Mountain Refuge

[suvalley]

I'm thinking Munin will raise a fuss, and Liz will hear. Very big bad otherwise.

[FOTH]

Drifting, half-dreaming he lay in the main entrance to the mine, body still somehow finding the energy to shiver and the hurt of sprawling with bones all bare and trembling against the hard rock floor of the place keeping him for the moment from entirely losing touch with the world. Quiet in there, sound of the storm almost stilled, and he could see the raven, not quite willing to enter that dark place and not in the least bothered by the storm’s fury, perched in a fir just outside, watching. Waiting, it seemed, and he was waiting, too. Time getting slippery again, slipping around him and he through it as his vision began dimming, eyes wanting to close, which they would have done, had it not been for the sound.

High, thin cry it was, and he’d heard it before, wail of a hungry child whose mother was unable to give enough milk, both of them slowly starving, village burned, hiding in the jungle and the rice had run out… Knew he shouldn’t go to them, shouldn’t stop, ought instead to press on to…wherever it was he’d been going, but he couldn’t remember at the moment exactly where that was, and did not want to carry on without knowing something of the situation. First though, he had to get up.

Pressed hard against the hard earth beneath him, straining with muscles weak, unwilling, finally rising, swaying, hands braced against the wall, cold, rough, solid, and it was good. Dark in there. Couldn’t see, so he followed the sound, feeling his way, soon on hands and knees again as much to avoid stumbling into some undetected pit as because his legs couldn’t be counted upon to support him, or at least that was what he told himself, and very soon he wasn’t in the mine, at all, native rock replaced by the smooth-burnished, iron-rich clay of long ago, Einar feeling his way along with the minute caution of a man all the time expecting to run into a hidden tripwire, concealed pit, a waiting enemy who would club him in the head before he had any chance to resist…

Progress tedious and slow as he kept moving, checking, clearing the tunnel, and all the while he seemed to be drawing nearer the sound of the wailing child. Though he knew it could be a trap, he was drawn to the cry, wanting to investigate. At times the sound would stop, silence falling in the tunnel, not even a drip of water or breath of air intruding on the harsh sounds of his own shivering breath, and he clamped his jaw, attempting silence. Must be the first to hear, if there was anything to hear, first to act, or all would be lost. Must not let his breathing give him away. To which end he held his breath, forgot to start breathing again and eventually, after a time of crawling along thus, passed out for lack of oxygen.

Silly creature. Woke wondering how he had managed to find his way into the mine, for he did not at all remember doing it. Good to be out of the wind, no longer lost in the storm, mighty good, but it wasn’t enough, for still he was freezing, soaked through from his time in the snow, clothes frozen to his body in places, not at all a good sign. Had to find Liz. Let her know things were alright on the outside. Maybe borrow that blanket for a little while, if she could spare it… No idea where he was. Dark, no source of light, rocks rough beneath his hands, but that gave no clue. Somehow he’d crept his way in from the entrance, crept far enough that its light no longer reached him, and in a moment of near-panic he knew that he might not be able either to retrace his steps, or to find his way forward to wherever his family waited. Petrified at the prospect he held himself perfectly still, listening, trembling against the cold stone of the passage, body slowly settling to the floor in an unconscious attempt to conserve what little energy it somehow still possessed.

Might, he realized, already have passed the spot where they waited, lost himself irretrievably in the dark and convoluted bowels of the mine, leaving them to slowly starve in their hiding place, unsure what was happening on the outside and thus unable to leave and look for food, day after day waiting his return… The horror of it—though really, he knew Liz would do no such thing. Had a much better head on her shoulders and would figure things out, do what she had to do for herself and the little one to survive—got him moving again, inching forward, stopping to sample the air, hoping for a breeze to tell him in which direction lay the entrance. Nothing. Seemed logical to assume that behind him was the entrance, before him the depths of the mine, but the way he’d been curled up when he woke, he knew that no such assumption was safe.

Tried to slow down and think, goad his chilled brain into giving him the answer, but no answer came, no direction, and he was just about to admit defeat, turn around and begin crawling—the wrong way, as it turned out, down a passage which would have led him away from the alcove and deeper into the mine—when heard Will wail, knew his direction again, nearly weeping with relief as he followed the sound.

