Chapter Twelve #2
"They don't even know what happened." Her voice cracks in the middle. "Reynolds is marking a red X next to my name right now, and these people loaded a plane."
"That's how it works out here. You go quiet, somebody comes looking."
She holds a foil bundle against her chest like a hot-water bottle. "I met them once, Nash. Once, and I want a scone from May Sweeney's basket. Is that crazy?"
"That's Port Promise," I say. "It does that to people."
We split a cinnamon roll standing right there on the gravel bar, breath steaming, fingers sticky in the cold. She closes her eyes on the first bite, and I have to look away, out at the empty sky where the Beaver disappeared.
When we head back up the bank, Aris stops, turns, and waves at the long silver line of the river, at nobody at all.
I don't tell her Hank's forty miles gone. Some messages get through anyway.
Back at camp, the solar indicator is still crawling toward charged.
"A rest day," Aris says, looking at the low-profile shelter. "In a survival sack."
"It's ten below zero," I say, watching her shiver despite the sunshine. "And staring at a battery indicator won't make it charge faster. Inside. We conserve heat."
We crawl back into the nylon cocoon. If the casing felt small last night, in the daylight it feels microscopic. The orange walls seem to press in on us, glowing with a diffuse, suffocating light.
The air inside is thick with the scent of damp wool and us. Every breath we take adds moisture to the space; I can already see frost crystals forming along the seams of the roof, delicate and jagged.
"It's loud," Aris whispers, lying on her back and staring up at the fabric.
"The river," I say. "Ice shifting. It expands in the sun."
Outside, a deep, resonant boom echoes through the valley, sounding uncomfortably like a cannon shot.
Aris flinches, her hand seeking mine in the narrow space between our bodies. "It sounds like it's breaking."
"It's just settling. It's loudest when it's strongest."
She turns her head to look at me. Her eyes are dark green, searching. "You aren't scared of anything, are you? You talk about ice and wolves like they're just … mechanics."
I trace the condensation dripping down the wall with my thumb. "I'm scared of plenty."
"Name one thing."
I look at her. I could give her a joke. I could tell her I'm scared of the IRS or Mags's cooking. But we're lying in a nylon coffin in the middle of a wolf pack's territory, and she deserves better than a deflection.
"Three years ago," I say, "I was guiding a sheep hunt in the Wrangells. Solo client. Older guy. We got caught in a whiteout on a knife-edge ridge."
Aris shifts, turning her body toward me, listening.
"We couldn't move. Visibility was zero. Wind was sixty miles an hour. We had to dig in right there on the ledge. We spent two days under a tarp, listening to the wind try to peel us off the mountain."
"What did you do?"
"I held onto his pack strap," I admit. "For forty-eight hours. I was terrified that if I fell asleep, he'd slide off, or I would. I wasn't scared of dying, Aris. I was scared of being the reason he didn't make it home."
I look at the frost above us. "That's the fear. It's not the cold. It's the failure. It's having someone rely on you and not being enough."
Aris turns that over. Then she squeezes my hand. "You got him home, didn't you?"
"Yeah. We walked out on day three."
"You're good at this, Nash. You're good at keeping people alive."
"I'm good at surviving," I correct. "There's a difference."
"Maybe," she says. She sits up, the nylon rustling around her. The fear in her eyes has changed into something else: determination, hard and bright.
"I don't want to just survive, Nash. I don't want to be the luggage you have to strap down so I don't slide off the mountain."
"Aris—"
"No," she interrupts. "I want to be useful. If the wolves come back … I can't just stand behind you."
She looks at me, something wicked and calculating in her eyes.
"Or," she says, "you could teach me how to shoot that rifle you're always carrying."
I blink. "You want to learn to shoot?"
"If we're being hunted by wolves and you're busy with something else, I should probably know how to use the safety, right?"
"Logical," I agree. "Scary, but logical."
"Is that a yes?"
"That's a yes. But if you shoot a hole in the remaining sled, I'm leaving you here."
The shooting lesson turns into the best afternoon of the trip.
