Frozen Voices II
Awake
The morning was crisp. A bright Alaskan sun had risen and spread dappled rays of yellow light across the lake and through the trees. Bright daggers of light cut the misty air and impaled the porch of the shack. Reg woke to the sound of the last fall avian stragglers making morning conversation. The night had not been hard. It was late morning. Sleep came easy after the hard work of unloading provisions the previous day. Reg rolled out of the cot with a creak and a grind. In his minor waking delirium, a slight pang of morning hunger made him wonder if any of those birds could be hunted for food. There should be some game birds here and there. He then numbly remembered that, alas, he had not brought a shotgun anyhow. Perhaps he should make coffee on the stove?
The Cabin, windowless, had wide enough cracks in the door frame to let in lines of the bright light now filtering down through the trees to the cabin. He made a mental note to repair them before the winter cold set in. In fact, it was probably a good idea to make a list of important tasks, to stay organized. He had to make sure this endeavor would be survivable before he even got to the complications of setting trap lines. Sealing the cabin from the frigid temperature of the winter would surely be paramount. He thought to himself that this was probably the reason for the lack of windows. There was a nice surprise, though. The cabin maintained its warmth quite well, even it its rugged shape. After getting a good fire going, he woke sometime late at night to add a few logs and re-adjust the vents for better heat retention by flashlight. Subsequently, the cabin must have shaken off its cold spots as he had discarded his blankets for the rest of the night. Now in the morning, it was still quite comfortable in the rickety dark room. He rose and checked the stove with the light again deciding to stay in the warm dark comfort. All the while silently thanking Bert for his charity.
The old stove was still warm. On opening the hatch, he found warm white ash that still glowed. A quick check with the back of his had indicated it was still quite hot under the powdery white and he added a few splinters and a medium sized log to restart the fire for breakfast. After a night of use, the old iron stove had warmed and and shone a more dark black. Giving the stove a good cleaning to improved efficiency and take care of the rust should go on the list as well, he made a mental note.
He had piled his foodstuffs on the counter for organizing later. Among his dry goods was a large sack of cheap ground coffee. One of the items left by the previous inhabitants was an old enameled coffee percolator. Upon looking inside he found oily black hairy residue and a few rodent droppings.
“Should have expected that..” he chuckled.
He had packed a few pots and pans, and decided a pot and a mesh strainer would work fine. The coffee went into the pot with some water from some gallon jugs he had brought and onto the top of the warming stove. Another note… water. He would need to start collecting water.
With coffee now on its way Reg began to get his other affairs in order. From his pack of belongings, a notepad and pencil for list making, check. Organization and planning would be the most important things in these first days. Reg was good at that. He sat at his table on one of the old worn wooden chairs and sharpened a few shavings off of the pencil with a old Swiss Army knife he had inherited. A deep breath put his first thoughts in order and in putting pencil to paper he realized one of the first things he was going to need was a window of some sort. His eyes were still adjusted for the dark and the light of the burning furnace, the light around the door frame was now a thin white border, but this was far too dark to do any fine work. Not wanting to worry about filling a lantern quite yet, he went to the door.
After a loud rusty creak he was met with a blinding white-gold morning blasting through the door. A billow of cold wet air followed it. It was cold, but retreating back into the cabin he realized the angle of the roof kept most heat inside, as the short door was under the low end of the slanted roof and the stove under its tallest. He left the door half open and sat back down at the table. His eyes were now adjusting to the blast of white light.
“Lets see now…” he began.
- WATER. water water water. the buckets? cistern anywhere?
- Patch the door spaces… make warm as possible.
- Clean the stove up, check and clean the flu. —- clean everything.
- Fix hole in floor, inspect under floor.
- Window. above the sink? in the door?
- Organize food storage
As he scribbled the last entry, he sat back in the chair with a creak and looked around the room. He didn’t stop much the day before and by the time he finally settled into the cabin it had already been dimming outside. He had navigated the interior with his flashlight. Now with the bright daylight streaming in he could really get a a clear look at the inside of the cabin.
The walls were grey cheap plywood, lined like in block formation roughly around the interior. There were small gaps and cracks in various places in the seams and along the floor. The counter along the wall to his right was held up by two-by-fours and some straight bits of lumber. It, like the door, looked like it had a lifetime of use somewhere else before it was dragged into the cabin. It had a wooden border the whole way around except for where it looked like it had been cut off with a hand saw at the far right. In its center was a steel sink basin set in the counter top. As there were no cabinets below like a regular kitchen the unfinished basin of the sink connected to some old piping that led down into the floor. There were three worn holes behind the sink that beckoned for a faucet that was long gone. Reg wondered if it had been removed here and if there was perhaps a well water source or tank nearby, but it was unlikely.
