Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Here we are, Jack! Welcome to your new home!”

Jack looks around the little cabin dubiously (that’s a word he learned just before they left the last new home – it means ‘with hesitation or doubt’, according to the dictionary that Miss Halls had let him borrow. He wishes he could have brought it with him.) It has two rooms – the main room, and a bedroom. This makes it better than the room they stayed in in Ellensburg, but not as good as the Denver cottage, which had a loft he could sleep in. It probably means he’s going to have to share with Momma and Pa, which he hates – Momma snores, and Pa yells in his sleep sometimes. They’ve both promised that some day they’ll stay in a place where he can have his very own room, but they’ve been saying that for ages, and Jack is starting to think they’re making it up.

“Well, ‘least the place ain’t covered in coal dust,” Momma says, also looking dubious. Jack knows she’s not happy about them coming up here, either.

“This here’s a gold-mining town, not coal, remember? But hey – maybe I’ll get lucky and strike a new vein. Then you’ll be able to cover the place in gold dust instead!” Pa says, grinning. Pa’s jokes usually aren’t very good.

“Mm-hm,” Momma says, rolling her eyes, but she gives Pa a kiss on the cheek.

“You help your mother unpack,” Pa tells him, “I’m gonna go talk to the foreman. Be good.”

Jack watches the door swing shut behind him. He thinks that that’s not very fair. He was good, during the time they stayed in Ellensburg – he was the best speller in the class, Miss Halls called him her star pupil; and he only snuck out the one time to play with Emma’s uncle’s puppies, and it wasn’t even night time yet! Pa is the one who wasn’t good – he doesn’t know what happened, but Jack heard him and Momma arguing about it (they always argue when they think he’s asleep, or can’t hear them, but Jack is very good at being quiet). All he knows is that Pa got into trouble at the factory he was working in, so they had to move.

He misses Emma, and Charlie, and classes with Miss Halls, and the puppies, and games of marbles in the playground at lunch time – he thinks forlornly (that’s another word he learned recently) of his favourite marble, a pearly green one that he let Charlie borrow. He supposes he’ll never get it back now. Or that he’ll ever see Charlie, or Emma, or Miss Halls, or nice Mrs. Grayson who lived in the rooms upstairs and always gave him a slice of fudge or a cookie for fetching her mail from the post office twice a week, ever again.

He wonders if kids in the Yukon know how to play any marble games. Then he wonders if there are even any kids his own age here. Maybe he’ll be the only one.

Again.

“Jack! Come on now – quit daydreaming and help me here,” Momma calls, snapping him out of his thoughts. Jack goes outside to help her bring the luggage in, but it doesn’t take long – they only have a suitcase each, and the old trunk. Every time they move, they have to leave things behind – especially when they have to move in a hurry, which seems to happen a lot. Jack never really thought it was strange, until Emma and Charlie said it was weird that he’d lived in so many places that he couldn’t remember the names of them all – Emma said she’d only moved house just the once when her third little brother was born, and Charlie said he’s never moved at all. Jack spent the whole night trying to imagine what it would be like living in the same place for more than a few weeks, or a few months if they’re lucky. He couldn’t.

“You can put your things in the corner of the main room, I’ll set you up a bed. Then help me move the trunk into the other room.”

Jack does as he’s told, and helps Momma unpack the three suitcases, but not the trunk because that has Pa’s guns in it and he’s not allowed to touch them unless Pa is with him. Then he plays with the marbles he has left while Momma starts making the place ‘homely’, and tries not to think about how much he misses his friends.

Everything about the Yukon is big. The mountains are big. The trees are big. The town is big, and mostly full of big men with big pickaxes. The few other kids are big, and they’re mean. There’s no school, but about a week after they arrived, Pa told him he’d found him a job he could do with some other boys around his age, helping to look for shiny quartz in the discarded rocks from the mine. But the boys at the rubble-sorting station were all older than him, and looked at him nastily. As soon as Pa left, they started making fun of him for calling him ‘Pa’ instead of ‘Sir’, calling him a baby, asking if he wears a diaper because he wets his pants. When Jack had angrily yelled at them to leave him alone, they’d started throwing rocks at him, and he ran away. He tried to find his way back to the cabin, but all the streets look the same, and he got lost, and he didn’t want to prove the other boys right by crying like a little baby but he couldn’t help it, and all the adults ignored him until eventually a lady wearing a lot of make-up took his hand and led him to the saloon where Momma works doing laundry.

Momma and Pa had one of their loudest arguments ever that night. Jack could still hear them even after he escaped into the woods behind the cabin; their house is on the very edge of town, which according to Pa is a bad thing, but Jack doesn’t understand why, since you only have to walk for a little bit until you’re surrounded by trees and can pretend you aren’t in a big, nasty town full of big, nasty people.

Eventually the shouting stopped, and he found his way back to the cabin. Momma was upset with him for running off.

“Don’t worry your mother like that,” Pa had scolded. But he didn’t sound angry, just tired.

“Sorry P- Sorry, Sir,” Jack said. Pa looked a bit confused, but said nothing.

Jack starts working with Momma at the saloon some days instead, helping with the laundry and running errands for Mrs. Shannon, who is married to Mr. Shannon, who owns the saloon and runs the bar. He likes Mrs. Shannon – she gives him leftover stew and dumplings, and lets him read Penny Dreadfuls by the fire when the saloon is quiet. She even lets him keep one of the saloon’s books, The Northern Wilds: Canadian Natural History and Survival by E. Reginald Pomeroy. The book is torn and stained in places, and the cover is about to fall off, but it has information about all the wildlife in Canada and what to do if you encounter different animals, and which plants are edible and which ones are poisonous, and it has lots of pretty pictures. It becomes one of Jack’s most treasured possessions since all his other books got left behind at the last house.

Weeks go by, and Jack is glad they haven’t had to move again. But he misses Charlie and Emma and school, even misses their one-room house in Ellensburg since it was warmer than the cabin. And despite what the boys at the rubble-sorting station said, Jack isn’t a baby anymore – he’s nine and a half, which means he’s practically ten, which means he’s practically an adult. He notices things. Notices how worried Momma always looks. Notices how tired Pa is at the end of the day. Notices how some weeks they take turns in not having dinner, saying things like ‘I had a big lunch’ or ‘I’ll eat later with your pa’ or ‘I had dinner with the fellas at work’. Notices how thin they’re getting.

He decides to do something about it.

After the lean winter months, springtime presents a smorgasbord of flora and fauna for those who know what to look for, E. Reginald Pomeroy says. Jack has read the whole book three times now, so he’s prepared for anything. So, on a day when Momma doesn’t need his help at the saloon, he puts the bread and apple she left him for lunch into the satchel Pa got him for Christmas, and heads out into the woods to find a smorgasbord (he’s still not entirely sure what that is, but it sounds edible).

E. Reginald Pomeroy says getting lost in the wilderness is a real danger, and in lieu (which Pa thought meant ‘instead’ when Jack asked) of having a compass, explorers should ensure they have landmarks such as notable rocks, trees, land formations, or rivers to use as a point of reference for navigational purposes. Jack doesn’t have a compass, but he’s pretty sure that as long as he stays close to the river, he’ll be able to follow it back to town. He’s not supposed to go beyond ‘shouting distance’ from the cabin, but this seems like a strange rule, since technically if someone shouted really loudly they could be heard from anywhere (E. Reginald Pomeroy says that in The Alps, which are mountains in Europe, a special type of shouting called yodelling is used to carry messages across whole mountain valleys, and this is a useful method of communication that can be utilised by scouting parties). Jack can’t yodel, but since he’s Practically An Adult, he’s sure he’ll be fine. But he packs The Northern Wilds into his satchel too, just in case.

