nothing.  What was wrong with him?  Felt like everything had turned to jelly inside, nothing solid, and when he tried to exert a bit more effort, struggling again to get to his feet, his chest hurt.  Squeezed.  Heart pounding far more rapidly than he thought it ought to have been, and with very little effect for all its effort.  The feeling left him a bit anxious without even knowing why, world seeming to close in around him.  Done for.  Wanted to tell Liz, to apologize, but her attention remained on Will, and he couldn’t get any sound to come out of his mouth when he tried.  Throat awful dry.  Would have liked to be able to say something to her, and again he rose, this time maintaining it, stumbled over to the water barrel and promptly passed out with arms and face down under the water.  That got Liz’s attention if nothing else had, and thinking he’d intentionally decided to take a dip in their supply of drinking water, she was about to grab her rabbit stick and relieve him of the foolish notion, once and for all.

15 July 2012

Morning slipped on towards afternoon, Will spending an usual portion of it wide awake and talking to Einar in the wordless but nonetheless fascinating language by which most small humans come to discover and perfect the various aspects of thir voice, practice sounds and prepare for the communication that will come later.  Einar, for his part, listened intently, sure he could by unbroken concentration and a bit of creative interpretation come to understand the little fellow's meaning.  Liz, quite happy to see them interacting in that way, was almost disappointed when the time came for Will's nap, but with the little fellow becoming squirmy and fussy and having a hard time keeping his eyes open, there was no denying that the time had come for him to sleep.

Will quiet in his bed of furs, Einar seemed to be growing increasingly quiet also, brooding as the day went on; Liz caught him more than once staring at the wall as if seeing right through it, and though at first she took it as mere weariness, the inevitable result of his untimely trapline run and return climb, there was obviously something more going on.  Not that this was anything out of the ordinary, really, but hoping she might be allowed to share just a bit in whatever was troubling him, she waited until Will was ready for a snack and a nap, and sat down beside him.

“Why did you come back yesterday…”

He looked at her, eyes distant and unreadable as so often she found them, took a long time to answer.  “Wanted to…” lowered his head, stared at the floor, and then at Will were he lay contentedly on hr lap, eating.  “Wanted to see our son again and…to be here.”

Which could have simply meant that he’d been lonely for his family and wanted to see them, might have been that simple, if said by anyone else, but she knew what lay behind his words.  Knew what that choice had cost him, that it would have been easier for him, in nearly every way, to stay down there and freeze to death in the night, if it came to that--which it probably would have done, realistically--than to admit…weakness, he’d probably call it, defeat; she simply called it humanity…by heading home early.  “We want you to be here, too.  Stay with us.”

A nod, hand briefly on her shoulder and he got to his feet, hobbled over to the water barrel and peered suspiciously into its depths for a long moment--faint memory from the past evening troubling him at the thought of drinking that water--before dipping himself a pot full.  Feet weren’t working too well, swollen and incredibly painful when he put any pressure on them at all, and by the time he’d returned to Liz beside the bed, he was more than ready to sit down.  They tended to the feet then, Liz helping him unwrap the gauze with the intention of changing it and inspecting the damage beneath, Einar keeping his face a passive mask as they worked, but she could see the hurt in his eyes.  Wished she had thought to wait until after he’d had some more to eat, but further delay had hardly seemed a wise course, anyway.  The feet looked much better than either of them had expected.  For all their tenderness and hurt, his toes that morning appeared barely blistered, more red and swollen than anything, and with the exception of an area of black on the toe end of the stump of his toeless foot, it appeared to them both that the feet had a decent chance at recovery.  Would still be a few days before they knew, but the sight gave them hope.

Einar hadn’t made a sound the entire time as they unwrapped the feet, assessed them an Liz carefully applied more salve before re-wrapping, but now, taking a few deep, deliberate breaths to be sure his voice was ready, he spoke.

“Figure this is because of your mustard, Lizzie?  Lot less worse than I’d expected to see…”

“Less worse, huh?  What a funny way of putting it, but yes, it really is looking that way.  It might be partially the mustard, might be the rather…voluminous amount of willow solution you had, and maybe also the injury just wasn’t as bad as we’d thought, in the first place.  You stay off of them this time, you hear?  Just as much as you can.  No wandering out to re-freeze things like you did the first time before you lost the toes…I, for one, don’t want you losing any more toes.”