Liz heard him coming, knew by the sound of his breath that it was him, and not some stranger intruding upon the seclusion of their little alcove, and sliding Will around onto her back she hurried to him, speaking softly lest he fail to recognize her, take her as some enemy emerging from the darkness.

Had her hands on his shoulders, a brief embrace as she raised him, helped him to stand, arms around him, guiding him into the alcove and then releasing him briefly to light one of the tinder pellets from the pouch he’d given her, add some sap-infiltrated bark chips to the little flame so it would burn for a time. She then returned to hurry him out of his snow-soaked and frozen clothing, get him wrapped up in the blanket, Einar protesting all the while in a broken, almost unintelligible staccato that he was just fine, feet a little cold, but otherwise fine, Bud and Susan just fine, everything alright for the moment. Clearly she wasn’t understanding him, appeared distressed about something and seeking to reassure her, he took a few deep breaths, steadying as well as he could the wild gyrations of limb and voice which seemed to be making effective communication so difficult, and tried again.

“Feds not…trying to take them. Bud and Susan. Safe. My tracks…tracks covered. Storm. Safe here…”

“Yes, good, good, I’m glad they’re safe. And we’re safe. And now I need you to come sit by this little fire for a minute, and tell me more about it. Can you do that?”

He could, and did, Liz adding a few splinters of wood to the flames, watching the smoke as it was drawn by some undetectable air current deeper into the mine, staring after it as it went, inspecting the deep hollows of Einar’s face in the firelight, the sharply shadowed prominence of his spine through the skin as he sat hunched over in the blanket, and asking herself how she was to do it. To get him through the cold, damp hours and perhaps even days ahead of them in the mine, this starved, exhausted and already half-frozen man who had barely been able to hold his own even in the warmth and plenty of Bud and Susan’s home, not yet knowing that the answer was to come from Einar, himself.

[FOTH]

Admiring, after a few minutes huddled shivering and nearly insensible in the blanket, the work Liz had done to improve the situation there in the little alcove, Einar rose shakily, bracing himself against one wall as he drank thirstily from the water that had dripped and collected in pockets on the plastic sheeting. Badly dehydrated after his arduous trip through the snow—didn’t take much to leave him badly dehydrated, those days, running as he had been on the barest minimum of nutrition and hydration needed to sustain life—he could easily have consumed every drop, but stopped himself after a few quick swallows.

“Better have some of this. Need to…stay real good and hydrated so you can give Will plenty to eat.”

“I had some earlier.”

“Have some more. Finish it. He’s counting on you.”

“You have some more, first.” When he refused she drank, frustrated but happy that he’d been willing to take some in the first place, and without her prior suggestion. Seemed like progress, him taking the initiative and doing something that might actually help to sustain his life. He needed more, though, and she solved the dilemma by leaving him with Will and hurrying out to the entrance, returning with a double handful of freshly fallen wet snow, which she quickly melted in a scrap of the plastic over her small flame. Plenty for both of them to drink, and she could do it again as necessary. Einar seemed satisfied with the solution, eyes smiling as he followed her movements. She had learned well, this mountain woman. Learned real well.

On Liz’s second trip out for more snow to melt—this time she took Will with her—Einar set aside the blanket, crouching over the tiny fire and inspecting his clothes. Pretty wet, especially now that the ice had been given opportunity to thaw, and the prospects of them drying out over that little flame were looking pretty dim. Standing, stretching out to nearly his full height before running up against the low ceiling and having to stop, Einar held the shirt against his torso, attempting to judge the work required to get it dry. He’d done it before, spent an entire night exercising in wet clothes in order to generate the heat to dry them, when fire had not been an option, but he could not do it that day. The effort would take everything he had left. He could feel it. Suddenly dizzy, he sat back down in a hurry. Would simply have to leave the clothes to dry as well as they could on their own—or, if circumstances allowed for the ongoing use of a fire, wrap them around hot rocks to speed the process—and shelter himself in the blanket, in the meantime.