He follows the river, until the muffled but incessant (which means ‘never stops’) clinking of pickaxes fades away, and the air no longer smells of rock dust. Pa says they’re lucky – says that there’s gold in the mountain itself instead of just the river, so they don’t need to worry about it suddenly running out and having to move again. Jack’s not sure though; Pa took him down to see the shaft he was working in, but it was really dark, and the walls felt too close, and Jack could only go so far before his chest started feeling funny – he was breathing faster and faster, but it felt like no air was going in, and Pa had to take him back outside to sit with his head between his knees (and Pa acted like he wasn’t embarrassed, but Jack could tell he was).

Now, he stops for a moment, taking in a big breath of the clean air and looking across the river, sparkling in the sunshine. All he can hear is the noise of the water, and birds chirping in the trees. And he remembers, or thinks he remembers, standing in front of another river- no, a lake, a long time ago. Remembers chasing dragonflies, and searching for treasure in some old boat wrecks, and sitting on a wooden platform that went out into the water with a dog – he thinks the dog’s name began with a K, but he’s not sure.

Then he remembers paddling in the shallows, trying to catch fish with his hands, and he nearly caught one by herding it between some rocks, but then it escaped by quickly swimming between his ankles, and he remembers looking up to realise he’d gone quite far from Momma and Home, but then something had grabbed him and a big hand had pressed over his mouth before he could yell and-

A rustle in the bushes behind him makes him spin around, heart beating so hard he can feel it in his head.

But he doesn’t see a man reaching out to grab him. Instead, standing a little ways away, nibbling on some bushes, is a huge stag.

Stags are the adult boy deer, and are also known as bucks, and they can be dangerous because they can be very territorial and can stab you with their horns. But it’s okay, because E. Reginald Pomeroy says they are skittish prey animals that are easy to scare off by making yourself look big and being loud.

So Jack stands up straight and waves his arms.

“Shoo!” he yells, loud as he can.

The stag raises its head and looks at him, still chewing.

“Shoo!” Jack yells again. “Go on! Go away!”

The stag flicks an ear. Blinks. Chews.

It doesn’t look very impressed.

Jack swallows, slowly lowering his arms. E. Reginald Pomeroy didn’t say what to do in this situation.

Then the stag snorts and turns back to eating the bushes.

Jack stands there, feeling more and more confused and scared. The stag is very big, the biggest he’s ever seen, and he’s never been this close to a live deer before. He automatically starts counting the points in its antlers – fourteen, he thinks – because Pa once told him that a pair of stag antlers with lots of points can be worth a lot of money. But even if Jack wanted to shoot the stag, he doesn’t have any guns to use, and he doesn’t know how anyway. He thinks, with fourteen points, getting stabbed by the stag’s antlers would hurt a lot.

“Shoo?” he tries weakly. One of the stag’s ears flicks in his direction, but otherwise it ignores him, and carries on eating the bushes.

Jack’s heart starts beating loudly again, and it’s like he’s back in the mine shaft and he can’t take a big enough breath in, and he can’t remember what else E. Reginald Pomeroy says about what to do if you encounter a stag, and-

And then he notices the stag isn’t eating the bushes – it’s eating berries on the bushes. He blinks, recognising them from The Northern Wilds: salmonberries are similar to blackberries and raspberries but are actually part of the rose family, and can be found in springtime in parts of Canada and the United States of America, and are quite tart in flavour but can be used in baking or preserves.

And they’re everywhere.

The stag is standing in a whole thicket of them, steadily munching its way through one bush before moving on to another. Carefully, Jack steps a little closer. The stag ignores him. So he steps even closer, and very slowly reaches out to pick a berry. The stag flicks an ear his way again at the rustling noise, but otherwise it doesn’t seem bothered. Jack looks at the berry, making sure it really is a salmonberry – but he thinks that if it was poisonous, the stag wouldn’t be eating them – before popping it into his mouth. It’s juicy, and not very sweet, but far yummier than the nearly-mushy apples Momma gets at the town store. Unable to resist, Jack picks another – can’t help but closing his eyes and humming. He thinks he remembers someone – Auntie Tilly? – making some kind of pie with blackberries, and sneaking as many into her mouth and his as she was putting into the pie, promising it would be their secret, and then they both got yelled at by someone because their purple tongues gave them away and they both tried to act sorry but couldn’t stop giggling-

Then he remembers a big wild animal is there and opens his eyes quickly. The stag is watching him. And deer can’t smile like people can but...

But if they could, Jack thinks that’s what it would be doing.

The stag snorts again, and heads further into the thicket. Emboldened, Jack edges closer to the bushes and starts picking berries, stuffing as many as he can into his satchel, pockets, and mouth, glancing at the stag every so often. But it carries on ignoring him, so they both continue to enjoy their own little feast.

When his pockets and stomach are full, he looks around and realises the sun is now directly overhead, which means it’s noon. He’s been gone all morning. He should probably head home – Pa sometimes comes back to the cabin for lunch, and Momma comes home in the afternoon, and he knows he’ll get in trouble if they find out he’s gone exploring so far. Grabbing one last handful of berries to snack on, he turns towards the riverbank so he can follow it home, then hesitates and turns back.

“Um. Bye!”

The stag lifts its head and looks at him for a long moment, before snorting again and returning to eating. Jack heads for the river, looking behind him often, but the stag never so much as looks his way again.

But just as the smell of the town – the stinky combination of rock dust and cesspits and fires – starts to wrinkle his nose, he hears a noise behind him. Turning around, he sees the stag.

Jack stands frozen, unsure what to do. The stag stops too, watching him. It’s not showing signs of ‘agitation’, which according to E. Reginald Pomeroy includes pawing at the ground, lowering its head, or ‘bellowing in a threatening manner’. It’s just standing there, watching him.

“Do... do you want some more berries?” Jack calls uncertainly. Now he’s worried – stags will ‘defend resources’ like food. Maybe it’s not happy that he took so many from its berry patch? He looks guiltily at the few remaining in his hands, and, keeping an eye on the stag, carefully puts them down and backs away.

“I want to take the rest for my Momma and my Pa,” he calls. “But, you can have these ones, if you want?”

He starts following the river again, tripping more than once as he tries to keep an eye on the stag. Sure enough, once he’s quite far away, it walks forward. But it ignores the little pile of berries, and carries on following him. Jack pauses, confused. He doesn’t think the stag wants to hurt him, but there was nothing in The Northern Wilds about what to do if a deer starts following you. Looking around, he sees a big stick and picks it up. He’s not sure how useful it would be, but he feels safer with it. So he keeps looking back at the stag, but carries on. The stag follows – always keeping its distance and stopping whenever he does, but never looking aggressive or like it’s about to charge. Still, it’s a relief when the town, and then the back of their cabin, finally comes into view.

Jack steps out of the forest, his pace getting faster as the cabin gets close. But when he looks over his shoulder again, the stag has stopped at the treeline, watching him. Jack pauses one more time, looking between the cabin and the stag.

“...Thanks! For the berries!” he calls, before sprinting the final distance to the back door, because he’s still nervous about those fourteen points. When his hand closes around the door handle, he feels relieved, and turns back to the forest.

