Stef Penney - The Tenderness of Wolves

‘What is this place?’

‘Trapper’s cabin. Could be a hundred years old.’

The cabin, sagging and dilapidated, its timbers silver with weather, really could be that old. I’m fascinated by the thought. The oldest building in Dove River has been on this earth exactly thirteen years.

I stumble over something on the floor. ‘Are these the furs?’ I point to the bundles. Parker nods, and goes to one, slicing a binding with his knife. He pulls out a dark, greyish pelt.

‘Ever seen one of these before?’

I take it, and in my hands it is supple, cold and unbelievably soft. I have seen one before, in Toronto I think, wrapped around the wattled throat of a rich old woman. A silver fox fur. People were commenting on it, how it was worth a hundred guineas, or some such extraordinary sum. It is silvery, and heavy, and as slippery and smooth as silk. It is all those things. But worth all this?

I feel disappointed in Parker. I don’t know what I expected, but somehow, at the end of all this, I hate to admit that he has come all this way for the same thing as Stewart.

We set up camp in the cabin without speaking. Parker works silently, but it is a different sort of silence, not the usual total absorption in whatever he is doing. I can tell he is preoccupied with something else.

‘How long do you think it will take?’

‘Not long.’

Neither of us specifies what we mean, but we both know it is not the task at hand. I keep peering out of the cabin door, which faces south, so you cannot see the route we took. The light outside is dazzling; every glance sends a stabbing pain deep into my skull. But I can’t stay in the cabin; I have to be alone.

I keep within the trees that line the west shore, moving up to the black, unfrozen part of the lake, drawn by the falls at its head, which move but are uncannily silent. When I see them I pick up dead branches in a desultory way, for firewood. Will we even have a fire, if we are waiting for Stewart? There is a sour, metallic taste in my mouth that I have come to know well. The taste of my cowardice.

It is only a hundred yards to the head of the lake, so you would think it would be impossible to get lost. But that is exactly what I do. I stay close to the edge of the lake, but even walking back along the shore, I cannot see the cabin anywhere. Initially I don’t panic. I retrace my steps to the falls, where the water is dark, smoking, ringed with progressively paler ice. I feel that urge–as the walker on the cliff is impelled to go ever closer to the edge–to walk out onto the ice, from white to grey, to see how strong it is. To walk as far as I can, and then a little further.

I turn back, keeping the setting sun and its fiery flashes to my right, and walk into the trees again. The trunks break the sunlight into pulsing waves that streak and smear across my sight, making me dizzy. I shut my eyes, but when I open them I can see nothing at all–a burning blankness wipes over everything and the pain makes me cry out. Despite what I know, I have the sudden fear that my eyes will not recover. Rare for snow-blindness to become permanent, but it has been known. And then I think, would that be so bad? It would mean Parker’s would be the last face I ever saw.

I am on my hands and knees, tripped by what seems to be a mound of churned snow. I pat the ground with my hands: the lair of some animal, perhaps. The earth is dark and loose beneath the snow. A flicker of fresh alarm ignites in me; it must be a very large animal to have dug up so much earth, and so recently–it seems friable and fresh, yielding under my hand. I start to push myself up and my hand meets something just under the earth that makes me stagger back with a yell before I can stop myself. It is soft and cold, with the unmistakable give of cloth or … or …

‘Mrs Ross?’

Somehow he is next to me before I hear him approach. The blankness dissolves a little and I can see his dark shape, but my eyes are playing tricks on me; red and violet shapes blur with branches and patches of white snow. He takes my arm and says, ‘Shh, there’s no one here.’

‘Over there … something in the ground. I touched it.’

A wave of nausea fills me and then recedes. I can no longer see the earth mound, but Parker scouts around and finds it. I stand where I am, wiping the tears that run ceaselessly (for no reason, as I am not crying) from my eyes. If I don’t wipe them away immediately, they freeze onto my cheek in little pearls.

‘It’s one of them isn’t it? One of the Norwegians.’ I can’t get the feeling of it off my hand, which is unaccountably bare.

Parker is squatting now, scraping earth and snow away. ‘It isn’t one of the Norwegians.’

I heave a sigh of relief. So an animal after all. I pick up handfuls of snow and scour my hands to clean them of that terrible feeling.

‘It’s Nepapanees.’

I take a few steps towards him, unsteady, as my eyes cannot be relied on to tell the truth. Parker on the ground flickers and burns before me like a guy on the fifth of November.

‘Stay back.’

I can’t see much anyway, and my feet keep moving closer of their own accord. Then Parker is on his feet and holding me by the arms, blocking me from the thing in the ground.

‘What happened to him?’

‘He was shot.’

‘Let me see.’

After a moment he steps aside, but keeps hold of my arm as I kneel beside the shallow grave. By keeping my eyes almost closed I can make out what’s on the ground. Parker has scraped away enough snow and earth to uncover a man’s head and torso. The body lies face down, its braided hair soiled, but the red and yellow thread binding the braids is still bright.

I don’t have to turn him over. He didn’t go through the ice and drown. There is a wound in his back the size of my fist.

It isn’t until we get back to the cabin that I notice my latest imbecility. I must have lost my mittens somewhere in the trees, and the skin on my fingers is white and numb. Two cardinal sins in as many days; I deserve to be shot.

‘I’m sorry, stupid of me …’ Apologising again. Useless, stupid, helpless burden.

‘They’re not too bad.’

The sun has gone for the night, the sky is a tender blue-green. A fire burns inside the cabin, and Parker has heaped up a fortune in furs as a bed.

This is only the second time I have let this happen to me; the other was during my first winter here, and I learnt my lesson then. I seem to have forgotten much in the last few weeks. Like how to protect myself. In all sorts of ways.

Parker chafes my hands with snow. The feeling in my fingers is creeping back, and they have started to burn.

‘So Stewart was here–he knows about the furs.’

Parker nods.

‘I am worried I won’t be able to use the gun.’

Parker grunts. ‘Maybe it won’t be necessary.’

‘It would probably be best if you took them both. I can just …’

I was going to be another pair of eyes. Look out for him. Protect him. Now I can’t even do that.

‘I’m sorry. I am no help.’ I smother a bitter laugh. It seems inappropriate.

‘I am glad you’re here.’

I can’t see his expression–if I look straight at him, bright flares fill the centre of my vision; I can only see him in glimpses, from the corners of my eyes.

He is glad I am here.

‘You found Nepapanees.’

I pull my hands away. ‘Thank you. I can do that now.’

‘No, wait.’ Parker unbuttons his blue shirt. He takes back my left hand and guides it inside, to where his right arm meets his body, where he traps it in his warm flesh. I reach my right hand into the other armpit, and so we are locked like that, an arm’s length apart, face to face. I put my head on his chest, because I do not want him staring at my face, with its red, weeping eyes. And its burning cheeks. And its smile.