“No. How do you like your eggs?”
“How does that fridge work?”
He glances over at it from where he’s standing at the counter, like he’s unsure which fridge I’m referring to.
“Propane,” he says. “It’s connected to a tank outside.”
“So, there’s electricity.”
“There’s a fridge and a stove,” he says. “Scrambled, over-easy, or what?”
I decide to question the mysteries of the cabin at another time, and rub my hands over my face, trying to wake up a little more. Weirdly, sleeping for thirteen hours will really take it out of you.
“Over-easy,” I say. “Thanks. I’m gonna go get ready to hike to the truck with you.”
“No, you’re not,” he calls out as I head back into the tiny bedroom, but I can tell he doesn’t mean it.
* * *
It’s cloudy but bright,all the available light reflecting from the snow on the ground, and I wish I’d brought my sunglasses. At least I remembered sunscreen, a lesson I learned the hard way after my one and only skiing experience left me with the weirdest sunburn I’ve ever had.
Did you know that the underside of your nose can sunburn so badly it blisters? Did you know thatreallyfucking hurts?
We walk in silence for a while, Gideon first, along the still-visible footsteps in the snow from last night. It stopped snowing at some point while I was asleep, but there’s enough wind to puff the snow off the ground and from where it’s piled on the tree branches. It’s very pretty. It’s very, very quiet.
In the quiet, I start thinking. Mostly about how dumb it was to chain myself to a tree because I wanted to be friends with someone. A little about how lucky it was that Gideon came to my rescue, because though I do have a sleeping bag and a tent and enough water and calories to stay alive for a few days, I’d be miserable at best.
And I think about how it wasGideonof all people who rescued me, and how maybe we’re over what happened, now, twenty years later, though neither of us have said anything, and maybe the past is in the past and doesn’t matter anymore. We’re all present in the present moment and whatnot and no one is dwelling on things that happened a long time ago and that we can’t change.
But also, I told my parents that I was with someone named Steve Wheeler—a person who doesn’t exist, as far as I know—and Gideon definitely overheard me because the cabin is very small, and now I have to live with yet another awkward, unspoken thing between us.
“What’s a bear tree?” I ask, because he mentioned it last night and I might lose my mind in the quiet.
Gideon clears his throat and takes his time to answer.
“It’s a tree that bears like to rub themselves on,” he finally says, talking over his shoulder to me. “They do it partly to mark their territory, and partly just because they’re itchy. I think the one near the cabin has particularly satisfying bark, and it’s in the middle of the range of several females.”
I take a moment to extrapolate some of that information.
“So that tree is part back-scratcher and part Tinder for bears,” I say. “How come humans don’t have something like that? It’s a great idea.”
He glances at me again, and the path has leveled out a little, so we’re both stomping through a foot of snow more or less side-by-side. I wonder if we should have snowshoes or something. Tennis rackets, maybe? I’m not sure I’ve ever actually seen a snowshoe in real life, given that I grew up half in Virginia and half in New Jersey and have never once been a trapper living alone in a rugged wilderness.
Until today, at least, though I’m still not a trapper. Not that I’m above it at the moment. I’ll eat a squirrel if I need to.
“Have you tried gluing a back scratcher to your phone?” he asks, and it’s hard to tell through the beard and with the hat and the coat zipped all the way up, but there’s a movement at the corner of Gideon’s mouth thatalmostlooks like a smile.
“I didn’t realize it was an option until today,” I tell him. “So, the cabin is a hundred feet from a black bear pickup spot. Can they open doors?”
“They’re not around right now,” he says, which I notice doesn’t answer the question. “They mostly hibernate in the winter.”
“Mostly.”
Gideon exhales, his breath puffing out and disappearing upward until it’s indistinguishable from the steel-gray of the clouds above, flat and monochrome.
“This far south, black bears don’t hibernate as strictly as they do further north, since our winters aren’t generally as harsh,” he says. “The cubs stay in the den, but adult bears often come out between long naps and do some foraging during the winter months.”
“And here I thought that having a foot of snow on the ground at least meant a bear-free vacation.”
