I’m greeted by a mewing feline before I even get the door open to haul in the first load of supplies.  As soon as I put the paper bag containing the milk on the floor near the stove, the little guy is sniffing at it.  I wonder if he can actually smell the milk or if he’s just being a typical, curious cat.  I’ve never had a pet in my life, and I don’t really know much about how cats behave.  When I was a kid, some of the neighbors had dogs that I played with, but all the cats I saw weren’t the friendly type.

I bring most of the supplies inside the cabin before it gets too dark inside to see what I’m doing.  The fire in the fireplace has burned down to coals, so I get it going before lighting candles around the place.  I have to yell at the kitten to keep him away from the flames.

“You better figure that shit out sooner rather than later.”  I cringe as I hear my father’s words coming from my mouth.  I take a deep breath and soften my voice.  “Don’t want you to burn yourself.”

I take two candles that usually sit on the floor and place them up on the mantle and out of the kitten’s reach.  I light a small kerosene lantern in the kitchen and pull out the bottle I bought in Yellowknife, fill it with milk, and then warm it a bit over the fire before feeding the kitten.

“You need a name.”  I remember the can of wet cat food with the picture that looked a bit like this one.  “Can’t call you Sheba.  You’re a tomcat.”

I hold the bottle of milk and stare into the eyes of the kitten as I try to remember anything I can about the name Sheba, searching for a suitable name for the grey bundle of fur.  All I can come up with is some vague recollection of the Queen of Sheba screwing King Solomon.

“Is Solomon a good name for a cat?” I ask out loud.  The kitten doesn’t respond.  “Maybe just Solo for short?  You’re the only one left of your litter, and chances are you aren’t going to find any companion other than me out here.  Solo works as well as anything.”

Solo complains and claws at my fingers as I refill the bottle.  I have no idea how much a kitten should eat, but he still seems ravenous, so I keep feeding him.  Getting a bit fattened up before winter is a good plan anyway.

“I don’t know how long you were without food, but it must not have been too long.  You’re recovering pretty quick, at least.”

Large green eyes stare at me as I keep talking nonsense to a cat.  I have no idea why I’m talking to him at all, knowing full well that he understands nothing of what I’m saying.  It’s a pointless activity, and I feel foolish, but I do it anyway.  It’s not like there’s someone else here to judge me for it.

Solo finishes up his milk and sits near the fire as I put away the rest of my supplies.  In the back of the Jeep are a handful of things that need to go to the barn, but I’ll wait to put them away in the morning.  It’s already dark outside, and the temperature has surely dropped since the sun went down.

I grab one of the books I bought at the bookstore and sit down in my chair.  It’s a mystery with the picture of a startled-looking woman on the cover.  I’m a huge fan of mysteries.  I like trying to piece all the clues together to see if I can come up with a plausible answer as to “whodunit.”  I rarely get it right, but it’s still entertaining.  This one is also a nice, thick book, which means it will take me a while to read.  Before I get a chance to skim the summary on the back, Solo is climbing up my leg.

“Those claws hurt, you know.”

Solo isn’t concerned with my pain.  He picks his feet up and kneads at my thigh and then looks at the book in my hand.  He sniffs it briefly before rubbing his face against it.  He rubs once more before trying to climb on top of it.

I set the book on the arm of the chair and lean back as Solo crawls up my chest and settles himself down with his nose up near my chin.  He’s still tiny and obviously weakened but seems better than when I first found him.  Maybe he wasn’t alone out in the woods as long as I thought he might have been.  I wonder what happened to his mother.

Thoughts of motherhood in general take my mind to the last time I saw my own mother.

“Do you have anything to say to me?  Anything at all?”

I just sat in silence, staring at the barred window separating us.

“You could consider apologizing, you know!”

Her words dug into my skin.  She might as well have been grabbing me and shaking me.  I was shaking anyway.

“For what?” I finally said, unable to speak any meaningful words.

