An Alaskan Midnight

Chapter 2

Eddy shivered as Brett manned the sled. He was sitting on the sled because it was small, almost underneath Brett. He tried to huddle up to Brett's legs to stay warm, but he simply shifted away. 

"Where are we even going?" Eddy asked.

"Well, to start with, we'll go over to the lake to ice fish. Then we'll go over to the woods and get some firewood by cutting down the older and dead trees. If we find a deer, wonderful! If not, we'll just have to make sure we get enough fish."
"But... the poor deer..." Eddy's sensitive heart throbbed.

"We have to do it if we want to survive. It's not like we're actively searching for them, it's just if we find one. Besides, if there are too many deer, they eat all the grass and bark and starve themselves anyway."

Eddy sighed. Brett did have a point, but the thought of killing deer still saddened him.

Finally, they arrived at a frozen lake. Brett yelled for them to stop, and then jumped off the sled. Eddy followed suit, hopping into the snow. Brett grabbed an ice chisel and fishing rod, proceeding to cut a hole in the ice. Then he handed the chisel and a fishing rod to Eddy. "Cut your hole, you've gotta do this too."

Eddy struggled with the chisel, but he managed to clumsily carve a hole. He plopped the hook in the water and waited. And waited. And waited.

Brett had already caught three fish, but Eddy hadn't yet. But suddenly, he felt a tug.

Impulsively Eddy jerked to try to pull it in. "Bro, you gotta reel it," Brett snapped.

Eddy sighed, reeling it in. Somehow, he managed to bring a decent sized fish up to the surface. Then came the hard part. He had to take the hook out.

Eddy could see blood coming out of the creature's mouth. Shakily he grabbed for the hook, then shied away. "I can't do this..." he stuttered.

Brett rolled his eyes. "You're gonna have to get used to it, we'll have to cut them open when we get back anyway."

"What??"

"Do as I say," Brett continued with his business. Suddenly he jumped up. "A moose antler!" he excitedly ran over towards the woods. "We might get an idea of their resting ground from this! Perfect for our research!"

Eddy had forgotten about the research. He was just trying to keep his toes from freezing off. "Oh... yeah that's cool."

Brett set the antler in a bag on the sled. "Afterwards, we'll look for moose tracks."

After a tedious three hours, they had caught fifteen fish. Not bad, Eddy thought.

"Oh, this is awful! Not even close to enough for the winter," Brett whined. "We'll have to go back tomorrow."

"But isn't this a good catch?"
"No, they all got spooked from your trampling all over the ice and whining! You have to be quiet!" Brett snapped.

Eddy sighed, putting the fish on the cloth Brett provided him, tying it into a sac, and throwing it on the sled. Then he followed Brett, who was looking for moose tracks. The two of them searched for tracks for a good half hour, but the snow had buried them.

"We could always look again tomorrow," Eddy suggested.

Brett sighed. "It looks like that's what we'll have to do."

They mounted the sled again, Brett commanding the dogs to mush. After quite some time traveling along the snowy hills, they arrived at a dense, old forest.

"Avoid cutting any of the good trees," Brett said, handing Eddy an axe. "We want to make sure the living trees stay so more come next year, but at the same time we need enough firewood to make it through the winter, just in case the electricity goes out. Cut about five stacks of wood."

The moment Eddy began axing down one of the older trees, he felt exhausted. The ax was so heavy and the air was so cold! He looked around. Brett was far away from him, cutting away happily like a beaver. Maybe he could just do three stacks? Besides, they would probably never need the firewood anyway.

The cold kept nipping at his sensitive face and fingers. The temptation was too great. 

After laboriously cutting tree after tree, he had finally finished. "I'm done!" he called. To his surprise, Brett had already finished a while ago. 

"Finally," he muttered, not looking at whether Eddy had really cut five stacks. "Tie the rope around them attached to the back of the sled. Mine's already there."

After Eddy completed the little task, he sat on the sled. Brett mushed the dogs on, returning back to their abode. Then Eddy began to think through the events of the day.

Suddenly he remembered -- he had forgotten to put his violin in a warm place! It had probably cracked and was ruined already!

"Hey Brett, my... my violin. Do you know where I put it?" Eddy nervously stuttered.