Alaskan: Stories From the Great Land. John Smelcer

only reach under a little ways, and the impact of the car hitting the drift had compacted the snow into hardness. He dug on one side for about ten minutes, and then he did the same thing on the other side. While he labored on his belly, his legs and ears freezing, his family waited inside the warm car, the children busying themselves with coloring or playing games.

      “When are we going home?” Nelly asked her grandmother, growing tired of drawing and coloring.

      “Soon, Little Bear.”

      “I’m hungry, Grandma,” complained the older brother. “When are we going someplace to eat?”

      “Soon as you grandaddy get us out of the snow,” replied their grandmother in her imperfect English, without turning to look at her grandchildren.

      “It’s hot in here,” said Jimmy, rolling down his window almost halfway.

      The old woman looked out her side window. Nothing moved on the land. No tracks broke through the perfect blanket of snow. Nothing living hunkered in this long valley, not even ravens. Nothing could live in this stark desolation, now one of the coldest and darkest places on earth. She remembered the story the preacher had told of how God feared the darkness so much that he made light and the light was good and warming. Even in the stories of the People, Raven brought the sun, and the sun illuminated the darkness, and for the first time, the People were unafraid. Now, outside the warm car, the cold and darkness was deep and lasting.

      The old woman spoke to herself softly so as not to be heard by the children.

      “Who are you talking to, Grandma?” Nelly asked a minute later, hearing her grandmother’s mumbling.

      The old woman stopped whispering, looked at her granddaughter through the rearview mirror.

      “No one, dear. I was just praying. Color me a pretty picture.”

      “It’s too dark. I can’t see.”

      The old woman reached up and turned on the dome light.

      “There,” she said. “Now make me a happy picture. You too, Jimmy.”

      “I’m hungry,” the boy complained. He was always hungry.

      “You always hungry, just like you daddy when he was your age. You must have two hollow legs,” said the grandmother, trying to make the children laugh. “Draw me a picture of something nice to eat.”

      “I’ll make a picture of my birthday cake and a pizza,” said the cheerful boy. His sixth birthday party had been only a week earlier.

      “And I’ll draw a picture of an ice-cream cone with three scoops: chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry,” said Nelly, enthusiastically turning to a blank page and digging out the necessary crayons from the box.

      Suddenly the car door opened and Bassili stiffly sat down in the driver’s seat, closing the door afterward. He took off his wet gloves, turned the defroster fan knob to high, and plunged his freezing hands into the blasting heat.

      While her husband warmed, his wife searched his face, looking for news of what he did not say.

      “Did you get it?” she asked finally. “Can we get out?”

      “I don’t know . . . maybe. Hard to say,” he said, turning his hands in the heat and occasionally rubbing them together. “We’ll find out in a minute.”

      The old man looked down at the gauge. The needle almost touched the E. He wondered if there was enough gas to make it twenty miles. When he looked up again, his eyes caught his wife’s stare. In the instant, he knew that she understood their predicament as fully as he did. Now, every minute they sat in the warm, idling car would mean one more mile they might have to walk in the freezing darkness.

      Their continued warmth came at a dangerous price.

      When his hands were warmed, Bassili gently pulled the gear shifter into reverse, pushed slightly on the gas pedal, hoping the tires might not spin, might grab the road. Instead, the tires turned freely, grabbing only air or ice. He pushed harder on the gas, listened to the whining engine. The spinning wheels polished the ice even smoother. He shifted into first. The same thing. The car was as unmovable as winter itself.

      Bassili grabbed his wife’s dry gloves from her lap.

      “I’ll get out and push,” he said. “You come over here and drive. Try not to spin the wheels too fast.”

      The old man stepped out and his wife slid over into the driver’s seat, careful of the shifter in between the seats. Bassili fought his way through the waist-deep snow to the front of the car, bent over, put both hands firmly against the bumper and pushed when his wife put the car into reverse. Despite his efforts, the car did not move. Undeterred, he put his shoulder against the hood near the tire well and pushed, straining with all the power in his thin legs. Nothing. The only signs of life in the pitch-black valley were the occasional high whines of the engine and the car’s white and red lights.

      After a while—his ears and nose and fingers hurting unbearably—Bassili gave up and motioned for his wife to move back to the passenger seat as he entered the warm car. For several minutes he sat quietly, alternately breathing into the cup of his hands and rubbing his ears. The light beside the gas gauge was on, its red eye staring its accusation from the glowing dashboard.

      Bassili’s wife reached over and tugged on the sleeve of his sweater. He turned to look at her, but the look on her face was so full of sadness and fear that he couldn’t bear it for long. He wanted to hold her, to tell her how much he loved her and their many years together, despite the hardships that come with any long marriage. But instead, the old man’s gaze fell back to the red light, leaving him unable to say or do anything for fear of frightening the grandchildren. His head hung down as much as from guilt and shame as it did from helplessness and despair, now as heavy and consuming as the cold night itself. Bassili blamed himself for their situation. He knew better than to have driven down this untraveled road. Only hunters on snowmobiles came back this far and even then only during warm spells.

      “Grandpa, can we go home now?” asked Nelly, waking up from a nap and rubbing her eyes. “I don’t like it here.”

      “I want to go home too,” said Jimmy. “I’m hungry. Can we go now?”

      When no answer came from the front seat, both children voiced their desires again, thinking no one had heard them.

      “We’ll leave soon enough, Little Ones,” said the old woman. “Grandma doesn’t like it here either.”

      A minute later the engine stopped running. Several times, Bassili tried to start it again, but the engine only sputtered. Once it ran for a few seconds before dying, the tank as bone dry as hope. The four sat in the car for what seemed like an hour. In that time the battery died, after which they sat in darkness, the night peering through the windows—wolf-like—its wondrous hunger aching to consume the living warmth within. The whole world was darkness. By then, the temperature in the car was only a little warmer than the outside. The windows were thick with ice from their breathing.

      “I’m really cold grandpa,” Nelly complained frequently. “Can you start the car and turn up the heater?”

      “My feet are freezing. I’m hungry. Can we go now?” pleaded Jimmy almost as often.

      Both children were wearing only tennis shoes. Nelly’s were pink with white hearts and purple laces. Neither was wearing gloves or a hat.

      After sitting quietly for a long time, the wife leaned close to her husband and whispered in his ear.

      “Aren’t we even going to try?” she asked, a tear running down her freezing cheek.

      Bassili turned around and looked at the children. Both had pulled their arms inside their jackets to try to keep warm.

      “Can grandpa have a piece of paper and a crayon,” he asked Nelly, his breath a flock of reeling white birds.

      The little girl struggled to push one arm out of a sleeve. She