10 November 2011

Scrambling, stumbling, quickly resorting to hands and knees on the snow-slick rock lest he end up slipping and testing that landing pad of snow, himself--not deep enough; he’d almost certainly break something on the rocks beneath, which would aggravate Liz greatly enough to possibly go at him with the rabbit stick and break another bone or two--Einar made his way up onto the high ledge above the cabin, edging out to the precipice on his stomach and peering down into the swirling whiteness below. Liz hadn’t much wanted him to go, especially seeing as he appeared to be having nearly as much trouble with his legs as he had the day before, but neither had she wished to carry the baby up those treacherously slick rocks in the middle of a snowstorm, so she’d watched him go, keeping well back from the area where ice and rock would end up falling, should Einar send some of it tumbling. It was with some relief that she heard his shout from the top.

“You back where it’s safe? I’m ready to start knocking this stuff loose…”

“Yep, all clear. Let it come down!”

Front half hanging precariously down over the edge of the cliff and one leg bent around a gnarly little limber pine for stability Einar struck one of the larger ice deposits with the staff end of his spear, harder and harder, hanging onto the thing with both hands and putting all of his strength into those strikes until finally the frozen stalactite gave way and went crashing down to the snow below, where it punched straight through to the rock beneath, shattering. Well. Not exactly what Einar had hoped for, but the ice would still be salvageable, and would still prove a more efficient water source than the powder snow, even if they had to scrape up shards to carry in and melt. Three more to go, so far as he could see, before he’d have to move, and he brought them down in quick succession, glad when the broken-glass sounds from below seemed a bit less catastrophic on the second two, figuring they’d somehow managed to make better landings. Moving carefully along the rim of the overlook Einar freed as much ice as he could reasonably--a designation which Liz would have vigorously disputed, had she seen the lengths he was going to in order to access it--reach, pulling himself back up at the end and lying flat on his stomach in the snow until his breath began returning, the aching squeeze in his chest easing just a bit and the dizziness subsiding to the degree that he could almost trust himself on his feet once more. Time to head back down, and he sent his spear over the edge into the snow below, not wanting to be encumbered with it on the descent.

“All clear now, you can…go take a look at the ice. Just don’t…get in under me until…” Breath failed him then, words failed, but she would have got the message, and he started down, hands sliding over the slick rocks as he backed his way down the steep route which marked their best access to the overlook, losing his grip at the end and fall-sliding the last fifteen feet or so to land unhurt but slightly stunned in the deep, billowy snow beneath. Liz was there beside him, wanted to help him up but couldn’t make out what she needed to grab in order to do so, tangled up as he’d become on landing, and nearly buried in the snow so she let him sort himself out, brushing the snow from his face when at last it emerged.

“That ought to do us for a while! Now all we got to do is carry it back and start the melting. That’ll be my job today, the melting. Gonna get that barrel refilled by the time night comes, or something close to it, so we don’t have to worry about water for a few days.”

“Yes, it looked like a lot of ice as it was coming down. Now let’s go get what we can carry of it and head back to the cabin before you turn into an icicle, yourself! Looks like you’re getting pretty close there, but that’s probably exactly what you wanted, isn’t it?”

Einar shrugged, shivered--wasn’t really liking the cold too much that day, seemed to be having a far more difficult time than usual resisting its advances and keeping it out of his bones, but was still glad to be out there in it--“Yeah, the cold helps preserve me, makes me last longer. It’s good for me.”

“Well maybe, but I think you’ll last a good while longer in the cabin today, considering the weather. Come on. Let’s get that ice.”

While a good bit of the ice had fragmented, splintered and mixed itself in with the snow, a good number of larger chunks remained intact, and these Einar and Liz collected, stacking them in their arms as with firewood and carrying them back to the cabin, where most of them were deposited in the snow for later use. As much as would fit into one of the pots Einar brought inside, setting it to begin melting. Was going to be a long, slow process with no vessel larger than the cookpots in which to do the melting, but still so much faster than melting snow. He wanted to use both pots to speed things up, but Liz had other ideas.

