Moose
Kobuk Lake, Alaska | 2000

Stillness of the dead of night
Stillness between tides and waves
Stillness of the instant before creation.

—Journal entry, December 9, 2000

At noon I take off to the sheefish net, nine miles away. My lead dog, Devon, has a different goal in mind. For two hours Devon insists on going the wrong way. Devon turns the team around at every opportunity. I tip my sled over twice and break two snow hooks. Realizing Devon is only interested in messing with me, I try other dogs up in lead, but none of them can lead the team. I have to turn around to get a different leader. Twenty minutes after getting back, Peter pulls up with the other good dogs. I grab two, putting Garrett in lead, and am relieved to find he is a perfect fit. We head out toward the net again with no problems. The temperature drops after I get to the nets. The brisk twenty degrees below zero now turns to minus thirty.

I want to visit to Dave’s camp to say hi, use his jigsaws, and go sledding with Alan. Dave is leaving for three weeks for the Christmas holiday. It will be a long three weeks, but perhaps it will clear my head and let the butterflies in my stomach rest. After checking the net, I take the dogs another two miles to find an empty house and a locked door. I see my reflection in his window. I’m frozen. Ice covers my eyebrows and lashes. My hair is solid white. I get home, not once being inside for the past seven hours at thirty below. It takes over an hour for my face to thaw.

A week later I take my skate skis and start the ten-mile trek to Dave’s camp. After calling ahead, I know he is home. I spot four new sets of moose tracks. Near the beach, I hear a moose call out in front of me. It sounds like a snow machine stuck in the snow, revving its engine to break out of its hole. I assume that it is a mom separated from her calf with me in between. Instead of bolstering my courage, my past close encounters with a mountain lion and bear only help me realize that I don’t care to be in this situation again. I can’t keep turning around only to feel stranded and alone, afraid to venture out anywhere. I need to learn to shoot a gun. I need to get to Dave’s camp regardless, so onward. The three of us have a great time and say our goodbyes for the holidays.

Weeks pass by at a crawl. Dave’s long absence from Kotzebue makes me eager to see him again. I spend New Year’s Eve in Kotzebue to watch the fireworks as a treat. On the way back to camp, I stop at Dave’s, aware he is home. It is a pitch-black night, cloudy with no moon. I make it to Dave’s around eight o’clock in the evening. Alan is in town for the night. It is awkward at first, without Alan there to connect with or distract me, but Dave brings out the Wild Turkey, and any tension soon dissipates.

The music is blaring while Dave and I blabber on about everything and nothing. Throughout the night, we loosen up and let go of any blocks holding us back from getting close. Through our stories, I discover that Dave doesn’t want marriage, because of how it binds and ties you down, how it restricts and suffocates. Dave discovers how I feel a relationship should be as two wholes coming together in freedom. In our own ways, we check out each other’s perspectives.

By three in the morning, we figure out I am not leaving, and he offers me his bed. We lie next to each other’s naked skin. Nothing feels finer, so comforting, so warm. It doesn’t take long for our bodies to unite in passionate, mad lovemaking. We cling to each other in desperate craving for the union we’ve been longing for. Hungry for every inch of him, I won’t let him go.

In the morning, Dave mentions his plans for the log cabin he is constructing, plans that now include me. I feel we will either slide into this courting-type situation, or I will move over to Dave’s camp, starting a new life at once. Knowing myself, it seems likely I will be extreme.

After seven months of living at the Itens, I absorb all I can from them, and it is time to leave. Ed and Ruth provide me with a plane ticket to Anchorage. I pack my bags and get a ride via snow machine to Dave’s camp. Dave isn’t expecting me.

I pull up with my luggage and ask him, “Can I stay for a few days? Maybe a couple weeks while I decide where to find work?”

Dave says, “Want you to stay? Heck, I even have a chair with your name carved on it waiting for you. You are not going anywhere.”

From that point forward, we wind up making our plans together (see fig. 15).