Coming Home

[FOTH]

No way to retrieve the parachute from down on the ground, and Einar—my fault it’s up there in the first place, instead of down here on the ground with yours—wanted to be the one to make the climb, but Liz didn’t want to see him up there, effectively limited as he was to the use of a single leg. “Let me do it. Will needs you. If I fall out of that tree…” he shrugged. “But if you do, he doesn’t eat. Little guy still needs his mom. Doing fine with the leg. I can make the climb.”

“If you fall out of the tree, I have to drag or carry you all the way to wherever we’re going, and then we’re really in trouble! We could just leave it…”

“Can’t leave it. Some hunter stumbles across it next season, or even two seasons from now, if we’re still anywhere in the area, and there’s the potential for real trouble. No, it’s got to come down, come with us. Besides, the material is awfully useful, the cord. We need that stuff. Would take an awful lot of hours of work to begin replicating all that cordage and material, lot of nettles and elk hides.”

Liz saw that he did have a point, several points, actually, but still didn’t want him leaving the ground. She had seen how he’d struggled simply to keep himself on his feet as they traveled, leaning into the traces so hard that they were at times nearly supporting him as he fought to pull that bag through the snow and standing with bad leg bent and hanging limp whenever they stopped. Just didn’t seem a good candidate for tree climbing operations such as the one needed to retrieve that chute. She, on the other hand, could be up that tree in no time and…

Einar was no longer beside her, already some six feet from the ground and climbing with a speed and agility which she would have thought quite beyond his reach just then, had she not seen such in the past. Once, just halfway to the required branch and starting to see black spots before his vision at the effort of climbing, he lost his footing and nearly fell, catching himself hard on a branch and struggling to get an elbow up and over it, sensing that he would not be able to hang on for too long, the way he was. Frustrated him, some. Ought to have been able to hang from that branch for a long time with one hand behind his back, do a couple of complete pull-ups just for fun and then swing to the next branch, but as it was, he settled for awkwardly flopping himself up and over the bough which had saved him from the fall, his own limbs dangling straight down like those of some big, exhausted cat as he laughed silently but almost hysterically at the absurdity of his plight.

Finally, in response to Liz’s shouted questions—sure, he was alright, just couldn’t immediately move, lest the blackness become complete and he really take a tumble—he raised his head and began looking for the best way up to his destination. Not too far above him now, and he was moving again, reaching the branch and stretching himself out along it as far as he could go while still maintaining a hold on something solid, something he was sure would not break under his weight. Not working, couldn’t reach, and moving slowly he inched out along the bare, dead bough on which the chute had snagged, almost within reach when he heard the thing begin to creak and snap, slow fall, more tired than it was brittle, and before it went all the way he was able to get one foot down onto something a bit more solid, balancing, falling back against the trunk when finally the weight of the parachute overcame the branch’s last resistance and sent it tumbling for the ground.

Einar was not far behind the chute and not moving with a good deal less speed or more grace than the falling object, either, when he reached the ground, fall fortunately broken somewhat by the spruce’s proliferation of somewhat springy, giving boughs and no immediately obvious harm done save a series of angry-looking scrapes across his left cheekbone. Blinking hard he sat up, managed to pull himself to his feet before Liz, who had been waiting at a safe distance lest she put Will at risk from falling objects of various sizes, could reach him.

“Too bad there were so many branches in the way, or I might have actually been able to use this thing on the way down!” With which they were both laughing, Liz shaking her head in relief, disbelief, Einar feeling a good deal more battered and bruised than he was willing to let on, but glad simply to be alive and breathing, present mission completed.

After securing the parachute to the bag they moved on, travel slow through the snowy timber as they headed for what Einar hoped would be a low pass or saddle, providing exit from the valley. When sometime in the evening they reached just such a land feature, climbed it and saw from its aspen-covered summit an expanse of snowy hills, cliffs and canyons stretching out before them, it greatly increased in Einar’s mind the likelihood that Liz had been correct in placing them on the map. A half hour of study confirmed this and, weary from their travels, they decided to make camp some distance below the saddle in a generous clustering of firs, continue on towards the caves in the morning.


Liz woke sometime in the night, sleepy and comfortably warm, herself, but aware that Einar, despite being right there with her in the sleeping bag, was not feeling particularly warm at all, struggling with the cold and increasingly losing ground, body feeling stiff and chilled against her own. She could tell he was fighting to keep still.

"Einar, what's going on? Are you really that cold? Can't you stop shaking?"

He tried, managed it for a short time but then lost control and the shivering seized him again. "No, guess...guess not. Sorry. I can get up so...not keeping you awake."

She tightened her grip, rubbed his shoulders, arms where they were crossed hard on his chest, attempting to bring him some warmth. "No, no don't go anywhere. You're just fine here. Do we need to get up and make you a fire though? You're freezing."

"Be ok. Just so hungry all night. Trying not to…let it get me, but just…hurts.”

“Oh, why didn’t you say something sooner? You ought to be hungry. I’m sure you used up all your energy climbing that tree, and you're still nothing but skin and bones. Believe me, I can feel every one of them. Let’s get up and find you something to eat.”

