The Task

I

Snow crystals crunch like old bones beneath my boots as I make my slow way up the wooded hill, pausing at intervals to catch my foggy breath in the icy stillness of the morning. When I stop, I place my frozen hands on a heavy tree and lean on her, waiting for my steel to return. Time and again it does, taking longer with each rest. Heaving, I amble onward. My mind’s eyes are fixed on a point high above and far across the mountain. I cannot see my destination; there yet lie several mean and jealous hours between us. By the time I make it, the white winter sun will have completed her pendulous path and dipped below her skyline where she will sleep for the evening, leaving the world in a wild and wintry darkness. The moon, in her usual state of overstay, will appear a slighted disc among the Alaskan midnight clouds.

II

My pack is heavy; my heart light. Were it not for this, I might not have the resolve to finish the day and complete my arduous task, which I must do. Grunting, I cinch the straps a little tighter and stomp through the February ice, trying not to twist an ankle on some invisible root or gnarled branch, leftover from fall. I have been blessed as yet not to have stepped too far from the flat footpath. The only sounds around me are of those my feet are making and my breath before me, labored. Each time I expire, I release a vaporous, biting cloud that swaddles me briefly like a scarf before moving on and out of this world, escaping into some other realm with a tiny portion of my body’s warmth in its greedy little hand. Thankfully, my perception of time soon fades, and I am swallowed up by the rhythm of my walking and the crunching of the snow.

III

I do not know how many minutes pass; it is not until the sun illuminates me and the searing blindness of the white makes me blink that I give account that I have left the trees and crested a hill. I bring my hand to the level of my eyes and squint. My retinas are in such shock that everything is purple and green. When, still smarting, they acquiesce to see properly, I am greeted by a view of the valley. The sparkling landscape before me undulates like a still wave; hills and greater hills all hunched like giants to keep warm, turned to ancient stone in some forgotten history. Ravines with their rivulets, immobilized by the cold, trace their icy ways to the river below which too is frozen. Suddenly and with sobering grace, the distant cry of a warbird echos gently all around and I know there must be an eagle somewhere, knifing high against the sky and looking for lunch.

IV

With care, I halter down the other side of the hill I have topped because my trek requires it. It is quite steep in places and perilously slippery in others; I plant my feet with much intention, hoping ever still as I always do that I will not fall. (I am not wont to make this journey so early in the year, but here I am.) To get to the place I am headed, I must use a combination of well-worn trails and secret passages of my own design, some of which I’m sure appear quite precarious to the untrained eye, and sometimes—I’ll admit—to my own. By my estimation, I am, at present, a mile and a quarter from the place where the three streams converge—the place where it is indicated to me that I must make the final and most treacherous leg of my trip by far: the climb. On the face of it, the last piece of my singular trail is unassuming, but that is only because it is not part of any public trail. It is my own.

V

By the time the ground levels beneath me and I have reached the waterside path, I am winded. Panting, I remark to myself how long the many years have been that I have come this way, and the weights I have shouldered through these hills. (They have been many, dear reader, and ever have I been searching out a place to take them off and set them down.) I look around, for I hear something trickling, and am enlivened to see the very first meltings of early spring at my feet. So, I set to moving once again myself. I walk and ponder my loneliness, forgetting once more to think of time. And it is just as well, if not better; the ground and the trees and the water will do it for me. They ever do. I am thus ensconced in the silence of my thinking when, from somewhere close to me comes the strange, crying voice of a small creature. Mentally startled, I look, and in a dozen or so more paces I am thoroughly astonished to happen upon the small frame of a child.

VI

My (silent) arrival on the scene is such that it permits me a moment to observe without being observed, and so I crouch and try to puzzle out what I see before making myself known. The little one before me is a boy of approximately twelve years, fair skinned and frail. He is crouched, like me, and has a pack on his back, like me, but he is crying with his face in his hands, which is not like me. (At the present time, anyway. I will tell you if that changes.) And so it is that I am peering like a pervert when an errant twig snaps and the boy jumps up, shaking. He whips around and his eyes find me almost instantly. He wipes them with his sleeve, and in a blur, he swings his pack from off his shoulders and rifles through it, hoping, I assume in that moment, to produce a weapon. I throw up my hands to demonstrate my innocence, and three seconds later it is made clear that I assumed correctly.

VII

Or, nearly correctly.

“Do you mean to impale me with a piece of leather, young man, or have you neglected to unsheathe your blade?”

