(COLD/Posting #14). Ewald tries to fine-tune his approach to survival, then is confronted with an obstacle of the highest order-'a frozen river crossing.' (<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076VBJB62>)

Buy COLD now, or await the finalé––posting #16)<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076VBJB6>.

(COLD/Posting #14)

I pulled my head back in and worked for a few minutes to replenish my little fire. As I used up the last of the dry starter fuel I must admit I felt some panic. How would I get my next fire going? That problem had to be solved the very next day.

I was exhausted from dealing with the man. I hoped there weren't other tribal hunters up ahead. I’d be an easy mark for them now. If I continued to feel this way – too moody – they’d get me without much of an effort.

Was it only a month that I'd been away from Nanra? How many days? I had a sudden thirst to know exactly. But since I had dropped the count there was no precise number available. If I had just kept cutting notches in the stick, one per day, I would have known such things. But keeping track of days had become annoying, just as the counting of dumplings had been. And what did it really matter how long I’d been walking? More than three weeks had to be accurate enough. It was snowing again, lightly, and that made me think again of the old man. Soon he’d be just another snow-mound-of-the-dead that littered the landscape. It was clear to me that without some lucky break – either food source or dry brush as fire-starter – I would soon be joining him.

Half-heartedly, I drilled a few holes in and around my new campsite, trying to strike an edible root. Nothing. I would need to remind myself to drill a hole several times each hour as I walked. Finding food under the frozen snow was no easy game, but I had to keep trying or I would starve. And without gathering up new fire starter I'd be freezing soon. So I didn't delude myself. As Nanra's husband-in-heart, and a father-to-be, I had to succeed at both things. Cold and nourishment were connected together, because without food my body would drop several degrees colder. Food gave me the inner heat; fire kept my outer warmth maintained while I slept. So I kept alert for some source of dry brush. For that, I checked the lower branches of the birches, scooping snow out of the way, shaking branches in searching for pockets of dry wood.

I reviewed the landscape with a keener eye, a crisper vision, letting my mind focus even more deeply on the pressing needs. Suddenly , examining some birch bark, my stupidity was revealed. There was my fire-starter all along! Birch bark! I tugged at the bark and it ripped off all around the thin trunk, revealing a dry, bushy undergrowth. I had been surrounded by fire- starter for days, every tree I passed offering its bounty! But I’d been totally blind to what was offered! The expression of not seeing the forest for the trees came to mind. I had been blinded by my emotions. I had discounted the trees because they were so numerous, surrounding me. Part of my brain was programmed to look toward the future for help and assistance, not at my very own feet, here in the present. I would try to imprint this lesson on my psyche so I'd be smarter about things the next time.

I pulled off enough birch bark for the coming night and moved on. A kilometer or so ahead I drilled for turnip roots again. No luck. But I promised myself not to get depressed if I didn't hit anything in the first few attempts. Mainly I kept my feet moving, and switched my attention to the far reaches, checking ahead more carefully for wolves. I hadn't seen any for days...Where were they? I made some good progress – felt good about that – and could feel the horrors of killing a man start to recede. They were being replaced with my continued need to survive.

Around noon, with the sun up high above me, I drilled again near a few trees and hit the jackpot – turnip roots! Discovering this food source was a huge relief. I packed up the roots as soon as the drill brought up the pieces, filling all my pockets and pack until I felt secure. Too much weight could be a problem, so I now had to be aware of overloading. I got a lot of root, but not too much. Everything about survival had to do with balance, I reminded myself.

I reviewed all the practices of my hiking life. Some heat was good, but too much could make me sweat and then I'd be more frozen than before. Too much food could make me stagnant and slow my movement. And too much confidence could blind me to the dangers. Where were the wolves? I needed to be a little off-balance and hungry to be an effective traveler.

How many kilometers left to go? For sure over 4000. That meant I needed to pace myself every hour of every day. How else had I survived the camp and the war before that? I had been well educated in military school, given concrete rules for managing myself and my men.

But I admit I was shaken when I reached the shore of a river that afternoon.

An icy, rushing river cascaded by, and another prediction from Nanra proved accurate and timely. I would have to get wet to continue. Anyway, I was now stopped dead in my tracks. As I stared out at the floating ice shards, I felt defeated. It would be extremely difficult to make it to the other side.

