Breaking the Ice (13 page)

“Yeah. Very common with pregnant women,” Karla said distractedly as another gust shook the plane. “Are we okay? I mean, is this normal?”

“Nothing to worry about. Just a little turbulence.”

“I don’t know how you can do this every day.” Karla leaned forward and stared over Bryson’s shoulder through the front windshield. They were coming up fast on the first narrow valley. “Holy shit! Watch out.”

“Chill, huh? It’s scary the first time, but we gotta fly through the canyons because of the clouds. I’ve done this route hundreds of times, and believe me, I could do it in my sleep.” The Cub entered the deep gorge, the cliffs on either side no more than thirty feet from each wing tip. Bryson was too busy steering the plane to be able to look back at Karla. “Try to think of something else. We’ll be through before you know it.”

Bryson heard an obscenity from behind her, then another sound that disturbed her even more: a change in the whirr of the prop, a slight laboring in its normally smooth rhythm. The buildup of ice was getting worse.

“I hate this, hate this,
hate
this.” Karla’s voice betrayed the extent of her alarm. “This is what I get for jumping headfirst into something without thinking it through. I must be crazy.”

“Maybe it’s not something you ordinarily do.” Bryson kept her voice matter-of-fact. “But if it works out, it’ll be worth it in the long run. You won’t find a better family than Lars and Maggie.”

The irregular cadence of the propeller worsened, and Bryson was sure that even Karla could detect the change, though she didn’t comment on it. Probably was too afraid to.

Her wipers were barely able to keep up with the accumulation of sleet, and her GPS told her they still had ten miles to go to reach her cabin. Bryson took a deep breath and let it out. They wouldn’t get there a minute too soon.

*

“Are you insane?” Maggie’s face contorted in anger, and she’d turned such a deep shade of crimson Lars worried about her blood pressure. She lay propped up on pillows on their bed, which occupied the northeast corner of their large, one-room cabin.

“Maggie, sweetheart—”

“Don’t you
sweetheart
me, Lars Rasmussen. If you think for a
second
I’m about to allow anyone in here.
Look
at this place!” She spread her arms as if in supplication, and Lars had to admit the chaos was even worse than he feared. Dirty dishes were stacked high in the sink and on every counter. The trash bin overflowed, as did the hamper of dirty clothes, and magazines littered the coffee table and rug beside the bed. The bin of firewood was empty, and the wood floor covered with mud tracks. Maggie had gotten so big and was so easily exhausted she simply couldn’t handle anything when he was away beyond keeping herself fed and warm.

“I won’t go get her until I have everything all spic-and-span, just the way you like it,” he promised. He knew her throwing range so he remained by the door, the only interior spot outside that perimeter. The trio of heavy mugs on the nightstand could do some serious damage to his head.

“Do I
look
like I want to play hostess? I’m a beached whale who sleeps fifteen hours a day and farts uncontrollably. I’m not about to let even a stranger see me like this.”

“But honey, she can help us get ready—” The first mug came flying at him, but he ducked in plenty of time and it shattered when it slammed into the heavy wooden door.

“You try to appease me with one more
honey,
sweetheart,
or
darling,
and your ass is grass, Lars. You’ll be sleeping in the shed, I swear to God.” Maggie reached for another mug and glared at him, tight-lipped with fury.

Anything he said would only result in more broken crockery, and she’d already busted half of what they owned, so he kept his mouth shut and began to clean up, careful to stay well away from the bed.

Every chore completed seemed to lessen her rage. Once the dishes were done she put down the mug, and she relaxed back against the pillows when he returned the floor to its usual spotless perfection. By the time he finished the laundry, she was sound asleep and snoring lightly. The tasks took three hours, and Bryson and Karla would be wondering what had happened to him and whether he’d be coming back in the skiff. But he didn’t dare leave until Maggie gave him clearance. It wouldn’t do for her to fling the rest of their dishes at her sister before they were properly introduced.

