Timber Wolf

by Caroline Pignat

  Propping the y-stick under my arm, I hobble out the door, blinking blindly like a mole in the sun. After so many hours in that dingy shack, the snow’s brightness is like two thumbs pushing against my eyeballs, making them ache and water. But that’s the least of my worries. Which way is the shanty? Or the river? Even if I found the river, this leg’ll surely not get me very far. I daresay any town is a good hike from here. Unsure of where to go, I head in the opposite direction of Skinner’s tracks. As far away from him as I can get, is a good place to start.

  Hours later, I stop and settle on a fallen log. It’s been slow going, much slower than I thought. I glance behind but, thankfully, there’s no sign of Skinner. Rolling my shoulder eases the muscle spasm, yet does nothing for the burn in my armpit where the blasted crutch has rubbed me raw. But it’s my leg that’s giving me the most pain. Every burnt puncture beats with my heart, throbbing louder and louder as I grow weaker. If the shanty isn’t over that next hill, I’ll have to use what strength I’ve left to build a lean-to for the night. I should have taken back my flint. At least then I’d have a fire. I curse myself for not thinking ahead.

  I don’t even hear him coming, which is surprising, given his ragged breath. He looms over me, hands on his hips, three rabbits hanging stiffly from his belt. Skinner.

  “There you are!” he yells.

  I turn and bolt but, after three or four stumbling steps, he’s got me by the scruff. He says nothing as he trudges back to the shack, my collar in one fist and the y-stick in the other. At first I kick and wriggle, but I haven’t the strength to fight him. And so I hang there, feet dragging in the snow. As helpless as the stiff rabbits.

  When we reach the shack, he throws me inside and storms out, only to return moments later with a trap and mallet. Muttering to himself, he holds the spike at the end of the short chain and drives it deep in the ground. Buried in solid rock, that spike is never coming out. I’m terrified that he’s going to shut that trap’s mouth around my good leg, but he removes the trap from the chain, leaving a shackle of sorts, which he brusquely closes around my ankle.

  “Just let me go,” I whimper, “please.”

  He clenches his jaw as he screws the bolt, clamping the manacle tight.

  “Why are you doing this to me?” The unfairness of it all overwhelms me. Lost, confused, abandoned. And now, this. “You can’t just kidnap some stranger and—”

  “Stranger?” he stops and turns to me. Sweat glistens on the ripples of his marred skin. He puts his disfigured hand on my arm. Its touch makes my skin crawl. “Don’t you remember?”

  I don’t know what he’s on about. As much as I’d like to, I know I’d never forget a face like his. All I know is he’s crazy. Insane.

  “Do you remember anything ... your home, your mother, the house fire ... Owen?” he says, his eyes boring into mine.

  “Owen?” The name is odd on my tongue. “I don’t know any Owen or—”

  “That’s your name.” His words fall upon me. “You’re Owen.”

  What?

  All this time, I’ve wanted answers, though now I’m not so sure. I rub my forehead as I stare into the fire. I have to ask. I have to know. “Do you ... do you know me?” I say, afraid that he might.

  “Know you?” He grabs my arms in his hands. Shakes me slightly. “Owen, it’s me, son. Your father.”

  CHAPTER 38

  I can’t believe it. I won’t. This man isn’t my father.

  Is he?

  I lie down where I’m chained. Stare into the fire. Everything in my being tells me it’s not true. But maybe I just don’t want it to be true. He says he’s chaining me up because this isn’t the first time I’ve run away from him. Surely, he’s insane.

  Or maybe I am.

  I don’t want to believe him, but when he said our house burned down, I saw it. I saw it in my mind’s eye as clear as the flames in the fire pit before me. Men riding into my yard. Torches tossed on the roof. I remember it. The crackle of thatch igniting, the whoosh of fire swallowing my home. I can almost feel the smoke stinging my eyes and burning in my lungs. I remember filling a bucket from the rain barrel and tossing it at a fire that needed a hundred more to stop it. And I remember the men pulling on the crossbeams, trying to tumble the flaming roof. I ran at them, pulled at their arms. But I was too small. With one slap they sent me reeling. After that, I remember no more.