There were so many things he wanted to do to make the place more habitable, hospitable, disturbed when he found himself genuinely limited by physical constraints he knew he ought to be able to shake off, resourcefulness of mind unable to translate into action. Have to do something about that. Should have done it long ago. Well. Would simply have to make the best of it.

Einar was indeed trying very hard to make the best of things when Liz came back, himself having searched the area just outside the mine until he’d found a fir tree whose boughs had been more or less protected from the blowing snow, cutting a number of these and dragging them back to the little alcove, where he’d arranged them beneath the plastic shelter by way of insulation from the chill of the ground. The branches also served to give Will a warmer spot to sit and play, which he seemed to be managing very well despite the dimness, rolling a pine cone back and forth on the boughs and squealing with delight whenever he found it again after a brief loss. The little one thoroughly absorbed in his own little world for the moment, Liz again turned her attention to Einar, who seemed not to be warming very quickly, despite being out of his wet clothes. Getting her arms around him she tried to share some warmth, but he moved away.

“Hey, don’t…don’t waste…body heat on me. Not gonna be able to help you stay warm. I’m like a block of ice, here.”

“I know! That’s why I’m doing it.”

“You like…feeling of ice, do you?” He grinned despite himself, teeth flashing white in the near-darkness.

“No, I really don’t, especially! But we’ve got to get you warm, because I need you to help me keep Will warm tonight. We only have the one blanket so we’re going to have to share it, let him sleep between us, and it will only work if you’re not a block of ice.”

“Oh, I’ll just…kinda walk the…passages to keep warm. You two can have the blanket.”

“Walk the passages? Hey, I’m counting on you to help me keep Will warm. You can walk the passages tomorrow.”

He knew they would both be doing exactly that, before too long, a distinct lack of food and the inadvisability of burning a fire for too long in that confined space and without any way to know the state of the storm outside and its ability to cover their smoke meaning that they’d be relying mostly on exercise to help generate heat, as things went on…which, wind changing, smoke no longer drawing but building up in the little chamber to smother them, they found themselves resorting to far sooner than even Einar had thought would be necessary.

Each taking turns sitting with Will in the blanket while the other did anything and everything to get his or her heart rate up and generate a little heat, they exercised, encouraging one another and largely succeeding, as night fell outside, at holding back the damp chill of the place, but Einar could only sustain the activity for so long, finally stopping, exhausted, head resting against the wall. He was losing ground. Liz could sense it, could hear by his breathing that he was growing colder despite the movement, insisted that he get up and keep going a bit longer.

“I’m too tired, Liz. Just too tired.”

“You’re going to have to get over it. Just push it aside, like you used to tell me, and decide to go on…”

“Been doing that since we got here. Got nothing left to push with. Body’s all done.”

“You need to eat something.”

Shook his head, let out a hollow little chuckle as he slid the rest of the way to the floor. Didn’t need to remind her that they were all out of food…

Liz wasn’t giving up, taking him in her arms, lifting him, guiding him back to the pad of fir boughs, unwilling to leave him lying on the cold granite. “Let’s talk, then. Sit close to me and we’ll talk.”

“Save energy if I sleep. Want to sleep for a while.”

Valid concept, but she thought it sounded like a bad idea, in his current state of exhaustion. Einar wasn’t too excited about the concept of talking, found things a whole lot easier just then when he could let his mind drift and not have to think about stringing words together, but as it seemed so important to her, he agreed to do it.

Talking, Liz had to admit after a time, wasn’t going very well, Einar’s mind drifting, Liz waiting longer and longer for answers to her questions. At last, Einar nearly asleep and unable any longer to make any sense of her words, Liz had nearly resigned herself to letting him sleep when he pulled a carefully-wrapped packet from inside his vest, its plastic covering crinkling in the silence. She hadn’t even realized he’d managed to bring those documents along, but there they were; she recognized in the dim orange flame of the tinder-pellet he’d lit for light the faded, dog-eared pages of the transcript he had read and re-read so many times, half wished, as he began reading, that she had allowed him to go ahead and sleep. Might have been better than what was to come, especially if he began feeling too confined there in the dark recesses of the mine after a few minutes of reading and reflection, and decided that he had to go out into the snow for some fresh air…

“Is this your idea of a good way to keep warm?”

