The Moose Jaw (27 page)
Stopping had consumed fifteen precious minutes. The snow was beginning to collect on the ground, so I had to move fast. I dropped the wet shells in my empty breast pocket, put on my gloves and scarf, and went back downstream directly to the lodge. I hoped they didn’t have a dog. Morgan hadn’t mentioned one, but the way my luck was running, they’d probably have two or three on patrol.
I got there sooner than I had expected. There were no dogs to set up an alarm and no one was moving around outside. I offered up a silent prayer of thanks as I studied the log structure before me. It was a big building, not just a cabin, but a genuine fishing lodge. Of course, it had seen better days. Some of the windows were boarded up, but light was spilling out a few of them on the wall facing the creek. It lit up the boards of the covered porch and the ground beyond.
I was squishing with each step so I didn’t dare go too close. I circled back around to the left. All the windows were boarded up on that side so I continued around behind. I found the same thing back there, although I could see light peeking out narrow gaps in the back door frame. When I got around to the downstream side, the four rear windows were dark but the front two showed light. As I approached I heard voices, muffled and unintelligible, through the wall. I moved a little further back into the woods and angled toward the stream so I could see inside.
A body passed between the light and the window, and a shadow was cast out on the ground. It moved past the window, and the light came bright and full again. I crept a few steps closer, and I could see Roy just sitting down at the table. He was having dinner. I shifted a little for a better view. Larry was already at the table eating. He was slumped over his food like a bear over a carcass. His huge arms encircled his plate and he kept his face just inches over his food. I couldn’t tell what they were eating, but they seemed intent and weren’t talking much.
By now, my teeth were chattering, and I was shivering uncontrollably. I didn’t have much time. I took a deep breath, moved across the open space between the trees and the lodge like a shadow, and didn’t stop until I was up against the wall beside the window. The sill was just about at chin level and I could see half the big room from where I stood. I could see the bed in the corner where Morgan must have been tied. It was empty. I ducked under the sill and slid across to the other side of the window and peered in. Both men were still at the table. I could see deeper into the room from my new position. There was a second bed, but there was nothing on it except a rumpled sleeping bag. They were alone. I don’t know if I was disappointed or not. If Jason had been in there, what would I have been able to do?
If I didn’t start back home immediately, I was going to freeze to death. I was also beginning to leave tracks, as the snow was starting to cover the ground. The flakes were coming down faster and bigger now. It was a wet, heavy snow. I couldn’t wait any longer. I took an angle off the corner of the lodge and hurried straight for the creek. I didn’t think there was any way either Roy or Larry could see me from where they sat. Nevertheless, I held my breath as I crossed the open ground. There was always the chance one of them would stand up just as I was backlit by the light coming out the window. I had to take the chance. I didn’t exhale until I had made it to the creek bank and turned the corner of the tree line. I didn’t relax completely until, a hundred yards downstream, I lost sight of the light from their windows. Then I made for home.
It only took ten minutes to walk from their lodge to the junction of the two creeks. From there, I held to the Moose Jaw all the way. I could have saved myself a lot of walking if I went overland and cut off some of the bends, but I hadn’t been this far upstream from the cabin before and didn’t know the country. The last thing I needed was to get lost. That would mean certain death. I kept moving, staying close to the water’s edge. It was easy, open walking along the gravel bars on the inside of the bends, but the outside of each bend, above the cut bank, was choked with slashings and thickets and devil’s club. It was not only slow going, it wore me down. While trying to fight my way through the second such section I got my feet caught in tanglefoot and fell heavily, gashing my left hand on a sharp spear of dead branch wood sticking out of a downed tree. It tore through my glove and bit deep into the heel of my palm. It bled heavily until the snow and the cold stemmed the flow. By the time I fought my way back to the next gravel bar I knew I’d never make it home if I didn’t change tactics. As I was considering my options I came across deep, widely spaced tracks in the snow. I looked carefully at them; old Trilogy had been through here no more than five minutes ago. He appeared to be going back downstream. I followed them the length of the bar, and when it came to an end at the next bend, his tracks disappeared into the water. I looked across the stream. I could see no tracks on the other side, but I could see where the new bar began. It occurred to me that I’d been trying to avoid getting wet when I was already soaked. Bears didn’t keep to one side of the creek. They went where the walking was easy. If the bar ended on one side of the creek, they just waded across and picked up the next one. The big grizzly was showing me how it was done. I hoped I didn’t catch up to him, but if I didn’t hurry, I was going to die anyway. I didn’t hesitate. I simply stepped off the bar, and waded across the creek. In the channel, the water was over the tops of my boots, but at this point, it didn’t matter; I was already as wet as I could get. Or so I thought.