He approached the bed on tiptoes, like a bomb-disposal expert venturing unprotected toward a case of unstable TNT.

She looked so serene in sleep that at least for the moment she resembled the woman he’d married, and he tenderly stroked her hair away from her face. The thought that within a few years she might lose her memories of their life together made his chest ache. It couldn’t be true
.
He’d always been optimistic, facing any challenge that came his way with hope, resolve, and a deep faith in the power of prayer. He sank to his knees beside the bed and bowed his head, asking God to spare his wife and child this awful future. Tears formed when he imagined looking at Maggie and finding no hint of recognition in her eyes, and a steady stream poured down his cheeks when he pictured himself raising their daughter alone.

When he lifted his head, Maggie was awake and watching him. His obvious distress was so rare that her anger vanished.

“Lars, please don’t let my mood swings upset you so. You know I love you. I can’t help flying off the handle like that, and you always take the brunt of it. I wouldn’t blame you if you’re getting fed up with me.” She began to cry, which was another frequent side effect of her body’s raging hormones. Normally he simply held her when it happened, murmuring reassurances that she’d be back to her old self in no time.

On this occasion, though, he moved into Maggie’s arms and rested his cheek against her swollen belly, letting the tears come. Time might not be their friend after all. “I’m just worried about you, Mags.” His voice broke.

Maggie’s hand caressed his back. “Aw, honey, if it means that much to you, you can bring that nurse here to stay with us.”

*

The groaning of the engine’s battle to turn the icy prop worsened every minute, and the controls grew increasingly sluggish with the added weight on the fuselage. Bryson’s biceps strained with her effort to keep the plane steady, as she mentally ticked off the familiar landmarks passing beneath the Cub. When they emerged from the canyons and into the final stretch of river leading to her cabin, she breathed only a little easier. Setting down on the short gravel bar with the plane responding so poorly would be a challenge.

Karla either hadn’t uttered a word in the last several minutes, or the noisy engine had kept Bryson from hearing. And she’d been concentrating so intensely on getting them down in one piece that she hadn’t made any further effort to talk.

“We’re here,” she hollered back over her shoulder as they descended the final fifty feet. “Fasten yourself in tight. Gonna be bumpy.”

That turned out to be an understatement, for in the days she was away, the river had risen, depositing a variety of branches and a medium-sized spruce on a smaller-than-usual landing strip. Steering over the obstacles that the plane’s turbo tires could handle, and around the ones they could not, was like trying to drive a cement truck full speed through a short and narrow, twisting hallway.

One of the bumps was so bone-jarring only their seatbelts kept their heads from hitting the roof. Karla cried out, and Bryson cursed. But they came to a stop finally, with the front tires inches from the water’s edge.

Neither of them moved for several seconds. When Bryson cut the engine, she could hear Karla’s loud, erratic breathing behind her. She loosened her belt and turned to face her. Karla’s face was white and her eyes were glassy, as if she was in shock. “You okay?”

“You…you…” Karla licked her lips. “You can’t tell me that was a normal landing.”

“Well, no. But we’re fine. Sit tight for a minute and I’ll get you inside.”

She retrieved Karla’s duffel bag, towed her Cub away from the water’s edge, and secured its tie-downs with some hefty rocks. By the time she went to help Karla out, her color had returned to normal. But she still looked so unsteady on her feet that Bryson kept an arm around her waist as they waded the shallows and headed up the trail to the cabin.

As they neared the front door, Bandit appeared out of the mist and dive-bombed them with a loud
croak.
Karla screamed and buried her face against Bryson’s chest.

“Don’t mind him. He’s a pest, but not dangerous, just hungry.”

She settled Karla on the couch and went out to start up the generator and gather a load of wood. Once she got the lights on and a fire blazing in the woodstove, she helped Karla out of her coat and boots and wrapped her in a thick quilt. “Some tea?”

