As we descend through the forest, the walking becomes slower as the undergrowth thickens, and at times white spruce trees laden with boughs lie crashed across our path.
Brooks can plod for a few hours at a time but I always need to lift him over obstacles. When I hold him in my arms against my chest, I feel a surge of tenderness.
I see no bear scat or tracks, but once I notice a rotting log that has been clawed apart by something massive. I can’t tell how long ago it happened. Brooks’s wound crusts and is torn open by a jutting branch so that blood bubbles and beads along its length.
In the late afternoon I stretch out on some moss and sleep, my pack as my pillow. Brooks curls up, sheltered in the crook of my arm. When I wake, there is fresh blood like berry stains on the earth. I turn him gently in the slanting sunshine and notice pus seething beneath the surface.
“You need to lie still, Brooks. And get more salt water on that cut.”
Brooks whimpers. Holding his nose in one hand, I kiss it.
The cabin is only a few miles away. I stir juice crystals into hot water and sip a while, trying to calm myself. I give Brooks most of my watery porridge and set out.
Brooks moves like a marionette jerked slowly by its strings. He still doesn’t put any weight on the leg beneath his wound.
“We’re not stopping until we’re
home.” He needs to lie still until he’s healed. Brooks whines,
pausing every few minutes to snatch with his mouth at his wound as
we walk. I listen for the sound of branches cracking above the
surge of water as I continue the tale.
The princess freed herself from the dungeon but lost the prince in the confusion of the escape. In the light of day, she noticed a smear of blood across her shoulder where the prince had brushed against her. Unable to find him, she searched for the dragon whose cave blocked the entrance to the lake from which all true stories flow. She found the dragon’s prints followed by a trough where his tail had dragged behind. The prince’s footprints were almost obscured by those of the dragon. It was hard to track either one clearly because the ground where the dragon had passed was bare and scorched.
And so the princess set out to slay the dragon. Fearful that the prince would not survive, she led her exhausted horse deeper and deeper into the heart of the forest. In a tangled thicket, the dragon lurked in a cave that burrowed far beneath the earth.
Along its corridors the dragon had hoarded not only its treasures, but also the bones of those who had come upon the dragon’s lair.
The moon had
risen and the forest was bathed in its blue glow. Still the princess jumped at every cracking
branch, and no birds sang.
I snap Brooks onto his leash so he
keeps up with me and continue hunting for a game trail in the
tangled willows along the bank. From beside me, I hear the jerky
rhythm of his gait.
After many days the princess stood with her horse beside a stream that gurgled through the moss. A black enchanted bird wheeled above her, claws extended, wings silken smooth with serrated tips. He dropped down and perched beside her, barely missing her head.
“What are you searching for?” croaked the bird, snatching a round blackberry from the moss, then another.
“The dragon,” said the princess, looking up from her reflection in the water. “I cannot return until I’ve slain the dragon.”
“Then you won’t return,” said the bird, “until all happiness has shriveled away.”
He hopped a few steps and viciously pecked at a berry the princess held cupped in the palm of her hand. Sticky black juice pooled on her palm.
“And what,” he said, “would be the point of that?”
“But I’m not happy now,” said the princess.
“Taste it,” ordered the raven pushing her fingers with his beak.
The berry was sour, and the princess spat it out.
Then she quietly turned away, paying no more heed to the enchanted bird. But as she traveled on, her worthy steed lagged farther and farther behind until one day his legs crumpled beneath him and he lay on the forest floor. Grave with disappointment, his eyes searched hers until they closed.
The princess
wept silently, but still she carried on.
The only trail I find is a low tunnel I have to stoop through. A black pat of bear scat lies directly before me.
“Idiot,” I tell myself, out loud.
Meat-eating bears have black smelly scat filled with hair and bone.
I do a breaststroke-like motion through the thick brush, yodeling
constantly, until I’m back in the spruce trees.
Eyes burning, the princess wandered on through the tangled forest so slowly that the fallen trees she’d clambered over in the morning were still visible in the moonlight.
Again the enchanted bird lit on a branch beside her.
“Princess,” said the bird, “you must return, for you are in great danger.”
“What danger?” snapped the princess. “It seems I’m not the one who has paid the price.”
“Only this,” said the raven. “That your life is going by without you.”
“ Are you looking for me?” The gruff voice of the dragon drifted through the night air.
He slid belly-first into the stream, like a shark breaking the smooth surface of the waters with his fiery snout.
The raven rose and tumbled, then rose again, flying frantically until lost from sight.
