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That day, Kirsten was on the trap line on her own.
She wasn’t supposed to be, really; normally Lars or John went with her, especially after last time, and she was just there to help. But John had come down with a winter fever, nothing serious, but enough to knock him down for a week, and with the rest of January still long and bitter, Lars was needed to repair some of the snow fences.
So Kirsten was the only one left who knew where they’d set all the traps, and someone still needed to go out and check on them. So with a little more pestering than she’d have liked, she’d been allowed, and now she was trudging out into the heavy snow under her knit blouse and flannel petticoats, feeling comfortably important but very uncomfortably cold.
It was quiet as she reached the trap line. Here and there, there were animal tracks, the light pawprints of squirrels and raccoons, but they were soft, now, already at least a snow old. So she wasn’t feeling that hopeful as she reached the first trap; sure enough, when she reached the little clearing where they’d set it, she found the thing empty.
It did seem to have gone off, jaws up and shut, but there was nothing in it except a few scraps of greyish fur. It seemed an animal had had a lucky escape, and part of Kirsten was quietly glad, but the rest of her felt a little annoyed. Because now she had to reset the thing with nothing to show for it.
Lars had been very clear that she wasn’t supposed to do that; he’d put on what he thought Papa’s voice sounded like, and reminded her that traps were dangerous, and messing with them was how little girls lost their fingers. But she was ten, now, grown-up enough to help, and she’d seen him do it himself many times.
So she carefully pulled one foot from its snowshoe, ready to step down on the spring, and leaned in over the device. Part of her wondered if she should take her mittens off, but she thought better of it; Lars never needed to take his own gloves off. So she reached for the jaws, concentrating carefully.
And that was when it happened.
Suddenly, there was something around her, something tight and constricting. For a moment she just panicked; she tried to yell but something was over her mouth and tried to wriggle but there was no give in the hold and yet she went on trying anyway because her brain just didn’t know what else to do.
It took that blind moment for her to realise; those were arms, holding her, tight, one leather-gloved hand clamped tight over her mouth. And by then she’d been picked up, and pulled back from the trap, and suddenly now she was being shoved down hard towards the snow and there was nothing she could do.
She met it with a bump, white splattering over the pretty patterns of her blouse. Almost instinctively she tried to push up, but there was a weight across her middle pinning her down, and one of the arms stayed tight around her upper middle, reaching up to keep her mouth shut still. Behind, she felt another foot brush her own, and then kick her remaining snowshoe away.
The hand on her mouth pulled away. She tried to scream, but only got a yelp out before something was shoved in hard; she coughed and spluttered, what tasted like old rag filling her mouth, while another was pulled tight over her cheeks and tied firmly behind her head to trap it in.
Only then did her assailant finally speak, his words low and gruff in English. “Quit wriggling. It’ll do you no good.”
At them, Kirsten stilled; cold fear replaced the fire of panic in her chest, her heart stilling to an anxious thump-thump and her limbs locking up. For the first time, she could really take stock of where she was; she was face-down in the January snow, pinned body-and-arm beneath someone much older and stronger, far from any farmstead or road. And she couldn’t even cry for help with the cloth gagging her.
She was very, very alone, and she was entirely at this man’s mercy.
“Hmmph?” she whimpered softly, but he paid it no mind. Instead, she felt him shift back, enough to free her arms. She didn’t dare try and use them, but even still, he took no chances; his own were immediately upon them, pulling them up and back roughly, forcing her wrists together at the base of her spine.
There was a rustle of leather or cloth, and then she felt rope upon her wrists. Thin and rough, he wound it briskly around, pulling it tight; she winced as it bit through the ends of her blouse-sleeves, murmuring at the pain. By the time he tied it off, there was no give, and a permanent sting from how fiercely it bit, and her heart was thumping louder.
But he wasn’t done; next, he moved to her upper arms, wrapping another length just below her shoulders. He yanked it tighter, wrenching them painfully close, and she couldn’t help herself.
“Hhmmmph!” a few tears pricked the corners of her eyes, but she held them in. He just sighed, uncaring.
With a grunt, she felt him get up; experimentally, she flexed her arms, trying to at least find some comfort, but there was nowhere the ropes would let her go where her shoulders didn’t ache and her skin didn’t sting. She tried to look back, but he was beyond her peripheral, and she didn’t dare try and move or get up with her arms trussed and him so close.
