by Angela Foxxe
Once the cabin warmed a few degrees, she tested the water—it wasn’t frozen. She could take a three minute shower every few days and have enough water to last the winter. Today was a shower day. Monique’s skin tone was a gift from her African father, a rich brown color that stretched from head to toe. Not overly black, nor obviously white, but certainly dark. Her hair and eyes came from her mother. Silky black hair fell in long, straight waves past her shoulders. Combined with her green eyes, it made her unusual enough to stand out.
In New Orleans, as a child, the children called her white chocolate, and not as a term of endearment. The irony in a city with a predominately black people, and a rich French history, people being racist to her immigrant French mother and African father wasn’t lost to her.
She shook the memory of her past lest it lead to places she didn’t want to go. The clock counted down, she had less than two minutes to finish. The straight razor smoothed her legs and pubis over. She couldn’t afford any hair for a tick to get lost in, plus she liked the feel of her smooth skin. With twenty seconds left, she let the water hit her shoulders and flow down her back. The timer dinged and the water shut off.
A quick look out the window was enough to tell her what she needed to wear. Her black, cold weather boots, wool pants, a thin tank top, and her jacket over that. The jacket was rated for below zero. In anything more than twenty degrees, she kept it unzipped to keep her cool. The thermometer stayed level at thirty since she got up. It wouldn’t be getting much warmer, and probably not colder until the sun started its trek downward.
The fresh snow made it easy to track. With winter being harsher than normal, she decided adding a couple of rabbits to her stores would be wise. For now, the storm abated and Monique needed to get to work.
She put another log on the fire and adjusted her mental math on how long it would last. She hated trying to restart it, and if she were freezing, she may not be able to. Best to let it stay aflame than risk having to start a new one.
Living up in the mountains for the past several years gave Monique an almost sixth sense when it came to her area. When she stepped out into the fresh snow, she felt a tingle up her spine. Something wasn’t right. Her bow came up with an arrow knocked in a heartbeat.
“Whoa there lady!” The voice came from her left. Monique dropped to her knee, and lined up her arrow with the chest of the man who spoke.
“Hey, I said hold it, don’t make me say it again.” The man who spoke was on the road atop a horse, his beige parka bore the insignia of sheriff. It took her a second to recognize him. When she first moved here, she spent a lot of time in town. The cabin needed a lot of work. Now though, she only went once toward the end of summer. What was his name… Petrov? He was a Russian immigrant, and when she was last in town, he had only been a deputy. Every time she went though, he found some reason to talk to her. His come-ons were obnoxious, and she always got the feeling he looked down on her because of her heritage. Not a lot of black people lived in Russia.
She let the string slacken and lowered the bow, but not by much.
“You’re on my land without permission, Deputy, is there a reason?” She couldn’t remember the last time she spoke aloud. Her French accent came out thick for lack of practice.
“It’s Sheriff now, Monique, and I would think you would be a little more hospitable to a man looking for a lost baby.” His smile told her all she needed. He was scum, and he couldn’t be trusted.
“Good luck with that. Now get off my land.”
His smile went flat. “How about a cup of coffee? It’s damn cold up here.”
Monique didn’t budge. As far as she was concerned, this conversation was over.
“You’re an awful stubborn girl. Stuck up here on your own, refusing kind gestures, what happens if you get hurt, or you need something? You would be smart to remember that.”
She didn’t mind being called a girl, after all, she was one, but the way he said it was an insult. Her eyes narrowed and her fingers flexed around the bowstring.
“Sheriff, I want to be left alone, do you understand that? Leave; I won’t ask again.” There was menace in her voice as she spoke, and something else. The pain of being around people was too much. Too many memories came back and wanted to overwhelm her. It was easier to just focus on surviving.
He growled at her, spun his horse around, and kicked it in the flanks. The horse took off at a trot. Monique lifted an eyebrow at the growl. I’m going to need to improvise some locks on my door. Sharpen my knife, and make sure the pistol is loaded tonight.
