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by Dianne Kochenburg

The next morning Sidney was thinking about their food supplies. First she unpacked everything and set it all on the counters and tried to sort the eclectic batch of canned goods and other things into food groups. That tickled her. Canned food groups. What a concept.  Then it occurred to her to pull everything else out of the cupboards and do one big inventory, so by the time she’d drug out all the food they had, she had created a big mess in the kitchen. Even she was surprised by the amount of food they now had on hand.

She looked up from her project as Matt joined her. He’d been in the cellar where he had been working on repairing their snow shoes, which had taken a beating the day before.

“What’s up, Sidney. This looks interesting. By the way, what’s for lunch?”

“Have I got a treat for you, Matt. How does a tuna sandwich with mayo and relish sound?”

“Yes!” he cried with delight, pumping his fist. “Love it. Can I help?”

“Well, no, I’m not quite ready to actually use any of this food yet. First I have to figure things out. I’ve decided we need a plan so we’ll know how many days this food will last us if we’re really careful.”

“Uh-huh,” Matt said, scratching his head and looking around the cluttered counter tops. “I think under normal circumstances, maybe about a couple weeks, right?”

She rolled her eyes at him. “Matt, we really gotta get organized here. Pull up a chair and sit down. I’ll pour you a cup of coffee. I need your help with this.”

“You mean we can’t eat first?”

“Oh, all right. I’ll heat some soup. We’ve got Beef Barley. How about that?”

“What about my sandwich?”

“Later.”

He groaned, took off his jacket and pulled up a chair.

“Matt, while I fix the soup, you look at the calendar and figure out how many days we’re going to be here, okay?”

“What! I have no idea how long we’ll be here. I can’t tell you that.”

“Exactly, and we’ve literally got the wolf at our door, probably as we speak,” Sidney said, trying to keep her frustration under control. “That coyote, or dog, or wolf or whatever it was is thinking we are his next meal. At least that’s what Toast thinks, and I agree with her. We’re walking lunch meat and that scares me silly.”

“I agree,” Matt said. “I’m not so sure I want to be outside these days, at least not without looking over my shoulder every ten seconds. But what does that have to do with groceries? We’ve gotta eat, right?”

“Well, sure, of course we do, but I’m thinking we should ration stuff out for as long as possible. That’s why I need you to help me figure how long that might be.”

“Uh-huh.” Matt let out a big sigh, and pulled the calendar over to his side of the table and started thumbing through the pages. “Ah, crap, Sid, I can’t believe we’re gonna be here all winter. Somebody’s gonna come looking for us before then. Or maybe some hunters will come by. Who knows, maybe this snow’ll melt and we can just walk out.”

“How far can you walk, Matt? Or a better question -- how fast can you run? Do you think you can outrun a coyote? Or whatever else might be prowling around here?”

“Oh, I get it. You aren’t going to even consider walking out of here now that we’ve seen that coyote. Is that it?”

“Yeah, I guess that’s right. I don’t think we’d stand a chance trying to walk out of here, especially with all this snow. If the snow melts, well, that might be a different matter. Maybe if the snow melted, somebody might actually drive up here. And then they’d find us, hopefully in one piece and in good health.”

“You mean you wouldn’t try walking out of here even if the snow was gone?”

“Well, thirty-five miles is a long walk, Matt. I’m not sure I can walk that far in a day. Plus, there’s the cat. Would we just leave her here and walk off? I don’t think I could do that.” Sidney felt the tears welling. She turned away and stirred the soup.

“Hmm. Technically, it isn’t even winter yet. I see you’ve been marking off the days. Oh, look at that, Thanksgiving is Thursday. Hey, Sid, did we bring a turkey home with us.”

She scowled at him.

“Just kidding. Sheesh! I’m just trying to lighten things up a little. After all, look at all this food. We’re set for a while.”

“Uh-huh, and look how many weeks it is until May,” Sidney answered. “Plenty.”

Matt sighed. “Okay, what’s your plan? Hey, I got an idea, if we ate the cat we wouldn’t have to worry about her.”

Sidney threw a potholder at Matt. Then they both sat down and ate their soup, while Sidney silently fumed. She finally calmed down, took a deep breath and pointed to the calendar again.

“So, here’s my plan, I’m thinking about counting up the days until, say the end of March, to see if we can stretch what we have until then. I don’t know how many cans we have, but we should be careful of them. Like make a rule, no more than one can per day or maybe one every other day, make one can of whatever last two days. I can probably make some sort of casserole out of some of this stuff, stretch it with rice or pasta and maybe even longer. We’ve got lots of pasta and rice, not too much flour and yeast. But there are always biscuits. I can make them with soda. And we still have lots of jam.

