Cindy lay in the snow where she’d been thrown, deep, deep in the snow. She closed her eyes against the hateful white all around her, trying not to think, wishing she could go to sleep and never wake up. She didn’t know what had happened to Tony. She was afraid to look. She ached everywhere. She lay there, letting herself sink into the enormous white stillness.
Oh, my God, God, God, God. Oh, my God.
Get up, Cindy.
She squeezed her eyes shut. No, she’d never get up.
Get up! Up! Move!
Leave me alone … I’m tired … so tired …
Cindy Reichert, get up. On your feet. Right now.
Reluctantly, unwillingly, she struggled to her feet. Snow was in her eyes and in her mouth and down the back of her neck. Carefully she made her way down the slope where Tony had disappeared. He was at the bottom of a deep, bushy ravine. She slipped and slid down the embankment, grabbing bushes to slow her descent. Tony was sitting in the snow, holding his leg. The sled and the equipment were strewn all around him. Why didn’t he get up? “Tony,” she called. “Tony, are you all right?” He didn’t move. He acted deaf and dumb. What was the matter with him?
“Tony—”
When she got to him she saw that he was crying. “Tony, what is it?” He hid his face. It was too awful, seeing him with his head bent and his hand over his face. “Oh, Tony, what happened? Tell me, are you hurt? Where did you hurt yourself?”
“It’s my ankle. I think it’s sprained or broken.” He rubbed his eyes, then forced a smile, but his expression was fearful.
If Tony couldn’t walk, they couldn’t move. It was the worst thing that could have happened. They’d been through so much already. Too much. Cold and hunger, out in this awful snow and desolation for days and nights. Now this. Stuck here in the middle of nowhere without shelter or food, they’d freeze to death. Why were these things happening to them?
She had to stop her thoughts. She was close to panic. She forced her mind to turn to practical matters: getting Tony out of the snow, making a fire, fixing a shelter. His teeth were chattering. She didn’t feel much better, but at least she could move. She found the blankets and the rest of their things in the snow. She wrapped a blanket around Tony’s shoulders, turned the sled right side up and helped him onto it. He was shaking badly.
“Let me see your ankle,” she said.
He didn’t want her to touch it, even look at it. “It’s all right. Leave it alone!” Just by looking at the way he held it she knew it wasn’t all right. She made him roll up his pants leg. Then she worked off his boot as carefully as she could. He swore under his breath.
Something was seriously wrong with his left ankle. The bones didn’t look right. The ankle, bruised, was already swelling. When she touched it he winced. “Damn it! Leave me alone.”
“All right,” she said, “don’t be such a baby!” She felt nervous and fearful. She didn’t want to touch his ankle again, but she couldn’t leave it the way it was. Everything she’d learned in first aid the previous summer came up a blank. She remembered that she had to wrap a fracture or a break and keep it as motionless as possible. She straightened up, looking around for sticks for a splint. Then she tore strips from the blanket and wrapped his ankle as best she could. Tony sighed and moaned and bit back tears. She was sorry. “I can’t help it, Tony. I’m trying to be careful.” At last the job was done.
He was weak from the accident, maybe suffering from shock. He needed warmth. Cindy kept talking, fighting despair. “Okay, we’ve got that under control. Your ankle’s going to be okay now. I think it’s just sprained. Not broken, that’s not so serious, is it? Now let’s see if we can get you on your feet.” If they were to get out of this place, he had to walk. She couldn’t carry him! She found a heavy stick caught in the crotch of a tree. “Here, you can use this stick as a cane,” she said.
“I can’t,” he said. “I can’t stand.”
“Sure you can,” she said, forcing a cheerful tone into her voice. “Go on, try it. I can’t carry you. You have to do it. Get up, Tony, you have to walk.”
Steadying himself with the stick, he gingerly put his weight on his injured leg. “Good,” she said, “that’s very good!” But at the first twinge of pain he threw out his arms and sank down on the sled. “I can’t! I told you I can’t!”
Cindy looked up at the steep sides of the ravine. She had never felt so afraid and hopeless in her life. If he couldn’t stand, they couldn’t move. If they couldn’t move, they would freeze to death—that was the truth. A chill shook her. They had to move. They couldn’t stay like this. They had to find fire and shelter.
Some distance away, jutting out from the side of the ravine, Cindy found an outcropping of rocks that formed a narrow shelter. “There,” she said, pointing it out to Tony. “We’ll go there and build a fire.” He nodded, indifferent to everything but his own misery. She had to pull him on the sled while he sat there like a dead weight. She threw herself against the rope. The sled barely inched along. It was terribly hard work, but she finally made it across to the rocks.
When she recovered her strength, she scooped out a place between the rocks. Then she went to work on a fire, piling dead branches high and putting the gasoline-soaked rag underneath. “Pray,” she said as she struck the match. The fire flared up. She threw in more wood and soon had a roaring fire that heated up the shelter. Then she lay down next to Tony on the sled and pulled the blankets over them. She was tired, so terribly tired, too tired to think.
