Winter Study Read Online Free PDF Page A

stuck in
it. “Ice fishing?” Anna asked. “Pretty grim pastime without an
ice-fishing house. I hope it’s voluntary.”
“That’s
our well,” Jonah said. Then: “Doggone it!” He hurried over to the hole
chopped in the ice. “The little bastard is trying to poison us. He’s
done it before.” Jonah snatched up the shovel. On the side of the
excavated snow and ice was a patch of yellow. “Fox,” Jonah said. “A
pesky, pissy little red fox whose mother was no better than she should
have been.” Shoveling up the tainted snow carefully, he tossed it as
far from the well as he could. “I tell you, this little fur ball is
potent. One drop of his urine got in the well a while back.
One drop
and our water reeked of fox for two days.”
“Reclaiming his territory,” Anna said.
“Very
broad-minded of you, Ranger Pigeon. Wait till you’ve had café au fox
piss.” Grumbling, he began using the tip of the shovel like a
gargantuan scalpel, incising spots of yellow. Anna looked back to where
the moose with its cloak of ravens lay on the ice. Blood spatter from
the ax formed three lines out from the pool where the animal’s head had
lain. The sight was not gruesome, not ugly. Ravens were so black they
seemed cut from construction paper and pasted on the reflective white
of the snow. Blood was still the bright cheery red of life. The
composition was set off by the inky lines of leafless trees against the
blue of the sky. Stunning in its simplicity, the tableau put Anna in
mind of a Japanese painting she’d seen:
Death of a Samurai.
“What are you going to do with the body?” she asked.
Jonah
jammed the shovel back into the snow pile. “Nothing. There’s nothing we
could do even if we wanted. Used to, before the warm-and-cuddlies got
up in arms, we’d shoot a moose once a winter. Middle pack always knew
and always showed up. One year, the rules were changed, but Middle pack
showed up right on schedule anyway, like they had a watch that read:
MOOSE TIME. No free moose meat. They never came again. I don’t know how
they know things, but they do.”
“Think they know this is here?” Anna asked.
“See
that raven?” Jonah pointed to a sharp cut of black flying toward the
western shore of the harbor. “He’s going to tell the pack supper’s on.”
Anna
believed him. She’d been around animals enough to know humans might
know how much Jupiter weighs and where stars come from, but they remain
in total ignorance about what the cat in their lap is thinking or who
their dog tells their secrets to.
They
heard the snowmobile returning and, stiff in their bundling, rotated
toward it. “We’ll load up on water, then head back up,” Jonah said.
“You sure you don’t want a ride?”
“I’m
sure.” Without the distractions of dead ungulates and fox piss, she
remembered how cold she was. If she didn’t move soon, she would freeze
where she stood.
“Stay away from the dock,” Jonah called after her. “Ice is always rotten around docks.”
Anna
waved an arm to let him know she’d heard. Though she’d been hypnotized
by its singing and delighted in the canvas it created for the
blood-and-bird painting, she wouldn’t be sorry to be on solid ground.
The thought of getting wet, when the temperature was near zero and the
wind brisk, scared her.
There was no negotiating with thermodynamics.
3
Walking
up the bank from the lake, Anna felt like a one-woman band. What snow
the wind had not scoured from the Earth was so desiccated it didn’t
crunch beneath her boots, it squeaked as if she walked on beads of
Styrofoam. Fur and fleece rasped over her ears, nylon ski pants
whistled as they rubbed cricket-like with each step. The racket made
her think of Robin Adair and her friendship with winter. She and Robin
spent a couple of hours together, eating breakfast and killing time,
till the Forest Service pilot got the call that the clouds over Isle
Royale had lifted. Though Ely and Washington Harbor were on the same
parallel and