The Snow Child (36 page)

She was near. He was certain. Something in the air had changed. It was the same when he stalked a moose—abruptly the woods quieted and his senses sharpened. When he looked ahead, he saw the girl standing just out of the trees, her blue coat decorated in snowflakes, her hair an unearthly blond. He could turn back, but surely she’d seen him, too. She waited for him. He continued up the ravine, trying to walk slower than his heart raced.

She did not move or speak until he was within several feet of her. She eyed the horse nervously, but when Garrett started to tell her to not be afraid, she spoke over him.

You are the one who killed my fox.

For a moment Garrett could not make his mouth work. How could she know?

Yes, he finally choked.

Why did you come here?

He could have asked her the same. He had no reason to feel inferior to her.

Wolverine, he said. I’m scouting for wolverine.

Here?

There’s got to be one on this creek. I’m sure of it.

The girl turned her head side to side. Fury slowed Garrett’s heart to a dull thud.

What do you know? he asked. You know this whole valley?

She gave a short nod.

Why should I believe you?

Garrett pushed forward, as if to go past her, and caught her scent. Labrador tea, elderberry, nettle, fresh snow. It was so faint that he found himself inhaling deeply, trying to catch more of it.

The girl turned her back and bent to the ground. In the snow was a woven birch-bark pack he hadn’t noticed. She stood it up at her feet and began to pull something from it. When she faced him, she held a dead wolverine by its front paws. Its head was like that of a small bear, its body compact, legs short and powerful. It was a large animal, close to forty pounds, Garrett guessed, and she should have struggled under its weight, but she easily tossed it at his feet. Behind him the horse nickered and pulled back.

What’s this? he asked.

A wolverine.

I can see that. What are you doing with it?

I’m giving it to you. So you can leave.

Garrett was speechless for a moment.

I don’t want it, he said crossly. Not like this.

I’ll skin it for you, said the girl, and she turned again to her pack.

What? Hell, that’s not what I mean. Why should you give it to me?

I don’t want it. You do.

Why’d you kill it, if you didn’t want it?

It was stealing marten and bait. Take it.

Garrett had never been so mad in his life. To think of the years he had tried to find a wolverine to trap, and here was this girl throwing one at his feet like a discarded carcass. And ordering him to leave. He turned back to his horse, grabbed the saddle horn, and mounted.

Won’t you take it with you? The girl’s voice was higher pitched, more childlike than before.

Garrett didn’t answer. He shook the reins, and the horse began to work its way slowly down the ravine.

There are no others here, the girl shouted after him. Just this one.

He did not look back.

Take it with you, she called. So you don’t have to come back.

I don’t want your blasted wolverine, he yelled over his shoulder. And I’ll be back if I want to. You don’t own this land.

He did not allow himself to look back until he was nearing the ridge. When he did, he saw the girl still standing in the same place, the wolverine at her feet. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought there was anger in the tight line of her lips.

Once Garrett believed he was out of the girl’s sight, he dismounted again. The ground was too treacherous to ride. Beneath the snow, creek water was frozen in pools and ice coated the boulders. He led the horse to a bit of open water in the creek and let it drink. When the horse was done, he crouched and scooped some of the water in his hand and drank. It was sweet and cold, and left him queasy.

He had no intention of going home yet. He still had most of the day ahead of him, and he had not set a single trap.

He had always been respectful of other trappers’ territories. A bachelor not much older than Garrett had claimed the land downstream from Jack and Mabel’s, and he did not trespass there. He hadn’t trapped Boyd’s trails, even when he saw that the old man’s pole sets went untouched, until Boyd bestowed the line upon him. A man could be shot for stealing a trapper’s catch, and even edging in on his territory was considered disrespectful. But this? This was just a girl, a girl snaring a few rabbits. Never mind the wolverine. That had been a fluke, surely.

But he knew it was no such thing—wolverine weren’t caught on a fluke, and he had watched her kill the swan. She was capable.

He wiped creek water across his brow and dried his hand on his coat before pulling his leather gloves back on. It was beginning to snow. He hadn’t anticipated that. The sky had been cloudless this morning. When he had gone to the outhouse before sunrise, he had seen the northern lights twisting and turning through the blackness the way they do only on clear, cold nights. But here it was, only a few hours later, snowing. He looked toward the mountains, but low-lying clouds had swallowed them.

“Well, Jackson. Time to head home after all, eh?”

He didn’t normally talk to a horse, but he was uneasy. The snow was falling steadily now, and a slight wind blew up from the riverbed. He pulled himself into the saddle and was momentarily disoriented. The air was so thick with snowflakes he could see only the outlines of the nearest trees.

“Down the hill, Jackson? Can’t go wrong by heading toward the river.”

Soon, though, blowing snow blinded Garrett, and the horse stumbled along the disappearing trail.

“Jesus,” he said under his breath. “Where did this come from?” Never before had he seen a winter storm come up so quickly, whipped out of nothing.

