We must continue to move.
“Sebastian! Lead on!”
The wolves began to close in around us, as they were easily able to match our pace running across the looming boulders above us and the icy trail.
You have come for me at last. You are relentless, unforgiving, unyielding in your mission—just as I am! “On, Sebastian! On!” I shouted.
The howls grew in intensity. I snapped the reins again, and the horses picked up speed. Their hoof beats cracked and ricocheted against the mountain wall.
Wolves snarled closer now, first from one direction then another. They were racing across the mountainside and approaching from behind. Moving in now. Ready to make their attack. Running at us with teeth bared. Growling. Snarling. Chasing us with savage fury. Anticipating a kill.
One of the vicious creatures dropped from the ridge above into the sleigh and launched itself, rabid and biting, at my face. Frantically I swept the beast aside, and he flew past me only to land on the trail behind us, skidding to a stop and bursting into a run, joining the pack at our heels. My movement had cost us, and the sleigh lurched to the side nearly tipping over the edge. Incredibly, I pulled us back to the wall as we sped on.
Up ahead in the distance, beyond the radiance of the lantern hanging in front of the horses, the moonlight revealed a chasm in the trail where a bridge had once been, now gone, leaving a wide fault that separated us from the trail which picked up on the opposite mountain.
The wolves continued their chase, leaping at us now, almost within reach, desperate in their desire to tear at us and feast.
As the sleigh approached the chasm, the wolves were running along the rocks above my shoulders. One leapt through the air, landing on my chest. I dropped the reins, instinctively shoving it away with all my strength. The cabin of the sleigh rocked and swayed from side to side as we struggled. The wolf tore at my arm as I caught it by the throat and wrestled with it until I was able to throw it from the sleigh and beyond the edge of the cliff, where it fell into the nothingness.
Still, I encouraged Sebastian to lead the horses forward. Their hooves gained speed, blurring as they ran.
The other wolves would not relent. Their yellow fangs remained bared as they sprinted after us, so close I could almost feel their hot breath.
The heads of the horses rocked back and forth in a rhythm as they ran, and for a moment I saw a soft light in the sky or perhaps snow drifting in the wind or a cloud illuminated in the ebbing moonlight, and I imagined Pel surrounded by the huge puffs of the tobacco smoke he loved to send adrift. Eerily, I could hear the pounding of drums in the distance. I remembered the song Pel sang of me. I remembered Josef’s acts of helplessness.
“It is a choice when there are no choices.” And I chose to act!
“Yah!” I shouted, driving the team forward. “If this be our last moment Sebastian, let us fly.”
Sebastian and his team leapt from the trail and into the air.
The black velvet night surrounded us, and the stars took on a greater brilliance, silhouetting us as we flew across the sky and the moon hanging in the night, lead by the lantern sparkling towards distant eyes.
With a tremendous crash we landed on the other side of the chasm. The horses were terrified and out of control as the sleigh slid forward, with its momentum carrying it up a steep path. I struggled desperately to rein in the team, but the sleigh swung erratically along the trail, side to side, from one runner to the next.
My lantern broke free as the sleigh twisted and rocked. The oil from its tank sprayed across my arms, inside the coach, and up onto the mountainside as the lamp exploded against the boulders. Fire spread rapidly across the hillside and within the sleigh. I tried to smother it with my coat, but the flames reached for my arms, licking at the oil on my clothing as I fought to extinguish them and control the team.
One of the runners beneath the sleigh snapped with a mighty crack, and the joint securing the team to the coach split in half. The straps holding the horses in place ripped free from the sleigh as the horses fought to escape, continuing their wild flight up the inclining trail.
The cabin of the sleigh shook intensely on its remaining rail and slid backward toward the chasm with increasing speed.
Fire now raged on the hillside, and flames leapt across the trees, as the sleigh passed directly through them.