But the stag is gone.

“Jack Marston, what in God’s name you done to your pants?!”

Jack winces. He’d thought about trying to wash them himself – he’s pretty sure he knows how, having seen Momma do it so many times. But he would need hot water, which means he’d have to light the fire, and he’s not supposed to do that unless Momma or Pa are there to keep an eye on him.

“It’s berry juice, Momma,” he explains, pointing. Momma frowns, opening her mouth, probably to yell at him for ruining his pants, which now have deep pink stains around each pocket. But she shuts her mouth abruptly (which means quickly or suddenly, but it can also mean rude, which Jack finds confusing) when she looks at where he’s pointing, and sees the big bowl he’s filled with salmonberries.

“Where’d you get those?” she asks.

“I found them in the forest!” Jack says, hoping she’ll be pleased. “They’re salmonberries! I didn’t go very far,” he adds quickly.

Frowning, Momma picks up a berry and pops it in her mouth, and looks surprised before closing her eyes and humming.

“You like them?” Jack asks hopefully.

“I sure do!” she laughs. “Tell you what – Mrs. Shannon paid me today, so how about you head over to the store and get me some sugar and butter while I get these stains out, and we’ll surprise your pa with berry cobbler for dessert. Sound good?”

It is good – Momma’s not the best cook, but she does know how to stew fruit, and Jack helps her make the crumbly topping with flour and butter and the rest of the sugar. Pa says he could smell something delicious from halfway down the street when he gets home, and Jack gets to do the honours and spoons out a big serving for him (he makes sure Pa and Momma get a much bigger bowlful than he does. Mostly because he’s noticed how often they make sure he gets the biggest dinner, even though his tummy is smaller than theirs. But also because he ate so many salmonberries earlier that he’s already a bit sick of them). Momma and Pa joke and laugh, and Momma shrieks but doesn’t stop Pa when he pinches a salmonberry off her plate with his fork, then she giggles as she points out that he’s getting the syrup in his beard and kisses it off. Then that turns into Proper Kissing, and Jack loudly makes his disgust known before going to play with his marbles, and see what he can do about the fact that the cover of The Northern Wilds and the inside of his satchel are now stained bright pink.

The river systems of the Yukon are abundant with fish and aquatic life, and provide ample opportunity for both the sporting and the subsistence fisherman. Jack isn’t sure what ‘subsistence’ means, but according to E. Reginald Pomeroy, all a man needs is a good fishing rod (Jack lost his a long time ago, but he’s got that stick he found), plentiful line (he has Momma’s sewing thread, which he hopes she won’t notice he’s borrowed), a nice sharp hook (he has a broken clothes peg, but it’s kind of hook-shaped if you look at it the right way), and a wide variety of bait. Jack at least has that bit sorted – he has a crust of bread he couldn’t chew through no matter how hard he tried, some worms he collected after it rained, and the bits of broccoli Momma and Pa didn’t notice him sneaking off his plate.

He remembers someone telling him cheese is meant to be good for fishing, but they didn’t have any cheese at home when he looked. They didn’t have much of anything. It rained all last week, and the mine flooded, so none of the miners could go to work, including Pa. Then Momma couldn’t go to work either, because all the miners were spending their days at the saloon while they waited for the pumps to clear the water, and Jack isn’t quite sure what this has to do with doing laundry but he heard Momma and Pa arguing about it – the argument had ended when Momma said ‘well someone has to put food on this table! Dammit John, I don’t need you to be my knight in shinin’ armour! I looked after myself just fine before and after Jack was born, remember?’ and Pa had said quietly ‘That’s what I’m worried about’ and then Momma had yelled at him and left the house, and Pa had told him to stay put while he went and found a way to make it up to Momma, so Jack had decided to go fishing.

The trouble with fishing is that it’s very, very boring.

Jack flicks his fishing rod the way he was taught, trying to trick a fish into nibbling some broccoli. He reckons he’s picked a good spot – he can see the fish swimming around just beneath the surface, not far from the shore. But none of them seem interested – not that he blames them, because broccoli is gross. He gives a big sigh, wishing he had a Penny Dreadful so he’d at least have something to do.

You just sit, wait, try not to worry...

Someone had told him that’s what you’re meant to do when you’re fishing. But Jack can’t help but worry – about the mine being closed and Pa and Momma fighting and the older boys catching him while he’s running errands and whether they’ll have to move again and-

Something big appears through the trees on the other side of the river.

It’s a good thing no fish were biting, because Jack nearly drops his rod in surprise. A stag steps out onto the shore on the other side – and the river isn’t as wide here, probably only a little wider than the cabin, and E. Reginald Pomeroy says deer can jump eight feet, or even more with a running start, and Jack gulps.

Then he counts. Fourteen points.

“H- hi!” he calls softly. He’s sure it’s the same one he saw before – it’s just as big, and has the same gold-coloured coat.

And it’s giving him that same look that’s not a smile, but could be.

“Thank you again, for the berries! Um... do you like broccoli?”

The stag flicks an ear.

“Yeah, me neither. And these fish sure don’t,” Jack grumbles, more to himself. The stag looks at him for a while, then snorts, and starts walking back off into the trees. Jack watches it go, feeling a little sad – even though the stag can’t talk, at least with him there, fishing wouldn’t be quite so boring or lonely-

Then there’s lots of cracking of branches and the thud of hooves, and the stag comes racing back, straight into the river, running right towards him. Jack cries out, forgetting everything E. Reginald Pomeroy said and drops his rod, curling up on the sandy bank with his arms over his head. He stays like that for what feels like forever, wondering if he’ll be stabbed by all fourteen points at once, silently wishing please go away please go away please go away-

There’s a snort, very close, a gust of warm air on the back of his neck, and then the sound of hooves walking away from him. Jack dares to peek through his fingers-

And finds himself looking at a big fish right there on the sand in front of him, still wet from the river. He very, very carefully sits up, turning, but the stag has backed away, and is looking around, almost like it’s admiring its handiwork. Or hoofiwork, Jack supposes. Because there are five more fish like the first one. They must have panicked when the stag ran through and swum straight out onto the bank.

“...Oh,” Jack says slowly. “Wow. That worked a lot better than the broccoli.”

But he’s sure deer are supposed to be herbivores, and the stag doesn’t seem all that interested in the fish now – just watching him, even when Jack carefully picks up one of the fish, then another and another. One of them, smaller than the rest, is still flopping a little. Jack feels sorry for it and throws it back before he thinks about it. But when he looks at the stag, it’s not even paying attention anymore, just grazing on some grass. So he sets about using the sewing thread to tie the fish together by their tails, slinging them over his ‘fishing rod’ to carry home. The stag doesn’t seem to mind.

“Um, thank you!” Jack calls. “Sorry, I don’t have any berries to give you – but you can have the rest of the broccoli if you want!”

Once again, the stag shows no interest in Jack’s food, and once again, it follows him at a distance as he walks back home, fishing stick slung over his shoulder. Once again, Jack reaches the door, and turns around to say thank you, but the stag is gone.

Later, Momma’s angry with him for going down to the river by himself, and Pa says he shouldn’t have done that, but that he’s still impressed.

“That was real resourceful, Jack, real clever,” he says, ruffling Jack’s hair. “Seems like you got your mother’s brains, thank God.”

That seems to please Momma enough that she stops glaring at Pa, and she fries up the fish with potatoes, and by the end of the evening, they’re kissing and giggling and generally being gross again. Jack rolls his eyes and excuses himself from the table.

