We keep going, watching the slopes, and the mouth of the gully, and I look at where it opens out and I start trying to see how the ground lies ahead of us, trying to think whether we should find a place to wait for the others, or cut back for them, or keep going and hope we catch them.
I’m very busy thinking this when I realize I’m forgetting the wolves, like all I have to wonder about is the easiest way to walk home. And finally, sure enough, we have one, on the rise above us, following along parallel with us, looking down. He’s alone, which makes me worry, the others are either behind me where I can’t see, about to rush me from behind, or ahead of us, off quietly killing all the others. But I’m not surprised, and almost relieved, to see him. I look to Tlingit to see if he sees him, and he does. Tlingit’s seen him already, maybe before me, and he’s watching him too. We both seem to think the thing to do is keep walking, for now.
Then we see another one, on the rise on the other side, above us like the other one.
“What do we do?” Tlingit says. As if I know.
“Keep on,” I say. I’m looking for a place where it looks good to try something, and I'm not seeing it yet, but I look ahead in the dark where the rises shallow out on both sides and I think if we’re going to try anything, that’s an easier place to do it.
“When we’re where it shallows out, you take that one, I’ll take this one.”
Tlingit thinks about that.
“What about ganging up?” Tlingit asks.
I don’t know what I’m thinking, I can’t think any more.
“You and I can get these guys. Run them off, or get them.” Tlingit looks at me. Yes, I’m mortal crazy, he seems to see, and I dead mean it. “We can.”
Tlingit stares at his wolf. I look up at mine. They’re both staring down at us, setting low, like before. I recognize them. I’m still worried about the other wolves, and the other guys, and wondering if these two tracked us from behind or were ahead of us, hard to say. I can’t see tracks. They’re just here. From the dark. I feel as sure as I can be of anything they aren’t going to let us by, for long. They are setting low, looking at us, still as stones, ready to fly at us. I fumble my knife out of my pocket, and hold it along my stick like before.
“We charge them. If they run around on us, charge them again. We keep doing it until they jump up at us, then we fight them, or until they run.” Tlingit keeps looking at me. It makes a mad sort of sense, a hopeless sort.
“You ready?”
Tlingit doesn’t say anything. I take a breath.
I start yelling and running up the rise at the wolf closest to me, raising my stick and Tlingit does the same with his, each after our own wolf. My wolf and the other actually look halfway surprised, they spring up, split away, loop behind us, and we both turn on them and charge again, like madmen. They watch us coming, but they still don’t jump at us, they jump to the side, go behind us, circle us, but as we each keep turning on them and trying to look like we’re brave enough to go at them they’re backing towards each other down the slope and they each look back to see what the other is doing and I think this means they’re off-balance for the first time. But I remember they’ve been better at this than we’ve been, every time, and sure enough mine hops around to the uphill side again, looking down at me, ready to jump at me from above and close enough to do it, and I don’t like how that looks at all.
I roar and charge up at him with my stick again, and Tlingit goes at his at the same time, and my wolf gets sick of the game this time, backs onto his haunches and barks and jumps at me. I see him coming down at me and I manage to drop to my knee without falling backwards down the slope, and get the back of my spear jammed in the snow thinking I can land him on it, but I’m scared, I change my mind and come back up to drive it into him as he falls on me and he is stuck. I’m holding him on the stick and holding his weight and mine from tipping over backwards down the hill, but he’s barking and reaching at my face with his teeth, snapping, getting closer, and I think he might be the one who got on my face before, back at the plane, and remembering his teeth on me I’m terrified, and as quick as that he gets my arm in his teeth and bites down and rips, I flinch back away, turn his weight downhill and throw him down away from me to the snow, and then I fall after him, hard. I get to my feet, sideways, and jump back from him, my knife ready.
I look at him stuck with that thing and like an idiot, I feel sick to have done it, I should be dancing, but I’m sick, like I was before. He’s trying to pull himself off, I didn’t drive it in enough, even with his weight, or he’s just so frantic pushing his paws into the snow and wriggling backwards he's coming off it, somehow.
