8 January 2013

Nothing  today.  Sorry.  Back with another tomorrow.

7 January 2013

Will got his father’s attention, alright, his insistent climbing and clambering at Einar’s knee unsteadying him to the point that he very nearly tipped over before catching himself.

“What is it, little one?  You after my stew?  Want a taste or two?  Fine with me, but your mother…well, we’d have to ask her, wouldn’t we?”

Apparently by way of answer—no, no asking needed—a little hand shot up and into Einar’s bowl, coming away with a bit of rabbit meat and a lot of dripping broth which inevitably ended up all over the floor.

“In trouble now, aren’t we?”  Einar growled, mopping at the spilled stew and taking a sidelong glance at Liz, but Will only smiled, rolling the rabbit meat around in his mouth as he tried to figure out what to do with it and patting his hands in the little patch of dampness on the floor.  Exploring.  Wondering, perhaps, what he might be able to build given time and free access to that bit of mud.  Wonderful things, Einar had no doubt, but he mustn’t be allowed to do it, not in the house and with bits of broth which he was never supposed to have.  Wanting to remedy the situation before it got out of hand—or ended up being noticed by Liz who at the moment still appeared not to have observed the little incident—he scooped Will up in one hand, jabbing with the other at the raven on his perch so that Muninn turned to face him, already hopping down and across the floor by the time Will realized he had been taken from his latest project. 

In this way, raven expectantly tilting his head at father and son as if asking where he might find his portion of the recent meal and Will’s attention grabbed by the shimmering iridescence of the bird’s wing and tail feathers, Einar was able to keep the peace all around for the moment.  A good thing, too, as he’d seen how loud things could get when his son was pulled prematurely from one project or another, and he—though fortunately he did not actually scream and wail when thus interrupted—certainly knew how the little guy felt.  Sometimes, a fellow just needs to be left to whatever he’s got in front of him until the thing’s finished, and any undue interruption tends to be a cause for major distress. 

You’ll learn, Snorri.  As you get older and out on your own just a little more, you’ll find places where you can work undisturbed, a favorite spruce, maybe, that can be a quiet refuge where you’ll spend hours at a time out of sight of others, even if those others are just Mom and Dad and maybe someday a little brother or sister or two…yeah, I had a bunch of places like that as a kid.  Those, and a little cubby under the eaves upstairs in the log house where I grew up.  Place was supposed to be for storage, just two and a half, three feet high at the front and of course tapering to the floor at the back, they’d put up a lightweight wall of wood siding boards to hide the boxes and stuff they planned to keep in there, but when I got to be six, seven years old I moved the boxes all down to one end of it and claimed the other as my own little place.  Spent hours in there reading by candlelight and later with a flashlight, studying books on history and war and the animals and the wild plants we had in the area, taking apart radios and lamps and once my Dad’s rifle and hiding them in there until I’d got them put back together better than I’d found them…  And then there was the time when I assembled an entire porcupine skeleton once, pieced it together and held it with wrapped wires after I’d boiled it to get some of the stink off of the bones, since I’d found it when the critter still had some old, rotten meat and skin fragments on it…surprised they didn’t catch me at that one!  But it sure was fascinating, seeing how the critter was put together, how it worked.  Yeah, you’ll find your own little hidden spots like that, I have no doubt, and I’ll try to make sure you have plenty of time to think and contemplate and dream, if it’s possible.  Everybody needs that.  We just need a little more space that some others, don’t we, kid?  Space and quiet.

As if having heard his father’s words—really ought to try speaking aloud to him, Einar, because if he’s anything like you were, he can comprehend an awful lot more than most adults will give him credit for, even at this age.  Remember hiding under the kitchen table when you were two or three and listening to Dad debate philosophy and theology with two or three friends, and understanding the conversation well enough to have a strong opinion?  Yeah.  No reason to think he won’t be the same way—Will turned momentarily away from the raven and gave him a sharp, penetrating glance as if to say, I hear you thinking about me, and I don’t like it…

Einar grinned, nodded, looked the other direction.  “I know it.  I don’t like that either, when people do that to me.  They always think we can’t tell, but we can, can’t we?  Ok.  Turning my thoughts another way, and you can get back to inspecting the raven.”

Liz had been watching, looking puzzled.  “Don’t like when people do what?  What are you talking about?”