“Got something for you, boy.”

Jack looks up in surprise as a little parcel wrapped in brown paper lands beside his bowl of oatmeal.

“Sorry,” says Pa, rubbing the back of his neck, “I meant to give it to you last night, but...”

“That’s okay, Pa, Sir,” Jack says quickly, because he knows Pa’s been working extra shifts down in the mine, not coming back until late, and it worries Momma. But Pa keeps saying that the extra money is worth it, and that he prefers the late shifts anyway, because there’s ‘less assholes to deal with’ (Jack doesn’t think he was supposed to hear that bit).

“Well, go on – go ahead and open it!”

Jack does, and he grins when his fingers brush the familiar shape.

“It’s a book!” he shouts, delighted. What could it be? A Penny Dreadful collection? A book of fables, like Miss Halls used to read to them? He never understood them much, but the book had really pretty pictures, and the stories often had knights and dragons and magic castles and witches and-

And he frowns at the unwrapped book. The cover is blank, and when he looks inside, so are the pages.

“It’s a journal,” Pa says, twisting his cap in his hands. “I thought, since, you’re always talking about them stories you read, maybe you’d like to write your own.”

“Oh...”

“What do you say, Jackie?” asks Momma, giving him a warning look.

“Uh, thank you, Sir!” Jack says hurriedly. “It’s really great!”

But he thinks Pa can tell he’s disappointed.

“Great...” he echoes, before clearing his throat. “Well, I’d best head off. Be good for your mother.”

He reaches up as if he’s going to ruffle Jack’s hair, but then stops, letting his hand drop and walking out the door, Momma following him. Jack stops chewing his oatmeal so he can listen.

“How am I still so bad at this?” he hears Pa sigh.

“He knows you’re trying,” Momma replies. “That’s what matters.”

“Hope you’re right...” There’s a pause, probably because they’re doing their usual kiss goodbye.

“You be careful!” Momma calls.

“I’m always as careful as I can be!”

“I know – that’s what worries me!” Momma replies, but she’s laughing.

Once they’ve finished their breakfasts and tidied things away, Momma says she doesn’t need his help at the saloon today, telling him to stay put and be good.

Jack heads off into the forest as soon as she’s out of sight.

He knows it’s silly, but he’s still a little disappointed when he returns to his ‘fishing spot’ from the other day and the stag isn’t there. Even if the stag doesn’t scare any fish onto the bank again, it would be nice to have some company. Jack wonders if he should try running through the river to catch some fish, but quickly decides that’s a bad idea when he dips a hand in. Glacial meltwater, warns E. Reginald Pomeroy, retains the frigidity (which means ‘very cold’) of its birthplace long after it has begun its journey down the mountains, and even strong swimmers can drown in relatively shallow crossings because the cold shock steals away all breath and rational thought.

And Jack doesn’t even know how to swim anyway – one of their neighbours had offered to teach him when they were staying in a town by a river, but Pa said that swimming in that water would just make him sick and said no. Jack was really annoyed – swimming looks fun! He’d asked Pa why he never learned to swim, and Pa just said he’d gotten this far without ever needing to, so clearly it wasn’t necessary. But when Jack asked more questions about whether Pa had really never been in a situation where swimming would be useful, Pa had got cross and told him the conversation was over. He knows Pa doesn’t like talking about the past much, but secretly he wonders if maybe Pa just doesn’t want Jack to be able to do something he can’t, but that’s really unfair! Or maybe Pa just doesn’t like talking to him at all-

A soft snort.

Jack turns, and there he is.

“Hi,” Jack says softly, but he’s grinning. The stag is a much nicer surprise than the journal. “Are you here to go fishing again? Please be careful – I don’t want you getting cold.”

Then again, the stag’s legs are a lot longer than Jack’s, so maybe the cold doesn’t bother him so much. He says this aloud, but the stag just tilts his head at him – then turns around and starts walking away.

“Hey, wait!” Jack calls, alarmed. And he’s surprised when the stag does stop, looking over its shoulder at him. Then tilts its head at him again – almost like it’s saying ‘follow me’.

E. Reginald Pomeroy wrote whole pages about tracking deer, but with lots of instructions on checking the wind and using scent-covering lotion so you could sneak up without them knowing you’re there. He didn’t say anything about what to do if the deer already knows you’re there, and seems like it wants you to come with it. But, Jack decides, adults are supposed to be brave, and resourceful. And it’s not as if he has anything else to do.

So he follows.

As the sound of the river fades into the forest behind them, Jack wonders if he should be scared, but he’s too curious to see where the stag is taking him; and it definitely seems to be taking him somewhere, since it keeps pausing as if to make sure he’s keeping up. They’re going deeper into the woods than Jack has ever been – everything’s dim and damp, and trees reach high above them, taller than any building Jack has ever seen. But eventually they enter a little clearing around a fallen tree – the stag walks up to the big rotting log, snuffling at it, then looks at Jack. Slowly, Jack approaches, still worried about getting too close – but the stag seems to know this, because it backs off a bit. Rounding the enormous tangle of old roots, Jack sees what the stag was sniffing at – and gasps.

“Are those...?”

He quickly pulls out The Northern Wilds from his satchel, flipping through the pages until he finds what he’s looking for, then compares the picture on the page to what’s in front of him. Yellow with flat tops, a funnel shaped stem with gill-like ridges, he reads, just to be certain. The description matches the mushrooms that cover the lower half of the fallen tree all the way from the roots to the branches.

“These are chanterelles!” he exclaims, excited. “Momma loves these! She fries them up with butter, and herbs, and they’re actually not so bad if you don’t mind chewing for a long time...”

The stag seems to listen politely, watching as Jack starts carefully prying off the mushrooms and cramming them into his satchel, but it doesn’t seem interested in eating any itself. And when his bag is full, the stag immediately sets off into the forest again – pausing to make sure Jack is following.

“Are you like a truffle pig?” Jack wonders aloud. It’s an idea he’s been working on – he thinks it would explain the stag’s strange behaviour. “I read about them – in Europe, they train special pigs to hunt for truffles, because their sense of smell is even better than a dog! But apparently they have to put special muzzles on the pigs – otherwise they’ll just eat the truffles when they find them. I don’t mind if you want to eat the food you’re helping me find, though,” he adds quickly. But he thinks it makes sense – maybe the stag isn’t so wild after all, but tame, trained to find food. How good is a deer’s sense of smell compared to a pig? He’s not sure. But there aren’t many pigs, or animals of any kind, kept around town – apparently the ‘varmints’ keep getting them. Is a deer a type of varmint?

He’s so busy wondering about all this, he doesn’t realise the stag has stopped until he nearly walks into the back of it. He holds his breath – he’s never been close enough to touch it, besides when it sniffed at him down by the river. But it’s not paying any attention to him – instead, it carefully pushes its head into the thick patch of bushes in front of it, getting its antlers all tangled. Then with a grunt, it lifts its head, lifting the bushes too. And Jack sees what it’s after – there’s a nest there, with a whole lot of little speckled white eggs – Jack thinks they might belong to a quail, but he’ll have to check in The Northern Wilds.

The stag grunts again, and Jack realises what he’s supposed to do.

“Oh! Wow – thank you! We almost never have eggs at home!” He carefully ducks down next to the stag and takes the eggs, but he leaves one, so the momma bird isn’t sad. Then, he thinks about it, and decides to leave two, so the chick has someone else to play with.

