The Treasure of Christmas (38 page)

It was upon arriving at the cabin that she’d made her detailed list of daily chores (things that Jeannie had told her must be done in order to survive). And then Claire had created a rigid schedule that, after only a week, she’d managed to stick to almost religiously. First she showered (whether she wanted to or not), then brewed a pot of strong coffee while she started herself some breakfast, usually oatmeal, canned fruit, and a piece of toast. These she forced down, mostly, reminding herself how the doctor had warned that to lose any more weight would seriously threaten her health. Afterwards, she would meticulously wash the dishes in the old soapstone sink, then carefully clean the small one-room cabin, plus bathroom, taking more time than she’d ever spent in her large rambling home before the accident, before she’d moved to her loft apartment.

When everything was spotless, she would go outside and restock the firewood box beside the front door as well as refill the copper washtub next to the woodstove. After this she split a small pile of kindling that went into the big wicker basket right next to the copper washtub – nice and neat. Finally she would carefully check her supplies to see if she needed to make the twenty-minute drive to the closest store for bread or eggs or fresh produce. And since she had made that trip just yesterday, the cupboards were nicely stocked. But today, thanks to the snow, she had two more tasks to add to her list. She picked up the old broom and neatly swept the powdery snow that had blown across the wide front porch. Then she found a snow shovel and shoveled through what couldn’t have been more than four inches of light snow to create a little path that connected the small cabin to the nearby garage and attached woodshed.

Going back inside, she shook out the heavy suede working gloves that she’d located in the shed, placing them close to the fire to warm and to dry. She glanced at her watch and sighed. Just barely noon – she was getting too good at this. And so far she had not allowed herself to take her walk before two o’clock, on a pretense that she was “working” until then. Although she wasn’t a bit hungry, she fixed herself a lunch of sliced apple and cheese and crackers, arranging them prettily on an old-fashioned plate of blue and white. This she set on the small maple table and slowly consumed, eating each bite slowly, yet barely tasting it. After brewing a small pot of green tea, she settled into the easy chair and opened a book on “igniting the creative spirit.” She would attempt to read the first chapter, again, until two o’clock.

All morning long she had managed to ignore the card table with her neatly arrayed art supplies as well as the waiting canvas still standing at attention by the window. And she sat with her back to these instruments now, distracting herself with the black-and-white pages before her. Yet the words and letters danced off the smooth paper, never reaching the interior of her mind as she absently turned the pages. The familiar tightness in her chest was returning, and she glanced once again at her watch. Only one-thirty.

Gritting her teeth, Claire closed the book and stared out the window at the tall pine trees, their long needles clinging like slender fingers to fresh clumps of snow just starting to soften and melt in the sun. She
must
adhere to her schedule, she warned herself. Otherwise her little world would quickly fall apart and go spinning out of control. She closed her eyes and tried to pray, but as usual the words would not form themselves, would not come to her, not even in thoughts. Her heart recoiled within her, blank and empty – numb, except for that usual burning ache that never seemed to lessen, never seemed to leave her at all. And if, in fact, the pain were to leave, what would she be left with?

At exactly one-fifty-six she slowly rose from her chair and began to prepare for her walk. She laced up her sturdy leather hiking boots, wound a soft charcoal-colored scarf around her neck, buttoned up her heavy woolen coat, and placed her black felt hat on her head. Standing before a foggy antique mirror by the door, she stuffed her shoulder-length blond hair up inside the hat, then pulled the narrow brim down lower, clear to her eyebrows.

In the mirror her small pointed face looked ghostly pale surrounded by the severity of the black hat, and her eyes peered out from beneath the brim like two gray pools of sadness. But her ghostlike appearance hardly mattered since she never met anyone on her solitary walks. And, although she knew there were other cabins somewhere in this vicinity, she had yet to see a single person since her arrival, other than someone driving a dark red Suburban down the road too fast a couple of times, and of course, the old woman who ran the store at Saddle Springs. Claire slowly pulled on her knit gloves and looked at the clock over the kitchen stove. Ah, exactly two. Finally, she could set out on her walk.

