12 October 2012

“Your thoughts,” Juni replied with little hesitation,  “that’s all I want from you.  Nothing more.”

“You have no right to my thoughts.”

“No, I  don’t.  But look, I’m not here as a journalist anymore.  I can’t write about any of this!  Surely you know that.  Can’t let anyone know I was up here again, because who knows what would happen, then?  It would be the end of my freedom, for sure…they’d want me to give them details of when and where and it would become a ‘national security’ matter where journalistic privilege and shield laws had no sway whatsoever, and because I don’t want to spend the next three years in a federal detention cell--or at Guantanamo--without charges or access to an attorney, I really can’t write about any of it.  So it’s not about that anymore.  Getting a story.  I just want…  Listen, this may sound goofy or something, but you’ve been…a huge inspiration to me, and not just me, but thousands who have heard your story, what you’ve done up here, defying all the odds, staying one step ahead of them and raising a family while you do it--though of course no one knows about that last part, exactly--and now I come up here on a personal journey sort of a thing to learn more about how you do it and what keeps you going, only to find you…”  she shook her head, glanced at Liz, but Liz, gazing steadily at Einar, would not meet her eye; no help there…  “to find you nearly dead for no apparent good reason at all, starving in the midst of plenty and barely able to get through the night without freezing to death, and I wonder if you even realize why.  I just want you to live, that’s all I want.  To be able to go on with your life out here, and the answer is in those documents, isn’t it?  If you’d just let yourself admit it.”

“Easy enough to figure that one out,” Einar snarled, his voice cold, level, but things decidedly taking on a more dangerous feel, as far as Liz was concerned.  She edged back slightly from the fire, up against the cliff, giving Will a bit of distance from the whole thing.  “Sure didn’t need you to come all the way up here just to tell me all about my own business,” he was continuing.  “Besides which, you’re exaggerating to a ridiculous degree which renders your arguments entirely…”

“Stop!  Don’t get all rhetorical on me.  You can’t hide behind that stuff.  I’m not exaggerating anything, and you know it.  If anything, I’m understating what I see, just so I won’t come across as too dismal.  Are you really that blind?  I can see what’s happening, and I know you can get through it, but first you have to recognize it, and want…to see its end.”

It doesn’t end.  Ever.  It…why was he doing this?  Allowing her in, debating her on the matter, even if only in his head.  He didn’t want to hear anymore, to be pinned down like this, questioned.  It was bad enough when Liz--  But this woman, this stranger, she certainly had no right, and yet now the thoughts were coming, clamoring at him with an insistence which could hardly be ignored even had he wanted to do so, but somewhat strangely he found that he didn’t, just sat there staring into the dancing flames--bit of blue down there near the coals where the air rushed and shimmered through a burnt-out gap in one of the logs, and he focused on it, needed it, needed something, if he was to keep his hold on reality--and letting them wash over him until he found himself once more jammed into the close confines of that bamboo enclosure, stench rising from below, vision going all dark and cloudy with the hurt of the thing and world fading around him until it threatened to entirely disappear, and at that point he fought it a bit, not wanting to allow himself to become so completely disconnected when in the presence of a person who ostensibly still represented an enemy, a threat, and fighting it, he won, keeping by the barest thread his hold on the world around him.  At the same time, victorious, he found himself half wishing he’d brought the transcripts along, wanting to review them, but really, they would have been unnecessary.  Extraneous.  He had them all but memorized, by then.

Looked up at Juni.  She knew exactly what she’d done, he could see it in her face, a look, almost, of satisfaction but there was a sadness in there, too, a deep, knowing sadness, and for the first time he wondered what she might be hiding, herself, behind the nose ring and glasses and that weird hippie hair--dreadlocks, he supposed they would be called, though at least this time they were a more natural-looking color, with no hints of green or pink--which made up her bold, forward exterior.  He might have turned the conversation around on her and halted it in its tracks at that point by asking, but did not do so.  Instead, never taking his eyes off of her, gaze cold, piercing, dangerous, he slowly nodded after the passage of a long minute.  “Ok.”

