Timber Wolf

by Caroline Pignat

  I lick my lips, surprised my mouth has gone so dry. “What does it eat?”

  “Humans,” Mahingan answers. “It attacks, devouring flesh and bone, drinking hot blood while its prey screams. Many people die of fright, just from the sight of it coming—they say they are the lucky ones.”

  I can see it all as clear as though ’twere happening right before me. Almost hear the shrieking.

  “It hunts in the dead of winter on nights like this.” Mahingan pauses. “Victims know it’s coming by the smell, the air growing colder, the blizzard stirring up right before it attacks.”

  I swallow.

  Satisfied with my obvious terror, despite my best efforts to hide it, Mahingan starts to walk again.

  He’s messing with me. Telling ghost stories. Surely, he is. “I don’t believe you. There’s no such thing—”

  “When you fell through the ice,” Mahingan interrupts, stopping to face me, “did you feel the Mishibeshi trying to pull you deeper into the water?”

  My mouth drops. I did feel something dragging me down, gulping me into darkness.

  “Things exist,” Mahingan continues, “whether you believe in them or not.”

  Snow swirls between us on a sudden chilly gust. I catch my breath and look at Mahingan, who glances around nervously. He lowers his voice as though we’re being watched. “I have seen the Windigo this very winter.” His eyes stare back in time. “I was checking our traps, and it was late in the evening, like now. I had one more trap to go. As I approached, I saw a great, hairy thing towering over the dead fox in my snare. I could hear its wet breath from two hundred yards away. It tore through my rope like it was nothing but spiderweb and took my fox. The Windigo raided my three traps that night. But I survived. I saw the Windigo and lived to tell about it.”

  I can tell he’s not joking. He’s as scared as I am now. But that doesn’t make me feel any better. In fact, it makes me more afraid.

  “Let’s go,” he looks over his shoulder. “The sooner I get you back to the shanty, the sooner I’ll be sleeping by my fire.”

  As we approach the shanty, it crosses my mind to invite him in. The wind is picking up and besides, there is lots of room. He’d have his pick of fifty bunks. Annoying as he is, I wouldn’t mind the company. But I don’t bother asking, not after his last reaction to the shanty. Mahingan doesn’t tarry, either. The shanty comes into view and I step past Mahingan, but before I can turn back to say goodnight, he’s gone. Were it not for the fir branches rustling from his passing, I’d hardly know he’d been there at all.

  CHAPTER 29

  Inside, I stoke the fire I’d banked that afternoon, get it good and blazing. All that silly talk of ice monsters and winter ghouls has chilled me to the core, so it has. Even though I’m soon sweating, I keep adding log after log. I like the light, if not the heat. Everyone knows them specters keep to the shadows.

  I don’t recall falling asleep, but something wakens me. The fire has settled to its orange embers and the wind is whistling over chimney hole. But, over its low moan, I hear another sound, one that rivets me to the spot. A cough. ’Tis outside in the dark, a fair ways away, maybe by the tree line. But I heard it just the same. I wait, heart thumping, and just as I think I may have dreamt it, I hear it once more. Closer this time. Not a bark, or a howl, but a gagging, wet and phlegmy.

  I have to see, even though ’tis the last thing I want to do. Crawling around the bunks, I creep my way to the one window by the door and peek over the sill. Frost blurs the view, so I lay my hot hand upon the icy glass, melting a small handprint. Through the palm, I see it. All seven feet of it. For a great, shaggy beast is tromping from the darkness, heading straight towards the shanty!

  The Windigo!

  I duck down, sure it can hear my heart pulsing.

  I have to get out of here! Now! But the only door faces the oncoming creature. I’m trapped—there’s no way out. My mind scrabbles as my eyes search the room. No way out ... but up. The chimney!

  A wide square hole is cut into the roof just over the large fire pit. It’s bigger than a normal chimney. But is it big enough for me? Running and hopping on the timber frame, I clamber up the post and leap for the chimney opening, only to find a cover, like a small table, propped over the hole. I heave against it and it gives, sliding onto the roof. Snow rains upon me, hissing in the fire below, but the rattle of the front door latch is all I can hear. With a desperate pump of my legs, I push and pull myself through the opening and onto the snow-covered roof. Lying on my stomach, gripping the chimney ledge to keep me from slipping off the steep slope, I hear the creature enter the shanty. Breath ragged and soggy, it staggers across the wood floor, stopping at my bunk.