“Fuck you,” I yell, because he’s trying to get free, instead of stopping and dying, and because I don’t want to feel guilty for doing it, when he was trying to kill me. But he’s making it look like he’s getting free, or he will be, and I panic and roar again and jump on him with my knife, and fall away backwards right away again, leaving the knife too. I’m flinching and jumping at everything he does, I remember his teeth too well, I think he is the one who was on me before. He fights the knife too, thrashing and trying to get up with the stick poking out of him, but he stops trying, suddenly, his paws go out from under him and he lies in the snow, blinking, panting, making a gravelling sound. And I’m still afraid of him and sick and afraid to have killed him and I’ve never felt like more of a coward in my life. I’ve done my share of killing things, after all.
I wanted him dead, but I'm still sick, looking at him. He’s making me think of things I don't want to and no time to anyway. Or the fear or whatever I needed to dig out of my guts to let me run at him is making me sick, like I thought before. I run in at him to grab my knife and jump right back, I’m still afraid he’ll snap up at me, and I leave the stick in him and grab up my others and run back up the gully toward Tlingit in the dark with a new stick ready, knife alongside it, the rest under my arm like before, which makes running awkward but I’m not brave enough to leave them.
I can just see Tlingit’s wolf still circling him and snarling. Tlingit’s held his wolf like this all the time I was busy with mine. He looks ready to jump at Tlingit or run, darting looks behind him and forward at us. I look at him, but I look around too because I’m sure we can’t be this lucky to have just these two. I’m waiting for mine to get back up and come after me, or for the rest of them to come. But this one looks mad enough to rip us apart all by himself and I want to tell him we did not come here to bother him, but his answer would be to rip my lying throat away so all I’m going to be allowed to do is kill him.
I get my stick ready and we charge at him. He’s backed toward a crop of rocks, he can jump up over it or come at us. He flashes his teeth, comes up at Tlingit, and Tlingit steps aside and falls backward, and I drop my sticks and swing the knife at his side as he flies past me turning in the air toward Tlingit, but I don’t think I get him. He drops to the ground and bounces up, I don’t think I touched him at all, and he hops left and right of us and then he lopes away, few paces, and looks at us. And then he streaks away, into dark. He didn’t look particularly afraid of us doing it, he just went.
We stand there, looking into the dark, listening, waiting for him to come out at us from the side or the back or anywhere. I look at the rocks stacked up above our heads, lining the gully wall, covered in snow, and they’re all black shapes in the snow and all hiding wolves, as far as I know. But I don't hear paws, or panting, and he doesn’t show himself, he just leaves us to worry about where he is. I look all around, Tlingit does too. We stand and watch a long time.
“Gone for now,” Tlingit says. I’m watching the dark, and the rocks, afraid to let any bit of guard down.
I look down, suddenly, at my arm, where my wolf bit it. I squeeze it hard as I can above where teeth went in, or whatever happened. It didn’t seem as bad at first, but now it hurts more than the ones I got before. It feels deeper. Tlingit and I look at each other.
“Come on,” I say
.
We scramble to get sticks and knives in our hands, again, and we head back out the gully the way we were heading, but we tumble down into a deeper, narrower part of the gully. Nearer the rocks, which makes me nervous, and when I turn to look back and up behind us there he is, on a rock, or jumping off a rock, down at us. This time my knees just fold and I fall backwards and Tlingit is just turning to look up when it lands on him and gets the back of Tlingit’s neck in his mouth, barely, but not enough to hold on and Tlingit knows he’s trying to and Tlingit twists and jumps down with all his might and the wolf falls off him into the snow.
I’m on my feet by now, and charging in at him, and Tlingit’s up too but I go down, face first in the snow, I slipped off some root or something I couldn’t see, I don’t know but the snow comes up and hits me in the face again and Tlingit almost falls over me and the wolf springs right up at him, mouth open as Tlingit’s catching himself.
