Stranded (16 page)

“Okay,” Oscar said. “Go find one and climb it. But I just found south.”

“You're forgetting one important thing,” Isaac sneered.

“What?”

“South is the direction we came from, and I don't know about you, but I'm not going back into that hellhole.”

“Are you ready?”

“I guess,” I said to Oscar, folding my swimsuit into a small wad. We'd spent most of the afternoon sitting around while Isaac fished but caught nothing. “Not like there's much to pack.”

“Yeah.”

I slowly carved another slash on the tree trunk with my knife. Day seven was over, which meant the storm was another day closer. When I glanced at Oscar, he was watching the sky, no doubt thinking the same thing. We knew we couldn't stay here, and we'd waited long enough. “Isaac said we'll leave as soon as the sun comes up.”

“Makes sense.”

“Yeah.” I flipped the blade down and put it away. “Sorry I didn't tell you about the watch.”

Oscar shrugged. “You couldn't have known.”

“Well, I should have brought it up. We could've have been home now if I had.” I didn't really think that was true, but it seemed like something I should say. I had thought it, anyway.

“No.” Oscar was adamant. “We did the right thing, coming here. We did everything we were supposed to. And if they were going to find us, they already would have.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I have to,” he said. “Otherwise I would make myself crazy, second-guessing everything all the time.”

I gave him a wry smile. “Welcome to my world.” I turned my eyes back to the lake, taking it all in. “I wonder what this lake is called. It seemed like every one had a name.”

“Yeah.” Oscar scratched his chin, now shaded with stubble. “Loon Lake, Mud Lake, Star Lake, Snowflake Lake.”

“Snowflake?”

“I think there was one called Christmas Lake, too.”

I tried to visualize the map—the multitude of blue splotches scattered across the green. Names and names of water. It seemed as though everything had a name, everything was known and marked. “Well, this one's really small.”

“Tiny Lake?”

“Doubt it.”

“How about Lost Lake?”

“Good one.”

We watched the sun disappear over the trees, leaving a golden glow in the sky.

A long cry shot up over us, so close and high and lonesome
it made every pore on my skin contract, like a shock wave starting from the deepest part of my gut.

“What was that?”

As if to answer the question, another cry echoed some distance away, but the effect of the sound was the same. I felt the tingle all the way to my butt. “Wolves.” I exhaled. “It's wolves.”

I'd heard the sound before, of course, in movies and nature shows, but out here it was different. This wasn't a movie, and it wasn't a zoo. It was the wild. This was their home; we just happened to be here.

They appeared on the far bank, between a clearing in the trees, moving as smoothly as ghosts, their long-legged strides so even and fast they appeared to drift and hover over the ground, not touch it. I counted three. They were slim and lithe, brushed in various shades of gray and white, moving quickly down the shoreline, their eyes and noses missing nothing. The last one in the line stopped and turned its head to us, examining the strange creatures on the opposite shore. Had it ever seen a person? I hoped not. And I hoped that after tonight it would never see another one of us again. It tilted its head up, another moaning cry rising like the beginning of a warning siren, and a few seconds later a fourth wolf burst from the south end of the lake, running in a steady lope to catch up. They nuzzled at each other for a second, turned, flicked their tails, and were gone, disappearing back into the trees.

I grabbed Oscar's hand. “They were right there. So close.”

“I know.” He squeezed my hand and, with one quick tug, pulled me against his chest, wrapping both arms around me. I couldn't say what shocked me more, the wolves or his embrace, and I almost forgot where I was. All I could concentrate on was the feel of his body against mine. Another howl echoed through the sky, making me shiver. “It sounds closer now.”

He watched the trees. “Do you think they'll—”

“Yes.” I exhaled, not letting him finish, and we turned (somewhat reluctantly) and ran for the campsite.

*  *  *

When we burst back into the clearing a minute later, my heart was pounding so loud in my ears I barely heard what Chloe was telling me, or rather yelling, her mouth compressed into a frightened O.

“Wolves!”

