warnings: graphic description of a corpse, mortal peril
summary: The gang try to cross the cliff face near the frozen lake.
word count: 2301
a/n: Big day for White Fang fans lmao. I finally finished this chapter after having it in my drafts for like 8 months. Will I write more? Who knows. I think this fic will forever live in WIP hell, getting updates here and there whenever I rewatch the movie, much like my Dead Poets Society fic and everything else that I write… thanks for reading anyways and let me know what you think:)
We made good time the next day, covering a great distance with few obstacles. At times I ran ahead of the team to keep an eye out for upcoming danger; at other times, I stuck to the flanks or dropped behind a ways, scouring the woods for signs of the wolf pack trailing us. At this time I was a few yards ahead. My breaths billowed in white clouds, disappearing fast into the landscape like wisps of my spirit. The mountainside altitude made me feel weak and skinny, but I pushed on, eyes scanning the landscape for danger. I rounded a corner and stopped short. The ground gave way to a sheer slope that led down to a vast frozen lake, punctuated with jutting stones and scraggly trees that had taken root in the rock beneath the snow. The angle was sharp, but the dogs could handle it. I turned on my heels and sprinted back to the team.
“Alex!” I shouted. “Big drop ahead. Goes straight down to the lake; we should be able to make it if we go slow.”
We tried taking it diagonally. Alex held Connie on a short leash, half-carrying her some of the way to keep her from running everyone off course. I kept a hold of the ropes in the middle of the dog line, while Skunker and Jack held onto the sled at the rear. It was damn hard work. I could feel my shoulders burn with the effort, and the snow crumbled under me so I had to constantly work my feet to keep balanced. We were going well when something went wrong. It all went so fast that I couldn’t quite tell what happened. One minute, Alex had taken a slip, then perhaps Jack lurched or lost his foothold. All I know for sure is that my arm nearly ripped out of the socket at the force of the sled tipping sideways. I turned just in time to see the whole thing swing around, flinging Jack and Skunker over the drop as they gripped onto the handle for their lives.
“Hang on, kid, I got ya!” By some miracle, Skunker managed to keep his hold on the sled and pull Jack’s hand up to get a better grip. “Just dig your feet in.”
The advice was for Jack, but I took it myself. I braced my feet into the snow and hooked my arms up around the rope to hold it to my chest. I looked over at Jack and watched as he scrambled against the slope. His wide, frantic eyes met mine and my guts turned to water as I realised he was slipping. Skunker scaled the sled like a mountain goat to pull it back up. I dashed to his side and heaved, the snow sucked at the huge wooden lump and made it feel a thousand times heavier.
THWING!
The rope snapped and the entire sled went sliding sideways down the hill with Jack hanging off the side. I was flung back by the force of it, shunting the air from my lungs. I dragged in a gasp with a horrible screech and screamed.
“Jack!”
“Get clear of the sled!” Skunker shouted. At least one of us was still competent.
I’ll never know if Jack could hear us over the rushing snow and the echo of his own screams; but either way, he got free of the sled and began to tumble away from it, narrowly missing a few jagged stones, a splintering log, and several jettisoned items. Frozen in place, my eyes remained glued to him as he scrambled for purchase on the crumbling hillside, until it happened. The ropes tying the cargo down began to snap and all manner of gear and personal effects broke free of the chassis and flung away in every direction. With the knots loosened, the lid of the coffin slid suddenly sideways, and then caught on a snag and flipped away. As if time itself had slowed to show me the moment in all its terrible glory, I saw my father’s frozen corpse come free from its timber crate and rise up as if to stand and bow. His skin was blue-grey from days without breath, hair frozen in spikes, mouth slack as if sleeping, and Bravo’s snarling body still wrapped in his stiff arms. He slid down the hill feet first like a toboggan, then skidded out onto the lake, too far for any sane person to reach. A few cans scuttled alongside him, and one dog bowl came to a spinning halt by his head, ringing metallic on the ice.
For a second, there was silence. If it weren’t for the wind that passed through the valley as if stirred up by some great unseen bird, you might have heard a snowflake fall. Then the moment broke with the sound of Skunker’s uproarious laughter. Alex was silent. He might have been looking at me, he might not. Another thing I’ll never know. All I could do was stare ahead. I might have stared forever if it weren’t for Jack’s shouting.
“I’m okay!” He turned and flapped his hand over his head like a child, grinning ear to ear despite his puffing.
I watched passively as he stepped out toward the lake, observing his behaviour as I would an animal. He held his hands ahead of him, but moved quite sure-footedly. It’s springtime. I thought.
