16 December 2012

Once they were mostly out of earshot of the cabin—not entirely, for Liz wanted to be able to hear should Will wake—she stopped, found the mostly snow-free trunk of a fallen aspen, and motioned for Einar to sit beside her.  “We have to decide what to do about Juni.”

He was surprised.  It wasn’t what he had expected.  “Now?”

“Yes, now.  Because…well, some of the things we talked about up there earlier, about you needing to get stronger, start heading in the right direction again so you’ll be able to stay here with us…I hate to say it, but some of those things are probably going to be easier done while she’s here, and I want to know how long I have.”

“Why should it matter if she’s here or not?  Don’t really understand.”

“No.  Just believe me.  If she can help with Will now and then, or with chores like firewood, this thing will go faster and you’ll be ready sooner to take back over where you left off.”

“I’m ready now.  Never yet left off in the first place.  Not making a lot of sense, al of this.”

She sighed, drew the parka closer around his neck, for he had begun to shiver after less than a minute of stillness.

"I know you’ve never left off yet, but you’re going to have to.  That’s part of what I wanted to discuss with you out here.  You’ve said you can’t just lie around and let me take care of things, and I understand that, but if you go on using up all the energy you take in, and more, you’re never going to make any progress really, and the first time we have to leave the cabin for any extended period of time, you’ll end up right back where you are right now.  Where you were up on the mountain yesterday.  And you’ll die.  So that’s why I need to know what we’re going to do about Juni, and when.  So I can plan what we need to do with you.”

“Ha!  I don’t like the sound of that, you know?  Not easy for me to…doggone it, Liz.  You’re really serious, aren’t you?”

“Yes.  Dead serious, and I don’t want you to forget how serious you were about it this morning, either.  Because I know you were, or you wouldn’t have been willing to shut down your week of instruction with Juni to come back down here with me.  Even if just for a little while, you were starting to admit to yourself just how far you’ve let this thing come, and how badly you need to start down a different path if you’re going to stick around.  Weren’t you?”

He shrugged, felt trapped and wanted to run but knew he had no business doing that sort of thing to her, particularly seeing as she was correct in everything she was saying.  Had heard his thoughts plainly as if he’d spoken everything aloud, somehow, and intended to hold him to all of it.  Well, wasn’t that what he had wanted?  What he had known must be done?  It was, he supposed, only he’d intended to do it himself and without any interference from her, or from Juni or anyone else.  Was the way he did everything, and he simply couldn’t fathom responding with anything other than strong and immediate resistance should anyone try and push him to do such things, from the outside.  Especially now that Liz had given him release from the agreement he’d had with her.  Had his freedom, meant to keep it but sensed that she was asking him in her somewhat indirect way—tended to confuse him, and he wished she’d just come straight to the point, state whatever it was she was wanting him to do, and let him say yes or no—to allow her once more to have some say over the course of his day-to-day life.  Some surrendering of his liberty which, though surely temporary, would prove to him no less intolerable, and this confused him also, for he’d thought she said not twenty minutes ago in the cabin that she was intending to do no such thing.

He rose, leaning on a tree and staring off into the snowy woods for a good minute before looking back in her direction.  “What is it you’re wanting me to do here, Liz?  You said we were out here to talk about Juni, and now…”

“I want you to consider letting Juni stay for a while longer, if you’re willing and if she is.  I know at some point we have to decide how to part ways with her for good, but let’s not even be too concerned with that right now.  How about another three weeks or so for starters, and then we’ll see how things are going at the end of it?  Maybe your day of ‘instruction’ yesterday has changed her mind, but I know at least prior to that she would have jumped at the chance to stick around for a while longer, and I really think it would free me up some to focus on improving things for you and getting you to the point where…”

He squirmed uncomfortably, didn’t like to hear her talk in those terms.  “It’s not safe.  If I do this, and really keep up with eating and all…well, you’ve seen in the past.  Things can tend to get a lot worse before they get better, I get all sick and legs swell up and all that goes with it, and if she decided to make a move while things were like that…I just wouldn’t be too well equipped to protect the two of you or to make a hasty exit from this place if things got bad in a hurry.”

“You’re not prepared to do that now.”

Silence.  Wanted to disagree, but couldn’t.  Well, he could have, and could have made a pretty good argument of it, too, could have taken off up the mountain to prove her wrong, but instead he sat back down, met her eye.

“She can stay, and I’ll do it.  Whatever it is.  But you may have to keep reminding me from time to time that I said so.”