  It’s looking for me!

  Through the square hole, I can see its shaggy back as it bends and pulls aside my blanket, grumbling as it tosses it into the fire. The blanket smolders, sending dark smoke up the chimney. The cloud stings my eyes and I’m terrified that I’ll have to cough, so I shove my face in the snow beneath me. Moments later, the front door slams shut and footsteps crunch through the snow on the far side of the shanty as the creature returns to the woods.

  Numb from cold or fear, and probably both, I wait for ages before moving. I don’t want to get down, but I can’t stay up here. I’ll die of cold on this roof. Finally, I let go of the chimney opening and slide to the roof’s edge, dropping into the drift below. Trembling uncontrollably, I go back into the shanty and roll the biggest barrel in front of the door. ’Twouldn’t stop that seven-foot monster—still, I feel better having it there. The shanty is filled with dark smoke from my burning blanket and an unfamiliar smell of something rancid hangs in the air. I bury the blanket’s singed end in the sand before throwing some wood on the fire. I want to run away. To hide. And I can’t stop shaking. Not even after I’ve taken off my wet clothes and wrapped myself in another blanket. Every shiver stirs up another question.

  Should I try and find the Wawaties’ place?

  Is it headed there now?

  What if it comes back?

  Think, now. Think.

  This is the safest place to be.

  Why would it come back?

  The shaking slows. My breathing steadies and my teeth stop their chatter. But not my mind.

  Maybe it wasn’t a Windigo.

  Maybe it was a logger come back to look for me.

  The thought that I’ve missed my rescuer disturbs me, but something tells me that whatever it was, ’twas more foe than friend.

  There’s no proof ’tis me that’s here. I’ll be fine—

  But the thought is cut short when my eyes turn to the icy window. For there’s my handprint, a clear view on the dark night beyond. And if that weren’t bad enough, there just above, is another massive handprint; its mangled fingers, webbed, warped, and anything but human, burned into the frost.

  CHAPTER 30

  I don’t sleep at all the rest of that long night. With first light, I’m up and dressed and ready to find the Wawaties’. The snow is falling in big flakes, with no sign of letting up. But I have to talk to Mahingan. Maybe they know how to protect against further Windigo attacks. I set off through the woods at a good clip. I have a fair idea of which way their shelter lies, now that it’s daytime, and, sure enough, I find their camp. Or what was their camp. The place is empty, stripped. Even the pikogan is just a bare frame, a skeleton of saplings.

  The Windigo! It got them!

  My imagination starts running away on me, but soon enough I rein it in. The structure stands, but the bark coverings are gone. Not torn or burned, just missing. There are no signs of Mahingan or his grandfather—even their snowshoes and toboggan are gone. Surely their dog would have attacked the creature, and yet there is no blood on the snow, no sign of a struggle.

  Calm yourself. Didn’t Mahingan say they had a few more places to check on the trapline before going back to their main winter camp?

  I heave a sigh of relief. They aren’t dead, just gone.

&
nbsp; Gone. The weight of it sinks in and, once again, I feel abandoned. They didn’t even say goodbye. Or good riddance, which is more like something Mahingan might say. His grandfather never told me who I was, which way I’d find a town, or even if there was one. I look at the tracks left by their snowshoes and sled, slowly filling with fresh flakes. I could try to follow them, but if I don’t find them before the tracks are buried, I’ll be back where I started two weeks ago, with no food, no shelter, and no idea where I am.

  So, now what?

  My stomach grumbles in reply. I need to eat. Build up my strength and maybe, when the snow lets up, I’ll follow the river. If the logs can follow the river to the town, surely I can, too. I feel better with a plan. Scattered as it is, at least it’s something.

  Back at the shanty, I scavenge for materials. I can picture the snare and know exactly how to make it. Surely, I’ve made these a hundred times back home. Wherever home is. A bit of rummaging turns up a length of rope in one of the barrels back at the shanty and two straight lengths of branch as thick as my wrist. I spend the morning cutting a stick into two-foot-length stakes and whittling the other to a white point. You never know when a spear might come in handy.

