by Will Decker
“Oh. And what’s that, smarty pants?” she quipped, her pride having been bruised.
“It sits up a little too high. Being as narrow as it is, it’s liable to be top heavy after we load me and our meager supplies on it.”
“I can take care of that,” she smugly replied, imitating me.
“Would you care to tell me how?”
“You’ll see. First, though, I better wax these so they don’t give us any problems,” she said happily, busying herself with the skis.
When she finished with them and was finally satisfied with their condition, she went around the cabin, gathering up the other materials that she felt she’d need to finish putting the sled together. Standing back from the collection of items thrown together in the middle of the floor, she studied them for a moment, making a mental inventory of what she had. When she was satisfied that she had everything she would need, she turned to me and, seeing me contentedly watching her, said she was going to fix supper.
“I hope you aren’t getting tired of fried potatoes,” she commented, as she stoked up the fire in the stove, and began preparations that involved banging pots and kettles.
The sound had a dramatic calming effect on me. “No,” I said almost sleepily. “Potatoes are just fine.”
Within a matter of minutes, she brought over a mug of coffee, and took up her familiar post on the edge of the table, while the potatoes fried in the background. Just to show her that I was getting better, I sat up without any help. She commented on how good I was doing, and for just a fleeting moment, I felt like a small child in grade school that was receiving a reward for achieving a high score on a simple test from his favorite teacher. But not just any teacher, a teacher that he desperately needed to impress because of his emerging pubescence, and her mature womanhood. It was just a simple gesture on her part that probably wasn’t even motivated by conscious thought. Nevertheless, it did wonders for my ego, and even more for the way I felt toward her.
“I was thinking,” she said softly, almost as if she were trying to convince me of something that she hadn’t said yet. “Maybe we don’t need to wait and see if Fred shows up with the supplies.”
“If I’m wrong about all this, we would be putting our lives in jeopardy for naught,” I quickly countered, suddenly afraid to put our lives at risk because of an unfounded suspicion.
“But if you’re not wrong, John, the extra supplies we use between now and a week from tomorrow, could be the supplies we need to sustain us on the hike down.”
“How low are your supplies?” I asked. “I know we don’t have any meat, but in your best judgment, how many days are we talking, before all the supplies are gone?”
“We have close to thirty pounds of potatoes, maybe five pounds of noodles, six eggs, salt, and maybe a half pound of cheese,” she said solemnly. And then, hastily reminds me in a cheerful tone of voice, “We do have an abundance of coffee and bouillon cubes!”
Her cheerful tone did nothing for my deflated sense of being. “You’re right; we can’t wait to see if he shows up or not. If we wait for him, and he doesn’t show, we won’t have enough supplies left to sustain us on an extended hike.” I paused for a moment, my confidence wavering. “But if I’m mistaken, and the whole idea of killer wolves is just in my head…”
“Tomorrow, I will finish the sled. And the day after, we will leave here,” she said with purpose, as she stood up from the table and headed to the stove.
Supper was a silent affair, as our thoughts were in different places. Hers were on the construction of the sled, while mine were weighing the possibility that I was wrong. After supper, she replenished the woodpile by the stove, working fast to finish the task before it turned dark outside. Satisfied with the amount of wood, she secured the front door for the night. Although we hadn’t seen any sign of the wolf pack, we weren’t taking any chances, and she still carried the handgun whenever she left the cabin.
In the toolbox where the chainsaw and axe were stored, she found a large ball of nylon cord. With the dishes cleaned, and her other chores done, she began braiding and weaving the cord into a net, of sorts. While she weaved in silence, I did stretching exercises on the table. We worked at our prospective tasks by lantern light, staying at it until it grew late, and we were sleepy. We hadn’t said much to each other since supper, when Sandy suddenly turned to me and asked if I’d care to have my beard shaved.
“I’ve never shaved a man before,” she said shyly, running the back of her hand along the side of my cheek.
“This must be the first time in my life that my beard has grown this long without driving me crazy from the itching,” I replied, gently taking her hand in mine. “If you don’t mind, I think I’d prefer to keep it for the extra protection it’ll offer my face from the cold.”
“I don’t mind at all,” she said playfully, still rubbing her hand against it. “But if you change your mind when we get back to civilization, I want to be the one to do it.”
“I promise, it’s all yours,” I cheerily responded, feeling good for the moment.
The next day we drank lots of coffee and ate the last of the eggs and many pounds of potatoes. Sandy finished her sled by early afternoon and took it out in the snow to test it. She’d woven a fishnet type affair that she draped beneath the canvas cot to hold the supplies. We determined that if we suspended the supplies beneath me, we greatly reduced the center of gravity, and therefore made the sled more stable. She concluded the test by stacking a large amount of firewood on it, at least as much as my weight, plus the weight of our meager supplies. Before starting out on our journey, she wanted to test its strength, as well as get an idea for how difficult it would be to pull.
