Post by bretf on Jul 3, 2016 13:28:11 GMT
Chapter 33: Season Suite: Winter
It's cold and it's getting colder
It's gray and white and winter all around
And oh, I must be getting older
And all this snow is trying to get me down
There's a fire in the corner slowly dyin' away
Sometimes I just don't feel like goin' on anymore
And yet I know it's more than worth the waiting
For another chance to see the summer sun
Come on, shine on me
“Season Suite: Winter” Performed by John Denver
Written by Kick Kniss, James Taylor, John Denver
Amanda fumbled with the match in shaking hands and lost it in the darkness. She took another from the box, carefully closing the box to prevent more from falling out. She guessed she had already spilled a third of the box, her hands were so cold. Finally she was able to strike the match and held it to the tinder in the rocket stove. That’s it. I’m going to start getting up in the night to keep it warm in here. When Dad said living in a trailer would be less than ideal, he was way off. This plain bites! As the tinder ignited the small sticks she held her hands close, absorbing all the heat she could. The wind howled outside the trailer, finding every tiny crack around the windows, despite the layers of blankets over them. Occasional gusts caused it to sway slightly. The bucket of water she had brought in the previous evening was now a hard bucket of ice. Oh, I don’t want to milk this morning. Once winter had set in they had analyzed their milk needs, then dried off all the animals except Min, Amanda’s doe that had borne Belle and the cow. The pigs were happy to consume any excess milk. Amanda had recently checked her notes; the cow would need dried off soon. Min would be dried off after Mischief kidded. Anticipating having nothing but goat milk, Amy worked to accumulate a stack of “real” butter in the generator house.
As the trailer began to slowly warm, Amanda picked up all of the matches from the floor and put them back in the box. Then she bundled for the outside weather. She lit a lantern and picked it and her milk bucket up and opened the door. The wind instantly tried to rip it out of her hand but she managed to keep her grip and was met face to face by Brad. “Let me in,” he said through chattering teeth. She stepped back and he entered, pulling the door behind him as the wind tried to tear it from his grasp.
“It’s cold in here!” Amy exclaimed. “Why didn’t you start the fire before you went out?”
“Because I was in a hurry,” he answered. When she gave him an irritated look he continued, “But the seat in the outhouse is warm if you hurry.”
She let what he said register and began to laugh. “Oh, I get it. You shouldn’t have had that third bowl of chili last night.”
Brad laughed along with her and said, “Well, you know what they say about hind sight.”
The mass heater had raised the temperature in the small space quickly, it wasn’t pleasant yet, but at least Amanda’s hands no longer shook. She was able to put one more stick of wood in the fire and stood up and said, “Well, if you can stay out of the outhouse for a while, come and help me with the chores.”
They went out into the wind and snow making deep tracks into their path. It had been shoveled before they went in for the night; before the wind had drifted it full of snow. The wind rushed into the barn when Brad rolled it open far enough for them to get in, along with a blast of snow.
The lantern glow showed the animals all laying close together. Mischief looked at them and informed them she was ready for breakfast as she stood and stretched. The movements were mimicked by the other animals. The chickens stayed huddled together on their roost, although the roosters began trying to outdo each other with their crowing. While Brad started putting out feed, Amanda separated Min and began to milk her. The goat jumped at first contact with the cold fingers, but soon they had warmed up.
“So,” Brad said, “You ready to tell me yet?” He had been pestering his sister about the last trip home constantly but she was very tight lipped.
“As I told you before, “nunya”,” which was short for “none of your business.”
“Well you were gone for quite a while and you sure were blushing when we saw you again,” Brad teased.
“OK, I’ll tell you one thing. Mark sat on the board swing beside me and I gave a little push off. That’s when the rope broke and we were both sprawled onto the ground.” She wouldn’t tell Brad anything else no matter how he badgered her, but they both got a laugh from the story of the broken rope. Instead she changed to the most constant subject recently, “So how long do you think this storm is going to last? I thought it was the pits carrying stock water at home but this is way worse.”
“I’m with you there. But I think it’s even worse giving them access outside. The snow couldn’t drift somewhere else. It has to block the door. At least with this wind, we won’t have to shovel the roofs this time.
