This work of fiction will be released in serial fashion.
PART 1.
The Decision
After the money had run out at the firm, they had started reducing commissions. It seemed in that time that if there was change to be made, one may as well make it now.
Any man with basic math skill could have seen what lie in the future. The monthly bills and costs were either rising or staying steady. His vocation had all but dried up. Get another job in this town? Doing what? he had now spent more than 10 years in real estate. He could sell properties on paper, sure, but you cant sell things no one wants. The area was being crushed by the collapse of the housing market. There wouldn’t be anything worth selling for months, years even, nothing that you could make a living on. This area had spent decades adapting to the highways being diverted farther out, and decades before that the collapse of the mining industry that had boomed and then faded like a dry Christmas tree in a fire place. There was barely a fast food joint worth collecting a check from for miles. Outside of town there was the new big box home improvement place, but they were swamped already, every day there was a larger line of poor souls filtering in to fill out an application in hope of getting enough hours to qualify for healthcare. They didn’t want to pay that, by any means, so the bulk of the staff was put on restricted hours to “help offer more work to the community.”
The mortgage for his larger than average home had been paid down far beyond halfway, there was equity there, at least. He had moved in following a woman, someone he had met after the last job change. They met in real estate licensing class. She was staying with a friend during schooling. Captivating woman, really. Well… girl, rather.
“Oh, your from out that way?”
“Yeah I’m heading back after we get our papers, lots of untapped potential!
“Really? that sounds interesting, why don’t get a drink and you can tell me about it.”
It was the only time in his life it had worked… if you could call it that. Within a few months he had his first house in the same town as the woman he was faithfully pursuing. Within a few more months after that she had left him for a restaurant owner starting a new place up two states over. “potential was tapped in this market…” So that was that. He had stayed and soldiered on, with moderate success up until recently.
So, from a place where he had made no real connections, from a job that had seen its better days, he made the decision. The decision was far away. The decision was Alaska. The decision was adventure. The goal was to turn as hard to the left as possible and live the life he had only read about. He had spent the years being conservative, saving his resources, biding his time. For what? The feeling of being unfulfilled was a plain as the stacks of pizza boxes in his kitchen. There was nothing for him here. Who wouldn’t opt to change everything in the middle of an existential crisis?
The sale of his house came quicker than expected, at less than he had hoped but it was still something. A developer was trying to grab the whole small block he was on so they could level it and put in a dollar store and another gas station. Lucky him, he had guessed. There was a chance he would have to take a larger hit if the buyer wasn’t some corporate entity.
So with the sale of the home and belongings and his new found total freedom, he packed his car and trailer and drove. The start of his great journey. A beautiful and slow four days of travel. Not easy, but to him, worth every moment. As he traveled he felt the chains of an undesired existence fall away. The feeling was frightful, yet comforting. He spent his last few days before he left acquiring some manuals and books on tape about his future home. He knew that he couldn’t transfer his real estate license but knew that all he had to do was make it for long enough and he could just take the classes for a new one. That was really just the back-up plan though, to sell some houses around Fairbanks or the other southern cities during the summer. The real plan was the woods.
Some time ago, he had spend time pouring over an article in an outdoors magazine about a man who would spend winters alone far north. This man would return to his life during the summers and work as a smoke jumper. He learned one could actually just live in the wilderness during winter making just enough on fur trapping. Fur trapping! Could you imagine? It was a crazy idea to be sure. He had always loved the outdoors. It was what had brought him to the northwest in the first place and making the move to Alaska was the most aggressive move he could muster. There are few things that truly can lure a man out in to the open, and one of those things is surely the freedom of open country.
He had determined his finances should last him at least two years even given the worst circumstances. Life would be a bit more affordable in a simple place with simple means. He had been quite miserly in his savings. Even if things fell through and he ended up in a hostel working at a fast food restaurant he was still set enough to compensate. On initial inspection, he had been confident if he stayed absolutely conservative he could get by at less than half of what he was spending further south. The only problem was going to be equipment and other required items. He had set a large bit of finances aside for things of that nature.
