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If the forest is going to kill me, it’s going to have to do it honestly. I’m not going to spare it the trouble.
It’s pretty stupid, spending the time to fill the hole, but it’s the task in front of me, and I have to keep moving or I’ll stop. And if I stop, that’s it. So I shovel dirt until I can feel the sun on the nape of my neck and sweat beads on my forehead.
Maybe I should wait for the wolf-dog to come back. I have the rifle now, after all. I could shoot it. Eat it.
I reach into my pocket to touch the last bullet, the only one I couldn’t fit into the rifle, and my hand closes around something slick and plastic instead. That folded piece of paper, the one in the bag.
I pull it out and frown at it. I can’t imagine that it’s something that will help me—not like the energy bar—but it belonged to my father and suddenly there’s nothing more important than knowing what’s on it.
I nearly rip the bag getting it open. The paper slips through my fingers as I try to unfold it, and I force myself to slow down. I don’t want to tear it.
It’s a hand-drawn map, done in blue pen. I recognize the lake. A little house perches on the north end where the cabin used to stand. Spiky upside-down Vs mark the trees, and there are other landmarks scribbled in. Not labeled, but I think I can puzzle some out. There’s a creek, the big lightning-scorched tree, the snowberries, the blackberries.
And there’s another house. The shape is unmistakable. It crouches on the other side of the lake, farther back from the shore. A short hike into the woods—not that the scale on the map is anything approaching accurate. It could be a hundred yards or two miles, for all I know.
I turn the map over. There’s writing on the back, the letters all cramped together.
Sequoia: You’ll learn your way around soon, but here’s a map just in case.
I flip it again, stare at the map. At the second cabin.
Just in case.
My hand shakes. I nod once, swallow hard. There isn’t any time to think and I don’t have the energy for it anyway. I’m not sure I even register consciously what I’m doing, or why. I’m not thinking about how a cabin means shelter. Means food, maybe. It’s just the thing in front of me. And so I start walking.
It isn’t until I get to the shore that my brain starts up again, but I don’t let myself start hoping. I left hope in the hole with my father, and it’s better this way. It’s easier. If there’s no cabin, it won’t mean anything. I’ll just keep going.
I’ll keep going until I can’t anymore.
I CARRY ALMOST nothing with me. Either there will be shelter on the other side of the lake or I will die; either way, to get there I have to go unburdened. I take just the backpack with a single jar for water, the rifle, and the hatchet. Everything else I leave by the cabin.
I stare for a moment at the canoe, floating maybe twenty feet out from the shore. Thin sheets of ice have formed on the surface of the lake. There’s no way I’ll risk wading into that water again. I remember too vividly the shock of it. Much colder and I wouldn’t have made it out.
Maybe I could figure out a way to get it, and God knows I wish I could paddle across the lake instead of walking all the way around. But I don’t have the time to figure it out.
I whistle for Bo, but I don’t wait for him. He’ll catch up.
It’s a few minutes later that he appears at the edge of the woods. Last night’s fight has left him with a cut across his nose, but he doesn’t seem bothered by it. He trots alongside me with his head hanging low, panting. He keeps up. I suspect he’s eaten more than I have, but not much; his steps still have a draggy quality to them, and he looks constantly tired.
I keep my eyes on the ground, looking out for anything that might trip me up. I carry one of my walking sticks, a gnarled branch still studded with patches of bark and moss. I wrap my fingers around a knot in the wood and focus on the end where it strikes the ground with every step. If I stare at my feet and count paces, I don’t think about how far I have to go.
I reach a hundred and start over again. Pebbles shift and crunch under my feet. Bo pants beside me. The shore bends to the left (sixty-three steps) and I follow.
My makeshift shoes slip, start to come apart; I can see red, raw flesh, but I don’t dare stop. Another step, and another. I reach a downed tree, its trunk as high as my waist. It stretches into the water and back into the woods, and for a dumbfounded moment, my count still ticking up even with my feet standing still, I just stare at it (seventy, seventy-one).
I resent every extra step around the end of the tree (ninety-nine, one hundred, one), but I’m too tired to hold on to the emotion. Each step erases the one before it. We reach the easternmost edge of the lake and start curving around again, and the tree is now the faintest memory.
I realize I have no idea where to turn off. If there isn’t a path, I could walk all the way around the lake and never find the right spot. But just as the thought floats hazily to the surface of my mind, Bo gives a soft bark and turns sharply away from the shore, trotting into the woods with his tail wagging. Like he knows where we’re going. Like it’s a good place to go.
The sun marches steadily along. Clouds shoot across the sky, looking like a clawed hand reaching up to drag the sun down below the horizon. We have to make it before dark. Have to.
Fifty steps, sixty steps, seventy steps. The trees grow too thick to see the sun at all.
The map is scarce on landmarks, but there are two along the path to the second cabin. A big rock, kind of heart-shaped, and a creek. I find both, and at both I stop. I rest my hand against the stone, dip my fingers into the creek. They’re concrete signs that I’m going the right way.
My thoughts swim, blur. Touch is the only solid thing keeping me in the world.
Minutes slide by. I stop among the unfamiliar trees and turn in a circle, squinting for any sign of the cabin. Have we gone too far? It wouldn’t be hard to miss it in the woods. I can’t see very far. If I just go a little ways in the wrong direction to either side, I could walk right by it.