“No, need to get it…under control. Do it myself. Ought to go out in…snow until I…”

“No, you don’t. That way of thinking doesn’t get you anywhere at all. You just need to eat, that’s all. Your body is just starting to get used to it again, and that’s why you’re feeling the hunger. It’s been there all along. You just got so good at ignoring it. Try to see this change as a good thing. Come on, I know you’ve got the Nutella tucked in with you over there somewhere. You haven’t let that stuff out of your sight since we found it in the drop bag. Just have some of that.”

A barely-audible groan from Einar, who wanted nothing more than to dig in and finish the jar, had wanted it all night, seen it in his dreams and awakened numerous times all cramped and twisted with hunger, but so far he’d done nothing about it aside from endlessly reminding himself that everything was off-limits until morning. Had to be that way. Had to keep some semblance of order.

Liz was not nearly as concerned with Einar’s idea of order as she was with his simply making it through the night and having the energy to go on in the morning, and feeling around until she found the Nutella jar, she opened it for him. “Have some. You’ve been doing pretty well with this. Your body is asking for energy. Just give it what it wants.”

Reasonable enough, and simple, too, but she did not know the cost… And does not need to know, he snarled at himself, because not only is that what you need to do, it’s what you’ve been intending to do, and if it gets a little difficult now and then, well, when did you ever turn away from things when they started getting difficult? Go for it. Can deal with the consequences later. After we’ve found some more permanent shelter, and got ourselves set up there.

He ate, and finally, though really not feeling much warmer, had the energy to go back to sleep. Strange thing, that one, he thought to himself as he drifted off. That sometimes it can require more energy to go to sleep than to stay awake, and he was pretty sure he was close to pondering out exactly why this might be—made sense, under present circumstances—but sleep, itself, interrupted the completion of his thought on the matter.

[gipsysmith]

time to hide out and get better.

[FOTH]

I haven't got a chapter ready for tonight, but will for tomorrow.

Thank you all for your patience, and for reading.

[FOTH]

Liz was up first that following morning, leaving Will to sleep beside Einar, who showed no sign of rousing, even when she carefully exited the nest that had kept them warm through the night. Must have been the midnight snack, she supposed, which had allowed him to rest a bit easier through the early morning hours, but after watching him for a time and seeing no movement at all, she had to check just to be sure he was still breathing. Which he was, very slowly but steadily, and he even seemed reasonably warm. Good enough, and making sure water and a bit of food were within his easy reach, she set off to climb a small rise just above their camp, from which she remembered their previously having good view of the canyonlands beyond. A wild, broken country it appeared by the morning light, this land to which they were journeying, not an easy one through which to travel, but surely as good a place as any in which to lose a small tribe, to disappear. She hoped. Hoped there would be adequate shelter for the remainder of the winter, enough game to keep them going after the food supplies sent by Bud and Susan began wearing thin.

Brief survey of the land complete and all appearing well with the morning—Einar had managed to successfully instill in her an almost constant need, heightened by circumstance, to keep watch, to check for danger; the habit had served her well—Liz returned to camp, surprised that she had not yet seen Einar up and about. Almost without exception he was always the first to be up in the morning, sleep often an elusive thing and dawn—and the hours immediately preceding it—a time when extra care must always be taken—but when she eased her way into the little thicket which had sheltered them for the night, he showed no sign of having moved. A situation which changed as soon as she spoke to him, but not with the speed she had come to expect.

Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion for Einar that morning, limbs heavy and unwilling when he tried to move them, head not wanting to come up off the ground and mind, it seemed, even slow to respond, to tell him where they were, and how they’d come to be there. The sight of his parachute where it sat lashed to the top of the bag jarred his memory some, sent him scrambling with some effort out of the sleeping bag and up to face the day.

“Slept too long. Sorry. You heard anything come over here? Any…planes, choppers, anything like that?”

“No, nothing.”

He looked relieved. “Good thing, us sleeping out in the open like this. Be glad to find one of those caves where we can really hole up and be hidden.”

“Maybe we can get there before another night comes. What do you think?”

Einar was standing, trying out his injured leg and not particularly liking how it reacted to the application of a bit of weight. “Yep. Think we can probably do that. Real hard to say once you get into cliffs and canyons like these, hard to know when you hit an obstacle that’ll either send you eight miles out of your way while you look for the head of the canyon and go around the thing, or lowering your gear and then rappelling down an eight hundred foot limestone wall in several steps…but barring anything like that, we ought to be there by tonight, for sure!”

After which, fully meaning to finish securing the hauling harness before helping Liz get Will all tucked down cozily into the hood of her parka, he instead sank to his knees in the snow, eyes half closed and head sagging. Liz was beside him, hand on his shoulder.

“Hey, you ready to get going? How about a little food, and then we’ll go see how much ground we can cover.”

