7 February 2013

No chapter for tonight, but tomorrow I will have another for you.

Thanks.  :)

6 February 2013

Liz wanted to shout out loud at the news, grab Einar, dance around the cabin with him and tell it to everyone, but of course she did not, instead simply burying her face against his chest and silently weeping, tears of relief and of joy so that at last he put aside his worry about chilling her with his icy hands and held her, chin resting on the top of her head as he stared wide-eyed at the ceiling, invisible in the bitter darkness, and asked himself, what have I done...?  She slept after a while, planes apparently having finished their round for the night and gone silent, but he lay long into the morning hours contemplating, questioning, finally just wishing a storm would hurry up and come so they could get on with it.  Now that he  had made the decision to follow Kilgore to the valley he found himself increasingly anxious to get moving as the night wore on, straining his ears through the remaining hours of darkness not only for the sound of approaching planes but for any hint of a rising wind outside that might foreshadow the approach of a storm.  By morning, though, he found himself half-hoping Liz might have forgotten, deemed the entire thing a dream so he would have more time to think, to consider.  It was not so.  He could see it in her eyes when she looked at him upon waking, in the way she moved about the cabin preparing a cold breakfast, smile seldom leaving her lips despite the difficulty of the morning, and he knew there was to be no going back.

Will, who she had left in the bed with him fast asleep upon her own rising, was stirring, waking, wanting to go explore, and Einar dressed the little one and helped him to the floor, where he took off at an enthusiastic crawl for the spot where Liz crouched over a newly-lighted candle, hanging some water to begin warming.  Einar followed, getting himself with some difficulty to his feet and standing there for a moment swaying, dizzy, bracing himself against the ceiling with upraised hands.  Should have tried for a little sleep, he supposed, though he knew it likely wouldn’t have made too much difference.  Energy was his real problem, or more accurately the lack of it, and he pushed the thought aside, squinting hard until the cabin quit spinning around him and joining Liz over the candle.  By that time the others were up also, Kilgore rubbing his leg, stiff after a night on the floor and Juni blinking like someone who had not got very much sleep, at all.  She glanced anxiously at the ceiling as if half expecting to hear another plane, but Liz shook her head.

“Haven’t heard one since sometime in the night.  They quit for a while, or moved on altogether.  Hope that’s the end of it, so we can have a fire again soon!  In the meantime, how about some tepid tea to go with your breakfast of jerky and dried berries!”

“Sounds great!”  Kilgore remarked enthusiastically, and seemed to mean it.  He, at least, was always ready for a meal, if Einar was not.

Speaking of Einar, Liz was staring at him as they sat huddled around the candle over their breakfast, trying to catch his eye, and he knew what she wanted him to do.  Wanted him to make it official, and he didn’t blame her, reluctant as he had been in the past even to consider a trip to the valley.  Might as well end her waiting, for he could see the strain of it on her face, hated to be the cause of that for her.  Snatching up a granite flake from beside the stove he chucked it at the tracker, hitting the man in the shoulder and getting his full intention in a hurry.

“Looks like you’re gonna have company when you head down out of here, you two.”

“Yeah?  What sort of company?”

“Ours, that’s who.  Three of us.”

“Kilgore was silent for a moment, squinting at Einar, scrutinizing, and then he turned to Liz, a hint of hilarity beginning to creep into his eyes, and nodded.

“Is that right?”

“Afraid so.”

“Well.”

“Yeah.”

That was it, all either of them had to say about the matter, until nearly half an hour later when Liz went out into the tunnel to clean the cookpots in the snow near its mouth.  Kilgore followed her, speaking softly so as to avoid being overheard.

