Heart of the Wilderness (33 page)
Then she returned to the kitchen, picked up a lantern, and drew a few matches from the can near the stove. She shrugged into her light jacket, slipped her knife into the side of her moccasin, and turned to Oscar.
“Let’s go,” she said to the dog. “We’ve got to find him.”
She moved quickly through the forest with the lantern unlit until the darkness closed in around them. Then she stopped, drew a match from where she had tucked it in her sash and lit it.
Without a word to the dog at her side she hurried on. They both knew the trail to the fallen timber where her grandfather had been working. Oscar walked in step beside her, his ears forward, his eyes alert. Once or twice Kendra felt him tense and knew that some animal was near them in the heavy forest growth. With Oscar at her side, she didn’t feel any concern.
By the time they reached the deadfall, it was completely dark. Kendra could only see within the brief circle of light cast by the lantern. She depended on Oscar’s sharp nose and basic instincts to help find her grandfather.
“Find him, Oscar,” she told the dog.
The dog moved forward, head up, nostrils pointed into the wind. Now and then he whined, but he did not stop nor look at Kendra, so she knew he had not yet picked up a scent.
“Papa Mac! Papa Mac!” she shouted every now and then as they wound their way through the fallen trees and discarded branches.
She was about to give up when Oscar stopped with his head turned, his whole body tensed.
“What is it?” Kendra asked, moving forward to place her hand on the dog’s neck.
A whine escaped Oscar’s throat. He turned and looked at her.
Then whined again.
“Go ahead,” she told him. “Find him.”
The dog moved forward and Kendra followed closely. “Papa Mac!” she cried out again. “Papa Mac, where are you?”
A faint reply returned to her, borne on the sporadic breeze.
Both girl and dog surged forward.
They found him pinned by a log he had been working to cut free from a tangle of fallen trees. Kendra put the lantern on a nearby stump and quickly set to work with the handsaw, saying encouraging things to the man as she worked. “I’ll have you out of here in no time,” she told him. But the trunk was thick and Kendra was perspiring from hard work and nerves by the time she finished the task. She had to saw through the trunk again in order to get the log to a size she could move by herself. The minutes seemed to expand into hours before she was able to lay aside the saw and put all her remaining energy to moving the heavy section of log.
At last she managed to pull it off her grandfather and let it drop with a crash among other forest debris. She was panting heavily. George lay quietly, and Oscar’s tongue reached now and then to lick the sweat from the man’s brow.
When Kendra felt she could breathe again, she rose to her feet and picked up the lantern.
“You should be able to get up now,” she gasped out. “Your leg is free.”
Her grandfather did not move.
“Papa Mac,” prompted Kendra, turning the lantern so she could she his face. It was white with pain. Kendra dropped on her knees beside him.
“I—I can’t—get up,” he managed to say. “The—leg—it’s—” He could say no more.
Kendra crawled along his body until she reached the leg that had been under the log. She lifted the lantern and was relieved to see no blood. Then she noted the odd way the limb was lying. “I’ll get the team,” she said.
“You—you can’t,” groaned her grandfather.
“With the wagon-sled,” went on Kendra. “I’ll bring the wagonsled.”
He shook his head. “You’ll never—get it anywhere near here— with all the tangle,” he gasped through stiff lips.
Kendra looked around her. He was right. She’d never be able to bring anything into this part of the forest. Dead trees fell in every direction, mingling with others in a wild tangle of limbs and branches.
She felt panic. What was she to do?
Quickly she made herself think through her options. She couldn’t leave him where he was. But she couldn’t move him very far. She only had Oscar to help her, and he didn’t even have a harness.
“I’ll make you a bed—of spruce boughs,” she began. She had to begin somewhere. She had to do something. “Then I’ll—I’ll start a fire. That will keep us until morning. Then—then I’ll figure out a way to get you back to the cabin.”
With the axe her grandfather had brought with him, she set to work cutting branches from the spruce and interwove them until she had formed a bed close beside him that was softer and warmer than the ground. Carefully she dragged and pushed her grandfather until she had him eased onto it. Then she began to clear and scrape away a spot to build a fire. She had to make it as close to her grandfather as she could, but she could not take a chance on setting ablaze any of the dry, tangled underbrush about them.
When she had all the loose boughs out of the way, she dug down with her knife until she reached cold, damp ground. This would make a safe base for the fire.
Carefully she gathered small sticks and dried grasses and drew another precious match from her sash.
In a few moments her little fire was blazing. Kendra noticed her grandfather extend his hand toward the flame, flexing his fingers. In spite of the fact that it was midsummer, the nights were cold.
“You make a good fire,” he said calmly, as though they were camping out.
Kendra smiled. “I know,” she replied. “My grandfather taught me. He said, ‘Make a little fire. One that you can sit close to. White men make a big fire. Have to sit way back—and freeze. Indians make a little fire. Can cuddle up close—and keep warm.’ My grandfather is a wise man.”
In spite of his pain, George chuckled.
“Now I’m going to leave you—for a while,” Kendra went on.
“What are you going to do?”
“I’ve piled up enough wood, right there to your left, so that you can keep the fire going. I’m going to the cabin. Get some supplies. I’ll get some blankets and food and Oscar’s harness and some hides and be back soon. Come morning we’ll make a travois. We’ll get you out of here. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Oscar will stay with you.”
