Calder's kisses woke him the next morning as well, slow, sleepy and gentle. Jack realized it was the first time they'd woken up together this way. Usually one or the other of them was slipping away early. This morning they moved together, talking softly in the early light, the rustle of the nylon sleeping bag shifting the only other sound. Skin to skin, they murmured about breakfast and pains in their sides from sleeping on the ground with the intimate air of whispered poetry. Even the most mundane statements felt magical in the hushed air of the close, warm cave.
Eventually the necessities of living parted them. They climbed out of their shelter to stretch in the dawn. The sky was cloudy, threatening snow. Jack checked the walls of the shelter and built the snow back up while Calder hunted down more wood for the fire. Once back in the shelter, they sat close beside one another and shared the last of the food from the supplies.
Jack remembered the morning after one of his first times with the men on the air base. Not the first man, who had kicked him out immediately after they were finished, but one a little later. He'd laid next to that relative stranger as the morning light had filtered through the windows and studied every line of his face, certain the moment was significant, something that would matter the rest of his life. It was the first time he'd ever been close to a man in that way. Not just impersonal rutting for the sake of quick gratification, but real, romantic intimacy. Lying close to one another, they were laying a foundation for something bigger.
He'd been terrified. He requested a transfer to a different base not long after. Now he couldn't even remember the man's name.
Today, he was still afraid, but it was a different kind of fear. And this time he had no intention of leaving.
They hardly left each other's sides all day. There wasn't much reason to go anywhere, except to occasionally scrounge for more damp snow-buried firewood. Jack got hungrier as the day wore on and watched the sky, hoping every time he looked that this would be the time he saw a plane in the distance.
But by sundown there was still nothing.
“What are we going to do about food tomorrow?” Calder asked as they laid down, nothing else to do, hoping sleep would quiet their growling stomachs.
“We have plenty of water,” Jack replied. “We can last a long time without food. We stay in the shelter and conserve heat and energy. Rescue will be here soon.”
Calder didn't seem entirely convinced, but he didn't argue. Jack kissed him and they held one another until they fell asleep.
***
The next day came and went in much the same way, the two men barely leaving their shelter, barely leaving one another's sides. The world seemed to narrow, focus whittling down to just each other and the dark interior of the cave which they warmed with their slow, tender lovemaking. It wasn't sex like anything Jack was used to. There was none of the hurried, shameful fumbling that had become normal for him. They gave to one another without any need for reciprocation. They lay quiet against each other between acts, as content to stop as they were to begin again, pleased to simply be as they were, skin to skin and peaceful. There was something almost sacred about it. He could see how once upon a time people had considered sex divine. They worshiped each other in the warm shadow of the cave paying loving devotion to every inch of skin. They were high priests of private religions, exclusive only to themselves, each the other’s only deity. Jack had treated sex as something meaningless and physical for years and it still was, in a sense. But that was only half of the equation. Calder, somehow, in a way no one else could, added something unique to what were otherwise simple physical acts. He elevated it to something spiritual, something more about souls than bodies. He put himself in Jack’s hands with absolute trust and Jack did the same. Together in the peace of the cave, warm and wrapped around one another, all their grief, their guilt and insecurities melted away. Jack thought, through the lightheadedness and hunger pangs, through the cold and the fear that rescue might never come, that this might be a little piece of what heaven felt like.
The day after that, they weren't hungry anymore. What had been a constant gnawing pain dwindled to a distant dull throb. Jack felt clear headed for the first time in days.
He left the shelter, carrying the recycled soup cans, steaming in the cold morning air. The pine bark tea within was mostly water with a bitter, astringent after taste. But it was better than nothing. Calder was already standing outside, the wind tugging at his hair. The early sun gilt all his edges in gold. Jack pressed the warm cup into his hand and he murmured a quick thank you.
They stood together, both of them feeling weak and chilly and yet somehow serene, looking out across the frozen ice toward the distant stand of pines.
“We should go over there,” Calder said. “Today.”