A smile from Liz, an embrace, a whispered prayer of thanks as she pulled him back to his feet and led the way to the cabin; have to get that firewood carried inside, because I'm pretty sure a storm’s coming…

15 December 2012

No chapter tonight, but back with another tomorrow.

Nice snowy day here.

Thank you all for reading!

14 December 2012

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.

13 December 2012

Nothing for tonight, but will have a chapter for tomorrow.

12 December 2012

When the cabin came into view it was with great relief that all three travelers viewed its rough logs, nestled as they were up against their protective cliffs, five travelers if one was to count the raven and little Will, though Muninn had no strong opinion on their return home, having been fairly content merely to shadow the mobile series of camps, scout out ahead and receive at mealtimes his allotted portion of scraps, and Will lacked an opinion entirely, being fast asleep on Liz’s back.  Einar’s relief was tempered with the usual apprehension he experienced upon approaching the place after an absence, the need to watch, determine whether anyone might have been around while they were away, but at Liz’s urging he was able to content himself with only an hour of watching and scouting , rather than the more usual three or four.  Inside—everything was, indeed, exactly as they had left it—she and Juni got a fire going, driving off some of the chill while Einar, himself rather desperately fighting sleep, entertained Will with some pieces of elk bone and a few ptarmigan feathers. 

Later, an afternoon meal simmering on the stove and the cabin comfortably warmed, even if Einar was himself still white, pinched and shivering with chill, Liz sat down beside him, determined not to allow the momentum she had seen building in their earlier talks fall by the wayside.  Determined to keep it going.  “Now that we’re home, how about you let me get you comfortable in bed for a while, see if you can’t manage a little sleep before it’s time to eat?  What do you say?”

He gave her a weary grin, don’t push it too far, Lizzie… and gently freed his arm from the rather insistent grasp with which she sought to aid his rising.  “I think…it’s quite enough that I’m back here at the cabin with a warm stove going and soup bubbling over it, instead of out there finishing a week-long course as I was supposed to do.  No need for me to go anywhere near the bed, not until sometime well after dark.”

She looked a bit exasperated, and he figured he’d messed up.   “Why won’t you just relax a little and let me help you?  You want to get stronger, don’t you?  Now that you’ve kind of realized the situation and seen that you’ve ended up pretty far in the wrong direction, physically…”

“Sure, I want that.  But can’t…  Well, it won’t work for me to just sit around and let you do things for me like that.  Won’t work”

“Why not?  And besides, I was hoping you’d actually lie around for a while, instead of sitting.  You’d get more rest that way, recover faster and maybe give those sore spots on your sitting bones a chance to heal, too.”

“No, no, can’t do that either.”

“Why not?”

“Well, it’s…uh… I don’t really like to talk about it when…”  he nodded in Juni’s direction, Liz understanding, but at the same time dismissing.

“You can talk about it.  I need to know, and she’s been around for some of this.  It probably won’t be entirely new to her, you know…”

“Yeah.  See I can’t let you do it because in some way, reasonable or not, the whole idea sort of reminds me of…well, after I found my way back out of the jungle all those years ago and they put me in the Field Hospital to patch up my leg and various other wounds and stuff…it wasn’t a good thing.  Not a good thing at all.  They…chained me down, fed me through a tube, wouldn’t let me leave.”

“They chained you down?  With chains?”

“With…I don’t know.  Maybe not.  Probably not.  They were more like heavy cloth things, I think, but it didn’t make any difference.  Might as well have been chains.  Or the thin, twisted cords my captors had used.  Wrists and ankles, I couldn’t move and couldn’t leave and just lay there in the day with the fever coming and going—pretty nasty case of malaria, they told me; happens out there—wanting to be out and back with my unit so I could lead them to Andy, and in the night the dreams came and I was right back in that bamboo cage with my arms all stretched out behind me, couldn’t move, couldn’t free myself, and then when I woke and I really couldn’t get free, well, that just confirmed everything and sometimes I’d struggle and fight until my wrists bled again and they’d send a couple guys to try and hold me down…it was not a good time.”

“I can’t even imagine.  Why did they do that?”

