Timber Wolf by Caroline Pignat

Author:Caroline Pignat
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Red Deer Press
Published: 2011-11-18T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 30

I don’t sleep at all the rest of that long night. With first light, I’m up and dressed and ready to find the Wawaties’. The snow is falling in big flakes, with no sign of letting up. But I have to talk to Mahingan. Maybe they know how to protect against further Windigo attacks. I set off through the woods at a good clip. I have a fair idea of which way their shelter lies, now that it’s daytime, and, sure enough, I find their camp. Or what was their camp. The place is empty, stripped. Even the pikogan is just a bare frame, a skeleton of saplings.

The Windigo! It got them!

My imagination starts running away on me, but soon enough I rein it in. The structure stands, but the bark coverings are gone. Not torn or burned, just missing. There are no signs of Mahingan or his grandfather—even their snowshoes and toboggan are gone. Surely their dog would have attacked the creature, and yet there is no blood on the snow, no sign of a struggle.

Calm yourself. Didn’t Mahingan say they had a few more places to check on the trapline before going back to their main winter camp?

I heave a sigh of relief. They aren’t dead, just gone.

Gone. The weight of it sinks in and, once again, I feel abandoned. They didn’t even say goodbye. Or good riddance, which is more like something Mahingan might say. His grandfather never told me who I was, which way I’d find a town, or even if there was one. I look at the tracks left by their snowshoes and sled, slowly filling with fresh flakes. I could try to follow them, but if I don’t find them before the tracks are buried, I’ll be back where I started two weeks ago, with no food, no shelter, and no idea where I am.

So, now what?

My stomach grumbles in reply. I need to eat. Build up my strength and maybe, when the snow lets up, I’ll follow the river. If the logs can follow the river to the town, surely I can, too. I feel better with a plan. Scattered as it is, at least it’s something.

Back at the shanty, I scavenge for materials. I can picture the snare and know exactly how to make it. Surely, I’ve made these a hundred times back home. Wherever home is. A bit of rummaging turns up a length of rope in one of the barrels back at the shanty and two straight lengths of branch as thick as my wrist. I spend the morning cutting a stick into two-foot-length stakes and whittling the other to a white point. You never know when a spear might come in handy.

Lugging spear, stakes, and rope back into the woods, to a sapling near a thicket, I shove the stakes into the ground in a foot-wide circle and use the thinnest one as an arch at the opening. The noose goes there. Using my knife, I trim the sapling’s branches, bend it and secure it to the noose, careful not to spring the trap myself.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.