“Ok, what?”

“I’ll do this thing.  I’ll talk to you.”

Oh, no,  Liz thought to herself.  What is he thinking?  Guess this is when I have to step in…with my knife.  Probably should have done it a day or two ago before things could get all stirred up…  But she did not move.  Wanted to see where it was headed, first.  Wanted to give him a chance.  The past week or so had been bad, and getting worse, and perhaps talking about it, even with this unwelcome guest--or perhaps especially with her; maybe, though it stung to admit the possibility, he would have an easier time discussing the matter with the almost-stranger than with her--might do something to break the grip the thing was gaining on him.  She had to hope so.  Knew that otherwise, the way things were going, she was soon to be left with a very serious choice between using the rabbit stick, and seeing him wander off into the snow for hours at a time as he had done in the past, and though he surely didn’t recognize the fact, he simply couldn’t afford to be doing that just then.  He was eating more, trying to, but hadn’t been at it for long enough to benefit, especially considering all the miles he’d been covering.  She’d lose him.  So, not much to lose, perhaps, in his exchange with the reporter.  The not-reporter, if her word could be believed, for she had said she was leaving that role behind for the moment, and strangely, despite her natural dislike for the woman’s intrusion into their lives and the necessary and rather considerable suspicion which comes along with living the sort of life their little family had been living, she found herself believing Juni on that matter.  Which really did call her true motivations into question.  If she wasn’t after a story, then what?  Well, I guess we’ll be finding out, and the knife is always still an option, if it comes to that…

11 October 2012

Not going to have a chapter for today, but will tomorrow and over the weekend.

Thank you all for reading, and for the things you have to say.

10 October 2012

Finished skinning out the beaver Einar had brought in that morning and enlisting Juni’s help in stretching it on one of the lightweight willow frames they’d brought down for that purpose, Liz was ready for a trip down to the river and the four of them went together, Will on her back, Einar leading the way and Juni between the two of them, as Einar still insisted she travel.  Down at the river they checked the traps and snares Einar had put out earlier in the morning, finding them all empty but not discouraged by the fact, as the hours had been few and Einar knew they needed at least a night to pass before they could reasonably expect to find anything in the traps.  Wandering up into a dense stand of evergreens bordering a wide, slow portion of the river, they set snares for the martin and ermine who had left tracks and sign on fallen logs and scratched in the snow as they traveled back and forth from water to wood, Einar also creating a large cubby and arranging snares in the hopes of taking the bobcat who had clearly been preying on rabbits there in the thick tangle of willow which separated timber from the more open area along the river.  A good day’s work--much walking and little speech; good for everyone--and as the sun began dipping low, they headed back for camp.

That evening Liz, tired of seeing Einar so cold all the time and ready for a bit of a break from the constant, damp chill of the valley, herself, worked to construct a reflector from nearby fallen timbers, dragging them over, breaking off intruding branches and stacking them so that the fire would lie between the wall of stone and her newly-constructed one of rock.  This would allow its warmth to reflect not only from the rock surface as it would have, but from the logs as well, hopefully creating a pocket of relatively still, warm air where they would be sitting.  She had seen the concept work previously with great success, and as darkness approached, looked forward to the evening with a fair amount of happy anticipation.  It would be good to be warm again if only for a few hours before bed.  Juni proved very helpful not only in the construction of the reflector but in gathering firewood as well, not even waiting for Liz to ask before venturing out to collect the dry twigs, sticks and branches which would allow them to have warm food that evening, and before dusk was properly falling, they were all ready for the night and it was time to begin preparing the stew of which Liz had spent a good portion of the day dreaming.

