Shadow (Part 2 of 3)

          Ellen remembered how she and her friend had sat together and watched the river in the summer, lazy and unassuming.  The then timid tributary was angry now, understanding all too well, the promise of the wind and the pledge of the rain, secret oaths that guarantee a winter wasteland, grim and frozen, the river, the berries, the trees, the ground.

            “I wish it was warm.  I wish I could bury you in the summer.”

            Rain and tears fell and froze as she sat there.  A persistent mosquito had latched itself onto her arm.  She watched as its belly distended, red with her blood, its life running out.  She didn’t bother to swat it off.  She wished it was her life running out.

            “Suck away, mosquito.  Someone will pay.”

            Finally, she went back into the cabin to get warm, but the fire had been out for hours.  She kicked the charred logs.  The lifeless ashes formed a cloud, and then settled back down on the cold stone slab.

            Jack Daniels sat on the shelf, unopened for years.  I’ll make you warm, he whispered.  I’ll make you forget.  Remember me?

            “He’s right”, Ellen said.  “It’s easier than starting another bloody fire.”

            She vowed to drink the whole bottle.  There was more where that came from, along with a paltry supply of canned goods and jerky.  The afternoon turned into night; the night turned into morning.  October turned into December; and she didn’t care; just like the hibernating grizzly, she didn’t care that it was freezing, and she would soon starve.  Day after day, by the time she opened her eyes, it was already dark.

            Ellen used to love winter: the three hours of daylight, crystal clear hours of cleansing, pure, white daylight.  Only the local elk, moose, and rabbit marked the undefiled landscape with their silent footsteps; or the occasional hawk swooped down on an unsuspecting rodent.  Now she slept through the daylight.  She could not bear to look at the two foot by four foot lump, solid in immobile earth, slumbering under its snowy blanket.  The mosquitoes, long since frozen, rested in peace.

            “Tomorrow,” Ellen said.  “Tomorrow, I’ll go into town.”

The food dwindled to nothing, and she desperately needed to lay in supplies; but it was not until the liquor was nearly finished off that she finally became committed enough to go to town.

            “He’s just like all the rest of the Jacks I’ve known, runs out right when you most need him.” she said.

            That night she fell into a fitful sleep—not quite passed out—because Jack ran out.  She dreamed the dream.  She saw her friend’s dark form moving through the birch, like a shadow.  He ran like a deer, easily leaping logs and debris.  Running, jumping and playing was his life.  In fun, she wrestled him down.  Nobody took him down without his permission.  She put her face in his soft underbelly.  The dream was so real she could smell him, a good, warm, animal smell.  Ellen adored her Shadow, her friend, her protector.

            Then the dream changed, as it always did.  The dog began to change form.  He became immense, lofty and tall, and he took on human appearance.  He became translucent and white.  Though black, she could see through him, see crows screaming at each other.  They also began to change form, and to grow huge.  Their wings covered and shut out the sun.  She could see through them too, but it was like looking through a thick cloud, murky and dark.

            A shot rang out, and Shadow began to shrivel.  She cried for him to not leave.  The image of the crows shut out the light.  She tried to hide her face in the dog’s body, but she found Shadow had turned into a cold, black, shiny, jewel.  The crows began to caw and jeer, and their heads turned all the way around.  They looked at her with familiar faces.  They wore beaver-tail hats.  One had red hair; the other had a blue-black pony tail, not quite hidden under a beavertail hat.  They laughed.

            Darkness had already begun to crowd the day.  Dread squeezed her chest, making it difficult to breathe.  Ellen recognized fear, knowing that it was too late to start out for town, and knowing that Jack was gone.  Time loomed ahead of her as she sat there in the dark cabin facing sobriety.  She was left alone to meet herself.   By candlelight, she studied each knot in the logs that formed the cabin’s walls.  She felt the woods roughness in her mind.  She noted the uneven basaltic rocks that formed the fireplace, hot, yet cold.

            For a while she took advantage of the sober moments to chop wood.  Then she picked up the old Bible, dusty from neglect.  She dusted it off, fingered the worn pages, but left it unopened.

            “I’m not ready, yet, to talk to you, God,” she said.

            Night was unending, and sleep refused to visit.  Ellen met the dark morning ready to leave, but not before she placed her pearl-handled Derringer next to her heart.  The cold steel chilled her warm breasts.  She walked the mile to the county road.  There the county had provided a parking area with a power pole, where the bush dwellers could plug into an electric box in the winter.  Electric cords, white and furry from the hoar frost, became umbilical cords to six or seven snow terrain vehicles parked there, including Ellen’s Jeep, two snowmobiles, and one old seaplane.  A weather beaten shed served as shelter for dog sleds, snow shoes, cross country skis, fishing poles, and various other cold-weather gear.   The place reminded her of a deserted arctic bus stop.  The Jeep, sluggish from its winter nap, hacked a pneumonia cough, and reluctantly started.

            She inched the twenty miles to Talkeetna, the town where she would purchase supplies.  Wind caused the light snow to drift, and her tracks were almost instantly erased.  Travel was extremely slow, but now Ellen was glad she’d spent extra effort to chain up.   Finally, the little town came into view.  Street lights that glowed softly under their snow hats were a welcome sight.

            Ellen had vowed to make Chillakoot’s Steak House Bar and Pool Hall her first stop.  Having eaten nothing but jerky and canned beans for the last two months, she was ravenous; and she sure in the hell was thirsty.  She drove up along side the roadhouse.  Some of the cars and trucks parked there were nearly buried in snow.  Probably the vehicle owners planned to over-night on the peanut shell-strewn floor in Chillakoot’s.  Later everyone would drag out sleeping bags and wait for morning. 

            Soon Ellen found Jack in the company of bright lights, loud, bad, music, raucous laughter, and the sound of pool balls smacking each other.