Men like him were trouble. They had egos a mile long, and when that ego was hurt, they would lash out physically. Monique was well aware of the dangers of such men, and wouldn’t allow herself to fall victim.
She waited until she couldn’t hear the horse anymore and then set out in the opposite direction. Fifteen minutes passed since she exited the cabin, and that was less time she could use for hunting.
The fresh snow held plentiful tracks, several hare, a fox hunting, like her, she even came across a deer. It wasn’t unusual for the winter, but she wouldn’t hunt deer in the snow. She only needed three or four in a year, and she always chose them in the fall, after the fawns grew enough to take care of themselves.
An hour into her expedition, with a little over half again as much time left, Monique came across wide deep tracks that looked like paws.
Wolves...
Three of them. Big ones from the looks of the tracks. That’s odd... The deer and wolf tracks intersected, but the wolves didn’t turn to track it. The wind swept down from the ridge-line at her back toward the valley, as long as she kept the wolves upwind of her, they would likely leave her alone. They would only attack a person to defend cubs or if they were extremely hungry. The food on the mountain was plentiful enough that she figured they would leave her be.
She picked a path that would keep the wolves above her, but didn’t follow the deer tracks on the off chance the wolves were hunting it. A hundred yards later, she found the rabbit tracks she was looking for. With a nocked arrow, and slow movements, she came across the snow bunny. It nibbled on a plant that somehow escaped the snowfall of the night before. She lifted the arrow to her eye, and placed the rabbit right below the arrow head. Slowly, enough that her breath barely steamed, she let it out. Halfway through, the arrow flew.
The second she released, she ran after it. The arrow hit the rabbit in the haunches and spun it over several times. She fell on the little creature with her knife and finished the job. She wasn’t cruel enough to let the animal suffer. A whimper from behind set her in motion. She rolled on one shoulder and came up with her bow nocked.
“Shit,” she said to the baby wolf. It couldn’t have been more than a few months old. He limped out from the tree that provided shelter. The little wolf found the dropped rabbit. His tongue came out to lick the blood off the fur.
“Well little guy, I think that’s your family I came across; they must be looking for you.” Wolf cubs were dangerous, she knew that. Come between a mom and her baby, the instinct was natural... Monique closed her eyes, her hands flexed into tight, trembling fists. Breathe girl, breathe. When she opened her eyes, the wolf pup limped over to her boot, his right forepaw held up to avoid putting pressure on it. Monique could see the bone sticking out.
“Oh pup, you’re dead, aren’t you? Your family can’t fix that.” The little pup whimpered again at her. What are you doing? Leave him the rabbit and walk away.
Almost as if he could hear her thoughts, he whimpered again.
No. Walk away.
With a breath for resolve, she turned and walked. The little pup whined after her. His little voice pierced the iron coat she wore around her heart.
*
Carver gasped for air. Cold penetrated him, froze him. He couldn’t feel his extremities, and everything was black. Where am I? Oh god, the avalanche! Kirk!
He called the wolf, if he could shift he would be out of the snow.
/> Nothing.
Damn Brennan, what have you done?
Anger flooded his system. He couldn’t shift, and he didn’t know why, but he didn’t need to be the wolf to be strong. He howled as he pushed against his icy coffin with all his might. The sight of his beloved crashing to the snow dead fuelled his rage. The loss of his son in the avalanche, the betrayal by one he once called friend, all of it. His heart pounded and he thought his chest would explode. His arm moved an inch, then a little more. Light pierced the snow and his hand was free. It took only moments from there to free his whole body.
Carver rested against the top of the tree and breathed easy. The barbed dart still stuck out of his thigh. His struggle to get free tore his wound open sending fresh blood to drop on the snow. The barbs were such that if he tried to remove it, he would lose a half pound of flesh easy, and he couldn’t bandage it, since any movement would just start the bleeding again. He needed to get help. The entrance to the mine was buried under twenty feet of snow and rock. The avalanche changed the way everything looked, he couldn’t even tell where it was. The emergency exit was on the other side of the mountain. Even healthy and in good weather it would take him two days to reach it.