“Because I wanted to leave.  Tried to leave.  First day or two in there I was too dehydrated and doped up on whatever they’d given me when they cleaned out and sewed up my leg—thought I was going to lose it for a few days there, far as the infection had gone—to really know what they were doing, but after that I took real active interest in what was going on.  Watched their every move, pulled out my IV when nobody was looking—I knew the right way to do that­, from some of my training over there—and headed at kind of an awkward limp for the door, thinking I could re-join my unit and lead them to Andy, lead a rescue before it was too late…"

"Well, that didn’t get me very far, just got me forcibly dragged back and tied to the bed until they could be sure I wasn’t going to try it again, which of course I was, but didn’t let them know that because it would have been real counterproductive.  Meantime I’d also started refusing the pills and stuff they were trying to give me—never did take too well to that sort of thing, and I was Ok by then on the mend and I knew it—and this didn’t please them very well.  So they started hiding some of the stuff in my food, knowing that I really, really wanted that food, because at that point it’d been well over a month since I’d had anything like a decent meal, or even a good-sized bowl of rice…  Needed it awful bad but trying to avoid those ground up pills and things I quit eating what they brought me, so it was back to the tube again—they’d done that when they first got me, because I was in and out of consciousness so much and I guess pretty badly in need of some nutrition, but I’d pulled it out as soon as I was awake, and gone in search of some real food—and this time I couldn’t do anything about it because they chained me down.”

He shuddered, jaw working as he stared into the shadows over behind the water barrel, and Liz thought he looked as though he was going to be sick, but the moment passed.  “It was like I’d…like all the effort I’d put into escaping, evading, finding my way back…like it was all for nothing.  Not a reasonable way to look at it, I know, but to me at that time, it was almost like I got to spend a couple extra weeks in the hands of my captors.  That’s what it seemed like.  Felt like.  And at night…well, it really might as well have been, for all the difference it made to me.  Finally after about two weeks of constant struggle this guy came to talk to me, this Colonel who had been at my debriefing, ­­wanted to try and talk some sense into me I guess, but instead I ended talking him into helping me appeal the medical discharge they were intent on giving me, and he did, but it didn’t do any good in the end, and they sent me home.  After all that, just stuck me on a plane and sent me home.”

Liz was quiet.  They had to send you home, you know?  Couldn’t have let you stay, not like that…  But she didn’t say it.  “They were only trying to help you in there, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, guess I do now.”

“And you know that I want to help you, and that I’m not them, any of them, and this has nothing at all to do with what happened there…”

Shook his head.  “Afraid it does though, and probably always will.”

11 December 2012

It surprised Einar, once they’d started down, to discover just how far he had climbed that previous day, ascending thousands of feet above the basin in what must have been only a few hours, judging from the time he knew he’d spent waiting in ambush for Juni and then waiting some more, while she sat trapped in the rock crevice.  Rather a major feat it must have been, but the time had passed in a blur, legs carrying him somehow up and over that immensity of steep, snowy rock and timber and mind managing to stay sharp enough through the whole thing to allow for an effective evasion and ambush of his student.  He shook his head, resumed following Liz as she led the way down through an especially gnarly band of timber, legs trembling and threatening to give out beneath him.  Would be better if he was still climbing, still measuring his own steps and in control of…yeah, that would really be better, wouldn’t it, if you were directing this thing?  So you could go right back to pushing yourself up that ridge until you were all used up and fell down for the last time, and that was the end of it.  Yeah, lots better than this.   Now be quiet, won’t you, and pay attention to the rocks before you really do fall and go tumbling down this thing, right to the bottom.  Fine mess that’d be, and besides, it’d delay Liz’s plan for the day, whatever that may be…

Far from the devious qualities Einar’s mind strove so hard and entirely without his bidding to ascribe to it, Liz’s plan was very simple, and extended, for the time, no further than getting all of them safely down the slope and back to the cabin.  This would, she knew, quite thoroughly disrupt any further hopes he’d had for finishing Juni’s survival course, and though this did concern her, by far the greater concern in her mind was the strong likelihood that the instructor would not, himself, have survived the remainder of the course.  If he didn’t see it yet, she could only hope Einar might at some time in the future come to see the futility of such an exercise if actually carried to its finish, and forgive her interference.  Seemed to be doing it so far, following with what appeared to her almost a disturbing level of meekness and compliance; she would perhaps have found herself reassured by seeing a bit more resistance from him, a bit of fight from time to time, but rather than stop and make a try at determining just how serious the situation might have become—she already knew, of course, but feared things might at last be nearing their end, had he entirely lost the desire or ability to resist, which as she had observed, always tended to grow stronger in him , rather than the opposite, as the struggle became more desperate—she decided to take advantage of it to make as much downward progress as possible, not knowing how long the unfamiliar new trend might last and well aware that whatever its origin and ultimate portent, she would be much better equipped to deal with the situation once everyone was back at home safe and secure in the (soon to be) warm cabin. 