“I hope that’s okay,” he tells the stag once it’s shaken off the bushes and started leading the way again. “It’s just, I don’t have any brothers or sisters either, and it gets kinda lonely, sometimes...”

The stag’s ears droop. Jack wonders why.

“But I’m okay,” he continues, carefully shifting his hold on his satchel, now full of mushrooms and eggs. “I mean, usually there are other kids to play with – not here, though. Well, there are, but the other boys aren’t very nice. And, Momma and Pa are always busy, so they don’t have time to play.”

He knows the stag can’t understand him, of course, but it’s nice to have someone to talk to.

“And, even if they did, I don’t think they’d be very good at it,” Jack admits. “I... don’t think they really remember how to have fun. Like, today, my Pa got me a present – a journal. Said I could write stories in it. And I know I should be thankful,” Jack huffs, kicking at the leaf litter. “And, I am, I guess. I know he’s trying to be nice to me. But the thing is – he bought me a journal to write in, but he didn’t remember to buy a pen or a pencil to go with it, so I’ve got nothing to write with!”

The stag lets out a snort, its sides shaking. If Jack didn’t know better, he’d say it was laughing.

Momma’s surprised at the pile of mushrooms on the table, and the eggs he carefully put in a bowl after the stag led him all the way back home. She asks him lots of questions about just where he got them, but he keeps telling her he didn’t go that far into the forest. Even though he thinks his truffle-hunting idea makes sense, something makes him decide he shouldn’t tell her about the stag. Eventually she seems to believe him.

“Well, as long as you’re safe,” she says. “And, here.”

She reaches into her apron, and pulls out a pencil.

“I uh, borrowed it from the saloon. They got plenty.”

Jack grins.

“Now I can actually use my journal!”

She laughs, but hushes him.

“Your father will be home to fetch his lunch any minute!” she warns. “Now, you and I both know he don’t always... think things through, like he should. But, seems he’s really trying this time. We been here near three months now! Why, we might even move into one of the cottages, closer to the stores – get ourselves a proper home!”

This idea seems to make her happy, so Jack doesn’t say anything. He secretly hopes they don’t, though – if they have to stay in this town, he’d much rather they stayed next to the forest. It’s the only place he’s made a friend.

“-old crone had the right idea on getting you to-”

“Don’t talk about her like that!”

He wakes up to Momma and Pa arguing again, even though it’s only just getting light outside. He hears Momma laugh, but in the way that means she doesn’t think there’s anything funny happening at all.

“What, Grimshaw?” she asks. From her voice alone, Jack can tell she has her hands on her hips, somehow managing to frown even though she has her eyebrows raised.

“Yes,” Pa snaps. “She was a good woman-”

“Psh, are we talking about the same person here? She was a cruel, mean old hag!”

“She died trying to help me and Arth-”

Pa stops talking, and even though they’re in the bedroom, Jack can hear him sigh.

“Just, don’t badmouth her in front of me,” he finally says quietly.

“Well... fine,” Momma says, voice a little gentler. But only a little. “But you still ain’t answered my question. Why has Mr. Green put you on notice?!”

“And I told you, it’s complicated!”

“Ugh, everything about living with you is complicated, John Marston!”

“Keep it down!” Pa hisses. They talk in whispers for a little bit, but the cabin walls are thin, and the bedroom door doesn’t shut properly, and their voices soon start getting louder again.

“I didn’t have a choice, Abigail! What was I supposed to do, just let them beat the man senseless?”

“You was supposed to go get someone whose job it is to sort these things out! Not risk losing yours! But no, you always gotta play the hero, don’t you?!”

“Now that ain’t fair-”

“My God, John, nothing about our lives is fair! The world ain’t fair! But you got a son-”

“And I’m supposed to teach him to be a coward, that it?!”

“You’re supposed to teach him to use his head before his fists!”

“Pfft, well, we don’t gotta worry about that at least – boy wouldn’t stand up to a mouse.”

“Wh- How dare you?! He is nine!”

Jack’s eyes are stinging, and he blinks hard. He’s not a baby. But he hates it when he’s the reason they argue.

“You and me were both a hell of a lot tougher at that age, and you know it! You just said, Abigail, the world ain’t fair – boy’s got to get wise to that! If something happens to me-”

“I don’t want him to be tough like we were, John! I don’t want him to have to grow up like we did! So you’d best make sure something don’t happen to you – starting by not losing your job! So come on, get going – don’t give that man any more excuses to fire you than he’s already got!”

Pa stumbles out the bedroom door, as if he’s been pushed.

“Pff, yes ma’am,” he mutters. But then he looks over at Jack’s little corner before Jack can lie down and pretend to still be asleep. Pa looks surprised at first, then his face changes, and Jack wonders if he’ll be yelled at for ‘eavesdropping’, which means listening to conversations you’re not supposed to listen to, which is very rude. But instead, Pa looks... sad.

“Uh. Mornin’, boy,” he says softly. “I gotta head down to the mine – good ol’ Mr. Green’s got me working extra half shifts in the mornings for a while too, so I’ll be gone all day. So I’m going to have to leave the morning chores to you, ok? You can start by bringing in the firewood and fetching water from the pump. Be careful though, don’t try to chop the kindling yourself – and put your gloves and coat on first, it’s still cold out this early.”

“Yessir.”

“Good kid,” Pa says, and he smiles, but his eyes still look sad. He grabs his hat, and heads out the door. Momma comes out of the bedroom a little later, rubbing at her face. Jack looks down and concentrates on buttoning up his coat – Momma doesn’t like it when people see her cry.

“Mr. Staaag!”

Canada’s ancient forests are a veritable treasure trove of pharmaceuticals, containing all one needs to remain hale and hearty, says E. Reginald Pomeroy. Jack isn’t quite sure what some of those words mean, but it was the next sentence that gave him an idea.

As such, for the keen-eyed outdoorsman, there is exceptional money to be made in the collection of certain herbs, fungi, and flowering plants, some of which can be sold for thousands of pounds sterling in European markets.

If Pa loses his job, maybe they could make money collecting plants from the forest. Jack’s not sure if they could send things all the way to Europe, but they could at least sell them to the general store, like he’s seen hunters selling pelts. And this way, Jack could help too. Mrs. Shannon gave Momma some extra work cleaning the rooms at the saloon, but says Jack isn’t allowed to come and help anymore because there was a big news story saying bad things about children working in mining towns, and Mr. Shannon doesn’t want his business to get into trouble. Pa is still working in the mine, but he’s working extra shifts because Mr. Green the foreman is angry with him. So Pa’s gone before the sun comes up and doesn’t come home until it’s already set, and Momma’s out for most of the day too. Jack’s taken over some of Pa’s chores, but it still means he’s stuck in the cabin all day with not much to do. Until he had his idea.

“Mr. Stag?” he calls again. He has The Northern Wilds with him to help him identify any plants that might be worth a lot of money, but he was kind of hoping the stag might appear and show him places to look again. He wonders if it’s been trained to sniff out just things to eat, or if it can sniff out ‘pharmaceuticals’ as well...

