Steam Laundry

Luck Conspires against Tom and Elmer

103 Luck Conspires against Tom and Elmer —Twelve Mile Summit, 85 miles outside of Fairbanks, Alaska October 31, 1904 The caribou have finished, been through here and we missed them. All that work only to bag six stragglers. We wait, decide to move downhill, where the snow isn’t as deep, and watch for another herd to make its run. This cold, we’ll have to build a line cabin. I hand Elmer the axe. I haul; Elmer chops, chipping wells into logs for other logs. I can hear the temperature dropping, a crackling in the air, a deepening thud from my boots. It numbs my face, pricks my lungs, making in-breaths heavy. I listen to my breath, a two-stroke pull and push. I hear my effort, and, then, a cry, God Damn. I look up to see Elmer’s boot split open, red spread on the snow. His right foot, a bloody mess, and his hands quaking around the axe handle. Another God Damn, Shit. I think first of the cold, the logs stacked and waiting to be hewn and restacked, our survival, then I think of our mother, her fretting telling me, Keep your eye on your brother, how when I was young she’d whisper 104 Hold Gusty’s hand near the street, and how on the steamer I was to keep him away from the older boys. God Damn. Even, both of us men, he’s the kid. Even, both of us men, he’s careless with an axe. Two toes almost gone, he crouches, pushing his cloven boot together, as if will could fuse it, undo a moment’s inattention. I pull off my mitts, tuck them into my armpit and bend to look at his foot. When I pull at the split boot, he winces. I prop him against the sled, pile blankets under his leg, start a fire and set to work with the axe. Without shelter we’ll both go down, with one axe the shelter will take longer. The arc of the weighted axe head, the dull thud saves me by degrees. Swing and thud, swing and thud. I don’t hear the prospector until he is upon me with a Hallo, in need of help? If he hadn’t, on his long hike into town, seen the campfire and stopped to help with the axe, I’d hate to think, but then, mostly, about all this, I hate to think. 105 November 2,1904 After the cabin is built, everything snugged away, the prospector gone, leaving Elmer wrapped and propped, I mush to Circle, but there, everyone starving out the cold, all they can give me is whiskey and medicine, no food. I take that to Elmer and go on for another thirty-five miles to Miller Creek for flour, maybe sugar, and a little coffee. If we have to wait out healing in the shack we’ll need something besides six caribou. Some people on the way to Fairbanks, having missed the herd too, trade flour for meat. And I think of luck and accidents, the way those six stragglers damn near saved our lives, the way the sourdough showed up and with food and an axe. Just as I think luck is for once turning for my good, I fall, wrenching my knee around. It’s all I can do to stand, let alone walk. The dogs don’t stop, and I have to whistle and shout, limp along yelling behind them. Until finally Moose realizes my weight has unburdened the sled and stops. The trail’s too narrow for the team to turn, so he waits me out, while I bumble along, muttering, but grateful for that dog, for raising him from a puppy, for him having enough sense to make the team stop, 106 and for them with sense enough to follow him. I ball my hands into fists, to keep off the pain of straightening my knee. On the sled, again I stand on one leg, lean on my hip, and let the dogs drag me back to the cabin. God Damn, I tell Elmer, If we survive this, we’ll be fine sourdoughs. He replies, If we survive this, I’ll be surprised and we’ll be broke. The truth in that smarts. It’s not just his toes, but our livelihood. All our cash sunk on this trip, we...