“You know what I want to do? I want to build a snow cave and sleep out in it. Remember Dad told us about when he did it and keeping it warm with a single candle? After the storms over, I’m going to try it. You want to join me?” Brad asked.
“No way. It’s cold enough in the trailer. There’s no way I want to sleep out in the snow,” Amanda exclaimed.
“Be that way,” he said. “I guess I’ve been wrong about you; you are a girly-girl.”
Her “girly-girl” response was to stick her tongue out at him making them both laugh.
*****
“So how was your night out?” Alan asked Brad when he came in for breakfast. Alan had watched Brad dig his snow cave, helped him move some snow and gave him a lot of pointers.
“It was real good. I had one candle lit and it did so good to warm it up in there that I lit a second. Then the top started melting it was so warm, so I put one out. The cold sink idea was neat too. I could tell a difference in the temperature when I put my boots on.” Alan had instructed him to have his sleeping area on a level above the main floor. The coldest air settled to the lowest places.
“Well good. That’s a good thing to know if you get into trouble out there. Now after breakfast I’ll show you another shelter.” Alan was as excitable when discussing emergency shelters as when he told about edible plants.
After they ate, Alan and Brad filled a pack with emergency items, strapped on their snowshoes and went in search of the perfect evergreen tree.
*****
Amanda shot straight up in bed as she heard the cows and goats frightened bawling. “Brad get up,” she nearly shouted as she pulled on her boots. She flew into her coat, hat and gloves as quickly as possible and grabbed up her Dad’s large Maglite flashlight. They had babied the rechargeable batteries as much as possible, saving them for emergencies. It sounded like this might be such a time.
Brad was ready just as quickly and picked up his Dad’s 30:06 that rested at the head of his bed. As soon as they were outside he rocked a round into the chamber and pointed the rifle where Amanda shone the light. The light found a large furry animal at the side of the barn that turned to them, yellow eyes shining in the light and spun and ran into the darkness. The door of the cabin closed and Bob hurried out, armed as well. “Did you see anything?” he asked as he joined the two as they were making a slow circuit of the barn.”
“Just a quick glimpse,” Amanda told him. “It was huge, fast and furry.”
“I was afraid of that,” Bob said. “With the deer and elk moving down country because of the heavy snow, the wolves are moving too. They must have smelled the stock and figured it would be an easy meal.”
They didn’t see any more animals as they looked around the barn’s perimeter, but stood transfixed as they looked down at the fresh tracks in the snow. The tracks were deep and large, nearly the size of their dinner plates. “Wow, that’s a huge dog,” Amanda said.
“Yep,” Bob said, “Huge and vicious. They could make short work of one of the goats. We better go in and calm them down.”
They went into the barn to comfort the terrified animals. They had quieted, but the young goats were quivering in fear, their eyes wide. It was light outside by the time the animals had settled down.
Bob and Brad examined the tracks and saw the ripped metal barn wall where powerful claws had tried to get in. “If we hadn’t chased him off, he would have gotten in,” Bob said as he pointed out the beginning of an opening. They followed the tracks a short distance to where two other pairs of tracks joined the set leading from the barn. Brad looked at them and turned and looked at the barn. He made an instant decision. “I’m going hunting, you coming?”
“Well I can’t let you have all the fun, can I? And I don’t want to face your mom if you go alone. It would be safer in the woods,” Bob said grinning.
A short time later, the two started following the wolves’ tracks, carrying backpacks, rifles and wearing snow shoes. Bob had asked Alan to get the barn wall beefed up. While Brad was packing, his mother asked, “How long are you going to be out there?”
His answer had been short and non-committal, “As long as it takes.” I’m not letting a wolf eat Dad’s goat!
When night approached with no sign of the hunters, Alan did his best to comfort Amy. Amanda sat near and listened while she looked constantly out into the snow covered landscape. “They’ll be fine. They’ve got all of the equipment they need, Brad makes a good snow cave, and they took plenty of food. Bob knows this whole area very well. He’s been tromping and hunting all over it for twenty years. If something is wrong, one of them would have come back for help.”
