Nothing. The only signs of life in the pitch-black valley were the occasional high whines of the engine and the car’s white and red lights.
After a while—his ears and nose and fingers hurting unbearably—Bassili gave up and motioned for his wife to move back to the passenger seat as he entered the warm car. For several minutes he sat quietly, alternately breathing into the cup of his hands and rubbing his ears. The light beside the gas gauge was on, its red eye staring its accusation from the glowing dashboard.
Bassili’s wife reached over and tugged on the sleeve of his sweater. He turned to look at her, but the look on her face was so full of sadness and fear that he couldn’t bear it for long. He wanted to hold her, to tell her how much he loved her and their many years together, despite the hardships that come with any long marriage. But instead, the old man’s gaze fell back to the red light, leaving him unable to say or do anything for fear of frightening the grandchildren. His head hung down as much as from guilt and shame as it did from helplessness and despair, now as heavy and consuming as the cold night itself. Bassili blamed himself for their situation. He knew better than to have driven down this untraveled road. Only hunters on snowmobiles came back this far and even then only during warm spells.
“Grandpa, can we go home now?” asked Nelly, waking up from a nap and rubbing her eyes. “I don’t like it here.”
“I want to go home too,” said Jimmy. “I’m hungry. Can we go now?”
When no answer came from the front seat, both children voiced their desires again, thinking no one had heard them.
“We’ll leave soon enough, Little Ones,” said the old woman. “Grandma doesn’t like it here either.”
A minute later the engine stopped running. Several times, Bassili tried to start it again, but the engine only sputtered. Once it ran for a few seconds before dying, the tank as bone dry as hope. The four sat in the car for what seemed like an hour. In that time the battery died, after which they sat in darkness, the night peering through the windows—wolf-like—its wondrous hunger aching to consume the living warmth within. The whole world was darkness. By then, the temperature in the car was only a little warmer than the outside. The windows were thick with ice from their breathing.
“I’m really cold grandpa,” Nelly complained frequently. “Can you start the car and turn up the heater?”
“My feet are freezing. I’m hungry. Can we go now?” pleaded Jimmy almost as often.
Both children were wearing only tennis shoes. Nelly’s were pink with white hearts and purple laces. Neither was wearing gloves or a hat.
After sitting quietly for a long time, the wife leaned close to her husband and whispered in his ear.
“Aren’t we even going to try?” she asked, a tear running down her freezing cheek.
Bassili turned around and looked at the children. Both had pulled their arms inside their jackets to try to keep warm.
“Can grandpa have a piece of paper and a crayon,” he asked Nelly, his breath a flock of reeling white birds.
The little girl struggled to push one arm out of a sleeve. She handed her grandfather the picture of the happy stick-figure family and a dark blue crayon, and then she quickly pulled her arm back inside the warm jacket and shuddered.
Bassili looked at the picture for a long time before he turned it over to the blank side. Several times he started to write something, but each time he stopped, turned the paper over again, and stared at the smiling giant with the word “Grandpa” written beneath it. Finally, he turned the paper over and wrote four names, the time and date, and two words.
Heading North.
The Pond
George Joseph plunged through the ice when he reached for the exhausted dog, which tried frantically to climb onto the man’s head to keep from drowning, the front paws scratching the man’s face and scalp. George grabbed hold of the dog and held him close to his chest, keeping the animal’s head above water. At first the dog struggled but then relaxed.
“It’s alright boy,” said the man, feeling the dog’s deep trembling. “I’ve got you.”
The man and his dog had been on their daily walk along the shoulder of the road when the dog ran down the hill toward a frozen pond after a rabbit.
“Heel boy! Heel! C’mere!” he had shouted, whistling and clapping his hands.
But halfway across, the heedless dog had crashed through the thin ice. No matter how many times the dog tried to pull himself out, the edge broke away.
George had run down the hill, found a long branch under a tree, and with it had shuffled over the ice toward the dog. The ice moaned when he crept close to the middle, so George got down on his hands and knees and crawled as far as he dared go, holding out the branch, encouraging the dog to bite hold of it so he could pull him out.
“Grab on, Boy! Come on!” he shouted.
But the frightened dog didn’t understand. Every minute, he became weaker and weaker, until even the dog understood that his feeble attempts to climb out became futile. He was so tired and his muscles so cold that he could barely keep his head above the surface.
But George wouldn’t give up.
He had bought the dog as a puppy for his daughter’s sixth birthday. Tabitha carried the squirming little puppy all day long, hugging and kissing it. She named him Sam. The girl and dog were inseparable. He followed her everywhere, escorting her each morning to the end of the driveway to catch the school bus, carrying her sack lunch in his mouth. He was always waiting at the same place when the bus returned in the afternoon. At night, he always slept curled up at the foot of her bed.
By the time Sam was three years old, he out-weighed the girl by a good ten to twenty pounds.
One summer day, Tabby was riding her bicycle along the edge of the road with the dog trotting in a field beside her smelling everything, when a blue van came speeding over a blind hill, swerving across the center line into the oncoming lane and then back again, the tires kicking up rocks and dust when they hit the gravel shoulder.
The police report said Tabby died instantly from the impact. It also said she was thrown thirty-seven feet and that when the police arrived on the scene the two men, Thomas Two Fists and Victor Crow were sitting in the truck with the doors closed, while the dog stood over the wreckage of the girl, protecting her, licking her face, whimpering and whining and occasionally nudging her with his black nose.
The police had contacted George and his wife from the address on the dog’s tag.
Two Fists, who was driving, was sentenced to five years in prison for involuntary manslaughter. It should have been a lot longer, but although police could smell alcohol on his breath, they couldn’t get the breathalyzer to work properly. As a result, the inconsistent blood-alcohol level readings were thrown out. Thomas was released after serving only three years.
George had heard that Two Fists was back in town and that he had beat up his wife for seeing other men while he was in prison. But she was too afraid to report the abuse, so she just moved away one night—just packed a little bag and left with some man she had met at the diner where she worked as a waitress.
She left like a take-out order.