Later, she got up and gathered firewood and springy evergreens for bedding. They ate the last of their food, a can of tomatoes. Tomorrow there would be nothing.
Tony was propped with his legs toward the fire and his back against the rock. “My whole leg hurts,” he said. “It aches and aches. It doesn’t stop aching.”
It was hard for her not to feel resentful. She hurt, too. Her body throbbed, her head throbbed, she thought she had a fever. Every time she looked at those steep ravine walls, she got a sick feeling in her stomach.
Tony snapped off twigs and flipped them into the fire. He had stopped shivering, but he was still depressed. “We’ll never get out of here. We’re going to die here.”
“No, we won’t.” Her words were hollow. She didn’t believe them. She was as depressed as Tony. She didn’t want to hear anything anymore.
It was growing dark out. Her eyes felt rimmed with sand. She put the green bag around their legs, one blanket over that, and another over their shoulders. She dropped off to sleep at once.
Hours later, she awoke, confused and coughing, her jaw aching from being pressed into her shoulder. The fire was smoldering, the smoke streaming right into their shelter. Next to her, Tony was asleep half sitting up, and moaning from time to time. Cindy threw wood on the fire. Beyond the rim of the fire it was pitch dark, but almost at once she sensed something or someone out there. The hairs on the back of her neck bristled.
“Tony,” she whispered. He woke at once, listening and alert. He sensed it, too. There was something out there, something dark and menacing, watching them.
Cindy reached for a heavy stick. Then, on the shadowy edge of the fire, she saw a dog emerge from the darkness, and beyond him the long muzzle and glassy eyes of another dog, and then still another. Her first reaction was relief. They looked so friendly. The first dog was sitting on his haunches, his tongue out. There must have been half a dozen of them around the fire.
“Dogs,” she said, thinking they were pets who had wandered away from a nearby farm. “Tony, we must be near someplace. They can lead us to people. Here, boy,” she cried, getting to her knees.
Tony yanked her back. “Are you crazy? Those are wild dogs.”
She shrank back against the stones. Hearing Tony’s voice the dogs shifted their positions, moving slightly back beyond the light of the fire. But the leader, the one in front, remained where he was, yellow-eyed and unblinking.
“Don’t touch them,” Tony said. “They’re hungry and wild. They’re unpredictable.” He picked up a rock.
Cindy threw more wood on the fire, spreading the circle of light. The dogs backed away. Now she could see they weren’t family pets. Their coats were matted, long, and filthy. Wild dogs, with sharp, gleaming teeth, like wolves. She built the fire higher. When she looked again, they had left without a sound.
Neither she nor Tony slept much after that. Twice during the night they heard the dogs howling in the distance. Afterward, in the silence, they listened tensely, ears straining for the least sound.
Once Tony said, “I wonder what happens when you die.”
“We’re not going to die,” she said sharply. “We’re too young to die. We’re getting out of this place. We’ll find a way. We have to. It would be too stupid to die here because I stuck out my thumb, and you took a wrong turn.”
As soon as it was light, Cindy retied the bandages on Tony’s ankle.
“Jesus, damn it! Leave me alone! Quit!”
“It has to be tight,” she snapped. Tony looked terrible, his eyes dark, his lips cracked from the cold. Neither of them had slept much. They were both irritable. The sooner they got moving, the better. The dog tracks were thick at the edge of their shelter. It was stupid staying here. Moving, they had some hope.
There was no way to go but down through the ravine. Tony sat on the sled while Cindy pulled. Before she had pulled a dozen steps she knew she hated the sled. She tried pulling first with one hand and then with the other, and for a while she tugged backwards with both hands. Tony helped by pushing with his stick, but it was so rocky in the ravine that every few feet the sled stalled.
Each time it happened, Tony swore and complained bitterly about his ankle hurting. They had to stop often to rest. Cindy felt weak and sick. She wanted to cry. Her hands, even with her gloves, were swollen, stiff, and cracked from the cold, and torn raw from pulling the sled. Her lips felt thick and scabby, her head swollen and pounding. If only she could believe that they were truly coming out somewhere, but they seemed to be going deeper and deeper into this awful wilderness.
Several times she thought she saw the dogs. She couldn’t free herself from the fear that the dogs were stalking them, waiting for an opportunity to attack. Once she saw two dogs outlined on the edge of the ravine above them. Another time she was sure she saw the leader watching them from a big rock, but when they drew closer it turned out to be only a stump.
They struggled through the ravine for hours, a lifetime to Cindy. She was sweating, sore, exhausted. All her pulling and yanking seemed to be getting them almost nowhere. As time passed and absolutely nothing changed, she grew more and more depressed. Why were they going on this way? Why this pain? What had they done to deserve it? There was no answer. Fear drove her ahead. If they stopped now they might never find the strength again to move.