Amanda had looked at the near hills all through the following morning. “Are you sure they’re fine?” she asked Alan when he joined her gazing at the hill Bob and Brad had started up the previous day.
“They are both very capable. But what would you think of skiing over to the trailhead to look around? Depending on where the wolves led them, the trial off the top at the end of the old logging road is a lot easier to come back on,” Alan told her and she quickly agreed and ran to get her equipment.
Late in the afternoon Amanda and Alan were at the end of the road that led from the highway past the cabin. The road actually ended at the head of two trials, one that went through the meadow Amy and Amanda had hiked to, one that moved up the river canyon along the hillsides. The deep snow showed no sign of human activity, but a number of elk had moved down from the upper trail and kept going towards the distant river. Alan also considered it a good sign that there were no wolf tracks to go with the elk tracks.
After resting a while, Alan and Amanda turned to make the trek back to the cabin. “I was really hoping we’d find them here,” Amanda said worriedly. They were nearing an open ridge when Alan stopped and pointed up the ridge line. Just clear of the timber line were two figures struggling to drag a load behind them. Alan took his rifle from his back and looked through the scope at the figures. “It’s them. You want to look?” He handed the rifle to Amanda when she confirmed she did want to look.
“What on earth are they dragging?” she asked.
“I figured it must be a wolf, but it looks wrong. I guess we’ll see when they get to the road. Let’s get on down there,” he said and held his hand out for the rifle. He slung it over his back and led off for them to intersect the hunter’s path.
Alan and Amanda were waiting, Amanda anxiously, when Bob and Brad appeared above the road. Brad led, breaking trail, with a rope sling of sorts over his pack straps extending back behind him to their load. Bob followed in the broken trail, a similar shorter rope sling leading back. The ropes extended to a partial elk carcass. As they dropped onto the road, Alan could see a bundle of wolf fur tied to the elk. “I thought you were hunting wolves, not elk,” he said.
Amanda studied the pair carefully. Bob and Brad were both bent over, hands on their thighs, breathing fast. They appeared none the worse for wear, although winded from tromping through the deep snow. Besides tired, Brad had a sort of exuberance and confident manner she didn’t usually associate to him. Brad caught his breath first, “We didn’t kill the elk, but there was so much meat, we didn’t want to just leave it there. It’s been a pretty tough haul, though, getting it back here. Can you guys take our packs to lighten our load?” Brad just assumed the answer was yes and dropped his pack in the snow.
Brad further lightened his and Bob’s load by removing the bundles of wolf fur and tying them onto the packs that were passed to Alan and Amanda. Amanda continued to watch her brother and the confident manner as he carried out the job. He has really changed from the goofy gamer kid he used to be.
While Brad worked, Bob began telling them the story. “We were way back there and hadn’t seen anything but tracks and were starting to look for a good spot for the night.”
“There was no way I was coming back empty handed,” Brad interjected. “Not after they found the barn. It was just a matter of time before they came back.”
Bob continued the narrative, “We were in a place where the rocks were exposed from the wind so we pushed on to the next draw. We were getting close and heard all kinds of snarling going on. We slipped around a tree as easy as we could and saw them. There were the three wolves and they had killed this elk and were ripping into it. We settled down and took aim and counted out and dumped the two outside ones the first shot. The third hesitated just a moment too long. My shot hit it and Brad’s finished it. They were actually at a pretty good spot so Brad made a snow cave while I started skinning. Then he started a nice roaring fire and propped some of the elk meat over it to cook. We finished skinning the wolves and cut off the worst of the elk. We had a good supper by firelight and slept pretty warm although it was a little smelly using the fresh hides for ground covers. But it was worth it. They sure kept the cold out. In the morning we cooked a little more meat and rigged up the sling and started back.” He looked at Brad, “I guess it’s my turn to lead for a while.”
“Oh sure, you want to lead now that we’re on the flat road where the skis have partially flattened the snow down,” Brad said with mock indignation.
“You’re one to complain. You got the downhill section,” Bob shot back at him with a big smile. He reminds me of his Dad.
Amanda thought by the tone of the discussion that they had been over the same subject numerous times. Those two are actually enjoying this.
They started up the road to home, the skis further pushing the snow down for the snow shoes.