“Now look, for your safety and mine, I’ve got to know, ma’am.  What’d you do to him to get him to agree to a thing like that?  He sure ain’t the sort to be intimidated by threats of any kind so far as I’ve ever observed, not any kind at all, so I figure you must’ve drugged his soup or something, to get him to agree to a thing like that.  He don’t act like it, but far gone as he’s been here lately, not real sure I’d be able to tell.  So that must be it.  Only I don’t remember seeing him have any soup, last night.  Better come out with it, because I sure don’t want to get him all the way down to the trailhead or something, only to have him come to whatever’s left of his senses and finger me as an attempted kidnapper.  No way.  Don’t want to be on that side of him.  If that’s what you’ve done, and you really want to go through with it…well, I’ll tell you it’s mighty risky, but I’m in, so long as we’re really sure to somehow restrain him down there near the bottom before he realizes what’s what, but you’ve got to agree to that, be willing not only to see it happen, but to help.  Desperate times, desperate measures, but I don’t want to…”

“Will you stop!  He’s going to hear you, and then who knows, he might start wondering, and this would all be over...  It’s nothing like that, nothing at all.  You might do that, though I really, really don’t recommend it…but I wouldn’t.  Never.  It was his idea, his decision, and that’s all I know about it.  Go talk to him, if you want to know more.”

“Huh.  Wonder of wonders.  And you’re agreeable to it, yourself?”

She nodded, eyes sparkling. He didn’t need any further answer from her.

“Well, Sue sure will be glad to hear it.  Assuming we make it and can pull this all off without a hitch.  I know she was hoping there might be some way to make that happen, but I was real doubtful myself, short of using some sort of force on that crazy old fool.  Which I hardly would have dared to do, let me tell you, ‘cause I knew after a thing like that I’d never be able to turn my head on you, lest I risk losing it to that war club of yours….  Quite a pair you two make.  Quite a pair.”

“We’d better get back inside.  I don’t think Einar is particularly at ease with what’s coming, here.  I want to be with him.”

“Yep.  Better do that.”

5 February 2013

No chapter for today, but I'll be back with another tomorrow.

Thank you all for reading.

4 February 2013

By the time Einar and Liz left the tunnel and returned to the cabin, Kilgore and Juni had given up on sleep and were stirring about, also, Bud seeking a candle and Juni quietly trying to persuade him that they’d better not try and light it without Einar’s permission, unless they both wanted a lot of trouble.  Being his ordinary, ornery self, Kilgore wasn’t sure he cared about the trouble, especially in the midst of a largely sleepless night and after having been repeatedly wakened by passing aircraft, but he was saved the decision by Einar’s return.

“What were you two doing out there, middle of the night in that tunnel in the cold?”

“None of your doggone business, you trespassing old buzzard

“No, don’t suppose it is but I just hope them planes didn’t see you.  Would be a shame if we all end up getting caught just because you two had to go spend some time out in the tunnel.”

“They didn’t see us.”

“Figure they’d see a candle? Sure would like to have a little light, if we’re gonna be

awake anyway.”

“Candle’s safe.  Just keep it to one.”

“What would I want with more than one, anyway?  Just want enough light to see

whether you’re creeping up on me with one of them atlatl darts, or not.  No more.  Not

trying to read a book, here.”

“Got no reason to go creeping up on you with a dart, and if I did, you’d never have any warning, in the first place.  Candle wouldn’t do you any good.”

“Nope.”  Bud lit the candle using a lighter from his pocket, and they all stood around blinking at one another in its unaccustomed light, clouds of their breath rising in a fog that only made the place seem colder than it already was.  Einar shivered, suddenly feeling the chill that had so thoroughly seeped into his bones during his time in the tunnel, glancing around at the other faces that appeared dimly in the orange glow of the candle and saw that they, also, were feeling the cold.  Juni had not entirely left her sleeping bag, crouching with it up around her and only head and shoulders out in the chill air, Kilgore using his like a puffy, oversized scarf around neck and shoulders.  No one appeared too excited to be up, but neither were they feeling particularly sleepy, with the frequent aerial reminders of their tenuous situation.  Only for Will, worn out from a day of the sort of exploration and excitement that he could find even when cooped up in the cabin, was sleep possible.  Silent, moving a bit stiffly in the chill, Liz hung the smallest cooking pot over Kilgore’s candle, knowing it would not come to a boil with the single flame but figuring slightly warm water would have to be better for drinking than the already ice-skimmed stuff in the water barrel.  Too many days of this and it would freeze up entirely—though she knew from experience that this time could be delayed for a good while by frequent stirring of the barrel, moving water far slower to freeze—leaving them in a somewhat desperate struggle against dehydration and the hypothermia whose likelihood would become ever greater as their blood thickened and slowed.  Well.  That was days off, and hopefully—surely—the search would have moved on by that time.

