me here as a punishment.”
“Expensive punishment.” I raised my eyebrows at her pack. “Take some of it out.”
She scowled at me as I crouched at the pack belonging to the next student.
That first day out on the ice, it felt good to be with kids again, leading them into a world I had fallen in love with. We headed west, following the route, which consisted not of trails or cairns but of compass points and degree headings. I led and Jason brought up the rear. I kept the pace slow as the students skidded and slid, getting used to crampons and the weight of full packs. It wasn’t long before Elizabeth was walking sure footed past each of them, despite her excessively overstuffed pack. It wasn’t long before she was right on my heels.
“This isn’t so bad,” she said. “I thought it would suck, but it’s not that bad at all. I like these things, what are they called again?”
“Crampons.”
“Crampons. I like ‘em. I feel like I could run.”
I looked over at her. She was shoulder to shoulder with me now. “Don’t run.”
By the end of the day, most of the kids had gotten the hang of it, but some had spent all day worried over every step. The mood as we set up camp was not good. Jason and I offered to make dinner to give everyone time to rest in their tents. Elizabeth set up her tent with her designated tent mate and then came into the cook tent where Jason and I were digging out food and stoves and bowls. The cook tent was a small cloth tepee with no floor, less of a tent, more of a shelter from the wind and rain.
“I didn’t even know what a glacier was before I got here.” She announced as she piled up two empty drybags and sat down.
“You don’t want to lie down for a little while in your tent?” Jason asked. He was my age, also a climber, had shown up in town in a truck that he’d outfitted to live out of in order to work less and climb more. His sandy blonde hair stuck out of his winter hat in a way I found appealing.
“You should rest up for tomorrow,” I said to Elizabeth.
“I’m not tired. What’s for dinner? I’m starving. Can I have a snack to tide me over?”
I found the cutting board and dug my knife out of my pocket. “You can cut up the cheese.”
On the second day out, after the discussion Jason led about no sexual relationships, Elizabeth slept with the boy who was quickly establishing himself as the ring leader of the older boys and then began her long vigil of ruthlessly ignoring him. The kids took sides within hours. In a situation where we all needed to trust and depend on each other, she had upset the balance. When I told her as much, she said, “It takes two to fuck.”
“Right,” I said. “I told Rob the same thing. But it was you who climbed into his tent and talked his tentmate out.”
She narrowed her eyes and stomped off across the ice.
That night at dinner, Elizabeth was the first in line. She stacked two burritos on her small plate and found a place to sit out of the wind on the backside of the cooktent. Stephanie, a small twiggy girl one year younger than Elizabeth was next through the line. She sat down next to Elizabeth. Rob was third. When he came out of the cook tent, he threw Elizabeth a look almost as cold as the ice he was standing on and sat down as far from her as he could. Stephanie scooted over, closer to where he sat. With the exception of two girls who were becoming fast friends, and seemed oblivious to the situation unfolding, I watched the other kids, one by one, come out of the cooktent, notice Elizabeth alone, and then join the others with Rob. I watched Elizabeth harden with each choice made.
Later, she crawled into my tent. “They all hate me.” Her face was swollen from crying.
I wished I was out on the ice alone, or maybe with Jason, as I crossed my legs to make room for her in the small space of my tent.
“They all say I had sex with Rob just to mess with him, but they don’t know, they don’t fucking know. He was just as into it as I was and then he said what he said which I’m not going to tell you because it was really mean. Maybe he was messing with me. But I can’t tell any of them that because then I’d have to say what he said. They all hate me just like my Dad said they would.” Her voice was thick with crying. She broke off into raw sobs, pulled her legs into her chest and dropped her head into the crook of her elbow.
It seemed the gates had been opened, it seemed she had lost her ability to contain whatever she had been containing. It was hard to tell if she was exaggerating. Only two days into the trip, I already understood that she was unpredictable, a river raging through a canyon, either taking out or wearing down whatever was in its way.
But she looked so alone, a perfect illustration of how I had felt at her age. “I don’t think all of them hate you,” I said and with that, she reached out, laid her head on my shoulder and cried hard.
I didn’t grow up in a family where anyone touched anyone else. Occasionally, during Our Time, my mom would brush stray bangs out of my eyes. Aside from that, we all lived in our own small worlds, not crossing into each other’s space. No one ever asked how I was doing, how I felt. As an adult, when I did share, it was hard not to measure how often, how much, how soon.
Elizabeth held onto me tightly, disregarding any sense of measured emotion as she cried her way through the past days, months or years. I reached up slowly and rested my hand against her back.
6.
“LET’S GO check the shed to see if there’s anything that might help us with the skiff. Do you think there’s a winch out there?” I say. The low tide is still an hour out.
Kyle shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
When we step outside, the wind whips my hair into my face. I stop walking to gather it into a high, tight ponytail, feeling grateful for the one rubber band I still have. Kyle waits for me. A wind-shredded tarp catches my eye. “I wonder what’s under this?” The tarp is tied down over a shoulder high mound about ten feet long tucked up against the outside wall of the lighthouse.
“I’ll bet that’s the woodpile,” Kyle says. “Looks like we won’t have to haul…” He falls silent when I peel back the tarp. The wood is moldy and breaks apart in my hands. “Oh,” he says. “Looks like we’ll need something better than a tarp.”
I stare at the woodpile, thinking of all the work it took to cut this much, haul it, split it and stack it. And then to just leave it.
The shed sits down the small incline from the lighthouse, a rectangular wooden structure.
Inside, I wait for my eyes to adjust to the dim light. We are standing in a square room, thirty feet by thirty feet, packed tightly with anything that could ever possibly be used again: full tarps and pieces of other tarps, jerry jugs, oils, stacks and stacks of plastic containers full of who knows what, and lined up along one wall, scrap lumber, all neatly organized. There’s a single bare bulb hanging from the ceiling, a small generator to run power tools, several extension cords and a workbench.
Kyle walks over to the wall. “Plenty of wood to build a structure for the firewood.” He turns and surveys the rest of the room. “Not sure where a winch would be.”
I start on one side of the shed while he starts on the other. I wedge in between two tall stacks of plastic bins and reach up to pull the top one off. My foot bumps into something tucked up against the wall. In the half light, I make out a small bundle. I pick it up carefully with two hands. Small, hard parts under the towel rearrange themselves as I carry it. I set it down where there’s more light and peel back the towel.
“Look at this,” I say.
Kyle walks over. He leans in, keeps his hands at his sides.
Intact parts of the skeleton lay on top of a pile of clean bones, each a light shade of brown, some broken and jagged. I pick up the skull. “I think it’s a bird. Or was a bird.”
“What’s