Preparations
His arrival was met with no fanfare other than his own. A single firecracker of joy in a stark cold Alaskan night. The locals he had met on his way up the through the state gave him a look as if they had already seen him before, to their defense, they had. He was definitely not the first to have the idea of changing everything and disappearing into the bush for long stretches. He wouldn’t be the last either. Hundreds are lost to the Alaskan woods every year. People disappear, drift off into the beautiful nothing, these stories are not new for the Alaskan living in a well traveled area. Just another one from the lower forty-eight with a rifle and some cash.
He had arrived in summer early enough to take the required courses from the state game commission for trapping. A storage unit and cheap weekly stay motel in Fairbanks would be the home for all the belongings he cared to keep but couldn’t drag into the bush. From there, there would be more hours of driving north to the deep of the state. This would be the last place to stop to grab his gear. He figured he would start with a solid rifle. When he realized those prices could occupy the whole of his starting budged, he tempered his expectations. At the behest of the clerk, he settled on a used Remington 700 in 30-06 with an 8x power scope. Classic rifle for the bush apparently, strong enough to bag a moose, but light enough to acquire anything else worth eating. It had wear, and a few checks in the dark wooden stock which kept the price agreeable. He also chose a very nice .22 caliber Winchester lever action, with a small bucket of rounds that went along with it. The tag said it was used but he couldn’t even tell. It’s lightness and ease of use seemed like it would be the most appropriate for much of the small game. After stocking up on other important things, mostly the kind that would keep you warm and dry. He was totaling his haul when the clerk asked him the all important question. “What about for emergencies?”
It was then that he learned the first hard truth. His new-to-him 30-06 could take any animal on the continent, he was told, but there’s a few out there that he might “bump into,” when he least expected. The risk would be that it would happen when he was too over encumbered to carry a loaded rifle. There are a few out there in the bush that could decide he wasn’t nearly the apex predator he thought he was, and take a scratch or two at his cabin door the the long winter night. It was at that point he was directed to a massive silver handgun at the end of the glass counter. A few specs of rust indicated it had spent most of its life sitting idle, but that was kind of the point. It was the final item he purchased, An old .454 Casull revolver. A big, thick block of rotating metal for shooting cartridges the size of your finger. It had that old cowboy look to it, but far thicker with a shorter barrel with some portholes drilled into it that looked like a thick silver robusto cigar. “Just in case something decides they want to take a run at you.”
The next decision to be made was where, exactly, was his target area. He was making the appropriate connections for his first year but hadn’t yet settled on an area in which to start. Buried in the courses for trapping and outdoorsmanship the state required him to attend, was a small bit on building your own cabin. He did enjoy it, being that his previous profession was real estate. It was a bit jarring, however, going from walking fat old couples through their open floor plan kitchen to now deciding how to select timber for a single room cabin that he could stretch tarps over. He was prepared for this, but had never done so. The thought of it, especially the thought of failing at it somewhere deep in the wilderness was lingering. A solution came in the way of an old timer at the bar across from the short-stay he was inhabiting. Bert, Was his name. After sitting for a while they had struck up a conversation about the outdoors, as those who wander deep in the bush are want to do. “The camp,” as it was, was offered to him. Bert was older, deep in his sixties, and showed wear from every angle. He had spent many a winter in a camp his father and a friend had built hours to the north. it was a solid snowmobile’s journey from the Dalton highway, the only highway that connects the inhabited lower territories to the north of Alaska. The road had originally been built by oil companies as a supply line.
The old timer said his father and uncle had dragged the materials in year after year to build the place up. He had not been there in some time but was sure the essentials were there to get started again. Bert admitted regretfully he was getting too tired and sore to use it on his own anymore, sheepishly noting how sitting on the couch with his wife was far more comfortable now. He figured a greenhorn could use a leg up. The old timer was also absolutely sure no one knew about it and was confident it could be found unmolested. There’s so much uninhabited hard territory that one can safely carve out a usable camp without drawing much ire. He was sure of this because of its one, most important issue. The one issue that made the whole situation even more daunting.
“The camp,” was farther north than the previous goal. Deep into the woods through a complicated set of directions. This was fine, in theory. More travel on top of what was already done wouldn’t be much difference. But it was hours driving beyond the arctic circle, deep in the mountains by snowmobile. This meant that for some months during the depth of the winter, he would not see the sun. This was the first real indicator that he was now going to be quite alone, and for a good portion of time, in the dark. The thought was equally as exciting as it was fear inducing.