“For what?  Really, Bishop?  You killed him.  You killed him in cold blood.  They’re right about you, aren’t they?  You’re a sociopath.  You have no remorse and no conscience.  You don’t care at all about what you’ve done.”

I looked up and stared into her smooth, brown eyes.  Even as a child, I wished I had her eyes instead of my father’s.  There was too much of him in me, and I’d proven that.

“Well, good luck with the rest of your life.”  The chair scraped across the floor loudly as she pushed it back and stood up.  “I hope you rot in here!”

“I saved your life!”  I didn’t know where the words came from.  “You know I did!  Why can’t you even admit that to yourself!”

“Saved my life?”  My mother’s mouth dropped open and a tear rolled down her reddened cheeks.  “You think you saved me?  You ruined my life, Bishop.  You ruined it.  I can’t even go home now because of what you did.  I wish I had listened to my own mother.  I should never have had you.”

Solo’s claws dig into the skin of my neck, and I wince.

“Careful!”  I pull him off my chest and set him down in the seat.

I pour myself a glass of whiskey and light a cigarette off one of the candles.  Solo tries to climb back up my leg, so I find an old towel in the bathroom closet and place it in one of the boxes from the store.  It’s a small box but just about the right size for the little kitten.

I place the makeshift bed near the fire, and Solo checks it out immediately.  He walks around it a couple of times before placing a foot inside.  After doing this a couple of times, he climbs in and starts kneading the towel.  He looks up at me and howls once.

“What?  You were expecting Egyptian linens?”  I laugh and take a sip of my drink.  It burns my throat, but I welcome the feeling.  I haven’t had any alcohol since last winter; it never lasts long.  Neither do the cigarettes though I’m better at rationing those.

Now that Solo is settled, I make myself dinner out of the perishable food I bought in town.  It won’t last long but should give me what I need to get through the latter part of winter when my primary diet will be nothing more than caribou meat and snowshoe hares.  I’ve got plenty of vitamins to help supplement whatever nutrients I’m missing.

Once my dishes are washed in warm water heated on the fire and set on the counter to dry, I load the fireplace up with the heaviest logs in the bin and prepare for the night.  I blow out the candles, navigating the small, familiar space by firelight alone.  I hang my jeans on the rack near the fire—the cuffs are still a little damp from the snow outside—and place my boots near the heat as well.

I strip off my remaining clothing and shiver for a moment until my skin gets used to the chill.  Boxers and socks go into a basket in the bathroom, but I hang my shirt up with the jeans.  It isn’t wet, but it helps me separate what’s been worn and what hasn’t.  Doing laundry is a luxury and uses a lot of water, so I keep it to a minimum.

I climb into bed, welcoming the weight and the warmth of the blankets—one thermal, one wool.  In the closet, there’s a bear hide with the fur still attached, but I won’t need that until it gets colder.

I’m only in bed for a minute before Solo whines and crawls his way up the edge of the blanket, meowing constantly.  He climbs onto my thigh and then walks up my body until his face is right up near mine.  He yowls loudly.

“I got you your own bed,” I say.

He doesn’t appear to care.

I sigh, too tired to bother arguing with him, and let him curl up on my chest.  His purr is comforting, and his body heat added to my own makes the bed that much warmer.

Two hours later, he wakes me up with his cries and moans.  Eventually, I crawl out of bed and get him some more milk, which calms him down enough that we can both go back to sleep.  Three hours later, we start all over again.

By the time the sun is up, I feel like I haven’t slept at all.  Solo, on the other hand, is very active.  As I wash up and get dressed, he explores the rest of the cabin, getting into the firewood, the supplies I have yet to put away, and almost getting his nose snapped in a mousetrap back in the closet.

As tempted as I am to spend the day inside and maybe take a nap, I still have a lot to do before the weather gets any worse.  There will be plenty of time to sleep through the winter.  I feed Solo one more time, get my hunting bow and hunting equipment, and head outside.

