Owls of the Eastern Ice by Jonathan C. Slaght

Author:Jonathan C. Slaght
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

19

Stranded on the Tunsha River

THERE’S A SAYING IN RUSSIA I am fond of: “The more souped-up your truck, the farther you’ll have to go for a tractor when you get it stuck.” Sergey’s Hilux was hearty, and we assumed we could make it back to the Tunsha River despite the blizzard, but we were wrong. About two kilometers after turning off the main road, only just over halfway to Anatoliy’s cabin, the truck simply couldn’t go on. The snow was too deep and too heavy for us to keep plowing forward. We’d already shoveled the Hilux free a few times and were wet with sweat and swirling snow. We had a number of items in the vehicle that needed to reach the cabin. Sergey, shouting over the wind, suggested that I walk ahead and bring back the snowmobile while he stayed behind trying to coax the Hilux a little farther.

There had been several serious snowstorms in March, and the snow was waist deep in the forest. I followed the road—a barely visible line between the truck and the warmth and dryness of the cabin. If I could keep to the compressed tracks left by the Hilux when we drove into Terney earlier that day, I wouldn’t sink too far into the snow and could move efficiently. But with my haste and the confusion of the blizzard, I largely stumbled the kilometer and a half to the cabin, my hood cinched tight against the storm’s constant onslaught, my legs sinking deep in the fresh accumulation, and my headlamp largely useless, like car lights in a dense fog. Eventually I reached the cabin, breathing hard. Anatoliy was outside in his coat and hat, concerned. He had seen my approaching headlamp and was dumbfounded that we had come back at all.

“Why didn’t you just stay in Terney? It’s warm there, and you can’t trap in this weather anyway.”

When we were in Terney, I had been convinced that we needed to get back to trap—but Anatoliy was right: we should have stayed away. Once on the forest road driving the snowmobile, I was having an impossible time keeping it on the road. The snow underneath was uneven, and I could not seem to keep the heavy machine on track. If I slowed down, it sank into the snow and got stuck, so I tried to keep up my speed, careening in one direction and then the other, in a constant struggle to keep from smashing into the trees lining the road. I weaved and thrashed like a marlin on the line nearly the whole way back to the marooned truck. By the time I reached Sergey, I was sweaty and fuming from my inability to properly steer a simple machine like a snowmobile. Sergey was bewildered.

“What were you doing?” he asked with genuine confusion, staring at me. “I’d see the snowmobile headlights, but then they’d disappear and reappear. Were you flashing the lights?”

Sergey laughed when I explained, amused by my inexperience, and said I needed to ride in the posting position on that kind of snow.

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