Allie waited an interminably long time before she confessed. "I used to go to YMCA camp every summer as a kid in Toronto. They never let us leave the paved campground paths but we did learn how to tie knots and make shelters. I also earned the distinction of being the undisputed Kangaroo Wrestling champ for three years in a row." Erin couldn't tell if she was pulling her leg. Allie rooted around beneath the overturned canoe and extracted a wad of dry birch bark, along with an armful of kindling. A package of matches appeared from her pack and she quickly arranged the bark under a teepee of kindling and struck a match.
"And you learned to make fires at camp too." Erin said, incredulous at how fast she breathed tiny sparks to life under her hands.
"Haven't you heard that every foster kid can light a fire?" she quipped. Erin blanched at the awful stereotype and Allie laughed. "Just kidding. Yes, I learned fire starting at summer camp." Within moments flames licked the sides of the kindling and she added a few larger sticks of dry wood from her cache to the fire.
They propped their shoes on Allie's ingeniously useful drying rack in front of the fire and settled back into the radiating warmth to shed wet clothing. Unwilling to allow herself to be useless, Erin unzipped her cooler bag and pulled out what was left of her mom's truck driver lunch. If they had to wait out the storm here, they might as well sleep with full bellies.
Showing no interest in the food, the dog pricked up her ears and stayed on her feet, growling restlessly. Erin patted her head and uttered soothing words but Fiona paced nervously between them. When they had finished eating, she took a length of Allie's yellow rope and tossed it over a tree branch a safe distance from their sleeping area. She hoisted the cooler bag eight feet off the ground and tied the rope off, leaving the remainder of the food dangling mid-air.
"Why are you bear proofing our food?" Allie asked suspiciously. "You said there were no grizzly bears around here. You said the story about your Auntie Vicky was only for fun."
"I said there were no grizzly bears," Erin qualified. "There are plenty of black bears that would love a ham sandwich and the rest of my mom's peanut butter cookies. I don't want them to come looking for them in our shelter."
"Fiona's behavior concerns me," Allie said. The dog's whining had become background noise for the storm. She nonchalantly nudged her computer case, reassured by the bulky shape of the hatchet. "It can't be the thunder she's worried about now. We haven't heard any for at least a half hour. Something is out there and it's bothering her. I feel it too. Something is coming. Something bad that I can't change."
"That sounds ominous!" Erin pulled her dad's Mossberg shotgun from under the canoe, checked that it was loaded and slid it back. "What do you sense?"
"I'm not a gypsy fortune teller," Allie snapped. She gripped the dog's collar and directed her to lie down but Fiona pulled away. "I can't tell the future whenever you want." She poked a stick into the fire until the end glowed orange. "I'm sorry for being testy. I'm trying to make the best of it but there's this persistent sensation in the back of my mind that something bad is coming."
Goosebumps prickled across Erin's skin and she crowded closer to her girlfriend, pulling the dog onto their joint laps. Fiona resisted, panting with anxiety and reluctantly sank to her belly. "I bet you were also the undisputed camp champion of scary bedtime stories."
"I learned to shut my mouth after the first year. Seriously, have you ever seen an entire teepee full of freaked out little girls? It doesn't take much. It's crazy mass hysteria."
"What did you tell them?" Erin's curiosity was worse than a cat's.
"I told them what happened at the lake."
"Which was…"
"I felt that a boy had drowned there. His friends laughed at him because they thought he was messing around. The boy struggled for a long time but he wasn't a good swimmer and he panicked. After a while, he went under the water and never came up. I told the kids that his ghost stayed to haunt the lake and tried to drown other kids. Okay, I made that last part up so it would be it a scary story for them, and I embellished the drowning part so it was more dramatic." She grimaced uncomfortably. "After the mass hysteria incident, not a single kid would go near the water for the rest of camp and I got in trouble with the counselors. They packed up the canoes for the season and nobody could try them."
"I guess that would cure you." Erin knew that Allie had toned down tonight's version of her story and imagined the hullabaloo it would have caused for a group of prepubescent girls sleeping outdoors at summer camp.
"I also didn't like being called Spooky Indian Girl. Luckily there was a whole different crop of kids the next year and the nasty nickname faded away. The sad part was that they didn't have a canoe instructor either, so I was never able to try it." She sat up abruptly. "Do you hear that?"
