The Grey

Tlingit doesn’t say anything.  I take a breath.

I start yelling and running up the rise at the wolf closest to me, raising my stick and Tlingit does the same with his, each after our own wolf.  My wolf and the other actually look halfway surprised, they spring up, split away, loop behind us, and we both turn on them and charge again, like madmen.  They watch us coming, but they still don’t jump at us, they jump to the side, go behind us, circle us, but as we each keep turning on them and trying to look like we’re brave enough to go at them they’re backing towards each other down the slope and they each look back to see what the other is doing and I think this means they’re off-balance for the first time.  But I remember they’ve been better at this than we’ve been, every time, and sure enough mine hops around to the uphill side again, looking down at me, ready to jump at me from above and close enough to do it, and I don’t like how that looks at all.

I roar and charge up at him with my stick again, and Tlingit goes at his at the same time, and my wolf gets sick of the game this time, backs onto his haunches and barks and jumps at me.  I see him coming down at me and I manage to drop to my knee without falling backwards down the slope, and get the back of my spear jammed in the snow thinking I can land him on it, but I’m scared, I change my mind and come back up to drive it into him as he falls on me and he is stuck.  I’m holding him on the stick and holding his weight and mine from tipping over backwards down the hill, but he’s barking and reaching at my face with his teeth, snapping, getting closer, and I think he might be the one who got on my face before, back at the plane, and remembering his teeth on me I’m terrified, and as quick as that he gets my arm in his teeth and bites down and rips, I flinch back away, turn his weight downhill and throw him down away from me to the snow, and then I fall after him, hard.  I get to my feet, sideways, and jump back from him, my knife ready.

I look at him stuck with that thing and like an idiot, I feel sick to have done it, I should be dancing, but I’m sick, like I was before.  He’s trying to pull himself off, I didn’t drive it in enough, even with his weight, or he’s just so frantic pushing his paws into the snow and wriggling backwards he's coming off it, somehow.

“Fuck you,” I yell, because he’s trying to get free, instead of stopping and dying, and because I don’t want to feel guilty for doing it, when he was trying to kill me.  But he’s making it look like he’s getting free, or he will be, and I panic and roar again and jump on him with my knife, and fall away backwards right away again, leaving the knife too.  I’m flinching and jumping at everything he does, I remember his teeth too well, I think he is the one who was on me before.  He fights the knife too, thrashing and trying to get up with the stick poking out of him, but he stops trying, suddenly, his paws go out from under him and he lies in the snow, blinking, panting, making a gravelling sound.  And I’m still afraid of him and sick and afraid to have killed him and I’ve never felt like more of a coward in my life.  I’ve done my share of killing things, after all.

I wanted him dead, but I'm still sick, looking at him.  He’s making me think of things I don't want to and no time to anyway.  Or the fear or whatever I needed to dig out of my guts to let me run at him is making me sick, like I thought before.  I run in at him to grab my knife and jump right back, I’m still afraid he’ll snap up at me, and I leave the stick in him and grab up my others and run back up the gully toward Tlingit in the dark with a new stick ready, knife alongside it, the rest under my arm like before, which makes running awkward but I’m not brave enough to leave them.

I can just see Tlingit’s wolf still circling him and snarling.  Tlingit’s held his wolf like this all the time I was busy with mine.  He looks ready to jump at Tlingit or run, darting looks behind him and forward at us.  I look at him, but I look around too because I’m sure we can’t be this lucky to have just these two.  I’m waiting for mine to get back up and come after me, or for the rest of them to come.  But this one looks mad enough to rip us apart all by himself and I want to tell him we did not come here to bother him, but his answer would be to rip my lying throat away so all I’m going to be allowed to do is kill him.

I get my stick ready and we charge at him.  He’s backed toward a crop of rocks, he can jump up over it or come at us.  He flashes his teeth, comes up at Tlingit, and Tlingit steps aside and falls backward, and I drop my sticks and swing the knife at his side as he flies past me turning in the air toward Tlingit, but I don’t think I get him.  He drops to the ground and bounces up, I don’t think I touched him at all, and he hops left and right of us and then he lopes away, few paces, and looks at us.  And then he streaks away, into dark.  He didn’t look particularly afraid of us doing it, he just went.

We stand there, looking into the dark, listening, waiting for him to come out at us from the side or the back or anywhere.  I look at the rocks stacked up above our heads, lining the gully wall, covered in snow, and they’re all black shapes in the snow and all hiding wolves, as far as I know.  But I don't hear paws, or panting, and he doesn’t show himself, he just leaves us to worry about where he is.  I look all around, Tlingit does too.  We stand and watch a long time.

“Gone for now,” Tlingit says.  I’m watching the dark, and the rocks, afraid to let any bit of guard down.

I look down, suddenly, at my arm, where my wolf bit it.  I squeeze it hard as I can above where teeth went in, or whatever happened.  It didn’t seem as bad at first, but now it hurts more than the ones I got before.  It feels deeper.  Tlingit and I look at each other.

“Come on,” I say.

We scramble to get sticks and knives in our hands, again, and we head back out the gully the way we were heading, but we tumble down into a deeper, narrower part of the gully. Nearer the rocks, which makes me nervous, and when I turn to look back and up behind us there he is, on a rock, or jumping off a rock, down at us.  This time my knees just fold and I fall backwards and Tlingit is just turning to look up when it lands on him and gets the back of Tlingit’s neck in his mouth, barely, but not enough to hold on and Tlingit knows he’s trying to and Tlingit twists and jumps down with all his might and the wolf falls off him into the snow.

I’m on my feet by now, and charging in at him, and Tlingit’s up too but I go down, face first in the snow, I slipped off some root or something I couldn’t see, I don’t know but the snow comes up and hits me in the face again and Tlingit almost falls over me and the wolf springs right up at him, mouth open as Tlingit’s catching himself.

He gets Tlingit’s neck again but the side this time and again Tlingit is so fast again somehow the wolf doesn’t get a good grip, or Tlingit shoves him so hard he comes off, but the wolf angles his head and is straining to get around and under Tlingit’s throat while I scramble up and he’s stretching and working his teeth forward under Tlingit’s chin, after his life, as hard as Tlingit’s trying to pull him off, but he isn’t bothering with me.  I get my stick up again and I take a bead on his side and I drive at him yelling, it shoots through him, comes out the other side. Tlingit blinks, yanks his head back, it just misses his cheek.

But he shoves the wolf off now, and falls back, as I feel all the weight of the wolf on my stick again and I drop him down to the snow, like I did the other, and I want to jump back away this time too but I hold on, leaning the stick into him, afraid to let go or let it up, this time.  But he stops moving.  I’m still as sick as glad and don’t know why.  Don't want to.

Tlingit grabs him up from the snow, hoists him with all his might, roars at him, then throws him, heaves as far as he can across the snow again, still yelling. It isn’t respecting a dead foe but I don’t blame him.  But I don’t feel like crowing, either.

Sometimes it happens you have to do a final thing like this, you have to do it and you have to choose, so you