The Snow Child Part 9

aHow much longer will you trap?a Mabel asked as she put a cup of tea in front of him and lingered behind his chair.

aThe river ice is going soft,a he said around a mouthful of bread. aFew days, Iall snap my traps and call it a year.a Mabel reached down with one arm and hugged him around the shoulders.

aWe worry about you,a she said. She straightened, embarra.s.sed by her outburst, and adjusted her dress. aJack and I wouldnat want you to be out on the river if it wasnat safe. And youave done well, havenat you?a He seemed taken aback by her affection, but grinned all the same. aIall get some fur money this year.a aGood for you,a she said, and went back to the kitchen counter.

Mabel dozed by the woodstove just before noon, a book propped open in her lap. Most of the winter she hadnat allowed herself to sleep in the middle of the day, if for no other reason than to prove she had not even a touch of cabin fever. But tossed about by nightmares, she hadnat slept well the night before. Now, soothed by the light of day and the warmth of the fire, she drifted off.

She woke to a small, cool hand atop hers and opened her eyes to Faina.

I have something, the girl said and pulled at Mabelas hand.

Oh, child, you surprised me.

Please hurry, she said.

Is it something to draw?

The child nodded and tugged at her.

Where?

Faina pointed out the window.

Outside? All right. All right. Let me get my boots and coat.

Your pencils, too?

Yes, yes. And my sketchbook.

When Mabel opened the door, the falling snow amazed her. The first week of April, and it was snowing.

Faina took Mabelas hand again and together they walked into the yard. Even with snow, it smelled of spring, of thawing creek banks and moist earth, of old leaves and new leaves and roots and bark. Mabel became aware of how they stood together, she and the child, still holding hands, and Fainaas was so slight and cool, and Mabelas heart was a hole in her chest filling like a well with icy, sweet water.

Will you draw? Faina said quietly.

The snow? I wouldnat know how to go about it.

Faina let go of Mabel and put her palm to the sky, her mitten hanging from a red string at her wrist. A single snowflake lit upon her bare skin. Faina turned and held it to Mabel.

Now can you draw it?

The snowflake was no bigger than the smallest skirt b.u.t.ton. It was six pointed, with fernlike tips and a hexagonal heart, and it sat in the childas palm like a tiny feather when it should have melted.

It was as if time slowed so that Mabel could no longer breathe or feel her own pulse. What she was seeing could not be, and yet it did not waver. There in the childas hand. A single snowflake, luminous and translucent. A sharp-edged miracle.

Please, will you draw it?

The childas blue eyes were wide and rimmed in frost.

What else was there to do? Mabel fumbled to open her sketchbook. She took the pencil into her weak fingers and began to draw. Faina stood motionless with the snowflake in her hand.

Perhaps we should go inside and sit down to do this, Mabel said, but then realized her mistake. The child smiled and shook her head.

No, no. I guess we canat go inside the warm cabin to draw snow, can we?

The sketch was too small, and Mabel saw it would be impossible to capture every groove and line. She wished for a magnifying gla.s.s and flipped to a new page.

I have never been any good at symmetrical drawings, she said more to herself than to the child. Iam too impatient. Too imprecise.

She began again, drawing with broader strokes and filling the entire page with the single geometric shape. She propped the sketchbook on one hand and drew with the other, bending slightly to look more closely. But her breatha"that alone could reduce the snowflake to a droplet. She turned her face to the side so as not to exhale on it.

Snow began to land as wet spots on her paper. Mabel worked faster and let out frustrated sighs. If only she were a better artist.

Itas perfect, Faina whispered. I knew it would be.

Mabel looked from her drawing to the snowflake in the childas hand.

I can always work on the details later. Shall we call it finished for now? she asked.

Yes, Faina said.

The child put the heel of her hand to her lips and blew on the snowflake, and it fluttered into the air like dandelion down.

Oh, Mabel said. Tears came to her eyes, and she didnat know why.

Faina took her hand again, leaned into Mabel and held tightly to her. The wet snowflakes landed all around them. The world was silent. The snow fell heavier and wetter, and Mabelas coat turned damp.

Faina pulled on her sleeve. Mabel leaned down, expecting her to whisper something in her ear, but instead Faina put her cool, dry lips to Mabelas cheek and kissed her.

Goodbye, the child said.

When Faina let go of her arm and ran into the snow that was now rain, Mabel knew. She tucked the sketchbook under her coat and stood in the rain until her hair was dripping wet and her coat was soaked through and her boots were in mud. She stood and stared through the rain and tried to see into the forest, but she knew.