As with many things in life, the greatest rewards come with the greatest effort; many of the below-listed valuable species are only found in the dark heart of the forest:

“Mr. Staaag!” he calls again, and because he’s Practically An Adult, he’s not scared, not even a little bit. But... it sure would be nice to have some company. He’s not worried about getting lost, because he thinks if he just heads downhill he’ll eventually find the river again, but this far into the wood it’s really, really dark. He hopes this means he’s getting close to the heart and that he’ll find some of the plants E. Reginald Pomeroy talks about-

There’s a crash above, and he yells without meaning to. But it’s just a bird, making a racket in the branches as it flaps away.

He’s not scared. He’s not scared. He’s resourceful, Pa said so. He’s not scared. The world isn’t fair. But he’s not scared.

“Mr. Stag?” he calls again, except his voice comes out a lot smaller than it was supposed to.

Then something big moves out of the corner of his eye, and he turns towards it, relieved.

It’s not the stag.

Lynx are medium-sized cats, easily recognisable by their grey coat, large tufted ears, and big fluffy feet, which help them to move across the snow during winter. Their diet consists mainly of snowshoe hares, but they will hunt birds and small mammals given the opportunity. Large individuals have even been known to hunt caribou calves.

E. Reginald Pomeroy didn’t say what counts as a ‘large’ lynx, but Jack thinks this one looks very big. And he realises, with a gulp, he probably counts as a small mammal.

We don’t gotta worry about that at least – boy wouldn’t stand up to a mouse...

Jack stands up straight.

“SHOO!” he yells. Even runs a few steps towards the lynx, waving his arms. He’s not a baby. He’s not scared. He’s Practically An Adult. He can stand up for himself. He’s not scared. He’s not scared.

It’s the wrong thing to do.

The lynx, which had been standing there just looking at him, crouches, ears going flat against its head. Its fur puffs up, making it look even bigger, and it makes a horrible snarling sound that’s almost like a person screaming. Jack gasps, stumbling backwards, tripping over a tree root that makes him fall onto his back, banging his head. Dizzily, he looks up, wondering if he could climb the tree to get away. But the tree trunk is broad and smooth and has no branches low enough for him to grab hold of. Then, when the lynx makes the horrible snarl-scream sound again, and Jack manages to push himself up enough to see it stalking towards him, he remembers lynx know how to climb trees too.

It crouches low, big yellow eyes wide and staring at him without blinking, back end giving a little wiggle, and Jack has seen enough cats stalking rats and mice and pigeons to know what comes next.

He shuts his own eyes and curls up into a ball, and can’t help but letting out a sob.

Then something roars.

A crash, a thud, a shriek, and Jack opens his eyes just in time to see the lynx caught up on a pair of antlers before the stag throws it right across the clearing with a toss of its head. The lynx yowls and scrambles to its feet, running off into the forest. The big stag bellows again and takes a few steps after it, head held high. It gives Jack enough time to count – fourteen points.

Jack’s more relieved than scared now, but for some reason it still makes him cry more. The stag turns to him, and slowly walks over, until it’s close enough for Jack to see the individual hairs on its legs. It lowers its head down, sniffing at him. It eventually huffs, sending another gust of warm air across his forehead and ruffling his hair, almost like Pa does sometimes when he’s happy. And Jack forgets everything E. Reginald Pomeroy wrote about deer and throws his arms around the stag’s neck, sobbing. The stag sinks down onto its front legs, then tucks the back ones underneath it, so Jack is leaning against its side.

Jack has only ever touched dead deer before. Pa has shown him a couple of times how to skin one after he’s been out hunting, encouraging Jack to come up close and run his hands through the deer’s cold fur, checking for anything that might affect the pelt quality, like ticks or old scars. Jack never likes getting so close though – close enough to see that the deer’s eyes aren’t actually black, but brown, and glazed over like the windows on a cold morning. And the dead deer always smelled musty and dirty.

The stag doesn’t smell musty or dirty, though. Its golden fur is warm and thick, and for some reason its smell reminds Jack of being very little, and being home. He buries his face in its neck, and cries until he feels like he can breathe again.

“Jack? What happened?!”

It’s dark when Pa gets home, and Jack is supposed to be asleep by now – even Momma is already snoring. But every time he tries to go to sleep, he accidentally rolls over and it makes the back of his head hurt where he hit it on the tree, even though Momma wrapped it. Pa’s crouching down next to him now, carefully touching the bandages. He looks really worried.

“I went looking for more salmonberries, but I slipped and banged my head,” Jack says. It’s the same thing he told Momma, and he felt bad for lying, but he didn’t want to tell her about the lynx and the stag, because if he does he doesn’t think he’ll ever be allowed into the forest again, even though the stag walked him straight home afterwards.

“Is that so?” Pa asks. Jack looks at him, swallowing. Momma had been upset, and angry with him for running off, but she seemed to believe him. But Pa is giving him the same look as he did when Jack tried to sneak a stray dog into their house one time, in another town he can’t even remember the name of. The raised eyebrow means ‘I don’t believe you.’ But Jack’s not sure what to say.

Eventually Pa shakes his head.

“Well, be more careful,” Pa tells him. “If something happened to you...”

He makes a face, and Jack can’t tell if he’s angry or upset.

“Sorry, Sir,” he says quietly. They look at each other for a moment, then look away, neither of them saying anything, and it feels really strange. Eventually Pa clears his throat.

“See you’re using your journal,” he says, pointing at where it lies open in Jack’s lap. “You, uh, need me to whittle that pencil for you, make it sharp?”

“Um, no thank you. Mr. Chen at the General Store lets me use his pencil sharpener when I collect things for Momma.”

“Oh.”

Pa nods, but still doesn’t leave, and they sit in awkward silence again for a bit more.

“So... do you just write in your journal? Or do you draw pictures too?”

“Why would I do that?” Jack asks. He hasn’t drawn pictures since he was a little kid.

“Well, I dunno. Just, in the journals I’ve seen, that’s what people do.”

“But, aren’t journals supposed to be private?” Jack points out. “Do you look in a lot of people’s journals?”

“Ah, no. Just the one, really, I guess...” Pa’s fingers brush his own satchel, but he doesn’t look at it – instead, even though he’s looking at the wall, he looks like he’s staring at something far away.

“Whose?” Jack asks, curious. But Pa just shakes his head.

“Never mind that,” he says. “Well, I’d best get my dinner. What was it?”

“Casserole, again,” Jack replies glumly. “But watch out for the hard bits.”

“Heh, thanks for the warning,” Pa laughs quietly. He goes and gets his dinner from where it’s being kept warm on the stove, and Jack puts the journal away and lies down, facing the wall, so they don’t have to try to make more awkward conversation. Pa must think he’s fallen asleep, because every so often there’s a loud crunch, followed by Pa muttering words he’s not supposed to say in front of Jack, and Jack has to concentrate very hard on not giggling.

A few days later, he and Momma have only just finished their oatmeal when Pa comes back into the cabin even though he’s meant to be down in the mine. He looks grim, which means very serious, gloomy, or worried.

“Now what’s happened?” Momma asks, and Jack can see she’s gripping her spoon so tightly her knuckles have gone white. Pa sighs, pulling his cap off his head and tossing it onto the bench by the door, much harder than he has to.

“I’ve been put on ‘garden leave’,” he says grumpily.

“What’s that mean?” Momma asks, standing, clenching her fingers in her apron.

“It means I’m not allowed to go to work.”

“What? Why?!”

“Seems my good friend Mr. Greville – the main fella I had the uh, altercation with,” Pa says, glancing at Jack. Jack says nothing, but using big words to try to hide what he’s talking about doesn’t work anymore; he knows Pa’s talking about that fight he had with some of the other miners. “-has decided that ‘he don’t feel safe returning to work’ while I’m there,” Pa continues. “And all his lackeys have suddenly decided they feel the same way – never mind they’ve been workin’ right beside me these past two weeks.”