Within twenty minutes, she was back, carrying the sled in front of her. She was flushed a bright red from the cold and exertion. She was also jubilant, because it had worked better than she’d anticipated. Excitedly, she exclaimed, “It was wonderful. Even with the weight of the firewood, I can pull it with ease.” She paused to catch her breath, before going on. “We’ll pack extra blankets around you, and also some other items that might come in handy, and if the load proves to be more than I can handle, we’ll just discard the less needed items as we go. I am so happy!”
While she was out, I managed to get into an upright sitting position, and for the first time since arriving at her cabin, I raised my legs without any assistance. It was a tremendous feat for me, leaving me almost as excited as she was, and the mood between us couldn’t have been more celebratory.
But the joyous mood came to a quick and abrupt ending when suddenly, echoing in the far distance of the surrounding hills and valleys; we could hear the unmistakable sound of barking. They were back, and they sounded hungry!
**13**
My voice died in mid-sentence while my heart sank in my chest. The sounds were coming from across the clearing that lay in front of the cabin, and they were growing louder by the second. For a long moment, we stood motionless, staring at each other in disbelief, before snapping out of the shock that had come crashing down on us. Almost as quickly, as the realization and shock had come crashing down on us, we threw it off and leaped into action.
Although it had seemed inevitable that the wolves would return before the supply due date, I had hoped that I would be wrong. Even if my theory regarding Fred and his wife was correct, the return of the wolf pack was premature. They shouldn’t arrive until several days before Fred, three at the most, if my hunch was correct. Their arrival a full week before Fred was due didn’t make sense. In fact, it made me question the rest of my theory, and how much more of it was also flawed.
Sitting up on the table, I cried out for Sandy to look out the door and see if she could see them. Instead of looking from the safety of the doorway, however, she charged over the threshold and into the bright sunshine of the late afternoon beyond.
The crunching of her feet on the frozen hardpan abruptly stopped, and her excited voice drifted back through the open door, “Yes, I see
them!”
“Tell me,” I shouted anxiously. “Can you see how many there are?” I felt compelled to ask her if they were coming toward the cabin, but I already knew the answer to that question. Asking it wouldn’t change the reality of it.
“I see six. No, wait a minute, there’s another coming behind the others. Yes, seven for sure, maybe even more.”
Her voice faded off, as the reality of the situation struck home. The arrival of the wolves, though earlier than anticipated, confirmed my theory regarding our landlords. They’d sent the wolves back to finish us off. While I lay on my back suffering from frostbite, Fred must have been scouting my back trail, learning my whereabouts. He probably discovered the avalanche, and found my trail. When he figured out that I’d made it to Sandy’s cabin, he brought the wolves back.
Although I could theorize everything, explaining why the wolves were back, I couldn’t see an easy way out of the situation. Even if I stayed behind, and let Sandy go alone on the skis, she couldn’t outrun the hungry beasts.
Of one thing, I was certain; there wasn’t any reason to wait for Fred to arrive. Without a doubt, Fred was not going to deliver any supplies. The big question now was how we were going to evade the wolves.
While my mind was turbulently spinning with all the implications implied by the return of the wolf pack, the barking and yapping grew steadily louder. It suddenly dawned on me that Sandy hadn’t returned to the doorway. She was still standing out in the open, crushed by the arrival of the wolf pack, and what it meant to our survival. My heart sank in my chest with empathy for her. Just moments earlier, we were happier than we’d been in a long time. We were optimistic of the future. It was difficult to believe that so much could change so suddenly by the sound of barking in the distance. It just didn’t seem fair!
“Sandy!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, yet barely penetrating the spell of despair that had settled over her. “Sandy, you have to close and latch the door! Now!”
Slowly, almost sleepily, she strolled back inside, her eyes studying the floor without seeing it. Turning around, she slowly pushed the door shut, then secured the latch, and leaned against it for support. Even without seeing her face, I could read the hopelessness of our situation in her stance. Dejectedly, she turned and faced me, her eyes rising hesitantly from the floor and searching out my face. I was shocked by the change that had come over her. Her eyes had taken on the look of defeat. She’d given up, and the battle hadn’t even started. As crestfallen, as I was myself, my heart still went out to her. She didn’t look like the same woman that was standing there just a few minutes earlier. It was hard to believe that so much life and optimism could be vanquished so suddenly.
Holding my arms out to her, I gently implored, “Come here, my love.”
Moving as though she were in a trance, she shuffled along the rough plank floor until she was standing between my feet, as they hung limply over the end of the table. Embracing her tightly, trying to impart my own sadly depleted strength and optimism into her, I held on to her. For the first time since we met, I wasn’t lying flat on my back, as I held her to me.
Breathing deeply through her hair, as it fell loosely across my cheek and forehead, I smelled her warm, loving scent. Softly, I whispered in her ear, “We aren’t beaten yet, my love. We’ll find a way out of here. They’re only dogs, after all. They can’t think with the ability that we can. It can be dangerous to underestimate them. But it can be even more dangerous if we overestimate them. Trust in me, we’ll find a way to beat them. We’re too close now to give up.”
Squeezing me tighter to her, she huskily replied, “I believe you, John. I have to believe you.”