“I need one of them for soup. Time to make another batch, because you haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

“Breakfast was just an hour or two ago!”

“Well, that makes it time for more. You need more, and so does little Hildegard.”

“You and Hildegard can have it all, this time. Think I might need to slow down some with the eating. Had more between yesterday and today than I have in a long time, and I’m kinda feeling it, I think. Legs aren’t working right, and it’s…a little more difficult than it ought to be to breathe, I think.”

“But your legs weren’t working right yesterday morning, either, and that’s before you’d had anything to eat. And neither was your heart. You told me so. I think your problems are all coming from not having enough for so long, and it’ll take them a while to go away. You need more. It’ll help.”

“Yeah, legs were a problem yesterday too, but not like this. All swollen up today, and that’s not good. Think I need to back off on the protein for a while, let this swelling go down.”

Suddenly very concerned Liz inspected his lower legs, finding them so swollen that she had to struggle to remove his boots, white, indented spot remaining where she had pressed her fingers. “No, this isn’t good, but it may simply be a sign that your body’s struggling to adjust to eating more again. Keep at it. It’ll be uncomfortable for a few days, maybe even a couple of weeks, but you’re going to be alright.”

“Yeah, I’m already alright. And want to find a faster way to melt this ice. Figure if I just throw it all in the barrel and dump in a bunch of hot rocks, it’ll all go up in steam and the job’ll be done.”

“We don’t want steam, we want water!”

“Was just kidding about the steam. We don’t have enough hot rocks to turn this stuff to steam, but if I really keep on top of it, might be able to keep them cycling fast enough through the fire to get it all melted. Then can heat a bunch more later all at once, and hopefully bring the whole thing to a boil real briefly to make it good and safe to drink.” Proceeding with his plan, Einar took several loose slabs of rock from the top of the stove and lowered them, using scraps of hide to protect his fingers, into the bottom of the nearly empty water barrel, its contents quickly coming to a simmer. To this warmed water he began adding ice chunks, breaking them up as well as he could to speed melting and adding more rocks to the stovetop, pushing a few into the coals themselves to accelerate their heating.

Comments from 9 November

Nancy1340 said...

Thanks FOTH

Thanks for reading.

colspt said...

A little food, a little rest and he is already thinking more clearly.

Funny how that can happen, sometimes. : )

Philip said...

Einar, major Changes! Good writing Chris, it is pulling together....

missed from the 4th to last night, am on road, but caught up!

Hope your travels are going well. You’ve got your new home with you, I expect?

9 November 2011

Working together to clear the area in front of the cabin of some of its accumulated snow--Einar did his part lying flat on his stomach and sweeping at the snow with his arms, a development which somewhat alarmed Liz as it seemed to indicate that he could no longer get his legs to support him, but Einar insisted that he was simply doing it that way because he found it most efficient, and she did her best not to laugh; it wasn’t funny, he was freezing and couldn’t stand up--they stomped and brushed themselves clean of snow before returning inside, Liz hovering over the stove for warmth and then practically hauling Einar over near it when he seemed content to remain sitting with his back against the closed door, watching her. Soon they were both warming, sharing a pot of tea beside the fire and passing it back and forth until Einar had thawed sufficiently to once again trust himself with speech.

“Storm’s gonna be here for a while, looks like. Lot of snow drifted up against the door this morning. I can see we need a windbreak of some sort, something like a snow fence to trap the drifts before they get to the cabin, when the wind starts blasting through the clearing like that.’

“Something made of woven willows like you did for the insulation retaining wall along the back of the cabin, maybe? We could stick a bunch of upright willows in the snow now that it’s deep enough to hold them, then weave others in sideways…”

“Sounds like a good idea! It’d be temporary of course, would fall down in the spring but we don’t need it there cluttering things up in the summer, anyway. Fence like that should cause a bunch of snow to build up against it, start a massive drift that’d only get bigger as the winter goes on, and it might eventually get so high as to shield the cabin almost entirely from the wind. That would be great. Cliff on the backside, massive snowdrift and then timber on the front, and us living in a little pocket of still air here in between! Yep, we need to build that wall. Tomorrow, when the storm stops.”

