She turns her head to look at me. Her eyes are dark green, searching. "You aren't scared of anything, are you? You talk about ice and wolves like they're just … mechanics."
I trace the condensation dripping down the wall with my thumb. "I'm scared of plenty."
"Name one thing."
I look at her. I could give her a joke. I could tell her I'm scared of the IRS or Mags's cooking. But we're lying in a nyloncoffin in the middle of a wolf pack's territory, and she deserves better than a deflection.
"Three years ago," I say, "I was guiding a sheep hunt in the Wrangells. Solo client. Older guy. We got caught in a whiteout on a knife-edge ridge."
Aris shifts, turning her body toward me, listening.
"We couldn't move. Visibility was zero. Wind was sixty miles an hour. We had to dig in right there on the ledge. We spent two days under a tarp, listening to the wind try to peel us off the mountain."
"What did you do?"
"I held onto his pack strap," I admit. "For forty-eight hours. I was terrified that if I fell asleep, he'd slide off, or I would. I wasn't scared of dying, Aris. I was scared of being the reason he didn't make it home."
I look at the frost above us. "That's the fear. It's not the cold. It's the failure. It's having someone rely on you and not being enough."
Aris turns that over. Then she squeezes my hand. "You got him home, didn't you?"
"Yeah. We walked out on day three."
"You're good at this, Nash. You're good at keeping people alive."
"I'm good at surviving," I correct. "There's a difference."
"Maybe," she says. She sits up, the nylon rustling around her. The fear in her eyes has changed into something else: determination, hard and bright.
"I don't want to just survive, Nash. I don't want to be the luggage you have to strap down so I don't slide off the mountain."
"Aris—"
"No," she interrupts. "I want to be useful. If the wolves come back … I can't just stand behind you."
She looks at me, something wicked and calculating in her eyes.
"Or," she says, "you could teach me how to shoot that rifle you're always carrying."
I blink. "You want to learn to shoot?"
"If we're being hunted by wolves and you're busy with something else, I should probably know how to use the safety, right?"
"Logical," I agree. "Scary, but logical."
"Is that a yes?"
"That's a yes. But if you shoot a hole in the remaining sled, I'm leaving you here."
The shooting lesson turns into the best afternoon of the trip.
I set up a target, a dead spruce stump across the river ice, and walk her through the mechanics of the rifle. It's a.300 Winchester Magnum, heavy and loud, not exactly a beginner's gun.
"Stance is everything," I say, standing behind her. I put my hands on her hips to adjust her angle, and she goes rigid for a second before relaxing into it.
"Lean into it," I murmur. "It kicks. If you're stiff, it hurts. If you roll with it, it's just a push."
"Like the snowmobile," she says.