There was a sudden, loud impacting noise against the door that literally shook the one room cabin, sending dust and what not cascading down from the timbers. The door was solid, hewn from a single piece of old growth fir. Yet, even though it measured more than four inches thick, I caught myself looking in its direction, assuring myself that it was still intact. Past experiences with the beasts of prey had taught me that the weakest part of the cabin lay in the sheathing beneath the shingles. I’ve seen firsthand how quickly a pack of determined wolves can shred their way through the thin layer of wood. However, I didn’t feel it was necessary to share that knowledge with Sandy just yet. As long as the wolves weren’t on the roof, I felt we had a chance. If the wolves went to the roof, we’d either have to form a strategy to fight them, or flee.
At the impact against the door, she involuntarily pressed in tighter against my chest. She was scared, and rightly so, I was too.
She stood against me in silence, drawing strength from me. “I just had a thought. Actually, it’s more of a question,” I suddenly stammered. “How do the wolves know where to go? I mean, how do they know that this is the cabin that contains their next victim?”
Even as I blurted the question, the answer was forming in my mind.
“I don’t know,” she mumbled into my chest.
“I think I do.”
When she didn’t answer, I continued, my voice growing excited at the prospect of finding another piece to the puzzle. “The very first day that I was on the mountain, after Fred unloaded my supplies, he backtracked out the same way that he’d come in. At the time, I remembered thinking that it was strange. But in the excitement of being left on my own in the wilderness, I didn’t give it much thought. When I thought about it later, I wrote it off to the idea that he had to backtrack to the main trail, before he could proceed to the next cabin.”
“That makes sense,” she said noncommittally. “If the cabins are laid out along the tree line, there may well be a main trail connecting them, with short spurs leading to the separate cabins.”
“That’s what I thought, too. But he wasn’t backtracking to any trail that would lead him to the next cabin on his route; he was heading back to base camp to get the wolves!”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because it fits!” I said victoriously, holding her out at arm’s length so that I could look into her eyes. “They select their victims based on more than just availability, which is what I had incorrectly assumed earlier. For whatever reason, maybe because I don’t have any family left, they decided that I was going to be their next victim. When the avalanche wiped out the cabin and the wolves didn’t find me, they must have assumed that I’d been buried under tons of snow. Unfortunately, because they didn’t have a cabin left to lease to their next client, he brought the wolves here. They’re your eviction notice, my love. They know that this is the right cabin, because Fred just dropped them off beyond the clearing to do their nasty little job. I’ll bet that right now, this very minute, Fred is less than a mile away.”
“I don’t doubt you, John, I never have. But I’m sure having a hard time believing that there are such cruel people in the world.”
“Believe it, Sandy,” I said emphatically. Then with equal conviction, I added, “I wish my feet were able to support me, because I’d love nothing better than to catch him before he could get away.” Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I continued, “I might be wrong, but I have a strong hunch that he’s not even aware that I’m alive. He’s probably assumed that the avalanche buried me, along with several of their dogs.”
“My feet are able,” she said with determination, suddenly standing taller than her five-foot-four frame.
“You’re forgetting the wolves, Sandy,” I said without making any inflection toward her abilities. “They’ll be on you before you can get one hundred yards from the cabin.”
When she didn’t immediately rebuke me, I knew she believed me. “Thinking back on it, that’s probably why we got a respite from them, and why they were leaving here when I showed up. Fred, our landlord and wolf tender, was collecting the pack so that he could put them in a controlled environment before introducing the replacements for the ones that I’d killed. That also explains why there are seven of them again.”
“So now what do we do?” she asked calm
ly, and then threw herself against me, as another beast threw itself against the door.
“If Fred can safely control them, there must be a key to it. We need to figure out what it is that distinguishes him from their prey. Why do they obey him, instead of attacking him?” I asked softly, my thoughts drifting, unable to find the elusive answer. “You wouldn’t happen to have any experience with the canine class, by chance, would you?”
“Sorry, I wasn’t even allowed to have a puppy, when I was a kid.”
“It’s almost dark now,” I said calmly. “We can’t do anything more tonight, even if we wanted to. Let’s get a good night’s sleep, and maybe by morning something will come to us.”
“I don’t want to let you go”, she whispered against my chest, squeezing me still tighter in her arms. “I need to stay with you tonight. Just hold me, please.”
“Climb up here on the table with me”, I said comfortingly, softly encouraging her.
With a graceful ease, she raised herself onto the tabletop and lay down beside me. With my arms wrapped tightly around her small waist, we lay against each other, our faces only inches apart. Being careful not to let her feet touch mine, she snuggled against my chest. Holding her tightly, I whispered in her ear, telling her how much I loved her. Slowly and begrudgingly, as the lantern burned ever lower, my thoughts drifted back to the wolf pack, and our sorry predicament.
Although I’d told Sandy that something would come to us in the way of an answer to our problem by morning, I now had to face the fact that I’d sounded confident only for her sake. In reality, I doubted if anything would come to me by morning. My mind was drawing a blank. And yet, I knew that Fred had to have some kind of control over the beasts, or he wouldn’t be able to move them to the different cabins as needed.