Burning down my only shelter is one of those ideas I should probably refrain from acting upon.

I remember another of my friend Charley’s maxims. The old geezer has one for every situation.

“When faced with a crisis, focus on one thing at time.”

For me the one thing is warming my core. I pull off my sweater and rip open the Velcro fasteners that hold my concealable body armor in place. Then I undress down to my merino long johns. When I remove my socks, I am shocked by the shriveled pastiness of my flash-frozen toes. I remove the anti-ballistic panels from my vest and hang the wet layers of clothing from nails and other makeshift hooks above the fire. Even damp, the wool items will retain their warming properties. My jeans are a lost cause unless I get them dry. I deserve to be pantless for wearing cotton this time of year.

I roll up my Levi’s like I would a sleeping bag to squeeze out as much water as possible. I swing my socks over my head to dry them using centrifugal force. I hang everything so close to the licking flames I smell burning fabric. I’d rather have singed clothes than wet clothes.

The boots are the hardest. I strip out the insoles and prop them beside the orange embers. But the leather uppers are soaked through. I can warm up the exteriors, but the insides will stay damp even if I bake the boots all night long.

The flames spit. The fir sticks blacken and burn, faster than the hardwood pieces.

I feel like I was run over by a snowplow. The struggle to escape the Jeep stretched a few ligaments and twisted a few muscles past their natural limits. My core is so cold it feels as if my heart and lungs are a solid block of ice. And yet my frostbitten fingers sting as if I’d burnt them on a stove. Even my mandible hurts from my teeth chattering.

I examine my injured hand in the brightening light.

Shadow’s claws have torn furrows between my wrist and knuckles. When I emerged from the river, the wound was frozen into icy clots, but blood is leaking from the scratches again.

Charley speaks to me again, this time more insistently: “When faced with a crisis, focus on one thing at time!”

My sole priority needs to be reheating my core.

I rummage through the litter until I find an empty can of Foster’s Lager. I try shaking it out but the dregs at the bottom are frozen. I bring it down to the river and fill my makeshift cup. Cigarette butts boil out of the top. I keep dunking until the water runs clean.

Back in the shack, I stick the bottom of the can in the embers of my campfire. The aluminum blackens. The paint scorches.