Up and up the bank, the dragon scrambled toward the princess. Dripping water, he breathed hot stale steam on her innocent face.
But in that moment, something happened. Time in all of its grace stopped, and she was no longer afraid.
A quiet happiness seemed to blow through the clearing and the still air, filling her senses with every shallow shaking breath she breathed. The princess stood very still and listened and waited.
The world about her grew brighter and clearer, and on the horizon a completely different bird—a hawk of mottled plumage—hung in the vortex of a warm current of air, riding its draft to the heavens. The princess never did learn who this strange bird was, but watching it hang and climb, she could only laugh and dip her head.
This was the moment she’d always dreaded, and now that it had arrived, she was not afraid. In fact, she welcomed its approach.
She had at last set eyes on her enemy.
“Take heed,” she said, hand on the shaft of her sword. If I die here, she realized, I will die content.
A wild recklessness seized hold of her. There was a wind blowing strong in that forest now, and its warmth filled her. She slid the sword seamlessly from its sheath. “I only wanted to see you and follow you to your lair. For you have laid waste to those whom I have loved.”
The dragon snapped his fiery jaws like a dumb beast, and coals slithered down his scales and hissed as they struck the earth.
“Be warned!” said the princess. She raised her sword and thrust it in the chest of the dragon.
For a moment nothing happened.
Then the princess braced herself on one knee and yanked the sword free. The dragon vomited porridge-like globs of phlegm and stumbled, choking, into the pure, pebble-strewn stream.
The earth curved at the distant horizon. Above them both, planets spun about unknown and uncounted suns. Around the dying dragon the clean water sang while his pestilent blood seeped out and mingled with its current.
And then the dragon’s body floated onto its side and slowly sank.
When the princess had cleaned her sword and returned it to her side, she looked about at the sunshine splashing through the forest. And the climbing hawk, who had broken free from the vortex and soared above her head.
Then through the magical forest came the drumbeat of hoofs, and both loyal steeds came prancing through the shafts of sunlight toward her and drew, front hoofs raised, to a stop.
“Princess?” The
prince clambered from a hole in the river bank. He yawned and shook his head. “I’ve been asleep, I
think.And I dreamed you were gone
forever.”
The sound of “forever” echoes through the trees.
The moon trembles, tucked snugly into the sheltering nook between two peaks. I blink at its fading light. Brooks yawns and stretches his front legs, yowling when his wound stretches too.
Hours later, I stop on the bluff, the hot sun in my face. Below me is the clearing where the river I’ve been following and a larger river flow together. Our cabin and cache and shed and outhouse wait, scattered on the bank, as they’ve waited all these years. Water flows by and the sun shines on the rocks of the gravel bar where I fished with Dad. Across the river, mountains loom with Dall sheep huddled on the outcrops, staring down at us. Beyond the visible mountains are further mountains and valleys, layer upon layer east across the territories, where bears and wolves still wander free and people rarely visit.
“We’re home, Brooks. We did it.”
Brooks whimpers and leans against my legs.
“You’re going to sit by the stove now until you’re better. And eat. Think of that. Three meals a day and hot soup between meals.”
I take my juggling balls from my pack. Standing on the cliff before scrambling downhill, I throw them into the autumn air again and again. If I drop one, it might roll all the way to the clearing.
Before I go down, I turn to look at the way I’ve come. A shadow flickers through the tree trunks and is gone before I can even be sure it’s there.
The footing is steep, a scramble. Concentrating, I half slide down the bluff, rocks rolling underfoot, crashing and bouncing as they fall. Brooks whimpers behind me. Reaching the bottom I dust myself off and walk along the last bit of trail and through the clearing.
I’ve waited to come here since I was a little girl. I’ve lived here in my dreams. Dad disappeared from here. Only Mom came to search. Becky and I stayed with the neighbors and didn’t understand.
I hear wings flapping. The raven lands below us somewhere just out of sight.
At close range, home is not quite so intact. Shutters lie rotting on the ground, ripped from windows. The door gapes open. Across the clearing, broken dishes and pans are strewn. I walk inside. Window glass is shattered like bread crumbs all over the floor. The cookstove is on its side, along with the barrel stove for heating. Lengths of stovepipe are strewn about the cabin.
“We can’t sleep here, Brooks.” Panic is once again battering at my head. How many nights until Mom comes? I’ve lost track.
Brooks collapses at my side. His infection must be exhausting him. I will do whatever I have to do. Brooks needs rest—lots of it—warm and inside.
I start to pick up the pieces. When I hold the first broken plate in my hand, I remember breakfast many years ago.