Einar shook himself, scrubbing hands across his face as if in the hopes of wiping away some of the weariness, got to his feet and finished hitching himself to the bag. “Yep, ready.” Ready for more sleep, really, the urge almost too strong to resist but he did resist it, kept on his feet and soon had Will tucked in, the camp all cleared and was leading the way down from the pass, heading out on a course which he believed ought to take them before too long to an area bordering the rim of the nearest canyon, from which perspective they could perhaps expect a better view of the surrounding landscape.

Liz hurried along behind, meaning to remind him that he had, in his haste, quite forgotten to have any breakfast, but was glad to see, upon finally drawing up beside him, that he’d just finished the jar of Nutella, eating as he walked. The thing had lasted him three days when really, she knew he ought to have been taking in the contents of three or four of those containers for each day of travel and living in the cold, but at least he’d been doing it willingly and for the most part without her urging, which she took as progress. The rest could come gradually, the addition of a more substantial quantity of food and hopefully some variety, as well. For now, it would have to be enough.

Only it was not enough, things not going very well for Einar at all, and soon Liz returned to his side, stopping him beneath a grove of soaring, white-flanked aspens and wordlessly freeing him from the harness; her turn, and he made no objection, resting with bowed head until she’d put a few steps between them before rising, plodding along behind.

Pain and hunger were not a problem for him most of the time; often he had welcomed or even sought them out, valued them for their ability to help keep things well ordered in his mind, life often times more liveable with these challenges than it would have been without them, but for some reason this was different, this weakness which had come over him since leaving Bud and Susan’s—went soft, didn’t you, staying in a house like that and having your every need at your fingertips? That must have been what did it—and being dropped in this valley to make their new start.

He had at first attributed the growing difficulty to the trouble given him by the leg, and indeed moving about did present something of a mechanical challenge most of the time, and would until the thing decided to finish healing up, but this seemed to be something more, an insidious force which crept up on him after a few hours or sometimes even a few minutes of being on his feet and threatened to leave him face-down in the snow, unable to move any further and uninterested in even trying.

That was the worst part, the part which—if he was to be entirely honest—he feared just a bit. The ambivalence. The encroaching inertia of despair. Could feel it out there stalking him, and in defiance of its presence he increased his pace, silently snarling as he hefted the sled up and over the final obstacle—a fallen, snow-covered aspen trunk—before reaching a raised area of windswept snow and exposed limestone. He’d faced injury before, illness, the ravages of prolonged starvation, had met them and had kept going, so it made little sense to fear that this one, whatever its origin, would be able to stop him. Yet, he feared. Prayed for the strength and the desire to keep going, concentrating so hard that he almost jumped out of the harness when Liz approached from the side and laid a hand on his shoulder.

Ah, well. No need to trouble her with any of this. Best try and put it aside, whatever the cause, push onward to the shelter of the cave or caves which were—hopefully—awaiting their discovery just over the next ridge or two. Or three. Or maybe not so far as that, even, for Liz was gesturing excitedly as she pointed to something in the distance, motioning for him to follow up onto a pitted and water-worn boulder of limestone from which she had apparently made an important sighting. Dropping the harness, he went.

[FOTH]

Not sure what happened here--thought I'd posted this chapter two days ago, but apparently it never showed up. I'm sorry!

___________________

Amazing how an elevation gain of only a dozen feet or so can make such a difference in what is visible at times, but often this is the case, as it was for Liz and then for Einar, too, when he joined her atop the limestone boulder. Rough and grippy, the kind of stuff climbers—those who aren’t too busy complaining about its tendency to abrade and tear up one’s hands, at least—will often seek out, the massif presented ample opportunities for safe traction, even drifted as it was in places with remaining snow, and though Einar struggled some with his injured leg on the climb, he managed the feat fairly quickly and stood panting beside Liz, hands on his knees, breath coming rough and hard after the effort as he squinted off across the great gulf of air which opened empty and yawning before them.

“Found the…rim, Lizzie! This is good news. Real good news. Had no idea we were…this close.”

“I know! I was just climbing this rock in the hopes of seeing something, anything other than this endless sea of aspens, and boy, was I surprised to find myself looking right down over the edge like this! But that’s not the best of it. Look!”

Standing upright he scanned the distance, trying to spot the thing that had her so excited, but the world swam and blurred before him until, dizzy, he had to sit down in a hurry to keep from pitching forward and taking one incredible tumble right down the canyon wall. Rubbed his eyes, shook his head and accepted the water Liz was trying to press into his hands, vision a bit clearer after that, world steadying down some. He almost had another encounter with the great gulf of the canyon when, seeing at last the sight to which she had been trying to direct him, he leapt to his feet and did a spontaneous little half-circle dance around her, grinning all the while.

Liz caught his hand, pulling him hastily away from the edge. “Whoa, hey, settle down there! I know we have parachutes, but without one actually strapped to your back, I don’t think straight ahead is the best way to get over there! Do you?”

