Free The Blue (The Complete Novel) by Joseph Turkot Page A

away.
     
    Russell tells me it isn’t too bad, like he’s noticed I’m staring at my leg. Just a couple deep scrapes, he says, But we don’t want it to get infected. He adds that like I can do anything to prevent it. But the rest of the pills are gone too. No pain relief and no antibiotics.
                As we walk on, and I get used to the cycle of pain, hunger returns. A gnawing starts to rip around in my stomach. And thirst knocks at me, as if the whole fight with the seal drained way too much energy. Energy we should have been saving—to stay warm, to make our last march. With each swallow, the dryness in my throat hurts and there’s a lump that won’t seem to go down. I ask if we have a cup still, and Russell stops to rummage through the bag on his shoulder while I lean into him. Voley peers up at us like we’re retrieving food, as if we’ve been holding out all this time for no reason. Like we have enough to go around for everyone. With a great deal of effort, like the encounter with the seal drained him too, Russell manages to get the silver cup out and he hands it to me. I kneel down, just using my right arm loosely to cling to his leg so that I don’t spill over, and scoop up some of the top slush. Then I drink it—the burn in my throat subsides, and the aches of my muscles and my self-consuming gut temporarily quiet. The cold slush tastes cleaner and purer than any rain I’ve ever drunk. I refill the cup and offer it to Russell, but he tells me to drink again first. Voley watches me do this, and it’s as if he’s reminded that he has to drink too, because he stoops down and starts to lick the melt around where I draw my scoops. My digging and his licking form a small light blue pocket in the ice. I look for signs of the crack veins but see none. And reassured that we’re not going to fall in from standing still for too long, I fill the cup and hand it to Russell. He drinks it down, one gulp, and just one cup, and then he says we have to keep moving. I see beads of sweat on his forehead, and I wish that we still had the thermometer—that I could check the temperature. Because something tells me it’s getting too warm. And it means we should turn back. That having the floe crack open underneath us as we slept should have been enough of a sign already. That it’s crazy to march toward the blue, the sunshine, the warmth. But I leave it be and stand back up with a small groan. I won’t say a thing. We’re all in, I remind myself. Nothing to go back to. And then, pushing away as best I can the pangs of hunger, we push on.
     
    When we come to the gap, Russell stops as if he has no idea how we’re going to get me across. I tell him I can do it, that my leg’s not that big of a deal. It will hurt, but I can do it, I say. He doesn’t protest, and waits to intervene, watching me test my leg. I put my full weight down on it and feel the searing pain. It jolts up through the nerves of my calf. Then, I let the pain pass through me, telling myself it’s just pain. Nothing more. All in my head. And then I take a few steps and eye up the opening in the ice—a narrow four feet of still brown water between us and the next floe. The ocean softly laps against the underside of the next floe’s shelf, a vertical sheet of ice a couple feet above the water’s surface. When I raise my glance, and tell Russell I know I can do it, he tells me to test run on it.
     
    I take a few steps back, then charge forward for four steps. I scream at first, but then I suck it up, and I do it again, this time with no noise, just to show Russell I can. Jump off the left, he says, Has to be your left. I listen to him and try it out, just a little hop. Then, satisfied I can more than clear the distance, I line myself up. Straight shot, right across the gap, and I sprint. The lightning pain shoots up and through my entire body as I run, and then, on the last step, just when I’m sure I’m going to slip, I lock the left