Far North by Will Hobbs

could but never getting any closer to the shore. My mind wouldn’t let go of the pictures.
    The old man was sawing firewood with a folding bow saw. It seemed odd how unhurriedly he was working, just as if he was on a camp-out. Back from the fire, ten feet or so, he’d already built a lean-to of spruce boughs floored with a deep layer of boughs and tips.
    â€œDon’t get the front of your boots too close to the fire,” Raymond warned.
    I took a step back.
    â€œIt’s a good thing he’s with us,” Raymond said.
    â€œWho?” I asked, still in a daze.
    â€œHim,” Raymond said, pointing with his face toward the old man. “Those old guys like him…”
    â€œWhat’s his name?”
    â€œJohnny Raven.”
    Hearing his name, the old man looked up. He’d set the bow saw aside and was digging through one of the waterproof army boxes. He fished out some tea bags and handed Raymond a big aluminum pot that had a second one nested inside, motioning with the pots toward the river. “He wants me to get some water,” Raymond told me.
    â€œI’ll go with you,” I said.
    The thunder from the falls grew louder as we came over a little rise. I said, “I still can’t believe this really happened.”
    â€œMe either. It’s bad.”
    We were approaching the river. The whitewater sounded close. Suddenly Raymond’s flashlight beam fell on the freshly broken roots of the spruce tree Clint had tied to. Raymond said, “He should never have flown us way back up here. He’d still be alive if he’d done what he was supposed to do—just taken us home.”
    â€œI know,” I agreed. “He was like a little kid, all excited about flying. I think he was a good pilot; he just had bad luck. It wasn’t really his faultabout the engine quitting.”
    â€œCould’ve been it was his fault, the way it conked out. Who knows? And what about the radio? He shouldn’t have kept going. People always say about the bush pilots, Bad luck can happen to anyone, but you can’t afford to make stupid mistakes.”
    Raymond took the aluminum pots apart to get the water. “Here,” I said, “Let me hold the light.” I flashed it along the shore. The ice had grown considerably in the last few hours. “Man, it’s cold,” I said.
    â€œTell me about it.”
    â€œLet me give you a hand so you don’t slip. Careful…”
    My mind kept racing. “If the Mayday didn’t get through,” I said, thinking aloud, “and the emergency transmitter got wrecked…What I’m trying to figure out is, where are they going to be searching for us?”
    â€œAlong the Liard River, where we were supposed to be.”
    â€œThat’s what I was afraid of.”
    â€œI know.”
    Raymond was way ahead of me, I realized. “How much food could there be in those metal boxes?”
    â€œNot much, I guess.”
    We brought the water back to the old man, and he brewed tea. It felt good to get something hot inside our bodies. The old man had fished out the sleeping bags for us and wrapped himself in the red wool blanket. He looked calm in the light of the fire. I felt anything but calm.
    Raymond was looking into one of the metal boxes with the flashlight. “Any food in there?” I asked.
    â€œSome,” he said. “A sack of flour, a can of baking powder, a box of salt—we can make bannock. Big bag of beans, about five macaroni-and-cheese dinners, some boxes of dried fruit.”
    â€œThat’s it?”
    â€œThat’s it.”
    Now Raymond was going through his duffel bag and pulling out clothes, laying them on a blue vinyl tarp he’d pulled out of the second army box. His three pairs of gym shoes looked as out of place as his electric guitar and the hockey stick propped up against the tree behind him. “Lucky I have all these clothes with me,” he said,