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I need to check the floating fish lines. The fish don’t do me any good if they hang there until they rot or if some other fish steals them.
I have to hunt.
I have to fetch water and boil it.
I take a stick and make a grid in the dirt, blocking the day. Walk to the lake. Check the lines. Go fishing, maybe, or go hunting. Go back to camp. Boil water and chop wood. Sleep. And morning again, and the lake again.
I can do it, I tell myself. It’s not complicated, it’s just hard.
Firewood, fish, water, hunting. What else?
Only one thing else: winter.
THERE’S ICE ON the edge of the lake today. Just a thin skin, like on a cup of milk that’s been out too long. I break it with my toe. Soon that ice will stretch across the surface of the water. Too thick for the canoe, too thin for me.
When the ice comes over the lake, I’ll have to break through it to fish. Once it gets thick enough, I can walk out onto it and chop a hole through the ice to fish, but for a while it’ll be thin and crumbling and I won’t be able to get out.
I don’t know how long it’ll be like that. A week? A month? Only the weatherman knows, and I don’t have a radio. Twenty degrees, chance of snow, and Jess can go out on the ice today without plunging to her watery doom.
I wish.
At least soon it’ll be cold enough for my meat to stay fresh longer. I can just pack it in snow. That assumes I have meat to save, which I don’t.
The floating lines are empty. I get one bite, but I can’t haul it up to the boat before it slips free and vanishes into the dark water.
I get back to the shore. Fill my jars with water. Trudge back to camp. I check the snares again. The bait’s gone in some, but they’re empty. The berries are gone, too, even the last rotten few of them. The wild cucumbers have died.
I trudge back, start chopping. Firewood today. Every day, firewood.
Maybe tomorrow I’ll eat.
FOR ONCE, BO comes with me out on the lake even though he’s usually wary of it. The jerky treats are almost gone. I’ve tried a couple of them myself, but Bo always gives me a betrayed look, and I figure I need him more than I need a few calories. They’re in my pocket and maybe that’s why he hops into the canoe when I shove it out onto the lake. He’s looking thin, after all. Nearly as hungry as I am.
It’s cold out on the lake. I don’t mind his company, his warm body pressed up against my legs. I paddle out toward the floats. If there’s nothing there, I don’t know what I’m going to do. I’m so tired. Even swallowing makes me tired. It’s been three days since I ate anything. I don’t know how much longer I can go.
The cord between the floats is dragging down in the water, taut. Does that mean there’s a fish on it?
My heart beats so loudly and so strongly in my thin chest I can feel my pulse in my teeth. I lean out and grab the nearest floater. I drag it toward me—and it jerks in my hand.
I let out a cry of relief and joy and pull it in faster. There—a big, fat fish, as long as my forearm, longer. It thrashes as I haul it up. Bo bounces up to his feet and backs away, giving me room, his tail wagging and his tongue lolling.
I drop the fish into the boat. Finally, finally. I pull the hook free so I can toss the floats back.
The fish arches. Thrashes. Flails its way up off the bottom of the boat. I dive for it so it can’t flop itself out of the boat. I’m not thinking, I’m just so panicked at the thought of all that food getting away. The canoe rocks. My foot catches against the middle seat, and I sprawl forward.
My knee hits the side of the canoe with a thwack and pain shoots up my leg, but I only have a second to register it before the whole canoe jerks sideways under me, unbalanced by me, by the fish, by Bo barking and leaping backward out of my way, and then it flips and I’m in the water.
It’s cold. Colder than anything I’ve felt. So cold it makes my chest seize, and I can’t think or move.
I float—sink—for a moment, my limbs splayed out in the water, staring down into nothing but murky darkness.
The water churns above me. A paw hits my shoulder and shoves off, driving me deeper underwater, but it also snaps me out of my haze. I rake my limbs through the water. My clothes are dragging me down, making me move slowly. Especially my shoes, dragging at my feet.
I struggle to swim, but the weight is too much.
I grab one boot and pull. The laces are loose, or I would never be able to get it off fast enough. I force off one boot, then the other, stopping to sweep my arms through the water, trying not to sink too far.
It’s only a few seconds, and then I struggle toward the surface.