She followed the same path every day, the only path she knew. It had been easy to recognize the trail before the first snow had fallen, since the packed-down dirt clearly marked the way through the woods. But now all was white. Fortunately, she’d memorized the way by now. She knew exactly how the narrow trail meandered through the pine forest, curving to the left then taking a sharp right turn at the big dead tree. The first time she had seen this huge, fallen juniper tree, she had actually wept. Seeing it laying there so helplessly, like old bleached bones with each branch still intact, had touched some hidden nerve within her. Obviously it had been cut down, for the old gray stump was sawn smoothly through, revealing faded rings from forgone years. But why had it been so mercilessly toppled like that? It had once been tall and majestic, one of the largest junipers in the forest. Why had it been left behind – not even used for timber? The sad waste of it all had overwhelmed her that first day, and she had stood there and mourned for the better part of an hour.

But with each subsequent day and walk, she’d grown accustomed to the fallen tree and now actually looked forward to seeing it, like an old friend. Its narrow top pointed like a twisty old finger directing her down the path where the woods would thin a bit and the trail would grow straighter. This thinning, she decided, was the result of an earlier forest fire, for she had spotted some large blackened stumps in the clearing, hunkered close to the ground like dark gnomes keeping their secrets close to their chests. And all around these hunchbacked darkened creatures grew smaller trees, healthy and supple and green, planted by nature to replace what had been so cruelly lost.

But today, as she walked along the path, everything looked altered and changed, draped in its fresh blanket of snow. Clean and white, pristine. Almost invigorating. But invigorating was an emotion she could only imagine and barely remember. Still, while walking along the forested area, she couldn’t help but look around her in wonder.

Snow remained a novelty to one who had grown up in Southern California and only skied a few times in her life. Against the fresh blue sky, tall ponderosa pines stood like sentries, holding their rounded snowballs like artillery in their long, sparkling green needles. And fallen logs, previously dark and moldering, were now respectfully shrouded in clean white sheets, as if to rest in peace. She noticed sets of squirrel and rabbit tracks and some bigger tracks, maybe raccoon, crisscrossing each other here and there, and also the sharp two-toed spike tracks of dear. The pine forest wearing its first cloak of snow had become a new place. Strange and coldly beautiful.

She came to the old dead tree, just before the burn area, and actually gasped at its transformed beauty. Each twisted bare branch and gnarled twig, now dusted in a thin veneer of white powder and illuminated by the afternoon sun, glistened like polished silver and were a soft contrast against the brilliant blue backdrop of sky. The phrase “breathtakingly beautiful” had always sounded phony to her, but that is exactly how she would describe this scene. Before the accident she would have raced back to the cabin for her camera and then used a whole roll of film trying to catch every single angle and shadow and light just right. Then she’d have waited impatiently for the photos to be developed, imagining the final image in oils on a wide canvas. But now she simply stood and stared, almost afraid to breathe. Such beauty was terrifying to her now. She took a deep breath and continued to walk, leaving the fallen tree behind her, its image still burning itself into her brain, making it nearly impossible to see the trail ahead. Finally, after several minutes of walking, she regained her focus and began to look around again.

The clearing, void of tall tree shadows, grew so bright that she longed for her dark glasses, and for the first time she understood how it was that a person could actually become snow-blind. Even though her eyes were adjusting to the stunning brightness, she was still forced to keep them focused downward, mostly to the trail before her. And that’s when she began to notice another type of tracks – in fact, two sets.
Human tracks.

Claire frowned. Up until now she had imagined that this entire section of woods belonged to her, and to her alone. She thought of this as
her woods
. And she didn’t want to share
her woods
with anyone who was walking on two legs. The tracks headed in the same direction she normally walked, the way she was walking right now. She knew she could choose to turn around and head straight back to her cabin. But as a result her walk would be cut short. Her only other option was to continue along her regular path and risk the chance of running into these two interlopers. Because surely they, like her, would eventually turn back and return to wherever it was they had come from – these people who were trespassing in
her
woods.

