Alone in the Wild Read online

  Snow, you idiot. You walked through fresh snow.

  The path back to our campsite is as clear as a bread-crumb trail. It might meander, and yes, a voice inside screams that I need a direct route, but this is the safe one. I take off at a lope … until I stumble and realize, with horror, that if I fall, I’ll land on the baby. Slower then. Step by step. The baby is breathing—was breathing …

  No, none of that. There isn’t time to stop and check. I’ve left room for it to breathe, and if it managed to survive under a blanket of snow, swaddled beneath its mother’s jacket, then it will live through this. As long as it wasn’t already too far gone—

  Enough of that.

  I tramp through the snow for what seems like miles. Finally, I see our campsite marker high above my head, and I divert to a more direct route. The closer I get, the faster I go. When I jog across big boot prints and smaller paw prints, I stop short.

  Dalton. I’ve been in such a blind rush that I’ve completely forgotten I’m not alone out here, and I nearly collapse with relief at the reminder. I don’t care whether Dalton knows the first thing about babies. He’s here. I am not alone.

  “Eric?”

  No answer. I call louder as I continue toward the campsite. I shout for Dalton. I call for Raoul. I whistle, and Storm bounds ahead, as if this means her co-parent and pack mate are back. They aren’t. The camp is still and silent, and I realize the boot and paw prints are from earlier.

  I check my watch to see it’s not yet noon. I curse under my breath and keep going into the tent. When Storm tries to follow, a sharp “no” stops her. She whines, but only once, token protest before she collapses outside, the tent swaying as she leans against it.

  I left this morning without rolling up our sleeping blankets. I brush the hides flat as quickly as I can. Then I lay the baby on them.

  The infant lies there, eyes shut, body still. It hasn’t moved since I left the clearing. I knew that, but I’d ignored the warning, telling myself it’d fallen asleep in relief at being found. As little as I know about babies, I realize this is ridiculous. This is a cold, frightened, hungry infant. When someone came, it should have been screaming, making its needs known now that someone finally arrived to fill them.

  I lay a trembling hand on the baby’s still-swaddled chest. I don’t feel anything, but I’m not sure I would with the way my fingers are shaking. I check the side of its neck, and as soon as my cold fingers touch warm skin, the baby gives the faintest start.

  Alive.

  I fumble to unwrap the swaddling hides. The tiny body gives a convulsive shudder, and I resist the urge to re-swaddle it. The tent isn’t warm, but it’s sheltered, and I need to get a better look at the child.

  It is naked under the cloths. A baby girl with black fuzz for hair, her face scrunched up as tight as her fists. I take a deep breath, push aside emotion, and begin an assessment of her condition. That isn’t easy. I realize how cold her hands and feet are, and I panic. I notice her shallow breathing and shivering, and I panic. I see her sunken eyes, and I panic. But I keep assessing.

  Dehydration. Mild hypothermia. Possible frostbite.

  Her breathing is clear and steady. Heartbeat is strong and steady. Body is plump and well nourished. These findings calm and reassure me, and then I can turn my attention to the problems.

  Triage. Frostbite, then hypothermia, then dehydration.

  I wrap her loosely in her blankets and add a thick hide one. Then I systematically warm her hands and feet, first against my bare skin and then under my armpits. Warm, do not rub. My hands against her button nose and tiny ears as my breath warms those.

  Now to replenish body fluids. I can tell she is dehydrated, but I can’t determine severity.

  She needs liquid. That’s the main thing. I don’t have any food for her. I tamp down panic at the thought that I have nothing even resembling milk. Water. Focus on getting her water.

  I hurry out to grab the canteen. Then I stop. Dalton will have it, because I won’t need it at camp, where I can melt snow.

  Melt snow.

  I snatch up the pot and stuff it to overflowing with snow and spin to the fire …

  The fire is dead.

  Of course it is. That’s why I’d left in the first place: to gather kindling, which I abandoned back in the clearing where I found the baby. I’ve been gone long enough that the fire is reduced to ash. It’ll take forever to get it going enough to melt water.

  Stay calm. Stay focused. I am surrounded by water in partly frozen form. I can do this.

