Free Noses Are Red by Richard Scrimger

ground is uneven. You might twist your ankle.”
    “Yes, Mom,” I say. Just before he smiles, I catch a glimpse of longing on his face. He misses his mom.
    “Look, up ahead!” Victor points. Something is glinting on the rocks.
    “Is it a bird? A plane? Christopher?” Not, you understand, that I think he’s Superman.
    We run towards it. The glinting becomes clearer. It’s a canoe.
    Actually, it’s half a canoe, scarred and dented. It sits on top of a stump, like an aluminum hood. Someone has nailed a sign to the stump: BEARCLAW RAPIDS it says. Underneath is the horseshoe symbol, like the one on the canoe-girl’s boat.
    Scary, to think of the water being that violent, that strong. I think how lucky we are to have come down the rapids uninjured.
    “Is it –
hers?”
Victor clasps his hands together on the word. “Please let it not be…
hers!”
Great galloping gophers, the boy’s in love.
    –
Oh, for heaven’s sake
, says Norbert.
    It’s sunny, but some gray clouds are moving in, like a gang of bullies trying to take over the sky. Sometime soon there’s going to be one heck of a storm.
    I feel an overwhelming sense of the size of the wilderness. I see hills and river and rock and mud; I see trees, and more trees, and more trees, rising all around me. Beyond them, the hills and sky. My footprints in the mud, like the broken canoe, are faint and fragile symbols of human intrusion. They are my link with my own kind. I begin to climb. Mud gives way to rock, and the footprints disappear.
    “I’m really hungry,” says Victor, limping after me. “And I have a blister. And it’s getting later and later. We should make camp.”
    “What do you mean, ‘make camp’?”
    “Well, we should stop, and set up our tent and light our fire and cook dinner.”
    I stare at him. “Victor, we don’t have any of those things.”
    Is that a rumble of thunder, off to the right? It’s still sunny.
    “No food,” I say. “No tent. No fire. No dry clothes.”
    “I know.” He sits down, and bows his head. At least he’s not delusional. “I wish I was back home,” he says.
    “Me too, but that isn’t going to help us now.”
    “Wish I hadn’t come at all. It’s…5:30. Dinnertime. Mom’ll be cooking pot roast, or something.”
    Yes, definitely thunder. “I wish I knew what to do now,” I say.
    “Me too.” Victor starts to cry. His face puckers up, and his shoulders start to move.
    Not good. Can it get worse? Yes, it can always get worse. But it doesn’t – not this time. It gets better.
    –
Look
, says Norbert.
    “Where?”
    –
Over there. I’m pointing.
    “Norbert, I can’t see you. Where are you pointing?”
    –
Over there. Come on, Dingwall. You can’t miss it.
    Victor doesn’t look. He probably thinks I’ve cracked up – talking to myself. I scan the horizon…and I see it. My heart jumps a beat. “That’s smoke!” I shout.
    A thin trickle, wafting above the trees. It’s downstream from us, not very far away.
    –
Yup.
    I can’t tell you how it feels to realize that I’m not alone in the middle of the wilderness. Someone out there – someone nearby – can make fire. May not sound like much, making fire, but it’s more than I can do right now. Fire is a powerful and positive achievement. I know – I
know
– that the person responsible for the fire is a good person.
    “Come on, Victor – this way.” I pull my friend to his feet, and drag him over mud and rocks, following the riverbed. The smoke is whitish in color – distinct against the dark bank of clouds.
    The ground is very uneven. We have to jump over a deep cut made by – I don’t know what. Groundwater, maybe.
    I can see the campfire now. The flames are yellow and vibrant. We struggle closer, closer. Victor’s blister makes him hobble. I help him along. He hangs on to my arm.
    “Hello!” I call. “Hello!” No one responds. There doesn’t seem to be anyone around the campfire.
    “Help!” calls Victor. “We need