11
The storm must have been over for quite a while before he realized it, the cave so still that his mind was automatically supplying the muffled shriek of the wind he had become so used to hearing that even when he crawled over to the breathing hole by the tree and saw the light up through there, he did not at first register its significance. He just lay there, looking, breathing, blinking, and then at last he understood.
“It’s over.”
But his words were weak, and he could hardly move.
“Did you hear me?”
She nodded weakly.
“Then let’s go.”
But neither of them moved.
What’s the matter with us?
The air. The air must be so bad we’re nearly dead.
It was all he could do to crawl over to where the tunnel had been and push away the saddle and the blanket and paw at the snow.
I don’t even have the strength to get out. We’re going to die in here.
He could barely lift his hand to paw again at the snow. He slumped down exhausted, fighting to breathe, and he suddenly couldn’t stand this place, the walls so thick that they were smothering him. His hands began working on their own. He was fascinated by them. He decided to help them.
The dog was waiting for him. He never understood how it had managed to live through the storm out there, but it had, crawling out from under the branches of a pine tree twenty yards away this time instead of fifty. It shook itself, head and shoulders above a drift in front of the tree, looking at him, and he was so grateful to be out in the clear bright open air that he didn’t care whether the dog was there or not. He just lay on the icy wind-packed snow, gulping breaths, sheltering his eyes, and then all he could think of was Sarah, and he was crawling back in, dragging her out, and the two of them were breathing.
Then the dog became important to him, not as a threat but as a chance for more food, and he suddenly didn’t care if anybody heard the shot or not, drawing his gun, aiming, as the dog turned and ducked down under the level of the drift, disappearing beneath the branches of the pine tree. Later when he had strength enough to work his way through the snow over there, he saw where the dog had dug a burrow of its own in under the snow by the tree and where it had used the cover of the tree to wade out away from him, a deep belly-drawn track leading off down the slope through the trees. He almost went after it, but he couldn’t leave Sarah, and anyway he was certain it would be back.
But it always came back at night, and even when he tried staying up in wait for it, he always missed it, crawling out in the morning to see where it had dug up a bone that he had finished with and buried, where it had dug down to get at the carcass of the horse but hadn’t been able to nibble away much of the frozen meat.
In the meantime there was the painful process of gathering more wood, working out farther and farther away as he used all the dead branches on the trees nearest him, constantly sensing that the dog was somewhere nearby watching him. And something else. Sarah. It was as if their long stay in the burrow had shown her what the winter would be like, and her mind could no longer sustain her. There wasn’t anything to do, she simply told him, and he knew what she meant. There was a constant attention to themselves to keep from dying, but each day was the same as the next, and she was losing her interest. He invented games for her, jokes, riddles. He sang songs with her. He gave her more chores to do. But what was the use? They didn’t have enough food, she told him. They had eaten the last of the strips he had cut from the horse carcass before the weather froze the flesh so hard that he couldn’t cut anymore, and he could see the carcass out there from where the dog had dug down to it, and he couldn’t accept the physical necessity that kept him from somehow getting a portion of it into the burrow where he could cook it. The food was right there before him, yet they were going to starve.
He was a day before he realized the answer. If he couldn’t bring the meat to the fire, he would bring the fire to the meat, and he gripped the metal with his gloves, feeling its heat through the wool, easing it out of the tunnel and onto the carcass of the horse, building up the fire until the heat through the bottom of the metal cooked the meat underneath. He used a stick to push the metal to another portion of the carcass, cutting off the square that he had cooked. It was only an inch down and the top was badly charred, but he had the answer, and when he had cooked another square, he built the fire low again and shifted it back into the burrow. She ate the meat gladly, but her joy was only temporary as the pattern repeated itself and she could see there was less meat on the horse each day, and there hadn’t been much on it to begin with, and soon they were down on this side to the bones. They could see where the dog had nibbled at them in the night. One morning there were tracks where the dog had eased past the saddle into the burrow while they slept, taking the last bits of meat that they had saved. More and more, he heard Sarah coughing in the night.
The end came shortly after. She just kept coughing longer, harder, drinking less, sleeping more. He chipped around where the horse was frozen solid to the snow, straining to flip it over, showing her there was still a lot of meat to cook. But she didn’t have the energy to look at it, just wanted to get back into the sleeping bag, edging closer to the fire. He tried everything he could think of, shoving a thick-needled pine bough underneath the saddle blankets and the sleeping bag as insulation against the cold, forcing her to drink hot water, tying her hood closer around her head, huddling nearer to her. But there wasn’t any use. It wasn’t just the cold outside that was getting to her but something inside as well. It was as if the mountains had been against her from the start. You could get sick up here from not enough oxygen or too little salt, but those were all chemical reactions to the altitude, and sickness in the sense of germs, disease, that hardly ever happened. This far up, there were hardly any germs to begin with. But with Sarah everything had come together. Her earlier nausea had weakened her resistance, the ride up here had weakened her further. Her coughing kept him up all night, not because of the loudness but because he knew what she was going through. From worry about keeping her warm, he now had to worry about the reverse, her temperature burning, him bathing her face with lukewarm strips of cloth from his shirt. He felt where her clothes were damp all through, heat conducting outward, cold conducting in, taking her clothes one at a time and drying them, carrying the fire outside to cook more squares of meat, knowing she shouldn’t be without the fire too long, working as fast as he could, bringing the fire back in and warming her, then cooling her again. He forced her to eat, but she barely had the strength to chew. He bathed her face again. He heard the liquid murmur in her throat and chest, and wanting to ease her effort, turned her on her side, then on her stomach, then on her other side, then on her back again. But the relief was always temporary, and with each sunrise, her condition grew worse. She spoke in her delirium as if she were back in their house before the start of everything, preparing for bed in her room, picking out her clothes for school the next morning. He recalled one night when he had given her a bath, drying her, combing her hair, and they had made up rhymes then, mostly excremental, laughing, and looking now at the dirty tangles of her hair sticking out around the edges of her hood, remembering the smooth thin sandy-brown hair he had been combing that night, he needed to turn away. Once she spoke as if it wasn’t him but Claire beside her, asking “Mother, can I have a friend to stay the night?” One morning she was dead.