Sidney continued, “I think we should make a run to Maggie’s and see if they have anything else we can use. I’d like to do that soon so I know just how much we need to skimp, how much to save and so forth. That way we’d really know where we stand.”

“Well, we could do that,” Mat said. “It’s not far over there. I wouldn’t mind doing that today if you like. Get it over with. Then you can reorganize the kitchen. Here’s a bargain – if we hit the Claussen cabin today, I get my sandwich for dinner tonight. Deal?”

“Okay, it’s a deal,” Sid smiled at him across the table. He looked older these days. His hair seemed a little grayer, longer too. His face looked pinched and weathered, with his glasses slipping down his nose. Well, that wasn’t new. His clothes were getting baggy. Hard to really tell though, since he always wore a couple of t-shirts with his favorite old Cal sweatshirt over the top. One thing for sure, he didn’t look like the guy who showed up every weekend during summer.

Matt was a buttoned down executive at work, and that look carried over. He’d show up on Friday nights in his Dockers and sport shirt, everything well laundered and clean cut. Sometimes he’d bring homework and sit for hours on the deck pouring over laptop spreadsheets and power point diagrams. Sidney often wondered if he ever looked up at the lovely scenery just over the top of his reading glasses.

Now he spent his mornings in the cellar brooding over the old tools and fishing gear down there. She noticed that he had cleaned the rust off of most of tools and had straightened up the work bench. There must have been 20 years worth of dust on some of that junk. It was a project he often talked about but never got around to. Matt liked to get deeply engrossed in tedious and time consuming stuff.

As she watched him, he continued, “I fixed up our snowshoes, so whenever you want to go, let’s do it. And, you’re right, it’s a good plan. If we have some idea how long we can stay here without starving, I guess that’s great.”

“You know what else I’m gonna do, Sid,” Matt said, “I’m gonna clean up that old shotgun that’s down in the cellar. I found the shells. They were up above a rafter. I just remembered that I put them there when the kids were little. Anyhow, once I get the shotgun cleaned up, I could shoot that coyote.”

He looked at Sidney, who appeared stricken. “Well, maybe I’ll just scare him away.”

“Yeah, and while you’re fooling around with that gun, don’t accidentally shoot yourself. I don’t want to be left up here all alone.”

“Ah, you wouldn’t be alone, you’d have Toast. Geez, Sid, don’t worry about so many things. You’re gonna have so many wrinkles by the time we get to town, nobody’ll recognize you.”

She gave him a look that could poison a pigeon.

“Kidding, just kidding, Sid. Come on. Everything’s going to be fine.”

Sidney wasn’t looking forward to heading over to the Claussens so quickly, but she was anxious to know just what they’d find there, if anything. She told Matt they should be thorough, look through the whole cabin, and pick up everything they thought they would need. She didn’t want to have to go back again. Breaking into cabins just didn’t feel right to her. She guessed if the shoes were on the other feet, she would understand strangers plowing into her cottage and rummaging through her personal belongings. But the whole business sickened her.

They stood out on their deck for a while watching everything that moved. Well, nothing really moved, except tree branches. Matt finally decided that the coast was clear and spurred Sidney into action. They strapped on the rebuilt snowshoes, which Sidney noted were now more stable and seemed stronger.

The Claussen cabin was as they had left it, cold and dark. Sidney headed straight to the kitchen for a complete examination. She would leave no cupboard or closet, kitchen drawer or shelf untouched. While she worked the kitchen, Matt was going to check out the cellar and then they’d both go upstairs and rummage through the bedrooms and bathroom. They’d take everything they could carry off.

Sidney had done a good job the first time through with the cupboards. There were a few odd cans of vegetables that hadn’t sounded fit to eat the first time she saw them. She wasn’t so picky now. She also cleaned out the other staples that she had ignored, some bags of beans and rice, some odd looking grains that she didn’t quite know what to do with, anything that looked edible went into her plastic bags. Then she started opening doors, looking for a pantry she might have missed the first time. The refrigerator was bare.

For the hell of it she opened the oven, perhaps hoping that some lingering aroma of fresh baked cinnamon rolls might waft her way. No smell at all. She stooped and looked into the oven. The shelves had been removed and there was a large plastic container shoved into it. Pulling it out, she realized it was rather heavy. Ah-hah. Inside was Maggie’s stash of several different kinds of flour, some yeast packets, and some seeds, which she recognized as caraway, poppy and sesame. Yum. She’d definitely take this whole container with her.