I imagined the process. I would quickly strip off all my layers, stick the clothes in my pack, wade into the frigid water with the pack over my head, and pray that the river wasn't too deep to keep the bundle safe. I would cross the river – about 50 feet – then drop the pack on the opposing shore, drill my tent-hole, stick in the pole and throw a tarp over it. After crawling in, I’d start a fire. And when reasonably dry (I’d use my second shirt for that), I’d start dressing.

A lot of steps.

Too many.

It would be very dangerous, but I had no choice. I could only survive if I swam naked and then quickly dried off and re-dressed, presumably in the shelter of my tent.

The river couldn’t be allowed to end my walk home. That was completely unacceptable. My military training had taught me that every obstacle can be overcome if the commander follows certain rules:

a. Analyze the problem thoroughly.

b. Take action that favors discipline and attention to detail.

I started with an overview of the adversary. The river had a current – it would try to force me downstream. And the water was extremely cold – I had a very short period of time to cross to the other side. With hypothermia, my body would start to lose its functions within perhaps one minute or less. Could I make it across 50 feet of water in just one minute? Probably not. But maybe I could make it...in two. How long would it take to set up my tent and start a fire? Another two? What I needed to do was practice. Even though it was mid-afternoon, I decided to set up camp and see how quickly I could do three things;

1. Build my tarp-tent.

2. Start a fire.

3. Get undressed and then dressed again.

I had to decide, before jumping in, if I should be wearing my boots or not. But that wasn't an immediate issue for the practice, other than that the boots would have to come off to remove my leggings. So either way, the boots would have to come off. Did I want to waste that precious time while undressing to re-lace my boots before the wading in? I’d then have to remove them while building my tent on the opposite bank, before getting dressed again, being warmed by my fire – if I could start one with my frozen hands. Anyway, I didn't like the extra steps. As I conducted my tent set-up I counted the seconds it took to complete the task. Maybe a minute and a half. At least that portion of the process was somewhat under control.

After crawling in with my pack, I undressed as quickly as possible (boots off too...) and began to initiate a fire. I gave a few screams and hoots to keep my mental state intact – the rush of chilled air against my skin was frightening and painful. Luckily, the birch bark fuel ignited almost instantly and supplied some warmth. I then redressed with difficulty. It was hard to imagine doing it all while still half wet.

By the end of the exercise, I had worn myself out, and learned some valuable lessons about the dangers up ahead. The practice exercise of removing clothes inside the tent, lighting a fire and re-dressing, boots and all, had been a tortuous one. And it had taken me maybe an hour to return to my normal comfort level (as far as tent- living went...). I hadn’t even been wet – no frozen hands and feet from the icy water. So I hadn’t experienced even a tenth of the actual pain and suffering the river could cause. And still, I had screamed like a child.

Was I man-enough to complete this task? Was I strong enough and determined enough to cross the river and continue on home? I came to the conclusion that the success of my venture was dependent on how well I managed ‘the boots’ situation. The time it took to unlace before the plunge, then lace up after a successful crossing, was critical to my survival.

I needed at least a couple of more days, I suspected, to toughen myself up before facing the actual crossing. I slept soundly after my bare-body exposure to the elements, waking to another light snowfall. It felt a couple of degrees warmer and I took note of that. Perhaps I should only cross when snow was falling? To survive a crossing I would need everything to be at optimum level, in my favor. The process was one of mind over matter. All mental, in fact. The body could lock up on its own, give up and die, unless the mind demanded it do otherwise. I decided to give myself another two days before launching into the frigid current, 48 hours to freeze myself, building fires in -20 weather, performing tasks while naked, trying to imagine the real thing.

Since I didn't have to take my tent apart each day and travel, I suddenly had a lot more time on my hands. Located as I was, on the bank of a river, it seemed like just a fun outing, perhaps some fishing trip, minus mother, father and siblings. I remembered such camping trips with my family, but never one in the dead of winter. We camped out together only in summer, where mosquitoes were the main threat to our bliss. Here, in Siberia, next to a river of floating blocks of ice, it all seemed like a cruel joke. A strange joke, anyway. No one would have chosen this place to linger.

