Stef Penney - The Tenderness of Wolves

He stumbles on something uneven, his racquette catches on the crust, and he goes down on his knees. Last in the line, he pauses, one gloved hand flat on the snow, while he recovers the breath jolted from his body. His joints ache with cold. Years since he has travelled this way; he has forgotten how it takes its toll. Hopefully it will be the last time. The next man to him, Ross, notices he has fallen behind and turns to wait for him. Thank God he doesn’t walk back and offer him a hand; that would be too humiliating.

Maria had described seeing Ross at the Sault with another woman, and speculated as to whether his wife’s disappearance was as innocent as was generally supposed. Sturrock was amused, because Maria seemed like the last person to entertain such a lurid notion. But as Maria pointed out, it was hardly more lurid than the widely accepted theory that Mrs Ross had run off with the escaped prisoner (and her husband not turned a hair!). Sturrock finds the man interesting. Nothing shows in his face; if he is worried about the fate of his wife or son, he does not reveal it. This does not endear him to the other men of the party. Ross has so far resisted Sturrock’s attempts to engage him in conversation, but undaunted, Sturrock puts on a spurt to catch up with him.

‘You seem easy in this country, Mr Ross,’ he says, trying to still his labouring breath. ‘I would wager you have done a fair bit of this sort of travel.’

‘Not really,’ Ross grunted, and then, relenting perhaps at the older man’s wheezing breath, ‘just hunting trips and so on. Nothing like you.’

‘Oh …’ Sturrock allows himself to be modestly flattered. ‘You must be worried about your family.’

Ross trudges for a moment in silence, his eyes fixed on the ground. ‘Some seem to think not worried enough.’

‘One doesn’t have to make a public display to feel concern.’

‘No.’ He sounds sarcastic, but Sturrock is too taken up with placing his snowshoes in the imprints made by the youth ahead of him to look at his companion’s face.

And after a moment, Ross says, ‘The other day I was in the Sault. I went to a friend of my wife’s, just to see if she had heard from her. While I was there I saw the elder Knox girl. She saw me and gave such a start–I suppose word has got all over town that I have a fancy woman.’

Sturrock smiles, guilty but relieved. He is glad Mrs Ross has someone who cares about her. Ross casts him a dry look. ‘Aye, I thought so.’

On the second day out from Dove River, Sammy stops and holds up his hand for silence. Everyone pauses in mid-stride. The guide confers with Mackinley at the front, who then turns to the others. He is about to speak when there is a cry from the trees on their left, and the sound of crashing branches. All the men turn in panic; Mackinley and Sammy raise their rifles in case it is a bear. Sturrock hears a high-pitched cry and realises that it is a human–a woman.

He and Angus Ross, being nearest, start forward, plunging into deep, drifted snow and hampered by brushwood and hidden obstacles. The going is so difficult that it is some moments before they can see who is calling them. Glimpses through the trees: Sturrock thinks there is more than one figure–but a woman? A number of women … out here in the middle of winter?

And then he catches her in plain sight: a thin dark-haired woman struggling towards him, her shawl trailing behind her, her mouth open in a cry of exhaustion and relief vying with terror that they might, all these men, be just a figment of her imagination. She plunges through the brush towards Sturrock, collapsing in a heap just a few yards away, as Ross catches a child in his arms. Another figure darts through the trees behind them. Sturrock reaches her and goes down on one knee in an awkward parody of romance, his snow-shoes getting in the way. The woman’s face is sharp with exhaustion and fear, her eyes haunted as if she is afraid of him.

‘There now, it’s all right. You are safe now. Hush …’

He’s not sure she understands him. Now a young boy has come up behind her and stands with one hand protectively on her shoulder, staring at Sturrock with dark, suspicious eyes. Sturrock never knows what to say to children, and this one doesn’t look friendly.

‘Hello. Where have you come from?’

The boy mutters some words he cannot understand, and the woman answers him in the same strange tongue–not French, which he knows, nor is it German.

‘Do you speak English? Can you understand me?’

The others have joined them and crowd around, staring in amazement. There is the woman, the young boy, maybe seven or eight years old, and a little girl, even younger. They all exhibit the early symptoms of exposure and cold. None of them says a word anyone can understand.

It is decided that they will pitch camp, even though it is barely two o’clock. Sammy and Matthew build a shelter behind an uprooted tree and collect wood for a large fire, while Angus Ross prepares hot tea and food. Mackinley walks back into the forest where the woman points and reappears leading a malnourished mare that is now draped in blankets, eating oatmeal. The woman and children huddle by the fire. After they have had a quiet conversation, she stands up and comes to Sturrock. She indicates she wants to talk in private, so they go a little way away from the camp.

‘Where are we?’ she asks, without preamble. He notices her English is almost without accent.

‘We are a day and a half out from Dove River, to the south. Where have you come from?’

She stares at him, and her eyes flick towards the others. ‘Who are you?’

‘My name is Thomas Sturrock, of Toronto. The other men are from Dove River, apart from the man with short brown hair–that is Mackinley, a servant of the Hudson Bay Company, and a guide.’

‘What are you doing here? Where are you going?’ If her questions seem ungrateful, she gives no sign of being aware of it.

‘We are following a trail north. Some people have gone missing.’ No way to explain this complicated scenario simply, so he does not try.

‘And where does this trail lead?’

Sturrock smiles. ‘We will not know that until we come to the end of it.’

The woman breathes out then, and seems to release a little of her pent-up suspicion and fear. ‘We were making for Dove River. We lost our compass and the other horse. There was someone else with us. He went off to …’ Her face changes with hope. ‘Have any of you fired rifles in the last few days?’

‘No.’

She droops again. ‘We became separated, we don’t know where he is now.’

At last her face crumples. ‘There were wolves. They killed one of the horses. They could have killed us. Maybe …’

She gives in to sobbing, but quietly, and without tears. Sturrock pats her on the shoulder.

‘Hush. You are quite all right now. It must have been terrible, but it’s over. There’s no need to be frightened any more.’

The woman lifts her eyes to his, and he notices how fine they are; clear light brown in a smooth oval face.

‘Thank you. I don’t know what we would have done … We owe you our lives.’

Sturrock himself treats the woman’s frost-bitten hands. Mackinley calls an impromptu meeting and decides that Sammy and he will go and look for the missing man–there are clear tracks to follow–while the others stay in the camp. If they have not found him by the following evening, Matthew and Sturrock will escort the woman and her children to Dove River. Sturrock is not entirely happy with this arrangement, but he can see the sense of allowing the two hardened travellers to go on as swiftly as possible. Besides, a part of him is flattered by the woman’s preference for him; she has spoken privately to no one else, and keeps close to him, even favouring him with a particularly sweet smile from time to time. (‘So, you are from Toronto …?’) He tells himself that it is his age that makes him less threatening, but knows that is not the whole reason.