Cut Off!

Face and hands leathered from exposure. Hunched shoulders from a life spent looking at the ground. A round wooden trowel handle protrudes from his hip pocket. He’s an archaeologist.

Onion Portage. Kobuk River, Alaska:

            Debra concentrated on the pineal body near the center of her brain. She let loving, beautiful thoughts flow through her. The clenching apprehension, lacings pulled tight from her groin to her throat, eased. She stood straighter letting her eyes play across the gently rolling tundra to the sinuous oxbows of the Kobuk. Breathing deeply, she took in the sweet oxygen and tannic acid smell of Arctic vegetation.

            Andy Passco, for all his five foot eight, two-hundred pounds, was a small dark shade standing downriver in his usual fishing place. “Far enough away,” she whispered, “I can bathe now.” She heated water on the camp stove and stripped off in layers. Through her bare feet the permafrost, lying hundreds of feet thick beneath the land, sucked her heat into dead cold. When the water was warm, she carried the pan to the river’s edge and balanced it on the float plane’s pontoon. She soaped and rinsed. Then she splashed her face and body with biting cold river water. Focusing, she assured herself Andy was too far away to see her naked … or care about what she was doing.

            Almost endless days made dealing with Andy out of the question. From first light at 3:30 a.m. to dark at 1:00 a.m. he left the camp to fish, returning every few hours for food and naps - too often to use her - always abusive, angry, demanding.