*****
“Isn’t this winter ever going to end?” Amanda asked rhetorically looking out at the fresh snow. “Now we get to shovel again, oh joy.” She had loved snow at home. There never was a lot and it usually melted off after a few days. But the snow on the mountain just kept falling and piling up ever higher. After shoveling the snow off the roofs, the piles were high enough to walk right out onto the roof without the assistance of a ladder. The paths were lined with vertical walls. Very much more and Amanda wouldn’t be able to see over it. She made sure to keep the track cleared to her rock overlook; she still spent a lot of time sitting on it staring down the river canyon. She often sat until the cold rock had leached the warmth out of her and she would be shivering uncontrollably when she went in to warm by the stove.
They did a lot of skiing, but even that was getting boring. On most clear days, a group of them would ski out to the trailheads and make forays on either trail until the conditions forced them to turn back. The slope where Alan had first sighted Bob and Brad after the wolf hunt became popular for working on telemarking. Amanda never skied the road the opposite direction. That road led towards Kris’ grandmother’s house, a house Amanda had never visited nor wanted to. The more distance away from him, the better as far as she was concerned. The best thing about the snow was Kris was just too lazy to venture out in it.
Brad was often gone, an absence that pulled hard on Amanda. Since the wolves had found them, Brad made it a priority to make circuits through the surrounding timber to see if another pack had moved in. He would rise early, don his pack, rifle and snow shoes and not be seen again until dark. The first time he didn’t come back at night fall, Amy had been so emotional when he did return that she forced a promise from him to not stay out at night again. Amanda had the thought as he came back at nightfall in a snow storm that he was getting nearly as wild as the wolves he was watching out for.
*****
Brad found Amanda on her rock after returning from his latest foray. “Got room there for me?” he asked her.
“Sure. How was your hike? Did you see anything interesting?”
“I went down country this time to where a bunch of elk are wintering. There were some wolf tracks around but not many,” Brad said. “I did find some antler sheds that I brought back. One was pretty big.”
They sat quiet before Brad said, “You’re not going too stir crazy here are you?”
“Some days it feels like it, especially when you’re gone. I mean, there’s snow everywhere. We take care of the animals, shovel snow, carry wood and then we do it all again. Same stuff, different day. Why would I go stir-crazy with so much variety in my life?”
“Amanda, it’s not becoming to mope around all the time and feel sorry for yourself, so as your favorite brother I have to tell you to knock it off.” He grinned at her. “You could go with me next time I go out. But now I want you to think about something besides how miserable you are here. When’s the last time you heard Mom cry at night?”
Amanda thought about his question. “I really don’t know. I guess I haven’t really been paying much attention.”
“Well I do, and you’re right, you haven’t been paying attention to much at all since the snow got deep,” Brad told her. “It has been three weeks since I heard her cry at night. So shelve your pity party and think of Mom. Dad meant a lot to her too, he was her life partner after all. The winter has been therapeutic for her. She needed time to get over him and this place seems to have done it for her. She might be ready to go home when the snow melts. So think on that.”
“Wow,” was the only reply she had.
“So I want to change things up tonight. Let’s play some music and liven up the place. Neither of us has picked up our instruments in a long time, actually, since we’ve been here. So let’s get them out tonight. You know how much Mom and Dad both liked us to play together. What do you think?” he asked her.
“I suppose we could. But it will be different without Dad,” she said non-committedly.
“Sure it’ll be different. But do you think he would want us to just quit because he’s not here? Why do you think he took us to lessons all the time, and then pushed us when we couldn’t get lessons? Let’s do it,” he told her.
The cabin came alive that night. The lights didn’t get shut off early with everyone going off to sleep. They played late into the night. After a few rough tunes, the fingers remembered what to do. Amanda and Amy both shed tears over special songs, while Brad looked grim. But when they put away the instruments, they all felt lifted.
The winter didn’t seem to drag so much after that. Brad still made his treks, but took Amanda on many of them and showed her some of his favorite places. Amy was even convinced to go out on occasion. And each night the cabin was filled with music as they went through all of the old songs. As Amanda put her violin away one night it occurred to her that she had a pretty sharp brother. Maybe I’ll even tell him someday.