Crouched around the candle almost as if hoping warmth might be absorbed from its very glow as much as from the meager flame, no one had much to say, all ears remaining sharp for the sound of approaching aircraft outside and twice being rewarded, if one could call it that, with the distant but fast-gaining hum of a small plane over the basin.  An hour later, eyes drooping and everyone thoroughly chilled and beginning to feel rather grumpy about it—all but Einar, who though suffering worst of any bore the cold with a resigned patience that Liz found particularly frustrating, under the circumstances—a silent but unanimous decision was made to go back to bed.  Planes could be heard and their positions monitored just as well from sleeping bags and bear hides, and though sleeplessness seemed likely, there seemed no sense everyone freezing themselves, as well.

Long after Liz had gone back to sleep Einar lay wide awake beside her, body trembling with a deep chill he could not seem to shake despite the warmth of the bed and mind busy with the possibilities and the perils of the journey that increasingly seemed to lie ahead of them, looking for some way around it, some way out, but finding none that seemed a particularly good alternative.  Supposing Juni made it back to civilization alive, the place—cabin, basin, all of it—was hopelessly and forever compromised, and if she did not…  Well, he supposed the search would continue, for one thing, but the bigger problem involved the moral issues which would surround his ensuring that she would not make it back down that mountain, for certainly the deed would be his to do, if it must be done.  Not an easy thing to puzzle out, but he’d already gone over the bit about Juni, both in his own mine and with Liz, and there was no reason that his conclusions should have changed, since that time.  She would be allowed to live, to return to the valley when the time was right, and though he’d seriously considered keeping her there with them until the fading of the snow when their escape and relocation would be more easily accomplished, the fact that she was now subject of a search of her own had rather put a damper on that idea. 

Which left them with only two options as he saw it, either to allow Juni and Kilgore to leave together, with specific instructions to the tracker to draw out their return to civilization for as long as he could to give them a good head start as they made their move—risky in the winter for the trail they would inevitably leave—or to take Kilgore up on the offer he’d been making for months, follow him down to the valley and trust him to conceal them for a while.  Break the trail, allow them a fresh start.  The more he thought about, the less real choice there seemed to be, and when after a period of restless dozing he woke again with a start and felt Liz, also awake, turn towards him, he found her hand in the darkness, took it.

“I’ll go.”

Comments from 2 February

 Mike said… 

More exciting stuff. Thanks FOTH.

Me thinks I smell a revolution coming. It would give Einar something to fight besides his past. I think he needs that. Liz and Will give him something to fight for, but it seems that he also needs something fight against. The idealism of his youth, though battered pummeled and disillusioned, still burns; there is still a fire in his belly for the good and noble fight; he can’t help it. If he does not have a clear, present and worthy opponent with which to engage he turns on his own past; on what he sees as his failure to win through to justice. Intellectually he knows he is being too hard on himself, but he cannot change what he feels viscerally.

 Once Kilgore showed up there were only two logical outcomes for Juni; either she becomes a permanent co-conspirator or she dies. The link to Kilgore will be there no matter where the family relocates. If she becomes a fellow member of the ‘resistance’ it will mitigate that somewhat. Festinating stuff FOTH. Thanks again.

Mike

Juni is a real problem now, and this could get pretty complicated.

As for Einar, I think you’re right about a lot of that.  He still has a strong sense of duty to defend the right, free the oppressed and spit in the tyrant’s eye, whenever possible, and yeah, I think he does need that fight.  Need to have something to fight for.