He gets Tlingit’s neck again but the side this time and again Tlingit is so fast again somehow the wolf doesn’t get a good grip, or Tlingit shoves him so hard he comes off, but the wolf angles his head and is straining to get around and under Tlingit’s throat while I scramble up and he’s stretching and working his teeth forward under Tlingit’s chin, after his life, as hard as Tlingit’s trying to pull him off, but he isn’t bothering with me. I get my stick up again and I take a bead on his side and I drive at him yelling, it shoots through him, comes out the other side. Tlingit blinks, yanks his head back, it just misses his cheek.
But he shoves the wolf off now, and falls back, as I feel all the weight of the wolf on my stick again and I drop him down to the snow, like I did the other, and I want to jump back away this time too but I hold on, leaning the stick into him, afraid to let go or let it up, this time. But he stops moving. I’m still as sick as glad and don’t know why. Don't want to.
Tlingit grabs him up from the snow, hoists him with all his might, roars at him, then throws him, heaves as far as he can across the snow again, still yelling. It isn’t respecting a dead foe but I don’t blame him. But I don’t feel like crowing, either.
Sometimes it happens you have to do a final thing like this, you have to do it and you have to choose, so you choose. I look at the wolf in the snow where Tlingit threw him, shrinking already, it looks like, in the dark, and my mind is running off, again, up roads I don’t need it to run. Tlingit’s gone quiet, staring at it too, breathing, nodding, maybe he’s embarrassed of the whooping, and his village past is shaming him. You dance for a dead seal, but never a wolf, whatever it did to you. When you kill a wolf you carry him on your shoulders, you lay a feast for him, you say you’re sorry, wrap him up in sacred things, give him a burial. You don’t dance, unless you’re dancing your regret. If your brother’s trying to kill you, and you kill him, are you rejoicing? Are you alive, anymore, even? Maybe you carry your dead with you, and never lay them down, and they take you to death with them, one day, anyway. Day by day, they carry you over with them.
I pull the stick out of Tlingit’s wolf and get my knife, and we set off. I feel myself worrying about the others, and I start to trot, best I can, through the deep snow, which lasts about a step. But I try to trudge faster than before, and Tlingit huffs along with me, we’re half-dead but we want to be away. I see dead trees, ahead, that I didn’t see before, and I see the first wolf, still lying there, sad and black in the snow. I take the stick out of him and I wonder if what made me sick was sadness, instead of fear, or something else. I remember other dead animals I don’t want to think about.
I try to find the ground I thought I saw before, ahead, where it looked like the gully met the rise, and Tlingit and I head out of the gully, past the dead trees, into what looks like forest, again.
8
We keep going, watching the trees ahead, looking to the sides, and behind us, all we can. I’m listening, but I can’t hear much more than our feet thudding the snow, and our breathing. We come up nearer the trees, finally, and we slow down, I don’t know why, I'm expecting to find wolves or the others or an ambush, but aside from little puffs of wind still blowing through it nothing’s moving.
We’re into trees again, with less moon than we had out in the gully. As we go I keep seeing shadows in the corner of my eye. Every time I’m sure a wolf is walking alongside us in the dark it isn't there. We walk and walk, through a long dark gallery. I stop, or Tlingit does, if either of us thinks we hear something, behind us or ahead, that might be others, or a wolf. We know we could wait for them, but if we do, they may never come, and then we’ve died, waiting. So there's nothing to do but keep on. And I stop over and over for shadows in my eye, and little sounds buried in the wind, but there’s never anything, the others or a wolf.
But finally I think I do hear something, a low-growl, and I stop. Tlingit does too.
“You hear it?” I say. Tlingit stays still, listens. It’s a wolf talking, or wolves talking, or it’s growling, or it’s the others. Just shreds of sound, coming and going as wind wanders this way or that, like the river I thought I heard before. We’re afraid to move, I am, anyway, I stay still listening, and hear another shred, then nothing. The ground seems to be dropping away again, in front of us, I can’t see trees. I edge forward and there’s another lip of hard snow and a bank dropping down, and coming closer to it I hear Henrick, I think. Not a wolf.
We edge out to get over the lip, and I look down. There’s isn’t much moon but I can tell this isn’t like the other one, it’s just a little drop. We clamber down toward the sound, to the side and back of us, we overshot them and got high over them somehow, but we found them.
