The Wolves of Winter. Tyrell Johnson

Conrad build his cabin, and they all hunted together for a while. Then we got a few winters under our belt. The first few tastes of hunger. Conrad didn’t show up as much anymore. I heard grumblings about game and territory. Ken said that Conrad even took a swing at Jeryl once. Since then we’d become silent neighbors who tried to stay out of each other’s way. Mom hated him from the beginning. Not sure why. Maybe she was just an excellent judge of character.

      The hill was rough going. I’d gotten lazy in the short spring, before the snows came. My thighs were too skinny now, my back not used to the strain. Nothing about me said winter warrior. I was the opposite. Both of my parents had Scottish in their heritage. Hence our name, McBride, hence my tangle of half-dreadlocked red hair, hence my freckled face, hence my green eyes. Everything about me stood out against the snow. A red bull’s-eye. That’s why I wore the dark gray skullcap Mom knitted for me—to blend in. It was big enough to stuff my mess of hair inside. But it wasn’t just my redness that made me unsuited for the Yukon. I’d always been too skinny. And the lean winters had done nothing for my weight. Sure, I’d gained some muscle from the hard life, the long walks, drawing the bow, but it wasn’t anything substantial. Ken said that small girls are always angrier. Maybe that’s why I had a healthy amount of rage in me. Or maybe it was the Scottish blood.

      The snow deepened as I climbed higher, and the spruce trees angled out from the ground, pointing at the blinding sky. With the freezing air, the summer-blue sky seemed fake. My thighs were burning and my shoulders hurt from the weight of my backpack and my compound bow, which I held at my side. I was breathing hard, the air stinging the back of my throat, but it felt good. When I crested the hill, I looked down at the river. A leviathan like the ones they talk about in the Bible, splitting the snow in lazy turns, ice creeping in along its edges. One day, the whole thing would freeze over. The river always made me a little uneasy. It seemed so calm, so peaceful. But put one foot in and you’d have frostbite before you made it back to the cabins—that is, if the river didn’t snatch you and pull you under.

      The trees grew dense along the bank, making for a tough shot. My plan was to get close enough—but not too close—find a good tree to hide behind, and see if I could spot some deer coming in for a drink. Why is it that animals prefer to drink icy river water rather than eat snow? Something about it must taste better.

      I watched the water’s current and for the millionth time imagined myself following the river east. Traveling on and on, exploring, discovering, living. Not this day-in-and-day-out motionless, monotonous surviving in rough cabins. I’d never tell Mom, but deep down, I wanted to escape, to get out and see what was left of the world. Who knew, maybe there were more settlements like ours, with better equipment, more people … more men. I was wasted on this frozen slice of the Yukon, a case of arrested development. Nothing new to learn here.

      I was really, really good at school. Before.

      Math, literature, science, easy. Social studies bored the hell out of me, so mostly I sucked at that. But everything else was a breeze. They even moved me ahead a grade, so I got to play the role of little ginger girl who thinks she’s too smart for her own good. God, the kids loved that. It didn’t help that my name was freaking Gwendolynn.

      Suddenly, I was the youngest in class, and I was still smarter than most of the other kids. Okay, I was smarter than all the other kids. I don’t mean to brag about it, and it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m a genius or anything. Mostly, it probably means that the other kids were a bunch of stupids.

      Mom brought some books into the Yukon and used to give me lessons in our cabin. A grade twelve calculus book (boring!), a book of short stories by Flannery O’Connor, a few biology magazines, and The Taming of the Shrew. That was my education. Oh, and of course Dad’s copy of Walt Whitman’s poems.

      The books were no good to me anymore, except the Whitman, and Mom didn’t have much else to teach me. So I moved on to hunting. I was good at it. Dad used to take Ken and me out. He was a biologist, so on top of the hunting, he’d tell us about all kinds of plants. Which ones are good to eat, which ones will kill you, how and where to dig up edible roots. The plant part was boring so I mostly tuned it out.

      “Lynn, are you listening? This is important.”

      “Yes,” I’d say, even though I wasn’t.

      “Then what’s this plant called?”

      “It’s … a snowleaf.”

      “A snowleaf?”

      “Yeah.”

      “It’s chickweed. Can you eat it?”

      “Yeah,” I said even though I had no idea.

      “Okay. Here.” He handed me one of the small green leaves.

      I plopped it in my mouth without hesitating, staring him down as I chewed. I knew that if I was wrong, if it was poisonous, Dad would stop me. It tasted stale, dirty, green.

      “So if you were in the wild, you’d recognize that plant, right?”

      I nodded halfheartedly as I swallowed.

      Dad couldn’t help himself. He laughed.

      He also showed me how to use the bow. He’d adjust my stance, my elbow, my fingers on the string, and we’d shoot at a cloth target strung over a bale of hay behind our house in Eagle.

      “How far away is it?”

      “Thirty yards,” I’d guess.

      “More like twenty. Use the twenty-yard sight pin.”

      I’d adjust my aim to the top pin in the little, circular sight.

      “Take a breath,” he’d say.

      I was a natural. By the time I was thirteen, I’d killed marten, squirrels, crows, and a raccoon. Whenever I’d bring something in, Dad would throw his arm around my shoulders and kiss my head. “That’s my girl!” He’d always cook up the kill too. No matter how small the animal, how stringy and rough the meat, Dad would make a point of eating it with me. As weird as that was, Dad would say, “Can’t kill just for the fun of it. The animal died to provide for us.” Sometimes it tasted terrible, but I didn’t mind. It’s like I really was providing for the family.

      Mom didn’t share Dad’s enthusiasm. I’d come in with a dead marten or fox and she’d give me this look. What a waste, her face would say. All my smarts and I was out in the woods killing critters.

      I’d agree with her, but what’s the point?

      The point? The point is, I could make it out on my own. I didn’t need the cabins, the stupid animals. All I needed was my bow and my knife. Dad would have understood.

      But like all the other times before, I didn’t follow the river east. I just sat and imagined.

      I saw a flash of white out of the corner of my eye, a flapping white wing, a beady blue eye. On a branch about twenty feet up was a bird. Looked like a crow. But it was all white. Never seen an all-white crow before. I stared at the thing, and it stared back at me. Jeryl once told me that the world was changing. Maybe this was part of what he was talking about. The bird let out an annoying “Yaw,” then launched from the branch toward the river, its white wings folding like a tissue caught in the wind. Such a weird creature. I followed it because, well, because it was a white crow.

      I started downhill, my feet packing the snow beneath me, the Blackstone River flowing in a silent rush. I scanned the trees, searching for the bird. That’s when I heard the rustling and saw another animal, this one walking on my side of the river. I stopped moving. A wolf. No, not a wolf. A dog. A freaking dog! Thick white fur with a streak of silver on top. Pale blue eyes and pointed ears. Siberian husky. Probably a sled dog. It was about twenty yards away, sniffing at the air. It was right where the bird had gone. I thought about all those Native American stories about shape-shifting spirit animals. Had the crow shifted into a dog? I took a cautious step, and its head snapped toward me,