I followed the bear tracks for an hour. The wind had dropped off, and the snow was coming straight down now – big, wet, heavy flakes. I realized I was not moving as fast as the bear. More snow was accumulating in his tracks than when I’d first begun following him. That may have been because it was coming down harder, or because I was running out of gas. I knew it was both. I was tiring quickly, and the repeated soakings in the river kept me wet, and my legs and feet were now completely numb. If I stopped to rest, I’d never be able to start again. I had to keep moving.
I don’t know how long the wolves had been following me before I noticed the shadows moving stealthily through the willows at the top of the bar. They must have picked up the scent of my blood. I’d lost a good bit back where I had fallen, and the wound had been bleeding steadily as I moved downstream. I didn’t have a torch. Not that it would have mattered, as my hands were stiff and numb from the cold, I probably couldn’t have switched it on, even if I had one. But I knew they were wolves, I didn’t have to see them. I could tell by the way they were stalking me, keeping back in the cover and moving along parallel with me all the way down the creek. I didn’t know how many of them there were, however, and that troubled me.
They would be reluctant to attack a man; at least a living, breathing, walking man. They were just following along to see if I was going to make it. I didn’t think they’d bother me as long as I kept moving. I kept moving. I’d already fallen two or three times, and my falls were becoming more frequent as I tired. Each time, the effort to rise required more and more of my flagging strength. When, at last, I fell again, I wondered if I would ever find the will to continue. I had stumbled in a deep rut just as I came up out of the water onto a gravel bar. As I lay there, utterly exhausted, the muzzle of a wolf appeared out of the falling snow, very close to my face. They were getting bold. I put every ounce of my remaining strength into rising to my knees. I still had the shotgun with me, and placing the butt on the gravel, I literally pulled myself up to my feet using the barrel for support. That was about all the good the gun would do me. I doubted I could fire it; I only had one serviceable hand, and its fingers were stiff and numb with cold. Still, if the wolves came in close again, I’d have to give them something to think about; I’d have to find a way to get off a shot. I started moving again. I had staggered just a few steps when I stumbled in another rut and nearly went down. Somehow I kept my feet. I looked at the rut. It was almost impossible to see under the blanket of snow, but the surface of the snow showed a clear depression in the gravel bar beneath. It extended off up the bar in a straight line. Hope suddenly galvanized me. I lurched a few steps to the left. There was a second one, running parallel to the first. I was standing on the landing strip! I could have wept with relief. Knowing there was no time to lose, I struck inland, and within a few minutes, found the overland path. I couldn’t go fast, but I kept one foot moving in front of the other. I experienced a moment of panic because I couldn’t recall the uphill grades being so long or steep, but then I realized it was my own fatigue that made them seem so. I hadn’t taken the wrong trail. I kept moving. Every now and then I’d catch a glimpse of a wolf slipping silently through the trees alongside the path. My deadly escorts, waiting to see if I could make it to the cabin. I was determined that they should be disappointed. I was, indeed, going to make it home. Then, suddenly, I broke out of the trees at the top of the ridge, and there below me was my cabin. A sob barked from my throat. It sounded horrible, even to my own ears, and must have startled the wolf that was guarding my left flank. He gave a surprised yip and darted a few paces back into the woods.
