Thirty Below. Harry Groome
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taut. He stared at the trap and growled. He pulled his leg again and the skin of his shin peeled down to shiny white bone and bright-colored blood ran freely to his large forepaw, but his leg did not come free. He held his ground and tried lifting, then pulling his leg, furiously biting at the steel jaws of the trap. He jerked his leg and attacked the trap a second time. Nothing changed except the pain grew hotter, more intense, his blood now covering his once-buff-colored paw.
The wolf stood still for a moment; his head cocked to one side as though he were trying to find the answer to this puzzle and then lowered his head and lay down. Thick, glistening strands of drool and his long pink tongue hung from his mouth. His heart pounded rapidly and he huffed loud breaths that tasted sour to him. He whimpered and closed his eyes. He had made his second mistake in as many days—and perhaps his last. The freedom he had known all his life had ended.
WITHIN A FEW HOURS the sun crept above the foothills of the Wrangell Mountains and another long day began. Daredevil licked his wound clean and lay with his ears flat to his head, his foreleg throbbing with pain. The sound of a twig snapping caused him to stand and face the woods. Again he pulled his leg to free himself from danger, growling and straining at the trap, but the trap held him in place, and in pain. He saw movement in the trees and then his enemy stepped into the open and stopped when their eyes met.
The native Alaskan who stood at the edge of the forest was an Ahtna boy in his early teens. His wide-set eyes, long nose and broad mouth resembled his noble Ahtna ancestor, Chief Goodlataw, and the elders in his tribe had named him Littlelataw, a name he carried with great pride until his reputation as a boy who exaggerated his secret experiences while hunting earned him the name Storyteller. He held a crude bow and wore mud-caked running shoes, faded blue jeans and a camouflage shirt cinched at his waist by a frayed leather belt. A large bowie knife hung loosely from the belt, the point of its scabbard almost touching the boy’s knee. A Spruce grouse and a mallard duck, its iridescent green head flashing in the low sunlight, hung by their necks from a piece of twine the boy had looped over one shoulder; over his other he had slung a narrow canvas quiver that held a handful of arrows.
At the sight of the boy the wolf pulled back his lips, baring his large, curved incisors, let out a low growl, and lowered his shoulders and backed away, once again trying to pull his leg free from the blood-covered steel. When he could move no further the animal straightened and stared at the boy, his hackles raised in a thick black mass between his shoulders and his ears and tail pointed skyward in an attempt to appear as large and threatening as he could.
“Holy shit,” Storyteller said. He had never seen a live wolf this close before and the sight caused his heart to beat rapidly.
Daredevil continued to growl and kept his eyes on the boy’s.
Storyteller walked slowly into the meadow, keeping a safe distance from the wolf. He took a step toward the animal and again the wolf tried to back away. He took another step forward and Daredevil lunged at him, the trap holding him in place. The boy jumped back, and then shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere.”
He stepped twice more until he was a body-length from the wolf. He set his bow and the mallard and the grouse in the grass and sat, cross-legged. He slid two arrows from the quiver, placed them in his lap and folded his hands across his stomach, one hand gripping the handle of the bowie. He took in and let out a deep breath and after a moment closed his eyes and bowed his head. His coarse black hair, kept in place by a red and white bandana knotted at the back of his head, fell forward on his shoulders. He pulled the bandana tight and ran his hands back over his hair and then sat still as though he had fallen asleep. The only sound in the meadow was his breathing mixed with the wolf’s.
When Storyteller looked at the wolf again, Daredevil was lying on his belly in the matted grass, his head upright, his ears laid back. He was panting quietly. “Okay, brother,” the boy whispered, “we begin.”
For a moment, the Ahtna did nothing but keep his eyes on Daredevil’s and nod slowly to him, drawing and releasing heavy breaths. The wolf whimpered, lowered his head and switched his bushy tail. The boy then took an arrow in each hand and raised them in front of his face and began to tap them across each other. “Look at your brother,” he commanded in a quiet voice. “Trust him.” He continued to tap the arrows but did not speak until the wolf’s almond-shaped eyes began to close.
“Trust your brother,” he said again and then chanted in rhythm with the clicking of the arrows. “Rest, like a cloud. Softly … softly … silently … silently.”
The boy’s cadence slowed. He lowered his voice further.
“Listen to your brother. Listen to your spirits.”
Moments passed and the wolf’s eyes closed and he lay on his side. His tongue dropped from his jaw and curled in the dirt. His thick tail thumped once in the grass.
“Trust your brother and no harm will come to you.”
The boy closed his eyes but continued to tap the arrows, more slowly, more quietly, until their clicks were no louder than the call of a cricket.
After a moment of silence, Storyteller opened his eyes, laid the arrows beside him and rested his hands in his lap. He paused and then whispered, “Trust your brother. He trusts you.”
He placed his hands on the ground in front of him and knelt forward but the wolf did not stir and the boy reached for the springs of the trap and struggled to open its powerful jaws. Daredevil lay still, his rib cage rising and settling in a slow, steady fashion; his wound caked with blood and dirt; green-headed flies buzzing and sitting on the blackened, matted blood.
Storyteller stared at the wolf’s bloody forepaw and laid the fat of his copper-colored hand beside it. The paw was broader than his hand and, although he had seen wolves’ tracks in the mud and snow many times before, he shook his head in wonderment.
He slid the bowie from its scabbard and reached for the wolf’s throat. “Trust your brother,” he said. “He will set you free.” He slipped the broad blade under the radio collar and cut at it until it fell away from the wolf’s neck and lay curled in the grass. “There,” he whispered. “You’re free as the thunder that rolls in the mountains.”
The boy leaned back on his haunches, sat erect and set his hands on his knees, the glittering bowie still tight in his grip. His heart was beating as hard as he had ever felt it, but he could not contain the smile on his thin lips. “I will not tell anyone our story,” he said, “for they would just laugh at me.”
He stood, put up his knife and looked down at his brother. “Go now,” the boy said. “The spirit of Littlelataw will always be with you.”
Storyteller picked up his bow, quivered his arrows, returned to the wolf and laid the grouse and the duck in front of him. He re-set the trap, tripped it with an arrow to leave his sign, and then walked toward the edge of the woods where he stopped. “Go on, git!” he yelled, and disappeared into the trees.
The wolf stood and pulled his injured forepaw to his chest and then set it carefully on the ground and took a hobbled step. He limped in a circle around the trap and then lifted his leg and made water and sniffed the dead birds and tore into them, coughing and spitting feathers as he ripped the skin free from the birds’ carcasses. When he was through eating, he stared at the trap and his surroundings and limped into the forest. As he disappeared into the undercover, he and the boy left a puzzle for the trappers who later would come upon the scene: their bloody trap holding nothing but a single arrow and a few buff hairs of a wolf’s foreleg; a pile of grouse and mallard feathers blowing about in the matted grass; and a Fish and Game GPS radio collar lying nearby, cut cleanly in half.
DAREDEVIL MOVED CAUTIOUSLY, hunting only in the shadow hours of the day, nursing his wound frequently, following the gray Chitina River as it flowed lazily southeast. In two days’ time he climbed through a pass beneath Castle Peak and worked his way toward the small settlement of McCarthy until the man-scent drove him south again into the shadows of Sourdough Peak. He forded the Chitina River there and continued south toward the remains of the abandoned Bremner Gold Mine, giving wide berth to its dilapidated wood-frame