The Sacrament by Peter Gzowski: Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Tuesday, [May] 15
7:45 A.M.
Cindy, the Lord has given us another beautiful day again today. The birds are singing. The sun is shining and I feel great. I am getting stronger and I hope to be home in time for our anniversary on the Sat. 27 or at least contacted you by then. My love for you has grown to such strength that there is no way to put words to it any more. It is a feeling of warmth, strength, and fearfulness that fills up inside of me...I sure hope the kids don't pick on Geoff while I'm gone because I know there will always be someone telling him that I'm dead while I'm far from it, so don't you worry cause all I have to do is just get a little strength back and wait for a little more snow to melt before we walk out of here. I'm going to cut some meat now for breakfast. It's 10 now. Donna has an awful swollen foot and has lost the feeling in three toes. She is massaging her foot in the sun. I just had a talk with God, and asked him to give me courage in the approaching days. My legs are strengthening steady and I hope to walk to the top of the hill soon to pick the best direction to go. We have been drying flat thin pieces of your dad in the sun to use for food on the way out. It would sure be a lot simpler if a plane would see us. The only reason Donna and I are still alive is because of yours and God's love keeping us going. How is Dad taking it all? Tell him that I'll be okay and make him believe you. We have got to spend a lot more time loving one another when I get back. I want to make you the happiest person I possibly can. When I get there I should be able to lay that carpet. 
...Donna is starting to miss her dad so I tell her that she has to keep her strength up to help her mom. She wants to take over where your dad left off with KFC stores. She could probably handle of couple of them given a little experience...Please be strong while I'm gone because I'll be able to be strong for us when I get back. I was lucky to get out of the crash alive and it was only God who saved me from bleeding to death...If only we weren't so weak we could start out earlier. But we will have to trust God to keep you people safe which I know He will.
They had been ten days on the mountain now, and their days had fallen into a pattern. The routing began well before dawn, when they would awake from their troubles sleep, cold and stiff and wait, together, to see what the light would bring. This was the worst time. Brent, checking the luminous dial on his watch, would give intermittent announcements of the crawling time, and sometimes they would play games to see how long they could go without consulting his watch. They would wait for what they guessed to be half an hour, and then one of them would say, "Now, it must be five-thirty," or six, or whatever, but it almost never would be.
The sun rose at seven. First, its cold rays would illuminate the wall of mountain that reached up from behind the tail, its warmth creeping into the hillside Norm had walked down. They were quite certain now that they would not see Norm again, and they didn't talk about him.
When the sun's rays hit the white paint of the wings above their heads, they would start to move. First Donna. She would crawl through one of the doors to test the feeling of her toes - there was still none - and the hardness of the snow's surface.
The snow was melting. The sun was warm now, as if the spring they had sensed coming to the prairies had reached down to find them on the mountainside. Donna could feel it as she made her morning excursion to the outside, and she could measure the receding of the snow by its level on the plane's fuselage. At first she was able to make her way on top of the snowbanks and slide onto the tail assembly, but by the middle of the second week, she had to climb to the tail, and pull herself onto its surface. She would sit with her knees drawn up on her chin, rubbing her numb feet and imagining herself back at the family cottage with no cares on her mind. She would drift into a mindless reverie. She could feel the sun baking through her clothes, and as the day moved toward noon she would begin to remove the outer layes.
Brent, too, was able now to move from the plane; further effort was beyond him. By noon the sun was almost unfomfortably hot, and they would let themselves soak up the warmth; when sweat ran down their foreheads they would brush it off with a finger and lick the salty moisture.
There were some occasional and frightening turns in the weather. On the second Tuesday, just before dark, a sudden wind blew over the canyon and came rushing down on the plane, as powerful and terrifying as the storm that helped to blow the Cessna out of the sky. First, the sky grew quickly dark. A gust blew through a piece of carpeting out of the windshield. Snow started to ride in the currents. Brent was too weak to move. Donna climbed up on the nose of the plane and tried to stuff the carpeting back in the gaping windshield. She could see the mountaintops around them disappear into the darkening cloud. The wind snarled and whistled, and the plane shook, and they had visions of it being torn from its icy moorings and hurled down through the boulders and the trees below. They huddled together inside, afraid to leave for fear that the wind would sweep up the plane like Dorothy's house in The Wizard of Oz and leave them there without shelter. Theer was nothing they could do. They waited in the plane and prayed. The wind stopped as suddenly as it had begun. In half an hour, the sky was clear again. They were sure it was a sign from God. In the silence of the wind's wake, they thanked Him.
Their physical condition continued to imporve. Brent regained some use of his left arm, which hung from the damaged shoulder. His legs were losing their shaky feeling. Donna's wrist still ached but she was able to use her hand. As disabling as the pain now was their weakness. They couldn't do anything.
