Mountain View

«Did you hear that? »

As I spoke, he stopped in his movement and listened. But he did not drop the knife.

We both stood still. Outside the wind forced the nearby trees to brush against the cabin roof, making a teasing sound as if daring us to go outside. His eyes found mine, questioning what I had heard while I wondered what he would do. 

Then I heard it again. This time he heard it too. He said nothing, but his pose changed ever so slightly.

The howling was wild and distant, but it was moving. As a response, the wind took a deep breath and lunged out at the main window in the cabin. Glass panes trembled against the frame, foreboding the nightly scenes. The pine tree by the end of the patio bowed in the wind, welcoming the nocturnal guests, while two ringed plovers flew over the chimney with shrilling warning calls.

I took one step towards the lited porch door and glanced back at him. The knife was still in his hand, glimmering in the reflection from the open fire. Seeing him there, with the knife, and with the power he possessed over my life, I made a decision. 

He came after me, slowly. As I put my hand on the door handle, he grabbed my arm.

“Is it…?” 

I gestured for him to be silent, as a new howl emerged through the night, closer this time. It made my answer redundant. We heard several responding howls echoing through the valley. They came in from two angles and joined forces in the dale below our cabin. 

“Nothing beats this view,” my father said each time we reached this old shelter his father built. Coming up here for my holidays is my fondest childhood memory. Standing on the porch we could see the rich fishing lake in the valley below and lifting our heads we could see countless mountaintops stretching towards the ever-shifting sky. As the light changed throughout the day, so did the appearance and disappearance of the distant mountaintops. I never grew tired of counting them. “How many are there today?” he would ask every morning when I woke up. He would already have lit the fire. Hot chocolate would be waiting for me and coffee for him. We would place ourselves on the porch bench and take in the sight. In the winter he would bring a sleeping bag out to the porch for me to curl up in. The colours in front of us would change from blue and green to pink and yellow with misty white drapes occasionally sweeping through the dale like a drowsy fairy queen. Skies would play like cupids with the sunshine, sending lightning arrows to hit randomly throughout the scenery. There would be eagles and ravens doing their best to impress us. We both knew what that meant for the small creatures of the valley, but that is nature for you. “We must all succumb to nature in the end,” Dad said. “When you see how grand it is, you know you can never conquer it. We can only play along and make use of what it presents us with.”

At times we would sit out on the porch at night as well. Some people foolishly believe the night obliterates a scenic view. Of course it doesn’t, it changes it, distorts it. The night plays with our world. The misty forest served up fairytales no cinema can ever match, and the starry nights gave us the universe for ourselves. 

Dad was no longer here. But he had taught me survival.

I was cold, despite the fire having eaten through a bundle of wood already. His hand was sweaty but held on tightly to my arm. Needing to get us both out, I played to his ego and curiosity.

“We should go out. You will want to see this; it is something I bet none of your friends can claim to have experienced. Anyway, they are still far away.”

He was not convinced; I saw the fancy knife shake. As we heard the pack come closer, he grew pale. “They are still a mile away,” I said.

“Have you seen them here before?” His voice was different, smaller. Good. I had always hated that deep and confident voice.

“No, but then, you never know what to expect in the wilderness …”

“I hate the wilderness!”

“So why did you come here?” I snapped back. Defeat poured out of my every word, but the question could not be silenced. It was not answered. 

I knew the answer of course; he wanted to be with me. And he wanted to please the ghost of his own father who had planned to build a hunting lodge here. At least that is what he told my father when he forced the land off him after the farm went bankrupt. Dad never got over it, I have been my own for many years. 

He brought that fancy knife with him as a gift for the cabin and he carried fresh meat and expensive herbs in his backpack. Stupid gift, I hate fancy. Dad’s old knife will do very well for the chores up here in the cabin. I suppose he wanted to show me that he could cope here, that we belonged together. But we did not. The marriage was nothing more than a necessary closure of the deal his father pressed upon my Dad.

“Are you sure it is safe for us to go outside?” he asked, not in the voice of a winner. But his father had made him a winner and me a loser, there was nothing he could do to change that.

“Don’t worry, we got that knife, right?” I smiled at him and made him follow me over the patio and down below the pine tree.

“Yes …” he looked down on the knife with a look as if surprised to find it in his hand. “But do you know how to use it if they come near?”

“Oh, I do,” I said as I slowly reached out and took it from his hand. His father taught him money but not survival. Faster than a star can blink, or an eagle can dive down on a rodent I stabbed him through the back. I was merciful, I am a hunter. He did not feel a thing and by the time the pack arrived his soul had left the mountains. 

I stayed indoors all night counting mountain tops. 

In the morning, I knew just where to bury the knife and the truth. My father and I have walked every track and trail up and down this mountain. At the top there is a creek, so narrow only mice and marmots can crawl down there. And they will never tell.

Afterwards, I stood there waving hysterically as the rescue helicopter approached. I cried my eyes out, distraught by the terrible accident and the loss of my husband, who had now left me this land his father stole.