“Was talking with Will.  We two just had a great conversation.”

“He looks pretty absorbed in counting raven feathers about now.  He wasn’t even looking at you.”

Einar shrugged.  “Is that supposed to be necessary?”

“Supposedly.”  And they both laughed, Einar because of the play on words and Liz because he could be so genuinely oblivious at times to the things most people took for granted when it came to human communication and interaction, yet could instantly hear and interpret a distant crow caw or shift in the wind or detect an approaching helicopter several miles away with such uncanny perception and accuracy that at times she had been quite sure he must be somehow sensing, rather than hearing.  And you’re going to be just like him in that way, aren’t you Will?  I can see it already.  Could see it in your first month of life.  Well.  I can just hope you got the best from both of us.  That it’ll all balance out, more or less.

Ha!  She rose, shaking her head and taking Will with her, raven, though patiently bearing the little one’s inspection, clearly wishing for a break from such attention.  Not much chance of that, is there?  Of balance?  You’re your father’s son, and that’s alright.

5 January 2013

No chapter tonight, but should be back with another tomorrow.

Thank you all for reading!

4 January 2013

As the day continued, Will waking, eating and beginning his daily exploration of the cabin, Einar went over with Juni the basics of carving a bone atlatl point, giving her a section of elk leg bone at the end of the lesson so she might try her hand at the skill.  Much of her morning was spent in simply scoring the bone so it might be broken correctly, tracing the same line over and over with a sharp bit of granite until enough material had been worn away that she could tap the bone with a larger rock and have it split neatly in half.  This was her intent at least, after Einar’s describing the process and briefly demonstrating a technique for scoring, and she was very pleased when things worked out the way they were intended, bone falling neatly in half and her roughly-etched dart head template ready and waiting to be carved out.

Will watched with interest as Juni worked, his previous day’s interest in the beaver hide replaced by a fascination with watching bits and shavings of bone come off and fall to the floor as Juni’s project took shape.  So taken was he with the process that several times Liz had to go and retrieve him, easing small but incredibly strong hands from around the sharp-tipped shard of granite being used by the young reporter to scratch out the rough shape of the dart head, and returning it to her.  This displeased the little one greatly, intent as he had been on not only observing but participating in whatever strange and wonderful process was being carried out there on the floor of his small but increasingly fascinating abode.

After the third such retrieval, the youngest Asmundson’s protests growing louder each time, Liz decided he needed some fresh air, bundled him up against the continuing storm and headed out to the woodshed.  Besides distancing Will from what seemed at the moment to be proving an almost irresistible source of temptation and giving him something else on which to focus his increasingly intense curiosity, Liz did not at all mind the opportunity to go check on Einar, who had for nearly the past hour been out in the woodshed doing something or other.   Making kindling, he’d told her, and had taken the axe, but she had heard few sounds of late to indicate that he was still working with the firewood, and with the storm continuing in unabated, rock-scouring fury, she had begun to worry just a bit.

Einar was indeed still in the woodshed, kindling piled neatly in a stack two feet high against one wall, waiting to be carried in, and because of it she did not at first see him, squinting into the darkness and thinking he’d gone.  There were no tracks leading from the shed however, and despite the fury of the wind she expected there would be some sign if he’d taken off into the timber.  Which made it worth going in for a look, and she did, finding him pressed against the wall behind his kindling stack, arms locked around his bent knees and eyes distant, empty when she moved out of the door to allow a bit of muted, storm-filtered light to fall on him.  He was cold.  Looked like he’d been still for way too long, and was feeling it.  Or would be, if he was feeling much of anything.  She sat down beside him, leaning forward so as not to trap Will, riding in her parka, against the wall.

“What are you doing?”

“Just watching…storm.  Good place to be.”

“Looks like you’re a little chilly.  Let me have your hands.  They’re not a good color.”

He stared at his hands, blotched alternately purple and bloodless-white, tried without much success to flex his fingers and finally at Liz’s insistence held them out to her, she slipping off her mittens and taking them between her own.  Took several minutes, but the intense sting of returning circulation eventually brought him around, nodding gratefully at Liz and accepting, finally, the embrace with which she had been attempting to warm him.

“Now can you tell me what’s going on?  What you were thinking about, out here?”

“Just needed some quiet.”

“Quiet.  Well, have you had enough?  Can you come back in now?”