I tossed my bag of toys from the coach and hung my legs over the front of the cabin, lowering them to the ground, where I attempted to dig my heels into the snow to slow the sleigh’s momentum.
With a mighty effort I brought the sleigh to a stop. Then I slipped on a solid icy patch and slammed to the ground, driving the breath from my lungs as I landed, sending myself and the sleigh once again sliding down the icy trail. I rolled onto my belly as I slid and clawed at the frozen ground, the sleigh and I plunging toward the cliff’s edge and the dark chasm beneath.
In one final desperate grasp I seized the heavy roots of a tree that emerged from the side of the cliff below the trail’s edge just as the sleigh plummeted into the dark abyss, tumbling end over flaming end and crashing onto the boulders below.
My legs grew weary as I hugged the steep wall of the chasm and tried unsuccessfully to pull myself up onto the trail. My arms soon began to tire as well, and I feared my strength would give out before I could climb to safety.
Above me, one of the horses neighed, and a set of reins dropped and dangled within reach. I snatched at them and held on tightly, pushing with my legs as the force behind the reins continued to lift me.
When my eyes reached the level of the trail, I could see Sebastian slowly muscling backward, pulling me up and over the ledge.
Once beyond the edge of the chasm, I flopped over onto my back and whispered, “Thank you, Sebastian.”
Across the great chasm two wolves sat silently, their golden eyes shining as a reminder that they would always be watching.
Sebastian nuzzled my hair as I grabbed his bridle and he lifted me to my feet.
“If it had been just you and me, Sebastian, we would have made it,” I said as I ran my fingers behind his ears.
I followed Sebastian up the slope toward the other horses. When they finally calmed down, I grabbed my bag of toys and wrapped it around Sebastian’s pommel, cinching it tightly.
I turned away from the terrible devastation and disappointment we had faced, leaning on Sebastian for support. “Let’s see if we can pick our way down,” I said to him gently.
Our return journey was a somber one. I rode upon Sebastian’s back as we covered the countryside; my weariness was debilitating, and I frequently slumped across his neck holding tightly to keep from falling.
When we finally arrived at Pel’s village and our home, I could see the light of a lantern dancing back and forth by the entryway to my hut. We came closer and I could see Pel holding the lantern as he paced.
He ran to me and called for some of his men to secure the team, and he assisted me as I slid off Sebastian’s back and to the ground.
“You walk like old bear. Must hurry!” Pel said.
“What is happening?” I asked him with concern.
“Life!” Pel said to make himself clear.
Just then I could hear Sarah’s voice pierce through the open shutter.
“Kris!”
I pushed past Pel and ran into the hut. The fire pit was stoked with wood, and the flames brightly illuminated the living area and spilled into the adjoining room where Sarah lay in the throes of labor.
Gabriella passed a bowl of steaming water to Lohcca, a Sami woman who assisted her.
When Gabby saw me, she hurried to the doorway and grabbed me by the coat, whispering, “She’s not well, Kris.”
I went quickly to Sarah’s side.
“Hello love,” I said gently.
“Something’s wrong, Kris.”
“Maybe you should wait outside,” Gabriella suggested.
“What?” I said with surprise. “No!”
Lohcca began a rhythmic chant, repeating it over and over.
“What are you saying?” I demanded of the Lohcca.
“Kris, make her save him,” Sarah said weakly.
“Why is she saying that?” I asked of Gabriella.
Sarah screamed in pain, and I turned back to her.
“Hold her, Kris,” Gabriella said softly.
I wrapped my arms around her, cradling her head. “Don’t you leave me! Don’t you leave,” I insisted.
I held Sarah and watched her give birth in great agony. And then her face relaxed.
“How is he?” Sarah asked.
Gabriella placed the blanket over the baby, then looked at me and shook her head no while the Sami woman spirited away the bundle holding my stillborn child.
But I could not tell this to Sarah.
“He is beautiful. He looks like his mother,” I said, smoothing the hair from her forehead.