Through the Sea
The gears were now in full motion, with the guidance to a campsite, he was on his way, driving north along the Dalton with a trailer full of gear and a well used snow machine. Alaska was beautiful in summer. Alaska was beautiful in Fall. Alaska seemed to be beautiful from every angle he looked at it. His last leg was in September, he could find the camp and settle in before it got too cold and have time to scout and set himself up properly. After reaching the designated mile marker he pulled his vehicle off and searched for the landmarks old timer Bert had laid out for him. He could get his trailer far enough of the road and leave it in an flat rocky area out of sight, it could spend the winter there chained up and hidden with little problem, he was told. He unloaded the snowmobile he had acquired and loaded the accompanying sled, then made camp in the back of the Vehicle for the night. It would be two long trips back and forth to the vehicle the next day to fully load his winter home. He slept peacefully that night in his car.
He woke before sunset and set about securing the sled and preparing for the first major non-wheeled journey. He had his provisions and supplies loaded securely when the sun began to crest the nearby mountain. He whirred the old snow machine to life and started off before the first rays beamed down from the mountain to his little rocky plane. The old timer had written down a very detailed page of directions. “It was an easy enough trail to follow”, he remarked, “Just long.” The old man had been right about that. The landmarks he noted were huge structures like mountains and rock formations, they could be seen for miles. It surprised him how far away one could see a specific mountain, and then continue seeing that mountain as you ground away at the snow and gravel and grass taking ages to arrive at it. The features of the land were huge. He felt like he was somehow smaller in size and the world around him had grown. This must be how an ant feels traveling across the yard to the back porch. A single plain view dominates the landscape yet step after step seems to get you no closer, as if the far off world was a painting that forever keeps its distance. He had been warned that the trip used to take hours. That was years ago with a heavily laden sled on an old snowmobile. It was a surprise to him how little he appeared to be taking with him. He had everything he was recommended and more, yet two sleds worth still seemed like not enough. He continued on
After time had passed he was in the final stretch of his directions, there was a creek bed that lead up from a valley. He was to follow that creek bed until it flattened out for some time. There would be a few miles of completely flat forest and finally he would find his destination at a ninety degree bend in the creek bed.
When he reached the flat wooded plane, he decided to stop and familiarize himself. This part of the trip, he was warned, was most dangerous. The long, flat, wooded valley appeared the same in every direction, and the sky was obstructed by the tall conifers. The only change in the backdrops of white and vertical pine every direction was the creek bed. If one strayed away from the creek, the flatness and sameness of the territory could confuse one’s sense of direction without view of the sky. During the long polar night, there wouldn’t even be any light as a guide. You could walk for hours before you rose high enough again to determine any relative location, then most likely you would have to travel back through the pine sea again and risk the same confusion to return.
It began to make sense why the old timer was sure no one would find the camp. This was blind travel though this area. One couldn’t possibly know what was ahead in any direction without some aerial survey, and no one would do that for a simple one room cabin and a some line. This was an area that one would most likely avoid for the risk of getting lost. The question of how Bert and company could have arrived here in the first place suddenly arose in his mind.
He stopped the machine and turned off the engine. The Day was bright and cold, and the powder snow fell glittering in the rays of light that broke through the thin tall pines. Looking up through the branches he could see the light of the sky but it was crossed with the tangle of pine branch. The silhouetted pattern continued in all directions like black chicken scratch across a pale blue backdrop. It took a moment for the effect of a constant engine in his ears to fade. The sensation of silence grew to take it’s place. The empty creek bed to his left was silent. The woods around him, silent. The experience of which more than he had ever experienced. New light snow and exposed grass seemed to absorb sound like a sponge. He took a deep breath and exhaled. The small, soft sound of it was immediate and internal, like it existed in a vacuum. His ears heard it like they yearned for it in the silence. Breath floated in front of him, lingering and dissipating. He held his breath as he reached the end of his exhale as the silence made him now completely conscious of it. He focused on the loss of sensation in his ears. He could now hear his heart beating. A new sensation, that of growing stress in the silence, slowly filled him. The sound around him fading out, this new sensation slowly fading in. It was a light frostiness, a pressure in his ears backed with minute stress and anxiety. How strange that in the absence of sensation, having never gone without it, the mind can create another to take its place. He thought he could hear the air now. The new sensation was now a crescendo of silent vibration and anticipation. There he waited for a moment in the complete and total silence, as long as his lungs would allow, straining his ears. Nothing. absolutely nothing. It was deafening.