She felt him grab her feet, another yelp of surprise escaping through her gag. Then, wordlessly, he bound her ankles, and then up, wrapping more rope tightly below her knees without caring how it crushed her petticoats in beneath. She just waited, frozen, listening quietly; at least on her legs, the cloth and her boots kept the rope from cutting the way it was against her arms.
“I’ve seen you,” his hands were at her boots again, tugging and tying and securing something else, “in this forest, with those boys. I’m glad you came alone this time.” His footsteps sounded close at her side, and he pulled, sharply, forcing her legs to bend almost double at the knees. “I’ve been looking for a nice wife for a long time; you’re a little young now, but you’re cute enough and I’m sure you’ll grow into it.”
“Hhh whhhff?!” Her chest was tight, blood still icy, fear dropping into something far worse. No, no, this couldn’t be happening, it just couldn’t, she-
“Head up,” he ordered. She barely heard, fresh tears pricking her eyes and threatening to spill. So he cut in again, louder. “Head up.” One boot nudged her side.
Whimpering, she did; one hand reached down, taking ahold of her shoulder, and he lifted and tugged on the rope at the same time, pulling her legs and back closer and forcing her to arch. Then, to her horror, the rope came down, and he pushed her scarf down and wrapped it right across her throat.
She tried to plead, but he let go her shoulder, and it came out as a gagged gurgle as the rope tightened. Desperately, she tried to hold herself up, even as he returned the line and tied it off at her feet, leaving her viciously noosed to her own ankles. She could still breathe, but only just, and only if she kept her legs bent and her back arched to loosen the pressure.
Kirsten wanted to cry, to wail, to scream for help, but all she could manage were silent tears and desperate, gasping breaths. Over her, the man sighed again, as if the very sight of her was pathetic.
“Just gotta keep you from moving while I get the toboggan,” he explained, without an ounce of sympathy, before turning away. As he did, she could finally see him; the shape of a tasselled, fur-line coat, broad-brimmed hat, and belt with a caplock rifle and several pelts slung from it. He was every inch a mountain man, and her no more than another unfortunate little creature to be trapped.
She barely watched him go. She was trying to focus on herself, on the rope around her throat, on keeping it loose enough to breathe; she tried, desperately, to find any give in it, in any of the ropes trussing her up, but there was nothing but stinging pain and brutal tightness and all any squirming did was make it dangerously harder to breathe.
She didn’t know how long she was left there. In her rational mind, it couldn’t have been that long, not if he wanted to be sure she was alive when he returned, but she was barely in it. No, to poor Kirsten, scarce-ten, lying out in the deep January snow, it was a long, painful, freezing wait, one that made her muscles burn and her eyes sting with every passing moment.
Quietly, she thought about home, about Papa, still away logging, and Mama, waiting for her, and Lars and Peter and little Britta. And her cousins, and her friends, from Powderkeg and beyond, who she might never see again. Desperately, hoarsely, she prayed that any of them might find her, that anyone might come to save her. She knew that she was difficult and pestery and hard to get on with sometimes, but she still missed them so so much and wanted nothing more than to go back to them.
But they weren’t coming, nobody was, except the man who was determined to make her his child bride. And now her muscles were on fire, and her throat hurt inside and out, and she could feel the spasms coming and each one made her shake and choke just a little more because she didn’t have the strength to stay bent up like this. And so she cried, and prayed, and tried anyway, until those boots clomped back into her vision.
There was a tug at her ankles and the goat-rope came loose, and she just collapsed, gasping and sobbing into the snow as air raced back into her aching lungs. It hurt, it hurt so much, and she was exhausted and broken and it was all just too much. And he seemed to know that, because when his hands came down, and picked her up about the middle, they were almost strangely gentle.
“I’ve got ya,” he murmured; there was still no sympathy there, no warmth, but he did gently pay her back. “Can’t have you choking to death; I’ve got a crate lined up for you at home.”
She could only whimper and sniffle in reply, too spent to offer anything else, as she was tossed loosely over his shoulder. Through the blur of tears she could see he’d gathered her snowshoes, and her scarf, and thrown them up atop the pile of furs on his toboggan, trailing behind. He would leave no trace of her here, nothing for her family to follow, and she knew deep down that soon the snow would take his tracks too and they’d have nothing left to follow.
So Kirsten Larson could only sob, wailing mutely into her gag, and feel the sting of the ropes and the grip of the arm holding her, and let herself be carried away to her new life.