“Yes, thanks.” Karla rubbed her hands together beneath the quilt to warm them, grateful to be out of the Cub and on safe ground again. She’d never been more afraid, and her heartbeat had only just returned to normal.

She studied the cabin and its owner. While Bryson looked every bit a modern-day woman, albeit the outdoorsy type, her home resembled something out of
Little House on the Prairie.
The entire living space was not much larger than the living room of her Atlanta apartment, and most of the furniture and cabinetry was of the primitive, hand-hewn variety, though a skilled woodworker had crafted it. The couch on which she sat was rough pine, padded by a futon mattress. Simple pine end tables flanked it, and a matching low coffee table in front held a small stack of books and copies of
National Geographic
and
Alaska Magazine.
A pine chair with a smaller futon sat perpendicular to the couch, opposite a rocker.

A small square table and three chairs created an intimate eating area in one corner of the room, in front of an L-shaped counter with a sink and several cabinets. As she expected, there was no refrigerator, microwave, or conventional oven, only the woodstove at the end of one of the counters. But something else was missing in the tiny kitchen—a faucet above the sink. No running water, either? Unimaginable. How did Bryson do her dishes, wash her face, take a bath?

Bryson lifted a stout iron teakettle from the woodstove and filled it with a dipper from a large oak barrel by the door. When they arrived, Karla saw a massive galvanized tub leaning against the porch, which evidently explained the bathing aspect, and the laundry one too.

Bryson had told her she liked to read, which was certainly evident. In lieu of a television, the wall opposite the couch was filled with built-in bookshelves. Pine again, and jammed with several hundred books and a few animal figurines.

There were other primitive touches. Though an electric floor lamp behind the couch and a ceiling lamp in the center of the room provided the current light, Karla also spotted a trio of old-fashioned kerosene lamps, their blackened chimneys indicating they were well-used. The quilt Bryson had covered her with looked Amish-made, and the cookware hanging from pegs in the kitchen was cast-iron, like the stuff carried on covered wagons in old Westerns.

Bryson either slept on the futon or somewhere in the loft, which took up half the cabin and was accessed by a plain wooden ladder.

The home was unlike any she’d ever been in, but it was cozy. The fire in the woodstove was cheery and efficient, and colorful rugs adorned the wood floor. One wall featured a grouping of photographs, nearly all of them aerial views of the Alaskan landscape, and another held ornate masks presumably carved by local natives.

“What you expected?” Bryson sat beside her holding two steaming mugs of tea and a small jar of honey.

“Kind of. It’s pretty much fits the lifestyle you described. But I didn’t imagine it would feel so…I don’t know…snug.”

Bryson smiled. “Glad you think so. Have to say, you get a special satisfaction from living in a place you built yourself.”

“You built this cabin?” She glanced about again, viewing the structure in a new light, critically assessing the tight construction of the walls and roof and the smooth perfection of the floor. Bryson must have done a lot of backbreaking work and have considerable skill in carpentry.

“Lars helped move some of the big logs. But, yeah, I did most everything alone. Took most of a year.”

“I’m impressed. I can hardly drive a nail in straight.”

“My pop taught me.” Bryson sipped her tea. “He was a hell of a craftsman. Built the cabin I grew up in, which was a good bit bigger than this one. And during breakup and in bad weather, he made furniture. Almost everything in here is his, ’cept the rocker. That’s an heirloom handed down to my mother.”

“You’re lucky.” Karla well understood what a comfort such treasures could be in dealing with the loss of a parent. She kept her mother’s tigereye necklace with her always, in her pocket, and pulled it out often to caress its smooth surface. Doing so gave her strength and a sense of calm, as though her mother had somehow endowed the stone with her energy and love. “Must be nice to have all this to remember your father by.”

Bryson ran her hand lovingly along the polished armrest of the couch. “Sure is. I can remember him making every single piece. One of my favorite things used to be watching him take a rough log and turn it into something.”

“So you’re a pilot and a carpenter. Any other hidden talents?”