Daniel Von Holten

Walker

Jim drank the last of his breakfast Guinness as he walked over the ice. There were only two hours of daylight this time of year and he planned to watch the sunrise from his favorite bluff. Those pussies in Anchorage don’t know how good they’ve got it. The money was good though; was good. He saved enough to say he won, but he wasn’t ready to head back to the lower forty-eight. Spent most of his last pay on booze and women and the next morning was left with a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue and a tumbler from the bar. That was when he came up with his plan to hike to his bluff and drink it neat from sunup to sundown. Tumbler in his pocket and Johnny between his coats, he hiked four miles of tundra.

The cold couldn’t touch him; he was wrapped in arctic layers and alcohol. The Aurora glittered off the ice and snow. The world was one big disco ball and Jim stopped for a minute to do the robot.

On his bluff, Jim pulled back the flap that covered the watch face strapped to his coat. He had half an hour; Dawn fondled Aurora and Jim thought the light show was the sexiest damn thing he’d ever seen.

He brushed some snow off a boulder and gently set Johnny down in the surviving powder. He pulled off his outer gloves and mask and brushed the ice from his hood. Hell, it was going to warm up in a few minutes anyway. He pulled the tumbler from his coat pocket, shook out a paperclip and blew away lint. For good measure, he washed it with snow. The girls in the sky were really gettin’ into it.

Fine whiskey under a sky like this, he might never get to do this sort of thing again. Since the girls had already started, Jim opened Johnny and poured a drink that steamed in the still air. He lifted the glass in a cross between a toast and a prayer before tasting the best damn whiskey in the world. He noticed the wolf between his third and fourth sip.

It was alone, injured and just a sorry lookin’ excuse for a noble animal. There were no trees on the bluff or anywhere for over a mile; this one was on its own. People say wolves wander away on their own do die; he always wondered if that was why the Eskimos shoved off their old folks. It sat in the snow a stride away, looking for the sunrise over the ocean. They sat in silence for a moment and Jim finished his glass. He poured a second.

“Rekon you and I got something in common. See if you like this.” Jim sat in the snow and set the glass as close as he could to the wolf.

Curiosity made the wolf pull itself to the glass and it tasted the whiskey. Then it began to lap at it gently. Jim took a pull from the bottle. “Damn fine place to die, but may as well have a drink or two while you wait. I won’t bug ya.”

Jim drank from the bottle and refilled the glass once before the sun came up. They both let out a sigh and Jim raised the bottle to the sun as Dawn and Aurora ran off to play on the other side of the world. Jim and the wolf gradually moved closer as the sun pulled itself from the ocean. Jim was already getting warmer, so he took off his outer coat and set it over the scrawny wolf.

“No reason you should be cold either.”

Jim felt the sun wrap arms around him. He took the last swig of Johnny and he stretched out to bath in the light. Aurora and Dawn danced behind his eyelids.