  I empty the pot. Grab a handful of snow. Squeeze it in my fist, and watch the water run into the pot. Grab another … and see black streaks on my hand. It’s probably soot, but it looks like dirt, and that reminds me that my hands are not clean.

  Sterilize. That comes from deep memory, a single babysitting class taken with friends, before I realized I was not babysitter material.

  Then how are you going to look after an infant?

  I can do this. Clean my hands first.

  With what? I showered before I came. It’s one weekend with backpacks—we have no room for anything we don’t absolutely need.

  And this is an emergency. Am I going to let a baby die of dehydration rather than risk letting her ingest a few specks of dirt?

  I wash my hands in the snow as best I can. Then I’m squeezing out water when Storm, sticking close and anxious, gives a happy bark. At a whistle, she takes off, and I nearly collapse with relief.

  “Eric!” I shout. “I need help!”

  He comes running so fast the poor dogs race to keep up. He bursts into the camp, as if expecting to see me wrestling a newly woken grizzly. He has a rifle over his shoulder, and he’s carrying a brace of spruce grouse, which he throws into the snow as he runs toward me.

  “Fire,” I say. “I need the fire going. Now. I have to boil water.”

  “You’re hurt? Or Storm?” He wheels to look at the dog bounding up behind him.

  “Baby,” I say, barely able to get the word out, my heart thumps so fast. “I found a baby.”

  “A baby what?”

  The infant lets out a weak cry, and Dalton goes still.

  His head turns toward the tent as he asks in a low voice, “What is that?” and I realize he doesn’t recognize the sound. Or if he does, it only sparks a very old memory. His younger brother, Jacob, might very well be the only infant he’s ever seen. Dalton was raised in Rockton, where there are no children.

  Before I can answer, he’s crouched and opening the unzipped tent flap.

  THREE

  Dalton gingerly peels back the tent flap. He peers inside.

  Then he jerks back. “It’s a baby.”

  “That’s what I said.”

  He rises, looking stunned. “Where…?”

  “I found her with her mother, under the snow. Both of them—the mother and her child. The mother’s dead, and I don’t know how long the baby was out there, and I’ve warmed her up, but she’s dehydrated, and I let the fire go out, and now I can’t boil water to make it sterile and—”

  He cuts off my babble with a kiss, gloved hands on either side of my face. Not what I expect, and it startles me, which I suppose is the point. His lips press against mine, warm, the ice on his beard melting against my chin, and it’s like slapping someone who is hysterical. Well, no, it’s a much nicer way to do it.

  I’m startled at first, and then all I feel and smell and see is him, and the panic evaporates. Tears spring to my eyes. As he breaks the kiss, he brushes the tears away and says, “Everything’s okay. You’ve got this.”

  I nod. “I-I don’t know much … anything really about…”

  “It’s more than I do.” He smiles, and then that vanishes, as if he realizes that might not be what I need to hear right now.

  “We have this,” he says. “We can hold off on sterilizing the water. If she’s dehydrated, just use what you have.”

  He returns to the tent, and I follow with my bit of melted snow. W
hen the dogs crowd in, he waves them back. Storm herds Raoul off, like a big older sister taking charge. He’s seven months old, a wolf and Australian shepherd cross, heavier on the wolf, which means he understands pack hierarchy.

  After the dogs move, Dalton reopens the tent. Then he stops, and his breath catches.

  “Fuck,” he whispers. “Are they supposed to be that … small?” There’s an odd note in his voice, part wonder and part terror, and when I nudge, he moves aside, letting me go in. Then he stays there, holding the flap open.

  “I’m going to need your help with this,” I say.

  He nods, rubbing a hand over his mouth as he eases into the tent. He’s still a meter away from the baby, but he moves as if he might somehow crush her from a distance.

  “Pick her up, please,” I say. “I have to get this water into her.”

  He inches closer. His arms move toward the baby. Then he stops. Repositions his arms, mentally trying to figure out how to do this.

  “You won’t break her,” I say.

  “Are you sure?” He gives me a smile, but worry lurks behind it. He looks back at her. “How do I…?”