I’ve got a lot of meat stored in the locker at the back of the barn, but one more caribou would make sure I didn’t run out or have to track the herd through the deep snows.

The barren-ground caribou in this area are already migrating, though some exist throughout the winter months, migrating from further north.  As long as there are conifer trees to munch on and water to drink, they’ll stick around.  The marshes of this area work well for finding the herds quickly, and I also know where to look.  More importantly, I know when to look.

Parking the Jeep a good distance away, I set myself up at the edge of the trees and wait.  As the wind shifts, I change my position, making sure I’ll be downwind when the herd arrives to drink from the marsh waters.  It’s comparatively warm today, and some of the snow is melting, but I know from the weather radio that snow is on the way, probably tonight.  If it’s a big storm, I might not have another hunting opportunity for a while, so I have to make this one count.

As I move from one group of trees to another, I come across some Shaggy Mane mushrooms.  It’s late in the season for them, but a couple haven’t gone inky and black.  They’ll make a good meal tonight.

I hear the herd approaching before I see it.  When the first few bucks appear around an outcropping of trees and head for the water, an eagle flies overhead, looking for its own dinner.  Caribou travel stirs up a lot of smaller mammals for the eagles to hunt.

I wait—patient, silent, and still.  I pick out my mark early and anticipate the best time to shoot.  The creature turns, showing me its side.  Adrenaline flows through me as I aim carefully, and my arrow flies straight into the animal’s flank, puncturing a lung.  I run toward the fallen caribou and finish it with my knife.

I give a silent prayer, thanking the animal for its life.  I’m not sure I really believe any of that stuff, but those who taught me were adamant about it, ingraining the spirituality of the hunt into my mind.  When it gets colder, I’ll drink the blood.  The indigenous people swear by it, and I do feel energized when I drink it, but I wonder how much of that is psychosomatic.

Covering the carcass with a bear skin to keep some of the predators away, I head off to retrieve the Jeep.  If I had help, I could prepare the carcass here.  It would be neater, but I’m on my own, and I have to get back to my cabin to clean it.

Once the caribou is strapped to the hood of the Jeep, I start back towards the dirt road and the lake near my cabin.  I go slowly over the rough terrain, watching carefully to avoid any obstacles ahead of me.  The carcass shifts as I hit a bump, partially obscuring my view.  I roll down the window and stick my head out a bit to see better.  The temperature is dropping rapidly, but I’m almost home, so I won’t be cold for long.

As I get to the dirt road, I see a dark shape off to one side, nestled in a group of boulders near the lake.  I’ve studied the landscape around here so intimately, I know whatever it is wasn’t there before.

As I pull up closer, the shape moves slightly.

I stop the Jeep and grip my hunting knife in my right hand before I get out.  I’m pretty sure it’s not an animal, but I don’t know what it is, and it’s always better to be careful.  I walk up silently until I can get a better look at it.

It’s a person.

Not just any person but the woman I saw at Broken Toy’s the day before.  She’s huddled up in a ball against the rocks, still not dressed properly for the climate, and half frozen.

“What the hell are you doing here?” I ask as I approach, knife still in hand.  I haven’t forgotten how she wigged out on me when I wouldn’t listen to her autobiography.

She looks up, and I’m met with her bright green eyes.  Her hair is flapping around in the wind, smacking her in the face, but I can still see the tears in her eyes.

“They left me,” she says softly.  Her voice shakes as she shivers violently.

“You’re going to freeze out here.”  I reach down and offer her my hand.  “Who left you?”

She stares at my hand for a long moment before reaching out tentatively.  She lets me help her up, then wraps her arms around herself as the brunt of the wind, previously blocked by the rocks, hits the rest of her body.

She looks to the west at the road leading to Whatì.

“Are you staying in Whatì?” I ask.  “I can take you back there.”

“No.”  She doesn’t offer any other explanation as she sways unsteadily.

I grab her arm just as she’s about to fall, and the next thing I know, I’m holding an unconscious, freezing woman in my arms.