“That you?” I hear Henrick yell out to us, through the dark.
“Yeah,” I yell back, and wonder what I would have said if I was a wolf. When we get down where we can see each other Henrick’s standing up and the others are all sitting on their haunches, frozen, terrified, like we are, still thinking we might be wolves, not quite believing we aren’t until they’ve stared at us a little. They’re relieved to see it’s us, finally.
“Did you see any?” Henrick asks.
“Two.” Tlingit says. “We got the better of them.” He’s quieter about it now.
Bengt looks at us, surprised. Knox and Henrick too. Nobody’s whooping, this time. They’re just surprised.
“What about you?” I say.
“Four of them were over there,” Henrick says. “They just stared at us, lined up. We didn’t have the balls to charge them and they didn’t come at us. They just went. After a while.”
“Did you see the big one?” I ask. Henrick nods.
“Yeah.”
I look around us. I’m trying to think what they got out of staring at Henrick and the others, why they didn’t go at them, and if they’re going to come at us now. We’re all watching the dark, which I realize is what Henrick and the others were doing when we got there. I don’t blame them for not charging at them when they saw them. Four of them, with the big one, I don’t know if I would done any different except run away, or surrender.
They look at me. They’re all exhausted, scraped-up, battle-scarred, freezing, dying, too far from home.
I stare at the dark like the rest of them are doing, breathing, trying to think what to do next. Bengt’s staring at his boots, going to sleep, or going away. Going home maybe.
Something comes flying at him, jumps out of the dark and locks on to Bengt’s face. He screams, turning and falling over and getting his hands up. Henrick and Knox just stare at him with their eyes wide a half-second, I probably do too, I’m trying to remember if wolves crack skulls and how thick our skulls are compared to a caribou’s but as I start at him with Tlingit and I see Henrick getting his stick up, about to charge too when he’s hit sideways, like I was before, it smacks him into a tree before I’ve gotten to Bengt. But before I can do anything to help Bengt, the wolf lets Bengt go, jumps off him, lopes off, leaving Bengt bleeding, and I turn to the one on Henrick, who’s still pinned against the t
ree the wolf slammed him into trying to fight it off, flailing at it with his knife with one hand trying to push it off him with the other. Then just as suddenly the wolf on Henrick snarls and flips away, hops off Henrick, runs into the dark, just like that. Maybe he thought we could kill him, I’m not sure we would have. If he’d stayed and tried he might have killed all of us. I look to Henrick, on the ground, he’s spent, more than he was before, if he could be. I’m surprised he held that one off alone, that long.
We all scramble up to get to Henrick and he’s got new bleeding. Might kill him, might not. I wonder if they did it on purpose, just run in and wound us, let us bleed, I don’t know. I run over to Bengt, as well as I can run, and he’s bleeding too, I can’t tell how bad, but he’s awake. I realize I can’t see Knox anywhere, but we’re alone, suddenly, and I look for Knox, expecting the worst. But he’s sitting against a tree, staring, I think he sat through the whole thing too scared to do anything, and nobody blames him, because not one of us didn't want to do the same thing he did. And he lived through it, sitting there holding his knees, so good for him. Bengt sits in the snow, heavy as a corpse, he just thuds down, staring, bleeding like hell, I see now. His face, a bit of his neck. Bleeding into the snow. I try to think of how to wrap him up. He shakes his head.
“Sweet God,” he says. And he starts to sob, very tired fearful small sobs, coming quietly out of him, in the cold.
The biggest wolf comes out of the dark, at as hard a run as I’ve seen any of them do, and he smacks into Bengt like a bullet, Bengt barely looks up before he closes his jaws around Bengt’s neck and shoulder and doesn’t seem to slow down at all, I see blood pop out where the wolf grabs him in his teeth and the wolf running away into the dark with Bengt, who doesn’t get a sound out, he just flies out of sight over the snow, under the wolf, and I’ve just stood there too stopped still to do anything.
Ian Mackenzie Jeffers The Grey Page 10