“I know! We saw them!”

Isaac was already growing the fire, the biggest I'd ever seen it, but he added several large logs around the base, cursing frantically when his hands got too close. “Wiener!” he yelled. “We need more! They're coming!”

I stared into the trees. The light was gone, the view growing dimmer by the second. I half expected them to leap out of the bushes any minute. How long would it take for them to come around to this side?
Immediately,
came the answer. Not long. Not long at all.

I jumped when Chloe grabbed my arm. “C'mon, help me.”
She tugged me to the shelter, and I saw she had already covered the top, making a solid roof of crisscrossed branches of pine and poplar, woven together with geometric precision. My face flamed. I'd been talking with Oscar while Chloe had been fortifying our shelter.

“These!” She pointed to several large limbs stacked next to the hut. “Help me move them in front of the entrance.”

A minute later there was only a hole big enough to squeeze through. I took off the top limb and tossed it inside. “Do we have any sticks?” I yelled, but Oscar was already next to me with a handful.

“We can make spears with these if we have to.” He pushed me to the entrance. “Get in now!”

“What's Isaac doing?”

“Trying to get the fire higher. It needs to last all night.”

Chloe had already climbed in, pulling all the packs inside. She pressed them against the walls as fortifications, and now it resembled a crude bunker.

“They're coming,” I said, praying I was wrong, but at the same time strangely excited. “He needs to get in here now.”

“I know.” Oscar looked back at Isaac, who was hurriedly dumping dry leaves and twigs into the fire in the hope the big logs would catch. “Isaac! Leave it! C'mon!”

The warning in Oscar's voice made Isaac jerk up. He glanced around quickly, then jogged over to us, apparently as nervous as we were. He had never obeyed a command so fast without an argument.

We climbed in through the hole, and when Isaac was in, he stuffed the opening shut with the last log.

Chloe hunched in the corner and clicked on her flashlight. She pushed her back against her pack and held the sticks for dear life.

I pulled out my knife and crawled over to her. “Here,” I said. “We need to sharpen them to spears.”

The shelter was even more cramped with all our gear inside. Oscar took his pack and leaned it against the opening. Each one of us took a side. Through the cracks in the wall I watched the woods behind us, hard to see anything over the height of the fire. If the wolves were coming, they'd be coming from that direction.

“Now what?” Chloe handed Isaac a sharpened stick.

Isaac took it eagerly, then turned his attention to the darkness beyond the glow of the fire. “Now all we do is wait.”

We didn't wait long.

They arrived like a fog, so silent and smooth that for a moment I didn't understand what I was seeing. Eyes. Golden eyes appearing, then blinking off, like a short in a light circuit. There then gone. The eyes moved but didn't get closer. I held my breath and stared, hoping I wasn't hallucinating. Then I hoped I was.

“I see them,” Chloe whispered. “Back there.”

“Me too.” I gripped my stick tighter. “But they're just sitting there.”

“They're waiting,” Isaac said grimly.

“Waiting for what?”

“For the fire to die.”

Oscar exhaled hard and leaned heavily against my back. I pressed my shoulders against his. “I thought wolves didn't attack people,” he said.

“A pack will,” Isaac told him. “Especially if they're hungry.”

Especially if they're hungry.
Yes, I could see that. To wolves we would be easy, much easier to catch than a rabbit or deer. Much easier to bring down than a moose. Despite being called the most dangerous predator on earth, humans were a pretty pathetic specimen, physically speaking.

“How many do you think there are?” Chloe wanted to know.

“Four,” I said. “We saw four.”

“That's enough,” Isaac said, “to cause serious damage.”

“Will the fire keep them away?”

“For now.”

We gripped our sticks tighter, and I kept my eyes on the dark behind the fire, waiting for the eyes to move closer.
It will be okay,
I thought.
As long as they can't get in. They'll have to leave eventually.

*  *  *

Snuffling. Loud in my ears. A whuffing, then a growl. I jerked up, almost poking my spear into the underside of my chin.

