Frozen Voices V
In the last bit of morning darkness, Reg was beginning to see the light reflecting on the frost blanketing the thin wood. Ahead of him, the branches shimmered with the same twinkling of the stars above, the effect was mirrored all around. This golden time only lasted for a short while. As the sky grew to hide the stars, the morning light would melt away the sharpness of the ice, then it would progress into its typical cold and wet bright twilight. The stars had been particularly bright when Reg had slipped out of the cabin to make his way to a simple hunting blind. Reg was sitting with a growling belly in the blind when the first drop of melting dew from high up fell and splashed on the stock of his 30-06. This morning was a cold one. Light was growing, but today it was failing to drive off the chill of night. A few drops of unfrozen dew had fallen from the high trees but everything around him remained frosted. The first time he had been out this early, his golden moment before the morning melt was only a few minutes. Now it was lingering. Whether this was a cold spell, or just how quickly the north progressed to winter, Reg was uncertain
Looking at the stars, Reg was enjoying how the sky stayed a typical beautiful clear whether night or day. Each hour of the day was just a different permutation of colors and backdrop. Clouds were rare here. The days were full of hues of blue and red, the evening would darken first to navy, then the star studded blackness of the great northern sky. It stayed that way until twilight began again. When the sun rose here it did not rise in the way he was used to. It took its time, seeming to run along the horizon instead up, rising ever more tangentially south with every morning. Reg was trying to pick out where on the horizon it would first break when his stomach growled again.
He had stayed hungry on purpose. In order to ensure the longevity of his stay, he had put himself on a strict rationing of his canned and preserved foods. This, he thought, would force him to better fend for himself. If there were to be any surplus, any overindulgence, it should come from his own hard work and forethought. Better that than to waste away all his food stores figuring things out too slowly and end up wasting days driving back to resupply. Or worse, have to end the trip all together. He had managed to shoot a few small animals, a squirrel and two small rabbits, with his lever action .22 cal. Those he had tried to roast in a large covered pot over the stove. Reg had been thrilled that they were edible at the very least, given his poor culinary knowledge. Each had been slightly better than the last, but still extremely tough. Reg was kicking himself for having not thought to bring dental floss. Luckily the tiny bones made serviceable tooth pics.
Today was different, though. This was the first real hunt. It had taken a day or two to gather the fortitude to travel back out to the lake and begin collecting water regularly, even with the big pistol now tucked at his belly every time he left the cabin. In his now daily trips, Reg had continued to expand his walks up and down the bank of the lake. He had ventured halfway to the cape from his path. There he noticed hoof prints appeared regularly, leading in from the woods to the water’s edge and back out. Even given his novice tracking skills he could tell it was a regular place for reindeer to stop for water on their daily wandering.
Of the prints available, he could discern a few different sizes, including the small prints of perhaps two calves, and the prints of an extremely large bull. The large prints were slightly different than the others, but Reg had no knowledge to determine why the appeared to peculiar to him. He had not seen them yet in the flesh, but based on the orientations, they appeared to follow a game trail that lead out of the edge of the pine sea deep behind the cabin. They would wander up and down the bank of the lake and move on towards the cape, disappearing into the pines again and heading off towards the yet uncharted end of the lake. After Reg had become aware of these, he would check to make sure new ones appeared each time he took his walk. On his last one the day before, he had taken the time to maneuver a mass off brush into a very simple blind around the trunk of a fallen tree. This tree had fallen against a very straight aspen tree, creating a nice bench in which he could lean back in rest and wait.
It was this morning that he decided to wake as early as he could muster and make a hunting sit for the first time. Many of the chores involved in maintaining his stay and keeping the cabin livable had been completed, so now for the first time, he was beginning to truly sustain himself. Should this hunt be successful, he would be able to eat good meat for weeks. As the environment got colder, patches of snow and ice in shady areas were no longer melting during the day. This meant that a large animal carcass could be kept in the open air in his clearing, strung up on the pulleys out of reach of interlopers, of course. He had seen no signs of any yet, bears and wolverines the most likely, but that would still be the best course of action.
The morning red glow now creeping over the mountain, Reg sat comfortably in his little crook on the fallen tree. He was leaning backwards, shoulders and head against the standing tree with the rifle across his chest, buttstock resting on a thigh. His arms were crossed holding the rifle as he lay back. This position was quite comfortable and he felt he could sit for a good while without having to move. Should game appear his plan was to creep the rifle from his cross arm rest where he could use his stacked branches as a rest. For the first time, he was carrying his 30-06. This was the big rifle that should be able to take game anywhere on the continent. He had not test fired it the same way he had done with the handgun. Reg, in a shooting excursion with friends had already fired a 30-06 before and he felt that was enough experience not to waste a round. He had spent the afternoon before adjusting the strap and practicing dry firing to ensure he knew it’s particularities.