  “One hand behind her back. The other supporting her head. She’s too young to hold it up on her own. She’s also too young to escape.”

  “Got it.”

  He still makes a few pantomime attempts, reconfiguring his hands in the air before he actually touches the baby. It’s an awkward lift, and when she wriggles, he freezes. I lunge before he drops her. He doesn’t, of course. He just tightens his grip a little and looks down at her and …

  There are experiences I’ve heard women talk about that I have never had. Never even imagined, to be honest. Hearing about them, I’d inwardly roll my eyes, because if I never felt a thing, then clearly this thing does not exist. Or, as I’ve learned, I just never experienced it until I met Dalton. That thing they write poetry and songs and cheesy Valentine’s cards about. Being in love. Being with someone that you can no longer imagine being without.

  When Dalton holds that baby, I get another of those experiences. My insides just … I don’t even know what. I feel things that I don’t particularly want to feel at this moment, may not ever want to feel, considering this might be the one thing I can’t give him.

  I see Dalton holding the baby, and then he looks over at me with this little smile that …

  Nope, not thinking about that. Tuck it away. Lock it up tight.

  “Am I doing it right?” he asks.

  “Yep,” I say, a little brusquely. “Now I need to get the water into her. I don’t know how old she is, but she definitely isn’t weaned yet. She’ll want something to suck on, but unless you have a clean rubber glove hidden in our packs…”

  “Yeah, no.”

  I inhale. “It probably wouldn’t do any good. Suckling requires strength, and she’s weak. And I need to stop talking.” I take a deep breath. “From wild panic to overanalyzing.”

  “The situation isn’t critical. We’re only an hour’s fast walk from town. We just need to get a little water into her.”

  He shifts her, getting more confident in his hold. Then he stops. “She’s so…”

  “Small?”

  He laughs, but it holds a touch of nervousness. “Yeah, we covered that, didn’t we. I just can’t believe…” He swallows. “All right. I’m going to try to open her mouth so you can drip water in. Just a few drops into the back of her throat, and I’ll make sure she swallows it.”

  “Done this before, have you?”

  Another laugh, still nervous. “With a two-hundred-pound man. Years ago. Guy who ran away and passed out from dehydration. I had to get fluids into him before I hauled him to town for a saline drip. This is a little trickier. She won’t need as much water, though.”

  “True.”

  He puts a finger to the baby’s lips. Dalton isn’t a huge guy. About six feet tall. Maybe one-seventy, lean and fit, as he needs to be for life out here. That fingertip, though, seems like a giant’s, bigger than the baby’s pursed lips. He prods, and her mouth opens.

  “Now let’s just hope I don’t get bit.” He wriggles his finger in and then stops. “Though I guess that would require teeth. How young do you think she is?”

  “Babies can be born with teeth, but they usually fall out. They don’t get more until they’re at least six months. She’s well below that. Maybe a month?”

  “Fuck.” He takes a deep breath. “Okay, here goes, I’ll prop—”

  Her eyes fly open, and he freezes, as if he’s been caught doing something he shouldn’t. She looks up at him, and it is indeed a picture-perfect scene, as she stares up at Dalton, and his expression goes from frozen shock to wonder.

  I want to capture it … and I want to forget it. I want to pretend I don’t see that look in his eyes, don’t see his smile.

  “Hey, there,” he says, and the baby doesn’t cry, doesn’t even look concerned. She just stares at him.

  “Water,” I say, and I feel like a selfish bitch for spoiling the moment, but I can’t help it. I need to shatter it, and I hate myself a little for that.

  “Right.” He wriggles his finger into the baby’s mouth. She starts to suck on it, and he laughs again, no nerves now, just a rumbling laugh that comes from deep in his chest.

  “Reminds me of a marten I found, when I was a kid,” he says.

  “A baby marten?”

  He shrugs. “I had a bad habit of bringing home orphaned animals. My mom…” He trails off, and I realize it’s the first time I’ve heard him use that word. When he speaks of Katherine Dalton, he says “my mother.” That isn’t who he means here. He means Amy O’Keefe, his birth mother. The parents he never talks about. The ones he can’t talk about without a hitch in his words, a trailing-off, a sudden switch of subject. He lived with his parents and his brother out here until he was nine and the Daltons “rescued” him, from a situation he did not need rescuing from.