  Lugging spear, stakes, and rope back into the woods, to a sapling near a thicket, I shove the stakes into the ground in a foot-wide circle and use the thinnest one as an arch at the opening. The noose goes there. Using my knife, I trim the sapling’s branches, bend it and secure it to the noose, careful not to spring the trap myself. Any rabbit coming along here that happens to stick its head in there is mine. Mind you, I haven’t any bait.

  What sort of animal would be dumb enough to be lured by curiosity alone?

  The bundle of remaining sticks lies buried by the thickly falling snow. I dig them out and pile them in my arms before trudging off in search of another thicket. I’ve enough for three traps. Surely, one will catch my dinner. But if the snow keeps falling at this rate, all traps and hope will soon be buried.

  As I kneel at the next thicket, my neck prickles. Something’s watching me. I pivot quickly, half expecting to see the Windigo mid-pounce, but ’tis only the wolf standing about a hundred yards away.

  “You scared the bejaysus out of me!” I say, relieved to see him, for many reasons. Maybe he’s watching over me, or maybe he’s lonely. Either way, he’s company. He sits and observes me driving the stakes into the ground. “Don’t worry, this isn’t for wolf,” I say, “just rabbit. You like rabbit, don’t you?”

  He yawns. A great tongue-curling grin. He’s alone, as usual.

  “Where’s your pack?” I ask. He tilts his head at my question, then raises his brow, as though asking me the very same. I laugh. The sound of it makes him bark as he pitches his rump in the air, head down between his paws, ready to play. Had I a ball, I’d toss it for him. I find it odd that I’d felt so afraid of him those first nights. Here in the daylight, he seems like a gangly pup. A year or two old, if that.

  Snare set, I pick up the sticks for the last one and walk deeper into the woods, turning to see if the wolf is following. Sure enough, he is. He’s not coming too close, preferring to stay a safe distance away. Still, I like having him around, watching over me. Listening to me. But, as we approach another clearing, he stops. Barks once. This time it’s not for play.

  I smell the meat before I see it. Fresh kill. Like the wolf, I sniff the cold air for other scents, wary of running into another hungry hunter. If this animal smells the meat, so will others. Bigger ones, with fangs and claws. But the air is clean, crisp. No scent of anything but the meat.

  That should have been my first warning.

  CHAPTER 31

  Any hesitation is washed away by the slather in my mouth. Meat. Real meat and lots of it. I can almost taste it, almost feel the greasy juice of it running down my chin. I press on through the thicket of branches, following the tangy smell. And there it is. The bloodied carcass lies over a thick branch about eight feet from the ground above a small clearing. A deer, I’d say. A small one, about fifty pounds, though it’s hard to tell from the mass of black feathers frantically flapping around the haunch of meat. After days of nothing but scraps here and there, I could cry at the sight.

  “Oh, Wolf, we’ll be having a right feed tonight!”

  The crows eye me warily as they rip what they can. They knew a bigger predator would arrive. As do I. ’Tis the way of the woods.

  The wolf whinges and licks his lips as he looks at the meat. He wants it, too. But he’ll not step a paw into the clearing. Instead, he circles halfway around and back, pacing side to side. The snow spreads before us like a great rumpled sheet, unmarked except for the bloodied slush beneath the deer. No footprints, yet. I look behind me. We have to act fast.

  “Come on, then,” I say, taking a step.

  The wolf whines, his worried eyes darting between me and the deer.

  “You’re not afraid of a few mangy birds, are ye?” I throw down the stakes and wave my spear over my head as I step in closer. The crows reluctantly leave their feed and settle themselves in the nearby branches, but a few hungry stragglers remain, frantically pecking what they can. But the wolf won’t move from the edge. Perhaps the height of the meat frustrates him. For no wolf-sized animal can reach it. I grip my spear in both hands and move closer to the deer. A few good jabs with this would surely free it.

  The wolf barks twice.