Willow?  She kept mentioning willow, and still he did not remember.  No matter.  What was done was done, and if she’d somehow talked him into swallowing a bunch of willow, well, perhaps it had played a role in preventing the feet from becoming as bad as they otherwise might have.  But what was all this about his keeping off his feet?  Surely that wouldn’t do…   “Aw, you mean you don’t want me to have symmetrical feet?  My balance would probably be better with symmetrical feet…”

“No!  No way.  Normally that would sound like a good thing, but in this case…just take care of the feet and keep the toes you’ve got left!”

Suppressing what might have been about to turn into a look of mild annoyance, Einar gave her a firm nod and a half-smile; he’d do it.  If possible.  Which meant avoiding, at least for the next few days, putting too many miles on the feet.  That had been part of his problem before--the need to keep traveling despite the injury.

The need had been aggravated by their situation and the fact that they'd been struggling hard at the time to obtain enough food and keep ahead of their pursuers on a daily basis, but he knew that hadn't been the entire story.  He had, to some extent at lest, kept moving because he'd wanted to do it, needed, on some level, to do it, go on pushing himself beyond what he'd known was really wise or reasonable, and though he knew the urge would certainly be there again, and likely more strongly than ever, he intended to fight it.  Avoid infection if at all possible, keep the toes--and his life.  Hoped he would remember...

14 July 2012

It took both Einar and Liz a good while to be ready for sleep after the consumption of Liz’s rather pungent and aromatic mustard dish, the hurt of Einar’s feet returning to him shortly after he’d finished the last bite and further disinclining him to sleep, but weary as he was after his nearly sleepless days in the valley, eventual sleep proved inevitable.  Liz could see that he was still cold, knew he’d be warming for hours, a process which would likely still be going on when morning came.  For his part, Einar was and always had been content to allow such things to take their natural course once danger of imminent death had for the most part passed, but Liz was concerned about his feet, knew that the sooner he finished warming, the sooner his body would decide it was safe to return something like full circulation to his extremities.  With this in mind she really wanted him in bed for the night under the bear hides instead of on the chilly floor--was, she could tell, going to be another frigid night, temperatures already far below zero outside and air in the cabin crisp and biting despite the fire--but getting him there was another matter entirely.  He was barely awake, head drooping and brain definitely not fully engaged, and when she urged him up and into the bed, he just gave her a lopsided grin, shook his head and closed his eyes.  Fine right where he was.  Great, actually; he was home, family warm, healthy and secure, and all was well with the world.  Or would be.  Feet hurt something awful, but his weariness had become by far the more powerful force, and he was ready for sleep.

When urging didn’t work Liz tried dragging him up onto the bed, not too heavy, she probably could have managed it had he been a sack of potatoes or a bundle of firewood, but a living, half-sleeping human in another matter, dead weight with limbs flopping about most inconveniently, and she soon had to abandon the effort for fear of hurting him, or Will, in the attempt.  No matter.  Einar had got the idea, still not quite awake as he crept up onto the bed and allowed her to pull the hides over him, heading towards sleep again in an instant, slight smile tugging at one corner of his mouth as he watched Will through closing eyes.  Liz banked the fire, slid in between the two sleepers and pressed her back against Einar where he lay still huddled and shivering despite all the warmth and food of the past hour or so, herself drifting towards sleep after a time, confident that everyone was, for the moment, safe, glad they were together again.

Morning, Muninn the first one to wake, hopping down from his perch behind the water barrel and briefly reconnoitering the interior of the cabin before settling on a slab of sheep meat Liz had hung near the back wall the day before with the intent of keeping it frozen or at least cool for the next morning’s stew.  The raven found it to be in fine condition, tasty as could be and only partially icy, much easier to eat than had been Einar’s frozen muskrat carcasses, and he made himself quite at home picking from it piece after piece of good meat.  Einar was awakened, not by the soft sounds of the feeding bird but by his own hunger, a hollow, hurting thing that he felt at  first more as an insidious, faint weakness than anything else; the sharp pangs always eased somewhat in the night, but he knew they would be back just as soon as he moved, turned over, and they were, as were a number of other things, prying and screaming and competing for his attention, but most notable were the feet.  Couldn’t ignore those, and he quickly dropped to the floor upon attempting to stand.  Was dropped, to be more accurate, for it was no intentional act on his part.  Right.  Maybe not going too far today, if I can help it.  That, or I perhaps I can somehow attach skis or snowshoes to my hands and knees, and get around pretty efficiently that way…  He grinned, let out a silent little grimacing laugh and shivered in the deep morning chill.  If it even was morning.  The raven’s feathers gleamed slightly in the remaining glow of the coals, but it was difficult for him to tell whether the faint light he was seeing from outside came from moonlight on the snow, or the slow coming of dawn.  He strongly suspected the latter.

