Wes knelt down next to me, and I could see his hands trembling when he reached for my hand. I held his hands and we embraced next to the wolf’s body, just holding each other in order to remember we were alive. Breaking the hug, I looked from the wolf to Wes, my adrenalin starting to wane, and the shakes began. I realized then just how close to death I had been, and I shuddered, my stomach clenching dangerously for a moment before relaxing. Wes watched me for a moment before standing me up and looking me over. He took my hands in his, looking over my gloves and jacket for any cuts or scratches before looking over my legs. “Strip,” he ordered, taking off my gloves. “A wolf, even a hungry one, doesn’t normally attack humans. So you either just killed a wolf that was driven by hunger and became familiar with humans, or a rabid one.”
The black fear that washed over me as I stripped was sickening. The plane crash had been chaotic, frantic, and the fear then was the same. This time, the fear was cold, creeping, and unceasing. While I stripped, Wes grabbed the wolf’s carcass by the hind leg and pulled it away toward the lake shore, where there was better light. Once I was down to my underclothes, he came back and looked me over critically, looking for any scratches or scrapes. I couldn’t see any, especially on my hands and arms, but Wes was thorough, checking me for long minutes until the cold and my fear left me shivering.
When he was finished, he looked at me and smiled softly. “You don’t have any cuts, and it looks like the wolf’s blood never even touched your skin,” he said, taking my field jacket and gloves and picking them up with the remaining section of my stick. “I’ll go wash these, but the gloves are toast. You’re going to have to wear mine for the rest of the trip.”
“And what about you?” I demanded, pulling my pants up and buckling my belt. “You’re no help if you lose a finger or two to frostbite.”
“I won’t,” he said, pulling his glove off. “I have a spare set of glove liners in my bag, and I can keep my hands in my pockets when I need to. Besides, I have an idea that might just save us a few more days of walking.”
“What?” I said, pulling my top on. Without my field jacket I was already chilly, but it wasn’t too bad. We were in the middle of the afternoon, and the daytime heat was still mostly apparent. I was still a little on edge from the encounter with the wolf, too, so the cool air hadn’t quite hit me yet. Still, I knew as the night approached that I was going to be very, very cold.
“We need to wash this blood off your jacket, and I’d prefer to dispose of the wolf’s body if we can, to prevent any other animals from getting rabies if it is infected,” Wes answered. “For both of those things, we need a fire. Well, today, we’re going to make not just a normal fire, but something big, something that can be seen if anyone is out there who can see us.”
“You’re going to burn down the forest!” I replied, hurrying to catch up. “I thought we kept our fires small for that exact reason.”
“There’s a beach, maybe a quarter mile down the shore,” Wes said, pointing. He went over to his dropped bag and took out our supply of five fifty cord, looping it around the wolf’s rear legs before standing up and putting his pack back on. “Get your bag and follow me, then we get to start the fun part. I’ll wash your jacket, if you want to get the fire started. Just build it like a normal campfire, and we can go from there.”
It was silly and childish, but I felt proud to be given the great responsibility of building the fire. I guess I just wanted to feel useful. We found the beach easily enough, a good twenty yards deep and fifty wide of pebbly sand, which had some driftwood already heaped up on it. Even more encouraging to me, though, was the fact that for the first time in a week, I saw crumpled up beer cans and tangled fishing line, clear evidence that the lake was at least used by someone recently. “La Blatt’s,” I noted, kicking the can. “If it wasn’t a sign of other people, I think I’d be offended. All my Canadian friends insist on Molson’s if they’re going to drink Canadian beer.”
Wes laughed and knelt by the water, using the lake and handfuls of sand to scrub at my field jacket. The water turned a muddy, reddish hue while he worked, and I turned, pulling our bags over to the tree line before going to gather wood. As I gathered, I pondered why I wasn’t more scared or upset about what had happened. I mean, I had just killed something, and almost had my life taken for the third time in a week. Maybe that was it, I considered as I got my first armload of wood and carried it back to the beach. Was I starting to get used to this?