“We were never very good liars, Kris.” The water held in her eyes sparkled from the firelight.
I sighed softly and stroked Sarah’s hair.
“I went to the mountains,” I confessed, convinced that my broken promise had brought this tragedy upon my family.
“I knew you would,” she said in her gentle forgiving tone.
“I failed.”
“Never.”
I held her and kissed her briefly, but I could feel her body begin to go limp and I set her back onto the bed.
“Don’t go, Sarah,” I said with tears streaming from my eyes.
Her arm slipped off my shoulder and fell to her side. Her face looked empty and lifeless.
I rested on the crib for a moment of support. Then I screamed, lifting it and smashing it to the ground, shattering and scattering across the floor.
I ran from the room still carrying a piece of the crib’s railing.
Gabriella yelled, “Stay!” as I hurried past her and out the door. “Kris!”
Pel was outside holding Sebastian’s reins. Pel had separated Sebastian from the team and was preparing to walk him to the stable, my bag of toys still tied to his pommel.
Unaware of Sarah’s continued grasp on life and filled with my own egotistical belief that this tragedy was somehow my fault, I vaulted onto Sebastian’s back and stormed off into the night, alone.
Chapter 7
Returning
On I rode, through the bitter darkness, a crest of icy powder from Sebastian’s churning hooves spraying the veil of night. The land twisted and stretched past me, blurred by my frozen tears.
If I could just ride until the moon rose to its highest tide I might someday find myself lost beyond its radiance. My sorrows would evaporate as I would enter another land, another life, another time. The radiant northern lights spoke to me in their dance through the sky, as I imagined Pel’s reindeer in full flight.
Sebastian and I rode to the edge where the land meets the sea near a wharf by the ocean and a town just awakening from its sleep, and I found myself where a tormented man might, in a tavern.
The snow continued to fall as the wind drove it in waves that splashed against the earth, and I could not stop the fury fueled by my thoughts. In the darkness of the winter morning, I threw open the tavern door and stood silhouetted in the doorway, backed by the silvery reflection off the falling snow. I could hear the loud voices of the seamen who ate and drank and sang in this seaport sanctuary, which was a home for these salty comrades and their local counterparts.
Squinting at the light, I could see weather-beaten and sea-swept faces, both dark and light, from lands far and near. I was a stranger among these strangers, and for a moment they stopped to look at me and the rail of my child’s crib that I still gripped tightly in my hand.
The fire in the hearth swelled as the proprietor fed it thick dry logs that crackled like flames of the netherworld. I walked to it and threw the crib rail into the fire. The light and shadows washed over my cheeks and every other face in the room.
Across the bar three sailors, no doubt rugged men from distant lands, were already deep in their cups. They watched me to see what dust I might kick up.
In a moment one muttered to the others, and they all broke into heavy laughter, as if I were the butt of their joke. I threw my coat down on a bench next to a vacant round table and walked directly to the men. A large knife rested on a counter nearby, and I snatched it up and stabbed it into the table between them to challenge their derision.
Eye to eye, I looked for what I wanted, a focal point of my pain and anguish. Then I remembered the carpentry and the rage of my broken childhood. I remembered Josef’s words, “None of us gets to own pain.” And I knew I was not ready to give mine up today. But none would challenge me.
When I finally turned to retrieve my coat, a sailor grabbed for the knife, but his friend caught his wrist and placed a warm, steaming mug into his hand to calm him, telling him not to stand.
I slapped the bar to attract the attention of the proprietor, whom I soon came to know as James from the orders shouted at him from across the room. He was built strong and, from the looks of him, had dealt with many unruly and dangerous men in his day.
James wiped his hands and called for his young bar boy to assist me. “Cai!” he barked loudly. A tuft of dirty blonde hair followed by two tiny ice-blue eyes rose up just beyond the counter’s edge.
Cai extended his small arm to place a tall, wooden cup before me. I took a long and deep draft then set my mug down with a thump on the empty counter where I sat.
