Bold Gods

1. Goose

HOME MADE FOX NERVOUS.  Shark-tooth peaks choked the sky, and Fox, who'd grown up where only telegraph wires cut into the blue.  And he was afraid to go out at night here.  He'd seen eyes in the dark, across the whitewater, unblinking.  Hopefully whatever they belonged to wasn't stupid or strong enough to try crossing.  Fox had never been a good shot—his bad aim had been embarrassing in Texas and was even more embarrassing in Alaska.  Some of the boys up north could hit a squirrel drunk from three hundred yards, and they weren't doing it for fun. 

Alaska wasn't all it was cracked up to be.  Mostly it was cold.  He'd fallen in love with the Alaskan summer—wildflowers consuming the meadows, the tall pines filling out with soft buds, the wind in their branches like rushing water.  Even the mountains.  Now home, a square cabin bought sight-unseen for $150, was buried up to its single window in snow.  False advertising if he'd ever seen it. 

The morning after the storm, he spent a few minutes digging himself out of the house in unending twilight.  Fox sank to his hips even with snowshoes on.  He couldn't begin to guess what time it was when he woke late—dawn became afternoon became sunset, and the sun never rose much higher than the peaks.  All day, what little day existed, the valley shivered under orange light.  Everything had to be cold and difficult here.  Sick of pushing the powder around for it to shift back into place, he struggled as far as the flagpole (which flew only Lone Star colors) and turned around. 

Fox was freezing, but worse still, he was hungry.  Usually he ate at the only restaurant in town and washed the bland food served by rude staff down with a few shots of whiskey . . . maybe he wasn't actually that hungry.  Hunting was out of the question.  Trapping didn't seem much easier—he'd have to remember where he'd laid the traps.  No easy feat for somebody who took whiskey with his dinner every night.  And anyway, he couldn't leave the house until the snow packed down, long after the sun had gone gently into that good night.  Luckily Fox was prepared for snowy days with a shelf full of books, which was about the extent of his emergency supplies. 

Two frontier novels later (Fox took advice wherever he could get it), he went outside again.  Darkness meant nothing to Alaskans.  Things had to be done and they were going to do them, rain, shine, snow, freezing rain, fog, freezing fog, hail, or plague.  He couldn't keep up. 

The walk into town wasn't long.  At least it hadn't been long in the summer.  Now that the temperature had sunk twenty below—if Fox was being generous—he may as well have been on the other side of the planet.  He couldn't remember what it was like to feel warm without the skin of another poor animal, some of which he'd never heard of before moving to Alaska, clinging to his back.  The hell was a marten, anyway? 

By the time he'd trudged onto Main Street, it was five o'clock.  Light from the tavern spilled onto the snowy street, and a couple of men were outside smoking in the glow.  Alaskans are insane, Fox thought, like he hadn't thought it hundreds of times before.  Watching Fox make his way up the street, one of the men took the cigarette from between his teeth and blew a perfect ring of smoke.  "Hey, Walsh.  You look fuckin' cold." 

"And you look like you've had a few," he said, hobbling onto the wooden porch.

The other man smiled around his cigarette.  "Nobody likes this place for the food." 

"We don't like it for the drinks, either, but where else are we gonna go?" Fox slapped the smoker on the shoulder, nearly knocking him over, and ducked inside the tavern.
   
Tonight was busy.  Pilots, dressed in leather with their arms stretched over their chair backs, occupied most of the tables.  They'd likely been grounded by the storm for a couple days.  They had it easy; Fox hadn't flown in five days, but who was counting?  Aside from Fox?