Flying After Ptarmigan
To be published in the 2025 COWG Anthology out November 2025Review from an editor:
“The idea of a love story that ends up being about what the narrator gained personally from the relationship is great. Thank you for sharing this piece!”
The bedroom door banged open. I pulled the covers over my head, pretending the sun had been switched on and not the overhead light.
“Time to rise and shine,” Per announced in an artificially hearty voice.
I’d been dreaming about Mexico, the sun already warming the open-air palapa while gentle waves lapped the nearby beach. I could almost taste the fresh tortillas and eggs smothered in salsa I’d have for breakfast. I could smell the coffee.
“What time is it?” I asked from under the quilt.
“Beaver Sports time!”
“Beavers do sports?” I asked groggily.
“It’s a sporting goods store,” he laughed. “Their annual fall sale starts today.”
“Fall, my ass,” I mumbled grumpily into the sheets. “If there’s snow out, it’s winter.”
According to the calendar, winter was still two months away. But here in Fairbanks, there was already snow on the ground which wouldn’t melt until spring. I hummed a few bars of that old Johnny Cash song When it’s springtime in Alaska, it’s forty below.
I didn’t plan to stick around that long.
I had already stayed with Per two weeks longer than planned. What had started as a minor detour north before heading south was starting to feel like something else. Like falling in love? I was sure the infatuation would end soon—infatuations always did—but for now, I was enjoying the ride. Once it was over, I would take the money I’d earned from commercial fishing all summer and find that sunny beach, eat those huevos rancheros.
I peered over the covers at Per in his red plaid shirt. So dorky! He looked like a lumberjack. A tall, handsome, sexy lumberjack.
“Come back to bed,” I patted the bed. “Or at least bring me some Huevos Rancheros.”
Per moved toward me like he might take me up on my suggestion. Then he flung off the covers and scooped me off the mattress. I shivered in the cool air, then shivered for another reason, enjoying the sensation of wool against my naked body and the friction of his hands warming my skin. I expected Per to fall back on the bed with me like the other guys I’ve known would have.
Instead, he gave me a thorough fondle and released his hold, leaving me off-balance and naked in the cool bedroom. “We’ll get back to that later, Babe. We gotta go now.”
I’d never had a nickname before, much less been called ‘Babe.’ Coming from anyone else, I would have thought it ridiculous and probably objected. Coming from Per, it coated my lonely heart like sweet, warm honey from bees drunk on fields of lavender.
“If we hurry,” Per said as he left the room, “there’ll be donuts at the store for early bird shoppers.”
“I don’t want to be an early bird,” I whined to his back. “I want my warm nest.” I got dressed anyway and followed the scent of freshly brewed coffee down the hall. Per used the travel mug like bait to lure me into the truck.
I cradled the warm mug in my cold hands. “What do you need so badly at the store we have to go right this minute?”
“A donut for you and a pair of skis.”
“I do need a donut,” I agreed.
“And a pair of skis.”
“Me? I don’t need skis. I need a beach and a plate of Huevos Rancheros,” I replied.
“Well, until then, you’ll have to settle for skis.” Per flashed me one of his killer smiles. “Skis and a donut!”
“I’m leaving in a week” I reminded him. “I just need to make reservations.”
“No reason not to have fun while you’re here!”
I thought about that as we turned onto the main road. I guess that meant he wanted me to stay. That was gratifying. I much preferred being the one to leave, not the one left behind.
But skis?
I took a sip of the hot coffee and made a face.
“It’s just skis,” he said gently.
Trouble was, it didn’t feel like just skis.
“We’ll get you some warm gloves while we’re at it,” he enthused. “You can’t ski holding a cup.”
“I can’t ski at all,” I replied dryly. Skiing was for rich kids who came to school on Monday wearing colorful ski lift tickets pinned to their jackets so everyone would know where they’d been on Sunday.
“It’s easy,” Per assured me. “If you can slide one foot in front of the other, you can ski.”
He looked at my dubious face. “I mean cross-country. Downhill skiing’s for snobs in Anchorage where there are actual mountains.”
I shook my head. “I can’t afford skis.”
“My treat! Consider it a birthday present.” Per pulled into the store’s busy parking lot. Outdoorsy people were hurrying into the building empty-handed while others came out with mysterious bundles and bulging shopping bags.
“My birthday was three months ago,” I said.
“Christmas then.”
“Two months away.” I finished my tepid coffee and unbuckled the seat belt.
“It won’t hurt to look,” he said reasonably.
Once in the store, Per helped me pick out long wooden skis and ski poles with leather straps. My new ski boots were short fleece-lined shoes with three holes in the soles’ extended toe which clamped onto metal pegs in the skis.
“That’s so your foot can kick the skis forward,” said Per.
He bought several small tins of wax, a triangular wedge to scrape off the old wax, and a cork to rub in the new wax.
“The wax is formulated for different snow conditions,” Per explained. “We’ll mostly use green and blue but if the trail is real slick, we may have to put some gooey red stuff on. It’s a bitch to scrape off.”
The next day, we drove up to the University where groomed ski trails led into the surrounding woods. I clipped my boots onto the cross-country skis, slipped my mittened hands into the leather straps of the poles, and practiced sliding one foot in front of the other, leaning heavily on my poles for balance.
When I’d gone maybe twenty feet without falling, Per said, “Now, put some glide into it. Kick. Glide. Kick. Glide. Here, watch.”
With that, he took off gliding down the trail, poles and legs moving rhythmically over the snowy track, his tall form silhouetted against the dark spruce.
