What a trapper finds on his trapline will surprise and delight him.
Like a bear, the trapper lumbered through the wintery woods; his body shielded from the chill wind by his fur coat and fur pants. His snowshoes left paw-shaped prints on the crisp white snow as he collected a beaver from this trap and a fox from that one, adding it to the muskrat that hung from the sling draped over his back.
He removed a rabbit from a trap. The carcass was stiff; the animal dead for hours, perhaps even a day. Draping the rabbit over the sling, he tied the animal's legs together and continued walking the trap line. The man looked down and saw a fresh trail of bright red blood staining the pure white snow. Following the bloody path, he found a wolf. The trapper had grown up hearing stories about what skillful and blood-thirsty hunters wolves were. He grew up admiring and fearing them.
Cautiously, he approached. The fur was beautiful--the guard hairs white and undercoat shades of grey. But the right paw was a crimson stump.
Had she bitten it off? Had she been caught in one of his traps and sacrificed the paw for freedom? He didn't know, but the questions worried him.
Her eyes remained closed; she didn't move as he knelt beside her. He removed his mitt, then ran his fingers carefully, gently through her dense fur. He stilled his hand and felt her swallow faint breath. She was still alive.
Would she live—would she die? He couldn’t leave her here. He felt the wind change and knew a blizzard was on its way.
He cradled her in his strong arms, snowshoes sinking deeper with her added weight. Step after step, he carried her until… Finally… Through the trees, he spied his cabin. He laid the wolf on the snowbank just in front of the door. Collapsing beside her, he rested.
Waking, he went to work, cutting evergreen boughs from the trees that surrounded his home. He brought them inside and put all but one cedar bough in a pile beside his fire pit. Surrounded by rocks, the fire pit occupied the centre of the cabin's dirt floor. The smoke escaped through a small hole in the roof. Snow fell as raindrops through the hole, onto the dirt floor, the fire, and the bed of evergreen boughs.
He pressed down on the make-shift bed and it sprang up against his hand. He brought the wolf inside and set her down on the bed.
She continued to rest as he removed the animals from his sling and hung them on pegs that lined one cabin wall. Tomorrow during the storm, he would skillfully remove fur from meat. The pelts would return to the pegs, the meat he would cut into chunks. He’d put these chunks in a sack and hang that sack on a high tree limb. There it would be safe from the reach of hungry animals.
The trapper removed his fur coat and hung it by the cabin door before returning to the fire pit. Chanting, he withdrew his knife from his belt, picked up the cedar bow, and craved a prayer to Thor. He set the healing ruin beside the wolf. Still, she slept.
Removing a rabbit from the wall, he skinned it, cut off the ears, the muzzle, the tail. His knife cut deeper into the animal. He removed the heart, the liver, and the eyeballs. He set these pieces on the floor beside the wolf.
Did she lift her muzzle? Did her nostrils breathe in the smell?
The trapper hung the rabbit on a stick over the flames, slowly roasting the meat. He drooled, as it cooked. When the meat turned from pink to brown, he pulled off large chunks, chewed, and swallowed. He fed until his belly was full.
A gust of wind blew in through the smoke hole.“A change is coming,” he whispered.
The wolf's eyes remained closed. But she breathed; she rested; she lived.
He dressed, opened the door, stepped outside, and disappeared into a black sea. Night had come. Blind, he relied on memory alone to find the woodpile, the fierce wind bit his cheeks, stung his nose, and chapped his lips.
Groping his way back into the cabin, he dropped the pile of wood beside the fire pit. He glanced over at the evergreen bed. It was empty—.
“In answer to your tender care, I reveal my true self,” an angel sang. She stepped out of the shadow. Part of her left arm was missing. She was as beautiful in her human form as she had been as a wolf.
He was mesmerized. He went to her. And howling, she claimed him.
photo by ldyck