Liz’s reflector performed with admirable efficiency, working so well both to block the wind and reflect the fire’s warmth that before long they were all sitting there in the protected little space with faces warm and flushed and--save for Einar, who had his reasons--sleeves rolled up to the elbow, basking in the unaccustomed warmth.  Will, glad to be out of the parka-seat which had been his home for large portions of the past two days, played happily on the mountain goat hide, which Liz had spread for him on a great dry pile of spruce duff some distance from the fire, raising himself on hands and knees and rocking back and forth with such lively insistence that finally he succeeded in falling forward to land on his nose.  Undeterred by the accident and appearing more determined than ever in its wake--shades of his father, Liz could not help but think, and the thought scared her a bit, even as she found it encouraging--Will was back on hands and knees in a moment, striving once more for forward motion and this time achieving it, awkward motions of hands and legs assembling themselves into his first attempt at a true crawl, the results of which pleased him so much that he quite refused to give up practicing, until finally Liz scooped him up and offered him some supper.  There would, she knew, be little containing him now, and he would have to be watched very carefully whenever free of the confinement of parka or buckskin sling.

Muninn had been unusually cautious in the presence of Juni since her arrival, had most of the time been keeping his distance ever since she showed up but he was always there, always watching, a black shadowy hulk perched high in the sheltering branches of a nearby spruce or fir, seldom approaching too nearly.  That night, whether due to the rising odor of the warm stew, the relaxed and almost merry attitude of  the little group around the fire or perhaps to some sense accessible only to ravens, some knowledge that his services were soon to be needed, was different.  Rather than remaining perched high in his tree with the usual bird’s eye view of the camp, the raven sailed down on silent black wings to take up a seat on a large rock only feet from Einar’s shoulder, watching curiously as Will made his preparations to crawl and cheering him on with soft chortlings when finally he discovered the secret of forward motion.  Einar, eating, tossed the bird several good-sized chunks of meat from his portion of the stew and might have kept it up until he was left with nothing but the broth had not Liz stepped in and insisted that he do a bit more of the eating, himself.

“The raven’s a scavenger.  I’m sure this isn’t the first time he’s eaten, today.  The stew is for you!”

“I’m a scavenger too, you know…”

“Oh yes, I know.  I’ve seen you in action!  But to stay alive, a scavenger has to actually eat what it scavenges, and while Muninn seems to have no problem whatsoever with that concept, you I’m not so sure about.  So, eat.”

Which he did, smiling as Will--long ago done with his own supper--crawled awkwardly over to him and, clinging to his knee, pulled himself up into a standing position, forehead wrinkled in concentration and the expression on his face an odd mixture of triumph and intensity.  “What is it, little one?  You want a taste of this stew?  Time to start tasting some of the variety this big old world has to offer?  Well, I’d say you earned it, with all that effort.  Got to ask your mama though.  I about got my head knocked off a minute ago for sharing my supper with a raven a minute ago, and besides, I don’t know if she wants you tasting this kind of stuff, just yet.”

“He can try it.  Just a tiny bit.  Too early for him to be eating much that isn’t milk, but no harm in a little taste now and then.”

Will liked the stew, when Einar gave him the tiniest taste on one finger, eyes going all huge and round with discovery as he tasted, thought, reached for more, but Einar shook his head.  “Enough.  You can try more another day.  Better go practice your crawling a little more, increase your speed and stability, and such.”

With everyone relaxed as they sat around the fire enjoying good food, warmth and the sight of little Will becoming more acquainted with the world and his ability to move through it, certainly more relaxed that they’d been at any time since Juni’s arrival, the reporter saw her opportunity, moved a bit closer to Einar where he leaned against a spruce, appearing half asleep in the warmth of the fire.

“You didn’t answer me before, and maybe that’s because you don’t want to, or can’t, but I’ll try one more time…about your time overseas and especially the time described in that transcript.  How do you think it’s related to your time out here, to the things you’ve been able to do--and the ones you haven’t?”

