Alone in the Wild(5)

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. When 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.