Part 5
Walter turned to leave, then stopped.
“There are papers back there.”
Eli halted.
“What papers?”
Walter didn’t immediately look at him.
“At the house.”
“What do papers have to do with this?”
Walter rubbed the edge of the map with his palm. “Maps. The logbook. Old records.”
Eli studied his uncle’s face.
“What are you talking about?”
Walter said nothing. He saw the table beside the window, the photograph of his wife, the old notebook. His father’s shotgun, which he hadn’t taken into the woods in twenty years. The box of letters.
Nothing another person would consider valuable.
“Uncle Walt.”
“What?”
“We’re going for the radio?”
“Yes.”
Walter understood that Eli had already guessed.
“We can gather a few things quickly.”
“No.”
The answer was sharp enough to make Walter turn.
“What do you mean, no?”
“We’re not packing up your house.”
Walter pressed his lips together. “Five minutes.”
Eli stepped in front of him, as though he could already block the way to the cabin.
“Five minutes for photographs. Another five for papers. Then you’ll remember something in the shed.”
“Don’t tell me what to do.”
Eli yanked his left sleeve so hard the fabric pulled tight across his wrist. “Then stop acting like a kid.”
The echo traveled up the slope. They both fell silent.
Eli was breathing hard. Walter slowly narrowed his eyes. In all their years together, his nephew had almost never raised his voice at him.
Eli knew he had gone too far. He didn’t back down.
“Yesterday you told me that if you don’t understand what’s happening, you shouldn’t pretend you do.”
Walter smiled without amusement. “I never said that.”
Eli exhaled loudly.
“Pretty much.”
Walter squinted at him.
“Making things up for me again.”
His nephew raised his palms.
“Fine. You didn’t say it. That doesn’t matter right now.”
He pointed at the ice wall.
“We don’t know how much water’s behind that. We don’t know how much longer it’ll hold, or whether the slope’s going to move again. You want to stay longer for a bunch of old junk?”
“It isn’t junk.”
Eli fell quiet. Walter watched him lower his hand.
“I know,” Eli said. “But you can build another house.”
Walter looked at him. “Not that one.”
“No. Not that one.” Eli nodded. “But there won’t be another you.”
Walter looked away. His anger vanished so abruptly it surprised him. What remained was fatigue and the knowledge that his nephew was right.
He had lived here for more than thirty years. He had always believed he knew when to leave: when weather turned bad, when ice grew thin, when an animal became dangerous, when a slope wasn’t safe. His own home had proved the hardest place to leave.
“All right,” he said.
Eli didn’t ask him to repeat it.
They headed back quickly. By evening, the weather was worsening. First the wind rose. Then the snow became fine and hard, and the trees gradually disappeared behind a white curtain.
Halfway back, Catfish stopped and lifted his head. Walter stopped, too. Old Hump stood high on a rocky ridge. He was looking down into the hollow, paying no attention to the men.
“Him again,” Eli said.
Walter could barely make him out. The bear stood for a moment, then climbed farther, toward ground where almost no trees grew. Eli wiped snow from his face. “He’s leaving us again.”
Walter looked downhill at the white line of the creek, the slope, and the distant strip of woods concealing the outpost. The first nights, Old Hump had come down toward the cabin. Now he had crossed the hollow and was climbing above it, choosing bare rock over the low ground.
“No,” Walter said.
Eli turned.
“What?”
Walter watched the bear.
“He’s getting away from the water.”
Eli didn’t answer. There wasn’t time. A blow came from below, stronger than all the others.
The snow beneath their feet shuddered. Far away in the hollow, something cracked. Old Hump immediately quickened his pace and climbed higher.
The outpost was still a couple of miles away, with another seven and a half miles to the road camp. The animal that sensed each blow before they did was already leaving.
They reached the cabin after dark. For almost the last mile, they had felt their way through the trees. Snow struck their faces, and the wind filled their tracks directly behind them. The dogs alone still seemed certain of the direction.
When the yellow square of the window appeared between the trees, Eli exhaled as though he had found an entire town rather than an old cabin.
“The radio.”
Walter didn’t answer. He looked at the house, the porch, the woodpile. The window he had replaced himself the previous fall. The old kerosene lamp hanging beneath the lean-to.
The shovel stood to the right of the door, as always. Everything was in its place. That made it worse. Eli was already climbing the porch steps.
“Uncle Walt.”
Walter came back to himself.
“Coming.”
It was warm inside. The stove hadn’t cooled yet. The photograph in its wooden frame lay on the table.
Walter stopped a step away. Eli saw him reach for the photograph and said nothing. Walter picked it up, then opened the desk drawer. Notebooks lay inside, beside the small box of letters.
He reached for it, stopped, and pushed the drawer shut. Eli turned toward the radio as though he hadn’t noticed.
The signal didn’t come immediately. Crackling, hissing, emptiness.
Eli adjusted the controls, rubbing his thumb along the seam of his sleeve. “Road camp, come in. Road camp, this is Daniels Outpost.”
Static.
“Again,” Walter said.
“I’m already—”
Eli stopped himself and pressed the button.
“Road camp, come in. Urgent.”
A voice appeared suddenly, distant and broken.
“Hear you. Who is it?”
Eli straightened.
“Daniels Outpost. Who’s on duty?”
“Mike.”
“Get him.”
Walter stood beside Eli and listened. Half a minute later, another voice came through.
“Eli? What’s going on up there? Weather’s gone to hell.”
Eli looked at his uncle. Walter took the microphone. “Mike. Get your people uphill.”
A pause.
“Uphill where?”
Walter held the microphone closer. “To the old rock road on the slope.”
Static returned.
“Why?”
“There’s water in the hollow.”
Another pause. Then Mike laughed.
“Walt, what are you talking about? What water? It’s twenty-six below.”
Walter looked at Eli.
“Under the mountain.”
Mike was quiet.
“Where?”
“In the old workings.”
He wasn’t laughing now.
“How do you know?”
“Saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“Ice at the lower outlet. Water behind it. The slope’s moving.”
The radio crackled.
“Can it wait till morning?”
“No.”
Walter said it quietly. That was how Eli knew his uncle wasn’t going to argue about it.
“Mike. Now.”
The connection broke. Eli tapped the radio’s casing.
“That’s it.”
“For now.”
“What if he doesn’t believe us?”
Walter looked out the window. Snow was flying almost horizontally.
“Then we go ourselves.”
Eli turned toward him.
“To the camp?”
“Where else?”
“Now?”
Walter was already putting on his mittens. “You wanted to leave. We’re leaving.”
Eli gave a brief smile.
“You do listen sometimes.”
Walter slipped the photograph into his inside pocket. He took nothing else from the house. The shotguns stayed behind, even his father’s old one on the wall. At the door, he paused.
Eli didn’t hurry him. Walter looked around the room: the table, the stove, the shelf of mugs, the stain from an old leak in the ceiling.
He remembered his wife scolding him over that stain years earlier. She wanted the whole roof replaced. He kept promising to do it in the spring.
Many springs had passed. The stain remained. Walter closed the door. He didn’t lock it…
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