He turned up the collar of his coat and pulled a wool hat out of his saddlebag. He slid off the saddle and the snow was above his knees. It had come down fast, and it was still falling. He got back on the horse and maneuvered it through the trees, but he had lost his bearings. He thought he had been following the slope down toward the river, but now he seemed to have fallen off into a ravine running the opposite direction. He tried to remember what he had brought with him. No tarp. No bedroll. Only his most basic emergency supplies—some matches, a pocketknife, a spare pair of wool socks. The lunch his mother had packed for him. Not much else. He saw the vague silhouette of a large spruce tree and headed toward it.

He could wait out the storm here, for a while. He broke off some of the tree’s lowest branches, and then used the edge of his boot to scrape snow away from the trunk. It was a shelter of some sort. He broke the branches over his knee into smaller pieces, then peeled some bark off a nearby birch. He had his ax. Once he got the fire going, he could chop larger pieces of wood.

Sitting cross-legged beneath the tree, he piled the bark and spruce branches and lit a match, but it quickly sputtered out in the driving snow. Another. Another. Only a few left. Eventually he got a small piece of the papery bark to light, but only for seconds before the wind snuffed it out. He stood and kicked at the pile. Snow from the branches above toppled onto his head.

“Well, Jackson. Guess we’re pushing on.”

As he rode through the trees he thought of stories he had heard of men killing their horses and climbing into their body cavities to stay warm. “Don’t worry, Jackson. We’re not that desperate yet.”

But this wasn’t good. He could see that. He had slept out many nights, but never so ill-prepared in such bad conditions. Snow was embedded in the creases of his pants and coat. The horse’s mane was coated in ice. He had no choice—he rode on, not knowing his direction.

When he found himself on the banks of what appeared to be a frozen lake, a lake he had never seen or heard of before, he was afraid. He dismounted and stood beside the horse at the snowy shore.

Goddamn. Goddamn, and he kicked the ground in front of him. The horse slowly blinked, too fatigued to move away from the commotion.

You’re lost.

Garrett jumped at the voice, an eerie whisper in his ear. Over his shoulder he saw the girl like a ghost in the snow. Angry at being startled, he shouted, What do you want?

You have lost your way, she said, and again her voice was hushed and nearer than the girl herself.

No I haven’t.

But they both knew he was lying.

You won’t find your way home, she said.

No, I damn well won’t. But I don’t see you can do a thing about it.

The girl turned and began to walk away.

Follow me, she said.

What?

I’ll show you the way.

He wanted to yell, to kick his feet, to fight this absurd turn of events, but he took up the reins and led his horse after the girl. Without looking back she walked quickly and easily through the snow. At times he lost sight of her, but then she would reappear, waiting beside a birch or in a stand of spruce.

I didn’t mean for this to happen, she said. Even though I was angry. I didn’t mean for you to lose your way.

Well, of course not. How could this be your fault?

The girl shrugged and walked again. The snow slowed and patches of blue sky appeared overhead. When the mountains again revealed themselves, they were not where Garrett thought they would be. Where would he have ended up, he wondered, if she hadn’t come for him?

The girl’s steps laced through naked birch trees, and a few times she lightheartedly looped an arm around one of their trunks as she passed by. She didn’t seem to take note of where she was going or where she had been. She was like a fearless child playing in the woods, and yet she was tall and almost a woman, her blue coat tapered in at the waist, her hair blond and straight down her back.

You were there, she said, when I killed the swan.

She did not look back at him when she spoke but ran ahead, her feet light on the snow, and for that, at least, Garrett was grateful. He didn’t have to answer. He just had to follow and hope she never, ever spoke to him again. They traveled for some time in silence.

Your horse won’t make it up here much longer, she said after a while. The snow will be too deep.

Garrett stopped walking and rubbed the back of his neck. Of all the blasted things she could say.

I know that, he said. Don’t you think I know that? I need a team of dogs. But my folks won’t let me. Jackson’s a good horse, though. I was going to use him a while, then snowshoe in. It would have worked.

If it weren’t for you, he wanted to add. But he hated the whiny sound of his own voice, like a spoiled boy who hasn’t gotten his way. Why couldn’t he just keep quiet? That’s what a man would do.

There, the girl said, and pointed down through the trees. It was Jack and Mabel’s place. He could see the fields white with snow and smoke curling up from their stovepipe.

He nodded and mounted his horse. When he had ridden down into the clearing, he spun the horse around to search the trees for the girl, for her blue coat and shining blond hair, but she was gone.

CHAPTER 41

F
aina came with a tall basket made of birch bark that she wore as a pack with moosehide straps. Outside the cabin, she shrugged it from her shoulders, set it in the snow beside her feet, took a fish from it, and held it up to Jack.

It was the most hideous creature he had ever seen. It draped nearly two feet between the girl’s hands, skin mottled and slick, long body fat and limp as a slug. It had thick lips and a wide, flat head with a barb jutting from its chin. Like an overgrown, malformed tadpole.

What in God’s name is that?

A burbot, she said. I caught it through the ice just now. I brought it for dinner.

I don’t think Mabel will allow it in the kitchen, Jack said.

Oh.

No, I’m only teasing you. I’ve never seen one before. Is it safe to eat?

Yes, she said. They swim in the deepest, coldest water. They are hard to catch, but the very best to eat.

Well, then, I guess we’d better clean it.

He led the girl behind the cabin and down to the creek.