BIANCA
She was old, and icy cold with strangers. I'd seen her turn her back to someone at the fire once, the look of unease in her eyes telling her heart's mind. But she and I always sat in cozy comfort, our shining eyes reflecting the firelight, squinting now and then when the breeze seared them with smoke. The flames sent a steady column of sparks straight up, as far as our eyes could see, until they mingled with the stars. Bianca would grin then, and say that her pet fairies had gone to dance with the gods again, but "they'd be back". She claimed their dancing strengthened them, that they gathered that strength and shared it with her on their return.
No matter the time of year, we were always busy with one chore or another. Our gathering place was always the campfire. In the summer, we would gut the fish we had netted, fillet them, make the deep cuts in the flesh, and lay it on the racks above the fire, smoking all we caught. The dogs would howl and beg for scraps, we would happily throw them pieces of salmon, watching and laughing as they devoured them whole, never tasting a bite. Or I would bring out my fid and fix the nets for the next cast. We would build a new oven in the sidebank, carefully lining the pit with rocks, then making a roof with layered branches and dirt to form a solid structure. When the fire on the pit floor had burned down to embers, I would slip a cake of bannock on the coals and roast a grouse or ptarmigan, sometimes rabbit. We would suck the bones clean, juices running down our chins, talking about our week. In the winter, we would repair dog harness, fine tune our traps or, if it was colder than 20 or so below, we would move inside to drink our tea by the barrel stove, relishing the heat. Often we just sat quiet, content in our trust for one another.
Bianca's gnarled hands were always working. She taught me to tan the hides that I trapped, carefully working them until they were soft and pliant. I learned how to thank nature for providing, by seeing her offer tobacco and burn sage to honour those that gave us so much. In turn, she said that I "woke her up" and that it was our conversations about life that kept her young.
She lived a distance from my camp, less than an hour by dogteam. We spent the years drifting in and out of each others lives, never impinging on the others privacy. Her heart knew the bitterness of life's disappointments, piled one upon the other, ladders of defeat that she refused to climb. She suffered from an illness that she never discussed, her luminous eyes pools of pain, reflecting her survivor's soul.
As I went about my chores, chopping wood, hauling water, baking bread, my dogs were always the first to announce her presence. Fools with children and cowards with bears, they always stood silent, tall and proud, in the presence of Bianca. She was like that, she gave everyone two backbones.
We ran our lines in a looped fashion, building line cabins where we needed them and sharing them on our runs. We built our cabins small, ten feet by twelve feet. They were easy to heat that way, and it took less time to cut the sod from the ground and lay it on the roof for insulation. We kept them repaired in the summer, rechinking with mud and tarred oakum, if we were lucky enough to have it. Summer was also the time we cleared new line for the dogteams. We would do it in stages, helping each other to lengthen their line.
In the winter, our time was spent on the line, each returning to her basecamp about every eight or nine days. Our evenings on the trail were spent in solitude, tending the dogs, repairing dog harness and traps, and hauling wood. It was important to prepare and dry the hides properly, as it was these hides that bought the supplies for the coming year. I would leave the skins on the stretching board in the line cabin to dry and take last weeks catch to basecamp with me. When the hides were dry and off the boards, they had to be bundled and stored in the cache until spring. Then the Beaver aircraft would fly in and land on the river in front of my cabin. It was 120 airmiles to the nearest road and this plane would bring my supplies for the year and take my hides back to town to sell.
One day Bianca came to my camp with her dogs, she took her place by the fire and quietly smiled at the concern in my eyes. She said she would be staying for awhile, if I didn't mind. She could no longer seem to keep herself warm, and thought I might enjoy "having someone to boss around". She stayed with me all that winter, and it was good to have the basecamp warm and lit when I came home from the trail. She spent her days snaring, skinning and tanning rabbits, then always had a hot rabbit stew ready for me when I got home. I bossed her around as much as I could, just to see her smile.
Spring was close and I headed off on the last line trip for the season. I had had a good winter's catch and had many martin and wolverine ready to ship. The plane would be here in two weeks and I was looking forward to having tea with Hans, the bushpilot. I always had a pan of fresh cinnamon rolls ready for him when he came, and he always teased me and said they were the best he had ever had. He said it was the only real reason he flew so far "out of his way". We were good friends.
Eight days later, on my way home, I rounded the last corner on the edge of the lake and I could see that there was no smoke coming from the cabin chimney. As I got closer, I saw that four of Bianca's dogs were running wild and loose in the yard, frantically worrying something in the snow. My racing heart forebode tragedy as my dogteam caught a whiff of something in the air that started them howling. I discovered Bianca's beaver hat and one of her mitts in the snow where the dogs had been sniffing. After putting up the dogteam, I checked the cold cabin and then started a frantic search for clues in the snow.
The tracks in the snow slowly revealed the drama of what had happened to my friend. An early spring bear must have surprised her while she was out chopping wood. I could see where he had dragged Bianca's body to the treeline and buried her body under a pile of branches and snow. She may have lain there for a number of days before the wolves found her. All I ever found of Bianca were pieces of her tattered clothing. About ten days later I found the carcass of the bear in the bush. He was old and sick and had died of starvation. It was later determined that the bear had come out of hibernation early, as they sometimes do, stumbled on Bianca and attacked her in a rage, but didn't have the strength to consume her. Only the wolves will ever know for sure what happened to Bianca. She had turned seventy nine that winter.
As I cast my net, run my line and tend my dogs, I think of Bianca often. A part of me still expects to see her bent frame appear in the dog yard, talking softly to her canine friends. Her wise eyes haunt me in my sleep and when the wind blows I sometimes hear her voice. There are times when I see the dogs standing silent, tall and proud, looking into the bush.
And most believe that Bianca really did die, but........if you look into my luminous eyes...................
~ © Drifter ~
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