Creeping towards the raven where he continued his feasting--did Liz tell say you could have that?  Didn’t really think so…  Well, looks like we’re both gonna be in some trouble here, critter--Einar slid in beside the bird, supporting himself against the cabin wall and carving away at the already somewhat mangled slab of meat with his knife, removing thin shavings and gobbling them down before the bird could snatch them away from him.  Awful good stuff, but it was making him cold--colder, for he had certainly not finished warming from his long trek the day before--and he hurried to down more of it in the hopes that its warmth-bringing energy might at some point begin to outweigh the chill of its icy mass in his stomach.  Something wrong with the timing though, and it didn’t quite work, hands soon shaking so hard that he had to lay the knife aside and do his best to grip the entire slab between his palms and gnaw bites directly from it, as the raven was doing.

It was thus that Liz found the two of them several minutes later when she missed Einar in the bed and lit a candle, not sure whether to laugh, cry or protest the wanton predation of their intended supper as she took in the comical sight of man and bird caught in the act and looking quite guilty.  Together they blinked wide-eyed and startled at her in the flood of new light, eyes wild and staring, Einar’s icy blue ones and the raven’s of bright, beady black.  She laughed.  They made quit a pair.

“You know I’d be more than happy to cook that for you, if it would make any difference…”

A wild grin through chattering teeth as he wiped hands on his pants before tucking them beneath arms in an attempt at thawing them, some.  “Having…hard time waiting.”  Could barely speak for his trembling, and seeing the sharp, knobby outline of his shoulders in the flickering light, ribs painfully highlighted beneath the deerskin he’d tossed about his top half upon leaving the bed,  Liz supposed it was no wonder either that he hadn’t been able to wait for breakfast, or that he had nearly frozen himself again attempting to secure some.  There was, if possible, even less of him than when he’d left for the trapping expedition, and she really couldn’t imagine how he had managed to avoid freezing solid, one of those nights.  Shuddered, knowing that it surely must have been an incredibly near thing.

“Why don’t you clean up and come back to bed for a bit, and I’ll work on the fire and make some breakfast?”

“Was…gonna do it but…had to have little energy first.”

“I bet you did!  Now that you’ve got your ‘energy’ though, is there anything left for breakfast?”

“Hey, I just took some little…nibbles off the edges.  Same with the bird.  There’s…plenty left.  You watch.  I’ll…I’ll fix it…”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort.  Not this morning, anyway.  Now come back to bed and get warmed up before I have to clunk you with this rabbit stick and drag you here, understand?  And before long I’ll have the cabin warm and breakfast simmering.”

“More…mustard?”

“No!  I think we had enough of the mustard, don’t you?  Or did you really like it?  Looked like it made you turn kind of green at the time, but I guess it worked out alright…  No, I was planning some bighorn sheep curry, actually, with the last of the onions Bud and Susan left for us.  Ought to be real good.”

Einar had still made no move to return to bed by the time Liz got dressed and joined him, appeared to have no intention of doing so, and thinking that he really didn’t need a bashed head to go along with his already rather sore feet, she spared him the rabbit stick for the moment, instead simply hurrying to bring the fire to life so the room could begin warming.  Well as the cabin had been insulated both inside and out, it was no match for the sort of arctic night they’d been having for the past couple, and she was very glad of the bear hides on the bed.  They’d have been in a rather bad way, without their warmth and shelter.

Comments from 13 July

Anonymous said…

Chris Wrote:

"...would you mind if I took off and didn't show up again until next January?) off now and then. Much appreciated."

... Well, I for one Stock COPPER TOP batteries, but I can switch to the other brand ;-)
I should head over to your forum.... and find out comments for pitch hit writers, no one commented on the blog...

I gotta start blogging: I just spent 100.00 on just Two tools for my Wood Shop, but they are both ~universal~ use on different machines, both ~accuracy tools~ I love accuracy!

More later....

philip

Yes, accuracy is a good thing…

You really should head over to the forum sometime.  It can get pretty lively over there--though sometimes it’s more lively here.  I do wish there was a way to merge the two so people were only reading in one place and only commenting in one place…but that doesn’t seem too practical, I guess.

Anonymous said…

Man! Bugging my cabin would really bug me! And make me jittery as an ACORN worker at Tea Party rally. I am a fairly confident guy in the woods, but I don’t think I could ever convince myself I had found that last bug. What a way to spend a honeymoon!