"What is it?" Erin strained her ears and wasn't sure if she'd actually heard a high-pitched keening wail, or if Allie's ghost story was giving her the heebie-jeebies. She was instantly in a crouch, one hand reacquainting itself with the location of the shotgun.
"I thought—No, it's only my imagination. Listen, the rain is stopping."
"Oh." Erin settled back, calmly adjusting her position as if her heart was not crashing in her chest like the cymbals in a Chinese Opera. "We should try to sleep so we can leave at first light. If Derek reaches the big lake before we catch him, he can get his hands on a motorboat and who knows how far he'll go. He might make it to Canada."
Allie reached into her bag and withdrew Erin's MiniMag flashlight, handing it over. "You might need this."
"Best girlfriend ever." Erin smiled and kissed her at the corner of her mouth, her favorite spot.
* * *
Allie laid her head on Erin's shoulder and unsnapped the dog's leash. Surely Fiona would settle if her people were also able to relax. She closed her eyes. Sinister shapes intruded and she tried to clear her mind. With menacing shadows approaching from every angle, she had never felt so unsafe since she had reached adulthood. Eventually, she drifted into a fitful rest, somewhere between sleep and consciousness, somewhere between the safety of Erin's shoulder and the danger of the shadows pacing out of sight.
Frenetic barking woke her and she jolted from her dark dream, struggling to reorient herself in the tiny space. The fire had died to embers and she was alone. Fiona was gone, and so was Erin. Bears!
Allie wrenched her shoes off the drying rack and jammed her feet in, hatchet in hand. She was out of the shelter and moving at a gallop in an instant. "Erin! Fiona!" she screamed. She circled the lean to, unsure which direction to take. More barking. Her dog had never sounded so fierce. "Fiona!" Allie charged toward the sound, beating frantically at the brush with her hatchet. "Erin!"
She froze when wailing howls reverberated through the night and her brain transformed into a billion electrified neurons. Adrenaline shot through her veins and she vaulted a jumble of rocks in her way. She ran blindly in the darkness toward feral voices strained in their savage chorus. Closer now, a small splash of light spun randomly through the trees. One sound differentiated itself from all the others and Allie's heart lurched. Fiona's frantic barking was overtaken by ferocious growls. She gripped the hatchet like a baseball bat and searched for the flashlight, a tiny candle of hope.
She found them in a small clearing illuminated faintly by the half moon, which had serendipitously chosen to peep through the clouds. Holding the shotgun at her shoulder, Erin circled warily. At her knee was Fiona, standing stiffly with hackles raised and teeth bared in a display of primitive ferocity. Fiona relied on Erin's body position to compensate for her lack of vision.
The dog charged forward, backed up and then altered her direction to charge again. Erin's shotgun trajectory followed but the shadows moved too quickly for a shot that would not endanger the dog. When Fiona stumbled on her hind leg, Allie involuntarily called out.
"Fiona! Erin!"
A growl nearby startled her and she leapt forward into the pale circle of moonlight with Erin and t
he dog. In the tiny flashlight beam, Allie could see their aggressors. It was not a bear after all. She had read enough bedtime stories to recognize that in this darkness was truly the big bad wolf of her childhood nightmares. Sharp teeth and yellow eyes glared back at her and two other sets of yellow eyes joined the first, weaving menacingly in and out of the flashlight beam. Erin shielded Allie's body with her own, pushing her back toward the trees, but Allie resisted and stood beside her, brandishing the hatchet.
"Allie!" Erin shouted. "Stay behind me!"
"No! I want to help!" Allie shook her head defiantly. "What's happening?"
"I heard a bark and ran out to find Fiona here. She's been bitten, I think. She was trying to chase them away."
Despite the injury she concealed, Fiona stood her ground in front of Allie, every hair on her spine bristling with protective instinct. Just beyond the light projected by the MiniMag, there were threatening growls and the savage gnashing of razor sharp teeth. Wary of the light, the wolves kept to the shadows. With the dog between her and the wild animals, Erin had no clear shot. In frustration, she pointed the shotgun to the sky and pulled the trigger. Fire spewed from the end of the barrel and the explosion split the night like a thunderclap. The animals panicked and bolted. Fiona flattened herself onto the ground like a well-trained soldier.
