A Time in Heaven (5 page)

“Just enjoy him for now,” she sighed to herself.  She reached over to take Jesse’s coffee cup.  “Are you ready for some breakfast, now?” she asked. 
Jesse’s thought
s returned to the reality of the present
,
and replied, "A couple of eggs would be nice.” 

“I don’t know what they stocked in the fridge, but I’ll go look.  Another cup of coffee?”

“Sure.  You make a good cup of coffee.  Need any help?”

Katie got up and opened the cabin door, “No.  You just stay
out
here and take in the scenery.”

The
brochure for the camp had said that the
refrigerator
for each cabin
was
to be
well stocked with sup
plies for the next two weeks. The problem would be that the supplies were for one person
.  Jess
e’s supplies were probably burned
up in the fire.  And as she opened the door
and no light came on
, she remembered that the electricity was off.  Everything in the fridge would go bad soon
if it hadn’t already
.
Upon further examination, she found that there was very little actually in the refrigerator.
Why wasn’t it stocked like the brochure said?
This wasn’t good.  Perhaps there would be enough canned goods at the store in the lodge to do the entire vacation for them.

Katie went outside and explained their dilemma to Jesse. 
He told her that he just didn’t feel right about the condition of the place.
They decided to head over to what was left of Jesse’s cabin to see if anything
there
was salvageable.  “Come on, girl.  Let’s take a walk.” Jesse said to the sleeping dog.   Sadie got up and ran ahead of them but was never out of sight. 
Katie had trained her well.

When they arrived
at the
burned
cabin
, there wasn’t much left.  Even the chimney was gone
–
exploded from
the direct hit from the li
ghtning.  The refrigerator was blackened as it
stood in the corner.  As Jesse went to open it, it was still warm
to the touch
.  Inside though was somewhat cool.  None of the food
that was left
had been cooked, at least.  They
gathered up what was
salvageable
and
carried it back to Katie’s cabin. 
Katie
recommended
they
cook what would spoil the quickest.

As Katie started to prepare what she could cook, Jesse checked the cupboards in the cabin and suggested, “With what we have here to cook and with the canned goods in the cupboards, we should be ok. 
We can catch some fish to fill in. After all
,
we came
here
to
catch
fish.”

The rest of the day they cleaned up around the cabin
. Late in the afternoon, they
took a walk to see what else Heaven had to offer.  They walked to the dock.  Surely there was a boat to use.  They checked all around but
found
nothing.  Then they noticed
a shed a ways down the beach.  When they got close
r, they realized that it was the
fish cleaning shed.  The smell and the flies made it oh so obvious.  Jesse told Katie that they probably should leave this place alone.  The smell probably attracted bears.

“Bears!” Katie exclaimed.  Then
, she
calmly said, “Oh right, this is Alaska.  They have bears here.
”
She looked to Jesse with a worried look.
“You
don’t think they will be a problem
,
do you?”

“Probably not," Jesse told her reassuringly.
But he, himself was not so sure.
He had remembered that Smith had told them that the staff would arrive yesterday afternoon.  They hadn’t seen or heard anyone.  Jesse doubted that they had come.
He thought he should check out the lodge later to see if there was a
gun they could keep handy. But he didn’t even know if he could shoot anything.   “If there was a bear threat, Smith would have warned us,” he told Katie, but wa
s just as much trying to lessen
his own anxiety
. “Where is Sadie?”

“Sadie, come,” Katie shouted, a little nervous after the bear talk.  Sadie came bounding from behind the shed and sat beside Katie waiting for her next command. “Heal, girl.”

They started to walk back toward th
e dock, when all of a sudden
three deer ran across the path in front of them. 
Sadie looked but stayed with Katie.  “She is a good dog, isn’t she?” Jesse asked with admiration.

“She’s the best,” Katie said with pride.

Jesse took Katie’s hand as they turned the path back to the cabin.  This was the first sign of affection
b
etween them
since they had watched the sunrise t
hat morning.  Katie’s heart soared
with his touch. She turned to him and smiled. 
Jesse smiled back, and then said, “Race you back!” 
He started to run and hadn’t gotten very far when he trip
ped and fell into a mud puddle.
  He was laughing hysterically when Katie got to him.  He reached up and pulled her into the puddle with him.  He drew her into his arms and they kissed.

Sadie came running to them, wanting some puddle action too.  In a matter of seconds, they were all covered with mud.  Katie and Jesse sat in the middle of the puddle with Sadie between them.  What fun. Neither of them had
experienced
just fun for such a long time. I
t didn’t matter that they were mud from head to toe.

The clouds were gathering again.  It looked like
there would be
more rain soon.  “Better get back. We might get wet,” Jesse said as he gave a laugh.  He helped her up and they
quickly
walked back to the cabin.

As they arrived
, it
was getting dark due to the end of the day and the fact that rain clouds had blanketed the area.  Katie lit the lantern and Jesse started a fire in the fireplace.  Both were wet and getting cold.  But Sadie was to be taken care of first. 
Katie found a towel. She rubbed Sadie all over until she was dried off.
The dog was still pretty dirty
, but at least she was dry and wouldn’t get cold.