Another door led to a small half bath and laundry room. She hadn’t seen it the first trip. More goodies awaited them. Soap, tooth paste, some TP, cleaning supplies. There were even some meds in the medicine cabinet. She looked them over and helped herself to the over the counter stuff and the extra toothbrushes. She bagged it all.

Next to the washer was a tall, narrow closet, probably for brooms. Too bad they didn’t see it the first time they were here, probably could have saved Matt from having to drag the broom from the lodge, Sidney thought, as she pulled open the door. Well, what do you know, instead of brooms, she found shelves. It was the pantry she’d been looking for in the kitchen. Bottles of condiments and jars of home canned fruit, tomatoes, sauces, an pickles, an amazing collection. Maggie certainly was a busy little homemaker.

“Hey, Matt, you gotta come up here,” Sidney called at the top of the stairs. “You’re gonna love what I just found.”

“I’ll be right up,” he answered.

She heard his footsteps and saw his flashlight beam as he started back upstairs.

“Find anything interesting down there?” she asked as he came through the door.

“Nah, not much. A few tools, fishing gear, their little fishing boat, some wood stacked on one wall, no skis, nothing for winter. That’s about all. So what did you find?”

“Come look, Matt.” He followed her flashlight into the back room. She shined the light on the top shelf of the narrow closet.

Matt whistled. “Oh, yeah. That’s just what we need. Sippin’ whiskey, brandy, hey, even a couple bottles of wine. Isn’t it a little cold for wine? We better take that with us.” He grinned. “I suppose you’re gonna ration that too?”

“That’s the plan,” Sidney said.

“We have to take those jars too, see them on the lower shelf,” Sidney said as Matt began pulling down the liquor bottles.

“Uh-huh. I might have to make two trips. I found a couple tools I wanna take back with me too. Let’s pile everything by the door and see how much we can take home, see how many trips we’ll have to make. This is great, Sidney, just like Wal-Mart, huh?” He grinned at her. Things were definitely looking up.

They piled all the loot by the door and then headed upstairs for a quick look see. The first bedroom they looked in was small, crowded with two twin beds with what looked like a TV table between them. Reading lamps hung from the wall over each bed. No other furniture, nothing in the closet. In the second, larger bedroom Sidney found a stack of magazines and some old paperbacks on a nightstand, which she quickly grabbed up. They found a few more toiletries on the dresser that they tossed into plastic bags. Last thing was the closet. Matt flung it open and they trained the flashlight inside it. Not much there, extra bedding, a couple of old coats and other clothes, a few pair of worn looking shoes.

“What’s that up there?” Sidney asked, pointing her flashlight to the shelf above the clothes rod. Matt reached up and pulled it down. It was a clear plastic bag that held a pair of slippers, brand new fur lined slippers. Sidney squealed with delight as Matt handed them to her.

“Oh, I hope they fit, Matt. I’d love to have a pair of new slippers.”

“Take them. We’ll buy Maggie a new pair when this is over.”

“Let’s go, Matt. We’ve got a lot of stuff now.”

“Okay, but I want to check out the living room. Remember, you said we should look at everything.”

“What else do we need, Matt?”

“I don’t know. But I’ll keep looking while we’re here.”

Downstairs again, their pile was growing. It looked like an early Christmas, thanks to the Claussens. “We’re gonna owe them big time. I hope they’ll forgive us for what we’ve taken.”

“Oh, sure they will, most of this stuff is easy to replace, just food and booze, bathroom stuff. No problem.”

“And slippers. Don’t forget slippers.”

“Boy, they’ve sure got a nice TV,” Matt said, flashing his light on their big screen job that sat in the corner.

“No, Matt. We gotta draw the line at stealing TVs. That’s not necessary.” Sidney was getting impatient. They had enough stuff.

“But wait, they’ve got a DVD player too. I think I’ll take that, and would ya look at all those movies. “His flashlight bounced off the TV stand shelf, which was filled with DVDs. Let’s take them too. We could sure use some entertainment in the evening. Remember, Sid, winter is coming, those long winter nights cooped up in our little place. Come on, that DVD player would come in really handy. One per night, your choice.”

“Oh, all right. We’ll come back and get it after we get these groceries home. You’re such a kid. If that will please you, let’s do it. We can add a DVD player to the growing list of things we owe the Claussens.”

They made two successful, uneventful, trips back and forth between houses. Matt dismantled the DVD player and with Sidney’s help they loaded up dozens of movies to go along with their new toy. And he was right, they would have plenty of time on their hands if things played out the way she envisioned it. Long, cold days and nights with nothing to do but slowly eat up their rationed food, while they tried to keep themselves and their cottage safe from all the elements lurking around Goose Lake in the dead of winter.

Go to Day 30

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