It's cold and it's getting colder
It's gray and white and winter all around
And oh, I must be getting older
And all this snow is trying to get me down
There's a fire in the corner slowly dyin' away
Sometimes I just don't feel like goin' on anymore
And yet I know it's more than worth the waiting
For another chance to see the summer sun
Come on, shine on me
“Season Suite: Winter” Performed by John Denver
Written by Kick Kniss, James Taylor, John Denver
Amanda fumbled with the match in shaking hands and lost it in the darkness. She took another from the box, carefully closing the box to prevent more from falling out. She guessed she had already spilled a third of the box, her hands were so cold. Finally she was able to strike the match and held it to the tinder in the rocket stove. That’s it. I’m going to start getting up in the night to keep it warm in here. When Dad said living in a trailer would be less than ideal, he was way off. This plain bites! As the tinder ignited the small sticks she held her hands close, absorbing all the heat she could. The wind howled outside the trailer, finding every tiny crack around the windows, despite the layers of blankets over them. Occasional gusts caused it to sway slightly. The bucket of water she had brought in the previous evening was now a hard bucket of ice. Oh, I don’t want to milk this morning. Once winter had set in they had analyzed their milk needs, then dried off all the animals except Min, Amanda’s doe that had borne Belle and the cow. The pigs were happy to consume any excess milk. Amanda had recently checked her notes; the cow would need dried off soon. Min would be dried off after Mischief kidded. Anticipating having nothing but goat milk, Amy worked to accumulate a stack of “real” butter in the generator house.
As the trailer began to slowly warm, Amanda picked up all of the matches from the floor and put them back in the box. Then she bundled for the outside weather. She lit a lantern and picked it and her milk bucket up and opened the door. The wind instantly tried to rip it out of her hand but she managed to keep her grip and was met face to face by Brad. “Let me in,” he said through chattering teeth. She stepped back and he entered, pulling the door behind him as the wind tried to tear it from his grasp.
“It’s cold in here!” Amy exclaimed. “Why didn’t you start the fire before you went out?”
“Because I was in a hurry,” he answered. When she gave him an irritated look he continued, “But the seat in the outhouse is warm if you hurry.”
She let what he said register and began to laugh. “Oh, I get it. You shouldn’t have had that third bowl of chili last night.”
Brad laughed along with her and said, “Well, you know what they say about hind sight.”
The mass heater had raised the temperature in the small space quickly, it wasn’t pleasant yet, but at least Amanda’s hands no longer shook. She was able to put one more stick of wood in the fire and stood up and said, “Well, if you can stay out of the outhouse for a while, come and help me with the chores.”
They went out into the wind and snow making deep tracks into their path. It had been shoveled before they went in for the night; before the wind had drifted it full of snow. The wind rushed into the barn when Brad rolled it open far enough for them to get in, along with a blast of snow.
The lantern glow showed the animals all laying close together. Mischief looked at them and informed them she was ready for breakfast as she stood and stretched. The movements were mimicked by the other animals. The chickens stayed huddled together on their roost, although the roosters began trying to outdo each other with their crowing. While Brad started putting out feed, Amanda separated Min and began to milk her. The goat jumped at first contact with the cold fingers, but soon they had warmed up.
“So,” Brad said, “You ready to tell me yet?” He had been pestering his sister about the last trip home constantly but she was very tight lipped.
“As I told you before, “nunya”,” which was short for “none of your business.”
“Well you were gone for quite a while and you sure were blushing when we saw you again,” Brad teased.
“OK, I’ll tell you one thing. Mark sat on the board swing beside me and I gave a little push off. That’s when the rope broke and we were both sprawled onto the ground.” She wouldn’t tell Brad anything else no matter how he badgered her, but they both got a laugh from the story of the broken rope. Instead she changed to the most constant subject recently, “So how long do you think this storm is going to last? I thought it was the pits carrying stock water at home but this is way worse.”
“I’m with you there. But I think it’s even worse giving them access outside. The snow couldn’t drift somewhere else. It has to block the door. At least with this wind, we won’t have to shovel the roofs this time.