When he finally inhaled again it seemed to break through the air like a train horn. It felt like any set of ears within a mile could hear his breathing. He gathered his wits, shaking his head to clear the icy silent feeling. The he took a final look around and another deep breath to clear his head. The creek bed lay pointing ahead, his sled was still intact behind him. When he restarted the engine, the loud rumble was comforting, it pushed away the deafening silence surrounding him. He accelerated onward through the sparkling air.
Arrival
It had been some time since had stopped when the slant of a black tar roof came into view. There was a clearing ahead, the cabin sat in its center. The creek barely touched the clearing and broke ninety degrees to the left and further on into the wood. The bend in the creek was the biggest change in scenery in quite some time. As he pulled into the flat yard, the trees gave way to high blue ceiling of a sky. Beyond the clearing, the trees were thinning and he could see a long plane of grass and snow with sparkling blue water beyond.
The cabin was a single dark grey box with a gently slanted roof. There were no windows. The low end of the tar roof extended out over a shoddy porch, shading the grey door. Its walls were stacked rough cut boards that had been sealed over with sealants and tar, time and wind and cold had blistered the once black walls to a roasted grey color. The building appeared intact from the outside and he was glad for that.
He slowed the snow machine and stopped it in front of the porch between the building and an old snow covered divot in the middle of the clearing that must have been the remnant of fire pit. He shut down the machine and hopped off with excitement. The clearing was wide and round like a courtyard in front of the cabin. It was quite flat and upon closer inspection there was detailed evidence of its use. Nails and hooks in the trees, stacks of branches and logs for tinder, the common collections of daily use. Up in two of the pines at the clearings edge were wooden frames with old pulleys for hanging items. These were most likely used for hanging frozen carcasses or other interesting smelling things farther up where a bear or wolverine could not inspect them. To the cabin’s right between two trees was a stack of cut wood as high as his head, it was old but may still burn in the fire pit. This would do very nicely.
He took a moment to stretch himself and get the blood flowing again. He pulled a flashlight from a zippered pack on the sled and walked to the door and prepared himself for anything that could be inside. It had been some years since the cabin had last been used and he was told to be prepared to do some work to make it habitable again. He stepped onto the wooden porch. It seemed sturdy enough. The porch deck was widely spaced finished boards. Pretty fancy for this territory, the cut boards would have been dragged out here on a sled. It was only less than a foot off the ground. Its buried foundation most likely just piles of rocks. The door was an old solid metal and wood slab also dragged out from an old house. He grasped the doorknob and it functioned with a rasp. As he swung it open there was a musty smell, with a hint of rot. As the door opened he felt the elastic pull and snap of ages of cobwebs holding it back.
He turned on the flashlight and directed it into the building. A small rodent darted out through his legs and through the floor boards of the porch causing him to freeze in surprise. He snickered at himself, gathered his wits again and peeked into the cabin with the light and surveyed the interior. Along the left of the building behind the door was a long counter. Left on it was old pots and pans, a few bowls. A table and three chairs sat in the middle of the room… with a few large logs stood up for additional seating. The opposite wall was meager shelving, made from the remnants of finished boards and the straightest thick branches available. In the middle of the back wall was an old wood burning stove. Next to that, an early military cot. A few odds and ends remained. A pile of tarps in the corner. Random seed husks and bits of rodent waste scattered on the shelves. He walked into the middle of the room and gently shoved one of the chairs with his boot. The wooden floor groaned under his feet welcoming the first foot steps in ages. The musty smell was now stronger.
Behind the end of the counter there was a stack of old buckets and fallen boards. Underneath the pile, a pile of dark fur and porcupine quills, with the white tips of bone poking through the jagged mass in the center. A poor bugger of a porcupine had gotten trapped under the falling debris. That would have to be cleaned up, it must be the source of the smell, he thought. He approached it gingerly. As he got closer a nudge with his foot indicated the organic pile was quite old and had decomposed and dried out long ago. he could see the shiny dull yellow-gold of large rodent incisors in the tangle. Reaching down with his gloved hand he dusted through the fur to find a completely intact porcupine skull and lower jaw, almost perfectly dried and preserved. A Small mohawk of quills still stuck to the top of the skull. He picked it up and marveled at it for a moment. “Ooh,” a frown crossed his lips.