It sounds like Einar has Had an epiphany of sorts, this is the first time I have ever known him to back down from a task he had set for himself, even when he knew, intellectually, it would probably kill him. Will seems to be an anchor to reality for Einar.

Boys posture, bluster, and swagger; actual men, take care, of women and children.

Mike

Yes, might be the first time Einar ever did back down from such a thing.  The way he sees it, part of his being ready and able to take care of his family has to involve holding himself to certain standards, and the early return to the cabin was a violation of those standards.  Yet, he did it for that little boy.  He still has things to figure out, I guess…

As for Bud, he is indeed pretty irritated at his employers planting things all over his place, and though he knows most of the tricks of the trade when it comes to rendering the area safe again, they are still going to have to be awfully careful what they say and do up there.

13 July 2012

After their nearly-violent encounter with the federal assault team at the bottom of the driveway, Bud and Susan Kilgore approached Bud’s mountainside cabin with great caution, he still fuming over the incident and Susan doing her best to keep him calm lest he decide to drop her off at the house, further arm himself and barrel back down that hill to take care of business.  She could see he was thinking along those lines, storm clouds gathering over his head, and she just didn’t want to see things go any further downhill, especially on their honeymoon.  They’d handled the situation at the bottom of the driveway, had done quite well with it actually, she thought, and that ought to be the end of it, at least for then.  They reached the house--the term “cabin” was hardly an adequate description, to Susan’s mind, for it was of quite a good size, full basement, upper story and loft--after a fairly long, slow grind up the driveway, Bud seeming to stare with suspicion at every rock and tree as they passed, half expecting more agents to jump out from behind them.  He was, in fact, expecting trouble, but figured it would take the electronic form.  Not a chance those men hadn’t already been up to the house, he figured, and they would have left things behind.  Kilgore meant to find those things--cameras, heat sensors, bugs, each and every one of them--disable them and file a series of formal complaints with his employers.  What better way to assert one’s innocence than by outrage, and besides, he really was outraged at the intrusion!  Never would have happened, had he been at home where he could keep an eye on the place on a daily basis.

Well.  He was home now, at least temporarily, and would set things to right.  Beginning with the removal of several cameras and a well-hidden but not completely invisible antenna installation on the little rise just before the cabin, designed to monitor, he supposed, any and all traffic that might be coming or going, whether it be vehicle or foot.  Though the property could be approached from several directions by foot, that particular spot was one where heavy brush on one side and a series of steep, cliffy rock escarpments on the other definitely made the driveway itself most practical, a natural traffic funnel for anyone or anything that might be attempting to draw near the house site.  Bud had planned it that way.

Leaving Susan to watch the truck--she got out and inspected the ground while he was gone.  Large patches of ground still had the dull, dusky, spider web-covered look of terrain up until recently covered in deep snow, the first little green shoots just then beginning to emerge and show their bright faces in the sea of brown, spurred to life by lingering melt water in the soil.  They looked to Susan much like the avalanche lilies she saw every spring at home, and their existence there surprised her; she hadn’t realized they were up so high in elevation, the drive having been deceptively long and level-seeming, when in reality they had been climbing fairly steeply the entire way--Bud hurried up a slight rise to the spot where camera and antennae were concealed in a low-growing stand of oak brush, staring into each camera for a good ten or fifteen seconds before systematically destroying it with a good, solid thud with a piece of granite.  Feds back in Culver Falls at Mountain Task Force headquarters--or wherever the monitoring might happen to be taking place--would have had no doubt, anyway, who was responsible for the destruction of their little spy center, so why not let them see it happen?  He’d deal with them when he got back, and if there were some ruffled feathers over the incident…well, the upset certainly wouldn’t be one-sided.  And, they would expect no less of him.  Appear too passive, and he would only arouse suspicion.  Further suspicion, for clearly they already had some…

·     ·     ·     ·

Despite the fact that he remained quite cold and was shaking hard enough not only to wake the average person, but to send him scurrying for the stove in an attempt to mitigate the ferocity of the chill, Einar might well have gone right on sleeping all night, had it not been for the feet.  Things hurt.  Willow bark couldn’t even begin to touch them--Liz had indeed given it to him with a dual purpose in mind, both to increase circulation in the hopes of saving his feet, and to hopefully ease the hurt some as well, though of course she had no intention of admitting to him the latter--and now, having drunk the stuff, his stomach hurt, too.  Drawing hands in closer to his core and huddling around them, he made a sleepy effort to protect them against further frostbite damage, the last thing he remembered being the raven prying him awake and demanding his breakfast.  Seemed he could feel a bit of warmth now, though, felt it on his face and in the thawing agony of his frozen feet, strange but perhaps the sun was up and shining on him, easing the iron grip of the past frigid night.  Wouldn’t be such a good thing though, to have the sun shining on him.  Would mean that not only had all his bedding been scattered in the night but the sleeping bag as well…taken, gone, somehow missing, and his ability to make it through the coming nights on the trapline without that thing was questionable at best, at the moment.  Needed its protection, was reluctant to move at all but knowing he must further assess the situation he finally pried one eye open, glancing about in momentary panic before realizing where he was, and beginning to remember how he had come to be there.  Liz was on her knees beside him, steaming pot of broth in hand, and he met her with an easy smile, uncoiled himself slightly from the tight huddle in which he’d been sleeping, and stiffly sat up.

