Running Wild

by Lucy Jane Bledsoe

  I dread the coming winter. In Alaska, the season is bone-rattling cold. We spend hours shoveling paths connecting our buildings. The worst part is the darkness. For most of November through January, there is only night. We live so far north that the sun barely rises during the winter months, and when it does, at the beginning and end of winter, it’s only for a short time. I hate the darkness and how we’re mostly stuck inside for the long months, hibernating like bears.

  Dad and the boys should be back soon. It’s time to put the venison, with some potatoes, on top of the woodstove. An hour later, at the beginning of dusk, the snow is falling steadily and they still haven’t returned. What if they don’t ever?

  Going out onto the porch, all I can see are dark swaying trees and falling snow.

  But wait. I hear something. A moment later, spots of brightness bob through the trees—the light of three headlamps.

  Dad is laughing! They must have gotten game.

  When they appear in the clearing, they look like snowmen, white from head to toe, and the boys are stumbling with exhaustion. Dad drags a thick tarp that he’s using as a makeshift sled to bring back the meat. Their backpacks, too, will be loaded with the kill, packed into large plastic garbage bags. The light from their headlamps spills out onto the snow, making it blue and shiny.

  I wait on the porch, excited to see what they’ve got. Dad would have skinned, gutted, and quartered the animal in the field. Unless it was something small, they would have had to leave a lot of it out there because they couldn’t possibly carry that much meat. Wolves will quickly eat what they left.

  “Moose,” Keith says, the extreme fatigue making his voice hoarse.

  “Moose!” I cry. My mouth waters at the thought.

  The boys drop their rifles and packs on the porch. Inside, they tear off their parkas and pry off their boots, leaving everything in a wet heap. As Dad hauls the meat inside, I ladle bowls of the venison stew and set out the cornbread and rose hips jelly. The boys inhale their supper before crawling into their sleeping bags and falling asleep.

  Dad changes into his other pants and makes himself a cup of coffee. He sits in front of the woodstove, almost smiling, and I wonder if he’s forgotten what he read in my journal this morning. I pull one of the chairs over next to him and put his supper on it. He nods his thanks and wolfs it down.

  I clean and dry off the firearms and return them to the high cupboard, hang the boys’ wet parkas on hooks by the door, and set their boots near the stove to dry. I take a moment to pull their sleeping bags up around their shoulders and kiss each of their foreheads before gathering up Dad’s Carhartts, soaked with blood from the field butchering, and putting them in the washing tub. They’ll need to be cleaned with cold water because hot water cooks blood into fabric. Tomorrow I can scrub them with rocks and water from the creek.

  The meat has to be preserved right away to prevent contamination. In the daylight, and in decent weather, we can work outside. But I know Dad doesn’t want to wait until tomorrow. We can’t risk losing any of this meat. He spreads two thick pieces of plastic on top of the kitchen table and we get to work.

  First he slices off the fat for me to render. I put it into a pot on top of the stove and begin melting it down. Dad cuts the meat into smaller pieces and we apply salt cure to all the surfaces; this will help kill dangerous microorganisms. We’ll hang the salted meat chunks from the ceiling of the cache for a few weeks. Later we’ll set up the big tent we lived in when we first got here, which we now use to cold-smoke meat over a slow-burning fire. Dad fashioned a hole in the tent that a chimney fits through and built a wooden rack to hold the meat at the exact right height over the fire.

  We don’t finish until dawn, when it’s time for me to make breakfast. The boys wake up and I give them big bowls of oatmeal, dolloped with the rest of the jelly. I also roast a hunk of the fresh meat and cut chunks for them. The mood in our cabin is the cheeriest it’s been in months. As everyone scarfs down their breakfasts, Dad lets the boys tell the hunt story. How Keith is the one who first spotted the moose. How Dad killed him with one shot. How lucky we are to have the slippery surface of snow because that meant they could transport more of the meat home than if they’d had to carry it only in their packs. Everyone is still hungry, so I mix up some biscuits and as they bake, we tell stories from past adventures. It feels almost like it did in the beginning, when we first moved up here and were all so sad about Mama, and yet had hope that this life would heal us.