Einar hadn’t moved, but the easy, relaxed look had left his face, body tense and fist clenched around the spear at his side.  Muninn, watching from his rocky perch, hopped down and took a seat on his shoulder, twisting a bit of hair near his ear and chortling in the familiar, confidential way he had.  Einar, irritated, wanted to swat at the bird but kept still, turned his rather considerable ire on Juni.  “Now what’s that supposed to mean?  The ones I haven’t?”

“It was only a question.  No special meaning.”

“All questions have meaning.  Yours are more pointed than some.  What are you trying to do?  What do you want from me?”

9 September 2012

Morning, and Einar was out of camp long before the others rose, having passed a good bit of his night lying wide awake and staring rigidly up at the stars as he watched the Milky Way dance and shimmer its way across the narrow rift of sky visible between the high black craggy-topped valley walls.  Wakeful, watching, he had done his best not to disturb Liz with either his restlessness or the shivering which had seized him sometime in the night and refused to loose its grip, warm enough, perhaps, between the involuntary motion and Liz’s near presence, to have safely gone back to sleep for a while but quite petrified at the thought of doing so.  Couldn’t risk the likely results, not with a stranger in the camp and already inquiring too closely into matters which he would have preferred leave in the shadows.  Must not give her any further ammunition, and so he had, after an hours’ initial exhausted sleep which had mercifully been too deep for dream, kept himself carefully awake, communing with the stars and listening to the soft, sleepy sounds of Liz and Will breathing through the night, himself almost at peace.  Far too cold, though, to continue lying there any longer than he must, and with the first hint of creeping dawn amongst the high timber at the valley’s mouth he was up, slipping from the bed and tucking the hides back in around his sleeping family, checking to make sure Juni was still sleeping before he stalked off through the trees, meaning to check the condition of the ice holes and perhaps prepare a set or two before the others wakened.  Once reasonably certain that he was out of earshot of the camp Einar took firm hold of a little fir and stomped up and down until he’d managed to get the blood flowing just a bit, regain some flexibility in his hands and begin to feel somewhat more certain that he’d be able to get through the next few hours until the sun reached the valley and began to warm things.

Now, to the river.  The ice holes had, of course, frozen over again in the night but he made pretty quick work of them with the axe, ice not yet terribly thick and the river beneath, flowing if sluggish, helping slow their solidification.  Three beaver sets he finished before reaching and checking the one he’d set that previous evening, finding, to his delight, that it had been successful in the night.  It was all he could do--still rather stiff with cold and pretty badly deficient in energy after the exertion of the past day, followed by his chilly and largely sleepless night--to pull the set up out of the water.  The beaver was a fine one, coat in good condition and weighing, Einar estimated, somewhere upwards of forty-five pounds.  A good start to their trapping expedition, and he freed the animal from the snare, re-setting it and lowering the pole back into the by-then quite ice-free hole.  Best try again.  Considering the snow-covered mound of the lodge not far away in a wide, dammed up side channel of the river--good place to hide, that would be.  I could just slip down into this hole here with the snares, swim under the ice over to that lodge and worm my way in there, hide out for a week or two eating cattail stems and the inner bark of birch and aspen and whatever else they’ve got stored in there, until Juni either got bored and left, or Liz sent her off into exile, and he laughed silently at the thought, told himself that if things got a whole lot more complicated around there, he might just have to do it--there were almost certainly more beaver to be had at that location.  Liz’s muskrat snares were all empty, but as he did see signs of muskrat activity in the area, he was hopeful that they would not too long remain so.  Sun was beginning to brush the tops of the high trees when he rose from inspecting the final snare, golden light making its appearance way up there at the elevation of their basin.  Their home.  Former home.  Time to be getting back.  Liz would be wondering where he was.

Liz was not wondering.  She knew, had been a good deal less soundly asleep than Einar had believed when he’d left in the predawn grey several hours previously, had watched him go and had known he was headed for the river.  Whether to get a head start on the traps or to freeze himself in the river she could not say, one seeming about as likely as the other, but either way she had known she must let him go.  He’d given enough ground simply by staying in camp for the night, in bed, when he’d so clearly wanted to pass those hours in lonely wandering, and she could ask no more of him, just then.  Which did not in the least diminish her relief when Einar came walking back into camp just ahead of the sun, looking stiff and badly chilled but fully clothed and not soaking wet, at least, a large beaver slung over his shoulder.

