Chapter 4

CHAPTER 4 Jackson fought tears and tried to steady his heart. It was beating so hard he could hear it pounding in his ears. Boom! Boom! Boom! Mom must have heard it, too. "Hey," she said, gripping his shoulders. "We're going to be all right."

Jackson wanted to believe Mom. But how would they be all right? Without their cabin they'd freeze. Without their food they'd starve. And what if the winter bear came back? Jackson stared at the burning cabin, as if the answer might appear through the flames and smoke. "You know what we have to do," Mom said in a low voice. "We have to get to work." Get to work. That was a Barrett family saying, almost like a prayer. It was what they said when something bad happened, when all you wanted to do was curl into a ball and give up. It meant, Get a grip on yourself. Stop whining. Get busy staying alive. Like that day last winter when Jackson was out rabbit hunting on his own. He'd been about a mile from the cabin when suddenly the sky got dark. Gray clouds cracked open. Snow poured down in thick sheets. Jackson couldn't see two inches

ahead of him. There was no way he'd make it home. Jackson was so scared he couldn't think straight. He'd run through the trees, slipped, and then bam! Down he went, hard, onto his back. He'd struggled to his feet, then stomped around blindly until he tripped again. Bam! This time he fell flat on his face. He bit his tongue so hard his mouth filled with blood. He lay there as the snow poured down. I'm done, he'd thought. Dad once told Jackson that there were a thousand ways to die in Alaska. He'd meant it as a kind of joke. There definitely weren't one thousand. Probably more like fifty. And freezing to death in a blizzard had to be in the top five. Blinded by snow, people roamed around and around in circles until they were too exhausted to take another step. Finally, they dropped to the ground and gave up. Their bodies disappeared under a blanket of snow until the spring, when the

wolves and vultures found them… and picked their bones clean. Jackson had imagined his own shining bones. That's going to be me! he'd thought. And then a voice had whispered through his mind. Get to work! And then louder… Get to work! His mind suddenly cleared. He'd stood up and slipped off his beat-up army backpack, which was packed with emergency supplies. A compass and flashlight in case he got lost. Emergency matches for building a fire. Moose jerky and dried blueberries for energy. A whistle to scare away threatening animals. A rope to lower himself down from cliffs. And a shovel… in case he ever got caught in a blizzard. Jackson had used the shovel to dig himself a big hole under a spruce tree. When the hole was good and deep, he'd climbed inside. He'd tugged his

parka hood over his head and pulled his knees to his chest. Huddled in his little snow cave, he'd stayed surprisingly warm and dry. After two hours, the snow stopped. Jackson would never forget the looks on Mom's and Dad's faces when he walked through the cabin door, how quickly their worry turned to pride. That was the moment Jackson knew he was tough. Alaska tough. And right now, as the hissing fire destroyed their cabin, Jackson dug deep for that feeling again. Yes, it was freezing cold. Overnight it would get even colder. The winter bear was still out there. That's why he couldn't waste time standing around whimpering. Jackson took a big breath and stood taller. "Okay," he said to Mom. "Let's get to work."