Jack didn't answer at first, just looking at Calder with a frown.
“It isn't about Avery,” Calder said. Jack looked at him over the top of his can of bitter tea, one eyebrow raised. “Not entirely anyway. Rescue is taking longer than you expected.”
“It'll come,” Jack said with calm certainty. “Our best chance of lasting till it does is waiting here and saving energy.”
“Without food.”
“We can last months without food.”
“And what happens when we're too weak to look for firewood? Or fix the shelter? Or boil snow for water?”
“Rescue will get here before then.”
“And if they don't?”
“They will.”
Calder stared at him, looking haggard behind the hood of his coat. Jack looked out at the snow, trying not to let himself be moved.
“We're already running out of firewood,” Calder pointed out. “Over there we might find food.”
“And Avery,” Jack added, as bitter as the awful tea. “That's what you're really after.”
“Why does that scare you so much?”
Jack froze, resisting the urge to respond with anger. Calder reached for his hand, looking at him with eyes that were dulled by hunger but still earnest.
“I already told you,” he said. “I'm not trying to save him because I want to be with him again.”
Jack looked away, the snow crunching under his feet as he shifted.
“I'm going,” Calder said, calm as the morning. “I want you to come with me.”
The wind stirred over the snow, carrying little flurries with it. Jack watched them dance, wondering when his life had got so far out of his control.
“I wouldn't let you go alone,” he said and turned to show Calder a faint smile. “I made you a promise, remember?”
Calder smiled back, and not much later they were picking their cautious way across the ice. Jack carried a backpack filled with only what he’d determined wouldn’t kill them if they lost it. One blanket, some rope, and a knife. Jack went first, testing the ice ahead of them with a stick, tense and wary of any minor shift.
They reached the other bank without incident. They passed a hole in the ice, several days frozen over, with a tent stake driven in beside it, a scrap of red fabric tied around the top. Calder paused to stare at it for a long moment and Jack could almost feel his desperate hope.
They moved on, into the trees. It was still early, the light streaming through the branches. Snow piled up against the trunks of the pines at the outer edges, but further in there were only isolated patches on a bed of evergreen needles. It was warmer under the trees, not just because of the shelter from the wind, but because of the insulating needles and the growth and decay they sheltered, going on under the surface even during the coldest part of winter.
“You focus on firewood,” Jack said, already scanning the underbrush for likely places to find edible plants and insects. “I'll work on food. Stay close.”
Jack crouched to dig under the snow, and Calder moved a little ahead of him, collecting loose branches. Calder moved slowly, cautiously as Jack had across the ice, reminding Jack of a deer scenting for predators. His face was stiff with anxious concern. He knew he might see Avery at any moment, in one condition or another. Jack couldn’t tell if he feared it or hoped for it.
A bush, flattened by the snow, had formed a natural roof over the ground beneath it, allowing a few hardy nettles to remain alive, though wilted. Jack pulled them out and tucked them into his pocket without much ceremony. They were bad for the kidneys once they'd flowered, but Jack doubted they'd be out here long enough to worry about kidney failure one way or another. He knew the greens were edible, and that was what mattered. He moved on, finding a few other wilted greens and contemplating whether he should try digging for insects. They were good protein, but Calder might not be willing-
“Jack!”
Calder shouted for him as he was straightening up, louder and more urgently than Jack had expected. He hurried closer, shoving branches out of the way, and immediately saw the reason for Calder's distress.
The remains of a camp were strewn out before them. A tangle of sticks and shredded sleeping bags lay in a hole that might once have been a shelter. A fire pit lay gray and cold before it. A scrap of red fabric tied to a tree branch flapped forlornly in the wind.
“He was here,” Calder said, his voice high and tight. “That's his sleeping bag.”
“Not long ago either,” Jack said thoughtfully, examining the coals in the fire pit. “A couple of days. Jesus, he made it through the storm, off the mountain, all the way here and he was still strong enough to dig himself in like this. Your friend is either very strong or very lucky.”
