Part 2
Gordon set his pack on the table while Nathan banked the stove. Neither mentioned the hours they’d spent afterward listening from opposite sides of the room.
They would go down to the ranger station, Gordon said. The radio needed attention. Someone ought to hear about the tremors. They could return when the weather settled.
He put the map in his pack and did not add that he no longer wanted Nathan to leave without him.
Outside, the snowmobile coughed into life. Nathan checked the utility sled, then took the machine ahead to inspect the road while Gordon brought the dogs out of their runs.
When Nathan returned, he left the engine idling.
“Walk with me.”
Gordon knew before they reached the bend.
The road disappeared beneath fresh debris. Snow, stone, and uprooted shrubs had come off the slope in a broad heap. A young spruce lay across it with its roots turned uphill. There was no narrow passage along the outer edge, only a steep drop through the trees.
Nathan climbed a few feet onto the rubble, tested his footing, and came back down.
“Not with the sled. Not with just the machine, either.”
Gordon studied the top of the slide. Small stones rested in clean holes where they’d burned through the snow’s crust.
The old clearing toward the river offered one alternative, but it ended at the near bank. From there they would have to trust the ice or follow the river a long way to the bridge.
Nathan rubbed his mitten against his left wrist.
“There’s the route on your map.”
“It goes through the basin.”
“I remember.”
“For three nights that bear’s been trying to get out of it.”
Nathan looked back at the slide. “We can’t get out this way.”
A dull vibration sounded from beyond the ridge. Gordon’s thumb found the split in the stock.
They returned to the clearing without speaking.
The upper route had once carried supply teams for a geological survey. Forestry crews had kept it open for years afterward. Gordon could still picture the wider turns, the spots where brush had been cut back so a load would pass. Most of those cuts had filled in long ago.
Nathan tightened the strap holding his pack to the sled.
“We’re trying it?”
“On foot first.”
His nephew looked at the snowmobile.
“We’ll scout a mile or so,” Gordon said. “Maybe a mile and a half. If it’s usable, we’ll come back for the machine.”
“And if more of it slides while we’re walking?”
“Then we won’t be sitting on an engine when it does.”
Nathan released the strap.
They took snowshoes, the map, food, and the gear they’d need for a few hours outside. Gordon checked the shotgun and slipped the little hatchet into its loop on his pack. Nathan untied the dogs.
At the door, Gordon tested the latch, then opened it again and went inside.
The photograph stood near the end of the table. He turned it slightly away from the window, though there was no sunlight to fade it that morning. His wife’s face caught the weak glow from the stove.
He came out and pulled the door shut.
“Something you forgot?” Nathan asked.
“Latch sticks.”
“You checked it already.”
“Works better for practice.”
Nathan settled his pack and let him lead.
They followed the creek until Gordon found the shallow cut between two lodgepole pines. Above it, the trail climbed through deeper snow. Their snowshoes broke a crust that held for half a step and then gave beneath them.
Gordon stopped often. He examined the roots of a tree, the surface of a drift, the places where stone showed through. Nathan waited through the first several pauses.
“What am I supposed to be watching for?” he finally asked.
“When I find it, I’ll tell you.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Gordon moved a branch aside and let it swing gently back after Nathan passed.
Highback’s tracks crossed the trail farther up. The prints had begun to soften, but the animal’s route remained clear enough to follow. He’d come downhill, turned back, climbed a short distance, then cut across the slope.
Nathan stood with his hands on his hips.
“Looking for something to eat.”
Gordon pushed the end of his pole into the snow. It sank well past the place where food might have been within easy reach.
Nathan watched him withdraw it.
“Or not.”
They followed the line across the hillside. It bent downhill again and ended at a broad, unmarked patch of snow.
Nathan leaned forward.
Gordon caught the strap of his pack.
“Stay there.”
His nephew held still while Gordon unhooked the hatchet. Turning it around, he reached out with the handle and pressed the smooth surface.
The crust resisted. He shifted the handle a few inches and tried again.
Snow collapsed beneath it. The wood dropped almost to the hatchet head.
Nathan’s snowshoes scraped backward.
Gordon withdrew the tool and tossed a dead branch through the opening. They waited before a faint impact came back.
“That’s no little pocket,” Nathan said.
“No.”
“Did he go down?”
Gordon shook his head and pointed to the undisturbed edges. A bear that size would have opened a very different hole.
They withdrew the way they’d come, then worked around on firmer ground. Beyond a stand of young spruce, Highback’s prints appeared again. The grizzly had taken a wide curve around the hollow place.
Nathan looked from the prints to the snow behind them.
“He knew where it was.”
“He felt something.”
“You’re splitting hairs.”
“Not to him.”
Gordon chose his next step beside a protruding rock. After that, he watched the blank spaces inside the bear’s route as carefully as the prints themselves.
Wind reached them as the timber thinned. They stopped beneath a cluster of pines to drink from their thermoses, and Nathan tipped his head, studying the trunks.
“Look at those.”
Gordon followed his gaze. Across a long section of the slope, the trees leaned downhill by nearly the same small degree.
“Loaded snow,” Nathan said, then saw his uncle’s expression. “It does happen.”
Gordon took a length of cord from his pack and tied it around the hatchet head. Holding the other end high, he let the tool hang free.
The straight cord made the trees’ angle unmistakable.
Nathan put his thermos away.
“Wind, then?”
“Could be. Look down.”
A fine split crossed the snow between two trunks. Gordon followed it with the edge of his mitten. At the roots, the split widened enough to show darkness beneath.
Nathan crouched beside him without offering another explanation.
Gordon stood and began moving uphill more quickly.
“Hold on.” Nathan caught up. “We’re turning around, remember? We were checking the trail.”
Gordon stopped beside a boulder.
“We haven’t seen the end of this.”
“That wasn’t the agreement.”
His nephew was right. They’d passed the distance Gordon had set. The snowmobile was still below, and every step now would have to be walked again.
He looked toward the tilted trees.
“Another few minutes.”
“You were the one telling me to leave it alone yesterday.”
“Yesterday I hadn’t seen that.”
“Nobody made you come up here.”
Gordon’s patience broke before he could stop it.
“You’ve got the trail behind you. Use it if you’re finished.”
Nathan stared at him.
The wind lifted snow from a branch and scattered it across both their coats. Gordon adjusted his pack, avoiding his nephew’s eyes.
Nathan tugged his left cuff so sharply that the seam creaked.
“I’m not leaving you up here.”
“I didn’t ask for a keeper.”
“No. You’d get yourself stuck in a crack and tell everybody I’d run off.”
Gordon glanced at him.
“You have a poor opinion of me.”
“An informed one.”
Nathan stepped past him, then waited for Gordon to choose the route.
A little higher, Minnow stopped beside a shelf of broken rock. His growl was directed at a narrow gap between two boulders.
White vapor curled out of it.
Nathan pulled off a mitten and held his palm near the opening.
“That’s warm.”
Gordon knelt. The air coming from beneath the rock was damp enough to build a thick rim of frost around the gap, though the temperature outside stood well below zero.
Nathan moved his hand closer.
Gordon caught his wrist and drew it back.
“Don’t reach where you can’t see.”
His nephew replaced the mitten.
Gordon smelled wet mineral and earth, without the odor he would have expected from a sulfur spring. He leaned close enough to listen, keeping his knees on solid rock.
A small sound came from below.
He raised one hand, and Nathan went still.
After a pause, they heard another drop of water strike stone…
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