“Had some success last night, I’d say.  Fur’s still real good.  Looks like this thing’s gonna be worthwhile, this trip to the river and all.”

“Wow!”  Liz took the animal, set it in the snow and prepared to begin skinning it out, hoping Einar might take the opportunity to rest.  “I only wish we could have a fire to make some stew!  Looks like this would make some fantastic stew, don’t you think?”

“Tonight.  Got to be patient.  Cold as it is, the meat will keep just fine if we hang it in the shade.  Seems real quiet down here, but I still don’t want to risk someone seeing our smoke during the day.  Your stew can be for supper.”

“We can have a fire!  I was beginning to think we’d be eating pemmican and frozen meat the whole time, here.”

“Might still have to, if we see any sign that we’re not alone here in the valley.  Or maybe we ought to stick to eating that way just because it’s a good exercise, keeps in practice, not expecting too much.”

“Oh, I think life gives us plenty of chances to keep well practiced at doing without.  No need to intentionally create more of them!  We’ll be very careful during the day not to do anything that could draw attention, and then tonight--hot stew!  How about the liver, though?  We could go ahead and eat that right now, I would think…”

“Sure.  No harm in doing that.  Might still be a slightly warm, even.  Critter wasn’t in there for too many hours before I got it out.”  He sat down on a log beside Liz and watched, weary, cold and half in a daze, as she began deftly separating the beaver from its pelt.  Good job she was doing, good enough to have produced a top quality finished pelt, had they been intending to sell it, and one corner of his mouth twisted up in a little half-smile as he saw how Will was leaning just as far sideways as his confinement in Liz’s hood would allow, watching her work in apparent fascination.

“Won’t be too many years, little one, and you’ll be doing this part yourself.  Look like fun?  Takes a lot of practice, that’s for sure, but look at your mama!  She’s sure got it down, hasn’t she?  Got the skills, for sure…”

“I’d like to have the skills, too.  Will you teach me?”  The voice, seemingly coming out of nowhere and with no prior warning, startled Einar to his feet, spear in hand, and nearly sent him toppling over forward, too, but he recovered his balance in time to avoid that.  A good thing, as he would have hated for Juni to see such lack of coordination on his part.

“What are you doing, sneaking up on a fella like that?  I could have…  Well, you almost got it, that time.  Not a good plan.  Not a good one at all.”

“I’m sorry.  I was just practicing my stalking.”

“Well doggone it, choose another sort of prey next time, or it may be your last and final stalking practice.  Not bad though,” he grudgingly admitted.  “That wasn’t half bad.”

“So, will you teach me how to properly skin out a beaver pelt?”

“That’s between you and Liz.  She’s the expert.”

Liz, who had not paused in her work, gave a noncommittal nod.  “Sure.  Just watch.  Won’t really catch on until you try it yourself, but you’ll at least get the idea.  Did you find the usnea I sent you for?”

“Yep, just like you said, it was all over the dark sides of those spruces in the thicket.  I got a big pile of it.  Set it on the rock over against the cliff, so it’ll be ready when you need it for Will.”

“Thanks.”

Einar, uninterested in sitting back down after being startled so, paced about the clearing as Juni watched Liz finish skinning out the pelt.  Gonna be a long day…

8 October 2012

Juni thought for a minute about Einar’s question, knew she could easily make things worse than they already were by giving the wrong answer, tried but failed to give the right one.

“I just want to understand you.  That’s why I spent most of the past year out in the rocks, mountains, desert and swamp trying my hardest to learn the skills that make your daily life possible out here, and that’s why I’m asking these things.  It’s a big part of who you are and why, the history in those transcripts, and I just want to understand.”