He shrugged, got a bit shakily to his feet and began gathering up kindling from the pile, Liz helping until they’d got it all picked up.  Outside—and to some extent in the woodshed, as well, its front being open to the weather—the storm raged on, and pausing before heading out once more into the full force of the wind, Liz did have to admit that it was beautiful in its own way, the spectacular force and fury of slanting, swirling wind-driven whiteness to which their immediate world had been reduced.  It was no wonder that Einar might have wished to seek a few minutes’ solitude out there with little between him and that living, moving entity.  She was sure, though, that there had to be more to his absence, especially as he had apparently hidden himself with some deliberation behind the kindling pile to sit unresisting as the elements stole in and began their work on his body. 

Not something she needed to know, she supposed, only in this case it seemed really that she did, as the consequences tended to be rather swift and severe at their elevation and in such weather, and Einar…well, she greatly wished him to continue on what had appeared to her a better path, over the past day or two.  It was far too soon for him to be reverting to his standard mode of existence, sitting out in the weather and, she wouldn’t be surprised, probably refusing his stew again pretty soon, too.  Must not happen this time.  She wished he’d talk to her, tell her what he really had been thinking about as he froze to the woodshed wall…but he seemed little inclined to volunteer any such information, and she couldn’t quite bring herself to ask.  Silence, then, as they stood together watching the storm, until finally, unwilling to go on seeing him shiver in the piercing, snow-laden wind, Liz laid her head against Einar’s shoulder to get his attention, nodded towards the cabin and led the way inside.

Einar, much to Liz’s relief and somewhat to her surprise, as well, did not refuse the bowl of stew she was within minutes easing into his still-purple hands, Juni having tended the pot in her absence and even added some bits of sheep jerky and a few dried nettles to fortify the meal.  Did not refuse but did stare rather absently at the wall as he ate, mind somewhere far away and far, she was certain, beyond her reach.  But perhaps not beyond Will’s, the little one clambering over to his father and beginning to climb his knee, all the while a look of very serious determination in his eye, destination clearly beyond doubt and, to him at least, tremendously important.

3 January 2013

Neither of them wanted to answer Juni’s question about long-term plans, so they did not, Liz continuing her work over the fire and Einar staring silently into the shadows behind the water barrel before suddenly being struck with a bit of inspiration, rising and seeking out the buckskin pouch in which he kept the bits of bone and stone from which he made atlatl dart heads and arrows.  Tossing the small bag to Juni—she caught it, was apparently learning—he passed her one of the finished darts he always kept with the atlatl.

“Seem to remember you taking a pretty keen interest in these the first time you were up here.  Care to learn how they’re made?”

“Yes, I was interested!  Up there in the mine tunnel where you where you were staying, that time when the photographer and I met you in the woods when you were carrying home a baby mountain goat for your supper…but as I remember, things didn’t go too well that time when I showed some interest in the atlatl.  Not too well at all.”

“You never go for a fella’s weapons, especially unexpectedly like that.  Gives him the wrong idea, and yeah, you’re somewhat lucky to have survived that one.  You and your friend.  Whatever happened to him, anyway?  He manage to walk out without his shoes, or is he still up here somewhere, doing his best to figure out how to catch a critter or two so he can make shoes out of its hide?”

“Oh, he made it out.  Though it took us an awfully long time and he was none too happy about you having taken his boots.”

“Could have taken more.”

“I know.  And so did he.  He figured we really were fortunate to get out of there with out lives, in the first place.”

“Had to give myself some time.  Knew what I thought your intentions were, you two, but wasn’t going to stake my freedom on what I thought.  Could have been wrong.”

“Were you?”

“Don’t know yet.  Sometimes I still wonder.”

Not very reassuring for Juni, his uncertainty, but she hardly blamed him for it.  The life he was living made no allowance for unearned trust or lapses in the constant vigilance required if one as to maintain his freedom, not to mention his life.  He doubted her because he must, because he could not afford to trust any man, or woman—at least, she hoped that was the only reason, as she’d certainly done what she could, otherwise, to earn his trust.  She shrugged, saw him looking at her strangely, and, unable to read his eyes—never had been able to do that with him, not in the least, and it was a good part of what made his presence so unsettling, at times—looked away.  Wished he’d get back to talking about atlatl darts and perhaps even showing her how they were made, but instead he seemed intent on scrutinizing, studying, and she wondered what might be coming next. 