Silence for a long time, as he finished a page. “Yeah, and it’s working. Can you feel the heat?”

“You’re still shivering.”

“Better read some more.”

“Yeah…”

Which he did, but the tinder pellet was sputtering, going out, and unwilling to use the last one from his elkskin pouch, he was soon left staring into the shadows.

[gipsysmith]

You just want too keep us coming back with these little tidbits. Shame on you. ;-)

[FOTH]

I know I said I'd make an effort to post a chapter every other day, but I just don't have one for today, so it will be tomorrow.

Thank you all for reading!

[pacnorwest]

Foth,

we all thank you for the tremendous effort it has taken to post Einar's saga, if you need to rest and sneak up on some of your regular life....we understand. We would rather you keep an interest in the story by rest, relaxation and chapters when they happen; than burn out.

[FOTH]

Pacnorwest, thank you.

_______________________

Silence, the occasional sound of dripping water, and Liz could feel Einar growing more restless, wanting to rise and go wandering the mine passages, wandering out into the snow, probably, and she held onto him.

“What are you thinking? Can you tell me?”

She felt him shrug. “Just trying to piece things together. Seems like every time I read it…there’s ¬¬so much I hadn’t remembered, hadn’t thought about for a very long time, anyway, and every time I read it, more comes back.”

“I know. I’ve seen how it is for you when you read… Wish you wouldn’t go there right now. Wish you’d stay here with us.”

“I’m with you.”

“Barely.” She ran her hands over his shoulders, tucked the blanket in more closely around his neck. He still hadn’t made much progress towards getting warm. “You’re barely there, Einar. Literally.”

“I know.”

“Maybe if you could try and let it go for a little while, just let it fade so it wasn’t the first thing in your thoughts all the time, things would be just a little easier.”

“Not looking for easier. I need all the challenge I can get.”

“Life would be plenty of challenge right now, don’t you think? Just living life, just....keeping yourself alive. Without all the other things.”

“Oh, this being barely alive thing works pretty well, really.”

“Doesn’t look to me like it’s working very well at all, right now.”

“You should see the alternative.”

“Oh, I think I’ve seen it. Hints of it. I know it isn’t pretty. But none of that is going to matter a whole lot if your ‘barely being alive’ slips just a little and leaves you ‘not alive.’ You have to know it’s not far at all from that, right now. I’m just asking you to look at a little different path.”

“I’d be a coward to want a different path. To want a way out. This is the path I’m to walk.”

“This is the path you’ve chosen to walk. It’s a choice.”

He shrugged, didn’t see much difference.

“Which means that you could choose a different one. But you don’t want to. Don’t want to let yourself start to get past this, or even to set it aside for a little while so you could stand a chance of eating again and building up your strength, do you? Why is that? Why has the challenge become the most important thing?”

“I guess because without it…well, without the daily struggle, guess maybe I’d be left to really look at the entirety of what I’ve done and who I am.”

You’re the man I love, that’s who you are. You’re Will’s father. You’ve repeatedly put your own life in danger to protect the two of us, and even for other people who you barely knew. You’re all of these things. Why can’t you see it like that? “What part of that entirety is so hard to face? Is worth dying to avoid facing?”

“The part where I walked away and left a young man to be tortured to death in a bamboo cage. To save my own life. That’s what.”

“Oh, Einar, you can’t change it. None of this is going to change it, including your ultimately dying the way he died, or as close as you can come to replicating it… Those events are what they are. We can talk more about the details, and I’ll do that if you want to, anytime you want to, but I don’t think it’s really going to get you anywhere unless at some point you’re willing to forgive yourself. For what you’ve done, or not done, for what you think you’ve done, all of it. Christ gave you an example. He’s done it for you… And I know you’re capable of forgiveness, because I’ve seen you forgive Bud for chasing you down and using that dart up in the timber, seen you let that go and welcome him into our home, and if I’m not completely out of line in suggesting it, I think you may have even forgiven the guys who were your enemy over there in the jungle. I’ve never heard you talk about them in a way that would suggest otherwise.”

