Sun
coming up over the ridge as Einar, Liz and their guests worked to slice mostly
frozen elk meat for jerky, pile of prepared slices quickly growing on the slab
of clean granite Liz had provided for the purpose. Will, not yet quite old enough to be handed a
knife of his own so he could participate in the work but clearly wishing to
help, balanced his way from one person to the next, occasionally taking an
unsupported step when the next knee or shoulder was a bit too far away. This greatly delighted Susan, who set aside
her work and encouraged the little one to let go and walk to her. Four wobbly steps, but he did it, changing
course at the last minute to pursue Muninn, who sat watching the jerky-slicing
with great interest from his perch on Einar’s shoulder. Will could not quite reach the bird, stood on
tiptoe against his father’s side and made a well-controlled lunge for a handful
of tail feathers, but missed when the raven saw what was happening and took a
timely hop to the side. Tumbling to the
floor beside Einar, Will squealed in delight as the raven hopped down beside
him and gently twisted a bit of hair in his beak.
Susan
laughed. “It looks like the raven remembers his job here. You know, he never would approach either of
us after you folks left. Just sat in the
spruce outside by the deck and watched through the windows late in the
afternoon and in the evenings, trying to catch a glimpse of you. During the day he would be gone. I’d always see him flying off in the same
direction about daylight, and returning from a different one, so I think he had
a big circuit he was making, probably up to the mine and over the ridge. Bud and I thought as springtime really got
started down there some kind of instinct might kick in and he’d go off in
search of other ravens, start a family, but he never did deviate from that
routine of his. You folks are his family
now, it seems, and he sure is glad to be home.”
Einar
held out an arm, and the bird hopped up onto it, settling on his shoulder. “Kinda glad to have the old buzzard back here
with us. Thanks.”
“Yeah,”
Bud chimed in, “but as you said, no way we’d come up here just to bring back
the bird. Come to take you folks out of
here, Asmundson. If you’ll go. Take you down the hill.”
Eyes
going dark at the suggestion, Einar focused intently for a time on the meat he
was slicing, cold-tremors disappearing from his hands as he added several neat,
precise strips to the pile before answering with a shake of his head. “You know we can’t do that. Search may have tapered off, feds moved their
focus to other matters, but the minute we put ourselves down there where random
contacts with other people are more likely…well, you know that’s how this sort
of thing ends. No. Got a lot to teach our little boy, up here. Lot of life for him to live.”
“Hey,
I know it. Not suggesting you folks move
on into town and start parading around in the streets with your buckskins and
atlatls and all and wait for the feds to notice, or anything like that. Simply suggesting a little drop in elevation,
maybe a place with a few more resources so you’re not having to fight so hard
to get by, all the time. Which would
have the added advantage of confusing the heck out of anybody who’s still
lookin’ for you, because it would be such a break in the pattern!”
“It’d
be the end, Kilgore.”
“Yeah,
end of you always having to look over your shoulder, keep watch at night and
scramble inside to put out the fire whenever you hear a plane in the distance. Wouldn’t have to be the end of anything else. Could be a new start.”
Einar
just shook his head, kept slicing jerky, and the tracker let it go for the
moment, silently musing as he worked. You wouldn’t know what to do with it, would
you? With the end of the search, a
chance to live what most folks would consider a more normal, settled life. It’d probably kill ya before a year was out. You need the running, don’t you? The struggle.
I get it. Don’t know about your
Lizzie, though. Seems she might
appreciate a break from all this, just a year or two while the little one does
some growing. Got to be some way to make
it work for everyone…
By
the time the sun had reached an angle where it really began to warm the little
tent—and thaw the meat they were trying to slice, rendering the work more difficult—the
job was nearly finished. As they worked,
Susan had further detailed goings-on in the valley, start of the season for her
greenhouse business, local politics in Culver Falls—Sheriff Watts had, because
of his vocal opposition to the former federal occupation of the town, become a very
popular local figure and probably could have reached state or even national
office, had he been inclined to give up his post as Sheriff—and the latest news
about her grandchildren.
Liz
found the conversation quite pleasant, these little scenes of a quiet, settled
life as told by Susan; Einar was just glad he didn’t have to be any closer than
he currently was to the crowd and bustle she was describing. Three guests were plenty to deal with, and
the more seldom they could put in their appearances, the better. He did
however, find a fair amount of intelligence value in Susan’s telling of local
events down in the valley. Seemed
Kilgore must have been close to right when he described not only an end to the
active search that has been based just outside the town, but a general loss of
interest on the part of the feds, This,
had he allowed himself to indulge, would have brought to Einar a significant
degree of relief, as it meant the various planes, choppers and ground
operations they spotted from time to time more than likely bore no relation to
any sort of ongoing search, and that they could, with the taking of reasonable
precautions—no building of three-story
split-log mansions out in the middle of forty acre meadows paving the driveway
with mud-and-pine-needle bricks and putting up fences to keep a herd of seventy
or eighty mountain goats, for instance, and he laughed silently at the
thought—likely live out their lives in the high country not only free of actual
interference, but of the constant need to be on their toes and expecting
attack, all the time. A tempting vision,
but he knew better. Down that path lay
only complacency, discovery and eventual capture. Not going that way. Not with his family, and not had he been
alone. Not a good way for all of this to
end. Liz was staring at him, apparently
waiting for him to answer something, and he realized that being lost in
thought, he had failed to hear the question.
He looked at her, smiled, hoped she might repeat it.
“Don’t
you think it sounds like something we can consider? Expanding our territory, maybe moving down a
little lower where we’ll have access to a wider variety of plants and critters
through the summer, and a little less struggle when winter comes? Maybe this is the time for it.”
Frustration. Of course she hadn’t heard him, the silent
words in his head, but he would have hoped there to be no need, hoped she was
thinking similarly. “We’ll talk about
it.”
That,
she understood. The conversation could wait. “Well, let’s get this jerky hung up and
drying, then!” Susan exclaimed, rising
from her eat by the tent wall. “It looks
like we’ve got quite a pile of it. What
are you going to use for racks?”
A
sheepish grin from Einar as he remembered his failed willow-gathering mission
several days prior. “Was going to use
willows. Started out to find some a few
days ago, and instead found smoke in the canyon, and at the end of the smoke,
you folks. Never did get around to
cutting the willows. So looks like you
three’ll have to stand in here and hold the jerky while it dries. Link hands
maybe, and form a circle. You’ll kinda freeze at night, but will thaw out when
the sun comes up. At these temperatures,
the whole process may take a few days…”
“Huh.
You can forget that!” Bud
bellowed. “Come on, Rog. Let’s go find the fella some willows. On your feet, Asmundson. If we do the finding, you got to do the
carrying.
Susan
laughed and began helping Liz gather up the sliced jerky strips as the three
men set off, Muninn flapping delightedly along beside Einar.