“You think it’ll stop by then?”

“I can’t tell. Ought to, though. Would be real rare for us to have a storm that lasts more than a day or two with this sort of intensity up here. Ought to start tapering off at least, and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the sun comes out. That’ll be the time to go fix our traps, because everything’s gonna be out and about looking for food after a long storm like this.”

Liz nodded, returned her attention to the soup on the stove, secretly hoping the storm might continue for another day or two, just so Einar would have that much more time to rest up before finding himself compelled to venture out on the trapline, again. Hoped also that she’d be doing better on the snowshoes by then, so she could go along with him, and determined to get out and practice at least once more before the day ended, work on getting her balance and finding a better way to free herself and return to an upright position after the inevitable falls that would surely still occur, on occasion.

Dipping into the water barrel to refill one of the pots for Liz, Einar found it nearly empty and set himself the task of melting snow to begin refilling it, as that seemed more practical than making a trip up to the spring for water, even if the spring didn’t happen to be frozen over already, which, considering the recent sharp drop in temperature, sounded quite likely. Far better, he knew, would be if they had ice to melt instead of snow, the water concentration in ice being far higher and its availability greatly cutting down on the amount of work involved in obtaining water. The spring was too far to reasonably carry ice, tarn even farther, but Einar remembered something, hurried into his boots.

“Back in a minute. Just got to check on something out behind the cabin.” Liz didn’t like it, but she let him go, confident that he wasn’t intending to head off on any major expedition and supposing that if his legs gave out on him while out behind the cabin, he could crawl back without too much trouble.

Pushing his way through the deep snow, Muninn circling somewhat noisily overhead--seemed he was having a bit of difficulty with the high winds, but was nonetheless elated to be out and about in the fresh air, and was letting Einar know about it--he worked his way around to a spot up behind the cabin where the overhanging rock wall had once provided him a place to take a very cold and refreshing shower during a rainstorm, and squinting up through the blowing snow at the overhanging granite some twenty feet above his head, he was just able to make out a number of icy stalactites clinging to the edge of the dropoff, far thicker than the typical icicle one might expect to see and definitely containing a useful amount of ice when it came to water production. The difficulty lay in retrieving the icy formations without shattering them to bits as Einar expected would happen if he went up top and knocked them loose, and he had an idea, keeping tight hold on the spear for balance as he used his feet to shovel drifts of soft, powdery snow over beneath the dropoff, covering and cushioning the somewhat rocky ground where drops had fallen before the real cold set in and turned the snow somewhat thin and crunchy. Liz had joined him by the time he’d nearly got done creating a suitable landing pad for the jutting ice chunks, having grown concerned at the length of his absence and not wanting to find him lying out there half frozen in the snow, should his legs have given out on him once again. She stared somewhat skeptically at the deep pile of snow he’d managed to scrape, shove and pile together, not seeing the ice hanging above and wondering what he could possibly be about.

“What’s this, your bed for tonight? I hope you’re not expecting me to join you…”

Einar laughed, grabbed Liz’s hand and flopped down on the middle of the pile, bringing her with him, the two of them sinking so deeply into the soft snow that they had to brush it away from their faces in order to be able to see. “Not a bad idea, now that you mention it. Real soft and cozy here in the snow. But no, that’s not what I’m doing. Look up.”

“I am looking up, but all I see is snow falling towards my eyes. Fast. It would make a person dizzy if they watched for too long, I think.”

“Well, look harder. Though the snow. See all that ice up there? Seems a good bit of it’s built up on that ledge and over it, and I’m just trying to give it a soft spot to land when I go up there and knock it loose. To melt for drinking. Figure we can just keep it here in the snow, come dig chunks out whenever we need some more to melt. And if the weather cooperates, there’s a good chance that by the time we finish this stuff, more will have formed.”