CHAPTER 21.

Winter had been a foolish waste of time. He had tinkered in the barn, sorted tools, plucked chickens, played in the snow. He should have done more in the cold months to prepare, but what? It was true what they said about this landa"all the work was done in a few frenzied months. The only reason a man could farm here at all was because the sun lasted twenty hours a day during the height of summer, and vegetables grew overnight to enormous sizes. George said head seen a cabbage come out of the fields at nearly a hundred pounds.

But here it was May, and Jack couldnat till a row without the horse nearly drowning in mud. Back home the crops would already have been in the ground a month. As he waited for the soil to thaw and dry, he heard a ticking clock, not just the one marking the minutes of each day but another, more resounding thump that counted down his own days.

This season the homestead had to support itself. He was banking on the fact that several farmers had given up, walked out on their land, even as the market seemed to open up with the railroad expansion. He would throw everything into this year. Head plant not just potatoes but also carrots, lettuce, and cabbage, and sell vegetables throughout the summer to the mining camps.

He and Mabel talked little, but when they did, they argued. He mentioned that he needed to hire a crew of boys from town to help plant, but they had no money for it.

aWeall have to find some other way,a Mabel said, absently staring at her hands.

aWhat way? How, in G.o.das name?a His voice was angry, too loud. aIam not a young man,a he said more gently. aMy back aches, and I can hardly make a fist in the morning. I need help.a aWho says you have to do this alone? What am I?a aYouare not a farmhand, Mabel. And I wonat let you become one.a aSo youad rather beat yourself to death out there, and leave me in here, so we can each suffer alone.a aThatas never been what I wanted. But the truth is, itas just the two of us. Someoneas got to care for the home, and someoneas got to earn us a living.a So once again it circled back to the void between them where a child should have been. A girl to help Mabel with the housework. A boy to work in the fields.

aWhat about the hotel? Maybe I can bake for Betty again.a aI thought we came here to farm, not to peddle pies and cakes like gypsies. This is it. If this land is ever going to support us, this is the year weave got to do it. And I just donat see how I can do it on my own.a He walked out, but kept himself from slamming the door.

Even as a boy Jack had loved the smell of the ground softening in the thaw and coming back to life. Not this spring. A damp, moldy dreariness, something like loneliness, had settled over the homestead. At first Jack did not know its source. Maybe it was only his own mood. Perhaps it was the spring weather, with overcast skies and freezing rain that soaked through the cabin walls. Mabel, too, seemed beset by a morose restlessness.

Then Jack counted the daysa"nearly three weeks since the girlas last visit, the longest absence since shead come into their lives. He tried to train his thoughts on the planting season before him, but he was troubled.

The childas name had gone unspoken. Her chair sat empty, and Mabel no longer put a plate in front of it. Jack worried as much for his wife as for the girl. Mabel no longer watched out the window for her, and he often found her gazing into a basin of dirty dishwater as if shead lost track of the hours. Sometimes she didnat seem to know head entered the cabin until he put a hand on her arm.

The past winter had been so different. Jack had looked forward to their meals together, even when Faina wasnat there. He and Mabel had talked, then, of their plans for the homestead and their future. Jack did not fall asleep right after dinner but helped clear the table. The first time he stepped in and began to wash the dishes, she had pretended to swoon, the back of her hand to her brow, peering through half-closed lids until he kissed her smile. They laughed and danced and made love.

That joy was gone with the child.

He walked past the barn toward the new field. Mud sucked at his boots. He stepped off the trail to walk on the moss and gra.s.s of the unbroken ground. Tiny green buds were just beginning to open on the birch trees. Something moved through the forest.

aFaina?a Movement again, dark and quick, but it was too deep in the trees for him to make out anything more. A path led away from the field, and he followed it. Three days ago he had seen bear tracks in the mud and scat in the trail. He didnat have his rifle, but he wouldnat turn back now.

A week could be explained; she could have gone hunting. Three weeksa"that was something different. Illness, an avalanche of wet spring snow, rotten river ice. Jack ticked off the grim possibilities as he strode through the trees.

The land was naked without snow or summer greenery. At his feet, fiddlehead ferns unfurled and tiny shoots pushed up through last yearas dead leaves. He climbed as fast as his old heart would allow him. After some time, he arrived at the cliff face and realized he had veered off course and missed the creek. He followed a game trail along the base of the cliffs, ducking under alders, until he heard rus.h.i.+ng water. The sound led him to the creek, swollen with spring runoff. It was deafening.