“Don’t move on that ice!” Urgency was a rarity for Skunker, and hearing it in his voice just barely managed to snap me out of whatever trance I was in.
“Jack!” I started shimmying down the hill, then sliding. “Jack, don’t you dare move!”
“I’ll get the ammo!” He looked back at me with a lopsided grin, like he was trying to impress me.
“Like hell you will!” I got to my feet and sprinted to the lake’s edge, but he was already too far out to grab him. I let my voice fall dangerously low. “Jack, you come back here now.”
“It’s fine, okay?” He half-turned and threw up his hand in annoyance, then shuffled out a bit further. He seemed fascinated with my father’s body, the robin’s egg blue of his lips, the final embrace of man and dog.
“Jackie.” I don’t know where that nickname was conjured from. “Jackie, the ice is melting.”
He ignored me, bent down, picked up the ammo bag, and straightened up. That was enough to destabilise the ice, and it seemed that he noticed it too. He stiffened, turning ever so slowly as the ice crackled like glass underfoot. He took a quick step back like the idiot he was and put his foot straight through, sucking his body and the ammo bag into the abyss below and leaving my father’s corpse bobbing in the narrow hole like a cork. It took everything I had not to run out after him, and thank God I didn’t. Something sucked the corpse down under the ice, and Jack emerged like a sputtering, screaming teabag. Perhaps he wasn’t such a goner after all. I turned on my heels and ran to grab a loose rope, but Alex had got to it first.
“Hurry up!” He handed me the end. “Help me!”
We dashed back over and flung the rope out to that sopping, freezing bundle in the water, and with Skunker’s help, we managed to heave him out and drag him along the ice without breaking it again. He screamed, retched, convulsed, like something we had dredged out of hell. Before I knew it I was pulling off his icy wet clothes while he moaned and lolled his head, in some terrible state between frantic and catatonic. His skin was colder than any living skin should be, and white as a ghost.
“Light a fire, Skunker.” Alex’s voice came out calm, like this wasn’t the worst thing that could happen on a fine spring day.
“He’s turning blue.” I remarked numbly.
“Quinn, get these off him. I’ll get the blankets.”
I obliged, stripping him down to his underwear, and murmuring gentle words in his ear. I wrapped him in the blankets like swaddling a babe, took off my coonskin and covered his quickly stiffening hair with it, securing the tail around his nose and mouth, and freed myself of both layers of gloves and pulled the inner ones onto his trembling hands.
“Keep moving your fingers, Jackie, that’s it.” I rubbed his hands between my own with the ferocity of starting a fire, which reminded me Alex had sent Skunker to fix that. I turned to see him trying to light some wet wood and tinder, and felt a jolt of fury pass through me. “Burn the damn books, Skunker, ‘fore he dies!”
Burn them he did. They were Jack’s books. It occurred to me I should feel bad, but I was just glad to have enough kindling to save his life. Thank God above we were carrying that dead weight around. The next half hour passed like a dream. I held Jack tight, as if the cold had sucked up all his weight and a stiff breeze might blow him away. I alternated between rubbing his hands, feet, ears and nose, determined to keep his blood moving until I felt the warmth start to stick in his extremities once more. I thought of nothing besides keeping him safe. I couldn’t face what had happened. Disgust, terror, anger. These things would come later.
Alex served him pine needle tea before he went off to retrieve my father’s body. I had been through too much to stomach the nail-biting stress of watching him shimmy out onto the ice on his stomach, so I busied myself checking Jack’s extremities for damage, which happened to be almost nothing. He had no notable signs of frostbite except for a whiteness on the tips of his nose, fingers and ears, and his toes were completely fine. He watched me with wide eyes as I looked him over, and blushed deeply as I smeared a little beef tallow on his chapped lips.
“You basting me up for cooking?” He cracked a smile.
I forced a wane imitation of laughter. He fiddled his fingers.
“You think I got away with it?”
I picked up his hand and gave it another once-over. Nothing. Lucky son-of-a-bitch.
“Yeah.” I concurred.
He paused for a moment, a searching look on his face, then spoke in a weak, boyish voice.
“I’m sorry.”
I let go of his hand, beating down the urge to cry, to beg him to go home before this place swallows him up.
“Yeah.” I let out a shuddering breath. “Yeah, I know.”
I left the fire then, took Connie off her leash and started walking with her trotting at my side.
“Where’s she going?” I heard Jack ask softly.
“Let her be.” Skunker said gruffly, and that was the end of it.
