Chapter 20

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While our dinner wasn’t worthy of a five-star restaurant, the scenery around us was six-star spectacular. The night was moonless, and the velvet black sky above our heads blazed with countless stars. The Milky Way rose and arched across the heavens in a misty river of light along the eastern horizon. The snowshoe workshop did triple duty as a kitchen, dining area, and lounge.

Spooning naked in the blackness was sexy, erotic, and boring. Newlyweds need to hop out of bed and walk around, if only for a change of view. With supper finished, Alice and I snuggled in the stove’s glow as much from affection as out of a desire to keep warm. Long after the sense of satisfaction and the mellow comfort of fullness was gone, our mouths retained the flavor memory of our meal.

“Did you have enough to eat?” I burped, patted my midsection, and smiled. My belly was at maximum density.

“Not another bite, I’m stuffed.” She inched closer and laid her head on my shoulder, the bill of her cap obscured her face.

“Care for some tea and an after-dinner joint?”

My stash of Liberty Mountain weed was enough to give a decent buzz to two bored and stranded hunters. As they used to say while I was in basic training, “Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.”

Relaxing a few feet from our hobo stove was delightful. The radiant warmth was almost enough to offset the chill of the below-freezing air. Thank God, it was a windless night.

Cabin fever and frostbite are both threats to survival. Our hunting gear was top of the line but not intended for Arctic conditions. The only way to stay warm was to keep moving. We lost more heat than we generated while sitting together on the frosty couch carved into the sides of the snow drift. A pile of pine branches was both padding and insulation for the icy sofa.

I gazed into the smoldering embers of our little stove as Alice, and I huddled next to each other. For the first time since our adventure started, survival appeared to be both possible and probable. My concern now was the quality of life while we survived.

We were stuck in a Godforsaken cave until either the spring thaw arrived, we were rescued, or hiked back to base. Four months of co-solitary confinement will challenge the sanity of the most devoted lovers. Trapped with Alice for a third of a year? I shuddered at the thought.

Foolish boy. I scolded myself for being so self-centered. She had to be as concerned as I was; she was also stuck with me for the duration, after all. We were in for a hell of a ride. Our sheltering cave was sure to become an emotional pressure-cooker before it was all over. Like it or not, we were going to be stewing in each other’s juices. We would either curdle or bond.

“Whatcha thinking?” Alice looked at me and snuggled closer for warmth.

“Nothing much. Just wondering how long it will be before we can’t stand snake. We have enough God damned reptiles back there to feed us this winter and half of the next.” I pointed to the cave behind us.

“Yuck! Just shoot me now.” Alice stuck her finger in her mouth and pretended to gag. “We gotta have a variety, or our taste buds will die of boredom,” she sighed.

“No shit. How many flavors of pine needles can there be?” I shifted and held her tighter.

“We know there’s a herd of deer in this valley. I can set up a hunting blind in the Evergreen stand. It will provide concealment and a clear field of fire, maybe I can bag us a Bambi,” Alice volunteered.

I cringed a bit at her suggestion. Alice’s enthusiasm for Bambi burgers was what got us into this predicament. It was pointless to bring it up since there was nothing we could do about it and no one was keeping score.

“Let’s talk about it in the morning after a full night’s sleep; we need to pick up and go to bed.”

I kissed her cheek and rubbed her neck with my hand. Alice cleaned the pan and our mess kits while I wrapped Rocky’s remains in a plastic shopping bag and buried it deep in the hole I dug in the snowdrift. Food storage wasn’t a problem. We lived in a walk-in freezer.

“We’re not going to bed without a bath. You stink, I stink, we all stink,” Alice said as she scratched under her boob. Scratching, like yawning, is contagious. I chased a sympathetic itch crawling across my midsection.

She was busy melting snow for our bath water while I set about gathering bundles of pine branches for an additional layer of insulation under our sleeping bags. I completed several trips to deliver natural bedding to our tent by the time the pot was steaming away.

The air inside our shelter was chilly, but also noticeably warmer than the frigid night outside. The residual heat coming from the rock faces of the abandoned mine kept ambient temperatures slightly above freezing; not exactly comfy for a nude sponge bath.