The one I’m charging at finally turns off Feeny to start at me, and the ones from behind and the left are still on Feeny but further from him, so I’ve gained him ten seconds maybe, or five, and now I have to keep charging at the one I’ve committed to.
I yell back at the guys, “
I seem to think there’s some way if we split them up and charge at them we’ll be able to get the others off Feeny. What we do with whichever wolves we pull off I don’t know, but they’ll be off Feeny. But run as hard as we can, and whether one of them is turned at me or not, I’m seeing we’re far, further than I thought, and all the other black lines moving on Feeny are much closer, it looks like, than we are, and we can yell as loud as we want but they aren’t getting pulled off by anything, they’re on him. Ojeira falls over in the snow and is yelling in pain, then he’s stumbling and tripping trying to get his feet back up on the snow, and he stumbles backwards in terror when he sees them closing on Feeny, then he stops, like he doesn’t want to leave Feeny, but he can’t make himself go get him. Neither would I, alone, half-broken like him.
I’m still making for Feeny as fast as I can, but Feeny doesn’t have any fight in him, and one of them hits Feeny and then the lines all rush suddenly so much faster than before and shoot at him like knives across the snow, and they’re all on him, the one I thought I pulled off turns and runs back at him too, and I can’t see Feeny any more at all under their bodies but I’m still trying to get to him, and yelling, but I realize I’m not aware of the others anymore behind me and they aren’t yelling anymore, just me, and I realize I hear just Henrick.
“
I look around, and I see why he’s yelling. The big wolf is there, running in at me, I never saw him at all, and suddenly he’s much closer to me than the others, charging at me, cutting me off. I stop dead, involuntary, from fear, I just stop and look at him, and he stops too, our breath misting.
In this half-minute gone by it’s almost full dark, as good as, but I’m closer to this one than I was when I saw him at the fire. I see him better than I did before. He’s a lot bigger than I thought, his hackles up, and his fur is darker, yellow-gold in his eyes, what light they’re catching. My muscles freeze, I feel them clenching, by themselves, because the rest of me remembers having these on me, however the body arranges it so you feel fear, all of that is seizing up, my body’s trying to get out of itself. And feeling all that I’m forced to notice he’s a beautiful kind of thing. He looks like death to me, which is not the thought I want in my head.
A couple of the other wolves trot up from nowhere to his flanks, out of the dark, and stare at me too, stopping me or anybody else from getting to Feeny, and I’m aware we’re all just strung out staring at these ones in front, while Feeny is getting dragged this way and that in the snow and I can’t hear him, he’s quiet by now, or not making any noise loud enough to hear from here, and the big one and the ones with him keep staring at me, daring me to go at them.
So like an idiot I do go in at them, thinking of Feeny. I pull off my pack and run in at the big one roaring and swinging the pack at him, with the log inside, and he just snarls, and he and the others just hop out of my way, loop around me again, and seeing I’m past them I charge on for Feeny a few steps but I feel them coming up on my hindquarters. I turn, face them, so now I’m between two sets of wolves away from the other guys and I’m fucked. I can’t go to Feeny because the big one and the others will run me down from behind if I do, and if I charge him again he’ll just do what he did again. He outplayed me.
I look at him and the two on his flanks while they loop around in front of me again, between me and Feeny, daring me in the same stupid game. I’m beaten. I just watch while Feeny is dragged and ripped, and the others watch too, spread out, I don’t know how long. Not long, and too long.
Feeny’s dead, probably, the first two wolves who hit him are walking away from him, leaving the others, then one by one they stop and stroll away, until the smallest one seems to realize he’s the last, and he finally stands up and walks away, too, and we see Feeny’s a dark mess in the snow. It’s hard to see what there is of him, no sitting with him helping him over and telling him he’s going to die, I just let him get ripped apart and watched it, and the wolves have taken up this circle looking at us now, not moving, just waiting for us, it looks like, to comprehend. We see Ojeira, standing off, looking at Feeny, terrified. The wolves look at us like somebody who’s just hit you and is waiting to see if you got the point, if you’re going to try and get up again, or if you understand now who just hit you, and how hard.
The big one stares at me, more fixed than any of the others, who keep glancing over at him. He doesn’t look like something I could shake off my back. He looks more like he’d go through my back on the way to my stomach, and cut me in half. I just stare at them, afraid to do anything, waiting.
Then he gets off his paws and charges me, straight over the snow, not taking his eyes off me. I’m still out in front, I don’t know how many yards ahead of the others, but enough to feel alone. I don’t think I can laugh my way through another fight with a wolf, not this one. I watch him coming, and I tighten up, can’t help it. I know this wolf can kill me, if he decides he wants to, but I’m too scared to run away and too scared to run at him, I don’t know what to do. I watch him come at me, closer and closer, twenty feet, fifteen, and I’m afraid to move or I know I’m dead if I do, and he just stops, dead, ten feet away, staring at me. I still don’t move. I remember other wolves I’ve had staring matches with, and I’ve never seen one look at me like this. This one hates every winter he’s ever had, and hates the fifty blood brawls he’s fought because he’s the biggest, and the meanest, and he’s had to. And since I’m here, now, in his place, he might hate me, too, and anybody with me. Watching him, I feel like he’s still deciding what he’s going to do with us.
He sits down, calmly, staring at me, and I still don’t move, and none of the others do either, I don’t think. I can’t hear anything behind me, I don’t know if they’re still there, and I’m afraid to look. Then he stands again, forward on his paws, and he shoots straight at me another few feet again and stops dead again and stares at me, and snarls again, and I stay still, again. With him this much closer I can feel him jumping on me, but he doesn’t jump yet. He’s close enough for him to jump at me if he wants, but not close enough for me to reach out and grab him, or swing at him, if I was that brave. I don’t like him being smarter than me, and he is, out here. Anywhere, maybe. Maybe my father hated them because they were smarter than him.
I shift a little, in my boots. I don’t mean to, it’s hard to stay as still as I’ve been trying to. It looks like I’m leaning forward, an inch, at most. He bares his teeth, his lips peeled back, eyes popping, ears down, tail in the air, straight up, brushing back and forth, barely, and he keeps his eyes on mine and snarls, from the bottom of somewhere I never want to be. His teeth are huge, all out of his mouth for show, and he’s telling me: ‘
We keep staring at each other in the wind. I don’t know what to do but stare. Then he turns, circles around, so he’ll see me if I come at him. But I don’t go at him, and he trots off and leaves me there, lopes past Feeny, and Ojeira, toward the dark again and they’ve all fallen in behind him, loping away. I’m finally brave enough to turn my head and see Henrick, and the others, standing still like I am, behind me. The big wolf turns again, looks back at us, from farther off. One of the ones next to him, the next-biggest, starts to howl, and the others join in, and the big one tilts back and howls too.
I still don’t move, none of us does, we just stand there listening to them howling, watching, then they string