Carver collapsed against the tree. His struggle to not die in the snow was for naught. He would die above it. His love and son would go un-avenged. Carver took a deep breath to calm his heart when he caught a familiar scent.
“No... It’s not—” he didn’t want to say it. Didn’t want to hope it could be true. He struggled to stand and the wound in his thigh burned with each movement. His legs didn’t want to work at first. He struggled with each foot fall. On the third step they loosened, by the tenth he only walked with a limp. Thirty feet from where he started he fell to his knees. A small tunnel in the snow, just big enough for a pup, protruded here. He bent down to smell. Kirk, you’re alive boy. Alive! Now he had something to fight for. The pup was hurt, that much was obvious. He headed off to the west, up the mountain.
“Good boy, let them climb to try and find you.” Carver wasn’t helpless as a human, but it wasn’t his natural form, it wasn’t where he shined. He stumbled up the hill, each step a clumsy attempt to not fall and hurt his leg even more. Kirk’s scent drifted left and right, but always came back to the center. It wasn’t an easy climb, not even if he could have shifted. When his foot slipped and he fell to his knee, the barbed dart spurted blood. Only his remarkable regeneration kept him from dying out of blood loss. It wasn’t infallible though, he would need to eat soon or he would die.
His heart jumped when he found the wolf tracks; they were hunting him. The line of their tracks however, ran off in the wrong direction. They don’t know what he smells like. They’re hunting everything, running down everything. That will take time.
After what felt like weeks of climbing, he made it to the top of the ridge line. He accepted that he was easy to follow, leaving a trail of blood and sweat behind. It would only be a matter of time before they found him. He needed to find Kirk first.
The fresh scent of a kill perked him up. His mouth watered and his heart sped up. Had his son managed to kill a rabbit? He smiled at the thought. Kirk was too new, though, too young. His teeth were barely formed.
He found the rabbit’s blood against a tree, tiny bits of discarded flesh that smelled like Kirk had nibbled on them. What he saw next sent fear to his heart. Boot prints in the snow. He knelt down beside them placing his fingers inside the print. The snow was hard on the edges, that meant it had time to re-freeze, the human was at least an hour ahead of him.
Whoever it was wasn’t trying to hide their tracks, but they were carefully, and cleverly keeping their scent downwind from the other wolves. Carver smiled. That meant they were upwind from him. He caught Kirk’s scent, it mingled with another scent. His pupils dilated and his skin heated. Woman, his mind told him. The hunter that held his son took off to the north. He followed.
It was slow going with the barb in his thigh, but at least the hill was much easier on top of the ridge than at the bottom. His pack hunted south, where the valley and the river connected. Rarely did they follow the deer up the mountain. Too many calories were lost climbing for a meal that may not happen. Now he had no choice. Whoever was up here wasn’t an amateur. The path she picked to follow kept the wolves away from her scent while offering her an easy walk to wherever she was going.
He caught a whiff of wood smoke. A cabin couldn’t be far away. What would he do though? It’s not like he could barge in and demand his son. The human wouldn’t even know what he was talking about. And he wasn’t in a position to fight. All his instincts told him to run in and save his son. He fought to suppress them. Whoever had the boy wasn’t going to hurt him. The boot prints were the only prints, yet he smelled Kirk, which meant they carried him. He had time to figure out a plan, he just had to find them first. And hope the others didn’t.
CHAPTER THREE
The little pup squeaked as Monique examined his leg. She wasn’t a doctor, and certainly not a vet, but she knew enough to see signs of infection.
“This must have just happened, no?” The pup’s pant made her smile. She had him on her kitchen table. When she got home, she placed him there along with some very small slices of meat and a little bowl of water. He couldn’t move well on his own, and she couldn’t honestly imagine how he got so far without help. But he did. The rabbit needed to be skinned though, and it couldn’t wait.