  Only now, as we’re eating the biscuits, do I notice that I left Jane Eyre on top of my sleeping bag. Getting the moose has put Dad in a good frame of mind, but I don’t want to take any chances. When he’s not looking, I shove the book under my cot, into the farthest, darkest corner.

  THREE

  DAD SURPRISES ME by not even bothering to travel back to the site of the kill to see if any edible parts of the moose remain. It’s not like him to admit defeat, even to wolves. But he’s been up for well over twenty-four hours and looks exhausted. When he finally goes to bed, the boys get back in their sleeping bags for another snooze. I’m exhausted, too, but I want to start soaking Dad’s Carhartts. I grab the washing tub and bucket and slip out of the cabin. Several inches of snow cover the ground, and the sky is a delicate pink without a cloud in sight.

  After using the bucket to fill the tub and sloshing the pants a few times, I leave them on the bank while I climb the hill to feel the sun. Near the top, I hear something whimper. I walk toward the sound, suspicious of what I’ll find.

  Two weeks ago, a lone wolf came into our clearing. She squinted at me and then pointed her nose at the sky and howled before running off. She returned the next day, when Dad was fixing a leak in the rowboat. He shouted and clapped his hands to scare her away.

  But in the morning, we saw her tracks circling the cabin.

  “What does she want?” Seth asked, his voice full of wonder.

  “Something tender to eat,” Dad answered angrily. “Something easy to catch.”

  Seth is like Mama, gentle but resolute. He even looks like her with his dark-blond wispy hair, his extra-pink lips, his pale skin with the veins showing blue at his temples. He said, “We could give her something. If she’s hungry.”

  “Your portion?” Dad asked.

  “Besides,” Keith said, “feed her and she’ll come back for more. She’ll bring the rest of her pack.”

  “She’s a loner,” Dad said. “Otherwise she’d be with her pack now.”

  Keith winced, not liking to be contradicted. He has eyes like Dad’s, lit from within, but gray rather than bright blue. His wavy mink-brown hair hangs well below his ears because he hasn’t let me cut it this fall.

  The next day the wolf came back an hour before dusk. The light was thick and golden like honey, but the air was frigid. It was one of the first cold days of the season, and the boys and I were searching for round stones to use in our beds. We like to set them on top of the woodstove during supper. After they get nice and hot, we wrap them in our flannel shirts and put them in the bottom of our sleeping bags to keep our feet warm.

  We didn’t see the wolf walking up the stream toward us until she was close. Even after we spied her, none of us moved. I could tell Seth thought she was beautiful by his quick intake of breath.

  Wolves don’t eat people. They like hoofed mammals, like deer, moose, and caribou, as well as snowshoe hares and beavers. Still, it was curious that this wolf had been so bold, coming around our cabin. They usually avoid people. For a long moment, I held her gaze, feeling a mix of awe and fear. She was beautiful, and yet with one lunge she could rip us to shreds.

  “Don’t move.” Dad’s voice, low but forceful, came from the front porch, where he raised his rifle.

  “No!” Seth cried.

  I pulled my brothers into a tight hug. Keith’s thin chest trembled and a short hard sob heaved out of Seth’s mouth, a hid
eous sound, as if he was going to throw up.

  Dad shot the wolf.

  Seth squirmed away and took off running up the hill.

  “I hate you,” Keith yelled, but Dad had already gone back inside. Keith gathered a handful of rocks and chucked them, as hard as he could, against the side of our cabin.

  “We need to bury the wolf,” I said to make him stop. We dug a grave in the woods and dragged the body over. I kept hoping Dad would come out to help us, but he didn’t. Once we finished, we crouched next to the stream in the dark, and washed off.

  I made polenta with pumpkin for dinner that night. Seth sat on his cot, tears streaming down his face, and refused to eat. Keith ate with Dad and me at the table, but in big gulping bites. Then he stood by the woodstove, as far from Dad as he could get, glowering.

