Nathan's Arc

Chapter 2 of 3

They climbed for half a day before Arizona stopped talking. The trail bent through black spruce, and the snow grew deeper between the trunks. Nathan kept his eyes on her boots and matched her steps. When she paused at a clearing, she did not look back at him. She looked sideways into the trees. Then she unslung the rifle from her shoulder and laid the bow across her pack within reach. "Four of them," she said. "Maybe five. Since the gate." Nathan had seen the gate an hour back. Iron, taller than him, paw prints hammered into the frame. He had thought it was old hunter's pride. Arizona had walked past it without a word, and he had followed. Now he understood it had been a warning, and they were already on the wrong side of it. He turned slowly. He saw nothing but trunks and the gray light between them. Then a shape shifted, low and pale, and was still again. "Don't run," Arizona said. "Don't crouch. Walk where I walk." She started again, slower now, the rifle held across her chest. Nathan followed three steps behind. The wolves moved with them. He could hear paws breaking the crust on both sides. One coughed, close enough that he felt it in his teeth. Arizona did not raise the gun. She kept her pace even and her shoulders loose, as if she were crossing a kitchen. The trees opened onto a low shape half-buried in snow. A hunting camp, bent poles lashed at the peak, the door cut from old planks. Arizona walked straight at it. She did not hurry. Nathan wanted to run and did not. Twenty steps out, a wolf stepped onto the trail behind them. Nathan saw it over his shoulder. Long legs, pale coat, head down. It watched Arizona, not him. She reached the door, lifted the latch, and stood aside. "In," she said. Nathan went in. She backed in after him and pulled the door shut. The latch dropped. Inside it was dark and cold and smelled of old smoke. Arizona leaned the rifle against the wall and sat on the dirt floor with her back to the door. Her hands were shaking. She pressed them flat against her thighs until they stopped. "They were testing," she said. "If we'd run, they'd have taken you first. You're slower." Nathan sat across from her. He could hear them outside, circling once, then moving off through the brush. After a while there was only wind. "We sleep here," Arizona said. "They'll be back at the door by dark. We go at first light, and we go fast." Nathan nodded. He thought of the voice on his machine, the old man waiting somewhere past this camp, and how close he had come to never reaching him. He looked at Arizona's steady hands and understood she had done this before, and that she had been more afraid than she had shown.