“Why isn't he still here?” Calder asked, scanning the destroyed camp for some sign of the other man. “What happened here?”
“Nothing good,” Jack muttered, looking at the tattered remains of the sleeping bags and the sharpened sticks arranged around the small camp. A clump of brown fur was still caught on one. “We shouldn't stay here long.”
Calder had seen the fur by now as well and looked pale.
He turned suddenly, leaving the camp and pushing deeper into the stand of trees. Jack followed, nerves humming like a piano wire pulled too tight. He stuck close to Calder, feeling the other man's frantic urgency. He knew they were almost certainly already too late.
The little clump of trees was dense but not very deep and they soon emerged on the other side. Ahead of them another ice field stretched, the land sloping slowly downhill, dotted by spruce and pine which gradually grew more numerous until they joined a forest so far away it was barely a smudge of green on the gray horizon.
Jack could see the growing panic on Calder's face. To have thought Avery was so close only to lose the lead again...
“There!” Jack said, pointing suddenly toward a solitary, wind beaten spruce on the other side of the ice. Its bedraggled branches hung low, its green tips dragging in the snow like trailing fingers. The snow collecting on the fans of its branches shielded the ground beneath from the ice and wind. Under the low branches, a dark shape was huddled against the cold. Calder hurried toward it and Jack followed, sudden hope giving them both energy.
As they drew closer they quickly realized it was far too large a shape to be a person. It was a mound beneath the low branches, solid and dark except where snow speckled it. Jack began to slow, doubt creeping in. The wind rushed past them off the mountain at their backs, cold with frost, and stirred the dark fur of the thing beneath the tree. And then it moved, raising its shaggy head to look at them through a single baleful yellow eye.
Jack froze, grabbing Calder's arm to stop him. Calder stopped with a jerk but didn't protest, realizing what Jack already had a second later. They stared at the bear as it climbed slow, heavily to its feet, inexorable as storm clouds building and turned to face them. Half of its face was livid with a recent, untreated burn, red and shiny and horrible.
“Back away slowly,” Jack said as calmly as he could manage. “Most bears don't care about humans as long as we don't act threatening. We just stay out of its way.”
The two men were already taking slow steps backwards, Jack's hand a clenched fist in the sleeve of Calder's jacket. The bear took a few slow steps out from under the tree, the pine branches dragging over its shaggy fur. It huffed, grunted, and rose up on its hind legs. It was massive and Jack felt his heart thundering in his chest, fear flooding his veins with adrenaline.
“What if it's already met humans,” Calder asked, his voice shaking though his tone was calm, “and knows we're a threat?”
Jack was looking at the burn on the grizzly's face and wondering the same thing. It raised its snout to the cold morning air, catching their scent from downwind. Silhouetted against the sky, it looked like a primordial god, vast and powerful and hungry. Jack and Calder were still backing toward the trees, but Jack knew exactly how helpful those would be against a charging bear.
“If it comes after us,” Jack said as the bear, grunting and huffing, sniffed the air and stared them down, “run back to the shelter, close yourself in, and wait for rescue.”
“Jack, I am not going to let you feed yourself to a bear for me,” Calder said seriously, both of them still watching the bear, the snow crunching under each careful, backwards step.
“You come up with a better idea, let me know,” Jack replied. Calder had no time to offer an alternative, because at that moment the bear bellowed at them, dropped back down onto all fours and charged them.
“Into the trees!” Jack shouted and they both turned to sprint the last few steps between them and the stand of pines. The bear, terrifyingly fast, crashed into the trees right behind them, roaring as it brought its heavy paws down to shatter the limbs and small trees in its way. Calder shouted, the blow only just missing him, and nearly fell. Jack grabbed him and dragged him to the right, not wanting to end up back on the ice or in the open. They scrambled away through the trees, the bear close behind, climbing the densely wooded slope of a hill. But Jack knew this stand of trees wasn't very large in any direction. They would run out of cover soon and the bear was right behind them, loud as thunder as it tore through the underbrush. Jack grabbed a sapling above them to drag himself up the steep slope and reached back to grab Calder's hand, swinging the other man up after him just an inch ahead of the swipe of the grizzly’s claws.