Laughing, he sat back down, this time at a respectful distance. “No. Fastest for sure, but not the best. But Lizzie, you’ve found them. Those are the caves, for sure. No doubt about it. See where the rock changes color there beneath that cluster of dark spots? Like a big streak or iron running own over the grey? Well, those’re minerals from the caves. Some of those are pretty exposed, probably too exposed to be a good idea for us, but where there’s one there’s almost bound to be more, and you see that timber over there, where it stretches down into the deep gully-like cut just to the left of that group of caves? Well, those trees are probably concealing another one or two, and maybe in one of those we can find the sort of shelter we’ve been looking for. Good find!”

“The only problem now is how best to get from here to there. You may be able to walk on air or soar to the bottom without a chute and come away with nothing more than a twisted leg…but I’m pretty sure I can’t do that!”

“I can’t do it either,” he growled, wondering at her motive for continuing to bring up his failed landing and half wanting to remind her that its consequences had by no means been limited to his bum leg, but thinking better of that entire line of conversation. “Best way, I’m thinking, is going to involve traversing the thing. Heading up around the canyon itself, to the spot where things level out and we can walk right on around to the place where the caves are. May take us a day or two, but it’s a whole lot better than flying!”

“Yes. I wonder though…what about working our way down the cliff face?”

He laughed softly. “Paracord rappel?”

“No! Technically possible, I know, but not if we can help it. I meant if we could find a gully like that timbered one you were pointing out to me, and work our way down that. It might save us a lot of travel, and keep us from leaving tracks all along the canyon rim for somebody to maybe see from a plane…”

“Good thinking. Sure, we might find something like that. And it might run out halfway down, like the one opposite us here appears to do. I’ve seen that plenty of times. But maybe worth a try anyway, because you sure are right about it being more secure, and as far as saving the travel…well, I hate to say it, but that might not be a bad idea.”

“You don’t have to say it. I know. I can see how things are, right now. We need to find a place to hole up.”

He shrugged, looked away. So. It was that obvious. She was right, though. He was about done in, had barely been able to get himself to his feet that morning—feet? You could barely open your eyes there for a long while; not a good sign—knew it had little to do with the leg and sure didn’t want the trouble to be going any further before they’d reached a safe shelter where they could hope to stay for a while and from which it would be easier to provide for their ongoing needs. If they could indeed find a way down through the cliffs to the canyon floor and climb out the other side to the area of the caves—then he was all for it. Already he could begin to pick out potential routes on the far side up which they might hope to climb, cliffs present but not, it appeared, insurmountable obstacles. The entire plan appeared worth a try.

“Let’s do it. May get rough hauling everything with us when we come to the real steep parts, both descent and later on the climb back out, but we’ll find ways. Can hook it up to some of the lines, lower it, raise it on the ascent…what do you say?”

Liz nodded slowly, liking the sparkle in his eye, the eagerness to be about a plan, knowing the risks posed by such a descent but considering them less than those inherent in continuing on their present course. She hoped. “Yes. Let’s go. I guess we’d better start by getting down off this rock, and exploring the rim for a cut that will take us down…”

Not necessarily a quick search, and anxious to begin before the day could grow any later, they scrambled down from the boulder and set off through the aspens, paralleling the rim as they began their quest.

[FOTH]

The sky was a flat, iron grey as Einar and Liz struggled through the deep snow, fallen timber and sometimes-heavy brush of the rim, wind picking up so that the bare-white aspen trunks creaked and clanked together and a few of last year’s leaves, oak, mostly, which had been tenaciously clinging to their branches throughout the long winter, came loose and skittered restlessly across the thaw-rotted surface of the snow. Stopping to glance up nervously at the sky Einar turned, face into the wind and eyes scanning the clouds.

No reason to be bothered by the approach of a storm. Snow, if it should come, would be a welcome development, would help cover their tracks, erase evidence of their presence at the drop zone and further cement their break with all things past, their future freedom. Yet the feel of things definitely had him on edge, lending quickness to his steps and helping to mitigate, for the time at least, the exhaustion which had been stalking him since his initial climb of the ridge. He wanted off of that rim, and in a hurry, but knew they must find just the right spot, lest they end up cliffed out and stranded somewhere a few hundred feet below their current position, with nowhere to go but back up.

A small cluster of aspens, different from most of the others through which they had traveled in that they were somewhat taller and straighter, gave the first clue that they might be nearing the sort of draw they had been seeking. These trees, obviously more well-watered than their surrounding relatives, indicated a spot where snowmelt and perhaps even rainfall, when it was heavy enough, concentrated and remained, giving the trees time to take advantage of the extra moisture, and Einar knew from past experience that in cliff and canyon country, this often indicated the head of a draw.

Descending somewhat in order to get a look at the rim where it fell away beneath the aspens, Einar discovered that they had, indeed, come upon the sort of draw which had the potential to conduct them safely all the way to the canyon floor—or to leave them stranded halfway, but without the ability to look back and see it from the other side, there was no way to be certain. The map proved somewhat helpful when, with Liz’s help, he got it spread out and held down against an increasingly restless and gusty wind, draw appearing as a deep, narrow cut which—if he was looking at the correct one; difficult to be entirely sure without a better perspective and some more definitive landmarks—looked as if it ought to go. The reality, once they got down in that draw, was somewhat different, as is often the case, than it had appeared on the map.