She hurried, then, setting a pace which proved a challenge to Juni and left Einar grabbing at trees and bracing himself against boulders in an effort to keep on his feet as he all but hurdled himself down the mountain, less than steady but entirely focused on the task at hand, using the terrain to his advantage and managing, more or less, to keep up.  Until he bounced off of one too many boulders in the barely-controlled slalom that was passing as his descent, lost his footing and took a spill down between an angled slab of lichen-encrusted granite and the trunk of an enormous (for that elevation) and long-fallen spruce, the broken stump of one of its remaining branches getting all wrapped up in the parka Liz had insisted he wear for the descent.  Dizzy and a bit disoriented after a pretty good knock to the side of his head as he went down he flailed about for a time trying to free himself, but not wanting to damage the garment, he managed to stop after a bit, still himself and look at things a bit more objectively.  Not too badly tangled, really, was able to work his way free after a good minute of effort and get somewhat shakily to hands and knees, squinting out across the boulder field for any sign of Liz or Juni and hoping they hadn’t noticed his absence.  If they had noticed, they were not yet giving any sign of it had not—thankfully—doubled back in search of him and determined to keep things that way he redoubled his efforts at speed, hop-limping across the remainder of the rocks before collapsing in a crumpled heap beneath the cover of the nearest tree, world spinning thickly around him even as he fought it with all the energy he could summon.  On his feet, eyes pressed shut in the hopes of quelling the dizziness as he swept up the little spruce in a big bear hug, hanging on, swaying, sick. 

Up.  Stay  up.  She’s gonna come back any minute and see you here like this, and then…  Then what?  What’s the worst that can happen?  Afraid she’ll realize that you’re not too steady on your feet, or what?  Oh, she knows that already.  Quit fooling yourself, you numbskull.  She knows all about it, knows more than you do, and while she may not mention it every time because she’s trying to spare your dignity, you know there’s no fooling her.  And you’re not gonna gain anything by trying.  True, all of it, yet there was no way he could simply sink back to the ground and lie there waiting for her to come and find him, so after a time he eased his hold on the tree, took a few uncertain steps forward and soon settled into a rhythm which seemed likely to go on carrying him forward.  Which it did, but only for a few yards, vertigo overcoming him once more and this time jerking the ground most inconsiderately out from beneath him when he tried to rise.

Tried again, similar results, and he was about to start crawling when he realized that he could almost certainly walk with a stick, something to help steady him and keep the ground in its place, and though the idea did occur to him that he absolutely must not resort to any such thing, lest Liz see and realize that something was amiss, he quickly dismissed the objection as so much mindless, prideful prattle, dropped back to hands and knees and searched about until he found the appropriate implement, which turned out to be the lower two thirds of a long-dead baby aspen, barkless and blanched a smooth, sparkling grey by several years of high-altitude sun.  On his knees, testing the thing for sturdiness, Liz found him.

“What are you doing?”

He looked up—busted—gave her a lopsided grin and lowered his head, exhausted.  “Gathering firewood.  What’s it look like?”

“Looks like you’re bleeding.  What happened?”

“Bleeding?  Where?”

“Your head, right here.  What’d you do, run into a tree?”

“Oh.  Didn’t realize…”  raised a hand to the growing knot on the side of his head, came away with cold-congealing blood.  Well, she’d seen.  Might as well be honest about it.  “No, no tree.  Just had a little fall in the rocks.  No problem.” 

“No.”  She gave him a hand, pulled him to his feet and retrieved the stick when he dropped it, started off down the slope without another word.  Einar, breathing a sigh of relief, followed.  It would be good to be home. 

10 December 2012

Liz, it seemed, meant to get Einar walking this new path without too much delay, as upon waking she rose with an urgency that somewhat baffled him and left him looking to the sky in search of some storm-sigh which surely he must have missed in his half-awake morning musings, but there was nothing, no restless breeze, no scud of slate-grey cloud wreathing a distant peak or scurrying menacingly across the sky, no apparent cause for the near-frenzy with which she appeared to be going about camp as she brought the fire back to life, put on a pot for melting snow and added to its quickly liquefying contents a generous portion of bear fat, dried serviceberries and elk jerky.  A mystery then and though not ready to speak—still reflecting on his earlier musings, trying to get set in his mind some of the things he knew he must do to begin seeking remedy for a situation no less dire for the fact that it was almost entirely of his own making, but he watched her intently as she went about her work, and she must have seen the question in his eyes, for she nodded, glancing decisively at the less snowy, less steep lands down below.

“Yes, we’re going down.  We need to go down.  If you will.”

A nod.  I will.  I’m with you.

