Dave Eggers - Heroes of the Frontier

She looked around and saw, inside the gate and across the parking lot, a prefab garage made of corrugated steel, its door open. She expected it to be filled with vehicles or whatever else the park rangers might make use of, but it was largely empty. The shutdown: this was where the ranger had parked his truck, and now he was gone. It looked tall enough to hold the Chateau.

Josie examined the lock at the end of the chain. It was a standard padlock that held together the heavy chain threaded through the gate and post. Her first thought was to attack the lock itself with one of the wrenches she’d seen in the Chateau toolbag. She had a jack there, too, but assumed that the padlock was designed to withstand the blows of simple steel and iron implements.

She stood in the lace-white light of the morning, staring at the gate, and when she thought of the solution, she laughed. It was ridiculous, and it would work, and once she had done it she would laugh about it always, in the years to come, the ease of the gambit, the fact that they had really done it. It was a criminal act, something between breaking and entering and simple vandalism, but it would work beautifully.

In minutes she was back at the cottage and had found the saw hanging over the mantel. And then she was running down the path again, the saw held over her head with two hands. She returned to the gate and began sawing the post. She started very low, so that when she returned the post to its position, the grass growing around its base might hide the fact that she’d cut through it. Working without rest, for she worried that at any moment her kids would be upon her, witnessing this, her most bizarre and criminal act yet, she sawed through. The lock was still attached of course, but it was now attached to a post that was unattached, that swung with the open gate.

She drove the Chateau through the gate and slowly guided it into the prefab garage, expecting the top to scrape any moment. It fit, though, was meant to fit, so she drove it in, and closed the doors to the garage when she was finished. The Chateau was invisible. She took a few hundred dollars from the velvet bag, shoved it deep into the corner of the cabinet, afraid to count what was left, and locked the Chateau door. She returned to the gate for the best part of it all. She replaced the post atop its foundation, balancing it such that it still looked like a functioning, unaltered pillar. If anyone touched it, or if a strong wind came, it would come apart, but for the time being it looked legitimate, unaltered.

—

They were likely free from any possibility of being found, at least for a day or two. Whatever park rangers were left in Alaska were occupied with the fires, or were far away, out of state even, enjoying fine weather on a shutdown holiday.

Josie and the children inspected the cabin, the children immediately finding the stairs and running up to the pitched-roof attic.

“Not much up there,” Paul said upon returning. “Two small beds, but it smells.”

Most of the cabin’s life was on the main floor, with the fireplace determining the location of all other objects in the room. The futon and chairs were pointed toward the hearth, and most of the decorations surrounded it. On the mantel, a variety of fishing memorabilia, a horse carved from wood, a beaver rendered in a slab of bark. Crossed over the mantel like swords were a pair of wooden snowshoes, and over them, an ancient spear. To the left of the fireplace, the wall was covered with firewood.

In the kitchen, there were two old stoves, neither of them functional, and a formica table, three chrome chairs around it, each with a yellow plastic seat somewhere ripped and duct-taped. There was a sink, but no running water; instead, there was a water bubbler, almost full. A functioning refrigerator sat low in a corner, and next to it, drawers with aluminum foil, Tupperware containers, duct tape, scissors and string. A platoon of knives was magnetically attached to the wall, all facing right with soldierly anticipation. A small cabinet over the stove was stocked with canned soup and vegetables. Between the food they had in the Chateau and this, Josie thought, they could get by for a while.

“Look,” Ana said. In the main room, the kids had found a stash of games, all of them forty years old, maybe more. Scrabble, Parcheesi, two decks of cards, Sorry! Josie half-expected to see Candyland, and have a brief spiral of stabbing thoughts, but when she scanned the stack, she didn’t see it. Then Paul did. It was under the shelf holding the rest of the games.

“I’ve heard of this,” he said, brushing the dust from the box. “How come we never had this game, Mom?”

“Who wants to make a fire?” Josie asked.

Paul and Ana delighted in choosing the right newspapers, kindling and logs, and in minutes there was a thundering fire. At the earliest opportunity, she planned to throw the game into it. But for now, she had distracted her children enough to hide it above the fridge.

In the kitchen, she found a transistor radio, turned it on and looked for news. Could there be some search going on for her? Some news of the death or maiming of a process server at the hands of diner vigilantes? She could muster only a faint signal, an evangelical message, telling listeners that God wanted them to prosper not just spiritually but materially. “Prosper is a word rooted in the three-dimensional world,” the man said.

On the counter there was a photo of the man she assumed was the ranger who usually occupied the cabin. He was about forty, cheerful-seeming, with a red beard and wearing green and khaki. He had his arm around another man, also bearded, with the same cheerful eyes. A brother maybe, a lover, a husband? In any case she was contented to know the ranger who lived there, a man in love or capable of love, seemed less likely to chase them than the owner of the last cottage where they’d squatted.

“I have to sleep,” Josie said. She hadn’t rested in more than a day. Josie demonstrated the futon to the kids, and she could see their minds assessing whether or not they could all fit on it; she was sure they wouldn’t want to sleep in the dark and drafty attic. She descended onto the padding, provoking a small cloud of dust. She did not care. Sleep pulled her down.

“Are we living here now?” Ana asked.

Josie fell asleep, thinking it a very real possibility.

IN THE AFTERNOON, having slept through the day, Josie felt reborn. She raised herself from the futon, feeling unaccountably strong, and noticed that her children were nowhere in sight.

She called to them. No answer. She leapt up, her heart in her mouth. She pictured a pair of wolves carrying them off. She yelled their names.

“Out here,” Paul said.

She threw open the door to find Paul and Ana outside, on the gravel walkway, huddled around a black mass of fur.

“What is that?” Josie roared.

The fur shook and whimpered.

“It’s a dog,” Ana said, and took its face in her hands and turned it toward Josie, as if to demonstrate the nature of the species to her unknowing mother.

“It was scratching at the door,” Paul said.

They’d opened the door, and the dog had quickly slipped inside.

“We didn’t want to wake you up, so we brought her out here,” Paul said. He was telling the truth. He was frighteningly considerate. But whose animal was this?

“Does he have a collar?” she asked.

“Just this,” Ana said, and pulled a plastic flea collar from its neck. Ana had moved to the side, revealing the full shape of the dog. It was tiny and black and looked like a malnourished pig, with short hair and triangular ears.

“It’s shivering,” Josie noted.

“She’s hungry,” Paul said.

“Keep your hands away from its mouth,” Josie said.