“Climb!” he shouted at Calder, pausing to grab a rock and hurl it back down at the bear. The hill had become a nearly vertical face and the fact that the bear had to slow down to climb was all that was saving them. They pulled themselves upwards by their fingers and adrenaline alone, clawing their way to what Jack knew would be only very temporary safety. Sooner or later this hill would even out again and unless the bear got tired of climbing and gave up, they would be done for. Jack, looking back in fear at the bear as it climbed after them, almost missed the rock sliding out from under his foot until it was too late.
“Jack!” Calder grabbed his arm, saving him from falling directly into the bear. Calder gritted his teeth and held Jack up as he secured his footing again, sending gravel cascading down into the face of the snarling bear.
A moment later, Calder was pulling himself over the top, reaching back to help Jack. They collapsed on the flat ground at the top of the bluff for only a moment, their limbs shaking, before they heard the bear still climbing and struggled to their feet to keep running. The trees kept going, the ground sloping upward, and Jack realized they were running toward the coast. Jack looked back and saw the bear already dragging itself over the edge of the slope, its eye full of blind, animal rage.
Calder pulled up short ahead of him as the ground suddenly dropped away beneath them, the hill turning abruptly to a cliff that plunged all the way down to the cold ice of the arctic sea. Calder met his eyes, both of them realizing the sudden hopelessness of the situation. They would never survive a fall down that cliff.
Jack turned back to look at the bear. It was on its hind legs again, bellowing at them, its mouth black behind its terrible teeth. Jack was still holding on to Calder tight, but he forced himself to let go.
“Remember the plan,” he said.
“No,” Calder replied, pale, searching for any other way out of this situation. “No!”
The bear dropped and charged at them, fast and powerful as a freight train. Jack braced himself for the worst and stepped in front of Calder.
And then, from nowhere, a man appeared between them and the bear, shouting loudly enough to rival the grizzly's howling, waving a flaming stick. The bear pulled up short with a fearful noise and the stranger advanced on it, jabbing at it with the stick and making as much noise as he could.
The bear backed up, stumbling as it retreated from the unexpected enemy. Jack was behind the man in an instant, throwing rocks and adding his voice to the stranger's shouts. Calder was soon next to him. The bear backed up all the way to the edge of the bluff and then over it. Jack stared in shock as it slipped and tumbled backwards, crashing down the steep slope all the way to the bottom.
The three men peered over the edge, the stranger gripping his stick tightly and saw the bear lying against a tree at the bottom of the slope. For a long moment it was still, then slowly shifted, getting to its feet unsteadily and limping away.
“It'll be back,” the stranger said, his gray eyes grim in his thin, haggard face. “That thing fucking hates me.”
“Avery?”
Calder's voice was quiet, tentative, not daring to hope. But as the stranger turned to look at him, his face lit up with joy. He threw his arms around the man at once, holding him tightly.
“It is you!” he sobbed. “I thought we'd never find you! I thought you were dead!”
“Calder?” the stranger said, confusion evident. Then he was hugging Calder back like he was the last life preserver on the Titanic. “Holy shit! What are you doing out here? What happened? Is Dan with you? God, is this- are you a rescue party? Do you have a radio?”
“No, no,” Calder sobbed, happy tears running down his face. “God, it's a long, stupid story.”
“You aren't here to rescue me?” Avery asked, and Jack could hardly blame him for looking crestfallen.
“We are, sort of.” Jack offered Avery a hand to shake and Avery reluctantly let go of Calder to do so. “Jack Whittaker, private pilot. Calder hired me to help find you. But things haven't exactly gone how we expected they would.”
“You're stranded too,” Avery said, taking a wild guess. He looked very tired. He sighed, pulled himself back from whatever mental ledge he'd been standing on, and shook it off. “Well, I suppose three people have a better shot out here than one. Come on, I have a shelter built down this way.”