Others would say this wryly, maybe roll their eyes, embarrassed to admit how much they'd idolized their older sibling. Jacob's smile is genuine. He has no sense that such a thing is worthy of embarrassment. That's what it means to live out here all his life. He never experienced those adolescent years when peers change how you see the world, leaving you rolling your eyes at anything that is simple and innocent and childlike.
Jacob's watching Dalton and grinning, waiting for a reaction. Waiting for his brother to roll his eyes, make some comment about what a pain in the ass he'd been and how he was lucky he never caught him in his secret spot. That's the guy we know. But Dalton's eyes fill with panic, as if he knows Jacob is sharing something meaningful and he wants to reciprocate. But he can't. He's spent too long locking down those memories, and maybe he isn't even sure why they're locked down, why this makes him so uncomfortable, but he can't get past it.
"And he never caught you?" I address Jacob, shielding Dalton from a reply. Jacob answers, and I engage him in that, asking what kind of things Dalton kept in there, how old he'd been when he found it. Innocuous questions. Just a girlfriend trying to get a better sense of her lover as a child, interested in his past but not digging too deeply into the personal.
The diversion works, and Jacob doesn't seem to notice Dalton isn't participating in the conversation. He's happy to talk about his brother, maybe tease him a little, livelier than I've ever seen him. And I'm grateful for that. I just wish it was under other circumstances.
"We wintered over there," Dalton blurts out, cutting Jacob off midsentence, as if he didn't realize his brother had been talking. We turn to him, and there's silence. Long silence, and I can see him ready to withdraw again.
There. I commented. That's enough.
He takes an audible breath and then points. "See that line of trees? That's where we wintered. It's a sheltered spot. We'd build a simple cabin. But our parents always dismantled it in the spring, before we left, so no one else would move in."
"You spent summers someplace else?" I ask carefully, uncertainly, and I direct it to Jacob, but it's Dalton who answers, saying, "Spring, summer, and fall, yeah. Once the weather cleared, we were on the move. Winter's easier if you stay one place. Easier, too, if you're near others. But this was as 'near others' as they dared get."
"As close to the settlement, you mean."
"It wasn't ours," Jacob says.
Dalton's voice changes, the strain dissipating as another note takes its place. A note I know well. Switching to lecture mode, the easy comfort of a teacher who knows his subject well enough to recite lessons in his sleep. "What we're coming up to is the First Settlement, the one founded by the original group who left Rockton. There are others, each built by a distinct group that left at the same time. Our parents weren't with any of those groups."
"It was just the two of them," Jacob says. "Our mother's time in Rockton was up, and our father hadn't put in his two years. She couldn't stay; he couldn't leave. So they took off together."
"It was a lark, I think, in the beginning," Dalton says. "They were younger than most people we take these days."
"So it was like running away together," I say. "Except into the Yukon wilderness rather than eloping in Vegas."
"Yeah. I don't know if they just decided to stay after a while or if they weren't allowed back. Anyway, they weren't from a settlement, which doesn't mean you can't join one. They just never did."
"It isn't easy to join," Jacob says. "You start at the bottom doing the crappy jobs, and if you've been living on your own, that's going backwards. Sometimes when we'd go in to trade, there'd be problems. There aren't a lot of women, and our mom was younger than most and..." He shrugs. "There were problems."
"The kind that end in black eyes and bloody noses and the elders telling our parents they can't come back until they learn some manners. And by manners, they meant learn to put up with guys grabbing our mother and offering our father trade for a night with her--right in front of me and Jacob. Our parents stayed close to this settlement in the winter. But that was it." The path crests and rises, and Dalton peers down it and says, "And there it is."
I look down the slope and see it. The First Settlement.
SIXTY-TWO
The settlement looks more like a temporary camp than a village. Ten cabins, loosely scattered, at least fifty meters from each neighbor. Poor for defense, but I suppose that's not really an issue up here, where the
only thing you need to defend against is the wildlife, and you're close enough to your neighbor to shout for help if a grizzly ambles into your living room.
Not that a grizzly would fit in these living rooms. The cabins probably share the same size footprint as our chalets, but without a second story. Intentionally small, Dalton explains, for conservation of heat.
Our boots crunch on the snow, and it's not loud, but in a place like this, it's enough. A door opens. Then another. Dalton moves closer to me, and I'm not even sure he's aware he's doing it, he just shifts over, shoulders squaring.
No one looks my way, though. I'm between the two men, a head shorter than either, a slight figure in an oversized snowmobile suit, with the hood drawn up, scarf wrapped in a muffler, only my eyes visible over it. If they notice me, they mistake me for a boy, like Cypher did. It's Dalton they're looking at. Sizing up. They know Jacob--he trades here, as his parents did. Dalton, though, is a stranger, and he's young enough and big enough to earn wary looks.
"Is Edwin in?" Jacob calls to the person nearest, asking after the town elder--as much to check whether he's present as to let people know he's following proper protocol, escorting strangers directly to the guy in charge.
The man nods. He doesn't say anything. Doesn't bother to stop staring either. People watch us as we proceed to the center of the settlement. By the time we arrive, the door to that central cabin is open. A man stands in it. He's not much taller than me, stooped and wizened, at least eighty. His brown skin and eyes suggest he's Asian, but given his age, I honestly can't tell if he is or that's just the result of fifty years of living out of doors.
"Edwin," Jacob says and bows his head. "May we come in and speak to you?"
Edwin nods and backs up. We walk inside. The cabin is smoky, fire blazing too hot, as if his old bones can no longer take the cold. There are two chairs. Real wooden chairs, as good as anything Kenny would make at his carpentry bench. One is oversized, blanketed with thick furs. Edwin lowers himself into that. We stay standing.
"Edwin, this is--"
"I know who he is," Edwin says. "I'm old. I'm not senile. I recognize your brother's face."