He walked up the creek until he crested a rise and saw the familiar stand of large spruce. There was the stump of the tree he had cut and burned. A heap of rocks had been arranged on the manas grave. Faina must have brought them from the creek bed.

aFaina? Faina! Are you here?a His shouts were lost to the roaring water. aFaina? Itas Jack. Can you hear me?a He recalled the door in the mountain where he had watched the girl disappear. He scanned the hillside several times before he saw it. It was like any other cabin door, made of rough-hewn boards, except it was cut short enough so that a grown man would have to stoop to enter, and it wasnat hung in the frame of a cabin but set into a gra.s.sy knoll. He saw no tracks leading in or out. When he rapped with his knuckles, the door swung inward on leather hinges.

aFaina? Dear child, are you here?a He dreaded finding her huddled in a bed, sick or starving or worse. Inside it was not as dim as head antic.i.p.ated. Daylight came from somewhere overhead.

aFaina?a There was no answer. His eyes adjusted. The walls around him were made of logs that had been squared off with an ax. Above him was a wooden ceiling, with a square opening to the sky not much bigger than a stovepipe. Directly below this hole a large fire pit held the cold, charred remains of a few small logs. The fire pit was also square, set into dirt but framed by the wooden planks that formed the floor.

The builder had dug into the side of the hill and framed the room inside, then replanted sod over the top. The effect was that the small cabin looked like a gra.s.sy knoll, just another part of the mountainside. It probably provided better insulation, particularly in winter when the hill was covered in snow, but it didnat seem solely a practical matter. There was something foreboding about the structure. Whoever lived inside these walls would dwell in darkness and secrecy.

The air was musty, like that of an abandoned attic, but as he walked around the small room he caught specific scentsa"wood, dried meat and fish, tanned furs, and wild herbs. Overhead, dried plants hung in bunches from the roof frame. When Jack stood upright, his head was less than a foot from the ceiling.

The door behind him swung shut with a thump.

aFaina?a He pushed it open again, but no one was there.

Now that he was in this dank, lonely place, he was more anxious about the child. He paced the small quarters. If he hadnat seen her go through the door, he wouldnat believe a young girl had ever lived here. There were no toys, no dresses or child-sized clothes of any kind. Perhaps she had gone somewhere and taken all that with hera"it was impossible to know what had been here and now wasnat. He kicked at the charred wood in the pit. No sparks, no smoke. The fire had been out for days, if not weeks.

There was a bunk made of peeled spruce logs. Instead of blankets and sheets, the bedding was caribou hides and other tanned furs. One corner formed a makes.h.i.+ft kitchen of sorts, with a counter and shelves lined with odds and endsa"jars of beans and flour, but not much food to speak of. The opposite wall held wooden pegs from which hung snowshoes, axes, saws, woodworking tools, things a grown man would use. The tools were grimy and beginning to rust. There were also a few items of clothing, including a fur-ruffed parka that would have been too large even for Jack. He took it off the peg and heard a clinking sound. In the pockets were half a dozen empty gla.s.s bottles. He held each to his nose. Some smelled of animal urine and glandular lures, others of a potent moons.h.i.+ne. Peteras water, the child had called it. He shook his head to clear his nostrils and hung the parka back on its peg. In another corner, Jack spotted a stack of dried pelts: beaver, wolf, marten, mink.

He headed toward the door, then remembered the doll. It could be here somewhere. He tossed aside the furs on the bed, but found nothing. Then he noticed a wooden box under the bunk. He got on his knees and pulled it out.

Inside was a pink baby blanket, worn and dirty but neatly folded. Beneath it were scattered a few black-and-white photographs. Jack picked them up. One showed a nicely dressed couple standing on a dock, suitcases and trunks stacked beside them, as they embarked on a journey. He didnat recognize the man at firsta"in the photograph he was much younger, with a dapper haircut and clean-shaven face. The woman beside him wore a stylish dress, and in her fine-featured face and blond hair Jack saw Faina. These must be her parents, perhaps leaving Seattle on a s.h.i.+p for Alaska. In another photograph, the woman held an infant swaddled in a blanket that looked new and clean, but Jack was fairly certain it was the same one folded in the box. Another showed the man posing with snowshoes, parka, and a lopsided grin. He barely resembled the grizzled corpse Jack had pushed into a hole in the ground, but it was him.

Jack clenched his jaw. How could a man abandon his young daughter to the wilderness? He put the photographs and blanket back in the box and slid it under the bed. Standing up, his knees creaked and he felt old and afraid. The child was gone. This place had swallowed her.

He thought again of the doll and took one last look around the room, but knew he wouldnat find it. It was small comfort. Faina was lost to them, but wherever she was, whatever had befallen her, the doll had been with her.

