KentuckyBlackBird
Basic Member
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2023
- Messages
- 1,064
Great tale!!!!Endures
The wind howled down from the Yukon hills, stirring the spruce tops and driving white flurries across the dark mouth of the timberline. The man trudged on, bent forward with frost creeping into the folds of his parka. His breath froze to his beard and his eyes squinted against the sting of the snow. He was alone. In his coat pocket rode an old utility knife.
The knife had come to him in the year of ’68, back in the Ohio days. Before his voice had dropped. Before winters meant anything real. Nearly half a century ago now. The world had changed since then. So had he. But the knife was the same: steel, honest, and ready.
It had come by post, a reward for five wrappers from a Prince Albert tobacco tin and two dollars mailed off to some far-off outfit that felt like the edge of the world. Weeks passed. Then it arrived. Sharp and plain, with ULSTER stamped proudly into the blade tang. He had kept it through floods and fights, lean seasons and long miles. Now it rode with him again into the north, where only fools and trappers dared go in February.
The wind here was no Midwestern squall. This was the hard north, where even the trees crouched against the sky.
An accident had taken his beloved dog three days back. The sled had snapped on a hidden stone. He had eaten the last of the jerky last night, and today the wind promised only more cold and no mercy.
At a windbreak of spruce he stopped. The fingers of his right hand were black at the tips. He could not feel the cold anymore. That was worse than the cold itself. He sat in the lee of a stump and drew the utility knife from his pocket. He went to work cutting small branches, slicing dry twigs from under the snow-packed tangle of deadfall. The knife worked without complaint, the blade flashing dull silver in the gray light.
He built the fire with care and patience. Not from knowledge but from instinct, the kind that comes from men who listen to the world and obey it. His fingers moved stiffly, slower than they should, but they remembered what mattered. The match lit. A spark caught low and fed slowly. Flames curled up, feasting on the offering. The man huddled near the fire. His eyes fluttered shut as warmth returned to his boots.
The utility knife sat beside him, old and loyal. It had never failed.
When they found him weeks later, the fire was out and the man was gone to the great stillness. But the knife remained. Folded shut, lying on the log where his last breath had warmed the wood.
One of the searchers picked up the utility knife, turned it over in his palm, and read the shield on the side of the handle.
"Old Timer," he muttered. Then he slipped it into his coat and looked to the sky.
Snow was coming.