“Ok!”  Smiling with her eyes, face grave but joyful as she returned her attention to the now-simmering breakfast stew, stirring furiously as if the stuff could not be read soon enough.  Which, so far as she was concerned, it could not, for a variety of reasons.  Ready, and they ate, for Einar a struggle despite his willingness, for the raven, an opportunity to snag a bite or two of meat from ready hands and for the two women, energy for the day ahead…

Down the slope, then.  Liz had said they must go down—wouldn’t have needed words to hear that one—and he, every fiber of his being wanting to resist, to refute her, forced himself to be still inside, to turn away and to follow.  Which—and this, to his somewhat unique way of thinking, did provide some measure of consolation—was rather a great challenge in itself, nothing seeming to want to cooperate that morning, limbs having stiffened up terribly during his long night of stillness beneath the bear hide.  Though passing the dark hours in a great deal more warmth than he would have done if left to his own devices, his general condition had nonetheless suffered rather greatly due to the extended period of motionlessness, and now—though perhaps rather more willingly than Liz would have liked—he must pay the price.  Which he did, moving about quickly as he was able in helping to break down camp and prepare for their departure, rolling hides and gathering the few items Liz had brought along and stashing them in her pack, which he then proceeded to strap to his own back, quite unwilling that she should be required to carry both the entire load—for he and Juni had brought next to nothing—and little Will as well.  And he knew she probably wouldn’t let him carry Will.  Probably shouldn’t, for certainly there were times when he had been a great deal steadier on his feet than that morning.  Would be doing well to get himself down the first few hundred yards of descent without a nasty fall or two, and there was no way the little one ought to end up in the middle of that.  Irked him to no end to admit this, even to himself, but he knew it was true, and knowing, would have had to refuse the charge of Will, had Liz attempted then to give it to him. 

Somewhat alarming, when he stopped and thought about it—that’s your problem, you know, this morning?  This stopping and thinking.  Would get a lot more done if you kept moving, saved the thinking for later—that only hours before and in exactly the same situation, or perhaps even worse for not having had the benefit of Liz’s hot breakfast, he would have quite willingly taken the little one on his back and started down—or more likely up—that mountain without a second thought.  The idea of his slipping on the steep, snowy rock, tumbling, falling, breaking things on the way down and ending up a bloodied wreck at the bottom of a rockslide somewhere held little fear for Einar, was, at worst, perhaps even mildly amusing for the images it put into his head—vultures circling, diving, briefly reconnoitering before dismissing his emaciated and by-then already half frozen carcass as hardly worth the trouble; it gave him a bit of a chuckle—but the idea of Will coming along for such a ride, no choice, simply dragged along because his father had lacked, at the moment, the judgment and agility to successfully navigate such terrain…  Einar shuddered, quickly looking away from the spot where happy, safe and entirely unaware of his recent danger, his little son sat snug in the hood of Liz’s parka, playing with a raven feather   Thank You for keeping him safe…  And now, on with his work.  Prepare to leave, to follow Liz down the mountain.  Only, he had stood still for too long.  Could hardly move.

The cold.  Now that he had given up resisting it to the degree required when one is contemplating spending a night out in it with so little protection, the bitter chill of that alpine morning seemed to have gained on him a greater hold than ever, gnawing, twisting, seizing with teeth of iron so that every movement hurt and before too long he found himself wanting very badly to curl back up in the comparable warmth of the hides—hey, he’d done it for the night, hadn’t he?  Made that concession, why not go all the way?—tell everyone to go on without him, and sleep.  Just to spare himself for a while the agony of movement, the bitter struggle of forcing unwilling limbs to bend, flex, bear his weight.  Might have done it, too, had it not been for that thing within him—subdued somewhat, in his willing desire to bend to Liz’s wisdom, but not wholly tamed—which bade him keep going, take advantage of every opportunity for challenge and use it to his advantage, as way to increase strength, endurance.  And for Liz, herself—had her own expectations of him, she did, and he’d no intention of disappointing her again, not this time—who knew he needed the struggle and did not try too hard to intervene, eyes mostly remaining averted as she made her own preparations.  So, he kept on his feet, kept moving, and soon they were ready to head down.

All this time Juni had remained quite silent and kept herself somewhat apart, watching both instructor and spouse as if at times unsure to which she was supposed to look for direction, but observing after a time that they were of the same mind--or at least that Einar had laid aside the demands of his own mind in favor of Liz’s wishes for him.  A challenging accomplishment, indeed, for one whose strength of mind and stubborn will came anywhere near equaling Einar’s, and she found herself surprised and somewhat impressed that he had been able to do it, for however brief the stretch of time might in the end prove to be.