How long have I been asleep? Minutes? Or hours?

I reached my hand out behind me; Oscar was still leaning against my back, his posture and breathing told me he was asleep. “Oscar?”

The snuffling inches away stopped. Silence. I leaned forward, my cheek against the branches. There was a two-inch gap in front of my eyes, and the wolf blinked back at me, gold eyes surrounded by pale fur. Its gaze deepened from surprise to sharp curiosity, and I held my breath, unable to move. Another snort, on the far side of the shelter. A low growl. But the wolf never took its eyes off me.

We were surrounded.

“Oscar?” My voice creaked, my throat constricting to a whisper.

“Hmm?”

“They're here.”

“Umm . . .”

I shoved back against him, hard, my eyes never leaving the wolf. He looked big, much bigger this close up, and for some reason I had thought it would be no different from seeing a large dog. But it wasn't like that, not at all. This was no dog. “They're here!” I hissed.

Isaac stirred. “What the . . .”

I leaned forward and shook Chloe's shoulder. I could tell she was awake when I heard her suck her breath in. “Holy—”

“Shhh!” said Oscar. “They're right outside.”

“Tell me something I don't know.” Isaac shifted himself around in the dark. “But they won't get in.”

“How do you know?”

“Because they're wolves, not bears.”

“So?”

“Wolves are shy and afraid of people.”

“They don't look shy right now,” I whispered. “And they certainly don't look afraid.” The wolf still had its eyes on me; I wondered what it was thinking.

As I watched, another one (smaller) padded over into my line of sight. I held up my stick, ready to drive it through like a bayonet. What would happen if I did? Would that make it worse? Or would they run? Despite their thick fur, I could see a rangy thinness about them. Were they hungry? As hungry as I was? Maybe all they saw when they looked at us was what we were. Meat.

The wolves growled softly to each other. The smaller one lowered its head and nipped the big one under the chin.

Now we're the meat.

A sharp yelp pierced the silence. “Got ya!” Isaac blurted.

“What are you doing?” Chloe whispered. “Don't make them mad!”

“We need to scare them off!” He huffed. “What do you think? That we're going to just sit in this hut and wait forever.”

“Look,” Oscar said quietly. “It's almost dawn. They'll probably just leave.”

“You don't know that.”

I looked out at the fire, which was low but still burning. If no one did anything soon, it would go out in an hour.

“So what should we do?” I asked. “You wanna go out there, Isaac?”

“Actually, I think it's your turn, Dodd.”

“I'll pass.”

“No one's going out there,” Oscar said. “At least not yet. Let's just wait until the sun comes up. I'm sure they'll be gone by then.”

“They're wolves, not vampires, Wiener.”

“Just trust me.”

I couldn't see Isaac's face in the dark, but I could imagine it. I bent my chin and touched it to my knees, desperately wanting to lie down or at least stretch out my arms and legs, but it was too cramped in here with all our gear.

“Just hold on a little longer,” Oscar said, sounding much more confident that he should. “And it will be okay.”

“Famous last words,” replied Isaac, rustling his spear through the cracks.

We went back to watching the wolves as they watched us, waiting for something to happen, and for a long time they circled us. Near dawn the fire turned to cinders, and when I looked up again, jolted awake by the sharp tweet of a cardinal, the wolves were gone, the scattered tracks the only sign of their existence.

“I guess that's it.” Oscar double-checked the direction with the watch. “Okay, that's due south.”

“East,” Isaac said. “We're going east, remember?”

“I know. I was just orienting myself.” Oscar turned slightly left while Isaac grunted noncommittally.

We were loaded up, seemingly somewhat heavier than last time, on account of the supply of fish Isaac smoked (fish jerky, he called it), but he warned it probably wouldn't keep past the day. “We need to find another lake or some water,” he kept repeating, like a personal mantra. Though we lived with a constant ache of hunger, the main fear was water, namely running out of it. There were hundreds of lakes in the Boundary Waters, but there was also a chance we could hike through miles and miles of woods.