After a time Einar seemed to lose interest in his study, eyes drifting half closed as the warmth of the fire began seeping in to ease some of the ice from his bones.  Relief.  It was the closest thing to physical pleasure that he seemed capable of experiencing, of late, and half the time he thought himself doing wrong for allowing even so much as a hint of it to creep in around the edges.  Should have at that moment scooted farther from the stove, taken off the deer hide, stuck his head in the water barrel so that he ended up streaming with icy water and allowed himself to slowly dry while freezing to the wall—something, but instead he kept still, allowing the radiant warmth to slowly edge its way further into his core, loosening muscles and leaving him slouched over against the water barrel, not far at all from sleep.

The sound of clanking rock chips brought him back to full awareness, scrambling to his knees and glancing about the cabin in a somewhat desperate attempt to gage the length of time that might have elapsed since his beginning to doze.  Not much at all for the looks of things, Will still fast asleep, Liz tending a pot of stew and Juni—ah, that explained what had wakened him—sorting the small pile of chipped rock and bone that she had just poured from its buckskin pouch.

“So, tell me how you do it.  The atlatl heads.”

“You’re looking for a pretty narrow point on the front, tapering wider towards the back.  Gonna vary some depending on what you’re hunting, but that’s generally what you’re aiming for.  The stone, you’ve got to chip.  Knap.  That’s a skill that takes a lot of practice, especially with this quartz, which is just about all I have to use up here.  No chert or obsidian or anything up in these parts.  You can work on learning to knap later, maybe, but for now how about some carving?  It’s easier.”

“The bone is really sturdy enough to use as dart points?  I mean, it doesn’t just break off when it hits something?”

A dangerous little sparkle in Einar’s eye, quickly concealed by a turn of his head.  “Want to find out?  Let’s head outside, and we can do a few quick experiments to settle that matter once and for all.”

She was about to go, Einar on his feet also with atlatl and bone-tipped darts clutched in one hand, when Liz stepped in and saved the situation.

“How about you wait until the storm’s over?  You wouldn’t even be able to see what you’re aiming at, in this whiteout.”

“Huh.  Good point.  Would kinda hate to hit the neck or torso instead of a less-critical  arm or leg, just because the snow was blowing in my eyes…”

The women exchanged glances over his head, Juni as if to say, is he serious? and Liz shrugging.  Who knows?  Your guess is as good as mine…

2 January 2013

Philip said...

Questions Friends do not ask friends:

You Packing?

Got your piece on you?

“Will you stay here, then? I mean, long term?”

Silly Girl, when Einar gets healthy, will she ~want~ to do Survival Course. Phase TWO?

philip

Phase Two is a tough one.  If you can survive Phase Two, you can survive just about anything...

And no, if she knew what was good for her, she very well might not want to participate.  Although it would probably be even rougher now than if done later when Einar is doing a bit better, as he would tend to demand more of himself and thus of his student, at present.



No chapter tonight, back with another tomorrow.

Thank you all for reading.

1 January 2013

Daylight.  It had seemed long in coming and, having come, did not as usual announce its presence by leaking in through various tiny cracks and here and there around the doorframe.  Silent, sign-less, it crept over the world, Einar only aware of its presence when finally he stirred himself from his post beside the water barrel and crawled out through the tunnel for a breath of fresh air.  The air which met him was fresh, alright, fresh, freezing and so full of driven snow that he coughed at the first breath, covering his mouth and nose with an arm and squinting into the greatly diffused half-light of a very stormy morning.  It was then that he saw the reason for their little cabin seeming so well sealed that morning.  The snow, blowing presumably all through the night, had plastered itself against tree trunk, rock face and, he knew even without feeling his way around to the front of the structure to look, cabin face as well, a thick layer of hard-driven, icy snow particles which would certainly have proven an effective seal against both daylight and the further intrusion of the wind. 

Well, looks like that solves our draft problem, at least until the snow starts melting.  Ought to be sealed in there real good and tight now, at least from that one side.  But still ought to get enough air, because the side facing the cliff is certainly not in the same condition.  Should be just fine, and a lot warmer and less drafty too which ought to please Liz.  Would probably please her pretty well if I’d head back in there pretty soon too.  She seems to have an ear for when people leave the place, and particularly when I do, so she’s probably already awake and wondering.  None of us got too much sleep last night with that wind battering the place and us up sometime in the wee hours shoveling snow out of the middle of the floor, so I don’t want her waking from whatever little nap she’s managed this last hour or so, just to be all frustrated and mad that I’m missing.

