When I think I can’t stand it anymore I look across to open snow away from the wolves and Reznikoff and away from where we were heading, and I look at Henrick and we think the same thing, I think, the others too.
“Leave him,” I say. But I’ve yelled it. I wonder if Reznikoff heard it.
Henrick hesitates, a second, Tlingit too, but after that we’re all running for the trees as hard as we can, after all my speeches and yelling about not running. I want to get into the trees before they leave Reznikoff and hit us. I barely look to see if the other wolves are chasing us and they aren’t, maybe they know they don’t need to, they’ll get us all, soon enough, or this place will. But we run and try not to think of Reznikoff, and we think we’re getting away with something, God help us. We’re coming closer to the trees, but we’re not there. I look back as I run and I know Ojeira will be in the back and he is, he can’t run any better than that jump-hop hobble he was doing before, and I keep looking back to see if they are coming for him but by miracle, or by something, they don’t.
The trees finally loom up big and I stop and let the others run in and look back for the wolves and for Ojeira who is somehow in his awful way doing a decent speed now. Why they haven’t picked him off I don’t understand but he jump-hops up with me and we run the last part together, then somehow we’re in the trees, we pass in to the bottom of the fucking world darkness.
Not far in at all, we all stop short, panting. We look out to the clearing, to Reznikoff and the wolves. I can’t see them or Reznikoff or anything but snow, and dark. We back away, still looking, and as we feel the slope dropping under us we turn away finally and stumble and run down the slope as fast as we can, as if further into dark is safer. We’ve run into the underworld like the ghosts we are, and left our bodies behind us. We run and blunder, in dark, barely missing trees we only see once they’re right in front of us, that we have to stiff-arm to keep from smashing our faces into, and we keep running until we’ve fallen into even deeper dark, moon is gone and we’re huffing and puffing, trying not to think about Reznikoff, and Feeny, and wondering where the wolves are now.
I can barely see anything, or any of the guys. I look ahead, into the dark, and I see patches where a little moonlight is coming down, some ways off. But here, the ground in front of us, is black and blank. I can hear us breathing. I look up the slope behind us to see, or try to hear if any of the wolves are coming in behind us, as if I could hear them. The wind is blunted in here, but trees creak and crackle, hum, and it’s almost worse, everything sounds like wolf to us. But for all I watch and listen, there’s nothing, only dark and the air washing through the trees.
I don’t want to stay here. Dark or not I run-stumble on again, with the others, still, headlong, still huffing and puffing, thinking if I step into a bottomless ravine and smash to pieces somewhere, down below, I’ll be home-fuck-you-free, thank God, I’ve decided the matter, and hopefully the others will notice before they fall in after me. I keep rushing on blind, one arm in front and trying to see anything at all, and I ram into branches and trunks and fall into holes and huff and puff on, glad I’m in the trees.
6
We all stop again, closer to where the patches of moon are coming down. We’re wheezing, aching, half-pissing ourselves, leaning on trees, looking back to what seems like where we came from, and all around, because we don’t know if they’re in here with us yet, or coming. There’s some glow, too, I see, not just patches, and I see the slope shallowing out, it rolls down, below us, with the trees reaching up and the dark above, it stretches ahead like some giant haunted cave. I stare into it, at cathedral trees, leviathan, a maze of them, and dead giants at their feet, lightning-struck or fallen from age, roots-up, naked, massive. For whatever little glow there is, there’s much more dark. Maybe the wolves are in here with us. Maybe new ones, a dozen or a hundred, lined up around us, watching us, blinking, displeased with us. I don’t know. We’ve seen maybe ten or so at most, it’s been hard to count them, running in and out of dark the way they have, seems like not many more than that, maybe only eight. Enough, though.
We make our way forward, or what we think is forward, through the maze of dead and fallen trees. We’ve slowed down, not because we think it’s smart, but because we’re exhausted and like fools, we think we’ve made some division between the open of the clearing behind us and this place, as if the wolves couldn’t be three feet beyond what we can see. I’m praying I can keep some idea of which way anything is in here, I’m telling myself I’m still taking a line that’s something like west, what we decided was west, anyway. But I don’t know at all if that’s the case, or if we’ll go in circles until we die, and the wolves will watch us and laugh, or get tired of waiting and go on tearing us to pieces one by one.
We keep on, a good ways, until the slope drops, dips deeper again. The wind is still coming but not as fierce. I think I hear water. I hear something, ahead of us, or somewhere. Sounds get lost in the snow like we do. But somewhere, not too far, I think there’s water running. I think if we could find something that leads to a real river, it might take us to the coast, and we could follow the coast to a town.
It’s a nice thought, if the wolves were going to leave us alone that long. But then I lose the sound anyway, all I hear is the wind still coming up harder, washing the trees again, washing us away, maybe, particle by particle. My brain’s too cold again, or the air is thin. I realize for all I know we’ve been in thin air all this time, thinking worse and worse, the more hours we breathe it. We should get used to it, but I don’t know that we’re fit to get used to anything but seeing people die. I keep going, listening, still, trying to catch the sound or follow it, but it’s blown away from me. There’s nothing but wind, and us stumbling in the snow, huffing like cattle.
But in among the wind I’m almost sure I hear it again. I stop, try to listen, everybody else stops too. Scared as we are, we’re ready to stop anytime. We forget the wolves, occupied with the business of putting one boot in front of the last. We’ve made a division in our heads, after all, we’ve left them behind us. It’s tired and cold we care about now, if no wolf’s right in front of us, teeth out. Lazy, stupid beasts, we are.
I listen, tying not to breath too loud. But the sound’s gone, again, so I stand there, waiting, listening for the wind to bring it back or my brain to catch it again, trying to listen through my breathing, everybody else’s. I can’t see them, except Henrick, and Tlingit, barely, but I hear them. I hope it’s all of us, I don’t know. As I listen for the water the wind shifts, but all I hear is that, the shift of wind, but I sniff the air now because I think I smell them again, the wolves, and my skin pricks, thinking I’m right. Then I realize I couldn’t be smelling them, it's dead wood, or wet bark, or frozen mud, or my wounds rotting, or somebody else’s. Or the general stink of us, fear, the dirt we brought with us, freezing sweat. For the last five minutes of going, everyone’s been falling and tripping in the snow and pulling themselves up again. I don’t know if it’s smart or not, but I want to rest, a little.
“We should stop,” I whisper out to Henrick and the others. I don’t know why I bother to whisper, or don’t mean to, it just comes out a whisper.
Henrick and Tlingit and Knox drop packs, their pieces of wood, collapse in the snow. I think I hear the others do the same.