The men are also tired, cold, and hungry. The food we salvaged from the ship is indeed not enough. Maria’s already reduced our portions in order to stretch out what’s left. She’s asked the brooding Ovchinnikov to go hunting or fishing so she can make something instead of plain kasha and tea; he looked to Timofei Osipovich who shook his head, no. Even our prikashchik is too dejected.
The old carpenter Kurmachev emptied his flask and asked the others to share. Only Sobachnikov agreed. He poured some of his rum into the carpenter’s flask, and Kurmachev nodded his thanks before fixing himself a place away from the smoke, and quaffing a mouthful or two. Or more.
Not an hour ago, Zhuchka began to act strangely. She hovered at the opening of the cave and whined. Finally, just when John Williams offered to go see what was bothering her, something crashed outside. I looked up. A boulder landed at the mouth of the cave. It was followed by a second boulder and a third. They were falling from above the cave entrance. At first, I didn’t understand what was causing this landslide. Then my husband said, “It’s the koliuzhi again.”
“What are they doing?” grumbled the apprentice Kotelnikov.
“They’re throwing rocks.”
“Rocks again? Are they trying to kill us?” said Kotelnikov.
“No. They want to scare us,” said Timofei Osipovich. “If they wanted to hurt us, believe me, they would have done it by now. They know we’re cornered in this loathsome prison.” He picked up a loose rock and sent it flying out into the daylight. “I thought I made it perfectly clear to them…”
“It seems all you did was challenge them to a contest,” I said. “Perhaps they’re not as scared of your little gun as you think.”
He glowered but then laughed. “Clever girl.”
The falling rocks stopped. We waited. Then a rustling began outside. Zhuchka raised her hackles and growled. A koliuzhi ran by. He moved so fast, it was impossible to say anything about him—how big he was, whether he was armed, what he was wearing, whether he was somebody we’d already met. Then another man dashed by in the opposite direction. There was a third. Timofei Osipovich and Ovchinnikov raised their guns in preparation for the fourth, or even an invasion. It seemed Timofei Osipovich’s mistaken assessment of their intentions had brought into being what we most dreaded. But there wasn’t another sound, and no other koliuzhi disturbs us all night.
When we rise the next morning, it’s to discover that the snowstorm is over. The light that streams in the mouth of the cave is intense. Blinded by the brightness, I cautiously follow the others outside. No rain. Vibrant-blue sky peeps through the forest canopy. The air is as crisp as a freshly starched cuff. Patches of snow are scattered here and there. It seems most of it has already melted. I scoop up a small handful and put it in my mouth. It’s as cold as the light is bright. I scoop again and wash my face with it. It stings, but I’m revived. If this weather holds, perhaps the stars will be visible tonight.
While we’re outside exploring our surroundings and clearing our lungs of last night’s foul cave air, John Williams locates a trail. My husband announces that we’ll follow it for as long as we can, for as long as it heads in the right direction. He doesn’t mention what happened on the beach yesterday. I know he’s worried. He wants us to stay together; he also wants us to maintain a brisk pace, which is nearly impossible when crossing sand and gravel beaches. The farther south we can get, the warmer the weather will be, and hospitable weather means a better chance of survival.
Near mid-morning, our trail ends at a narrow, but deep, stream. Zhuchka is already halfway in, up to her belly, lapping up water, and snapping at debris carried from upstream. The water turns her fur nearly black, except for the white tip of her paintbrush tail, which retains its brilliance and its curl even when wet.
“Look—the track turns this way,” says John Williams. The path he indicates follows the riverbank upstream, into deeper bush.
“If there’s a path, we should take it,” says Nikolai Isaakovich.
“With caution,” Timofei Osipovich concurs. “Remain alert, men.”
We follow the path. Sunlight reaches us in fingers through the trees. Maria finds some edible mushrooms. Though slimy and well past their prime, she boils them when we stop for a meal, with some purplish berries like the ones I tasted our first day on shore. The broth is dismal, but I’m so hungry and the broth is so warm that I gulp my entire portion except for a few pinches of mushroom that I offer to Zhuchka. She gobbles them.
“I don’t know about this trail,” my husband says as we shoulder our bundles for the next stretch.
“It’s going in the right direction,” says John Williams.
“The koliuzhi trails are all like this,” says Timofei Osipovich.
We march on through the afternoon. I hobble a bit. The blisters on my heels sting, but I try to forget about them. Eventually callouses will form if I give them time. Maria walks with me. Ovchinnikov, whom Timofei Osipovich charged with guarding our backs, is the last man in our queue. Zhuchka returns periodically to insert her wet nose into my hand before plunging back into the undergrowth.
We leave the little stream. Its burbling disappears, and the trail starts to climb. Maria and I slow to a crawl. The path is muddy and uneven; gnarled roots protrude from the soil. It grows more and more slippery as it weaves up the hill in short segments that snake back and forth on one another. Maria and I stop often to catch our breaths. Ovchinnikov has no choice except to slow to match our pace. The way he watches us when we stop makes me shorten our breaks.
My bundle pulls against my shoulder, and though I shift it often, it makes no difference. The sailcloth digs painfully into my shoulder. In the mire, I see evidence in the footprints of how others before us have slipped.
My mother once told me that on the day God and the devil made the world, they had to decide whether to make it flat or mountainous. The devil chose flat, but God chose the mountains. “Why?” asked the devil. “Why would you choose mountains and hills? What good are they?” And God said, “They’re for the people—so they’ll remember us. When people want to descend from the hills, they’ll think, dear God, help me get down. And when they want to climb, they’ll think, what a devil of a hill. So you see—mountains ensure they’ll never forget either one of us.”
“You’re treating her like a child,” my father had said that day. “Don’t fill her head with nonsense.”
“She is a child and that’s not nonsense. If you’re so smart, tell me—where do hills come from?”
“I don’t know,” my father cried, exasperated. “But I know there’s a rational explanation. It has nothing to do with God and the devil.”
A certain smile stretched across my mother’s face; she looked away and said nothing more.
My mother has her own way of making sense of the world. She knows all the old stories, and when she starts telling me one, it’s my father’s turn to leave the room. I don’t really believe her stories but her faith in them is unshakeable, even in the face of the Enlightenment. On this long climb, I miss her so much it aches. What is she doing right now? Does she know where I am? When the news of the lost brig reaches her, she will most likely think me dead. I think of her praying over my bed for so many hours when I had the measles. I can’t bear to imagine the grief I’ll cause her this time.