The rifle was a Remington bolt action. That name he had known. They had been around for quite a while and it was hard to enter a outdoor outfitter without seeing banners strung up in every corner. It was an older rifle, but very well kept, with a smooth and shiny stock of dark wood and gritty checkered patches at the forend and grip. All the metal of the gun was a warm dark blue color with a few light scratches and weathered marks of careful use. It had a telescope that said “Redfield,” in blocky modern letters on it that the clerk had insisted he had shot and zeroed himself. Reg knew there was a risk not testing the rifle to see if the rounds went where the scope said they would but the man seemed trustworthy, and it looked like telescope and rifle had not been separated in years. Also, Reg had set himself quite close to where he thought game would be, so judging a shot at distance was not a problem. The entire package was very solidly built and seemed very well put together. The rifles Reg had used before with his friends seemed cheap by comparison. The 30-06 he had fired at a friend’s ranch for example, had a bolt that rattled and made metallic sounds as he worked it. The bolt on this new rifle had very little play and the sound it made when worked was a very calm and satisfying, knock knock, like the latch of a heavy door.
Reg felt comfortable with his good rifle, leaning up against his tree in such beautiful country. He wondered if The early settlers and explorers of the west had felt the same, once they had a good lay of the land and enough food to keep them for a while. He could imagine the greatness of living along these ranges and hunting, trapping, fishing for one’s meal. He had to force himself to remember the purpose of his trip. Yes, he could stay and simply subsist, but for how long? He was young enough still that he could have a family, children. The point of this endeavor was to make a living so he could come back to society and enjoy that as well. He had made this great change to his life in order to create a better direction for himself, so that is what he must maintain, a direction. The trapping equipment had been organized and inventoried back at the cabin. After he had food he would begin travelling farther and farther out to set lines, understand game movements. Then it would be onto keeping the valuable furs and transporting them back to a purveyor farther south. All these thoughts and more were swirling in his mind, when saw the first movement.
The sun was still behind the mountain, but enough red glow crested and had bathed the lake and valley that he could see the shadows moving in the wood. Through the dense tangle of birch and pine he could see shadows moving without sound. They moved in from his right, from the deep wood. At first it was only changing gradients in the shadows, a mix of lights and dark in beyond the sticks and branches. When the forms registered in Reg’s mind he froze. The first shadows moved in closer, then another appeared, slowly loping along the path Reg had predicted. Two high stalks rotating around a common center. Antlers, two sets. He could not make out a body through the dense growth but the movement of antlers was now unmistakable.
As reg sat motionless and watched he felt himself becoming stiff, his anxiousness grew. Antlers moved back and forth, slowly making their way to the open bank where he could get a proper shot. He coughed out some misty air as the stress began to mount and realized he had been holding his breath in. He identified his novice error and began taking long deep breaths. The feelings began to subside. He smiled a wry smile at his own foolishness and began to slowly move his hands to their proper places on the rifle. The forms were now becoming more clear. He could see a head now, Its outline broken by the thick branches. He would need the animal to expose itself on the bank. Any attempt at a shot before that would be a guess at best through the low visibility. A shot could also ricochet on a dense enough frozen bough. Reg slowly moved the rifle barrel forward and out over his rest branch.
He could look through the telescope now. The first animal’s head was now clear. It took another step and Reg realized they had moved into a covered area. There was a large tangle of thin shrub at the edge of the wood right where they would step out onto the clear bank. The first Animal was now lost behind it, the second was still in the wood following the first. Reg used the moment to set his shooting position. If he could wait long enough, both animals could wander out where he could determine the larger animal. A large deer like this could feed him for longer than he had hoped. Reg settled himself and found his relaxation. He let his finger fall forward and just graze the side of the trigger, feeling for it gently in space. By this time the second form had already disappeared behind the cover. Reg steeled himself for what would come. He was relaxed in his shooting position but he was supporting himself with his back muscles, he knew he could hold this for a while, but not indefinitely.
