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Back 3 a.m.
Chapters (67)
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  67. 3:46 a.m.

My body can’t go another day without water. Drinking the water might make me sick. Not drinking the water will kill me. I cup my hands in the river and drink heartily. It tastes like water you drink from a cup that was used for milk the day before. I drink ten handfuls, splash my face, then retreat back to the sand.

At 3:54 a.m., I drag the canoe up toward the third rock.

I can’t spend twenty-three hours in the sun, so I plan on flipping the canoe over and propping one side up on the rock. A makeshift hutch.

I flip the canoe over on its side and pick up the front end.

Something falls out.

There is a hollow space in the nose of the boat. I figure it must be warm. That’s why he went there.

I drop the canoe and fall to my knees.

“Lassie!”

His eyes flitter and open halfway.

I carry him to the edge of the river and hand drip water into his mouth, his little tongue licking up each drop.

A minute later, I slide under the canoe and hug Lassie to my chest.

He is back asleep before I am.

:06

June 23rd

Sunrise 3:08 a.m.

I wake up to the sound of my stomach growling. At least, I hope it’s my stomach. In the Alaskan wilderness, if something is growling, you want it to be your stomach.

But it isn’t my hunger that worries me.

It’s my legs.

I roll out from beneath the canoe and gaze down.

“Oh, shit.”

I am covered in a thousand mosquito bites. There isn’t an inch of flesh that isn’t an angry raised boil of red.

I claw at my legs with my fingernails, momentarily quelling the insane itching.

How could I have been so stupid?

No matter how wet my clothes were, I should have covered up every inch of skin.

Meow.

I turn around.

Lassie is still huddled underneath the canoe.

“No, I don’t have leprosy,” I say, giving my legs another violent itch. “I got bitten by a thousand mosquitos.”

Meow.

“My face? What’s wrong with my face?”

I feel my face with my hands. I feel something flaky on my forehead and pull at it. I look at my hand. It looks like a jagged piece of wax paper.

Skin.

I peel a piece off my nose twice the size.

Meow.

“No, I’m not going to eat it.”

Meow.

“No, you are not going to eat it.”

We were not resorting to cannibalism.

Yet.

Meow.

“Me too, buddy.” What I wouldn’t do for a smoothie right now. Even a green one.

Meow.

“No, I don’t have any Fancy Feast. Why don’t you go catch us some breakfast?”

Meow.

“Your leg? What did you do to your leg?”