On a piece of my scrap paper I write Thank you, Melody, and carefully trace the picture of the snowshoe hare and all his different disguises. I fold this paper and slide it between the other books where she will find it.
When the laundry is dry we make up the big bed again. My socks and underwear are still warm from the dryer. I can feel them in my pack, between my shoulders.
We are only borrowing the orange plastic sled and the snow-shoes and besides all the firewood is split and the house inside is cleaner than before. Father's snowshoes are wooden and have crosses of sinew and mine are red plastic and are actually Melody's.
We walk and walk and walk. The snowshoes are kind of heavy but they make it easier and Father isn't falling through the crust anymore. He pulls his pack and a jug of water on the orange sled which smoothes the snow behind it.
"What are these orange poles?" I say. Thin, they are sticking up through the white snow.
"This is a road," Father says, "but it's closed. They don't plow it. The road is six feet beneath us and these orange poles show where it is."
Later in the afternoon we come to a long slope. Father is in back and I'm in front between his legs on the orange plastic sled. Slow at first we push with our hands and then slide racing down. The wind is cold in my face and the white snow kicks out as we shout just missing the trees at the bottom and not stopping, leaning hard and still going with the sled skidding across icy stretches.
None of the buildings in the town of Sisters are really more than one story tall. Slush splashes up from the tires of cars and pickup trucks. Standing at the post office you can see in every direction, to the four edges of the town. I stand there next to Father who is delighted since there's two checks in the post office box he set up before we left Portland. Everything is working like he planned it to work. He deposits the checks in the Wells Fargo ATM but doesn't withdraw any money since he has plenty already.
"I'm delighted," he says. "How about we find a restaurant and eat something?"
The sun is out and the sky above is blue but there's clouds resting all along the mountains. In the window next to me stand cowboy boots with flowers painted on their sides.
"Are you limping?" Father says.
"No," I say. "I'm just used to wearing those snowshoes. Do you think we should walk together? I could cross the street."
"Let's not worry about that," he says. "Not today. I'd like to walk with you."
He takes my hand. Our snowshoes and the sled and Father's big pack are all hidden at the edge of town. All we have is my small pack so we look like regular people walking down the street. No one hardly looks at us.
It's the middle of the afternoon so not many people are eating at Bronco Billy's. Some of the furniture looks like wagon wheels and the menu says it has the best hamburger in the state of Oregon. I have a grilled cheese sandwich and tomato soup. Father has a garden burger. We share a chocolate milkshake.
"I can't believe I'm warm enough to eat this," I say.
Father's got those same maps spread out on the table while we eat. His finger traces along a crease.
"Are we staying here?" I say.
"Close by," he says.
"You still have a lot of friends here?"
"Some, maybe," he says. "People move around all the time and that was years ago."
"Before I was with you."
"Exactly," he says. "And now I feel like things are really finally changing."
"Better or worse?" I say.
"Better," Father says. "Like we could get lucky for a while. I haven't felt that way in I don't know."
"Are you still mad at me about the bus?"
"I wasn't mad, Caroline. Everything is working again," he says. "Now we just need to find a place to stay for a little while."
"Inside or outside?" I say.
"Oh, my girl," he says. "My heart."
Six
Grocery shopping always makes me feel that something in the future days is promised or settled, that there will be the time and a place to eat the food we buy. At Ray's IGA in Sisters we get bread and peanut butter and packets of oatmeal. Matches and candles. Raisins. Apples and carrots.
We eat the bananas as we walk across the parking lot since it's hard to carry them without crushing them. The sun is down. It's fun to sneak out of town, separate from Father but keeping him in sight. We watch for headlights, hide behind trees.
When we get back to where we hid our things it's all still there. Our packs are on top of the snowshoes to stay dry and the sled is on top of it all with two branches from a pine tree pulled over it by Father to hide the orange color. No one has found it. We switch the food from the plastic grocery bags into Father's red frame pack and then we buckle on our snowshoes and start up the slope.