“Jesus, John...” Momma sighs, dropping back into her chair and putting her head in her hands.

“I ain’t fired!” Pa protests.

“Yet!” she snaps.

“I ain’t fired,” Pa repeats, “just, I ain’t allowed to work for a few days. I’ve asked about being transferred to another part of the mine, Mr. Long says he’ll see what he can do-”

“Jack, can you go down to the pump and fetch some more water for washing up, please?” Momma says suddenly. Jack glances at the stove, where a pot full of water is already warming, but doesn’t dare argue. He grabs his coat and boots, not bothering to do them up properly, hurrying to get out of the house as fast as he can. He knows they’re waiting for him to be gone before they start shouting at each other.

He makes it a few houses down the street, then cuts between two of them and circles back to their cabin, walking across the grass so they don’t hear his boots on the path. If they’re going to have to pack up and leave, Jack wants to know as soon as possible, so he doesn’t accidentally leave things behind again.

“-and I both know damn well Mr. Green won’t allow that! Him and Joe Greville are friends!” Momma is yelling.

“Mr. Long likes me!” Pa snaps back. “Told me himself – said stopping those thugs beatin’ up Michael was the right thing to do! If he can get me transferred-”

“Mr. Long ain’t the foreman!”

“I know that! But- Shit, Abigail, I’m trying, I really am!”

It goes quiet for a while, and Jack creeps closer.

“Look, I’m still employed by the mine, technically, so we ain’t losing the house,” Pa is saying. “And I got friends too – they know Greville and his lot are full of crap, they’ll vouch for me. It’ll all blow over.”

“And what are we gonna do in the meantime?” Momma asks. “Even if Mrs. Shannon can find me more work, it won’t be enough for rent and food.”

“It’ll only be a few days,” Pa says again, but Jack thinks he doesn’t sound very sure. “And, in the meantime, I’ll sort the food. There’s plenty of game in these woods, and the boy’s been finding all those berries and stuff. We’ll be fine, Abigail.”

“Pfft, I’ve heard that before,” Momma replies. She sounds very tired.

There’s quiet except for footsteps, and Jack decides he’d better go actually fetch more water. He’s carefully picking up the bucket again so the handle doesn’t squeak when the door suddenly opens, and Pa nearly walks into him. He’s carrying his rifle.

“Jack!” he exclaims. “Thought you was going to the pump?”

“I was,” Jack says quickly, “but, um, there was a really long queue, so, I thought I’d come back and help clear the table first...”

Pa gives him a raised eyebrow again, then shakes his head.

“Well, never mind that. You can come help me instead. Bring your satchel, and that book of yours.”

Jack nods, slipping back inside. Momma is already washing the dishes, the bowls and spoons crashing against each other much louder than normal. Jack decides he’d better not say anything, and grabs his things before meeting Pa back outside. Pa starts walking into the forest, and Jack follows, but stops at the edge of the trees. He hasn’t been into the woods since he saw the lynx...

“Come on, boy!” Pa calls sharply. “When you’re grown, you’re gonna have to be able to provide for your family, and that means more than just going to the store. Let’s test those new foraging skills of yours, huh?”

“There’s dangerous animals in the woods, Sir...” Jack says quietly. Pa’s lips press into a thin line.

“Oh, don’t worry,” he says grimly, checking his rifle is loaded before snapping the barrel back into place with a flick of his arm. “Right now, there ain’t nothing in these woods more dangerous than me.”

They find things each day – berries, mushrooms, edible plants, and Pa sometimes tells Jack to be quiet and stay put before heading on further into the trees. Jack has to sit and wait, looking around nervously for tufted ears and grey fur, but then there’s a bang and Pa usually returns carrying a dead bird or rabbit. But he still isn’t allowed to go back to work, and he and Momma are barely talking to each other.

“Now, I know you know a lot about the plants around here, and that’s impressive,” Pa says as they trudge through the forest yet again. “But it’s hard to live on plants alone. And fishing and hunting small game is all well and good, but the meat don’t last long. So today we’re looking for big game – deer, elk, maybe even a bear. Something that’ll cover more than one dinner, and earn us some money too. And you’re gonna learn how to track and skin, okay?”

He says it like it’s a question, but Jack knows he doesn’t actually have a say in the matter, and it makes him cross.

“I know how to track,” he huffs. “I followed a stag through the forest all morning a few weeks ago.”

“That right?”

“Uh huh. A big one.”

He knows he shouldn’t talk about the stag, but he can tell Pa doesn’t believe him from his voice alone, and it makes him feel even more annoyed.

“And what makes you so sure it was a stag, hmm?”

“It had big antlers, with fourteen points.”

“Heh, you sure got an imagination on you,” Pa chuckles.

“Sir?”

“It’s still springtime, boy. Bucks don’t get antlers ‘til the fall. What you saw was probably an elk – they drop their antlers through the winter, but some of them hang on into spring.”

“No, it was definitely a deer...” Jack says, frowning. He has to admit, E. Reginald Pomeroy had said the same thing – but he definitely wasn’t imagining those antlers.

“Hm. Well, lets see if we can find another ‘stag’, shall we? Start looking at the ground – for tracks, or for plants that look like they’ve been nibbled on.”

He still doesn’t believe him.

“Yessir,” Jack sighs.

They make their way slowly through the forest, Pa pointing out ‘sign’ from different animals, but says that most of it is old – that the bigger game animals know to keep well away from the town, especially during the day. Jack doesn’t bother telling him about the stag walking him right up to the edge of the forest on multiple days.

“Not sure if we’ll find much in walking distance from home,” Pa says thoughtfully. “Might be best if we head back and collect some gear, then head out overnight. You like the sound of that?”

“Uhm...”

“You need to learn these things, boy,” Pa says, sounding annoyed.

“I know, Sir. Just... Maybe we could look for rare plants instead?” Jack tries. He really doesn’t like the idea of staying out overnight, even if Pa is with him. “My book says that there’s lots of them in the Canadian forests that-”

“Not this again,” Pa sighs, rubbing his eyes.

“But-”

“Look. There’s a big difference between what books can teach you and what real life can teach you. Your Mr. Pomeroy knows a lot about heading out from his summer lodge to look for whatever he fancies studying that day, but he don’t know much about living off the land, about hunting to survive. That’s what I’m trying to teach you, so quit this talk of fancy plants and pay attention.”

That just makes Jack feel even crosser. He’s learned lots about surviving from The Northern Wilds – maybe even more than Pa knows!

“But we could earn lots of money!” he insists. “We could do this instead, and sell things at the general store, and you wouldn’t even have to go into that nasty mine anymore!”

“Pfft, appreciate the idea, boy, but you don’t understand how these things work. Now keep quiet, you’ll scare the game away.”

Jack stomps his feet a little as he comes to a stop, crossing his arms.

“I’m not a baby,” he grumbles. “I understand plenty!”

“Do you now?”

“I understand we need money,” Jack replies, feeling a little bit pleased when Pa turns to him, eyes narrowed. “I understand that you got in trouble at the mine so you can’t go to work and get money yourself.”

Pa laughs at that, but it’s not a very nice laugh.

