Part 4
An hour later the trail began to climb more steeply. The spruce thinned out, rocks poked up through the snow, and the wind was sharper.
Owen stopped for a drink from his thermos and said, “The trees are crooked.”
Elias looked back. “Where?”
“Everywhere.”
At first the old man didn’t see it. Then he did: across a stretch of about a hundred yards, the larches leaned slightly, all the same way. The eye could easily miss it.
“Snow load,” Owen said.
“Now you’re handing me my own explanations?”
“What? It’s a normal explanation.”
The old man took a thin cord off his pack, tied the hatchet to one end, and held up his arm. The cord hung straight down. They both looked at it, then at the trunks. The lean was slight, but it was the same everywhere.
“Could be the wind,” Owen said.
Elias put the cord away. “Could be. Except wind doesn’t crack the ground at the roots.”
At the base of the nearest larch, the snow was split by thin lines that ran toward the next tree. He crouched, pulled off his cap, and put his ear to the trunk. Somewhere under the roots, faint as a pulse, water was moving.
Owen’s voice dropped. “What is it?”
“Nothing yet.”
Owen crouched beside him. “You’re the one who said not to make things up.”
“So I’m not.” Elias stood. “Let’s go.”
He walked faster. Owen caught up. “Where?”
“Higher.”
“Hang on. We agreed to look at the trail and go back for the snowmachine.”
Elias stopped. That was true. An hour ago he himself had insisted they not go any deeper. But he wanted to see where the leaning trees ended, and he wanted to understand why Hump had turned around on his own track three times.
“A little farther,” he said.
Owen stared at him. “This morning you said not past the first mile. We’re almost at two.”
Elias waved a hand, irritated. “Then go back, if you’re counting miles.”
The words were out before he could stop them, and he had never been any good at taking words back. Owen didn’t take real offense. He tugged his sleeve hard and looked downhill.
“I’m not going alone.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll find some hole up here, climb into it, and then tell everyone I abandoned you.”
Elias grunted. “You think highly of me.”
“I know you.”
They went on. About ten minutes later Minnow growled at his own feet.
The dog was standing by a rocky ridge, staring at a narrow gap between two boulders. Steam was rising from it.
Owen pulled his mitten off. “Warm air.”
Elias bent down. In thirty below, the gap was breathing out damp air, and the moisture settled on the rock as frost. Owen moved his palm closer. “A spring?”
Elias caught him by the wrist. “Don’t stick your hand in there.”
Owen pulled back without arguing.
The old man sniffed. No sulfur, none of the usual swampy smell. Just wet rock and dirt. Somewhere far inside, water dripped. Plink.
They both froze. A pause. Another drop.
“There’s water down there,” Owen said, less sure of himself than before.
“Somewhere there is.”
Owen looked at the frost around the gap. “In January?”
“Underground, it isn’t January everywhere.”
His nephew wanted to ask more but waved it off. “Fine. We’re not guessing.”
“Now that’s the right idea.”
They went a little farther, then turned back toward the station.
On the way down Elias hardly spoke. Tracks, a hollow, leaning trees, steam from the rocks. He knew how people talk themselves down. A crack is the frost. Steam is a warm pocket underground. A bear is just a bear roused too early. Every piece had its explanation, and the explanations didn’t add up to one picture.
At the cabin, Owen went straight to the snowmachine. “Tomorrow we try it with the machine.”
Elias didn’t even turn his head. “No.”
Owen put his hand on the handlebar. “Why no again?”
“We’ll decide tonight.”
“What’s going to change tonight?”
Elias looked up at the slope. “We’ll see.”
Owen opened his mouth to say something sharp, then changed course. “You know what I’m craving?”
“What?”
“Cream of Wheat.”
Elias looked at him like he was crazy. “Where’d that come from?”
“No idea. When I was a kid I’d wake up at Grandma’s in winter, and she’d make it with lowbush cranberry jam on top.”
Elias smiled. “You hated it.”
Owen put the thermos away. “Hated the cereal. Loved the jam.”
Elias pulled his mitten on. “You’re the same now. Pick the main thing, put up with the rest.”
“Was that philosophy?”
“No, that was me being hungry.”
Owen laughed.
Until dark they did ordinary things. They brought in firewood, fed the dogs, checked the straps on the snowmachine. Owen talked about the morning as if they’d simply take the upper trail and be down at the road by noon. Elias let him talk.
Hump came a fourth time that night. They heard him around one. Minnow whined softly. Red didn’t even get up.
Elias went out first. The bear stood much farther off than before, at the edge of the woods, once again looking uphill.
“Same thing again,” Owen whispered.
Elias motioned him to be quiet. Two minutes passed. Three. Owen got cold and shifted his feet. “Maybe we go in?”
Hump turned his head toward the north slope and walked off fast. He didn’t run, but he moved quickly.
Owen followed him with the flashlight. “What’s with him?”
Elias felt a familiar, unpleasant kind of waiting. Hump was already behind the trees. One second. Two. Three.
The blow came from below. This time Elias felt it through his boots before he heard it. A deep tremor passed through the ground. Snow slid off the roof. From the woods came a crack, then another. Somewhere up high, rocks spilled down.
Owen backed toward the door. “He left before it hit.”
Elias was looking at the spot where the bear had disappeared. “Yes.”
“He knew ahead of time.”
Hump was no longer a mystery to Elias. The mystery now was what the bear could hear…
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