Far North by Will Hobbs Page B

map of all the rivers and streams in the North. With a twist of his lips, he pointed to a bannockhe’d evidently just taken out of the frying pan. He’d set it aside to cool on his woodpile, and it was still giving off heat. The old man got up and tore off a big piece for me, taking a very small one for himself. I took off one mitten and accepted it from his hand. It was warm and delicious, the first food I’d eaten since our breakfast at Fort Simpson. “Good,” he said in English.
    â€œGood is right,” I agreed. “The bread of the North. We had bannock at the boarding school. At first I thought it was a pan pizza without anything on it.”
    I could see he liked it that I was talking to him even though he couldn’t understand much.
    I slipped my mitten back on and walked over to the river. I stood there staring at the hole in the ground, looking again at the broken roots where the spruce had stood. From the hanging shelves of ice along the shore, I could tell that the river had dropped two or three feet overnight. The Nahanni looked so different from the day before that I was stunned. Today it was filled with hissing cakes of mush ice, and the sky was filled with gray clouds and snow. The snow was falling on the rocky slopes of Sunblood Mountain, which rose from its immense base along the opposite shore. I remembered the little thermometer attached tothe parka’s zipper pull at my neck. I zipped it down far enough to read what it said. Twenty-two degrees below zero. The coldest I’d ever seen in my life was twenty-four above. They’d better find us soon, I thought.
    When I returned to the fire, Raymond was there eating his bannock. I could see he wasn’t going to have much to say, and I didn’t blame him. The old man handed me a cup of hot tea. A half-dozen gray jays showed up out of nowhere and snatched the crumbs from around Raymond’s feet. “We call that bird ‘camprobber,’” he said.
    â€œYou should see the river this morning,” I said. “It’s full of ice.”
    â€œGonna freeze up now. November is winter. But I thought of something else about our chances for getting rescued.”
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œThere’s a few hunting cabins along the Liard River. They call that part the Long Reach. People are still hunting moose down there now. Somebody could have seen our plane go away from the river, toward the mountains.”
    â€œNow you’re talking,” I said.
    â€œThen they wouldn’t spend all their time looking up and down the river. They’ll come looking in the mountains.”
    â€œAnd maybe they’ll figure out we wanted to go see the falls! We’ll get a smoky fire going today, like you said. We’ll be out of here!”
    The old man was making an inventory of all the emergency gear from the plane, laying everything out on the blue tarp for us to see. He was pleased with each and every item: a few pots and pans, a few utensils, two plastic water bottles, a sheath knife, a slim bone-handled knife Raymond said was a skinning knife, a folding camp shovel, a whetstone and file, the bow saw and two spare blades, the ax, and the useless rifle. Old Johnny Raven checked the rifle’s tubular magazine for shells and found it empty, pulled the bolt back and exposed the chamber, and was disappointed to find the chamber empty too.
    Raymond was arranging a number of smaller items. He set out three packs of parachute cord a hundred feet long each, a first-aid kit, a compass, a sewing kit, a small fishing tackle box, a pencil and notepad, four candles, and a cigar box with two butane lighters and a box of kitchen matches inside.
    There was one other item that Raymond had picked up and was turning over in his hands, trying to figure out what it was—a fluorescent-orange plastic case about four inches long.Raymond pulled it apart, and a white cube fell out onto the ground. A round metal