“Yeah. Forgiven the enemy many years ago, those guards, the guys who questioned me, even the one we called The Russian. Got no hate for them, anymore.”

“I know. I can see that. So, why can’t you do the same for yourself?”

Silence for a long moment, Einar quite still, no longer shivering. “Because…I was the only one I had any control of over there, in that situation. My decisions were my own. And they’re mine to carry, now.”

Difficult to refute that one, and though she knew she had to try, the time did not seem right. Einar had somewhere along the way in the telling of the thing lost a bit of that palpable tension which she had felt growing in him and which she had known would ultimately drive him out into the snow, into the storm, and for the time, it was enough, his willingness to stay there with her and continue warming. He still had to manage to live through the effects of his most recent excursion, if any of the rest of it was to matter, and though he now appeared entirely awake and master of his faculties, she knew it had taken an awful lot out of him, that hurried trip through the snow to check on Bud and Susan, his continued survival no certain thing. Rest would be good. Rest, warmth, food when they could get it—a real dilemma at the moment, but not one to be dealt with that night—more discussion in the morning, and warm together in the blanket, they slept.

[FOTH]

Where I spent last night:












No other humans up there, but I did meet these elk mothers and their very young calves:




________________________
Waking slowly, chilled, despite their closeness and the relative warmth of the mine in comparison to the stormy world outside, by the dampness of the mine, Liz had to reach over and search for a pulse on Einar, finding his skin cold to the touch. No sooner had she laid a hand on him, however, than her fears about his continued presence in this life were rather rapidly dispelled, Einar reaching up and grabbing her wrist with a force which took her somewhat by surprise.

“Ok, it’s Ok. I was just seeing if you were keeping warm enough, over there.”

“What did you hear?”

“Nothing. Hey, settle down. Didn’t hear anything, just woke up. I think it’s morning.”

Einar stretched in the darkness, limbs stiff and not particularly willing to assume positions different to those in which they had passed the night, but he kept at it, eventually managing to gain his knees. One hip felt pretty badly bruised, the result, he supposed, of a number of hours spent immobile on his side on the fir bough bed, but he ignored the hurt, pulled himself to his feet.

“Didn’t mean to sleep so long. Better go have a look outside.”

“I’ll come with you. Just give me a minute to feed Will, because he doesn’t seem to want to wait.”

Einar grunted his assent, but did not sit back down. Too much effort to get up again, and his head felt heavy, limbs dragging, not much there with which to put out such an effort. Wished they had some food. Liz needed it in order to be able to go on producing adequate milk for Will, and he sure would have eaten some himself, had it been available. Which struck him as somewhat strange, little as he’d cared about such things over the past months. For himself, at least. He’d always been diligent to see that there was enough for Liz and Will. Didn’t know what had precipitated the change, and was too hungry to do a lot of contemplating on the matter, just then. Something about their conversation before sleeping, he supposed, though he felt strange now thinking about that conversation, at all. Not a subject he would have chosen, but what was done was done. Only, it probably wasn’t done. She had not seemed done. The two of them had just fallen asleep, cutting short the discussion. Well. He shivered. Maybe the rest could go unsaid.

Though unable immediately to procure food, Einar could do something about their lack of water, and he did it, taking a long drink from the growing puddle of drip water accumulated atop the tarp and offering some of the same to Liz, who drank thirstily.

“Ready to head up to the world and check things out?”

“Yes. Will’s all done.” Which, though she tried to conceal the fact, Einar knew was not due to the little one’s having had enough to be satisfied. Bad news. Maybe, he thought to himself, with the storm to cover his movements against any ongoing federal surveillance of the place, he could slip out of the mine and snare them a rabbit or squirrel, find a grouse bedded down in the heavy timber and spear it, take it with a hastily improvised bola made from some of the cordage around his waist, and three or four rocks… Mouth watering at the thought of such a feast—even if eaten raw and cold while huddled beneath a garbage sack in a leaky mine alcove—he moved along a bit more quickly towards a dim but growing light that seeped in from outside.