“You know what I want to do? I want to build a snow cave and sleep out in it. Remember Dad told us about when he did it and keeping it warm with a single candle? After the storms over, I’m going to try it. You want to join me?” Brad asked.
“No way. It’s cold enough in the trailer. There’s no way I want to sleep out in the snow,” Amanda exclaimed.
“Be that way,” he said. “I guess I’ve been wrong about you; you are a girly-girl.”
Her “girly-girl” response was to stick her tongue out at him making them both laugh.
*****
“So how was your night out?” Alan asked Brad when he came in for breakfast. Alan had watched Brad dig his snow cave, helped him move some snow and gave him a lot of pointers.
“It was real good. I had one candle lit and it did so good to warm it up in there that I lit a second. Then the top started melting it was so warm, so I put one out. The cold sink idea was neat too. I could tell a difference in the temperature when I put my boots on.” Alan had instructed him to have his sleeping area on a level above the main floor. The coldest air settled to the lowest places.
“Well good. That’s a good thing to know if you get into trouble out there. Now after breakfast I’ll show you another shelter.” Alan was as excitable when discussing emergency shelters as when he told about edible plants.
After they ate, Alan and Brad filled a pack with emergency items, strapped on their snowshoes and went in search of the perfect evergreen tree.
*****
Amanda shot straight up in bed as she heard the cows and goats frightened bawling. “Brad get up,” she nearly shouted as she pulled on her boots. She flew into her coat, hat and gloves as quickly as possible and grabbed up her Dad’s large Maglite flashlight. They had babied the rechargeable batteries as much as possible, saving them for emergencies. It sounded like this might be such a time.
Brad was ready just as quickly and picked up his Dad’s 30:06 that rested at the head of his bed. As soon as they were outside he rocked a round into the chamber and pointed the rifle where Amanda shone the light. The light found a large furry animal at the side of the barn that turned to them, yellow eyes shining in the light and spun and ran into the darkness. The door of the cabin closed and Bob hurried out, armed as well. “Did you see anything?” he asked as he joined the two as they were making a slow circuit of the barn.”
“Just a quick glimpse,” Amanda told him. “It was huge, fast and furry.”
“I was afraid of that,” Bob said. “With the deer and elk moving down country because of the heavy snow, the wolves are moving too. They must have smelled the stock and figured it would be an easy meal.”
They didn’t see any more animals as they looked around the barn’s perimeter, but stood transfixed as they looked down at the fresh tracks in the snow. The tracks were deep and large, nearly the size of their dinner plates. “Wow, that’s a huge dog,” Amanda said.
“Yep,” Bob said, “Huge and vicious. They could make short work of one of the goats. We better go in and calm them down.”
They went into the barn to comfort the terrified animals. They had quieted, but the young goats were quivering in fear, their eyes wide. It was light outside by the time the animals had settled down.
Bob and Brad examined the tracks and saw the ripped metal barn wall where powerful claws had tried to get in. “If we hadn’t chased him off, he would have gotten in,” Bob said as he pointed out the beginning of an opening. They followed the tracks a short distance to where two other pairs of tracks joined the set leading from the barn. Brad looked at them and turned and looked at the barn. He made an instant decision. “I’m going hunting, you coming?”
“Well I can’t let you have all the fun, can I? And I don’t want to face your mom if you go alone. It would be safer in the woods,” Bob said grinning.
A short time later, the two started following the wolves’ tracks, carrying backpacks, rifles and wearing snow shoes. Bob had asked Alan to get the barn wall beefed up. While Brad was packing, his mother asked, “How long are you going to be out there?”
His answer had been short and non-committal, “As long as it takes.” I’m not letting a wolf eat Dad’s goat!
When night approached with no sign of the hunters, Alan did his best to comfort Amy. Amanda sat near and listened while she looked constantly out into the snow covered landscape. “They’ll be fine. They’ve got all of the equipment they need, Brad makes a good snow cave, and they took plenty of food. Bob knows this whole area very well. He’s been tromping and hunting all over it for twenty years. If something is wrong, one of them would have come back for help.”
Amanda had looked at the near hills all through the following morning. “Are you sure they’re fine?” she asked Alan when he joined her gazing at the hill Bob and Brad had started up the previous day.