  “Whisht, now,” I turn and scold. “Don’t worry yourself. I’ll share it ... even though you’re too afraid to get it. But must you call every animal in God’s kingdom?”

  He shrinks for a moment at the harshness in my voice, but he can’t stay still as he anxiously paces the edge, whining and whimpering. Something has him riled. I can tell by his flattened ears he’s heard nothing to worry him so.

  I scan the woods around us. Nothing but trunks and pine. Does he smell another animal coming? All the more reason to get our prize and go.

  Turning back to the deer, I step in closer. The remaining crows reluctantly give up their find to join the others biding time on higher branches. I feel their beady eyes upon me, but they needn’t bother waiting. I’m not planning on leaving any precious meat behind. With the butt end of my spear, I shove the carcass two or three times. It lowers the back end but the deer is good and jammed between the fork of the branches. This isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.

  How did it get up that far, anyway?

  At first, I think it got stuck or impaled itself trying to leap away from some predator. But this is a fairly fresh kill and my footprints are the only ones in the snow. I lean over for a better angle. Maybe I can pry it loose from the front. I study the forelegs and head dangling over the other side of the branch and realize the animal isn’t just bloodied from where the scavengers had torn chunks off its rump. From tip to tail, indeed, the whole carcass is bare red flesh. No predator skins its prey. None, other than man. But this was not the Wawaties’ way.

  “Wolf.” I turn to him. “Do you know what this means? Someone else put this here. We’re saved!”

  Wolf whimpers, watching my feet as I circle the deer. He knows. Knew it the minute we arrived in this clearing. Yet, it is only slowly dawning on me; I’ve been thinking with my stomach. The lure, the clearing, it all makes sense. I should have realized long before that moment, for I’d spent the afternoon setting up my own traps. I look up at the bloodied carcass a good eight feet in the air. This trap isn’t to catch a rabbit. It’s meant for something much bigger. Something that eats meat.

  A bear.

  Reaching for my knife, I grab the lowered back leg of the carcass. The bear could be here any minute, and who knows how long it might be before the trapper returns? All I know for sure is that my wolf and I have to eat. The crows safely scavenged some, why can’t we?

  The wolf whimpers as I hack at the deer. Careful not to dislodge the body and trip the trap, I cut away a good sized hank, enough to do us for a few days. Surely the trapper will be back by then.

>   Home. Wherever it is, I’m going home ... and with a full belly. I smile, pleased with myself. “There you are now, ye scavengers,” I nod to the black birds eyeing my every move with their jerky heads, “you may have the rest.” Prize in hand, I take a step back.

  One tiny step.

  I never see the razor fangs leaping out of the snow. Their hungry teeth bite deep and fast, swallowing my leg up to the knee before I can react, before my wolf can utter a sound. Maybe he barked. Maybe I screamed. But I neither see nor hear a thing, for a great wave of pain roars in my ears, drowning all as it drags me under.

  CHAPTER 32

  I don’t know how long I am out for. I only wish it had been longer. Even before I open my eyes, great stabbing pain shoots in and around my thigh, my whole leg throbs with it.

  What ... what happened?

  My leg. Great jaws.

  The bear?

  A wet nose nudges my chin. Snuffles around my face.

  I jolt awake, arms flailing as the wolf’s hot tongue welcomes me back to the land of the living. To the clearing where I’ve fallen and still lie beneath the deer carcass in the bloodied snow.

  Twilight. I’ve been out for some time. Raising myself onto one elbow, I glance down at my right leg, mashed and mangled in the metal mouth of a great trap. The snow beneath is stained cherry red. So much blood. My head spins at the sight and throbbing pain of it, and I lie back, covering my eyes.

  What an idiot! Why didn’t I check the ground? All I had to do was poke it with my spear. Why didn’t I listen to the wolf like Grandfather Wawatie said? Instead, I’d let my pride and hunger get the best of me.

  Branches snap and the wolf turns, a snarl curling his black lips. Among the thin trunks in the distance, something moves. It stops for a moment, then turning in our direction, lumbers towards us. By the size and shape, I can guess what it is.

  A bear.

  The gathering of crows launches from the branches above me, their warning cries fading into silence. Not good. Not good at all. We have to get out of here, fast.