Above her, a frosted sun, white through the clouds, rose higher. She felt as if she’d been pulling on the rope forever. Tug and fall, and tug again. No beginning. No ending. Nothing but tug and fall, tug and fall, over and over.
And then, like a black snake sliding under the rocks and ice, a stream appeared. Tony said streams were meant to be followed. That was how he’d found the cabin. The stream filled them both with hope, gave Cindy the strength to pull again. Please, Stream, lead us somewhere … to a river … a house … to people … oh, please, please …
They followed the water as it twisted and turned beneath the ice and rocks, until it disappeared into a frozen swamp. Withered cattails, tufts of frozen grass, and a forest of swaying dead black trees. All was deathly still except for a woodpecker rat-rat-tatting somewhere high on a hollow trunk. Dismay and disappointment lumped sourly in Cindy’s throat. Which way now? They couldn’t go ahead. Left or right—it was all one. They didn’t know where they were, or where they were going.
Tony’s head was sunk down on his chest. It was useless talking to him. Cindy circled the sled, swallowing down the panic, trying to think. There were tracks in the snow, the round dog pads she recognized now, and near them the sharp wedgelike deer tracks. Under an uprooted tree she found a hollow where the deer must have rested. Then, shockingly, a stain of bright blood in the snow.
She stood for a time, held there by the blood. She imagined the deer, its terrified flight from the ravenous wild dogs. Its blood was as real to her as her own blood. Sickened, she took up the sled rope again. “We’ve got to go on, we can’t stop here.” Tony waved his hand limply as if he didn’t care about anything anymore. She tried to drag the sled alone, but it was impossible, if he didn’t cooperate. “Tony, come on, push. We’re not staying here.”
“I don’t care. Leave me alone,” he said. “Just leave me alone.”
“Then start pushing,” she ordered. “Those dogs are somewhere around here.” The way his head sagged down between his shoulders, she was afraid he’d never move. “Let’s go, Tony. Push!” He sat there as if he were deaf and dumb. It scared her. “Do you hear me? I said the dogs are here. They’re after a deer. They could be after us. Are you coming, or do I go alone?” Her feet were freezing in her boots. She could feel them aching right up to her hips. A dead tree creaked mournfully. She hated this place. “Are you coming?” she screamed. “Or do I go alone? I mean it!”
He raised his head and smiled cruelly. “Go on. Who’s keeping you? Go any way you want to. I don’t care. Don’t hang around me. I’m sick of you! If I didn’t pick you up, I wouldn’t be in this trouble. I was safe in the cabin and then I came back for you. You’re bad luck. Go away and leave me alone. I’ll get along by myself!”
It was too much for her. She was too tired, too cold, too aching, scared, and miserable to take any more of this. If he felt that way, then she didn’t care either. She grabbed her carry-all, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders and walked blindly away.
She hated Tony. She hated him! He had ruined everything from the beginning, stupidly getting them lost, thinking only of himself, taking chances they couldn’t afford. The sled ride that had ended in disaster—that had been the stupidest thing of all!
Talking to herself, she plodded farther and farther on until Tony was out of sight. Now she was alone in the woods. She was glad. She was free of him. She could move. She had a chance to save herself. She stopped and looked back. Clouds again obscured the sky. A sharp wind sprang up. The air was raw against her skin. She hitched the blanket tighter around her shoulders. Snow had begun to fall. Grimly she plodded on. In a few minutes she’d be separated from him forever. Already she didn’t see or hear anything but the wind high in the trees. She listened to the terrible silence. Alone. She was alone, terribly alone. Without Tony, she felt doubly alone.
All along, in the back of her mind, she’d been aware of how stupid and ridiculous their fight was. They were both so tired, hurt, and exhausted that neither of them could think straight. This was the time they needed each other most. Together they had a small chance of being saved. Alone they were both lost.
She had turned and was retracing her steps when she heard Tony yell in the distance, a desperate inarticulate cry for help. Cindy dropped everything she was carrying and ran, floundering through the snow. As she broke through the trees she saw Tony on the ground kicking and backing away from a pack of snapping dogs. It was a vivid, horrible sight. Screaming, she ran forward as the lead dog, jaws bristling, rose in the air, froze for a moment like a black sail, and then came crashing down at Tony’s feet. “Tony,” she screamed. It was then she saw a small deer lying half dead in the snow, its eyes glazed in terror as the dogs ripped open its bloody flank, laying bare its violet flesh.
She grabbed Tony under the arms, smelling the heat of the dogs and the blood, and pulled him back, dragging him as far as she could away from the dog pack.
Behind a tree, they clung together, shivering. “Cindy, you all right?” he said.
“Yes, let’s get away from here.”
With one arm around Cindy’s neck and using a stick as a crutch, Tony struggled to his feet. Then they hobbled along with what strength they still had, putting as much distance as they could between themselves and the dogs.