When he stepped outside, he blinked hard against the daylight and fumbled to close the door. He stood there a moment, listened to the creek, and let the mountain air blow against his face. Even with all this heartache, it was beautiful here. He could see across the entire river valley, could almost make out their homestead far below.

CHAPTER 22.

The next day, when afternoon came and went and Jack did not return from the fields, Mabel was only vaguely puzzled. He must have worked through without a break. When evening came and dinner sat cold on the table, she knew something was wrong. Panic constricted her throat, but she dressed calmly in her coat and boots. At the last minute, she took the shotgun down from the wall and filled her pocket with sh.e.l.ls. She vowed to learn to shoot it.

Her hem dragged in the muck as she followed the trail to the fields. Her father-in-law had died in the orchard of a heart attack, and Mabel pictured Jack collapsed in a field. She would be left alone, with little choice but to return to her parentsa home where her sister now lived, or go to Jackas family.

Her eyes scanned the first field she came to, but she saw no sign of Jack or the horse. Evening shadows darkened the edge of the forest, and in the sky a handful of stars were scattered across the pale blue. A flock of sandhill cranes rose up from a meadow, their calls as ghostly as their gray, slow-beating wings. The mud was beginning to stiffen in the cold. Mabel followed the trail and trembled uncontrollably.

Through the trees she heard the horse whinny. The trail circled around to the new field, and there she could see the silhouette of the horse, lifting one hoof, then another, still harnessed to the overturned plow.

aJack? Jack?a she called.

She made out only shapes in the gloomy half-light, but she walked toward the horse. There was a m.u.f.fled groan.

aMabel?a She wanted to run toward the voice, but the rough ground wouldnat allow her. Still she saw no sign of him.

aHere, Mabel. Here.a She followed the sound, her head bent toward the ground, until she nearly stepped on him. He lay flat on his back, his face to the darkening sky.

aWhat happened?a aThe horse. Drug me along. Hours ago.a His words came through a slurry of dirt and blood. Mabel knelt beside him and with her sleeve tried to wipe the mess away from his mouth.

aHow did this happen?a aBlack bear.a aHere?a aBy the woods. I busted a bolt on the d.a.m.ned plow, was trying to fix it. The horse saw the bear first and started prancing.a Mabel looked toward the forest.

aGone now. Donat think it meant us harm. Just ambled out, like he didnat see us. I tried to get free of the plow. The horse spooked and flipped around on me, caught my leg up in it. Pulled me through the dirt, till I fell free. Hoped head bring the d.a.m.ned plow all the way home, so youad know. But he stopped just there.a Jack tried to sit up, but grimaced in pain.

aWhere do you hurt?a ad.a.m.n near everywhere.a Jack tried to laugh, but it came out as a gravelly cough. aItas my back.a aWhat can I do?a aUnhitch the horse. No, donat be nervous. Heas all run out now.a aThen what?a aThen weave got to get me on him so you can walk us home.a aCan you stand?a aI donat know.a After Jack talked her through it, she unhitched the horse and led it to where he lay. Slipping her arms beneath his, she tried to help him off the ground. He was heavier than she expected, and she sank in the cold mud under his weight. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and, groaning, got to his knees.

aChrist.a He squinted tears from his eyes.

aI should go for help. Iall get George.a aNo. We can do this. Here.a He held her around the shoulders again and she stood with him, her face crushed into his muddy s.h.i.+rt.

aEasy. Easy there. Grab his bridle.a With one hand Mabel tried to hold the horse steady while it jerked its head away. Jack fell from her and leaned into the animalas side.

aJack, you canat. How can you mount him like this?a aIave got to.a He grabbed the mane and cried out as he hauled himself up, sprawling belly-down across the horse.

aWhoa! Whoa!a Mabel fought to keep the horse still. Jack eased one leg around so he straddled the bare back, his head against the animalas neck where the coat was stiff with dried sweat. Jackas breathing gurgled.

aJesus,a he whispered. aJesus.a aJack? Should I start walking now?a aEasy. Easy does it.a The way home was long and disorienting. Mabel couldnat discern distance or depth in the murky light. She carried the shotgun in one hand and led the horse with the other. Whenever the horse tripped or stumbled, Jack cried out. Mabel wished she had a rope or lead. Several times the animal yanked the halter strap from her hands, and she feared it might throw Jack to the ground and bolt home.

aItas OK, Mabel. Just take it slow.a She led the horse to the cabin door and helped Jack slide slowly to the ground, down to his hands and knees.