A hope which was quickly dashed as they neared the entrance. Both Einar and Liz knew they were in trouble even before they were near enough to see out, brightness of the light outside announcing without question the passing of the storm, nothing to cover their tracks; they were, for the time, trapped.

* * *

Alone again in the big house with the departure of their federal visitors, Bud and Susan were quiet for some time, ticking of the big grandfather clock, crackling of a log in the fire and the gusting of the wind outside the only sounds, neither wanting to be the first to speak. Only two men had entered the house and Bud had kept a sharp eye on them the entire time, so he knew it was safe to speak, house not bugged, but still, neither of them had any words. Bud finally broke the silence.

“Guess they’re probably way up the hill by now. And with nobody looking…ought to make it.”

Susan didn’t answer. They both knew why. Bud threw up his hands, sat down heavily on one of the dining room chairs. “Well, what do you want me to do about it? Go after them? What about the tracks? If I should happen to be able to find them in this storm, I mean, and then it quits before I start back for home. Looks like it’s really tapering off right now, and by morning when I could start tracking, it may be done altogether. And what if Shirley’s buddies come back, and you got no good answer for why I’m not around?”

“You know he isn’t going to make it very far.”

“I know nothing of the kind. Fella ought to have been dead months ago, but he just keeps going. Don’t see why this ought to be any different, really.”

“Bud!”

“Ok, ok, but it’s all a matter of degree, and he never did pay much mind to degree. Old buzzard’s either breathing or he’s not, and so long as he’s breathing, he don’t know the meaning of giving up.”

“Giving up and giving out can be two different things.”

“Yeah. But look, Sue, not even I can track folks after a storm like this. Not much chance of it at all.”

“I don’t think you’ll need to. I think I know where they’ve gone.”

[icefire]

Well, of COURSE Susan would have a good idea as to where they went! Now, if they can just get some FOOD (and some warm clothing wouldn't hurt either...full packs...etc.) up to Liz and Einar...

[FOTH]

Jul 10, 2013 17:31:36 GMT -6 icefire said:

Well, of COURSE Susan would have a good idea as to where they went! Now, if they can just get some FOOD (and some warm clothing wouldn't hurt either...full packs...etc.) up to Liz and Einar...

Tracks will be a major concern, but I'm sure they'll be trying to think of a way...

Thanks for reading.

____________________


Faced with a situation which rendered any venture too far from the mine entrance a rather unwise endeavor, little remained to Einar and Liz that morning but to collect some snow so they could have a bit of drinking water which had not seeped its way through a hundred feet of rock, some of it previously disturbed by mining, before reaching them. Einar was glad of the opportunity, not having been particularly happy with the need for Liz, and by default Will, to consume such potentially contaminated water. Lacking anything in which to transport the snow back to their little alcove for melting—the above-freezing temperatures in the place, alone, would eventually do the job, even if they didn’t have a fire again that day—he made a quick return trip to the shelter and carefully tore off a corner of the plastic bag which had been their shelter from the continuous drip of meltwater from above.

Liz watched him as he returned, plastic carefully folded and tucked beneath one arm, features sharp in the harsh, snow-reflected sunlight that illuminated the area around the entrance. She could see that he had lost even more weight over those past several days, something which she had hardly even believed possible. Eyes bright and staring, skin appearing nearly transparent in the sunlight, he had about him a hollow, desperate look that she did not at all like. Such a dreadful shame, she could not help but think to herself, that he should be coming to such a point then, of all times, when he had really seemed to be making the decision to turn things around, to eat, had been telling her about his wish to get out and set up a little trapline, feed them all.

Back at Bud and Susan's when the food had been there, had been all around them, he had not been willing, and now that he was willing...well, there was simply nothing to eat, and no obvious way to obtain such in the forseeable future. Which perhaps had a lot to do with why he was suddenly so willing--nothing to lose, no danger of actually being able to carry through on his willingness--but she had to hope not. Had to hope, too, that they would be given the opportunity to find out, one way or the other.