“Will it be clean? As clean as the snow, I mean, for drinking.”

“Nope, I suppose not but we can bring it to a boil as we melt it, if that seems necessary. Just might cut down on the work and fuel needed to keep us supplied with water this winter. Now…” He got to his feet, rolling, struggling, relying heavily on the spear, but making it, “Lets get this landing pad fixed back up, and then you stay good and clear of it, because I’m going up top and knocking down some of that ice.”

Comments from 8 November

Nancy1340 said...

Glad your taking this story in a slightly different direction.

Sideways? :D

Kellie said...

I would have loved to see that! lol! I may have even done that myself a time or two..... let me think......

I’ve certainly had unfortunate incidents with snowshoes, mostly when trying to use them on a slope that’s too steep and has branches/fallen trees just beneath the snow…not good!

And when skiing on rotten spring snow, it’s very easy to end up with your ski tips firmly stuck beneath the crust and yourself with nothing solid to push against in an attempt to get up, if you fall. Very frustrating if you’re in a hurry!

8 November 2011

Before bed that evening Einar insisted on making a trip outside, and though Liz was somewhat worried that he might be intending to disappear into the storm for an extended period of time after their rather intense conversation, she let him go without protest, the least she could do after his new willingness to start eating a more reasonable amount and engage in a serious discussion regarding some of the difficulties facing them that winter. Darkness was nearly complete as Einar pushed through the light ridge of snow that had drifted nearly two feet deep against the door, kicking the bulk of it aside and taking in a sharp breath as the wind hit him, seeming to cut right through the single deer hide he’d wrapped about his shoulders and whistle between his bones before making its way up into the rocks behind the cabin. Was going to be a cold night, and the snow, for the moment at least, showed little sign of tapering off.

Within minutes Einar was shivering, making his way back from the outhouse area to stand braced against the woodshed, listening to the night as he drew in great breaths of bitter, bracing air and briefly considering a quick trip up to the spring and overlook, as he had earlier felt so compelled to make. Shook his head, caught himself with his elbow as he nearly toppled over to the side. Wouldn’t have been a quick trip, and he knew it. Could hardly keep to his feet as it was, would probably end up crawling the last half or so if he went, and how could he justify such a thing, after his recent talk with Liz? Couldn’t, that was what, and he guessed he’d just have to find some other way of getting through the night, wasn’t much looking forward to it--Lord, I need to be alone after that talk, all tore up inside and I don’t want to give her any of this hurt…don’t know what to do--but as he turned and saw the faint orange light escaping above the door a strange thing happened, the thought of Liz in there waiting for him with her face glowing softly in the firelight and their child all round and growing and secure in her belly somehow seeming an awful lot stronger than the call of the snowy night, and he found himself having to stop and brush tears from his face as he opened the door, suddenly overcome by the wonderment of it all, life continuing, he a part of it and his own dear Lizzie...well, he just couldn’t comprehend it. Her. The sort of patience she had, the forgiveness, the gift of her continued presence.

Liz caught him as he stumbled in through the door, brushing wind-plastered snow from his hair and shaking it from the deer hide that covered him, immensely relieved at his fairly timely return and seeing in his eyes that he’d met with a struggle of one sort or another out there, and had won. Thought she saw something else, too, in the way he looked at her, a little hint of something that might have very nearly approached affection, even, but she expected he was probably just hungry. And terribly cold after being so scantily clad out in the wind and snow like that--though of course he didn’t seem to be noticing it much, as was his way--so she hurried to get him back to the bed and tucked in with a pot of good salty honey-sweetened broth, rich with bear’s blood from one of the cakes they’d so carefully dried and set aside that fall. A good way to end the day, and even Muninn, who had not followed Einar outside into the storm, seemed to agree, perching himself on the end of the bed and settling in for the night. Liz hadn’t yet shown Einar the tether and anklet she’d made for the bird, and saw no need of using them that night. Einar was, she hoped, past the worst of his struggle with remaining conscious, could simply sleep somewhat normally that night and wake refreshed in the morning.