Again the tavern door burst open. Two laughing men, no more than twenty years of age, stood arm in arm, framed by the light reflecting off the snow behind them.
“James! Pour us a mug. We broke away from the women!” said one.
James gave them a nod and shouted, “Cai! Grab me two mugs. And make sure they’re dirty. We want these men to feel at home.”
Cai seemed somewhat confused by this command and looked around the room as the men broke into laughter.
“Grab me two mugs, son,” James said in a more restrained voice.
The taller of the two men in the doorway responded next, “Better get ready, James. Service is out, and we’re the first.”
“Hardly the first,” a fat sailor said.
“We’re placing bets on who it was made so many unusual toys for the children,” the tall man’s friend chimed in.
A man from a nearby table lifted his face out of his soup and muttered, “You know about this?” Then his head fell back into the bowl.
A short, round man drying his socks near the hearth yelled, “It’s not one of our men. They can’t even make their beds.”
All the men laughed.
A stout old man, with the necktie of a pastor, stepped into the doorway from the penetrating cold outside and slammed the door behind him, drawing our attention to his entry.
He shook off his jacket and sprinkled the floor with powdery snow and ice crystals. He walked to the bar and put his hands on the shoulders of his friends and spoke: “Man from down south said the last two villages he passed through had the same story. Toys everywhere. Nobody knows where they came from or how they got there.”
“It’s true, Pastor!” one of the sailors shouted. “I’m from Kirby, and we was trying to figure that out too!”
The door burst open again, and a little runt of a man tripped over the threshold and fell into the sawdust. The sailors laughed, and one of them shouted, “Shorty still gots his sea legs.”
Another sailor yelled, “What’a you mean? I can’t see his legs. Hey, Shorty, you got legs?”
Shorty was fully bundled and struggled to get off the floor while the sailors laughed and sprayed ale across the table.
A gentle giant of man in his late teens came in behind Shorty a moment later. One of the men near the bar shouted out to him, “Ian, come join us for a cup once you’re done helping Shorty up.”
Shorty worked his way to his feet and began to unwrap himself, casting a challenging eye to the ot
hers.
“Careful who ye’ mock,” Shorty said, “or I may be adding a little boot to your ballast.”
“What do you know, Shorty?” another odd-looking fellow shouted.
“What I know is someone’s gone up and down the countryside delivering presents to every house with a child,” Shorty announced with authority.
“Shorty, if you aren’t late for everything,” said the man still drying his socks.
“One of the towns is calling him the Santa,” Shorty said smugly, as he revealed news he seemed to feel the others would not know.
“Santa?” James asked.
“It means Saint,” the pastor said.
“Sent to look after the children,” added Ian reverently.
“It’s magic!” one of the sailors mocked.
“Shut up!” the grizzly sailor sitting next to him cautioned.
“It’s a blessing,” the pastor said gently.
“Right you are!” hollered another of the sailors to the affirming grunts of the men surrounding him.
“He is a saint!” Shorty proclaimed.
“That’s a lie!” I found myself bellowing. “He’s a lie! Your Santa does not exist!”
I shouted above them all. I stood and lifted the huge round wood table before me, smashing it to the ground, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
There was a stunned silence from the stillness of the men in the room as the dust settled.
Ian stepped up from behind me and set his hand upon my shoulder. “It’s Christmas,” he said in an effort to calm.
I had forgotten.
No one moved; their eyes fixed upon me.
“Forgive me,” I said, averting my eyes from theirs in shame.
As I turned to leave these people to their peace, a small hand reached up and tugged at my shirt. Cai, the blue-eyed son of the tavern owner, stood innocently if bravely before me.
“You’re wrong, Mister,” he said with as much firmness as he could muster. “Santa is real,” Cai affirmed, “and he gave me this.”
Then he thrust his arm into the sky and brandished a wooden toy reindeer as proof of the Santa’s existence.
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