The first reindeer to appear only showed its antlers, its head was down as it sniffed at the grasses at the edge of the clearing. Reg watch the tips of its antlers bob as the animal scanned the ground with its nose. As reg was focused on the antlers another black-brown shape emerged into view in the telescope. The other deer had moved in front of the other and stepped confidently out into the clear of the bank. Reg, surprised by the sudden movement, over compensated and lost his view. He widened his eyes in frustration over the realization that he was probably too close for this amount of magnification. It was too late to complain now. When he found them again they had both exposed themselves and were standing broadside to him presenting easy targets. Reg took a quick moment to size them up. Two adults. The one to his left slightly larger. They both had lowered their heads and were picking over the pads of grass at their hooves. Reg settled the crosshair on the body of the first in line. An easy shot. He slowed breathing and tried to relax himself as he curled his finger to find the trigger. He breathed slowly as he followed the animal as it took another step forward foraging in the grass. Observing the crosshair move with his breath he took one final inhale and held target on the deer’s side, a few inches behind the shoulder blade. He felt the edge of the steel trigger begin to bite gently into his finger as he began to apply pressure
At that very moment, both animals’ heads shot up as if on springs, their bodies crouched and tensed. They were not looking at Reg. Their gazes shot to their rear, in the direction of Reg’s cabin. Reg, stunned himself by the instantaneous movement, gritted his teeth, and in one movement attempted to re-center the crosshair and fire. The crack of the shot filled his ears, The rifle kicked back into his shoulder and his view through the telescope flashed to a red-blue blur as he leaned back losing his view to the horizon. Reg dropped the rifle to his waist and refocused his eyes to see two brown bodies galloping down the bank and disappearing into the wood near the cape.
“Fuck!” Reg blurted in disgust.
It was a poor shot. He was sure his crosshair was on target when he fired, but in the surprise of the moment he was moving to adjust and his shooting position was tense and in flux.
“Fuck. Fuck! FUCK!” he chanted in escalating dynamic to the quiet trees around him.
Reg attempted to calm himself with a deep breath. He leaned back against his tree and stared skyward for a moment, sighed again, and rose. He worked the bolt, taking care to catch the spent round and place it in his breast pocket. Shouldering the rifle strap he started off with vigor making for the spot his shot should have impacted. He was slightly stiff from the sit and his cracking joints did not slow him, but only made him grimace and grumble as he made his was across the bank. As he walked he replayed the previous moment in his mind.
Both animals spooked. Why? There was no way it was something he could have done, or so he thought. When both of their heads shot up to alert, they didn’t face him, they faced back into the woods. As he walked along the bank, he observed the wood as he went. He had not heard anything before or since his shot, and seen as much. Both lake and wood were as quiet as any other day. He had not far to go. The shot, now that he was walking it, appeared to be around seventy five yards, the location was roughly beyond halfway to the cape in the lake. This was the farthest he had made it down the bank from his path back to the cabin.
On arriving at his destination, he inspected the area thoroughly. Plenty of reindeer prints dotted the ground here. These include the prints of the two he had just seen, Reg made sure to take note of their fresh appearance. That way he hoped he could get better at judging the age of prints when tracking. A few turned up tufts of grass lay near the tangle of brush they emerged from. Reg stood and where he had seen his target last, and scanned at his feet. He found the prints of his target animal easily in the soft soil, where the front two hooves dug in their first press of the ground as it bound away. To his dismay, there were only prints, no signs of fur or blood.
“Dammit…”
“… Nothing. I shoot like an ass.” Reg chided himself as he walked along with his head down.
He followed along the bank in the direction of the prints. No evidence of a hit was bad news. That would mean he not only wasted a round but may have scared the deer off for good. Reg assumed the sound of a rifle would be something that would stick in their simple memories and it would seem logical that even a basic creature such as a reindeer would know to avoid the area from then on. Reg searched more.
He was walking with his head down, inspecting each print, each lump of torn sod. He had watched the two reach a full gallop before they turned into the wood and that made the prints farther and farther apart. They had deeper impacts, but disturbed the ground less. Reg did not know how long he could track them for. Following prints was easy enough, but to track through brush… with nothing other than a print? Without snow or mud to hold them he was reaching the limit of his simple skills.
In spying one final print of his quarry he wandered forward another five steps. He looked closely, and then took a few more. The grass appeared undisturbed. Widening his gaze, he began to look in concentric circles around him, attempting to be as thorough as possible. The bank was soft and he followed his own prints around in circles, his circling becoming larger and larger. He walked around to the bank, then made it in as far as the dense brush, then returned to the bank again. He found no sign.
Reg straightened and looked at his circle of prints in dismay. Looking back at the bank from where he had come he at once took note of how far he had traveled down the bank and was surprised by it. He spun round to realized he had walked to within just a few more yards distance of the cape. In only a few more feet the bank transitioned to sandy ground and widened to a semi beach backed by fallen pines. Ahead of him was the tangle of fallen pine trunks that marked cape from his vantage point at the path, water glistened through the breaks in pinewood just beyond the small copse of trees. Through the trees he could see the water switched back at a right angle. Taking another look back along the bank to his path, he noted how far he had come and gazed through the trees at the water on the other side of the cape. He had gone this far. It would be a shame to walk all the way down here and waste the time, and it didn’t appear he would be dressing and dragging any meat back to the cabin. With the rifle already strapped on his shoulder, he reached up and felt for the handle of the big pistol at his abdomen. Feeling it’s weight, he pressed on.
