Part 3
“There’s water in there,” Eli said, with less confidence than before.
Walter straightened. “Somewhere.”
Eli looked at the frost around the opening.
“In January?”
“Not everything underground knows it’s January.”
His nephew started to ask another question, then waved it away.
“All right. No guessing.”
“That’s better.”
They walked a little farther, then turned back toward the outpost.
On the return trip, Walter hardly spoke. He kept thinking of the bear’s tracks, the hollow ground, the leaning trees, the damp air rising from the rocks. Each explanation accounted for one sign. None accounted for all of them.
Back at the cabin, Eli went straight to the snowmobile.
“We’ll try it with the machine tomorrow.”
Walter didn’t even turn his head.
“No.”
Eli rested a hand on the handlebar. “Why not this time?”
“We’ll decide tonight.”
His nephew looked toward the upper slope.
“What’s going to change tonight?”
Walter looked uphill.
“We’ll see.”
Eli opened his mouth to say something sharp, then thought better of it. Instead, something entirely different occurred to him.
“You know what I’m craving?”
“What?”
“Farina.”
Walter looked at him as though he had lost his mind.
“Where’d that come from?”
“No idea. When I’d stay with Grandma in winter, I’d wake up and she’d be making it. Chokecherry jam on top.”
Walter smiled.
“You hated it.”
Eli smiled back and put away his thermos. “Hated the cereal. Loved the jam.”
Walter pulled on his mitten. “You haven’t changed. Pick out the part you want and put up with the rest.”
Eli glanced at him. “Was that philosophy?”
“No. I’m hungry.”
Eli laughed. Until dark, they did ordinary things. They brought in firewood, fed the dogs, and checked the straps on the snowmobile. Eli even began to believe that, in the morning, they would simply take the upper trail and reach the road.
Walter no longer believed it.
Old Hump came for the fourth time that night. They heard him around one. Catfish whined quietly. Red didn’t even get up.
Walter went outside first. The bear stood farther away than before, at the edge of the woods. Again, he was looking uphill.
“Same thing every time,” Eli whispered.
Walter motioned for silence. Two minutes passed. Then three. Eli grew cold and shifted from foot to foot.
“Maybe we should go in.”
Old Hump turned his head toward the north slope, away from the men. Then he left abruptly. He wasn’t running, but he moved fast.
Eli followed him with the flashlight. “What’s he doing?”
Walter braced himself. The bear was already behind the trees. Three seconds passed. The blow came from below.
This time, Walter felt it beneath his boots before he heard it. A dull tremor traveled through the ground. Snow slid from the roof, and something cracked in the woods.
Another crack followed. Rocks rattled somewhere above them. Eli stepped back toward the door.
“He left before it happened.”
Walter watched the place where the bear had disappeared.
“Yes.”
“He knew it was coming.”
Walter said nothing. Old Hump was no longer the mystery. The mystery was what the bear could hear.
They left before dawn. The snowmobile stayed beside the cabin. Eli argued at first, then decided himself that he didn’t want to take the machine onto ground with empty spaces beneath the snow. They took their packs, flashlights, and the map, and started uphill.
The bear had left another trail during the night. This time, it followed an entirely new route. Instead of heading down toward the cabin, Old Hump had crossed the hollow and climbed onto a rocky ridge.
“Following him?” Eli asked.
Walter shook his head.
“We’re going the other way.”
“Why?”
Walter unfolded the map. The thin pencil line ended near the north slope.
“I want to see where that line ends.”
“You think that’s where the noise is coming from?”
“Could be.”
Walter folded the map.
“Eli.”
“What?”
“If I start doing something foolish, tell me.”
His nephew stopped walking. “You serious?”
“Yes.”
“All right.”
Walter took several steps. “Just don’t make a habit of it.”
“There’s my uncle.”
By noon, the woods had almost disappeared. The slope was rocky, with snow lying in strips between the boulders. The trail appeared and vanished. They found an old clearing grown over with brush, a length of rusted cable, and, farther on, a wooden post that had almost rotted away.
Eli tapped it with his glove. “Geologists?”
Walter frowned. “Looks like it.”
He ran his palm over the rotting post and remembered a trailer beside the river. He had been barely into his twenties. A skinny man named Sawyer was always hanging around that trailer, smoking one cigarette after another. Once, he had handed Walter a can of sweetened condensed milk.
Strange. For nearly fifty years, Walter hadn’t thought about Sawyer or that can with its blue label.
“What’s on your mind?”
Eli tapped the post again. Walter blinked.
“Geologists worked here. Years ago.”
Eli examined the rusted cable. “Remember what they were looking for?”
“No.”
“Gold?”
Walter grunted. “Everybody thinks geologists only look for gold.”
“Because at least you can understand why somebody would want to find it.”
Walter was about to answer when Catfish began sniffing the snow beside the rocks. The dog went a few feet farther and stopped beside a rusted iron post. Eli saw the metal plate first.
“There’s something here.”
Rust and ice almost completely concealed it. He took out his knife. Walter caught his wrist.
“Careful.”
“I’m just cleaning it off.”
Eli worked slowly. A letter emerged, then part of a number. Walter moved closer.
His nephew brushed away the rust with his mitten. An old inscription began to show. For a few seconds, neither man spoke.
“Mine tunnel,” Eli read aloud.
Eli scraped again. A four emerged beneath the rust, and Walter’s stomach tightened. He had heard that number before, but couldn’t place it. Then a phrase came back: Stay away after a deep freeze.
Eli looked at him. “What is it?” Walter didn’t answer. Behind them, Catfish gave a low growl. From beneath the north slope came the same muffled boom. This time, it was very close…
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