Thanks for your wisdom—and for reading.

Nancy134002 said…

Einar had never trusted even Liz. Why would he start now

I think he trusts her as much as he is able to trust anyone.  As for trusting others…he knows it’s a thing to be done with extreme caution.

2 February 2013

While Einar could not help but think Liz’s main stated reason for wanting to go down off the mountain rather less than legitimate, he did have to admit that they had a real dilemma on their hands when it came to Juni.  Much as they might have come to trust her over the last weeks—just enough to turn his back on her now and then without getting that dreadful prickling feeling in his scalp, in Einar’s case, but seldom did the trust of another get too far beyond that point, with him—there was no telling exactly what she might do or say, or to whom, once she was back down there in the world and had allowed some of her wariness to fade.  It was simply a risk they couldn’t take, and Liz was right in saying that they’d never feel—or be—secure again in the basin once she was allowed to return to society.  Yet this seemed to him small reason to subject his family to the enormous added risks of venturing down there, themselves. 

So, they had to clear out of the basin, but there were many places where they could go and start over, none of which involved leaving the high country altogether and taking a ride in the back of Bud Kilgore’s pickup truck.  That was the stuff of nightmares, the quick road to a very nasty and definitive end for them all, and he was pretty sure that he wasn’t at all willing to take it.  Yet it would be a way to break the pattern, and he knew that in situations like theirs, patterns killed.  Would get them killed, eventually, when the enemy caught on, or had a lucky day, or the lighting worked out just right and allowed them to see the faint trace of a trail which had up to that point escaped their notice…  Their current situation did indeed need a change if they were to expect longer term success at this endeavor, which, a child now involved, they had to make happen by whatever means necessary.  So, Liz might have a point.  Go down, break the pattern, leave as soon as feasible for another area where they had never been and were not expected to be, where passing aircraft would not represent such an immediate threat and life could go on with a bit more certainty—as much certainty as would ever be allowed those scratching out a meager living amongst the splendor and harshness of that high country world.

It was a risk, an enormous risk, and the fact that he would be on what for him might as well be considered alien territory—the world of highways, houses and humans, down there—frightened him perhaps more than anything else.  Here, he was in his element, knew the place better than anyone they could send after him and maintained some semblance of control over the situation, however tenuous it might be and however surely it did not extend to the natural world around him, its whims and fancies and the odd blasting, freezing storm that had been known to arise unbidden and unexpected to crush the best-laid of plans.  Yet, fear must not rule him.  Had never been allowed to do so, and the moment he allowed it, he knew he was lost.  Most times, the thing that seemed riskiest and most daring was exactly the one at which a person must spring, seize the moment, change the rules and…

It’s town, Einar!  You’re talking about going down to town, letting Kilgore stuff you in the back of his truck and drive you somewhere, you and your family, and can you even imagine the number of ways in which that might go dreadfully, irretrievably wrong?  Dozens.  Dozens and dozens.  And while you might get out of it alive if properly armed and with some warning, might get all of you out of it, where does that leave you, then?  On the run again, in the valley, with half the Task Force directly on your tail, and you know how that one’s gonna end…

Liz was waiting, he suddenly realized, for him to say something, do something, make a decision, and he wondered how long he had been silent, speculating, keeping her wondering.  But he wasn’t ready to make a decision.  And did not have to do it just yet, either, for outside he could see that the sky was clear, and no one was going anywhere at all until another storm blew in.

“Let me think about it.  Got to think about it.  Can we come out here and talk again in a little while?  No storm yet, so we got time…”

“You’ll think about it?”  And before he could answer she was embracing him, arms nearly crushing out his breath, and on his cheek he could feel her tears.

“Yeah, I’ll think about it.  Best not let the others know about this until we’ve made some decisions, though.”

“No.  Of course not.”  She let him go.  Could feel that he was struggling to get enough air, and supposed the previously-injured ribs must still trouble him, from time to time.