Wrong--though the truth, as near as she could come to telling it--and she knew it right away by the uncomfortable silence, the way she could feel his hostile stare boring into her, though it was by then far too dark to see, but it was too late to take the thing back.

“I do not want to be understood!  By anyone.”

It’s true, Liz wanted to chime in, he really doesn’t want to be known or understood, not even by me, sees it as a threat, though it took me a long time to learn that, but she wouldn’t really have said it, would have considered it disloyal to provide such information and besides it was too late; the reporter was already talking again.  “Surely you do, though.  Everyone wants that.”

“No, they don’t.  And the more you talk, the closer I come to thinking maybe you really were sent by the enemy.  Is that why you’re here?  Poke around in my business, ‘understand’ me for them so that I’ll be an easier target, more predictable, and the next time they come for me won’t be so costly for them, and will be the last time?  Is that it?  This whole thing’s starting to make some sense now.  Was like I said when you first showed up, this time around.  Roughly half of all so-called reporters in any modern war zone are really intelligence operatives in the employ of one side or the other.  That’s it, isn’t it?  That’s you.”

She felt the danger, that deadly serious tone in his voice and figured he might be bluffing, but had never known him to do so.  Well, perhaps this was the first time.  She was pretty sure it was all bluster and diversion, that business about the enemy.  He didn’t believe it, but neither did he want to talk about the other thing, or answer any of the questions she would have for him.  “No, that is not it.  And if it were, if I was just up here as an intelligence asset of some sort, what’s to say that I couldn’t be working for your side?  If you have a side.  Your side is just avoiding capture and continuing your life out here, I guess, and it seems to me that by providing you the information about where they’ve searched and how intensively, I’ve helped you further that goal.  Doesn’t that count for anything?”

“That’s assuming you gave us accurate information.”

“I did.”

“You say.”  But he knew she was almost certainly telling the truth on that account, at least; he’d seen no deception in her.  Perhaps she simply was curious about the rest of it, as she claimed.  Wanting to “understand.”  The words grated on him, though, left him wishing very much they might be able to make a fast march through the valley, lose her amongst one of the numerous tangles of willow which turned its floor into a haven every bit as fit for moose as for beaver, and leave her there to find her own way out, hopefully over the course of many days.  She seemed at the moment more of a threat to him--if not to the rest of his family, thankfully--than a fully armed and equipped federal strike team would have been, though when he paused and tried to ask himself in a rational manner why this was so, he had no good answer.  Didn’t matter.  It was reality, this threat, and he had to be rid of it at the first opportunity.  Give himself some room to breathe.  Only problem was, with snow still on the ground and Juni having apparently become a fairly decent tracker, she would have little trouble following them, if that was what she wanted to do.

They had to wait until the moment was right, until some favorable feature of land and terrain afforded them the opportunity to slip away unnoticed and nearly impossible to follow, and from that time forward Einar determined to keep a sharp eye out for such a favorable confluence of circumstances.  Sure wouldn’t be finding it that night, not in the pitch blackness that had descended over the valley in the absence of a moon and with the starlight blocked so by high, rearing walls of rock on both sides.  It amazed him how much he’d come to rely on the light of the stars while moving about in the basin, that winter; one might not think it too significant a source of illumination, but in its absence, Einar knew a great loss.  And with Liz seemingly unwilling to abandon him to the midnight peregrinations which would have helped him pass the dark hours in relative peace, even if half frozen by morning, he saw few options but to return to camp and do his best to wait out the night there where she clearly wanted him to be.  Perhaps it would not be such a bad thing, in the end.  He certainly was tired, dead weary and almost frighteningly heavy of limb, when he paused long enough to let himself feel it--not to mention bone cold and slipping fairly speedily into a chilled state from which he might not be easily able to retrieve himself, even should he recognize the need in time, which he knew was not incredibly likely--and a few hours’ rest might do him some good, if he could get it.  Leave him more ready not only to carry out his trapping duties the following day, but to lead Liz and Will up through the sort of rough, rocky terrain which would likely be their only option, should they want to once and for all lose Juni and make a fresh start.