A flash of profound confusion covers the boy’s face, and with a jerk, he rips off his knife’s leather cover with his free hand. “Stay back!” he cries at me. “I’ll hurt you!” And then, as if to convince me further, “I’m not afraid! I’ll do it!” The boy’s knife hovers shakily in the air between us, but as neither of us have taken a step, we are still several paces from one another. Well beyond striking distance. The boy seems to notice this in the same moment I do, because he says “I’ll throw it if I have to!”

I almost chuckle. “I believe you, son,” I say to reassure him, “but you’d better do it quickly, for though I am not presently your enemy, I may yet be if you take too much time to think about it.” Smiling, I splay my hands to the twofold effect of underscoring my innocence and undermining my implied threat.

In a moment, the look on the boy’s face indicates to me that he understands, and after a few more bated breaths, he re-sheathes his knife in a somewhat defeated fashion and pockets it. “You should not approach a person like that,” he says, sniffling and wiping his eyes. “All quiet like. Someone might conclude you mean them harm.”

Going to him, I reach into my pocket and pull out a clean handkerchief. “As you concluded?” I say, proffering it.

The boy says nothing, but he takes the cloth.

“Well.”

The boy blows his nose and clears his throat.

I look him over and he looks me over. When he has finished wrapping up the sadness he was doing before I interrupted him, he returns the fabric square and I replace it the satchel on my hip.

“Well?” I say.

“Well what, pardon?” he says.

“Do you have a name?” I say, smiling. “I will not rendezvous with a stranger the woods. It is not respectable.”

He laughs, and his shoulders drop a little. He sighs. “Thomas.”

I wait.

“Thomas Morrison.”

“Pleased to meet you Mr. Morrison.” I offer my hand, and he shakes it. “I am Sir Robert Eaton Graves, fourth Earl of Hartfordshire. You may address me, if you wish, as simply Mister Graves.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Mister Graves.”

“Wonderful.” I sigh and smile, and the air is a lot lighter between us. “May I join you on this rock next to which you were…” I clear my throat. “Crying?” I say gently.

“You may.”

“Splendid.”

With a little effort, (less his and more mine) we climb onto a large gray stone adjacent to the stream and proceed to visually appreciate the flowing water and nothing more. Where the ice has given way, the runoff is clear as crystal and the marbled rocks below its rippling surface are polished glass. It is a tremendously pleasant few minutes that we pass together without speaking, and I am not all perturbed by the delay my day’s journey and task will invariably suffer at the hand of this unanticipated circumstance. I am, on the contrary, delighted by it.

“Will you finish later?” I ask.

“Will I—?” he says.

“Finish.”

He says nothing and I know he does not get my meaning.

“Finish weeping,” I say. “I cannot imagine you had it all out of you already when I showed up.”

He looks away, likely embarrassed. He looks back and then down at his feet. “I suppose.”

“It is well, if not better, Mr. Morrison. Crying releases the vapours, and it is best not to leave any in.”

He does not answer, and I am suspicious that he does not know what the vapours are. Good for him.

After a spell of dead air, I venture further. “Pray might I ask about what it is you were crying about, dear boy? And so far away from home out here on this mountain?”

Thomas’ face hardens and for a moment I fear I have pushed a mite too far.

“My father,” he says.

I wait for more, for I am sure there is much, much more, but none comes. I turn to look at him, and find that he is once again in tears, with his face in his hands. I place my hand on his far shoulder and he leans into me. When he begins to cry in earnest against my side, I realize I need no more more explanation for Thomas’ current state.

A child’s melancholy is the purest poison, I reflect. And what a vicious crime it is to brew it, much more administer. For several minutes, I bounce around inside the empty chamber of this thought like a penny in a rusted barrel, reminded of my own misfortunes.

When Thomas’ shaking calms and his breaths lengthen, he sits up, fortified by the release of his vapours. He breathes deeply of the icy mountain air and it does him visible good.

“That is better,” I say, pulling away from him. I proffer my handkerchief once more but he refuses.

“Thank you kindly, Mister Graves.” He wipes his face with his sleeve. “But I actually must be going. I will be missed soon if I do not return.”

A monolithic wave of disappointment crashes over me but I stand against it, unmoved. “Well.” I force a smile. “It is just as well, if not better.”

With a little more effort, (again, less his and more mine) we descend from off the boulder and readjust the straps of our packs on our shoulders. I offer my hand once more. “It was indeed a pleasure to pass a moment’s time with you, Mr. Morrison. I confess I do not know the particulars of your circumstances at home, but I wish you swift improvements nonetheless, and many happy returns.”

