Caribou Island

23

Milky with silt, and calm. You could imagine it was only ankle-deep. As Gary cut the engine and they glided toward shore, Irene could hear seagulls on a rocky perch farther up the lake. The smallest of the islands, exposed rock covered white in guano. No wind today, sunny and still, the last good weather of summer. Next week, the first of the fall storms forecast.

Irene looked over the side to see blue-gray stones emerge below the hull. The milky water somehow clear in close, a looking glass, magnifying the stones, bringing them closer. It seemed they should already be touching. The boat bumped, finally, its bottom scraping, and Irene hoisted her backpack, climbed carefully over the side, rubber boot sucking close to her ankle and shin in the water. Slippery. In her backpack, a tent and sleeping bag, pots and pans, clothing. Gary carrying a Coleman stove, another tent. Setting up camp so they could work longer days. From when they rose each morning to when they went to sleep, they would work on the cabin.

Irene careful over the slick stones, a few steps onto shore, more stones but dry and gray, small tufts of grass, miniature freshwater tidal pools of algae and mosquitoes, a cloud of them around her now, going for her knuckles and wrists, any place of bone and blood close to the surface. A narrow band of grass and rock along the shore, then the taller grass and wildflowers no longer in bloom. Most likely there was purple iris, prickly rose, shy maiden, pink twin flower, pyrola, others yellow and white she couldn’t yet name. Deadfall and ruts all through here, Irene hoping not to trip under the weight of the pack.

The alder thicket a third band up from shore, bright green in the sun, all the earth green. The growth thick in here, cobwebs lacing the air. Irene tried to keep her steps light, to avoid any jarring. Her husband behind her, the sound of his faster steps, snapping of small branches.

Perfect day for setting up camp, he said as he passed, and she didn’t reply. She kept her head down, red fireweed in a large patch, the tops already bloomed. A sign of fall coming, the beginning of the end. Six weeks until snow when the tops bloomed, and they had opened a while ago, though she had forgotten to notice exactly when. After enough years here, you could begin to fear that flower, so it was odd she hadn’t noticed.

Irene passed through low alder to the edge of the larger forest, where their cabin tottered too far inward on one side, too far outward on another. The entire thing ready to topple. They’d brought a load of two-by-fours, to set up braces.

Irene walked back to the boat, passing Gary who grinned and jigged his eyebrows. Good eats, he said, carrying a plastic tub of food.

Irene wanted to respond, wanted to make this easier. But she couldn’t. Off medication, every edge was sharp. She had to move carefully, had to avoid speaking or facial expressions.

She grabbed half a dozen two-by-fours from the boat, stepped slowly up through tufts and ruts, set the wood down and returned for another load. Nothing was wrong, so she needed to just wait for the pain to go away.

What a beautiful spot, Gary said. I love this place.

It is beautiful, she said, wincing. But Gary was all movement, didn’t see. He dropped off a cooler and spun around quick for the next load.

Tools and supplies, enough food for two weeks, a toilet seat for an outhouse, more nails and a window and door, two-by-fours and a come-along for pulling the walls into shape: they were making their full assault now.

One last load of wood, then Gary cleared a spot for the tent, near a stand of birch, behind the cabin. Can you help me put up the tent? he called out, as if she weren’t standing nearby on a windless day. It was the excitement. He wanted to do everything at once.

So she helped, a big tent, enough room for the two of them and all their clothing and gear.

What about the food? Irene asked. How do we keep it away from bears?

No bears out here, Gary said. It’s an island.

Bears do swim.

Yeah, but not just to come visiting. It’s a long way from shore.

Only a couple hundred yards on the close side, right?

Something like that. Let’s just put the food in the tent for now. Help me with the cooler. So they put their food next to their sleeping bags.

Now the other tent, Gary said. They looked for level ground, feeling their way through the undergrowth. Large patches of club moss, spongy and soft, lady ferns, shield ferns, an area with more shade.

Seems okay here, Gary said. We’re not sleeping in this one, so it can be a little bumpy.

Irene helped unroll another tarp and tent, helped drive in stakes and spread the rain fly. If only the cabin could be this easy. She and Gary loaded tools and supplies, everything except the wood, into the tent, then stood back and looked at their little camp.

Not bad, Gary said. Outhouse is next.

Irene looked at the lake, so calm today, the mountains reflected. Peaks clear, upper snow patches outlining ridges, the edge of the Harding Icefield. Sunny and warm, maybe seventy degrees. She’d taken her jacket off. The kind of day when all could seem possible.

It shouldn’t be far from the cabin, Gary was saying. We’ll need to use it through the winter.

Let’s just build it on the back of the cabin, Irene said. So we don’t have to go outside at all.

Irene.

What? Every time I have to use the bathroom, I have to wade through a bunch of snow?

The snow’s not too bad here.

Is it the kind that’s not cold and wet?

Irene.

Irene yourself. Build the damn thing on the back of the cabin, just sticking out from the wall. Put a door on it.

We’ll smell the outhouse all winter.

Then so be it. If we’re going to live like shit, we should smell shit.

Gary turned away from her. The kind of moment he was looking for, she knew. Enough fights about this ridiculous cabin and he could justify leaving. Put her in an impossible situation and then say the marriage was impossible. The beauty of it was that he could lie so well to himself he’d still think he was the good guy. He’d actually believe he’d done everything he could.

Look, she said. You can build it ten feet away, with a short hallway connecting. Put a door on both ends. Maybe that way we won’t smell it.

Gary considered. He walked along the back wall of the cabin, turned in place several times, pacing things out. Okay, he said finally. I can do something like that. But we have to move the supply tent to make room.

Crisis averted, and if it was this easy, she wondered whether she could refuse the entire cabin right now. Just say no to the whole idea and go home. But she knew that was not possible. Because the cabin was not about the cabin.

They pulled all the tools and supplies out of the second tent, found another spot farther back, put it up and loaded again. The afternoon passing, Gary looking at his watch.

It’s getting late, he said, and we haven’t even started the outhouse yet. Punishment, indirect. Letting her know the consequences.

Yeah, Irene said. Bummer it’s not June.

Gary tight-lipped after that. Grabbing the shovel to chop a pathway through the growth, a narrow aisle to a larger square for the outhouse, about four feet by four feet. His T-shirt darkening from sweat.

Irene finally pulled the cooler from their tent, sat down on it to watch him work. Digging to China, tearing a hole in the earth to let her know how he felt. No different from a little boy. She should grab him and make him take the tit, rock him until he fell asleep.

It aggravated Irene that she’d had to take care of this man for thirty years. The weight of his complaints and impatience, his failures, and in return, his vacancy. Why had any of that seemed okay?

Irene couldn’t watch him anymore. She got up and walked into the trees. All shaded here, cooler, the trunks close, every tree with rakes of slim dead branches, thin curved fingers, leftovers, perhaps, from when they were much younger. Snapping against her as she broke through, all the green and new growth much higher. Spruce and birch, trees you could tire of after enough years in Alaska. The occasional cottonwood with its rougher bark, a few aspen.

Narrow pathways like alleys opened up, and she followed these, game trails. Small patches of moss and fern, the forest quiet. Irene a hunter or hunted, either way the same feeling, the same awareness of the forest, the same waiting for sound or movement, the same awareness of breath. It was time to hunt again, to bring her bow out here. But she was accompanied now by this new thing, this new betrayal of body, something she couldn’t fight, couldn’t track, could never see because it didn’t exist. Irene climbed higher, hitting plateaus and slopes all hidden by forest, until she had reached a hump with no higher to go, still surrounded, still no view, a panorama that was there but blocked on every side.