“They are both very capable. But what would you think of skiing over to the trailhead to look around? Depending on where the wolves led them, the trial off the top at the end of the old logging road is a lot easier to come back on,” Alan told her and she quickly agreed and ran to get her equipment.
Late in the afternoon Amanda and Alan were at the end of the road that led from the highway past the cabin. The road actually ended at the head of two trials, one that went through the meadow Amy and Amanda had hiked to, one that moved up the river canyon along the hillsides. The deep snow showed no sign of human activity, but a number of elk had moved down from the upper trail and kept going towards the distant river. Alan also considered it a good sign that there were no wolf tracks to go with the elk tracks.
After resting a while, Alan and Amanda turned to make the trek back to the cabin. “I was really hoping we’d find them here,” Amanda said worriedly. They were nearing an open ridge when Alan stopped and pointed up the ridge line. Just clear of the timber line were two figures struggling to drag a load behind them. Alan took his rifle from his back and looked through the scope at the figures. “It’s them. You want to look?” He handed the rifle to Amanda when she confirmed she did want to look.
“What on earth are they dragging?” she asked.
“I figured it must be a wolf, but it looks wrong. I guess we’ll see when they get to the road. Let’s get on down there,” he said and held his hand out for the rifle. He slung it over his back and led off for them to intersect the hunter’s path.
Alan and Amanda were waiting, Amanda anxiously, when Bob and Brad appeared above the road. Brad led, breaking trail, with a rope sling of sorts over his pack straps extending back behind him to their load. Bob followed in the broken trail, a similar shorter rope sling leading back. The ropes extended to a partial elk carcass. As they dropped onto the road, Alan could see a bundle of wolf fur tied to the elk. “I thought you were hunting wolves, not elk,” he said.
Amanda studied the pair carefully. Bob and Brad were both bent over, hands on their thighs, breathing fast. They appeared none the worse for wear, although winded from tromping through the deep snow. Besides tired, Brad had a sort of exuberance and confident manner she didn’t usually associate to him. Brad caught his breath first, “We didn’t kill the elk, but there was so much meat, we didn’t want to just leave it there. It’s been a pretty tough haul, though, getting it back here. Can you guys take our packs to lighten our load?” Brad just assumed the answer was yes and dropped his pack in the snow.
Brad further lightened his and Bob’s load by removing the bundles of wolf fur and tying them onto the packs that were passed to Alan and Amanda. Amanda continued to watch her brother and the confident manner as he carried out the job. He has really changed from the goofy gamer kid he used to be.
While Brad worked, Bob began telling them the story. “We were way back there and hadn’t seen anything but tracks and were starting to look for a good spot for the night.”
“There was no way I was coming back empty handed,” Brad interjected. “Not after they found the barn. It was just a matter of time before they came back.”
Bob continued the narrative, “We were in a place where the rocks were exposed from the wind so we pushed on to the next draw. We were getting close and heard all kinds of snarling going on. We slipped around a tree as easy as we could and saw them. There were the three wolves and they had killed this elk and were ripping into it. We settled down and took aim and counted out and dumped the two outside ones the first shot. The third hesitated just a moment too long. My shot hit it and Brad’s finished it. They were actually at a pretty good spot so Brad made a snow cave while I started skinning. Then he started a nice roaring fire and propped some of the elk meat over it to cook. We finished skinning the wolves and cut off the worst of the elk. We had a good supper by firelight and slept pretty warm although it was a little smelly using the fresh hides for ground covers. But it was worth it. They sure kept the cold out. In the morning we cooked a little more meat and rigged up the sling and started back.” He looked at Brad, “I guess it’s my turn to lead for a while.”
“Oh sure, you want to lead now that we’re on the flat road where the skis have partially flattened the snow down,” Brad said with mock indignation.
“You’re one to complain. You got the downhill section,” Bob shot back at him with a big smile. He reminds me of his Dad.
Amanda thought by the tone of the discussion that they had been over the same subject numerous times. Those two are actually enjoying this.
They started up the road to home, the skis further pushing the snow down for the snow shoes.