Yeah, best try for some sleep, doggone…reporter’s not…gonna try anything tonight, anyway, I can tell it from her tone of voice…  And he stopped resisting Liz’s gentle pulling, hands on his arm and voice soft in his ears, come, sleep, you earned it today, long climb, lots to do in the morning, and barely had he crept between the bear hides and allowed his head to sink down onto their insulating softness--one final, fading thought, resist it, you know what’s waiting for you in that darkness--before he was asleep, limbs all stiff and rigid and shaking with cold, but so deep in slumber that he would surely and contentedly have slept right through his own demise as the night chill crept in and took him, had not Liz been there to reverse the process.

7 October 2012

Liz listened in silence as Juni confessed to reading the transcripts and to the--in Liz’s eyes--far greater offense of having told Einar of her having done so, shaking her head and praying for the continued restraint which would be required to prevent her slipping her knife between the young reporter’s ribs sometime within the next few minutes…

Her prayer was answered. Restraint.  Calm.  The damage was already done, matter could be dealt with at a later time.  For now, she just wanted some answers.

“Why did you have to bring it up?  Surely you had to realize it wasn’t something he would be too anxious to talk about…”

“I was curious.  It’s my job to be curious.   I want to know his story, how it’s affected his life, how the things that went on over there might have uniquely prepared him for the life he’s had out here in the hills, things like that.”

“He’s not a story, he’s my husband--a man with a life and a family, and he’s hanging onto that life by a thread right now, he really is.  By getting involved in this and making him think about those things all over again, you may be setting in motion the sequence that finally takes his life.  I really don’t know how many of these we can go through, before he takes it a little too far and he’s gone.  Do you know how many nights I’ve spent praying that he’ll leave those transcripts alone, not feel compelled to go read them again anytime soon, how many times I’ve wanted to burn them just so that wouldn’t happen?”

“Why didn’t you burn them?”

“He asked me to, once.  But I couldn’t.  They’re his.  His past, his memories, his burden, and until he decides on his own to set it down…”

She nodded.  “Then I didn’t really do too much harm by asking about them, it sounds like.  Except that now he looks at me like he wants to kill me, of course…  Because this stuff was already on his mind, coming up from time to time and surely would have come up again and again whether I was here or not, if he was, as you say, still unwilling to ‘set it down.’”

“Maybe.  But it was still not your place to intrude like that.  What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking like a journalist.  Those papers fell out when he went to get the maps yesterday, I could tell how anxious he was not to let me see them, and so naturally the first time I was alone in the cabin…”

“He’ll never trust you now, you know.”

“Does he trust anyone?”

“Not really.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“Well, it’s done.  I wish you could take it back, but you can’t.  But you can help me find him.  I really don’t want to leave him out there all night with that sort of thing on his mind, if he can be talked into coming back here.”

“It’s been on his mind a lot lately?”

“I really don’t want to talk too much about it, because I don’t think he’d like my doing so.  But yes, it’s been on his mind more and more over the past year or so.  It’s the running, I guess, or the search itself, all the helicopters and things that were coming over so low for a while…but it’s like things he put out of his mind for years and years have finally come up and thrown themselves in front of him to the extent that he can’t ignore them anymore, and as it turns out…well, maybe there were some pretty good reasons why he’d chosen to try and keep those things in the shadows, all those years.  Not look at them.  Now that he’s allowing himself to look…well, I thought it would be good for him, hoped it would, in the end, and maybe it still will, but sometimes he lets himself slip so deep into that shadow-country that I start wondering if I’m going to get him back again…and that was even before the transcripts.”

“I know better than to ask where he got those transcripts, though of course I am very curious!  I guess it doesn’t really matter too much, though.  Where do you think he’s going?”