"Are they gone?" Allie's dark eyes shone with all the fervor of a warrior. She reached down to touch her dog's head and Fiona whimpered quietly in response. "It's okay sweetheart. We're going home now. It's okay—"
"Maybe not." A searing flash of anger replaced Erin's initial relief when her flashlight's beam illuminated a set of yellow eyes. They were back.
Fiona rose painfully to her feet and gave a low warning growl but the wolves smelled blood and they knew their quarry was weakened. The first wolf Allie had seen, the natural leader, rushed forward and snapped at them, lips bared from wickedly pointed teeth. Fiona summoned all her instinctive canine strength and snapped back with equal ferocity, her bark high pitched in contrast with her adversary's feral baying.
Two pack members circled stealthily behind Allie and Fiona pivoted her stiff legged stance to snap a warning to the newcomers. They attacked as one, charging at Fiona but Allie stepped into their path at the last moment. One black beast's canine teeth struck her skin, below the knee, and came away bloodied. Hearing Allie's sharp cry, Fiona lunged and bit deeply into the wolf's muzzle. It yipped like a wounded puppy and retreated with its pack mate to the tree line. Fiona faced the retreating cowards and barked menacingly.
Attention diverted, the leader struck without warning from behind, clamping sharp teeth around Fiona's injured leg. Erin slammed the butt of her shotgun down on the wolf's spine and then aimed a vicious kick at its throat. With a snarl, it clenched powerful jaws and flinched away from her foot before impact. Instead of releasing its grip, it gave its head a cruel twist, tearing flesh from sinew. The dog yelped in shock and agony, hind end awkwardly collapsing. Stunned, Fiona staggered upright on forelegs and frantically dragged herself toward Allie. The attacking wolf charged again and Allie wildly swung her hatchet, the blunt end glancing off its skull. It yowled in pain, backing off to shake its massive head, but there was only a moment's reprieve before it rushed in again from the side, directly toward Allie.
With a ferocious scream of her own, Erin stepped directly into the wolf's path and stomped toward it like a madwoman. She fired once, twice, three times, racking the shotgun hard between trigger pulls. The multiple cracks of the 12-gauge stunned the wolves into flight, all but one. Lead shot ripped open the leader's throat and laid bare a patch of skin on its chest. Halfway into its powerful strike, the wolf's body struggled mid-air, twisting like a frenzied black demon before it plowed a furrow into the grass at Allie's feet.
She dodged sideways when it struggled, twisting and lurching as if it would rise to attack again. Finally, it lay motionless on its side. Blood spilled dark and wet from ragged wounds, soaking into the forest floor. With shotgun still held tight to her shoulder, Erin cautiously approached and nudged the carcass with the toe of her running shoe before lowering the gun.
"Will they be back?" Allie fell to her knees and held Fiona's trembling head in her lap. "Oh! Fiona!" Anguish made her voice thick and she ran a calming hand across her dog's matted fur. The dog panted in distress but there was trust still gleaming in her moonlit eyes.
"I doubt it, not without their leader." With a watchful glance at the trees, Erin laid the shotgun against a rock and knelt down beside Allie. Fiona's hind leg extended stiffly at an odd angle. Flesh hung in ribbons and Allie gently checked for other injuries along the length of her body. Blood gushed from deep puncture wounds in the dog's chest. She pressed her hand tight to stem the flow but it seeped around her fingers. She used both hands but still the blood spilled. In her gut, she knew. She knew, but she could not make herself voice the words to Erin. She gave her a meaningful stare and hoped her eyes would tell her what her mouth could not.
"Oh! Oh, Fiona…" Erin said in a strangled whisper. She bent her head to the dog's ear. "You are such a good girl."
"You have been so strong and so brave." Allie's voice faltered and a sob escaped her lips. A helpless lump wedged tight in her throat and she buried her face in the dog's neck, mixing tears with Fiona's blood.
