Caring For Comet

When her husband leaves for a three-month expedition through northern British Columbia, Donna Kane must stay behind to nurse an injured gelding. What she learns during quiet moments with the horse transforms them both.

NEAR THE GATAGA RIVER in British Columbia’s northern Rockies lies a chain of lung-shaped lakes unnamed on just about every map. The most easterly lake is the one I know best because in the spring of 2006, at the age of 47, I fell in love with a wilderness guide. That summer, my heart on fire, a float plane flew me to his cabin— my new home—on the shore of what’s known as Mayfield Lake.

Wayne had already arrived with his string of horses and expedition guests after having travelled for six weeks, starting from Mile 442 of the Alaska Highway. Accompanying me on the plane were photographers, painters, filmmakers and fellow writers arriving for a seven-day wilderness camp. When that was over, Wayne and I would be alone for two weeks until a final group of clients would be flown in and all of us would travel together back out to the highway. It would be Wayne’s last expedition of the season and the first of its kind, ever, for me.

As our plane landed, Wayne was a speck on the wharf growing larger, the long, lean length of him taking shape as we neared. I was certain I’d lose my balance walking the plane’s float to the wharf, as if falling would confirm my recklessness in crossing from one life to another. As I stepped from the pontoon onto the dock, Wayne reached out his hand.

“Hi there,” I ventured. “You made it,” Wayne said, and as we hugged, his laugh resonated from his chest to mine.

By the lake, there was a bench where we’d sit listening to the loons. That first summer, a family of otters played near the shore one afternoon. Watching them, I felt sick with guilt for having left my husband of 25 years and ached for my two children, though they were grown.