Hunter McCormick's Arc

Chapter 3 of 3

The bed held all night. Hunter woke warm for the first time in days, the dog curled at his feet. But warm was not the problem now. He sat up and looked past the canopy to the ridge. The cabin stood open against the gray sky, roof bare, walls waiting. He had two shelters and could only work one. Down here he stayed alive. Up there sat the thing he was really building. "You can't split yourself in two." Sky stood by the stove, warming his hands over the homemade heater. He had stayed the night. He held his empty cup again out of habit. "You keep the fire down here. You climb up there to work. By dark you're froze and behind on both." "I know the math," Hunter said. He pulled on his boots. "I lose the winter if I sit here. I lose the cabin if I don't." Sky drummed his fingers on the cup. "Then stop sitting here." He nodded at the stove. "That thing keeps you alive because of the heat, not the trees. Take the heat with you." Hunter looked at the heater. Sturdy. Hand-built. Heavy, but not too heavy for two men and a sled. He had built it to warm a hole under the magnolias. He had never thought to move it back up the hill, into the half-built walls it was made for. "The cabin's got no roof," Hunter said. "Wind cuts right through." "So hang a tarp. Block the north side." Sky set the cup down. "You don't need a finished house to burn a fire in it. You need walls and a stove. You've got both up there. You just left one down here." Hunter stared at him. The plan was simple, and it had been simple the whole time. He had been guarding two places because he was scared to give up the safe one. He grabbed the sled from behind the woodpile. They worked the heater loose from its base and eased it onto the planks. The dog barked and circled. A flash of orange moved at the tree line, the fox, watching them go, still as ever. Hunter and Sky hauled the sled up the slope, boots slipping on frost. His arms burned by the top. They set the stove inside the cabin walls and stacked kindling. Hunter struck a match. The fire caught. Heat climbed the bare studs and filled the space between the walls he had built for Amanda. For the first time since the frost, he stood inside the cabin and was warm. "No more yard," Sky said, breathing hard. "You live where you build now." Hunter nodded. He had one shelter now, not two, and it was the right one. But the wind still found the open roof. Snow would come through the gap. He looked up at the bare rafters and knew the next fight. He had bought his way back onto the hill. Now he had to close the sky over it.