Above his head was a plywood covered ceiling that sagged slightly in the front left corner opposite the door. The ceiling appeared darker that the walls. He got up and opened the door to let more light in. Yes, the ceiling was definitely darker, along with the walls on the high end of the cabin. As more light entered he could see it clearly now, the whole cabin had a gradient of light to dark from the bottom up on the inside. He wondered for a moment what would do that. He glanced at his kerosene lamp he had stacked, yet unused, in the corner shelving. Lamp exhaust, maybe? If a camper needed light either the door would be open or there would be a gas lamp or candle or… something burning at all times inside. The stove made a flicker of light but it wasn’t much. It had to be some burning light source other that that, but it would probably get quite stifled with smoke or exhaust of some kind after too long. Why not just have a window? Typically cabins also had some sort of ventilation, even if to just passively cycle air. With no windows the only ventilation appeared to be the stove exhaust, a thick tower of rust and heat stained steel that went straight up and exited at a ninety degree angle out the high wall of the cabin. He had already learned the small building could be kept quite warm, what harm could a single window possibly cause?
Reg wandered back and sat to continue his note-making, he reached for a sweater. He pulled it over his head and sat, opening is eyes toward the outside. Out in the yard, framed by the white light of the door, was a red fox. It stared back at him through the door surprised in mid stride. Reg froze in wonderment. His eyes widened as he fully gathered the scene. There was some wildlife to be seen where he came from but he had never seen a fox alive and up close. It was a fine specimen as any to be the first as well. Two sparkling yellow eyes staring back at him under a fine canine brow. Its black tipped ears at full attention directed in the direction of the door. The fox stood mid stride-pose like a dancer in full ready, straight and tall, with with a regal air that kept Reg’s attention like like a trumpet call or a classic painting. The animal had perfect even fur that brushed down the line of its back from head to tail, the coat pinched itself into sharp razor tips from collecting morning dew as it traveled through the morning shadow.
Reg sat for a moment, gathering wit enough to approach. Just in the moment he decided to rise, to inch just closer, the fox, almost in premonition, dropped its head slightly, pinning Reg to his chair with his defensive gaze. It followed with a slight squat, readiness in its stance, its eyes fixed on Reg through the doorway. Then it turned and bound off, in quick liquid motion, moving with the silence of silk.
“oh!” Reg grunted as he blinked at sat up.
He bound the four steps to the doorway with soft feet and peeked out to the right of his cabin. The fox was gone. The thing had vanished into the air in seconds. Reg focused on the patches of thin wet snow lying between tufts of grass, not even a footprint. He sighed and stood up straight on the porch. He realized he had been holding is breath during the encounter and regained his composure again, taking a few slow breaths through the smile on his lips. What a sight, he thought, and on his first waking day! The animal seemed like a good luck totem.
Reg leaned out on the single porch railing to luck out and up at the sky, and see if he could still detect the fox somehow, it was indeed a gorgeous morning. Due to his late start the sun was now already beginning to crest the trees. The morning hues were washing away to what would be another day of blue sky. His little clearing was taking on the clear air of day, as the morning mist receded back into the trees. He took a step back towards the door and raised his arms in a stretch and a yawn. As he came back down he turned to his left and took a quick glance down the porch as he strode back in the cabin. He was back through the doorway, hand on a chair to sit again when it hit him.
He jumped backwards and darted his head back through the doorway, grabbing the frame and leaning out in the direction of the far left post at the end of the railing. Two dark hollow sockets gazed back. The small porcupine skull, placed there the evening before had been turned and was casting its blank stare back at the door.
Reg sat for a moment. Was he misremembering? Maybe he just left it that way? His brain ground forward like wheels in sand remembering exactly what he had done the previous evening. He had been on the porch with his bottle for a toast. A quick glance back to the bottle left on the counter clarified it. Seal cracked and barely a sip gone. No, he was sure now. He remember the ridiculousness of speaking to a skull after his long day. He could see it in his mind, remember placing it looking out.
He strode lightly over to the corner of the porch to inspect the little skull. It was small, so innocuous. A weathered old trophy on a porch railing, nothing out of place. He bent over to squint at it. The mouse! Ah, the mouse that had run through the door when he first opened it. Surely some small creature like that could have just made its way down the railing shoving the little thing to the side… but facing right to the door?
The questions worked for a moment on Reg’s mind. No tracks around. Nothing. That seemed enough. It got moved somehow. Some way he couldn’t see. That was it. Nothing to worry about. Reg walked in a forced relaxed walk back into the cabin, forcing the multitude of curious thoughts and possibilities out of his mind as he went. This should be nothing. He had more important things to worry about. It was time to get dressed for the day and start working on that list.