The copse of trees at the cape was a pack of thin and tall pines, at least half fallen and leaning in the water. It was the dry dead trees without bark that from a distance reminded him of a pile of matches. Up close it was the live pine boughs that masked what was beyond from a distance. Reg walked ahead and poked through the stiff dry branches. The live pine here was wet with life, it smelled tangy and spicy like sap and juniper as he rubbed through the boughs. It was tight but the glisten of the water ahead was easy to see, and not far off. The ground here was sandy, most of the fallen pines had not broken, but been uprooted in the sandy soil. As Reg reached the final wall of thick pine, he stumbled over a rock and wobbled out onto a wide sandy beach.
Reg’s feet sank lightly into ground ancient stone mixed with years of fine silt and sand. A wide track that spread out to his sides, terminating on his left at the point of the cape. From this angle the mountain looked more picturesque, the valleys and woods across the lake received the rays of the sun behind the mountain like glittering beams of gold. This side of the lake was surrounded fully by grand pine forest. To his right the picturesque beach stretched out to a large bay darkened by a high hill. As his eyes followed the beach to his right, he spied fallen bone white tree trunks sparsely littering the bank. Among them, a brown mass caught his eye, perhaps thirty or forty yards away. As Reg looked closer at one end of the brown mass were cream white sticks rising from the sand and stone. No. They were antlers!
“Hah!” Reg let out a cry of celebration.
He dashed off down the bank, skipping over rock and fallen branches. He arrived and paused at ten paces to check for movement before he made final approach. The Reindeer was ahead. Reg was at its back, the poor thing had fallen and closed its eyes for the last time at an angle where he could see its mouth slightly agape, tongue relaxed and falling from its mouth. The animal’s eyes were shut. A wire thin line of scarlet lead from its side back towards the trees. It was dead. Reg marveled over it for a brief moment. He had never killed an animal this large. It was an impressive creature. As he stood staring he felt a brief pang of guilt over the death of something so beautiful. He knew he would not let it go to waste, but even then the thought crossed his mind; perhaps he could live on stored rations? That was ridiculous though, and reg lay the rifle against one of the bone white logs and began to search for his knife. He knelt down behind the animal and reached out to grab its antlers, feeling the cool, smooth solidness of the bone. As his right hand reached for the softness of its coat, movement ahead caught his eye.
Reg’s head rose. Many yards down the bank, He spied the red curved haunches of a fox. The soft fur, glistening eyes, the same fox he had seen before. It stood broadside, head toward the water, gazing back in pensive calling. Reg watched and waited. It turned it head towards the far bank, away from Reg, then it returned its calm look. It’s eyes locked with Reg’s and for a moment it seemed to beckon with its tranquil gaze, as if waiting calmly for him to understand. Reg looked back. The sudden curiosity that arose in his mind made him take notice and he cocked his head in confusion as he looked back in reply. The fox, having made its statement, blinked once and yawned, and turned and gently strode off on soft padding steps towards the end of the lake. As it moved away Reg’s eyes adjusted to the scene.
Reg had sprinted to his kill before he had seen the far end of the lake. The flat blue-black water curved back into a bay terminating in a rounded bowl under a large hill, the great pine sea curving up and to reach its peak from the rear. As the light was cresting the mountain at his back the rays of light were beaming through the trees there and bounding on the water creating a camouflage effect. The Fox’s path was leading his eyes towards the far end of the bay. He saw it. The shock and confusion set his mind reeling. How it this be here? How could it have been built this far out at the end of a days long ride into the Alaskan bush?
It was dappled with filtered light, and the fallen trees had covered some of the angles and edges. Half melted snow and ice had piled into the flat surfaces further blending the shapes into the rocky hillside. Looking out to the water were wide windows, and a partially collapsed deck. Ancient topiary grew unkempt in broken stone garden wells. The remnants of a dock lay splintered in a jagged line out into the bay.
Reg sat back onto his heel as he thought, the fox disappeared into the shadows of the trees at the far bank. He sat and stared, and wondered. Ahead of him, in the recess of the bay, surrounded by the grandest and most remote scenery, was a massive, dilapidated Mansion.
To be continued in Frozen Voices VI.