Oh, she knew this was all ridiculous. After all, the trail was part of the National Forest, put there for anyone and everyone to use and to enjoy. And she also knew that other cabins, spotted here and there, likely had inhabitants who relished the pleasures of a hike in the woods just as much as she, but up until now – with the help of the snow – she’d never seen any signs and had simply preferred to imagine that her little borrowed cabin was the only one within miles. It was that sort of isolation that had compelled her to come here; she had longed for that deep sort of loneliness – both within and without. Of course, Jeannie had mentioned there were others around, but she’d also said the majority of cabins sat vacant during most of the winter months. Too hard to get in and out of, too difficult to cross over the mountain pass once the snows came.

Claire kept walking, ignoring the human tracks and hoping she wouldn’t come face-to-face with their owners and spoil her sense of isolation altogether. Hopefully this was a one-time thing, tourists who had stopped their car along the road to take a walk and enjoy the snow before continuing on their merry way. To her relief she walked all the way to the footbridge (her turn-back point) without seeing a living creature other than three brown does and a good-sized buck with a nice set of antlers. She turned back in triumph, pleased that she had
not
run into the owners of the human tracks as she walked back to the cabin. All in all, her leisurely paced walk usually took just less than two hours. Of course, if she walked faster she could probably cut that time in half, but then, why would she want to do that?

Back at the cabin she managed to distract herself from seeing her easel again, although she could feel its stiff presence, still standing guard at the window and perhaps even mocking her now. She was able to avoid it completely until it was nearly dark outside. And that didn’t take long, for the darkness of imposing winter came more quickly with each passing day. Ignoring the electric lights, she lit a kerosene lamp and watched as its golden glow filled the room with a soft-edged, murky sort of light. She liked how the lamp created deep shadows, illuminating the wood surfaces with richness and warmth. And that’s when her easel and art supplies faded into the shadows, into oblivion, finally allowing her to pretend they didn’t exist at all.

She then began her evening routine. Not all that much different than the morning one. But after the last dinner dish was washed and dried and set into the old pine cupboard next to the sink, that familiar tightness began to build in her chest again. With each day (and it was always worse at night) it felt as if the burning, aching sensation was growing larger and larger, taking up even more space inside her. Instead of diminishing over time, it only seemed to increase. She had hoped that a drastic change like living alone in the woods might somehow change something – break something. But, if anything, it only seemed to amplify and magnify her pain and loneliness. And she knew she wasn’t big enough to contain it all. In fact, she felt certain that in time she would simply burst open from it. And so, once again, she tried to pray.

Pressing her lips tightly together she closed her eyes and willed a prayer to form itself within her.
Please, God!
Only two little words, but it was a start and all she could muster. And as small and insignificant as it seemed, she felt surely it must be progress. As a result she relaxed a little, trying to remember the time in her life when she had known how to pray – a time when it had been as simple as breathing. Sometimes she had spoken the words out loud, but usually she just whispered them in the privacy of her own heart. Either way, she’d always been certain that God had listened. Up until the accident, that is. That’s when the painful silence had begun.
Please,
God!
her heart cried out again.
Please, please, help me.

The next day, after a slightly better night’s rest than usual, Claire finished her morning routine earlier than normal and decided to break her own rules by starting her walk
before
two o’clock. Another couple inches of snow had fallen during the night, almost but not completely erasing her steps from yesterday’s walk. The fresh snow made it slightly more difficult to walk, but the effort was well worthwhile. The forest was stunningly beautiful, somewhat heartening, and nearly invigorating.
Nearly.
But once again, shortly after she reached the dead tree that pointed toward the clearing, she noticed the two sets of human tracks. Fresh tracks that had been made that day.