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

I gaze downriver. It is wide, the widest I’d yet to see it, a third of a mile across. The canoe floats down the middle.

I sweep my gaze on both sides of the water, looking for signs of life. A light, a fire, a man on the edge of the river fishing.

We are all alone.

I’m curious if Opik and Lassie docked the boat at any point. My question is answered moments later when Opik hands me the fur hat overflowing with fruit and nuts. I eat a handful of what I’ve come to think of as Alaskan granola and tell him, “Go to sleep.”

He nods.

Lassie climbs back to where I’m sitting and lies down on my lap.

“I take it you guys didn’t see anything worth stopping for yesterday.”

He shakes his head.

“You okay?”

Meow.

“The poops?”

Meow.

“Oh, diarrhea.”

I let out a deep exhale. I’m surprised it took this long for dysentery to strike. After drinking the river water for the first couple days, I expected the worst, but neither Lassie nor I had been affected. Then we’d adopted Opik’s dig-a-hole-in-the-sand system which, by virtue of my not waking up with my bowels next to me, appeared valid. So it might not be the water that was wreaking havoc on Lassie’s insides. It could have been the diet of nuts and berries, or some rotten fish, or something he got into when I was asleep, or he might just be sick.

As if on cue, Lassie lurches forward and throws up.

When he finishes, he gazes up at me.

If we were home in Alexandria, we would be on the back of my scooter, headed to the emergency vet.

I can’t help him. All I can do is make him comfortable and hope we find the Indian settlement in the next day. I pick him up and tuck him into the fur coat.

He whimpers.

“We’re gonna find help tomorrow.”

Meow.

“You never had a chance? To do what?”

Meow.

I shake my head. The arctic fox. Only Lassie on his deathbed would be concerned with getting some action.

I check on Opik. He is curled into a ball at the front of the canoe.

I lean down and whisper in his ear, “If I have a son, I hope he’s just like you.”

Then, as if hit in the stomach by a shotgun blast, I remember the odds Ingrid and the baby survived the earthquake are grave, if not graver, than of the three of us being rescued.

::::

I spend the next half an hour squinting at the riverbanks.

At 3:45 a.m., I start paddling toward the southern riverbank in hopes of a sandbar I can dock the canoe on, but the banks are all heavy brush.

At 3:55 a.m., I wake up Opik.

“You’re up, buddy.”

He smiles and takes the paddle from me.