Part 5
Nathan had already turned toward the creek when Gordon spoke again.
“My records are at the house.”
His nephew stopped.
Gordon looked down at the plan protruding from his pack. “The old maps. Logbooks. We ought to get those.”
Nathan’s eyes moved from the paper to his uncle’s face.
“We’re going there to call the camp.”
“Won’t take long to put a few things together.”
“No.”
Gordon raised his head.
There was the desk drawer with his wife’s letters, the notebooks filled in his own small hand. His father’s shotgun still hung over the shelf. He hadn’t carried it in years, but he knew the pattern of worn checkering better than he knew some people’s faces.
“Five minutes,” he said.
Nathan stepped into his path.
“You won’t stop at five.”
“You don’t know what I’ll do.”
“I know you’ll find one more thing. Then another. Then there’ll be something out in the shed.”
“Get out of my way.”
Nathan dragged at his left cuff, exposing a strip of red wrist above the mitten.
“Quit making me be the grown-up.”
His raised voice went flat against the ice and stone.
Gordon stared at him. Nathan’s breathing showed in short bursts between them, but he didn’t move aside.
“You’ve spent two days telling me not to decide things before I understand them,” Nathan said. “Now you’re deciding we’ve got time.”
“I never said that.”
“You’ve said everything around it.”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Fine.” Nathan spread his hands. “Then use your own. Tell me how long that ice will hold.”
Gordon looked past him.
“How much water?” Nathan pressed. “How much more ground is going to move? We don’t know any of it, and you want to sort through old stuff.”
“Those are my things.”
Nathan lowered his hands.
“I know.”
For a moment, the only sound came from behind the frozen barrier.
“You can have another cabin,” Nathan said.
“Not mine.”
“No.” His nephew swallowed. “I can’t replace you.”
Gordon turned his face away from the wind.
He’d left places before bad weather reached them. He’d backed off rotten ice, given angry animals room, and refused slopes other men thought were safe enough. At the thought of his own table and his own stove, he’d begun bargaining for minutes he could not account for.
Nathan waited with one hand still caught around the loose edge of his cuff.
Gordon adjusted his pack.
“We make the call. Then we go.”
His nephew stepped aside.
They pushed downhill as the weather began to close. Fine grains of snow struck their cheeks. Wind filled the spaces between the trees until the farther trunks disappeared and the route narrowed to whatever lay directly ahead.
Halfway back, Minnow stopped and looked up.
Gordon followed the dog’s gaze to a ridge of bare rock. Highback stood above them, his broad body partly hidden by blowing snow.
Nathan wiped his face with a mitten.
“He’s still at it.”
The bear turned and climbed. He chose the broken stone beyond the last trees, moving farther from the creek.
“He’s not coming down anymore,” Gordon said.
Nathan looked from the ridge to the basin below.
“Getting clear.”
“Of the water.”
A stronger concussion rolled through the slope. Far below, something cracked and continued cracking for several seconds.
Highback quickened his pace.
Gordon tightened the straps on his pack. They still had more than two miles to the outpost. The camp lay another eight miles beyond it by any route they might use.
“Come on.”
Darkness caught them in the timber. During the last stretch, the dogs found the familiar turns before either man could see them. Nathan kept one hand on his uncle’s pack whenever the blowing snow hid the trail.
The cabin window finally appeared between the trunks, a small patch of yellow.
Nathan bent forward, resting his hands above his knees for one breath. Then he straightened and headed for the porch.
Gordon stood at the edge of the clearing.
The shovel was where he’d left it. The lantern hung under the lean-to. He’d replaced the pane beside the door the previous autumn and still hadn’t put fresh paint over the putty.
Nathan looked back from the steps.
“Gord.”
Gordon walked toward him.
Inside, the cabin held a little of the stove’s warmth. His wife’s photograph had slipped flat on the table where he’d left it too close to the edge.
He picked it up.
Nathan went straight to the radio.
Gordon opened the desk drawer. The little box of letters stood between two notebooks. He put his fingers on it, felt the smooth corner beneath his glove, and closed the drawer again.
At the radio, Nathan turned the tuning knob by small degrees.
“Winter road camp, this is the upper forestry outpost. Do you read?”
The speaker hissed.
He tried again, changing the angle of the microphone as though that might help. Gordon could see his thumb worrying the seam of his sleeve.
A voice finally broke through.
“Got part of that. Who’s calling?”
“Nathan Bellamy. I need Curtis.”
A pause followed. Nathan held the microphone toward Gordon when a deeper voice came on.
“Nate? You boys still up there?”
Gordon took it.
“Curtis, get everyone to the old quarry road above camp.”
“What?”
“Leave the low ground. Take the whole crew.”
Static scraped over the answer. Gordon leaned closer to the set.
“The lower drainage from the old workings is blocked with ice. Water’s building behind it. We saw it.”
Curtis gave an incredulous little laugh.
“It’s more than twenty below down here.”
“The water’s underground. It’s coming through the workings, and the slope’s moving.”
The laughter stopped.
“How bad?”
“Above the old high-water marks.”
“Can somebody look at it in the morning?”
“No.”
Gordon waited for the hiss to clear.
“Move them now, Curtis.”
The speaker crackled, and the voice vanished.
Nathan worked the controls. Nothing returned.
He looked at Gordon.
“Did he hear the last part?”
“Enough of it.”
“What if he stays?”
Gordon set the microphone down and reached for his mittens.
“We’ll tell him in person.”
Nathan looked toward the window, where the snow ran sideways through the lantern light.
Then he picked up his pack.
“You’re taking leaving seriously.”
“Been hearing a lot about it.”
Gordon slipped the photograph into the inside pocket of his coat. He set the shotgun beside the wall rack. His father’s older gun remained above the shelf.
At the door, he stopped.
Nathan went out to ready the snowmobile and left him the room.
Gordon looked at the mugs, the stove lid with its broken lifter, the dark stain across the ceiling. His wife had wanted that roof replaced. He’d promised her spring, then another spring. The stain had outlasted the arguments.
Outside, the engine caught.
Gordon pulled the door shut without turning the key…
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