  “There was no other way, children,” Dad said. “Either we kill her or she kills us. That’s why we’re up here: to live in the heart of the truth.”

  “Wolves don’t kill people,” I said.

  “Game is scarce this year. She was getting too comfortable with us.”

  Keith used two pieces of kindling to drum on the stovetop.

  “Stop that,” Dad said.

  Keith drummed louder.

  Dad stood up from the table, took a step toward Keith, and that’s when Seth cried out, “I miss Mama!”

  We all froze. We never talk about Mama.

  Dad sat back down, and Keith stopped drumming.

  Now, as I walk toward the sound of whimpering, it becomes all too clear why Seth ran up the hill after Dad shot the wolf. He knew the wolf was someone’s mother.

  I find the den on a steep part of the hillside. The mother wolf had dug it out under a fallen log. It appears that, since her death, Seth has taken it upon himself to protect the lone pup. He’s fashioned a door across the opening by weaving together willow branches and securing the ends with big stones. A little black nose pokes out from between the branches, and the pup begins yipping. He thinks his next meal is about to be served.

  This explains the recent depletion of our meat stores. I’m guessing the pup didn’t get fed yesterday, due to the long hunt, which is why he’s whining this morning. I’m just glad it’s me who’s discovered him, and not Dad.

  Standing in the thick mat of snow-covered autumn leaves, with my back to the den and the pup, I look out toward the mountains in the distance. I know it will break Seth’s heart if I free the pup. But even if we could keep him hidden from Dad, we can’t give him any more meat. Besides, any day now the pup will be strong enough to tear apart Seth’s willow-branch gate. I pull it away and jump back. But the wolf pup just sits on his haunches and looks up at me. He licks his little muzzle and whimpers.

  “Go on now,” I whisper. “Go. You’re free.”

  FOUR

  “I WISH,” KEITH SAYS at dinner, “that we could have brought back the moose’s antlers. They were huge.” He demonstrates by curving his arms up over his head. The light from our table candle flickers across his face, brightening his excitement.

  “You can’t eat antlers,” Dad says, pushing his empty plate away and filling his tin cup with whiskey.

  “For the cabin,” Keith says. “Like over the door.” He starts telling the story of the hunt all over again, elaborating on the moment when he first spied the moose.

  Dad interrupts him. “Since when have you become such a chatterbox?”

  Keith’s face darkens. “I’m not a chatterbox.”

  I reach across the table and touch his arm.

  Meanwhile, Seth is sulking. I figure he’s been to the wolf den and found the gate torn away. He can’t say anything, though, because he knows he shouldn’t have been trying to keep a wild animal.

  “Anyway,” Keith says, “you’re the one who made too much noise by tripping over a branch and scaring away the first moose we saw.”

  Until now, none of them had mentioned a first moose.

  “Keith,” I warn.

  I don’t remember Dad when he was a drinker. He quit when I was born. In fact, Mama once told me that he quit because of me. Having a child and wanting to be a good father made him see that he had a problem. Since he brought the bottles back from Fort Yukon this July, he’s mostly left them alone. Days go by and he doesn’t take a drink. But when he does pour himself one, he keeps drinking until he falls asleep.

  “We wouldn’t be eating fresh moose steak right now,” Keith carries on, the heat rising in his voice, “if I hadn’t found another one.”

  “Quiet,” Dad says.

  Keith forks the rest of his meat into his mouth. Seth isn’t eating, so I cover his plate and put it aside for later. I use my eyes to direct my brothers over to their cots. They mind me. But Seth starts humming a song to comfort himself.

  “Seth,” I say quietly. “Not now. Please.”

  Dad pulls his chair up to the woodstove and sets his cup and whiskey bottle on the floor next to it. He sharpens his knife and begins whittling. He used to carve little animals for us to play with, but lately he just sharpens sticks.

  We all sit in silence, listening to the slide of the knife blade along the wood.

  Maybe I can reason with Dad. I make him a cup of coffee and set it next to his bottle.

