the dark rock.
Hal Rawson steps out the furthest into the shadows. He turns and regards the others through the arabesques of his cigarette smoke, his expression unreadable.
Trask frowns at him, clears his throat.
âNow, Doctor, I understand youâre also back in Jasper to study glaciers.
âThatâs right.
Trask shakes his head.
âYouâre a persistent sort, Byrne, Iâll grant you that. But Iâm afraid if you get swallowed up I wonât be around this time to come to your rescue. So donât do anything foolish, please.
Rawsonâs sudden voice out of the dark:
âThe glaciers creep like snakes that watch their prey.
The guests glance at one another. Another awkward silence falls. Elspeth opens her mouth to speak, then purses her lips.
âShelley, I believe, Byrne says, coming to someoneâs rescue, Rawsonâs or Miss Fletcherâs. Or both.
âFrom his poem
Mont Blanc.
Itâs curious: in 1816 Shelley apparently understood that glaciers once covered most of Europe. In that poem he imagines an ice age, an idea that scientists scoffed at for another thirty years.
Rawson flicks his cigarette away. There is evidently nothing more to be said. Elspeth turns and smiles at Byrne.
âItâs fascinating when you think about it. The fact that a glacier moves, I mean, but so slowly that you canât see it.
Byrne raises his cup of cold tea, pours a little out into the saucer.
âThink of this saucer filling to its rim and then spilling over. A glacier is an overflow from a great saucer of rock that has filled with ice over the millennia. It pours out, one could say, wherever there is a gap between the encircling peaks.
He tips the saucer and a few drops spill onto the paving stones with an unmistakable dribbling sound. Trask coughs out a cloud of cigar smoke and Freya laughs. Byrne goes on in a chastened tone,
âEleven thousand years ago, itâs estimated, the ice covered this entire valley.
Elspeth watches Byrne as he speaks. He is ten years her senior and looks much older, weatherworn. His manner is distant, reserved. She feels a momentary desire to touch his face, imagining it would be as cool and impervious as marble.
He has returned to the mountains after more than a decade. To the place where he nearly lost his life. She wants to know why.
8
The next morning Byrne leaves the chalet on a chestnut mare from Traskâs stable and rides along the creek. He follows the windings of a sinuous esker to the siteof the old settlement, although he knows he will find it deserted.
âThe settlers were kicked out four years ago, Trask told Byrne as he helped him saddle up. When the national park was created. Well, most of them got compensation or deeds to land further north. So it wasnât totally ruthless, you see. They werenât driven off with guns.
Only those who had sanctioned business within the boundaries, guides and trailblazers like Trask, were allowed to remain.
âSwiftâs still here, Trask said. Nobody was going to order him off his land. And prime real estate it is. I only wish Iâd seen it first.
9
At the old settlement Byrne realizes how much the Arcturus glacier has receded, the advance made by trees, grasses, flowers, into the barren valley. What is strange, what can only be a trick of memory, is that the cabins themselves are much farther from the river bank than he remembers, tucked in a stand of dark trees, as if they too have been receding with the ice.
The trading post is gone. He is sure of that. None of the remaining log ruins show traces of the trellised portico, the narrow windows, that he remembers.He dismounts, ground-ties the mare and enters one of the cabins that has no door. Inside it is bare, the dark logs streaked with light from the gaps in the sagging roof. A willow is growing in through the window.
In the silence he speaks aloud the words he imagined he would say to her.
âDo you have
Hal Rawson steps out the furthest into the shadows. He turns and regards the others through the arabesques of his cigarette smoke, his expression unreadable.
Trask frowns at him, clears his throat.
âNow, Doctor, I understand youâre also back in Jasper to study glaciers.
âThatâs right.
Trask shakes his head.
âYouâre a persistent sort, Byrne, Iâll grant you that. But Iâm afraid if you get swallowed up I wonât be around this time to come to your rescue. So donât do anything foolish, please.
Rawsonâs sudden voice out of the dark:
âThe glaciers creep like snakes that watch their prey.
The guests glance at one another. Another awkward silence falls. Elspeth opens her mouth to speak, then purses her lips.
âShelley, I believe, Byrne says, coming to someoneâs rescue, Rawsonâs or Miss Fletcherâs. Or both.
âFrom his poem
Mont Blanc.
Itâs curious: in 1816 Shelley apparently understood that glaciers once covered most of Europe. In that poem he imagines an ice age, an idea that scientists scoffed at for another thirty years.
Rawson flicks his cigarette away. There is evidently nothing more to be said. Elspeth turns and smiles at Byrne.
âItâs fascinating when you think about it. The fact that a glacier moves, I mean, but so slowly that you canât see it.
Byrne raises his cup of cold tea, pours a little out into the saucer.
âThink of this saucer filling to its rim and then spilling over. A glacier is an overflow from a great saucer of rock that has filled with ice over the millennia. It pours out, one could say, wherever there is a gap between the encircling peaks.
He tips the saucer and a few drops spill onto the paving stones with an unmistakable dribbling sound. Trask coughs out a cloud of cigar smoke and Freya laughs. Byrne goes on in a chastened tone,
âEleven thousand years ago, itâs estimated, the ice covered this entire valley.
Elspeth watches Byrne as he speaks. He is ten years her senior and looks much older, weatherworn. His manner is distant, reserved. She feels a momentary desire to touch his face, imagining it would be as cool and impervious as marble.
He has returned to the mountains after more than a decade. To the place where he nearly lost his life. She wants to know why.
8
The next morning Byrne leaves the chalet on a chestnut mare from Traskâs stable and rides along the creek. He follows the windings of a sinuous esker to the siteof the old settlement, although he knows he will find it deserted.
âThe settlers were kicked out four years ago, Trask told Byrne as he helped him saddle up. When the national park was created. Well, most of them got compensation or deeds to land further north. So it wasnât totally ruthless, you see. They werenât driven off with guns.
Only those who had sanctioned business within the boundaries, guides and trailblazers like Trask, were allowed to remain.
âSwiftâs still here, Trask said. Nobody was going to order him off his land. And prime real estate it is. I only wish Iâd seen it first.
9
At the old settlement Byrne realizes how much the Arcturus glacier has receded, the advance made by trees, grasses, flowers, into the barren valley. What is strange, what can only be a trick of memory, is that the cabins themselves are much farther from the river bank than he remembers, tucked in a stand of dark trees, as if they too have been receding with the ice.
The trading post is gone. He is sure of that. None of the remaining log ruins show traces of the trellised portico, the narrow windows, that he remembers.He dismounts, ground-ties the mare and enters one of the cabins that has no door. Inside it is bare, the dark logs streaked with light from the gaps in the sagging roof. A willow is growing in through the window.
In the silence he speaks aloud the words he imagined he would say to her.
âDo you have
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