There Were Giants

“There were giants in those days . . .” Gramps begins.

I sigh. Not the legend again. I’m too old for this.

He continues. “A giant was out for a stroll on a moonless night and tripped over a fallen tree. He put his hand out to catch himself and left a deep impression in the soft limestone.The handprint later filled with glacial runoff from the mountain, creating these beautiful lakes.” He shows me the five spurs on his fingers as he names them. “Thumb, Index, Middle, Ring, and Little.”

Our family has lived on the Thumb for over a hundred years, mostly during the summer. But this year, I stayed on with Gramps. Gramps said he wanted to spend his final days on the Thumb. Mom decided I needed to take care of him.

I don’t think Gramps needs taking care of. I think Mom didn’t know what to do with me. She got a good job for the post office in the town of Carter, which is about 40 miles from here. She lives in a little apartment there with two other women—no room for kids. Mom comes back to the Thumb on weekends, if the weather isn’t too stormy. 

We live in a log cabin built by my great-great-grandfather. There’s a dock 50 feet from our front porch. I fish from it almost every day, keeping only what we can eat because we don’t have a refrigerator or electricity. No phone, either, except when Mom is here with her cell.

“Off the grid,” Gramps likes to say.

I am an ice queen unjustly imprisoned on a snowy lake, with no idea as to what my crime was or why I am here.

The lake ice shifts and groans like a winter ghost haunting the powdered forest surrounding it.

“Is it always like this in the winter?”

I’m sitting next to Gramps in front of the fireplace.

“Last winter was my first,” he answers. “It was not as bad as this.”

“Did the lake freeze?”

“Not all the way across. It’s always soft in the middle. Treacherous. Stay off the ice, Marie.”

He has told me this a hundred times. I love him, but he always repeats himself. I quickly change the subject so he doesn’t tell the legend of the giant again.

“We haven’t seen Mom in eight days,” I say.

“I miss her too, but she knows better than to try to get here in this weather.” There are only three full-time residents living on the Thumb, and fewer than a dozen others on the other fingers. “I doubt Lake Road has been cleared, and even if it has, I would have to plow a mile to get to it.” 

Gramps has a snowplow on the front of his four-wheel-drive truck. He hasn’t used it for three days because school has been closed. During the week, he drops me off and picks me up on Lake Road. I’m the only student who lives on the lakes—the first to be picked up, the last to be dropped off. It’s a long, lonely bus ride.

The bright morning sun bounces off the new snow, flooding my tiny log bedroom in a blinding light. As always, the room is freezing cold. As always, I pull the blanket over my head to block the light and try to fall back asleep. As always, it doesn’t work. I am wide awake. I step into my boots, drape a blanket around my shoulders, and clomp into the great room like a rumpled queen.

The great room is a living room, dining room, kitchen, and study. Every morning, I find a roaring fire in the fireplace, Gramps sitting at the kitchen table with a steaming cup of coffee, an open book in front of him, and sizzling bacon on the woodstove.

But not this morning. No Gramps at the kitchen table. No fire burning. No smell of coffee and bacon. 

I knock on his bedroom door and call out his name. No answer. I fling the door open. He isn’t in bed. He has to be outside. The light is bright, the air is bitterly cold, and it has stopped snowing. Gramps is lying facedown in the snow with firewood scattered around him. He isn’t moving. I shake him, I call his name, I feel for a pulse. He is as still as the wood he has spilled.

I roll Gramps onto my blanket and start to pull him across the powdery snow toward the cabin. I have to get him warm, thaw him out, see if he is alive. The blanket sled works well until I reach the steps leading to the porch. There are only three of them, but I might as well be climbing a mountain. I hook him under the arms, cradle his head in my lap, and pull him up the steps an inch at a time.

Gasping with frosty breath, I finally reach the porch and drag him inside. I wrap him in every blanket I can find. A half hour later, a fire blazes in the fireplace and color floods back into his gray face, but his eyes remain closed, his breathing shallow.

I hold his hand. I talk to him.

“You had an accident. I think you’ll be OK.”

The truth is I don’t think he’ll be OK. I think he’s going to die unless I get help.

“I’m going to the Bensons’ to use their phone. I’ll be right back.”

I will not be right back. If Gramps can hear me, he knows it too. Henry and Rose Benson live directly across the lake from us. Henry is a retired fireman. To reach their house, I’ll have to walk three miles along the shore in snow up to my knees, unless . . .

I look at the wall above the stone fireplace.

My great-great-grandfather’s ancient snowshoes and wooden poles have hung over the mantelpiece for nearly a hundred years. I take them down and carry them outside. The snowshoes are as long as I am tall. They are made out of curved wood and strips of woven rawhide. I buckle them on and use the poles to get to my feet. I look across the lake.    

Once a week, Henry drives his snowmobile around the lake to check on us. Last week, he drove directly across the ice. He said it was still soft in the middle, but he was able to skip over the gap by giving the snowmobile full throttle and keeping it straight. He thought it would be solid in a few more days.

It’s starting to snow again. Feels like a blizzard is coming soon. I’m not afraid of getting lost in the whiteout. If I follow the shore, I’ll be fine. What I’m afraid of is not getting help for Gramps before the weather makes it impossible for help to arrive. It will take me at least two hours to make my way around the Thumb to the Bensons’. If I walk across the lake, I’ll be there in 20 minutes—if I don’t fall through the ice.

The ice sounds like it’s cracking beneath the powdery snow. I plant the poles in front of me before every step. I want to turn back, but I don’t. There is only one way for me, and that is forward.

The wind howls, sweeping the lake to bare ice, making it easier to judge the thickness. I glide along, but this doesn’t last. The ice begins to soften. Soon I’m walking through slush up to my ankles, but I continue on, stubbornly, foolishly, holding my breath, waiting for the cold plunge, which doesn’t come. Instead, Henry Benson on his snowmobile zooms from the mist like a superhero on ice. He throttles past as if he hasn’t seen me and comes to a sliding stop 50 feet beyond where I’m standing, in shock at his sudden appearance.

“You’re five steps from death!” he shouts. “Turn around. Walk toward my headlight. Slowly. Get on solid ice.”

I tell him about Gramps as I walk.

Henry’s on his cell phone before I reach him, talking to 911, explaining the emergency. Next, he calls his wife, Rose, and tells her what’s going on.

He pockets his phone and gives me a grin. “Rose will call your mom. Hop on. Let’s go see how your grandfather is.”        

Henry kneels next to Gramps and feels for a pulse. After an eternity, he says, “He’s alive.”

“What’s the matter with him?”

“He might have fallen and knocked his head. The doctors will figure it out. All I know is that you saved him by keeping him warm.”

A half hour later, I hear a helicopter. It lands on shore in front of the cabin. The EMTs run inside, lift Gramps onto a gurney, insert an IV, and wheel him outside. As they load him, I give Henry a hasty hug goodbye.

We lift off. I hold my grandfather’s cold hand. Soon I can see the sun shining on the five fingers far below.

I look down at Gramps. His eyes are open.

“Gramps,” I say. He looks at me. But he doesn’t say anything. I grip his hand harder.

“Gramps,” I say again, fighting tears. I swallow hard, wondering what to say.

“Did I ever tell you how these lakes came to be?” 

Gramps’s eyes clear a little bit. He gives my hand a squeeze. He smiles.

I take a breath and start talking.

“There were giants in those days . . .”