From time to time they would see small animals - squirrely mostly, but once a rabbit - moving furtively through the snow. Brent removed a wire from the Cessna's engine and fasioned a snare. It was hopeless. He was too clumsy to mvoe to where they'd seen the animals. None of the dead vegetation was springy enough for him to fashion a trap. He thought about making a slingshot, but there was no elastic. He considered Donna's bra! That would be one for Smokey the Bear, he said. Hi kids, I'm Smokey and I have a tip for you if you're lost in the woods with your girlfriend...No, he couldn't.
Steadily they worked on improving the quality of their life inside the cabin. They cleaned up as much as they could of the debris from the crash, picking out the largest sheets of glass to shove back into the fron windshield. By arranging pieces of the carpet, like wild birds scavenging for material for a nest, they managed to make the cabin almost airtight, and when the sun fell in the early evenings, they crawled back inside to behin the endless wait through the night. Each evening, though, they enumerated whatever blessings they could find in the day that had just passed: the good weather, the ability to write the diary, the return of what, compared to their condition the week before, now seemed to them like good health.
Thursday, [May] 17
8:30 A.M.
I walked to the top of the mountain this morning and have picked a path which we are going to walk out on. It couldn't be a better morning. No winds. The sun is shining. Birds are singing. God has done it again. I've decided to sell my old truck & give up working on it and set hunting aside for this year so that during the summer I can spend more time & take the kids to Regina in the fall. Donna says that her mom will let us use the trailer & van for the holidy I have planned for the end of June. We would 1st of all take off to Waskesiu up by P.A. Spend a couple of days there, then we would move west to Banff where we could use about 2-3 days in that area shopping at Calgary & Edmonton, Red Deer, etc. When we get tired of that we'll move down thru Osoyoos & the Okanagan Valleys & Harrison Hot Springs & have fresh fruit salad and soak up some sun in the mountain parks. From there we could go out to Vancouver, where we would pick Donna and your mom up & spend time with more shopping in Vancouver & Victoria. We could see Bouchart Gardens & Enchanted House and all of those things. Your mom can visit with relatives there...On our way back we'll take the opposite route we came in on...Back through Fort McMurray and that whole route that you & I ran away on. I have been getting such bad heartburn over the last few days taht I lit a fire over some trees close by and cooked everything before I ate it. I hope it is going to help because I had to sleep sitting up all last night. I am going to lay down now for a few minutes so I will see you later.
Brent's casual reference to lighting a fire - almost an afterthought in a day whose highlight had been the walk to the top of the mountain - gave no indication of the exultation they had felt when they first saw its flames. They had been without fire for a week. There had been no fuel. Now, on their second Thursday, they had accomplished two chores. Brent had been able to pick up enough twigs and sticks to make a small pile outside the plane. And Donna, working away with the coat hanger, had induced enough gasoline from under the wing to soak a rag. Laying the rag on their kindling, Brent flicked his Bic lighter...and flicked it and flicked it, until a tiny spark seemed to catch the rag, and then he had blown with all the breath he could push through his aching mouth until it burst into light. Through the day they had fed the fire with all the wood that was small enough to move.
Brent's spare prose belied the agony of his walk up the mountain too. From the nose of the dead plane to the summit of the hill into which they had crashed was no more than 200 feet, rising at an angle of forty-five degrees. It had taken him an hour and a half to make the journey, scrambling, crawling, moving through the snow on his knees. Ever few minutes he had to stop to catch his breath and rest his muscles. All the way up, he was unable to keep himself from imagining what he might see on the other side: a town, the smoke of furnaces, perhaps the glitter of a restaurant. Or a highway? With cars and trucks zooming back and forth on the routing errands of civilization. He could just roll down there and raise his arm for help, and they would come to him, and warm him and feed him. No, he'd tell them, he could wait to eat. They had to go back and get his sister-in-law, who was alive too, who had survived these twelve days only by her own courage and her faith in God. Yes, he would wait for her, and while he was waiting he would place a call to Cindy. How casual he would be! "Hello there. Sorry I couldn't call earlier but there was no phone where we were. Donna? Sure, Donna's all right. They've just gone to get her in a nice warm helicopter." And then he would eat. Let's see now, what would he have first? Maybe just a glass of milk. Good cold milk, with little bubbles on the top of the glass. Yes, that's what he'd have first, just savouring it and impressing everyone with how calm he was. Will you look at that? Nearly two weeks he's been without food and he's so calm. Let's give him a nice bed, with flannel sheets and a thick warm comforter. When we get the girl back here they can eat together. His wife says she'll be right here. She's chartered a jet. Now, all he had to do was move his leg a little higher, and get hold of that little Christmas tree with his good arm and he could heave himself up to...