  “Your mom…” I prod, because I must. Every time this door creaks open, I grab for it before it slams shut again.

  “Water,” he says, and I try not to deflate.

  I lift the pot, and then realize there’s no way in hell I can “drip” it from this suddenly huge pot into her tiny mouth.

  “Take out one of our shirts,” he says. “Dip a corner in and squeeze it into her mouth.”

  I’m not sure that’s sanitary, but I settle for taking a clean shirt of mine, one fresh from the laundry. As I dip it in, I say, “Is this how you fed the marten?”

  “Nah, it’s how I fed birds. For the marten, I’d put food on my finger and hope she didn’t chew it off.” He looks at the baby. “You gonna chew it off, kid?”

  “No teeth, remember?”

  “These gums feel hard enough to do the job.”

  I’ve relaxed now. He’s talking about rescuing orphaned animals, comparing them to the baby, and that eases tension from my shoulders. That’s what he sees this as—the rescue of an orphaned creature. Not picking up a baby and being overwhelmed with some deeper instinct that says “I want this.”

  That would be silly, I guess. But we all have our sensitive spots, and this is one of mine: the fact that I cannot provide a child should he decide that’s what he wants. It’s an issue I never had to worry about because I did not foresee myself in a relationship where the question might arise. Now I do.

  I wet the shirt and trickle water in the baby’s mouth. I’m being careful to have it close enough, so we can see how much she gets, and suddenly she clamps down on the fabric itself. She sucks hard and then makes such a face that we both laugh.

  “Not what you expected, huh?” I say.

  Her gaze turns my way. I seem to recall that, at this age, babies can’t see more than shapes, but she’s definitely looking. Processing. I swear I can see that in her dark blue eyes. Every move, every noise, every passing blurry shape is a cause for deep consideration, her brain analyzing and trying to interpret.

  I dip the fabric into the pot and pres
s it to her lips. She opens them and sucks. Makes that same face, distaste and displeasure, like a rich old lady expecting champagne and being served ginger ale. She fusses. Bleats. But when nothing better comes, she takes the shirt again and sucks on it.

  When she’s finished, she fixes us with a look of bitter accusation.

  “Sorry,” I say. “We’ll do better next time.”

  We aren’t what she wants, though. Not what she needs.

  I think of the woman in the clearing, the woman under the snow.

  “We should get her back to Rockton,” I say. “Can you do that by yourself?”

  “What?”

  “Her mother. I have to…” I look at the baby. “I need to get what I can from the scene.”

  “Scene?” He adjusts his position, making the baby comfortable in the crook of his arm. “You think she was murdered.”

  “Possibly. I know that isn’t my crime to solve, but this baby didn’t come from nowhere. She has family. She needs to go back to them.”

  I know that, better than anyone, because of the man sitting beside me. The Daltons found a boy in the forest, and they ignored the fact that he was well fed and properly clothed and healthy. Ignored the fact that he already knew how to read and write. They decided he was a savage in need of rescue. There is no gentle way to put it. They stole Dalton from his parents, from his brother, from the forest.

  “She needs to get back to them,” I repeat, and Dalton’s hand finds mine, his fingers squeezing as he says, “She does.”

  “So to do that—” I begin.

  “We have to check out the body.”

  “I have to check it. You need to take her.”

  He passes me the baby and starts rolling the sleeping blankets.

  “I’m not leaving you out here alone,” he says, and before I can protest, he continues. “Yes, you can find the way back. Yes, you have a gun. Yes, I could leave you with both dogs. But an hour or two will make no difference if she’s wrapped well. She survived for longer under the snow.”

  “Yes but—”

  “Maybe I should stay and check the body,” he says, tying the blankets under his backpack. “I know what to look for, and I’m better than you at tracking, especially with the snowfall. I might also be able to tell if she’s from a settlement or she’s a lone settler or even where she comes from.” He settles onto his haunches. “Yeah, that makes sense. I’ll check the body. You take the baby.”