“Well, ain’t you the little know-it-all,” he says nastily. “But what you don’t understand, boy, is our house belongs to the mining company. It’s reserved for employees only – that means if I don’t work at the mine anymore, our cabin gets given to someone else, and we’re homeless. So unless you found a mansion in these woods like you found a fourteen-pointer, you’d best keep your smart mouth shut, and do as I damn well tell you! Now come on.”

Jack stares as Pa unslings his rifle and turns his back to him again. He doesn’t feel pleased anymore. He almost wants to run in the other direction, but he doesn’t know which way the river or the town is, and he’s worried he might run into a lynx again. But now Pa’s just walking off without him, not looking back to see if Jack’s following. And Jack’s not a baby, but Pa’s never talked to him like that before, and his eyes feel hot, and it’s hard to breathe around the lump in his throat. His whole body is starting to shake.

“Jesus, kid, I told you to-”

Pa sounds like he’s about to tell Jack off again as he finally does turn around – but then his eyes widen and he brings up his rifle.

“Jack, down!” he yells, but Jack doesn’t understand the words, doesn’t move, because Pa is aiming the gun at him.

Then a warm gust of air blows on the back of his neck, ruffling his hair.

Up close, the dead deer’s eyes were always brown, not black. But now, as he turns and looks up at the impressive rack of antlers, a lonely ray of sunlight is breaking through the branches above them at just the right angle. And for a moment, the stag’s eyes don’t seem brown, but blue, fading to green in the middle.

Jack turns to yell at Pa not to shoot, but Pa is already slowly lowering the rifle, staring at the stag. The stag looks calmly back, and no one moves. Eventually Pa looks like he’s about to say something, but it takes him a few tries, lips moving without sound.

“...You...?” he eventually manages.

“He’s the one I told you about,” Jack nods, burying his fingers in the thick, warm fur of the stag’s neck. In the sunlight, its golden coat seems to glow. “It’s okay, he won’t hurt me.”

“Yeah, I- I know. I- It’s crazy, but... I think we might’ve met before...”

Pa stares for another long moment, before slowly turning his rifle so he can put the strap over his shoulder.

“And, I won’t hurt you neither,” he says, looking away from the stag to meet Jack’s eyes with his own. “I’m real sorry, Jack – I shouldn’t have snapped at you, it weren’t fair of me. And, I’m proud of you, for coming up with ideas to try and help, for the ways you are helping. You been real smart, and brave. And I know I ain’t been the best father but, like I said – I’m real proud of you. And I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, Pa,” Jack says quietly. Pa gives him that sad smile again, but before he can say anything, the stag lowers its head, nudging Jack between the shoulders. When Jack turns to look at it, it meets his eyes, then looks at his pa, and nudges him again.

“Thanks,” Jack whispers, patting its neck one last time before he walks over to where his pa is still standing. Pa wraps an arm around his shoulders, and they both turn to look at the stag. The stag dips its head, and from the corner of his eye, Jack sees Pa give a little nod back. And deer can’t smile like people can but...

But if they could, Jack thinks that’s what it would be doing.

It looks at them for one more long moment, then turns, and disappears into the forest.

After a while, Pa lets out a shaky breath, turning to look down at him. Then he smiles, a proper smile, and laughs softly.

“Reckon your mother will believe us if we tell her why we ain’t brought back any meat?” he asks.

“Reckon she’d make us scrub the floor again for acting silly,” Jack grins back.

“Heh, yeah, probably,” Pa chuckles, ruffling Jack’s hair. “Let’s go home, son.”

Jack doesn’t see the stag again. He never got a chance to return to the forest to look for it – sure enough, Pa got told he was officially fired the next day, and they had to pack up and move again. Jack doesn’t even remember the name of the mining town, like he doesn’t remember so many of the other places they stayed, before or since.

His memories of the stag don’t fade, as such; but as the years go on, he wonders how much of what he remembers was real, and how much was embellished by the imagination of a bored and lonely child. But he knows the stag was real. Because like so much of the past, Pa never speaks about their encounter – but it was years before he started hunting buck again.

But, over time, the memory of a strangely behaved deer got pushed to the back of his mind as he acquired new problems to worry about.

Problems like badly behaved dogs, for example.

“Rufus, you give that back!” he yells as he gives chase, footsteps alternately thumping and padding along the hallway.

“Jack Marston, if that dog eats another boot, I ain’t buying you a new pair again!” his mother calls from the kitchen.

“Probably don’t need to – he can just mix n’ match from all his other half-eaten pairs,” Pa chuckles from where he’s reading a newspaper while he shovels down his breakfast. Jack’s about to make a pointed comment about the fact Rufus never goes near Pa’s boots and what that says about his personal hygiene, but then the front door starts to open.

“Uncle, don’t let him-!”

Too late – Rufus bolts through the gap. Now Jack’s gonna have to chase him all over the damn ranch with only one boot on.

“Was that another shoe in his mouth?” Uncle asks, staring after the dog. “Why didn’t you stop him, Jack? You’ll be needing another pair of boots if you ain’t careful!”

“Thanks, Uncle, you’re a great help as always!” Jack drawls as he ducks past him. The sun’s only just coming up over the horizon, but already he can hear the cows lowing, waiting to be milked, and Jack sure doesn’t fancy stepping into the barn in socks.

“Rufus! Come on boy! I’ll trade you my bacon for it!” he calls, looking around for a streak of pale yellow fur. Usually the mutt likes to enjoy his chew toys, footwear or otherwise, around the back of the chicken coop, and sure enough, when Jack steps out from the porch he can make out fresh dog prints heading around towards the barn.

“Rufus! Bacon for boots!” he calls again, jogging up the dusty path in front of the house. When he rounds the old broken wagon that Pa swears he’s going to get around to fixing one day, he’s pleased to see the mention of bacon has made Rufus pause and even drop the boot. But then he takes in the dog’s appearance. He’s standing stock-still, tail held straight up in the air. He’s not barking or growling, but he’s staring intently at...

Jack squints, and his breath catches in his throat.

“...Pa...?” he calls, and Pa must notice the strangeness in his voice, because he comes outside immediately.

“Jack? What’s wrong?”

“You see what I see?”

Pa frowns at him but follows to where he’s pointing, and goes still when he sees it.

There on the cliff above the corral, outlined by the rising sun, is a big golden stag. And even though summer’s barely started, it’s got an impressive rack of antlers. Jack’s already counted – fourteen points.

“...Well I’ll be damned,” Pa murmurs. “Hello, old friend.”

“But... It can’t be, right? I mean, that was all the way in the Yukon, and it was years ago, I didn’t think whitetails even lived that long! No way it can be the same animal, right? Sir? Pa?”

But his father says nothing, not taking his eyes off the stag. The two of them stand motionless, gazing at each other.

Then, the stag dips its head, turns, and bounds off into the horizon. Even then, Pa doesn’t move for a while.

“...Do you think he'd approve of this place?” he finally asks, and now his voice sounds strange.

“Huh?”

“I mean... do you think, someone who knew us, before, back when we were moving all the time – think they’d be proud of what we’ve done here? That they’d like it?”

“Well... sure,” Jack says, nonplussed. “I mean, I like it.”

“...Good,” Pa says softly. “Good...”

He stares after the stag a little longer, then turns to Jack and gives him a smile, ruffling his hair.

“C’mon, son, we’d best get on with the chores. But, once we’re done – how ‘bout you and me go fishing?”

“Sure, Pa,” Jack nods, smiling back. “I’d like that.”