“Morning yet?”

“Morning?  You’ve only been asleep for ten or fifteen minutes, you goofy guy!  It’s probably not even midnight yet.”

“Oh.  Seemed like…long time.  Almost midnight, you should…get some sleep.”

“I will.  But I was hungry, so first we’ll have a snack.  It’s almost ready.  Very thinly sliced elk meat cooked up in a shepherd’s purse mustard sauce…  Are you ready to eat?  How’s your stomach doing?”

“Stomach?  Little…sore I guess.  Not too hungry.”

“Well no wonder it’s sore, after all that willow solution!  You really ought to take it a little slower next time.”

“Willow…?”  He didn’t think he would have knowingly drunk any such thing, did not remember doing so, but seeing that Liz thought he ought to remember, he said no more about it.  Wondered what else she might have poured down him in his chilled, half-asleep state, watched her suspiciously for a moment and figured he might later begin to recall.  For the moment she seemed quite intent on talking him into the consumption of some of the highly aromatic conglomeration that sat simmering slowly on the stovetop, sipping some of the stuff out into the shallow coal-burnt bowl which had become his favorite and sitting down beside him with the rest of it cradled between her knees in its pot, tasting, nearly choking and taking a quick gulp of water to prevent Einar from seeing her distress.  Wouldn’t do to have him refuse the meal before even trying it…and she really hoped he might be able to keep at least a bit of it down, just in case the mustard might have some chance of at least temporarily increasing his circulation and helping the ailing feet.

Not that Einar would have done so.  Liz had worked hard to fix the meal, and he intended to eat it, try it at least, which he did, bite after bite disappearing and Liz watched him, somewhat incredulous.  So strongly permeated was everything with mustard--the fumes themselves, rising in its steam, were nearly smothering--that it had been all she could do not to spit that first bite back out, yet Einar sat there and slowly but steadily devoured his entire portion, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of a hand when he was through.

“Pretty good stuff.  Can’t even feel the…feet after that.  Got any more?”

Comments from 12 July

Anonymous said…

I have tried to comment several times, but for some reason I have not been able to have it post. Hopefully this time it will work. 

I love the story and the growth and regression of the characters. I think that the tempo is just fine right now. As you said it is winter. They need a time to heal both physically and mentally if possible before any more big excitement occurs. Einar is not going to survive many more big events in the shape that he is in. He can barely make it through the night as it is. Thank you for writing. Your stories are intriguing and keep me coming back. I may not like some of the things that happen, but that is the way that life is too. So it is realistic in that respect.

Sorry you had trouble posting, earlier.  I do have it set up to allow for Anonymous posting, if that’s what people choose to do.  Like you, have also noticed that Blogger interacts very differently with some browsers than with others.  Seems to work best on Chrome, for me.

Yes, hopefully by the time things start melting in the spring, everyone will be ready for the faster pace that is sure to come with the changing season.  Though on the other hand, living as they live, both in regards to their legal situation and the inherent risks of a remote life in the high country, they must always be ready for things to change on a moment’s notice…

They don't like everything that happens, either, but as you said, that's how life goes.

Thanks again for reading.

Philip said…

Chris, As this story has progressed, I, for one have noticed, a need for you to take time off...

Please, take all the time ~you~ need... Great Writing is already hard enough, but this writing, is so emotionally packed for us as well as for the writer... ;-)

We can always refresh the screen.... to find a new Post.

.... What was that???? I think the Pink Bunny has found a New Drum!!!!

Anon Poster above, the software requires a name, usually, that may have been your posting problem....

Philip

Yep, I bet if I’m gone for more than a day or two, the Pink Bunny will come back and carry the storyline forward, won’t he?  :D

Thanks for not minding my taking a day (or a week…or month...would you mind if I took off and didn't show up again until next January?) off now and then.  Much appreciated.