  Was Skinner there? Is that how he got his burn scars?

  I can’t say for sure. But I know the father from my dreams—he wasn’t there during the fire. I look at Skinner where he sits, sharpening his great blade. Maybe the father of my dreams is only that. The father I created to make up for the man before me. Maybe I can’t remember my family because I wanted to forget about Skinner. Wanted to forget I ever knew him. Wanted to forget the very blood that runs in my veins.

  I shudder at the possibility. I don’t know who Owen is or was. But he’s not me. Dear God in heaven, I hope he’s not me.

  Though I’ve stopped notching them, the days roll on. Skinner—for I’ll not call him father no matter how often he asks, not in a million years—has lengthened my chain so I can work outside. I’ve crudely stitched my pant leg and the leg inside it is near healed. Strong, but forever scarred. Like Skinner, I think and push the thoughts away. No, I’m nothing like him.

  I clean all the bloodied skins he lugs home, string them up on great hoops, and scrape away what flesh remains on the inside; steep them in the liquid Skinner makes of oak leaves, bark, and acorns; stretch and hang them to dry. ’Tis messy work, and hard, too. My back and arms ache by the day’s end. And when I close my eyes, all I see are scraped skins, husks of animals that used to be. I’m one myself. Trapped, scarred, and empty. I have stopped trying to remember anything more. I don’t want to know where I came from. ’Tis hard enough dealing with where I am.

  But in those moments before I wake, a fierce longing rushes over me like the tide. Green meadows. Rolling hills. A white stone cottage with yellow thatch. I let myself go there, sometimes, to that place of dreaming. And I see that man. The one I so wished were real. We’re walking the country road. Fishing. Fetching kelp for the potato beds. Playing the whistle together.

  Skinner’s wet snores from the corner seep into the dream and I roll over, cover my ears. I’m there now. Home … with Da. Even if it is a fantasy.

  “Watch me, Da! I taught Squib how to show jump.” Da stops his shoveling and leans over the stone wall for a better look. Wait ’til he sees this. I pound the sides of the donkey’s barrel belly with my bare feet and he bolts. We’ve done it a thousand times this morning, or twice, at least. But as Squib approaches the one-foot fence I’ve built, he balks and kicks up both back legs. With a yelp, off I go, flying over rein and rail, landing face first in a pile of muck. The dark-haired girl is laughing at me again. I hate it when she does that. I’m sulking, so I am, my head in a black thundercloud.

  Da comes over and hands me his hankie. He grabs the rope harness and strokes Squib’s nose as I wipe my face. “So what say you, Squib? Which of you’s more stubborn?” He tousles my hair and laughs. His smile is brilliant, like the sun coming out. “I daresay there’s none more willful and determined than my boy.”

  And I want to believe him. To believe in him. Dear God in heaven, how I want to.

  CHAPTER 39

  “They’ll be watching you,” Skinner says, nodding at the skulls. I don’t know if he means it as a threat or encouragement. Either way, as small as the shack is, I’ve been doing my best to ignore that wall.

  He’s going to track the bear. Won’t be back for a few days. What do I care? I’m just glad I won’t have to listen to his phlegmy snore all night. I might even open the door and air out the place.

  He checks my chain and shackle. Pounds the spike two more times with his mallet just to be sure. “Finish the rabbit hides. I’m bringing back the bear,” he says, eyes glittering. “The weather is changing. I bet it’s waking.”

  I look away
. Just go.

  After he leaves, I do my chores. Chop more wood. Build two stretching frames. Scrape the rabbit skins. With him gone, I have some freedom. I snort. Freedom? Well, as far as this chain will reach. He’s right, though. The weather is changing. I smell it in the wet air. A hint of spring. It makes going back into that foul-smelling cabin even worse. It must be the hides in the corner. I decide to air them out. Maybe a few hours hanging on the line will get rid of some of that stink. I don’t remember the Wawaties’ hides smelling anything like this.