Steeper than it had first appeared, the draw did indeed provide, at least there in its early stages, passage for the fugitive family, blocking slightly the effects of the wind and providing ample vegetation on which to catch themselves when an unseen steepening would otherwise have threatened a fall, but before long the brush thinned out, rock became more exposed and it was no longer either feasible or safe to go on dragging the bag containing all their possessions, and it had to be lowered down ahead of them, step by step.

Einar fell a time or two on this section—because of the leg, he told himself, but knew in reality the falls could be attributed nearly as much to the systemic weakness which had been plaguing him for days as it could the injured leg—but managed to recover himself each time before going too far, once having to make a grueling twenty foot ascent back up to the line they had been following, lifting himself up over icy limestone crags, breathing a silent prayer of thanks that it had been Liz’s turn with the bag at the moment he’d fallen—thing would have dragged him all the way…down. Off, out into the void--and determining to be a good bit more careful, after that one…

Cold but more or less managing it with the effort of constant movement over that difficult terrain Einar carried on in his own little world after a time, picking his steps, taking the bag when his turn came and praying that the draw would not run out before the wall did, noticing an encroaching darkness as day drew to a close and knowing they would be alright if they could just get down off that wall where the canyon would give them some shelter and they could hole up for the night. The draw was becoming steeper though, more exposed until, light failing, they found themselves picking their way against an unrelenting wind and snow that was beginning to swirl quite heavily down what might almost have been described as the cliff face itself, broken here and there by less vertical sections and dotted, thankfully, with shallow-rooted currant and oak scrub which provided handholds—if one was careful and didn’t trust them with too much weight.

It was with great relief, then, that they reached the ledge, a narrow thing, and angled somewhat downwards, which slashed across the face of the increasingly steep and trackless wall. In contrast to the terrain over which they had just descended, this meager ledge seemed a blessed haven of security and respite, and without question Einar tied off the bag, securing it to a spur of rock for later retrieval, and led them forward, picking his way gingerly over the slick, partially snow-covered rock and pausing frequently to make sure Liz was still behind him.

Einar, weary beyond words and half blinded by flying snow and his own blurring vision, very nearly walked right past it, might actually have done so had not Liz been close enough behind him to take hold of his arm and pull him inside. The first thing he noticed was a sudden stillness, absence of the wind, and though too stupefied with cold and exhaustion to immediately question its origin, he was grateful as he lay with limbs sprawled out, head back, eyes closed, just breathing, and it was enough. Not for long, though, for an awareness of their peril soon returned to him, dim but insistent through the fog, roused him to sit up—cautious, one never knows where the edge might lie, and it would not do to slip over—and look for Liz. She was right there beside him, shivering in the darkness as she tried to comfort little Will, who had somehow ended up cold and slightly wet even in the protective folds of her parka hood, and he took hold of her arm, immensely relieved to find her safe, whole, unclaimed by the yawning void that lay like a palpable and malignant force beneath them, pulling, attempting to draw them in.

“What’s…where…?”

“It’s a cave, Einar! There must be some on this side, too! In the band of limestone. It was blowing so hard that I almost missed it and walked right past, but here we are, and I think it would be a very good idea to stay for the night. We really need to stop for the night. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah, stay here… Real good idea. Should have known…might be some caves…this side, too.” With which he again collapsed back against the rough, water-pitted limestone wall, relieved and thankful that his family was, for the time, safe and out of the elements, and quite beyond ready for sleep, himself. Liz wouldn’t let him, kept talking and moving and hurting his battered body with her insistent pulls and tugs—didn’t know exactly what she wanted and couldn’t seem to make any sense of her words, but did his best to guess at their intent—until finally he drew all his limbs in close for protection, rolled over and sat up.

“Yeah, I know. Left all our stuff out there hanging from the cliff in that bag. I’ll go back for it…”

[icefire]

Not sure what happened here--thought I'd posted this chapter two days ago, but apparently it never showed up. I'm sorry!

The gremlins got it! It's all good though...as always, worth the wait!

[FOTH]

Liz stopped him before he could leave the shelter of the cave, a good thing, probably, the way he was stumbling about and considering the narrowness of the ledge which had given them passage. “No! I didn’t mean you needed to go after the bag. Not in the dark, and with the wind blasting and blowing like it is. I just wanted you to stay awake until you could warm up a little. That’s all.”

Somewhat confused, Einar crouched staring out into the darkness. “Need the bag, though. All our…warm stuff, food…”

“It’ll be safe for the night where it is, don’t you think? And we can make do with what we’ve got, if we can make a little fire in here. That ledge was getting awfully slick as the snow drifted against it. Just don’t want us to risk a fall, not knowing exactly what’s down beneath us…”

“Cliff is down there. Air.”

“Yes, I know. Thank you. Guess I was kind of trying not to think about that…”

“Cliff bothers you?”

“Only when the ledge is all slippery with snow and it’s too dark to see where you’re putting your feet!”

“Doesn’t scare me. I’ll go.”