Liz shrugged, an action barely visible in the near-darkness.  “Off into the brush to freeze himself for the night.  It’s what he does when all of this gets to be too much.  Seems to help sometimes, but lately he barely lives through it.”

“It’s no wonder.  When you’ve got no insulation on your body, the cold can get awfully intense in a hurry.  Is that why he does it?  Starves?  So the cold will be more intense, since that’s what he uses to handle things?”

“No, I don’t think so.  Like I said before, it’s complicated.  The cold is a separate thing.  He really does like it, thrive in it a lot of times, but with all of his ‘insulation’ disappearing like it’s done…well, I’m afraid he really doesn’t know where his limits are, anymore.”

“Doesn’t know, or doesn’t care?”

Another shrug from Liz, but it was too dark for Juni to see.

“Let’s go find him.”


Einar did not want to be found.  Intended to stay close enough to camp to be certain of keeping watch over it and of being able to intervene should trouble come, either from the outside or internally, as Liz and Juni seemed to be exchanging a fair share of angry words that evening, but he wanted very badly to be left alone and to keep out of sight, at the same time.  Well, perhaps he could still have both.  Had better move in a bit closer though, make sure things weren’t about to boil over between the two of them.  Which they must have been, for Liz sounded angry in a quiet, “better watch out for the rabbit stick” kind of way which he had seldom heard from her except when action was soon to follow.

“You need to leave,” she was saying.

“It’s too dark.”  That was Juni.  “I’d just blunder around and make a lot of tracks.”

“Is that a threat?”

“You’re every bit as paranoid as he is sometimes, aren’t you?  Of course it’s not a threat, it’s just the truth, and I’m sure I will be leaving soon but had better at least wait until daylight!”

Einar, crouched in the snow on a rise not too far from the spot where Liz and Juni stood arguing, could not make out their words, but could tell with certainty that they were speaking too loudly, both of them, making too much noise for their first night down in the valley, which should have been a time of watching and of caution, and he moved, putting himself in their anticipated path.  They nearly stepped on him before Liz felt a presence in the darkness and put a hand on Juni’s arm, stopping her.

“Einar?” she whispered.  “Are you there?”

Silence, and then she heard him move, a slight settling in the snow as he shifted his weight to the other foot.  “We were looking for you.”

“Said I’d be back in the morning.”

“I wasn’t going to wait that long.”

“Should have waited.  I’m not fit company, right now.  You don’t want me around camp.”

“Einar…”  It was Juni again.  Wished she would just be quiet.  “I came to apologize.  I’m sorry.  I had no right trespassing in your house by taking those papers down and reading them, and I never should have done it.  Now that I have, though…it’s just that it wasn’t in your record, the things that were described in that debriefing…”

“What record?  Don’t figure you have the right clearance to get hold of the relevant records.  And what were you doing messing around in my records, in the first place?”

Juni smiled.  “Just trying thoroughly understand my subject, before doing that first story.  I found out a good bit about your service, and your discharge.  Not the whole story though, I always was sure.  Things were missing, or seemed to be.  Now I guess I know why.”

“You don’t know squat.”

“I know that you were a prisoner of war, and that the fact was never officially acknowledged because of the circumstances.”

“No, I was not.”

“Effectively you were.  Everywhere but on paper.”

He was angry.  Feeling unsteady, and not at all liking it.  Couldn’t let it show, not in the presence of this stranger, this intruder, in the presence of mine enemy, and he took a deep, slow breath, kept his eyes fixed on the cluster of timber straight ahead across the little clearing, a blacker shade in a world of black, glad it was dark so she couldn’t see him trembling.  Cold.  He was just cold, he told himself, and couldn’t help it.  Struggled hard to prevent his voice from shaking, too.

“What is your purpose in asking these things?”

6 October 2012

No chapter today, out enjoying this beautiful fall weather and getting some work done, but I'll be back with another tomorrow.

Thanks for reading, and for your comments!