“If we do it,” his voice low, weary, “we’ll need to cache most everything far enough from this place that we stand some chance of recovering it even in the cabin’s compromised while we’re away, get it all up into the timber where we can find it again, atlatl, darts, spear included, things like that so we won’t be starting all over if we end up having to leave out of the valley with nothing at all, as had happened before…  Would have to take the rifle though.  That, and the pistol both.  And my knife, of course.  Would want them with me when we hit the valley floor, and everywhere we might go down there, too.”

“What if we go into the store to buy a case of Nutella and a wheel of cheese to bring back up here with us?  Might stand out a little if you’re carrying that FAL…”

She could feel him glaring at her in the darkness.

“I’m sorry.  Not a good time for jokes, is it?”

“That was a joke?”

“Of course!”

“Oh.  Ha!  Yeah, I’m pretty sure the parkas and gloves would give us away even before the rifle did.  Better stay far, far from stores and people and such, if we ever do this.  Big enough risk just going down there, in the first place.”

“I know.  I would never.  Was really just joking.”

“Yeah.  Now another problem I’m seeing is this.  What’s gonna happen if we cache most everything as we’re going to have to do, and then things don’t go as expected and we end up separated from most all of our possessions, including those needed to hunt and provide for ourselves out here?  I can’t hunt with a gun, unless I’m hunting men and they’re right about to swam us and I got no other choice.  Makes too much noise, too much chance for bringing the enemy down on us…  So if that happens, and we’re prevented somehow from going on and visiting the valley with Kilgore, we’re in a real pickle.  Right back where we started when we had nothing, and that’s one thing in the summer when nights are warmer and you can find things to eat, but right now…”

“I know.  But in that case, we’d probably be working our way back up to the area of the cabin anyway, wouldn’t we, before hunger could become a real problem?”

“Would hope so, but there’s no way to know.  Would depend on just what sort of thing it was prevented us from completing our original plan, and I can see lots of ways that could go…  In any case we’d just have to carry with us at least the basics, fire, shelter, some dried food, just like we always do up here, and hope it would be enough to see us through until we could either work our way back, or get established somewhere else…”

“Well, I guess we’d just have to find out.  If that happens.  If we even go.”

“Yeah.  If.”

Comments from 1 February

RF said…

They have no choice but to move now, unless they kill Juni.
Einar has bitten off way more than he can chew comfortably. One man alone is one thing but raising a family out there is a much bigger problem.
Take the easy way out? That is not Einar.

Either Juni has to stay the rest of the winter or they all go down to the valley. Einar is in no condition to go on the run again right now, especially with Will. The search will be over and the memorial service for Juni will start soon.

Going to that log where Liz had left the message was a big mistake. Time to take greater and greater risks.

There’s no going back now, is there…?

It’s now looking like none of the options are very good ones.  They’ve already lost the cabin now that Juni has been there, it’s only a matter of how and when they make their break and move on.  It will be very difficult for Einar to decide to go down to the valley, but it’s one of the things he will have to at least consider.

Good to hear from you!  It’s been a while.

Philip said…

Chris,

I understand ~now~, the Baskins & Robbins is for Einar!!!

Liz ~knows~ he prefers Cold Foods, what is colder than Baskins Robbins Ice Cream???

And even though its not made with Bear Fat, it has a high fat level, good for adding those calories, it is a dairy product, so its "healthy", ~right~?;)

Phil ponders.... or is Liz Preggie, and wants to hang with her gal pals.... At Baskin Robbins!

Does Little Snorrie have a sibling coming along... who is screaming inside Baskin Robbins "Dill Pickle & Peppermint" ice cream (must be a girl sibling) ???

having fun with the new twist, philip is thinking Ice Cream?

Sure, ice cream is healthy!  Sounds pretty good, too.

A for Snorri expecting a sibling right now, it would surprise me.  With Liz being Will’s sole source of food, that probably isn’t too likely to happen, just yet.

Thank you all for reading.