“In the morning. All we need is a little fire, and we’ll be fine.”

“Bag might show from the other side. Can’t risk having it seen.”

“It was behind that thick clump of currant brush. I don’t think it would show much, and besides, it’s going to be all covered in snow.”

Made some sense, the things she was saying, and though still half of a mind to go out and finish the task—would be your last task, likely as not, and then what a fix you’d be leaving her in, stuck here in this cave without any of her gear or food—he decided it could wait for morning. With which decision, suddenly unable to keep his eyes open, he might well have curled up right then and gone to sleep, except that she had said something about a fire, and that, at least, was something he could and should do, far less frightened of the void than Liz seemed to be, and without the constant and ongoing duty of feeding a growing child. Will had just settled down. No need to disturb him by sending Liz after firewood.

Dark outside, just as it was dark in the cave, but colder for the force of the wind, and Einar braced himself against it as he felt his way hand-over-hand forward along the wall, feet carefully exploring the slick and uneven rock of the ledge, headed for a spot where he dimly remembered seeing the snowy ruins of a long-fallen limber pine, found it, recognizing by feel its rough, barkless contours, did his best to warm numbed hands against his stomach so that he could tie up a bundle of branches for dragging back. Long way. Leg hurting, but he had to use it, and he did, couldn’t risk losing his balance just then. Liz was waiting for him when he returned, took hold of both arms and pulled him inside, not a bad thing, for he’d been swaying, about to fall…

When Einar woke, she had a fire going, flames making weird shadows on the pitted limestone with its white calcite adornments, curtains, he could now see, frozen waterfalls of the stuff trickling in stony stillness down one side of the tunnel; had it been liquid instead of living stone, slow, deliberate, each wonder the work of a thousand years, the place would have very soon been flooded, overwhelmed with water. Closed his eyes, world spinning around him. Fire was growing. Already he could feel its warmth, reflected and retained by the surrounding mass of rock, wanted to tell her to put it out, must not damage the delicate, humidity-dependent structures of mineral and moisture which grew in such stunning plenty from wall and ceiling, but he kept the thought to himself. Other concerns must take priority just then, and, brain slowly beginning to warm and function just a bit better, he knew he ought to be terribly grateful to her for starting and tending that fire.

Will was awake, happy, himself, at the newfound warmth and light, babbling excitedly as he crawled from one side of the tunnel to the other, marveling at the crystalline reflections of flame and shadow as they added their own ornate patterns to the already-intricate design of the walls. Einar smiled, sat up.

“Beautiful place you’ve got here, Lizzie.”

“You’re awake! Oh, good. I think Will was starting to get worried… Are you feeling any warmer?”

Einar considered the question, flexing his hands, or trying to, and just then becoming aware of the shivering which seemed to be trying its best to shake him apart, limb from limb. “Guess I feel…good bit colder, actually. But that’s a good thing. Means I’m starting to get warm.”

“Yes, it heats up nicely in here, doesn’t it? I’m afraid we don’t really have anything to cook in—or anything to cook—but I do have one water bottle, and if we’re careful, I think we can warm that near the fire and have some warm water to drink, at least…”

Without answering, Einar crept over to the cave mouth, reaching out and coming away with a handful of fir needles from a tiny, gnarled tree against which he’d bumped his head in leaving the cave, last time. “Can add these to the water. Make some tea.”

Needed to make something else, too, and creeping over nearer the mouth of the cave he began stacking rocks from the floor, having to squeeze hard with both cold hands to keep a grip on things but managing, after some time, to construct a barrier some two and a half feet high across the entire opening. Would help keep out some of the wind as they slept and, more importantly, would prevent Will from quickly and without too much effort crawling away from them and exploring out onto the ledge, where he did not yet have anywhere near the experience of life and the world to be safe. This task done he wanted to explore, take a flaming stick and crawl a bit deeper into the recesses of the cave, see what might await them there, but before he could get himself together to go make this exploration Liz was pressing the bottle of warmed, fir-infused water into his hand and insisting he drink. After which, further warmed by the tea and almost unbearably drowsy, he made no argument when Liz suggested they curl up by the coals of their fire, and sleep.

Soundly and reasonably warm the little family slept in the folds of the mountain as outside the spring storm raged on, spending its fury, subsiding; Einar, too, slept at first, but in the night, in his dreams, the shadows came, calcite and limestone fading, in the dim and dying light of the coals, to the burnished red of long-ago tunnels so that after a time he struggled to wake, wished to wake, but could not.

[FOTH]

Morning, and despite the protection of the cave and the slight if fading warmth of the past night’s fire they woke cold, Einar pressing himself into the ground and attempting to get back to sleep but Liz rising, coaxing the coals back to life and adding sticks until the fire climbed fresh and orange and lively for the ceiling. This sudden infusion of light served to rouse Einar sufficiently that he sat up, arms wrapped around his bent knees for warmth as he stared out at the almost-darkness beyond the cave mouth, snow still falling, and then began studying its interior, finally rising taking a flaming brand from the fire and doing a bit of exploring. He was not gone long, tunnel lowering and bending so that soon he could no longer see the light of Liz’s fire when he looked back; with his own improvised torch sputtering, the night’s strangeness beginning to noticeably close in around him and no other source of light close to hand, he did not wish to risk becoming separated from his family.