The summit was both exhilarating and heart-breaking. To the west he could see what looked like a distant meadow, flat and green amid the grey and white of the mountains. The rest was wilderness. No town, no highway, no buildings. No sign that man had ever reached this land. But this had to be the way out. Not down the valley, where Norm ahd gone, but out from here, along the ridge he was standing on now, and then down and into the forest that started below. Something told him this was the way. He knew it. Kneeling, he asked God for a sign, but all he could feel was the certainty they'd make it. The certainty came over him with a tingly feeling. He could feel it move through his legs and up into his mind. That was it - the sign. To the west he saw clouds hanging over small V-shaped gaps in the mountains, and as he stared at them he knew, just knew, that they were put there for some reason, like a huge, supernatural traffic beacon. He got up here once and he could do it again. They would walk toward the clouds.
Friday [May] 18/79
1 P.M.
I feel real good. We are both in real good spirits. I am going to try to call you for our anniversary or, better, be home. Cindy, you are going to notice me a changed person to the better when I get home. I want to spend time with my family. Always, listen to the kids. Read them [stories[, play games with them in the yard, read them to sleep at night. You & me & them are going to get up in the mornings and have breakfast. I'll pick Geoff up at noon. I want to learn how to cook. I'm even going to help you with the dishes. My heart is so full of joy to do all the simple things I have always missed. We've gotta get Geoff's pool up & try out that new boat, we have got to have every last relative & friend from town over to a big barbecue & everyone has to bring a small something that they made themselves. I have found God in my heart, Cindy, & He is here to stay. I'm going to talk to our preacher when we get back & also your priest and between the 2 I'm going to pick a church & we are going to go as many Sundays as possible and there will have to be a good reason why not. Maybe you were right when you said a person can find God at any time. He kept me alive while all the blood ran out my neck. I think I had given myself up as dead, but no, He has turned my around, made me feel better, put fight back into my limbs, He has me on the road to recovery, then I get upset because it takes a while. He then gives me hope & inner peace so that I may stay until I am strong. He took the clouds full of snow away from the mountains and now is bathing them in sunshine. This is the same God who was able to stop me from drikning. This person I now choose to lead my life for me and I will follow to the best of my understanding. My family & I shall reap the benefits. You don't konw how I can hardly wit to sleep with Geoff in the tent this summer. We'll get a new one & we'll all sleep out there. I want to be able to get up at 7:00 in the morning, go out to the patio, and have a nice breakfast for the 4 of us. If it's too cold, 1st thing, I'll go down to work then & come home when you people are ready even it is 9 or 10 o'clock. We are just going to have the greatest life together from now on. I have a fantastic idea for a roast. I want to try to barbecue. I want to take a piece of ham (round 3-4") boneless about a foot long. This piece you inject a real & strong orange sauce. And cook it till it's just about done. Around the outer edge put a glaze sauce & add here crushed pineapple. Next you'll need a piece of boneless 1 1/2" thick steak to wrap the ham. Again you wipe the outside of the steak with pineapple sace. You now tie it all up in a round loke. (Note pre-cook steak in boiling sauce.) Insert your spit with tookthpicks you hold half cherries to the outside of the log. A sauce for the otside galze could be made of orange, cherry and pineapple, much like [Shirley] Temple. With use of meat thermometer you can tell when inside is really warm. Just put on spit and let cook. Side dishes should include fresh pineapple & fruits. Tall glasses of fruity drinks with green leaves at top. Corn on the cob with main meal. Small serving fresh salad. Long French bread & bread sticks. For dessert: strawberry shortcake & for the kids popsicles made in layers of pineapple, orange, cherry and lime flavours. Donna said that she would get us a case of hamburgers from one of the stores if at all possible. She hasn't figured out how to write it off. We are getting a little cold now because it is six here. We are going to have to go to bed now until about 7 or 8 in the morning when it is warm enough to go back outside. Neither of us sleep much & my heartburn is always bad. See you in the morning.
On Friday the whiskey-jack came. About the size of a pigeon, with a black head and a grey body, it first perched on the thin branch of the tree the plane had struck and just sat staring at them. It flew to another tree, then hopped to the ground. Donna called to it. Back to a branch it flew, unafraid. Brent looked around for a rock small enough to throw.
"Don't."
"I can get it. It's big enough to eat."
"Just don't."
"You don't want it?"
"It's some kind of sign. Look. It's trying to tell us something."
"I'd rather eat it."
"Maybe it knows the way out of here."
"Don't be stupid. It's a bird."
"Maybe it's a sign."
"A guide?"
"Just a...I don't know. Something live to follow."
"Come on, Donna."
"I really thinkg it's come to tell us something."
"We'll see."
Brent stopped looking for a rock.