Even when he heard the dog outside, gnawing at the carcass of the horse, he didn’t move. He just kept looking at her, staring at her open eyes, staring into them, amazed at the utter sense of lifelessness, in time closing them, pretending she was only asleep. When the dog came back the second time, he didn’t move then either, just continued staring at her, watching her face turn white, her body settle, stiffen. He stayed like that until he sensed the change in light outside and realized that he hadn’t moved all day, and even then he only moved because he needed to protect her, chipping a low chamber out of the left side of the burrow, easing her into it, knowing that if he kept her too long near the fire her body would start to decompose.
He slept, and waking, he took her out to look at her. Then worrying more about preserving her, he put her back in, packing snow around her. He went out and relieved himself, squinting from the sunlight off the snow, day again, staring down at the two frozen splashed-out circles in the snow near the one he was making, understanding he had come out twice since this time yesterday, not recalling when. He looked disinterestedly at where the dog had been gnawing at the carcass of the horse. He crawled back in, begrudging the effort he made to melt snow and drink it, looking at her.
In time he worried even more about preserving her and sealed her in, pushing away the snow each morning to look at her face, then sealing her in again. He took the fire outside, cooking more squares of meat, begrudging the need to eat as well but forcing himself, little by little, tasteless in his mouth. He wandered farther and farther from the burrow to find wood for the fire, eating more now so he could keep up the strength to get the wood, coming back into the burrow, afraid the dog had come while he was gone and eaten her.
But the dog never did, and going out each morning after he had looked at Sarah’s face, staring at where the dog had gnawed further at the carcass of the horse, he understood that if she hadn’t died, they both would have anyhow, not enough meat from the horse to last them both, not enough for the dog and him as well, and in need of occupying his mind, he spent his days and nights now on the problem of keeping the dog from the horse. He pretended to go off for wood but hid close by, waiting for the dog so he could shoot it, staying awake as long as he could, listening for some sound of the dog out there working at the horse.
But always the dog came when he really did have to go out for wood or when he dozed, and soon between the two of them, the horse was hardly anything but bones. He broke the bones off from the frame, boiling them, drinking the broth, sucking at the marrow, getting every bit of food he could from them, and then thinking it through, wondering what further use he could make of them, he took two of the largest curving rib bones, used horsehide to tie them together at the top and bottom, tied smaller bones across at spaces in the middle, and then threading horsehide through them from top to bottom, doing the same with another set of curving rib bones, he fashioned a pair of snowshoes
.
He wondered what else he could do with the other bones and couldn’t figure anything, eating what he could from them, leaving them outside for the dog.
And then there was nothing. He sat back in the burrow, hoarding a few last squares of meat that he had saved, looking occasionally at Sarah, thinking what more to do, figuring that he was going to have to use the snowshoes to walk down out of here. But he couldn’t bring himself to leave Sarah, and he couldn’t carry her, and even with the meat that he had saved, he knew he wouldn’t have the strength to make it all the way, the first good storm would finish him, no game around, and he kept sitting there. A series of warm days made him think that spring was on the way, but he only fooled himself, he knew, it was too soon for spring yet, and then the cold returned, much harder than before, and he used wood more quickly. Against his will he took Sarah’s sweater from her, cutting it, wrapping it around his head and shoulders in under his coat, leaving her own coat on her, not able to bear the thought of the back of her head against the snow. He looked at his watch, but it was stopped. He scratched at the sores on his thighs, his arms, in under his beard. From not washing and no food.
The dog came right into the burrow this time, stopping just inside the entrance, staring at him. It must have been there quite a while, him half-dozing, before he noticed it, stretched out on its stomach, staring at him. It looked at the meat next to him. It looked back at him and edged a little closer. He drew his gun without thinking. He cocked and raised it, aiming at one eye. The dog edged closer. He thought that when he shot it, he’d have more food, a chance to last the winter, but then he thought that it didn’t matter, a week or two more food if that, it wouldn’t make a difference, he’d only starve then anyhow, and perhaps it was because he was still a little dazed from sleeping, or maybe he just didn’t care, but instead of firing he lowered the gun and chose a bit of meat and tossed it. The dog caught it, mouth open, biting. He regretted it instantly, and raising his gun to fire, he saw that the dog was gone. He slumped back, cursing, then rousing himself, crawled to the entrance, aiming, but there wasn’t anything. He cursed again, slumping flat at the entrance, blinking, dozing.
The meat was gone two days from then. He remembered what he had told Sarah about three days without water, three weeks without food, deciding he was going to have to walk out anyhow but didn’t have the strength. He had visions of the dog coming back, shooting it, skinning it, eating it, had visions even of the scrap of meat that he had given to the dog. He remembered stories about people in plane crashes in the mountains, starving, finally eating corpses. He thought of Sarah and shook his head. But maybe it would come to that. He couldn’t pretend it wouldn’t. The taboo against cannibalism lasted only as long your mind controlled your body, and in time he knew he would be hardly more than an animal, doing whatever it was forced to in order to stay alive. He would wake up some morning and uncover her, thinking of the possibility. Another morning he would tell himself that this was what she would want him to do. Some evening he would try to cut a sliver from her, stopping himself, then doing it anyhow, cooking it, tasting it, gagging but making himself chew anyhow, and in time he would be able to do it without much revulsion, perhaps even with reverence, justifying himself, thinking of communion.