When Einar returned to the fire and sat down, Liz saw the shadow in his eyes, wondered at its origin.

“What did you find down there?

“Just more tunnel. This place is an awful lot like the caves I used to explore when I was growing up, sheer limestone cliffs just riddled with caves, used to think they must have all been connected down underneath there, and they probably were, too, if I could have just found the passages. Too small to squeeze through, a lot of them, but sometimes you’d feel the air coming through, moving, and know they went somewhere. Met the surface.”

“You spent a lot of time in caves, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yeah. Always was one of my favorite places to be. Underground. Like a whole different world just waiting to be explored, and I always felt very much at home in a cave. Except… Well, when I first came back from overseas and tried to get back to caving, it didn’t go so great, at first. Was really looking forward to getting back out there, thought it would be something I could do where I’d be away from my family some, because as much as I know they were trying to help me in those first couple months back, I really just needed more space. Lot of space in a cave. Lot of solitude, anyway, which I guess is what I wanted more than anything, and I really planned that first trip, was excited as I decided where to go and packed my gear, had no idea it would be anything other than the way it used to be, but once I got down there… Well, I was about half an hour into it, cave I’d never explored before, some interesting chimneying problems complete with slippery mud on one of the walls, having a great time but then I got down to a spot where there was some water in the passage, just a little bit, not even enough to hardly come up over my boots, but that was all it took, and I was back in between the walls of that red-brown burnished clay tunnel where they took me, just absolutely certain it was about to happen again.”

“The water made you think so? Reminded you of coming up out of that tunnel where you had to dive, and being captured?”

“Yeah, guess that must have been it. Anyhow, I turned around and started running—which you never, ever do in a cave—and of course ended up in a passage other than what I’d started in, heading deeper into the mountain instead of out towards daylight, which I might have realized, had I been able to use my light…”

“You lost your light?”

“Nope. And I had backup, anyway. Never gone into a cave without at least two backup lights...until being on the run, that is. Just couldn’t use it, because ‘they’ would have seen me. Stumbled around for three days down there in the dark, near as I could figure afterwards.”

“Three days. How did you find your way back out?”

“Don’t know for certain, but do know that it sure wasn’t entirely my doing. I was lost. In more ways than one. Remember just seeing the daylight, this little blur of daylight as I crawled along checking for tripwires and such, headed for it…still took me what must have been the better part of that day to reach it, because it was starting to get dimmer by the time I got near, was just sure that it was some sort of trap, that they’d be waiting for me just outside…but they weren’t. Took me until after dark just to decide everything was ok and work my way out into the open air.”

“Still wasn’t so sure about things, but it was the trees that finally kind of brought me back, made me realize where I was. Smell of the firs, sound of them bending in the wind and their shapes against the stars… Found my way to the truck and went down, but headed back up there the very next week and did it again, same cave, determined to make things go differently that time.”

“Did they?”

“Not a lot, not at first. Things started going all strange soon as I was in there where the tunnel started closing in and things got really dark, but I hung on, just determined not to let it get me.”

“What did you do? How did you keep it from getting you?” Because those same tactics might, one would think, do you some good these days when things start getting strange, if you could remember to use them…

“Oh, mostly just bashed my head against the cave wall. Not much fun, but it helped. Took a lot, those first few times back underground, but I got better at it with experience.”

Well. Forget that idea! Sometimes I just don’t know about you, Einar… “Better at bashing your head?”

“Ha! Better at keeping my place in the world. Wasn’t too many months before I was actually enjoying caving again, maybe not exactly as I’d used to as a kid—nothing ever looks quite the same, after you’ve met reality the way I met it over there—but close.”

“I’m glad. And today? How is life in this cave, today?”

He grinned, crouching beside the fire and glancing over at the still-sleeping Will. “Awful lot better than it would be out on the cliff face in that storm, that’s for sure! Good thing you spotted this place. Looks like we’re going to be here for a little while, at least.”

[FOTH]

With nothing to eat that morning and the storm still raging on, Einar knew they would have to go for the bag, knew also that Liz with her entirely reasonable fear of the snow-slick ledge might not be the one to suggest it, and after a time he cinched down the hood of his coat, took reluctant leave of the fire and headed out into the storm. Liz wanted to go with him, almost had Will secured in her parka by the time he left, but he shook his head, reminded her that someone need to tend the fire, and was out the door before she had too much time to argue.

Travel was not easy on that snow-drifted ledge, but Einar kept at it, balancing gingerly against the rock, careful lest he shift too much of his weight in close to the wall, and cause his feet to slip out from under him... The bag was heavy, difficult to manage with footing so tenuous and the wind scouring snow into his eyes; finally he had to give up trying to drag it along the ledge beside him, and resort to dangling it down in the free air, cautious lest he lose his grip and painfully conscious of the abrasiveness of the limestone, the fact that he could sever the rope and lose it altogether, if he wasn't careful. When he'd made something over half the distance back to the cave he spotted Liz picking her way along the ledge, Will in her parka and hood drawn tight against the storm; wordlessly she came to him, took hold of the rope and helped him hold its weight as carefully they worked their way back to the shelter, and inside, securing the bag with several wraps of the rope around a rock projection, struggling, straining, hauling it in.