“Sorry, pal.”
Evening
A full day of vibrating along on the snowmobile and unloading had filled him with the pride of accomplishment. The success of the day would carry him for some time. The second trip had been much quicker, he dared not stop on the second out and back. Following the trail of crushed snow and grass he had made was easy enough but getting stuck somehow did not seem appealing enough to dally on the ride. The cabin was in good enough shape. It needed some cleaning but it was far better than he could have hoped. Falling-in walls and wolverine sized holes in roofs were common things he was warned about. it had turned out there was a football sized hole in the floor behind the fallen buckets where the porcupine must have squeezed in from his burrow. A ray of daylight shown on the dirt foundation when he peeked in the hole. That would need to be fixed soon. a bucket over the whole with a heavy log would do for now. He felt lucky. There was enough time left in the day after he had returned to sort out the wood burner. Aside from a layer of powdery rust, it was in good order. Quite a simple affair, he had already started a fire in it to see how well it warmed the interior. It softly crackled away as he went about organizing what would be his life for the next few months.
The sun was beginning to set and it lit the sky with a huge red swathe from the west. The Light splayed and bounced through the pines illuminating the tops of the trees in his clearing. Just another angle in which Alaska remained beautiful. The cabin was cold but the stove had managed to break the chill enough. The old wood pile had been bleached dry in the sun and was still mostly usable. Just in case He had split a few of the old logs to find that they were usable as well. There was already enough for a few days or so and he would have to get to work the next day making sure that pile grew. His work had finished outside after he had stacked the extra wooden debris from the pile in the cabin out the porch. Some was still usable. He swept up and disposed of the remains of the poor porcupine behind the cabin along with some of the wood its decomposition had stained and rotted. He did however keep the skull. It seemed appropriate for the location and he had never seen one like it before. Almost every building on the way up had mounts or trophies hanging on porches and walls. There was also a few handfuls of the dried quills. Their pointed ends stuck to everything like glue has he tried to clean the mess, after he had most of it in an old dust pan the larger quills had stuck to his gloves and arms, the broom and even his boots. It was these he removed again and laid on his counter top. They, too, seemed like something work keeping around for small projects. They were much stronger than he had anticipated. like thick bony needles.
The skull he placed on the far end of the porch from the door facing out into the clearing. It sat like a small monolith gazing out into the woods. He planned to hang it on a nail when he had a chance. He walked back and sat for a moment on the opposite end of the wooden porch with a bottle of cheap bourbon he had brought for the occasion. Looking around at the failing light he let out a long sigh. Setting his gloves down he cracked the seal and opened the bottle and marveled at it for a moment.
“Well… here I am.” He said to no one.
Taking another look around his eyes fell again on the little skull. “Oh, Sorry. Here we are."
He looked across the porch to the porcupine skull with a nod, then raised the bottle to the darkening sky.
“Reginald! You’ve made it. Good luck to me… and to you, sir.” He lowered the bottle and pointed at his silent toothy partner in a toast, then drank. The energetic words echoed through the clearing and out into the bush. He let out a cough and sputter as he lowered the bottle.
“… should have spend the extra few bucks.” He spoke, coughing.
Reggie stood and stretched. He let his head fall back over his shoulders, gazing up at the tops of trees and the great reddening sky above. He closed his eyes and listened to the air moving through the pines. It was still so quiet, but ever so tranquil and calming. The light breeze was like breath. It gently caressed the pine boughs creating a soft brushing of pine needles that reminded him tropical surf. In the distance, the sound of a few doves taking flight. A chill began to creep onto the porch, softly ending the moment. He took a long deep breath and took one last look around. He turned in the direction of the door, tipping a nonexistent hat to the porcupine head still standing sentry from the porch.
The door to the cabin closed just as light began to fade. Moments went by. The clearing slowly fell silent as the wind stopped. The trees were still. The shadows began to grow out from the trees as light slowly receded. The little skull sat motionless in its gaze, an unbroken stare across the little clearing at the creeping shadows. The silent woods stared back, unblinking.
“Here… We are.”