Katie
said she was going into the bath
room to change and to dry off.  She closed the door behind her.  Yes, they had made love the night before, but it had
been dark
, and neither one could say they saw the other naked.  Katie, at l
east, was a little self-
conscious about letting Jesse see her.  Jesse took the opportunity to change in the main room. “Don’t come out yet, he yelled to Katie in the other room.  It didn’t take him long.  “OK, Katie.  Coast is clear.”

As Katie came out of the bathroom
,
she said,
“I’m sorry about that just now.  I’m just not comfortable with us seeing each other without clothes on.  We really d
on’t know each other yet
.”

“You’re right,” Jesse agreed. “I
guess I
felt the same way.  Strange though, we are grown up
people feeling so weird about being naked
.”

“I must say that y
ou look so much better
without being encrusted in mud
,” he told Katie as she came into the light.

“I feel a w
hole lot
better
, t
hank you
.  Are you warm enough?” she asked caringly.

“I’m f
ine.  What would you like to eat?” 
He
asked
while
looking in the cupboard.

“If you’re cooking,
I’ll eat just about anything,”
Inside Katie had a
“fan
”
moment thinking “
Are you kidding, Jesse Danvers cooking for me?  I’ll eat dirt if
he makes
it!”

While Jesse was making their dinner, Katie gathered their wet clothes
up and left them in a pile beside the door.
“I’ll hang these
outside tomorrow,” she said.

Katie made Sadie’s food before
she and Jesse began
their evening meal.  The conversation led them to the events of the day and how tomorrow they should check out the lodge a little better.  They especially needed
to see what food was there.
Jesse still thought they should look for a gun.
The fact that there seemed to be no staff worried him, but for now he wouldn’t say anything to Katie.
Fishing would have to wait, for now.

As bedtime came around, Jesse
made a fire in the fireplace to take off the chill.  He
took the lantern
and set it by the bed.  After taking off his boots, he
climbed into bed with his
dry
clothes on.  He asked Katie to come lay with him.  She got
into bed and curled up
in
his arms.  Jesse turned the light off, and kissed her on the forehead.  They went to sleep in each other arms.  Sad
ie was asleep beside the bed.  Outside, i
t began to rain softly.

BEAR

The
next
morning started off very
raucously
. Outside the cabin door came a great bang as the garbage can was thrown against the side of the cabin.  Sadie star
ted barking frantically just before t
here was a roar just on the
other side of the
cabin
door.  Katie tried to make Sadie be quiet, but even holding her mouth shut didn’t stop her
from trying
to bark.  Jesse slid the
table in front of the door before looking
out the window.  There,
on the porch,
just feet from the door was not a black bear as he had expected, but a huge grizzly bear.
It was lighter in color than any other grizzly that Jesse had seen
– she was a light blonde
.
From the look of all the debris all over the
porch and the
ground, the garbage can had not been emptied in weeks, and the bear was fea
sting on the rotten food lying eve
rywhere.

Jesse had learned somewhere that if you start yelling at a bear, it will go away.  It was worth a try.  
“Start yelling ‘
Go away,
bear’ as loud as you can,” h
e told Katie.

“What?  Are you nuts? Th
en it will know we’re in here!”
Katie whispered to Jesse.

“Believe
me;
she already knows we’re in here.  If we
make enough noise, she might decide we aren’t
worth the
aggravation.  Hopefully she’ll go away.”

They both
began to yell, and Katie let Sadie
bark.  It worked.  Jesse looked out the window to see the big bear running down the path toward the lodge.

They high-fived each other and reached down to pat
Sadie.  “There ya go.
” Jesse said rather pleased with himself.

Do you suppose she’ll be back?” Katie asked.

Jesse responded, “We have to clean that mess up outside, and then get the garbage can far from the cabin.  If there is no smell of food, I don’t think she’ll come back here.  But we have to keep Sadie close by.  A bear like that could really hurt or even kill her.”  Jesse had become almost as fond of her dog as he had of Katie.

“Jesse, shouldn’t we go and get some staff to clean this up?  And we should tell them about your cabin.” Katie nonchalantly commented.

“Haven’t you noticed that we have seen
no one? 
Smith told us that the staff was coming shortly after we arrived. I just figured they were
at the bunkhouse
after the storm
.
” He had become very concerned with their safety.
“
Katie, I’m afraid we are alone and on our own here in Heaven.”
Jesse waited.  He thought maybe Katie would panic.  Instead she calmly got a garbage bag from beneath the sink and went outside.

Jesse followed her outside.  She turned to Jesse and said, “I came here for the wilderness experience, so I imagine we can survive quite well for the next two weeks.  We’ll just have to be careful.  If there is real trouble, we have the radio to call for help.”

“OK then, let’s get this mess cleaned up.” Jesse was getting more irritated at the situati
on they had found themselves in, but he was impressed with Katie’s
level-headedness
.
He thought that maybe
she
was right and they would be fine.