I set up a target, a dead spruce stump across the river ice, and walk her through the mechanics of the rifle. It's a.300 Winchester Magnum, heavy and loud, not exactly a beginner's gun.
"Stance is everything," I say, standing behind her. I put my hands on her hips to adjust her angle, and she goes rigid for a second before relaxing into it.
"Lean into it," I murmur. "It kicks. If you're stiff, it hurts. If you roll with it, it's just a push."
"Like the snowmobile," she says.
"Exactly. Physics."
She shoulders the rifle. She's small, and the gun looks huge in her hands, but she holds it with the same determined focus she applies to everything.
"Deep breath," I instruct. "Let it out halfway. Squeeze, don't pull."
CRACK.
The rifle roars, the sound echoing off the valley walls like thunder. Aris stumbles back a step from the recoil, but she keeps her footing.
"Did I hit it?" she asks, lowering the gun and looking eager.
I raise my binoculars. A chunk of bark has vanished from the stump, dead center.
"You hit the stump," I say, genuinely impressed. "Dead center."
"Really?" She beams, turning to look at me. Her face is flushed, her eyes bright. "I hit it!"
"Beginner's luck," I tease.
"Science," she corrects. "Trajectory, windage, gravity."
"Do it again."
She spends the next hour putting rounds into the stump—steady hands, good focus, a natural. By the time we run low on practice ammo, she's grouping shots inside six inches at a hundred yards.
"Okay," I say, taking the rifle. "Save the rest for the wolves."
"I hope we don't need it," she says, her mood sobering.
"Me too. But better to have it and not need it."
We head back to camp as the sun dips below the tree line. The solar indicator shows green. 80% charge. Enough for the release trigger.
"We move tomorrow?" she asks.
"Tomorrow. We find the herd, we trigger the release, and we get the hell out of here."
"Sounds like a plan."
Dinner is freeze-dried stroganoff, which tastes like salty cardboard, but Aris eats it without complaint. She's stopped picking at her food. She eats like someone who knows she needs the fuel.
The darkness comes down hard and fast. With no generator to run the floodlights, the camp feels smaller, the ring of firelight our only defense against the vast, pressing black of the wilderness.
We sit by the fire for a long time. The "University Pressure" seems to have receded, replaced by the immediate reality of where we are.
"Nash?"
"Yeah?"
"Thank you."
"For the shooting lesson?"
"For talking me off the ledge this morning. About Reynolds." She pokes the fire with a stick. "I was … I was really spiraling."
"You were scared. It's allowed."
"I've spent my whole life trying to be the perfect student," she admits. "The perfect researcher. The one who colors inside the lines. Being out here … with you … it's making me realize that the lines are kind of arbitrary."
"The lines are imaginary," I say. "There's just what works and what doesn't."
She looks at me across the flames. "You work," she says softly. "You work really well."
My mouth goes dry. "Aris …"
"I know," she says quickly. "Friends. Boundaries. The mission."
"The mission," I repeat, but the words feel hollow.
"But when the mission is over," she says, steady and deliberate, "and we're not guide and client anymore … maybe we can redraw the lines?"
The offer hangs there. It's a possibility, nothing more. A maybe.
And coming from a woman who deals in hard data, a maybe feels like a massive victory.
"Maybe," I say.
"Okay." She stands up, brushing snow from her pants. "I'm turning in. It's going to be cold tonight."
"I'll be in soon," I say. "Just going to bank the fire."
I watch her crawl into the tiny tent. I wait until I hear the zip of her sleeping bag.
The fire burns low. The dark river runs black. The stars don't move at all.
Dean Reynolds can go to hell. The wolves can come if they want. I have a rifle, I have a solar panel, and I have a woman who thinks I "work."
I bank the fire, check the perimeter one last time, and crawl into the tent.
It's cramped, intimate, warm.
Aris is asleep, her back to me. I slide into my bag, careful not to touch her.
But in the dark, her hand reaches out. She finds my arm. She doesn't grab it, just rests her fingers against my sleeve. A point of contact, a connection.
I don't pull away.
I close my eyes, and for the first time since the crash, I sleep without dreaming of falling.