The pup lay on the table patiently as she went to work with her skinning knife. She tore the skin from the rabbit by cutting it at the hind quarters, then pulling it down to its headless neck. The rabbit she hung over a bowl to make sure the blood was drained, the skin she put in a sink full of cold water.
Every few seconds she glanced up, the pup’s ears would perk up and he nibbled on some meat, or lapped up the water. Monique smiled, a genuine one. Oh god, stop. Just stop. You can’t keep him, you don’t want this.
She redoubled her efforts to focus on flaying the rabbit. Once she had the chunks of meat in the sizes she wanted, they all went into freezer bags and then out the little hole in the back of the cabin she used as her cold storage.
When she returned to him, the food and water were gone. Carefully, so not to aggravate his paw, she examined him again. He panted happily at her, his pink tongue darted out to lick her fingers.
“Stop it,” she said with a force she didn’t mean. He whined at her. Then tried to lick her fingers again. “Dammit pup, stop it.” She didn’t want to smile, didn’t want to feel anything. Certainly not for a pup that would likely die on her.
“Wait a second,” she murmured. Did she have the wrong paw? She turned the leg over and ran her fingers through the short fur. The break was gone. Not healed, not hidden, gone. Like it never was there. Had she imagined it?
No, not possible. I saw the bone, the blood. He broke his leg.
The pup’s ears shot up and he growled. It came out as more of a high pitched whine than an actual growl, but it was enough that Monique knew something was wrong. She scooped the pup up and placed him in the corner, wrapped in a towel.
“Stay here little guy, out of sight. If it’s your parents out there, we need to wash you off before we give you back to them.”
Monique checked the clock, almost five meant the sun would be going down soon. The way the dark clouds gathered on the horizon it was a sure bet a storm brewed. Great, another one. This winter was already the coldest one since she moved up here, and long, too. If it went on too much longer, she would have to make the hike down to the ranger station and get the four-wheeler. Town was a long way away on foot. At least with the ATV she could be there and back in a day. Some things she needed she couldn’t make herself or hunt.
The wind picked up outside sending snow against the big window that dominated the front wall. It held a view of the slope, letting her see for a half mile down to the tree line. A figure appeared out of the snow. It was the sheriff.
“Great, pup, not you
r parents.” The aggravation in her voice rang in the pup’s growl. “I know, he’s a tool, and possibly dangerous, but so am I.” The third drawer down next to the table held her pistol. A vintage WWII .45 automatic her great uncle carried. He cared for it like a child, and Monique did, too. She pulled the slide back, clicked the safety on to hold it in place, then slid it in the small of her back. Her nylon belt held it snugly. She pulled her tank top down to cover it.
She opened the door just as he knocked.
“I thought I told you to get off my land?”
A dark shadow fell over his face. He didn’t look happy. “I lost my horse to some wolves. I need to use your radio.” He tried to step forward but Monique didn’t budge.
“You can’t make it to the ranger station? It’s only seven miles.”
“You’re seriously not going to let me use your radio? I could die if this storm hits.” The look of exasperation on his face sent her nerves on fire. What she wanted to do was punch him in his stupid head. But he was right, she couldn’t let him die. As much as she wanted to be left alone...
“All right, fine, but you’d better make it quick.” She moved aside. He nodded and walked into the cabin. Her place wasn’t particularly big. Monique maintained the place in an orderly fashion—no dirty dishes, or old food, her clothes were put away, and her sleeping bag lay rolled up at the foot of the very small bed. From the fireplace on the back wall to the front door was only twenty feet, and thirty feet from the bed to the kitchen.
He pointed to the radio questioningly.
“Yeah, that’s it.”
“It’s old isn’t it?”
“It came with the place.”
She suddenly felt very out of place in here own cabin, and she didn’t like it. The bed offered her some comfort letting her put her back to the wall and watch his every move. She suddenly wished she put a real top on, and not one that showed cleavage. He kept looking at her from the side, in an obvious attempt to check out her boobs without checking them out.