  “Dad?”

  I wait for him to look up.

  “The moose you got is great, but we still don’t have enough meat for the winter.”

  “If we had a snowmobile and a sled like the Slone-Taylors have,” Keith says, still surly, “then we could have brought all the meat back. We’d be set.”

  I shoot Keith another look to quiet him.

  “Snowmobile.” Dad shakes his head. He thinks that’s cheating. As if trying to stay alive is a game. I can’t help thinking about how, back in Seattle, Dad was a high school math teacher. Who lived his whole life in the city, until we came here. He’s really smart, but we moved so fast after Mama died, and there is so much to learn about surviving in the wilderness. I feel like we’ve gotten this far, in part, by luck.

  “We’re running out of time,” I say. “We don’t have enough food.”

  Dad’s cheeks sag. His lips twitch. Maybe he’ll actually hear me. So I just say it. “I think we should leave.”

  Seth gasps. “Leave?”

  Dad doesn’t answer. He takes several more swallows from his tin cup.

  I add, “Before the ice starts running and we can’t leave.”

  Dad refills his cup and drinks it down in two fast gulps. “Since when do you call the shots, Willa?”

  “She’s right,” Keith says. “We need more meat.”

  “I want to play chess,” Seth says in a teary voice.

  Dad glares at Seth, his temples pulsing, then says to Keith, “You’re so worried about winter, then go chop firewood.”

  Keith slams out of the cabin in just his T-shirt.

  “Dad!” I cry. “It’s dark. And cold. We can chop wood in the morning.”

  I unhook my parka and Keith’s, but Dad says, “Sit down.”

  When I move toward the door anyway, he flies out of his chair and blocks my way. “What did I just say?”

  I refuse to say the words, and I hold his gaze for several seconds before I go sit on the cot next to Seth. He lets me hug him.

  Dad returns to his chair, his anger filling the cabin. He doesn’t pick up his knife or stick. Only the tin cup. I’m relieved to hear the sound of splitting wood coming from the woodshed. As long as Keith chops wood, he’ll probably stay warm enough.

  I fetch the chess set, lay the board on my cot, and stand up the pieces. “You go first.” Seth’s posture loosens. I make a show of studying my countermove. A couple of plays later, he takes a pawn and I groan as if it were a complete surprise to me. Seth studies my face to see if I’m humoring him. I mumble, “You’re not getting any more pieces from
me.”

  I try to keep Seth focused on the chess game, but when Dad pushes up from his chair and steps out into the dark, Seth’s eyes go wide.

  “It’s okay,” I say. “Dad’s gonna bring Keith back inside. Your move.”

  I let him take my queen and say, “I didn’t see that coming.”

  The wood-chopping stops. It’s hard to concentrate on the game as the silence from out back lengthens. Then there’s a thud. And another long silence.

  When the door to the cabin opens, Keith steps in alone. His long hair hangs over his eyes and he’s shivering hard from the cold. He shakes back his hair, revealing a swelling red patch on his jawline. I reach out and touch it, and he pulls away.

  “What’s that?” I ask.

  “I slipped,” he says, “and fell onto the chopping block.”

  “How come you’re suddenly so clumsy?” A few weeks ago he reported falling off the cache ladder and hitting his cheek on a rock. We are a long, difficult journey away from a doctor and can’t afford accidents.

  Keith just shrugs. Usually when you criticize him, he argues.

  Seth says, “He isn’t clumsy.”

  “Then how do you explain all this slipping and falling?”

  “He talks back.”

  “Shut up, Seth,” Keith says, but I can tell he doesn’t want his twin to shut up. He wants me to hear.

  My two little brothers wait for me to say something, but I don’t know what to say. I wrap Keith in his sleeping bag and have him sit next to the stove until he warms up.

  FIVE

  I SILENTLY CRY myself to sleep. A few hours later, a jolt of fear jerks me awake. I lift my head to see if Dad has returned. Making out a lump on his cot, I drop my head back down on the pillow and stare into the darkness.