The Hinterland

David Albert King (middle name after his grandfather) had enjoyed a normal upbringing and been fairly sane until unchaperoned forays into the Internet in his early teens revealed that the world was not as he’d known it. There were conspiracies at the highest level. Politicians and famous actors did despicable things. No-one could be trusted. Before it had been other foreign countries, but now it was the good old U.S. of A. that was the enemy. Not the people; the government. An apocalypse was coming and it was everyone for themselves. You couldn’t count on anyone or anything. David resolved that as soon as he was old enough he would strike out on his own and be self-sufficient. He would go somewhere remote like Canada or Alaska.

His parents noticed David's withdrawal not only from them but from classmates and neighbors, but put it down to normal teenage angst. They would keep an eye on him and do something about it if he got worse or didn't snap out of it. But David's parents were busy people and over time stopped thinking his behavior required intervention.

By the time David left school he had saved enough money from his part time job to travel and buy a gun. University or college weren’t for him. What was the point in planning years ahead when it was all likely to end at the push of a button? The criminal hoards had effectively broken down the border. No-one was safe. If the government wouldn’t do anything then the people would need to protect themselves. He began to plan his move in earnest. But then Covid hit and David could even more clearly see the writing on the wall. He had to get out of there. People were dying all around him. 

They called it a pandemic and tried to blame it on Covid but everyone knew it was just the flu and would be gone quickly. However, government restrictions stymied his plans for travelling north. He chafed. He had no choice but to wait and could use the time to save more money. He could also research the best place to go far away from people, where he could dig in and protect himself. He thought he should take the family dog but decided he couldn’t handle the extra responsibility. He had to come first.

David decided on an area in the NorthWest Territories of Canada sixty miles from Aklavik, the nearest small town, on the banks of the Rat River. He put a map on the wall marking the site with a bright red stick-on star. He spent hours staring at the map and tracing out his route. He couldn’t avoid having to get a passport to cross the border, but he wouldn’t bother with trying to get a visa or whatever was needed to go and live in Canada. His thinking was muddled and the paperwork was beyond him. More bureaucracy,

He figured out how to forge the Covid paperwork as he didn’t believe in the vaccinations. They were developed way too fast to possibly be safe, and accredited doctors and other experts said they contained poisons and computer chips that could track him. In fact, he already had a strong feeling that he was being watched, being tracked already, and wondered if "they" would let him get away. More people died from the vaccines than anything else. It was a fact. When the time came, he would have to find a way to hide the gun, as he knew it wasn’t allowed in Canada, and hope for the best. The passport would be the last government document he’d cave in and ask for. 

The planets aligned for David when they announced the lifting of the border on the same day he found an old Ford Econoline 350 motorhome going for a song on the local Kijiji. The reason it was cheap he found was because the roof leaked and the ceiling and walls had blackened and come away in spots, but that didn’t matter as it had a bed and the engine started and ran. He bought new snow tires with studs. He could hide the gun in the broken air conditioning unit on the roof away from prying eyes and sniffer dogs. He would have much preferred to have left in the spring or summer, but there it was. It was January, the start of winter, and he could not hold himself back any longer and drove. There was a little snow dusting the ground, but he drove up through Oregon and Washington State and through the border into British Columbia with no problem. David stopped on the Canadian side of the Peace Arch and gave thanks that he was free.

After that it was just a question of driving, but there was much more to it than David had bargained for. He wasn’t a big map reader and the one on the wall had graphically misrepresented the distance between where he was in southern British Columbia, all the way through the Yukon and to the extreme North of the Northwest Territories, a distance of over over 2,300 miles. A fortunate but exhausted David made it to Aklavik without a breakdown. He would sleep in a warm bed at the inn before heading out to his destination in the morning. Whether he was too tired to care, or whether his newfound freedom made him gregarious, David spent the evening in the bar listening to the locals regaling their stories. At one point he found himself among a group of men slapping each on the back and laughing uncontrollably at something he couldn’t afterwards remember.

The camaraderie, however, did not extend through breakfast when one of the same men shot down his plan to go to the Rat River in his motorhome. That was crazy. Only a snowmobile could get out there and there was only one in town that might be up for grabs. Turned out that it belonged to an old Gwich’in fellow who brightened at the sight of David’s rig and agreed to exchange the Ski-Doo for the motorhome for two or three days. He had a heated warehouse where he could set up the motorhome and play camp to alleviate the boredom during the long winter.

The trail was easy to follow. David made it out to the old cabin site in good time and shut off the motor. It was a glorious sunny day and the most silence he’d ever heard. He whirled around, arms outstretched to the azure sky, rejoicing in the culmination of his dream. The grandson of Constable Albert King was standing amongst the ruins of Albert Johnson’s cabin on the banks of the Rat River. 

Perhaps it was the relentless wind that blew words into his head, or Albert Johnson himself trying to get his side of the story across nearly a century afterwards. Nevertheless, as the moisture in his nostrils froze, the younger King heard the words as distinctly as if the man stood by his side. ‘He shouldn’t have come back, you know… your grandfather.’ David was cognizant that he was standing in the middle of nowhere with no-one around for miles but at the same time understood the words belonged and lived in this place calling and waiting for him to come. He was not startled. Johnson’s angst had spilled out over time lodging itself in his consciousness and equally at home with David's own thinking.

‘He should have stayed away after the first time. First they busted down my door so I shot him, and then more of them came back with dogs and dynamite. Each time more and more men came back, and I shot him again. He was lucky though, your grandfather. I killed that other one. I climbed a mountain to get away. I walked in the moose tracks to throw them off, but they got me in the end.’

David King picked his way around the piles of wood that once were the cabin as the shadows inexorably deepened. He poked sticks aside looking for any remnants, but it had been a long time and many winters and what might have been there was frozen to the ground, immutable. The wind blew, sifting the dry top layer of snow partly over his footprints. 

An observer would have seen David Albert King mouthing words long into the darkness, hatless, ungloved and jacket gaping in violation of the indefatigable cold. Some days afterwards the Gwich’in man sent out a search team looking for his snowmobile. One corner of the bright red housing of the Ski-Doo peaked out, almost buried by the snow. Otherwise the ruins of Albert Johnson’s cabin provided no clues as to anything else that might have gone awry.