Einar, too, was pondering their predicament, though his focus was, as always, a bit different. He just wanted to find a way out of there, a path that might lead the three of them up into the high timber, and to safety, to a place far from the center of whatever search remained active. The obstacles appeared enormous at present, but he hoped with enough applied dedication to see a way through them, a way clear. Each looking up at the same time they met one another’s eyes, Einar grinning and looking away, carefully laying out the piece of salvaged plastic and packing it with as much fresh, clean snow as he could reasonably carry, heavy, wet snow, and he was glad, for he knew its moisture content would be high. If they could not eat, they could at least do their best to remain hydrated.

Later, back in the alcove with Liz, Einar sat shivering against the damp rock of the wall and debating with himself their future course of action. Will was too quiet, not his lively, curious self that day, seemingly content to remain in Liz’s lap, eating voraciously and whimpering irritably when the milk inevitably ran out before he was satisfied. Einar could not help but be somewhat surprised that the effect of their current situation was showing so quickly in a lessening of Liz’s milk supply, strong and healthy as she had seemed and well as she’d been eating, both at Susan’s and back up in the basin. The trouble could, he supposed, stem partly from the distress brought on by having to run as they had done, in which case…well, he could hope things might start to improve again, but realistically, he knew that without a steady food supply, they would only worsen. He ran over all the options in his head. Thought about the possibility of taking them back, Liz and Will, leaving them in the woods and going to reconnoiter, see if it appeared safe for them to approach the house…but the risks associated with such a move were too many and too great, the possibility that the house was under surveillance, that their tracks would be spotted, trail followed, even if they chose not to approach the place, and it would all be over.

Yet he could not leave them there in the mine indefinitely to starve and eventually freeze, which they were going to do, sooner or later, without some change in the situation. Which, as he saw it, left a third option, the very thought of which gave him a grim, humorless chuckle. He could turn himself in. Walk down to the highway and end it all so that the search would be called off and the threat to Liz and the little one ended, or perhaps, if he could think of a way to arrange it, negotiate by telephone a scheme by which he would surrender in return for a guarantee of their safety and freedom. Another hollow chuckle, this one loud enough for Liz to hear, and she looked at him strangely in the faint and flickering light of a the bit of spruce sap and bark she was burning in an attempt to melt the snow he had retrieved.

No, any such thought was madness, and little else. The enemy, though they had been known to make such bargains, had never to his knowledge kept one. They were seen as tactical tools only, say anything, promise anything in order to manipulate the target into a favorable position for capture…it was the rule, not the exception. He knew how these things worked. So here they were, stuck in the mine for a time, and would simply have to he make the best of it. Decision made—need to make an immediate decision eliminated, more accurately—and mind allowed to wander just a bit for the first time that morning, the weight of his own weariness returned with full force, bending him low to the earth and sending Liz to his side in concern.

“What’s going on, Einar? Besides the fact that you’re freezing again. Come share the blanket with us. It’s big enough for everyone.”

Slowly he rose, moving like a man in a dream, and went to her little nest beneath the plastic sheeting. “Nothing going on. Just…used up all my energy thinking, I guess.”

“What are you thinking?”

“We need another storm. Cover our tracks.”

“Doesn’t look like we’ll have one, today.”

“No.” And he was sagging again, heading for the ground, but Liz got him the rest of the way up onto the pad of fir branches, blanket tucked around his shoulders, as well as hers. Will was quiet, apparently asleep. Einar wished for sleep, too, but Liz seemed unwilling to let him.

“So these new things you’re remembering as you read the transcripts again this time. Tell me.”

“I’ve told you everything before…”

“I don’t think so. Let’s give it a try.”

[FOTH]

Back from spending the weekend in the high(er) country, where it rained and rained (we've sure been needing that!) and will have a chapter for tomorrow.

Thank you all for reading!

[FOTH]

Einar wasn’t getting very far in telling her what he’d been thinking about, remembering, as he’d read the transcripts yet again, sat there silent, apparently lost in thought, so she tried to help, get a bit of conversation going.

“You told me last night that one of the reasons it’s been so hard for you to really make the decision to eat more and get stronger is that when you’re not having to struggle so hard, minute-by-minute, you thought you’d have a hard time facing who and what you are, some of the things you’d done over there, or the ones you hadn’t done… I was just wondering, did you ever have the opportunity to talk to anyone else who’d been held prisoner over there? Later, I mean, after you came back?”