He had just regained his composure and was closing in again when my next step tripped the claymore. I had forgotten about them. The wolf must have been right next to it when it detonated. He cried out in pain and went yelping off into the woods. His mates followed. I didn’t care. All I could think of was the warmth of the cabin.
As I shuffled my way down the path it struck me that I had never seen any sight so beautiful as the light in the cabin window and the smoke curling out of the chimney. The door opened as I staggered up the steps to the porch. The golden light spilled out into the night, and Morgan stood just inside. She held a shotgun pointed at my midsection. I never broke stride; I just kept my feet moving into the room and made straight for the stove, dropping my shotgun as I crossed the bearskin rug.
“Thank God,” she said. “I heard the booby-trap go off and didn’t know what to think.”
Then, when she got a good look at me, “Oh, Gus!”
She quickly closed the door, leaned Haywood’s shotgun against the wall, and hurried over to where I stood dripping water and snow on the floor by the stove. I was trying to get the buttons of my coat open. She knocked away my hands and quickly undid the buttons and got me out of the snow-covered coat. She flung it on the floor, eased me into the rocker and pulled off my boots; water and ice sloshed out of them onto the floor. She stripped off my sodden socks and then hauled me to my feet again and began working at my belt buckle. I stood like a statue of the Frankenstein monster. I was too cold and stiff to help her. She talked frantically while she worked.
“When you weren’t back by dark I began to worry. Then the snow started. I’ve been out of my mind for the last three hours. What happened to you?”
My teeth were chattering so badly there was no way I could talk. I didn’t bother trying to answer. I just stood there shivering and shaking with cold and dripping ice and water on the floor. When she got the belt unbuckled she pulled my pants and underwear down to my knees, stripped me out of my shirt and undershirt, resettled me in the rocker and then pulled my pants the rest of the way off in one tug. I now sat, naked and freezing in the chair. She added the wet pants to the pile of clothes already on the floor, dashed to the bed and snatched off the wool blanket. She quickly wrapped me in it and began rubbing me all over, trying to stimulate the blood flow with the friction of her hands. It hurt. It burned. It felt wonderful.
After five minutes or so, my hands began stinging with pinpricks as the blood began warming them from within and the heat of the fire from without. No pain had ever seemed so welcome. My toes were also beginning to have feeling. I knew I was going to live. Up on the ridge the wolves began their mournful wailing – cheated again.
Morgan stopped rubbing my back. She said, “They sound so close.”
I still didn’t want to try talking so I nodded and offered her a weak smile.
She stood up, patted my knee, kissed the top of my head and said, “Now let’s get something warm inside you.”
As I huddled there, leaning as close as I dare to the fire, she filled a tin cup with stew that had been simmering on the stove, poured a dollop of whiskey into it, and brought it to me. She held it to my lips so I could use both shaking hands to clutch the blanket closed over my chest. The thick broth burned going down but I could feel the warmth spreading from my stomach through the rest of my body; I gulped it down greedily. She filled another cup and let me down half of it before she took it away from my lips.
“Not too much. Wait a little. Are you getting warmer?”
My shivering had subsided somewhat and my hands were shaking less. I nodded.
She relaxed a little and smiled. “Good. I’ll give you more stew in a few minutes. Just sit there and let the fire warm you.”
I nodded.
It took me close to a half hour before I had warmed enough that the shivering stopped. By then I’d eaten four cups of the hot stew and followed the last with three fingers of whiskey. While I ate with my good hand Morgan cleaned the gash in my other palm and put a bandage on it. When that was done she gathered my wet things, wrung them out over the bucket, and hung them on the wall pegs behind the fire. I didn’t have a mop, but she sopped up the water and ice off the floor with a towel and spread it to dry also. Then she upended my boots and suspended them from the rawhide loops I’d hung from the roof beams near the back wall. I’d dropped the shotgun on the bearskin when I’d first come in, and she picked it up and went to stand it in the corner. I told her to wait.
“I dropped it in the creek; it needs to be wiped down and oiled.”