I followed more slowly.
Kick. Glide.
Kick. Glide.
The sky was bright blue and the air sparkled with minuscule diamonds glittering as the sunlight hit the icy air. All was silent except for the swoosh of my skis and the pleasing clunk of my heels tapping the wooden skis. Slowly, I warmed up and fell into a rhythm. My mind stilled.
Kick. Clank. Glide.
Kick. Clank. Glide.
I stopped wondering if Per thought the skis meant more than just a fun way to spend the day. Stopped wondering when I would leave, what would happen if I stayed.
Kick. Clank. Glide.
Kick. Clank. Glide.
Ouch!
A steep dip in the trail caught me off-guard. Still attached to my skis, I fell and couldn’t get up, like an overturned turtle struggling to get right side up. I thrashed around in the snow until I was on top of my skis, dusted the snow off my pants, and cautiously resumed sliding one foot in front of the other.
Throughout the week, I practiced skiing on local trails while Per attended his graduate classes. That weekend, we drove twenty miles northwest of town to an abandoned military installation on Murphy Dome. There were no other vehicles parked outside the fence. No trails leading into the hills. We could ski wherever we wanted. The only sign of life were two ravens playing in the thermals cawing to each other in the otherwise empty sky.
We used our skis like snowshoes to traverse the mountain. Every so often, Per paused. When I caught up, he used his pole to point out a series of small indents meandering around the leafless brush.
“Ptarmigan tracks,” he nodded with satisfaction.
“Tarmigan?” I repeated.
“Ptarmigan, spelled with a silent ‘p.’ Like psalm. Or, I don’t know…”
“Psycho?” I suggested.
He grinned. “Ptarmigan are a lot like grouse.”
“Grouse?”
“Like wild chicken,” he explained. “Ptarmigan are the state bird. Good to eat.”
“You eat the state bird?” I asked in disbelief.
On our next outing, Per had a Mossberg .410 shotgun slung over his shoulders. It wasn’t long before I had my own. On skis with a shotgun strapped to my back, I was no longer a passive spectator skimming along the surface. I was one with the arctic winter, a predator hunting its prey,
Spotting ptarmigan was challenging. Their feathers turn completely white in the winter camouflaging them in the white snow. They look like littles clumps of snow unless they move or you catch their beady little eyes staring at you. Even if we couldn’t spot the birds themselves, we could usually follow their tracks to where they ended in a bird—or in a pile of blood and feathers, proof a fox had gotten there before us.
When Per shot a ptarmigan, I took off my gloves to stroke its downy plumage, soft as fur. Long thick feathers covered its legs and feet like shaggy leggings. Professor Per said they act like snowshoes so the ptarmigan can walk atop the snow while its sharp little talons provide traction on icy ground.
“And you know this how?” I asked.
“Well, my Master’s thesis is on pigeon legs,” Per explained. “I study them to find out why their legs don’t freeze in freezing temperatures. Their feet are bald, not covered in feathers like ptarmigan. As an added benefit, I eat the breast meat.” He winked. “No sense it going to waste.”
I rolled my eyes. “I can see the headline now. Grad student eats research subjects.”
He pulled the dead ptarmigan’s neck through his belt so his hands were free to grab the ski poles.
“So why don’t pigeon legs freeze?” I asked curiously.
“Read my thesis,” Per laughed. “When it’s done.”
I expected to feel remorse when I finally shot my first ptarmigan, but I didn’t. I had worked hard for that bird; that one bird from that one flock among dozens of flocks on dozens of mountains. Even though I had the shotgun, the odds were in their favor. Those birds were built for arctic survival—I was not. I was dependent on layers of clothing, limited energy, and a fickle truck that didn’t always want to start after being parked in freezing temperatures all day. I was a feeble intruder in the landscape those birds inhabited so effortlessly.
As winter wore on, I kept delaying making plane reservations and kept skiing after ptarmigan. No matter how tired and cold I got, there was a thermos of tepid coffee laced with brandy awaiting us at the truck; a warm woodstove and hot shower back at the house. There was sauteed ptarmigan and brown rice for dinner; then the delicious friction of our bodies under the down quilt at bedtime.
Wickersham Dome in the White Mountains was one of our favorite places to go. The climb up the mountain on skis was challenging and the descent brutal. Per taught me to climb with my skis splayed outwards in a “V” and my weight on the inner edges. If my skis crossed in back, my forward momentum abruptly stopped and it was hard to get untangled without falling or sliding backwards.
Coming down Wickersham at the end of the day was an adrenaline rush, a race against the growing darkness on legs grown tired and wobbly. To break the speed of descent, I learned to lean forward and point the tips of my skis toward each other in a snowplow maneuver while crouching low and tucking my poles behind me so they didn’t snag on the thick brush. Per said it was to lower my center of gravity. I thought it was so I didn’t have so far to fall. And fall I did. No sooner did I think Wow, I got this—than splat! I was lucky to escape with only bruises.
We skied where there were no roads, only endless snow-crusted spruce-covered mountains and a vivid blue sky at noon that faded three hours later to alpenglow, the soft violets and pinks of sunset in the far north. Ice crystals glittered in the sun like fairy dust, the vast stillness broken only by the raucous caws of ravens playing in the frigid air. And of course, there was always Per waiting for me at the top, his eyelashes fringed with ice like lace, his grin the only slice of exposed skin in a face otherwise encased in muffler and hat. If I placed my skis just so between his, we could kiss.
Alaska etched itself first on my heart, then deep in my bones. Per may have given me skis—but Alaska gave me wings.
