Boundary waters

18

Near sunset, the wind shifted suddenly and clouds appeared. They swept out of the northwest, red in the last light of day, angry looking. Halfway across the sky, they turned a sinister black. They swallowed the stars and headed hungrily for the rising moon. Dark came fast. Shiloh didn’t reach the Deertail River, where she would finally leave the big lake. Instead she found a small cove, drew the canoe onto shore, and settled in behind a clumping of big rocks that provided some protection from the cold the shifting wind had brought. She gathered wood. Using her knife, she cut shavings for kindling, one of the first things Wendell had ever taught her, and she built a fire. She poured water into the small cooking pot she’d brought and dumped in one of the packs of dehydrated vegetable soup. When she finally sat down beside the flames to watch the soup warm, she was dead tired. Blisters welted her palms. Her lips were dry and cracked. Her long black hair felt like mowed, dried hay.

But she knew where she was. And she knew how she’d gotten there. And she’d begun to believe, really believe, that she could get herself out.

The soup bubbled. The smell of it made her mouth water. She used her gloves as pot holders and moved the small pot off the fire and onto a flat stone. While the soup cooled, she lay back against her own quivering shadow on one of the tall upright rocks and closed her eyes. She’d been afraid to leave the familiar little cabin that morning, but the morning seemed so long ago. Now, full of the day, full of the distance she’d traveled alone on her own, she smiled and felt like singing.

“Oh, the water is wide,” she began softly with her eyes closed. “I cannot cross o’er. And neither have I wings to fly. Give us a boat that will carry two. And both shall cross, Shiloh and I.” It was a song her mother used to sing to her, and it was one of the first Shiloh had ever learned to play. All her life, whenever she needed comfort, whenever she wanted to express a deep inner peace, whenever she felt-or needed to feel-connectedness, she sang the song. Although she remembered very little of her mother, the song was like an unbroken cord between them.

She let the feel of the song linger a minute, then she opened her eyes. In the trees ten yards beyond the fire, two embers glowed. Puzzled, she leaned forward and looked carefully. She made out the moist black muzzle between the glowing eyes and, a moment later, caught sight of the flash of huge white canines.

Terrified, Shiloh stared at the great timber wolf. Out of the darkness, the timber wolf stared back.