With a bit of a sigh he turned away from the grey, snowy world outside—they had been calling him, the snowbanks, the wind—and ducked back into the tunnel.  Both women were up when he pushed his way squinting and shivering into the dimly lit warmth of the cabin, Liz tending the fire and Juni doing her best to shake blown snow from her sleeping bag before the air could warm too much and begin melting the stuff to soak in and dampen everything, drying such an expanse of synthetic cloth and insulation a questionable thing, in the space of a single day.  She appeared, fortunately for her, to have got to it in time and wouldn’t be facing the lengthy drying process so often necessary after such an incident.  Had the bag proven too damp, he supposed between the various beaver, muskrat and deer hides they’d accumulated, suitable bedding could have been rounded up to prevent her from freezFing during the following night.  Some of the former were rightfully hers, anyway much help as she’d been on their most recent trapping expedition to the river, and he supposed the fact ought at some point to be acknowledged, should she have some use for the furs, but be reluctant to request their use.  He rose, brushed the snow from his clothes and held stiff hands briefly over the rising warmth of the fire.

“Looks like we shouldn’t have to worry about snow blowing in here for the rest of this storm, at least.  Wind’s got the front of the cabin so plastered over that I’m pretty sure nothing at all should be able to make it through.  Got everything pretty well coated with white, for that matter.  Quite a storm.”

Liz rose from her crouch beside the stove.  “How much new snow do you think we got?”

“Oh, hard to say.  Maybe not an awful lot more than three, four inches.  Can still see the depressions left by our tracks, here and there where something blocked the wind.  Otherwise, everything’s so drifted over that in places the whole landscape’s changed shape.  New drifts and ridges everywhere.  You’d hardly know it.”

“That’s unusual for up here, isn’t it?  For the wind to drift things so dramatically?”

“We get drifts and cornices and all, for sure, but yeah, this is more what you’d expect to see out on the plains where there’s nothing around to block the wind and it can just keep picking up force and speed as it goes along.  Not what you usually see in the mountains where we are.”

“It’s been an unusually windy winter, then?”  Asked Juni, finishing with what she could do for her sleeping bag and draping it over the branch which normally served as Muninn’s perch.  The bird, wakened by Einar’s return, had hopped down and was now bothering Liz about the stew pot, which she was only then beginning to work at filling.

Einar contemplated the question for a moment, but only a moment.  “Windiest one we’ve spent up here, without question.  I’ve seen others as windy, but not for a good number of years.  Those other times, they usually meant spring would come in fast and hard, dramatic changes in the weather and everything melting so fast sometimes that there’d be flooding down lower as the creeks and rivers jumped their banks and brought down all that snowmelt.  Not such a good situation, usually.  Though shouldn’t affect us up here too much.”

“Spring sure would affect me,” Liz remarked with what Einar thought to be an unusual degree of enthusiasm, “if it would hurry up and come!  I’m ready to see some green again.”

Einar took a step back, crouched quietly beside the water barrel.  “It’ll come.  Always comes.”

“Yes, I know, but can I help it if I’m just a little more eager this year than most?  I can’t wait to get Will out and crawling in the meadow, scrambling up rocks and exploring under the big spruces, getting sap all stuck to his knees, no doubt.  Figure if he got enough sap stuck to his knees, it could hold him in place when he crawled over a rock?  Or allow him to crawl straight up a tree?”

Looking at her a bit strangely—really, what has got into her?—Einar shook his head after a brief, considered pause.  “Doubt it.”

“I know, I know!  It was a joke.  I’m just anxious to see leaves start showing on the aspens again, summer birds coming back, the elk bringing their little ones down to drink at the tarn like I’m sure they do in the spring…new life, Einar!  And we get to witness it.”

Joyful musings, indeed, but they were cut short by Juni, who had been smiling as she pictured Will crawling about under the newly-leafed out aspens, sap on his knees and his father’s crooked, mischievous grin on his face.  “Will you stay here, then?  I mean, long term?”