“No. There were a lot of guys, of course, pilots most of them, flyers, but most of them…well, they were over there for three, four, even five years. My experience was nothing, compared to that. Nothing at all. Don’t suppose we would have had much to say to one another.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that. And it certainly wasn’t ‘nothing at all,’ your time over there. It was different in some ways, sure. Shorter. But unlike some of them who had a reason to hope that they’d be freed someday, that their government might be trying to negotiate something like that or was at the very least aware of their existence and the fact that they’d been captured…”

“No, we didn’t have anything like that. Not a chance. Nobody was coming for us. Nobody would even dare officially acknowledge our existence, because of where we were at the time. Geographically, I mean.”

“And you knew that at the time, didn’t you?”

“Oh sure, we knew it. Definitely on our own out there. We knew that going in.”

“And your experience with the…interrogations. It would have been very similar, or even worse in some ways to what they faced, at least for the time they had you, because like you said, they had no time to waste. Needed all the information right away, unlike the situation in the actual prisons, where they might have had months or even years to wait somebody out.”

Einar shrugged. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered. No sense attempting to compare the experience of one man to that of another. In the end, all that really mattered was how a man had acquitted himself under the circumstances he, himself, had faced, and that was where the trouble came in, because fact of the matter was that he had broken. Given in. Talked to them, and in under a week, too. Mere days. After that—well, it changes who a person is. Takes something away, and though in some sense he’d spent his entire life trying, there was no getting it back, that sense of one’s self, of integrity, of wholeness. Always something missing. He told her so, in simple terms.

She put a hand on his shoulder, glad the soft, enveloping darkness was there to conceal her tears. No. Why must you see it that way? But she didn’t try to argue. Knew it would be senseless to argue.

“I thought you never gave them anything they could use, anything real.”

“I didn’t. But I did talk. I let them get to me, and eventually…well, I just know I would have let something slip. Something real. Some little detail. If they’d kept me. Kept at it.”

“So would anybody. Einar, when the feds had me in that interrogation room…they didn’t even do anything, really, just some bright lights, handcuffs and…the threats they were making about Will, but I would have done it, too. I know I would have. Talked, tried to give them what they wanted, or made them think I was, anyway. I had no doubt. It was awful, and they never even touched me. It was the threat of it. So, what do you think of me? Do you think I’m weak? Unworthy? Somehow less than I was before, as a human being?”

“Of course not. Don’t even say that. I would never think anything of the sort. You’re the strongest lady I know, and I sure do admire you for that. But this is not about you, or anybody else.”

“But you’re human, like everybody else. Why can’t you allow yourself to be human? Forgive yourself for being human?”

“What?”

“Yes. That’s what I said. This standard you’re trying to hold yourself to…”

“It’s mine. It’s always worked for me.”

“Don’t get angry, but this is important, because I think it goes back to what you were talking about last night. About how you couldn’t forgive yourself for what you did, or didn’t do over there while you were in captivity, because your actions were the only thing you had control over. Or something like that. Isn’t that what you said?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Well, I’m just trying to point out to you that while yes, each of us is in control of our actions and is responsible for our choices, you reacted the way any human—any strong, honorable man—would have reacted, under that particular set of circumstances. And I just thought if you’d talked to some of the others, or even heard accounts of what they went through, it might help you in some way to see that.”

“Oh, you hear things, read things over the years, though I never did seek those out, the stories of others. Several reasons for that. One being that I’m not looking to excuse my behavior. Wouldn’t even be right to try.”

“And I’m not talking about excuses. You don’t need excuses. Just a little understanding. You need to let yourself understand”

Quiet then for a long time, Will whimpering for food and Liz doing her best to satisfy him, and when she turned her attention back to Einar it was to find him weeping, silent, even in that, not letting himself go, but she could feel the sobs… After a time he was finished, gritting his teeth and staring into the darkness, trying to get his breath.

“You’re a real wise person, Liz. You know that? Don’t know how you ended up with a big fool like myself, but I’m gonna try to make it right for you. Make it better, this life.”