Quiet was the night that settled over the basin, quiet aside from the rush and sigh of the wind in the trees and the nearly inaudible sift and drift of the snow as it filtered down through the trees and piled deep against the cabin wall, adding its airy bulk to the insulation Einar and Liz had worked so hard to gather and pack in as the fall advanced, keeping the place reasonably warm as the crackling coals grew dimmer in the stove and finally died. Einar, cold despite the coziness of the cabin and their bed of hides and dreaming of food, stirred occasionally in his sleep but did not wake. When morning came they woke together, lying silent for some minutes listening to the storm rage on outside. Einar was the first out of bed, knowing that Liz had done almost all of the chores the previous day and wanting to have a fire going for her and the cabin warming, at least, by the time she got out of bed. Searching through the kindling stack he found a few likely-looking pieces and built a quick fire, bushing away the fine skiff of snow that had drifted under the door in the night--need to get a rolled up hide or some bundles of aspen bark fibers stuck in front of that thing next time, keep the snow out and the warm air in--before he knelt to breathe it to life. Which was where the trouble came in, as he suddenly found himself so short of breath it was all he could do to keep from blacking out, let alone fan the fire. Used his hands instead, creating enough of a breeze to get the kindling to take and crouching there with hands on his knees watching the little flames creep up through his carefully prepared kindling, crackling, growing, taking. Fire was safe, and he slid the rock door in front of it, leaving an inch of gap to aid the new fire. Not a good start to the day. He’d hoped to run the trapline, to be able to do it, at least, after a day and a night of rest but if anything his legs seemed less steady, breath coming with difficulty and it frustrated him, but he tried to remember the conversations of the past evening, assign the matter a bit less importance than normally he would have. Wasn’t easy. He wanted to get outside, prove himself, prove to himself that he could manage that day what had been a physical impossibility the day before despite his best efforts. Liz interrupted his silent struggle, joining him by the fire and chopping meat for a morning soup.

“It must have snowed a lot in the night. Everything’s so quiet out there, muffled somehow. Think I’ll go try out the snowshoes, and if they’re working well, maybe head out on the trapline in a little bit. Will you keep an eye on the soup?”

Reluctantly Einar nodded, back braced against the wall as he helped her into her parka. “Look like some good snowshoes you’ve put together. They ought to do real well.”

It took both of them to push open the door against the snow that had drifted up against it, Einar following Liz out into the world of white and helping her stomp down a spot in front of the door where she could put on her snowshoes, lacing them for her and reluctantly returning to the stove to tend the soup as he’d told her he would do. Well over a foot of snow, he estimated, had fallen in the night, possibly a good deal more though it was difficult to tell, the way things had drifted. A major storm, and it was still coming down.

Setting out on her trial run with the snowshoes Liz was at first quite pleased at the way they prevented her from sinking too deeply into the light, airy powder snow, but that was before she’d taken more than a step or two. Movement was, to say the least, cumbersome in her present condition and she moved slowly, feeling quite unsteady. Losing her rather tenuous balance after making most of the scarce thirty yards across the clearing she ended up on her back in the snow, legs flailing in the air as she found herself quite unable to rise with nothing but deep, soft powder snow all around her, nothing solid to grab. Couldn’t even seem to get herself flipped over, and though growing rather exhausted with repeatedly trying she found herself dissolving in fits of hysterical laughter at the entire scene, picturing herself as a great turtle or beetle who once on its back simply couldn’t get flipped over and up again. Einar heard her laughter, came bounding out the door, having misinterpreted it as a sign of distress.

“What happened? Are you Ok? I’m coming, be right there…”

“No, no it’s fine! I’m fine. Don’t hurry. I’m just a little top heavy, topsy-turvy, something like that, and I ended up floundering around in the snow and falling, but it’s soft!”

