Silent, observing, sensing
Einar’s discomfort with the subject and so attempting to make herself as small
and unobtrusive as possible during the telling of the thing, Juni had listened
intently, her journalist’s brain making, almost without her willing it, lists
of questions which she wanted to ask him about this new bit of information,
this new piece to the puzzle which was the story of Einar. Only, she did not ask, silently reprimanded
herself for so much as thinking of the thing in those terms.
This isn’t a story, this is a man’s life, and though
he might very well tell you more if you were to ask…well, you’d better be ready
for the consequences of dragging him through all of that, before you do
it. If you do it. For now, you’d better just be quiet and let
Liz do her thing, because it looks like she’s pretty good at it. A good thing she came along when she did, I
guess, even if it does mean losing the rest of my week of survival training,
for now. That was some pretty tough
stuff, and though I would have got through it…I’m pretty sure…there seems to be
no guarantee that he would have. So,
things are working out pretty well, all in all.
I just hope Liz gets the message here that he’s trying to give her, or he
may end up taking off up the mountain again, way too soon…
Liz got the message, or
thought she did. Einar was trying,
intending to do things a different way for a time, had come to see the wisdom
in some of her words but must, to some extent at least, make the change in his
own way and without feeling that he had lost all say in the matter of what was
to happen to him, day to day.
Understandable, if perhaps not the most efficient path she could conceive,
especially given his propensity to forget after a meal or two—or a dream, or
the over-flight of a distant, rumbling helicopter—the ongoing direness of his
situation and resort once more to sitting and freezing himself in the snow to
make up for the supposed weakness represented by his having conceded for a
moment that he was indeed human and must, on occasion, rely on some form of
physical sustenance if he was to go on living…
Yes, with these things in mind she would have found herself much more thoroughly
reassured had he shown a willingness to commit himself to some plan which would
have assured his continued progress in the right direction even should he
forget, in a day or two, that such was in any way necessary, but that clearly
wasn’t happening, and under the circumstances, she was more than happy to take
whatever she could get. Which seemed to
involve his avoiding any situation in which the course of his daily activities was
too heavily influenced by anyone other than himself.
Alright then, she would not
push him too much, would be content if he simply managed to remember his
current resolve when it came to allowing himself to grow healthier and
stronger, ate a bit more, rested now and then…
If even those things could be accomplished, she was sure the difference
in him would be quite significant, might, perhaps, even be enough to get his
mind working a bit better so he’d have some chance of staying on his present
course, and see him alive and safe through the remainder of the fading
winter. She could not ask for anything
more and did not intend to do so, took his hands—he could object later if he
wanted to, but for the moment she simply wanted to avoid his falling against the
stove when he rose—and helped him to his feet.
Reptile hands, they were, cold,
all hollow and sunken between the bones, like the hands of a lizard. And, she told herself, he was probably about
as warm-blooded as one just then, too.
How he had managed to stay alive at all over those past months, let
alone maintain the amount of work he had many times set for himself was a source
of complete bafflement to her when she really stopped to think about it; stubbornness
and strength of will could carry a man an awfully long way, but in the end one’s
body had limits, had to have, and he’d found and surpassed his so long ago that
he probably didn’t even remember what it felt like to be living on the other
side of that thin, wavering line of division…
Yet, somehow he’d kept
going. The grace of God, maybe—definitely
that—combined, perhaps, with a belief, firmly held if never quite articulated
even in his own mind, that to give in and to die—as his body surely must have
numerous times come rather nearer doing that he would have liked to admit—would
have been too easy, too quick a release from the self-appointed and sometimes rather
elaborately-devised routine of torture and deliberate deprivation which marked
so many of his days. And in his own mind
he didn’t deserve that, such an end, the rest and respite it would provide him,
so he hung on, day after day and continuing absurdly past all reasonable limits
of bodily endurance, if for no other reason than that it would have been too
easy for him to leave, too gentle an end.
Or so she imagined. Figured it
must be something like that, and though the thought of it made her sad for him,
she was grateful at the same time that something
had helped him to stick around through all those tenuous months, even if the motivation
was not what she might have hoped it to be.
Enough. I’ve got to quit this, or he’s going to hear
me speculating, and start worrying that I’m plotting something. That wouldn’t be real helpful right now,
would it? She shook her head, smiled
at the puzzled look in his eyes as he watched her. He’d half expected, upon being hauled to his
feet, to have her start right back in again about his getting in bed, staying
there, despite his just having told her in rather more detail than he would
have preferred to remember exactly why he could do no such thing. But she did not, instead simply draping his
parka over him and glancing at the bed to be sure Will was still asleep.
“Alright, I hear you. No more trying to get you go anywhere near
the bed during daylight hours…though I still think you’d get better faster if
you would allow yourself more rest…so how about you come and help me bring in
some firewood, instead? I didn’t do that
before heading out to follow the two of you up the mountain yesterday, and it
shows..”
“Firewood. Sure.
That, I can do. Can do it all by
myself actually, if you’ve got other things you need to take care of…”
“Nope. Nothing.
Let’s go.”
Muninn, always wanting to be
helpful, or at least to be in the middle of things, hopped and then flew along
with them, taking up a position atop the woodshed as they filled arms with
broken branches, split logs and the bundles of short, dry twigs they’d taken to
using for kindling, Liz pausing once to listed for any sign that Will had
awakened inside and was anxious for food, but hearing none. Good.
That would give her time, and nodding to Einar, follow me, she set off
into the spruces, away from the cabin.
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