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But Bo won’t let me, will he? Bo knows where he’s going, and, when I can, I spare half a second to look up from my feet and make sure he’s still in front of me.
When I see the straight, stripped logs between the darker trees, I cry out in relief. I pick up my pace, stumbling along after Bo as he lopes up to the tiny cabin. It’s half the size of the other one, if that’s even possible, with another building behind it.
I stop at the steps, suddenly reluctant to step inside. I can’t explain it, except that the thought that I might not die today is so huge, so overwhelming, that it feels like it will crush me. That it will ruin whatever mind-set has gotten me this far, a hundred steps after a hundred steps.
But I keep counting. Three more steps, and then I can reach out my hand to the door. I have the panicked thought that it will be locked, but when my hand hits the latch it gives easily. I laugh. Of course it isn’t locked. Who would bother to lock a cabin out here?
I push it open and blink at the interior.
It takes several seconds for my eyes to adjust. The cabin is small, all right. It has a fireplace and a cot and some cupboards—that’s it. But it has four walls and a roof, and even with the wind making the treetops shudder it doesn’t get through. I have a bunker against the cold.
Tentatively, I step farther inside and reach for the nearest cupboard. It swings open with a creak and a stubborn drag of resistance from the rusty hinges. Inside...
Inside is food. Shelves of food. Glass jars labeled and lined up. Many of them empty, sure, but some of them full. There are pickled onions and fish and moose and deer and rabbit and carrots and potatoes and corn. There are two sacks of dry beans. Black beans, kidney beans. There’s a big plastic container of vitamins.
I open the next cupboard. More of the same. And the next. I pull down the jars that still have something and line them up on the floor. Six. A dozen. I have sixteen full jars, about half of them meat and about half various jams and vegetables. The dates on the top are from before last winter. Dad must have been planning to do more canning in the weeks before winter, enough to see us through. Getting ready exactly the way I hadn’t been.
In one of the lower cupboards I find a pair of heavy boots, a pair of metal things I finally realize are ice cleats, a box of tools, and a box of ammo. More.30-30. If I ever find a rifle, I’ll be in great shape.
My stomach is starting to cramp up again, but I’m reluctant to open any of the food. It’s beautiful, sitting there. It seems like if I open one of the jars, something will go wrong. It won’t be real.
I sit there staring at the food, starving, and can’t move.
Finally, tentatively, I reach for a jar of fish and a jar of carrots. Carrots are full of good vitamins, right? I open them both. The smell washes over me. My mouth floods with saliva. I breathe shallowly, my stomach lurching.
I break off a tiny piece of fish. I touch it to my tongue, but I don’t close my mouth yet. I just let it sit there. The taste is so strong I moan. Bo makes a soft, eager noise, and I look over to see him sitting attentively, staring at me.
I give him a big chunk of fish and swallow my own. He wolfs his down and waits for more. I give him another piece and start in on my portion, eating slowly, afraid of getting sick.
It’s so rich, so flavorful, it’s hard to get down. Bit by bit I eat, trading off fish and carrots, but I make myself stop with my body still clamoring for more. I’ll eat more later. Slowly. Slowly. If I throw up, the food is wasted. Gone.
Well. Bo would probably eat it. But still.
Then I close the door, and I climb into bed. It smells musty. The blankets are chilled. I peel my makeshift shoes from my feet, wincing at the raw, dirt-packed skin they reveal. I should clean them off, but I don’t have the energy. I slide under the blankets, curling in on myself as tightly as possible.
It’s a few minutes before reality catches up to me, before I realize what this means.
I’ve been saved. Now, with this food—now I can survive.
Now, when Raph comes back, I can be ready.
MY REALIZATION IS premature, of course. A few jars of food aren’t going to save me. What they will give me, though, is time to figure out how to actually survive, and it’s time I badly need.
I wake up with Bo on top of me. It takes a minute of shoving and grumbling to get him off—bony as he may be these days, he’s still massive. As soon as I can move, I roll out of bed and stumble straight over to the food.
It takes every ounce of willpower I have not to scarf it all down, but when I screw the lid back on the fish, it’s still half-full. I let Bo lick my fingers clean after giving him a few bites of his own, and then I look around.
I missed some things last night—like a mirror propped up against the wall, too grimy to see my reflection in, and the photos on the walls. There are three of them, set in wood frames that look handmade. Dirt clouds the glass. I swipe it clean.
Griff is in a couple. He’s holding up a huge salmon in one. The other one is him with his arm around Dad and another guy, grinning as they stand behind a big bear they’ve clearly just shot. Once upon a time I would have been horrified, but I just think about how much I’d love a bearskin right about now.
The other guy in the photo looks familiar, which doesn’t make sense. I don’t know any of dad’s friends other than Griff. It’s zoomed out enough that I can’t make out his features too well, but then the next photo is a close-up of the same guy and dad sharing a beer, and I recognize him all at once.
He was at the lake. He was the one who came after Dad died, who called out and then flew away.
I take down the photo and turn it over to pry the back panel off. The photo slides free. Sure enough, Dad’s labeled it, the handwriting matching the writing from the map. Jed & me, 2009.
He was a friend once. Didn’t mean he meant well this time, I tell myself, but I don’t believe it and my throat seizes up. He was a friend. Someone who would have helped me. Who would have saved me. And I let him fly away.
