Along and beneath the dead tree, he dug with his fingers in the soft dirt, and in moments came upon an old ground-squirrel nest. It had not been used recently – he smelled it and made sure there was no odour of fresh squirrel urine – and he scooped out the nest and formed it into a ball in his hand. The squirrel had made the nest out of small, fragile bits of dry grass, woven together with plucked hair until it was a fluffy, round sphere with a small cavity in the middle.

It was as if the squirrel had purposely made a dry clump of tinder to use for starting a fire. While it was slightly damp around the edges it had been mostly sheltered beneath the dead tree and the centre was bone-dry and he knew it would accept fire.

Leif tucked it into his shirt and gathered thin, dry dead limbs broken from the lower parts of the trees until he had firewood enough for a small fire. He then cleared a small circle by the cairn and arranged the twigs in a kind of pyramid – tent-shaped – with a narrow slot in the side to reach into the middle. Then he squatted back on his doubled legs and took the strike-steel and flint from the pouch.

He had done this many times, had learned to make fire almost before he walked – for starting the cooking fires in the brick stoves on the boats – and he put the squirrel nest on the ground, held the steel directly over it, and deftly struck it with the edge of the flint. One strike, nothing; second strike, just one spark; and when the steel was ready a third strike, and a small shower of sparks fell into the nest. Most fell to the side and went out cold but a few went into the hole in the centre and began to glow as they hit the dry grass and hair.

He picked up the nest quickly, cupping it to shelter it from the breeze that came off the water, and blew softly, ever so gently down into the sparks, blowing, blowing, until the glow brightened more and more, and then burst into a small flame.

Swiftly he pushed the burning nest into the middle of the pyramid of twigs and continued to blow, slightly harder now but steady until the flames grew and grew, and took the wood and brought it into flame as well.

Then more wood, and more, until he had a comfortable fire going. He pushed back on his haunches, to get his breath, and then stood to gather more wood. When all was settled he leaned against the cairn and felt the spirit of the fire surround him, warm him, clean him in some way the water had not cleaned him and he tried to think of a song for Little Carl.

At first it did not come. Would not come.