Exhausted but jubilant they collapsed in the blessed, windless relief of the place, grinning at one another and brushing wind-driven snow from faces, clothing, Will laughing as Einar lifted him from his mother’s hood, but he was cold, they all were, so as Einar worked to bring the fire back to life, Liz retrieved the sleeping bags, happy to find them dry, folded one of the parachutes not too far from the fire, and spread the bags on it, ready for use. It took some talking to get Einar into the sleeping bags in the middle of the morning like that, but not too much, and soon all were warmer as they sat with shoulders out of the bags, sorting through the treasures packed for them by Bud and Susan and entertaining Will with all the fresh sights.

Suddenly Einar found himself missing Muninn. The raven, too, would have enjoyed discovering the bag’s contents, exclaiming over each one as Will was doing and attempting, no doubt, to make off with more than one of the treasures. Will, having taken a liking to the shiny foil wrapper of one of the granola bars sent by Susan, had snatched it, stuck it in his mouth and was crawling quickly for the back of the cave; Einar followed, stopped him before he could get too far and brought him back.

“Looks pretty neat, doesn’t it little one? Bet you’d just love to take it off into a corner somewhere, dissect it and learn all about it. Lot shinier than most of the things we find out here, except for the mica flakes in some of the granite, and the white calcite we’ve got all around us here. Look at that. Look at the wall, here. See how it shines? Looks all orange in the fire, doesn’t it? But really it’s just white. I’ve seen it all different colors though, even purple. Don’t know which mineral makes it that way, but it can be quite a sight, that’s for sure! Curtains of purple and white, all streaked and shining in the beam of your headlamp. Yep, you’ll get to see all of that pretty soon here I think, if we spend much time around these caves. Real good way to grow up.”

With Will’s fascination transferred solidly to the shining, sparkling cave walls, Liz was able to retrieve the granola bar without any protest on his part, stowing it safely back in the bag for later use. Or for present use, if Liz was to have her way, for they could all use breakfast after the exertion and cold of the past day, and first seeing that Einar and Will were warm near the fire—which they were, father and son both admiring in silent fascination a series of calcite structures that flowed in frozen splendor along the cave wall—she put together a breakfast of oatmeal, Nutella and dried cherries from the food items so carefully chosen and packed by Susan, a lump coming into her throat at the realization that she might have seen her friend for the last time. Well. At least the three of them were together, warm, safe from the immediate clutches of the enemy—and about to eat!

“Alright you guys, if you can tear yourselves away from the wall long enough to look this way, you’ll see that some breakfast is ready…”

“Been smelling it for the last ten minutes,” Einar laughed, “but figured I must be daydreaming. What have you got there, anyway? Sure smells good!”

“It is! Come and see. Here, just get back in the bag, and we’ll eat right here—like people do when they’re climbing big peaks, so as not to waste any warmth.”

“More likely to be a snow cave in that case! But yeah, nobody leaves the bag when they don’t have to during a storm on a big peak, not even to cook and eat. Good thing we’ve got some firewood here. Maybe I should go look for some more, so we don’t…”

“Hey! Don’t you be letting this breakfast get cold. In the bag, and eat! Then after that if we need more firewood, I’ll come help you.”

“Ok, ok! What’s next? You going at me with that rabbit stick of yours? Do you even have the rabbit stick anymore? Huh. Guess not. Guess you lost it when I lost my spear, and we’d better each be looking for a replacement, because we’re just not the same without it. Though my head does seem to do a rather better job of staying intact when you don’t have the stick…”

“Oh, I’d find something. Now. No more waiting around, or else.”

Einar was laughing as he climbed back into the sleeping bag, handing Will to his mother and knowing from a certain glint in her eyes that she had been entirely serious about the “or else” bit. Still chuckling, he half wanted to head outside just to find out what the result might have been, but thought better of testing her. Better just eat his breakfast, for they had a long descent ahead of them whenever the time came to leave that place, a long climb up to the caves on the canyon’s opposite wall, and he would be needing his strength.

[soldout]

Longtime lurker here...your neighbor a state to the north....hope the flooding has spared you.

[FOTH]

Sept 14, 2013 7:12:30 GMT -6 soldout said:

Longtime lurker here...your neighbor a state to the north....hope the flooding has spared you.

Thanks, neighbor.

I'm right up here on the side of a mountain a couple hundred miles from all that flooding--would just about take Noah's flood to reach up here--so thankfully have been spared. We did have an incredible gully-washer on Thursday that caused a bunch of mud and rock to move around, wash over part of a road and plug up all the irrigation inlets up on the mountain, so that's going to be a lot of work. But nothing like those folks over east of the mountains are experiencing.