T. Boyle - Tooth and Claw

He shrugged. “A couple miles, I guess, right?”

Her eyes narrowed against the wind. She ran a mittened hand under her nose. “You know what killed off the glyptodont?”

He hugged his arms to his chest and watched her, the wind-blown snow riding up his legs.

“Stupidity,” she said, and then they moved on.

NEAR THE END, when the sky shaded perceptibly toward night and the ravens began to call from their hidden perches, she complained of numbness in her fingers and toes. Neither of them had spoken for a long while — speech was superfluous, a waste of energy in the face of what was turning out to be more of a trial than either of them could have imagined — and all he could say was that he was sorry for getting her into this and reassure her that they’d be there soon. The snow hadn’t slackened all day — if anything, perversely, it seemed to be coming down even harder now — and the going was ever slower as the drifts mounted ahead of them. Earlier, they’d stopped to share the remaining power bar and she’d been sufficiently energetic still to regale him with stories of the last passenger pigeon dying on its perch in the Cincinnati Zoo and the last wolf shot in these mountains, of the aurochs and the giant sloth and half a dozen other poor doomed creatures winging by on their way to extinction even as he silently calculated their own chances. People froze to death out here, that much he knew. Hikers forever lost in the echoing canyons, snowmobilers awaiting rescue by their disabled machines, the unlucky and unprepared. But they weren’t lost, he kept telling himself — they were on the road and it was just a matter of time and effort before they got to the lodge. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

She was ahead of him, breaking trail, the snow up to her waist. “It’s not just numb,” she said, her breath trailing behind her. “It stings. It stings so bad.”

The gloom deepened. He went on another five steps and pulled up short. “Maybe we should stop,” he said, breathing so hard he felt as if his lungs had been turned inside out. “Just for a couple minutes. I have a tarp in my pack and we could make a little shelter. If we get out of the wind we can—”

“What?” she swung round on him, her face savage. “We can what — freeze to death? Is that what you want, huh?”

The snow absorbed them. Everything, even the trunks of the trees, faded to colorlessness. He didn’t know what to do. He was the one at fault here and there was no way to make that right, but still, couldn’t she see he was doing his best?

“No,” he said, “that’s not what I mean. I mean we could recoup our energy — it can’t be much farther — and I could warm your feet. I mean, on my chest, under my parka — isn’t that what you’re supposed to do? Flesh to flesh?”

She snatched off her glasses and all her beauty flashed out, but it was a disengaged beauty, a bedraggled and fractious beauty. Her lips clenched, her eyes penetrated him. “Are you crazy? I’m going to take off my boots in this? Are you out of your mind?”

“Ontario,” he whispered, “listen, come on, please,” and he was shuffling forward to take her in his arms and press her to him, to have that at least, human warmth and comfort and all the trailing sorrowful release that comes with it, when the air suddenly bloomed with sound and they both turned to see the single Cyclopean eye of a snowmobile bounding toward them through the drifts.

A moment, and it was over. The engine screamed and then the driver saw them and let off on the throttle, the machine skidding to a halt just in front of them. The driver peeled back his goggles. There was a rime of ice in his beard. The exhaust took hold of the air and paralyzed it. “Jesus,” he said, his eyes shying away from them, “I damn near run you down. You people lost or what?”

HE COULD HAVE STAYED where he was, could have waited while the man in the goggles sped Ontario back to the lodge and then returned for him, but he trudged on anyway, a matter of pride now, the man’s incredulous laugh still echoing in his ears. You mean you come up the back road? In this? Oh, man, you are really in the shits . He was less than a mile from the lodge when the noise of the machine tore open the night and the headlight pinned him where he was. Then it was the wind and the exhaust and the bright running flash of the meaningless snow.

She was propped up by the fire with her boots off and a mug of coffee wrapped in her hands when he dragged himself in the door, shivering violently from that last wind-whipped run through the drifts. Her wet parka was flung over the chair beside her and one of her mittens lay curled on the floor beneath the chair. A group of men in plaid shirts and down vests were gathered at the bar, roaring over the weather and their tall drinks, and a subsidiary group hovered around Ontario, plying her with their insights as to the advisability of bringing a vehicle up the back road in winter and allowing as how you should never go anywhere this time of year without snowshoes, a GPS beacon and the means of setting up a shelter and building yourself a fire in the event you had to hole up. She was lucky, they were telling her, not to mention crazy. In fact, this was the craziest thing any of them had ever heard of. And they all — every man in the place — turned their heads to give him a look as he clumped toward the fire.

Someone shoved a hot drink in his hands and he tried to be a sport about it, tried to be grateful and humble as they crowded around him and offered up their mocking congratulations on his having made it—“You’re a snow marathoner, isn’t that a fact?” one of them shouted in his face — but humility had never been his strong suit and the longer it went on the angrier he felt. And it did go on, he and Ontario the entertainment for the night, the drinks circulating and the fire snapping, a woman at the bar now, heavyset and hearty and louder than any of the men, until finally the owner of the place came in the door, snow to his eyes, to get a look at this marvel. He was a big man, bearded like the rest of them, his face lit with amusement, proprietor of the Big Timber Lodge and king of all he surveyed. “Hello and welcome,” he called in a hoarse, too-loud voice, gliding across the room to the fireplace, where Zach sat slumped and shivering beside Ontario. He took a minute, bending forward to poke solicitously at the coals. “So I hear you two took a little hike out there today.”

Zach reddened. The laughter rose and ebbed. Ontario sat hunched over her coffee as the fire stirred and settled. Beyond the windows it was dark now, the snow reduced to a collision of particles beating across the cone of light cast by a single lamp nailed to the trunk of one of the massive trees that presided over the parking lot. “Yeah,” Zach said, looking up into the man’s face and allowing him half a smile, “a little stroll.”

“But you’re okay, right — both of you? You need anything — dinner? We can make you dinner, full menu tonight.”

For the first time, Ontario spoke up. “Dinner would be nice,” she murmured. Her hair was tangled and wet, her face bleached of color. “We haven’t really eaten since lunch yesterday, I guess.”

“Except for some beef jerky,” Zach put in, just for the record. “And two power bars.”

The big man straightened up. He was beaming at them, his eyes jumping from Zach to Ontario and back again. “Good,” he said, rubbing his hands as if he’d just stepped away from the grill, as if the steaks had already been flipped and the potatoes were browning in the pan, “fine. Well, listen, you make yourselves comfortable, and if there’s anything else, you just holler.” He paused. “By the way,” he added, leaning in to brace himself on the back of the chair, “you have a place to stay for the night?”