  I carry them out by the armloads and drape them over the line, over branches and tree limbs. But it’s only when I get to the last one that I find the box. A small chest about a foot long. I sniff it, afraid this is the source of the bad smell. God knows what he’s got in here. But there’s no scent when I open it. Inside, I find a curled scrap of newspaper and a framed portrait, singed and sooty around the edges. It’s a pencil sketch, a rather good one, of a man with a thick handlebar mustache, standing with his hand on the shoulder of a light-haired boy about nine years old. In the bottom corner of the sketch is one word: Lilian. The artist’s name, perhaps. I open the yellowed newspaper. Some words are hard to make out, for I’m not so good with letters, but I get the gist just the same.

  Bytown Gazette — July 12, 1845

  Fire on George Street.

  Fire broke out at the home of Mr. William Slattery, the local butcher, Friday night. Though the fire brigade arrived and neighbors fetched Mr. Slattery from Burpee’s Tavern, the fire quickly spread and raged out of control. Despite Fire Chief Patterson’s protests that the building was not safe, Mr. Slattery ran into the flaming home to save his wife and son. Slattery suffered life-threatening burns to most of his body and is convalescing under the care of Dr. Van Cortlandt. A funeral mass will be said at Notre Dame Cathedral on Monday at two o’clock for the repose of the souls of Mr. Slattery’s wife Lilian and their nine-year-old son Owen.

  Owen?

  I’m not Owen. I look at the portrait again. At the man’s eyes so clearly captured in a few lead strokes. But that is Skinner.

  Sure enough, it’s him. Not the broken and twisted man Skinner is, but the strapping husband and father William was.

  So, I’m not his son.

  The news brings me some relief but, strangely, I also feel pity for Skinner. He’d gotten those scars trying to save his family. He’d lost his wife and child. I can only imagine the guilt he must feel for not being able to save them. Enough to make him crazy, no doubt.

  I read the article again. Local butcher. That explains his knives. Still, he burned me with them ... branded me ... But I have to admit, my leg has healed strong and true. After a gashing by those dirty trap teeth, I might have lost my leg altogether. Maybe he’d fixed my wounds like he did his own, the only way he knew how—he’d cauterized them. Burned them closed.

  None of this excuses what he’s done to me—especially this shackling—but it helps me make some sense of it. If he thinks I am really Owen, losing me again must terrify him. Which means he will do anything to keep me.

  And that terrifies me all the more.

  My mind races the rest of the day, trying to figure a way to escape. I pull on the chain until my hands are red raw, but that spike won’t budge.

  It’s only later that night, as I lie by the glowing fire and let my mind slip back to the white thatched cottage that I feel hope sprout. ’Tis no fantasy. They’re memories. That man, my real da, the one in my dreams, he truly exists!

  And I’m going to get out of here and find him.

  CHAPTER 40

  I’m up before the sun, draping my chain in the bed of embers. Why didn’t I think of this before? If the smith at the loggers’ shanty can heat iron so it bends into a horse’s shoe, surely I can heat these links enough to break them apart.

  It takes much longer than I thought for the metal to redden enough. But when it’s glowing, I prop the links on a flat fireplace stone and, using a smaller rock, bash the chain. Sparks fly off with every strike and the metal cools very quickly. I have to keep firing it after every second or third strike, but the links are thinning, I swear it.

  Sure enough, after a few more hits, the chain snaps. I’m free!

  I take my knife. My flint. A bit of food. I won’t be caught again. Not this time. I plan on running until nightfall.

  The weather is milder and the sun is shining. A good sign. I can make some ground in these conditions. All the physical labor these past two weeks has made me stronger, and I decide to head for the river. All or nothing. Even if I found the shanty, that would be the first place Skinner would look for me. It makes no sense to go back there. I set out at a good clip, despite the manacle still weighing on my ankle. None of that matters now. I’m free. Free!

  After a few hours, I stop to eat some of the dried meat strips I’d packed and take a drink of snow melted in my hands. Red berries on a nearby bush catch my eye and I pick a few. They have no smell. I wonder if I can eat them. I check the other side for more.

  “Owen?” a voice yells.

  It can’t be. It can’t. But I turn to see Skinner, standing about fifty feet away. He seems surprised to see me. But no more surprised than I am, for the madman stands, gun at the ready. He closes one eye and sights along the barrel. This time he’s not taking me home. This time he’s going to kill me.