It was dusk by the time I returned, but where I had been while the light died was a mystery to me. Of course my body had made a lap around the lake’s edge, but I had no memory of the journey save for the blinding sheen of the sunset on the glittering ice. My mind was with my father, scrutinising him. His coldness, his neglect, his quick temper, the way her could leech the life out of a room just by walking past the door. These were the things that made me hate him, yet against my will, I still missed him. I missed that he always knew what to do, and that when I lived by his side, I never had to worry about food, or shelter, or sleeping alone. Without him, what was I? A little lost girl in a land of unforgiving cold.
The first time he left me, I clung to Scott Conroy. I loved the streaks of grey in his hair despite being only forty when he died, and the bundle of crows feet around his eyes. He had the kindest eyes I had ever seen, and the strongest rough-hewn hands that held me while I cried for my daddy to come home. But he was dead and buried, and who was left for me? Sure, Alex was kind enough, but I knew he’d cut me loose when we made it back to Klondike. He had his lady and enough money to sail south to warmer climes. I just couldn’t see him and Miss Casey adopting an orphan of the Yukon, least of all a seventeen-year-old. Who did that leave? Skunker? Half-mad foul smelling Skunker? I barely knew him, truth be told, and a father he was not.
As I plodded over to the fire, Jack came bounding over to greet me.
“Quinn!” He beamed. “You’re back! We were getting worried.”
“You were.” Alex corrected.
My heart was almost too heavy to reply, so I just muttered an apology and went on by. We ate in tense silence that night. Alex cooked my share of rice pudding for dessert, offering to no-one else. I supposed this was the rainy day I had been waiting for, but it tasted ashy in my mouth. I brushed my teeth and turned down my sleeping roll early, but I was restless. I wanted to get up and pace. With our supply of ammunition at the bottom of the lake, we were exposed to the pack. We should have made good time on them today, but being stuck at the lake with a sick boy on our hands had given them a huge advantage.
I had just started to doze when the dogs started to whine and fuss, and the first howl echoed through the woods like hell’s bells.
ok since theres So many pics of goatee ethan, i decided to take it upon myself to find as many clean shaven ethans you u can. put em in ur anderperry anything, a locket, idk what you freaks would do with em! but here ya go!
Lesbian literature & Chicago activism: Valerie Taylor letters, 1964-1975
“It seems slightly satirical to wish anyone happiness in this messed-up world but I hang on to a possibly erroneous belief that personal happiness is still possible, or how has the human race survived so much?”
-- Valerie Taylor to Jack Conroy, December 26, 1969
Valerie Taylor (1913-1997) was an activist and novelist, especially prominent in the lesbian pulp genre of the mid-20th century. She used many names over the course of her life, including Velma Tate, which is how she signed off letters to her friend and fellow leftist writer Jack Conroy. Her wit shines through this selection of twelve letters, which range from 1964 to 1975. Common topics include the difficulties of publishing, leftist politics, and tongue-in-cheek responses to “Chick tracts” (Evangelical comics intended to encourage conversion to Christianity), which were seemingly often sent to Taylor by Conroy in order to poke fun at them.
"It will be so cozy in hell–everyone I know there.”
-- Valerie Taylor to Jack Conroy, January 12, 1975
Scholars have described Taylor as a key figure in the history of both pulp literature and Midwestern gay activism.
“As both an open lesbian and a political activist, Taylor is a unique author in the pulp genre. Taylor centers the Midwest in her novels and illustrates both the vibrancy of gay life and the beginnings of gay activism in Chicago in the late 1950s and early 1960s… while they are still certainly pulps and share some of the issues found in the majority of lesbian pulps, she takes control of the genre and uses it to disseminate information to the queer community in Chicago, consistently challenging the standard. Taylor differentiates herself by inserting references to books, spaces and terms to help illuminate the reality of the Chicago gay community. She also provides a critique of police entrapment and bar raids, the legal and psychological standing of homosexuals and, most importantly, she portrays her lesbian characters as distinctly human individuals.”
-- Midwestern farmers’ daughters: heartland values and cloaked resistance in the novels of Valerie Taylor, by Jennifer Dentel
Taylor was one of many leftist authors who kept correspondence with Conroy, who was himself a significant contributor to the “proletarian literature” of the early 20th century. These letters provide us a window into the kind of relationships he fostered as well as Taylor’s humor and drive.
– Quinn Sluzenski, Digital Initiatives Assistant
View Valerie Taylor's letters to Jack Conroy at Newberry Digital Collections