Einar had reached her by that time, removed the snowshoes, whose tails had become hopelessly dug in beneath the snow, and got her to her feet, sinking to the ground beside her as the burst of adrenalin that had got him out the door with such speed wore off and left his legs once more barely able to support him. Liz’s turn to help him up, and she did, getting a shoulder under his arm lest he fall again and trying to brush some of the clinging snow from his clothing.

“Sorry to alarm you like that, it was just so funny! I was waddling! Waddling like a huge wide duck. And sinking, and then falling and floundering and…. You know, I think it’s going to take a while to get used to the ‘pregnant lady with snowshoes’ walk, but I’ll get it! Let me find a good place to sit down, and I’ll get back into these snowshoes and go do the trapline, just as soon as I’ve had a little soup.”

“No need to go today. Traps’ll all be drifted over, most of them anyway, so you might as well wait until the storm stops and then we’ll go together, dig them out and reset everything. This is looking like a good day to stick close to home.”

Liz looked up at him, nodded, almost burst into laughter again at the thought of her floundering on her back in all that deep, fresh snow. “Ok, I’ll do that, just as long as you’ll stick around here with me!”

Comments from 7 November

Nancy1340 said...

Better...... :-)

Thanks

Thanks for reading. : )

colspt said...

Finally Einar is talking and eating. Good deal FOTH.

Liz thinks so too...

Kellie said...

one struggle for another, sounds like a good plan to me! :)

I think this struggle will be a harder but more satisfying one.

In a lot of ways, it probably will be harder.

7 November 2011

Seeing that Einar appeared a good deal more lively and in the present when the child was being discussed and wanting to keep him headed in that direction, Liz figured the time might be right to get serious about choosing a name for the baby, as their conversations in that direction had so far been mostly limited to light-hearted exchanges about Einar’s long-lost but much loved Uncle Snorri, whose name--steeped in family tradition as it might be--she hoped not to have to use.

“Speaking of the baby, what do you think we ought to call him? Or her? I know we’ve talked about some things, but I’ve been wondering lately…well, what would you think of possibly naming him Andy? After your friend…” Einar didn’t say anything but looked at her like she’d just kicked him in the gut, looked sick so she dropped the matter, wondering if she’d made a mistake in even mentioning it.

“How about your family, then? Your father, maybe? Or an uncle…though not your uncle Snorri!”

A soft chuckle from Einar as he straightened up against the wall, scrubbed his hands across his face as if to erase some unpleasant image. “But Snorri was always my favorite uncle, up until he disappeared, anyhow. Still don’t know where that fella went, or why, or if he ever planned on coming back…but no, let’s not do that. Let’s give the little guy a fresh start.”

“Are they still living, your parents? Your family? You’ve never said much about them…” A mistake, perhaps, to ask such personal questions, but she had long been curious, and Einar had never seemed much inclined to bring up such subjects, himself.

Einar nodded. “My mother is. Or was, when all this with the search started. And my brothers, and sister. Haven’t had the opportunity to try and contact anybody since then, even if I’d wanted to…”

“You weren’t very close to your family?”

“Growing up I was, but after the war…” He shrugged, stared at the fading light above the door. “Well, I went home for a few weeks that winter after returning from overseas, was still pretty messed up, could barely use my left hand and arm sometimes and was still walking with quite a limp after the fine hospitality of…my captors and all those weeks dodging them after I’d escaped, and they wanted me to come there and take it easy and heal for a while, I guess, and I tried it but just wasn’t ready to be around people yet, even family. Especially family. Guess they could see I wasn’t doing too well just being around the place like that and they tried to get me a job but I didn’t want a job, I wanted to go back…there, only they’d insisted on shipping me home like so much worn out cargo despite all my efforts to stay, and besides, the war was pretty much over by then anyhow… Wasn’t fair for me to be around my family like that, though. Tried my best for a little while to be…how they wanted me to be, kept myself real busy shoveling snow and working on a couple projects they had going that year but I think they found it alarming that I didn’t talk hardly at all during the day and didn’t eat and then would disappear into the snowy woods every night without a sleeping bag or anything and not come back until morning…"