Awkwardly and a little feebly, Thomas shakes my hand and nods. “And to you, sir. Thank you…for…” he says, and clears his throat. He looks up at me.

I smile and nod. “You are most welcome, good sir. If we ever happen to meet again, it will not be too soon.”

The boy smiles, and turns to climb back up the hillside from whence, presumably, he came. Before I can give account of it, he is out of my sight and into my memory. Turning myself, I reorient to the stream and continue on my way.

VIII

Night falls. When I reach the convergence of the three streams, I am painfully aware that I must make the climb—the final and most treacherous leg of my journey—by the light of the moon. I should not have been so keen to entertain the delay that boy Mr. Morrison caused. I should have sent him forthwith on his way, or avoided the interaction altogether, or any number of alternate choices, but alas I did not, and here I am. Straining, I look up at the rock face I have scaled a hundred times before, but never in the dark. I shake my head and set down my pack for a moment, wishing—needlessly and nonsensically—that it were day. I sigh—and am interrupted by the howl of a sharp-toothed creature—or a pack of creatures—much too close for comfort. Uncharacteristically, I panic, and throw on my pack, neglecting to properly tighten the straps. Dashing, I leap for the first hand and footholds and pull myself up. And not a moment too soon.

IX

I am barely of a length three times my height up the rock face when a bristling family of gray Yukon wolves closes in on the place I stood only seconds ago. Circling, they sniff the ground; they do not have reason to look up until my foot slips a little and dislodges a number of pebbles that come tumbling down to meet them. With their yellow eyes on me and their angry teeth bared, they growl and snarl, waiting, hoping for me to slip. I replace my foot and steady myself. If I can only manage to avoid obliging them. My veins are filled with a kind of fire at the knowledge that death is so close to me, breathing on me. Climbing, I find a strength and a steel that, almost without intervention, lifts me up and up, as if tugging me. I do not falter, and am nearly at the top of the three-hundred-foot cliffside when not a hand or a foot but the left strap of my pack comes wildly undone. Time does not slow. It halts.

X

As helpless I watch, the ponderous weight of my pack swings down and away from me, and I can feel the strain of my right hand and foot and the pull of my left as my travel load threatens to alter my balance in such a way that I come flailing off the side of the rock and down to the hungry wolves below. Stones rain around me and one of the wild dogs gives a whoop. My body tightens and I will myself to melt into the crag, but my pack is too heavy and I am not sufficiently strong. Before I can help it, my left hand and foot are yanked from their places on the wall and the uncaring cliffside recedes away from me. I look down. The nightcast hills below me have opened up like the maw of a giant. Without my permission, my left arm swings around behind me, obeying the pull of my pack, and I am nearly twisted from all of my holds. When finally my ruck stops its arc and begins to retrace its path, I reach with my left hand for a new grip.

XI

By the grace of God, I find purchase, and when I am again still, I see that I am the length of my own height from the top. With everything I have except a single breath, I clamber over the edge and collapse in the dirt atop the cliff. I allow myself quite a prolonged moment to regain my wits. When I do, I angrily reattach the left strap of my pack, and with a huff, make for the place to which I have been headed this unabashedly difficult day. I do not bother trying to see if the wolves are still there. I know they will have wisely moved on by morning when I make my return descent. They ever do. When I reach my destination, I light a fire and sleep. Here atop this cliffside I can be reached by no enemies, toothed, fanged, or clawed. Besides: my task can wait until morning, and it is just as well, if not better to tend to important tasks in the light of day.

XII

The cry of an eagle stirs me, and I sit up, in company once again with my little ones. I feed the fire and wait for the shadows to be cast, but the sun takes a little longer to land on my secret place and touch upon the headstones I have labored to lay in concentric circles around me for the last thirty years. When, at last, the shadows from the headstones grow like towers along the ground, I go to every one of them and read the names aloud. I give a smile to each one when I do. After I am finished, I pull the shovel from my pack and begin to dig. Though the ground is still frozen, it is short work, and I am pleased. I have barely broken a sweat by the time the ground before me has opened up enough to receive the body of the boy I have brought here to place in it. James, I believe it was. James the fifth. James my fifth.

When James my fifth is laid to rest, and his name is scratched on a stone, I sort myself out once more for good measure (taking care not to get any on the headstone) and return home, only this time a little more slowly.

Some Time Later

On the corner of town, there is a scream and a crash inside a broken home, and

a distraught Thomas Morrison stumbles out the back door in tears.

He knows the name of someone who was kind to him.