“You’re going alone?” asked George.
“I have my knife,” replied Kendra with more confidence than she felt.
“Take Oscar. I’m fine. I have the fire.”
“I’ll feel better if you have Oscar too,” Kendra insisted calmly. “I’ll have the lantern.”
Nearby an owl hooted.
“I heard that fellow before,” George said, his voice low. “I thought— I thought for a while there he was calling my name.”
Kendra’s head came up sharply. “Nonsense,” she said quickly. “You are going to be just fine. Once we get you home—get that leg patched up.”
“Maybe,” he answered softly. “Maybe.”
“I’ll hurry,” said Kendra. “I’ll be back just as quickly as I can.”
She turned to go.
“Kendra.”
His call stopped her. She turned to him, lifting high the lantern so she could see his face.
“I—I really did think that—that maybe this was
it
. Oh, not because of the—the Indian legend about the owl—but because— because of the pain—the fact I couldn’t move.”
Kendra felt horror wash all through her. She knew now his leg had been hurt badly. That it was likely broken in more than one place. But she didn’t expect him to die. Surely, not—that.
“Kendra,” he said again, and she heard his voice tremble.
“I—I didn’t know if—if I’d make it—if you’d find me—in time— but—but I thought about what you said. I thought a lot about it. I did it. I—I prayed. I—asked for His help. His forgiveness. You were right. He really is there.”
With a cry Kendra fell on her knees beside her grandfather and let the tears fall on his plaid woollen shirt.
He stroked her hair and whispered softly to her.
“It’s all right. Even if—even if I don’t make it. Even if—It’s okay. I’m ready now. I’m ready. Honest.”
“Do you mind—very much—leaving the wilderness?” George asked his granddaughter.
They were on the boat, all their belongings stacked around them. They both knew they had said a final goodbye to the little cabin they had called home for so many years. They had not brought much with them. There really hadn’t been that much. Their personal items, Kendra’s pile of books—and Oscar. Kendra could not bear to give up Oscar. All the other sled dogs had been sold—bartered off—to the trader at the post. The traps and skinning knives and snowshoes and sleds, the crude cabin furniture, garden tools and axes—it all had been sold to various trappers in the area, the canoe given to an Indian boy from the settlement. Gone. It was all gone now. A total way of living. A total life.
Kendra sighed deeply. She had loved the wilderness. She had loved it all. She had been happy there, communing with the God of nature. Her God—once she had discovered who He was. But she did not say the words. There was no turning back. She managed a smile.
“We need to get that leg of yours taken care of,” she said simply.
She watched his hand stroke absentmindedly at his beard.
Both of them busy with their own thoughts, they sat in silence, their eyes on the moving treeline along the riverbank.
George broke the spell. “I’ve really been a pesky nuisance, haven’t I?”
“A nuisance? Of course not,” Kendra was quick to declare.
Her mind went back to the time of the accident. How frightened she had been when she knew how badly hurt he was. She feared that she would never be able to get her grandfather out of the tangled bush with only Oscar and the makeshift travois to help her. But she had done it. She had given him some of Nonie’s special root medicine. It had killed the pain some so he could endure the bumpy journey back to the cabin. But the ride had been hard on the badly broken leg. Kendra was afraid it might have been further damaged in the transport.
It was healing now—to a measure. At least he was no longer in constant pain. At least he could move about on it—in a way. But they both soon had come to the realization that he would never be able to run the trapline again. Kendra offered to take over for him, but he refused to hear of it. There seemed to be only one thing to do. To sell what they had and move out.
A movement on the shore drew Kendra’s attention. She saw Oscar’s head come up, his ears perk forward. She reached for him and laughed softly.
“You see that moose? I suppose you’d just love to have a merry chase,” she teased her dog. She rubbed his ear and the deep rumble in his chest subsided. It was going to be very different for Oscar in the city. For a fleeting moment Kendra wondered if she had done the right thing to bring the animal from his wilderness home. All three of them were facing major adjustments.
They moved into a small house just down the street from Maggie. Even before they were settled, Kendra made arrangements for George to see a city physician. His prognosis was not good. There might be a bit that could be done for George’s leg, but it would never be restored to full use.
“You are lucky to have it at all. I’m surprised it healed as well as it did. Must have been five or six breaks there. You were lucky. Just plain lucky.”
“I had a good nurse,” said George. Then he added thoughtfully, “And a wonderful God.”
The doctor just shook his head as though he still couldn’t understand.
Kendra worried. Her grandfather was too young, too energetic, to be confined to a small house on a city lot. Would he be able to manage the enormous changes?
Kendra finally found a job doing housework for a wealthy family. It did not pay especially well, but it gave her a steady income and that was all they really needed.
George took over the household duties. Kendra was surprised at how easily he seemed to assume the role. But then he had been a bachelor for many years, she reasoned.
He also spent a good deal of time at Maggie’s, puttering around her yard, working her garden, repairing anything that was broken.
The two old friends shared cups of coffee on the wide veranda and chatted over years that used to be. George took advantage of opportunities that arose to talk with Maggie about his newfound faith. Soon she was joining him and Kendra for the short walk to the little church each Sunday morning. The two prayed with more intensity, hoping that it would not be long until Maggie made her own commitment to the Lord.