Erin laid one hand on her girlfriend's shoulder and the other on the dog's heaving ribcage. There was nothing anyone could do. Minutes later, Fiona lay still and for a moment, the earth too became devoid of sound and motion. Allie looked up when the moon's muted glow brightened and was mesmerized by the intensity of millions of tiny stars blazing back at her. It was disorienting, as if the night sky had fallen to earth and was right here with her now.
"I'm so sorry, Fiona!" Allie cried. Her dog was dead. Beautiful, loyal, frightened, glorious Fuzzy Fiona was gone.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
What the hell was that? I jump straight up from the little wooden bed frame and land on my feet, like a cat. The rain ended and the thunder died out hours ago, so what was that? I swear to God it sounded like gunshots. Three in a row, like somebody means business. I shake the Minion's shoulder.
"Did you hear that?"
Minion sits up and looks at me with groggy eyes. "What? No. Must be thunder," then lays back down.
Nothing? How can you say you didn't hear anything? Didn't you just jerk out of your sleep like I did? Only thunder? I don't think so. Someone is close. They are coming for us. "Get up! We need to go!"
"No, it's too dark. Wait until morning. I'll paddle all the way to the Great Lakes if you want me to. Let's sleep some more, please."
I am so frustrated I can't think! I pace for a while, listening to the Minion sleep. I'm angry and something else. Fear? Nah. When I calm down, I crawl back in and close my eyes. Fine. I will wait, but at the first light of day, we are out of here.
* * *
Erin held Allie while she cried, both soaked through from tears and the night's rain. The stars were fading but the sun did not yet hint at daylight. Erin had been right, the wolves hadn't returned, but now they needed to get moving. They stretched stiff limbs and Allie insisted on carrying her dog back to the lean to. She tenderly laid Fiona on the ground and Erin wrapped her in her raincoat. Eyes puffy, Allie sat beside the mound on the earth. A trickle of blood ran down her leg.
"Oh! You're hurt!" Erin exclaimed. When had that happened? Allie hadn't complained for one second.
"It's not serious." She bent her knee to reveal three puncture wounds. Two on the inside of her calf looked deep and ugly, dark blood still oozing down her ankle. The third on her shin was more of a scrape of teeth against bone. Although shallow, they looked painful. "See? It's nothing."
Erin ignored her protests. She ripped a strip off the bottom of her T-shirt, soaked it in water and cleansed the wound.
"I have a first aid kit in my pack," Allie said in a monotone.
"Of course you do. Did your intuition also tell you to bring disinfect
ant?"
"I don't remember." She hugged her legs to her chest and sank her forehead onto her knees.
Erin located and searched through the kit until she found a small bottle of isopropyl alcohol. Allie really had thought of everything. She sat obediently while Erin tended to her wounds and dressed her leg with a sterile bandage. "You need a tetanus shot. Rabies too."
Allie turned her head away. "As soon as we get back. I promise."
"What do you want to—?" Erin looked over at the distressing shape bundled in her raincoat. Her voice struggled against the aching lump in her throat.
"It doesn't feel right to take her in the boat," Allie said slowly. She avoided looking at the bright yellow mound. "Fiona so loved the woods. She was my city dog, but her heart was happiest in the trees."
Erin bit her lip.
"I think she would rather be in the woods." Allie picked up the little hatchet and stalked to the shelter. "Why did it have to be Fiona?" she said through her teeth. She swung in an arc, the blow slicing through rope and separating the beam from its upright support. Gripping the hatchet in both hands, she smashed it again and again. Her hatchet cracked through wood as ferociously as the attack they had survived. After it had been reduced to splinters, she slumped to the ground, curled around the raincoat shroud and sobbed.
Erin's heart twisted in her chest for her girlfriend and she stroked her hair until her tears dried. Then she took the hatchet from Allie's bleeding fingers and scraped the debris away from the spot where they had last all rested together. She plunged the blade into the earth, hacking dirt out in a deep oval. She slashed through tree roots, dislodged rocks and finally both women dug with blistered hands until they had made a sizable hole. A hole suitable for a burial.
Allie wiped muddy hands on her thighs. "This is a good spot." The slightest splash of pink was growing in the east and rosy light washed sluggishly across the sky. A few chickadees had awakened and their carefree notes lilted through the air while they flitted in search of breakfast. It would be sunrise soon.
Just Intuition Page 19