Abigail Godfrey

White

Coming up the icy track my boot slipped upon the rocks stained red with iron. The eroded mesas were fiercely lined with snow, white and martian. Over my shoulder the sun was inching closer to the mountain line, only an hour or so left to get out of the valley before the cold and darkness would make it impossible to return to the shelter. I checked the laces on my boot, and picked the packed snow from the grooves. Everyone thinks the winter is silent. Everyone thinks that snow is white. I heard the far off pacing of the mountain goats, causing the stirred fall of crumbling shale. The bears were all in for their long sleep, and did I imagine, the snapping of that twig? I crouched to the ground and searched with my less perceptive eyes, my eyebrows frozen with mist from above my protected mouth. The pricking of the ears, the raised flag of tail, and then lightly hoofed away, the doe and her almost grown brood. I sighed in relief, if the coyotes were out there would be little I could do to defend myself against a full pack, even if I had carried a gun. It seemed unfair to go against our ancient world with the techniques reserved for modern war. The coyotes were here first, after all, and I was in their house. It was their prerogative to kill me and eat my flesh to nourish them through winter. I paused my journey back to the shelter to drink from an icy stream. The water was like daggers down my throat but it was clean snow melt. My stomach ached from the cold of it. Out from their shelter my lips cracked and began to bleed. A drop fell upon the snow, and I stood, staring at the beauty of that bright carnelian bead freeze upon the down.