Still no wolves in sight. Hopefully, I wouldn't be attacked as I prepared for my river crossing. But if they suddenly did appear, I would just strip off my clothes, gather up my stuff and rush nude into the cold water, laughing about how no wolves would be dumb enough to follow. Yes, I would outsmart them by freezing myself to death!

After maybe an hour of enjoying a break from my usual daily hiking, I became jittery. It felt like I was just stalling, letting days of my life pass by for nothing. So I worked harder at my preparations. I started doing some exercises, lifting my supplies over my head repeatedly. At the same time, I monitored the sweat my physical exercise produced. Fortunately the sun was shining when I stripped off all my clothes and ran the 50 feet naked, there and back several times, the target length of my wet journey. Then, holding my pack above my head minus the tent and stick, I exposed myself for about three additional minutes of cold before ducking back inside my tent. As soon as I could, I dressed myself back up and lit a fire. I shivered for some time before I was normal again. My total recovery took probably two hours after that particular exercise

Before night fell I did one more nude-run-with-pack exercise, covering a shorter distance (just circling my tent three times), then fed the fire without any clothes on. And how about my boots? Sliding cold, wet feet into boots would be the hardest part. How much time would that take while drenched? Ten to fifteen minutes? This procedure wasn’t, as yet, part of my training regime. Again, it took me some time to recover from having my bare skin exposed to frigid air. I rubbed my arms, legs, hands, neck, trying to massage some heat back into the blood vessels. I guess that helped a little.

With my hands outstretched toward the birch bark flames, I again mentally rehearsed the crossing, making small changes based on the practice exercises. It was clear that I would have to clench my walking stick in one hand while keeping my pack aloft over my head with the other. I would probe the depth of the water as I moved forward. Everything was fine as long as the depth didn't exceed five feet. At that point, my face would be almost completely submerged.

Before releasing myself to slumber I hastily opened another of Nanra’s predictions. I hoped there was some clue to the outcome of my river crossing. Or some words of wisdom. As I separated the pieces of paper I was made cruelly aware of the loss of function in my fingers. Just exposure to the winter air had made them noticeably stiffer. Anyway, the drawing showed a man holding up a trophy, the Russian words “for us”scrawled to one side. During our two months together I had written those words out on paper and she had been taught to understand the traditional Russian spelling. And now she was serving up my own lesson. You will win...for us.

I plugged up my nostrils, opened the stink jar near the laces, and quickly dropped off to slumber.

Upon rising on my second day of riverbank living, experiencing a further day of light snowfall and lessening temperature, it dawned on me that I should consider just jumping into the water that morning, just attempt it on that moderate day. I knew the next day could be much, much worse, temperature-wise. But other questions had now presented themselves to the list.

Was I at the best point in the river for crossing?

Was the river too deep where I was encamped?

I scolded my brain for that old concern. As the morning progressed, though, with the snowfall now reduced to a light flurry, I continued to analyze the odds of going across at that particular point. It was definitely a warmer day. When the sun peeked out and brought a glow to my world of birch trees and whiteness, my spirits lifted. I felt that no time for crossing would ever be better than that exact moment. I guess I believed in omens, because just as I was reveling in the views of nature, an elk appeared across the river. He stared at me for just a split second before bounding off. I hadn't seen one large animal until that point.

The day was young, the sun was out, and from the looks of the sky it would stay out. And, strangely, there was just one little cloud in the sky. And it was hovering right above where the elk had appeared, directly above where I proposed to cross. So a clever cloud was also beckoning me forth.

More analysis. If I sat around for another 24 hours I wouldn't be any more fresh than I was now. I'd practiced some, but did I need to practice more? I didn't believe I needed to wear myself down any further before the actual crossing.

So, was it time?

(To be continued…

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COLD/Posting #15 next––the story ends at #16!

PS. Maybe purchase a copy of COLD and loan it to YOUR father. Why? (To earn me the $2 in royalties? That’s OK, but not really it). Because it’s hard FOR ME to imagine that THIS was MY FATHER IN THE STORY, the old stumbly guy who I passed in the hallway when I was a teenager, who survived this kind of Siberian ordeal.

So I wonder what YOUR father did, that’s incredible, that HE never talked about? What magic did he come in contact with, beyond the MAGIC OF LOVE with your mother that brought you into the world? He might tell you if you ask the right question, about my COLD book.<https://www.amazon.com/dp/B076VBJB62>.