  “Don’t shoot!” I plead. “Don’t!”

  He’s going to do it; he’s going to pull the trigger. But just as I think he will, a flash of fur streaks from the left, hitting Skinner’s arm and knocking the barrel. His shot erupts in a puff of smoke and the gun drops from his hands, but I don’t have time to worry about Skinner or what hit him, as the bush behind me explodes with a thundering roar. A bear! ’Tis near two hundred pounds of angry muscle and empty stomach, only five feet away from me. Its bloodied muzzle, grazed by Skinner’s bullet, slathers as it tosses its head. Its massive paws swat at the ground, raking long lines with its hooked claws. It’s ready to attack, but I can’t move. Terror shackles me to the spot.

  The bear lunges for me and with one swipe of its thick arm, sends me to the ground, hard. Be the air knocked or shocked from me, either way, I can’t breathe, as I look up and see the animal looming, paw raised, ready for the killing strike.

  Will it rip me from gizzard to gullet? Crush me? Maul me?

  “owen—no!” The guttural cry interrupts the bear and it turns its attention on Skinner, rising to its hind legs to meet him as he rushes it, knives in both his hands. They fight, tooth and blade, tearing into one another. Hot blood splatters on the snow, on me. I can’t watch and yet, I can’t rip my eyes away.

  Something grabs my collar and drags me from the fight.

  Wolf? Wolf!

  I haven’t the breath to speak his name. Can’t believe he’s here. Alive.

  Skinner falls and the bear pounces upon him, pounding him beneath its wide paws until Skinner stops moving. Enraged and wounded by Skinner’s knives, the bear turns to face us. I drag myself to my feet as the wolf moves between me and the bear. As brave as he is, fur bristled, fangs bared, the wolf is no match for this bear. And I’m in no shape to run. We’re done for, surely done for.

  A searing pain pierces my shoulder, and shoves me forward, sending me to my knees just as the bear makes his move. Thunk! An arrow appears in the bear’s chest. Then another. And another. I look back to the woods from where they came—to see Mahingan Wawatie emerging from the tree line, lowering his bow. The bear staggers and falls in the snow, breathing its last.

  “You killed it ...” I gasp. “You killed the bear.”

  Mahingan stands over it, his hands shaking slightly, a hint of shock on his face. I can only imagine the look on mine.

  “You ... you shot me ...” In the corner of my eye, I can just make out the feathered shaft sticking out of my back. The arrowhead sears inside my shoulder, as my body tries to throb it out. My head swoons.

  A gurgle comes from Skinner and I crawl over t
o his side. His face is even more distorted from the bear’s attack and blood spurts from the bite in his neck. A fatal wound. There’s no saving him, not now.

  “Owen ...” he says, choking. He raises his mangled fingers. And I know one thing I can do for him.

  I take his hand in mine. “I’m here.”

  His eyes search for me, focus on me for a second. He’s not long in this world.

  “You did it—” I say, clutching his hand, “you saved me ... Father.”

  He weakly squeezes my hand and then lets go—of the guilt, of the pain, of the last breath of life.

  CHAPTER 41

  The agony wakens me and I find myself lying on my side in the snow next to Skinner. Grandfather Wawatie kneels by my head, gripping the arrow still stuck in my back. He grunts and something snaps. Even though I see the broken, feathered shaft he tosses in the snow, the pain shooting through my shoulder has me convinced he’s broken my collar bone.

  “Here,” he puts a leather strap in between my teeth. “Bite down. This might hurt.”

  Might hurt?!

  He rests one hand on the front of my shoulder and with the other grips the stub of shaft. But instead of pulling it out, Grandfather Wawatie drives it deeper. The arrow head rips through my flesh and, no matter how I arch in agony and clench my jaw, I can’t stop the pain.

  What the hell is he doing? Pull it out. Out! Not in!

  With two strong thrusts, the tip pierces through the front of my chest just under my collar bone, and Grandfather’s strong fingers pull it free. My shoulder throbs and burns and my face is covered in sweat. I want to pass out. To throw up. To curse Grandfather for driving it deeper and punch Mahingan for hitting me in the first place.