One good thing: the man would have no cover. Not up here. Had he survived the fire? He’d had maybe a day lead and might have missed it altogether. But then who knew how far down the river the fire ran? For all they knew it went to the delta, the coast. What would stop it? But they had to assume he still lived. In the burn they’d be able to see him way before they got into shotgun range. They still had the rifle, thank God. If the scope hadn’t been knocked too badly they could drift and find him and pick their shot. Not they, Jack. Wynn would still not sanction the long-shot kill. Well, maybe he would now. Jack thought that it didn’t matter—he would hunt and snipe the man the first chance, and as long as Wynn didn’t fuck with him and try to unbalance the boat, he would kill him.
They paddled. The sun rose and burned almost crimson through the smoke that lay over the eastern horizon like a weather front, not even visible as sun until halfway to the zenith, and even then it was a hot red disk that looked more like some molten planet than a star. All along the cut banks were the scribed traces in damp earth where embedded roots had been, blackened and forking lines like some inscrutable calligraphy. The topography revealed was desolate. So much of the country had been covered in lichen and moss sometimes feet thick, and it had all burned away in the night, and the underbrush, the fireweed and willows, all that was left was seared dirt and bedrock, the black spears of trees, sepulchral, and without the woods there was the much longer view, the slight rising and falling of ground in every direction, the humps of eskers mostly bare of stumps, the folds where creeks had run, dry as if boiled off. Not fun, Wynn thought. The earth stripped to its geography did not feel like home.
There was still a handful of power bars in the day box and when Maia woke and sat up Wynn thumbed open the latches and fished out three and they each ate one. They drifted. The sugar in the blood felt almost like a cup of strong coffee and each felt suddenly more awake, alert. They were starving, for sure, Jack thought. He looked up and down the banks and of course there was nothing, nothing to forage. And no wood, he realized now, to make a fire. Though the thought of touching match to wood almost made him shudder. They had the pot still. How would they cook the last of the freeze-dried meals? She could eat them soaked cold. How would they make tea to fortify themselves? Forest fires were always, always patchy, there would be spots along the bank that for whatever reason had been jumped over, there had to be—they’d have to keep their eyes out. For that, and for the man. Maybe it was the rush of protein and sugar, but before he could take back the words he spoke them: he said, “Maia. Maia, right? Your fucker husband was waiting in ambush back at the last falls. What are the odds he will keep this up? I mean if he’s not cinders by now.”
He could see only the back of her head. The wild hair unbound from the braid in the long swim. She’d also lost the wool hat and the bandage. “You mean trying to kill us?” she said softly. It surprised him. The ready, cogent answer. She must be healing somehow, even with all the trauma.
“Yes.”
Jack glanced at Wynn, who looked stricken. Jack felt like slapping him. What you don’t want to look at can still kill you, Big. What he wanted to say but didn’t. Well, he’d kill the man himself if it came to that.
She was very still. Not the stillness of passivity, but the stillness of holding oneself rigid in the face of some emotional wind. She was definitely getting her strength back. “He tried to murder me.”
“What I was thinking,” Jack said gently.
She said, “Unless we are very lucky, someone is going to die.”
* * *
They tried to make sense of the map. They had lost their bearings in the night paddle and were not sure which rapids they had passed. The river ran north but it meandered broadly, in places even bending south, and it had changed a lot since the survey in 1959, but the general contours must be the same. Still, it was hard to orient the map with the sun overhead. When it began to lower westward they’d have a better shot. Even better after dark. The last couple of nights had been clear, and tonight, with a long enough stretch of river visible ahead of them, they could probably get a bearing on the North Star and correlate the shape of the river they could see. It was important to put a pin in it. Jack said, “For one, we don’t want to get surprised by another rapid. For two, he’s operating under the same constraints: he can’t let us pass him. So he’ll be waiting again where he knows we’ll stop, at the top of a portage. Right at the top of the next big drop.”
Made sense. He might not find cover in the burned-over ground along the bank, but he might have it where the river erupted and fell—the biggest drops tend to be ledgy. As before. He could find plenty of cover behind rock outcrops. But. Anyway. They did not have to chase him. He would be waiting, surely. They needed food. The fire had been traumatic, but as they paddled steadily downstream on flat moving water they lamented even more the loss of the berries. It was a further violation: at the height of berry season, with the blueberries and blackberries and their cousins heavy on their stems and all the calories they’d probably need just at hand, the fire had thundered through and snatched it away. The river had taken care of the rest: in the flip they’d also lost the remainder of the caribou meat. It would have served them now.
Anything was better than nothing. After what must have been three miles of paddling through the burn, past huge toppled trunks still fluttering with yellow flame and pointed stumps sending up thin white smoke as if releasing the last of their spirits, they saw a creek entering in from river left. It flowed between low scorched banks and blackened stones, and it was scattered with fine ash but otherwise clear. They pulled out on the sand beach which seemed untouched, and they drank straight from the stream and pulled out their rods and strung them and began to fish. They figured if they caught any they could cook them over a still-burning stump. It lightened their spirits, enacting this simple routine, the steps of a ritual—piece together the rod, screw tight the locking ring against the reel, string the guides, pick a fly—the steps of a lifelong discipline that promised joy. They fished for an hour in the warmth of the afternoon—the freezing nights seemed to have cooled the days, too, it was no longer hot but pleasant and warm. They fished in the warm breeze and got not a single rise. No fry nor minnows darted past their ankles. As they cast and mended the lines and stripped them in, their moods sank. Neither wanted to be the first to say it. Wynn fished up to Jack and said, “They’re gone.”
“I know.”
“It’s shallow here. Do you think it could have boiled? Or all the ash?”
Jack shrugged.
“Why don’t we see any floating?”
Jack shrugged. “I dunno. It flashed over. Twenty-five hundred degrees could boil a creek for sure. I just hadn’t thought of it.”
Wynn thought, You can’t think of everything. And you’re hard on yourself when you don’t. Wynn would not shed tears again in front of his buddy, but somehow of all they had recently endured, the loss of the trout seemed the saddest.
They both heard it at the same time, a crunch behind them, of gravel, and they spun around and Maia was standing there. Her left arm cradled to her side, maybe covering some pain in her stomach. Disheveled, but standing.