*****
“Isn’t this winter ever going to end?” Amanda asked rhetorically looking out at the fresh snow. “Now we get to shovel again, oh joy.” She had loved snow at home. There never was a lot and it usually melted off after a few days. But the snow on the mountain just kept falling and piling up ever higher. After shoveling the snow off the roofs, the piles were high enough to walk right out onto the roof without the assistance of a ladder. The paths were lined with vertical walls. Very much more and Amanda wouldn’t be able to see over it. She made sure to keep the track cleared to her rock overlook; she still spent a lot of time sitting on it staring down the river canyon. She often sat until the cold rock had leached the warmth out of her and she would be shivering uncontrollably when she went in to warm by the stove.
They did a lot of skiing, but even that was getting boring. On most clear days, a group of them would ski out to the trailheads and make forays on either trail until the conditions forced them to turn back. The slope where Alan had first sighted Bob and Brad after the wolf hunt became popular for working on telemarking. Amanda never skied the road the opposite direction. That road led towards Kris’ grandmother’s house, a house Amanda had never visited nor wanted to. The more distance away from him, the better as far as she was concerned. The best thing about the snow was Kris was just too lazy to venture out in it.
Brad was often gone, an absence that pulled hard on Amanda. Since the wolves had found them, Brad made it a priority to make circuits through the surrounding timber to see if another pack had moved in. He would rise early, don his pack, rifle and snow shoes and not be seen again until dark. The first time he didn’t come back at night fall, Amy had been so emotional when he did return that she forced a promise from him to not stay out at night again. Amanda had the thought as he came back at nightfall in a snow storm that he was getting nearly as wild as the wolves he was watching out for.
*****
Brad found Amanda on her rock after returning from his latest foray. “Got room there for me?” he asked her.
“Sure. How was your hike? Did you see anything interesting?”
“I went down country this time to where a bunch of elk are wintering. There were some wolf tracks around but not many,” Brad said. “I did find some antler sheds that I brought back. One was pretty big.”
They sat quiet before Brad said, “You’re not going too stir crazy here are you?”
“Some days it feels like it, especially when you’re gone. I mean, there’s snow everywhere. We take care of the animals, shovel snow, carry wood and then we do it all again. Same stuff, different day. Why would I go stir-crazy with so much variety in my life?”
“Amanda, it’s not becoming to mope around all the time and feel sorry for yourself, so as your favorite brother I have to tell you to knock it off.” He grinned at her. “You could go with me next time I go out. But now I want you to think about something besides how miserable you are here. When’s the last time you heard Mom cry at night?”
Amanda thought about his question. “I really don’t know. I guess I haven’t really been paying much attention.”
“Well I do, and you’re right, you haven’t been paying attention to much at all since the snow got deep,” Brad told her. “It has been three weeks since I heard her cry at night. So shelve your pity party and think of Mom. Dad meant a lot to her too, he was her life partner after all. The winter has been therapeutic for her. She needed time to get over him and this place seems to have done it for her. She might be ready to go home when the snow melts. So think on that.”
“Wow,” was the only reply she had.
“So I want to change things up tonight. Let’s play some music and liven up the place. Neither of us has picked up our instruments in a long time, actually, since we’ve been here. So let’s get them out tonight. You know how much Mom and Dad both liked us to play together. What do you think?” he asked her.
“I suppose we could. But it will be different without Dad,” she said non-committedly.
“Sure it’ll be different. But do you think he would want us to just quit because he’s not here? Why do you think he took us to lessons all the time, and then pushed us when we couldn’t get lessons? Let’s do it,” he told her.
The cabin came alive that night. The lights didn’t get shut off early with everyone going off to sleep. They played late into the night. After a few rough tunes, the fingers remembered what to do. Amanda and Amy both shed tears over special songs, while Brad looked grim. But when they put away the instruments, they all felt lifted.
The winter didn’t seem to drag so much after that. Brad still made his treks, but took Amanda on many of them and showed her some of his favorite places. Amy was even convinced to go out on occasion. And each night the cabin was filled with music as they went through all of the old songs. As Amanda put her violin away one night it occurred to her that she had a pretty sharp brother. Maybe I’ll even tell him someday.