"One of my younger brothers--they were both still living at home at the time--followed me one night after I’m pretty sure my mother put him up to it, and I guess he saw what I was doing, which was just to sit there on a log freezing myself pretty much to death all night so I wouldn’t have to go to sleep and deal with the dreams and all that went with them…was kinda working for me, but I guess they didn’t like it. After that my mother and sister started trying to talk me into 'going away somewhere' for a while, and apparently they even had a place in mind, but it sure wasn’t the sort of place I’d ever want to be caught dead in. I mean, they wanted to lock me up, wanted me to agree to it and go willingly and I guess they must’ve had no idea at all how that sounded to me at the time... They even had a fellow come out to the house one day and talk with me about it, and I set him real good and straight on what I thought about his particular profession…yeah, did plenty of talking that day!--but I did want to leave for sure, couldn’t stay there any longer, so I went, though I don’t think a three month long wander through the winter wilderness without any supplies--which I’m still to this day convinced saved my life in a number of ways, though it nearly took it a couple of times too; dumb kid--followed by shipping out to Africa was exactly what they had in mind! But I’d decided on Rhodesia even before making it back to the states, just hadn’t told them about it yet. Had wanted to head out again just as soon as I hit the tarmac, actually, but didn’t think they’d be too likely to take me in my current physical condition at the time. Those months in the woods let me take care of that, get some of my strength back and work on the hand and arm until they were useful again, and then I went.”

“After you got back from overseas that second time, after…what was it? Four or five more years…did you go see your family again? Were things any different?”

“After I lost the second war? Nah, I came back from that one so angry and ready to tear into some lying, conniving American communist hind end that all I did was stop by for a real quick visit before heading out again…got that job I’d told you about, which meant going through school while working for them in something less than official capacity because there was some little stipulation about my needing a degree or two--I got three--before I could really be given the position, so I did that, and then was traveling the world again, all over the world. Saw my family some here and there in the years after that was over, but it never was the same, except between me and my brothers, we always got along, and my youngest brother Jakob even came out and stayed with me a few times at my cabin, but my sister was always poking and prying and trying to interfere with how I lived my life, to the extent that it turned out to be pretty unwise for me to spend any great length of time around her… But all that’s neither here nor there. You know, I really believed at the time that I could do some good working from the inside like that with that intelligence job, and I did, here and there, but for the most part I was a fool for ever thinking that.”

“You’re making a difference now.”

“Now?”

“Yes, now. You have no idea what kind of an impact the early months of the search had down in town, across the state and even the country. The fact that the feds couldn’t get their hands on you even though they were using every resource they could bring to bear--well, that changed how a lot of folks looked at things, gave them courage and led to a lot of resistance to some of the things that were happening down there, so you did make a difference, and you’re still doing so just by continuing to remain alive, and you’re going to be doing it by raising our child, too, going to be doing the most significant thing you could possibly do in your life. So. Are you ready to do this? I don’t want to ‘send you away’ anywhere like your family was trying to do, or to change you in any way, even, I just want you to be here to help me raise our son. Are you ready to come home now?”

Silence for a very long time, then a quiet answer. “I’d like to be. Especially now with the little one coming, but you know…this struggle, this daily fight for existence--I know a lot of it’s self-imposed, at this point, but I need it. I’d be lost without this, and you’d no more have me here than if I kept it up and…well, you were right about what’s ultimately gonna happen if I keep it up, I know that, but the reality is that some days…nothing against you and the little one, but reality is reality…this struggle is the only thing keeping me around.”

“I know. I can see that. Look at it this way, though. Even if you stopped that ‘other’ struggle right now, started trying to eat normally and doing all the things you need to do, it’s still going to be a struggle, and a pretty major one, just to get yourself through the winter the way things are going. I hate to put it like that, but it’s true.”

“I know.”

She offered him more soup, ready for some time on the stove but left untouched during the course of their conversation, and he ate.